Because of it he became a road builder and a bridge
builder; likewise, he wove clumsy sails of rush and matting. At a
very remote period he must also have recognized that force moves
along the line of least resistance, and in virtue thereof, placed
upon his craft rude keels which enabled him to beat to windward in a
seaway. As he excelled in these humble arts, just so did he add to
his power over his less progressive fellows and lay the foundations
for the first glimmering civilizations--crude they were beyond
conception, sporadic and ephemeral, but each formed a necessary part
of the groundwork upon which was to rise the mighty civilization of
our latter-day world.
Divorced from the general history of man's upward climb, it would
seem incredible that so long a time should elapse between the moment
of his first improvements over nature in the matter of locomotion and
that of the radical changes he was ultimately to compass. The
principles which were his before history was, were his, neither more
nor less, even to the present century.
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