PREFACE

'T^HE doctrine of psycho-analysis has had withinthe last ten years a truly meteoric rise in popular

favour. It has exercised a growing influence over

contemporary literature, science, and art. It has in

fact been for some time the popular craze of the day.

By this many fools have been deeply impressed andmany pedants shocked and put off. The present writerbelongs evidently to the first category, for he was for

a time unduly influenced by the theories of Freud and

Rivers, Jung, and Jones. But pedantry will remain

the master passion in the student, and subsequent

reflection soon chilled the initial enthusiasms.

This process with all its ramifications can be

followed by the careful reader in this little volume.

I do not want, however, to raise expectations of a

dramatic volte-face. I have never been in any sense

a follower of psycho-analytic practice, or an adherent

of psycho-analytic theory ; and now, while impatient

of the exorbitant claims of psycho-analysis, of its

chaotic arguments and tangled terminology, I must

yet acknowledge a deep sense of indebtedness to it

for stimulation as well as for valuable instruction in

some aspects of human psychology.

Vlll PREFACE

Psycho-analysis has plunged us into the midst of

a dynamic theory of the mind, it has given to the study

of mental processes a concrete turn, it has led us to

concentrate on child psychology and the history of

the individual. Last but i;iot least, it has forced

upon us the consideration of the unofficial and

unacknowledged sides of human life.The open treatment of sex and of various shameful

meanesses and vanities in manthe very things forwhich psycho-analysis is most hated and reviled

is in my opinion of the greatest value to science, andshould endear psycho-analysis, above all to the

student of man ; that is, if he wants to study hissubject without irrelevant trappings and even without

the fig leaf. As a pupil and follower of Havelock Ellis,

I for one shall not accuse Freud of " pan-sexualism "

however profoundly I disagree with his treatmentof the sex impulse. Nor shall I accept his views under

protest, righteously washing my hands of the dirtwith which they are covered. Man is an animal, and,as such, at times unclean, and the honest anthro-

pologist has to face this fact. The student's grievance

against psycho-analysis is not that it has treated sex

openly and with due emphasis, but that it has

treated it incorrectly.

As to the chequered history of the present volume,the first two parts were written much earlier thanthe rest. Many ideas laid down there were formed

PREFACE ix

while I was engaged in studying the Hfe of Melanesian

communities on a coral archipelago. The instruc-

tions sent to me by my friend Professor C. G. Seligman,and some literature with which he kindly supplied

me, stimulated me to reflect on the manner in whichthe Oedipus complex and other manifestations of

the " unconscious " might appear in a community

founded on mother-right. The actual observations

on the matrilineal complex among Melanesians areto my knowledge the first application of psycho-analytic theory to the study of savage life, and as

such may be of some interest to the student of man,of his mind and of his culture. My conclusions arecouched in a terminology more psycho-analytic than

I should like to use now. Even so I do not go muchbeyond such words as " complex " and " repression ",

using both in a perfectly definite and empirical sense.

As my reading advanced, I found myself lessand less inclined to accept in a wholesale manner the

conclusions of Freud, still less those of every brand and

sub-brand of psycho-analysis. As an anthropologist

I feel more especially that ambitious theories with

regard to savages, hypotheses of the origin of humaninstitutions and accounts of the history of culture,

should be based on a sound knowledge of primitive

hfe, as well as of the unconscious or conscious aspects

of the human mind. After all neither group-marriagenor totemism, neither avoidance of mother-in-law

X PREFACE

nor magic happen in the " unconscious " ; they are all

solid sociological and cultural facts, and to deal with

them theoretically requires a type of experience which

cannot be acquired in the consulting room. That mymisgivings are justified I have been able to convince

myself by a careful scrutiny of Freud's Totem and

Taboo, of his Group-Psychology and the Analysis ofthe Ego, of Australian Totemism by Roheim and of

the anthropological works of Reik, Rank, and Jones.

My conclusions the reader will find substantiated inthe third part of the present book.

In the last part of the book I have tried to set forth

my positive views on the origins of culture. I havethere given an outline of the changes which the animal

nature of the human species must have undergoneunder the anomalous conditions imposed upon it by

culture. More especially have I attempted to show

that repressions of sexual instinct and some sort of" complex " must have arisen as a mental by-product

of the creation of culture.

The last part of the book, on Instinct and Culture,

is in my opinion the most important and at the sametime the most debatable. From the anthropologicalpoint of view at least, it is a pioneering piece of work ;an attempt at an exploration of the " no-specialist's-

land " between the science of man and that of theanimal. No doubt most of my arguments will haveto be recast, but I believe that they raise important

PREFACE xi

issues which will sooner or later have to be considered

by the biologist and animal psychologist, as well as

by the student of culture.

As regards information from animal psychology and

biology I have had to rely on general reading. I have

used mainly the works of Darwin and Havelock Ellis ;Professors Lloyd Morgan, Herrick, and Thorndike ;

of Dr. Heape, Dr. Kohler and Mr. Pyecroft, and such

information as can be found in the sociological books

of Westermarck, Hobhouse, Espinas and others.

I have not given detailed references in the text and

I wish here to express my indebtedness to theseworks ; most of all to those of Professor Lloyd Morgan,

whose conception of instinct seems to me the mostadequate and whose observations I have found most

useful. I discovered too late that there is some

discrepancy between my use of the terms instinct andhabit and that of Professor Lloyd Morgan, and in our

respective conceptions of plasticity of instincts. I do

not think that this implies any serious divergence

of opinion. I believe also that culture introduces

a new dimension in the plasticity of instincts and

that here the animal psychologist can profit from

becoming acquainted with the anthropologist's con-

tributions to the problem.

I have received in the preparation of this book muchstimulation and help in talking the matter over with

my friends Mrs. Brenda Z. Seligman of Oxford

;

xu PREFACE

Dr. R. H. Lowie and Professor Kroeber of California

University ; Mr. Firth of New Zealand ; Dr. W. A.White of Washington, and Dr. H. S. Sulhvan of

Baltimore ; Professor Herrick of Chicago University,

and Dr. Ginsberg of the London School of Economics ;Dr. G. V. Hamilton and Dr. S. E. JelUffe of New York ;Dr. E. Miller of Harley Street ; Mr. and Mrs. Jaime

de Angulo of Berkeley, California, and Mr. C. K.

Ogden of Cambridge ; Professor Radcliffe-Brown of

Cape Town and Sydney, and Mr. Lawrence K. Frankof New York City. The field-work on which the bookis based has been made possible by the munificenceof Mr. Robert Mond.

My friend Mr. Paul Khuner of Vienna, to whomthis book is dedicated, has helped me greatly by hiscompetent criticism which cleared my ideas on thepresent subject as on many others.

B. M.Department of Anthropology,

London School of Economics,University of London.

February. 1927.