y sheeted in its thick natural
fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild
fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonians, squatted himself in morasses,
lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements, without
arms, save the ball of heavy flint, to which, that his sole possession
and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited
thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly, unerring
skill."

The injunction given to man to "replenish the earth and subdue it"
could not possibly be fulfilled with implements of stone. To fell a
tree with a flint hatchet would occupy the labour of a month, and to
clear a small patch of ground for purposes of culture would require the
combined efforts of a tribe. For the same reason, dwellings could not
be erected; and without dwellings domestic tranquillity, security,
culture, and refinement, especially in a rude climate, were all but
impossible. Mr. Emerson well observes, that "the effect of a house is
immense on human tranquillity, power, and refinement. A man in a cave
or a camp--a nomad--dies with no more estate than the wolf or the horse
leaves. But so simple a labour as a house being achieved, his chief
enemies are kept at bay. He is safe from the teeth of wild animals,
from frost, sunstroke, and weather; and fine faculties begin to yield
their fine harvest. Inventions and arts are born, manners, and social
beauty and delight." But to build a house which should serve for
shelter, for safety, and for comfort--in a word, as a home for the
family, which is the nucleus of society--better tools than those of
stone were absolutely indispensable.

Hence most of the early European tribes were nomadic: first hunters,
wandering about from place to place like the American Indians, after
the game; then shepherds, following the herds of animals which they had
learnt to tame, from one grazing-ground to another, living upon their
milk and flesh, and clothing themselves in their skins held together by
leathern thongs. It was only when implements of metal had been
invented that it was possible to practise the art of agriculture with
any considerable success. Then tribes would cease from their
wanderings, and begin to form settlements, homesteads, villages, and
towns. An old Scandinavian legend thus curiously illustrates this last
period:--There was a giantess whose daughter one day saw a husbandman
ploughing in the field. Sh