Secondly, the past can teach us nothing of the future beyond a vague surmise. All theories which proceed on an assumption of knowledge concerning finalities, whether in science or dogma, are cobwebs of the brain, not the fruit of knowledge, and obscure the faculty of intellectual perception. It is wasteful of one's time to frame them, and fatal to one's work to adopt them. These are also two personal traits which, it seems to me, are requisite to the comprehension of ethnic psychology, and therefore are desirable to both the ethnologist and the historian. The one of these is the poetic instinct. I fear this does not sound well from the scientific rostrum, for the prevailing notion among scientists is that the poet is a fabulist, and is therefore as far off as possible from the platform they occupy. No one, however, can really understand a people who remains outside the pale of the world of imagination in which it finds its deepest joys; and nowhere is this depicted so clearly as in its songs and by its bards. The ethnologist who has no taste for poetry may gather much that is good, but will miss the best; the historian who neglects the poetic literature of a nation turns away his eyes from the vista which would give him the farthest insight into national character. The other trait is more difficult to define. To apprehend what is noblest in a nation one must oneself be noble. Knowledge of facts and an unbiased judgment need to be accompanied by a certain development of personal character which enables one to be in sympathy with the finest tissue of human nature, from the fibre of which are formed heroes and martyrs, patriots and saints, enthusiasts and devotees. To appreciate these something of the same stuff must be in the mental constitution of the observer. Such is the ethnologist's view of history. He does not pretend to be either a priest or a prophet. He claims neither to possess the final truth nor to foresee it. He is, therefore equally unwelcome to the dogmatist, the optimistic naturalist and the speculative philosopher. He refuses any explanations which either contradict or transcend human reason; but he insists that human reason is one of the causal facts which he has to consider; and this brings him into conflict with both the mystic and the materialist. Though he exalts the power of ideas, he is no idealist, but practical to the last degree; for he denies the worth of any art, science, event or institution which does not directly or indirectly contribute to the elevation of the individual man or woman, the common average person, the human being. To this one end, understanding it as we best can, he claims all effort should tend; and any other view than this of the philosophy of history, any other standard of value applied to the records of the past, he looks upon as delusive and deceptive, no matter under what heraldry of title or seal of sanctity it is offered. FOOTNOTES: