tudents of anthropology and comparative religion have arrived,
is one of scepticism. Miss Harrison is evidently alive to the existence
of this feeling, for in dealing with the ritualistic significance of the
Panathenaic frieze she bids her readers not to "suspect they are being
juggled with," or to think that she has any wish to strain an argument
with a view to "bolstering up her own art and ritual theory." It can,
indeed, be no matter for surprise that such suspicions should be
aroused. When, for instance, an educated man hears that the Israelites
worshipped a golden calf, or that the owl and the peacock were
respectively sacred to Juno and Minerva, he can readily understand what
is meant. But when he is told that an Australian Emu man, strutting
about in the feathers of that bird, does not think that he is imitating
an Emu, but that in very fact he is an Emu, it must be admitted that his
intellect, or it may be his imagination, is subjected to a somewhat
severe strain. Similarly, he may at first sight find some difficulty in
believing that any strict relationship can be established between the
Anthesteria and Bouphonia of the cultured Athenians and the idolatrous
veneration paid by the hairy and hyperborean Ainos to a sacred bear, who
is at first pampered and then sacrificed, or the ritualistic tug-of-war
performed by the Esquimaux, in which one side, personifying ducks,
represents Summer, whilst the other, personifying ptarmigans, represents
Winter. Although this scepticism is not only very natural, but even
commendable, it is certain that the science of modern anthropology, in
which we may reflect with legitimate pride that England has taken the
lead, rests on very solid foundations. Indeed, its foundations are in
some respects even better assured than those of some other sciences,
such, for instance, as craniology, whose conclusions would appear at
first sight to be capable of more precise demonstration, but which, in
spite of this fair appearance, has as yet yielded results which are
somewhat disappointing. At the birth of every science it is necessary to
postulate something. The postulates that the anthropologist demands
rival in simplicity those formulated by Euclid. He merely asks us to
accept as facts that the main object of every living creature is to go
on living, that he cannot attain this object without being supplied
with food, and that, in the case of man, his supply of food must
necessarily be obtained f