ss an analytic language is to be more than half-way on the
road to the analytic mode of intelligence--the mode of thinking by
distinct concepts.

If there is a moral to this chapter, it must be that, whereas it is
the duty of the civilized overlords of primitive folk to leave them
their old institutions so far as they are not directly prejudicial
to their gradual advancement in culture, since to lose touch with one's
home-world is for the savage to lose heart altogether and die; yet
this consideration hardly applies at all to the native language. If
the tongue of an advanced people can be substituted, it is for the
good of all concerned. It is rather the fashion now-a-days amongst
anthropologists to lay it down as an axiom that the typical savage
and the typical peasant of Europe stand exactly on a par in respect
to their power of general intelligence. If by power we are to understand
sheer potentiality, I know of no sufficient evidence that enables us
to say whether, under ideal conditions, the average degree of mental
capacity would in the two cases prove the same or different. But I
am sure that the ordinary peasant of Europe, whose society provides
him, in the shape of an analytic language, with a ready-made instrument
for all the purposes of clear thinking, starts at an immense advantage,
as compared with a savage whose traditional speech is holophrastic.
Whatever be his mental power, the former has a much better chance of
making the most of it under the given circumstances. "Give them the
words so that the ideas may come," is a maxim that will carry us far,
alike in the education of children, and in that of the peoples of lower
culture, of whom we have charge.

CHAPTER VI
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

If an explorer visits a savage tribe with intent to get at the true
meaning of their life, his first duty, as every anthropologist will
tell him, is to acquaint himself thoroughly with the social
organization in all its forms. The reason for this is simply that only
by studying the outsides of other people can we hope to arrive at what
is going on inside them. "Institutions" will be found a convenient
word to express all the externals of the life of man in society, so
far as they reflect intelligence and purpose. Similarly, the internal
or subjective states thereto corresponding may be collectively
described as "beliefs." Thus, the field-worker's cardinal maxim can
be phrased as follows: Work up to the beliefs by