eople, the ancient
Greeks; and it is at least highly doubtful if, without their leadership,
a progressive civilization would have existed to-day.

It may be added in parenthesis that customs may linger on indefinitely,
after losing, through one cause or another, their place amongst the
vital interests of the community. They are, or at any rate seem,
harmless; their function is spent. Hence, whilst perhaps the humbler
folk still take them more or less seriously, the leaders of society
are not at pains to suppress them. Nor would they always find it easy
to do so. Something of the primeval man lurks in us all; and these
"survivals," as they are termed by the anthropologist, may often in
large part correspond to impulses that are by no means dead in us,
but rather sleep; and are hence liable to be reawakened, if the
environment happens to supply the appropriate stimulus. Witness the
fact that survivals, especially when the whirligig of social change
brings the uneducated temporarily to the fore, have a way of blossoming
forth into revivals; and the state may in consequence have to undergo
something equivalent to an operation for appendicitis. The study of
so-called survivals, therefore, is a most important branch of
anthropology, which cannot unfortunately in this hasty sketch be given
its due. It would seem to coincide with the central interest of what
is known as folk-lore. Folk-lore, however, tends to broaden out till
it becomes almost indistinguishable from general anthropology. There
are at least two reasons for this. Firstly, the survivals of custom
amongst advanced nations, such as the ancient Greeks or the modern
British, are to be interpreted mainly by comparison with the similar
institutions still flourishing amongst ruder peoples. Secondly, all
these ruder peoples themselves, without exception, have their
survivals too. Their customs fall as it were into two layers. On top
is the live part of the fire. Underneath are smouldering ashes, which,
though dying out on the whole, are yet liable here and there to rekindle
into flame.

So much for custom as something on the face of it distinct from law,
inasmuch as it seems to dispense with punishment. It remains to note,
however, that brute force lurks behind custom, in the form of what
Bagehot has called "the persecuting tendency." Just a boy at school
who happens to offend against the unwritten code has his life made
a burden by the rest of his mates, so in the prim