Development of Modern Civilization

81:1.1For about thirty-five thou­sand years af­ter the days of Adam, the cra­dle of civ­i­liza­tion was in south­west­ern Asia, ex­tend­ing from the Nile val­ley east­ward and slightly to the north across north­ern Ara­bia, through Mes­o­po­ta­mia, and on into Tur­kes­tan. And cli­mate was the de­ci­sive fac­tor in the es­tab­lish­ment of civ­i­liza­tion in that area.

81:1.2It was the great cli­matic and ge­o­logic changes in north­ern Africa and west­ern Asia that ter­mi­nated the early mi­gra­tions of the Adamites, bar­ring them from Eu­rope by the ex­panded Med­i­ter­ra­nean and di­vert­ing the stream of mi­gra­tion north and east into Tur­kes­tan. By the time of the com­ple­tion of these land el­e­va­tions and as­so­ci­ated cli­matic changes, about 15,000 B.C., civ­i­liza­tion had set­tled down to a world-wide stale­mate ex­cept for the cul­tural fer­ments and bi­o­logic re­serves of the And­ites still con­fined by moun­tains to the east in Asia and by the ex­pand­ing forests in Eu­rope to the west.

81:1.3Cli­matic evo­lu­tion is now about to ac­com­plish what all other ef­forts had failed to do, that is, to com­pel Eurasian man to aban­don hunt­ing for the more ad­vanced call­ings of herd­ing and farm­ing. Evo­lu­tion may be slow, but it is ter­ri­bly ef­fec­tive.

81:1.4Since slaves were so gen­er­ally em­ployed by the ear­lier agri­cul­tur­ists, the farmer was for­merly looked down on by both the hunter and the herder. For ages it was con­sid­ered me­nial to till the soil; where­fore the idea that soil toil is a curse, whereas it is the great­est of all bless­ings. Even in the days of Cain and Abel the sac­ri­fices of the pas­toral life were held in greater es­teem than the of­fer­ings of agri­cul­ture.

81:1.5Man or­di­nar­ily evolved into a farmer from a hunter by tran­si­tion through the era of the herder, and this was also true among the And­ites, but more of­ten the evo­lu­tion­ary co­er­cion of cli­matic ne­ces­sity would cause whole tribes to pass di­rectly from hunters to suc­cess­ful farm­ers. But this phe­nom­e­non of pass­ing im­me­di­ately from hunt­ing to agri­cul­ture only oc­curred in those re­gions where there was a high de­gree of race mix­ture with the vi­o­let stock.

81:1.6The evo­lu­tion­ary peo­ples (no­tably the Chi­nese) early learned to plant seeds and to cul­ti­vate crops through ob­ser­va­tion of the sprout­ing of seeds ac­ci­den­tally moist­ened or which had been put in graves as food for the de­parted. But through­out south­west Asia, along the fer­tile river bot­toms and ad­ja­cent plains, the And­ites were car­ry­ing out the im­proved ag­ri­cul­tural tech­niques in­her­ited from their an­ces­tors, who had made farm­ing and gar­den­ing the chief pur­suits within the bound­aries of the sec­ond gar­den.

81:1.7For thou­sands of years the de­scen­dants of Adam had grown wheat and bar­ley, as im­proved in the Gar­den, through­out the high­lands of the up­per bor­der of Mes­o­po­ta­mia. The de­scen­dants of Adam and Adam­son here met, traded, and so­cially min­gled.

81:1.8It was these en­forced changes in liv­ing con­di­tions which caused such a large pro­por­tion of the hu­man race to be­come om­niv­o­rous in di­etetic prac­tice. And the com­bi­na­tion of the wheat, rice, and veg­etable diet with the flesh of the herds marked a great for­ward step in the health and vigor of these an­cient peo­ples.