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96 either upon that syllable or the one that precedes it, while in Greek it may be given to either of the last three syllables, and is only partially regulated by quantity; why, again, the Irish and Bohemian lay the stress of voice invariably upon the first syllable of a word, and their near relations, the Welsh and Polish, as invariably upon the penult; others still, like the Russian and Sanskrit, submitting it to no restriction of place whatever. These, and the thousand other not less striking differences of phonetic structure and custom which might readily be pointed out, are national traits, results of differences of physical organization so subtile (if they exist at all), of influences of circumstance so recondite, of choice and habit so arbitrary and capricious, that they will never cease to elude the search of the investigator. But he will not, in his perplexity, think of ascribing even the most obscure and startling changes of sound to any other agency than that which brings about those contractions and conversions which are most obviously a relief to the organs of articulation: it is still the speakers of language, and they alone, who work over and elaborate the words they utter, suiting them to their convenience and their caprice. The final reason to which we are brought in every case, when historical and physical study have done their utmost, is but this: it hath pleased the community which used this word to make such an alteration in its form; and such and such considerations and analogies show the change to be one neither isolated nor mysterious. Except in single and exceptional cases, there is no such difference of structure in human mouths and throats that any human being, of whatever race, may not perfectly master the pronunciation of any human language, belonging to whatever other race—provided only his teaching begin early enough, before his organs have acquired by habit special capacities and incapacities. The collective disposition and ability of a community, working itself out under the guidance of circumstances, determines the phonetic form which the common tongue of the community shall wear. And as, in the first essays of any child at speaking, we may note not only natural errors and ready substitutions of one sound for another, common to nearly all children, but also one and another peculiar conversion, which seems the effect of mere whim, explainable