EVOLUTION, SOCIAL OR CULTURAL?

B y A. R. RADCLIFFE-BROWN

IN

1940 I said in an address that Lewis Morgan in relation to society believed, not in evolution but in progress, which he conceived as the steady
material and moral improvement of mankind from crude stone implements
and sexual promiscuity to the steam engines and monogamous marriage of
Rochester, N. Y. Professor White (American Anthropologist, Vol. 46, pp. 218,
228-30) objects to this statement. It is clear from the context that the meaning
of my statement depended on a distinction between the theory of social evolution and the theory of progress, and also a distinction between social evolution
as the evolution of societies, and anything that may be called evolution in
language or culture. Professor White does not discuss or even mention these
distinctions. He maintains that Morgan was really a social evolutionist. Yet
in a later paper (American Anthropologist, Vol. 47, No. 3, p. 339) he refers
throughout to cultural evolution, and regards both Morgan and Tylor as
adherents to a theory of evolution of culture. While I was concerned with making distinctions between different kinds of theory Professor White is concerned
with the importance of attaching a certain label to Morgan.
The theory of human progress was developed in the eighteenth century and
became exceedingly popular in the nineteenth. The idea of progress is the idea
of what Hume in The Natural History o j Religion called the improvement of
human society, from rude beginnings to a state of greater perfection. The idea
of stages of progress was developed by Turgot and Condorcet and the distinction between savagery and barbarism that Morgan used was current in
the eighteenth century, for example in Adam Fergusons Essay on the History
of Civil Society, of which my edition (the third) is dated 1768. To me it seems
that Morgan was continuing and developing, with greatly increased ethnographical knowledge, the ideas of these and other writers on progress.
Professor White, as part of his argument, points out that Morgan occasionally uses the word evolution. This means nothing. At the end of the eighteenth century Rivarol, speaking of Montesquieu, said I1 a admirablement
saisi les grands phases de 1Cvolution sociale. The two passages of Ancient
Society to which Professor White refers have nothing to do with the evolution
of societies. They are: The gradual evolution of their (mankinds) mental and
moral powers through experience, and Human intelligence, unconscious of
design, evolved articulate language.
The theory of organic evolution was expounded by Lamarck in his inaugural address to a course on zoology on 21 Floreal of year V I I I of the Revolution (1800). Ideas which contributed to the formulation, a t a later time, of a
theory of the evolution of societies are to be found in the writings of Saint
Simon, Comte and others. Such were Saint Simons idea of the coherence of
78

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EVOLUTION, SOCIAL OR CULTURAL?

79

institutions in a social system (already present in Montesquieu), his idea of

organic and critical epochs in the history of a society, his idea that the
most salient feature of historical development is the continual extension of the
principle of association, from family to city, to nation and super-national
church. It would be surprising if none of these ideas had penetrated as far as
Morgan, and Professor White shows that some of them had. But they do not
suffice t o make a general evolutionary theory.
The first explicit formulation of a theory of social evolution, that is, of the
evolution of societies, was that of Herbert Spencer. He began with a theory of
progress, as may be seen from his Social Statics of 1851. The theory of the evolution of societies was formulated in 1860 in his essay on The Social Organism
and developed in his Principles of Sociology, the publication of which was begun in 1874. The essential points of Spencers theory are as follows:
(1) Social or super-organic evolution is a continuation of organic evolution.
While recognizing the fact that the joint actions of parents in fostering their young
foreshadow processes of a class beyond the simply organic; and while recognizing the
fact that some of the products of these joint actions, such as nests, must be taken as
foreshadowing products of the super-organic class; we may fitly regard Super-organic
Evolution as commencing only when there arises something more than the combined
efforts of parents. There can of course be no absolute separation. Tf there has been
Evolution, that form of it here distinguished as super-organic must have arisen by
insensible steps out of the organic. But we may conveniently mark it off as including
all those processes and products which imply the co-ordinated actions of many individuals-co-ordinated actions which achieve results exceeding in extent and complexity
those achievable by individual actions. (p. 4)
((

