158 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
Only so can the proper method of the generalising sciences be carried out, 
namely, the process of making a preliminary study of the known facts, 
the formulation of hypothetical generalisations, the testing of these 
hypotheses by a further examination of a specific series of data, the 
modification of the original hypotheses in the light of the new data, the 
further testing of the hypotheses in their new and possibly more complex 
or more definite form, and so on. Only in some such way as this, in 
default of the possibility of actual experiment, can we build up a science 
of human society. 
I have said that the meaning of any element of a culture is to be found 
by discovering its relation to other elements and to the culture as a whole. 
It follows from this that the field-worker must normally, or whenever 
possible, undertake an integral study of the whole culture. It is not 
possible, for example, to understand the economic life of a native people 
without reference to such things as the system of magic and religion, and 
of course the converse is equally true. The necessity for such unitary 
intensive studies of selected areas was long ago insisted on by Dr. Haddon 
and later by Dr. Rivers, and may be said to be part of the tradition of 
the Cambridge school. The development of the sociological point of view 
has made the necessity even more evident than before. 
It may be noted here that this view of the unitary nature of culture 
is one of the most important features of the new anthropology, and a 
point in which it differs markedly from some of the former and present-day 
anthropology and ethnology. Certain writers on culture adopt what might 
perhaps be called an atomic view of culture. For them any culture 
consists of a number of separate discrete elements or ‘ traits’ that have 
no functional relationship with one another, but have been brought 
together as a mere collection by a series of historical accidents. A new 
element of culture has its origin somewhere and then spreads by a process 
of ‘ diffusion,’ which is frequently conceived in an almost mechanical way. 
This point of view has arisen largely from the museum study of culture. 
The new anthropology regards any persisting culture as an integrated 
unity or system, in which each element has a definite function in relation 
to the whole. Occasionally the unity of a culture may be seriously 
disturbed by the impact of some very different culture, and so may perhaps 
even be destroyed and replaced. Such disorganised cultures are very 
common at the present day all over the world, from America or the South 
Seas to China and India. But the more usual process of interaction of 
cultures is one whereby a people accepts from its neighbours certain 
elements of culture while refusing others, the acceptance or refusal being 
determined by the nature of the culture itself as a system. The elements 
adopted or ‘ borrowed’ from neighbours are normally worked over and 
modified in the process of fitting them into the existing culture system. 
The scope of field-work amongst non-European peoples is being 
widened in another direction, partly as a result of the new conception of 
the theoretical aims of the study, and partly as a result of the relations 
now being established between anthropology and colonial administration. 
In former days if a field-worker went to a people who had been subjected 
to European influence, as was usually the case, his task was to discover 
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