STERILITY OF THE C A FABLES. 139 



until recently these questions were unanswerable in 

 the face of our great ignorance of the chief facts of 

 evolution. 



Capable and Ambitious Men Marry Late in Life. 



When we turn to the experiences of life common 

 to most of us, we shall find, I think, pretty strong 

 evidence that surrounding conditions determine that, 

 as a rule, the capable and ambitious man has fewer 

 children than his fellows. Let us examine some of 

 these facts of common experience. The agricultural 

 labourer, of the intellectual value of whose education 

 I have by no means a low opinion, nevertheless 

 obtains this education without cost. Bred on the 

 farm, he insensibly imbibes from what he sees around 

 him the multifarious bits of information a farm hand 

 requires. The manual labour which he is called 

 upon to perform implies a very varied, although often 

 underrated, skill, but this skill, and, indeed, his whole 

 education, may easily be acquired, and that without 

 cost, by the age of twenty. He is then capable of 

 earning a maximum wage, for he has reached the 

 period of life at which he is a full-farm-labourer, and 

 at forty he does nothing more and receives no higher 

 wage. Now this maximum wage which he is capable 

 of earning at so early an age is sufficient to support a 

 wife and family. In consequence of this condition of 

 things the countryman generally marries in his early 



