rsons_ or _beings
gone_, since nothing can, to all appearance, be more gone than
the winds that have passed by. When _oient_ means _the great
lives_, it is to be thus analysed: _oi-iv-it_; or thus,
_ii-iv-it_; or thus, _iv-iv-it_. But when considered as meaning
but a single idea, it may be indifferently written _went_ or
_ivent_. It is easy to perceive that _ivent_ is no other than
_vent_, the French of wind, the _i_ having been dropped. Thus we
discover the origin of the English word _went_: we see that it is
the same as _vent_ or _wind_."

"As the French word _souvent_ means, when analysed, _all the
wind_ (_is-oii-vent_), it would appear that men in the beginning
of time received also the idea of frequency from the winds. But
in a country rarely visited by them, this idea must have been
borrowed from some other natural object. Thus the Latin word for
_often_ (_saeepe_) takes, when analysed, this form, _is-ae-ip-e_,
which literally means, _is the bees_. Here the word _bees_ is
represented by _ip-e_, of which the meaning is _bee_, _bee_; but
to avoid the repetition of the second _bee_, a pronoun, that is
_e_, and which means life or being, has been put in its place.
When it is remarked that this pronoun might as well be _is_ or
_es_ as what it is, it will be admitted that _saepe_ might as well
be written _saepes_. I make this remark to show how slight the
difference between _apes_, the Latin of _bees_ and _ape_ in
_is-ape_, which means also the _bees_. Now the English word
_often_ becomes, when analysed, _en-ov-it_, of which the literal
meaning is _the sheep-sheep_; the pronoun _it_ serving here as in
the last instance, and for the same reason, as a substitute for
the second word _sheep_; but this _it_ might as well be _es_ or
_is_. In Latin the word for _sheep_ is _ov is_, which must have
first been _is ov_; that is, _the sheep_: but when the _is_ fell
behind, it became _ovis_, and it has no other meaning than _the
one life_ (_is-o-vie_). Thus we perceive that _the winds, bees_,
and _sheep_, have, in three different countries, given birth to
the same idea."

Mr Kavanagh adds in a foot-note as to the word sheep--

"This is for she-bay; that is, _the female-bay_, this animal being
so called from its crying _bay_. Hence it would appear that