28 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



original vein. The past history of man, he says, lies 

 in no heroic or golden age, but in one of struggle 

 out of savagery. Only when " children, by their 

 coaxing ways, easily broke down the proud temper 

 of their fathers," did there arise the family ties out 

 of which the wider social bond has grown, and soft- 

 ening and civilizing agencies begin their fair offices. 

 In his battle for food and shelter, " man's first arms 

 were hands, nails and teeth and stones and boughs 

 broken off from the forests, and flame and fire, as 

 soon as they had become known. Afterward the 

 force of iron and copper was discovered, and the use 

 of copper was known before that of iron, as its nature 

 is easier to work, and it is found in greater quantity. 

 With copper they would labour the soil of the earth 

 and stir up the billows of war. . . . Then by slow 

 steps the sword of iron gained ground and the make 

 of the copper sickle became a byword, and with iron 

 they began to plough through the earth's soil, and 

 the struggles of wavering man were rendered equal." 

 As to language, " Nature impelled them to utter the 

 various sounds of the tongue, and use struck out the 

 names of things." Thus does Lucretius point the 

 road along which physical and mental evolution have 

 since travelled, and make the whole story subordi- 

 nate to the high purpose of his poem in deliverance 

 of the beings whose career he thus traces from super- 

 stition. Man " seeing the system of heaven and the 

 different seasons of the years could not find out by 

 what causes this was done, and sought refuge in 



