DECLINE IN THE BIRTH-RATE i8i 



many different classes, so many persons of divergent 

 aims, ideals, and circumstances. Various causes must 

 be at work to produce so widespread a result, such a 

 general tacit agreement at once to restrict the number 



of offspring. 



We must, then, look for many contributory 

 tendencies. An economic pressure, though doubtless 

 important in some cases, cannot be universally para- 

 mount, when the results to be explained are apparent 

 among eminent professional men as well as artisans, 

 among financial magnates as well as impoverished 

 country landowners. No one ideal of life can cover 

 all cases, when we have to look among high-principled 

 men and women of marked public spirit, as well as 

 among those who waste their lives in a perpetual round 

 of selfish and idle amusements. 



Let us begin by analysing a cause to which reference 

 has been made in the last chapter ; a cause which, we 

 believe, has been very potent among some of the 

 best of our population. The feeling of overwhelming 

 responsibility towards possible children is a product 

 of our developing moral sense, and in itself is a right 

 and desirable feeling. When directed towards securing 

 the best parents for the succeeding generation, it is 

 perhaps the most important of the agencies to which 

 we must look to preserve and improve our race. But 

 when the feeling of individual responsibility takes 

 the form of restricting the number of children, even 

 in a healthy and able family, to those for whom it is 

 possible to make a perfectly secure pecuniary provi- 

 sion, it degenerates into mistaken kindness, and, m 



