This paper is concerned with the Aristotelian notion of "universal" as applied to phonological phenomena. It is claimed that speech production in children and adults, in normal and deviant speakers, and in a variety of languages, can all be described according to the same universal phonological rules which constitute the universal process of grammar optimalization, that is, the process of working toward the replication of some standard adult model. For diverse reasons, the linguistically deviant fail to optimalize their grammars. It is concluded that the phonological rules of language acquisition are universal and finite in number, that these same rules are found in deviant language acquisition, that they are also found in adult dissolution of language facility, and that they are the motivation for the diachronic phenomena studied by historical linguists since the time of Rask, Grimm, Bopp, Pott, and Schleicher. (AM)