It has rarely happened that any Roman cult has been discussed at length in the English language, especially by scholars of unquestionable learning and resource. But on the subject of Fortuna, and Fors Fortuna, an interesting paper appeared some years ago by Prof. Max Müller in his volume entitled _Biographies of Words_[673], which I have been at great pains to weigh carefully. The skill and lucidity with which the Professor’s arguments are, as usual, presented, make this an unusually pleasant task. He starts, we must note, with a method which in dealing with Italian deities has been justly and emphatically condemned[674]; he begins with an etymology in order to discover the nature of the deity, and goes on to support this by selecting a few features from the various forms of the cult. This method will not of course be dangerous, if the etymology be absolutely certain; and absolute certainty, so far as our present knowledge reaches, is indeed what the Professor claims for his. Though we may doubt whether the science of Comparative Philology is as yet old and sure enough to justify us in violating a useful principle in order to pay our first attentions to its results, we may waive this scruple for the present and take the etymology in this case at the outset. The Professor alludes to the well-known and universally accepted derivation of Fors and Fortuna from _ferre_, but rejects it: ‘I appeal to those who have studied the biographies of similar Latin words, whether they do not feel some misgiving about so vague and abstract a goddess as “Dea quae fert,” the goddess who brings.’ But feeling the difficulty that Fortuna may not indeed have been originally a deity at all, but an abstract noun which became a deity, like Fides, Spes, &c., in which case his objection to the derivation from _ferre_ would not apply, he hastens to remove it by trying to show from the early credentials of Fortuna, that she did not belong to this latter class, but has characteristics which were undoubtedly heaven-born. The process therefore was this: the ordinary etymology, though quite possible, is vague and does not seem to lead to anything; is there another to be discovered, which will fulfil philological requirements and also tell us something new about Fortuna? And are there any features to be found in the cult which will bear out the new etymology when it is discovered? He then goes on to derive the word from the Sanskrit root HAER, ‘to glow,’ from which many names expressive of the light of day have come: ‘From this too comes the Greek Χάρις with the Χάριτες, the goddess of morning; and from this we may safely derive _fors_, _fortis_, taking it either as a mere contraction, or a new derivative, corresponding to what in Sanskrit would be _Har-ti_, and would mean the brightness of the day, the Fortuna _huiusce diei_.’