THE DECLINING BIRTHRATE IJ$ 



They are the element of the population that has as a rule the highest 

 birthrate. It follows that when the injunction of religion to multiply 

 and replenish the earth begins to be unheeded by them there will 

 be brought into operation other causes that will tend to reduce the num- 

 ber of births among this hitherto prolific class. 



It would be of interest in this connection to ascertain the reason why 

 the church has in some degree lost its influence with the working-people. 

 It is claimed that the chief reason is to be found in the industrial processes 

 of the age. Among the alleged causes for this decline in the old religious 

 belief there is perhaps none more ingenious than that the change in the 

 working-class habit of thought has been brought about by the use of 

 machinery; belief in the supernatural, it is alleged, does not flourish 

 among men who are spending their daily lives in modern industry. He 

 who works among machines must needs give too much attention to cause 

 and effect to have space in his mental life for the play of those fancies 

 that are occupied with the contemplation of the supernatural. This, 

 it is said, accounts for the decline of belief in the more miraculous ele- 

 ments in religion among the industrial class. 1 Intense materialistic 

 activity probably tends to blunt the idealizing faculties of the mind. It 

 may therefore be that machinery is a factor in the decline in church 

 attendance on the part of the working-classes, and the consequent 

 weakness of the biblical injunction in regard to the birthrate. 



The congestion of population in cities which has been proceeding 

 steadily since the first census was taken and which is largely due to the 

 growth of industry of a manufacturing nature, has also tended to bring 

 our population more and more under the influences which are reducing 

 the rate of increase. The city populations are more ambitious as a rule 

 than the country dwellers and there the strife to rise in the social scale 

 is keener. Consumption takes place in the presence of the multitude; 

 hence there is greater effort to maintain the standard of living, and 

 sacrifices are made to keep up appearances. It is in the city then where 

 social ambition is greater that the larger family is first discovered to be 

 a burden. The care and expense of several children interfere with the 

 gratification of the various ambitions characteristic of the city dwellers. 



1 Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class, pp. 329, 330, 1899. 



