Positions which I never held


Thus Mr. Max Muller never dreamed of 'audaciously misrepresenting' me
when, in four lines, he made two statements about my opinions and my
materials which are at the opposite pole from the accurate (i. 12): 'When
I speak of the Vedic Rishis as primitive, I do not mean what Mr. A. Lang
means when he calls his savages primitive.' But I have stated again and
again that I _don't_ call my savages 'primitive.' Thus 'contemporary
savages may be degraded, they certainly are not primitive.' {93a} 'One
thing about the past of [contemporary] savages we do know: it must have
been a long past.' {93b} 'We do not wish to call savages primitive.'
{93c} All this was written in reply to the very proper caution of Dr.
Fairbairn that 'savages are not primitive.' Of course they are not; that
is of the essence of my theory. I regret the use of the word 'primitive'
even in Primitive Culture. Savages, as a rule, are _earlier_, more
backward than civilised races, as, of course, Mr. Max Muller admits,
where language is concerned. {94} Now, after devoting several pages to
showing in detail how very far from primitive even the Australian tribes
are, might I (if I were ill-natured) not say that Mr. Max Muller
'audaciously misrepresents' me when he avers that I 'call my savages
primitive'? But he never dreamed of misrepresenting me; he only happened
not to understand my position. However, as he complains in his own case,
'it is not pleasant to have to defend positions which one never held' (i.
26), and, indeed, I shall defend no such position.

My adversary next says that my 'savages are of the nineteenth century.'
It is of the essence of my theory that my savages are of many different
centuries. Those described by Herodotus, Strabo, Dio Cassius, Christoval
de Moluna, Sahagun, Cieza de Leon, Brebeuf, Garoilasso de la Vega,
Lafitau, Nicholas Damascenus, Leo Africanus, and a hundred others, are
_not_ of the nineteenth century. This fact is essential, because the
ev

Martha Finley (1828 - 1909) was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. The daughter of Presbyterian minister Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and cousin Maria Theresa Brown Finley, she was born on April 26th, 1828 in Chillicothe, Ohio. Finley wrote many of her books under the psodonym Martha Farquharson. She died in 1909 in Elkton, Maryland, where she moved in 1876.

Anonymous may refer to: Anonymus, the Latin spelling, may refer to: