FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138  
139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   >>   >|  
it now became possible for large numbers of people to form localized communities. A natural consequence was the elaboration of political systems, which, however, proceeded along lines already suggested by the experience of earlier epochs. All this tended to establish and emphasize the idea of nationality, based primarily on blood-relationship; and at the same time to develop within the community itself the idea of property,--that is to say, of valuable or desirable commodities which have come into the possession of an individual through his enterprise or labour, and which should therefore be subject to his voluntary disposal. At an earlier stage of development, all property had been of communal, not of individual, ownership. It appears, then, that our mid-period barbarian had attained--if the verbal contradiction be permitted--a relatively high stage of civilization. Iron. There remained, however, one master craft of which he had no conception. This was the art of smelting iron. When, ultimately, his descendants learned the wonderful secrets of that art, they rose in consequence to the Upper Status of Barbarism. This culminating practical invention, it will be observed, is the first of the great discoveries with which we have to do that was not primarily concerned with the question of man's food supply. Iron, to be sure, has abundant uses in the same connexion, but its most direct and obvious utilities have to do with weapons of war and with implements calculated to promote such arts of peace as house-building, road-making and the construction of vehicles. Wood and stone could now be fashioned as never before. Houses could be built and cities walled with unexampled facility; to say nothing of the making of a multitude of minor implements and utensils hitherto quite unknown, or at best rare and costly. Nor must we overlook the aesthetic influence of edged implements, with which wood and stone could readily be sculptured when placed in the hands of a race that had long been accustomed to scratch the semblance of living forms on bone or ivory and to fashion crude images of clay. In a word, man, the "tool-making animal," was now for the first time provided with tools worthy of his wonderful hands and yet more wonderful brain. Thus through the application of one revolutionary invention after another, the most advanced races of men had arrived, after long ages of effort, at a relatively high stage of development. A
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138  
139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
implements
 

making

 

wonderful

 

property

 

development

 
individual
 
consequence
 

invention

 
earlier
 

primarily


abundant

 

connexion

 
walled
 

unexampled

 
facility
 

cities

 
Houses
 
building
 

construction

 

vehicles


direct

 

obvious

 

weapons

 

utilities

 

calculated

 

promote

 

fashioned

 

influence

 

animal

 

provided


worthy

 
fashion
 

images

 

arrived

 

effort

 
advanced
 

application

 
revolutionary
 

costly

 
overlook

unknown
 

utensils

 
hitherto
 
aesthetic
 

accustomed

 

scratch

 
semblance
 

living

 
readily
 

sculptured