with. A second group of impulses have more to do with the form than with the matter of the tales. These are such as come specially into play when a man is actually telling a tale to others, and are illustrated in the tendencies to produce laughter and to create astonishment. Study of this group of impulses will do very much to make clear the character of the transformations undergone by the tales in the course of their transmission. Again, the folk story tends to deal with special types of incident, with certain varieties of individual and social experience. These are the expressions of the specific individual and social tendencies, the character and inter-relations of which we must accordingly be prepared to discuss and disentangle. Finally, both how and when these various tendencies exercise their influence can be made clear only by a careful study of the ways in which the matter dealt with is related to the prior experience of the individual who tells the story and, in particular, to the customs, institutions and history of the community to which the narrator belongs.
§ 5. Conclusions.
The main general conclusions of this paper may now be stated:
The first is that no discussion which is concerned only with individual tendencies, or modes of expression, can give an adequate account of the psychological considerations which are relevant to a study of the popular story.
The second is that the doctrine of wish fulfilment in relation to folk tales is useless apart from a thorough-going analysis of the "wish"; and that the theory of symbolism is peculiarly liable to error.
The third is that many of the impulses which are responsible for the production and reproduction of the folk story are specifically social in origin.
The fourth is that, even from the psychological point of view, the consideration of what tendencies operate, and of
