530 



NA TURE 



[April 7. 189? 



English body. Somedf the letters which passed between 

 Malpighi and the Royal Society appear in the " Opera 

 Omnia." But many others are preserved in the archives 

 of the Society, and I thought that it would be well if all 

 these saw the light. I accordingly have added these 

 letters — some from Malpighi to the Society or to one or 

 other of the Secretaries, others from the latter to Mal- 

 pighi, in all forty-two in number — as an Appendix to what 

 I have written. In doing this I received most valuable 

 assistance from Mr. Herbert Ri.x, the late Assistant 

 Secretary to the Society. Probably some printer's and 

 other verbal errors have escaped the notice of both of us. 



Lastly the volume contains an account, by L. Frati, 

 of the various medals issued in honour of Malpighi, and a 

 bibliography, by C. Frati, both of Malpighi's own writings 

 and of various writings about him. 



Dr. Pizzoli may certainly be congratulated on having 

 produced an interesting and useful volume, the reading 

 of which cannot but do good. To stand back from the 

 present rush of inquiry and controversy, to look across two 

 centuries at a great man, struggling with the beginnings of 

 problems which have since come down to us, some in part 

 solved, but others with their solutions put still further of!" 

 by the very increase of knowledge, is a useful lesson to every 

 one of us. In any case the great men who in the past 

 opened up for us paths of inquiry — and among these Mal- 

 pighi takes a foremost place — ought not to remain mere 

 names, known to us chiefly through being attached to 

 some structure or to some piece of apparatus. We ought- 

 all of us to be able to form some idea of what they were 

 and what they thought. The present volume will be a 

 great help to any one, who can read Italian, towards 

 such an end in respect to Marcello Malpighi. 



M. Foster. 



THE ARYO-SEMITIC SCHOOL OF 

 MYTHOLOGY. 

 Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology, with special 

 reference to the recent mythological tuorks of the Right 

 Hon. Prof. F. Max Midler and Mr. Andrew Lang. 

 By R. Brown, junior. Pp. xvi + 288. (London : 

 Williams and Norgate, 1898.) 



IT has been a well-known fact for many years past that 

 the breach between the linguistic and anthropological 

 schools of mythology was growing steadily, and it was 

 evident that a serious rupture must eventually occur. It 

 was felt that the venerable linguistic method was being 

 slowly but surely undermined by many workers, and that 

 the anthropologists were consolidating their position in a 

 remarkable manner. The rupture, however, might have 

 been delayed, and the two schools might have made 

 concessions mutually in the interests of the peace and 

 progress of the science, the advancement of which each 

 party professed to have at heart, had they been allowed 

 to do so. But it was not to be, and the immediate cause 

 of battle between the rival schools was the publication of 

 Prof. Max Miiller's " Contributions to the Science of 

 Mythology," wherein the great writer discussed with his 

 characteristic learning the subjects on which he is the 

 first authority at present. This work was violently 

 attacked by Mr. Andrew Lang, who, it cannot be denied, 

 impressed many by his skill in word trickery and brilliant 

 NO. I4S4. VOL. 57] 



phrases, and the unwary reader may quite well be for- 

 given if he was led astray by a flood of journalistic 

 eloquence. Those, however, who had any knowledge of the 

 subject saw at once that Mr. Lang did not represent the 

 anthropological school, and that he had no right to pretend 

 to do so ; for as is well known he has shown no evidence 

 that he possesses any special knowledge of any one of 

 the subjects which go to form that complex whole called 

 mythology. Prof. Max Miiller may have made mistakes, 

 but he knows his languages ; Mr. Lang has a competent 

 knowledge of no Oriental language, and can never now 

 acquire even a working hold upon the dialects of the 

 East, wherein Prof. Max Miiller was an authority thirty 

 years ago. To us it seems doubtful if Mr. Lang has 

 sufficient knowledge of Eastern linguistics to understand 

 all the points of Prof. Max Miiller's position. In any case • 

 Mr. Lang's attack upon the Oxford Professor was futile, 

 and all it served to do was to show that Mr. Lang had mis- 

 taken his own powers, and that he had without any proper 

 authority assumed to himself the right to act as spokes- 

 man for the anthropological school of mythology. Now, it 

 seems, another combatant has joined in the fray in the 

 person of Mr. Robert Brown, junior, who, though wishing 

 to support Prof. Max Miiller against Mr. Lang, has a few 

 objections to urge against the venerable scholar, and an 

 axe of his own to grind. Mr. Brown, like Mr. Lang, 

 makes himself the spokesman of a " School," whichy 

 he says, " for present purposes, I may style the Aryo- 

 Semitic," and though he recognises " the vast results 

 that have sprung from the scientific application of Aryan, 

 linguistics," he is " in entire sympathy with the researches 

 of anthropology in general, and of folk-lore in particular." 

 The cynical outsider will have some difficulty in under- 

 standmg the position of such a Mr. Facing-both-ways. 

 As far as we can see, Mr. Brown has printed his book to 

 prove that Hellenic mythology owes a pretty big debt 

 to Semitic peoples ; but then, no one, so far as we know, 

 ever doubted this obvious fact. Mr. Brown has also 

 taken a great dislike to Mr. Lang, the evidence of which 

 forces itself upon the reader in several places. Mr- 

 Brown's dislike is so strong that in order to relieve his 

 feelings, he is obliged to write a number of childish 

 things, which any friend of his wouJd have excised frorrk 

 his manuscript before it was printed. Mr. Brown also- 

 falls foul of Mr. Frazer, the author of the " Golden. 

 Bough," and when, like Mr. Silas Wegg, Mr. Brown is 

 obliged to " drop into poetry," and to print in a book 

 intended to be serious the silly lines (p. 14), 



Mr. Frazer, Mr. Frazer, what a man you. are ! 



1 never thought when you set out that you would " go so far,"^ 



we can only regret that Prof. Max Miiller has been 

 "taken up" by Mr. Brown. Moreover, to talk of a 

 " Covent-garden-market theory of mythology" (p. 15) is 

 hardly the language which we should expect from one 

 who calls himself a supporter, and, in some respects, a 

 disciple of Prof. Max Miiller. 



It is time to ask now what Mr. Brown's qualifications 

 are for his self-assumed role of defender of Prof. Max. 

 Miiller. In reading over his pages we see that a great 

 many languages are quoted, and that a vigorous attempt 

 has been made by Mr. Brown to mark the quantities of 

 the vowels which occur in the extracts ; the pages look 

 not only learned but terriWe. But it is one thing to be; 



