Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/92

 68 Reviews.

learn of the perilous art of controversy, and his criticism of the older interpretation of the Demeter-Erinnys myth is conducted on the old familiar lines.

Next we have a chapter on Totemism, which is mainly directed to repudiating the eccentricities of weaker brethren. The person who said that a totem was a fetish inhabited by an ancestral spirit " might as well have said that Abracadabra was gas and gaiters ; " and he takes occasion to explain his own views as contrasted with those of Mr. Frazer.

Then follows a chapter on the Validity of Anthropological Evi- dence. Savages are not in any sense "primitive;" the "test of recurrences," that is the comparison of evidence collected by old travellers with that of their modern successors, proves the validity of the evidence itself; missionary testimony is in the main trust- worthy.

Then he again proceeds to slay the slain in the matter of linguistic formulae — Ouranos, Varuna, and the rest. This leads to a criticism of Professor Max Miiller's theory of the influence of Riddles on Mythology — " Ancient riddles cannot explain the obscurity of mythological names. As soon as the name was too obscure, the riddle and the name would be forgotten, would die together."

The relevant part of the book ends with a discussion of the Artemis-Callisto myth, in which he has little difificulty in showing that the philological explanation does not meet the facts.

The book, then, while successful as a reply to a rambling and inconclusive criticism, is on the whole disappointing. The field which it professes to cover is so immense that anything like detailed treatment of it is out of the question, and this difficulty has been aggravated by the inclusion of matter not directly relevant to the question at issue. But, as in all Mr. Lang's work, there is much clever, amusing writing, and many flashes of luminous suggestion. No one who desires to keep himself abreast with the latest phase of a notable controversy can afford to ignore it.