Allies or Not?

These are several of the passages on which, in 1887, I relied as evidence of the Professor’s approval, which, I should have added, is only partial It is he who, unsolicited, professes himself ’much more our ally than our adversary.’  It is he who proclaims that Mr. Max Midler’s central hypothesis is erroneous, and who makes ‘no objection’ to my idea that it is ‘builded on the sand.’  It is he who assigns essential merits to our method, and I fail to find that he ‘strongly declines the honour’ of our alliance.  The passage about ‘braves gens’ explicitly does not refer to us.

Our Errors

In 1887, I was not careful to quote what Professor Tiele had said against us.  First, as to our want of novelty.  That merit, I think, I had never claimed.  I was proud to point out that we had been anticipated by Eusebius of Caesarea, by Fontenelle, and doubtless by many others.  We repose, as Professor Tiele justly says, on the researches of Dr. Tylor.  At the same time it is Professor Tiele who constantly speaks of ’the new school,’ while adding that he himself had freely opposed Mr. Max Muller’s central hypothesis, ‘a disease of language,’ in Dutch periodicals.  The Professor also censures our ‘exclusiveness,’ our ‘narrowness,’ our ’songs of triumph,’ our use of parody (M.  Gaidoz republished an old one, not to my own taste; I have also been guilty of ‘The Great Gladstone Myth’) and our charge that our adversaries neglect ethnological material.  On this I explain myself later. {28a}

Uses of Philology

Our method (says Professor Tiele) ’cannot answer all the questions which the science of mythology must solve, or, at least, must study.’  Certainly it makes no such pretence.

Professor Tiele then criticises Sir George Cox and Mr. Robert Brown, junior, for their etymologies of Poseidon.  Indiscreet followers are not confined to our army alone.  Now, the use of philology, we learn, is to discourage such etymological vagaries as those of Sir G. Cox. {28b} We also discourage them—­severely.  But we are warned that philology really has discovered ‘some undeniably certain etymologies’ of divine names.  Well, I also say, ’Philology alone can tell whether Zeus Asterios, or Adonis, or Zeus Labrandeus is originally a Semitic or a Greek divine name; here she is the Pythoness we must all consult.’ {29a} And is it my fault that, even in this matter, the Pythonesses utter such strangely discrepant oracles?  Is Athene from a Zend root (Benfey), a Greek root (Curtius), or to be interpreted by Sanskrit Ahana (Max Muller)?  Meanwhile Professor Tiele repeats that, in a search for the origin of myths, and, above all, of obscene and brutal myths, ’philology will lead us far from our aim.’  Now, if the school of Mr. Max Muller has a mot d’ordre, it is, says Professor Tiele, ‘to call mythology a disease of language.’