A. R. Radcliffe-Brown

The concept of function applied to human societies is based on an analogy between social life and organic life.

Social structure is not a collection of individuals but a network of relations between individuals.

The primary task of social anthropology is to study social structures.

A society is an integrated system of institutions, in which each institution has a function to perform.

The function of any recurrent activity, such as the punishment of a crime, or a funeral ceremony, is the part it plays in the social life as a whole and therefore the contribution it makes to the maintenance of the structural continuity.

The comparative method is the only method by which we can arrive at general laws of social development.

Anthropology is the natural science of human society.

The social anthropologist is concerned with the discovery of general laws of social phenomena.

Every custom and belief in a primitive society plays some determinate part in the social life of the community, just as every organ of a living body plays some part in the general life of the organism.

The concept of social structure refers to the network of actually existing relations.

The study of social structure is the study of the relations between persons.

Social anthropology is a theoretical science of society.

The function of a social institution is the part it plays in the total system of social relations.

The aim of social anthropology is to formulate general sociological laws.

The social life of a community is a process of interaction between individuals and groups.

The concept of social structure is an abstraction from reality.

A society is a system of social relations.

The study of social structure is the study of the morphology of society.

The function of a social system is to maintain its structural continuity.

Social anthropology is a branch of comparative sociology.