f the same
want of critical caution in his own attempts to identify the gods and
heroes of Greece and Rome with the gods and heroes of India. He begins his
essay,(49) "On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India," with the following
remarks:--

"We cannot justly conclude, by arguments preceding the proof of facts,
that one idolatrous people must have borrowed their deities, rites, and
tenets from another, since gods of all shapes and dimensions may be framed
by the boundless powers of imagination, or by the frauds and follies of
men, in countries never connected; but when features of resemblance, too
strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems of
polytheism, without fancy or prejudice to color them and improve the
likeness, we can scarce help believing that some connection has
immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them.
It is my design in this essay to point out such a resemblance between the
popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians and that of the Hindus; nor
can there be any room to doubt of a great similarity between their strange
religions and that of Egypt, China, Persia, Phrygia, Phoenice, and Syria;
to which, perhaps, we may safely add some of the southern kingdoms, and
even islands of America; while the Gothic system which prevailed in the
northern regions of Europe was not merely similar to those of Greece and
Italy, but almost the same in another dress, with an embroidery of images
apparently Asiatic. From all this, if it be satisfactorily proved, we may
infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished
inhabitants of the primitive world at the time when they deviated, as they
did too early deviate, from the rational adoration of the only true God."

Here, then, in an essay written nearly a hundred years ago by Sir W.
Jones, one of the most celebrated Oriental scholars in England, it might
seem as if we should find the first outlines of that science which is
looked upon as but of to-day or yesterday--the outlines of Comparative
Mythology. But in such an expectation we are disappointed. What we find is
merely a superficial comparison of the mythology of India and that of
other nations, both Aryan and Semitic, without any scientific value,
because carried out without any of those critical tests which alone keep
Comparative Mythology from running riot. This is not intended as casting a
slur on Sir W. Jones. At his time the principles which hav