526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



strictivc influence on fecundity ; it should tend, then, to re-establish 

 that equilibrium between the increase of population and the increase 

 of subsistence which scientific philanthropy seeks to realize, and which 

 it reproaches sentimental charity with destroying. The point is worthy 

 of examination. 



What are the laws of the multiplication of species, neglect of 

 which, according to Malthus, Darwin, and Mr. Spencer, is as preju- 

 dicial to the philanthropist as to the naturalist, in the connected prob- 

 lems of population, selection, civilization, and benevolence ? The first 

 of these laws, as formulated by Messrs. Howorth, Doubleday, and 

 Spencer, is that a greater development of individuality brings on a 

 diminished fecundity for the species : if animals of one species, the 

 human species, for instance, have a more intense individual life than 

 those of another species, the progress in the volume of the brain, in 

 physical or moral development, and in the complexity and activity of 

 the functions, is compensated for as to that species by a lessened gen- 

 erative aptitude. Man is the living species in which individuality and 

 its functions are carried to the highest point ; and it is also the least 

 prolific of the species. The reason of this law, according to Mr. Spencer 

 and M. de Candolle, is that the intensity of the individual life implies 

 a taking possession of materials which can no longer serve for other 

 organisms ; generation, on the contrary, is a disintegration which sub- 

 tracts from the organism a part of its substance. In short, individu- 

 ality is an acquisition ; generation is a loss. Now, that which com- 

 pletes individuality, which is what we might call its highest expansion, 

 is the life of the intellect and affections. Consequently, the animal 

 species, or the human races that live most by thought and feeling, are 

 those which have the least generative power. To the objection that, 

 in fact, civilized races are more numerous than others, Mr. Spencer 

 answers that civilization, by diminishing a host of destructive forces, 

 augments the means of subsistence, and thus maintains population at 

 a superior figure ; but the height of this figure is dependent on indi- 

 viduals having a greater faculty of conserving themselves, not on the 

 species having a greater generative power. 



The second law that regulates the multiplication of beings is, that 

 richness of nutrition augments fecundity, while the expenditure pro- 

 duced by the exercise of the functions of relation, and chiefly the 

 intellectual expenditure, diminishes it. Poor and badly-fed races are 

 naturally the least prolific. The Irish seem to form an exception ; but 

 the increase in number among them is dependent on their marrying 

 early (whence is derived a faster succession of generations), and on 

 their improvidence in imposing no restraint upon themselves ; in short, 

 upon quite other causes than the generative force proper. Recipro- 

 cally, the increase of the vital expenditure, especially of the intellect- 

 ual expenditure, tends to lower the degree of fecundity. This law 

 still proceeds from the same principle : that what the individual ac- 



