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The Journal of Heredity 



bc^nnning in France and America an 

 actual decline in the birth-rate. This 

 decline did not become pronounced in 

 Western Europe until the decade 1870 to 

 1880. It is more than a coincidence 

 that at this same period Mrs. Annie 

 Besant and her confreres in Theosophy 

 began o])enly to advocate New-Mal- 

 thusianism. They contended that the 

 number of children in a family should be 

 consciously limited. To this extent 

 they agreed with the moral restraint 

 doctrine of Malthus; but they did not 

 advocate the postponement of marriage, 

 but rather interference with the normal 

 processes of reproduction. Since the 

 late seventies the entire Western world 

 has silently acquiesced in this doctrine, 

 so that we find today that contrary to 

 the expectation of Malthus, our world 

 is no longer in the mysterious and inex- 

 orable grasp of nature's demand to 

 increase, but rather man is achieving 

 control of his own perpetuation. This 

 control is spreading to all ranks of the 

 population so that for the first time in 

 history the conflict of a democratic 

 demand for high standards of living 

 with the forces of sex and race responsi- 

 bility threatens the perpetuation of 

 entire nations. Man's expanding knowl- 

 edge gives him the true freedom which 

 comes from a conscientious and intelli- 

 gent control of his environment and his 

 own destiny, but of all his achiev^ements 

 none is so momentous for the future as 

 the control over the forces of his own 

 generation. 



HERBERT SPENCER's THEORY. 



Another ver}' interesting historical 

 theory of population is that set forth by 

 Herbert Spencer in the early fifties. The 

 main thesis which Spencer sought to 

 demonstrate is that there is a direct and 

 unaltcrah)le ojjposition between individu- 

 ation or individual develojjment and 

 genesis. His fundamental contention 

 was that the surplus energy of an organ- 

 ism has two possible uses — individual 

 growth or activity and multijjlication. 

 He showed that as animals grow in size, 

 and above all as their nervous systems 

 become larger and more complex the 

 number of their ofTspring becomes 

 smaller. As the individual of a species 

 becomes highly developed and therefore 



able to compete more successfully with 

 its natural enemies, the balance of nature 

 requires that the offspring shall dimin- 

 ish in number. A codfish, countless 

 numbers of whose eggs and young will 

 be eaten, must spawn a million eggs to 

 produce one mature descendant, but not 

 so with the shark, the elephant, or man. 

 Now, without going further into Spencer's 

 reasoning, we may see here a funda- 

 mental principle to guide us in consider- 

 ing the problem before us. 



In the earlier stages of social evolu- 

 tion the possibilities of individual de- 

 velopment were narrowly restricted by 

 the necessities of racial subsistence and 

 perpetuation. But as man achieved a 

 larger and larger control over nature, as 

 he acquired knowledge and material 

 goods, the importance of the individual 

 increased, until in modern societies the 

 perfection of the individual personality 

 has come to be the chief end of social 

 endeavor. It is among those peoples 

 and classes where the number of ofT- 

 spring is greatest that individual de- 

 velopment is lowest. On the other 

 hand progress in knowledge and the 

 spread of the fruits of civilization to the 

 lower class is everywhere accomjaanicd 

 by a decrease in the size of the family 

 and an increase in individual develop- 

 ment. But if the forces of individua- 

 tion, that is the opportunities and 

 desires for personal achievement and 

 enjoyment, outrun the forces of genesis, 

 that is the obligations to the race, civil- 

 ization will defeat itself by jjroducing 

 race suicide. 



There is still another generalization 

 from S])encer of special interest in this 

 connection. He laid down as the final 

 criteria by which one may judge the 

 stage of evolution of the family the 

 following princi])les: the first end of the 

 family is i)eri)etuation of the species; 

 the second is the welfare of the ofFsj^ring; 

 and the third the welfare of the i)arents. 

 That form of family is best whicli fulfills 

 in due proportion all three ]jur]joses. 

 He therefore drew the conclusion that 

 that form of family is highest in which 

 the period j^receding rejjroduction is 

 lengthened ; in which the number of off- 

 spring is reduced to the minimum con- 

 sonant with the peri)etuation of the 

 species; in which the lives of j^arents are 



