Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/387

 Reviews. 359

L'Annee Sociologique, publiee sous la direction de Emile Durk- heim, Professeur de Sociologie a I'Universite de Bordeaux. Septieme Annee (1902-1903). Paris: Felix Alcan. 1904.

We have begun to look for the publication, year by year, in L^Annce Sociologique, of important contributions towards the elucidation of obscure problems in connection with anthropo- logical science. This year, at all events, the expectation will be satisfied. The Memoire presented to us by Messrs. Hubert and Mauss is in continuation of a series, commenced in previous volumes, having for its object the introduction of a certain num- ber of definite notions, and consequently of scientific nomen- clature, into the study of religious phenomena. The authors complain, with no little reason, of the want of precise classifica- tion and an accurate vocabulary in the history of religion. It is this, they think, which has retarded the progress of a study so rich in facts, and so capable of yielding abundant results. Mem- bers of the Folk-Lore Society will recollect that some five years ago the same authors presented in L'An?iee Sociologique an essay on the nature and function of sacrifice. The present work may be regarded as carrying on the attempt at analysis and definition from the domain of religion into a parallel region. In it they attempt to formulate a general theory of magic.

Magic has been the subject of much discussion among anthro- pologists during the last few years. As ai. outcome of this dis- cussion Dr. Frazer, in the second edition of The Goldefi Bough, put forward a formal theory. Definitions there had been before, but none so completely worked out — perhaps none so bold — as his. According to him and the school which he represents, magic is a sort of savage science. To quote The Golden Bough : " Wherever sympathetic magic [in which expression mimetic magic is also included] occurs in its pure unadulterated form, it assumes that in nature one event follows another necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual or personal

agency Thus the analogy between the magical and the

scientific conception of the world is close. In both of them the succession of events is perfectly regular and certain, being deter- mined by immutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated precisely ; the elements of caprice, of chance, and of accident are banished from the course of nature. Both of