AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY
BY
L. R. FARNELL, M.A., D.Litt.
AUTHOR OF “CULTS OF THE GREEK STATES”
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD; UNIVERSITY LECTURER
IN CLASSICAL ARCHÆOLOGY; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE
GERMAN IMPERIAL ARCHÆOLOGICAL INSTITUTE; FELLOW
OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
LONDON: WILLIAMS AND NORGATE
1905
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A small book on a great and difficult subject must explain andapologise for itself, especially if it cannot claim a raison d’êtreas a handbook for beginners. Having accepted the stimulatinginvitation to give in the spring of this year a short series oflectures for the Hibbert Trust on some subject belonging to thedepartment of comparative religion, I felt that it was desirable toavoid those topics that had been appropriated by former lecturers; andalso that the Trustees, as well as the audience, deserved that whatthe lecturer put forth should embody the results of some personal andoriginal study. I finally selected for special discussion the ritualof purification, and {vi} the influence of the ideas associated withit upon law, morality, and religion; and secondly, the development ofprayer from lower to higher forms. These subjects do not appear tohave been as yet exhaustively treated by modern anthropology orscientific and comparative theology, and I had already worked uponthem to some extent as “parerga” of the treatise that I am completingfor the Clarendon Press on the history of Greek cults. I am aware thatthese special questions would well repay longer and more minuteresearch, and could each furnish material for a large volume. Buthaving been advised to publish the lectures more or less as they weredelivered, I put them forth as tentative and incomplete work. Ispecially regret to have been unable to have gone further at presentinto the Egyptian evidence, with the kindly proffered assistance of MrGriffiths, the Reader in Egyptology at Oxford.
The first two lectures, dealing with the methods and the value of thestudy of comparative {vii} religion and its relations to anthropology,are of a more general character. If they seem to occupy somewhat toolarge a part of a work of this small compass, the urgency of thequestions they raise may serve as an apology. It was suggested to methat some such pronouncement might be timely at the point we havereached. For the subject is winning greater consideration, and evenreceiving endowment, in the organisation of the newer Universities.From the scientific point of view it is one of the most fascinating ofstudies; and its practical importance for our colonial administratorsand our missionaries is obvious to those who reflect. It is also alegitimate hope that its wider and more intelligent recognition inEngland may tend to cool and temper the heated atmosphere of dogmaticcontroversy, by presenting religious facts in their true proportionand proper setting.
I must take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to manyfriends for valuable {viii} assistance, and especially to my friendand colleague, Mr R. Marett, to whose comprehensive knowledge of thereligious thought and ritual of savage races I owe many importantclues.
L. R. FARNELL.
August, 1905.
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