Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/39

 Rh. But I must content myself now with having called attention to change of meaning as a main object of research for the student of folklore. To discuss its causes and conditions in detail would carry me altogether too far. A general principle, however, in regard to such causation may be laid down provisionally; namely, that within the domain of folklore the accompanying process of readaptation is always subconscious. A breach in the continuity of tradition having somehow come about, the tissue spontaneously repairs itself, partly by the assimilation of fresh matter, and partly by the coalescence of such elements as survive. Conscious renovation occurs only at a higher level of culture. On the other hand, its ulterior effects will often be noticeable in the nether region of folklore, where most of the material used for patching was acquired at second-hand and has known better times.

Having up to this point tried to keep apart in thought the two types of transvaluation severally described as change of standing and change of meaning, we may now go on to note how, in practice, it is quite possible for these processes to occur together. Indeed, the presumption is that, when a custom has come down in the world, it must likewise have suffered deflection of meaning by the way, as when the festival of a saint declines into a rustic pastime. Equally instructive, however, for purpose of illustration, and at the same time perhaps less obvious, is a twofold movement characteristic of the converse process of revival. It consists in depragmatization conjoined with devulgarization. Folk-institutions are constantly liable to interference from above. Even folk-beliefs cannot be given free expression if they are to escape the assaults of the educated reformer. Hence the trend of cultural degeneration is towards a final rally of the decadent