Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/264

242 and cosmology, under which the Book of Changes is dealt with; there is only a very slight reference to Chinese methods in the Buddhist section under Divination). But the allotment of 22 pages to China is certainly generous.

This Encyclopædia is already so often cited by scholars that it is obviously well-known to many, and ought not to need commendation to the rest. It must remain for many years a standard work of reference, and we wish Dr. Hastings the reward he has earned of general appreciation and large sales.

is one of those monographs on subjects connected with sociology and anthropology to which the American universities are now, with so much advantage, directing attention. In discussions on the origin of the Babylonian and Hebrew Sabbaths it has long been recognised that the rest days observed by primitive races do not originate in considerations of practical utility, but depend upon some superstitious feelings ultimately resolvable into that "feare of things invisible," which Hobbes, foreshadowing modern principles of anthropology, regarded as "the naturall Seede of Religion." In working out the influence of beliefs of this kind on the establishment of rest days. Professor Webster, with abundant learning, discusses the various forms of abstinence and taboo at critical epochs, such as the genna of Assam in connection with death rites and other "sacred" times and seasons. He then considers periods of abstinence connected with lunar phenomena, and gives a useful account of the lunar calendar. This leads to the subject of the Babylonian Sabattu and the Hebrew Sabbath. The monograph goes over ground some of which has been covered by Dr. Frazer's Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, and may be usefully read with it. Professor Webster hopes to issue the monograph in an amplified form, and invites criticism and fresh material which may add to its value.