to the credit of recent Anthropometry. A
brief glance at the strange changes of opinion in the latter field
during the last three decades, in spite of all its boasted figures,
shows how little ground it has to throw stones. Serious students, such
as Wallace and Dall, whose critical ability in Zoomorphology no one can
deny, and who do not rest content with a few skulls of doubtful
_provenance_, gathered a la Hagenbeck, have come to a wholly negative
view of the value of Craniometry."--Dr. Otto Stoll, _Maya-Sprachen der
Pokom-Gruppe_, I, vii, ix.

[43-*] Our present day speculators never seem to think for a moment that
these things may conceal, _and thereby preserve_, some real meaning, or
be more than nonsense. The theory of mythological interpretation pushed
to such extremes as in the "animistic" _explanations_ of Weber,
Keightley, and others, and not absent from the writings of some
Americanists (namely, that it was all nothing but ridiculous or
concocted fancy, taken soberly) is bad enough, and argues little breadth
or insight, when applied to the myths of a single people, considered
alone. Applied to comparative mythology, in the state of things today,
it is simply impossible. The plain fact is, that such identities as
these must indicate one of two things: a common tradition, locally
modified by circumstances; or a _fact in nature_ or _history_,
symbolically expressed in different ways according to the times and
modes. And it most probably indicates both of these. It is indeed hard
to account for the extent, and the weight given to some of these
"myths," now that we are coming to a better appreciation of the scope
and greatness of ancient civilizations--everywhere--except they do
correspond to actual _facts_ in nature and history. And it might be
worth our while to get at some of these.

[45-*] We might just as well acknowledge, once for all, that in spite of
its present-day currency in England and America, and its pre-emption of
the field of "science for the people," the theory of man's physical and
mental descent from the anthropoids, is not only _not proved_, but is
vehemently denied by an equally able and scientific, and withal more
logical, body of researchers than those who form its supporters. To
_fabricate_ a missing link in a chain (or even, as with Haeckel, several
links), whose only authority is acknowledged to be its necessity in
order to complete the evidence for the theory, and then to declare the
t