persistence of the forms is proportioned to the low state of their culture. He adds a note of warning that "although all the connecting forms between the forms of nature and the more advanced forms are found amongst the existing weapons of these savages, we are not to assume from this that the whole of the progress observed has been effected in modern times. The whole sequence of ideas . . . was reasoned out . . . at former periods in the history of the race. . . . Each link has left its representatives, which, with certain modifications, have survived to the present time; and it is by the means of these survivals, and not by the links themselves, that we are able to trace out the sequence."[1] But by his comparative method he at the same time provided material for the direct comparison of objects and a demonstration of their geographical distribution, which in their turn suggested lines of cultural communication. He wrote, "in the arrangement [of specimens] which I have adopted, the development of specific ideas and their transmission from one people to another, or from one locality to another, is made more apparent, and it is therefore of greater sociological value."[2] It will be seen that the methods of Pitt-Rivers for the study of material culture are essentially the same as those of folklorists. The Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford and that at Farnham in Dorsetshire are fitting monuments of his genius. Among the few who followed up this trend of research was Miss A. W. Buckland, whose papers in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (iv. 1874–xviii. 1889) were republished in her Anthropological Studies, London, 1891. But, as has been stated above, biological conceptions were so dominant among students that the historical aspects of ethnology and folklore were inhibited, and it was not till about a quarter of a century later that similar discussions were renewed.
- ↑ A. Lane Fox, "Principles of Classification," J. A. I. iv 1874 (1875), pp. 301, 302.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 295.
