516 



LAWS OF MULTIPLICATION. 



civilized by the absence of good appliances for shelter and 

 protection — that in some cases they have to make good a 

 greater loss of heat, and in other cases suffer much wear from 

 irritating swarms of insects; we shall see that the total cost 

 of self -maintenance among them is probably in many cases 

 little less, and in some cases more, than it is among ourselves. 

 So that though, on the average, the civilized are probably 

 larger than the savage; and though they are, in their 

 nervous systems at least, somewhat more complex; and 

 though, other things equal, they ought to be the less 

 prolific; yet other things are so unequal as to make it 

 quite conformable to the general law that they should be 

 more prolific. In § 365 we observed how, among inferior 

 animals, higher evolution sometimes makes self-preservation 

 far easier, by opening the way to resources previously un- 

 available: so involving an undiminished, or even an in^ 

 creased, rate of genesis. And similarly we may expect that 

 among races of men, those whose slight further develop- 

 ments have been followed by habits and arts which immensely 

 facilitate life, will not exhibit a lower degree of fertility, and 

 may even exhibit a higher. 



§ 369. One more objection has to be met — a kindred ob- 

 jection to which there is a kindred reply. Cases may be 

 named of men conspicuous for activity, bodily and mental, 

 who were also noted, not for less generative power than usual, 

 but for more. As their superiorities indicate higher degrees 

 of evolution, it may be urged that such men should, accord- 

 ing to the theory, have lower degrees of reproductive activity. 

 The fact that here, along with increased powers of self-pre- 

 servation, there go increased powers of race-propagation, 

 seems irreconcilable with the general doctrine. Keconcilia- 

 tion is not difficult however. 



The cases are analogous to some before named, in which 

 more abundant food simultaneously aggrandizes the indi- 



