Abstract
DR. MARETT'S Gifford lectures for 1931–32, an expanded form of lectures delivered under the auspices of the Lowell Institute of Boston in the previous year, have as their theme the evaluation of the religious experiences of peoples of the lower culture, or as Dr. Marett prefers to call them, savages. It must not be thought, however, that Dr. Marett would regard anthropology as one of the normative sciences and that he would attempt to apply an ethical scale to primitive ideas of behaviour. His evaluation is biological in the sense that its aim is to test survival value. The various activities of the savage are passed in review one by one and analysed with the view of the isolation of their emotional content—savage religion being a matter of the emotions rather than of intellect or of action. Dr. Marett then proceeds to show that the religious emotions which colour the whole range of savage activity on the whole make for the virtues or qualities which he designates “faith, Hope and Charity” and regards as the effective element in the contribution of religion to the advancement and survival of man. A brief summary does less than justice to the acuity of Dr. Marett's vision—it may be suspected that at times he finds his material a thought intractable. Nor is it possible to do more than refer to the insight shown in the many valuable suggestions on controversial points which he throws off, almost casually, in the course of his argument.
Faith, Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion.
R. R.
Marett
By. Pp. vii + 181. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1932.) 10s. net.
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Faith, Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion . Nature 131, 9 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131009b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131009b0