H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 163 
existing culture has just as long a history as any other. And although the 
rate of change may vary, every culture, just as every language, is 
constantly undergoing change. But, quite apart from this implication 
of the word as meaning in some sense “ early,’ harm is done by the current 
application of it to the most diverse types of culture. The difference of 
culture between the Maori of New Zealand and the aborigines of Australia 
is at least as great as that between ourselves and the Maori. Yet we 
group these two cultures together as “ primitive,’ and contrast them with 
our own as ‘ not primitive.’ I am well aware how difficult it is to avoid 
completely the use of the term, or some equally unsuitable one, such as 
‘savage.’ Perhaps if we keep sufficiently in mind the great cultural 
differences between the various peoples whom we thus lump together we 
shall avoid the chief disadvantage attaching to its use. We shall then be 
able to avoid the fault of the loose comparative method, of regarding as 
immediately comparable with one another all those very different types 
of society that are labelled primitive. 
This abstract discussion of method, I fear, will hardly convey to you 
any very definite conception. Will you permit me, therefore, to select a 
particular example of a synchronic problem and indicate briefly the lines 
along which I would attempt to solve it?) We may take for our example 
one of the fundamental problems of sociology, that of the nature and 
_ function of the moral obligations which a society imposes on its members. 
For the purposes of scientific investigation this general problem must be 
_ subdivided into a large number of subsidiary problems. Thus we can 
isolate, as one such, the problem of the nature and function of the rules 
prohibiting marriage between persons who stand in certain social relation- 
ships ; in other words, the nature and function of the prohibition of incest. 
These prohibitions were, of course, dealt with by the older social anthro- 
_ pology, and we have had a number of theories of the ‘origin’ of the 
_ prohibition of incest. Even Durkheim faced this problem in the old way. 
_ Now, quite apart from the fact that any hypotheses as to how prohibitions 
_ of this kind first came into existence many hundreds of thousands of years 
_ ago are entirely incapable of verification, it is also evident that even a 
plausible hypothesis of origin can give us no explanation of the great 
_ diversity that we find in the prohibitions current in different existing 
social types. Yet it is the explanation of these differences that is really 
_ the crux of the problem. In this, as in so many other sociological inquiries, 
we have to seek an explanation per genus et differentiam. We wish to 
_ know why every society has rules of this kind and why the particular rules 
_ vary as they do from one social type to another. As soon as we state the 
problem in this way, we have a comparative problem of the kind I have 
been referring to. In dealing with such a problem I would first select a 
culture in which the rules prohibiting marriage are definite and highly 
‘elaborated. The culture of the Australian tribes is obviously in this 
Tespect a very suitable one. Further, we must have a culture in which 
there are sufficient variations between one tribe and another, while the 
general type remains the same. Here again Australia is a very suitable 
region. I would therefore begin the investigation by a comparative study 
of Australian tribes. Note that this is not at all because Australian 
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