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 {viii} 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, 6_th June_ 1913. CONTENTS {ix} Preface PSYCHE’S TASK I. Introduction The dark and the bright side of Superstition: a plea for the accused: four propositions to be proved by the defence 3-5 II. Government Superstition has been a prop of Government by inculcating a deep veneration for governors: evidence of this veneration collected from Melanesia, Polynesia, Africa, the Malay region, and America: evidence of similar veneration among Aryan peoples from India to Scotland 6-19 III. Private Property