I had collected a number of epitheta ornantia which I had gathered at random from Mr. Whitney’s writings, such as worthless, futile, absurd, ridiculous, superficial, unsound, high-flown, pretentious, disingenuous, false, and I claimed the honor of every one of them having been presented to me as well as to other scholars by our American assailant. Here, for the first time, Professor Whitney seems staggered at his own vocabulary. However, he is never at a loss how to escape. “As the epithets are translated into German,” he says, “he is quite unable to find the passages to which I may refer.” This is feeble. However, without taxing his memory further, he says that he feels certain it must be a mistake, because he never could have used such language. He never in his life said anything personal, but criticised opinions only. This is “the language of simple-minded consciousness of rectitude.”
What can I do? Professor Whitney ought to know his own writings better than I do, and nothing remains to me, in order to repel the gravest of all accusations, but to publish in the smallest type the following Spicilegium. I must add that in order to do this work once for all, I have complied with Professor Whitney’s request, and read nearly all the articles with which he has honored every one of my writings, and in doing so I believe I have at last found the key to much that seemed to me before almost inexplicable.
Formerly I had simply acquiesced in the statement made by one of his best friends, Professor Weber,[6] who, some ten years ago, when reproving Professor Whitney for the acrimony of his language, said:—
“I believe I am not wrong when I trace it to two causes: first, Professor Whitney found himself forced to acknowledge as erroneous and to withdraw several of his former views and assertions, which he had defended with great assurance, and this disturbed his equanimity; secondly, and still more, there were the miserable political circumstances of North America, which could not but exercise an irritating and galling effect on so warm a patriot as Whitney, an effect which was transferred unconsciously to his literary criticisms and polemics, whenever he felt inclined to it.”
These two scholars were then discussing the question, whether the Nakshatras or the Lunar Zodiac of the Hindus, should be considered as the natural discovery of the Brahmans, or as derived by them, one knows not how, from China, from Chaldæa, or from some other unknown country. They both made great efforts, Professor Weber chiefly in Sanskrit, Professor Whitney in astronomy, in order to substantiate their respective opinions. Professor Weber showed that Professor Whitney was not very strong in Sanskrit, Professor Whitney retaliated by showing that Professor Weber, as a philologue, had attempted to prove that the precession of the equinox was from West to East, and not from East to West. All this, at the time, was amusing to bystanders, but by this time both combatants have probably found out, that the hypothesis of a foreign origin of the Nakshatras, whether Chinese or Babylonian, was uncalled for, or, at all events, is as uncertain to-day as it was ten years ago. I myself, not being an astronomer, had been content to place the evidence from Sanskrit sources before a friend of mine, an excellent astronomer at Oxford, and after discussing the question again and again with him, had arrived at the conviction that there was no excuse for so violent a theory as postulating a foreign origin of the simple triseinadic division of the Nakshatra Zodiac. I quite admit that my practical knowledge of astronomy is very small,[7] but I do believe that my astronomical ignorance was an advantage rather than a disadvantage to me in rightly understanding the first glimmerings of astronomical ideas among the Hindus. Be that as it may, I believe that at the present moment few scholars of repute doubt the native origin of the Nakshatras, and hardly one admits an early influence of Babylonian or Chinese science on India. I stated my case in the preface to the fourth volume of my edition of the Rig-Veda, and if anybody wishes to see what can be done by misrepresentation, let him read what is written there, and what Professor Whitney made of it in his articles in the “Journal of the American Oriental Society.” His misunderstandings are so desperate, that he himself at times feels uneasy, and admits that a more charitable interpretation of what I wanted to say would be possible. When I saw this style of arguing, the utter absence of any regard for what was, or what might charitably be supposed to have been, my meaning, I made up my mind once for all, that that American gentleman should never have an answer from me, and in spite of strong temptation I kept my resolve till now. A man who could say of Lassen that his statements were “wholly and reprehensibly incorrect,” because he said that Colebrooke had shown that the Arabs received their lunar mansions from the Hindus, was not likely to show mercy to any other German professor.
I find, however, by reading one of his Essays, that there is a more special reason why, in his repeated onslaughts on me, both before and after the Rebellion, “he thinks he may dispense with the ordinary courtesies of literary warfare.” I may tell it in his own words:—
“Some one (I may add the name, now, it was the late Professor Goldstücker) falls fiercely upon the work of a company of collaborators; they unite in its defense; thereupon the aggressor reviles them as a mutual admiration society; and Müller repeats the accusation, giving it his own indorsement, and volunteering in addition that of another scholar.”
