tained its primitive mythical significance.
Otherwise, for aught we can tell, the resemblance may be purely
accidental, like that of the French words for "mouse" and "smile."

A little reflection, however, will relieve us from this perplexity, and
assure us that the alleged analogy between the comparison of words and
the comparison of stories is utterly superficial. The transformations
of words--which are often astounding enough--depend upon a few
well-established physiological principles of utterance; and since
philology has learned to rely upon these principles, it has become
nearly as sure in its methods and results as one of the so-called "exact
sciences." Folly enough is doubtless committed within its precincts by
writers who venture there without the laborious preparation which this
science, more than almost any other, demands. But the proceedings of
the trained philologist are no more arbitrary than those of the trained
astronomer. And though the former may seem to be straining at a gnat and
swallowing a camel when he coolly tells you that violin and fiddle are
the same word, while English care and Latin cura have nothing to do with
each other, he is nevertheless no more indulging in guess-work than the
astronomer who confesses his ignorance as to the habitability of Venus
while asserting his knowledge of the existence of hydrogen in the
atmosphere of Sirius. To cite one example out of a hundred, every
philologist knows that s may become r, and that the broad a-sound may
dwindle into the closer o-sound; but when you adduce some plausible
etymology based on the assumption that r has changed into s, or o into
a, apart from the demonstrable influence of some adjacent letter, the
philologist will shake his head.

Now in the study of stories there are no such simple rules all cut and
dried for us to go by. There is no uniform psychological principle
which determines that the three-headed snake in one story shall become a
three-headed man in the next. There is no Grimm's Law in mythology which
decides that a Hindu magician shall always correspond to a Norwegian
Troll or a Keltic Druid. The laws of association of ideas are not so
simple in application as the laws of utterance. In short, the study of
myths, though it can be made sufficiently scientific in its methods and
results, does not constitute a science by itself, like philology. It
stands on a footing similar to that occupied by physical geography,
or what the Ge