_Progress Is Through the Food Supply_.--This is only another view of the economic life. The first period is called the natural subsistence period, when man used such food as he found prepared for him by nature. It corresponds to the primal nomadic period of the last classification. From this state he advanced to the use of fish for food, and then entered the third period, when native grains were obtained through a limited cultivation of the soil. After this followed a period in which meat and milk were the chief articles of food. Finally the period of extended and permanent agriculture was reached, and farinaceous food by cultivation became the main support of life. The significance of this classification is observed in the fact that the amount, variety, and quality of the food available determine the possibility of man's material and spiritual advancement. As the food supply lies at the foundation of human existence, prosperity is measured to a large extent by the food products. The character of the food affects to a great extent the mental and moral capabilities of man; that is, it {41} limits the possibilities of civilization. Even in modern civilization the effect of poor food on intellect, morals, and social order is easily observed. _Progress Is Estimated by Different Forms of Social Order_.--It is only a more general way of estimating political life, and perhaps a broader way, for it includes the entire social development. By this classification man is first represented as wandering in a solitary state with the smallest amount of association with his fellows necessary to his existence and perpetuation, and with no social organization. This status of man is hypothetical, and gives only a starting point for the philosophy of higher development. No savage tribes have yet been discovered in which there was not at least association of individuals in groups, although organization might not yet have appeared. It is true that some of the lower tribes, like the Fuegians of South America, have very tentative forms of social and political association. They wander in loosely constructed groups, which constantly shift in association, being without permanent organization. Yet the purely solitary man is merely conjectural. It is common for writers to make a classification of social groups into primary and secondary.[2] The primary social groups are: first, the family based upon biological relations, supported by the habit of association; second, the play group of children, in which primitive characters of social order appear, and a third group is the association of adults in a neighborhood meeting. In the formation of these groups, the process of social selection is always in evidence. Impulse, feeling, and emotion play the greater parts in the formation of these primitive groups, while choice based on rational selection seldom appears.