There is hardly any branch of research from which the
modern yorld expects more than that which includes the study of
folk -lore and of psychology. In Mr. Marett's book (Psychology and Folk-Lore ; Methuen, 7s. 6d. net) the subject is treated with a great deal of learning, but a rather insufficient amount of clarity. Mr. Marett has extraordinarily interesting things to tell us, but it is occasionally difficult to find them, as trivial and important seem stressed alike. This lack of the power of exposition seems to be the peculiar fault of students of this subject—The Golden Bough and From Religion to Philosophy provile examples—and if we want to find a book on compa7a- tive religion which is as interesting as a work on that meat amazing subject ought to be, we must go to Miss Jane Harrison's shilling handbook, which is, as far as it goes, a model. We too often feel that we have got books in the first stage of Dr. Jowett's process of translation, the literal, almost mechanical translation from the Greek. Nearly all such books want re-writing. If they went through the Jowett process, were re-written by a stylist, say Mr. Chesterton, Mr. Wells or Mr. Shaw, and then revised by their authors ler in- accuracies, nobody would ever read novels again. But, as in any study in this subject which has knowledge and merit, there are in Mr. Marett's book the materials for the writing of a moving chapter in that greatest of all romances—the history of man.
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