Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/162

 134 the custom or belief of this ancient savage or barbaric culture with the custom or belief of modern savage or barbaric culture. The line of comparison is not therefore simply drawn level from civilisation to savagery; but it consists, first, of two vertical lines from civilisation and savagery respectively, drawn to a height scaled to represent the antiquity of savage culture in modern Europe, and then the level horizontal line drawn to join the two vertical lines. Thus the line of comparison is:

ancient savagery          ancient savagery ┌─────────────────────────────┐       │                             │        │                             │        │                             │     savagery                  civilisation

Now if the several items of custom and belief preserved by tradition are really ancient in their origin, they must be floating fragments, as it were, of an ancient system of custom and belief—the cultus of the people among whom they originated. This cultus has been destroyed. It has either struggled unsuccessfully against foreign and more vigorous systems of religion and society, or it has slowly developed from one stage to another. In the western world, at all events, we know that the former has been the process at work, and that it is matter of definite historical record that all non-Christian culture has had to succumb to Christianity. To be of service to the historian of our country and people, therefore, each floating fragment of ancient custom and belief must not only be labelled "ancient," but it must be placed back in the system from which it has been torn away. To do this is to a great extent to restore the ancient system; and to restore an ancient system of culture, even if the restoration be only a mosaic and a shattered mosaic, is to bring into evidence the prehistoric race of people to which it belongs.

This hypothesis of traditional custom and belief being relics of an ancient cultus helps to form the method and