I might possibly represent the case in a different light, but I am willing to accept the acte d’accusation as it comes from the hand of my accuser; nay more, I am quite ready to plead guilty to it. Only let me explain how I came to commit this great offense. What is here referred to must have happened more than ten years ago. Professor Goldstücker had criticised the Sanskrit Dictionary published by Professors Boehtlingk and Roth, and “the company of collaborators” had united in its defense, only, as Professor Whitney is authorized to assure us, “without any apparent or known concert.” Professor Goldstücker was an old friend of mine, to whom in the beginning of my literary career at Berlin and in Paris, I was indebted for much personal kindness. He helped me when no one else did, and many a day, and many a night too, we had worked together at the same table, he encouraging me to persevere when I was on the point of giving up the study of Sanskrit altogether. When Professor Goldstücker came to England, he undertook a new edition of Wilson’s “Sanskrit Dictionary,” and he very soon became entangled in a controversy with “the company of collaborators” of another Sanskrit dictionary, published at the expense of the Russian Academy. I do not defend him, far from it. He had a weakness very common among scholars;—he could not bear to see a work praised beyond its real merits, and he thought it was his duty to set everything right that seemed to him wrong. He was very angry with me, because I would not join in his condemnation of the St. Petersburg dictionary. I could not do that, because, without being blind to its defects, I considered it a most valuable performance, highly creditable to all its collaborators; nay, I felt bound to say so publicly in England, because it was in England that this excellent work had been unduly condemned. This embittered my relations with Professor Goldstücker, and when the attacks by the company of collaborators on him grew thicker and thicker, while I was treated by them with the greatest civility, he persuaded himself that I had taken part against him, that I had in fact become a sleeping partner in what was then called the “International Praise Insurance Society.” To show him once for all that this was not the case, and that I was perfectly independent of any company of collaborators, I wrote what I wrote at the time. Nor did I do so without having had placed before me several reviews, which certainly seemed to give to the old saying laudari a viro laudato a novel meaning. Having done what I thought I was bound to do for an old friend, I was perfectly prepared to take the consequences of what might seem a rash act, and when I was twitted with having done so anonymously, I, of course, thought it my duty to reprint the article, at the first opportunity, with my name. Now let it be borne in mind that one of the chief culprits, nay, as appeared afterwards, the most eager mischief-maker, was Professor Whitney himself, and let us now hear what he has to say. As if he himself were entirely unconcerned in the matter, instead of having been the chief culprit, he speaks of “cool effrontery;” “magisterial assumption, towards a parcel of naughty boys caught in their naughtiness;” “most discreditable;” “the epithet outrageous is hardly too strong.” Here his breath fails him, and, fortunately for me, the climax ends. And this, we are asked to believe, is not loud and boisterous but gentle and calm: it is in fact “the language of simple-minded consciousness of rectitude!”
These gentle onslaughts were written and published by Professor Whitney ten years ago. I happen to know that a kind of colportage was established to send his articles to gentlemen whom they would not otherwise have reached. I was told again and again, that I ought to put an end to these maneuvers, and yet, during all these years, I thought I could perfectly well afford to take no notice of them. But when after such proceedings Professor Whitney turns round, and challenges me before a public which is not acquainted with these matters, to produce any of the epitheta ornantia I had mentioned as having been applied by him to me, to Renan, to Schleicher, to Oppert, to Bleek, nay, even to Bopp and Burnouf and Lassen, when with all “the simple-minded consciousness of rectitude” he declares, that he was never personal, then I ask, Could I remain silent any longer?
How hard Professor Whitney is driven in order to fix any real blame on me, may be seen from what follows. The article in which the obnoxious passage which, I was told, deprived me of any claim to the amenities of literary intercourse occurs, had been reprinted in the “Indische Studien,” before I reprinted it in the first volume of “Chips.” In reprinting it myself, I had rewritten parts of it, and had also made a few additions. In the “Indische Studien,” on the contrary, it had been reprinted in its original form, and had besides been disfigured by several inaccuracies or misprints. Referring to these, I had said that it had been, as usual, very incorrectly reprinted. Let us hear what an American pleader can make out of this:—