Edward Tylor

Culture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

The science of culture is essentially a reformer's science.

The condition of culture among the various societies of mankind, in so far as it is capable of being investigated on general principles, is a subject apt for the study of laws of human thought and action.

Animism, in its full development, includes the belief in souls and in a future state, in controlling deities and subordinate spirits, these doctrines practically working out into some kind of active worship.

The history of mankind is part of the history of nature, and our thoughts, wills, and actions are subject to laws as fixed as those which govern the motion of the waves, the combination of acids and bases, and the growth of plants and animals.

The great principle of the uniformity of nature, which is the basis of all scientific thought, is nowhere more clearly exemplified than in the study of human culture.

The savage is not a man of different species, but a man of like species, whose mind is in a different stage of development.

The study of folklore is the study of survivals.

The savage mind is not illogical, but pre-logical.

The intellectual development of mankind has been from lower to higher stages, and this development is traceable in the history of culture.

The human mind, in its development, passes through stages which are analogous to the stages of development of the individual.

The progress of culture is marked by the gradual substitution of rational for irrational explanations of phenomena.

The study of anthropology is the study of man in all his aspects, physical, mental, and social.

The history of civilization is a history of progress, though not always a steady and uninterrupted progress.

The human race is one in origin, however diverse in its present development.

The study of culture is a study of the laws of human thought and action.

The savage is not a beast, but a child of nature, whose mind is in a state of arrested development.

The progress of mankind is from savagery to barbarism, and from barbarism to civilization.

The study of customs and beliefs is essential to understanding the history of human thought.

The human mind, in its earliest stages, is prone to animistic explanations of natural phenomena.