With the beginning of the European war the
word 'culture' acquired a sense in popular English
usage which had long prevailed in ethnological
literature. Culture is, indeed, the sole and ex-
clusive subject-matter of ethnology, as conscious-
ness is the subject-matter of psychology, life
of biology, electricity of a branch of physics.
Culture shares with these other fundamental
concepts the peculiarity that it can be prop-
erly understood only by an enlarged familiarity
with the facts it summarizes. There is no royal
shortcut to a comprehension of culture as a
whole by definition any more than to a compre-
hension of consciousness; but as every analysis
and explanation of particular conscious states
adds to our knowledge of what consciousness
is, so every explanation of particular cultural
phenomena adds to our insight into the nature
of culture. We must, however, start with
some proximate notion of what we are to
discuss, and for this purpose Tylor's definition
in the opening sentence of his Primitive Culture
will do as well as any: "Culture . . . is that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,
art, morals, law, custom, and any other capa-

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