way of the
institutions.

Further, there are two ways in which a given set of institutions can
be investigated, and of these one, so far as it is practicable, should
precede the other. First, the institutions should be examined as so
many wheels in a social machine that is taken as if it were standing
still. You simply note the characteristic make of each, and how it
is placed in relation to the rest. Regarded in this static way, the
institutions appear as "forms of social organization." Afterwards,
the machine is supposed to be set going, and you contemplate the parts
in movement. Regarded thus dynamically, the institutions appear as
"customs."

In this chapter, then, something will be said about the forms of social
organization prevailing amongst peoples of the lower culture. Our
interest will be confined to the social morphology. In subsequent
chapters we shall go on to what might be called, by way of contrast,
the physiology of social life. In other words, we shall briefly
consider the legal and religious customs, together with the associated
beliefs.

How do the forms of social organization come into being? Does some
one invent them? Does the very notion of organization imply an
organizer? Or, like Topsy, do they simply grow? Are they natural
crystallizations that take place when people are thrown together? For
my own part, I think that, so long as we are pursuing anthropology
and not philosophy--in other words, are piecing together events
historically according as they appear to follow one another, and are
not discussing the ultimate question of the relation of mind to matter,
and which of the two in the long run governs which--we must be prepared
to recognize both physical necessity and spiritual freedom as
interpenetrating factors in human life. In the meantime, when
considering the subject of social organization, we shall do well, I
think, to keep asking ourselves all along, How far does force of
circumstances, and how far does the force of intelligent purpose,
account for such and such a net result?

If I were called upon to exhibit the chief determinants of human life
as a single chain of causes and effects--a simplification of the
historical problem, I may say at once, which I should never dream of
putting forward except as a convenient fiction, a device for making
research easier by providing it with a central line--I should do it
thus. Working backwards, I should say that culture depends on social
o