Because we live immersed in the human mass, we are instinctively impelled to see in the process of social organisation no more than an accidental and superficial association. the more, however, we study its progressive nature and its psychogenic properties—properties, that is, that produce consciousness—the more certain it becomes that we were mistaken.
Taken as a whole (the Noosphere), mankind forms, or is in the process of developing, a vast natural unit around our individual centres.