Transcriber's Note:
This book had a number of typesetting errors such as missing text, pages, duplicate pages, and text. The text has been verified with the etext available with the InternetArchives (http://www.archive.org/details/germanwork01mulluoft) and corrected with the addition of missing text and removal of duplicate text. The Internet archive edition is a 1872 edition whereas this is a 1867 edition.
Details of corrections and additions are given at the end of the book.
CHIPS
FROM A GERMAN WORKSHOP.
BY
MAX MÜLLER, M.A.
FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD.
VOLUME I.
Essays on the Science of Religion.
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1867
To the Memory
OF
BARON BUNSEN,
MY FRIEND AND BENEFACTOR.
Abes, magis cupio tanto et magis desidero.
PREFACE.
ore than twenty years have passed since my revered friend Bunsencalled me one day into his library at Carlton House Terrace, andannounced to me with beaming eyes that the publication of the Rig-vedawas secure. He had spent many days in seeing the Directors of theEast-India Company, and explaining to them the importance of thiswork, and the necessity of having it published in England. At last hisefforts had been successful, the funds for printing my edition of thetext and commentary of the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans had beengranted, and Bunsen was the first to announce to me the happy resultof his literary diplomacy. 'Now,' he said, 'you have got a work forlife—a large block that will take years to plane and polish.' 'Butmind,' he added, 'let us have from time to time some chips from yourworkshop.'
I have tried to follow the advice of my departed friend, and I havepublished almost every year a few articles on such subjects as hadengaged my attention, while prosecuting at the same time, as far[viii] asaltered circumstances would allow, my edition of the Rig-veda, and ofother Sanskrit works connected with it. These articles were chieflypublished in the 'Edinburgh' and 'Quarterly Reviews,' in the 'OxfordEssays,' in 'Macmillan's' and 'Fraser's Magazines,' in the 'SaturdayReview,' and in the 'Times.' In writing them my principal endeavourhas been to bring out even in the most abstruse subjects the points ofreal interest that ought to engage the attention of the public atlarge, and never to leave a dark nook or corner without attempting tosweep away the cobwebs of false learning, and let in the light of realknowledge. Here, too, I owe much to Bunsen's advice, and when lastyear I saw in Cornwall the large heaps of copper ore piled up aroundthe mines, like so many heaps of rubbish, while the poor people wereasking for coppers to buy bread, I frequently thought of Bunsen'swords, 'Your work is not finished when you have brought the ore fromthe mine: it must be sifted, smelted, refined, and coined before itcan be of real use, and contribute towards the intellectual food ofmankind.' I can hardly hope that in this my endeavour to be clear andplain, to follow the threads of every thought to the very ends, and toplace the web of every argument clearly and fully before my readers, Ihave always been suc