52 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



always at war with their neighbors. They are liable to 

 many accidents on land and water in their search for food ; 

 and in some countries they suffer mu(;h from the largei 

 beiists of prey. Even in India, districts have been depop- 

 ulated by the ravages of tigers. 



Malthus has discussed these several checks, but he does 

 not lay stress enough on what is probably the most import- 

 ant 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. MMjcnnan* has shown, 

 on a still more extensive scale. These practices appear to 

 have originated in savages recognizing the difficulty, or 

 rather the impossibility of supporting all the infants that 

 are born. Licentiousness may also be added to the forego- 

 ing checks; but this does not follow from failing means of 

 subsistance; 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 

 the lowest savages at the present time. Our early semi- 

 human progenitors would not have practiced infanticide or 

 polyandry; for the instincts of the lower animals are never 

 so perverted t as to lead them regularly to destroy their own 

 offspring, or to be quite devoid of jealousy. There would 

 have been no prudential restraint from marriage, and the 

 sexes would have freely united at an early age. Hence the 

 progenitors of man would have tended to increase rapidly; 



* " Primitive Marriage," 1865. 



f A writer in the " Spectator" (March 12, 1871, p. 320) comments 

 as follows on this passage: "Mr. Darwin finds himself compelled to 

 reintroduce a new doctrine of the fall of man. He shows that the 

 instincts of the higher animals are far nobler than the habits of sav- 

 age races of men, and he finds himself, therefore, compelled to re- 

 introduce in a form of the substantial orthodoxy of which he 

 appears to be quite unconscious and to introduce as a scientific 

 hypothesis the doctrine that man's gain of knowledge Avas the cause 

 of a temporary but long-enduring moral deterioration, as indicated by 

 the many foul customs, especially as to marriage, of savage tribes. 

 What does the Jewish tradition of the moral degeneration of man 

 through his snatching at a knowledge forbidden him by his highest 

 instinct assert beyond this ? " 



