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28 properly avail ourselves of these when we have mastered the method of science which it is necessary to use in their investigation” (p. 179). It is to Sir Laurence Gomme’s undying credit that he insisted upon scientific method, and did his best to construct such a method. His chapter on “Materials and Methods” is a masterly effort in this direction. In dealing with comparative folklore he makes the following remarks, “We must know the exact position of each item before we begin to compare, or we may be comparing absolutely unlike things. The exact position of each item of folklore is not to be found from one isolated example. It has first to be restored to its association with all the known examples of its kind, so that the earliest and most complete form may be recorded. That is the true position to which it has been reduced as a survival. This restored and complete example is then in a position to be compared either with similar survivals in other countries on the same level of culture, or within the same ethnological or political sphere of influence, or with living customs, rites, or beliefs of peoples of a more backward state of culture or in a savage state of culture. Comparison of this kind is of value. Comparison of a less technical or comprehensive kind may be of value in the hands of a great master; but it is often not only valueless but mischievous in the hands of less experienced writers, who think that comparison is justified wherever similarity is discovered. Similarity in form, however, does not necessarily mean similarity in origin. It does not mean similarity in motive. Customs and rites which are alike in practice can be shown to have originated from quite different causes, to express quite different motifs, and cannot therefore be held to belong to a common class, the elements of which are comparable” (p. 171).

Only those who have collected first hand information in the field, and more particularly in several fields, can fully realise the imperfections of the vast majority of the records