126 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



race must deteriorate with ever-increasing rapidity, till 

 it approaches that of the lowest types among us. Let 

 us investigate the facts with no panic alarm, but with 

 no self-complacent blindness to sinister indications. 



All the subjects that we have hitherto investigated 

 lead naturally to a consideration of the actual birth- 

 rate. The inheritance of ability or of feeble-minded- 

 ness, the circumstances bringing about a rise or fall 

 in the social scale of certain families, are subjects 

 which some people may think right to put aside, as 

 matters either of purely scientific interest or of recon- 

 dite genealogical research. But the number and kind 

 of people born into a nation, whether they are likely 

 to be a help or a hindrance to the community, to need 

 fewer schools or more lunatic asylums, to require 

 supporting or to support others, to be able to defend 

 themselves or to offer themselves and others an easy 

 prey to any attack, — all these are points of vital im- 

 portance to every sane person, and are brought home 

 to him in a practical manner every time the rate collector 

 calls at the door, the Income Tax Commissioners deliver 

 their demand, or the cook gives notice and cannot be 

 replaced. 



Now a study of the birth-rate of all Western civilized 

 nations has one immediate effect — the compulsory real- 

 ization of dwindling values throughout. Corrected for 

 whatever other causes the statistician can bring to bear, 

 increased longevity in especial, the one fact remains 

 perfectly clear. In proportion to the population, whether 

 we consider France, Belgium, England, Germany, rural 

 districts alike with urban areas, the number of children 



