I am not writing 'quips and cranks;' I am dealing quite gravely with the
author's processes of reasoning. 'No true scholar' does what 'very
thoughtful scholars' do. No comparisons of savage and Vedic myths should
be made, but yet, 'when fully demonstrated,' 'true scholars would accept
them' (i 209, 220). How can comparisons be demonstrated before they are
made? And made they must not be!
'Scholars'
It would be useful if Mr. Max Muller were to define 'scholar,' 'real
scholar,' 'true scholar,' 'very thoughtful scholar.' The latter may err,
and have erred--like General Councils, and like Dr. Oldenberg, who finds
in the Veda 'remnants of the wildest and rawest essence of religion,'
totemism, and the rest (i. 210). I was wont to think that 'scholar,' as
used by our learned author, meant 'philological mythologist,' as
distinguished from 'not-scholar,' that is, 'anthropological mythologist.'
But now 'very thoughtful scholars,' even Dr. Oldenberg, Mr. Rhys, Dr.
Robertson Smith, and so on, use the anthropological method, so 'scholar'
needs a fresh definition. The 'not-scholars,' the anthropologists, have,
in fact, converted some very thoughtful scholars. If we could only catch
the _true_ scholar! But that we cannot do till we fully demonstrate
comparisons which we may not make, for fear of first 'obscuring the Veda
by this kind of light from the Dark Continent.'