THALES TO LINNAEUS 15 



past history of man " he asserts, "lies in no 

 heroic or golden age, but in one struggle out 

 of savagery/' Of the origin of language he 

 says, "Nature impelled them to utter the 

 various sounds of the tongue, and use struck 

 out the names of things," Of the early 

 struggles of primitive men he says, "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 labor 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 be- 

 came a byword." The name of Lucretius 

 closes the long line of the evolutionary pion- 

 eers of the ancient world. There the golden 

 vein ceases so far as thinking is concerned, not 

 to reappear until many centuries have passed. 

 With the decline and fall of the Roman em- 

 pire, and the rise to power of Christianity, 

 learning was driven from Europe and found 

 refuge among the Arabians. This brings us 

 to the dark or middle ages. It is in the inter- 

 pretation of the phenomena of this period, that 



