“In this he was too little mindful of the requirements of fair dealing; for he leaves any one who may take the trouble to turn to the ‘Indische Studien,’ and compare the version there given with that found among the ‘Chips,’ to infer that all the discordances he shall discover are attributable to Weber’s incorrectness, whereas they are in fact mainly alterations which Müller has made in his own reprint; and the real inaccuracies are perfectly trivial in character and few in number—such printer’s blunders as are rarely avoided by Germans who print English, or by English who print German. We should doubtless be doing Müller injustice if we maintained that he deliberately meant Weber to bear the odium of all the discrepancies which a comparer might find; but he is equally responsible for the result, if it is owing only to carelessness on his part.”

What will the intelligent gentlemen of the jury say to this? Because I complained of such blunders as altars being “construed,” instead of “constructed,” “enlightoned” instead of “enlightened,” “gratulate” instead of “congratulate,” and similar inaccuracies, occurring in an unauthorized reprint of my article, therefore I really wanted to throw the odium of what I had myself written in the original article, and what was, as far as the language was concerned, perfectly correct, on Professor Weber. Can forensic ingenuity go further? If America possesses many such powerful pleaders, we wonder how life can be secure.

Having thus ascertained whence illæ lacrumæ, I must now produce a small bottle at least of the tears themselves which Professor Whitney has shed over me, and over men far better than myself, all of which, he says, were never meant to be personal, and most of which have evidently been quite dried up in his memory.

I begin with Bopp. “Although his mode of working is wonderfully genial, his vision of great acuteness, and his instinct a generally trustworthy guide, he is liable to wander far from the safe track, and has done not a little labor over which a broad and heavy mantle of charity needs to be drawn” (I. 208).

M. Renan and myself have “committed the very serious error of inverting the mutual relation of dialectic variety and uniformity of speech, thus turning topsy-turvy the whole history of linguistic development. . . . . It may seem hardly worth while to spend any effort in refuting an opinion of which the falsity will have been made apparent by the exposition already given” (p. 177).

In another place (p. 284) M. Renan is told that his objection to the doctrine of a primitive Indo-European monosyllabism is noticed, not for any cogency which it possesses, but only on account of the respectability of M. Renan.

Lassen and Burnouf, who thought that the geographical reminiscences in the first chapter of the Vendidad had a historical foundation, are told that their “claim is baseless, and even preposterous” (p. 201). Yet what Professor Whitney’s knowledge of Zend must be, we may judge from what he says of Burnouf’s literary productions. “It is well known,” he says, “that the great French scholar produced two or three bulky volumes upon the Avesta.” I know of one bulky volume only, “Commentaire sur la Yaçna,” tome i., Paris, 1833, but that may be due to my lamentable ignorance.

“Professor Oppert simply exposes himself in the somewhat ridiculous attitude of one who knocks down, with gestures of awe and fright, a tremendous man of straw of his own erecting (I. 218). His erroneous assumptions will be received with most derisive incredulity (I. 221); the incoherence and aimlessness of his reasonings (I. 223); an ill-considered tirade, a tissue of misrepresentations of linguistic science (I. 237). He cannot impose upon us by his authority, nor attract us by his eloquence: his present essay is as heavy in style, as loose and vague in expression, unsound in argument, arrogant in tone” (I. 238). The motive imputed to Professor Oppert in writing his Essay is that “he is a Jew, and wanted to stand up for the Shemites.”

In his last work Professor Whitney takes credit for having at last rescued the Science of Language from the incongruities and absurdities of European scholars.

Now on page 119 Professor Whitney very properly reproves another scholar, Professor Goldstücker, for having laughed at the German school of Vedic interpretation. “He emphasizes it,” he says, “dwells upon it, reiterates it three or four times in a paragraph, as if there lay in the words themselves some potent argument. Any uninformed person would say, we are confident, that he was making an unworthy appeal to English prejudice against foreign men and foreign ways.” Professor Whitney finishes up with charging Professor Goldstücker, who was himself a German—I beg my reader’s pardon, but I am only quoting from a North American Review—with “fouling his own nest.” Professor Whitney, I believe, studied in a German university. Did he never hear of a ’cute little bird, who does to the nest in which he was reared, what he says Professor Goldstücker did to his own?

