Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/399

 Rh seem to render it probable that human sacrifices were common in archaic times to ensure the fertility of the soil. If the inferences of Mannhardt and Mr. Frazer are to be trusted, there is scarcely a field in Europe that has not at one time or another been reddened by the blood of such a sacrifice. I would, myself, hesitate before accepting such a sweeping assertion, simply on inference from folk-lore “survivals”. We should have somewhat more explicit evidence of such general carnage before we can assert its general existence all over the countries where the folk-lore customs extend. Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Frazer seems to me to overlook the imitative nature of man, and the possible spread of the customs and the rhymes from one centre.

Mr. Frazer, again following Mannhardt, applies these agricultural customs to explain some of the most archaic myths, as, e.g., those of the deaths of Osiris and Adonis. These he connects with the habit of killing the “corn-demon” to ensure its vigorous life in another personality. Mr. Frazer confesses, in his preface, to some misgivings that he has pushed his hypothesis too far, and in the cases of Attis, Osiris, and Dionysus this seems to be the case, their connection with agriculture being of the slightest. Mr. Frazer might have taken more account of the thesis of Von Hehn, who suggests that the association of certain plants with certain deities—e.g., the olive with Athene—was really due to its introduction by the priests of the god or goddess. However, it is the duty of every hypothesiser to push his theory to its furthest extent. Someone has said that the use of philosophical systems is in their weak places. So, too, the strength of an hypothesis is best shown in its weak places. Mr. Frazer’s views have some plausibility, even when stretched and strained to their utmost.

But the merit of Mr. Frazer’s book resides, not so much in his theories, ingenious as they are, as in his facts and in his co-ordinations of them. “The Golden Bough” is really