“Sr James George Frazer, a Scotsman by birth, is the author of the immense Golden Bough, a collection of anthropological studies. The author's methods of correlation have been as crude and unregulated as his industry and the cultivation of his erudition have been immense. The confusion of savage and primitive states of culture commenced by Tylor and his school has been carried to excess in the works of Sr J.G. Frazer. From the point of view of the social historian attempting to disentangle the story of man's coming and growth upon this planet he is one of the most calamatous phenomena in modern research: he has smashed in the ruin of pre-history with a coal hammer, collected every brick disclosed when the dust has settled on the debris, and then labelled the exhibits with the assiduous industry of a literary ant. His pleasing literary style in that labelling is in unorthodox English.” EruditionSocial HistoryLiterary StylePre HistoryAnthropological MethodThe Golden BoughSir James Frazer Book:Scottish Scene: or, The Intelligent Man's Guide to Albyn Source: Scottish Scene: or, The Intelligent Man's Guide to Albyn
“(Man) fancied that by masquerading in leaves and flowers he helped the bare earth to clothe herself with verdure, and that by playing the death and burial of winter he drove that gloomy season away, and made smooth the path for the footsteps of returning spring. We may smile at his vain endeavours if we please, but it was only by making a long series of experiments, of which some were almost inevitably doomed to failure, that mane learned from experience the futility of some of his attempted methods and the fruitfulness of others. After all, magical ceremonies are nothing but experiments which have failed and which continue to be repeated merely because the operator is unaware of their failure.” The Golden Bough Author:James George Frazer