ferring to
the tenth or twelfth century before our era, may some day or other dwindle
down from their high estate, and those who have believed in their extreme
antiquity will then be held up to blame or ridicule, like Sir W. Jones or
Colonel Wilford. This cannot be avoided, for science is progressive, and
does not acknowledge, even in the most distinguished scholars, any claims
to infallibility. One lesson only may we learn from the disappointment
that befell Colonel Wilford, and that is to be on our guard against
anything which in ordinary language would be called "too good to be true."

Comparative Philology has taught us again and again that when we find a
word exactly the same in Greek and Sanskrit, we may be certain that it
cannot be the same word; and the same applies to Comparative Mythology.
The same god or the same hero cannot have exactly the same name in
Sanskrit and Greek, for the simple reason that Sanskrit and Greek have
deviated from each other, have both followed their own way, have both
suffered their own phonetic corruptions; and hence, if they do possess the
same word, they can only possess it either in its Greek or its Sanskrit
disguise. And if that caution applies to Sanskrit and Greek, members of
the same family of language, how much more strongly must it apply to
Sanskrit and Hebrew! If the first man were called in Sanskrit Adima, and
in Hebrew Adam, and if the two were really the same word, then Hebrew and
Sanskrit could not be members of two different families of speech, or we
should be driven to admit that Adam was borrowed by the Jews from the
Hindus for it is in Sanskrit only that adima means the first, whereas in
Hebrew it has no such meaning.

The same remark applies to a curious coincidence pointed out many years
ago by Mr. Ellis in his "Polynesian Researches" (London, 1829, vol. ii. p.
38). We there read:--

"A very generally received Tahitian tradition is that the first human pair
were made by Taaroa, the principal deity formerly acknowledged by the
nation. On more than one occasion I have listened to the details of the
people respecting his work of creation. They say that, after Taaroa had
formed the world, he created man out of araea, red earth, which was also
the food of man until bread first was made. In connection with this some
relate that Taaroa one day called for the man by name. When he came, he
caused him to fall asleep, and, while he slept, he took out one of his
_ivi_, or b