Jan. 2, IS.-:. J 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



13 



Taking; up a number of the Qiueii the other day, my 

 eye fell ou an article l>y Lsuly John Manners, on "Some 

 of the Advantages of E:isily Accessible Ueadini; and 

 Eecreatiou Kooius," lhroU|;h which I took the piins to 

 read, to see whetlier its authoress had anything really 

 instructive to s>y upon the subject. I was, I confess, 

 terribly disappointed. Her idea of a reading-room for 

 the industrial classes — or rather of its literary furniture 

 — would seem to be that a very considerable })roportion 

 of the books should be of the " goody-goody," or " I say 

 untoe you, my brethren," order. She gives, however, quite 

 candidly, the name of the highly -respectable tirm of book- 

 sellers whose representative has been her adviser in this 

 matter. Th.it a working man or woman should ever care 

 to know anything of the structure of the Celestial A^'ault 

 and the glories of the illimitable universe ; of the strange 

 story of the manner in which our own earth has developed 

 through untold millions of years ; of the theory of the light- 

 ning fl<ish; of the causes and circuits of the wind ; of the 

 marvellous details of the animal frame ; of the wouders of 

 chemistry, electricity, and optics ; of the life and growth 

 of plants, and of innumerable cognate marvels which en- 

 compass us, never seems to have entered into Lady John 

 Mauners's mind for an instant. 



Speaking of the Queen, by the way, its so-called fashion 

 pictures cannot fail simply to disgust every one who has 

 the slightest artistic taste, or reverence and admiration for 

 the exquisite contour of the human form. Every woman 

 in them seems to be suffering from steatopygia in an aggra- 

 vated and offensive form. I have myself always heard 

 that the Hottentot Venus was a most unpleasant sight, 

 and that, however curious from an anatomical point of 

 view her deformity was, it was most repuLive to look at. 

 Now, if I may judge from the engravings of which I am 

 speaking, females more or less weak-minded seem to be 

 endeavouring, as far as they can artificially, to copy this 

 peculiarity accurately. I say " females," because I note 

 that all the.se exaggerated fashions are what a friend of 

 mine calls " suburban," and that ladies in the very best set 

 eschew them altogether. 



"With the present issue of Knowledge the seventh 

 volume is commenced, and a fitting opportunity is pre- 

 sented for submitting an outline of our programme, so 

 far as it has been arranged, for the year just commenced. 

 Mr. Grant Allen's interesting papers on Natural History 

 will be continued, as will also those on Geolo.'}', by Mr. 

 Harrison. Mr. Clodd's series on Dreams, now completed, 

 will be succeeded by a popular series on Evolution ; and 

 Mr. Foster will deal with Social and kindred matters as 

 occasion requires. Mr. Slack's Microscopical Studies will 

 be continued ; Mr. Butler will substitute for " Pond Ento- 

 mology " a series of articles on " Hou.s^hold Insects ; " and 

 Mr. Mattieu Williams will presently turn his attention from 

 the "Chemistry of Cookery" to the efjually-irnportant 

 subject of the " Philosophy of Clothing." " A Working 

 Man" will continue his useful papers on Household Car- 

 pentry, while Experimental and Practical Electricity will 

 be dealt with by Mr. Slingo, and Optics, Xatural Magic, 

 &c., by a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

 Amongst the subjects to be taken in hand by tlie Editor 

 may be mentioned those of Astronomy, Mapping, and 

 Geometry. Whist, by " Five of Clubs," and " Chess," by 

 " Mephisto," will continue to be regarded as character- 

 istic features of the paper. 



iRfbifUiei* 



CUSTOM AND MYTH. 



By ]''n\vAiii) C'lodu. 



(coMLfDixi: NoTlci:.) 



IN returning to the leading inul'if of this book — namelv. 

 its i)rotest in (avour of the anthropological as opposed 

 to the ))urely jjhilological method, it must bo conceded that 

 the facts yielded by th.^ former are overwhelming in its 

 support, and derive their cumulative force from their uni- 

 versality in the lower culture. 



The controversy which has become inevitable on this 

 matter is even more distasteful to the i)resent reviewer 

 than Mr. l>ang confesses it to be to hinisf^lf, since it iuvolves 

 disagreement with the distinguished scholar whose "Lectures 

 on the Science of ljan;;uage " led many of us, weary of 

 word-monger.a, for the ilr.st time by pleasant ways into the 

 seemingly arid region of philology, and who has done so 

 much to enkindle interest in the profounder subjects of 

 man's religious development and destiny. 



But " truth must be preferred to Plato," and the dicta 

 of Profissor Max IMiiller may not pass unchallenged. . In a 

 discursive article under the title " Forgotten Biljle.s,"* a 

 title which, except in the 0])pning sentences, has no relation 

 to the subject-matter, the Professor divides the modern 

 school of inquiry concerning the origin and nature of 

 language, myth and history, into the Historical and the 

 Theoretical, contending that whilst the guiding principle of 

 the former is " learn to understand what is by learning to 

 understand what has been," that of the latter is, as the 

 name given it implies, speculative, "reasoning a jiriori." 

 Professor Max Miiller then shows what snccfss has attended 

 tl'.e one in its endeavour to solve the problem of the origin 

 and growth of language and of religion by the collection 

 and comparison of accessible evidence from the Aryan 

 group of dialects and from the sacred books of both Aryan 

 and Semitic ijations, and what failure has followed the 

 other through its assumptions that interjections and imita- 

 tive sounds are the rudimentary forms of speech, and that 

 the barbaric assumption of life and personality to lifeless 

 things is the foundation of belief in gods and other spiritual 

 being.". 



The distinction which tlie Profes-or draws between these 

 two schools is artificial ; 'had it any correspondence in 

 fact, the titles given should change places. For, in all its 

 inquiries, the school dubbed Theoretical adopts the scientific 

 method. It works from the more known to the less known, 

 from the familiar to the recondite. It is in bondage to no 

 theories to which the facts it brings to light must also be 

 chained. Embracing man in his tout rnsetn/jli', and un- 

 hampered 'oy limitations of his antiquity, it draws no imagi- 

 nary boundaries such as hem in the so-called Historical 

 School. Its study of man, as myth-maker and fetish wor- 

 shipper, extends faj beyond the relatively late period of 

 Vedic civilisation ; for it the roots of his language lie 

 deejjer than we can fathom, far below the feeders of Proto- 

 Aryan p])eech. (By the way, when may we expect a 

 translation of that, thus far, " forgotten Bible," the " Rig- 

 Vedi," as the Veda facile princeps, to apfiear among the 

 "Sacred Books of the East 1 " It is the Historical School 

 which works on a priori lines, restricting its motto, 

 " Learn to understand what is by learning to understand 

 what has been," to what " has been " up to the Vedic age, 

 but not beyond it. It. is that same school which assumes 

 in man at his lowest a faculty of " apprehending the In- 



* Vide Nineteenth Century, June, 1S81. 



