ENVIRONMENT AND FERTILITY 225 



of Eastern and Western Europe. In Russia and 

 the Danubian countries they are 40 per mille or 

 over : in the United Kingdom the birth-rate is 

 only 24, in France it hardly exceeds 20. But this 

 difference is of quite recent date. At the begin- 

 ning of the nineteenth century the French birth- 

 rate was 34 : forty years ago that of the United 

 Kingdom was 35. The birth-rate of Germany is 

 now as high as was that of France a century ago ; 

 but it is falling. 



We might be tempted to ascribe this general 

 decline of births in the most progressive countries 

 of Europe to some influences connected with the 

 density of population. But it may be imputed with 

 more probability to artificial causes, noticeable 

 amongst which is the postponement of marriage. 

 In India, with a very dense population, the birth- 

 rate approaches 40 per mille : marriage is there 

 generally contracted at the age of puberty. In the 

 United States, where we should imagine that a 

 rapid development of material resources would be 

 accompanied by a rapid growth of population, 

 birth-rates are no higher than in the United 

 Kingdom. In the Anglo-Saxon colonies of Aus- 

 tralasia they approximate to 30 per mille ; but 

 except in Tasmania, they have fallen very con- 

 siderably during the last 20 years. These facts 

 do not indicate any relationship between fertility 

 and environment ; indeed amongst the poorest 

 classes of our large cities the birth-rate is even 

 now as high as 40 per mille and families would 

 increase with great rapidity were it not that 

 deaths are abnormally numerous. The conditions 

 of town life are so far removed from those of 

 nature that one would be inclined to suspect that 

 they were unfavourable to fertility. There is an 

 idea that London families die out in two or three 

 generations. The population of London is main- 



