Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/40

 30 values under the banner of some unpractical interest—one that, as it were, but dreams of the past—such as festivity, song, or story. Of course such an interest has, and always has had, a specific content of its own. Its matter is never a mere detritus-heap of derived oddments. A good wonder-tale or a good dance has been prized for its own sake ever since there were men and women and children in the world. At the same time, the aesthetic tradition of the folk tends to be the residuary legatee of all other expiring interests. Memory and fancy can still play with thoughts that no longer bear directly on the day's work.

Now, possibly, the sense of beauty depends more on innate predisposition than on education; so that what its selective influence preserves is likely to make equal appeal to all ranks, at any rate among those of the same race. Be this as it may, it is certain that the unconscious art of the folk can develop into art of the conscious and refined order, and must do so if the latter is to be truly national in type. Of course such a process of devulgarization is bound to involve innovation in no small degree. The change will be partly of a technical kind, as, for instance, by way of elaboration and synthesis; but partly also in respect to meaning and spirit, as notably by elevation of the moral tone. Here, then, we have a good instance of the complexity of cultural transvaluation when its movements up, down, and across are followed through a considerable tract of history. A solemn ritual, let us say, is disestablished and descends to the underfolk, the "pagans," deviating from its original meaning as it drops. But the grave of religion is the seed-bed of art. First the popular tradition adopts surviving elements such as lend themselves to imaginative treatment. Then constructive genius readapts the rude material conformably to some high moral purpose. Whereupon the cycle of change is complete; the downward way being compensated by the upward way, the falling rain by the reascending vapour.