Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/106

 96 Reviews.

destroyed in the course of the ceremony. The victim does not, as Robertson Smith thought, necessarily arrive at the sacrifice with a rehgious nature definite and complete. It is the sacrifice which confers this nature. It can accordingly bestow the most diverse virtues, and render the victim apt to fulfil the most varied functions either in different rites or in one and the same rite.

From this bare outline the importance of the essay to the student of the history of religion may perhaps be gathered. The authors' conclusions will have to be considered, and whether accepted or not, their analysis of the process of sacrifice as depicted in the sacred writings of Hindus and Hebrews^ and the comparisons they institute, will materially assist future inquirers. It is quite certain that we could not have advanced towards the solution of the problems involved without a methodical considera- tion of the mechanism of sacrifice. Messrs. Hubert and Mauss have not merely pointed this out, they have shown the way. Progress will follow by an adaptation of their method to inquiries concerning other religions and among other peoples.

The remainder of the volume is devoted to an enumeration and critical notices of books and articles in periodicals pubUshed during the year. The word sociology as used by M. Durkheim and his collaborators embraces a very wide area. Their principle is that religious, juridical, moral, and economical facts ought all to be treated conformably to their nature, that is to say, as social facts ; not (as they are too often treated) as if they were disparate and independent of time, place, and social conditions. Whether to describe or to explain them, they must be considered in con- nection with a definite social milieu, a definite type of society ; and it is in the constituent characteristics of this type that the determining cause of whatever phenomenon we are considering must be sought. In this truly scientific spirit the books and other works are approached. It is one with which all serious students of folklore must sympathise, and from which only they can expect solid results. The reviews are written by specialists in the various departments, and, so far as I have examined them, extending to all that border on ethnographical subjects, are generally marked by acuteness, precision, and sanity.

E. Sidney Hartland.