two things is their relation to emotional and feeling factors in experience. Weight loses its power to suspend movement; spatial perception, being, beyond all doubt, motor in origin, undergoes vast change, so that distance dwindles and is of no importance; the ordinary laws of causality, which also find their psychological origin in movement, are suspended.
In sum, it is the temporary state of inactivity of the kinaesthetic apparatus which gives to folk tales all over the world their fantastic character. The main general result of this temporary suspension, is to effect an apparent very great extension of human powers and possibilities. This result is pleasing and thus is readily retained, dwelt upon, elaborated and transmitted; and the persistency of the folk tale is secured.
Some elements of the stories are stable, however, and faithfully reflect daily experience. These, significantly enough, are precisely those which cannot be affected by the reduction of the motor sense. Shapes change, but colours often remain. Most unalterable of all is the expression of passion, "the fundamental emotive tendency." This triumphs over all change of outward shape, and with it remain gestures, and commonest of all, the signs of the power of speech. So wounds also, with their intimate emotional relation, remain constant amid all kinds of outward divergencies.
Such is Hermant's theory. It is developed with great vivacity, and with a wealth of illustration. In so far as it is to be accepted, we have a purely psychological theory of the character of what forms at least a very important factor of the popular tale—the fantastic. But it is open to criticism on several points which I will state as briefly as possible.
First, too much is made of the fact that folk stories are often told at the close of the day, or when the narrators are relatively fatigued.
