.. There
is not the shadow of a likeness with a bear. You will now perceive the
influence of words on thought, or the spontaneous growth of mythology.
The name _Riksha_ was applied to the bear in the sense of the bright
fuscous animal, and in that sense it became most popular in the later
Sanskrit, and in Greek and Latin. The same name, "in the sense of the
bright ones," had been applied by the Vedic poets to the stars in
general, and more particularly to that constellation which in the
northern parts of India was the most prominent. The etymological
meaning, "the bright stars," was forgotten; the popular meaning of
Riksha (bear) was known to every one. And thus it happened that, when
the Greeks had left their central home and settled in Europe, they
retained the name of Arktos for the same unchanging stars; but, not
knowing why those stars had originally received that name, they ceased
to speak of them as _arktoi_, or many bears, and spoke of them as the
Bear.'

This is a very good example of the philological way of explaining a
myth. If once we admit that _ark_, or _arch_, in the sense of 'bright'
and of 'bear,' existed, not only in Sanskrit, but in the undivided
Aryan tongue, and that the name Riksha, bear, 'became in that sense
most popular in Greek and Latin,' this theory seems more than
plausible. But the explanation does not look so well if we examine,
not only the Aryan, but all the known myths and names of the Bear and
the other stars. Professor Sayce, a distinguished philologist, says we
may not compare non-Aryan with Aryan myths. We have ventured to do so,
however, in this paper, and have shown that the most widely severed
races give the stars animal names, of which the _Bear_ is one example.
Now, if the philologists wish to persuade us that it was decaying and
half-forgotten language which caused men to give the names of animals
to the stars, they must prove their case on an immense collection of
instances--on Iowa, Kaneka, Murri, Maori, Brazilian, Peruvian,
Mexican, Egyptian, Eskimo, instances. It would be the most amazing
coincidence in the world if forgetfulness of the meaning of their own
speech compelled tribes of every tongue and race to recognise men and
beasts, cranes, cockatoos, serpents, monkeys, bears, and so forth in
the heavens. How came the misunderstood words always to be
misunderstood in the same way? Does the philological explanation
account for the enormous majority of the phenomena? If it