which was popular and all-powerful even in the maturity of his own
more clear-sighted genius. Proofs of the correctness of his
criticism will be offered abundantly in the course of this work.
It will become evident that, great as are the acquisitions of
Philology, her least certain discoveries have been too hastily
applied in alien "matter," that is, in the region of myth. Not
that philology is wholly without place or part in the investigation
of myth, when there is agreement among philologists as to the
meaning of a divine name. In that case a certain amount of light
is thrown on the legend of the bearer of the name, and on its
origin and first home, Aryan, Greek, Semitic, or the like. But how
rare is agreement among philologists!


[1] Baum und Feld Kultus, p. xvii. Kuhn's "epoch-making" book is
Die Herabkunft des Feuers, Berlin, 1859. By way of example of the
disputes as to the original meaning of a name like Prometheus,
compare Memoires de la Societe de Linguistique de Paris, t. iv. p.
336.

[2] See especially Mannhardt's note on Kuhn's theories of Poseidon
and Hermes, B. u. F. K., pp. xviii., xix., note 1.


"The philological method," says Professor Tiele,[1] "is inadequate
and misleading, when it is a question of discovering the ORIGIN of
a myth, or the physical explanation of the oldest myths, or of
accounting for the rude and obscene element in the divine legends
of civilised races. But these are not the only problems of
mythology. There is, for example, the question of the GENEALOGICAL