when i originally conceived the idea of the work, of which the first part is now laid before the public in a third and enlarged edition, my intention merely was to explain the strange rule of the priesthood or sacred kingship of nemi and with it the legend of the golden bough, immortalised by virgil, which the voice of antiquity associated with the priesthood. the explanation was suggested to me by some similar rules formerly imposed on kings in southern india, and at first i thought that it might be adequately set forth within the compass of a small volume. but i soon found that in attempting to settle one question i had raised many more: wider and wider prospects opened out before me; and thus step by step i was lured on into far-spreading fields of primitive thought which had been but little explored by my predecessors. thus the book grew on my hands, and soon the projected essay became in fact a ponderous treatise, or rather a series of separate dissertations loosely linked together by a slender thread of connexion with my original subject. with each successive edition these dissertations have grown in number and swollen in bulk by the accretion of fresh materials, till the thread on which they are strung at last threatened to snap under their weight. accordingly, following the hint of a friendly critic, i decided to resolve my overgrown book into its elements, and to publish separately the various disquisitions of which {viii} it is composed. the present volumes, forming the first part of the whole, contain a preliminary enquiry into the principles of magic and the evolution of the sacred kingship in general. they will be followed shortly by a volume which discusses the principles of taboo in their special application to sacred or priestly kings. the remainder of the work will be mainly devoted to the myth and ritual of the dying god, and as the subject is large and fruitful, my discussion of it will, for the sake of convenience, be divided into several parts, of which one, dealing with some dying gods of antiquity in egypt and western asia, has already been published under the title of adonis, attis, osiris.

but while i have thus sought to dispose my book in its proper form as a collection of essays on a variety of distinct, though related, topics, i have at the same time preserved its unity, as far as possible, by retaining the original title for the whole series of volumes, and by pointing out from time to time the bearing of my general conclusions on the particular problem which furnished the starting-point of the enquiry. it seemed to me that this mode of presenting the subject offered some advantages which outweighed certain obvious drawbacks. by discarding the austere form, without, i hope, sacrificing the solid substance, of a scientific treatise, i thought to cast my materials into a more artistic mould and so perhaps to attract readers, who might have been repelled by a more strictly logical and systematic arrangement of the facts. thus i put the mysterious priest of nemi, so to say, in the forefront of the picture, grouping the other sombre figures of the same sort behind him in the background, not certainly because i deemed them of less moment but because the picturesque natural surroundings of the priest of nemi among the wooded hills of italy, the very mystery which enshrouds him, and not least the haunting magic of virgil’s verse, all combine to shed a glamour on the tragic figure with the golden bough, which fits him to {ix} stand as the centre of a gloomy canvas. but i trust that the high relief into which he has thus been thrown in my pages will not lead my readers either to overrate his historical importance by comparison with that of some other figures which stand behind him in the shadow, or to attribute to my theory of the part he played a greater degree of probability than it deserves. even if it should appear that this ancient italian priest must after all be struck out from the long roll of men who have masqueraded as gods, the single omission would not sensibly invalidate the demonstration, which i believe i have given, that human pretenders to divinity have been far commoner and their credulous worshippers far more numerous than had been hitherto suspected. similarly, should my whole theory of this particular priesthood collapse—and i fully acknowledge the slenderness of the foundations on which it rests—its fall would hardly shake my general conclusions as to the evolution of primitive religion and society, which are founded on large collections of entirely independent and well-authenticated facts.

friends versed in german philosophy have pointed out to me that my views of magic and religion and their relations to each other in history agree to some extent with those of hegel. the agreement is quite independent and to me unexpected, for i have never studied the philosopher’s writings nor attended to his speculations. as, however, we have arrived at similar results by very different roads, the partial coincidence of our conclusions may perhaps be taken to furnish a certain presumption in favour of their truth. to enable my readers to judge of the extent of the coincidence, i have given in an appendix some extracts from hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion. the curious may compare them with my chapter on magic and religion, which was written in ignorance of the views of my illustrious predecessor.

with regard to the history of the sacred kingship which {x} i have outlined in these volumes, i desire to repeat a warning which i have given in the text. while i have shewn reason to think that in many communities sacred kings have been developed out of magicians, i am far from supposing that this has been universally true. the causes which have determined the establishment of monarchy have no doubt varied greatly in different countries and at different times: i make no pretence to discuss or even enumerate them all: i have merely selected one particular cause because it bore directly on my special enquiry; and i have laid emphasis on it because it seems to have been overlooked by writers on the origin of political institutions, who, themselves sober and rational according to modern standards, have not reckoned sufficiently with the enormous influence which superstition has exerted in shaping the human past. but i have no wish to exaggerate the importance of this particular cause at the expense of others which may have been equally or even more influential. no one can be more sensible than i am of the risk of stretching an hypothesis too far, of crowding a multitude of incongruous particulars under one narrow formula, of reducing the vast, nay inconceivable complexity of nature and history to a delusive appearance of theoretical simplicity. it may well be that i have erred in this direction again and again; but at least i have been well aware of the danger of error and have striven to guard myself and my readers against it. how far i have succeeded in that and the other objects i have set before me in writing this work, i must leave to the candour of the public to determine.

j. g. frazer.

cambridge, 5th december 1910.