ABSTRACT
In the course of the previous chapters Hertz's work has been introduced and discussed item by item, with reference especially to the reactions of others to his ideas and the developments they themselves have seen fit to introduce. It is now time to attempt an overall assessment of his all too brief career and its significance. This has already been tried previously, by EvansPritchard (1960) and Needham (1979b), though both tend to focus on the essays on right and left and on death in making their assessments, to the exclusion, relatively speaking, of Hertz's work on sin and on St Besse.
