It is no part of our province here to decide between the conjectures of rival etymologists, nor to pronounce on their relative merits. But the world cannot be expected to be convinced by philological scholars before they have convinced each other. Mr. Max Müller had not convinced Benfey, who offered another etymology of Athene, as the feminine of the Zend _Thrætana athwyana_, an etymology of which Mr. Müller remarks that "whoever will take the trouble to examine its phonetic foundation will be obliged in common honesty to confess that it is untenable".* Meanwhile Curtius** is neither for Ahana and Sanskrit and Mr. Max Müller, nor for Benfey and Zend. He derives Athene from the root _aio_, whence perhaps comes Athene, the blooming one" = the maiden. Preller, again,*** finds the source of the name Athene in _aio_, whence _aion_, "the air," or a flower". He does not regard these etymologies as certain, though he agrees with Welcker that Athene is the clear height of æther. Manifestly no one can be expected to accept as matter of faith an etymological solution which is rejected by philologists. The more fashionable theory for the moment is that maintained some time since by Lauer and Schwartz, and now by Furtwangler in Roscher's Lexikon, that Athene is the "cloud-goddess," or the goddess of the lightning as it springs from the clouds.**** As the lightning in mythology is often a serpent, and as Athene had her sacred serpent, "which might be Erichthonios,"***** * _Nineteenth Century_, October, 1885, pp. 636, 639. ** Gr. Et., Engl, transl., i. 300. *** Preller, i. 161. **** Cf. Lauer, _System der Oriesch. Myth_., Berlin, 1853, p. 220; Schwartz _Ursprung der Mythol_, Berlin, 1863, p. 38. ***** Paus., xxiv. 7. Schwartz conjectures that the serpent is the lightning and Athene the cloud. A long list of equally cogent reasons for identifying Athene with the lightning and the thunder-cloud has been compiled by Furtwangler, and deserves some attention. The passage excellently illustrates the error of taking poetic details in authors as late as Pindar for survivals of the absolute original form of an elemental myth.