Coincidence of distribution is of great etymological importance. A word may in one stage of a language take the form of one conjugation, and in another that of another. The word _climban_ is, in Anglo-Saxon, placed in the same conjugation with _drincan_, &c. For this there was a reason; _viz._, the fact of the _i_ being short. For the _i_ being short there was a reason also. The _b_ preceded the vowel _a_, and consequently was sounded. This was the case whether the word was divided _clim-ban_ or _climb-an_. _An_, however, was no part of the original word, but only the sign of the infinitive mood. As such it became ejected. The letter _b_ then came at the end of the word; but as the combination _mb_, followed by nothing was unstable, _b_ was soon lost in pronunciation. Now _b_ being lost, the vowel which was once short became lengthened, or rather it became the sound of the diphthong _ei_; so that the word was no longer called _cl[)i]mb_, but _clime_. Now the words that follow the analogy of _spin_, _span_ ,&c. (and consequently constitute the twelfth class), do so, not because the vowel is _i_, but because it is a short _i_; and when the _i_ is sounded like a diphthong, the praeterite is formed differently. The Anglo-Saxon praeterite of _climban_ was sounded _cl[)o]mm_, and rhymed to _from_; the English praeterite (when strong) of {331} _climb_ is sounded _cl[=o]mbe_, rhyming to _roam_. The word _climb_, which was once classed with _spin_ and _sing_, is now to be classed with _arise_ and _smite_; in other words, it is distributed differently. Coincidence in the order of the classes is violated when a class which was (for instance) the third in one language becomes, in another language the fourth, &c. In Moeso-Gothic the class containing the words _smeita_, _sm['a]it_, _smitum_, _smitans_, is the eighth. This is a natural place for it. In the class preceding it, the vowel is the same in both numbers. In the classes that follow it, the vowel is changed in the plural. The number of classes that in Moeso-Gothic change the vowel is five; _viz._, the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth. Of these the eighth is the first. The classes where the change in question takes place form a natural subdivision, of which the eighth class stands at the head. Now in Anglo-Saxon the vowel is not changed so much as in the Moeso-Gothic. In words like _choose_, _give_, and _steal_, the vowel remains unaltered in the plural. In Moeso-Gothic, however, these words are, respectively, of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh classes. It is not till we get to the eleventh that the Anglo-Saxon plurals take a fresh vowel. As the presence or absence of a change of vowel naturally regulates the order of the classes, the eighth class in Moeso-Gothic becomes the eleventh in Anglo-Saxon. If it were not so, the classes where a change took place in the plural would be separated from each other.