Note 23 — VII. THE MARK OF CAIN.

Introduction to the Science of Language, vol. ii. p. 246. “It is remarkable,” adds Professor Sayce, “that a French range of hills in the neighbourhood of Vienne bears the same name as the Swiss mountain, and from the same cause. Vienne, however was actually the place to which Pilate was banished; and the accidental coincidence is a striking example of the impossibility of our discovering historic truth in a myth, although we may know from other sources that it has accidentally attached itself to a real event. Close to Vienne is a ruin called the ‘Tour de Mauconseil,’ from which, it is said, Pilate threw himself in despair. But the value of the legend may be easily estimated when we learn that the tower is really a tête-du-pont built by Philippe de Valois.”