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Indeed, invention and discovery and the advancement of the industrial arts receive their initial impulses from these economic relations.

      We have only to turn our attention to the social life around us to observe evidences of the great importance of economic factors. Even now it will be observed that the greater part of economic activities proceeds from the effort to procure food, clothing, and shelter, while a relatively smaller part is engaged in the pursuit of education, culture, and pleasure. The excellence of educational systems, the highest flights of philosophy, the greatest achievement of art, and the best inspiration of religion cannot exist without a wholesome economic life at the foundation. It should not be humiliating to man that this is so, for in the constitution of things, labor of body and mind, the struggle for existence and the accumulations of the products of industry yield a large return in themselves in discipline and culture; and while we use these economic means to reach higher ideal states, they represent the ladder on which man makes the first rounds of his ascent.

      The Methods of Procuring Food in Primitive Times. – Judging from the races and tribes that are more nearly in a state of nature than any other, it may be reasonably assumed that in his first stage of existence, man subsisted almost wholly upon a vegetable diet, and that gradually he gave more and more attention to animal food. His structure and physiology make it possible for him to use both animal and vegetable food. Primarily, with equal satisfaction the procuring of food must have been rather an individual than a social function. Each individual sought his own breakfast wherever he might find it. It was true then, as now, that people proceeded to the breakfast table in an aggregation, and flocked around the centres of food supply; so we may assume the picture of man stealing away alone, picking fruits, nuts, berries, gathering clams or fish, was no more common than the fact of present-day man getting his own breakfast alone. The main difference is that in the former condition individuals obtained the food as nature left it, and passed it directly from the bush or tree to the mouth, while in modern times thousands of people have been working indirectly to make it possible for a man to wait on himself.

      Jack London, in his Before Adam, gives a very interesting picture of the tribe going out to the carrot field for its breakfast, each individual helping himself. However, such an aggregation around a common food supply must eventually lead to co-operative economic methods. But we do find even among modern living tribes of low degree of culture the group following the food quest, whether it be to the carrot patch, the nut-bearing trees, the sedgy seashore for mussels and clams, the lakes for wild rice, or to the forest and plains where abound wild game.

      We find it difficult to think otherwise than that the place of man's first appearance was one abounding in edible fruits. This fact arises from the study of man's nature and evidences of the location of his first appearance, together with the study of climate and vegetation. There are a good many suggestions also that man in his primitive condition was prepared for a vegetable diet, and indications are that later he acquired use of meat as food. Indeed, the berries and edible roots of certain regions are in sufficient quantity to sustain life throughout a greater part of the year. The weaker tribes of California at the time of the first European invaders, and for many centuries previous, found a greater part of their sustenance in edible roots extracted from the soil, in nuts, seeds of wild grains, and grasses. It is true they captured a little wild game, and in certain seasons many of them made excursions to the ocean or frequented the streams for fish or shell-fish, but their chief diet was vegetable. It must be remembered, also, that all of the cultivated fruits to-day formerly existed, in one variety or another, in the wild species. Thus the citrous fruits, the date, the banana, breadfruit, papaw, persimmon, apple, cherry, plum, pear, all grew in a wild state, providing food for man if he were ready to take it as provided. Rational selection has assisted nature in improving the quality of grains and fruits and in developing new varieties.

      In the tropical regions was found the greatest supply of edible fruits. Thus the Malays and the Papuans find sufficient food on trees to supply their wants. Many people in some of the groups in the South Sea Islands live on cocoanuts. In South America several species of trees are cultivated by the natives for the food they furnish. The palm family contributes much food to the natives, and also furnishes a large supply of food to the markets of the world. The well-known breadfruit tree bears during eight successive months in the year, and by burying the fruit in the ground it may be preserved for food for the remaining four months. Thus a single plant may be made to provide a continuous food supply for the inhabitants of the Moluccas and Philippines. Many other instances of fruits in abundance, such as the nuts from the araucarias of South America, and beans from the mesquite of Mexico, might be given to show that it is possible for man to subsist without the use of animal food.

       The Variety of Food Was Constantly Increased. – Undoubtedly, one of the chief causes of the wandering of primitive man over the earth, in the valleys, along stream, lake, and ocean, over the plains and through the hills, was the quest for food to preserve life; and even after tribes became permanent residents in a certain territory, there was a constant shifting from one source of food supply to another throughout the seasons. However, after tribes became more settled, the increase of population encroached upon the native food supply, and man began to use his invention for the purpose of its increase. He learned how to plant seeds which were ordinarily believed to be sown by the gods, and to till the soil and raise fruits and vegetables for his own consumption. This was a period of accidental agriculture, or hoe culture, whereby the ground was tilled by women with hoes of stone, or bone, or wood. In the meantime, the increase of animal food became a necessity. Man learned how to snare and trap animals, to fish and to gather shell-fish, learning by degrees to use new foods as discovered as nature left them. Life become a veritable struggle for existence as the population increased and the lands upon which man dwelt yielded insufficient supply of food. The increased variety of food allowed man to adapt himself to the different climates. Thus in the colder climates animal food became desirable to enable him to resist more readily the rigors of climate. It was not necessary, it is supposed, to give him physical courage or intellectual development, for there appear to be evidences of tribes like the Maoris of New Zealand, who on the diet of fish and roots became a most powerful and sagacious people. But the change from a vegetable diet to a meat-and-fish diet in the early period brought forth renewed energy of body and mind, not only on account of the necessary physical exertion but on account of the invention of devices for the capture of fish and game.

       The Food Supply Was Increased by Inventions. – Probably the first meat food supply was in the form of shell-fish which could be gathered near the shores of lakes and streams. Probably small game was secured by the use of stones and sticks and by running the animal down until he was exhausted or until he hid in a place inaccessible to the pursuer. The boomerang, as used by the Australians in killing game, may have been an early product of the people of Neolithic Europe. In the latter part of the Paleolithic Age, fish-hooks of bone were used, and probably snares invented for small game. The large game could not be secured without the use of the spear and the co-operation of a number of hunters. In all probability this occurred in the New Stone Age.

      The invention of the bow-and-arrow was of tremendous importance in securing food. It is not known what led to its invention, although the discovery of the flexible power of the shrub, or the small sapling, must have occurred to man as he struggled through the brush. It is thought by some that the use of the bow fire-drill, which was for the purpose of striking fire by friction, might have displayed driving power when the drill wound up in the string of the bow flew from its confinement. However, this is conjectural; but, judging from the inventions of known tribes, it is evident that necessity has always been the moving power in invention. The bow-and-arrow was developed in certain centres and probably through trade and exchange extended to other tribes and groups until it was universally used. It is interesting to note how many thousands of years this must have been the chief weapon for destroying animals or crippling game at a distance. Even as late as the Norman conquest, the bow-and-arrow was the chief means of defense of the Anglo-Saxon yeoman, and for many previous centuries in the historic period had been the chief implement in warfare and in the chase. The use of the spear in fishing supplemented that of the hook, and is found among all low-cultured tribes of the present day. The American Indian will stand on a rock in the middle of a stream, silently, for an hour if necessary, watching for a chance to spear a salmon. These small devices were of tremendous importance in increasing the food supply,

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