Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/232

220 organisation contains elements which might have developed in favourable circumstances into a matrilineal system. But might it not be equally open to conjecture that the influence of the environment, by giving unusual prominence to the strength and skill of the male in preserving the group of his descendants, has "forced" the development of the patrilineal system, while repressing advance in other directions. It is at any rate interesting to note that ignorance of the physiological relation of male parent and child is recorded of the Polar Eskimo who recognise descent through both father and mother.

If Dr. Hartland's very able summary of the present state of our knowledge stood in need of any recommendation to those who are interested in the fascinating problems of the early forms of society, it would be found in the comprehensive bibliography with which he concludes the volume.

has set himself a difficult problem, but it is one of perennial interest which requires to be attacked from time to time and from different points of view. Being a psychologist, Mr. Read, naturally, has tackled the problem on psychological lines, and therefore he deals only in passing with its geological and morphological aspects. His primary and main thesis is that nascent man must have been a hunting animal. The change from a fruit-eating to a hunting life subserved the great utility of opening fresh supplies of food; and, possibly, a failure of the normal supply of the old customary food was the direct cause of the new habit. He suggests that if our ape lived near the northern limits of the tropical forest, a fall of temperature, by producing famine, might have driven him to attack other animals; whilst more southerly anthropoids, not suffering from the change of climate, continued in their ancient manner of life. The last statement may be accepted as probably correct. The erect gait, he argues, was attained because