Traditionalism

“ The mystic despises the empirical, the conceptual cognition, which advances step by step, for he is impatient, and desires at one stride to attain to the highest cognition; the mystic contemplates God and objects. In this aspiration towards complete knowledge, the mystic gladly adopts the results of cognition; he cherishes traditionalism; revelation is welcome to him as a complete doctrine. The mystic rejects logic and methodology; he seeks the desert, the hermitage, and the cloister, with their artificial solitude, for there he can embrace mysticism as a permanent condition. ”

“ By Tradition I mean the entire circle of thought and practice, custom as well as belief, ceremonies, tales, music, songs, dances and other amusements, the philosophy and the superstitions and the institutions, delivered by word of mouth and by example from generation to generation through unremembered ages: in a word, the sum total of the psychological phenomena of uncivilized man. Every people has its own body of Tradition, its own Folk-lore, which comprises a slowly diminishing part, or the whole, of its mental furniture, according as the art of writing is, or is not, known. ”

“ Nutt. I strongly urge that Folk-lore is a science by itself, with distinct work of its own to accomplish, but I must protest against its being only another name for anthropology. The sanction at the back of folk-lore is tradition. Thus traditional custom, traditional belief, traditional stories—and no custom or belief originating now, whether in civilized or savage races—can be defined as folk-lore. There can be no modern folk-lore, whereas the psychological phenomena with which anthropology deals exist now, and new facts will present themselves as society progresses. ”

“ It is that which is handed on by tradition and forms the mould into which each new mind is cast as it grows up. Thus, while for society it is custom, for the individual it has something of the force of habit and more than habit." [2] I seek to show that in this small area, where with all its diversity of custom there is substantial homogeneity of culture, the end which these rites serve is often consciously realised as a social end, beneficial to them as organised communities. ”

“ In fact, every nation has its traditions, which illumine its history and enrich its life. From tradition springs the flower of culture. On it chiefly depends the cultivation of the character, the customs and manners, of a people. ”

“ In its exposition nothing is “common or unclean;” nothing too trivial for notice in study of the growth of language, of law, of social customs and institutions, of religion, or of aught else comprised in the story of our race. The nursery rhyme and the “wise saw” embody the serious belief of past times; ceremonial rites and priestly vestments preserve the significance and sacredness gathering round the common when it becomes specialised. And in this belief in spiritual powers and agencies within and without, the line uniting the lower and the higher culture is unbroken. ”

“ Their traditions are handed down from generation to generation by men who make it their business to learn, even to the most minute detail, all the folk lore, history, superstitions, and customs of their nation. ”

“ Once more, oral tradition, even when it has come to treat former institutions and beliefs mainly as material for wonder-tales, is capable of keeping alive for ages those germinal ideas and sentiments out of which a whole culture may be reproduced. ”

“ EVOLUTION OF THE MORES
All modern social institutions arise from the evolution of the primitive customs of your savage ancestors; the conventions of today are the modified and expanded customs of yesterday. What habit is to the individual, custom is to the group; and group customs develop into folkways or tribal traditions—mass conventions. From these early beginnings all of the institutions of present-day human society take their humble origin. ”

“ In the same way as we have elected to distinguish the Soul as the possible and the World as the actual, we can now differentiate between possible and actual culture, i.e., culture as an idea in the (general or individual) existence and culture as the body of that idea, as the total of its visible, tangible and comprehensible expressions—acts and opinions, religion and state, arts and sciences, peoples and cities, economic and social forms, speech, laws, customs, characters, facial lines and costumes. ”

“ I would not urge the correctness of the views I have put forward as applicable to every part of the world, or to every phase in the history of tradition; but I would urge that in the great centres of traditional life they are practically the only means of arriving at the position occupied by tradition, and that in all cases they form a working hypothesis upon which future inquirers may well base their researches. ”

“ The inference would seem to be natural and irresistible, that the listless, unintellectual, unambitious race of men, who for centuries have lingered about these ruins, not only without knowing, but without [Pg 204] caring to know, who built them, cannot be the descendants, nor in any way related to the descendants, of the builders. Tradition is one of the natural and necessary elements of the primitive stages of society. Its foundations are laid deep in the social nature of man. ”

“ It is tradition, the oral handing on of oral knowledge, that is the means by which the most of our folklore material has been, and is being, preserved. Tradition as a process deserves examination. We ought to know what are its conditions, its limits, its possibilities. ”

“ The change being so great,—the phenomenon of savage survivals in culture established, the position of the history and development of culture as an integral part of anthropology vindicated, and the claims of anthropology as a subject of study recognized by the Universities,—the question has naturally been more than once asked,—Is there any further need for the Folk-Lore Society? ”

“ The tone, the habits, the tastes, the pleasures, and, in a large sense, the morals of society depend upon its culture. I use the word culture with the meaning which is commonly given to it in the conversational language of this country, signifying not merely that training of the mental faculties by which useful knowledge is acquired, but the knowledge, appreciation and enjoyment of the beautiful in nature, literature and art, and of the noble, elevated and refined in sentiment and feeling. ”

“ Tradition is a collection of venerable and romantic blunders. But a tradition which clings to a permanent object in the landscape, a tall stone, a grassy, artificial tumulus, or even an old tree, may be unexpectedly correct."—Morning Post, 2 November, 1906.
[8] It is worth while referring to Mr. MacRitchie's article in Trans. International Folklore Congress on the historical aspect of Folklore; but Professor York Powell has said the strongest word in its favour in his all too short address as President of the Folklore Society, see Folklore, xv. ”

