Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/211

 THE SCIENCE OF FOLK-LORE. 203

characteristics lie passes on to their mental capacities, their tribal dis- tribution, social customs, habits and folk-lore. He next considers their language, ceremonies, superstitions and religious beliefs, and then their social relations, personal habits, trade, arts, and manufactures. This enumeration of the heads of his monograph gives them in but the merest outline : the details are worthy of consideration. They are, however, all to be found elsewhere in a more complete form, for the basis of his work is a skeleton plan drawn up under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, called a Manual of Anthropological Notes and Queries. A similar guide-book for the use of travellers has been compiled by the Royal Geographical Society. This shows the feasibility of one of the most useful practical duties this Society could undertake, viz. the j)reparation hy committees of standard manuals, showing under each branch of the subject what kind of facts it is desirable to collect, in what order they should be recorded, and how they should be classified. In matters of this kind the most experienced of us ought not to disdain the collective advice of his fellow- students, and to the inexperienced such guides would be invaluable. I do not think we could inculcate too persistently the importance of being systematic in our joint labours, for though it is all capable of being made to work out in one direction, there is a vast mass of multifarious matter to be collected, arranged and sifted, and the natural tendency is towards an aimless aggregation of details. This must lead to hopeless confusion unless checked, and as it is sure to perpetually exist, it must always be guarded against.

If we act rightly as to these two points the remainder of the work may be in a great measure left to take care of itself. In the matter of induction those who undertake to reason on the facts collected, and thus to explain the general principles which underlie the phenomena observed, become ipso facto teachers; and I think it will be admitted that such persons should be left to go their own way, that the sound- ness of their doctrines should be the only ground on which these should eventually stand or fall, and that no attempt should be made to coerce them into a particular style of argument. At the same time it is within the right of every student to put forward his views as to the method which should be adopted, and it is in the exercise of