原文：
The culture of any society is usually thought to be of two kinds: material and nonmaterial. Material culture includes the man-made phenomena which have physical properties such as height, breadth, and weight. A boat, a machine, a house—all these objects are part of the material culture. The nonmaterial culture is that portion of the environment which surrounds man and which has an impact on his behavior but which lacks these material properties: values, beliefs, traditions, and all the other habits and ideas invented and acquired by man as a member of society.
Contemporary sociological theory tends to assign primary importance to the nonmaterial culture in choosing problems for study. It assumes, for example, that boats, planes, automobiles, and so forth, are not nearly so important as the traditions we have developed which make their manufacture possible—indeed, which prescribe how we are to use them. The emphasis of contemporary sociology is to insist that the material culture would not exist had not the nonmaterial culture first been available to suggest the ideas which are embodied in the inventions of material culture.
参考译文：
人们通常认为任何社会的文化都可分为两种：物质文化和非物质文化。物质文化包括具有高度、宽度和重量等属性的人为现象。船只、机器、房屋——所有这些东西都被认为是物质文化的一部分。非物质文化则是人类所处环境的一部分，对人类的行为有着影响，但缺乏这些上述物质属性：（非物质文化是指）人作为社会一员所创立和获得的价值观、信仰、准则、传统及一切其他习惯和思想。
当代社会学理论选择要研究的问题时，往往以非物质文化为主。例如，社会学理论认为船只、飞机、汽车等等，其重要性远不及人们为制造这些东西——更确切地说是为规定其使用方法——而形成的传统。当代社会学所强调的是，要不是先有了孕育发明物质文化想法的非物质文化，物质文化就不会存在。