RELATION OF CULTURE TO ENVIRONMENT 167 



chief factors in the determination of culture, but we must note that they 

 are selective only and not real producers of new things. As in the 

 previous discussion our quest for the producer ends at the threshold of 

 the inventive process. In this case, however, we start not with the un- 

 related experiences, but with the invention already made and offered to 

 society. 



Many of the factors entering into the choice of society are familiar 

 to the general reader, for in sociological literature will be found lengthy 

 discussions of prejudice, tradition, the function of the genius, etc. 

 These, it will be observed, are social, or human factors, and are not due 

 to the environment. Yet when we take material culture alone it must 

 be recognized that with respect to it these social forces are less active. 

 The experience of the world is that while a savage will throw away a 

 stone knife and substitute a steel one after the first trial, he will be 

 very slow to change a religious practise and especially a social custom. 

 "We may expect then greater opportunities for the socialization of mate- 

 rial inventions and that industrial progress will be more rapid. But 

 there is a fallacy here, for while it is true that a savage will quickly 

 substitute a steel knife, it will be otherwise if one of his tribe attempts 

 to develop the manufacture of knives, or even engages in extensive 

 trade with knives, for then at once there will be a conflict with social 

 customs. Nevertheless, it is probably true that most improvements in 

 weapons, tools, etc., will, when demonstrated by the inventor, find little 

 resistance and in most cases positive encouragement. The criterion 

 would then be the usefulness of the new invention. Thus to a roving 

 people a birchbark house might be an improvement, provided birchbark 

 was readily attainable or transportable. Here the environment appears 

 as a selective factor because the adoption of any particular set of traits 

 appears finally as an adjustment between the community and the 

 environment. But, as such, the environment is a passive factor, for the 

 inventions that happen to fit sufficiently well to survive pass into the 

 cultural complex, while the others fall by the wayside. And, after all, 

 we must not forget that the fitness of an invention is a matter of judg- 

 ment and that many a maladjustment to the environment passes as the 

 superior trait because of an error in socia 1 judgment. It is truly sur- 

 prising how ill-fitting the adjustments may be and still give men time 

 and strength to maintain family, religious and political organizations 

 of considerable complexity. We see then that while an invention must 

 work to survive, there is no guarantee that it will be given a fair trial 

 and be allowed to stand according to its deserts. Its fitness is chiefly 

 a matter of social belief, and as such subject to all the ills and vagaries 

 of folk thought. 



In general it seems that the tendency of some geographers is to lay 

 very great stress on the part played by the environment in the develop- 



