[DEDICATION]
TO
ALL WHO ARE ENGAGED
IN PSYCHE’S TASK
OF SORTING OUT THE SEEDS OF GOOD
FROM THE SEEDS OF EVIL
I DEDICATE THIS DISCOURSE
PREFACE
The substance of the following discourse was lately read at an evening meeting of the Royal Institution in London, and most of it was afterwards delivered in the form of lectures to my class at Liverpool. It is now published in the hope that it may call attention to a neglected side of superstition and stimulate enquiry into the early history of those great institutions which still form the framework of modern society. If it should turn out that these institutions have sometimes been built on rotten foundations, it would be rash to conclude that they must all come down. Man is a very curious animal, and the more we know of his habits the more curious does he appear. He may be the most rational of the beasts, but certainly he is the most absurd. Even the saturnine wit of Swift, unaided by a knowledge of savages, fell far short of the reality in his attempt to set human folly in a strong light. Yet the odd thing is that in spite, or perhaps by virtue, of his absurdities man moves steadily upwards; the more we learn of his past history the more groundless does the old theory of his degeneracy prove to be. From false premises he often arrives at sound conclusions: from a chimerical theory he deduces a salutary practice. This discourse will have served a useful purpose if it illustrates a few of the ways in which folly mysteriously deviates into wisdom, and good comes out of evil. It is a mere sketch of a vast subject. Whether I shall ever fill in these bald outlines with finer strokes and deeper shadows must be left to the future to determine. The materials for such a picture exist in abundance; and if the colours are dark, they are yet illuminated, as I have tried in this essay to point out, by a ray of consolation and hope.
J. G. FRAZER.
Cambridge, February 1909.
NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION
In this edition Psyche’s Task has been enlarged by fresh illustrative examples and by the discussion of a curious point of savage etiquette, but the substance and the form of the discourse remain unchanged. I have added The Scope of Social Anthropology, an inaugural lecture intended to mark out roughly the boundaries of the general study of which Psyche’s Task aims at setting forth some particular results. There is therefore a certain appropriateness in presenting the two discourses together to the reader.
J. G. F.
Cambridge, 6th June 1913.