This covers a wide field and such a well-documented study is a welcome addition to the literature of this important religious and sociological topiC Among the points more or less emphasized by Dr Webster are these: The wide prevalence of tabw-conceptions and related ideas "in the lower culture and even amongst peoples of archaic civilization" (p 4).

Very frequently "the connec- tion of a holy day with a particular divinity is not primary and direct, but comes rather as an after-thought," and "the period dedicated to a god and observed with abstinence may have been once tabooed for other and quite different reasons" (p 35).

"With many primitive peoples, "the moon, rather than the sun, the planets, or any of the constellations, first excited the imagination and aroused feelings of superstitious awe or religious veneration" (p 62), — the doctrine of "lunar sympathy" is widespread, and many primitive peoples "watch carefully the changes of the moon and describe them by appropriate names" (p 99).

The seven-day week seems to belong with Semitic antiquity (p 101), but it is rather difficult to sustain the theory of borrowing in the case of the Tshi and Ga peoples of West Africa The Sabbath originated as a lunar "festival" The general conclusion reached is that: "It is fairly obvious.

That the belief in days lucky and unlucky has operated, like other superstitions, to retard the development of mankind They hinder individual initiative and tend to prevent the undertaking of lengthy enterprises, which may be interrupted by the recurrence of an unfavorable period Their elaborate development compels fitful, intermittent labor rather than a steady and continuous occupation" (p 156).