PREFACE 11 



essential parts of the problem have been dismissed as 

 briefly as possible in order to economise space for the 

 main purpose of the work. 



Among the most puzzling facts of anthropology and 

 history have been the small apparent advance in intellect 

 made by the human race during thousands of years, 

 and the invariable decline of ancient races after reaching 

 a high pinnacle of wealth and civilisation. The facts 

 cease to be very mysterious, however, in the presence 

 of a law which causes the birthrate to decline with the 

 deathrate, and renders the race sterile when a certain 

 stage of development has been reached. Humanity has 

 been likened to a candle which perpetually burns away 

 at the top and is renewed from below. It is obvious 

 that, if this is so, progress beyond a certain level will 

 be impossible unless the difficulty be grappled with, the 

 obstacle to further evolution overcome, and an intelligently 

 regulated birthrate among the abler sections of the com- 

 munity secured. It is time that the matter was thoroughly 

 threshed out. 



The problem of the declining birthrate is now a critical 

 one for the French nation. In a decade or so, at the 

 present rate of progress, we shall have reached the point 

 where France stands now. So it behoves us to make 

 up our minds whether we will initiate an intelligently 

 directed inquiry, determined to leave no stone unturned 

 to solve the problem, or persist in barking up the wrong 

 tree until our civilisation crumbles beneath our feet. 

 The whole future of the human race depends upon the 

 solution of the problem of the birthrate and population. 

 Compared with it, troubles in Ireland, unemployment, 

 or even such events as the recent great war, are merely 

 passing ripples on the surface of our civilisation. It is 

 a problem which has interested every great thinker upon 



