PERVERSION OF RACE CHARACTER 153 



Given opportunity or temptation and they would 

 surely satisfy it that way. 



Both opportunity and temptation came quickly 

 enough. For action is always in the line of least 

 resistance or greatest attraction. It has been men- 

 tioned in an earlier paragraph of this chapter, that 

 about this time some of the ' ' hominidae ' ' had begun 

 to store small accumulations of the necessaries of 

 existence, in or near their family retreats, for future 

 use. These little supplies furnished temptation and 

 opportunity. Nothing is more attractive or tempt- 

 ing to animals or brute men, than ready-made sup- 

 plies of the necessaries of existence or objects of 

 desire. The possible supplies, out of sight and hard 

 to find, and to be gathered only as the result of labo- 

 rious, persistent, risky efforts, cannot in these respects 

 compare with those already accumulated. Here, 

 then, was opportunity, temptation, and the line of 

 greatest attraction. 



Nor was it in the least difficult or dangerous for 

 artificially armed, fiercely combative, rude, savage 

 men to overcome the resistance of the helpless fe- 

 males and young, who were sometimes and in some 

 places left during all the day as sole defenders of 

 these accumulations. So this was also the line of 

 least resistance. 



At first such attacks were probably few and rare. 

 For the very fact of the existence of small accumu- 

 lations relieved some of the men from the necessity 

 of going daily in search of food, and by the premises 



