Joseph Jacobs

“ Frazer are to be trusted, there is scarcely a field in Europe that has not at one time or another been reddened by the blood of such a sacrifice. I would, myself, hesitate before accepting such a sweeping assertion, simply on inference from folk-lore “survivals”. We should have somewhat more explicit evidence of such general carnage before we can assert its general existence all over the countries where the folk-lore customs extend. Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Frazer seems to me to overlook the imitative nature of man, and the possible spread of the customs and the rhymes from one centre. ”

“ Smith objects that magic is never religion nor its source. But surely its simplest explanation is that it is the survival of an older religion, and its gloomy aspect is due to its antinomianism with regard to the later and generally purer creed.
Another obstacle that stands in the way of Prof. Smith’s theory is the fact of human sacrifice. That cannot be a common meal of god and worshippers, and accordingly Prof. Smith has to make the most ingenious hypotheses to explain the late origin of human sacrifices among the Semites, among whom it certainly existed. ”

“ Frazer, indeed, in his new book gives numerous examples of such meals, but none in which the object is to restore communion between god and worshipper. The whole idea of communion seems to me too theologically abstract to be at the basis of savage rites of sacrifice. For these we must look to some utilitarian motive, based, it may be, on some savage and seemingly absurd idea, but logically deduced from it. Now, it is difficult to see what advantage a savage can derive from being made one with his god, by eating the same flesh as he. ”

“ And with their fall has gone the folk-etymology theory of the origin of the early mythologies.
No one theory has taken the place of the sun-myths and the rest. A wise syncretism is taking the place of the single key that was to fit all wards. There are gods of the woods and of the fields, there are totem-gods and ancestral gods, the generative powers were worshipped, stocks and stones received their cult, even the sun and moon had their votaries. Few would nowadays be prepared to reduce all these forms of man’s reverence for the Divine to any one single principle. ”

“ It chiefly interests us here as giving the latest word on the original Aryan mythology, which, twenty years ago, was going to give us the key to all the mythologies. Judging from Dr. Schrader’s results, the key has broken in the wards. He declines to grant a single god common to the whole of Aryan-speaking peoples.
The resemblances in names are reduced to two or three notably Zeus = Dyaus, and these are explained away without the resort to the hypothesis of a common worship of the early Aryans. Thus, of the great mythological myth of the sixties one great stronghold is taken. ”

“ Frazer’s mastery of the whole literature of folk-lore and savage life is something remarkable, and is clearly based on a thorough and systematic search through all likely sources (the Dutch reports on their Eastern possessions are a quite unworked field) . One quite envies Mr. Frazer the hours of happy work which must have been passed in compiling this mass of information. He must often have felt the supreme joy of the researcher in finding his chaotic materials slowly rounding themselves into an intelligible whole. ”

“ The results thus reached may often seem ludicrous, but they are not more so than facts observed every day in savage life. We ought not perhaps to be surprised to find that as man has risen from the beasts we can catch him at times in stages of mind which can be but little higher than the beast’s.
The hope that the study of comparative religion would throw some light on religion itself seems to be fading away. ”

“ The two books, indeed, suggest that in the very near future we may see the very desirable application of institutional archæology to mythology. The gods and rituals of a nomad or pastoral people will differ from those of an agricultural type of society, and we should find traces of the difference in the passage of one nation through these stages. Prof. Smith at times makes use of this criterion, but the institutional archæology of the Semites is in too immature a state to be of much use in this direction at present. ”

“ However, it is the duty of every hypothesiser to push his theory to its furthest extent. Someone has said that the use of philosophical systems is in their weak places. So, too, the strength of an hypothesis is best shown in its weak places. Mr. Frazer’s views have some plausibility, even when stretched and strained to their utmost.
But the merit of Mr. Frazer’s book resides, not so much in his theories, ingenious as they are, as in his facts and in his co-ordinations of them. “The Golden Bough” is really a series of monographs on folk-lore and mythological subjects. ”

“ Both use freely the analogy of savage custom and ritual to explain those of Semites and Aryans. Both apply with confidence the method of “survivals”, in order to reconstruct the primitive systems from which the “survivals” derive. The two books deal with the deepest problems of human thought, and neither disdain, in seeking for their solution, the light that may be obtained from folk-tales, superstitions, and even games, those seemingly trivial remnants of older ways of thinking which folk-lore collects or investigates. As some justification for claiming the works of Prof. Smith and Mr. ”

“ The Aryans had no common gods. Dr. Schrader is even so heretical as to deny that they ever had a common home, and certainly not in Asia. This is a theme taken up with great skill by Canon Taylor, whose lucidity is a pleasant contrast to Dr. ”