THE USE OF FIRE 257 



The domestication of fire is perhaps the most 

 eventful fact in human history. It completely 

 changed man's diet, and, since cooked food is 

 more easily assimilated than raw food, it may have 

 set free energy that was absorbed in digestion. 

 In metals it revealed a material for tools and 

 weapons that was infinitely more effective than 

 flint. And it opened out the earth's surface for 

 man's habitation : without means of warming 

 himself, he could never have migrated from the 

 tropics. How fire was brought into harness can 

 only be conjectured. Obviously its use must have 

 become evident before efforts were made to keep 

 it or kindle it ; and we may suppose, with Charles 

 Lamb, that its value first became apparent 

 through the accidental discovery of its service 

 in cooking. It is believed that the fires which 

 rush through the forests of India and other tropical 

 countries may be kindled by the friction of dry 

 branches under a persistent hot wind, or by 

 lightning : the bodies of animals that have been 

 overtaken by the flames may be found scorched 

 amongst the ashes ; and it is quite possible that 

 savage man, by chancing upon them, may have 

 been led to the idea of cooking for himself. This 

 would only be possible if brands from the forest 

 fire were carefully preserved and fed : once 

 extinguished they could not be rekindled, and we 

 can understand the reverence with which the 

 hearth was regarded, and the importance that 

 was attached to the continuity of its glow. In 

 the East the desolation of a village is picturesquely 

 described by the expression " its fire has gone out." 

 There followed the discovery that fire could be 

 kindled by fire-sticks, or by flint and steel. We 

 have grown too familiar with lucifer matches 



