There is more in common between the student of culture, and especially of alien culture, and the student of the individual by prolonged-interview methods than might appear at first sight. The ethnologist confronting the manifestations of an alien culture and the psychopathologist confronting the alien manifestations of the unconscious secure unique training in their research for meanings in details which escape the attention of the naïve man. Both form their idea of the subjective events from a multitude of signs, which may be spread over months of intimacy, and both are somewhat inclined to disparage the search for simple external facts which can be relied upon to indicate a specific subjective content. The psychopathologist possesses the most elaborate known means of exploring the manifold subjective events which may be associated with external movements. Besides the conscious subjective experience there is a rich unconscious life which he is especially proficient in exposing. Thus our movements are not alone the outcome of simple conscious processes; they are said to be “overdetermined” by a variety of factors. This concept of overdetermination is not unknown to popular common sense. We know that John B is proud of being an American, and that he wants to fight for his country; we comment slyly that John B’s best girl likes the uniform, and this is one reason why he volunteers. And more than that. We know that action is not always the outcome of experiences that point in the same direction. We may know that John B. is anxious to stay on the job a month longer and to get a promotion, and that going into the army at a given moment means sacrifice. Thus his mind is partly divided against itself. What psychopathological methods do is to disclose yet wider vistas, and to expose the operation of factors which cannot be readily seen. Thus a deep longing for death may be a contributing factor to heroism. The psychopathological approach is embarrassing less in the specific content of its revelations than in the wealth of meaning which it discovers behind what is at first glance but a simple pattern. The rôle, of a particular subjective experience and of a movement cannot be fully appraised apart from the total context at which it functions, and this method discloses a wider context than common sense is aware of.