92 PHYSICAL BASIS OF CIVILIZATION 



turned toward his antagonists, his vitals are in the 

 safest possible position, and his powers for inflicting 

 injury and death are at the points of greatest availa- 

 bility. 



The same holds true of birds; but by no means 

 of the two-footed upright creature, primitive man. 

 Nature, which has so bountifully supplied other 

 mammalia with the means of offence, defence, 

 protection, and escape, had left him naked and en- 

 tirely unprovided. Hampered besides by a defi- 

 ciency of valves in the blood vessels where they are 

 needed, and a surplus where they are worse than 

 useless, with exceptional liability to femoral and 

 inguinal hernia, with his vitals, including the femoral 

 artery, prominently exposed right in front, etc., etc., 

 his condition was desperate indeed. The more so, 

 since these exposed parts are situated at nearly the 

 same elevation above ground as the sharp teeth, 

 tusks, horns, claws, and other natural means of 

 offence possessed by his most common competitors 

 and enemies. Even sheep and goats and other 

 timid or poorly armed creatures, which he probably 

 pursued for prey long before he domesticated them, 

 might claim these advantages over him. 1 



1 It has not been thought necessary to include the frontal ex- 

 posure of the reproductive organs among the disadvantages of 

 the upright attitude. But it is a feature unique in the human 

 race. In quadrupeds, these organs are concealed and protected 

 equally with the vitals, and by the same means mentioned 

 before. 



Does not this frontal exposure of the reproductive organs ex- 

 plain the existence of a psychic peculiarity which distinguishes 

 the human race from other brutes, viz, sex modesty? This 



