To make mistakes, as we are in the search of knowledge, is far
more honourable than to escape making them through never having set out
in this search at all
But while errors like his may very well be pardoned, of this we may be
sure, that they will do little in etymology, will continually err and
cause others to err, who in these studies leave this out of sight for
an instant--namely, that no amount of resemblance between words in
different languages is of itself sufficient to prove that they are akin,
even as no amount of apparent unlikeness in sound or present form is
sufficient to disprove consanguinity. 'Judge not according to
appearances,' must everywhere here be the rule. One who in many regions
of human knowledge anticipated the discoveries of later times, said
well a century and a half ago, 'Many etymologies are true, which at the
first blush are not probable'; [Footnote: Leibnitz (_Opp_. vol. v. p.
61): Saepe fit ut etymologiae verae sint, quae primo aspectu
verisimiles non sunt.] and, as he might have added, many appear
probable, which are not true. This being so, it is our wisdom on the
one side to distrust superficial likenesses, on the other not to be
repelled by superficial differences. Have no faith in those who
etymologize on the strength of _sounds_, and not on that of _letters_,
and of letters, moreover, dealt with according to fixed and recognized
laws of equivalence and permutation. Much, as was said so well, is true,
which does not seem probable.
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