540 RECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1«86. 



properly so styled, must bo dated at about six thousand or ten tbousaud 

 years ag^o. And this man who thus appeared was not a man of feeble 

 powers, a dull witted savage. He possessed and manifested from the 

 first intellectual faculties of the highest order, such as none of his de- 

 scendants have surpassed. ITis speech, we may be sure, was not a 

 mere mumble of disjointed sounds ; it was a full, expressive, well-organ- 

 ized speech, complete in all its parts. The first men spoke because 

 they possessed along with the vocal organs the cerebral faculty of 

 speech; " that faculty was an instinct of the mind, as irresistible as any 

 other instinct." 



MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE. 



The folk-lorists of England have been wrestling for the last three 

 years with the following questions : 



(1) The definition, the inclusions and exclusions of the term folk-lore. 



(2) The establishment of classific concepts for the material included. 

 It is very easy to say, put things together that are alike, but it is most 

 difticult to settle upon that characteristic of likeness.which will combine 

 our examples into what may be called natural genera, species, etc. Con- 

 nected with this idea of classific concepts is the associated one of ter. 

 minology. 



(3) The anatomy of tales, customs, practices, etc., and the invention 

 of a glossary of their organic parts, their dramatis per some ^ their essen- 

 tial incidents. 



In vol. Ill of the Folk-lore Journal (pp. 1-10), Mr. G. L. Gomme un- 

 dertakes to answer these questions. He had previously in (vol. ii, pp. 

 28'), 311) advocated a systematic effort of folk-lorists in the same direc- 

 tion. A few definitions are given below to indicate the mental drift of 

 the gentlemen interested : 



" Folk lore is anthropology dealing with primitive man." (Alfred ISTutt.) 

 "Folk-lore is anthropology dealing with the psychological phenomena 

 of uncivilized man [meaning unlettered as well as savage], and em- 

 braces both folk-thought and folk- wont "(practice). (E. Sidney Hartland, 

 Folk-1., II, 310.) " That portion of anthropology which deals with the 

 psychological phenomena of primitive man." (O.Stauiland Wake, Folk-1. 

 J., II, 345.) 



"Folk-lore is the unwritten learning of the people. Folk-lore is not 

 a science ; it is the thing itself. One of the chief objects of the collection 

 and arrangement of the facts of folk lore is to generalize and i^hiloso- 

 phize; but the generalizations which we arrive at will not be folk-lore." 

 (flenry B. Wheatley, Folklore J., ii, 317.) 



" Folk-lore deals primarily with the survival of primitive customs and 

 beliefs among civilized races, and is comparable with, not identical with, 

 the living primitive customs and beliefs of savage races. The sanction 

 back of folk-lore is tradition. Folk-lore is the science which treats of 

 the survivals of archaic beliefs and customs in modern ages." (G. L. 

 Gomme, i c. ill, 14.) 



