of the Sondergoetter, Dr. Frazer that of divine Kingship; all of
which are perfectly sound conclusions based on facts which no one
disputes. They have been of the greatest value to anthropological
research; but when they are applied to the explanation of Roman
practices we should be instantly on our guard, ready indeed to welcome
any glint of light that we may get from them, but most carefully
critical and even suspicious of their application to other phenomena
than those which originally suggested them. It is in the nature of man
as a researcher, when he has found a key, to hasten to apply it to all
the doors he can find, and sometimes, it must be said, to use violence
in the application; and though the greatest masters of the science will
rarely try to force the lock, they will use so much gentle persuasion as
sometimes to make us fancy that they have unfastened it. All such
attempts have their value, but it behoves us to be cautious in accepting
them. The application by Mannhardt of the theory of the
Vegetation-spirit to certain Roman problems, _e.g._ to that of the
Lupercalia,[19] and the October horse,[20] must be allowed, fascinating
as it was, to have failed in the main. The application by Dr. Frazer of
the theory of divine Kingship to the early religious history of Rome, is
still _sub judice_, and calls for most careful and discriminating
criticism.[21]

Secondly, as I have already said, Roman evidence is peculiarly difficult
to handle, except in so far as it deals with the simple facts of
worship; when we use it for traditions, myths, ideas about the nature of
divine beings, we need a training not only in the use of evidence in
general, but in the use of Roman evidence in particular.
Anthropologists, as a rule, have not been through such a training, and
they are apt to handle the evidence of Roman writers with a light heart
and rather a rough hand. The result is that bits of evidence are put
together, each needing conscientious criticism, to support hypotheses
often of the flimsiest kind, which again are used to support further
hypotheses, and so on, until the sober inquirer begins to feel his brain
reeling and his footing giving way beneath him. I shall have occasion to
notice one or two examples of this uncritical use of evidence later on,
and will say no more of it now. No one can feel more grateful than I do
to the many leading anthropologists who have touched in one way or
another on Roman evidence; but f