{
  "id": "a_2ukx2qep",
  "oid": 165092,
  "revision": 1,
  "revision_oid": 165093,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "Grimm's correspondences and Chesterton's demand for a reason",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH04.P011",
      "oid": 76,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH04.P011",
      "exact": "But Grimm's Law is far less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales.",
      "start": 209,
      "end": 275,
      "prefix": "nced the alphabet, Grimm's Law. ",
      "suffix": " The tales are, at any rate, cer",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P011#char=209,275"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "The joke opposes two enterprises associated with the name Grimm. But the linguistic enterprise is more definite than guessing an extinct people's alphabet: Grimm compares corresponding consonants across languages. His tables align Greek, Gothic and Old High German; one example places Latin *tres*, Gothic *þreis* and Old High German *drî* together. Such patterned correspondences are the object of the ‘law.’ The inspected English translation follows *Deutsche Grammatik*, I, pp. 580–592, in an 1893 edition; the formulation appeared in the second edition of 1822. [Grimm's text](https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/books/reader/5-j-grimm); [period reference account](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_International_Encyclop%C3%A6dia/Grimm%27s_Law).\n\nGrimm's tables do not demonstrate that the changes were logically necessary. That leaves Chesterton's central philosophical distinction intact, while limiting his dismissal of the research: identifying a systematic relation need not claim to explain its ultimate cause. His comparison changes the criterion of intellectual success, from a defensible historical generalisation to knowledge of why reality must possess that form. The example illustrates his resistance to the word ‘law,’ rather than exposing a contradiction in Grimm's consonant tables.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/books/reader/5-j-grimm",
      "title": "Jacob Grimm, Germanic Grammar, translated extract in A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical Indo-European Linguistics",
      "locator": "Text from Deutsche Grammatik (Gütersloh, 1893), I, pp. 580–592; consonant tables and example group IV",
      "exact": null
    },
    {
      "url": "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_International_Encyclop%C3%A6dia/Grimm%27s_Law",
      "title": "The New International Encyclopædia, ‘Grimm's Law’",
      "locator": "Opening definition and publication chronology; Wikisource transcription",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/books/reader/5-j-grimm",
      "title": "Grimm's text"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_International_Encyclop%C3%A6dia/Grimm%27s_Law",
      "title": "period reference account"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "The 1822 edition was not inspected. The period encyclopedia is used for chronology, not as an authority for present-day phonology; its precise print edition is not established by the inspected article header."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-04-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P011",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates",
        "question": "Does Huxley's actual account of natural law and miracles support the position attributed to him?"
      },
      {
        "approach": "Assumed knowledge and unusual language",
        "question": "What does Grimm's Law assert, and does it claim the kind of necessity Chesterton rejects?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
  "content_sha256": "sha256:fcb94d15742679bec6366c404eaff1a51992b9e121cd6b498a399ee52b188d51",
  "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:59:22Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_2ukx2qep",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_2ukx2qep/r/1",
  "cited_by": []
}