[278.1] I pointed out this objection in an article in the _Archiv. f. Relig. Wissensch._, 1904, p. 81; Mr. S. Hartland has also, independently, developed it (_op. cit._, p. 191). [278.2] Vol. ii. p. 446. [278.3] _Origin of Civilisation_, pp. 535-537. [279.1] _Vide_ Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 76. [279.2] Mr. Hartland objects (_loc. cit._, p. 200) to this explanation on the ground that the stranger would dislike the danger as much as any one else; but the rite may have arisen among a Semitic tribe who were peculiarly sensitive to that feeling of peril, while they found that the usual stranger was sceptical and more venturesome: when once the rule was established, it could become a stereotyped convention. His own suggestion (p. 201) that a stranger was alone privileged, lest the solemn act should become a mere love-affair with a native lover, does not seem to me so reasonable; to prevent that, the act might as well have been performed by a priest. Dr. Frazer in his new edition of _Adonis_, etc. (pp. 50-54), criticises my explanation, which I first put forth--but with insufficient clearness--in the _Archiv. für Religionswissenschaft_ (1904, p. 88), mainly on the ground that it does not naturally apply to general temple-prostitution nor to the prostitution of married women. But it was never meant to apply to these, but only to the defloration of virgins before marriage. Dr. Frazer also argues that the account of Herodotus does not show that the Babylonian rite was limited to virgins. Explicitly it does not, but implicitly it does; for Herodotus declares that it was an isolated act, and therefore to be distinguished from temple-prostitution of indefinite duration; and he adds that the same rite was performed in Cyprus, which, as the other record clearly attests, was the defloration of virgins by strangers. Sozomenos and Sokrates attest the same of the Baalbec rite, and Eusebius’s vague words are not sufficient to contradict them. One rite might easily pass into the other; but our theories as to the original meaning of different rites should observe the difference. [280.1] But _vide_ Gennep, _Les Rites de passage_, p. 100. [280.2] Cf. Arnob. _Adv. Gent._, 5, 19, with Firmic. Matern. _De Error._, 10, and Clemens, _Protrept._, c. 2, p. 12, Pott. [281.1] 1, 199. [281.2] The lady who there boasts of her prostitute-ancestresses describes them also as “of unwashed feet”; and this is a point of asceticism and holiness. [282.1] _Op. cit._, p. 199. [282.2] _K.A.T._3, p. 423.