NATURE 



\^Nov. 4, 1886 



whether the facts so laboriously collected by Mr. Morgan 

 can be used to throw light on the early history of the 

 family. 



From his plan of reprinting the book as it stood, with 

 no more annotation than was absolutely necessary, the 

 editor has departed only in one point. The appendix 

 containing "additional examples of the form of capture" 

 has been re-cast and enlarged upon the basis of a paper 

 of J. F. McLennan published in the Argosy in 1866, but 

 with additions from other and more accurate sources. 

 The reasons for adopting this course are obvious : the 

 new matter in this appendix could not conveniently have 

 been reserved for the promised second volume, and the 

 facts are so arranged and explained as to confirm the 

 author's argument, and effectually dispose of the notion 

 that the form of capture in marriage is to be explained 

 by maidenly bashfulness. 



It will be seen from this brief account that, sparing as 

 the editor's additions are, they make the new edition of 

 the " Studies " well worthy of the attention of those who 

 already possess the book in its older form. And to the 

 not small class of students of early society who know 

 McLennan's work only at second hand or by one hasty 

 perusal, it may not be unprofitable to say that this is 

 emphatically a book of which a general knowledge is not 

 sufficient, inasmuch as some of the most important and 

 interesting points are precisely those which are almost 

 sure to be missed on a first reading. For this, perhaps, 

 McLennan himself is partly responsible, for in giving to 

 "Primitive Marriage" the subordinate title "an inquiry 

 into the origin of the form of capture in marriage cere- 

 monies," he seems to fix attention on what is only the 

 starting-point of a far-reaching research. In print and in 

 conversation one often meets with the notion that the 

 doctrines of marriage by capture and kinship through 

 women only are mere archaeological curiosa, and that for 

 the study of later law and custom it is quite indifferent 

 whether these things are true, or whether, on the con- 

 trary, mankind started from the first with male kin- 

 ship. But the importance of McLennan's researches lies 

 largely in the demonstration that the structure of society 

 under a system of kinship in the male line which has 

 been preceded by kinship through women cannot be the 

 same as would be reached by a race which has had male 

 kinship from the first. Other writers have taught a 

 doctrine of the priority of kinship through women, but no 

 one except McLennan has accurately developed the con- 

 sequences of the doctrine, and shown how it solves a 

 problem which, though ignored by most writers, is of the 

 highest importance, namely, the origin oi gcntes within a 

 nation. Like all really original thinkers, McLennan has 

 for one of his chief merits that he recognised the exist- 

 ence of difficult problems in matters which ordinary 

 people pass over without seeing any difficulty at all. And 

 therefore precisely those passages in his writings which 

 on a hasty reading seem needlessly laboured and proper 

 to be skipped are found upon re-perusal to be particularly 

 useful and stimulating. 



A word may be said in conclusion on what is promised 

 for the second volume. It is satisfactory to know (p. 75) 

 that it will include a short essay on the origin of exogamy. 

 And from a note at p. 176 it may be inferred that in this 

 essay the origin of exogamy will be sought in a state of 



society where marriage by capture was an established 

 custom. We are also promised (p. 63) an essay on the 

 marriage law of the Australian Kamiraloi, one of those 

 highly complex problems in which McLennan's powers of 

 analysis ought to appear at their best. From notes on 

 pp. 109 and 228 it appears that part at least of McLennan's 

 hitherto uncollected essays in the Fortiiiglitly Rcvimj, 

 including the papers on Totemism, or " On the Worship 

 of Plants and Animals" (1869-70), will also be re- 

 published. It is to be hoped that in these reprints the 

 editor will allow himself, in one direction, greater freedom 

 of annotation than in the present volume. The Totem 

 papers are in some respects the least finished of 

 McLennan's writings, the evidence of totemism in the 

 nations of ancient civilisation being much too largely 

 drawn from second-hand sources. This gives an appear- 

 ance of weakness to the whole structure of the argument, 

 which has been very prejudicial to the influence of a most 

 original and striking investigation. In point of fact a few 

 of the detailed pieces of evidence ought to be abandoned 

 altogether, but enough remains to leave the substance of 

 the argument unaffected, and this ought to be clearly 

 brought out by notes, referring to original authorities of 

 unquestioned reputation, or giving up statements that 

 cannot be authenticated. Even in the present volume 

 one misses some notes of this kind. The polyandria of 

 the Athenians (p. 235) rests on better evidence than the 

 story which Augustine cites from Varro (Clearchus ap. 

 Athen. xiii. p. 556 d.). Again, the note at p. 47, in which 

 an attempt is made to prove the existence of the form of 

 capture among the Hebrews from the phrase " to take a 

 wife," ought rather to have been withdrawn than again 

 built upon by the editor at p. 181 ; and what is said of 

 the marriages of the Persians at p. 219 sq. requires careful 

 revision. W. Robertson Smith 



BRITISH HVMENOMYCETES 

 British Fungi, Hymcnomycetes. By Rev. John Steven- 

 son. With Illustrations. Vol. II. Cortinarius — Dacry- 

 myces. Pp. 336. 8vo. (Edinburgh : William Blackwood 

 and Sons, 1886.) 

 VITE are glad to welcome this second volume so 

 speedily after the first, although we fear that expe- 

 dition has been secured by some sacrifice of efficiency. It 

 is a misfortune when the reader is impressed at once with 

 the feeling that a volume has been hurried out to meet 

 certain exigencies. That feeling is by no means absent 

 in scanning these pages. As soon as p. 165 is reached, 

 and there is no longer Fries's " Monographia " to fall 

 back upon, descriptions give place to diagnoses, notwith- 

 standing the remarks in the preface, which would seem 

 to regard diagnoses with something of contempt. From 

 p. 166 to the end the student must be content with the 

 diagnoses from Fries's " Hymcnomycetes Europjei," al- 

 though there might have been collected together valuable 

 notes from Fries's " Systema," Observationes," and 

 " Elenchus." Nevertheless some advantage has been 

 taken of the few descriptions published in the letterpress 

 to Fries's " Icones." 



It is of considerable importance to students that a work 

 which professes to include all British species, up to date, 

 should satisfy all reasonable expectations. The first 



