The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c8.6

c8.6

The difficulties which have beset Comparative Mythology are of various sorts: First, the unquestionable delicacy, clear to the point of fragility, of prehistoric materials. Next, the imagination of scholars who incline to such studies is prone, by the very terms of its existence, to be a little excessive. The first results of the science were so striking and fascinating that its development went on too fast, its conclusions became too hasty. May the shades of Theodor Benfey, Adalbert Kuhn, and Max Müller pardon me if I say that their almost poetic genius did at times take flight from the firm earth into sheer cloudland—“where birds can no longer fly.” Unquestionably they did compare some mythological names because of the faintest and shakiest phonetic resemblances. Intuitive fanciful explanations of the most complicated myths do to some extent masquerade as scientific results in their writings, and in the writings of the school that grew up mushroom-like about them. A science based upon vague and general resemblances of both things and words could not be otherwise than faulty both as to its details and its philosophic generalizations. In brief, Comparative Mythology suffered from the pardonably excessive zeal of its early friends. Since then the pruning knife has kept busy. At the present time this is a subject that should be handled very gingerly by all those who do not know how to winnow the chaff from the grain. But there still is Comparative Mythology, and it is here to stay.