'Mannhardt's state of mind with regard to the general principles of
comparative philology has been so exactly my own,' says Mr. Max Muller,
that he cites Mannhardt's letters to prove the fact. But as to the
_application_ to myth of the principles of comparative philology,
Mannhardt speaks of 'the lack of the historical sense' displayed in the
practical employment of the method. This, at least, is 'not exactly' Mr.
Max Muller's own view. Probably he refers to the later period when
Mannhardt 'returned to his old colours.'
The letters of Mannhardt, cited in proof of his exact agreement with Mr.
Max Muller about comparative philology, do not, as far as quoted, mention
the subject of comparative philology at all (1. xviii-xx.). Possibly
'philology' is here a slip of the pen, and 'mythology' may be meant.
Mannhardt says to Mullenhoff (May 2, 1876) that he has been uneasy 'at
the extent which sun myths threaten to assume in my comparisons.' He is
opening 'a new point of view;' materials rush in, 'so that the sad danger
seemed inevitable of everything becoming everything.' In Mr. Max
Muller's own words, written long ago, _he_ expressed his dread, not of
'everything becoming everything' (a truly Heraclitean state of affairs),
but of the 'omnipresent Sun and the inevitable Dawn appearing in ever so
many disguises.' 'Have we not,' he asks, 'arrived both at the same
conclusion?' Really, I do not know! Had Mannhardt quite cashiered 'the
corn-spirit,' who, perhaps, had previously threatened to 'become
everything'? He is still in great vigour, in Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough,
and Mr. Frazer is Mannhardt's disciple. But where, all this time, is
there a reference by Mannhardt to 'the general principles of comparative
philology'? Where does he accept 'the omnipresent Sun and the inevitable
Dawn'? Why, he says the reverse; he says in this letter that he is
immeasurably removed from accepting them at all as Mr. Max Muller accepts
them!
'I am very far from looking upon all myths as psychical reflections of
physical phenomena, still less as of exclusively solar or meteorological
phenomena, like Kuhn, Schwartz, Max Muller and their school.' What a
queer way of expressing his agreement with Mr. Max Muller!
The Professor expostulates with Mannhardt (1. xx.):--'Where has any one
of us ever done this?' Well, when Mannhardt said '_all_ myths,' he wrote
colloquially. Shall we say that he meant 'most myths,' 'a good many
myths,' 'a myth or two here and there'? Whatever he meant, he meant that
he was 'still more than very far removed from looking upon all myths' as
Mr. Max Muller does.
Mannhardt's next passage I quote entire and textually from Mr. Max
Muller's translation:--
'I have learnt to appreciate poetical and literary production as an
essential element in the development of mythology, and to draw and
utilise the consequences arising from this state of things. [Who has
not?] But, on the other hand, I hold it as quite certain that a
portion of the older myths arose from nature poetry which is no longer
directly intelligible to us, but has to be interpreted by means of
analogies. Nor does it follow that these myths betray any historical
identity; they only testify to the same kind of conception and
tendency prevailing on similar stages of development. Of these nature
myths some have reference to the life and the circumstances of the
sun, and our first steps towards an understanding of them are helped
on by such nature poetry as the Lettish, which has not yet been
obscured by artistic and poetical reflexion. In that poetry mythical
personalities confessedly belonging to a solar sphere are transferred
to a large number of poetical representatives, of which the
explanation must consequently be found in the same (solar) sphere of
nature. My method here is just the same as that applied by me to the
Tree-cult.'
Mr. Max Muller asks, 'Where is there any difference between this, the
latest and final system adopted by Mannhardt, and my own system which I
put forward in 1856?' (1. xxi.)