146 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
which, though not taught by schoolmasters or enforced by the police, is 
handed down orally from the older to the younger members of the group, 
and enforced by public opinion within the group. 
To this description there is one apparent exception, the traditional 
narrative, and to this I shall devote the remainder of this address. It 
must, however, be borne in mind that in any group the traditional narra- 
tive forms a mere fraction of the great body of tradition, of which some 
at least of the other forms are of far greater sociological importance. 
The traditional narrative takes various forms, such as myth, legend, 
epic poem, ballad, saga and fairy tale. It has been usual in the past to 
divide these into two main classes, those which were believed to contain 
a kernel of genuine historical fact, and those which were regarded as 
purely fictitious. With fiction I shall deal later ; I shall now consider 
the claim of the traditional narrative to be the repository of historical fact. 
Tue Basis oF History. 
The theory that traditional narrative embodies historical fact is based 
on the assumption that among the members of every community in which 
quasi-historical narratives are related there exists, and has existed for 
hundreds or thousands of years, a strong and continuous interest in the 
past history of the community, and a strong and continuous desire to 
preserve the facts of that history as accurately as possible. ‘There appears 
to be no evidence to justify such an assumption. 
Why should anyone wish to know what happened before he was born ? 
There is no obvious reason, and as a fact very few people do. All over the 
world we find people living in the neighbourhood of ancient ruins without 
taking the slightest interest in them. NHistoric monuments are being 
destroyed in England to-day, and by educated and responsible persons. 
If we wish to know who lived in a certain house a hundred years ago, it is 
of little use to ask the local inhabitants ; we may find some elder whose 
father worked there, but the odds are against it. Do we find, in any part 
of the world, young people sitting at the feet of the aged, and eagerly 
drinking in all that they can tell them of the events of their youth ? 
Nowhere that I have ever heard of ; the old man in his anecdotage is 
universally regarded as a bore. 
Even when there is some slight interest in local history, it is the result 
of inquiries by students or tourists ; persons who study local history are 
called antiquaries, and they are rare in the most civilised countries. 
As regards general history, he would be an optimist who would maintain 
that 1 per cent. of the inhabitants of Europe had any real knowledge of 
or interest in the subject. It is true that at times and places of high 
general culture there have often been a certain number of persons who 
studied history in the hope of understanding how people thought and 
acted under different social conditions, or of finding in the past the key 
to the future. It is also true that since the time of Herodotus many of 
the masterpieces of prose have been historical works, and that history has 
therefore tended to form part of the educational curriculum. None of 
these considerations, however, could affect the illiterate, who are interested 
in the present and the immediate future, but never in the past. 
