a non-scientific definition, which begged the question to begin with.'

Mr Frazer's definition, of course, is not devised for any such illogical purpose. But if we could find races who, like Bertram, believe, but do not tremble, Mr Frazer's definition would apparently rule them out as non-religious, whereas, we think, they would really exhibit a very interesting stage of religion. They might be destitute of religious practice, but not of religious belief, except by Mr Frazer's definition, if pressed against them. In the face of that definition we conceive that the science of religion would be absolutely bound to examine and, if possible, to account for a religious belief unaccompanied by cult or worship that is, if such a belief were well attested. It would be a religious phenomenon, like any other, except by Mr Frazer's present definition of religion.

It is not our purpose here to enter into discussion, in detail, of Mr Frazer's hypotheses. It has been my wish and intention,' he says, ' to draw as sharply as possible the line of demarcation between my facts and the hypotheses by which I have attempted to colligate them.' No such lordly treasure-house of facts and of statements, as to the whole theme, has in our time been opened to the anthropologist; while the myriads of exact references enable the reader to check his author by following the context from which the extracts are detached. 'Read on,' Mr Gladstone was wont to say when an opponent quoted an old speech of his ; and Mr Frazer offers us the opportunity of reading on.' His method, the free use of hypothesis, has this advantage, namely, that when an idea has dawned on him as a probable working explanation of phenomena, it has often led him into regions of research where no English anthropologist has preceded him. The hypothesis in his mind also opens his eyes to facts which a student, without the hypothesis, might have regarded as negligible. On the other hand, the abundance of colligated hypotheses, many or all of which must crumble if one is demonstrably incorrect, lends, we fear, an air of instability to the whole edifice.

It is almost, we think, to be regretted that Mr Frazer

* The International Monthly,' April 1901, p. 475,

did not write a wholly new book, instead of accommodating his now very advanced theory, and his new collections of facts, to the framework of his first edition. If we are not mistaken, the volumes, as they stand, contain ideas which cannot easily be cleared (though possibly they can) from the charge of being self-contradictory. This is probably due to the method of piecing the new cloth into the old garment. Where Mr Frazer has apparently changed his mind on important points, he has occasionally left the record of his previous opinion behind him, without satisfactorily reconciling the two seemingly opposite and mutually exclusive ideas. But it is perhaps hardly fair to criticise a work which, though vast, is only part of the plan and system that Mr Frazer has traced out for himself. His style, unlike that of many scientific writers, is careful, agreeable, vivacious, and only very occasionally shows a vein of rather too exuberant rhetoric. As to his demonstration of the extent to which the religion of vegetation has affected ritual, usage, and, by way of survival, popular custom, nobody can deny that he has succeeded in proving the vast range of this influence. Difficulties arise in special cases; as in that of the supreme Aryan god 'whose life was in the mistletoe or Golden Bough,' and in a theory even more hazardous. Through the whole dense labyrinthine forest of his work the Ariadne's clue which guides him never leaves his hand; and his eye never wavers from his goal, though a critic who follows may conceive that the thread is not only tangled, but in some places broken. This does not blind us to the value of Mr Frazer's immense erudition and unwearied industry.†

If, on points confessedly speculative, we cannot absolutely applaud all of Mr Frazer's work, there is literally, we think, no exception to be taken to The Native Tribes of Central Australia,' by Mr Baldwin Spencer, Professor of Biology in the University of Melbourne, and Mr F. J.

This is also the opinion of the author of the article styled 'Magic and Religion' in the Edinburgh Review,' October 1901.

The more special criticisms of Mr Frazer's book which we have observed are by Mr Hartland (author of 'The Legend of Perseus'), in 'Man'; by several anthropologists and folk-lorists of various opinions, in 'Folk-lore'; and two essays of considerable extent, and antagonistic nature, in Mr Lang's 'Magic and Religion,' with the paper of the same title in the Edinburgh Review,' already referred to.

Gillen, subprotector of Aborigines at Alice Springs, South Australia. Mr Gillen has known the rather isolated savages of Central Australia for twenty years, and possesses their confidence, having been permitted, with Mr Spencer, to observe their initiatory and magical rites. These gentlemen have borne the heat of many a day and the fatigue of many a sleepless night in watching mummeries often cruel and disgusting. They have furnished an account of the whole aboriginal life, which may almost be called exhaustive, and give us many photographs. With scarcely a trace of theory, they give facts of every description. We cannot here go into these; but it is to be observed that the tribes, especially the Arunta, are all but destitute (as here described) of any trace of what the widest definition could call religion. On the other hand, they possess an elaborate material magic, a magic of sympathy' and imitation, with no appeal to spirits. They have adopted a theory of evolution which leaves no room for a creative power, or for any future life except that of re-incarnation. Their form of Totemism is peculiar, perhaps unique. the other hand, the development of government is, in some respects, more advanced than that of most of the aborigines'—a kind of magistracy descending in the male line, not the female. To read this book is an education to the scientific explorer.