Haeckel is called a headlong Darwinian (I. 293), Schleicher is infected with Darwinism (I. 294), “he represents a false and hurtful tendency (I. 298), he is blind to the plainest truths, and employs a mode of reasoning in which there is neither logic nor common sense (I. 323). His essays are unsound, illogical, untrue; but there are still incautious sciolists by whom every error that has a great name attached to it is liable to be received as pure truth, and who are ever specially attracted by good hearty paradoxes” (I. 330).

What a contrast between the rattling discharges of these mitrailleuses at the beginning of the war, and the whining and whimpering assurance now made by the American professor, that he never in his life said anything personal or offensive!

WHY I OUGHT NOT TO HAVE ANSWERED.

Professor Whitney, like an experienced advocate, passes over in silence the most serious faults which I had pointed out in his “Lectures,” and after he has attempted—with what success, let others judge—to clear himself from a few, he turns round, and thinks it best once for all to deny my competency to judge him. And why?

“I do not consider Professor Müller capable of judging me justly,” he says. And why? “Because I have felt moved, on account of his extraordinary popularity and the exceptional importance attached to his utterances, to criticise him more frequently than anybody else.”

Is not this the height of forensic ingenuity? Because A has criticised B, therefore B cannot criticise A justly. In that case A has indeed nothing to do but to criticise B C D to Z, and then no one in the world can criticise him justly. I have watched many controversies, I have observed many stratagems and bold movements to cover a retreat, but nothing to equal this. Professor Pott was very hard on Professor Curtius, but he did not screen himself by denying to his adversary the competency to criticise him in turn. What would Newman have said, if Kingsley had tried to shut him up with such a remark, a remark really worthy of one literary combatant only, the famous Pastor Goeze, the critic of Lessing?

WHY I OUGHT TO BE GRATEFUL.

I am glad to say that we now come to a more amusing part of this controversy. After I had been told that because I was attacked first, therefore I was not able to criticise Professor Whitney’s writings justly, I am next told that I ought to be very grateful for having been attacked, nay, I am told that, in my heart of hearts, I am really very grateful indeed. I must quote this passage in full:—

“During the last eight years I have repeatedly taken the opportunity accurately to examine and frankly to criticise the views of others and the arguments by which they were supported. I have done this more particularly against eminent and famous men whom the public has accustomed itself to regard as guides in matters referring to the Science of Language. What unknown and uncared for people say, is of no consequence whatever; but if Schleicher and Steinthal, Renan and Müller, teach what to me seems an error, and try to support it by proofs, then surely I am not only justified, but called upon to refute them, if I can. Among these students the last-named seems to be of different opinion. In his article, ‘My Reply to Mr. Darwin,’ published in the March number of the ‘Deutsche Rundschau,’ he thinks it necessary to read me a severe lecture on my presumption, although he also flatters me by the hint that my custom of criticising the most eminent men only is appreciated, and those whom I criticise feel honored by it.”

and as to M. Renan, does his silence mean more than—

Ἐμοὶ δ’ ἔλασσον Ζηνὸς ἢ μηδὲν μέλει

Professor Whitney may not be aware of this, or have forgotten it; but a fertile writer like him ought at all events to have a good memory. In his reply, p. 262, he tells us, for instance, as one of his latest discoveries, that in studying language, we ought to begin with modern languages, and that when we come to more ancient periods, we should always infer similar causes from similar effects, and never admit new forces or new processes, except when those which we know prove totally inefficient. In my own Lectures I had laid it down as one of the fundamental principles of the Science of Language that “what is real in modern formations must be admitted as possible in ancient formations, and that what has been found true on a small scale may be true on a larger scale.” I had devoted considerable space to the elucidation of this principle, and what did Professor Whitney write at that time (1865)?

