therefore, belong to the primitive history of mankind ; and in collecting and printing these relics of one epoch, from two such widely different sources, the Folk-Lore Society will produce that necessary comparison and illustration which is of so much service to the anthropologist"[1]
Assuming, then, as we surely may on the strength of such evidence, that Tylor the anthropologist and Gomme the folklorist were in scientific outlook wholly at one, let us, in the next place, enquire whether on the question of method their agreement was any less complete. Now, it goes without saying that, if the material be different, the mode of treatment will differ accordingly. Dealing as they did with separate parts of the same subject, each would naturally pursue his own line of specialized research. But such diversity as was merely incidental to a division of labour need not concern us here. The only point at issue is whether their methods were in any sense antagonistic. We must ask how" far, if at all, they championed rival principles of explanation. Were both for giving the same general orientation to the study of culture? Or does the subsequent development prove that the one rather than the other divined its real path of advance?
Tylor is usually represented as the chief exponent of (a method known as the psychological or evolutionary. Gomme, on. the other hand, relies mainly on the method which is variously distinguished as the sociological, ethnological, or historical. These have hitherto been, and still are, the only methods that can claim first-rate importance in regard to the science of culture. The question for us is whether their claims are in any way incompatible. For it may well be that, in the hands of the masters of the science, these methods prove in effect complementary to each other, affording access to the same truth by different avenues of approach.
Tylor's method, of course, is evolutionary in the sense
- ↑ First Annual Report (1879), 4.
