Thus Mr. Max Muller never dreamed of 'audaciously misrepresenting' me
when, in four lines, he made two statements about my opinions and my
materials which are at the opposite pole from the accurate (i. 12): 'When
I speak of the Vedic Rishis as primitive, I do not mean what Mr. A. Lang
means when he calls his savages primitive.' But I have stated again and
again that I _don't_ call my savages 'primitive.' Thus 'contemporary
savages may be degraded, they certainly are not primitive.' {93a} 'One
thing about the past of [contemporary] savages we do know: it must have
been a long past.' {93b} 'We do not wish to call savages primitive.'
{93c} All this was written in reply to the very proper caution of Dr.
Fairbairn that 'savages are not primitive.' Of course they are not; that
is of the essence of my theory. I regret the use of the word 'primitive'
even in Primitive Culture. Savages, as a rule, are _earlier_, more
backward than civilised races, as, of course, Mr. Max Muller admits,
where language is concerned. {94} Now, after devoting several pages to
showing in detail how very far from primitive even the Australian tribes
are, might I (if I were ill-natured) not say that Mr. Max Muller
'audaciously misrepresents' me when he avers that I 'call my savages
primitive'? But he never dreamed of misrepresenting me; he only happened
not to understand my position. However, as he complains in his own case,
'it is not pleasant to have to defend positions which one never held' (i.
26), and, indeed, I shall defend no such position.
My adversary next says that my 'savages are of the nineteenth century.'
It is of the essence of my theory that my savages are of many different
centuries. Those described by Herodotus, Strabo, Dio Cassius, Christoval
de Moluna, Sahagun, Cieza de Leon, Brebeuf, Garoilasso de la Vega,
Lafitau, Nicholas Damascenus, Leo Africanus, and a hundred others, are
_not_ of the nineteenth century. This fact is essential, because the
evidence of old writers, from Herodotus to Egede, corroborates the
evidence of travellers, Indian Civil Servants, and missionaries of today,
by what Dr. Tylor, when defending our materials, calls 'the test of
recurrence.' Professor Millar used the same argument in his Origin of
Rank, in the last century. Thus Mr. Max Muller unconsciously
misrepresents me (and my savages) when he says that my 'savages are of
the nineteenth century.' The fact is the reverse. They are of many
centuries. These two unconscious misrepresentations occur in four
consecutive lines.