Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/266

 228 accomplished had these differences been taken into account in the prehminary stage of the inquiry. But certainly Dr. Tylor and the other advocates of such elimination have not acted on any abstract principle of method, but on the dogmatic assumption of the homogeneity of human races. And this assumption the verification of his (Mr. Stuart-Glennie's) theory would overthrow.

He could not but congratulate himself that Professor Sayce, as well as Professor Rhys, seemed inclined to adopt the fundamental principle of his general theory, namely, that the assumption by Dr. Tylor of a spontaneous development of Civilisation from Barbarism, in various independent centres, is altogether unverifiable, and that, in the words of Professor Sayce, we must "regard Civilisation as having originated in one particular part of the world only, and out of local conditions". Among these conditions, he supposed that Prof Sayce would include such racial differences, and hence such a Conflict of Races, as we have clear evidence of both in Egypt and Chaldea. And such a Conflict would, he ventured to think, afford the only means of explaining what he knew had greatly struck Professor Sayce, namely, the e.xtraordinary apparent suddenness of the origin of Civilisation in Egypt, nothing having been as yet discovered to fill up the prodigious gap between paleolithic instruments and the megalithic temple near the Sphinx, which necessarily implies a prodigious development of social organisation. But suppose an incoming Higher Race to have subjected and exploited Lower Races, would not even the first monuments of the Civilisation thus founded present just such a supreme advance on the monuments of the pre-Civilisation period as we do actually find in Egypt? He further agreed with Professor Sayce as to the importance of getting a generally acceptable definition of the terms Mythology and Myth. But at present he would only venture to say that he would regard Myth as originally the product of the cultured classes of the Higher Races of a civilised society; and Tale, or Story, as distinguished from Myth, as more especially the product of the Lower Races. But the Culture-lore and Folk-lore of a Civilised Society must be conceived as perpetually reacting on each other, even as do the Higher and Lower Races, to which these products respectively more especially belong.

As to Mr. Lang's message from Dr. Tylor with reference to his (Mr. Stuart-Glennie's) quotation from him, he could only say that, fancying that this passage in Dr. Tylor's first book was a sort of adumbration of his own theory, he thought himself bound in candour to quote it; but he could not be at all sorry to hear from such good authority that Dr. Tylor had not, even by such a passage as that quoted, anticipated him in a theory which appeared to gain fresh verification every day.