No More Learning

The protective quality in such animals as lions is ferocity; in
foxes, cunning; in stags, swiftness. Creatures without such natural
endowments of defence or utility tend to be the prey of others, and so
become extinct.


PRIMITIVE MAN

Primeval man was hardier in the fields,
As fitted those that hardy earth produced,
Built on a frame of larger, tougher bones
And knit with powerful sinews in his flesh;
Not likely to be hurt by heat or cold,
Or change of food, or wasting pestilence.
While many lustres of the sun revolved
Men led a life of roving like the beasts.
What sun or rain might give, or soil might yield
Unforced, was boon enough to sate the heart.
Oft 'neath the acorn-bearing oaks they found
Their food; and arbute-berries, which you now
In winter see turn ripe with scarlet hue,
Of old grew greater in luxuriance.
Through well known woodland haunts of nymphs they roamed,
Wherefrom they saw the gliding water brook
Bathe with a generous plash the dripping rocks--
Those dripping rocks that trickled o'er green moss.

As yet mankind did not know how to handle fire, or to clothe
themselves with the spoils of the chase; but dwelt in woods, or caves,
or other random shelter found in stress of weather. Each man lived for
himself, and might was right. The stone or club was used in hunting;
but the cave-dwellers were in frequent danger of being devoured by
beasts of prey. Still, savage mortality was no greater than that of
modern times.


THE EVOLVING OF CIVILISATION

When men had got them huts and skins and fire,
And woman joined with man to make a home,
And when they saw an offspring born from them,
Then first began the softening of the race.
Fire left them less inured with shivering frames
To bear the cold 'neath heaven's canopy.
Then neighbours turned to compacts mutual,
Desirous nor to do nor suffer harm.
They claimed for child and woman tenderness,
Declaring by their signs and stammering cries
That pity for the weak becometh all.
The rudiments of humane sentiments sprang, therefore, in prehistoric
family life. Language was the gradual outcome of natural cries,
not an arbitrary invention. The uses of fire were learned from the
lightning-flash and from conflagrations due to spontaneous combustion
or chance friction. In time this opened out the possibility of many
arts, such as metal-working; for forest fires caused streams of
silver, gold, copper, or lead to run into hollows, and early man
observed that when cooled, the glittering lumps retained the mould of
the cavities. Nature also was the model for sowing and grafting. Those
who excelled in mental endowment invented new modes of life. Towns and
strongholds were founded as places of defence; and possessions were
secured by personal beauty, strength, or cleverness. But the access of
riches often ousted the claims of both beauty and strength.

For men, though strong and fair to look upon,
Oft follow in the retinue of wealth.

Religious feelings were fostered by visions and dreams; marvellous
shapes to which savage man ascribed supernatural powers. Recurrent
appearances of such shapes induced a belief in their continuous
existence: so arose the notion of gods that live for ever.

Our navigation, tillage, walls, and laws,
Our armour, roads, and dress, and such-like boons,
And every elegance of modern life,
Poems and pictures, statues deftly wrought,
All these men learned with slow advancing steps
From practice and the knowledge won by wit.
So by degrees time brings each thing to sight,
And reason raiseth it to realms of day.
In arts must one thing, then another, shine,
Until they win their full development.


FOOTNOTES:

[V] To the Roman poet Titus Corus Lucretius (99-55 B. C.