Man versus Culture. -- Is human nature different as between Tro-
brianders and Americans? Does heredity or environment cause their
differences?

What do we mean by "human nature"? What do we mean by
cause"? Since "human nature" is an ambiguous term, we had best
avoid it. Most sociologists substantially agree on the following points.
First, races and peoples obviously differ in physical characteristics,
and probably differ in temperament, that is, in those general charac-
teristics of behavior which depend upon anatomy, gland physiology,
blood chemistry, and so on. Such traits as quickness versus slowness,
overactivity versus sluggishness, cheerfulness versus sadness, are at
least partly temperamental. These biological and temperamental dif-
ferences are or may be inherited through the germ plasm. Second,
the above-mentioned, inheritable differences have nothing to do with
differences in customs, social organization, values, or ways of think-
ing. All of these latter characteristics are, like languages and material
tools, external to man himself; they are parts of culture or civiliza-
tion. Any known culture could be practiced by any known race or
people. If Trobriand infants could be exchanged at birth for Ameri-
can infants, each would acquire as readily as he does now the habits,
customs, beliefs, attitudes, and values of the society in which lie is
reared, just as lie would acquire its language. There would be no
inborn tendency to "revert" to the culture of his unknown biological
parents.

We may compare a human race to a piano, and its culture to the
piece that is played upon it. Pianos, to be sure, differ somewhat in
their structure (anatomy). In consequence, they differ also in the
quality of sound produced (temperament). But the musical composi-
tion which may be played upon a piano has nothing to do with the
quality of the instrument itself. Any composition of the species
"Euro-American piano music" can be played upon any normal piano

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