While maintaining that 'all comparative mythology must rest on comparison
of names as its most certain basis' (a system which Mannhardt declares
explicitly to be so far 'a failure'), Mr. Max Muller says, 'It is well
known that in his last, nay posthumous essay, Mannhardt, no mean
authority, returned to the same conviction.' I do not know which is
Mannhardt's very last essay, but I shall prove that in the posthumous
essays Mannhardt threw cold water on the whole method of philological
comparative mythology.
However, as proof of Mannhardt's return to Mr. Max Muller's convictions,
our author cites Mythologische Forschungen (pp. 86-113).