INTRODUCTION. 3 



caves, and shell heaps — to those primitive weapons 

 which distinguished the lowest level of the Stone 

 Age, weapons which every year are being brought 

 to light by thousands — to give the genus homo a 

 place among the hunters ; indeed one of the 

 strongest incentives which helped on Pre-historic 

 Man from one level to the other through the 

 long night of the darkest ages, appears to have been 

 that which such a pursuit supplied. To obtain the 

 skins of animals wilder than himself he entered 

 upon a scramble with the wolf, the bear, and the 

 hyena. Driven by instinct or necessity to supply 

 wartts the whole creation felt, his utmost ingenuity 

 was put forth in the chase; and in process of time 

 we find him having recourse to the inventive arts to 

 enable him to carry out his designs. On the borders 

 of lakes or on river banks, in caverns deep-seated 

 amid primeval forest solitudes, he fashioned harpoons 

 and arrow-heads of shell, horn, or bone, with which 

 to repulse the attack of prowlers around his retreat 

 and to arrest the flight of the swiftest beast he 

 required for food ; and when he emerged from the 

 dark night which Science has as yet but partially 

 penetrated, when he had succeeded in pressing the 

 horse and the door into his service, and when the 



