The Story of the Stick in All Ages and Lands; A Philosophical History and Lively Chronicle of the Stick as the Friend and the Foe of Man. Its Uses and Abuses. as Sceptre and as Crook. as the Warrior's Weapon and the Wizard's Wand. as Stay, as Stimulus, an (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: In this respect the moderns bear a strong resemblance to the primitive people. Authority, backed by a sword (a stick of another sort), induces in us a spirit of submission which the sword alone would produce as well. Men have never shown that they felt a platonic love for the stick?they have only feared it. CHAPTER IV. The Pre-historic Stick. The stick of the age of Flint.? The stick of the descendants of Jabel.? The first weapon of war.? To what nation do we owe it The ravaging conquerors of old times.? Those of to-day. HE archtTcology of pre-historic times shows us examples of the primitive stick with which our forefathers used to defend themselves against ferocious beasts. A dart, formed by the bone of some animal, - or cut from the horn of the young reindeer, with a sharpened flint, was artistically fixed in the endof a long stick. When I say artistically, I say it deliberately. In spite of the extraordinary simplicity, and the coarseness of the labor, we see that the artist has exercised his taste as well as his skill in fixing the head solidly into the stock. Ah! at that time life was not a torment, as it is in our day. Hunting and fishing sufficed for men's needs, and if it be true that necessity is the mother of industry, it is also true that the leisure of an easy life engenders art. Those were happy times when the descendants of Jubal, the first shepherd, used the stick only to guide their flocks. Tubal Cain had taught men the art of working in metals, but the descendants of Abel for a long time only used them for the pickaxe and the plough. They had not as yet thought of arming with deadly iron the peaceful staff on which they leaned while watching their flocks. I see in imagination the first inhabitants of the earth, scattered along the bank...