Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born British comparative
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
and
Orientalist. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of
Indology and
religious studies
Religious studies, also known as religiology or the study of religion, is the study of religion from a historical or scientific perspective. There is no consensus on what qualifies as ''religion'' and definition of religion, its definition is h ...
. Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology. He directed the preparation of the ''
Sacred Books of the East'', a 50-volume set of English translations which continued after his death.
Müller became a professor at
Oxford University
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
,
first of modern languages,
then
of comparative philology in a position founded for him, and which he held for the rest of his life. Early in his career he held strong views on India, believing that it needed to be transformed by Christianity. Later, his view became more nuanced, championing ancient
Sanskrit literature and India more generally. He became involved in several controversies during his career: he was accused of being anti-Christian; he disagreed with Darwinian
evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
, favouring
theistic evolution; he raised interest in
Aryan culture, deeply disliking the resulting
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
Aryanism
Aryanism is an ideology of Germans, German racial Supremacism, supremacy which views the supposed Aryan race as a Master race, distinct and superior Race (human categorization), racial group which is entitled to rule the rest of humanity. Initia ...
; and he promoted the idea of a
"Turanian" family of languages.
Among his honours and distinctions, he was made an ''associé étranger'' of the French ''
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
The () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the . The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres).
History ...
''; he was awarded the
Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art; and he was made a member of the
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a privy council, formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are curre ...
.
Early life and education
Max Müller was born into a cultured family on 6 December 1823 in
Dessau
Dessau is a district of the independent city of Dessau-Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the ''States of Germany, Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Until 1 July 2007, it was an independent ...
, the son of
Wilhelm Müller, a
lyric poet whose verse
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...
had set to music in his song-cycles ''
Die schöne Müllerin'', and ''
Winterreise''. His mother, Adelheid Müller (née von Basedow), was the eldest daughter of a prime minister of
Anhalt-Dessau.
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and Music criticism, critic in the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Best known for List of operas by Carl Maria von Weber, h ...
was a
godfather.
[R. C. C. Fynes (May 2007), ''Müller, Friedrich Max (1823–1900)'', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn]
accessed 17 March 2013]
Müller was named after his mother's elder brother, Friedrich, and after the central character, Max, in Weber's opera ''
Der Freischütz''. Later in life, he adopted Max as a part of his surname, believing that the prevalence of Müller as a name made it too common.
His name was recorded as "Maximilian" on some of his honours,
[''Académiciens depuis 1663''](_blank)
. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. and in some other publications.
[Charles Johnston (1900]
''An Estimate of Max Müller (1823–1900)''
'' The American Monthly Review of Reviews'', Vol XXII, July–December. The Review of Reviews Company: New York, pp.703–706.
Müller entered the
gymnasium (grammar school) at Dessau when he was six years old. In 1835, at the age of twelve, he was sent to live in the house of
Carl Gustav Carus and attend the Nicolai School at
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
, where he continued his studies of music and classics. It was during his time in Leipzig that he frequently met
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions inc ...
.
In need of a scholarship to attend
Leipzig University, Müller successfully sat his
abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
examination at
Zerbst
Zerbst () is a List of cities and towns in Germany, town in the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Until an administrative reform in 2007, Zerbst was the capital of the former Anhalt-Zerbst district.
Geography
Zerbst is sit ...
. While preparing, he found that the syllabus differed from what he had been taught, requiring him to rapidly learn mathematics, modern languages and science.
He entered Leipzig University in 1841 to study philology, leaving behind his early interest in music and poetry. Müller received his
Ph.D. degree in Sep 1843. His final dissertation was on
Spinoza's ''
Ethics
Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...
''.
He had an aptitude for classical languages, learning
Greek,
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
,
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
,
Persian and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
.
Sanskrit studies
In 1844, Müller studied in
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
with
Friedrich Schelling. He began to translate the ''
Upanishads
The Upanishads (; , , ) are late Vedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit texts that "document the transition from the archaic ritualism of the Veda into new religious ideas and institutions" and the emergence of the central religious concepts of Hind ...
'' for Schelling, and continued to research Sanskrit under
Franz Bopp
Franz Bopp (; 14 September 1791 – 23 October 1867) was a German linguistics, linguist known for extensive and pioneering comparative linguistics, comparative work on Indo-European languages.
