Abstract
PROF. J. G. FRAZER has made a good start in the work of his chair at Jhe University of Liverpool by his opening address on “The Scope of Social Anthropology.” It is characterised by all the lucidity of exposition and grace of style which we are accustomed to expect from the author of “The Golden Bough.” His main object is to plead for the systematic study of savages, who represent an arrested, or rather retarded, stage of social development. They are, he is careful to point out, primitive onlv in a relative, not in an absolute, sense: that is, they are primitive in comparison with ourselves, not in comparison with primaeval man, of whom we know nothing, and, so far as we can see at present, are likely to learn nothing.
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Social Anthropology. Nature 78, 233 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/078233b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/078233b0