r — ' 



GREATNESS OF EARLY INVENTIONS. 153 



p-ifts of the human intellect. The same gifts 

 and the same powers start in the case of each 

 new generation from a higher vantage-ground 

 of inherited, and therefore of accumulated 

 knowledge ; and it is thus that, without any 

 change in their own nature, and even without 

 any increase in their own inherent strength, 

 they attain gradually to higher and more 

 complicated results. And if we are to assume 

 with the supporters of the Savage-theory 

 that Man has himself invented all he now 

 knows, then the very earliest inventions of 

 our race must have been the most wonderful 

 of all, and the richest in the fruits they bore. 

 The men who first discovered the use of fire, 

 and the use of those grasses which we now 

 know under the name of corn, were dis- 



