FERTILITY OF SOCIAL CLASSES 329 



The figures in brackets show the number of Bezirke included 

 in each category ; the other figures show the average annual 

 number of births for 1,000 women from fifteen to fifty years of 

 age during the period 1890-94. In Vienna we find the same 

 law once more amply confirmed — ^namely, that the birth-rate 

 varies in inverse ratio to the degree of material prosperity. 



It may be objected that the material prosperity of a district 

 is, in the first place, no guarantee of the intellectual or moral 

 or physical value of its inhabitants ; and, secondly, that no con- 

 nection necessarily exists between material prosperity and intel- 

 lectual or moral or physical value. We hold, nevertheless, this 

 argument to be fallacious. It is true that no necessary relation 

 exists between material prosperity, as such, and personal value. 

 It cannot, however, be denied that the districts classified as 

 " well off " and " rich " are those which contain the intellectual, 

 professional, and business classes, whose social value, whether 

 physical or mental, has an average which is above that possessed 

 by the working classes who inhabit the districts classified as 

 " poor." Social progress does not emanate from the masses, but 

 from the superior elect. And it is a serious phenomenon, this 

 greater fertility of the lower classes. We have seen that greater 

 fertihty, even if its excess be minimal, produces results which 

 are, ia the long run, quite out of proportion to the original degree 

 of excess. In the case of the lower social classes, the difference 

 in the rate of fertility, far from being minimal, is very marked, 

 and it indicates the multiplication of the less fit at the expense 

 of the fit ; consequently, it must involve social degeneracy. 



What are the reasons for this difference in the rate of fertility 

 between the upper and lower classes — a difference so pregnant 

 with danger for all social progress ? The fundamental reason is 

 undoubtedly to be found in our economic system. The progress 

 of industrialism, by increasing the comfort of man, has at the 

 same time raised his standard of life ; but this industrial progress 

 has almost exclusively affected the upper classes of society. 



