We must accept all the implications of our human inheritance, one of the most important of which is the small scope of biologically transmitted behavior, and the enormous role of the cultural process of the transmission of tradition.

Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behavior.

Western civilization, because of fortuitous historical circumstances, has spread itself more widely than any other local group that has so far been known.

As a matter of history great developments in art have often been remarkably separate from religious motivation and use.

Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the enormous malleability of their original endowment. They are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born. It does not matter whether, with the Northwest Coast, it requires delusions of self-reference, or with our own civilization the amassing of possessions. In any case the great mass of individuals take quite readily the form that is presented to them.

Racism remains in the eyes of history ... merely another instance of the persecution of minorities for the advantage of those in power.

Culture, with its processes and functions, is a subject upon which we need all the enlightenment we can achieve, and there is no direction in which we can seek with greater reward than in the facts of pre-literate societies.