UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



in a tree, upon which he sleeps, but he has no tools 

 or weapons. When this ancestor used his first tool, 

 — a stone to crack a bone or a nut, or a stick to 

 reach a fruit or to drive off a foe, — that was the 

 beginning of the great change, the great progress, 

 then was the man really born. It is as a tool-user 

 and weapon-user that man's advance over all 

 other animals begins. The more he used them, the 

 more his intelligence was stimulated; the more 

 his hand was trained, the more his brain was de- 

 veloped. Each reacted upon the other. Then, 

 when this creature began to shape and improve his 

 tool — that was the second great step. Wood and 

 bone, at first, no doubt, were the substances used 

 or improved upon. Then came the shaping of 

 stone implements — arrowheads, spears, and axes. 

 When he discovered the use of fire and how to 

 control it — what a step was that ! In those two 

 things — the shaping of tools and the use of fire — 

 lay the germ of all his subsequent progress. All 

 this time he must have been a savage wild beast, 

 probably covered with hair, and subsisting upon 

 roots and fruits and smaller animals. His teeth 

 were for rending and his hands for seizing. He was 

 probably a healthy animal, free from the diseases 

 of the housed and clothed man. The nature within 

 him fitted the nature without him. Instinct ruled 

 him. But as his reason began to develop, and to 

 cross Nature, error, or sin and disease, came. 



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