Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/163

 Rh principles of inquiry. It would be impossible to suppose that all these relics have been preserved equally well, all at the same stage of arrested development, all equally untouched by later influences. Their existence has been attacked in different places, at different times, by different influences; and therefore the actual form of their survival must vary almost as frequently as an example occurs. The modern connection of a custom or belief is no sure guide, and is very often a misleading guide, to its ancient connection. It is only by correct analysis and classification, therefore, that the various examples can be put into a condition for examination and identification.

We have for our purpose nothing more than a series of notes of customs and beliefs obtaining among the lower and lowest classes of the people, and not being the direct teaching of any religious or academic body. These notes are very unequal in value owing to the manner in which they have been made. They are often accidental, they are seldom if ever the result of trained observation, and they are often mixed up with theories as to their origin and relationship to modern society and modern religious beliefs.

The method of using these notes for scientific purposes is therefore a very important matter. It is essential that each single item should be treated definitely and separately from all other items, and, further, that the exact wording of the original note upon each separate item should be kept intact. The original account of every custom and belief is an organism, not to be tampered with except for the purpose of scientific analysis; and then, after that purpose has been effected, all the parts must be put together again, and the original organism restored to its form.

The handling of each custom or belief, and of its separate parts, in this way enables us, in the first place, to disentangle it from the particular personal or social stratum in which it happens to have been preserved, and^ secondly, to prepare it for the place to which it may ultimately be found to belong. The first step in this preparation is to get together