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sense, it can hardly be denied that the reforms which have had the greatest visible effects on the social conditions of mankind have been inventions and the introduction of improved methods in agriculture and manufacture. Though no one denies that remarkable results have thus been produced, yet doubts have been expressed whether in the highest matters progress has thus really been promoted. Let us in imagination conceive ourselves to be dressed in home-made clothes and boots and to be living in a cottage with no glass in the windows, no coal to burn, no lamp to light, no bicycle to ride, and no books or papers to read and unable to read them if there were any, these being the conditions of the poor not so very long ago; and with this picture in our minds, we must, at all events, admit that mechanical inventions have added enormously to the comfort of the masses. And it is not only in outward things that the world has thus benefited; for mechanical contrivances have greatly facilitated the transfer of knowledge from place to place and from generation to generation. If it be argued that the propaganda of evil has been promoted by the printing press, for example, as much or more than the propaganda of good, which I do not believe, may it not be said in reply that, if this be so, it is human nature and not the inanimate machine which is to blame? The cure lies in improving mankind and not in destroying all mechanical contrivances. The fact to which attention is here mainly directed is, however, that the cheapening of the cost of production of food and of other goods, due to the use of new methods, has resulted, concurrently with this advance in material welfare, in an enormous increase in the population. This being granted, it is not rash to prophesy that old inventions will be more and more utilized in the future, new inventions will continue to be made, and that for some time to come population will continue to increase with on the whole a simultaneous increase in welfare. It is true that as regards this country, certain statistical investigations have indicated the probability that our increase in numbers will not continue for many more years; yet, as regards the world as a whole, the

foregoing prophecy seems to me to be one that can be made with confidence. And what we want to know is how these changes in regard to numbers and material welfare will affect the race. These are the eugenic questions which now present themselves for consideration.

The population of the world must often have remained stationary for long periods of time; and when numbers were neither increasing nor decreasing, it is obvious that the number of married couples was about the same in any two succeeding generations. When this was the case, the disappearance of, say, a thousand married couples was being made good by the appearance of almost an exactly equal number of couples; or, in other words, in a stationary population the average number of the offspring of the parents of one generation who themselves became parents in the next generation is exactly two, no more and no less. When the population is increasing, the average number of the children in each family who themselves will become parents, or the average size of the fertile family, instead of being two, will be somewhat above that number; for the pairs in any one generation are then being replaced by a somewhat greater number of pairs in the next generation. A comparison between the birth and death rates in England in the early years of this century indicates that in the absence of emigration the population would have doubled itself in about sixty or seventy years. Turning from what is to what might be, what we want to know is how big would be the family on the average in the absence of all checks on multiplication; or, in other words, what are the facts concerning human fecundity. The average size of the families of the feeble in mind is over seven, their number not being restricted by any prudential considerations on the part of the parents. As there certainly are, however, some checks on fertility even in the case of mental defectives, there is no reason why normal persons should not under the most favourable conditions have considerably larger families than this; and we may conclude that in the absence of all impediments to marriage and of all extraneous dangers to life, at the very least eight children would on the

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average grow up themselves to become parents. In these circumstances the population would double itself in less than fifteen years, this being comparable with the period of say seventy years in which our population was apparently doubling itself some time before the war. Obviously, then, there are forces at work which at the present time are preventing our numbers from increasing as quickly as they might do. What are these forces?

The causes which result in a certain density of population obtaining at a certain time differ from each other in regard to the rapidity of their action, some acting quickly, some at a moderate pace, and some exceedingly slowly. Each of these three groups of causes may be considered separately, together with the condition of things which would arise, or the position of equilibrium which would be established, if each group of causes were to act alone, or rather in the absence of the more slowly acting groups. Considering, in the first place, the balance which must be established between the more quickly acting forces, a balance which can only be slowly disturbed by the more slowly acting forces, we have seen that human fecundity might produce a far more rapid increase in numbers than is now in fact taking place. This possibly rapid increase must, therefore, have been balanced temporarily by agencies tending to keep down the population with the necessary effectiveness; and these agencies are infanticide, abortion, the use of contraceptives, continence, celibacy, the postponement of marriage, death and disease. These are the agencies which amongst them have been reducing the numbers of the fertile family from more than eight to about four; and here we have to ask what are the mental and other influences which have brought these agencies into action to such an extent as to produce the results actually observed.

