Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/227

Rh the principles of any of the Classificatory Sciences. Secondly, it may be objected that my psychological Analysis is incorrect. This, of course, it may well be. Or, thirdly, it may be objected that the Classification is incorrectly drawn from the Analysis. This also may well be. And what has chiefly urged me to write this paper for the Folk-Lore Society has been the hope that corrections of my Analysis, or of the Classification drawn therefrom, or of both, would be suggested by the members of the Society.

With respect especially to the Classification of Customs, of Sayings, and of Poesies, I expect to have many corrections suggested by those who have a far more detailed acquaintance with the facts of Folk-lore than I can boast. Provisionally, and subject to such corrections, I have classified Customs as (1) Festivals; (2) Ceremonies; and (3) Usages. Sayings I have classified as (1) Prescriptions; (2) Saws, and (3) Forecasts. And Poesies I have classified as (1) Stories; (2) Songs; and (3) Sagas. Further, the contents of each of these Sub-classes may, I think, be distinguished as (1) Cosmical; (2) Social; and (3) Ancestral. In my Classification of Greek Folk-songs I have used the terms (1) Mythological, (2) Affectional, and (3) Historical; and also, in my first paper on Classification, the terms (1) Religious, (2) Sexual, and (3) Social. But on the whole, I think that the terms now suggested are perhaps preferable to both these sets of terms. They certainly have a more direct reference to that psychological Analysis which must ever guide our Folk-lore Classification. For, as we have seen, an External World, Other Beings, and an Ancestral World, are the three great data of Folk-consciousness. And if this is so, Customs, Sayings, and Poesies, and their Sub-classes, may certainly be distinguished according as they are more especially called forth by, or have reference to, the impressions made by the Cosmos, or External World; Other Beings, or Society; and Ancestors, or the Ancestral World.

My Classification, as will be remarked, goes throughout in Triads, and to this an objection may be taken as if it were a mere fad. I submit that it is a necessary consequence of deriving the Classification of Folk-lore from a psychological Analysis of Folk-life. For, as