CHAPTER VIII.
ARTS OF LIFE.
Development of Instruments, [183]—Club, Hammer, [184]—Stone-flake, [185]—Hatchet, [188]—Sabre, Knife, [189]—Spear, Dagger, Sword, [190]—Carpenter’s Tools, [192]—Missiles, Javelin, [193]—Sling, Spear-thrower, [194]—Bow and Arrow, [195]—Blow-tube, Gun, [196]—Mechanical Power, [197]—Wheel-carriage, [198]—Hand-mill, [200]—Drill, Lathe, [202]—Screw, [203]—Water-mill, Wind-mill, [204].
The arts by which man defends and maintains himself, and holds rule over the world he lives in, depend so much on his use of instruments, that it will be well to begin with some account of tools and weapons, tracing them from their earliest and rudest forms.
Man is sometimes called, to distinguish him from all lower creatures, the “tool-using animal.” This distinction holds good in a general way, marking off man with his spear and hatchet from the bull goring with his horns, or the beaver carpentering with his teeth. But it is instructive to see how plainly the ape tribes, coming nearest to ourselves in having hands, have also rudiments of the implement-using faculty. Untaught by man, they defend themselves with missiles, as when orangs in the durian trees furiously pelt passers-by with the thorny fruit. The chimpanzee in the forests is said to crack nuts with a stone, as in our Zoological Gardens monkeys are often taught to do by the keepers, where they take readily to the use of these and more difficult implements, as soon as the thought has been put into their minds.
The lowest order of implements are those which nature provides ready-made, or wanting just a finish; such are pebbles for slinging or hammering, sharp stone splinters to cut or scrape with, branches for clubs and spears, thorns or teeth to pierce with. These of course are oftenest found in use among savages, yet they sometimes last on in the civilized world, as when we catch up any stick to kill a rat or snake with, or when in the south of France women shell the almonds with a smooth pebble, much as the apes at Regent’s Park would do. The higher implements used by mankind are often plainly improvements on some natural object, but they are adapted by art in ways that beasts have no notion of, so that it is a better definition of man to call him the “tool-maker” than the “tool-user.” Looking at the various sorts of implements, we see that they were not invented all at once by sudden flashes of genius, but evolved, or one might almost say grown, by small successive changes. It will be noticed also that the instrument which at first did roughly several kinds of work, afterwards varied off in different ways to suit each particular purpose, so as to give rise to several different instruments. A Zulu seen at work scraping the stick that is to be the shaft of his assegai, with the very iron head that is to be fixed on it, may give an idea what early tool-making was like, before men clearly understood that the pattern of instrument suitable for a lance-head was not the best for cutting and scraping. We should be horrified at the thought of the blacksmith pulling out one of our teeth with his pincers, as our forefathers would have let him do; the forceps we expect the dentist to use is indeed a variety of the smith’s tool, but it is a special variety for a special purpose. Thus in the history of instruments, the tools of the mechanic cannot well be kept separate from the weapons of the hunter or soldier, for in several cases it will be seen that both tool and weapon had their origin in some earlier instrument that served alike to break skulls and cocoa-nuts, or to hack at the limbs of trees and of men.
Among the simplest of weapons is the thick stick or cudgel, which when heavier or knobbed passes into the club. Rude champions have delighted in the ferocious roughness of such a gnarled club as Herkules in the pictures carries on his shoulder, while others spent their leisure hours in elegant shaping and carving, like that of the South Sea Island clubs to be seen in museums. From savage through barbaric times the war-club lasted on into the middle ages of Europe, when knights still smashed helmets in with their heavy maces. Mostly used as a weapon, it only now and then appears in peaceful arts, as in the ribbed clubs with which the Polynesian women beat out bark cloth. It is curious to see how the rudest of primitive weapons, after its serious warlike use has ceased, survives as a symbol of power, when the mace is carried as emblem of the royal authority, and is laid on the table during the sitting of Parliament or the Royal Society. While the club has been generally a weapon, the hammer has been generally an implement. Its history begins with the smooth heavy pebble held in the hand, such as African blacksmiths to this day forge their iron with, on another smooth stone as anvil. It was a great improvement to fasten the stone hammer on a handle; this was done in very ancient times, as is seen by the stone heads being grooved or bored on purpose (see [Fig. 54] i). Though the iron hammer has superseded these, a trace of the older use of stone remains in our very name hammer, which is the old Scandinavian hamarr, meaning both rock and hammer.
Fig. 52.—Gunflint-maker’s core and flakes (Evans).
From beating we come to hacking and cutting. At the earliest times known of man’s life on the earth, his pointed and edged instruments of sharp stone are among his chief relics. Even in the mammoth-period he had already learnt not to be content with accidental chips of flint, but knew how to knock off two-edged flakes. This art of flaking flint or other suitable stones is the foundation of stone-implement making. Perhaps the best idea of it may be gained from the Suffolk gunflint makers who at this day carry on the primæval craft, though with better tools and for so different a purpose. [Fig. 52] shows a gunflint-maker’s core of flint, with the flakes replaced where he has knocked them off, and the mark of the blow is seen which brought away each flake. The flakes made by Stone Age men for instruments may be three-sided like the Australian flake in [Fig. 53] b. But the more convenient flat-backed shape a, c, has been used from the earliest known times. The flint core, [Fig. 54] f, with the flakes e taken from it, shows how by previous flaking or trimming it was prepared for the new flake to come off with a suitable back. The finest flakes are those not struck off, but forced off by pressure with a flaking-tool of wood or horn. The neat Danish flake, [Fig. 53] c, was no doubt made so, and the still more beautiful sharp flakes of obsidian with which the native barbers of Mexico, to the astonishment of Cortes’ soldiers, used to shave. A stone flake just as struck off may be fit for use as a knife, or as a spear head like that in [Fig. 58] a; or by further chipping it may be made into a scraper, arrowhead, or awl, like those in [Fig. 54].