Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/398

 39« TEE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

adaptable to the vast variety of material and social environments in which man has by turns found himself situated. But in the early stages of his struggle for the mastery of nature the lack of elaborate instincts^ such as those which enable the social hymenoptera to achieve such prodigies of skill and organization without the necessary exercise of any intelligence whatsoever — ^the lack of these placed man at a definite disadvantage. Physically not of the most powerful type and unassisted by elaborate instincts^ he was compelled to supplement his deficiencies by the superiority of his intellect. Extension of his phys- ical powers was the first prerequisite for supremacy, and this extension was afforded by the invention of the primitive tools, piercing, cutting, hacking, grinding and pounding instruments which multiplied the effectiveness of his physical powers by many thousand-fold.

The origin of the primitive pounding and grinding instruments is not far to seek, the first glimmerings of associative memory su£Biced to provide us with these, as witness the fact that many animals and birds employ them. The cutting, piercing and hacking instruments de- manded much more accurate observation, comparison, deduction and trial for their elaboration. In the beginning fortuitously encountered, the chance supply of ready-fashioned instruments woxdd speedily be exhausted, and then it was that true inventiveness was called into play. First it must have been observed that certain types of stones yielded sharp edges while others did not, then that blows upon these stones produced cleavages and that some of these cleavages were sharp- edged and others were not, and finally by incessant trials sustained by inexhaustible patience and unflagging acuteness of observation, the correct type and direction of blow was ascertained which would yield a satisfactory instrument, a stone axe or an arrow-head, with an ex- penditure of time and labor which, although from our present point of view immense in proportion to the result attained, was nevertheless practicable and infinitely valuable in its outcome.

The first reliable hunting instrument must have been the spear and doubtiess in many instances, as in the case of the living survival of neolithic man, the Australian aboriginal, the effectiveness of the ppear was aided by throwing it at the object which was assailed. The customary killing of large animals yielded three very important results, first it increased the supply and variety of available food, secondly the skins (first assumed probably in imitation of the animals slain, in the performance of some obscure totemic rite) afforded clothing and in- creased enormously the possible geographic range of man, and thirdly the use of the sinew was discovered.

The utility of the sinew as a means of tying and binding may have been largely a fortuitous discovery, but what are we to say of the dis- covery of the bow? It should be observed that the bow is useless until

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