Chap. II.] MENTAL POWERS. 51 



an implement for a special purpose is absolutely peculiar 

 to man ; and he considers that this forms an immeasur- 

 able gulf between him and the brutes. It is no doubt a 

 very important distinction, but there appears to me much 

 truth in Sir J. Liibbock's suggestion,'* that when prime- 

 val man first used flint-stones for any purpose, he would 

 have accidentally splintered them, and would then have 

 used the sharp fragments. From this step it would be a 

 small one to intentionally break the flints, and not a very 

 wide step to rudely fashion them. This latter advance, 

 however, may have taken long ages, if we may judge by 

 the immense interval of time which elapsed before the men 

 of the neolithic period took to grinding and polishing 

 their stone tools. In breaking the flints, as Sir J. Lub- 

 bock likewise remarks, sparks Avould have been emitted, 

 and in grinding them heat would have been evolved: 

 " thus the two usual methods of obtaining fire may have 

 originated." The nature of fire would have been known 

 in the many volcanic regions where lava occasionally 

 flows through forests. The anthropomorphous apes, 

 guided probably by instinct, build for themselves tempo- 

 rary jilatforms ; but as many instincts are largely con- 

 trolled by reason, the simpler ones, such as this of build- 

 ing a platform, might readily pass into a voluntary and 

 conscious act. The orang is known to cover itself at 

 night with the leaves of the Pandanus ; and Brehm states 

 that one of his baboons used to protect itself from the 

 heat of the sun by throwing a straw mat over its head. 

 In these latter habits, we probably see the first steps 

 toward some of the simpler arts ; namely, rude architec- 

 ture and dress, as they arose among the early progeni- 

 tors of man. 



Language. — This faculty has justly been considered 

 as one of the chief distinctions between man and the lower 



"^^ 'Prehistoric Times,' 1863, p. 473, etc. 



