That humanitarian governments by shielding and supporting the moron without putting a limit on his naturally high reproduction will speedily increase this class at the expense of the more intelligent classes of the community is self-evident, if it is admitted that feeble-mindedness is hereditary, as all who have investigated the matter carefully now declare. Goddard shows further that a large percentage (probably more than half) of the alcoholism, pauperism, prostitution, and crime, of the United States are directly traceable to hereditary feeble-mindedness, another strong reason for taking measures to reduce it.
How is this to be done? Goddard has no cure-all to offer but urges first of all that the mental grade of each individual be accurately determined and education and occupation be provided suited to his capacity. This will tend to make the moron a useful and contented member of the community, not a menace to it. Segregation is recommended so far as practicable, but in view of the large number (estimated at 300,000 to 400,000 in the U. S.) Goddard considers segregation of all impracticable. Nevertheless he urges further and energetic efforts in this direction, that as many as possible may be segregated as a safeguard against their reproduction. In individual cases "sterilization wisely and carefully practiced" must be employed to insure non-reproduction.
In this volume there is a pleasing absence of the rant which pervades some eugenic literature. The author has something of importance to contribute to science and he presents his contribution in a sober, dignified manner in keeping with the important character of his contribution. W. E. CASTLE.
CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM. By J. B. Hannay.
(Francis Griffiths, London; pp. 394).
This is an attempt to expound the symbolism of the Christian religion. It is divided into three main parts: ancient cults (phallism and sun worship); ancient cults in the Old Testament; ancient cults in the New Testament. The author's main thesis can be stated in a sentence: the essential constituents of every religion, and the underlying meaning of its symbolism, are phallicism and sun worship. Of these the former is the more important, more primary, and more wide-spread; the latter is a superimposed layer better adapted to more civilized and educated people, but rarely penetrating into the hearts of the common people to the extent that the former has. "The great branches under which all the religious systems of the past have developed may be classed as based, on the one hand on the consideration of our world and the continuity of life upon it, expressed in Phallic symbolism, and on the other hand, on the Sun as the great giver and sustainer of man, expressed in Solar symbolism." (p. 21). "As the Phallic cult was much the older, it retained its position after the rise of the Solar cult. It required a much higher intelligence to grasp the facts of Solar worship, so it never entered the 'hearts' of the common people as did the Phallic worship, but it had a much more intelligent priesthood, and was the arbiter in all questions of dates, and regulated al) feasts; and, what was more important to the people, fixed the time for payments of debts or interest, and regulated the times of sowing and harvesting, so it became a much more 'official' religion than Phallism." In support of these conclusions the author marshals a huge number of facts, so that the work becomes a veritable encyclopaedia of symbolism.
Now in spite of the fact that the reviewer fully accepts the main thesis of the book, as stated above, and therefore has no prejudice or hostility on the score of the conclusions encunciated being distasteful, his judgment of the book is entirely unfavourable, for the following reasons: In the first place, any presence of the book to be a scientific, and therefore impartial, contribution to knowledge is invalidated by the author's moral bias evident from beginning to end, against religion in general, and Christianity in particular, which he maintains is the most phallic of all religions. His point of view is that of the older rationalists, to whom religion is nothing but an unfortunate instinct for "delight in the miraculous," expressing itself in phallic and sun worship, and fostered by the exploiting tendencies of priests. His desire seems to be, in writing the book, to "show up" religion and, by discrediting it, hasten its end.
In the second place, there is not a single new idea in all its closely packed pages, and therefore no excuse for writing them, since the material here laboriously brought together is easily accessible in other books. It never seems to dawn on the author that pointing out the sexual basis of religion, which countless other writers have already done, is but the beginning of the problem, the starting-point of all sorts of complex riddles. Having dogmatically divided all religious symbols into male and female, he is self-satisfied enough to think that he has explained religion. There is no inkling of the points of view suggested by such words as determinism, significance, genesis, so familiar to the modern psychologist.
Side by side with all this goes a disorderly arrangement and very imperfect powers of criticism. The latter feature is especially marked in the field of etymology, where the author fairly lets himself run wild. The following gem is a typical example (p. 110): "Bacchus became degraded into the God of Wine, and his fetes became drunken orgies, but he was originally the beneficent sun who ripened the fruits, and hence God of Wine, from which, indeed, is derived the English name of all our gods, angels, prophets, or even parsons,—"divines," "dei vini," "Gods of Wine." Jesus was the "True Vine."
The merits of the book are that it may direct the attention of some people to the connection between sex and religion, if there are any who are still unaware of this, and that it possesses a good index that may be useful to readers with limited facilities for looking up particular symbolisms; it is also well illustrated. ERNEST JONES.
LAUGHTER: AN ESSAY ON THE MEANING OF THE COMIC. Henri Bergson. Translated by C. Brereton and F. Rothwell. (Macmillan, London, 1913. Pp. 200).