Irritating Conduct of Mannhardt
Nothing irritates philological mythologists so much, nothing has injured them so much in the esteem of the public which ‘goes into these things a little,’ as the statement that their competing etymologies and discrepant interpretations of mythical names are mutually destructive. I have been told that this is ‘a mean argument.’ But if one chemical analyst found bismuth where another found iridium, and a third found argon, the public would begin to look on chemistry without enthusiasm; still more so if one chemist rarely found anything but inevitable bismuth or omnipresent iridium. Now Mannhardt uses this ‘mean argument.’