In fulfilling its task, folk psychology may pursue different methods. The course that first suggests itself is to single out one important phenomenon of community life after another, and to trace its development after the usual pattern of general psychology in its analysis of individual consciousness. For example, an attempt is made to trace the psychological development of language by the aid of the facts of linguistic history. This psychology of language is then followed by a study of the development of art, from its beginnings among primitive races down to its early manifestations among cultural peoples, at which point its description is taken up by the history of art. Myth and religion are similarly investigated as regards the development of their characteristics, their reciprocal relations, etc. This is a method which considers in longitudinal sections, as it were, the total course of the development described by folk psychology. For a somewhat intensive analysis this is the most direct mode of procedure. But it has the objection of severing mental development into a number of separate phases, whereas in reality these are in constant interrelation. Indeed, the various mental expressions, particularly in their earlier stages, are so intertwined that they are scarcely separable from one another. Language is influenced by myth, art is a factor in myth development, and customs and usages are everywhere sustained by mythological conceptions. But there is also a second path of investigation, and it is this which the present work adopts. It consists--to retain the image used above--in taking transverse instead of longitudinal sections, that is, in regarding the main stages of the development with which folk psychology is concerned in their sequence, and each in the total interconnection of its phenomena. Our first task, then, would be the investigation of _primitive man_. We must seek a psychological explanation of the thought, belief, and action of primitive man on the basis of the facts supplied by ethnology. As we proceed to more advanced stages, difficulties may, of course, arise with regard to the delimitation of the various periods; indeed, it will scarcely be possible to avoid a certain arbitrariness, inasmuch as the processes are continuous. The life of the individual person also does not fall into sharply distinct periods. Just as childhood, youth, and manhood are stages in a continuous growth, so also are the various eras in the development of peoples. Yet there are certain ideas, emotions, and springs of action about which the various phenomena group themselves. It is these that we must single out if the content of folk psychology is to be classified, with any measure of satisfaction, according to periods. Moreover, it should be particularly noticed that, in starting our discussion with primitive man, as we naturally must, the term 'primitive' is to be taken relatively, as representing the lowest