Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/60

 We have now unfolded the character of onr evidence. It is based, first on the testimony of innumerable reports corroborated by recurrence or coincidence; next on the testimony of institutions. If this evidence seems inadequate, what have we to fall back upon? Merely the conjectures of philologists; we must follow the star of etymological guesses after which our fathers, the old antiquaries, went wandering. It may be said, with truth, that modern philology has a method far more scientific and patient than the random practice of old etymology. Granted, but a glance at the various philological interpretations, for example, of Greek mythical names, will shew that philologists still differ on most mythical points where difference is possible. When applied to the interpretation of the past of human thought and human history, philology is a most uncertain guide. Thus, Schrader observes (Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte, p. 431), that comparative philology has as yet contributed very little certain knowledge to the study of mythology. In the region of history, as he shews, the best philologists contradict each other and themselves, as to the metals possessed by the early Aryans. Yet philology is the science which claims possession of "the only method that can lead to scientific results," results which differ with the views of each individual scholar. We are now able to prove, from the social and political institutions of savages, their belief in human descent from animals, in kinship with animals, in powers of metamorphosis, in the efficacy of incantations, and in the possibility of communion with the dead. Savages also believe in the possibility of "personal intercourse between man and animal, "the savage man's idea of the nature of those lower animals is very different from the civilised man's" (Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 467; ii. 230). Mr. Tylor gives many curious observances, as proofs of the