SECTION 22.OBSER VA TION. 285 



roads and modes of transportation^ buildings and furniture, 

 callings and variety of implements and products, domestication 

 of animals and cultivation of plants, discovery and utilisation 

 of raw materials and natural forces, dress and education, nutri- 

 tion and care of health, trade and internationalism, morals and 

 religion, art and science, law and government, marriage and 

 other voluntary and territorial associations it would have 

 clearly revealed itself that every animal species is outdistanced 

 by man to an almost infinite degree. 



Moreover, by breaking up the notion of richness, it would 

 have transpired that culture is distributed with extreme in- 

 equality among persons, peoples, and periods; that it has been 

 produced by a process of progressive accumulation and im- 

 provement from the earliest times to to-day; and that virtually 

 all mankind has co-operated to compass this. Human life is thus 

 perceived to differ from all animal life by being almost infinitely 

 richer, and almost infinitely more varied, progressive, unified, 

 and perfectible. Incidentally we learn, then, that cultural varia- 

 tions are primarily due to cultural causes; that a survey of human 

 history as a whole bears witness to illimitable progress, which 

 again we cannot conceive as ever ceasing; and that mankind 

 tends more and more to become a unity and its component 

 parts more and more perfect. Turning now back to the animal 

 world, we discover that no animal species, unless enormous 

 epochs are considered, possesses any richness of culture; any 

 notable variations in regard to individuals, groups, and periods ; 

 any discernible progress through the ages; or any approach 

 to the co-operation of the entire species in time and space, as 

 is to be witnessed in mankind. Nor is the thought exhausted 

 by the preceding analysis, for it is borne in on us that it is 

 misleading to speak of man as one social being among others, 

 when in man alone not the group at a particular period of 

 time, but virtually the species, or the totality of mankind past 

 and present, co-operates and interacts. This, again, suggests 

 that it is not the group which forms the human unit, but the 

 individual who absorbs more or less the culture of the race 

 and thereby becomes its representative. We finally reach by 

 this route the conception of the individual as the culture-requir- 

 ing, the social group as the culture-mediating, and mankind 

 as the culture-supplying, unit, a conception of superlative signi- 

 ficance for social theory and social practice, if true. There 

 probably exist no limits to the benefits accruing from a scientific 

 use of the imagination. 



Besides being able to utilise reliable data accurately remem- 

 bered, we should strive to exhaust mentally and factually the 

 general and special conditions under which a fact presents 

 itself, always avoiding unnecessary subtlety and alertly watch- 

 ing for the most promising explanations. There should be, for 

 instance, no placid acquiescence in unanalysed catchwords. On 



