“Altogether it is perhaps safe to say that the work is the most important contribution to ethical literature within recent years.”
W. R. Sorley, in THE BOOKMAN.—
“Dr. Westermarck is the only writer who can claim to have systematically examined the whole of the evidence, and to have produced a comprehensive treatise on the development of men’s ideas of good and evil.… He is to be congratulated on having produced a standard work on a subject of first-rate importance. It is distinguished alike by breadth of view and mastery of detail, by skilful marshalling of evidence and by sound judgment.”
“Dr. Westermarck is the only writer who can claim to have systematically examined the whole of the evidence, and to have produced a comprehensive treatise on the development of men’s ideas of good and evil.… He is to be congratulated on having produced a standard work on a subject of first-rate importance. It is distinguished alike by breadth of view and mastery of detail, by skilful marshalling of evidence and by sound judgment.”
NATURE.—
“The readers of his ‘History of Human Marriage’—all of them his debtors—were doubtless prepared for the vast array of footnotes, the excellent way in which long series of facts are arranged, the clearness of the style, the sanity and reasonableness of a work which certainly was needed to keep ethical theory abreast of anthropological research, and which will add greatly to its author’s reputation.… The account of the moral emotions, the treatment of punishment (in which subtle arguments are offered against determent as a sufficient guiding principle), the discussion of the various distinctions suggested by terms like act, agent, motive, intention, the detailed examination of the facts advanced by such authorities as Lord Avebury, Dr. J. G. Frazer, Dr. Steinmetz, are all excellent.”
“The readers of his ‘History of Human Marriage’—all of them his debtors—were doubtless prepared for the vast array of footnotes, the excellent way in which long series of facts are arranged, the clearness of the style, the sanity and reasonableness of a work which certainly was needed to keep ethical theory abreast of anthropological research, and which will add greatly to its author’s reputation.… The account of the moral emotions, the treatment of punishment (in which subtle arguments are offered against determent as a sufficient guiding principle), the discussion of the various distinctions suggested by terms like act, agent, motive, intention, the detailed examination of the facts advanced by such authorities as Lord Avebury, Dr. J. G. Frazer, Dr. Steinmetz, are all excellent.”
NORTHERN WHIG.—
“For learning and research the book is simply a marvel.… It will be an authoritative book for many a day on the subjects with which it deals.”
“For learning and research the book is simply a marvel.… It will be an authoritative book for many a day on the subjects with which it deals.”