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THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY 



into routine. This is my apology for 

 venturing upon a subject in which as yet 

 it seems impossible to be definite without 

 remaining cautiously narrow, and in 

 which on the other hand one can not be 

 broad without becoming indefinite. This 

 subject is: the organic basis and origin of 

 culture. 



There are three principal approaches to 

 the question of the origin, or original 

 nature, of culture. These are, first, the 

 prehistoric or archaeological record; sec- 

 ond, ontogenetic development in the 

 infantile human individual; and third, 

 comparison with those of the infra-human 

 animals most likely to manifest anticipa- 

 tions of cultural activity. 



The archaeological approach has the 

 virtue of giving us, so far as it goes, an 

 objective mass of evidence. It is further 

 advantaged in that its phenomena occur 

 associated in nature with geological and 

 paleontological phenomena, so that they 

 can be arranged with considerable cer- 

 tainty in an order of time which is ob- 

 jectively founded. The archaeological 

 method, however, suffers from the fact 

 that its data are primarily tangible, 

 whereas much of culture, in one aspect 

 its very essence, is intangible. Archaeol- 

 ogy recovers some of the tools, materials, 

 and mechanical processes of the past; 

 but we can only conjecture the thoughts 

 and institutions and human relations 

 which accompanied these tools and proc- 

 esses. 



The ontogenetic approach — child study 

 — is full of promise. But scientific re- 

 cording in it has been almost as scant as 

 recognition of the promise held by further 

 data has been wide-spread. We have 

 hardly got beyond the stage of realizing 

 that the first necessity is to rid ourselves 

 of a mass of implicit but confusing inter- 

 pretations that block progress. In this 

 clearing of the ground the Behaviorist 



school of psychologists have done valu- 

 able work. Too often, however, they 

 have acted as though this first step were 

 also the final one. And whatever their 

 own attitude, they have certainly helped 

 create the impression that human beings 

 come into the world with practically no 

 equipment. This, if true, would make 

 the acquisition of culture by each indi- 

 vidual almost entirely a matter of life ex- 

 perience in contact with other individuals 

 already possessing culture. Carried to 

 its logical conclusion, such an interpre- 

 tation would pull the organic basis out 

 from under culture, while at the same time 

 dealing with it not as a system in itself, 

 but as a series of accidental events. The 

 Behaviorists are evidently far more in- 

 terested in method than in results; indeed 

 pride themselves on the fact. What they 

 cannot rigorously prove they will have 

 nothing to do with; and too largely the 

 outcome is an attitude as if what they 

 prefer not to operate with did not exist. 

 The comparative approach through 

 examination of infra-human behavior also 

 has its limitations. It is again a difficult 

 field, in which controlled facts are scarce, 

 and misinterpretations easy, especially 

 those of the anthropomorphizing kind. 

 Domesticated animals must of course be 

 used with caution. They have not ac- 

 quired culture, but they have come under 

 its influence. The most highly socialized 

 organisms, sometimes presenting astound- 

 ing analogies to the human societies which 

 carry culture, occur among the insects, a 

 group differing thoroughly in structure, 

 and apparently in the nature of their 

 reactions, from ourselves. The upshot of 

 the work of the most critical students in 

 the field, such as Wheeler, seems to be a 

 stressing of the essential difference be- 

 tween insect and human societies, a 

 pointing out that the similarities are 

 analogies and not realities. 



