Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/124

 116 thinking, that whether we have a more or less ambitious conception of the object of onr study will, in the long run, affect the interest we take in it and the mode in which we pursue it.

The definition I put forward in the November number of this journal was—"Folk-lore is anthropology dealing with the psychological phenomena of uncivilised man." This was an amendment of a definition proposed by Mr. Nutt; and I then gave no reasons, beyond a few lines explaining my preference for the amended form. Let me now try to supply the omission.

Anthropology is a word of very extended signification, embracing nothing less than the study of Man and all that he is. Man is studied under every conceivable aspect—physical, mental, moral, political, social, religious—by writers upon anthropology; and the term, in fact, is one of those collective names, of which zoology, biology, physiography, are other examples, comprehending a multitude of minor sciences. Each of these minor sciences has its own subject: each is busied with researches within its own peculiar limits. And, though they all dovetail into one another on different sides, it is impossible to say that any of them are superfluous—all contribute something towards the great whole to which they belong. Zoology cannot say to entomology, nor biology to botany, "I have no need of thee," for either would be incomplete without the other. So, if we examine the writings of anthropologists—if, for instance, we glance over the Journal of the Anthropological Institute—we shall find one set of students devoting themselves to the measurement of skulls, another to the general physical characteristics of races, a third to the growth and effects of material civilisation, a fourth to customs and beliefs, and so on. Each of these studies yields its own contribution to the net conclusions of the science of anthropology. I am not seeking here, it will be observed, to enlarge the definition of anthropology in order to make good my contention that folk-lore is one of its departments. I am only appealing to well-known facts that can be verified by everybody. But, if the study of customs and beliefs be a branch of anthropological inquiry, then "the science which," according to Mr. Gomme, "treats of the survivals of archaic