Book Description

Excerpt from Man Before Metals The only trustworthy annals of primitive humanity are written in the Book of Nature; to it, therefore, we should have recourse. Unfortunately many leaves have disappeared, or have been effaced from this great book, written by the hand of God, and those which remain are for the most part hard to interpret. Hence, in spite of the precept of ancient philosophers (yvw0t oeavTov) that which man knows least well is himself. For in fact neither his body, his affections, nor his mind, nor the vital principle which animates him, are entirely known to him; he is ignorant of his origin, his cradle, his history. But on the other hand, man has measured the heavens, and calculated the weight of the earth and the distance of the stars. He has converted Jove, the Thunderer of old, into a mere messenger, who instantaneously transmits the thought, and even the voice of man from one end of the world to the other. He is able, moreover, by another unlooked for wonder, to recall the voice of the dead. He has taught golden-haired Phœbus and pale Diana to paint their image, his own, or that of anything he wishes, on the lens of a camera-obscura, and has even reduced them to the humble role of copyists of our ancient manuscripts. He has dethroned Neptune, and laughs at his terrors. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.