io8 THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 



fertile and evolved the highest qualities of Energy, Persever- 

 ance, and Courage in man, and the knowledge of God and 

 His Trinity in his mind and so produced the dawn of civilisa- 

 tion and of the attribute of Understanding. In this age com- 

 mences the dawn of Agriculture and Knowledge, and in the 

 Age of Cain the first dawn of Religion, in the form of 

 Idolatry amongst the Chinese and mankind in general. 



But as Man's mind is but very imperfectly evolved at 

 this period of Evolution, it would be absurd to expect him 

 to evolve any but a ver.y imperfect and materialistic form of 

 religion, such as Idolatry. All this will be more fully ex- 

 plained when we come to the Tenth Day of Religion, which 

 forms our next chapter. But what we are most concerned with 

 at this age is the fight between savagery and civilisation. It 

 is probable that agriculture and civilisation had their first 

 dawn amongst the Mongolian Races in the form of gardening 

 in the warmer climates, which lent themselves more readily to 

 permanent settlement. The agricultural or civilised portion is 

 represented by Cain, the husbandman, and the less civilised 

 portion by Abel, the huntsman or shepherd, who preferred to 

 lead a nomadic life. During this period the civilised portion 

 live in constant dread of the inroads of the rnore savage tribes 

 of the north around them, who are continually making hostile 

 incursions into their cultivated districts. Prior to this the 

 children of Abel had departed to the north and populated the 

 whole of northern Europe. 



It is probable that during two hundred thousand years Man 

 was practically uncivilised, and that there was very little agri- 

 culture till after the Glacial Period. But through all this 

 period of cold and rain it was only the tropical climates that 

 offered any inducement to agriculture. When warmth returned 

 to the North the more civilised Mongolian embarked, in search 

 of new fields of agriculture, on the great Mongolian emigra- 

 tion, which extended even to Lapland, and it is noticeable 

 that the districts through which this great migration swept, 

 namely, China, Siberia, Northern Persia, the richer portions 

 of Russia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland and England, 

 are still the agricultural communities of the world. Egypt, 

 Persia, and India appear to have had different and later civili- 

 sations though also of Mongolian origin, but the extreme suit- 

 ability of these countries for agriculture is sufficient to 



