152 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
of what is commonly regarded as the normal form of totemism is that the 
whole society is divided into segments (moieties or clans), and there is a 
special ritual relation between each segment and some one or more species. 
This can also, I think, be shown to be a special example of a general law 
or tendency whereby in any segmentary structure, which has a religious 
basis or function, the solidarity of each segment, the differentiation or 
opposition between the segments, and the wider solidarity which unites 
the segments into a larger whole in spite of that opposition, are expressed 
and maintained by establishing a ritual relation between the whole society 
and certain sacra and by establishing a special relation between each 
segment and some one or more of these sacra. Totemism of clans or 
moieties is only one example of what is a much more widespread general 
phenomenon in the general relation of ritual to social structure. 
There would, of course, be very much more than this in a general 
sociological theory of totemism. There are a great many different kinds 
of totemism, and their relations to one another and to the theory would 
all have to be considered. But the general method would be the same, 
‘seeking, in relation to each particular phenomenon we examine, to see it 
as a particular example of a widespread class. 
By pursuing this process of analysis and generalisation we can come 
to see totemism as a particular form taken by what seems to be a universal 
element in culture. Every culture that we know has some system of 
beliefs and customs by which the world of external nature is brought into 
a relation with society in which the two form a single conceptual structure, 
and relations are established between man and nature of a kind similar 
in certain respects to the relations established within the society between 
the human beings themselves. I am inclined to regard it as one of the 
essential functions of religion to provide this structure. Our own relations 
to a personal God who has created or who is regarded as maintaining the 
natural order, is an example of what I mean. The fully developed or 
elaborated totemism of a people like the Australian aborigines is an 
example of the same general or universal process. It establishes a whole 
system of special social solidarities between men and animals, plants, and 
other phenomena of nature. 
When we have in some such way as this arrived at a satisfactory concep- 
tion of the nature of totemism we can proceed to a study of its functions. 
By the function of an institution I mean the part it plays in the total 
system of social integration of which it is a part. By using that phrase, 
social integration, I am assuming that the function of culture as a whole 
is to unite individual human beings into more or less stable social structures, 
i.e. stable systems of groups determining and regulating the relation of 
those individuals to one another, and providing such external adaptation 
to the physical environment, and such internal adaptation between the 
component individuals or groups, as to make possible an ordered social 
life. That assumption I believe to be a sort of primary postulate of any 
objective and scientific study of culture or of human society. 
When we take up the functional study of totemism, then we must 
examine in each particular case of a sufficient number, what part the 
special variety of totemism of a given region plays in the total system of 
integration which the whole culture provides. We might study in this 
