CHAPTER XXV.
INSTRUMENTS OF DEFENSE AND ATTACK.
Fighting instruments of animals.
Animals have various instruments for defending themselves. Some have claws, some horns, some hoofs, some spurs and beaks, some powerful teeth, and some stings. These they use to defend themselves when attacked.
Why man has none of them.
But man has none of these things. Why is this? It is because, as I have told you about tools, with his mind he can contrive instruments of defense, and with his hands he can use them. If men could not contrive and use such things as spears, and swords, and guns, they would stand a poor chance with some of the animals if obliged to contend with them. A lion or tiger, you know, could tear the stoutest man in pieces if he had nothing in his hands to defend himself.
It would be well if men would use the fighting instruments which they make only for defending themselves. But they often use them in attacking others, just as beasts do their weapons, and sometimes they even use their hands, and teeth, and nails in the same way that beasts do. Hands were made for useful work and innocent play; but they are often used to strike with. Teeth are given to us to eat with; but children, and even men sometimes, bite with them like an angry beast. Nails are given us for various useful purposes, but I have known children to use them in fighting as beasts do their claws and spurs.
Claw and beak of a cruel bird.
The fighting instruments of some birds are very powerful. Here are a claw and a beak of a very cruel bird. How fast this claw would hold the victim, and how would this beak tear it in pieces! Very different are they from the slender claws and the light beak of such birds as the canary.