152 DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS. 



We may therefore rest assured that, at some time 

 or another, we shall have to reduce the birth-rate to 

 that of the death-rate, 1 but we are certainly not called 

 upon to do so at present. It is the experience of 

 many men of practical knowledge that at the present 

 time any healthy Englishman, who is fairly capable, 

 industrious and sober, will be able to earn a living 

 for himself, wife, and family. He may have to face 

 a possibility of temporary misfortune, and even 

 catastrophe, in the event of sickness, but his chances 

 are as good, and the comforts that he can obtain for 

 his wage are greater than those of wage-earners in 

 other countries. We are not, therefore, called upon 

 at present to diminish a population which, by its 

 increase, has been enabled to possess itself of a large 

 portion of the inhabitable world, and upon whose 

 future increase will depend in great measure our 

 faculty for keeping it ; but we are called upon to see 

 that this increase is derived from the best, and not 

 from the worst, members of the community. It will 

 be most disastrous not only to our Empire, whose 

 strength depends in great measure upon the numbers 

 of our citizens, but also to the quality of the race, if 

 the more prudent and capable are bred out of and 

 eliminated from the community. These, in the nature 



1 See a most instructive paper by Dr. Ogle in the Journal of 

 the Royal Statistical Society, June, 1890. 



