If people cannot bring themselves to believe in solar and celestial myths
among the Hindus and Greeks, let them study the folk-lore of the Semitic
and Turanian races. I know there is, on the part of some of our most
distinguished scholars, the same objection against comparing Aryan to
non-Aryan myths, as there is against any attempt to explain the features
of Sanskrit or Greek by a reference to Finnish or Bask. In one sense that
objection is well founded, for nothing would create greater confusion than
to ignore the genealogical principle as the only safe one in a scientific
classification of languages, of myths, and even of customs. We must first
classify our myths and legends, as we classify our languages and dialects.
We must first of all endeavor to explain what wants explanation in one
member of a family by a reference to other members of the same family,
before we allow ourselves to glance beyond. But there is in a comparative
study of languages and myths not only a philological, but also a
philosophical, and, more particularly, a psychological interest, and
though even in this more general study of mankind the frontiers of
language and race ought never to disappear, yet they can no longer be
allowed to narrow or intercept our view. How much the student of Aryan
mythology and ethnology may gain for his own progress by allowing himself
a wider survey over the traditions and customs of the whole human race, is
best known to those who have studied the works of Klemm, Waitz, Bastian,
Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Tylor, and Dr. Callaway. What is prehistoric in
language among the Aryan nations, is frequently found as still historic
among Turanian races. The same applies with regard to religions, myths,
legends, and customs. Among Finns and Lapps, among Zulus and Maoris, among
Khonds and Karens, we sometimes find the most startling analogies to Aryan
traditions, and we certainly learn, again and again, this one important
lesson, that as in language, so in mythology, there is nothing which had
not originally a meaning, that every name of the gods and heroes had a
beginning, a purpose, and a history.
Jupiter was no more called Jupiter by accident, than the Polynesian
_Maui_, the Samoyede _Num_, or the Chinese _Tien_.(42) If we can discover
the original meaning of these names, we have reached the first ground of
their later growth. I do not say that, if we can explain the first purpose
of the mythological names, we have solved the whole riddle of mythology,
but I maintain that we have gained firm ground. I maintain that every true
etymology gives us an historical fact, because the first giving of a name
was an historical fact, and an historical fact of the greatest importance
for the later development of ancient ideas. Think only of this one fact,
which no one would now venture to doubt, that the supreme deity of the
Greeks, the Romans, the Germans, is called by the same name as the supreme
deity of the earliest Aryan settlers in India. Does not this one fact draw
away the curtain from the dark ages of antiquity, and open before our eyes
an horizon which we can hardly measure by years? The Greek _Zeus_ is the
same word as the Latin _Ju_ in _Jupiter_, as the German _Tiu_; and all
these were merely dialectic varieties of the Vedic _Dyaus_.(43) Now
_dyaus_ in Sanskrit is the name of the sky, if used as a feminine; if used
as a masculine, as it is still in the Veda, it is the sky as a man or as a
god—it is Zeus, the father of gods and men. You know, of course, that the
whole language of ancient India is but a sister dialect of Greek, Latin,
of German, Keltic, and Slavonic, and that if the Greek says _es-ti_, he
is, if the Roman says _est_, the German _ist_, the Slave _yesté_, the
Hindu, three thousand years ago, said _as-ti_, he is. This _as-ti_ is a
compound of a root _as_, to be, and the pronoun _ti_. The root meant
originally _to breathe_, and dwindled down after a time to the meaning of
_to be_. All this must have happened before a single Greek or German
reached the shores of Europe, and before a single Brahman descended into
the plains of India. At that distant time we must place the gradual growth
of language and ideas, of a language which we are still speaking, of ideas
which we are still thinking; and at the same time only can we explain the
framing of those names which were the first attempts at grasping
supernatural powers, which became in time the names of the deities of the
ancient world, the heroes of mythology, the chief actors in many a legend,
nay, some of which have survived in the nursery tales of our own time.(44)
My time, I see, is nearly over, but before I finish, I feel that I have a
duty to perform from which I ought not to shrink. Some of those who have
honored me with their presence to-night may recollect that about a year
ago a lecture was delivered in this very room by Professor Blackie, in
which he tried to throw discredit on the scientific method of the
interpretation of popular myths, or on what I call Comparative Mythology.
Had he confined his remarks to the subject itself, I should have felt most
grateful for his criticisms, little minding the manner in which they were
conveyed—for a student of language knows what words are made of. Nor, had
his personal reflections concerned myself alone, should I have felt called
upon to reply to them thus publicly, for it has always seemed to me that
unless we protest against unmerited praise, we have no right to protest
against unmerited abuse. I believe I can appeal to all here present, that
during the many years I have had the honor to lecture in this Institution,
I have _not once_ allowed myself to indulge in any personal remarks, or
attacked those who, being absent, cannot defend themselves. Even when I
had to answer objections, or to refute false theories, I have always most
carefully avoided mentioning the names of living writers. But as Professor
Blackie has directed his random blows, not against myself, but against a
friend of mine, Mr. Cox, the author of a work on Aryan Mythology, I feel
that I must for once try to get angry, and return blow for blow. Professor
Blackie speaks of Mr. Cox as if he had done nothing beyond repeating what
I had said before. Nothing can be more unfair. My own work in Comparative
Mythology has consisted chiefly in laying down some of the general
principles of that science, and in the etymological interpretation of some
of the ancient names of gods, goddesses, and heroes. In fact, I have made
it a rule never to interpret or to compare the legends of India, Greece,
Italy, or Germany, except in cases where it was possible, first of all, to
show an identity or similarity in the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, or German
names of the principal actors. Mr. Cox having convinced himself that the
method which I have followed in mythology rests on sound and truly
scientific principles, has adopted most, though by no means all, of my
etymological interpretations. Professor Blackie, on the contrary, without
attempting any explanation of the identity of mythological names in Greek
and Sanskrit which must be either disproved or explained, thunders forth
the following sentence of condemnation: “Even under the scientific
guidance of a Bopp, a Bott, a Grimm, and a Müller, a sober man may
sometimes, even in the full blaze of the new sun of comparative philology,
allow himself to drink deep draughts, if not of _maundering madness_, at
least of _manifest hallucination_.”
