2 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE 



stand how to work in partnership with nature, and so 

 nature seemed more of an enemy than a friend. There 

 was much hunger in those days. Famine, wild beasts, 

 and cold weather these were enemies against which 

 man hardly knew how to protect himself. He lived "from 

 hand to mouth." Only the strong and hardy survived in 

 those perilous times. But since then men have made 

 hundreds of discoveries about nature. These discoveries 

 have made it possible to live much more safely and com- 

 fortably, until to-day even poor people have more com- 

 forts than had the kings and queens of old. 



Sometimes this long process of making life more com- 

 fortable and secure is called "man's conquest of nature." 

 But this expression suggests the idea that nature is an 

 enemy that we must fight and try to conquer. That is 

 only a part truth. Man's so-called "conquest of nature" 

 has been rather the learning of nature's secrets; learning 

 how to take advantage of the many ways in which she will 

 help us if we study hard enough to understand her. 



Those things that we call inventions are simply new- 

 found ways of developing our partnership with nature. 

 An inventor designs a new type of engine, or a doctor dis- 

 covers a new way to cure a disease. We call these things 

 men's inventions, but let us remember that they are sim- 

 ply discoveries of new ways of controlling nature. Man 

 discovers how to arrange what we call inventions, but it 

 is nature that does the rest. Nature supplies the materials 

 that man arranges, and also the forces that make all of his 

 inventions work. So you need to study nature in order 

 to understand machinery as well as to understand about 

 the woods, the fields, and the weather. Nature is at work 

 in a steam-engine as well as in plants and animals. Nearly 



