NA TURE 



J05 



THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1911. 



THE GOLDEN BOUGH. 



The Golden Bough : a Study in Magic and Religion. 

 By Prof. J. G. Frazer. Third edition. Part i. 

 (in two vols.), The Magic Art and the Evolution 

 of Kings. Vol i., pp. xxxii + 426. Vol ii., pp. xi + 

 417. (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1911.) 

 Price 205. net, two vols. 

 T^HE third edition of Prof. Frazer's book will be 

 in six parts, comprising at least seven volumes. 

 As the subject of "the dying god," to which the last 

 four parts will be devoted, has proved, in the author's 

 words, to be "a fruitful subject," the number of 

 volumes will probably reach a total of nine. The 

 two volumes of the first part, which lie before us, 

 I contain more than eight hundred pages of octavo. 

 I In its new form of "a series of separate disserta- 

 ■ tions loosely linked together by a slender thread of 

 ig' connection " with the original subject (to which the 

 book owes its title), it has been resolved into its 

 elements. But the result is that we have a closer 

 study of each element, while the whole inquiry actu- 

 ally gains in organic unity. Thus in the two volumes 

 of the first part, dealing with "The Magic Art, and 

 the Evolution of Kings," the space devoted to these 

 subjects in the second edition is more than doubled, 

 but we have a fuller analysis of each on one hand, 

 and on the other we gain a clearer notion of the 

 passage from magical control of the forces of nature 

 to the system of Departmental Gods. 



This first part presents no striking newness of 

 theory as did the second edition. The author has 

 been credited with a proneness to hypothesis to which 

 actually he is not liable. There are few writers who 

 are more content to be led by the facts. But interest- 

 ing subjects which before were incidentally treated are 

 now more or less exhaustively studied. Such are " The 

 Sacred Marriage," or "The Marriage of the Gods," 

 "The King's Fire," "The Fire Drill," "Father Jove 

 and Mother Vesta," and "The Origin of Perpetual 

 Fires." The latter group was the subject of one of 

 the author's earliest papers, printed in The Journal of 

 Philology, in which, among other results, he exposed 

 the unscientific character of the orthodox German 

 school of mythological inquiry. 



Some new terms are introduced. Magic is divided 

 into homoeopathic and contagious. The former 

 "commits the mistake of assuming that things which 

 resemble each other are the same " ; the latter 

 assumes "that things which have once been in con- 

 tact with each other are always in contact." The 

 latter, again, generally involves an application of the 

 former. The older term, imitative, obscured the 

 mechanical nature of sympathetic magic, but the 

 above description seems to show that the new terms 

 are far from satisfactory. The former suggests to 

 the ordinary student a theory of medicine, the latter 

 a theory of disease; and thus a wrong impression 

 of the nature and application of magic may be con- 

 veyed. There is also a good deal more to be said on 

 NO. 216(5, VOL. 86] 



the origin and meaning of these primitive forms of 

 the inductive methods, than is given either by the 

 author or by Mr. Hirn, to whom is due the term 

 homoeopathic. In fact, there is a fruitful field here 

 awaiting the psychologist. The methods of primitive 

 thought, adequately analysed, would throw light on 

 much that is obscure in the evolution of logic and 

 the elementary processes of mind. 



After all the details recounted so minutely and 

 illustrated so clearly by Prof. Frazer, one still does 

 not really understand either the meaning or mental 

 process of the savage principle that "things which 

 have once been in contact with each other 

 are always in contact." No academic principle 

 of association of ideas will help us here, nor even 

 the author's happy comparison with modern physical 

 theory, " the impulse being transmitted from one to 

 the other " (of two things in magical rapport) 



"by means of what we may conceive as a kind of 

 invisible ether, not unlike that which is postulated 

 by modern science for a precisely similar purpose, 

 namely, to explain how things can physically affect 

 each other through a space which appears to be 

 empty." 



The savage does not so think, and Prof. Frazer 

 does not suggest that he does so think, of the matter 

 of " secret sympathy." Is it not more probable, for 

 example, that a solution of the problem will begin 

 with the obvious fact that in these matters the 

 elemental intelligence simply ignores the categories 

 of space and time? 



Under magic is included an interesting suggestion 

 as to the origin of circumcision, originally put forth 

 by the author in The Independent Review. The sug- 

 gestion is that the mutilation was 



"originally intended to ensure the re-birth at some 

 future time of the circumcised man by disposing of 

 the severed portion of his body in such a way as to 

 provide him with a stock of energy on which his 

 disembodied spirit could draw when the critical 

 moment of reincarnation came round." 



The question raised is applicable generally to the 

 method of "The Golden Bough," and the author's 

 other work in the explanation of origins. The point 

 is not whether barbarous or civilised men can or do 

 continue to practise such operations as painful muti- 

 lation because of a superstitious fancy or religious 

 dogma — that is abundantly proved in human history. 

 The point is, Did primitive men, not far removed 

 from Homo alalus, institute such mutilations for so 

 slender and so unpractical a reason? Any a priori 

 discussion of the point must take into account the 

 fact that such rites arc always organised by the old 

 men, and also the possibility that they were instituted 

 at a stage of culture very little less advanced than 

 that in which we see them now. 



In an analogous problem, Prof. Frazer observes : — 



" While I have shown reason to think that in 

 many communities sacred kings have been developed 

 out of magicians, I am far from supposing that this 

 has been universally true. The causes which have 

 determined the establishment of monarchy have no 

 doubt varied greatly in different countries and at 

 different times." 



