470 proceedings: anthropological society 



predispose to crime. Dr. Glueck referred to his experience in charge 

 of the criminal branch of the Government Hospital for the Insane and 

 to the necessity of learning all about a man's past and about his cir- 

 cumstances and behavior at every stage of his life rather than trusting 

 to his behavior or condition at the time of any one act as a proof of 

 criminality. 



A special meeting of the Anthropological Society was held at 4.30 

 p.m., October 29, 1912, in the National Museum, the President, Mr. 

 Stetson, in the chair. 



Dr. I. M. Casanowicz read a very interesting paper on the Mithra 

 cult, explaining it as a religion of redemption, which for several cen- 

 turies was the most important competitor of Christianity. It was 

 Aryan in origin, antedating the separation of the Aryan people of 

 India from the Iranians, and was transferred westward by stages, 

 accumulating elements in the Mesopotamian valley and the Mediter- 

 ranean basin, but preserving an Iranian nucleus. It entered Rome 

 as the religion of the poor and lowly, but was taken up by society when 

 found helpful to imperial policy and made its first convert of an em- 

 peror in Commodus. Mithra was essentially the god of light, hence 

 of truth and benevolence; and from the antithesis of light and dark- 

 ness grew the conception of his war against the powers of evil. Zoro- 

 aster built his system on this duality and conflict, though relegating 

 Mithra to a lower place. Later he came to be regarded as occupying 

 a middle place (on earth) between the powers of heaven and the evil 

 powers of the underworld, serving also as a mediator between man 

 and the unapproachable supreme deity. The cult of Mithra, he said, 

 had influenced Christianity, especially in the conceptions of the powers 

 of evil, the efficacy of sacraments and the procedures of the church. 



Wm. H. Babcock, Secretary. 



