180 EVOLUTION 



tive. It is admitted by all inquirers into 

 the origins of civilization on one hand, into 

 the origins of cultivated plants and of domes- 

 ticated animals on the other, that practically 

 all these familiar and indispensable com- 

 panions of man are of prehistoric origin, and 

 have risen along with him, as he with them. 

 But now the corollary of this : imagine the 

 immensity not only of patient labour, but 

 of selective skill, which are comprised within 

 the steps from wild grasses to cereals, from 

 crab-apple and wild olive to the vast and 

 fruitful groves which must assuredly have 

 covered the prehistoric cultivation terraces 

 of old, stretching as these did throughout 

 the Mediterranean region from Portugal to 

 Syria thence through Asia Minor to Persia, 

 to Korea itself. One has taken the pains 

 to calculate the actual capital value of 

 these ancient Mediterranean terraces, and 

 brings out the marvellous, yet credible, 

 result that the actual economic wealth of 

 this remote prehistoric world far exceeded 

 that of the Mediterranean to-day; and this 

 not merely in its agriculture, or with roads 

 and railways thrown in, but with the existing 

 cities as well ! Here then is a view of the 

 early human past very different from the 

 picture of groping brutishness, of promis- 



