3 i8 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



South Sea Islanders use tools and weapons made of wood and 

 the sharp-edged shells of mussels. As soon, however, as the 

 advantages of using stone were recognised it was not in the 

 nature of man to forget so useful a lesson when once it had 

 been learnt. 



The further question now arises Which kind of stone was 

 the first to be employed ? It is most probable that at first 

 every loose stone was taken up and tried. The superiority of 

 the flint, with its hardness and sharp corners when fractured, 

 was soon recognised, as in palaeolithic settlements the number of 

 flints is remarkably in excess of that of other stones. Indeed if 

 we are to follow the defenders of the eolithic hypothesis, there 

 were in France, Belgium, Germany and Italy men who pos- 

 sessed flints, shaped for various uses, even before the deluge at 

 the end of the tertiary period. I have already expressed my 

 views on the value of the eolithic theory (vide p. 35 et seq.}, 

 and will now therefore merely recapitulate the statement 

 that doubts as to the existence of the so-called eolithic people 

 will be justified so long as clear traces of the presence of 

 pleistocene man cannot be found in all places where fossil 

 remains exist. 



Franklin defined man as "an animal which uses tools''. 

 Every suitable stone which a man throws, however, cannot be 

 regarded as a tool, but only one fashioned in such a way as to 

 fit it in a special' manner for the purpose for which it is employed. 



The tools and weapons of primitive man hitherto described 

 were, for the most part, only modifications or extensions of his 

 own limbs. 



Kapp (Grundlinien einer Philosophic der TechniK), who has 

 worked out this idea more fully, remarks that man projects a 

 likeness of his own organs into his tools, and carries into the 

 region which lies outside his body those functions which he 

 supposes reside within it. Thus the hammer is foreshadowed 

 by his fist, and edged tools by his finger nails and incisor teeth. 



Kapp calls the hammer, hatchet, chisel and gimlet " primi- 

 tive tools" probably the first foundations of human culture. 



Originally, the rough tools fashioned by men had to serve 

 all purposes alike ; it was only later that the need for differenti- 

 ation became apparent. The primaeval man could not dream 



