Professor Tiele wrote in 1885. I do not remember having claimed his
alliance, though I made one or two very brief citations from his remarks
on the dangers of etymology applied to old proper names. {25a} To
citations made by me later in 1887 Professor Tiele cannot be referring.
{25b} Thus I find no proof of any claim of alliance put forward by me,
but I do claim a right to quote the Professor's published words. These I
now translate:--{25c}
'What goes before shows adequately that I am an ally, much more than an
adversary, of the new school, whether styled ethnological or
anthropological. It is true that all the ideas advanced by its partisans
are not so new as they seem. Some of us--I mean among those who, without
being vassals of the old school, were formed by it--had not only remarked
already the defects of the reigning method, but had perceived the
direction in which researches should be made; they had even begun to say
so. This does not prevent the young school from enjoying the great merit
of having first formulated with precision, and with the energy of
conviction, that which had hitherto been but imperfectly pointed out. If
henceforth mythological science marches with a firmer foot, and loses
much of its hypothetical character, it will in part owe this to the
stimulus of the new school.'
'Braves Gens'
Professor Tiele then bids us leave our cries of triumph to the servum
imitatorum pecus, braves gens, and so forth, as in the passage which Mr.
Max Muller, unless I misunderstand him, regards as referring to the 'new
school,' and, notably, to M. Gaidoz and myself, though such language
ought not to apply to M. Gaidoz, because he is a scholar. I am left to
uncovenanted mercies.