It has been the belief of some philosophers, and poets as well, that
man has taken the hint for some of the arts he now practises from the
brute creation. Democritus represents him as having derived the arts of
weaving and sewing from the spider, and the art of building of tempered
clay from the swallow; and we also read in Pliny's "Natural History,"
that the nest of the swallow suggested to Toxius, the son of Coelus,
the invention of mortar. According to Lucretius, men learned music from
the song of birds, and Pope describes them as learning from the mole to
plough, from the nautilus to sail, and from bees and ants to form a
political community. Perhaps we were behind the beaver in felling
timber, in leading dams across rivers, and in building cabin
villages,--behind the wasp in making paper, and behind the squirrel and
spider in crossing streams upon rafts. So, if man had needed any
example of war and violence and wrong, he had only to go to the
ant-hill and see the red ants invade the camps of the black and bear
off their little negro prisoners into slavery.
Whatever truth there may be in these ideas, it is at least conceivable
that man may have profited from the example of these animals. He has
copied from patterns set by Nature in tree and leaf and flower and
plant; he has formed the Gothic arch and column from the trunks and
interlacing boughs of the lofty avenue, the Corinthian capital from the
acanthus foliage embracing a basket, and classic urns and vases from
flowers.
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