734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



physical development which brings them most nearly into accord with 

 natural laws. 



Below the human strata, superabundant generation is neutralized 

 by the simple device of having every organism prey upon some other 

 one. In her ten years of fruitful life the female cod lays 50,000,000 

 eggs. If nothing thwarted the amiable efforts of herself and offspring 

 to multiply and replenish, they would shortly pack the ocean as full as 

 a box of sardines. But, while giving one animal the desire and ca- 

 pacity to produce 50,000,000 lives, Nature has given other animals 

 the desire and capacity to annihilate those 50,000,000 lives. So, all 

 through the animal kingdom it is nearly a neck-and-neck race between 

 Production and Extermination. 



Man alone is practically exempt from what is apparently an insepa- 

 rable condition of all other forms of animal life. While he preys on 

 a myriad of created things, there is no created thing that preys on 

 him, and assists in keeping his excessive reproductiveness within the 

 limits of subsistence. Most singular of all, not even a parasite wages 

 destructive warfare against him. 



This absence of destructive enemies must be compensated for in 

 some way, and it is accomplished by making vicious inclinations the 

 agents to weed out the redundant growths, and to select for extermina- 

 tion those which are inferior, depraved, weak, and unfit for preserva- 

 tion or reproduction. 



If five human beings are procreated where there is present room 

 and provision for but three, how are the surplus two to be picked out 

 and exterminated ? Of course, each one of us feels entirely competent 

 to pick out in his own community the persons who could be best 

 spared, but public opinion is at present hostile both to any practicable 

 plan of making the necessary thinning out, and also to lodging the 

 power of selection in the hands of even those of us best qualified for 

 the duty. 



Fortunately, the surplus ones relieve us from embarrassment on this 

 score, by selecting and exterminating themselves. Their methods of 

 suicide cover a wide range of expedients, but all are very effectual. 

 Most beneficent of any of the facts that we have to consider is the one 

 that each of those chosen for extermination embraces his fate with 

 eagerness, under the delusion that he is about to enhance his own hap- 

 piness. Immoderate use of stimulants, and the various excesses and 

 vital errors which are grouped under the general head of " dissipation," 

 a " life of pleasure," or the still more expressive phrase, " a short life 

 and a merry one," etc., are favorite plans of self-annihilation, and 

 leave little to be desired in the completeness with which they do their 

 work. 



Competent English statisticians estimate that, after a man has 

 begun drinking beer in large quantities, it takes him 21'7 years to kill 

 himself, and a whiskey-drinker shortens the time to 16*1 years. In- 



