Because of the growth and improvement he has received through work, the tom-tom has long given place to the piano, and the tent to the modern home. Through struggle with nature, he has been piqued into a determination to conquer her, to ferret out her secrets, and master her processes. The forces that oppose him he makes to serve him. The river current, which forbids him to cross, he utilizes to ferry him over. He sets his sail in the wind blowing eastward and avails himself of its power to carry him westward. The waves that rise to engulf him he turns into steam to outride them. The winds draw his water, the river saws his plank. The tail of the beaver is adjusted by nature to the mud he needs to cement his dam; his tooth is already adjusted to the hardness of the tree, so that he cuts it down by instinct and without thought. The eagle finds the air already under his wings when he would fly, and his talons already prepared to hold his food, or to grasp a limb in the forest. The fish finds itself in the beginning of its existence in an element ready to respond to its fins, and in the presence of food adapted to its life. The lower animals find themselves at the start in a world immediately adjusted to their needs, so that they have only to use their feet, their teeth, their horns, their claws, their wings, and their fins, to conquer their enemies and find their food. The animal is wholly governed by natural law, and hence has no history. He moves on nature’s level, and is adjusted to her plains, her forests, her seas, and her skies, without his thought or his device. Man is not related in the same outward, immediate way to clothing, food, and fuel. His understanding, it is true, corresponds to the scheme of nature, but he must grow into this by study, by insight, by hints, by the use of faculties the lower animals do not possess. As long as he remains on the plain of the tiger and panther, and emulates their stealthy step to creep upon his prey, or his human foe, like them, he has no history.