JANUARY I0, 1907] 
NATURE 24 
In regard to this and other developments, the editor 
has obtained much help from the reports of the Royal 
Commission on Coal Supplies, and particularly from 
Mr. Bennett H. Brough’s report on foreign and 
colonial coal resources to that Commission. This 
material is ably and attractively dealt with by the 
editor, who shows that it is probable that the exhaus- 
tion of the British deposits will not progress much, if 
at all, more rapidly in relation to their total contents 
than will be the case with the German coal, and that 
the reported coal resources of Canada and Australia 
suggest the reflection that even though an increasing 
cost of power in Great Britain involve the decay here 
of the industries on which our country’s preponder- 
ance is based, the industrial greatness of the British 
Empire may not pass away. 
The first chapter forms practically the author’s 
preface to the first edition, and the subsequent 
chapters in the new edition deal with the following 
subjects :—opinions of previous writers, the geological 
aspect of the coal question, the cost of coal mining, 
the price of coal, British invention, the economy of 
fuel, supposed substitutes for coal, the natural law 
of social growth, the growth and migrations of our 
population, the change and progress of our industry, 
our consumption of coal, the export and import of 
coal, the comparative coal resources of different coun- 
tries, the iron trade, problem of the trading bodies, 
taxes and the national debt, and concluding reflec- 
tions. The width of economic and erudite informa- 
tion and the patriotic tone of the original work have 
been well maintained, and the whole has been admir- 
ably brought up to date. The only trifling matter 
that has escaped the editor’s notice is that in a few 
cases the titles of some of the authorities cited which 
changed in the course of time have not been altered. 
Thus, Lord Armstrong appears as Sir William Arm- 
strong, Sir Henry Bessemer as Mr. Bessemer, Sir 
Andrew Ramsay as Prof. Ramsay, and Lord Swansea 
(Sir Henry Hussey Vivian) as Mr. Vivian. The able 
editing and the arrangement of the matter, as well 
as the attractive form in which the book is produced, 
cannot fail to commend themselves to all who share 
John Stuart Mill’s admiration of the work and of 
its author. 
THE RELIGION OF THE 
I. Malay Beliefs. 
(London: Luzac and 
MALAYS. 
By R. J. 
Co:, 
The Peninsular Malays. 
Wilkinson. Pp. 81. 
1906.) Price 2s. net. 
J ARIOUS classes of students, in addition to the 
Civil Service cadets for whom it is primarily 
intended, should read the most excellent pamphlet on 
““Malay Beliefs’’ recently written by Mr. R. J. 
Wilkinson. The author is one of the most erudite of 
students of the Malay language, classical and 
dialectical, and he has acquired an intimate and 
sympathetic knowledge of Malay customs and beliefs. 
This little book contains a clear statement of the 
strange mixture of Mohammedan creeds and practices 
that obtains in the peninsula. As Malay Islamism 
NO, 1941. VOL. 75] 
was mainly introduced from southern India, the 
Malays are Sunnites like the Moslems of the Deccan, 
but owing to the predominance of Persian influence 
in India Shiite ‘‘ heresies ’’ have crept in; further, in 
the matter of religious law the Malays are Shafeites. 
Below and penetrating through this imported religion 
are aboriginal vestiges of paganism, always strongly 
tinted with magic. 
Mr. Wilkinson has some interesting remarks upon 
the problem of the relation of magic to religion that 
is at present exercising the minds of students of 
comparative religion. He says :— 
““The magician may ‘indicate’ some person to 
receive the special attention of spirits of disease, much 
as a man sets his dogs upon an enemy. Sometimes 
by the use of a waxen or other image, or by the 
exhibition of a ‘sample’ such as the parings of a 
man’s nails or the clippings of his hair, the wizard 
conveys to the world of ghosts a knowledge of the 
person he wishes them to attack—and the ghosts are 
ever ready to profit by the hint so kindly given. Here 
the practices of Malay witchcraft come very close to 
sympathetic Magic—to the view that there is ‘a 
certain physical sympathy between a person and his 
image’: 
“Tt is not wax that I am melting, 
But the liver, heart and spleen of So-and-So.’ 
*“ Nevertheless there is a marked difference between 
the animistic magic of the Malays and the ‘* sympa- 
thetic magic’ defined in Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’ 
and accepted by Mr. Skeat as the explanation of the 
use of waxen images in the Peninsula. The follow- 
ing invocation (quoted by Mr. Skeat himself) shows 
the real nature of the practice : 
* Salutation to thee, Oh Prophet! Ruler of the World! 
Lo! I am burying the corpse of So-and-So. 
Do you assist in killing him or making him sick.’ 
“The actions of the sorcerer merely illustrate or in- 
dicate to the spirits the exact nature of the service 
that he expects of them. If these performances were 
really based on a belief in ‘a certain physical sym- 
pathy between the person and his image’ it would 
be unnecessary to invoke the spirits at all.” 
Mr. Wilkinson gives some good examples of 
accurate observation but inaccurate inference from the 
facts. Thus people have noticed that man-eating 
tigers have the great canine teeth almost entirely worn 
away, and they infer that the loss of the teeth is a 
punishment for man-eating, and not that the beast 
is driven by the loss of his weapons to the desperately 
dangerous expedient of preying upon man. Again, 
they know that venomous snakes have stumpy 
tails, and assume that the use of the venom causes the 
tail to drop off. The author also gives a suggestive 
account of the training and methods of the native 
doctor, who has some real knowledge of drugs, diet, 
fomentations and massage, and a thorough knowledge 
of the weakness of human nature. His dodges per- 
plex or mislead rival practitioners, while they delight 
his patients with the special attention that he appears 
to be devoting to their individual needs. 
It is to be hoped that the author will redeem his 
promise of issuing other pamphlets on Malay litera- 
ture, life and customs, government and law, history, 
and industries. i 
