Man may be defined as the only animal that can strike alight, —the solitary creature that knows how to kindle a fire. This is a very fragmentary definition of the "Paragon of animals," but it is enough to make him the conqueror of all the rest. The most degraded savage has discovered how to rub two sticks together, or whirl the point of one in a socket in the other till the wood is kindled.

Clothe-less creatures by birth, we are also tool-less ones. Every other animal is by nature fully equipped and caparisoned for its work; its tools are ready for use, and it is ready to use them. We have first to invent our tools, then to fashion them, and then to learn how to handle them. Two-thirds at least of our industrial doings are thus preliminary. Before two rags can be sewed together, we require a needle, which embodies the inventiveness of a hundred ingenious brains; and a hand, which only a hundred botchings and failures have, in the lapse of years, taught to use the instrument with skill.