474 THE PRIMITIVE CONDITION OF MAN. 



The chimpanzee builds himself a house or shelter almost 

 equal to that of some savages. Our earliest ancestors there- 

 fore may have had this art ; but even if not, when they 

 became hunters, and as we find to be the case with all 

 hunting tribes, supplemented the inefficiency of their wea- 

 pons by a wonderful acquaintance with the manners and 

 customs of the animals on which they preyed, they could not 

 fail to observe, and perhaps to copy, the houses which 

 various species of animals construct for themselves. 



The Esquimaux have no pottery ; they use hollow stones 

 as a substitute, but we have seen how they sometimes improve 

 upon these by a rim of clay. To extend this rim, diminish, 

 and at last replace the stone, is an obvious process. In 

 hotter countries, vessels of wood, or the shells of fruits such 

 as cocoa-nuts and gourds, are used for holding liquids. 

 These of course will not stand fire, but by plastering them 

 on the outside with clay they would be enabled to do so. 

 There is some evidence that this obvious improvement has 

 been made by several separate tribes even in modern times.* 

 Other similar cases might be mentioned, in which by a very 

 simple and apparently obvious process, an important improve- 

 ment is secured. It seems very improbable that any such 

 advantage should ever be lost again. There is no evidence, 

 says Mr. Tylor,f " of any tribe giving up the use of the 

 spindle to twist their thread by hand, or having been in the 

 habit of working the fire-drill with a thong, and going back 

 to the clumsier practice of working it without, and it is even 

 hard to fancy such a thing happening." "What follows from 

 this argument ? Evidently that the lowest races of existing 

 savages must, always assuming the common origin of the 

 human race, be at least as far advanced as were our ancestors 

 when they spread over the earth's surface. 



* See Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 269. f I.e. p. 364. 



