riginated. It matters not that these people are placed
in the midst of a higher civilisation or alongside of a higher
civilisation. When once the higher civilisation penetrates to them,
the survival is lost. There is not continuity between modern and
primitive thought here, but, on the contrary, there is strong
antagonism, ending with the defeat and death of the primitive
survival. This is the evidence wherever survivals can be studied,
whether in the midst of our own civilisation, or even of primitive
civilisations, which constantly exhibit traces of older beliefs and
ideas being pushed out of existence by newer. It is, indeed, a mistake
to suppose, as some authorities apparently do, that survivals can only
be studied when they are embedded in a high civilisation. It is almost
a more fruitful method to study them when they appear in the lower
strata; and even in such a case as the Australian aborigines I think
that it is the neglect of observing survivals that has led to some of
the erroneous theories which have recently been advanced against
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's conclusions.

For the purpose of examining survivals in custom, rite, and belief, we
have nothing more than a series of notes of customs and beliefs
obtaining among the lower and lowest classes of the people, and not
being the direct teaching of any religious or academic body. These
notes are very unequal in value, owing to the manner in which they
have been made. They are often accidental, they are seldom if ever the
result of trained observation, and they are often mixed up with
theories as to their origin and relationship to modern society and
modern religious beliefs. To a great extent the two first of these
apparent defects are real safeguards, for they certify to the
genuineness of the record, a certificate which is more needed in this
branch of inquiry than perhaps in any other. But with regard to the
third defect there is considerable danger. An inquirer with an object
is so apt to find what he wishes to find, either by the exercise of
his own credulity or the ingenuous extension of inquiry into answer;
whereas the inquirer who is content to note with the simplicity of
those who occupy themselves by collecting what others have not
collected, may be deficient in the details he gives, but is seldom
wrong or violently wrong in what he has recorded. In every direction,
however, great caution is needed, and especially where any section of
custom an