Early life
Bopp was born in Mainz, but the pol ...
, the first systematic scholar of the
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
(IE). Schelling led Müller to relate the history of language to the history of religion. At this time, Müller published his first book, a German translation of the
''Hitopadesa'', a collection of Indian
fable
Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a parti ...
s.
In 1845, Müller moved to Paris to study Sanskrit under
Eugène Burnouf. Burnouf encouraged him to publish the complete
Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
, making use of the manuscripts available in England. He moved to England in 1846 to study
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
texts in the collection of the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
. He supported himself at first with creative writing, his novel ''German Love'' being popular in its day.
Müller's connections with the East India Company and with Sanskritists based at
Oxford University
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
led to a career in Britain, where he eventually became the leading intellectual commentator on the
culture of India
Indian culture is the cultural heritage, heritage of social norms and history of science and technology on the Indian subcontinent, technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse nation of India, pert ...
. At the time, Britain controlled this territory as part of its Empire. This led to complex exchanges between Indian and British intellectual culture, especially through Müller's links with the
Brahmo Samaj.
Müller's Sanskrit studies came at a time when scholars had started to see language development in relation to cultural development. The recent discovery of the Indo-European language group had started to lead to much speculation about the relationship between
Greco-Roman cultures and those of more ancient peoples. In particular the
Vedic
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed ...
culture of India was thought to have been the ancestor of European Classical cultures. Scholars sought to compare the genetically related European and Asian languages to reconstruct the earliest form of the root-language. The Vedic language,
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
, was thought to be the oldest of the IE languages.
Müller devoted himself to the study of this language, becoming one of the major Sanskrit scholars of his day. He believed that the earliest documents of Vedic culture should be studied to provide the key to the development of
pagan European religions, and of religious belief in general. To this end, Müller sought to understand the most ancient of Vedic scriptures, the ''
Rig-Veda.'' Müller translated the
Rigveda Samhita book written by the 14th century Sanskrit scholar
Sayanacharya from Sanskrit to English. Müller was greatly impressed by
Ramakrishna Paramhansa, his contemporary and proponent of
Vedantic philosophy, and wrote several essays and books about him.
For Müller, the study of the language had to relate to the study of the culture in which it had been used. He came to the view that the development of languages should be tied to that of belief-systems. At that time the Vedic scriptures were little-known in the West, though there was increasing interest in the philosophy of the
Upanishads
The Upanishads (; , , ) are late Vedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit texts that "document the transition from the archaic ritualism of the Veda into new religious ideas and institutions" and the emergence of the central religious concepts of Hind ...
. Müller believed that the sophisticated Upanishadic philosophy could be linked to the primitive
henotheism of early Vedic Brahmanism from which it evolved. He had to travel to London to look at documents held in the collection of the
British East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
. While there he persuaded the company to allow him to undertake a critical edition of the Rig-Veda, a task he pursued over many years (1849–1874).
For Müller, the culture of the Vedic peoples represented a form of
nature worship, an idea clearly influenced by Romanticism. Müller shared many of the ideas associated with
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
, which coloured his account of ancient religions, in particular his emphasis on the formative influence on early religion of emotional communion with natural forces. He saw the gods of the Rig-Veda as active forces of nature, only partly personified as imagined
supernatural
Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...
persons. From this claim Müller derived his theory that mythology is "a disease of language". By this he meant that myth transforms concepts into beings and stories. In Müller's view, "gods" began as words constructed to express abstract ideas, but were transformed into imagined personalities. Thus the Indo-European father-god appears under various names:
Zeus
Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus.
Zeus is the child ...
,
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
,
Dyaus Pita. For Müller all these names can be traced to the word ''"Dyaus",'' which he understood to imply "shining" or "radiance". This leads to the terms "deva", "deus", "theos" as generic terms for a god, and to the names "Zeus" and "Jupiter" (derived from deus-pater). In this way a metaphor becomes personified and fixed.
Academic career
In 1850 Müller was appointed deputy
Taylorian professor of modern European languages at
Oxford University
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
.
In the following year, at the suggestion of
Thomas Gaisford
Thomas Gaisford (22 December 1779 – 2 June 1855) was an English classical scholar and clergyman. He served as Dean of Christ Church from 1831 until his death.
