196 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1102 



this author's illustrations may be cited as 

 an example of the anthropological problem : 

 thus we are told "that a child instinctively 

 conveys food to his mouth with the naked 

 hand, but by habit comes to use a spoon" 

 (p. 3). Here it is clear that the use of the 

 spoon in eating is a cultural fact in con- 

 trast to the use of the hand. As such, it 

 falls into the same class with forks, saws, 

 rifles, automobiles, etc., or into the gen- 

 eral class of tools. A little reflection or a 

 visit to an anthropological museum will 

 show how completely tools dominate the 

 objective phenomena of culture. Yet, our 

 problem is far from simple. For example, 

 what shall be said when the baby grasps the 

 spoon and pounds upon the table with 

 every manifestation of joy? Is pounding 

 a phenomenon of culture or is it a part of 

 original nature? The anthropologist very 

 much needs to know where the distinction 

 falls. He has at various times given it 

 serious consideration, but finds no way to 

 approach it save by logical analysis, re- 

 sulting in the formation of an opinion. It 

 seems that psychologists have done no 

 better. Thorndike, for example, is delight- 

 fully frank in stating that in most cases as 

 yet he is able to do little more than formu- 

 late an opinion. His general statement 

 seems to be that while original nature often 

 decides that an individual will respond to 

 certain situations, it far less often imposes 

 upon him a definite response or limits the 

 time of such response. To this, as a gen- 

 erality, anthropologists will agree : it is in 

 fact another way of stating their own opin- 

 ions. To them its formulation would be 

 something like this : while all culture is ac- 

 quired, there must still be a complex of in- 

 stincts to acquire and participate in cul- 

 tural activities ; but only very rarely, if at 

 all, specific instincts for the acquisition of 

 a particular culture. While such general- 

 ities are of great value, serving to clear the 



air as it were, they unfortunately solve no 

 problems nor relieve us of the necessity for 

 real concrete investigation. 



Reverting again to the tool-using com- 

 plex, the anthropologist is quite ready to 

 assume that to seize any convenient object 

 and use it to assist movement is instinctive ; 

 and more, that the tendency to observe the 

 specific use of tools by others and self-learn 

 the use of the same, is in its fundamental 

 aspects instinctive. Finally, there is a pre- 

 sumption that there is some instinctive 

 factor in the invention complex, that leads 

 to the production or modification of cul- 

 ture traits. That there must underlie the 

 development of cultures an instinctive com- 

 plex tending to culture production seems 

 a necessary assumption to those familiar 

 with anthropological data. 



One general point about which psychol- 

 ogists seem to agree is that the associations 

 of ideas are not innate. This is expressed 

 by Thorndike (24) as follows: 



It is unlikely that the original [innate] connec- 

 tions are ever between an idea and either another 

 idea or a movement. No one has, I think, found 

 satisfactory evidence that, apart from training, an 

 idea leads of inner necessity to any one response. 

 And there is good evidence to show that original 

 connections are exclusively with sensory situations. 

 . . . We have, of course, by original nature the 

 capacities to connect the idea of one thing to the 

 idea of another thing when the two have been in 

 certain relations, and to break up the idea of a 

 total fact into ideas of its elements, when onee 

 ideas have been given that are capable of such 

 association and analysis. But we do not appar- 

 ently, by original nature, have preformed bonds 

 leading from ideas to anything. If an idea apart 

 from training provokes a response, it does so by 

 virtue of its likeness to some sensory perception or 

 emotion. Nor do we apparently by original nature 

 respond to a situation by any one idea rather than 

 another. That we think is due to original capac- 

 ity to associate and analyze, but what we think is 

 due to the environmental conditions under which 

 these capacities work. 



The what we think is largely determined 



