The objections to this method are so numerous that it is difficult to
state them briefly. The attempt, however, must be made. To desert the
path opened by the most eminent scholars is in itself presumptuous; the
least that an innovator can do is to give his reasons for advancing in a
novel direction. If this were a question of scholarship merely, it would
be simply foolhardy to differ from men like Max Muller, Adalbert Kuhn,
Breal, and many others. But a revolutionary mythologist is encouraged by
finding that these scholars usually differ from each other. Examples
will be found chiefly in the essays styled 'The Myth of Cronus,' 'A Far-
travelled Tale,' and 'Cupid and Psyche.' Why, then, do distinguished
scholars and mythologists reach such different goals? Clearly because
their method is so precarious. They all analyse the names in myths; but,
where one scholar decides that the name is originally Sanskrit, another
holds that it is purely Greek, and a third, perhaps, is all for an
Accadian etymology, or a Semitic derivation. Again, even when scholars
agree as to the original root from which a name springs, they differ as
much as ever as to the meaning of the name in its present place. The
inference is, that the analysis of names, on which the whole edifice of
philological 'comparative mythology' rests, is a foundation of shifting
sand. The method is called 'orthodox,' but, among those who practise it,
there is none of the beautiful unanimity of orthodoxy.

These objections are not made by the unscholarly anthropologist alone.
Curtius has especially remarked the difficulties which beset the
'etymological operation' in the case of proper names. 'Peculiarly
dubious and perilous is mythological etymology. Are we to seek the
sources of the divine names in aspects of nature, or in moral
conceptions; in special Greek geographical conditions, or in natural
circumstances which are everywhere the same: in dawn with her rays, or in
clouds with their floods; are we to seek the origin of the names of