Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/123

Rh a small number of cases for a true law, are to be found the powerful intuition, the delicate observation, and the knowledge of a real property of a being or phenomenon of nature which passes unobserved by the scientific man.

In Spain, at least, if my opinion has any influence, we should cultivate, with no less zeal than the study of popular ignorance, and the imaginary creations which have their origin in the predominance of fancy and of sentiment over reason, the wisdom of the people (lore, lehre, teaching, doctrine, lesson), that which it has learned by its reason and experience, in order to incorporate it into the scientific wealth, unhappily by no means excessive, which we possess, and in order to bring to light the whole mental store of this nation, the most ignorant perhaps of Europe, but not endowed with less intellectual gifts than other more fortunate nations, and which now enjoy a greater progress. The man of the people is, doubtless, the man of superstitions and of errors, but he is also the man of experience and of natural reason, the basis of all scientific knowledge, and of every advance in the great work of human civilisation.

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Every member of the Folk-Lore Society must sympathise with Mr. Gomme's wish that it should "be settled once for all that folk-lore is a science." There are probably few habitual readers of this journal, few students of the subjects touched on in these pages, who are not fully convinced that folk-lore is a science, however difficult they may feel it to define its actual range and scope. The contribution, therefore, from Mr. Gomme's pen in the last number towards a clear apprehension of these matters will be accepted with gratitude even by those who are unable to agree with him on the terms in which he would define the science. I am one of these; and, in seeking to prolong the discussion, I trust I may not be considered as trespassing upon space that might be better occupied. For, though no doubt the question resolves itself to some extent into one about mere words, still I cannot help