ABSTRACT

Early in his cultural history, in the early half of the Paleolithic age, man knew the natural phenomenon of fire; and early he learned to control it for his own use. Fire thus became early in his history a cultural weapon and tool which man found vital for his immediate existence and subsequent advance to his position as "Master of the Planet." Much later, man, forced by circumstances over which he had no control, found that the earth, too, was capable of protecting him and nourishing him in his struggle for existence; he found that the earth was capable of multiplying, under care, his scanty stocks of collected seed and, by that multiplication, capable of furnishing him the food of which he was deprived by the vanishing herds of wild game.