Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/426

 370 True, one of the conditions of matriarchalism obtains in such instances of race-contact—the practical fatherlessness of many children of the women belonging to the lower race. But, as Mr. Stuart-Glennie most rightly insists, the problem of matriarchalism lies not in uncertain, or rather undeclared paternity, but in the supremacy of the woman. Mr. Stuart-Glennie's explanation of this problem is fascinating, but is it true? In any case it deserves most serious attention.

Alfred Nutt.

I became acquainted with Mr. Stuart-Glennie's ingenious views of the origin of civilisation, I have been especially interested in it. We that are content if we reach what we consider to be some approximation of the truth in one small department of some limited section of a definite division of the knowable, cannot but admire the confidence and the vigour with which Mr. Stuart-Glennie settles the affairs of humanity in the epochs before history. There is something Titanic about the whole of his researches that compels admiration for the exploit. Personally I have a sneaking regard for a theory of civilisation which makes it one huge example of the Borrowing-Theory, to which I have, most unscientifically, I fear, pinned my partiality, so that I am ready to welcome it even where no facts exist on which to base our judgment. But where no facts, or few facts, or still unverified facts exist, we have no choice but to revert to hypothesis—provided we have the courage of Mr. Stuart-Glennie, and are content to fall with our hypothesis when facts prove unkind and refuse to fall into the pigeon-holes we have prepared for them.

There is one main principle of human nature which tells strongly for Mr. Glennie's hypothesis to which I desire on the present occasion to draw attention. Civilisation is a matter of culture; culture, again, is a matter of leisure. Now, under early economic conditions (are they much