326 Social Evolution 



certain amount of stress and strain, but it is equally 

 undoubted that if this competition becomes too se- 

 vere the race goes down and not up ; and it is further 

 true that the race existing under the severest stress 

 as regards this competition often fails to go ahead 

 as fast even in population as does the race where 

 the competition is less severe. No matter how large 

 the number of births may be, a race can not increase 

 if the number of deaths also grows at an accelerat- 

 ing rate. 



To increase greatly a race must be prolific, and 

 there is no curse so great as the curse of barrenness, 

 whether for a nation or an individual. When a peo- 

 ple gets to the position even now occupied by the 

 mass of the French and by sections of the New 

 Englanders, where the death rate surpasses the 

 birth rate, then that race is not only fated to extinc- 

 tion, but it deserves extinction. When the ca- 

 pacity and desire for fatherhood and motherhood 

 is lost the race goes down, and should go down ; and 

 we need to have the plainest kind of plain speaking 

 addressed to those individuals who fear to bring 

 children into the world. But while this is all true, 

 it remains equally true that immoderate increase 

 in no way furthers the development of a race, and 

 does not always help its increase even in numbers. 

 The English-speaking peoples during the past two 

 centuries and a half have increased faster than any 

 others, yet there have been many other peoples whose 

 birth rate during the same period has stood higher. 



Yet, again Mr. Kidd, in speaking of the stress of 



