The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Part VI: The Scapegoat

(London: Macmillan, 1914). Third edition. Demy 8vo; original green cloth with gilt "golden bough" device to upper cover, and spine lettered in gilt; pp. xiv + 453, incl. index. Light wear and some stippling to cloth; a little foxing to endpapers and some spotting to edges; several pages unopened. Good to very good condition. "The aspect of the subject with which we are here chiefly concerned is the use of the Dying God as a scapegoat to free his worshippers from the troubles of all sorts with which life on earth is beset. I have sought to trace this curious usage to its origin, to decompose the idea of the Divine Scapegoat into the elements out of which it appears to be compounded. If I am right, the idea resolves itself into a simple confusion between the material and the immaterial, between the real possibility of transferring a physical load to other shoulders and the supposed possibility of transferring our bodily and mental ailments to another who will bear them for us." - Preface .