COHESIVE POWER OF SOCIAL LIFE 263 



power of each construction was realized; and checked 

 when a new level of stability was attained. 



Nevertheless, when we compare the new things 

 constructed by man during this long proto-cultural pe- 

 riod, with the progress of his own bodily organization, 

 it is evident that cultural growth was very rapid in- 

 deed. 



Man's cultural constructiveness was first exercised 

 to increase his own individual possessions, for his own 

 personal usage, or at most for that of a comparatively 

 small group of individuals, such as the family, band, or 

 class. But whatever man himself may have thought, 

 or believed, or intended, all of his cultural achieve- 

 ments, such as utensils, weapons, and housings, and the 

 territories delimited and preempted by cultivation, 

 roadways, and defenses were in reality possessions in 

 common, for immediate or future usage of all mankind. 



This early cultural period may be regarded as a 

 sort of protozoan cultural age; that is, an age of more 

 or less isolated, or independent, elemental cultural in- 

 struments. It was a necessary preliminary stage to 

 their cooperative union, or combination, to form the 

 more complex machinery of modern life, and through 

 its instrumentality, to tie the larger social groups into 

 organic unity. 



IV. The World-wide Unification, Physical, Organic 

 and Mental of the Nineteenth Century 



But when this proto-cultural age, which we shall 

 not attempt to review, attained its maturity, and the ele- 

 ments, or principles, of many separate inventions were 