“The conclusion sounds almost like a bathos; we should have called these, not fundamental principles, but obvious considerations, which hardly required any illustration” (p. 243).

Here is another instance of failure of memory. He assures us:—

“That he would never venture to charge anybody with being influenced in his literary labors by personal vanity and a desire of notoriety, except perhaps after giving a long string of proofs—nay, not even then” (p. 274).

Yet it was he who said of (I. 131) the late Professor Goldstücker that—

“Mere denunciation of one’s fellows and worship of Hindu predecessors do not make one a Vedic scholar,”

and that, after he had himself admitted that “no one would be found to question his (Professor Goldstücker’s) immense learning, his minute accuracy, and the sincerity and intensity of his convictions.”

By misunderstanding and sometimes, unless I am greatly mistaken, willfully closing his eyes to the real views of other scholars, Professor Whitney has created for himself a rich material for the display of his forensic talents. Like the poor Hindu grammarian, we are first made to say the opposite of what we said, and are then brow-beaten as holding opinions “obviously and grossly incorrect and hardly worth quoting.” All this is clever, but is it right? Is it even wise?

Much of what I have here written sounds very harsh, I know; but what is one to do? I have that respect for language and for my friends, and, may I add, for myself, to avoid harsh and abusive words, as much as possible. I do not believe in the German saying, Auf einen groben Klotz gehört ein grober Keil. I have tried hard, throughout the whole of my literary career, and even in this “Defense,” not to use the weapons that have been used against me during so many years of almost uninterrupted attacks. Much is allowed, however, in self-defense that would be blamable in an unprovoked attack, and if I have used here and there the cool steel, I trust that clean wounds, inflicted by a sharp sword, will heal sooner than gashes made with rude stones and unpolished flints.

Even now, though I am sorry for what Professor Whitney has done, I am not angry with him. He has great opportunities in America, but also great temptations. There is no part of the civilized world where a scholar might do more useful work than in America, by the bold and patient exploration of languages but little known, and rapidly disappearing. Professor Whitney may still do for the philology of his country what Dr. Bleek has done for the languages of Africa at the sacrifice of a lifelong expatriation, alas! I have just time to add, at the sacrifice of his life.

It was because I thought Professor Whitney capable of rendering useful service to the Science of Language in America that I forbore so long, that I never for years noticed his intentional rudeness and arrogance, that I received him, when he called on me at Oxford, with perfect civility, that I assisted him when he wanted my help in procuring copies of MSS. at Oxford. I could well afford to forget what had happened, and I tried for many years to give him credit for honorable, though mistaken, motives in making himself the mouthpiece of what he calls the company of collaborators.

In fact, if he had arraigned me again and again before a tribunal of competent judges, I should gladly have left my peers to decide between me and my American traducer. But when he cleverly changed the venue and brought his case before a tribunal where forensic skill was far more likely to carry the day than complicated evidence that could be appreciated by a special jury only, then, at last, I had to break through my reserve. It was not exactly cowardice that had kept me so long from encountering the most skillful of American swordsmen, but when the duel was forced upon me, I determined it should be fought out once for all.

I hope I have thus at last given Professor Whitney that satisfaction which he has claimed from me for so many years; and let me assure him that I part with him without any personal feeling of bitterness or hostility. I have grudged him no praise in former days, and whatever useful work we may receive from him in future, whether on the languages of India or of America, his books shall always receive at my hands the same justice as if they had been written by my best friend. I have never belonged to any company of collaborators, and never shall; but whosoever serves in the noble army for the conquest of truth, be he private or general, will always find in me a faithful friend, and, if need be, a fearless defender. I gladly conclude with the words of old Fairfax (Bulk and Selvedge, 1674): “I believe no man wishes with more earnestness than I do, that all men of learning and knowledge were men of kindness and sweetness, and that such as can outdo others would outlove them too; especially while self bewhispers us, that it stands us all in need to be forgiven as well as to forgive.”