say that it utterly fails us
even yet. It remains, like the sense of Smell, an important helper even
in our present investigations. Professor Mueller should not, because he
may happen to have a cold, affirm that nobody smells anything any more.
To explain what I mean in this respect, the following extract may serve
as a text:

'It is curious to observe how apt we are to deceive ourselves when
we once adopt this system of Onomatopoieia. Who does not imagine
that he hears in the word 'thunder' an imitation of the rolling and
rumbling noise which the old Germans ascribed to their god Thor
playing at nine-pins? Yet _thunder_ is clearly the same word as the
Latin _tonitru_. The root is _tan_, to stretch. From this root
_tan_ we have in Greek _tonos_, our tone, _tone_ being produced by
the stretching and vibrating of cords. In Sanskrit the sound
thunder is expressed by the same root _tan_; but in the derivatives
_tanyu_, _tanyatu_, and _tanayitnu_, thundering, we perceive no
trace of the rumbling noise which we imagined we perceived in the
Latin _tonitru_ and the English _thunder_. The very same root
_tan_, to stretch, yields some derivatives which are anything but
rough and noisy. The English _tender_, the French _tendre_, the
Latin _tener_ are derived from it. Like _tenuis_, the Sanskrit
_tanu_, the English _thin_, _tener_ meant originally what was
extended over a larger surface, then _thin_, then _delicate_. The
relationship betwixt _tender_, _thin_, and _thunder_ would be hard
to establish if the original conception of thunder had really been
its rumbling noise.

'Who does not imagine that he hears something sweet in the French
_sucre_, _sucre_? Yet sugar came from India, and it is there called
_'sarkhara_, which is anything but sweet sounding. This _'sarkhara_
is the same word as _sugar_; it was called in Latin _saccharum_,
and we still speak of _saccharine_ juice, which is sugar juice.'

It may appear, on a closer inspection at this point, that it is
Professor Mueller who is deceived, and not the common verdict, both in
respect to the question whether such words as _thunder_, _sucre_, etc.,
really do or do not have some inherent and organic relation in the Human
Mind to the ideas of rumbling noise and sweetness respectively; and in
respect to the value and significance of the fact. He has, it w