Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/69

Rh successors of Corybantic frenzies, and, more remotely, of savage dances and other forms of excitation; there is that active belief in the Second Advent which is a member of the widespread group wherein human hopes fix eyes on the return of long-sleeping heroes; of Arthur and Olger Dansk, of Väinämöinen and Quetzalcoatl, of Charlemagne and Barbarossa, of the lost Marko of Servia and the lost King Sebastian.

And so the list of subjects charged with material for the folklorist might run on, but that an end must be made of it here.

Suffice it, that when the origin of these several groups of beliefs and customs is made clear—as made clear it will be—there will be given further evidence of the unity of man psychically as well as physically; further evidence of the impossibility of excluding him from the operation of the great law of development, of descent with modification, which rules throughout the organic world. Long banished from the inorganic realm and from the sphere which includes all lower life, the forces of the spirit of caprice and disorder retreated within the citadel of Mansoul. But folklore, in alliance with the Determinist philosophy, will drive them thence, because it is the agent of order, and not of confusion. Its high mission is to contribute to the freedom of the spirit, to deliver those who, being children of superstition, are therefore the prisoners of fear.

You will, I hope, agree with me that the volume and variety of the materials which are in hand warrant us not only in showing their significance, but in attempting some definite conclusions. Those which I have ventured to draw you will please take for what they are worth as being only the expression of individual opinion.

Since passing the proof of this address, I have read Dr. Frank Granger's recently-published work on the Worship