Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/353

Rh As discussion is invited, I propose to make a few critical remarks on the earlier part of Mr. Nutt's letter. Mr. Nutt gives good reasons why folk-lore should have a wider scope than is given to it bysome Folk-lorists. His suggestion that it should be split up into different branches, each corresponding to a section of Anthropology dealing with civilized man, is a valuable one. At the same time, the definition of folk-lore as "Anthropology dealing with primitive man" is not perfect. It leaves out of view the fact that Anthropology has physical as well as psychological phenomena to deal with. A more correct definition would be " that portion of Anthropology which deals with the psychological phenomena of primitive man." Folk-lore would thus be equivalent to primitive culture, which Mr. Cutter, in his letter to the Library Journal, quoted by Mr. Gomme, suggests the propriety of classing as a division of Anthropology. Mr. Nutt's use of the term "primitive" is unobjectionable. It is now generally employed as denoting early as distinguished from first, to denote which the term primeval is more generally used.

Whether folk-lore should, however, have so wide a definition as proposed, or whether, as Mr. Nutt remarks, the study of man in his primitive stage is folk-lore, is another question. What that would require may be seen by reference to Mr. E. B. Tyler's Anthropology, where thirteen out of sixteen chapters are devoted to the consideration of the psychological phenomena of man. It appears to me to be very undesirable that the scope of the Folk- Lore Society should be so extended as to take in so large a portion of the subjects embraced by Anthropology, especially as the Anthropological Institute is doing such good work in the same direction. I much doubt, moreover, whether Mr. Nutt's division (7, Folk-craft) belongs legitimately to folk-lore. Although art and industry may, as distinguished from physical phenomena, be described as psychological, yet as visible expressions of thought they should rather be classed as quasi-physical. I would substitute folk-science for folk-craft, which would considerably reduce the range of subject, while providing a place for weather-lore and other subjects not included in other divisions.

It is a question also whether Mr. Nutt's division (3) should stand. Much of leechdom is magic, which Mr Tylor places with science; and even if magic were removed from science and relegated to belief (1),