1. With the elementary structure of language, such as pronouns, prepositions, numerals.
2. With the earliest state of society.
3. With the pursuits of peaceful and rural industry, not of highly skilled labour.
Classes of words which agree.
Examples, numerous enough to show a most extensive agreement, will readily suggest themselves under the first head. To illustrate the other propositions, though it can only be done imperfectly, I will follow both the positive and the negative methods. The first, by comparing words which denote elementary objects, both of animate and inanimate nature, or the simplest products of human labour for the supply of human wants, or the members of the human body, or the rudiments of social order. The second, by contrasting the words which relate (1) to intelligence and mental operations, (2) to war, and (3) to the metals, the extended use of which denotes a certain degree of social advancement. It will I hope be borne in mind, on the one hand, that these lists are given by way of instance, and have no pretension to be exhaustive: and, on the other hand, that exceptions, discovered here and there, to the rule they seem to indicate, would in no way disprove its existence, but should themselves, if purely exceptions, be treated, provisionally at least, as accidental.
Class I.—Elementary objects of inanimate Nature.
ἔρα, terra
ἀήρ, aer
αἴθηρ, æther
αὖρα, aura
| ἀστήρ | astrum | |
| ἀστέρος | stella | |
| sterula |
κοίλον, cælum
ἥλιος, sol
σε-λήνη, luna
νὺξ, nox
(Ζεὺς) Διὸς, dies
πόντος, pontus