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