Home / Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906. / Passage

Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names

Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906. 323 words

Man, once the companion of the Dragons of the prime That tare each other in their slime, ihas flowered into an intellectual, reasoning, moral being -- " how infinite in faculty ; in form and moving how express and admirable ; in action how like an angel ; in apprehension how like a god." All this progress, however, has cost its price. Step by step has the race advanced from primeval animalism to its present status. It has walked with bleeding feet. The Divine economy works in many ways. One of its ways is to educate, stimulate and spiritualize through antagonism and pain. All faculties, functions and potencies must be worked in order that they may grow. Atrophy,

138 NEW YORK STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.

decay, death, are the resuhant of non-use. The sullen earth was to be fertilized by man's sweat and blood before it would yield any increase beyond its spontaneous productions. Conflict with the elements, conquest over the lower organisms ; ages of toilsome effort, were to come before man was able " to dress the earth and keep it." Out of the iron necessities of his being came initial progress ;and progress once begun has never ceased. The great factor in progress was 00-operation. One man alone can do little. The moment human necessities were recognized, the law of association applied. Man needed man. The family group, the clan, the tribe, the town, the city, the state, the nation, have been stages in the process of closer and closer co-operation. Confederation, association, combination, require adjustment, compromise, regulation. Hence the germ of government. To live together each man must give way in something to the other. Man is gregarious ; he is naturally social ; instinctively he availed himself of the companionship of other men. The social status, the foedera generis huviani, were slowly evolved from the increasing demands of man upon man ; they were not the result of bargaining.