vi PREFACE 



may reasonably infer its root in ideas common to man- 

 kind and native to the primitive ancestral soil. The 

 inference is greatly strengthened if vestigial forms are 

 also found embedded in the culture of the higher races. 

 It is raised to a certainty if unambiguous expression of 

 the ideas themselves can be discovered to-day among the 

 lower races. The advance of even the most backward 

 from primeval savagery has been so great that a large 

 harvest of these ideas is not to be expected. But the 

 researches of the last few years have yielded enough, it 

 is hoped, to afford a satisfactory solution of, among others, 

 the problem under consideration in these volumes. 



The Legend of Perseus has been out of print for 

 several years. Consequently I have not hesitated to make 

 use of the material comprised in the first volume. The 

 myth of Supernatural Birth is now admitted to be in 

 one form or another practically universal, and I have 

 deemed it enough to present as the starting-point of the 

 inquiry a mere summary of the stories. Of the other 

 material I have made larger use ; but its presentation 

 has been revised, and much new and important matter 

 has been included. The chapters that succeed, occupying 

 the remainder of the first and the whole of the second 

 volume, are intended to exhibit the argument from 

 institutions and customs. Incidentally they traverse 

 conclusions arrived at by some distinguished anthro- 

 pologists on the subject of the conjugal relations of 

 early man. But this is beside their chief object, and I 

 have abstained from controversy. 



HlGHGARTH, 



GLOUCESTER, 

 August, 1909. 