Early life
Gaisford was born at Iford Manor, Wiltshire, the son of John Gaisford ...
, he was made an honorary M.A. and a member of the college of
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...
. On succeeding to the full professorship in 1854, he received the full degree of
M.A. by a decree of
Convocation
A convocation (from the Latin ''wikt:convocare, convocare'' meaning "to call/come together", a translation of the Ancient Greek, Greek wikt:ἐκκλησία, ἐκκλησία ''ekklēsia'') is a group of people formally assembled for a specia ...
. In 1858 he was elected to a life fellowship at
All Souls' College
All Souls College (official name: The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members autom ...
.
He was defeated in the
1860 election for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit, which was a "keen disappointment" to him. Müller was far better qualified for the post than the other candidate,
Monier Monier-Williams, but Müller's theological views, Lutheranism, German birth, and lack of practical first-hand knowledge of India spoke against him. After the election he wrote to his mother, "all the best people voted for me, the Professors almost unanimously, but the ''vulgus profanum'' made the majority".
Later in 1868, Müller became Oxford's first
professor of comparative philology,
a position founded on his behalf. He held this chair until his death, although he retired from its active duties in 1875.
Scholarly and literary works
Gifford Lectures
In 1888, Müller was appointed Gifford Lecturer at the
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...
. These
Gifford Lectures were the first in an annual series, given at several Scottish universities, that has continued to the present day. Over the next four years, Müller gave four series of lectures.
The titles and order of the lectures were as follows:
[Müller, F. Max (1895), ''Theosophy or Psychological Religion.'' London: Longmans, Green and Co., pp.89–90.]
# Natural Religion. This first course of lectures was intended as purely introductory, and had for its object a definition of Natural Religion in its widest sense.
# Physical Religion. This second course of lectures was intended to show how different nations had arrived at a belief in something infinite behind the finite, in something invisible behind the visible, in many unseen agents or gods of nature, until they reached a belief in one god above all those gods. In short, a history of the discovery of the infinite in nature.
# Anthropological Religion. This third course was intended to show how different nations arrived at a belief in a
soul
The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...
, how they named its various faculties, and what they imagined about its fate after death.
# Theosophy or Psychological Religion. The fourth and last course of lectures was intended to examine the relation between God and the soul ("these two Infinites"), including the ideas that some of the principal nations of the world have formed concerning this relation. Real religion, Müller asserted, is founded on a true perception of the ''relation'' of the soul to God and of God to the soul; Müller wanted to prove that this was true, not only as a postulate, but as an historical fact. The original title of the lectures was 'Psychological Religion' but Müller felt compelled to add 'Theosophy' to it. Müller's final Gifford Lecture is significant in interpreting his work broadly, as he situates his philological and historical research within a
Hermetic and
mystical
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight ...
theological project.
As translator
In 1881, he published a translation of the first edition of
Kant's ''
Critique of Pure Reason
The ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (; 1781; second edition 1787) is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in which the author seeks to determine the limits and scope of metaphysics. Also referred to as Kant's "First Critique", it was foll ...
''. He agreed with
Schopenhauer that this edition was the most direct and honest expression of Kant's thought. His translation corrected several errors that were committed by previous translators. In his Translator's Preface, Müller wrote:
Müller continued to be influenced by the Kantian
Transcendentalist model of spirituality, and was opposed to Darwinian ideas of human development. He argued that "language forms an impassable barrier between man and beast."
Views on India
Early career
On 25 August 1866, Müller wrote to Chevalier Bunsen:
In his career, Müller several times expressed the view that a "reformation" within Hinduism needed to occur, comparable to the Christian Reformation.
In his view, "if there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed... Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many blemishes that affected it in its later states".
He used his links with the
Brahmo Samaj to encourage such a reformation on the lines pioneered by
Ram Mohan Roy. Müller believed that the Brahmos would engender an Indian form of Christianity and that they were in practice "Christians, without being Roman Catholics, Anglicans or Lutherans". In the Lutheran tradition, he hoped that the "superstition" and idolatry, which he considered to be characteristic of modern popular Hinduism, would disappear.
