Primitive Behavior

Abstract

THE impulse to collect is almost universal. Some people collect cigarette cards, others stamps or coins. Ethnological museums collect the skulls, weapons, utensils and works of art of primitive societies. Mr. Thomas has collected records of their customs and beliefs. Like most collectors, he has carefully arranged and catalogued his booty. Therefore his eight hundred closely printed pages of facts will be invaluable, as a work of reference, to the student. But those who seek explanations, or the stimulus of theory, will have to go elsewhere. Mr. Thomas has not, indeed, refrained from comment altogether. He has adopted certain general conclusions. He believes that different peoples have reacted in different ways to similar situations, and so rejects the over-simplified view that development has been unilinear. He believes that a society is more influenced by its neighbours than by its physical surroundingsthat the cultural area is more important than the geographical area; and he believes that any innate differences there may be between different races has had little or no effect on their respective cultures. Here Mr. Thomas, in repudiating an over-emphasis on innate factors, seems to have gone to the opposite extreme.

Primitive Behavior

an Introduction to the Social Sciences. By William I. Thomas. (McGraw-Hill Publications in Sociology.) Pp. ix + 847. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1937.) 30s.