Modern field-work thus regards a theory as purely empirical, never to be taken beyond the limits of induction set by the evi dence, and as serving only to give a greater insight into the mechanism of culture in its various phases; social organisation, belief and material outfit.
The functional view of culture is implicit in the work of many of the leading writers of the comparative school and in the best achievements of modern field-work. The Comparative school however has allowed the evolutionary view to overshadow the functional method, while most American anthropologists have failed to disentangle the empirical interpretation of culture in terms of function from reconstruction in terms of conjectural his tory. They have thus lapsed into a type of explanation which at best belongs to archaeology, and so have greatly sterilised their otherwise splendid field-work and stimulating theory.
Recently, however, and among a small number of anthropolo gists only, the functional method has been applied systematically and exclusively in field-work and theory (R. W. Firth; B. Malinowski; G. Pitt-Rivers; A. Radcliffe-Brown; Richard Thurn wald).
The functional method by showing what culture does for a primitive community, establishes its value and thus utters a warning against too hasty interference with native belief and institutions and too wasteful an exploitation of native labour and resources. By demonstrating how primitive custom and law work, it furnishes the administrator with practical hints of how to frame and administer native regulations. By inquiring into savage economic organisation, the functional method can teach how to manage indigenous labour and how to trade with the natives. By a sympathetic study of early belief and ritual, it can
instruct the missionary how to graft a new creed upon the old one without destroying what is good and sound in it.
The functional method, concerned as it is with the actual working and mechanism of primitive culture, supplies the right theoretical foundation for the practical application of anthro pology (see ANTHROPOLOGY, APPLIED), for which mere antiquar ian reconstructions, whether historical or evolutionary, are irrele vant. And indeed recently the future of relations between Europeans and native peoples has come to be recognised as one of the momentous problems of our times. A number of important movements and works indicate the recognition of the necessity for a closer co-operation between the Anthropologist and the man who controls tropical colonies. From the official side there may be quoted Lord Lugard's policy of indirect or dependent rule, so brilliantly vindicated in his own administration and so well expounded in his book on The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa; the recent appointment of several Government Anthropologists in British Colonies; and the charter of the Man dated Territories. From the missionary point of view may be mentioned J. H. Oldham's excellent book Christianity and the Race Problem, while as a scientific approach to practical Anthro pology, The Clash of Culture and the Contact of Races by G. Pitt-Rivers is a pioneering piece of work.
The following analysis of some of the main aspects of prim itive organisation will best illustrate the subject matter, the aims and the methods of Social Anthropology.