[Sharada Sugirtharajah (2003) ''Imagining hinduism: a postcolonial perspective''. Routledge. pp. 60–61. ]
Müller wrote:
The translation of the ''Veda'' will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3,000 years... one ought to be up and doing what may be God's work.
Müller hoped that increased funding for education in India would promote a new form of literature combining Western and Indian traditions. In 1868 he wrote to
George Campbell, the newly appointed
Secretary of State for India:
Late career
In his sixties and seventies, Müller gave a series of lectures, which reflected a more nuanced view in favour of Hinduism and the ancient literature from India. In his "What can India teach us?" lecture at University of Cambridge, he championed ancient Sanskrit literature and India as follows:
Müller conjectured that the introduction of Islam in India in the 11th century had a deep effect on the psyche and behaviour of Hindus in another lecture, "Truthful Character of the Hindus":
Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda () (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindus, Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Vivekananda was a major figu ...
, who was the foremost disciple of
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, met Müller over a lunch on 28 May 1896. Regarding Müller and his wife, the Swami later wrote:
Controversies
Alleged anti-Christianity
During the course of his
Gifford Lectures on the subject of
natural religion, Müller was severely criticised for being anti-Christian. In 1891, at a meeting of the Established
Presbytery of Glasgow, Mr. Thomson (Minister of Ladywell) moved a motion that Müller's teaching was "subversive of the Christian faith, and fitted to spread pantheistic and infidel views amongst the students and others" and questioned Müller's appointment as lecturer. An even stronger attack on Müller was made by Monsignor Alexander Munro in
St Andrew's Cathedral. Munro, an officer of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland (and Provost of the Catholic Cathedral of Glasgow from 1884 to 1892), declared that Müller's lectures "were nothing less than a crusade against Divine revelation, against Jesus Christ, and against Christianity". The blasphemous lectures were, he continued, "the proclamation of atheism under the guise of pantheism" and "uprooted our idea of God, for it repudiated the idea of a personal God".
Similar accusations had already led to Müller's exclusion from the Boden chair in Sanskrit in favour of the conservative
Monier Monier-Williams. By the 1880s Müller was being courted by
Charles Godfrey Leland, Theosophist
Helena Blavatsky
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian-born Mysticism, mystic and writer who emigrated to the United States where she co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an internat ...
, and other writers who were seeking to assert the merits of
pagan religious traditions over Christianity. The designer
Mary Fraser Tytler stated that Müller's book ''Chips from a German Workshop'' (a collection of his essays) was her "Bible", which helped her to create a multi-cultural sacred imagery.
Müller distanced himself from these developments, and remained within the
Lutheran
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...
faith in which he had been brought up. According to G. Beckerlegge, "Müller's background as a Lutheran German and his identification with the Broad Church party" led to "suspicion by those opposed to the political and religious positions that they felt Müller represented", particularly his
latitudinarianism.
[Beckerlegge, G. (1997) "Professor Friedrich Max Müller and the Missionary Cause". In, John Wolffe (Ed) ''Religion in Victorian Britain V Culture and Empire''. Manchester University Press, p.189.]
Although Müller took a strong religious and academic interest in
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...
and other non-Christian religions, and often compared Christianity to religions that many traditional Protestants would have regarded as primitive or false, he grounded his
Perennialism in a belief that Christianity possessed the fullest truth of all living religions. Twenty-first century scholars of religion, far from accusing Müller of being anti-Christian, have critically examined Müller's theological project as evidence for a bias towards Christian conceptions of God in early academic
religious studies
Religious studies, also known as religiology or the study of religion, is the study of religion from a historical or scientific perspective. There is no consensus on what qualifies as ''religion'' and definition of religion, its definition is h ...
.
Darwin disagreement
Müller attempted to formulate a philosophy of religion that addressed the crisis of faith engendered by the historical and critical study of religion by German scholars on the one hand, and by the
Darwinian revolution on the other. He was wary of Darwin's work on human evolution, and attacked his view of the development of human faculties. His work was taken up by cultural commentators such as his friend
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...
, who saw it as a productive response to the crisis of the age. He analyzed mythologies as rationalisations of natural phenomena, primitive beginnings that we might denominate "
protoscience" within a cultural evolution. Müller proposed an early, mystical interpretation of
theistic evolution, using Darwinism as a critique of
mechanical philosophy.
