rmans call "earth-knowledge." No one denies that all the
changes going on over the earth's surface conform to physical laws; but
then no one pretends that there is any single proximate principle which
governs all the phenomena of rain-fall, of soil-crumbling, of magnetic
variation, and of the distribution of plants and animals. All these
things are explained by principles obtained from the various sciences
of physics, chemistry, geology, and physiology. And in just the same way
the development and distribution of stories is explained by the help
of divers resources contributed by philology, psychology, and history.
There is therefore no real analogy between the cases cited by Max
Muller. Two unrelated words may be ground into exactly the same shape,
just as a pebble from the North Sea may be undistinguishable from
another pebble on the beach of the Adriatic; but two stories like
those of Punchkin and the Heartless Giant are no more likely to arise
independently of each other than two coral reefs on opposite sides of
the globe are likely to develop into exactly similar islands.

Shall we then say boldly, that close similarity between legends is proof
of kinship, and go our way without further misgivings? Unfortunately
we cannot dispose of the matter in quite so summary a fashion; for it
remains to decide what kind and degree of similarity shall be considered
satisfactory evidence of kinship. And it is just here that doctors may
disagree. Here is the point at which our "science" betrays its weakness
as compared with the sister study of philology. Before we can decide
with confidence in any case, a great mass of evidence must be brought
into court. So long as we remained on Aryan ground, all went smoothly
enough, because all the external evidence was in our favour. We knew
at the outset, that the Aryans inherit a common language and a common
civilization, and therefore we found no difficulty in accepting the
conclusion that they have inherited, among other things, a common stock
of legends. In the barbaric world it is quite otherwise. Philology does
not pronounce in favour of a common origin for all barbaric culture,
such as it is. The notion of a single primitive language, standing in
the same relation to all existing dialects as the relation of old Aryan
to Latin and English, or that of old Semitic to Hebrew and Arabic, was a
notion suited only to the infancy of linguistic science. As the case now
stands, it is certain th