Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/29

 Rh aware how the drift on the surface answers to deep-moving currents in the social life. Here, then, if anywhere, namely, at home, in the midst of the historical movement in which we ourselves actively participate, we can hope to put anthropological principles to the proof in an intensive and crucial way. Studied thus from within, that apparent medley of functions in which the cultural life of a people consists will gradually reveal itself as a concrete expression of the universal laws of human nature.

So much, then, concerning the dynamic reference—the suggestion of a movement to be studied—which folklore needs to embody in the definition of its end. It remains, in the second place, to ask whether this requirement is not already satisfied by that patient maid-of-all-work, the concept of evolution. Now I have no quarrel with this historic notion. May it long hold its own, if only to prove what a wealth of inspiration may be vested in a single word—or, rather, a single regulative idea. Spencer established it, Darwin accepted it; and, whatever may be thought of its applicability to the cosmic process in general, it is at any rate well fitted to characterize biological process in respect of its prevailing tendency. Let us, then, be resolved to rate anthropology among the evolutionary sciences; ignoring recent attempts to identify evolution with such social development as is independent of intercourse with others—a barren abstraction to which its perpetrators are welcome.

Yet, although the ultimate suzerainty of the evolutionary principle be admitted, does not folklore also have occasion for a departmental formula of its own? After all, evolution stands for vital process only by a euphemism. Development has also its seamy side. There is degeneration to be reckoned with as well. Is the latter, then, the limitative conception that we are seeking? Is folklore to be merely the study of cultural decadence? Speaking for myself, I must own that such a prospect leaves me joyless. Years