ABSTRACT
Culture is generally understood to be the sum of all man’s progress and achievements and their resulting manners and customs. Absurd and senseless as many of the seem, they are of the highest sociological importance, and have led to material results in the study of comparative mythology and the science of religion. The deciphering of hieroglyphics and cuneiform characters has done much, and certain modern sciences have done more. Statistics, economics and political science, the history of civilization and of literature and art, ethnological jurisprudence anthropology and race psychology all tend from various standpoints to throw light on our knowledge of man as a social being. The utility of sociology extends to other sciences, especially psychology. The ideas which set our minds in motion, whether concerning the common things of daily life were not generated by ourselves, by the individual, but arose in other brains long since dust, and have been passed down to us as communal property.
