On the other hand appeared at an early period the opposite
view--that mankind, instead of having fallen from a high
intellectual, moral, and religious condition, has slowly risen
from low and brutal beginnings. In Greece, among the
philosophers contemporary with Socrates, we find Critias
depicting a rise of man, from a time when he was beastlike and
lawless, through a period when laws were developed, to a time
when morality received enforcement from religion; but among all
the statements of this theory the most noteworthy is that given
by Lucretius in his great poem on _The Nature of Things_. Despite
its errors, it remains among the most remarkable examples of
prophetic insight in the history of our race. The inspiration of
Lucretius gave him almost miraculous glimpses of truth; his view
of the development of civilization from the rudest beginnings to
the height of its achievements is a wonderful growth, rooted in
observation and thought, branching forth into a multitude of
striking facts and fancies; and among these is the statement
regarding the sequence of inventions:
"Man's earliest arms were fingers, teeth, and nails,
And stones and fragments from the branching woods;
Then copper next; and last, as latest traced,
The tyrant, iron.
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