The learned Professor's remarks on being 'much more my ally than my
opponent' were published before my Myth, Ritual, and Religion, in which
(i. 24, 25) I cited his agreement with me in the opinion that 'the
philological method' (Mr. Max Muller's) is 'inadequate and misleading,
when it is a question of discovering the origin of a myth.' I also
quoted his unhesitating preference of ours to Mr. Max Muller's method (i.
43, 44). I did not cite a tithe of what he actually did say to our
credit. But I omitted to quote what it was inexcusable not to add, that
Professor Tiele thinks us 'too exclusive,' that he himself had already,
before us, combated Mr. Max Muller's method in Dutch periodicals, that he
blamed our 'songs of triumph' and our levities, that he thought we might
have ignorant camp-followers, that I glided over important questions
(bees, blood-drops, stars, Melian nymphs, the phallus of Ouranos, &c.),
and showed scientific inexactitude in declining chercher raison ou il n'y
en a pas.
None the less, in Professor Tiele's opinion, our method is new (or is
_not_ new), illuminating, successful, and _alone_ successful, for the
ends to which we apply it, and, finally, we have shown Mr. Max Muller's
method to be a house builded on the sand. That is the gist of what
Professor Tiele said.
Mr. Max Muller, like myself, quotes part and omits part. He quotes twice
Professor Tiele's observations on my deplorable habit of gliding over
important questions. He twice says that we have 'actually' claimed the
Professor as 'an ally of the victorious army,' 'the ethnological students
of custom and myth,' and once adds, 'but he strongly declined that
honour.' He twice quotes the famous braves gens passage, excepting only
M. Gaidoz, as a scholar, from a censure explicitly directed at our
possible camp-followers as distinguished from ourselves.
But if Mr. Max Muller quotes Professor Tiele's remarks proving that, in
his opinion, the 'army' _is_ really victorious; if he cites the
acquiescence in my opinion that _his_ mythological house is 'builded on
the sands,' or Professor Tiele's preference for our method over his own,
or Professor Tiele's volunteered remark that he is 'much more our ally
than our adversary,' I have not detected the passages in Contributions to
the Science of Mythology.
The reader may decide as to the relative importance of what I left out,
and of what Mr. Max Muller omitted. He says, 'Professor Tiele and I
differ on several points, but we perfectly understand each other, and
when we have made a mistake we readily confess and correct it' (i. 37).
The two scholars, I thought, differed greatly. Mr. Max Muller's war-cry,
slogan, mot d'ordre, is to Professor Tiele 'a false hypothesis.' Our
method, which Mr. Max Muller combats so bravely, is all that Professor
Tiele has said of it. But, if all this is not conspicuously apparent in
our adversary's book, it does not become me to throw the first stone. We
are all, in fact, inclined unconsciously to overlook what makes against
our argument. I have done it; and, to the best of my belief, Mr. Max
Muller has not avoided the same error.