292 THE EEGULATION OF NUMBERS 



be within any area a certain desirable density of population — 

 the optimum number — it has been argued that there will come 

 about an approximation to this number owing to the practice of 

 certain habits and customs restrictive of increase. It has further 

 been argued that, except under most unusual circumstances, 

 habits and customs having primarily, and not merely incidentally, 

 this result, must everywhere exist. This is seldom realized. 

 Professor Myres, for instance, after remarking upon the fertility 

 of ancient Egypt and of Assyria, says that * anything like infanti- 

 cide was out of the question '.^ It is clear from the context that 

 he is thinking not of infanticide in particular but of any practices 

 restrictive of increase — the implication being that in a fertile 

 country, where skill is increasing, there is a sufficient outlet for 

 the increase of population resulting from the power of human 

 increase. Again, it has been asserted that the Bantu races do 

 not commit infanticide — at least on a large scale — as do many 

 other primitive races, because, inasmuch as they have been in 

 movement for an unknown length of time, the attrition following 

 upon the war that is always in progress at the fringe of the 

 movement is sufficient to absorb the ' surplus population '. 

 But it has been forgotten that the Bantu races practise prolonged 

 abstention from intercourse — a custom quite as effective as 

 abortion and infanticide — as may be seen when the evidence as 

 to the small average number in a family is considered ; ^ for the 

 average number in a Bantu family is as small as among primitive 

 races in general, and it cannot be held that attrition through war 

 falls seriously upon others than adults. It therefore follows that 

 war among these people affords but an insignificant amount of relief. 



16. Turning now to the methods of adjustment, we may take 

 the first two groups together and afterwards the third group. 

 War and migration, however, may be put aside and considered 

 separately at the end of the chapter. As regards the first two 

 groups it is necessary to say no more than this : evidence has been 

 produced to show that everywhere among primitive races either 

 abortion, infanticide, or prolonged abstention from intercourse 

 are practised in such a degree and in such a manner as to have as 

 their primary result the restriction of increase. 



The question as to how far these practices are effective in 



^ Myres, Eiigenics Review, vol. vii, p. 21. * Also abortion, as we have seen, 



is not uncommon. 



