Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/29

Rh exhaust the small store of material which his studies and reflection may have provided, without a thought of that evil day when, for a second time, he is compelled to occupy your attention with a mere réchauffé, the crambe repetita which wearies the unhappy listener. But in the sphere of Comparative Religion and Folklore the advance from year to year is startling; "the old order changeth. yielding place to new"; we seem, as it were, to feel the ground slipping beneath our feet; theories, once accepted, disappear unlamented; gaps in our knowledge are filled up by the exploration of some savage tribe, only to show themselves in some other unexpected quarter; an ever-increasing literature seeks to explain man's present or forecast his future from the examination of his past.

But the situation is not quite so startling as it appears to be. The new learning never quite loses touch with the science of the past. Even if folk-belief tends to wither in this unsympathetic age, the old principles readily adapt themselves to their new surroundings. For instance, tea leaves and umbrellas, both comparatively recently introduced into common use, have gathered round them a certain amount of lore among the folk. Ghosts of the dead past are ever with us, and, like some recent visitors to the excavations at Glastonbury, we believe that we can catch whiffs of incense from desolated altars, and hear the bells peal from the ruined Abbey towers.

To call attention to these advances in knowledge and speculation naturally forms the subject of an annual address, however imperfectly this object may be attained. For example, we have hitherto believed that through the medium of dreams we arrive at our conception of another life. But Professor Frazer, following Mr. Lang, and reviewing the group of customs observed by savages for the conciliation and multiplication of the animals which they kill, dwells upon the unquestioning faith which back-