Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/39

Rh attention to the reform of those abuses which are generated in all advanced communities. The new sociology includes in its survey "the phenomena of the creeds and ethical systems of humanity, of the great systems of religion and philosophy." If this be more than a pious aspiration, our work and that of the sociologist run on parallel lines, and, if he can help us in reducing to order the mass of unsifted material which awaits co-ordination and arrangement before it can be used by the student, he will perform valuable service.

It is, however, on ethnography or ethno-geography that the future progress of our studies mainly depends. I can deal with its relations to folklore only in connection with our national beliefs, and that in a very summary way.

The question whether we are able to identify race elements in European folklore has long engaged our attention. Before it is possible to arrive at any conclusion on this difficult subject we must be certain that the problems of race stratification have been clearly solved. This is admittedly not the case. We know enough, however, to assure us that our present terminology must be changed.

The history of the ancient world, as now presented to us, is a record of the constant ebb and flow of tides of migration, leading to the intermingling and confusion of physical types as well as beliefs and institutions. In these islands, as was the case in France, there seems to have been no cultural gap between the palæolithic races and their successors. The so-called Aryan question has assumed a new form since the ancestors of the Aryan-speaking Celts are found in the Alpine race who are supposed by some to have come from the East, or, as Professor Ridgeway believes, were the result of environment acting on members of the other European peoples, the Nordic or Teutonic, and the Mediterranean. The term Aryan now survives as little more than a linguistic expression to define a group of tribes with