Between 1860 and 1880, roughly speaking, English people interested in
early myths and religions found the mythological theories of Professor
Max Muller in possession of the field. These brilliant and attractive
theories, taking them in the widest sense, were not, of course, peculiar
to the Right Hon. Professor. In France, in Germany, in America, in
Italy, many scholars agreed in his opinion that the science of language
is the most potent spell for opening the secret chamber of mythology. But
while these scholars worked on the same general principle as Mr. Max
Muller, while they subjected the names of mythical beings--Zeus, Helen,
Achilles, Athene--to philological analysis, and then explained the
stories of gods and heroes by their interpretations of the meanings of
their names, they arrived at all sorts of discordant results. Where Mr.
Max Muller found a myth of the Sun or of the Dawn, these scholars were
apt to see a myth of the wind, of the lightning, of the thunder-cloud, of
the crepuscule, of the upper air, of what each of them pleased. But
these ideas--the ideas of Kuhn, Welcker, Curtius (when he appeared in the
discussion), of Schwartz, of Lauer, of Breal, of many others--were very
little known--if known at all--to the English public. Captivated by the
graces of Mr. Max Muller's manner, and by a style so pellucid that it
accredited a logic perhaps not so clear, the public hardly knew of the
divisions in the philological camp. They were unaware that, as Mannhardt
says, the philological school had won 'few sure gains,' and had
discredited their method by a 'muster-roll of variegated' and discrepant
'hypotheses.'
Now, in all sciences there are differences of opinion about details. In
comparative mythology there was, with rare exceptions, no agreement at
all about results beyond this point; Greek and Sanskrit, German and
Slavonic myths were, in the immense majority of instances, to be regarded
as mirror-pictures on earth, of celestial and meteorological phenomena.
Thus even the story of the Earth Goddess, the Harvest Goddess, Demeter,
was usually explained as a reflection in myth of one or another celestial
phenomenon--dawn, storm-cloud, or something else according to taste.
Again, Greek or German myths were usually to be interpreted by comparison
with myths in the Rig Veda. Their origin was to be ascertained by
discovering the Aryan root and original significance of the names of gods
and heroes, such as Saranyu--Erinnys, Daphne--Dahana, Athene--Ahana. The
etymology and meaning of such names being ascertained, the origin and
sense of the myths in which the names occur should be clear.
Clear it was not. There were, in most cases, as many opinions as to the
etymology and meaning of each name and myth, as there were philologists
engaged in the study. Mannhardt, who began, in 1858, as a member of the
philological school, in his last public utterance (1877) described the
method and results, including his own work of 1858, as 'mainly failures.'
But, long ere that, the English cultivated public had, most naturally,
accepted Mr. Max Muller as the representative of the school which then
held the field in comparative mythology. His German and other foreign
brethren, with their discrepant results, were only known to the general,
in England (I am not speaking of English scholars), by the references to
them in the Oxford professor's own works. His theories were made part of
the education of children, and found their way into a kind of popular
primers.
For these reasons, anyone in England who was daring enough to doubt, or
to deny, the validity of the philological system of mythology in general
was obliged to choose Mr. Max Muller as his adversary. He must strike,
as it were, the shield of no Hospitaler of unsteady seat, but that of the
Templar himself. And this is the cause of what seems to puzzle Mr. Max
Muller, namely the attacks on _his_ system and _his_ results in
particular. An English critic, writing for English readers, had to do
with the scholar who chiefly represented the philological school of
mythology in the eyes of England.