It is he who, unsolicited, professes himself 'much more our ally than our
adversary.' It is he who proclaims that Mr. Max Midler's central
hypothesis is erroneous, and who makes 'no objection' to my idea that it
is 'builded on the sand.' It is he who assigns essential merits to our
method, and I fail to find that he 'strongly declines the honour' of our
alliance. The passage about 'braves gens' explicitly does not refer to
us.

Our Errors

In 1887, I was not careful to quote what Professor Tiele had said against
us. First, as to our want of novelty. That merit, I think, I had never
claimed. I was proud to point out that we had been anticipated by
Eusebius of Caesarea, by Fontenelle, and doubtless by many others. We
repose, as Professor Tiele justly says, on the researches of Dr. Tylor.
At the same time it is Professor Tiele who constantly speaks of 'the new
school,' while adding that he himself had freely opposed Mr. Max Muller's
central hypothesis, 'a disease of language,' in Dutch periodicals. The
Professor also censures our 'exclusiveness,' our 'narrowness,' our 'songs
of triumph,' our use of parody (M. Gaidoz republished an old one, not to
my own taste; I have also been guilty of 'The Great Gladstone Myth') and
our charge that our adversaries neglect ethnological material. On this I
explain myself later. {28a}

Uses of Philology

Our method (says Professor Tiele) 'cannot answer all the questions which
the science of mythology must solve, or, at least, must study.' Certainly
it makes no such pretence.

Professor Tiele then criticises Sir George Cox and Mr. Robert Brown,
junior, for their etymologies of Poseidon. Indiscreet followers are not
confined to our army alone. Now, the use of philology, we learn, is to
discourage such etymological vagaries as those of Sir G. Cox. {28b} _We_
also discourage them--severely. But we are warned that philology really
has discovered 'some undeniably certain etymologies' of divine names.
Well, I also say, 'Philology alone can tell whether Zeus Asterios, or
Adonis, or Zeus Labrandeus is originally a Semitic or a Greek divine
name; here she is the Pythoness we must all consult.' {29a} And is it my
fault that, even in this matter, the Pythonesses utter such strangely
discrepant oracles? Is Athene from a Zend root (Benfey), a Greek root
(Curtius), or to be interpreted by Sanskrit Ahana (Max Muller)? Meanwhile
Professor Tiele repeats that, in a search for