i26 PHYSICAL BASIS OF CIVILIZATION 



A female quadruped, a few days after delivery, 

 may go in search of food unhindered by the off- 

 spring trotting at her heels. If enemies appear, 

 the mother faces them, and the little ones keep at 

 a safe distance or go into temporary hiding until 

 the battle is over. Even if a young one is occasion- 

 ally captured by an enemy or disappears, the loss 

 is not important to the race, for large litters are 

 frequently reproduced. 



But in the human race, one child, once a year, 

 during a few years, comes very near being the limit 

 of reproductive capacity, and this one, during the 

 long period of its helpless infancy, has to be carried 

 in arms by the mother whenever she goes in search 

 of aliment, or it must be left behind unprotected and 

 unprovided. Evidently, then, the survival chances 

 of mother and offspring are not much, if any, better 

 after the birth of the latter than they would have 

 been shortly before, had not the male consort then 

 come to the relief of the sorely troubled female. 

 And in this case now under discussion the same sort 

 of relief must have come from the same source. 



Such a proceeding had very decided survival 

 value, and any families in which the male consorts 

 showed a disposition to provide food and protection 

 for their mates and offspring must have been selected 

 for preservation, while those which were lacking in 

 it were left to die out. Nor could natural selection 

 neglect the extent or quality of this disposition. 

 For if the males of certain families had a disposition 



