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tory of human progress. The learned reader who is curious in such matters, will find in the Natural History of Pliny (vol. vii. cap. 56, 67), a statement of the source whence originated most of the mechanical implements, the manners and customs, and the political and religious institutions known in the author's time. It is to be presumed that Pliny did not intend to vouch for the truth of all he has there stated. He probably meant merely to give a synopsis of the traditions most generally received, and which assigned to a divine energy almost every thing that contributed to the happiness of men. He tells us here that "the first combats were made by the Africans against the Egyptians with a kind of stick, which they called _phalanges_." The evident Greek origin of this word renders the story absurd enough, and doubtless most of our readers will continue to acquiesce in the account given in Holy Writ, that the origin of war was but little subsequent to the origin of the race, and that fraternal blood first stained the breast of our mother earth. But this statement of Pliny contains a grain of truth. The stick, or club, was undoubtedly the first weapon made use of by men in their combats with each other, though the spear and the sword followed at a period long anterior to any known in historical records. But from the earliest ages men have sought to avoid hand-to-hand conflicts, and to make skill supply the place of strength. In contests with wild beasts this was indispensable. Nature had provided man with no weapon with which he could contend against the boar's tusks, the lion's teeth, or the tiger's paw. Hence, the substitution of missiles for manual weapons, has been the end towards which ingenuity has been constantly directed. The conversion of the spear into the javelin, as it was the most obvious, so probably it was the earliest step in advance. Close upon this followed the sling, and last the arrow and the bow. The invention of the latter weapon is ascribed by Pliny, in the chapter above cited, to a son of Jupiter. In the days of Homer it was the weapon of the gods; and thousands of years after, it was the pride and glory of the English yeoman. The classical scholar will remember the description in the fourth book of the Iliad, of the bow with which Pandaros shot at Menelaus an arrow which would have sent to Hades the hero dear to Mars, had not the daughter of Jove brushed it aside with her hand, as a mother d
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