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A new book by Sir James Frazer is always an event in the world of scholarship. The present book is made up of twelve lectures delivered on the William Wyse foundation at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1922 and 1923.
The author points out that the attitude towards the dead has two sharply defined aspects. At one time it is believed that the spirits of the dead can 'confer many benefits on the living, if only they are duly propitiated, and kept in good humour, though they are quick to resent any fancied slight or neglect on the part of the survivors'. More often it is one of fear, the spirits being believed 'to be the sources of many evils which afflict humanity, including the last evils, sickness and death'.
In these two volumes Sir James confines himself to the second attitude only, that of fear. He does not discuss the source or significance of this fear, but accepts it as being nearly universal and proceeds to record the various ways in which peoples of different times have attempted to cope with it. On the whole he can divide these methods into two classes, which he terms fair and foul respectively, according as they depend either on persuasion and conciliation or on fear and fraud. Each volume is devoted to one of these two sub-headings.
The author offers us no more than a pure description of the facts and then presents the valuable material he has collected to psychologists to make of it what they will. We have no doubt that ample use will be made of this opportunity. It is scarcely necessary to say that the book is written in Sir James Frazer's well-known masterly style which makes the reading of it an additional pleasure.