“ If we would make the average man of the coming years gentler in manner, more deliberate in judgment, steadier in purpose, upright, considerate, and free, we must look first to the possibility of improving the tone and quality of the average home.
Now the substance and constitution of the home, the relations and order of its various members, have been, and are, traditional. But it is a tradition that has always been capable of modification in each generation. In the unlettered, untravelling past, the factor of tradition was altogether dominant. ”

“ For, if tradition is worth anything—and we have nothing else to go upon—they are at first few in number. They come as settlers, or even as single sages. It is, in all tradition, not the many who influence the few, but the few who influence the many. ”

“ We haven't any tradition. Oh, not all your traditions are good ones, but many are worth while. You have a more dignified social sense than we have, and a political sense too. And you have a culture we haven't attained yet. ”

“ Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged. ”

“ It would be difficult to find a more perfect instance of the spontaneous, evolutional character of tradition contended for by what, in default of a better name, must be called the anthropological school of folk-lorists. ”

“ By its habit each kind is distinguished, in respect of each part and each phase of its existence, from all examples of other species. We may apply this useful notion of “habit” in our physiognomic of the grand organisms and speak of the habit of the Indian, Egyptian or Classical Culture, history or spirituality. Some vague inkling of it has always, for that matter, underlain the notion of style, and we shall not be forcing but merely clearing and deepening that word if we speak of the religious, intellectual, political, social or economic style [93] of a Culture. ”

“ We are acquainted with some of the laws which mark the development of primitive culture, but we have paid no attention to the influences which mark the existence of survivals in culture. For this purpose we must first ascertain what are the component parts of each custom or superstition; secondly, we must classify the various elements in each example; and thirdly, we must group the various examples into classes which associate with each other in motif and character. ”

“ In many of our ceremonial institutions, our fashions, habits, dress, ornamentation, opinions, notions of marriage, property, and law we are but the slaves of the customs and traditions of the past. It may be of interest to look at some of these habits and customs of savage life. We might ask the question, "How is the course of civilization traced?" One means is through the aid of survivals. And what do we mean by "survivals?" "Those opinions, customs, and peculiar notions of ours which require an explanation for their presence and which represent an older period of culture." ”

“ Under these two different forms, therefore doth Tradition reveal to us the primitive world, or in other words, these are the two grand conditions of humanity which fill the records of primitive history. ”

“ No longer oppressed with the unreal and the baroque, we may see primitive human customs and the life of primitive man and woman cropping out at almost every sentence of the nursery tale. Written history tells us little of these things, they must be learnt, so to speak, from the mouths of babes. ”

“ Yet amongst the most sceptical and “enlightened” of moderns there is generally a large residuum of tradition. “Emotionally,” it has been said, “we are hundreds of thousands of years old; rationally we are embryos”{1} ; and many people who deem themselves “emancipated” are willing for once in the year to plunge into the stream of tradition, merge themselves in inherited social custom, and give way to sentiments and impressions which in their more reflective moments they spurn. ”

“ The folk-lorist has often cause to wonder at the spontaneous flower-like character of the object of his study; folk-tradition seems to obey fixed laws of growth and to be no product of man’s free thought and speech. ”

“ Furthermore, as a part of this common life, there grows up a body of custom, convention, tradition, ceremonial, language, social ritual, public opinion, in short all that Sumner includes under the term "mores" and all that ethnologists include under the term "culture." ”

“ But the special class of stories regarded by the primitive as sacred, his sacred myths, are embodied in ritual, morals, and social organization, and form an integral and active part of primitive culture. ”

“ Two elements constitute that factor which plays such a vital part in our religious life—tradition and environment. Tradition links the past to the present and gives to the soul a certain stability amidst the fluctuations of life. It is made up of details if you wish, but, like the tossing buoy, these details betray where the anchor is hidden. ”

“ Traditions are infinitely complex things: there are world traditions, national traditions broad and narrow, class traditions and traditions of profession and trade, traditions of predilection, of art, of religion: and men may be exposed in their development to the combined influence of a number of these. But the net result of the diversity of tradition is an extraordinary diversity of end-result. ”

“ Add to these, the wild traditions of a people unknown to former minds: traditions, over which curiosity loves to linger, and philosophy to speculate; traditions, which, imbodying the terrific, the romantic, and the ennobling of the savage state, throw over the page of fiction a charm and an interest, enchanting and enchaining. ”

“ But where works of art can travel, ideas can travel too; and can travel right across the frontiers of race and language and even of religion; meaning at all events by these, the customary observance of each region, and of its endemic population. A few merchants, or craftsmen, or philosophers, work transformations in culture and bring about uniformities, of which language, or cult-edifices give us no indication at all, or at best an aftermath of decadence. ”

“ In her Fortnightly Review essay on "The Influence of Rationalism," she says all large minds have long had "a vague sense" "that tradition is really the basis of our best life." She says, "Our sentiments may be called organized traditions; and a large part of our actions gather all their justification, all their attractions and aroma, from the memory of the life lived, of the actions done, before we were born." Tradition is the inherited experience of the race, the result of its long efforts, its many struggles, after a larger life. ”

“ Language, general ideas of right and wrong, convention, invention, national feeling—all this and much more, constituting the more important part of the human individual’s environment—is part of tradition; and tradition is pre-eminently and inevitably social. However individualistic we may wish to be we cannot escape modelling by this social environment.
The general effect of man’s gregarious instinct is that he desires to find himself in harmony with some traditions, with the ideas that modern jargon likes to call the herd to which he belongs. ”