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SCIENCE 



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



method of learning the art and tlieir me- 

 chanical attitude toward it is as rational- 

 istic as similar homely arts are with us. In 

 brief, we fail to discover any essential 

 differences in the tools of early man and 

 those now made in a rationalistic manner; 

 hence we can do no more than assume that 

 from the first they were mere inventions. 

 There may be, however, very great differ- 

 ences in the intensity of rationalization 

 between our ancestors and ourselves, but 

 it is difficult to see how even the earlier cul- 

 tures we know could have taken form with- 

 ■out the same qualitative rationalizing 

 power. Further, one of the questions an- 

 thropologists would like to hear discussed 

 is as to whether the assumed greater inten- 

 sity of modern rationalization is not merely 

 apparent, only the accumulated momentum 

 or the complex of short-cuts our culture has 

 developed. Anthropologically, it seems 

 that the phenomenon is entirely one of ac- 

 cumulation and short-cuts ; but this may be 

 found incompatible with psychological and 

 biological data. 



Returning now to the question of a tool- 

 using instinct as previously stated, it may 

 be objected that this also is but a rationali- 

 zation or invention, and so not innate. Now 

 at least grasping in the hand is innate and 

 so is the picking up of objects. Then since 

 there is certainly an innate striking re- 

 sponse, we have at least the necessary ele- 

 ments of instinctive activity. Though we 

 are here dealing with a problem yet to be 

 solved, my own observation seems to justify 

 the assumption that to seize an object and 

 pound with it rather than the hand, is an 

 innate phenomenon even in very young 

 children. As suggested above, anthropol- 

 ogists favor the view that no mechanical 

 movement complexes for tool-making are 

 innate, but that there is in man's original 

 nature a mechanism that lays hold of things 

 and thus supplies the basis for self- 



rationalization and for the acquisition of 

 the great store of accumulated rationaliza- 

 tions of the race, or culture. 



The point we are coming to is that the 

 anthropological conception of culture is en- 

 tirely consistent with the psychological 

 view, for it asserts that neither mental bias 

 nor biological attributes are of the least 

 avail in explaining the origin of specific 

 culture traits and that it is only when we 

 know the history of a case that we can give 

 anything like an adequate account of its 

 origin. It is thus clear that when we are 

 dealing with phenomena that belong to orig- 

 inal nature we are quite right in using 

 psychological and biological methods; but 

 the moment we step over into culture phe- 

 nomena we must recognize its historical 

 nature. This is why anthropologists object 

 to much that passes for the psychology of 

 religion, art, etc., in which many of the 

 results obtained by use of the historical 

 method are put on a level with those ob- 

 tained by other methods, and then inter- 

 preted as facts of evolutionary or other 

 non-learned activities. To them such terms 

 as psychology of religion, psychology of 

 society, of law, of sexual restrictions, etc., 

 are often so used as to be worse than mean- 

 ingless for they at once assert what is con- 

 tradictory to psychology itself. 



We are now ready to consider the value 

 of psychological explanations for culture 

 origins. We often read that if culture phe- 

 nomena can be reduced to terms of asso- 

 ciation of ideas, motor elements, etc., there 

 remains but to apply psychological prin- 

 ciples to it to reveal its causes. This is a 

 vain hope. All the knowledge of the me- 

 chanism of association in the world will not 

 tell us why any particular association is 

 made by a particular individual, will not 

 explain the invention of the bow, the origin 

 of exogamy, or of any other trait of culture 

 except in terms that are equally applicable 



