But now when a wish for a cheaper edition of some of these Essays had been frequently expressed, both by teachers and pupils in schools and universities, I thought the time had come to subject them once again to a more careful sifting, to remove those which had done their work and were no longer wanted, and to add a few which had been published in different periodicals during the last years, hoping thus to enable these two smaller volumes of Selected Essays' to find new friends in places where their more bulky predecessors could gain no access. I have tried to improve these Essays from year to year with the help of the excellent criticisms to which they have been subjected, and by the light of new researches carried on without interruption by myself and by others in the immense domain of the science of ancient thought. In all that is essential they have remained unchanged, but I believe that no honest criticism which has reached me has ever been passed by unnoticed, and that no important materials have been overlooked which have been added to our stock of knowledge since the time when these Essays first saw the light. I have to thank a kind hand, which has lightened many burdens and removed many troubles of my life, for having relieved me of the tiresome task of adapting the old index to this new edition of 'Selected Essays.' OXFORD: December 6, 1880. F. MAX MÜLLER. CONTENTS II. INAUGURAL LECTURE, delivered at Oxford, October 27, Note B. On feminine bases in a, taking s in the Note C. Grammatical forms in Sanskrit correspond- ing to infinitives in Greek and Latin III. INAUGURAL LECTURE, delivered at Strassburg, May 23, Note A. Aryan, as a technical term Note B. On Ocós and Deus Note E. Letter to Professor Fleckeisen, on Ablatives in d with the meaning of Locatives IV. ON SPELLING (Fortnightly Review, April 1876) SELECTED ESSAYS ON LANGUAGE, MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION. 3 INTRODUCTION. (WRITTEN 1867.) MORE than twenty years have passed since my revered friend Bunsen called me one day into his library at Carlton House Terrace, and announced to me with beaming eyes that the publication of the Rig-veda was secure. He had spent many days in seeing the Directors of the East-India Company, and explaining to them the importance of this work,. and the necessity of having it published in England. At last his efforts had been successful, the funds for printing my edition of the text and commentary of the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans had been granted, and Bunsen was the first to announce to me the happy result of his literary diplomacy. Now,' he said, 'you have got a work for life-a large block that will take years to plane and polish.' 'But mind,' he added, let us have from time to time some chips from your workshop.'1 1 This edition of the text and native commentary of the Rig-veda has since been published in six volumes, 4to: vol. i., 1849; vol. ii., 1853; vol. iii., 1856; vol. iv., 1862; vol. v., 1872; vol. vi., 1874. I have tried to follow the advice of my departed friend, and I have published almost every year a few articles on such subjects as had engaged my attention, while prosecuting at the same time, as far as altered circumstances would allow, my edition of the Rig-veda, and of other Sanskrit works connected with it. These articles were chiefly published in the Edinburgh' and 'Quarterly' Reviews, in the 'Oxford Essays,' and 'Macmillan's' and 'Fraser's' Magazines, in the 'Saturday Review,' and in the Times.' In writing them my principal endeavour has been to bring out even in the most abstruse subjects the points of real interest that ought to engage the attention of the public at large, and never to leave a dark nook or corner without attempting to sweep away the cobwebs of false learning, and let in the light of real knowledge. Here, too, I owe much to Bunsen's advice, and when last year I saw in Cornwall the large heaps of copper ore piled up around the mines, like so many heaps of rubbish, while the poor people were asking for coppers to buy bread, I frequently thought of Bunsen's words, Your work is not finished when you have brought the ore from the mine: it must be sifted, smelted, refined, and coined before it can be of real use, and contribute towards the intellectual food of mankind.' I can hardly hope that in this my endeavour to be clear and plain, to follow the threads of every thought to the very ends, and to place the web of every argument clearly and fully before my readers, I have always been successful. Several of the subjects treated in these essays are, no doubt, obscure and difficult but there is no subject, I believe, in the whole realm of human knowledge, that cannot be |