servation of non-tribal cults side by side with tribal cults.
Non-tribesmen preserved their custom, belief, and rite simply because
they were not admitted to the custom, belief, and rite of the tribe,
and this is the explanation of the existence, in survival, of folklore
which goes back to pre-Celtic times. Some of this pre-Celtic folklore
we have already had before us, and some of it I have studied in my
_Ethnology in Folklore_. Later on I shall have something more to say
on the subject. Here it is only necessary to emphasise the importance
of having ascertained why it is that the Celtic conquerors of Britain
and the earliest tribal conquerors of the Indo-European world
generally permitted to live in their midst what in a sense was opposed
to all that they believed, to all that they practised, to all that
governed them in thought and action.

I think this is a strong position upon which to conduct folklore
research. It includes the whole of the historical position; it takes
due count of historical facts instead of ignoring them. It is based
upon a scientific conception of the meaning of a survival of culture.
A survival is that which has been left stranded amidst the development
that is going on around. Its future life is not one of development but
of decay. We are not dealing with the evolution of society, but with
the decaying fragments of a social system which has passed away. We
have to trace out its line of decay from the point where it almost
vanishes as the mere superstition or practice of a peasant or an
outcast, back to phases where it exists in more strenuous fashion, and
finally back to its original position as part and parcel of a living
social fabric. Moreover, the strength of our position is based upon a
scientific conception of the development of the nation or people among
whom survivals exist. It is not all parts of the nation which develop
at the same rate, at the same time, and for the same period. There are
social strata in every country, and it is the observance of these
strata which has made it possible for the inquirer of to-day to use
the evidence they afford for historical purposes.

FOOTNOTES:

[427] _Religion of the Semites_, 30. It is worth while quoting here
Merivale's note in his Boyle lectures, _Conversion of the Northern
Nations_, 122. "Pagan temples were always the public works of nations
and communities. They were national buildings dedicated to national
purposes. The mediaeval churc