"Another kind of poison was met with on Lake Nyassa, which was said to be used exclusively for killing men. It was put on small wooden arrowheads, and carefully protected by a piece of maize-leaf tied round it. It caused numbness of the tongue when the smallest particle was tasted. The Bushmen of the northern part of the Kalahari were seen applying the entrails of a small caterpillar which they termed 'Nga' to their arrows. This venom was declared to be so powerful in producing delirium that a man in dying returned in imagination to a state of infancy, and would call for his mother's breast. Lions when shot with it are said to perish in agonies. The poisonous ingredient in this case may be derived from the plant on which the caterpillar feeds . It is difficult to conceive by what sort of experiment the properties of these poisons, known for generations, were proven . Probably the animal instincts, which have become so obtuse by civilization....were in the early uncivilized state much more keen. In some points instinct is still retained among savages...[T]he earlier portions of the human family may have had their instincts as to plants, more highly developed than any of their descendants --if indeed much more knowledge than we usually suppose be not the effect of direct revelation from above."
P. 369-370, "The Expedition is Recalled," NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE ZAMBESI by David and Charles Livingstone (1865)
[Is earliest human knowledge derived from 1)direct revelation 2) instinct 3)experiments 4)all of the above 5)combination of above 6)none of above?]
Sunday, September 17, 2017
ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE
"Another kind of poison was met with on Lake Nyassa, which was said to be used exclusively for killing men. It was put on small wooden arrowheads, and carefully protected by a piece of maize-leaf tied round it. It caused numbness of the tongue when the smallest particle was tasted. The Bushmen of the northern part of the Kalahari were seen applying the entrails of a small caterpillar which they termed 'Nga' to their arrows. This venom was declared to be so powerful in producing delirium that a man in dying returned in imagination to a state of infancy, and would call for his mother's breast. Lions when shot with it are said to perish in agonies. The poisonous ingredient in this case may be derived from the plant on which the caterpillar feeds . It is difficult to conceive by what sort of experiment the properties of these poisons, known for generations, were proven . Probably the animal instincts, which have become so obtuse by civilization....were in the early uncivilized state much more keen. In some points instinct is still retained among savages...[T]he earlier portions of the human family may have had their instincts as to plants, more highly developed than any of their descendants --if indeed much more knowledge than we usually suppose be not the effect of direct revelation from above."
P. 369-370, "The Expedition is Recalled," NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE ZAMBESI by David and Charles Livingstone (1865)
[Is earliest human knowledge derived from 1)direct revelation 2) instinct 3)experiments 4)all of the above 5)combination of above 6)none of above?]