Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/544

 234 Reviews.

understanding of, and consequently a better sympathy with, peoples whose environment and outlook differ in so many respects from our own. In glancing through this varied collec- tion one is struck with the diversity, and yet, reading the accounts of creation drawn from Iceland, Greece, West Africa, India, Japan, North America, New Zealand or Polynesia, one feels that the stories of Adam and Eve, and of Noah and the Ark have found their right place among congenial and not unworthy companions, and this brings a clearer sense of the fundamental oneness of human thought and belief.

A, HlNGSTON QuiGGIN.

Aspects of Ancient Indian Polity. By Narendra Nath Law, M.A., B.L. ; with a Foreword by Arthur Berriedale Keith, D.C.L., D.Litt. Oxford University Press. London: Milford.

The study of State-craft has perhaps been a little overlooked by the folklorist, though its importance to him can hardly be doubted. What the folk believe and do to-day is often what their leaders once taught them. This may be peculiarly true of India, and if it is so anything which throws light on the history of the Kingship in that country ought to illuminate at least the psychology of its modern denizens. Mr. Law's book. Ancient Indian Polity, to give it its short title, is a good beginning.

The writer commences with a chapter on the " Forms and Types of States," which is necessarily brief, as even in Ancient India the organised State was, it is almost certain, always a monarchy. This of course does not mean that the monarchy was invariably of the same sub-type, but our information on this point is imperfect. We learn something about the methods of choosing a king, but hardly anything about his functions when chosen. As a rule, succession to a throne is hereditary, but when the heir-apparent is disquahfied another member of the ruling family is chosen. But then how is the choice made and