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 Ethnological Data in Folklore, 145

clearly fell upon the proposition that primitive philosophy necessarily resulted in action ; the test of its apparent soundness is therefore a simple one — was it embodied in rite and practice? So judged, the belief signalled out by Mr. Gomme as typically unsound (artificial is the word he uses) makes against him. The speculation that paternity was possible by other than natural means, did, as readers of Mr. Hartland's Perseus are aware, result in a number of definite rites and practices.

My critic is even more unfortunate in his next instance. In answer to my statement that, in the folklore stage, man does not indulge in " speculation in the air without relation to or bearing upon the practical conduct of life " he cites the first chapter of Genesis. I might fairly contend that this document belongs to a far more advanced stage of thought than that I have in view. But as a matter of fact it possesses the very characteristics which I attribute to primitive speculation. It is intensely practical, forming as it does the groundwork of a conception of man's place in and relation to nature which governed the lives and actions of the race which elaborated it, which still governs the lives and actions of countless myriads of men.

I claim that the distinction between the practical-philo- sophical and the imaginative-artistic elements in folklore is sound, and I would venture to somewhat enlarge the scope of my generalisation. Man in the folklore stage philo- sophises solely with a view to action in relation to fellow- man or to nature, animate or inanimate ; man in the civilised stage further philosophises with a view to establishing the true character of his relation to man and to nature. Man in the folklore stage imagines solely with a view to the edification or amusement of his fellows ; man in the civilised stage further imagines with a view to the more vivid realisa- tion of his own personality and its relation to the outside world.

In determining the relative importance of either element

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