The Prehistoric Gods 103 pardonably excessive zeal of its early friends. Since then the pruning knife has kept busy. At the pres- ent time this is a subject that should be handled very gingerly by all those who do not know how to winnow the chaff from the grain. But there still is Comparative Mythology, and it is here to stay. There is yet another difficulty which should be rated at its right value, not too much and not too lit- tle. The primary object of the comparative mythol- ogy of the Indo-European peoples is to collect, com- pare, and sift the religious beliefs of these peoples, so as to determine what they owned as common property before their separation. What now, we hear it fre- quently asked, about the strange peoples, not Indo- European, nor Aryan, who share these beliefs with the Indo-Europeans or have similar beliefs? Without question, in the earlier stages of the science, similari- ties which were independent products in different quarters, due to the similar endowment of the human mind, were confused with genetic similarities. By genetic similarities I mean such similarities as trans- mitted mythological conceptions which were already in vogue among the prehistoric Indo-Europeans, so that they were continued, with later modifications, by the separate branches of the Indo-European peo- ples. Should not, therefore, this entire subject be handed over to those broader students of Ethnology
