extract is from the sixth line, omitting an important introduction, and is interpolated between the first part of the sentence from line nineteen, and the remainder of my summary.
It is the termination of the summary which Mr. Lang now quotes. A large part of the summary was altogether disregarded, with the result that Mr. Lang had, in the garbled "passage," apparently, a statement from me, which justified him in saying (Folk-Lore, vol. xvi. p. 223) "we are here on the ground of facts carefully recorded, though strangely overlooked by Mr. Howitt . . .," as well as similar charges elsewhere.
Since I communicated my criticism of Mr. Lang's statements (Folk-Lore, vol. xvii. p. 174), there has been some correspondence in the Athenaeum and the Academy, in which he speaks of this matter, at issue between us, as an "unconscious misrepresentation," and an "inadvertent misrepresentation."
Apparently, as an explanation, Mr. Lang quotes the following passage from his Secret of the Totem (pp. ix., x.): "Since critics of my 'Social Origins' often missed my meaning, I am forced to suppose that I may, in like manner, have misconstrued some of the opinions of others, which, as I understand them, I was obliged to contest. I have done my best to understand, and shall deeply regret any failure of interpretation on my own part."
It may be felt hard to understand how Mr. Lang could "unconsciously" or "inadvertently" select four separate extracts from my summary, and so rearrange them, in a new sense, as to place me in error.
But we may accept this explanation, difficult though it may seem, if we add a further quotation from the Secret of the Totem (p. x.), where Mr. Lang says: "In this book I have been able to use the copious material of Mr. Howitt and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in their two recent works. It seems arrogant to differ from some of the speculative opinions of these distinguished observers, but 'we must go where the logos leads us.'"
If this be a real explanation of Mr. Lang's mental condition when he made selections from my summary and called them a "passage from Mr. Howitt," it would evidently be to his
