Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/386

 THE NON-ARYAN ORIGIN OF AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTIONS.

G. LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A.

would almost seem as if the comparative method of studying institutions were still on its trial. In other branches of study, philology, mythology, and even archæology, there is little disposition to dispute the right which this method claims towards elucidating the problems which beset the inquirer. In institutions, however, there has always been a latent notion that the comparative method is not quite satisfactory, and in some quarters it is ignored altogether, while in others its efficacy is openly disputed. It would be profitless, I think, to inquire as to the causes of this objection to the comparative method when applied to the study of institutions, and so I pass on to a consideration of its effect upon one division of the subject which has greatly interested me, namely, agricultural institutions. I shall draw my illustrations from one particular area, namely, the British Isles, because it is only by fixing upon some definite area that one can properly test the position which various scholars have taken up.

I put my facts in this way:—(1) In all parts of Great Britain there exist rites, customs, and usages connected with agriculture which are obviously and admittedly not of legislative or political origin, and which present details exactly similar to each other in character, but differing from each other in status. (2) That the difference in status is to be accounted for by the effects of successive conquests. (3) That the identity in character is not to be accounted for by reference to manorial history, because the area of manorial institutions is not coincident with the area of these rites, customs, and usages. (4) That exact parallels to them exist in India as integral portions of village institutions. (5) That the Indian parallels carry the subject a step further than the