or Heitsi Eibib, or Pundjel. By Mr. Max
Muller's system such names are old words, of meanings long ago generally
lost by the speakers of each language, but analysable by 'true scholars'
into their original significance. That will usually be found by the
philologists to indicate 'the inevitable Dawn,' or Sun, or Night, or the
like, according to the taste and fancy of the student.

To all this a reply is urged in the following pages. In agreement with
Curtius and many other scholars, we very sincerely doubt almost all
etymologies of old proper names, even in Greek or Sanskrit. We find
among philologists, as a rule, the widest discrepancies of
interpretation. Moreover, every name must mean _something_. Now,
whatever the meaning of a name (supposing it to be really ascertained),
very little ingenuity is needed to make it indicate one or other aspect
of Dawn or Night, of Lightning or Storm, just as the philologist pleases.
Then he explains the divine or heroic being denoted by the name--as Dawn
or Storm, or Fire or Night, or Twilight or Wind--in accordance with his
private taste, easily accommodating the facts of the myth, whatever they
may be, to his favourite solution. We rebel against this kind of logic,
and persist in studying the myth in itself and in comparison with
analogous myths in every accessible language. Certainly, if divine and
heroic names--Artemis or Pundjel--_can_ be interpreted, so much is
gained. But the myth may be older than the name.

As Mr. Hogarth points out, Alexander has inherited in the remote East the
myths of early legendary heroes. We cannot explain these by the analysis
of the name of Alexander! Even if the heroic or divine name can be shown
to be the original one (which is practically impossible), the meaning of
the name helps us little. That Zeus means 'sky' cannot conceivably
explain scores of details in the very composite legend of Zeus--say, the
story of Zeus, Demeter, and the Ram. Moreover, we decline to admit that,
if a divine name mean

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.

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