Contributions to the Science of Mythology. By F. Max Muller.
2 vols. (Longmans and Co.)—Professor Max Muller stoutly defends, with the help of the learning in which he has few rivals, the theory of a comparative mythology founded on etymology— if a very rough description may pass—with which his name is identified. What is popularly known as the "Solar Myth' finds in him its latest and most enthusiastic champion, as it found one of its earliest exponents. He has suffered, as other distinguished founders have suffered, from the irregular and unbalanced efforts of his followers. The province of myth may be willingly con- ceded to the sun and the moon, the dawn and the darkness, but we are inclined to rebel when these nature powers invade the realm of literature, and even of history. We have seen books, far too elaborate and costly to be passed over as humorous exercises, in which such personages as Charlemagne are identified with the sun. Between these extreme fanatics and sober thinkers such as Professor Max Muller comes a class which makes a demand less extravagant indeed, but still unbearable. This, too, has its moderates and its progressives. The first would content them- selves with making a solar myth out of Paris and Helen ; the other would find the same significance in the Persian war. Pro- fessor Max Milner is a scholar whom every one will treat with respect. Possibly be, too, built up his theories too high, but he always has a solid foundation of knowledge for them; these two volumes furnish, frora beginning to end, ample proofs of its solidity and its extent.
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