Dkc. 19, 1884.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



509 



it and of rtlij.ion is based on ancestor- worthip, is a purified 

 Euliemerisiu. 



According to the nfcuiid method, Daphne the laurel tree 

 was an old name for the dawn, and Phccbus one of the 

 many names for the sun, who pursued the dawn till she 

 vanii-hed liefore his rays. 



Mr. Lang shows a third and "more excellent way." 

 His method, recognising the light which the many-sided 

 science of iiuthropology throw.s on tlie operations of the 

 human mind at low stages of culture, is, in his own 

 words, "to place the myth which is unintelligible when 

 found among a civilised r<ice beside the similar myth which 

 is intelligible enough when it is found among savage.=. . . . 

 The conclusion will usually be that the fact which puzzles 

 us by its presence in civilisation is a relic surviving from 

 the time when the ancestors of a civilised race were in the 

 state of savagery. Ly tliis method it is not necfs?ary that 

 some sort of genealogy s-liould be established between the 

 Australian and the Greek narrators of a similar myth ; the 

 hypothesis will Le that the myth is common to both races, 

 not because of original communitj' of s'ock, not because of 

 contact and borrowing, but because the ancestors of the 

 Greeks passed thrcuoh the savage intellectuil condition 

 in which we find the Australians" (pp. 2-5, 26). 



In this view, the name is not the earliest feature, but 

 often the latest ; it is accidental and local ; the idea being 

 essential, universal ; witnessing to like explanations of like 

 surroundings at corresponding levels of culture. 



In reviewing the several methods, it seems surprising 

 that there should be any divided opinion about the matter 

 among these who recognise the myth making stage as 

 a necessary attitude of man's early thought. Where the 

 theory of primitive jjurity and complete mental equipment 

 at the outstt is held, such a fdU from gi'ace as 

 decay or disease of language assumes is logical, but, 

 the ascent of man from a lower to a higher once 

 granted, m evidence as to the ide^s of savage races 

 extant, and fs to any corresponding idea traceable in 

 civilised races should be unv^'elcome. Yet it is this 

 evidence which the solar mytholngists, for the most part, 

 refuse to take into account ; evidence preserving for them, 

 like fly in amber, the coarse and ludicrous which are 

 enwrap|)ed within the purer element of myth. In this 

 " Aryan heresy," as the late Mr. Crawfurd, on other 

 gi'ounds than the jjresent, humorously termed it, the 

 doctrine of continuity is denied. So much the worse for 

 the heretics ; their doctrine is doomed, and they had better 

 recognise it, lest they find " no place of repentance though 

 they seek it carefully with t-^ars." 



The an'hropological method exhibits no such discordant 

 results as the philological. In the serifs of chapters 

 following an introductory explanation of grounds of dissent 

 from Max Miiller, Kuhn, and others of the same school, 

 Mr. Ling selects typical illustrations s-ho^ving survival of 

 savage customs (therefore beliefs of which they ai-e the 

 outwai'd and visible sign>-) in classic mysteries ; of savage 

 ideas about the heavens and earth corresponding to those 

 in Greek myth ; of savage beliefs in descent from animals 

 surviving in Greek and other ieligion=, and generally of 

 the numprou<; analogues between the lower and the higher 

 culture. Under th's wise extension of the comparative 

 method the myth of Cronus supplies excellent material, as 

 our next paper will show. 



SOME BOOKS OX OUR TABLE. 



Economical Cookery for the Middle Classes. By Mrs. 

 Addisok. Third Edition. (London : Hodder & Stoughton, 



188i.) — Mis. AdJitoii's little! Look is not only what it ]iro- 



fesses to be, a large collection of formu'.-e for cooking fish, 

 meat, and entrees, and making soups and sweets at a small 

 cost, but it possesses the not verycommoi merit in cookery 

 books of furnishing a considerable number of entirely 

 new recipes. Our authoress would seem to have spent 

 the greater part of l.er life abroad; hence Spanish, Portu- 

 guese, and even Cipe dishes figure amorg them, for whose 

 preparation she gives explicit directions. All seeking for 

 some new thing in the shape of a flivour should lose no 

 time in expending the extremely modest sum at which Mrs. 

 Addison has appraised her verj' practical volume. 



Sltahespeare and Shorthand. By Matthias Lew. 

 (London: Ja?. Wade. 188i.) — This is an attempt to show 

 that the corruptions of the text in the earliest copies of 

 Shakespeare's Plays had thdr origin in the fact that such 

 plays were produced from shorthand notes taken down 

 from the mouths (i the actors. Incidentally, a quantity 

 of information is conveyed with reference to the history of 

 stenography in England fiom the Tudor times downwards. 



Wheeling Annual. (London : Harry Etherington. 

 188-5) — Verily the "wheelman," be he bi-, tri-, quadri-, or 

 omiii cycli.st, gets his money's-worth for his money in this 

 "Annual." A historical restime oi cycling in 1884, and 

 tables of amateur bicyclirg and tiicyciing records ; similar 

 ones of professional achievements; jokes, essays, conun- 

 drums, tales (thiilling and otherwise), acrostics, poems, and 

 narratives of tours, are a few subjects selected absolutely 

 at random from the bulky book Ijing before us. Pre- 

 sumably every cyclist in the kingdom will furnish himself 

 with a cop3'. 



Elemeutarij Te.et Tieioh of Zoology. General Part and 

 Special Pait. Protozoa to Insecta. By Du. C. Cl.\us. 

 Trantlated and edited by Adah Sedgwick, M.A. and F. G. 

 Heathcote, B a. (London: W. Swan Sonnenscliein & 

 Co., 1884.) — It is not often that a work so entirely fulfils 

 its expressed object as does that whose title heads this 

 notice ; for it would be hard to find a better introduction to 

 practical zoology than it afl'ords. The volume before us is 

 the first of the two into which Dr. Claus'a excellent treatise 

 is divided. Should the second one, which has yet to appear 

 in its English dress, only equal this instalment, the biolo- 

 gical student will be furnished wiih a concise zoological 

 cyclopaedia which will leave but little to be de.'-ired indeed. 

 The first 179 pages are devoted to an exposition of the 

 natui-e of organised (and notably animal) life generally. It 

 begins by explaining the difference between organised and 

 unorganised substances ; goes on ti point out the salient 

 distinc'ive features of plants and animals; and then, begin- 

 ning with the individual cell, explains how by its aggrega- 

 tion every jiarticle of the animal frame is built up. The 

 correlation and connection of organ.", and ihe structure and 

 functions of compound ones are treated of in succession. 

 Anatomical and physiological details are given with 

 regard to the special organs of sense: the nature of Intel- 

 ligence and Instinct discussed, and Reproduction, Develop- 

 ment, the Alternation of Generation, Polymorphism, and 

 Heterogamy dealt with. After this a historic precis of the 

 various systems which have been devised from the time of 

 Aristotle to that of Darwin and Lyell serves as an intro- 

 duction to the modern system of classification, and the 

 masterly and philosophical way in which the doctrine of 

 descent is subsequently applied to it, must be nad to be 

 appreciated. Following the Introduction comes the special 

 or descriptive part of the work; and this ranges from the 

 Prot 'zoa to the Insecta; from the amorphous lump of 

 sarcode which constitutes the entire animal in some of the 

 Rhizopoda, to the comparatively complicated anatomy of 

 the hive-bee. Numerous typical examples in succession of 

 the Plot zD.i, the Coeler.terata, the Eel inodermata, the 



