PREFACE 7 



problem singly, is not the way to solve it. A wholly 

 exaggerated importance is attached to the reports of 

 commissions. 



The conception that the fluctuations of the birthrate 

 are governed by a natural law, and that luxurious con- 

 ditions are unfavourable to fecundity, is not new. 

 Saddler, in particular, in his work, The Law of Population, 

 brought together a considerable body of evidence in 

 support of this view, and quoted in its favour the testi- 

 mony of Hippocrates, Herodotus, Aristotle, Bacon, 

 Rousseau, Adam Smith and other notable men. Even 

 before Saddler, many medical men, among others Dr. 

 Short, Dr. Black, and Dr. Buchan, were alive to the 

 fact that, as Bacon had put it, " Repletion is an enemy 

 to generation," or, in Dr. Black's words, that " high 

 refinement is an obstacle to propagation." 



Saddler summarises Dr. Short's views, as set forth in 

 his work, New Observations, etc., on Bills of Mortality, 

 etc., as follows : "He asserts over and over again, and 

 throughout his whole work, that poor food and hard labour 

 are conducive to prolificness, and consequently. that * the 

 poorest and most laborious part of mankind,' to use 

 his own words, ' are the fruitfullest.' He even carries 

 this idea so far as to conclude that the most laborious 

 and toilsome months of the year are the most fruitful 

 of conceptions, and attributes the great fruitfulness of 

 the Israelites in Egypt, as a secondary cause, to their 

 bondage and affliction. He explains the inferior fecundity 

 of town breeders as compared with those of the country 

 as arising, among other things, from the more plentiful 

 eating and drinking, and the greater idleness, which 

 prevail in populous towns, observing that the most 

 voluptuous, idle, effeminate and luxurious are the 

 barrenest ; and he delivers what I believe to be an 



