394 MYSTIC ISLES 



famine stalks year in and year out. Fifteen million 

 Chinese are doomed to die of starvation in 1921, ac- 

 cording to official statements. 



Able-bodied adults in their prime bear the burdens of 

 society everywhere. The elders and their children are 

 a burden on them, especially in primitive society, where 

 capital is not amassed, and food must be procured by 

 some labor, either of the chase, fishing, or gathering 

 fruits and herbs. Only advance in economic power has 

 arrested infanticide. The Greeks thought it proper; 

 the Romans, too. The early Teutons exposed babes. 

 The Chinese have always done so. 



Procreation, if not a dominant passion, would prob- 

 ably have ceased long ago, and the race perished. In- 

 dividual and even national "race suicide" in France and 

 New England indicated the possibilities of this tend- 

 ency. The teachings of asceticism which had such power 

 among Christians until the sixteenth century are again 

 heard under a different guise in at least one of the 

 modern cults most successful in the United States. 

 Neo-Malthusianism is found exemphfied in the two- 

 child families of the nobles of France and Germany and 

 the rich of New England. Parents want to do more 

 for children, and so have fewer, and think proper con- 

 traception and even killing the foetus in its early stages. 

 Modern medicine has aided this. Many women in many 

 countries for ages have practised abortion in order not 

 to spoil their bodies by child-bearing. To-day the de- 

 mands of fashion and of social pleasures have caused 

 large families to be considered even ^allgar among the 

 extremists in the mode. Organizations incited by the 



