AND ITS INHABITANTS 181 



and ruin it. In the fall, no matter how tired he is, he is forced 

 to gather his crops before a sudden frost comes and spoils 

 some of them. Thus while tropical agriculture is a help 

 toward civilization, that which prevails in subtropical regions 

 is far more helpful, while that of the stormy temperate zone is 

 still more so. 



Invention of writing. We come now to the invention of 

 writing, the great step which marks the boundary line between 

 barbarism and civilization. Twice at least this step has been 

 taken, once among the Mayas in Guatemala, and once in Asia. 

 Perhaps the writing of the Chaldeans may be of different 

 origin from that of the Chinese, although we cannot speak 

 with certainty. At least the line of development of the western 

 forms of writing in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the adjacent 

 lands, has been very different from that on the eastern side of 

 the continent. However this may be, it seems certain that 

 writing was invented in regions with a variable and stimulating 

 climate, as will soon appear more fully. The invention marks 

 an era in man's development as truly as does the discovery of 

 the use of fire or the invention of the art of smelting iron. 

 When man learned to speak, the individual thereby became 

 able to avail himself of the experience of all the people around 

 him and of many people whose experiences had been handed 

 down in memory. When he learned the art of writing he no 

 longer needed to trust to memory. The minds of all the ages 

 became available to the mind of today. During the hundreds 

 of thousands of years of the previous existence of the human 

 race many a great man must have lived in vain, because among 

 his immediate associates there was none to comprehend and 

 carry out his ideas. When writing was invented, it enabled 

 such men to spread their thoughts a hundred times more 

 widely both in place and time. Who knows how greatly our 

 modern discoveries are influenced by thoughts recorded by the 

 ancient Greeks and Egyptians? 



