16 THE LAW OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 



woman?' who had fifty-seven children ; another who had 



; a -id a third who had fifty-two, "never less 

 than three at a birth." Yet, " according to Bertillon 

 and other authorities, the European average shows that 

 100 married women will have in their life 420 children," * 

 or an average of 4*2 per marriage. To what is this 

 enormous difference between the potential fertility and 

 the actual fertility of the race due ? 



There are, of course, many incidental causes, such as 

 late marriages and early deaths, diseases and various 

 peculiar customs among many races ; but such causes 

 go only a trifling way towards explaining the vast differ- 

 ence. As regards disease, there is no ground for believing 

 that those diseases which are most likely to cause sterility 

 are more prevalent now than they were when the birth- 

 rate was at its highest, so that factor as a possible ex- 

 planation may be dismissed. 



Apart from merely incidental factors, we may assume 

 the difference between the potential and the actual 

 fertility of the race to be due to one of two causes : a 

 natural law which regulates the degree of fertility to suit 

 approximately the needs of the race, or evasion of child- 

 bearing by artificial methods. The second of these is 

 the explanation usually adopted. 



During the first three-quarters of last century the 

 birthrate was substantially higher than it is at present, 

 although it was, even then, only a fraction of the potential 

 fertility of the race. Then, as now, the largest families 

 were produced among just those classes which could 

 least afford to rear them, and the inevitable hardships 

 which resulted led to the formation of the Neo-Malthusian 

 League, the express purpose of which was the dissemina- 

 tion of information as to the means by which excessive 



1 Dictionary of Statistics, Mulhall. 



