1 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



invention, however, remains such regardless of its fate at the hands of 

 social selection. Yet we must consider several possibilities since it is 

 conceivable that the environment might be the determining factor in 

 the selection alone, leaving the individual free to invent as he choose. 

 Hence, our discussion falls under two heads: (a) The relation of the 

 environment to invention; (&) to the selection, or socialization of in- 

 ventions. 



One of the fundamental problems in the investigation of invention 

 has been the determination of what the process really is. It is in a 

 way a creative process, but it must have something to work upon ; it can 

 not make something of nothing. We need not, however, distress our- 

 selves with the puzzle as to whether there can ever be a distinctly new 

 idea, for an invention in the cultural sense is a new relation assumed 

 or observed between old experiences rather than an experience itself. 

 When the geographers claim that all concrete experiences involved in 

 such an invention must come from the environment, they are on indis- 

 putable ground. Thus it is undoubtedly due to the presence of snow 

 that the Eskimo invented the snow house and to experience with birch- 

 bark that the Eastern Woodland Indians devised the bark-covered tipi. 

 The real problem is as to whether there is anything in the very nature 

 of birchbark as a part of the environment that necessitates the inven- 

 tion of a certain peculiar kind of house. Unless one holds to an ancient 

 belief, he must assuredly say that there is no such necessity. It is true 

 that a person who never experienced birchbark directly or by hearsay 

 could not have made the invention, and if he had, it could not have 

 passed into practise unless the material was made available by the 

 environment. Thus it is clear that the environment furnishes the 

 materials from which inventions are made and which thereby enter into 

 the so-called material cultures of peoples. But the essential thing in 

 an invention is the relation between experiences. In the case of birch- 

 bark the relation between bark experience and house-building experience 

 can have no existence outside of the psychic life of man, the environ- 

 ment can lay no claim to it. Its production must emanate from the 

 human mind and not from the earth. It seems, therefore, that we have 

 here an answer to our query, for by the nature of the inventive process 

 the determining factor is found in mental activity. Environment fur- 

 nishes the materials and in that sense only limits invention. To invent 

 a birchbark-covered house a man must have lived among birch trees, 

 but the mere living there does not require such an invention. 



We have noted that an invention becomes a cultural trait when taken 

 up by many individuals. In this case the relation is handed on and on 

 by education and imitation and so cultural traits are after all based 

 upon a recognized relation between experiences. The causes that lead 

 to the adoption or rejection of an invention must be recognized as the 



