194 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 



call the mechanical life of primitive man, beginning as he 

 did with the primaries of mechanics, under racial limita- 

 tions akin to infancy and its helpless conditions. And if 

 man's cerebral development began with, and in any essen- 

 tial way was accompanied by, liis advance in mechanical 

 practice and knowledge growing out of such relations to 

 the world, it is evident that in his continued progress and 

 development on the earth his mechanical relations to things, 

 both as individual man and as societary man, must be con- 

 tinued; or, not continuing, he must relapse toward the 

 primary condition. Hence the necessity for artificial and 

 scientifically adapted modes of physical exercise for those 

 otherwise unable to obtain a uniform action and develop- 

 ment of their bodily functions. Many men seem to forget 

 this, and, attempting to get away from the earth and their 

 mechanical relations thereto, seek in the office, the study, 

 the counting-room, the pulpit, the professorial chair, to live 

 an intellectual or brain life apart from a physical and 

 mechanical life, with the inevitable result of a loss of 

 power, not simply of nuiscle, but also of brain, accompa- 

 nied by an unmistakable tendency to perish, or to relapse 

 into primeval conditions. Indeed, while the earlier Gospel 

 teaches that the meek shall inherit the earth, and tlie 

 Gospel of Evolution teaches that the militant man is to 

 give place to the industrial man, we still make the claim 

 that the man who understands his mechanical relations to 

 the world, and follows that understanding in practice, is 

 that meek man to whom that inheritance belongs. 



It is not alone in religion that a monastic, spiritualistic 

 tendency prevails. All men recognize that it is necessary 

 that trees and plants should have their roots in the earth 

 in order to obtain therefrom their sustenance and means of 

 life-maintenance. But some men seem to think that the 

 law does not apply to men that there is a degrading 

 element in the very touch of material things. For tlieni 

 the old fable contains a lesson : The son of Mother Earth 

 could not be overthrown so long as his feet rested upon tlie 

 ground ; and the first step in his overthrow consisted in 

 lifting him from the eartli, whereupon he was easily con- 

 quered. The same is true of civilized man considered as a 

 son of the earth ; and to maintain his position of supremacy 

 it is absolutely necessary that his meclianieal relations to 

 the world and to things should be comprehended, maintained 