The most obvious stimulus to the agencies tending quickly to keep down numbers is the actual or prospective difficulty of providing in a suitable manner for all the young and unproductive members of a growing family, a difficulty which will increase regularly with every addition to the family. As the family increases in size,

the alleviation to family troubles which might be gained by infanticide, abortion, contraceptives and continence become more and more apparent, and these practices, or some of them, will become more frequent; whilst at the same time infantile mortality will also increase because of the many ways in which increasing numbers add to the difficulties of family life. Pulling against these increasing tendencies to keep down numbers, the sexual and parental instincts are always steadily at work tending to promote fertility and to prevent infantile mortality; thus producing at some one point a balance or temporarily stable density of population. No one likes abortion, infanticide, continence, or the use of contraceptives, or but few do; and it therefore needs a strong motive to enforce their adoption to a sufficient extent to counterbalance at any point the strongest of all human instincts. To prove that all these practices have at times come to be sanctioned by tradition only indicates that, long before that sanction was accorded, the disadvantages of large families had left their mark in a manner sufficiently impressive to produce enduring results. It appears thus far, therefore, that a temporary equilibrium in regard to the density of the population, in so far as it is unconsciously produced, results from the increased infantile mortality often inevitably due in large families to want of food and of maternal care; and, in so far as it is consciously produced, from the traditional check produced by the telling lessons which have been taught to parents in the past by the many troubles connected with the rearing of large families.

The population of all countries is, we see, ever ready to increase, and would begin to increase with great rapidity if at any time the checks which hold back this flood were to be materially weakened; and to impress this fact upon the attention of the world was the great achievement of Malthus. His conclusions had previously been published by others; he did not clearly foresee the trend of coming events, and economic science has advanced considerably since his day; but his views with regard to the supply of population remain "substantially correct," and his Essay was "the starting point of all modern

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speculations on the subject." Those who have studied the statistics of infantile mortality can hardly yet deny that "the silent though certain destruction of life in large towns and manufactories, and the close habitations and insufficient food of many of the poor, prevent the population from outrunning the means of subsistence"; or, at all events, that the most extreme misery would prevail if these and other checks on multiplication, with which Malthus was fully acquainted, were not in constant operation.2

In civilized communities the only stimulus which selfish prudence may give to fertility is because the production of a family may be regarded as an insurance against poverty in old age. Modern conditions, including the prohibition of child labour and the greater mobility of the population, with the consequent weakening of family ties, have greatly diminished the possibility of reliance being placed on contributions being received from children in old age. Those who habitually take thought for the morrow will, therefore, probably be more tempted in the future than in the past to remain unmarried or, if married, to restrict rigidly the number of their offspring. The pecuniary advantages of producing a large family will, therefore, come to be more and more outweighed by the pecuniary advantages of producing a small one. As to these latter advantages, as soon as the idea that it is possible to limit the size of the family is fully realized, and this really seems to be only a modern conception, all thoughtful parents will consider to what extent further additions to the number of their offspring would affect the welfare of themselves and of their children already born; and such forethought obviously stimulates continence in marriage and the use of contraceptives. The consumption of commodities other than food will enter into the economic calculations of all but the poorest quite as much or more than questions concerning the bare necessaries of life. The checks on population, in so

1 Principles of Economics. (Marshall, 3rd Edit., pp. 257 and 259.) • Malthus, Essay on Population, Book I, Chap. XIII, pp. 311-12. (Everyman Edit.)