Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/34

20 be impossible to prove any two individuals, and still less two communities, to have approximated in their mental evolution to one another so closely as to be to all intents and purposes identical, so that their poetry should be absolutely the same. The principle of similarity of evolution, running on parallel lines among many nations, is, however, an extremely valuable asset, and helps in another way to explain the similarity of Folklore. These legends and customs may have been invented only in one place, but they have been disseminated throughout the world. The equality in mental disposition made it easy for other nations to appreciate the new-comers, and to adopt and adapt them, and then so to transform them that they become bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh.

Happily for mankind the spirit knows no boundaries. It recognises no barriers to its flight, and has no specific home of its own. It lives in the heart and mind of man. The spiritual achievements of one nation soon become the spiritual property of another nation. This is the fundamental condition for the progress of the world, and this principle of free trade has been the blessing of the world. I am not discussing here trade questions, because the spirit cannot be bartered. It is taken at its face value everywhere. The peoples are willing to accept it, to value it, and to use it. Because of that similarity, whatever Man may have dreamt, or hoped, whatever poetical imagination he may have conceived and expressed, and whatever song he may have broken into at times of great emotion, will be caught up by the wind that bloweth where it listeth, will ring through the world, and will be carried far away until a responsive chord is touched in another human heart. Just because man is everywhere so fitted that he will respond to these callings of the spirit, just because he is adapted to the same tune of the mind, these tales and legends, these customs and superstitions, have found such a wide