PRIME-MO VERS. 349 



kind of tool or implement ; they must soon have found that the direct 

 action of the power of the arm, which was not enough by itself to break 

 up some obstacle, became sufficient if that action were applied by 

 the wielding of a heavy club, or by the putting into motion of a 

 large stone ; and thus the hammer, or its equivalent, must have been 

 among the earliest of inventions. Such an implement would soon 

 teach its users that muscular force when exercised through a con- 

 siderable space, could be scored up > and could be delivered in a 

 concentrated form by a blow. 



Similarly it could not have been long before it must have been found 

 that to raise water in the hollow of the hand in small quantities and 

 by repeated efforts was not so convenient a mode as to raise at one 

 operation all that was required, and to do so by the aid of a bent leaf or 

 by the use of a shell, and in this way another implement would speedily 

 be invented. We might pursue this line of speculation, and doing so 

 we should readily arrive at the conclusion that (without attributing 

 to the early inhabitants of the earth any profound acquaintance 

 with mechanics) the hammer, the lever, the wedge, water vessels, 

 and other simple tools and utensils must soon have come into ex- 

 istence ; and we should also be led to believe that when even with 

 the aid of tools such as these a man singly could not accomplish any 

 desired object, the expedient of combining the power of more than 

 one man to attain an end would soon be thought of ; and that the 

 requisite appliances, such as large beams, for levers, numerous ropes 

 (which must very early in the history of the world have been twisted 

 from filaments) and matters of that kind would come into use. In 

 corroboration of this view, if a corroboration were wanted, the fact may 

 be cited that on the discovery of any isolated savage community, it 

 is, I think I may say invariably, found to have advanced thus far in 

 mechanical art. 



But passing from such machines as these, which are rather of the 

 character of mere tools and implements than of that of machines, as 

 \ve now popularly use the word, one knows that even complicated 

 mechanism for the purpose of enabling muscular force to be more 

 readily applied, is of very ancient date. On this point I will quote 

 from only one Book, that is the Bible, and from that I will cite but a 

 few instances. At the tenth and eleventh verses of the eleventh 



