Even so do the learned—not at pleasure, maybe, but according to certain fixed laws (so they declare); yet none the more do they agree among themselves. And I deny not that they discover many things true and good to be known; but, as touching the names of the Gods, their learning, as it standeth, is confusion. Look, then, at the goddess Athene: taking one example out of hundreds. We have dwelling in our coasts Muellerus, the most erudite of the doctors of the Alemanni, and the most golden-mouthed. Concerning Athene, he saith that her name is none other than, in the ancient tongue of the Brachmanæ, _Ahanâ_, which, being interpreted, means the Dawn. “And that the morning light,” saith he, “offers the best starting-point for the later growth of Athene has been proved, I believe, beyond the reach of doubt or even cavil.” {169} Yet this same doctor candidly lets us know that another of his nation, the witty Benfeius, hath devised another sense and origin of Athene, taken from the speech of the old Medes. But Muellerus declares to us that whosoever shall examine the contention of Benfeius “will be bound, in common honesty, to confess that it is untenable.” This, Father, is “one for Benfeius,” as the saying goes. And as Muellerus holds that these matters “admit of almost mathematical precision,” it would seem that Benfeius is but a _Dummkopf_, as the Alemanni say, in their own language, when they would be pleasant among themselves. Now, wouldst thou credit it? despite the mathematical plainness of the facts, other Alemanni agree neither with Muellerus, nor yet with Benfeius, and will neither hear that Athene was the Dawn, nor yet that she is “the feminine of the Zend _Thrâetâna athwyâna_.” Lo, you! how Prellerus goes about to show that her name is drawn not from _Ahanâ_ and the old Brachmanæ, nor _athwyâna_ and the old Medes, but from “the root _αἰθ_, whence _αἴθηρ_, the air, or _ἀθ_, whence _ἄνθος_, a flower.” Yea, and Prellerus will have it that no man knows the verity of this matter. None the less he is very bold, and will none of the Dawn; but holds to it that Athene was, from the first, “the clear pure height of the Air, which is exceeding pure in Attica.” Now, Father, as if all this were not enough, comes one Roscherus in, with a mighty great volume on the Gods, and Furtwaenglerus, among others, for his ally. And these doctors will neither with Rueckertus and Hermannus, take Athene for “wisdom in person;” nor with Welckerus and Prellerus, for “the goddess of air;” nor even, with Muellerus and mathematical certainty, for “the Morning-Red:” but they say that Athene is the “black thunder-cloud, and the lightning that leapeth therefrom”! I make no doubt that other Alemanni are of other minds: _quot Alemanni tot sententiæ_.