88 MAN: 



Walking erect, capable of turning readily to all sides, 

 possessed of those wonderful instruments the arm and 

 hand, and gifted with a mind to direct their opera- 

 tions, in functional performance he immeasurably 

 excels all other animals. As a tool and implement- 

 maker he acquires new power over the opposing forces 

 of nature; and as a fire-kindler and machine-inventor 

 he increases that power ten-thousand-fold. But man 

 is not merely a fabricator of mechanical tools, he is 

 also an inventor of intellectual tools — of pohtical, 

 social, moral, and rehgious schemes, by which he at 

 once promotes his own comfort and secures the im- 

 provement of his successors. Endowed with the gift 

 of language, and capable of recording his experiences, 

 generation after generation he advances in knowledge, 

 and thus, unlike other animals, he is improvable and 

 progressive — improvable ia the iadividual and pro- 

 gressive in the race. The most highly endowed and 

 docile of the lower animals remain now as they ever 

 were ; the lowest of the human race is always capable 

 of some improvement. The range of the former is 

 fixed and limited, that of the latter seems illimitable. 

 It is this improvable intellect in man that enables 

 him to subjugate and adapt the forces of nature — 

 winds, currents, heat, light, electricity, and the like ; 

 and just in proportion to this subjugation and 

 adaptation does mankind ascend in the scale of 



