A very common explanation of why the so-
called primitive peoples — not primitive peoples
necessarily but peoples with primitive cultures —
revere the past and resist change places the cause
as fear and ignorance. The customary ways of
doing things seem safe because they have been
tried. Trial to the best of limited observation
has proven success. Perhaps the opinion in
primitive cultures is not so rationalistic nor so
expHcit as the foregoing, but is summed up in
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some such remark as "it has always been done."
On the other hand, the new is the unknown, and
doubly so if scientific development is slight. And
if, in conjunction with the trial of the new, there
occurs a death, disaster, disease or an unfortun-
ate accident, they are linked as cause and effect,
as has been frequently noted. A fear reaction
follows which indicates a fear of the new, the un-
known.
So the mores in a culture may embody a defin-
ite attitude for or against change.i The fre-
quency of change, however, is not only a result of
such an attitude but also a cause. If inventions,
which are in part determined by the existing ma-
terial culture, are frequent, a people becomes ac-
customed to change and the hostility to change
tends to be broken down. On the other hand, if
material culture inventions are infrequent, change
may be rare and feared.
