Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/90

 80 unknown; for the practice often continues when the cause has ceased; and concerning superstitious ceremonies it is vain to conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain." These words were written a hundred and forty years ago. No writer of repute—nay, not the most infallible of journalists—would venture to write them to-day, when science is constantly revealing the source of ancient customs, and when by reason we are slowly, and it may be not without vain conjectures by the way, yet surely, being led to the true significance of many a superstitious ceremony, wild song and uncouth tale. Painfully, indeed, and step by step we are exploring the caverns whence, in the myths of that strange people in the west, mankind emerged through much tribulation into this loftier, happier, and more spacious world; and we are bringing back to light the lowly and long-forgotten beginnings of the race. The coming century has doubtless many surprises in store for us and our children. It will be no surprise for students of anthropology if the progress of discovery enable us by-and-bye to reconstitute the history of humanity to an extent of which Dr. Johnson and all the generations of learned men in the past never so much as dreamed.