Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/160

 132 kind? To me at least they are full of pathos, full of wonder, for they show that men situated as early people were situated can stand aside from the practical part of life and ask questions of the infinite. Each of these primitive cosmogonies is a pausing place in the history of human thought; each indicates an immensity of progress not to be measured, I fear, by modern minds, or at all events not until psychology shall have become a more exact science than it is at present; each has been arrived at by we know not what tremendous effort on the part of those who, amidst the dangers and stress of the primitive life-struggle, yet stood aside to philosophise as to whence man came, to ask the same question which Darwin asked and answered for us.

Let me pass from criticism of Mr. Nutt's expressions to criticism of his results. In 1892 I ventured to publish a little work entitled Ethnology in Folklore. Ethnology is out of fashion; so my book was received with only moderate acceptance by my folklore colleagues; but I am glad to place on record that at least one of the most distinguished members of our Society, Dr. Haddon, has recently done me the honour of accepting my main conclusions. In 1896, at the British Association, I read a memoir on the method of determining the value of folklore as ethnological data—a memoir which was received at the Association with approval as a scientific basis for treating this aspect of folklore. These studies are based, not upon the element of traditional literature in folklore, but upon the elements of custom, ritual, and belief; and my views, drawn from these elements of folklore, stand in direct antagonism to those of the President. I attempted to work out a principle of research and analysis, and to apply it to the problem of racial elements in folklore. I stated that principle in unmistakably plain language; and as my methods have not been brought directly before the Society, I will venture to restate them on the present occasion.

The comparative method of inquiry has been used in