what transforms these structures , though , from a pile of lifeless building bricks to the majestic and mysterious edifices which have captured and inspired the imagination of centuries of successive generations of mankind , is the knowledge of the sum of the hundreds and thousands of individual peoples lives which have toiled together to create something greater than themselves , and in so doing have possessed the final construction with an almost organic quality , each stone capable of evoking its own emotional response for the observer who is building imaginary stories of those people who went before and built real ones .