pp and Grimm, maintaining that
there could be nothing irregular in language, particularly in phonetic
changes. If this means no more than that under the same circumstances
the same changes will always take place, it would be of course a mere
truism. The question is only whether we can ever know all the
circumstances, and whether there are not some of these circumstances
which cause what we are apt to call irregularities. When Bopp said
that Sanskrit _d_ corresponds to a Greek [Greek: d], but often also to
a Greek [Greek: th], I doubt whether this is often the case. All I say
is, if _deva_ corresponds to [Greek: theos], we must try to find the
reason or the circumstances which caused so unusual a correspondence.
If no more is meant than that there must be a reason for all that
seems irregular, no one would gainsay that, neither Bopp nor Grimm,
and no one ever doubted that as a principle. But to establish these
reasons is the very difficulty with which the Science of Language has
to deal.

There is no word that has not an etymology, only if we consider the
distance of time that separates us from the historical facts we are
trying to account for, we should sometimes be satisfied with
probabilities and not always stipulate for absolute certainty. Many of
Bopp's, Grimm's, and Pott's etymologies have had to be surrendered,
and yet our suzerainty over that distant country which they conquered,
over the Aryan home, remains. If there is an etymology containing
something irregular, and for which no reason has as yet been found, we
must wait till some better etymology can be suggested, or a reason be
found for that apparent irregularity. If the etymological meaning of
_duhitar_, daughter, as milkmaid, is doubted, let us have a better
explanation, not a worse; but the general picture of the early family
among the Aryans "somewhere in Asia" is not thereby destroyed. The
father, Sk. _pitar_, remains the protector or nourisher, though the
_i_ for _a_ in _pater_ and [Greek: pater] is irregular. The mother,
_matar_, remains the bearer of children, though _ma_ is no longer used
in that sense in any of the Aryan languages. _Pati_ is the lord, the
strong one--therefore the husband; _vadhu_, the yoke-fellow, or the
wife as brought home, possibly as carried off by force. _Vis_ or
_vesa_ is the home, [Greek: oikos] or _vicus_, what was entered for
shelter. _Svasura_, [Greek: hekyros], _Socer_, the father-in-law, is
the old man of the _svas_,