Like Mr. Max Müller, I do not care for the vague word ‘fetishism,’ otherwise Mannhardt’s remark exactly represents my own position, the anthropological position. [{42a}] Now, Mr. Max Müller does not like that position. That position he assails. It was Mannhardt’s, however, when he wrote the book quoted, and, so far, Mannhardt was not absolutely one of Mr. Max Müller’s ‘supporters’—unless I am one. ‘I have even been accused,’ says Mr. Max Müller, ‘of intentionally ignoring or suppressing Mannhardt’s labours. How charitable!’ (1. xvii.) I trust, from our author’s use of the word todtschweigen, that this uncharitable charge was made in Germany.
Mannhardt
Mannhardt, for a time, says Mr. Max Müller, ‘expressed his mistrust in some of the results of comparative mythology’ (1. xvii.). Indeed, I myself quote him to that very effect. [{42b}] Not only ‘some of the results,’ but the philological method itself was distrusted by Mannhardt, as by Curtius. ‘The failure of the method in its practical working lies in a lack of the historical sense,’ says Mannhardt. [{42c}] Mr. Max Müller may have, probably has, referred to these sayings of Mannhardt; or, if he has not, no author is obliged to mention everybody who disagrees with him. Mannhardt’s method was mainly that of folklore, not of philology. He examined peasant customs and rites as ‘survivals’ of the oldest paganism. Mr. Frazer applies Mannhardt’s rich lore to the explanation of Greek and other rites in The Golden Bough, that entrancing book. Such was Mannhardt’s position (as I shall prove at large) when he was writing his most famous works. But he ‘returned at last to his old colours’ (1. xvii.) in Die lettischen Sonnenmythen (1875). In 1880 Mannhardt died. Mr. Max Müller does not say whether Mannhardt, before a decease deeply regretted, recanted his heretical views about the philological method, and his expressed admiration of the study of the lower races as ‘an invaluable instrument.’ One would gladly read a recantation so important. But Mr. Max Müller does tell us that ‘if I did not refer to his work in my previous contributions to the science of mythology the reason was simple enough. It was not, as has been suggested, my wish to suppress it (todtschweigen), but simply my want of knowledge of the materials with which he dealt’ (German popular customs and traditions) ‘and therefore the consciousness of my incompetence to sit in judgment on his labours.’ Again, we are told that there was no need of criticism or praise of Mannhardt. He had Mr. Frazer as his prophet—but not till ten years after his death.
Mannhardt’s Letters
‘Mannhardt’s state of mind with regard to the general principles of comparative philology has been so exactly my own,’ says Mr. Max Müller, that he cites Mannhardt’s letters to prove the fact. But as to the application to myth of the principles of comparative philology, Mannhardt speaks of ‘the lack of the historical sense’ displayed in the practical employment of the method. This, at least, is ‘not exactly’ Mr. Max Müller’s own view. Probably he refers to the later period when Mannhardt ‘returned to his old colours.’
The letters of Mannhardt, cited in proof of his exact agreement with Mr. Max Müller about comparative philology, do not, as far as quoted, mention the subject of comparative philology at all (1. xviii-xx.). Possibly ‘philology’ is here a slip of the pen, and ‘mythology’ may be meant.
Mannhardt says to Müllenhoff (May 2, 1876) that he has been uneasy ‘at the extent which sun myths threaten to assume in my comparisons.’ He is opening ‘a new point of view;’ materials rush in, ‘so that the sad danger seemed inevitable of everything becoming everything.’ In Mr. Max Müller’s own words, written long ago, he expressed his dread, not of ‘everything becoming everything’ (a truly Heraclitean state of affairs), but of the ‘omnipresent Sun and the inevitable Dawn appearing in ever so many disguises.’ ‘Have we not,’ he asks, ‘arrived both at the same conclusion?’ Really, I do not know! Had Mannhardt quite cashiered ‘the corn-spirit,’ who, perhaps, had previously threatened to ‘become everything’? He is still in great vigour, in Mr. Frazer’s Golden Bough, and Mr. Frazer is Mannhardt’s disciple. But where, all this time, is there a reference by Mannhardt to ‘the general principles of comparative philology’? Where does he accept ‘the omnipresent Sun and the inevitable Dawn’? Why, he says the reverse; he says in this letter that he is immeasurably removed from accepting them at all as Mr. Max Müller accepts them!
‘I am very far from looking upon all myths as psychical reflections of physical phenomena, still less as of exclusively solar or meteorological phenomena, like Kuhn, Schwartz, Max Müller and their school.’ What a queer way of expressing his agreement with Mr. Max Müller!
The Professor expostulates with Mannhardt (1. xx.):—‘Where has any one of us ever done this?’ Well, when Mannhardt said ‘all myths,’ he wrote colloquially. Shall we say that he meant ‘most myths,’ ‘a good many myths,’ ‘a myth or two here and there’? Whatever he meant, he meant that he was ‘still more than very far removed from looking upon all myths’ as Mr. Max Müller does.
Mannhardt’s next passage I quote entire and textually from Mr. Max Müller’s translation:—