We now have glanced briefly at a few of the features of early humanity's dependence upon the clocks of nature and the way in which they influenced its manner of life. We still depend upon these great primeval timepieces and we do it for the most part unconsciously, for our master clocks must still be set by the motion of the heavenly bodies.
That motion, which now we know to be really the revolution of our earth, is still the legislator and supreme court of time. But we have learned to make and carry everywhere a wonderful machine, whose revolving wheels and pointing hands keep tryst with the stars in the heavens and move to the rhythm of wheeling worlds. And so familiar is this talisman of man's making, that we forget to look beyond it or think of time at all save as the position of the hands upon the dial.
We carry with us carelessly a toy which tells tales upon the solar system—our watch is a pocket universe.
CHAPTER THREE
How Man Began to Model After Nature
We now have reached a point far ahead of our story and must take a backward step. We have been seeing man as a mere observer of nature; but man doesn't stop with nature as he finds it—his man-brain drives him forward; he must make improvements of his own. Animals may live and die and leave no trace save their bones, which for the most part soon disappear, but man always leaves traces behind him. He has always interfered with nature, or rather has modeled after nature, seeing in her work the revelations of principles and laws that he might utilize in varying ways for his own benefit and progress. Our material civilization is built up from the accumulated results of all this study and control of nature by hundreds of millions of busy brains and hands, through tens of thousands of years.
Here we are, then, living, in a sense on the top of the ages of human history, like the dwellers on a coral island. Hundreds of generations have toiled to raise the vast structure for us, like the little coral "polyps" which build their own lives into the mass, yet we take it all as a matter of course and rarely give a thought to the marvelous ways by which it has come about. You may have just glanced at your watch. To you, perhaps, a watch has always seemed merely a small mechanism which was bought in a store. That is true, and yet—remember this—the first manufacturer who had a hand in producing that watch for you, may have been a caveman.
In order to appreciate this development, let us return, therefore, for another rapid view of prehistoric times; life in its crudest form—one day much like another—a scanty population, huddled in little groups in places naturally sheltered—the simplest physical needs to be provided for—little thought of the past or care for the future—time-reckoning reduced to the single thought of appointment—no reason for measuring intervals—in these and other respects antiquity presented the greatest possible contrast to our complicated modern life.
The long-armed man of our first chapter noticed that as the sun moved, the shadows of the cliff also moved, as did all other shadows. As he formed habits of regularity, it was natural for him to perform a certain daily act when, perhaps, the shadow of a certain tree touched upon a certain stone. This would be a natural sun-dial.