476 ANTHROPOLOGY 



The significance of these elementary ideas or universal traits 

 of culture has been brought into prominence by the long-continued 

 controversy between the theory of their independent origin and 

 that of their transmission from one part of the world to another. 

 This struggle began, even before the birth of modern anthropology, 

 with the contest between Grimm's theory of the origin and his- 

 tory of myths and Benfey's proof of transmissions, which was 

 based on his learned investigations into the literary history of 

 tales. It is still in progress. On the one hand, there are investi- 

 gators who would exclude the consideration of transmission alto- 

 gether, who believe it to be unlikely, and deem the alleged proof 

 irrelevant, and who ascribe sameness of cultural traits wholly to 

 the psychic unity of mankind and to the uniform reaction of the 

 human mind upon the same stimulus. An extremist in this direc- 

 tion was the late Daniel G. Brintori. On the other hand, Friedrich 

 Ratzel, whose recent loss we lament, inclined decidedly to the 

 opinion that all sameness of cultural traits must be. accounted for 

 by transmission, no matter how far distant the regions in which 

 they are found. In comparison with these two views, the third 

 one, which was mentioned before as represented by Gerland, namely, 

 that such cultural traits are vestiges or survivals of the earliest 

 stages of a generalized human culture, has found few supporters. 



It is evident that this fundamental question cannot be settled 

 by the continued discussion of general facts, since the various ex- 

 planations are logically equally probable. It requires actual inves- 

 tigation into the individual history of such customs to discover 

 the causes of their present distribution. 



Here is the place to mention the studies in folklore which have 

 excited considerable interest in recent times, and which must be 

 considered a branch of anthropological research. Beginning with 

 records of curious superstitions and customs and of popular tales, 

 folklore has become the science of all the manifestations of popu- 

 lar life. Folklorists occupy themselves primarily with the folklore 

 of Europe, and thus supplement the material collected by anthro- 

 pologists in foreign lands. The theorists of folklore are also divided 

 into the two camps of the adherents of the psychological theory and 

 those of the historical theory. In England the former holds sway, 

 while on the Continent the historical theory seems to be gaining 

 ground. The identity of the contents of folklore all over Europe 

 seems to be an established fact. To the one party the occurrence 

 of these forms of folklore seems to be due in part to psychic neces- 

 sity, in part to the survival of earlier customs and beliefs. To the 

 other party, it seems to owe its origin to the spread of ideas over 

 the whole continent, which may, in part, at least, be followed by 

 literary evidence. 



