Thus the phenomena which the philological school of mythology explains by
a disease of language we would explain by survival from a savage state of
society and from the mental peculiarities observed among savages in all
ages and countries. Of course there is nothing new in this: I was
delighted to discover the idea in Eusebius as in Fontenelle; while, for
general application to singular institutions, it was a commonplace of the
last century. {6a} Moreover, the idea had been widely used by Dr. E. B.
Tylor in Primitive Culture, and by Mr. McLennan in his Primitive Marriage
and essays on Totemism.



My Criticism of Mr. Max Muller


This idea I set about applying to the repulsive myths of civilised races,
and to Marchen, or popular tales, at the same time combating the theories
which held the field--the theories of the philological mythologists as
applied to the same matter. In journalism I criticised Mr. Max Muller,
and I admit that, when comparing the mutually destructive competition of
varying etymologies, I did not abstain from the weapons of irony and
_badinage_. The opportunity was too tempting! But, in the most sober
seriousness, I examined Mr. Max Muller's general statement of his system,
his hypothesis of certain successive stages of language, leading up to
the mythopoeic confusion of thought. It was not a question of denying
Mr. Max Muller's etymologies, but of asking whether he established his
historical theory by evidence, and whether his inferences from it were
logically deduced. The results of my examination will be found in the
article 'Mythology' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and in La