82 ETYMOLOGICAL CONFIRMATIONS. 



tended and varied system of word-building winch is 

 characteristic of Alwato. This test will in every 

 particular delight the thorough student of the sub- 

 ject, and the guidance supplied by this new percep- 

 tion of the identity of Sound and Sense will come to 

 be regarded by him as the most perfect and exhaust- 

 ively comprehensive of scientific discoveries, instru- 

 ments, and methods. 



119. As part of this latter species of proof, there 

 is also an immense current of etymological confirma- 

 tions, of the instinctual or spontaneous order, recur- 

 ring throughout the Hindo-European family of lan- 

 guages, and which it would carry us too far to 

 attempt to illustrate extensively here. Plato, in his 

 Phsedo, furnishes some examples from the Greek. 

 The following instances from the English of the 

 forceful and vigorous nature of the sound r, and of 

 the gentle sweetness of the I must suffice at this 

 point. It is, however, a discovery of no little im- 

 portance, in this connection, that by the Principle of 

 Universology called TERMINAL CONVERSION INTO OP- 

 POSITES (B. O. t. 83), there is a strong tendency in 

 words to go over into the directly opposite meauhnj from 

 that which is primitively inherent in, or native to, 

 them. This occurrence is indicated, in the following 

 Lists, by the Heading : 8ubdominance of the Opposite 

 These lists contain a nearly exhaustive 



showing of the root-words of the English language 

 which In'fjin with the letter-sounds T and /, together 

 with some few others (where these sounds occur in 

 tlio middle or at the end of the root.) 



