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The Terminology of the Vedas 5
palpable,
identity to Indian names of localities. The colonization of
Greece by the Indians is not the just conclusion to be drawn from
the specific topographical relations, which Mr. Pocock has traced,
independently of the common origin of Greek and Sanskrit
languages. The identity of Greek and Sanskrit stock is a general
formula which cannot be any further proved by such specific
connections. The fact of the identity of several systems of
mythologies and languages also leads to a distinct general
proposition—the uniformity of human nature. Beyond the value
of this general proposition, the specific mythological and
philological facts have no independent value. Their value is
subsumed in the general proposition. These particular propositions;
when right,
cannot add
to the value of the general proposition which
they go to form, but, when wrong, they
can materially vitiate
the
truth of the general proposition. A conclusion based upon the
legitimacy of a
general
order of nature, or a
universal
law, can derive
no real independent logical strength from the enumeration of
particular instances of such order or law, all similar in kind. All
the remarks that have been made above may in one sense be
considered to bear upon the question of comparative mythology
in general, as having no distinct individualized influence on the
terminology of the Vedas. There is one other point, however, which
comes directly into contact with the mythological theory as
concerned with the terminology of the Vedas. Mythology, as
already remarked, is the symbolization of human thought in the
concrete. The contrast, therefore, of mythology with the abstract
is the widest and the most thoroughgoing.
Philosophy, as analysed by Herbert Spencer, has for its object
the elucidation of
ultimate
truths or laws. These truths, in so far as
ultimate, must be the
most general.
The wider the group of
individual facts that a law covers, or the greater the distance of the
ultimate law from the minute sub-laws covering a very limited and
primary area, the more abstract and the less concrete does its
expression become. Philosophy and mythology, therefore, stand
contrasted-- completely contrasted to one another in this respect.
Philosophy is abstract, expressed in general terms and ultimate
formula; mythology is concrete, expressed in gross material terms
representing primary objects and phases of objects. Nothing,
therefore, is so completely subversive of the value of the