Some Aspects of Sociology and their Psychiatrical Application

Extract

It has been admitted that there is nothing of culture outside the contents and processes of “individual minds.” It may, therefore, be argued that “individual” psychology, or at any rate a special application or department thereof, can give an adequate account of culture. In the first place the development of culture is a matter of centuries; its progressions are infinitesimal and cannot be traced in the life-history of the individual. A history of culture has, therefore, facts of its own to deal with—if only as a descriptive science folk psychology (or ethnology) is amply justified.