550 



NATURE 



[October 13, 1923 



births to Nature, is biologically al)surd. The rapid 

 cumulative increase following on any practical applica- 

 tion of this idea would within measurable time make 

 civilisation impossible in this or any other planet. 



In fact, this idea is no more a fundamental part of 

 human thought than is the doctrine of laissez Jaire in 

 economics, which has been its contemporary, alike in 

 dominance and in decay. Sociology and history show 

 that man has scarcely ever acted on this idea ; at 

 nearly all stages of his development he has, directly or 

 indirectly, limited the number of his /iescendants. 

 Vital statistics show that the European races, after a 

 phase of headlong increase, are returning to restriction. 

 The revolutionary fall of fertility among these races 

 within the past fifty years, while it has some mysterious 

 features, is due in the main to practices as deliberate 

 as infanticide. The questions now facing us are how 

 far the fall will go ; whether it will luring about a 

 stationary white population after or long before the 

 white man's world is full ; how the varying incidence 

 of restriction among different social classes or creeds 

 will affect the stock ; how far the unequal adoption of 

 birth control by different races will leave one race at 

 the mercy of another's growing numbers, or drive 

 it to armaments and perpetual aggression in self- 

 defence. 



To answer these questions is beyond my scope. 

 The purpose of my paper is rather to give reasons for 

 suspending judgment until we know more. The 

 authority of economic science cannot be invoked for 

 the intensification of these practices as a measure for 

 to-day. Increased birth control is not required by 

 anything in the condition of Europe before the War, 

 and is irrelevant to our present troubles. But behind 

 these troubles the problem of numbers waits — the last 

 inexorable riddle for mankind. To multiply the people 

 and not increase the joy is the most dismal end that 

 can be set for human striving. If we desire another 

 end than that, we should not burk discussion of the 

 means. However the matter be judged, there is full 

 time for inquiry, before fecundity destroys us, but 

 inquiry and frank discussion there must be. 



Two inquiries in particular it seems well to suggest 

 at once. The first is an investigation into the potential 

 agricultural resources of the world. There has been 

 more than one elaborate examination of coal supplies ; 

 we have estimates of the total stock of coal down to 

 various depths in Britain and Germany, in America, 



China, and elsewhere; we can form some imp 

 of how long at given rates of consumption each < 

 stocks will last ; we know that " exhaustion " is iioi 

 an issue for this generation or many generations t . 

 come. There has Ixien no corresponding study <•: 

 agricultural resources ; there is not material even for 

 a guess at what proportion of the vast regions — in 

 Canada, Siberia, South America, Africa, Australia- 

 now used for no productive purpose, could be mad. 

 productive ; and what proportion of all the " pro 

 ductive " but ill-cultivated land could with varyiriL 

 degrees of trouble be fitted for corn and \> 

 Without some estimate on such points, discu> 

 the problem of world population is mere groping in the 

 dark. The inquiry itself is one that by an adequate 

 combination of experts in geographic and economic 

 science — not by a commission gathering opinions or 

 an office gathering statistical returns — it should n<ji 

 be difficult to make. 



The second is an investigation into the physical, 

 psychological, and social effects of that restriction of 

 fertility which has now become a leading feature of the 

 problem. This also is a matter neither for one person 

 — for its scope covers several sciences — nor for a 

 commission ; facts rather than opinions or prejudices 

 are required. 



If the question be asked, not what inquiries should 

 be made but what action should now be taken, it is 

 difficult to go beyond the trite generalities of recon- 

 struction, of peace and trade abroad, of efficiency and 

 education at home. The more completely we can 

 restore the economic system under which our people 

 grew, the sooner shall we absorb them again in pro- 

 ductive labour. Unless we can make the world again 

 a vast co-operative commonwealth of trade, we shall 

 not find it spacious enough or rich enough to demand 

 from Great Britain the special services by which alone 

 it can sustain our teeming population. Even if the 

 world becomes again large enough to hold us, we shall 

 not keep our place in it with the ease of Victorian 

 days ; we dare no longer allow, on either side of the 

 wage bargain, methods which waste machinery or 

 brains or labour. Finally, if there be any question of 

 numbers, if there be any risk that our people may grow 

 too many, the last folly that we can afford is to lower 

 their quality and go back in measures of health or 

 education. Recoil from standards once reached is the 

 gesture of a community touched by decay. 



Obituary. 



Mr. Frederick Chambers. 



THE death is announced of Mr. Frederick Chambers, 

 late Meteorological Reporter for Western India, 

 at the age of seventy-seven years. Mr. Chambers was 

 the younger brother of Charles Chambers, who went 

 out from Kew Observatory in 1864 to take charge of 

 the Colaba Observatory, Bombay. Frederick went out 

 as assistant to his brother. In 1873 ^is paper, "The 

 Diurnal Variation of the Wind and Barometric Pres- 

 sure at Bombay," was published in the Phil. Trans, 

 of the Royal Society, and another paper, " Mathe- 

 matical Expression of Observations of Complex 

 Periodical Phenomena ; Planetary Influence on the 



NO. 2815, VOL. 112] 



Earth's Magnetism," written in collaboration with 

 his brother, appeared in the Phil. Trans, in 1875. 

 About this time Mr. Chambers was appointed Meteoro- 

 logical Reporter for Western India. A quotation 

 from the first annual report which he printed is not 

 without interest. It is explained that meteorological 

 instruments had been sent out from England in 1852, 

 " the duty of making the observations at those places 

 being imposed on the senior medical officers " ; the 

 comment is made, " We would hope that from the zeal 

 and energy of medical officers in charge of European 

 hospitals and their love of science, the observations 

 may be made by themselves and their establishments. 



