134 THE DESCENT OF MAN. Part I. 



in large numbers. As famines are periodical, depending 

 chiefly on extreme seasons, all tribes must fluctuate in 

 number. They cannot steadily and regularly increase, 

 as there is no artificial increase in the supply of food. 

 Savages when hardly pressed encroach on each other's 

 territories, and war is the result ; but they are indeed 

 almost always at war with their neighbours. They are 

 liable to many accidents on land and water in their search 

 for food ; and in some countries they must suffer much 

 from the larger beasts of prey. Even in India, districts 

 have been depopulated by the ravages of tigers. 



Malthus has discussed these several checks, but he 

 does not lay stress enough on what is probably the most 

 important of all, namely infanticide, especially of female 

 infants, and the habit of procuring abortion. These 

 practices now prevail in many quarters of the world, 

 and infanticide seems formerly to have prevailed, as 

 Mr. M'Lennan 55 has shewn, on a still more extensive 

 scale. These practices appear to have originated in 

 savages recognising the difficulty, or rather the impos- 

 sibility of supporting all the infants that are born. 

 Licentiousness may also be added to the foregoing 

 checks ; but this does not follow from failing means of 

 subsistence ; though there is reason to believe that in 

 some cases (as in Japan) it has been intentionally 

 encouraged as a means of keeping down the population. 



If we look back to an extremely remote epoch, before 

 man had arrived at the dignity of manhood, he would 

 have been guided more by instinct and less by reason 

 than are savages at the present time. Our early semi- 

 human progenitors would not have practised infanticide, 

 for the instincts of the lower animals are never so per- 

 verted as to lead them regularly to destroy their own 



55 



' Primitive Marriage/ 1865. 



