No One Culture Has Ever Developed All

We Must Accept All The Implications Of Our Human Inheritance, One Of The Most Important Of Which Is The Small Scope Of Biologically Transmitted Behavior, And The Enormous Role Of The Cultural Process Of The Transmission Of Tradition.

Most People Are Shaped To The Form Of Their Culture Because Of The Enormous Malleability Of Their Original Endowment. They Are Plastic To The Moulding Force Of The Society Into Which They Are Born. It Does Not Matter Whether, With The Northwest Coast, It Requires Delusions Of Self-reference, Or With Our Own Civilization The Amassing Of Possessions. In Any Case The Great Mass Of Individuals Take Quite Readily The Form That Is Presented To Them.

The Adequate Study Of Culture, Our Own And Those On The Opposite Side Of The Globe, Can Press On To Fulfillment Only As We Learn Today From The Humanities As Well As From The Scientists.

The Psychological Consequences Of This Spread Of White Culture Have Been Out Of All Proportion To The Materialistic. This World-wide Cultural Diffusion Has Protected Us As Man Had Never Been Protected Before From Having To Take Seriously The Civilizations Of Other Peoples; It Has Given To Our Culture A Massive Universality That We Have Long Ceased To Account For Historically, And Which We Read Off Rather As Necessary And Inevitable.

The Prime Lesson The Social Sciences Can Learn From The Natural Sciences Is Just This: That It Is Necessary To Press On To Find The Positive Conditions Under Which Desired Events Take Place, And That These Can Be Just As Scientifically Investigated As Can Instances Of Negative Correlation. This Problem Is Beyond Relativity.