EVOLUTION OF MAN AND ITS CONTROL 65 



wholly take the place of a lofty and rational idea of marriage, to be 

 brought about by an uplifting of public opinion. It is difficult to bring 

 under the control of the mind a province that has for so long been left 

 almost superstitiously to caprice, but much can be done, in an age of 

 growing social responsibility, to produce a genuine respect and desire 

 for marriage as a necessity to the complete life. More and more we see 

 an appreciation of the immortality achieved by the training up of 

 children to the betterment of the world. 



Chapter VI. The Distribution of Births 



Even if it were possible to attain the ideal working of sexual selec- 

 tion the task of eugenics is not completed. 



Fecundal selection, or the principle of descent from those leaving 

 the most numerous offspring, seems to be the most powerful influence 

 in the contemporary evolution of mankind. Throughout the western 

 civilization we find, between 1870 and 1880, the beginning of a marked 

 decline in the birth rate, which, while affecting the backward races 

 least of all, shows no signs of abating at present. 



Among the causes of this decrease may be mentioned the more ex- 

 pensive standard of living in civilized countries, the competition of 

 other than domestic activities, greater ambition for the child coupled 

 with greater fluidity of social classes, and, last and most important, a 

 greater knowledge of the physiology of reproduction and the prevention 

 of conception. 



Though this general decline in the birth rate gives in itself no 

 special cause for alarm, the serious consideration is that this decline is 

 distributed very unevenly through the social classes. Pearson brings 

 out this point very clearly, the differential character being shown by 

 the fact that in Copenhagen 25 per cent, of one generation is producing 

 from 50 to 60 per cent, of the next. The personnel of this 25 per cent, 

 is not encouraging. The analysis of Pearson, Heron and others for 

 London shows that the decrease in birth rate is greatest among families 

 of the highest income and social position, while Passy gives the birth 

 rate for rich Paris as 1.9, of poor Paris as 2.8. Figures for the United 

 States show that the decline affects American blood far more heavily 

 than that of the immigrants, the Massachusetts birth rate in 1890 being 

 only 2.4 for the native as against 4.3 for the foreign population. The 

 old Puritan families are gradually disappearing — that of John Alden, 

 for instance, will in the next generation be extinct in the male line — 

 while the Finns, Portuguese and French Canadians are spreading over 

 New England. College-bred men and women are apparently failing 

 even to replace themselves, the married members of the Harvard classes 

 above referred to, themselves but a small proportion, having an average 

 of but two surviving children twenty-five years after graduation. 



vol. lxxvi. — 5. 



