202 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



Swedish people have been given some education in this 

 matter by their parhament, particularly some years ago 

 when the birth rate was falling. In Sweden there is no il- 

 literacy and very little poverty, which, some authorities 

 feel, are the arch enemies of a population where hygiene is 

 practiced. According to these observers the birth rate will 

 fall in an intelligent, economically sound population, even 

 though the highest-level medicine and hygiene are cutting 

 down the death rate. Something like this happened in Swe- 

 den, and it was this that was brought to the attention of the 

 Swedish people some years ago by a special "baby parlia- 

 ment." The people responded in just about the right way 

 and the births and deaths have been balanced. 



Contrast this with the situation in Puerto Rico where the 

 peon, living in abysmal poverty, wanders about begetting 

 himself, and a well-meaning but almost equally ignorant 

 paternalism makes every effort to save the product of his 

 sexual activity, only to condemn it to misery, the least of 

 which is a lifelong malnutrition. The solution is obviously 

 indicated, and it would seem to be the most cruel sort of 

 bigotry and superstition that would prefer poverty and 

 famine and disease to birth control. 



So far in this brief review of the tendency toward over- 

 population we have not mentioned one of its most danger- 

 ous aspects, that of differential birth. Here, it would seem, 

 even in our more favorably situated populations, is a hidden 

 menace— a difference in birth ratios which tends to reduce 

 the over-all average of intelligence in the society. This 

 possible reversal of an age-long evolutionary trend toward 

 higher mentality in the human deserves careful considera- 

 tion in the next chapter. 