On

A volume much slighter, though interesting and intelligent, is Mr Richard Semon's In the Australian Bush,' translated from the German. Mr Semon was travelling for about two years in the northern parts of Australia. He found the natives' truthful on the whole'; apparently they could not take the trouble to invent a good lie. In the language, 'abstract words' are wanting, though in Central Australia Mr Spencer notes the names of two mythical beings, Ungambikula, which means, 'self-existing, or made out of nothing.' It is not easy to be more abstract' than that. Mr Semon's book, though very interesting as a record of travel, has no particular anthropological value.

6

Mr Alldridge's book, The Sherbro and its Hinterland,' is of a practical character, and adds very little to our knowledge of the more intimate ideas of the natives of Western Africa. It would be very instructive if we knew the esoteric secrets of the Mysteries, But Mr Alldridge

·

says, 'I have never yet succeeded in penetrating the inner Mysteries, and indeed I always tell the people that I have no wish that they should divulge to me anything that they have sworn to keep secret.' As moralists we must commend Mr Alldridge, but the anthropologist grieves. A few traces of 'automatism'-as in the European use of the divining-rod-occur in native divination. Of these, however, Mr Skeat gives much better examples. His Malay Magic' is a particularly excellent work. The author states the usual objections against all anthropological evidence, objections which we have already considered. He then gives the chants and other native songs, on which he founds his reports, in the original language. with translations. This, as we have seen, is the best of all kinds of testimony in the anthropological field. The Malays, under a veneer of Islam, preserve almost all the widely diffused ideas of savage culture. They are too deeply Islamised to teach us much about their earlier religion, but they are masters of magic and spells. In divination, forms of automatism (as in table-turning') are employed; and the movements, caused by unconscious muscular action, are attributed to spirits. The anecdote quoted from Sir Francis Swettenham, of a piece of divination done under his own eyes, may, perhaps, be explained by Mr Maskelyne, the conjurer, but is certainly, as regards its method, beyond the ordinary comprehension. Though many of the Malay beliefs and practices, of which Mr Skeat tells us, are familiar to us already as existing among other races, the exactitude of his method and his sympathetic attitude make his volume one of the best of recent contributions to anthropology.

In conclusion, our readers will be glad to hear that Mr Spencer and Mr Gillen, by the aid of the Colonial Governments, and of friends, are engaged in a new and promising expedition. The Government of India has appointed Mr Risley (well known for his excellent researches) to be Director of Ethnography. The 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute' has been greatly enlarged and improved, thanks to the energy of Mr Arthur Evans and the late and actual presidents, Mr C. H. Read and Mr Haddon, whose record of research near Torres Straits is in the press. The harvest is vast, and the reapers are neither few nor indolent.

Art. X.-THE PROGRESS OF WOMEN.

1. The International Congress of Women, 1899: Report of Transactions. Seven vols. Edited by the Countess of Aberdeen. London: Fisher Unwin, 1900.

2. Women and their Work. By the Hon. Mrs Arthur Lyttelton. London: Methuen, 1901.

Ir is probably true to say that while a constant and unfailing interest attaches to the doings of men, and to the relations between men and women, a discussion on the position of women only is one which often meets with but very half-hearted welcome. It is connected in people's minds with a certain combativeness and asser1 tiveness, of which man, who wishes to be let alone, is naturally intolerant. He is apt to turn away in dismay from statements such as that recently made by a wellknown novelist, that there is 'great need for an earnest, unbiassed enquiry into the reason why woman all over the world has become such a disturbing element in the life-history of man,' and for an equally earnest endeavour to find some sure foothold for improvement.' That, he says, is exactly what is not required; enquiries and endeavours are in their results profoundly unpleasing; and although, no doubt, women are a disturbing element in the life-history of men, it is an element to which men have now become accustomed. Women, of course, may affect one side of men's lives; but, when that side is outlived or put aside, women can disturb no longer, and can be comfortably relegated to their proper place as mistresses of households, mothers of children, and ministering angels, when ministering angels are required.

Yet this is not, and it never really has been the fact. There is more truth in the saying, 'Cherchez la femme,' than there is in most of such maxims; and neither the present attempt to regulate the position of women, nor the enquiry which Mrs Steele suggests, will materially increase the disturbing element of which she speaks. From the beginnings of history until now it has existed, and it has refused to give way either to oppression or to idealisation. Women have indeed experienced all possible vicissitudes of fortune; the highest and the lowest fate has been theirs. If it be true to say that women at