Italian languages, much may
be expected in the future.

The other chief contributory science is anthropology, _i.e._ the study
of the working of the mind of primitive man, as it is seen in the ideas
and practices of uncivilised peoples at the present day, and also as it
can be traced in survivals among more civilised races. For the history
of the religion of the Roman City-state its contribution must of
necessity be a limited one; that is a part of Roman history in general,
and its material is purely Roman, or perhaps I should say, Graeco-Roman;
and Wissowa in all his work has consistently declined to admit the value
of anthropological researches for the elucidation of Roman problems.
Perhaps it is for this very reason that his book is the safest guide we
possess for the study of what the Romans did and thought in the matter
of religion; but if we wish to try and get to the original significance
of those acts and thoughts, it is absolutely impossible in these days to
dispense with the works of a long series of anthropologists, many of
them fortunately British, who have gradually been collecting and
classifying the material which in the long run will fructify in definite
results. If we consider the writings of eminent scholars who wrote about
Greek and Roman religion and mythology before the appearance of Dr.
Tylor's _Primitive Culture_--Klausen, Preuner, Preller, Kuhn, and many
others, who worked on the comparative method but with slender material
for the use of it--we see at once what an immense advance has been
effected by that monumental work, and by the stimulus that it gave to
others to follow the same track. Now we have in this country the works
of Lang, Robertson Smith, Farnell, Frazer, Hartland, Jevons, and others,
while a host of students on the Continent are writing in all languages
on anthropological subjects. Some of these I shall quote incidentally in
the course of these lectures; at present I will content myself with
making one or two suggestions as to the care needed in using the
collections and theories of anthropologists, as an aid in Roman
religious studies.

First, let us bear in mind that anthropologists are apt to have their
favourite theories--conclusions, that is, which are the legitimate
result of reasoning inductively on the class of facts which they have
more particularly studied. Thus Mannhardt had his theory of the
Vegetation-spirit, Robertson Smith that of the sacramental meal, Usener
that