July, 1906.) In the works mentioned will be found references to
other sources of information as to these questions, which are still
sub judice. Mrs. Bates, who has been studying the hitherto almost
unknown tribes of Western Australia, promises a book on their
beliefs and institutions, and Mr. N. W. Thomas is engaged on a
volume on Australian institutions. In this place the author can
only direct attention to these novel sources, and to the promised
third edition of Mr. Frazer's The Golden Bough.

A. L.



PREFACE TO NEW EDITION.


The original edition of Myth, Ritual and Religion, published in
1887, has long been out of print. In revising the book I have
brought it into line with the ideas expressed in the second part of
my Making of Religion (1898) and have excised certain passages
which, as the book first appeared, were inconsistent with its main
thesis. In some cases the original passages are retained in notes,
to show the nature of the development of the author's opinions. A
fragment or two of controversy has been deleted, and chapters xi.
and xii., on the religion of the lowest races, have been entirely
rewritten, on the strength of more recent or earlier information
lately acquired. The gist of the book as it stands now and as it
originally stood is contained in the following lines from the
preface of 1887: "While the attempt is made to show that the wilder
features of myth survive from, or were borrowed from, or were