ABSTRACT
Anthropology is the study of human beings as creatures of society. It fastens its attention upon those physical characteristics and industrial techniques, those conventions and values, which distinguish one community from all others that belong to a different tradition. The distinguishing mark of anthropology among the social sciences is that it includes for serious study other societies than our own. In this way we have learned all that we know of the laws of astronomy, or of the habits of the social insects. It is only in the study of man himself that the major social sciences have substituted the study of one local variation, that of Western civilization. The uniformity of custom, of outlook, that man sees spread about him, seems convincing enough, and conceals from him the fact that it is after all an historical accident. He accepts without more ado the equivalence of human nature and his own cultural standards.
