H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 161 
and diachronic respectively. In a synchronic study we are concerned 
only with a culture as it is at any given moment of its history. The 
ultimate aim may be said to be to define as precisely as possible the condi- 
tions to which any culture must conform if it is to exist at all. We are 
concerned with the nature of culture and of social life, with the discovery 
of what is universal beneath the multitudinous differences that our data 
present. Hence we need to compare as many and as diverse types of 
culture as we possibly can. In the diachronic study of culture, on the 
other hand, we are concerned with the ways in which cultures change, 
and seek to discover the general laws of such processes of change. 
It seems to me evident that we cannot successfully embark on the 
study of how culture changes until we have made at least some progress 
in determining what culture really is and how it works. Thus the study 
of synchronic problems must necessarily to some extent precede the study 
of diachronic problems. The changes that take place in the institutions of 
a people are not properly comprehensible until we know the functions 
of those institutions. On the other hand, it is also true that if we can 
_ study changes taking place in some aspect of culture it will help us greatly 
in our functional investigations. 
As the problems of comparative sociology are of two kinds, so the 
comparative method will be used in two ways. In relation to the 
_ synchronic study of culture we shall compare one with another different 
_ cultures as each exists at a given moment of its history, and without 
reference to changes in the culture itself. 
The loose comparative method, as it was often used, and indeed is still 
used by some writers, is scientifically unsound in that it makes immediate 
comparisons between isolated customs or beliefs from different regions 
_ and from cultures of very different types. Further, it concentrates atten- 
tion on similarities of custom, and often on what are only apparent and 
not real similarities. But for the sociologist the differences are certainly 
not less important than the seseri latices 1 in culture, and the new com- 
_ parative method concentrates its attention on these differences. 
I have already indicated how comparative sociology regards a culture 
as normally a systematic or integrated unity in which every element has 
adistinct function. It therefore aims, and must aim, at comparing whole 
- culture systems one with another, rather than comparing isolated elements 
‘of culture from diverse regions. The procedure, therefore, has to be 
analogous to that of the comparative morphologist and physiologist in 
the comparison of animal species. They carry on their studies by com- 
‘paring varieties within the same species, or species within the same genus, 
and then proceeding to the comparison of genera, of families and of orders. 
Ee In comparative sociology, as Steinmetz pointed out many years ago, 
‘scientific procedure must be based on a systematic classification of cultures 
or of social types. Our first step, therefore, is to define as well as we can 
certain culture areas or types of culture. The procedure, of course, is 
as old as Bastian, but has acquired a new importance and use. 
_ Thus we find that Australia as a whole is a single sufficiently homo- 
"geneous area, having the same type of culture throughout. We can there- 
fore immediately proceed to a comparison of the various Australian tribes 
one with another. Each tribe, or each small group of tribes, can thus be 
1931 M 
