Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/228

220 a matter of fact, the psychological analyses of the ablest psychologists and metaphysicians do always result in Triads. The analysis of our Faculties into Intellect, Emotion, and Will, is by no means a fad; nor is the analysis of a logical Proposition into three, and only three, elements a fad; nor is it a fad that in all the processes of Thought a progression by triplets may be distinguished. And I remain, thus far at least, a Hegelian, that I believe that the logic of Thought is the logic of History; and that, with reference to Folk-lore particularly, there will probably be something both incorrect in point of logic, and inadequate in point of fact, in any Classification of Folk-lore that does not conform to that Law of Triads which seems to result from every scientific Psychological Analysis.

And now to return to what was said in the opening paragraph of this paper, and to conclude. It was pointed out that recent investigations of the facts of Folk-life show that actual Folk-beliefs are by no means identical, as hitherto generally assumed, with the dominant Culture-beliefs; that this false assumption of such an identity is chiefly due to a serious defect in Historical Method; and that the result of this defect has been that we have hitherto had histories of Culture rather than histories of Society. This defect in Historical Method I said was to be remedied by the study of Folk-lore as the complement of the study of Culture-lore. It became necessary, then, to consider the nature and place of a Science of Folk-lore. Making its scope as wide as that of the Science which has been called by some French authors Demologie, I have defined it as the Classificatory Science, which is the adjunct of the Causal Science of Social Progress. We then proceeded to consider the principles of the Classification of Folk-lore. I endeavoured to show that they must be derived from the results of an Analysis of Folk-life. And the chief points of the Classification derived from such an Analysis were the following: First, the distinction between the Subjects of Folk-lore and the Records of Folk-lore. Secondly, the classification of the Subjects of Folk-lore as Folk-beliefs, Folk-passions, and Folk-traditions; and of the Records of Folk-lore as Folk-customs, Folk-sayings, and Folk-poesies. And, thirdly, the further classification of Customs, as