162 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



that none of the steps I have set forth are imaginary. All of them 

 are in existence and in use yet, in their appropriate places, often 

 amidst the completes! appliances of modern mechanic arts. If the 

 primitive man sharpened a stick by rubbing it over a rough grit, 

 he used the same means an artist employs to-day to produce a fine 

 point on his pencil, and the same by which we sharpen all cutting 

 tools. The scraping tool is one of the ordinary provisions of a 

 joiner's outfit : but the use of a bit of broken glass is more common 

 still. As the edge becomes dulled by use, the glass is simply broken 

 and two fresh edges are formed. This is universal in civilized life, 

 and a curious instance of it in savage life has just been brought to 

 light by the Rev. Lorimer Fison, in his pamphlet on the Nanga or 

 Sacred Stone Inclosure of Fiji, in which he relates often having 

 seen " a mother shaving her child's head with a bit of glass, and 

 biting a new edge on the instrument when it became dull." These 

 original arts have never been lost. Probably it is a general truth 

 regarding mechanic arts that no one of them once commonly ac" 

 quired is ever again lost. It may be laid aside for a time or sus- 

 pended, but it revives in some form ; and I venture to think that 

 much of the eloquence that has been expended upon the " The Lost 

 Arts" has resulted from a very imperfect acquaintance with those 

 that exist. 



It is apparent that every step in the progress that has been recited 

 resulted in an improvement in man's condition. The first improved 

 weapon, club or pike or missile, was equivalent to. so much greater 

 strength of arm or length of reach. It augmented man's superior- 

 ity over the brutes ; it made his life less precarious ; it put the 

 means of securing food, shelter, and covering more fully within his 

 power. His environment, to which he had in his primitive con- 

 dition been completely subject, he now could to a certain extent 

 control, could subject to liimself. The first improved means of 

 fabricating a weapon, the first tool or mechanical process, accom- 

 plished these results in an increased ratio. The step that made the 

 cutting tool the possible possession of every man, which made the 

 knife even in its clumsiest form a common tool, did for the whole 

 race what the earliest steps did for a limited number, and made this 

 amelioration general. The increased number of forms and varieties 

 of tools and weapons, growing out of the diverse and manifold 

 wants they were adapted to supply, were each steps in the better- 

 ment of his material condition, each an indication of progress; 

 man's advance towards civilization, slow as it must have been, was 



