MAN'S DEVOTION 119 



a change. In no other way is it natural, in no other 

 would it be rationally thinkable, that food could 

 have been provided for the pregnant females in 

 concealment. It was brought to them by their 

 male consorts. Since only in this manner it could 

 come to pass, since the survival of the race depended 

 on its occurrence, and since the race has survived, 

 therefore the conclusion is warranted that it hap- 

 pened in this way. 



Such conduct is not confined to the human race, 

 but has been observed among baboons and anthro- 

 poid apes; and male birds have been known to 

 bring food to their mates during the period of 

 incubation. Nor need one search far for the cause 

 of this habit. Evidently it had survival value, 

 especially in the case of man. For, in the struggle 

 for existence, the tendency would be to preserve 

 and multiply families in which the males had a 

 disposition favorable to this trait, and, on the con- 

 trary, to eliminate those in which they had not. 

 Natural selection, therefore, accounts for the fact 

 that this habit has now become wellnigh universal 

 in the race. 



To the argument contained in the five paragraphs 

 immediately preceding, it might be objected that 

 the description of the situation presented has not 

 been derived from observation, but may on the con- 

 trary be characterized as an assumption created 

 by the imagination; which, on account of the 

 remoteness of the era in which it is laid, cannot be 



