Towards a Method of Mythology - Germanic Mythology

and unusual details that exist on opposite sides of the equal sign drawn up in the
equation:
P (a + b + c + d, etc) = S (a + b + c + d, etc). 23
If, for example, it is said of both Agni and Heimdall— of one as well as the
other— that he is born to many mothers, that he has golden teeth, that he is heaven’s
actual guardian, that as a child he was sent across the ocean to bring human beings
religion and culture, that he is the father of the castes, that he fought in the sea with a
demon over a radiant piece of jewelry and won it, etc., etc.; then it is clear that such
characteristic qualities found in both mythologies, when they are associated with a single
personality and not divided among several, give their identity a probability for whose
degree a calculation, consistent with the calculation of probability, can be made. The
probability increases geometrically, so to speak, for every new such quality that can be
associated with the subject. The certainty of the results would be foregone, even if they
had not been corroborated by the resemblance of the names of the patriarchs to which
Agni-Heimdall were sent: on one side we find Bhrigu and Manu, on the other side Berich
and Mannus.
The Real method of research is danger-free, if it is used with ordinary common
sense. It is apparent that similarity proves nothing, if it is of a general nature and lacks
remarkable characteristics. If one wants to demonstrate that Cajus is Polybius, and
therefore observes that Cajus has eyes and Polybius also has eyes, Cajus has a nose and
Polybius also has a nose, etc., the listener needs neither learning nor wit to realize the
nature of such evidence. Not so apparent is the incorrect use of the Real method of
research, which can be illustrated by the following equation:
S (a + b + c + d) = P (a + b) + P’ (c + d),
[445]
An instance of this occurs when a certain mythic person S, for example Baldur, is
deemed originally identical to a P, for example a hero in the Illiad, but instead of the
likeness between S (Baldur) and P (the hero) being demonstrated, it is assumed that P
(the hero) is conflated in some (psychologically unlikely) way with Christ (P’), and thus
complements the similarity between S and P with possible similarities between S and P’.
This is an error that militates against one of the heuristic principles necessary for
scientific investigation, as I will point out in more detail below.
After what I have pointed out, it should not surprise anyone if it appears naive to
me when a German critic regrets that I engage in identification. The critic does not state
that I identify in a hasty or superficial manner. He objects in principle to all such
identification, although, as Wundt points out, mythology’s main task in its present stage
is just that. Without the utilization of the Real method of identification, mythology will
never become a science.
The work of identification is that much more necessary, since the synonyms are
so extraordinarily rich, not least in Germanic mythology. But synonyms are by no means
23 In this equation, P and S represent the subjects of comparison, and the letters, a, b, c, d, etc, represent
their shared traits.