REVIEWS.
Dr. Marett has done well to republish in permanent book-form the addresses he delivered to the Folk-Lore Scoiety during his term as President of the Society. It enables the members to get a complete view of the thought which inspired his utterances, and to appreciate the total effect. In a period of unrest in the world of politics, and a similar unrest in the world of anthropological science, a master speaks with a steadying effect. He recalls us to our principles and to our true course. An authority on psychology, he reminds us that folk-lore is something more than sociology. We must go right down through the framework of society to find its soul, its inner essence, its dynamic power. To understand survivals of a past stage of culture, we must regard them not as dead and fossilized remains; we must recognize that they survive, and we must know how and why they survive. If they survive, it is because there is life in them. It may be a decaying life; on the other hand, there may be a possibility of renewed life, a spark which may kindle a glow in favouring circumstances. In short, we must study them as human phenomena which once had their place in a society with which they were all of a piece, and we must know why society has changed, what were the influences of change, whence those influences came, whither they tended, and what was the resisting force that amid those changes kept the survivals, and keeps them still—alive. This will enable us to hold a straight course amid the strife of theories. Only thus can we understand the history on which one school of students
