Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/153

 THE RISE OF EMPIRICISM.

BY OTIS TUFTON MASON.

the phrase "the rise of empiricism" is meant the beginning of invention among mankind. There was a time when men commenced to experiment and to make observations upon phenomena, originally. According to some. Lord Bacon was the original experimentalist; according to others, it was Aristotle. Perchance a few would allow Solomon a place in the list, because he said that man had sought out many inventions. But there never was a time when men did not invent, when they were not empiricists. The relation of such an inquiry to folk-lore should be made apparent in order to give it a standing in this congress.

The student of folk-lore is supposed to deal rather with survivals, with customs, with common beliefs and common practices. He deals chiefly with those who follow suit. He does not frequent patent offices, but places of assembly, and listens to the repetition of things that do not seem to have had an origin, or watches the doing of things that have been done often and often before.

It is not here denied that the mass of humanity are travelling together the broad road of custom, that each man goes on by a kind of automatism walking the same gait, that thousands tread in one another's footsteps, and that whole tribes and races get a trend and a set in everything they think, or do, or say. This is not denied; it is rather affirmed and emphasized beforehand, lest some one might conceive the notion that the writer does not believe in custom at all.

It is with equal ardor maintained that there are delightful exceptions to this rule, and that these very exceptions constitute the genius of historic progress in all ages.

One man invents a machine in our day and thousands use it. One man writes a book and many read it. One man 117