THE CONQUEST OF NATURE 



tively artistic and highly effective receptacles, as 

 illustrated by the honeycomb made by the bees and their 

 allies. Again, certain animals, of which the birds are 

 the best representatives, construct temporary struc- 

 tures for the purpose of rearing their young that attain 

 a relatively high degree of artistic perfection. The 

 Baltimore oriole weaves a cloth of vegetable fibre 

 that is certainly a wonderful texture to be made with 

 the aid of claws and bill alone. It may be doubted 

 whether human hands, unaided by implements, could 

 duplicate it. But it is crude enough compared with 

 even the coarsest cloth which barbaric races manu- 

 facture with the aid of implements. 



So it is with any comparison of animal work with 

 the work of man, in whatever field. The crudest 

 human endeavor is superior to the best non-human 

 efforts; and the explanation is found always in the 

 fact that the ingenuity of man has enabled him to find 

 artificial aids that add to his power of manipulation. 

 So large a share have these artificial aids taken in 

 man's evolution, that it has long been customary, in 

 studying the development of civilization, to make the 

 use of various types of implements a test of varying 

 stages of human progress. 



SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION 



The student of primitive life assures us, basing his 

 statements on the archaeological records, that there was 

 a time when the most advanced of mankind had no 

 tools made of better material than chipped stone. By 



[8] 



