Page:Folk-lore of the Telugus.djvu/10

2 these short and simple annals of the poor. But it ought not to be forgotten that these cottages of the poor turn out to be the very nurseries of the wisdom and knowledge which the world has accumulated.

Bare facts of history are not sufficient for the serious ethnologist. There are limits to the historian's survey of the world. "Thus far shalt thou go and no further" can be applied to history as to other departments of knowledge as well. When, therefore, history tries to disdain the limits of its little reign, it calls in the assistance of folklore," archaeology, phrenology, etc., etc. Though folklore appears to be a very much neglected branch of science, it takes the place of history during the times when there are no records, by throwing a world of light on the manners, customs and religious and social condition of the people whose folklore it is. We all know that every good is not without alloy, and that this visible Nature and this common world is so created that the two things—evil and good—co-exist. We cannot get any knowledge in a concentrated form. If this