Malinowski's early courses at the University in Cracow were at least as much in mathematics and natural sciences as in philosophy. Ill health, which did indeed haunt him all his life, is the reason he gives for not taking that direction professionally. His doctoral dissertation, ‘On the Principle of the Economy of Thought’, was completed by 1906 and received sub auspiciis Imperatoris in 1908 (Malinowski 1993: 89–115). It examined the arguments of Mach and Avenarius on the idea of the economy of effort in thought and it contains ideas destined to be crucial for his later development. Achieving what was required with minimal effort: as good a definition of functional effectiveness as you might wish. The application of this idea to society was to have a great future and constitute the basis of his reputation. What was it that turned him towards anthropology, where he found such a fertile field of application for the idea?

He himself tells us, in an oft-quoted passage, that it was reading Frazer's Golden Bough which converted him to the subject, by showing him that here there was a worthy field, to which one could well dedicate oneself (Malinowski 1948: 93–4). Did he see, at the same time, that this was an area ripe for a revolution? We have seen already that the Frazerian mix of evolutionist question and magpie data was, in due course, wholly inverted and abrogated by him, in an impressively coherent way. But where exactly did he find the tools for so doing?