civilization.

It is not difficult to point out such epochs in human progress.
The greatest of all, because it was the first, is one of which we
find no record either in written or geological history. It was the
epoch when our progenitors first took conscious thought of the
morrow, first used the crude weapons which Nature had placed
within their reach to kill their prey, first built a fire to warm
their bodies and cook their food. I love to fancy that there was
some one first man, the Adam of evolution, who did all this, and
who used the power thus acquired to show his fellows how they
might profit by his example. When the members of the tribe or
community which he gathered around him began to conceive of life
as a whole--to include yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow in the
same mental grasp--to think how they might apply the gifts of
Nature to their own uses--a movement was begun which should
ultimately lead to civilization.

Long indeed must have been the ages required for the development
of this rudest primitive community into the civilization revealed
to us by the most ancient tablets of Egypt and Assyria. After
spoken language was developed, and after the rude representation
of ideas by visible marks drawn to resemble them had long been
practised, some Cadmus must have invented an alphabet. When the
use of written language was thus introduced, the word of command
ceased to be confined to the range of the human voice, and it
became possible for master minds to extend their influence as far
as a written message could be carried. Then were communities
gathered into provinces; provinces into kingdoms, kingdoms into
great empires of antiquity. Then arose a stage of civilization