The Useful Arts Employed in the Construction of Dwelling Houses

Synopsis

The dwellings of mankind, at first rude and simple in the extreme, increase in complexity as their inhabitants advance in civilization. Primitive dwellings are scarcely distinguished by signs of superior skill or sagacity above the holes and nests of the lower animals. The hut of the Hottentot may be considered as an inverted nest, and it is certainly not more ingenious than the nests of many birds; but where man constructs such a habitation for himself, he is invariably in a low state of civilization. The wants of the bird are few and simple, and the nest is a temporary abode annually constructed and annually deserted: the wants of man, in a state of nature, are almost as limited, and thus the Hottentot’s hut affords him as good a nest as he desires. 

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