THE ERA OF HELPLESSNESS 3 $ 



robber type for men, introracial predatoriness, and 

 finally the train of political, economic, and conven- 

 tional conditions under which humanity exists in 

 this age. 



To state the results briefly : as heretofore shown, 

 the erect attitude of our brute ancestors must have 

 come so quickly after the modification of the ento- 

 cuneiform and in the position of the foramen, that 

 for practical purposes the two events were simulta- 

 neous. In all cases in which they were not, as before 

 explained, additional disabilities, perils, and infirmi- 

 ties greater than those resulting from the erect 

 attitude alone were incurred. These made the 

 survival of that kind of creatures at least unthink- 

 able if not absolutely impossible. 



After the occurrence of these two anatomical 

 modifications, our earliest brute ancestors therefore 

 must have been very much like ourselves in body, 

 and in mind like those brutes related to the quad- 

 rumana, which were their immediate progenitors. 

 The erect attitude had arrived, but the superior 

 intelligence of man had not yet come. 



Some consideration must now be devoted to the 

 complex process by which, among highly specialized 

 sexually reproducing animals, traits that have arisen 

 through variation are eliminated if they lessen adap- 

 tation and increased in degree and in the number of 

 individuals endowed with them if they improve it. 



It follows, from the general likeness in structures 

 and outward appearances which prevails in higher 



