336 Reviews.
HiSTOIRE DES CROVANCES, SUPERSTITIONS, McEURS, USAGES ET COUTUMES (SELON LE PLAN DU DeCALOGUE). Par FeRNAND
Nicola Y. 3 vols. Paris : Retaux.
This book is not written for the scientific student of folklore ; and to him it will not appeal. Its object is to show that man is, and always has been, one and the same the whole world over in respect to his ultimate spiritual nature ; that the essence of this consists in such intuitions as that God is one, that the soul is immortal, and that there are eternal principles of morality corre- sponding more or less exactly to those delivered from Sinai. Meanwhile, the religious and moral sense of man, it has to be admitted, is capable of "regrettable aberrations " in all directions. These, then, our author undertakes to chronicle, bringing them as best he can under one or other of his ten heads, the influence of the theatre and the novel, for instance, being discussed in con- nection with the text, " Thou shalt not commit adultery." As aberrations they are for him but so many detached "curiosities," and no laws are invoked to account for their development or dis- tribution. We pass on aimlessly from jotting to jotting. Here is a disquisition on " lynch law," next comes an animated descrip- tion of a prize-fight "between Jackson and Tom Hyer," now we are on the subject of electrocution — all this under the general heading provided by the sixth commandment. And so it is with the anthropological material that M. Nicolay has amassed. There is no discernible method, genetic or otherwise, in the ordering of his facts. Nay, not even as bare facts are these of any use to the scientific student. On the one hand, they are very incomplete. There is a whole book on the subject of festivals, and not one allusion to the researches of Dr. Frazer; and there is a long chapter on " La Croyance au Grand Esprit" which knows nothing of the " high gods " of Mr. Lang's later writings. On the other hand, when not borrowed from some other collector, the afore- said facts are at best of obscure and doubtful parentage. Some- times the reference is omitted altogether, at other times no page is mentioned, and, for the rest, the titles of the books quoted are given in such a mutilated form that woe to him who tries to find them in the catalogue of a library.
R. R. Marett.
