Note 1 — Chapter II · Food, Cannibalism, Mammals Fish, Hunting, and Fishing.

The Vedas show us Indra, armed with a wooden club, seizing a stone with which to pierce Vritra, the genius of evil.1 Does not this call up a picture of the earliest days of man upon the earth? His first weapon was doubtless a knotty branch torn from a tree as be hurried past, or a stone picked up from amongst those lying at his feet. These were, however, but feeble means with which to contend with formidable feline and pachydermatous enemies. Man bad not their great physical strength; he was not so fleet a runner as many of them; his nails and teeth were useless to him, either for attack or defence; his smooth skin was not enough protection even from the rigor of the climate. Such inequality must very quickly have led to the defeat of man, had not God given to him two marvellous instruments: the brain which conceives, and the hand which executes. To brute force man opposed intelligence, a glorious struggle in which he was sure to come off victorious, for in the words of Victor Hugo, “Ceci devait tuer cela.” The huge animals of Quaternary times have disappeared for ever, whilst plan has survived, victor over Nature herself. Even before his birth, an immutable decree had ordained that nothing on the earth should check his development.