Note 354 — Chapter V · [132] MODE OF LIVING

"In the study of population ... the facts of aggregation or grouping are the first to claim our attention." (F. H. Giddings, Princ. of Sociology, p. 79). In fact all the social phenomena of higher order corresponding to differentiation and constitution depend upon the facts of grouping. In the lowest societies, as the Australian, the mode of living in very small groups precludes a priori the possibility of any higher social formations. We may say that the social horizon of a community extends as far as the contact of its members. In higher societies this contact need not necessarily be an actual one; as a rule in more developed communities members of a social unit (nation, town, association) only come exceptionally and in a diminutive degree into immediate contact. But there are innumerable ways of mental contact. On the contrary there is no other form of contact but the personal one among the Australian blacks, and it is the first condition for the formation of any social bonds amongst them. In the discussion of all kinship bonds we should never lose sight of the fact that it is highly improbable that people who never were in personal contact could feel more closely related than people who usually live together.