628 REPORT—1896. 
effective comparison of a traditional peasant custom or belief with a 
savage custom or belief is only a very short cut indeed to the true process 
that has been accomplished. This process includes the comparison of an 
isolated custom or belief belonging, perhaps secretly, to a particular place, 
a particular class of persons, or perhaps a particular family or person, with 
a custom or belief which is part of a whole system belonging to a savage 
race or tribe ; of a custom or belief whose only sanction is tradition, the 
conservative instinct to do what has been done by one’s ancestors, with a 
custom or belief whose sanction is the professed and established polity or 
religion of a people ; of a custom or belief which is embedded in a civilisa- 
tion, of which it is not a part and to which it is antagonistic, with 
a custom or belief which helps to make up the civilisation of which 
it is part. In carrying out such a comparison, therefore, a very long 
journey back into the past of the civilised race has been performed. F'or 
unless it be admitted that civilised people consciously borrow from savages 
and barbaric peoples, or constantly revert to a savage original type of 
mental and social condition, the effect of such a comparison as we have 
taken for an example is to take back the custom or belief of the modern 
peasant to a date when a people of savage or barbaric culture occupied the 
country now occupied by their descendants, the peasants in question, and 
to compare the custom or belief of this ancient savage or barbaric culture 
with the custom or belief of modern savage or barbaric culture. The line 
of comparison is not therefore simply drawn level from civilisation to 
savagery ; but it consists, first, of two vertical lines from civilisation and 
savagery respectively, drawn to a height scaled to represent the antiquity 
of savage culture in modern Europe, and then the level horizontal line 
drawn to join the two vertical lines. Thus the line of comparison is 
ancient savagery ancient savagery 
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savagery civilisation 
The custom and belief of savage and barbaric races have been gene- 
rally accepted as identical with the custom and belief of early or primitive 
man. It has followed from this that wherever, as is so often the case, 
the custom and belief surviving among the peoples of civilised countries 
are found to he exactly or nearly parallel to savage or barbaric custom and 
belief, these survivals are put down as belonging to early or primitive 
peoples. This conclusion is in the main correct ; but it is correct not 
because it has been proved by the best methods to be so, but because, of 
all possible explanations, this is the only one that meets the general posi- 
tion in a satisfactory manner. 
If this be the short-cut process that has been accomplished by the 
comparative method of research, it must be drawn out in detail if we 
would scientifically prove its results, and if those results are to be recog- 
nised by the historian as new data for the prehistoric periods. The 
magnitude of such an enquiry as this suggests has to be considered. The 
labour and research might in point of volume be out of proportion to the 
results, and it may be questioned, as it has already been questioned by 
inference, whether it is worth the while. The first answer to this objection 
