Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/186

162 werewolves, the legends relating to megalithic monuments, and the kind of tales familiar to us in Ovid and in modern märchen as well as one of the lines of thought which converged to form that curious institution, still so little understood, of totemism.

Another assertion to which we must take exception is that communal marriage is "a gratuitous hypothesis only," and that, as we gather, it has never "prevailed in a permanent community." Absolute promiscuity, it may be conceded, is merely an hypothesis. But the remains of group-marriage both in custom and in language are very widespread. And if it be not now found in full force everywhere, at all events it may safely be said that almost all over the world there are still existing, or on trustworthy record, institutions, practices, and modes of speech hardly explicable save as survivals of group-marriage. The matriarchal system, or what perhaps is better termed mother-right (since the mother was not necessarily or frequently the ruler of the family or clan), which Dr. Brinton admits to be the first discernible in early times, is probably such a relic; and it is usually found associated with ceremonies, rights, duties, and traditions pointing in the same direction.

In the final chapter the fines of development of primitive religions are indicated, and their influence on the evolution of civilisation insisted on in thoughtful and eloquent pages. We do not propose to follow the distinguished author any further. This notice, of necessity cursory and fragmentary, has already outrun the limits of our space. If we have challenged some of his opinions (and we have found ourselves at issue with him on more points than are here mentioned), it is only fair to recollect that in the present state of anthropological science nobody could write a book on the subject without enunciating many a disputable proposition. By discussion we hope eventually to arrive at conclusions acceptable to the majority of reasonable students; but we are as yet far from any such result. Dr. Brinton's lectures, by reason of their compression, bear a value quite disproportionate to their size, and should not be overlooked by any one to whom the problems of the history of religion are a matter of living interest. [sic]