not very far from Renan's own: 'What is peculiar to the Aryan race is their mythological phraseology, superadded to their polytheism; what is peculiar to the Semitic race is their belief in a national god—in a god chosen by his people, as his people had been chosen by him.'[1]
Mythological science has at the present day ceased to hold fast to the divisions of race in relation to the formation of myths. At least it has acted so in relation to that class of nations which, though not exhibiting a single race or several closely connected races, has (faute de mieux) been termed the Turanian—a purely negative designation, which only asserts its members to be neither Semites nor Aryans. Max Müller himself wishes to see the Turanian mythology investigated by the same method which is employed in the Aryan; and he is not shaken by the result, which exhibits a striking identity between Aryan and Turanian myths. He is not shaken even by consideration of the psychological force, which must be taken into account in the first instance in the criticism and valuation of myths. 'If people cannot bring themselves to believe in solar and celestial myths among the Hindûs and Greeks,' says this leading investigator, 'let them study the folk-lore of the Semitic and Turanian races. I know there is, on the part of some of our most distinguished scholars, the same objection against comparing Aryan to non-Aryan myths, as there is against any attempt to explain the features of Sanskrit or Greek by a reference to Finnish or Bask. In one sense that objection is well founded, for nothing would create greater confusion than to ignore the genealogical principle as the only safe one in a scientific classification of languages, of myths, and even of customs. We must first classify our myths and legends, as we classify our languages and dialects . . . But there is in a comparative study of languages and myths not only a philological, but also a philosophical
- ↑ Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, I. 370.
