Psyche's Task: A Discourse Concerning the Influence of Superstition on The Growth of Institutions
London: MacMillan & Co., 1909. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo. Very Good. Item #002462
ix, 84 p.p. Green cloth with gilt lettering to spine, spine sunned, corners lightly bumped, and head of spine lightly rubbed. Offsetting to flyleaf. Clean throughout. Scarce. A series of lectures by Scottish social anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941), author of the massive and influential study "The Golden Bough." In these lectures Frazer looks at the role that superstition played in the early history of a number of standard institutions: Government, Private Property, Marriage, and Respect for Human Life; and suggests that all can be taken as evidence that sometimes "folly mysteriously deviates into wisdom, and good comes out of evil."
Price: $100.00