SUMMARY. 463 



combined more closely ; as they combined more closely, 

 their language was improved ; as a means of re- 

 sistance, they threw missiles with their hands ; thus 

 using their hands, they walked chiefly with their feet ; 

 the apes became almost man, half walking, half crawl- 

 ing through the grim forests, jabbering and gesticu- 

 lating in an imitative manner, fighting furiously for 

 their females at the rutting season, their matted hair 

 begrimed with dirt and blood, fighting with all nature, 

 even with their own kind, but remaining true to their 

 own herd ; using the hand more and more as a weapon 

 and a tool, becoming more and more erect ; expressing 

 objects by conventional sounds or words ; delighting 

 more and more to interchange ideas ; sharpening 

 stones and pointing sticks, heading javelins with bone 

 and horn, inventing snares and traps ; then Fire was 

 discovered, and, by a series of accidents, its various 

 uses were revealed; the arts of agriculture, domes- 

 tication, and river navigation were acquired : the 

 tribes migrating from the forests were scattered over 

 the world ; their canoes of hollow trees skimmed the 

 tepid waters of the Indian Ocean ; their coracles of 

 skin dashed through the icy waves of the Arctic seas ; 

 in valleys between mountains, or in fertile river plains, 

 they nurtured seed-bearing grasses into grain ; over 

 pastoral mountains, or sandy deserts, or broad grassy 

 steppes, they wandered with their flocks and herds ; 

 these shepherd tribes poured down on the plains, sub- 

 dued the inhabitants and reduced them to serfdom ; 

 thus the nation was established, and consisted at first 

 of two great classes — the rulers and the ruled. 



The period thus rapidly described, which begins with 

 the animal globules preying on the plant globules in 

 the primeval sea, and which ends with the conquest 



