A Great Anthropologist
James George Frazer. By R. Angus Downie (Watts. 5s.)
Mn. DOWNIE la's been acting for several years past as assistant to Sir James Frazer, and is thus well fitted to give us a study of the person of the veteran anthropologist as well as a summary of his work, as far as such a vast achievement admits of summary. Mr. Dzwnie has put a very great deal into 130 pages of text, and, luckily, he has :tot hesitated to quote freely. His outlines of the main thesis of the Golden Bough and of the subjects dealt with in Folk-Lore in the Old Testament are, in fact, admirable examples of judicious compression and will, it may be hoped, send many readers back to those incomparable classics of anthro- pological and ethnological learning.
Every man with pretensions to being well educated has dipped into Frazer's works, but like M.1 imposing literary monuments they are too often taken for granted. They are, however, indispensable to all who would arm themselves to play a part in human affairs in these fearful times, since without a knowledge of our past we shall commit a thousand blunders more. For the ordinary reader, as distinguished from the specialist, Frazer's works fall into the category of what the French call the things qui nous rendent plus sages que nous ne sommes: as Frazer himself says: "While nominally investigating a particular problem of ancient myth- ology, I have really been discussing questions of more general interest which concern the gradual evolution of human thought from savagery to civilisation."
Totemis-m and Exogamy and The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead are books to which all anthropologists must turn again and again, for in them are indications of lines of in- vestigation which are being carried out and previsions of genius which are being every day verified by field workers and anthro- pologists: like all Frazer's works, they contain an almost over- whelming array of facts, references and deductions marshalled with consummate skill. But of all his writings the study first known as Psyche's Task, and later expanded as The Devil's Advo- cate, seems the most topical ; it is a tract for the times, although its author would disclaim all political preoccupation. Logically indefensible beliefs have often pli.yed a great part in the elabora- tion and in the maintenance of the rules that lie at the root of civilised life. Logical thought, and above all logical thought based not upon observation alone but upon experiment, is a very new thing for men. It is, indeed, the most fragile as well as the most precious of their possessions, but in a multitude of things we have to be pragmatists.
Mr. Downie gives us the essentials of what we want to know about the facts of Frazer's life and in a tight-packed little last chapter some reflections on "The Man rind His Influence." All that the author writes is inspired by a pious admiration for a great scholar; this rather uncritical attitude, which might be dangerous when dealing with a lesser man, is not unbecoming in one telling us about Frazer. As Anatole France said of him, "A chaque generation la connaissance de l'homme s'etend et s'approfondit. Ce que Montesquieu fut dans son temps Frazer Pest dans le notre et la difference de leurs ceuvres montre le progres des
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