EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



the argument has been for some time tending. 

 Looking at these two words, with reference to 

 the whole extant Aryan vocabulary, we find that 

 their very forms disclose their past history. 

 We see that the word feather > which has under- 

 gone the change of pronunciation indicated in 

 Grimm's law, in common with Teutonic words 

 in general, is a genuine Teutonic word, and 

 appears in the English language to-day because 

 it has always belonged to English speech. But 

 the word /><?, which has not undergone this 

 change, shows thus on its very face that it has 

 not grown up in company with Teutonic words, 

 but has been adopted at a recent date from an- 

 other branch of the Aryan family. The changes 

 formulated in Grimm's law took place in early 

 times, long before people had begun to think 

 critically about their pronunciation or their dic- 

 tion. When we adopt Latin words in modern 

 times, we do not refashion them in accordance 

 with the twisted pronunciation of our barbaric 

 ancestors, but we take them as they are. From 

 pater we takepaterna/, without trying to make 

 it sound like its equivalent, fatherly. Thus we 

 arrive at a safe criterion for distinguishing be- 

 tween words which have been passed about from 

 one Aryan language to another, in the course 

 of recent intercommunication of culture, and 

 words which have descended, with divers modifi- 

 cations, from a common original. Words of the 

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