(2) The essential characteristics of human social evolution are the growth
of social aggregation (p. 481) and the advance of organization. (pp. 493,
504)
(3) The factors of social evolution in mankind are (a) extrinsic factorsthe physical environment in the widest sense; (b) intrinsic factors-the biclogically inherited human characteristics; (c) secondary or derived factors:(i) progressive modification of the environment, inorganic and organic, which
the actions of societies effect; (ii) the increasing size of the social aggregate,
accompanied, generally, by increasing density; (iii) the reciprocal influence of
the society and its units, the influence of the whole on the parts and the parts
l The term super-organic seems to have been misunderstood by Dr. Bidney (American
Anthropolopist, Vol. 48,No. 2, p. 293) or at least to be misused when he writes of the superorganicist view of the complete autonomy of the cultural process. The social life of my hive of
bees is an example of Spencers super-organic. Would Dr. Bidney hold that the Spencerian concept
of super-organic implies that my bees have a culture and that this culture or the process by
which it has been developed in the course of evolution is completely autonomous?
* Quotations are from Priiuiples of Sociology, Vol. I, Appleton, New York, 1882.

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AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

[N.s.; 49, 1947

on the whole, actions and reactions between the society and each member of
it; (iv) a further derivative factor of extreme importance-the action and
reaction between a society and neighbouring societies; (v) that accumulation of super-organic products which we commonly distinguish as artificial
but which, philosophically considered, are no less natural than others resulting
from evolution-material appliances, language, knowledge, customs and laws,
mythologies, theologies, cosmogonies, and the products we call aesthetic.
(pp. 11-14)
The accumulation of super-organic products of Spencers theoretical
formulation is what is now meant by culture in one of its uses by anthropologists. He makes a distinction between the structures and functions which
make up the organization and life of each society and certain associated
developments which aid, and are aided by, social evolution-the developments of language, knowledge, morals, aesthetics.
Back a t the beginning of the century I accepted the theory of social evolution as a useful working hypothesis. In 1931, when I spoke of social evolution
in my lectures in Chicago, one of the students pointed out to me that Boas
and Lowie have proved that there is no such thing as social evolution. I
found that this was a generally accepted view in the United States. But to my
mind the arguments of Boas, Lowie, and other anti-[cultural]-evolutionists
have no bearing a t all on the theory of social evolution. I n these circumstances
it seems worth while to indicate a few of the points that should be considered
in dealing with the theory as it stands a t present.
(1) An evolutionary process is essentially a combination of accident and
law. An accident is a happening that cannot be foreseen or foretold (unless by
supernatural means of divination).8 But a knowledge of natural laws enables
us sometimes to foresee the results of an accident. A man may by accident fall
from the top of a sky-scraper. A knowledge of natural law enables us to foresee
that as a result his death is a t least highly probable.
From this it follows that an evolutionary process cannot be foreseen and
cannot be entirely ex$Zained by law. The most complete knowledge of biological laws that could ever be obtained would not enable us to foresee that from
the original five-toed ancestor of the horse there would be evolved the English
race-horse and the English cart-horse of today. The most complete knowledge
of laws of social change would not enable us to foretell what kind of social
system will be found in Chicago two hundred years hence.
(2) The idea of progress is that of improvement, the betterment of human
life. The idea of evolution is a neutral scientific concept and does not imply
movement in a desirable direction.
(3) Social evolution, like organic evolution, is conceived as being essena Of course an accident is caused in the sense in which causes are talked about in history or in
a court of law.

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EVOLUTION, SOCIAL OR CULTURAL?

81

tially a process of diversification. By it new and different forms of societies are

