Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/105

 Reviews. 95

elsewhere with the best classical and ethnological learning at his command. Theories evolved from the examination of one or two forms, even though the most developed, may be true ; but they cannot be trusted until they have been confirmed in all other available directions.

I have no space to follow step by step the careful analysis con- tained in this brilliant and suggestive essay. Starting with a few necessary definitions, and insisting on the identity of the elements of the more complex rites, the authors justify their selection of the typical sacrifice, that of the Vedic animal sacrifice. The scheme of the sacrifice is then minutely drawn out. The entry or intro- ductory rites are described, with their effects on (i) the person, or group of persons, on whose behalf the sacrifice is offered, (ii) the sacrificing priest or other officiant, (iii) the place and in- struments of the sacrifice. The course of the actual sacrifice and the closing rites, or exit from the sacrifice, are narrated. Two chapters are devoted to showing how the scheme varies according to the intention of the sacrifice. The sacrifice of the god is the theme of another chapter, which includes a disquisition of some length on the relations between ritual and myth, a large place being given to cosmological myths. In conclusion, the authors declare that all the possible kinds of sacrifices have not issued, as Robertson Smith believed, from one simple, primitive form. There are two principal types of sacrifice, that of sacralisation and that of de- sacralisation. But these are closely interdependent, since in every sacrifice of sacralisation a desacralisation is implied, and con- versely in every sacrifice of desacralisation we find an act of sacra- lisation. Moreover, these two are merely abstract types. Every sacrifice takes place in definite circumstances and for definite pur- poses; and the diversity of purposes gives birth to diversity of modes. Now, on the one hand, there is no religion in which these modes do not co-exist in greater or less number ; on the other hand, there is no particular sacrifice which is not complex in itself, either pursuing several aims at once, or putting in move- ment several forces to attain one end. Amid all this complexity the unity of the sacrifice arises from the fact that under the diver- sity of its forms, one procedure only can be employed for the most different ends. That procedure consists in establishing a com- munication between the two worlds, the sacred and the profane, through the intermediary of a victim, that is to say, of something