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.
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