POPULATION PROBLEMS 201 



of expedients — exposing the children, infanticide, abor- 

 tion, emigration, war, and so on. The Trojan War 

 was definitely regarded as a timely solution of the 

 problem of " a world too full of people." Moreover, 

 epidemics and famine often halved the number of eaters ; 

 irrigation, improved cultivation, and the Hke occasion- 

 ally increased the food-supply. In Greece an equilib- 

 rium was attained about the time of Aiistotle and 

 Alexander the Great. But as Professor J. L. Myres points 

 out, industrial slavery, indifference to parenthood, 

 addiction to club-Ufe brought a most gifted race to an 

 end. Dean Inge suggests that another factor was 

 hopelessness about a future life, but that does not seem 

 to have affected the Chinese. Of more importance 

 probably, as a factor in decline, was the failure to give 

 the women and the children opportunities for systematic 

 education, and the short-sighted acquiescence in the 

 breaking up of home-hfe. These things are a parable for 

 our instruction. 



Industrial Age. — For a long time before the eigh- 

 teenth century there seems to have been in Britain 

 a slow increase of numbers or even a population- 

 equihbrium (as now in China), save for short periods 

 after wars and plagues. Births made up for deaths. 

 There were more births than deaths in the country, 

 which God made ; and there were more deaths than 

 births in the towns, which man made ; so that town 

 and country between them kept a balance. The apolo- 

 gists for Providence in those days used to refer to this 

 wonderful adjustment of births and deaths. 



