Lecture IV -^ 



THE NUMBERS OF MEN 



In the lectures that have preceded this we have examined some 

 of the more important respects in which man the animal is 

 uniquely different from all other animals. In this survey very 

 little was said about one of the most important of man's biologi- 

 cal characteristics that he shares not only with other animals 

 but with all other living things, namely the capacity and urge 

 to reproduce. This urge is a powerful one — nearly the most 

 powerful known in the whole realm of biology. And its con- 

 sequences to humanity are far-reaching. They lie at the root 

 of our most serious and baffling social problems and troubles 

 today. All over the world a great deal of emotion is being spent 

 and thought exercised over such matters as poverty, unem- 

 ployment, social unrest, war, and human misery generally. Not 

 only governments but also ways of living generally are almost 

 everywhere being radically altered in the pathetic hope that we 

 shall by this process suddenly emerge into a new and better 

 world. Yet ever since man has existed there surely has been 

 poverty (because men have always had unequal talents and 

 luck in acquiring goods) j there has been unemployment (be- 

 cause men have been unequally endowed in respect of laziness 

 and capacity) \ there has been social unrest (because the zest 

 for trouble-making was never exactly equally distributed among 

 men — if it had been the uniform dose to each individual would 

 have been too small to produce any physiological effect) ; there 

 have been wars (because man is by nature a fighting animal) j 

 and there has always been misery (because talent for being 



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