Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/434

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80 Reviews.

exceedingly ancient, but come to an end at a given period, e.g. the Assyrians and Babylonians, while others are, comparatively speaking, modern, e.g. the Syrians and Arabs, whose records begin long after the appearance of Christianity and after the total de- struction of the ancient civilization and the ancient forms of worship. The Hebrews have preserved only fragments of a much richer literature, and of some other so-called Semitic races, such as the Sabaeans and the peoples in the South of Babylon and Arabia, perhaps not a trace from ancient times remains. A gap of thousands of years thus separates the modern folklore gathered in these lands from the old records, and a complex problem arises not easy to cope with.

To these difficulties inherent in the subject and in the nature of the materials used for investigation, I add the modern system of investigation itself as being a source of weakness in any attempt to study the customs, beliefs, and ceremonies. Theory often pre- cedes results, and the lacunae caused by insufficient material are filled up by rash speculation, and, what is worse, by an indis- criminate use of incidents and apparent parallels gathered from every corner and often separated one from the other by centuries in time and by thousands of miles in distance. This is common to all the modern books connected with the study of ancient practices and ceremonies, and this is, no doubt, the reason why so many theories are propounded one day to be supplanted by other equally plausible theories on the next day, resting practically upon the same materials but interpreted by each one differently and more suitably to his own notions. So long as investigation proceeds on these haphazard lines it must necessarily fail to bring conviction. It would be unfair, however, to single out Mr. Thompson's book for this criticism, for, although the author follows closely upon the footsteps of Robertson Smith and Frazer, and has adopted some of their more advanced views, he does not err so much as his masters in this direction, and does not press everything and any- thing indiscriminately into the service of his theories, irrespective of date and origin. But the book suffers none the less from these drawbacks. A modern Arab tale and a monkish story of the Middle Ages, or a legend of the Rabbis and a custom from the Malays of to-day, are placed side by side with ancient Assyrian