THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY 141 



lowered by 136 per cent. But the infant mortality 

 of Hungary amounts to less than a fourth part of the 

 general mortality, so that when its average life-term 

 has reached a point 80 per cent, higher than it is at 

 present, this result will not to a material extent have 

 been caused by the fact that the infant mortality has 

 declined by 136 per cent. 



It is therefore pretty much a delusive belief that 

 so generally prevails, that the decline in the mortality 

 of infants and young children has been the dominating 

 factor in prolonging the average span of human life. 

 The conditions of Mediaeval Europe were so evil and 

 insanitary, that people died at all ages very much 

 faster than they do now, and very few attained to 

 what is to-day considered as old age. Anyone who 

 will take the trouble to ascertain, where it is possible 

 to do so, the ages at death of the men who attained 

 to any kind of eminence or notoriety before the end of 

 the sixteenth century, will discover that their average 

 age was much below the average age attained by 

 notable and eminent men during the last century. 

 There can exist no doubt that, from the constantly 

 recurring pestilences, as well as from prevailing 

 insanitary conditions at all times, the adult mortality 

 of Mediaeval Europe was much in excess of what can 

 now be found anywhere on the Continent, except it be 

 in the most backward, unwholesome, and insanitary 

 parts of Kussia. 



But though this must have been the case, yet in 

 relation to the general mortality the mortality of 



