120 THE LAW OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS 



Looking at the women painted by the Old Masters of 

 the Middle Ages the change is conspicuous. This is 

 how Nitti describes them : " The painters of the Renais- 

 sance handed down figures of healthy and strong women ; 

 even the Madonnas were for the most part portraits of 

 mothers with full breasts and strong bodies, with a baby 

 on their arm or around their neck. The types of women 

 painted by Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, and even Raphael, 

 are types of healthy and robust women, under whose 

 naked bosoms runs a sound and vigorous blood." 1 Nitti 

 then goes on to utter the usual pessimistic lamentations 

 about the alleged decadence of the modern woman. In 

 this it is not necessary to follow him. It is not logical 

 to look upon the inevitable results of progressive evolution 

 and cerebral development as the stigmata of degeneration. 



A coarser type is not necessarily superior. A more 

 sensitive type is not necessarily inferior. It is true that 

 the more highly developed type does not reproduce as 

 readily as the more primitive. But if reproductive capa- 

 city be accepted as the test of superiority, man is inferior 

 to the dog or the rabbit, and almost infinitely decadent 

 when compared with those unicellular organisms from 

 which he is supposed to have evolved. Again, the average 

 business man is probably less efficient than the 'average 

 navvy at shovelling coal, but he is not to be looked upon 

 as an inferior type in consequence. Take a bird's eye 

 view of the facts as a whole : compare the big, sluggish 

 queen bee with the small and active worker ; compare 

 the big-framed lowland sheep with the small and active 

 mountain sheep ; compare the heavy, placid cart-horse 

 with the light-framed, highly-strung racer ; or compare 

 the heavy, large-boned, slow-thinking countrywoman 

 with the slight-framed, highly strung woman of the 

 1 Population and the Social System, Nitti, part ii. 