produced. The evolutionist is interested in studying the processes of the diversification of societies. It is, I hope, evident that they cannot be explained by
the diffusion of culture.
(4) Although the theory is that in human life taken as a whole there has
been a process of evolution, it is recognized that what Spencer called retrogression frequently occurs in particular instances (Spencer, o p . cit. p. 106).
( 5 ) For the theory of social evolution the processes called diffusion of
culture or acculturation are only parts or aspects of what Spencer called
a ifactor of extreme importance in social evolution, the action and reaction
between a society and other societies with which it is, or comes to be, in contact
or communication. I found many students and anthropologists in America
who had been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that the fact of the
diffusion of culture refutes any theory of social evolution that it was impossible
or useless to discuss the subject. By some the authority (or the supposed authority) of Boas in this matter was taken as final.
For the study of social evolution, what is a t least equally important with the
diffusion of culture is the formation of new societies by migrations, conquests,
etc., as for example the formation of the Roman Empire or of the United States
of America. Acculturation is the result of a developing social process of increasing contacts and interactions.
( 6 ) Spencers theory was that developments and changes in what is now
called culture, in what he called the accumulation of super-organic products,
are associated and connected with the process of social evolution. The nature
of these associations and connections is a subject for study, which should follow on or a t least be accompanied by the study of social evolution. Here is
Spencer again:
After these structures and functions which make up the organization and life of
each society, have to be treated certain associated developments which aid, and are
aided by, social evolution-the developments of language, knowledge, morals, aesthetics. . . . But now before trying to explain these most involved phenomena, we must
learn by inspecting them the actual relations of co-existence and sequence in which
they stand to one another. By comparing societies of different kinds, and societies in
different stages, we must: ascertain what traits of size, structure, function, etc. are
habitually associated. (pp. 460, 462)
Thus religion (or ritual and belief) can be regarded as a part of culture as
that word is now used, or as a super-organic product. It has been one of my
aims as an evolutionist t o try to discover the interconnections between religion
and the structure or constitution of societies, as in a recently published lecturc
on Religion and Society.
The social anthropologist or the student of social evolution is engaged on
the study of societies. Dr. Meggers (American Anthropologist, Vol. 48, No. 2,

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AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

[N.s., 49,

1947

p. 196), while admitting that the study of societies is not valueless,! asks
why this should be done by anthropologists. She suggests that societies all
over the world should be left to be studied by sociologists (by which I presume
she means those who study or teach the subject called sociology in American
colleges and universities), and that anthropologists should devote themselves
entirely to a systematic study of culture as such. She thus exemplifies a
very marked trend in American ethnology which she has not mentioned in her
paper, the tendency to regard culture as something sui generis which is to
be studied independently rather than as part of the study of human society.
Some of the trends she does mention are reactions against this tendency.
This brings us to the crux of the argument. There is a study of human
societies which seeks to apply to its subject-matter the methods of investigation and reasoning of the natural sciences. It therefore proceeds by the systematic comparative study of many diverse societies, with particular attention to
those called primitive. Within this study there is place for a theory of social
evolution. Religions, laws, arts, etc., and their developments and changes are
considered in relation to societies, their constitution and their evolution. This
study is called sociology by Spencer and by Durkheim. It is not what is commonly called sociology in England or in the United States. In the British Isles
it is called social anthropology and is a subject of study in several universities, with professors of social anthropology a t Oxford and Cambridge. To
carry on their work the social anthropologists make field studies of societies
in Australia, Melanesia, Africa, etc. Dr. Meggers thinks we ought not to be
called anthropologists.
In England we have recognized for a hundred years another kind of study
which we call ethnology. By etymology it means the study of peoples, and
peoples differ from or resemble one another in racial characters, in language
and in culture. The Oxford Dictionary defines ethnology as the science which
treats of races and peoples, their relations, their distinctive characteristics,
etc. It is by its nature a geographical and historical study.
There is a third kind of study now recognized in America, spoken of as the
science that deals with culture. It is therefore different from the study of societies or the historical study of peoples. This study is sometimes called cultural
anthropology, and Professor White offers us the name culturology or culturological science. It seems evident that a science of culture, as something
separate and distinct from a science of society, has no concern with theories
of social evolution. But Professor White thinks it ought to have a theory of the
evolution of culture. We need an outline of the evolution of culture in its
entirety. (American Anthropologist, Vol. 48, p. 90)
A science of culture is not the same thing as a science of societies. (Kroeber
has said this.) A theory of the evolution of culture cannot be the same thing as
a theory of social evolution. A theory of social evolution is not the same thing

as a theory of (or a belief in) progress. I expressed the opinion that what Morgan was writing about was human progress. Professor White says that he was
really writing about the evolution of culture and the evolution of societies. I
have no wish to argue about the label to be attached to Morgan. But I think
Professor White might have given some consideration to the meaning of my
statement in the context within which it was uttered.
ALL SOULSCOLLEGE
OXFORD,ENGLAND