Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/51

 Presidential Address. 19

be explained as the expression of some universal tendenc}- on the part of our minds, spontaneous origination, an evolutionary development in the narrower sense, may be said to occur. Moreover, as compared with the other method of tracing historical connexions, this "direct method," ^^ as he terms it, promises quicker returns; since thereby ''the use of detailed history is very much superseded."^- The reason is that "the facts have not, so to speak, travelled far from their causes." The mental law involved can be inferred from the given group of facts without further ado. At the same time, Tylor is perfectly ready to admit that such a method is practicable " only in particular parts of human culture." Yet "they are among the easiest and most inviting parts of the subject"; and so he attacks them mainly, without having much regard for their " absolute importance." Indeed, as we have already seen, he looked forward to an indefinitely wider and more fruitful use of the theory of transmission in the future. But he does not believe that the time has come for writing a systematic treatise on the history of culture ; and at all events is content on his own account to present a mere offering of first-fruits, or, as Bacon would say, a vindcuiiatio prima.

A common misconception of the principle involved in the evolutionary method may be noticed. According to this version, or rather perversion, of its meaning, it would run as follows : while the evolution of culture has taken place independently in a number of difterent areas, the process as a whole has repeated itself more or less exactly ; so that we either may treat any one development as typical of all, or, if no one complete history be available, may patch together a representative account out of fragments taken indifferently from any of the particular areas concerned. If there be any student of culture who has consciously or

11 Early History of Mankind'^, 4.

^" lb. 3, as also for the following citations.