These few remarks must suffice, as I cannot enter into any theoretical speculations myself. There is one aspect of the Kula, however, to which attention must be drawn from the point of view of its theoretical importance. We have seen that this institution presents several aspects closely intertwined and influencing one another. To take only two, economic enterprise and magical ritual form one inseparable whole, the forces of the magical belief and the efforts of man moulding and influencing one another. How this is happening has been described before in detail in the previous chapters.1
But it seems to me that a deeper analysis and comparison of the manner in which two aspects of culture functionally depend on one another might afford some interesting material for theoretical reflection. Indeed, it seems to me that there is room for a new type of theory.
The succession in time, and the influence of the previous stage upon the subsequent, is the main subject of evolutional studies, such as are practised by the classical school of British Anthropology (Tylor, Frazer, Westermarck, Sydney Hartland, Crawley).
The ethnological school (Ratzel, Foy, Gräbner, W. Schmidt, Rivers, and Eliott-Smith) studies the influence of cultures by contact, infiltration and transmission.
The influence of environment on cultural institutions and race is studied by anthropo-geography (Ratzel and others).
The influence on one another of the various aspects of an institution, the study of the social and psychological mechanism on which the institution is based, are a type of theoretical studies which has been practised up till now in a tentative way only, but I venture to foretell will come into their own sooner or later.
This kind of research will pave the way and provide the material for the others.
At one or two places in the previous chapters, a somewhat detailed digression was made in order to criticise the view about the economic nature of primitive man, as it survives in our mental habits as well as in some text books—the conception of a rational being who wants nothing but to satisfy his simplest needs and does it according to the economic principle of least effort. This economic man always knows exactly where his material interests lie, and makes for them in a straight line.
At the bottom of the so-called materialistic conception of history lies a somewhat analogous idea of a human being, who, in everything he devises and pursues, has nothing but his material advantage of a purely utilitarian type at heart.
Now I hope that whatever the meaning of the Kula might be for Ethnology, for the general science of culture, the meaning of the Kula will consist in being instrumental to dispel such crude, rationalistic conceptions of primitive mankind, and to induce both the speculator and the observer to deepen the analysis of economic facts.
Indeed, the Kula shows us that the whole conception of primitive value; the very incorrect habit of calling all objects of value ‘money’ or ‘currency’; the current ideas of primitive trade and primitive ownership—all these have to be revised in the light of our institution.
At the beginning of this book, in the Introduction, I, in a way, promised the reader that he should receive a vivid impression of the events enabling him to see them in their native perspective, at the same time without