INTRODUCTORY. 2 1 



the bearers of ideas ; while, on the other side, ideas, the 

 work of the mind, have become, as it were, externalised 

 and deposited for all time in tangible objects. What 

 was once the creation and the hidden property of only 

 one or of the few has, through this process of external- 

 isation, become the common possession of the many, in 

 whom, through it, a new life has been awakened which 

 does not end within the narrow limits of our corporeal 

 existence, but is itself capable of continuous growth and 

 development. 



Considering, then, the extreme difficulty which exists 

 if we try, by the methods of introspection, to get hold 

 of our inner life, it is no wonder that the study of 

 mental phenomena should more and more take the 

 direction of a study of their external manifestation in 

 the institutions of society in its primitive and more 

 advanced forms, of languages living and dead, of art, 

 religion, science, and industry ; further, that this study, 

 after having for a long time lingered over the more 

 developed forms, should latterly have been directed more 

 especially to the origins, the supposed primitive or 

 elemental forms out of which the more advanced institu- 

 tions and more finished productions have historically 

 developed. This characteristic tendency of nineteenth n 



A character- 

 Century thought was not only favoured by the extreme jfe^y 6 "/ 



difficulty of all purely introspective or subjective attempts, 

 but quite as much by a kind of reaction against the 

 sceptical attitude which found an extreme expression in 

 the writings of David Hume. He had himself pointed 

 out the path, when, after arriving at a deadlock in his 

 purely logical and psychological writings, he gradually 



