I'l'WELi] SOPHIOLOGY CXCIII 



highly devehtped species. They are tlieu called vestigial 

 iirgaus. As there are vestigial organs, so there are vestigial 

 opinions. These vestigial opinions are commonly called super- 

 stitions. When we come to investigate vestigial opinions 

 and treat them as objects of science, we no longer call them 

 superstitions, but we call them folklore. 



The science of folklore may be defined as the science of 

 superstitions, or the science of vestigial opinions no longer held 

 as valid. Yet such erroneous opinions that hold over from the 

 days of greater ignorance to the era of modern scientific 

 research are found to be of profound interest in the re^■elations 

 which they make of the nature of superstitions themselves. 

 We mig-ht neg-lect them, or seek to substitute for them vaWd 

 opinions. However, science does not hesitate to investigate 

 any question, and even the natural history of supei'stitions has 

 come to be a profoundly interesting and instructive science. 



Some years ago a movement was made in Europe and 

 America to investigate superstitions themselves on the theory 

 that they are valid. Societies were organized in London, 

 Paris, Berlin, and Boston for the ])urpose of determining 

 whether or not there is substantial truth in error itself. This 

 is the function of the Societies for Psychical Research, the pur- 

 pose of which is to discover the truth of dreams, the validity 

 of necromancy, and the reality of ghosts. I have a suspicion 

 that the Societies for Psychical Research are rather instrumen- 

 tal in increasing superstitions than in dispelling them, and that 

 we reaj) the natural fruit of these researches in the increased 

 prevalence of sucli abnormal cults and arts as christian science, 

 mind-healing, spirit-rapping, and slate-juggling. Be this as it 

 may, there is one result growing ol^t of the modern Societies 

 for Psychical Research which I hail with pleasure: In the 

 transactions of these societies there is put on record a great 

 bodv of superstitions, all of which are valuable material as 

 folklore. 



Remember it is the scieiice of superstitions, and the science 

 must deal with the fundamental errors of mankind (how the 

 phenomena of nature have been interpreted by savage and 

 barbaric peoples), and how these errors as vestigial ])henomena 



20 ETH — 03 XIII 



