understanding of actual facts is sacrificed to sterile speculation upon a hypothetical earlier state of things. Prof. Tylor's well-known article (_Journ. Anthrop. Inst._ xviii.) was, perhaps, the first protest against this loose and far-fetched treatment of the subject. He based his method of research on the firm ground of a statistical survey of facts, and his method of reasoning on the philosophically sound principle of inquiring into the mutual dependence of phenomena. The whole problem has been set on a new basis and its treatment recast in the fundamental treatise of Prof. Westermarck on the _History of Human Marriage_. Several of the most important aspects of the question which had been omitted in the speculations of the previous writers have received in it their full treatment; in taking into account, in its manifold aspects, the biological basis of the problem he has shown how many of the current conceptions about primitive marriage and kinship could not hold good in the light of a closer criticism. Besides this merely critical contribution, and besides the biological argument, the _History of Human Marriage_ constitutes a valuable addition to the purely sociological treatment of the problem. By resolving the problem of marriage into that of family, by pointing to the importance of the relations between parents and children, of the mode of living, etc., the author has shown that marriage is rooted in a complex of sociological conditions, and that there are many points to be treated before we arrive at definite conclusions and broad generalizations. Another important aspect of the problem has received its full treatment by Mr. Crawley in his study of primitive marriage (the _Mystic Rose_; compare the note in the Addenda at the end of this volume). Working out thoroughly some conceptions suggested already by Prof. Frazer in his _Golden Bough_, the author has shown the social importance of the ideas about human relations and in particular about sexual relations as held by primitive man.