Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/32

 20 with the humbler task of ascertaining what the peoples think about such things, leaving it to somebody else to draw his own inferences from the facts.

A second misapprehension arises from the vague use of the term "primitive" as applied to the lowest stage of culture with which we are acquainted. It is necessary to state clearly that no phase of human culture of which we possess adequate knowledge is "primitive" in the true sense of the term. The Arunta of Australia, with their elaborate social organisation, are as little primitive as palæolithic man with his artistic carvings and paintings. In both cases evolution has progressed through unnumbered ages. When, then, we speak of "primitive" culture we simply mean that, in comparison with modern civilisation, it is in some directions imperfectly developed.

During its course our ship has been forced to discard much of its cargo. Few students of folk-tales, for instance, now believe that they are modern, or at least historical in origin; that the distinctively savage incidents embedded in them do not constitute the very core of the narrative, but are later accretions; that our European tales are derived from a single centre, whether India or any other. The cult of the sainted dead is no longer held to account for all, or most, savage deities. We are coming to see that no single explanation applies to the varied forms of the totemic complex, and that the totem sacrifice, except within certain restricted areas, is no longer the only key to the evolution of ritual. Few of us are now prepared to deny that backward races possess a comparatively high mental and ethical standard, and present knowledge, instead of emphasizing the kinship of the savage with the higher animal, diminishes the gap between him and civilised man, the real distinction being that the one expends his intellectual energy in directions which the other regards as unimportant.

The replacement of the meteorological by the