66 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



in accord with this law that we find the most eminent men 

 leaving few or no children ; for instance Alexander, Julius 

 CcTssar, Napoleon, Gcx3the, Shakespeare, Washington, etc. The 

 British peerage affords further illustration. " Twenty years 

 ago," says Carly in 1858, " the number of peers was three 

 hundred and ninety-four, of whom no less than two hundred 

 and seventy-two were the result of creations subsequent to 

 1760. From 1611 to 1819 no less than seven hundred and 

 fifty-three baronetcies had become extinct ; and yet the total 

 number created had been less than fourteen hundred." The 

 same tendency is observable among the aristocracies of other 

 nations, ancient and modern. 



Dr. William Elder forcibly sets forth some of the reasons of 

 this tendency as founded on physiological principles.'* The 

 discussion is interesting and instructive, and altogether plaus- 

 ible, covering the whole grounds of, and making provisions 

 for, the apparent exceptions noted above in the hunter and 

 pastoral tribes. But it is not necessary to seek all the philo- 

 sophical grounds of the law in question. We should certainly 

 be warranted a priori in presuming that a wise Providence 

 would so adjust the relations of sustenance and population 

 that the increase of the latter would gradually diminish as it 

 approximated the possible limits of the former, and that when 

 these limits were reached, it would wholly cease. That there 

 are so many facts which go to corroborate this presumption 

 and so few making against it, which cannot be otherwise 

 accounted for, ought to give some force of conviction of its 

 truth. Clearly enough, nature intended that men and women 

 should marry and multiply and replenish the earth, and that 

 for all who follow this Divine ordering there should be sus- 

 tenance provided, and that she will adjust the relations of the 

 two without any artificial intermeddling of man. If there is 

 at any point a derangement in these relations, such as to work 

 destruction or distress to any portion of the population, it is 



* Questions of the Day: Economic aud Social. Pliiladelpiiia, 1871. 



