Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/36

24 whole, or more particularly in the case of the peasantry of Europe.

The casual observer of any type of savage culture is naturally led to emphasize points of agreement in adjacent groups or individuals, and to neglect the differences by which they are distinguished. But the trained field-worker, as he pursues his investigations, is forced to recognise that beneath a specious level of uniformity there are important individual distinctions, which become apparent only as the result of long-continued study.

Long ago Darwin taught us that "savages, even within the limits of the same tribe, are not nearly as uniform in character as has often been asserted." M. Lévy-Bruhl has recently urged that primitive thought is of a wholly different order from that of civilised man. For instance, death is to the savage not "the unique and catastrophic event it seems to us, but merely a condition of passing from one existence to another, forming but one of a number of transitions which stand out as the chief memories of his life." Hence Mr. Marett judiciously warns us that this "homogeneity of primitive culture, however, must not be made the excuse for a treatment at the hands of psychology and sociology that dispenses with the study of details and trusts to an a priori method. By all means let universal characterization be attempted, . . . but they must at least model themselves on the composite photograph rather than the impressionist sketch."

When we consider psychology on the theoretical side, the case is somewhat different. On many of the questions which interest us the oracle gives an uncertain response. Thus, on the question whether magic did or did not precede