The Diffusion of Culture

WRITTEN by one who stands foremost in his knowledge of the human brain, this book affords us a study of the human mind, and especially of the minds of certain of the higher anthropologists. The author's views on the origin and spread of civilisation have met with strenuous opposition, and the facts and arguments he relies upon are often used as offensive missiles by his adversaries. He cannot complain, indeed, that he is disregarded; the controversies launched by himself and Dr. W. J. Perry remain persistently afloat. In view of the vast scope and content of his scheme, he can scarcely hope for more. If conversions are not spectacular, there has been at least a shifting towards the left- which may in time become the right-in so far as the general question of diffusion is concerned. It is, however, not only in solutions of religious faith that dogma crystallises out, as he himself has emphasised, and it is doubtful whether any nurture can so far chasten nature as to suppress the emotional element in scientific controversies, more especially in those that deal with human origins. The data of the anthropologist acquire a subjective bias more readily than do those of other disciplines: if indeed the study can be said to have as yet acquired a discipline, and it is not the author's fault if it has not.The Diffusion of Culture.By Prof. G. Elliot Smith. Pp. x + 244. (London: Watts and Co., 1933.) 7s. 6d. net.