Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/90

 82 are grotesque, cruel, and oftentimes hideous and revolting; and asking whence come these characteristics and why do they lurk along-side of a more pure and highly cultured tone of thought, he appeals to the lower races and ascertains that in the customs and beliefs of savages there exist exact counterparts, but unaccompanied by any high tone of thought. Then, applying his method to phenomena thus ascertained, Mr. Lang suggests that the people possessed of a high culture and retaining savage practices were once in a stage of development similar to the races now extant who have never advanced to a high culture, it is difficult to conceive how this argument is to be met. Those who refer the savage practices preserved in some Greek ritual or myth to a borrowing from Babylonian or Egyptian sources do not really answer the question, for if it is got rid of so far as regards the Greek, which we do not admit, we have still to ask it as regards the Babylonian or Egyptian. And, of course, it becomes a legitimate inquiry to consider why the Greek, highly cultured, with magnificent art instincts and possessed of the most highly developed philosophical mind, should borrow from Babylonian or any other people practices and beliefs at complete variance with their own ideas. Having inherited them from their ancestors it would take whole generations of civilized thought to eradicate them; but, not possessing them, to unthinkingly or designedly borrow them is a theory which will require much more conclusive arguments than have hitherto been advanced before it can be accepted, and which by the side of Mr. Lang's book seem absolutely inadequate to meet the position.

Mr. Lang is always good in suggesting new branches of research and throwing unexpected light upon old facts by a new reading of them. His remarks upon the songs of incantation among savages (i. 101 ), and their connection with the rhyming formulæ so often met with in märchen, is a case in point; and we venture to think that they are but the preface to a very considerable and interesting inquiry. Another instance is afforded by his explanation of that curious custom, the couvade (ii. 223). On some matters we do not think Mr. Lang quite so correct, as, for instance, the very incidental way in which he connects property and rank with some of the customs he is