William Dwight Whitney

"The calculations and conjectures of Professor Muller cannot be looked upon as having in any essential manner contributed to the final settlement of the question. Doubtless he would himself make no such pretensions in their favor; but he is in danger of being misunderstood as doing so; we have already more than once seen it stated that " Muller has ascertained the date of the Vedas to be 1200-1000 B. C.," or to that effect."

"Whitney ([1874] 1987) had made a point of mentioning that Muller himself had made no pretensions that his dates had "in any essential manner contributed to the final settlement of the question." But his concern is that Muller "is in danger of being misunderstood as doing so; we have already more than once seen it stated that 'Muller has ascertained the date of the Vedas to be 1200-1000 B.C.'" (78)."

"Whitney, not one to ignore Müller’s flights of poetic fancy, mocked Müller when he seemed to depict the Aryans as “perched for a couple of thousand years upon some exalted post of observation, watching thence the successive departure from their ancient home of the various European tribes” (Whitney 1987 1.95–96):"

"Whitney's association with Darwin and his rivalry with Müller, both international celebrities of the Victorian age, made him a towering public presence and brought him a transatlantic fame unattainable by most Americans of his time."