It is said that the causes which brought about the changes formulated in Grimm's Law are "obscure" (they may have been due to nothing more obscure than a prevalence to colds in the head), and that they were probably due to the settlement of Low German conquerors in Central and Southern Germany. The changes above formulated all fall, however, within the wider theory I am now suggesting, with the exception of _d_ and _t_ becoming in High German _z_. This particular syllabic change was, I suggest, due to _z_ at one time being synonymous with _d_ or _t_, and not to any inability of certain tribes to vocalise the sound _t_. Max Müller observes that "at first sight the English word _fir_ does not look very like the Latin word _quercus_, yet it is the same word". _Fir_ certainly does not look like _quercus_, nor, of course, is it any more the "same word" than _six_ is the same word as _half a dozen_. There are a thousand ways of proving _six_ to be radically and identically the same as _half a dozen_, and the ingenious system of permutations by which philologists identify _fir_ with _quercus_, and _alphana_ with _equus_,[55] are parallel to some of the methods by which common sense, by cold gradation and well-balanced form, would quite correctly equate _six_ with _half a dozen_. The term "_word_" I understand not in the loose sense used by Max Müller, but as the dictionary defines it--"an oral or written sign expressing an idea or notion". Thus I treat John as the same word as _Jane_ or _Jean_, and it is radically the same word as _giant_, old English _jeyantt_, French _geante_, Cornish _geon_. Jean is also the same word as _chien_, a dog, Irish _choin_; Welsh _chin_ or _cyn_, and all these terms by reason of their radical _an_ are cognate with the Greek _kuon_, a dog, whence _cyn_ical. The Gaelic for _John_ is _Jain_, the Gaelic for _Jean_ or _Jane_ is _Sine_, with which I equate _shine_, _shone_, and _sheen_, all of which have respect to the _sun_, as also had the Arabic _jinn_, _genii_, and "_Gian Ben Gian_," a title of the fabulous world-ruler of the Golden Age. Among the Basques _Jaun_ means Lord or Master, and the Basque term for God, _Jainko_, _Jeinko_, or _Jinko_, is believed to have meant "Lord or Master on High". The Irish Church attributes its origin to disciples of St. _John_--Irish _Shaun_, and one may detect the pre-Christian _Sinjohn_ in the British divinity Shony, and evolving from the primeval _Shen_ at Shenstone near Litchfield. Here, a little distance from the church, was a well, now called _St. John's_ Well, after the saint in whose honour the parish church is dedicated. In all probability the present-day church of St. John was built on the actual site of the original _Shen stone_ or rock; and that John stones were once plentiful in Scotland is probably implied by the common surname Johnstone. Near the Shannon in Ireland, and in close proximity to the church and village of Shanagolden, is "castle"