Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/332

 REVIEWS.

L'Annee Sociologique, publiee sous la direction de Emile DuRKHEiM, Professeur de Sociologie a la Faculte des Lettres de rUniversite de Bordeaux. Cinquieme Annee (1900- 1901). Paris: Felix Alcan, 1902.

The fifth yearly volume of LAnn'ee Sociologique is in nowise inferior to its predecessors in variety or interest. The critical accounts of the publications of the year lack nothing of the acumen previously displayed. Every effort is made to render them complete ; and they are rapidly causing L^ Annee Sociologique to become indispensable to every student of anthropology, to whatever branch of the subject he may render allegiance.

Of us who are specially interested in the behefs and institutions of mankind, Professor Durkheim's Mhnoire on the totemism of the Arunta demands careful consideration. The first volume of L^A7in'ee Sociologique was signalised by an essay from the same writer on Exogamy, which it will be remembered he traced to the universal prevalence of totemism, and to superstitions in close connection with that institution. His arguments are not yet generally accepted ; but the ingenuity of his theory and the erudition and eloquence with which it was expounded must be recognised, and will prepare us to listen with respect to his dis- cussion of the new problems evoked by the remarkable work of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.

In the Memoi?-e now before us he boldly attacks, not of course the statements of fact made by those discoverers, but certain inferences which they have drawn, and the elaborate theory which Dr. Frazer has built upon the discoveries and the inferences. As members of the Folk-Lore Society know, Dr. Frazer regards the Arunta as representing, more nearly than any other people whose practices have been scientifically investigated, the primitive savage. He finds among them no traces of religion properly so called.