er scholars criticise your equations
not 'seriously'? Or are you ignorant of the names of their works?

Another case. Our author says that 'many objections were raised' to his
'equation' of Athene=Ahana='Dawn' (ii. 378, 400, &c.). Have the
objections ceased? Here are a few scholars who do not, or did not,
accept Athene=Ahana: Welcker, Benfey, Curtius, Preller, Furtwangler,
Schwartz, and now Bechtel (i. 378). Mr. Max Muller thinks that he is
right, but, till scholars agree, what can we do but wait?

Phonetic Bickerings

The evidence turns on theories of phonetic laws as they worked in pre-
Homeric Greece. But these laws, as they apply to common ordinary words,
need _not_, we are told, be applied so strictly to proper names, as of
gods and heroes. These are a kind of comets, and their changes cannot be
calculated like the changes of vulgar words, which answer to stars (i.
298). Mr. Max Muller 'formerly agreed with Curtius that phonetic rules
should be used against proper names with the same severity as against
ordinary nouns and verbs.' Benfey and Welcker protested, so does
Professor Victor Henry. 'It is not fair to demand from mythography the
rigorous observation of phonetics' (i. 387). 'This may be called
backsliding,' our author confesses, and it _does_ seem rather a 'go-as-
you-please' kind of method.

Phonetic Rules

Mr. Max Muller argues at length (and, to my ignorance, persuasively) in
favour of a genial laxity in the application of phonetic rules to old
proper names. Do they apply to these as strictly as to ordinary words?
'This is a question that has often been asked . . . but it has never been
boldly answered' (i. 297). Mr. Max Muller cannot have forgotten that
Curtius answered boldly--in the negative. 'Without such rigour all
attempts at etymology are impossible. For this very reason ethnologists
and mythologists should make themselves acquainted with the simple
principles of comparative philology.' {109}

But it is not for us to settle such disputes of scholars. Meanwhile
their evidence is derived from their private interpretations of old
proper names, and they differ among themselves as to whether, in such
interpretations, they should or should not be governed strictly by
phonetic laws. Then what Mr. Max Muller calls 'the usual bickerings'
begin among scholars (i. 416). And Mr. Max Muller connects Ouranos with
Vedic Varuna, while Wackernagel prefers to derive it from [Greek