[12]
But we must
remember that analogy cannot be universally applied,
as it is often inconsistent with itself. It is true
indeed that scholars have attempted to justify certain
apparent anomalies: for example, when it is noted
to what an extent lepus and lupus, which resemble
each other closely in the nominative, differ in the
plural and in the other cases, they reply that they
are not true parallels, since lepus is epicene, while
lupus is masculine, although Varro in the book in
which he narrates the origins of Rome, writes lupus
femina, following the precedent of Ennius and
Fabius Pictor.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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