MANIFESTED IN HUMAN SOCIETY 118 



Africa has been ravaged by the slave trade for centuries. 

 Huge areas have been devastated again and again. 

 Pestilences on a gigantic scale have swept the country. 

 The people have been continually lighting amongst 

 themselves. The infantile mortality rate is, of course, 

 enormous. In spite of all these factors making for an 

 enormous deathrate, the total numbers of the population 

 do not diminish. Yet we are told that the number of 

 children is less than the number of wives ! Surely the 

 age of miracles is still with us. 



The generally received opinion that the lowest races 

 are very infertile does not appear to be based on a careful 

 examination of the birthrate. Rather it seems to be 

 due to a superficial observation of the number of living 

 children. Where the deathrate is very high, a high 

 birthrate is quite compatible with small families. We 

 have seen that various observers estimate that nine out 

 of ten of the children born to the lower-class Chinese 

 never grow up. This means, if true, that in order to 

 maintain the numbers of the population an average of 

 twenty children must be born to every two adults. Even 

 allowing for exaggeration, it is easy to see that there may 

 be a high birthrate and still small families. If these low 

 races are actually infertile, it can hardly be because they 

 lead harder lives than the lower-class Chinese ; nor is 

 it to be supposed that they are governed by different 

 biological laws. 



The Equatorial Africans live in a country with a fertile 

 soil and a hot, moist climate a country which produces 

 an abundance of crops in return for a small amount of 

 labour. Compare this with the Russian peasant woman, 

 living in a cold and inhospitable climate, with a compara- 

 tively infertile soil. She labours in the field along with 

 the men, and is even said to assist in drawing the plough. 



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