THE POPULATION QUESTION. II 7 



the length and the security of Hfe and diminishes 

 the death-rate. In, other words, it diminishes the 

 number of new births required to maintain the race 

 and the fertiUty which \s politically necessary. 



But no corresponding change takes place in the 

 natural fertlHty of the race. What is the result ? 

 If we suppose that a healthy woman, marrying at 

 the right age, could without detriment to her health 

 produce six children,.^ and if we take into consider- 

 ation also the fact that the length af life will soon on 

 an average extend over two generations, i.e, that 

 men may reasonably expect to see their grand- 

 children grown up, it is evident that population will 

 be fully maintained if one-fifth to cne- sixth of the 

 women in a society provide for its continuance ; 

 i.e. the services of four out of every five, at least, 

 might be dispensed with from this point of view. 

 If, therefore, only the one who was really wanted,, 

 wanted to marry, while the other four were content 

 to leave no descendants, all would be well, and 

 human desires would be adapted to the require- 

 ments of the situation. But in that case the repro- 

 ductive instinct would have to be reduced, it would 

 be hard to say to what fraction of its present 

 strength. This is so far from being the case that 

 even if it is not true that its strength has not been 

 reduced at all, it is yet obvious that its reduction 

 has not taken place in anything like a degree pro- 

 portionate to the reduction of the need of its 

 exercise. 



^ As a fact the average fertility of marriage is four-and-a-half. 

 But for many reasons, the actual number of children falls far short, 

 of the possible maximum.. For under, the present conditions, 

 healthy and strong women are by no means exclusively selected- 

 for marriage, and other artificial conditions limit the number of, 

 children produced, in most cases far below what it might be.. 