In 1870 Müller gave a short course of three lectures for the British Institution on language as the barrier between man and beast, which he called "On Darwin's Philosophy of Language". Müller specifically disagreed with Darwin's theories on the origin of language and that the language of man could have developed from the language of animals. In 1873, he sent a copy of his lectures to Darwin reassuring him that, though he differed from some of Darwin's conclusions, he was one of his "diligent readers and sincere admirers".
Opposition to Aryanism
Müller's work contributed to the developing interest in
Aryan culture, which often set Indo-European ("Aryan") traditions in opposition to
Semitic religions. He "was deeply saddened by the fact that these classifications later came to be expressed in
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
terms", as this was far from his intention. For Müller, the discovery of common Indian and European ancestry was a powerful argument against racism, arguing that "an
ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a
dolichocephalic dictionary or a
brachycephalic grammar" and that "the blackest Hindus represent an earlier stage of Aryan speech and thought than the fairest
Scandinavians".
Turanian
Müller put forward and promoted the theory of a "
Turanian" family of languages or speech, comprising the
Finnic,
Samoyedic, "Tataric" (
Turkic),
Mongolic and
Tungusic languages. According to Müller, these five languages were those "spoken in Asia or Europe not included under the Arian
icand Semitic families, with the exception perhaps of the Chinese and its dialects". In addition, they were "nomadic languages," in contrast to the other two families (Aryan and Semitic), which he called State or political languages.
The idea of a Turanian family of languages was not accepted by everyone at the time. Although the term "Turanian" quickly became an archaism (unlike "Aryan"), it did not disappear completely. The idea was absorbed later into nationalist ideologies in
Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
and
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
.
Honours and distinctions
In 1869, Müller was elected to the French ''
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
The () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the . The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres).
History ...
'' as a foreign correspondent (''associé étranger'').
In June 1874, Müller was awarded the ''
Pour le Mérite'' (civil class), much to his surprise. Soon after, when he was commanded to dine at
Windsor, he wrote to
Prince Leopold to ask if he ''might'' wear his Order, and the wire came back, "Not ''may'', but ''must''."
In 1875, Müller was awarded the
Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art. The award is given to acknowledge excellent and outstanding achievements in the field of science and art. In a letter to his mother dated 19 December, Müller wrote that the award was more showy than the ''
Pour le Mérite'', "but that is the best".
In 1896, Müller was appointed a member of the
Privy Council.
Personal life
Müller became a naturalised British citizen in 1855, at the age of 32. He married Georgina Adelaide Grenfell on 3 August 1859 after overcoming the opposition from her family. The couple had four children, including
William Grenfell. Two of their children predeceased them.
Death and legacy
Müller's health began deteriorating in 1898 and he died at his home in Oxford on 28 October 1900. He was interred at
Holywell Cemetery on 1 November 1900.
After his death a memorial fund, the Max Müller Memorial Fund, was opened at Oxford for "the promotion of learning and research in all matters relating to the history and archaeology, the languages, literatures, and religions of ancient India".
Harry Smith stated of his film ''
Heaven and Earth Magic'': "The first part depicts the heroine's toothache consequent to the loss of a valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land in terms of Israel, Montreal and the second part depicts the return to earth from being eaten by Max Müller on the day
Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London."
The
Goethe Institutes in India are named
Max Müller Bhavan in his honour, as is a street (Max Mueller Marg) in
New Delhi
New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...
.
About Max Mueller
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan.
Müller's biographies include , and .
Nirad C. Chaudhuri's '' Scholar Extraordinary'' was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for English by Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of the Indian government. Its off ...
, India's National Academy of Letters. In addition, Stephen G. Alter's 2005 book ''William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language'' contains a chapter on Müller's rivalry with the American linguist William Dwight Whitney.
Publications
Müller's scholarly works, published separately as well as an 18-volume ''Collected Works'', include:
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References
Citations
Cited sources
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Further reading
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* Winner of Universities Essay Prize, Royal Asiatic Society, London.
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* With full bibliography of works.
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External links
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Friedrich Max Müller
at Online Library of Liberty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Max
1823 births
1900 deaths
19th-century British historians
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