ts to the stars in general, and more particularly to that
constellation which in the northern parts of India was the most
prominent. The etymological meaning, "the bright stars," was forgotten;
the popular meaning of Riksha (bear) was known to everyone. And thus it
happened that, when the Greeks had left their central home and settled in
Europe, they retained the name of Arktos for the same unchanging stars;
but, not knowing why those stars had originally received that name, they
ceased to speak of them as arktoi, or many bears, and spoke of them as
the Bear.'

This is a very good example of the philological way of explaining a myth.
If once we admit that ark, or arch, in the sense of 'bright' and of
'bear,' existed, not only in Sanskrit, but in the undivided Aryan tongue,
and that the name Riksha, bear, 'became in that sense most popular in
Greek and Latin,' this theory seems more than plausible. But the
explanation does not look so well if we examine, not only the Aryan, but
all the known myths and names of the Bear and the other stars. Professor
Sayce, a distinguished philologist, says we may not compare non-Aryan
with Aryan myths. We have ventured to do so, however, in this paper, and
have shown that the most widely severed races give the stars animal
names, of which the Bear is one example. Now, if the philologists wish
to persuade us that it was decaying and half-forgotten language which
caused men to give the names of animals to the stars, they must prove
their case on an immense collection of instances--on Iowa, Kaneka, Murri,
Maori, Brazilian, Peruvian, Mexican, Egyptian, Eskimo, instances. It
would be the most amazing coincidence in the world if forgetfulness of
the meaning of their own speech compelled tribes of every tongue and race
to recognise men and beasts, cranes, cockatoos, serpents, monkeys, bears,
and so forth, in the heavens. How came the misunderstood words always to
be misunderstood in the same way? Does the philological explanation
account for the enormous majority of the phenomena? If it fails, we may
at least doubt whether it solves the one isolated case of the Great Bear
among the Greeks and Romans. It must be observed that the philological
explanation of Mr. Muller does not clear up the Arcadian story of their
own descent from a she-bear who is now a star. Yet similar stories of
the descent of tribes from animals are so widespread that it would be
difficult to name the race or the