'It is curious to observe how apt we are to deceive ourselves when we once adopt this system of Onomatopoieia. Who does not imagine that he hears in the word 'thunder' an imitation of the rolling and rumbling noise which the old Germans ascribed to their god Thor playing at nine-pins? Yet _thunder_ is clearly the same word as the Latin _tonitru_. The root is _tan_, to stretch. From this root _tan_ we have in Greek _tonos_, our tone, _tone_ being produced by the stretching and vibrating of cords. In Sanskrit the sound thunder is expressed by the same root _tan_; but in the derivatives _tanyu_, _tanyatu_, and _tanayitnu_, thundering, we perceive no trace of the rumbling noise which we imagined we perceived in the Latin _tonitru_ and the English _thunder_. The very same root _tan_, to stretch, yields some derivatives which are anything but rough and noisy. The English _tender_, the French _tendre_, the Latin _tener_ are derived from it. Like _tenuis_, the Sanskrit _tanu_, the English _thin_, _tener_ meant originally what was extended over a larger surface, then _thin_, then _delicate_. The relationship betwixt _tender_, _thin_, and _thunder_ would be hard to establish if the original conception of thunder had really been its rumbling noise. 'Who does not imagine that he hears something sweet in the French _sucre_, _sucre_? Yet sugar came from India, and it is there called _'sarkhara_, which is anything but sweet sounding. This _'sarkhara_ is the same word as _sugar_; it was called in Latin _saccharum_, and we still speak of _saccharine_ juice, which is sugar juice.' It may appear, on a closer inspection at this point, that it is Professor Mueller who is deceived, and not the common verdict, both in respect to the question whether such words as _thunder_, _sucre_, etc., really do or do not have some inherent and organic relation in the Human Mind to the ideas of rumbling noise and sweetness respectively; and in respect to the value and significance of the fact. He has, it would seem, confounded two separate and distinct questions. 1st. Is there such a relation between the sound and the sense? and 2d. Were these words introduced into speech because of that resemblance? In respect to the latter of these questions, Professor Mueller's answer, so far as the word _thunder_ is concerned, is rather in favor of an affirmative answer than against it. So far from its being 'hard to establish the relationship betwixt _tender_, _thin_, and _thunder_,' on the hypothesis that 'the original conception of thunder had really been its rumbling noise; 'it is just as easy to establish this relationship as it is to show the connection between the root _tan_, to stretch, and its derivatives _tonos_, _tone_, _tendre_, _tener_, _thin_, and _delicate_;--an undertaking which Professor Mueller finds no difficulty whatever in accomplishing.