ence mythologique et de 1'exactitude dont elle
ne peut pas plus se passer que les autres sciences, contre une methode
qui ne fait que glisser sur des problemes de premiere importance," &c.

'Speaking of the whole method followed by those who actually claimed to
have founded a new school of mythology, he says (p. 21):--

'"Je crains toutefois que ce qui s'y trouve de vrai ne soit connu depuis
longtemps, et que la nouvelle ecole ne peche par exclusionisme tout
autant que les ainees qu'elle combat avec tant de conviction."

'That is exactly what I have always said. What is there new in comparing
the customs and myths of the Greeks with those of the barbarians? Has
not even Plato done this? Did anybody doubt that the Greeks, nay even
the Hindus, were uncivilised or savages, before they became civilised or
tamed? Was not this common-sense view, so strongly insisted on by
Fontenelle and Vico in the eighteenth century, carried even to excess by
such men as De Brosses (1709-1771)? And have the lessons taught to De
Brosses by his witty contemporaries been quite forgotten? Must his
followers be told again and again that they ought to begin with a
critical examination of the evidence put before them by casual
travellers, and that mythology is as little made up of one and the same
material as the crust of the earth of granite only?'

Reply

Professor Tiele wrote in 1885. I do not remember having claimed his
alliance, though I made one or two very brief citations from his remarks
on the dangers of etymology applied to old proper names. {25a} To
citations made by me later in 1887 Professor Tiele cannot be referring.
{25b} Thus I find no proof of any claim of alliance put forward by me,
but I do claim a right to quote the Professor's published words. These I
now translate:--{25c}

'What goes before shows adequately that I am an ally, much more than an
adversary, of the new school, whether styled ethnological or
anthropological. It is true that all the ideas advanced by its partisans
are not so new as they seem. Some of us--I mean among those who, without
being vassals of the old school, were formed by it--had not only remarked
already the defects of the reigning method, but had perceived the
direction in which researches should be made; they had even begun to say
so. This does not prevent the young school from enjoying the great merit
of having first formulated with precision, and with the energy of
conviction