e treats it in what I think the wrong way, or approves of its
being so treated.

Here, indeed, is the irreconcilable difference between two schools of
mythological interpretation. Given Dr. Hahn's book, on Hottentot manners
and religion: the anthropologist compares the Hottentot rites, beliefs,
social habits, and general ideas with those of other races known to him,
savage or civilised. A Hottentot custom, which has a meaning among
Hottentots, may exist where its meaning is lost, among Greeks or other
'Aryans.' A story of a Hottentot god, quite a natural sort of tale for a
Hottentot to tell, may be told about a god in Greece, where it is
contrary to the Greek spirit. We infer that the Greeks perhaps inherited
it from savage ancestors, or borrowed it from savages.

Names of Savage Gods

This is the method, and if we can also get a scholar to analyse the
_names_ of Hottentot gods, we are all the luckier, that is, if his
processes and inferences are _logical_. May we not decide on the _logic_
of scholars? But, just as Mr. Max Muller points out to us the dangers
attending our evidence, we point out to him the dangers attending his
method. In Dr. Hahn's book, the doctor analyses the meaning of the name
Tsuni-Goam and other names, discovers their original sense, and from that
sense explains the myths about Hottentot divine beings.

Here we anthropologists first ask Mr. Max Muller, before accepting Dr.
Hahn's etymologies, to listen to other scholars about the perils and
difficulties of the philological analysis of divine names, even in Aryan
languages. I have already quoted his 'defender,' Dr. Tiele. 'The
philological method is inadequate and misleading, when it is a question
of (1) discovering the origin of a myth, or (2) the physical explanation
of the oldest myths, or (3) of accounting for the rude and obscene
element in the divine legends of civilised races.'

To the two former purposes Dr. Hahn applies the philological method in
the case of Tsuni-Goam. Other scholars agree with Dr. Tiele. Mannhardt,
as we said, held that Mr. Max Muller's favourite etymological
'equations,' Sarameya=Hermeias; Saranyu=Demeter-Erinnys;
Kentauros=Gandharvas and others, would not stand criticism. 'The method
in its practical working shows a lack of the historical sense,' said
Mannhardt. Curtius--a scholar, as Mr. Max Muller declares (i. 32)--says,
'It is especially difficult to conjecture the meaning of proper names,
an