62 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



and there are signs of further decline. The prospect 

 is not bright for an empire that depends so largely on 

 military ability. The classes who have hitherto lived 

 in the security and plenty won by the blood of those 

 who have earned little gratitude in return, may even 

 have to learn to fight themselves, if they wish their 

 prosperity to continue. Whether they will show the 

 necessary hereditary qualities of courage, self-sacrifice 

 and military ability, remains to be seen. 



A more complete study may be made of the stable 

 landed class, to whose great services England has owed 

 and still owes so much in unpaid and unselfish work for 

 national and local administration. Taking any book of 

 reference such as Burke s Peerage, and considering only 

 those families which have held a hereditary title for at 

 least three generations, we exclude the more modern 

 middle-class commercial element in the present peerage, 

 and get more homogeneous material. Marriages which 

 took place during the ten years ending in 1840 gave 

 an average of yi births to each fertile couple. For the 

 next ten years the average sank to 6*1, at which figure 

 it remained constant till after 1860. From 1871 to 

 1880 the average was 4*36, while from 1881 to 1890 

 the corresponding number was 3*13. Here again we 

 find a drop in the birth-rate of more than one-half in 

 the last forty years. These numbers are all higher 

 than those obtained from Whos Who, partly or wholly 

 from the fact that nearly all births are recorded, instead 

 of only those of children alive at the time of entry. 

 But while the absolute numbers are higher, the relative 

 decline is about the same. 



In the course of the investigation, it became clear 



