98 HUMAN FECUNDITY 



question of sexual excitement has any bearing at all upon the 

 degree of fecundity as between higher and lower races, it must be 

 in the direction of rendering the lower races less fertile. 



It was observed in the second chapter that the wilhngness of the 

 female to receive the male at any time in the sexual cycle is 

 a peculiarity of man. It may be observed in passing that evidence 

 has lately been brought forward suggesting that the indifference 

 of the female to the point in the sexual cycle at which intercourse 

 takes place has been exaggerated, or rather that the existence of 

 periods of desire has been somewhat overlooked.^ However this 

 may be, what concerns us here is the. peculiar fact that the male 

 is received by the female at any time in the sexual cycle. It is 

 possible that copulation at one time in the sexual cycle is more 

 likely to result in conception than at other times, though the facts 

 are obscure. But whether this is so or not is scarcely relevant to 

 our purpose, because there is no reason to think that there have 

 been any variations in the practice of copulation between one 

 time and another or between one race and another, as could have 

 sensibly affected fecundity even if the hmitation of copulation to 

 one period of the sexual cycle is of marked importance. 



9. Lastly, we have to refer to what we may call the statistical 

 evidence. The interpretation of the evidence as to number of 

 children among primitive races is so difficult a matter that it 

 cannot in itself be held to throw much hght upon the question of 

 fecundity. The trend of the evidence, however, certainly supports 

 the conclusion that fecundity is less among primitive races than 

 among civihzed races. There are a vast number of observations 

 recorded by travellers regarding the number of children among 

 these races. For the most part these observations have reference 

 only to the number of children seen alive, and therefore are not 

 even a measure of the fertility — far less a measure of the fecundity. 



Practically all such observations emphasize the small size of the 

 families. When dealing with hunting and agricultural races in 

 another connexion we shall have reason to refer in some detail 

 to this evidence. Here we may give a few typical examples of this 

 evidence, remembering that it is evidence for the most part of the 

 number of children seen and not of the number of children born, 

 though, in selecting the following examples for quotation, an 

 effort has been made to pick out those in which the authors have 



' Slopes, Married Love, p. 68. 



