Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/214

 206 THE SCIENCE OF FOLK-LORE.

etherealized legend of Lord Tennyson are two very different things ; and what the credulous do in practice, when getting up a legend, is to allow their imaginations to exaggerate what they have either seen or heard about, i.e., experienced. The themes are always set them, as it were : they merely concoct the variations. Whatever they do, they do unconsciously, and it is nearer to scientific truth to say that all Folk-lore is a growth, than to hold that its ideas are the product of the inventive genius of untutored man. The Pedigree of the Devil is a book, followed quite lately by a History of Monsters j which takes up the line of argument, that constructive demonology generally is really due to the survival of memories of creatures that have existed on earth within the ken of man, though not within historical times. There is much more in this than would at first appear, and the theory, being capable of inductive demonstration, is therefore worthy of being looked into.

The upshot of the above remarks is that the historical method of investigation as regards Folk-lore is scientific, because it is safe; and that it is unsafe to assume for the purposes of argument that imagin- ation is an unlimited quantity. Those who follow the historical method cannot be charged with quackery, for they must at least know what they are about at every step ; and believe me, the more matter- of-fact an argument is, and the less room it allows for the play of emotion, the less scope is there for error and the more it convinces. I crave your pardon for thus pressing the value of the historical method on your attention. I do so because it seems to me that the tendency of those who have preceded me on this subject is to be content with mere comparison as a basis for their explanation of the phenomena of Folk-lore. What I would strongly urge is that we should remember that the world of which we have human record is so old that all things — even those which appear to us as primitive — must have a history, and that before we comjyare we should, so far as we are able, ascertain that we are historically justified in making the comparison, A certain custom exists in Holland, and its counterpart in India. Query : Are they connected at all, and, if so, which springs from the other ? I would say that, first, the history of each in its own country should be examined, until we come to the point when it can be proved