24 DEVELOPMENT oF ARMS. 
So wrote Thomas Carlyle ; and primitive man, when he made his 
appearance on this planet, must have found himself in immediate 
need of loose stones and broken tree branches to use as missiles 
and weapons, alike to keep off his more dangerous animal neigh- 
bours, and to take the lives of the weaker ones, in order that he 
might sustain his own. Necessity, best of teachers, would speedily 
drive him to select the hardest and most durable of the stones, 
and such as could be fashioned into a cutting edge ; and the stone 
axe, the flint knife, arrew, and spear-head, gradually supplanted 
the first casual or fortuitous implements. Indeed, the weapons of 
this prehistoric time, as it is called, are divided into the rough, the 
chipped, and the polished ; and the highly-wrought jade axes and 
hammers, weapons which have survived among savages of the 
Southern Seas down to the present day, bespeak an amount of art 
and craftsmanship far removed from those associated with our 
aboriginal forefathers, yet still belonging to the same class. 
As gunpowder in later ages, and the terrible weapons of war 
of modern times, are held to have been the strongest factors in 
promoting peace, enlightenment, and progress, so in early times 
did the improvement of weapons lead to what we know as civilisa- 
tion. The peoples who first learnt the art of working metals, and 
of making swords, spears, and shields of bronze and iron, could 
not only conquer their less advanced neighbours, but by the terror 
and prestige of these arms, turn their newly-won powers to 
the industrial arts, and thence to decorative art and to luxury. 
Probably the earliest civilisation, although the one we as yet 
know the least of, was the American; and metal weapons and 
armour are to be found among the ruins, and carved on the walls 
of cities there, which are credibly believed to date back for 4000 
years. Those, however, of which we have more knowledge and 
better records, are the Indian, the Assyrian, and the Chinese. It 
was the custom, till comparatively recently, to speak of the Bronze 
Age as separate from, and anterior to, that of iron, but extended 
researches in Assyria and Asia Minor have proved that these 
metals existed, and were used at the same time, although, from its 
easiness for working, nearly all the tools, and all the weapons, 
including edged ones, were made of bronze. In the Homeric war 
bronze was the material in use, but iron is repeatedly mentioned 
under a name which shews why, although harder and more dur- 
able. it was not preferred—it is called ‘ difficult to work in.” 
