on a new count, of which
8 must originally have been the base. Pursuing this thought by
investigation into different languages, the same resemblance is found
there. Hence the theory is strengthened by corroborative evidence. In
language after language the same resemblance is found, until it seems
impossible to doubt, that in prehistoric times, 9 _was_ the new number--the
beginning of a second tale. The following table will show how widely spread
is this coincidence:

Sanskrit, navan = 9. nava = new.
Persian, nuh = 9. nau = new.
Greek, [Greek: ennea] = 9. [Greek: neos] = new.
Latin, novem = 9. novus = new.
German, neun = 9. neu = new.
Swedish, nio = 9. ny = new.
Dutch, negen = 9. nieuw = new.
Danish, ni = 9. ny = new.
Icelandic, nyr = 9. niu = new.
English, nine = 9. new = new.
French, neuf = 9. nouveau = new.
Spanish, nueve = 9. neuvo = new.
Italian, nove = 9. nuovo = new.
Portuguese, nove = 9. novo = new.
Irish, naoi = 9. nus = new.
Welsh, naw = 9. newydd = new.
Breton, nevez = 9. nuhue = new.[221]

This table might be extended still further, but the above examples show how
widely diffused throughout the Aryan languages is this resemblance. The
list certainly is an impressive one, and the student is at first thought
tempted to ask whether all these resemblances can possibly have been
accidental. But a single consideration sweeps away the entire argument as
though it were a cobweb. All the languages through which this verbal
likeness runs are derived directly or indirectly from one common stock; and
the common every-day words, "nine" and "new," have been transmitted from
that primitive tongue into all these linguistic offspring with but little
change. Not only are the two words in question akin in each individual
language, but _they are akin in all the languages_. Hence all these
resemblances reduce to a single resemblance, or perhaps identity, that
between the Aryan words for "nine" and "new." This was probably an
accidental resemblance, no more significant than any one of the scores of
other similar cases occurring in every language. If there were any further
evidence of the former existence of an Aryan octonary scale, the
coincidence would possess a ce