For example, you might set the English twelve side
by side with the Latin duodecim, and then stare at the two
words to all eternity without any hope of reaching a
conclusion, good or bad, about either of them: least of all
would you suspect that they are descended from the same
radical. But if you take each word by itself and trace it back
to its primitive shape, explaining every change of every
letter as you go, you will at last reach the old Aryan
dvadakan, which is the parent of both these strangely
metamorphosed words.[130] Nor will it do, on the other hand,
to trust to verbal similarity without a historical inquiry
into the origin of such similarity. Even in the same language
two words of quite different origin may get their corners
rubbed off till they look as like one another as two pebbles.
The French words souris, a "mouse," and souris, a "smile," are
spelled exactly alike; but the one comes from Latin sorex and
the other from Latin subridere.
[130] For the analysis of twelve, see my essay on "The Genesis
of Language," North American Review, October 1869, p. 320.
Now Max Muller tells us that this principle, which is
indispensable in the study of words, is equally indispensable
in the study of myths.[131] That is, you must not rashly
pronounce the Norse story of the Heartless Giant identical
with the Hindu story of Punchkin, although the two correspond
in every essential incident.
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