SUB-HUMAN CULTURE BEGINNINGS 



34i 



know, in the region where we apprehend 

 rather than understand. 



If however the relational forces in 

 culture phenomena are the intrinsic ones, 

 then the indispensability of speech to the 

 very existence of culture becomes under- 

 standable. It is the communications, 

 perhaps, more than the thing communi- 

 cated, that count. At any rate the fact 

 that speech, to the best of our knowledge, 

 is as thoroughly wanting among the 

 anthropoids as is culture, tends to confirm 

 this conception. 



CONCLUSION 



There is a residuum of new understand- 

 ing which knowledge of the apes contrib- 

 utes to knowledge of human culture. 

 We see above all the tremendous influence 

 of the play impulse. We see the unit 

 elements of invention sometimes made 

 with the aid of favorable accident; more 

 often occurring as a product of reflection, 

 of a kind of synthesis which in ourselves 

 we call ideation. We see, perhaps a 

 little more clearly than before, the rela- 

 tion of these unit elements of invention to 

 the course of invention; and how culture, 

 in its operations, fixes and settles upon 

 certain patternized combinations of these 

 elements. It is these combinations, as 

 combinations, which it allows to enter 

 into its consciousness and deals with. 

 We see also that the impulse of destruc- 

 tiveness has probably played at times an 

 ultimately constructive part in culture 

 development. We are able to recognize 



more clearly the role of the emotions with 

 reference to culture, and of it toward 

 them. Inhibition of direct and primary 

 emotional impulses is a necessity for cul- 

 ture to acquire material with which it 

 can build; and the existence of inhibitions 

 has been felt by all cultures as indispen- 

 sable to the preservation of themselves and 

 of societies. On the other hand, emo- 

 tion is also a positive factor. Competi- 

 tive feelings in particular seem culturally 

 stimulative; and we gather at least an 

 inkling of the part played in religion by 

 awe. 



Many or all of these conclusions have 

 at one time or another been reached tenta- 

 tively or positively by anthropologists 

 from the examination of human culture 

 itself. The study of the anthropoids, 

 however, yields grateful and valuable 

 corroboration. Cultureless these higher 

 primates are; but with reactions and 

 faculties closely akin to our own, and 

 manifesting at least some measure of the 

 basal psychic ingredients which enter into 

 culture. There is infinitely more to be 

 learned from them by wise experiment, 

 and no less by critical observation. We 

 have only begun. In fact, with the wide 

 interest in these animals, it is surprising 

 how scant the significant scientific data 

 on them as yet are. Further study of 

 them is important in itself; it will be in- 

 valuable in the illumination of the basic 

 problems of anthropology and all the 

 social sciences; and will in turn be furthered 

 by what it can derive from these sciences. 



LIST OF LITERATURE 



Yerkes and Child, in a late number of this Journal 

 (2., pp. 37-57, 192.7), have reviewed recent contribu- 

 tions to knowledge of anthropoid behavior and given 

 a bibliography which makes a formal list of literature 

 unnecessary. References here are by their numbers. 

 The work of basic importance in the present connec- 

 tion is Koehler, The Mentality of Apes (47), a trans- 

 lation of the original (41) and (45). In (43) Koehler 



discusses some of the culture anticipations here con- 

 sidered. He seems to share my view that the anthro- 

 poids cannot be credited with culture. Very valuable 

 are Yerkes' contributions (78), (79), (8o), (81), plus 

 two subsequent papers, The Mind of a Gorilla 

 (Pt. 1 and Pt. x, Genetic Psychology Monographs, 

 Clark University, 2., nos. i-x, 6, 1917). The latter 

 of these two came to my knowledge after the present 



