RELATION OF CULTURE TO ENVIRONMENT 165 



The biologists have given us some idea of the kind of physiological 

 equipment man is born with and the psychologists have made some 

 progress in the description of the psychological equipment, all of which 

 is no doubt familiar to the well-educated. On the other hand, the 

 development of anthropology has been so rapid and the points of view 

 so illy formulated that a few remarks as to the character of culture 

 seem necessary. On one point all students are agreed, viz. : that it is 

 the functioning of the psychic part of man that produces culture. 

 When it comes to assigning cultural phenomena to specific psychic 

 activities there is some difference of opinion, but for the most part it is 

 recognized that since culture is not inherited it must be a construct and 

 as such is largely the work of the intelligence. For a long time many 

 psychologists and sociologists have seen in this distinction one of their 

 most important problems. To them it appears that social progress or 

 cultural change of any kind is in last analysis the production or creation 

 of something by the psychic activities of individuals, which process has 

 been regarded as invention. In practical life we are accustomed to 

 apply this term to ingenious mechanical devices, but in fact anything 

 produced by our psychic activities, whether it be a new game, a word, a 

 picture, a song, etc., is the same kind of thing and one to which the 

 term may be applied. Any such invention taken up by a social group 

 of people becomes thereby a trait of culture. 



Culture as anthropologists use that term is a complex of elements 

 as varied as those making up our own lives. Most geographers, how- 

 ever, give their attention almost exclusively to the economic aspects of 

 culture, or to those traits listed in anthropological literature under the 

 head of material culture. This, no doubt, comes about because it is 

 in these phases of life that culture and geography are in most direct 

 contact; language, religion, literature, art, family organization, etc., are 

 less articulated with geographical phenomena, but geographers are quite 

 given to sweeping them all into the economic category and claiming the 

 most intimate contact throughout. It is clear, however, that the pri- 

 mary problem is to be found in the relation between man's material cul- 

 ture and the earth, which for convenience we shall designate as the 

 environment. Our question then becomes as to what kind of a relation 

 exists between material traits and environmental characters. 



Material traits, such as methods of preparing food, the manufacture 

 and use of tools, the methods of the chase, weaving, pottery, etc., are 

 clearly inventions, and if the environment has anything like a determin- 

 ing or a causal role in the making of culture, such must be manifest in 

 the inventive processes themselves. Our problem here is complicated 

 by the existence of two stages or steps. In the first place some indi- 

 vidual must develop the idea and demonstrate it ; then it must be taken 

 up by others and become more or less common to the social group. The 



