i 4 2 THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 



Contemporary with this development of agriculture, but 

 probably a little in advance of it, was another evolution both 

 of civilisation, government and religion, taking place through- 

 out the more northern and western portions of the globe that 

 was destined ultimately to supersede it, but was slower in its 

 growth, and which for the want of a better comprehensive term 

 I decided to call " Aryan," for, being prehistoric, it would 

 confuse my reader too much to follow the course of my com- 

 parisons of evolution with that of my hypothesis if I were to 

 use such terms as Palaeolithic and Neolithic and other sub- 

 sequent racial distinctions ; so I have decided to take the terms 

 " Cain and Abel," and " Aryan," " Chinese," and " Mon- 

 golian " instead. So, contemporaneously herewith, this Aryan 

 civilisation was steadily advancing amongst the nomadic races 

 of huntsmen and shepherds, who>, as the Bible tells us, were 

 " Dwellers in tents and caves " (see Genesis, iv., 22). 



If my reader will compare Genesis chapter iv., verses 

 19 to 23, with what follows in Chapter v., verses 3 to 31, he 

 will be struck by the extraordinary manner in which if he 

 reads between the lines, making allowances for the fact that 

 the children of Adam are only personifications of long periods 

 of time, or stages of evolution extending over somewhere 

 between two and three hundred thousand years ; just as in the 

 early history of Egypt we might talk of Memphis as a man 

 who lived from four to three thousand years before Christ, 

 and " Theban " as a man who lived from two thousand seven 

 hundred to two thousand two hundred before Christ, and 

 " Hyksos " as a man who lived from two thousand to one 

 thousand six hundred and thirty-five years before Christ. 



Now, reading Genesis in the same way, he will be struck by 

 the similarity of the accounts with what has taken place in 

 the course of evolution as described in the last chapter. Now 

 in Genesis, chapter iv., it gives us, in the children of Cain, 

 the account of the evolution of China and early Chinese civili- 

 sation and religion from the Stone Age of Cain to the Metal 

 Age of Lamech. Then in chapter v. it takes up the children 

 of Adam and Abel, about one hundred thousand years ; then 

 about another hundred thousand years brings him to Seth, 

 and another twenty thousand years takes him on to Mahalaleel, 

 who intermarried with the children of Lamech. He is then 

 taken back to Henoch and carried on to Noah, who personifies 



