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The Elms, Avenue Road, N.W. - Quotes from McDougall's Body and Mind[: A History and Defence of Animism] (1911) on experiments by 'Professor O. W. Attwater [actually W. O. Atwater].

27, Pentland Terrace, Edinburgh - Encloses a translation of the fire myth from the village of Moligilagi of two women of the Lukwasisiga clan mentioned in the letter of 1 September, and an account of the thunder (Pilapala) myth; is working on Social Psychology, problems connected with 'Phantom of the Collective Soul'; has been reading [William] McDougall's 'Group Mind', [Wilfred] Trotter's 'Herd Instinct' ['Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War'], and [Martin] Conway's 'Crowd' ['The Crowd in Peace and War'] and finds them full of interesting suggestions, sometimes sound, sometimes preposterous, 'all ignore the need of looking to facts for main inspiration'; the two most dangerous blind alleys at present are the 'Collective Soul' school and the branch of the 'Culture contact' school 'which denies all value and possibly psychological analysis'; may be in London soon to meet a French Jewish trader from the Trobriands interested in the native ignorance of procreation, who speaks the native language quite well.

Accompanied by the envelope.

Exeter College, Oxford. Dated May 13, 1911 - Will certainly try to get [John] Roscoe to lecture at Oxford, and asks if the lecture series is being paid for by the Church Missionary Society, as he would otherwise have to set about raising money at once; replies to Frazer's letter about his lecture ['The Birth of Humility'] and his interpretation of Robertson Smith's views of the order in which ritual and dogma appear, reviewing what Robertson Smith believed about dogma, that it was theory or reasoned belief, and disagrees with Frazer's statement that 'savage ritual ... [bears] the imprint of reflexion and purpose ... as clearly as any actions of civilised men' in that both types of religion are not equally reflexive, and that the 'savage ritual' is unreflective; states that he is vigorous in his counter-argument because he is up against 'a giant'; he, [William] McDougall, and [Lucien] Lévy-Bruhl have been trying to emphasise the mobbish character of primitive religion and religious life; closes by saying he thinks the field has a crying need for criticism.

St Keyne's, Cambridge. Dated 11 May 1911 - [John] Roscoe is giving a series of lectures on the tribes of Central Africa and could repeat the lectures he is giving at Cambridge in Oxford, and gives his postal address to Marett; thanks him for his inaugural lecture ['The Birth of Humility'] and takes issue with Marett's interpretation of Robertson Smith's views of the order in which ritual and dogma appear, stating that he believed that dogma occurred prior to ritual, not the other way around, and adds that R. M. Meyer has ascribed the same belief to Frazer; in a postscript he questions Marett's regard for [William] McDougall as an authority on psychology and says his friend James Ward does not think highly of him.