complete psychology of the folk tale must concern itself with problems arising from the character of the cultures from which the stories spring, and through which they are transmitted.
§4. Suggestions towards a more comprehensive theory.
We have now before us the two sets of problems that any attempt to deal with the psychology of the popular tale should attack. First, what are the impulses, or directed tendencies, prominently at work in the formation, expression, retention, transmission, and transformation of popular stories? Secondly, by what processes do these impulses or tendencies come to use such material as appears in the myth, the legend, and the fairy tale? I can hope only to give a few broad indications of the lines along which these questions must be answered.
We begin with the tendencies at work in shaping the stories. There can be no doubt that a general tendency towards phantasy, arising in states of fatigue, reverie, or rest may play an important part. But in itself this does not carry us far, precisely because of its general character. The different specific ways in which it expresses itself need, in fact, to be given separate consideration. Thus we shall find it always of very little aid to speak merely of tendency to phantasy, or of tendency to the exercise of the imagination. For we want to know why certain images and certain combinations of images are used. In this way, Hermant's specification of the tendency as directly traceable to diminution of muscular sensibility would be admirable were it adequate.
Similarly, to speak broadly of "wish fulfilment" is equally unsatisfactory. For if the "wish" is merely a "directed tendency," the explanation is too general; while if it is more, the "wish" becomes this, or that, or the other special tendency, and as such calls for separate treatment.