If such words are thrown at my head, I pick them up chiefly as
etymological curiosities, and as striking illustrations of what Mr. Tylor
calls “survivals in culture,” showing how the most primitive implements of
warfare, rude stones and unpolished flints, which an ethnologist would
suppose to be confined to prehistoric races, to the red Indians of America
or the wild Picts of Caledonia, turn up again most unexpectedly at the
present day in the very centre of civilized life. All I can say is, that
if, as a student of Comparative Mythology, I have been drinking deep
draughts of maundering madness, I have been drinking in good company. In
this respect Mr. Cox has certainly given me far more credit than I
deserve. I am but one out of many laborers in this rich field of
scientific research, and he ought to have given far greater prominence to
the labors of Grimm, Burnouf, Bopp, and, before all, of my learned friend,
Professor Kuhn.
But while, with regard to etymology, Mr. Cox contents himself with
reporting the results of other scholars, he stands quite independent in
his own treatment of Comparative Mythology. Of this Professor Blackie
seems to have no suspicion whatever. The plan which Mr. Cox follows is to
collect the coincidences in the legends themselves, and to show how in
different myths the same story with slight variations is told again and
again of different gods and heroes. In this respect his work is entirely
original and very useful; for although these coincidences may be explained
in different ways, and do not afford a proof of a common historical origin
of the mythologies of India, Greece, Italy, and Germany, they are all the
more interesting from a purely psychological point of view, and supply
important material for further researches. Mr. Tylor has lately worked
with great success in the same rich mine; extending the limits of
mythological research far beyond the precincts of the Aryan world, and
showing that there are solar myths wherever the sun shines. I differ from
Mr. Cox on many points, as he differs from me. I shall certainly keep to
my own method of never attempting an interpretation or a comparison,
except where the ground has first been cleared of all uncertainty by
etymological research, and where the names of different gods and heroes
have been traced back to a common source. I call this the _nominalistic_
as opposed to the _realistic_ method of Comparative Mythology, and it is
the former only that concerns the student of the Science of Language. I
gratefully acknowledge, however, the help which I have received from Mr.
Cox’s work, particularly as suggesting new clusters of myths that might be
disentangled by etymological analysis.
But not only has Professor Blackie failed to perceive the real character
of Mr. Cox’s researches, but he has actually charged him with holding
opinions which both Mr. Cox and myself have repeatedly disavowed, and most
strenuously opposed. Again and again have we warned the students of
Comparative Mythology that they must not expect to be able to explain
everything. Again and again have we pointed out that there are irrational
elements in mythology, and that we must be prepared to find grains of
local history on which, as I said,(45) the sharpest tools of Comparative
Mythology must bend or break. Again and again have we shown that
historical persons(46)—not only Cyrus and Charlemagne, but Frederick
Barbarossa and even Frederick the Great—have been drawn into the vortex of
popular mythology. Yet these are the words of Professor Blackie: “The cool
way in which Max Müller and his English disciple, Mr. Cox, assume that
there are no human figures and historical characters in the whole gallery
of heroes and demi-gods in the Greek Mythology, is something very
remarkable.”
I readily admit that some of the etymologies which I have proposed of
mythological names are open to criticism; and if, like other scholars,
Professor Blackie had pointed out to me any cases where I might seem to
him to have offended against Grimm’s law or other phonetic rules, I should
have felt most grateful; but if he tells me that the Greek Erinys should
not be derived from the Sanskrit Sara_n_yû, but from the Greek verb
ἐρινύειν, to be angry, he might as well derive _critic_ from _to
criticise_;(47) and if he maintains that a name may have two or three
legitimate etymologies, I can only answer that we might as well say that a
child could have two or three legitimate mothers.
I have most reluctantly entered upon these somewhat personal explanations,
and I should not have done so if I alone had been concerned in Professor
Blackie’s onslaught. I hope, however, that I have avoided anything that
could give just offence to Professor Blackie, even if he should be present
here tonight. Though he abuses me as a German, and laughs at the
instinctive aversion to external facts and the extravagant passion for
self-evolved ideas as national failings of all Germans (I only wonder that
the story of the camel and the inner consciousness did not come in), yet I
know that for many years German poetry and German scholarship have had few
more ardent admirers, and German scholars few more trusty friends, than
Professor Blackie. Nationality, it seems to me, has as little to do with
scholarship as with logic. On the contrary, in every nation he that will
work hard and reason honestly may be sure to discover some grains of
truth. National jealousies and animosities have no place in the republic
of letters, which is, and I trust always will be, the true international
republic of all friends of work, of order, and of truth.