Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries by Edwin E. Slosson
page 16 of 299 (05%)
page 16 of 299 (05%)
|
an ocean liner.
Cain, or whoever it was first slew his brother man, made use of a stone or stick. Afterward it was found a better weapon could be made by tying the stone to the end of the stick, and as murder developed into a fine art the stick was converted into the bow and this into the catapult and finally into the cannon, while the stone was developed into the high explosive projectile. The first music to soothe the savage breast was the soughing of the wind through the trees. Then strings were stretched across a crevice for the wind to play upon and there was the Æolian harp. The second stage was entered when Hermes strung the tortoise shell and plucked it with his fingers and when Athena, raising the wind from her own lungs, forced it through a hollow reed. From these beginnings we have the organ and the orchestra, producing such sounds as nothing in nature can equal. The first idol was doubtless a meteorite fallen from heaven or a fulgurite or concretion picked up from the sand, bearing some slight resemblance to a human being. Later man made gods in his own image, and so sculpture and painting grew until now the creations of futuristic art could be worshiped--if one wanted to--without violation of the second commandment, for they are not the likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. In the textile industry the same development is observable. The primitive man used the skins of animals he had slain to protect his own skin. In the course of time he--or more probably his wife, for it is to the women rather than to the men that we owe the early steps in the arts and sciences--fastened leaves together or pounded out bark to make |
|