330 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



True, the standard of life of the working man is no longer what 

 it used to be : it also has advanced to a higher level ; for so pro- 

 found a modification of the whole social structure as that efEected 

 by the introduction and growth of industrialism could not but 

 have its influence on all classes. But the claims of the working- 

 man are modest, none the less, and the satisfaction of them is, 

 for the average man, a matter of no great dif&culty. Every 

 honest working man may reasonably hope, after a few years' 

 toil and thrift, to have accumulated sufficient means to be able 

 to found a family. And to this may be added the fact that the 

 labouring classes are not, as a rule, either prudent or far-seeing ; 

 they marry and undertake all the responsibilities of a family 

 without much weighing of the pros and cons, trusting very often 

 to the chance of the future ; and this imprudence is undoubtedly 

 responsible for a great part of the misery and suffering unhappily 

 so prevalent in these circles. The upper classes, on the other 

 hand, whose standard of life has been raised by the industrial 

 system, have seen their wants augmented in a corresponding, 

 if not in a disproportionate, degree. The standard of life in these 

 classes is one which demands for its attainment in each succes- 

 sive generation many years of hard work ; and these classes, 

 being as much subject to the universal law of competition as 

 the lower, and having a standard of comfort less easily reached 

 than that of the labouring population, are naturally more im- 

 peded than the latter in the fulfilment of their primary duty as 

 members of society — marriage and reproduction. Add to this 

 the fact that the professional, intellectual, and business classes 

 are more far-seeing than the labouring classes ; that they do not 

 so willingly or so easily incur the responsibilities attendant on 

 the founding of a family, and we see at once one of the reasons 

 — perhaps the most important one — for the greater fertihty of 

 the labouring classes. For it is evident, from what we have 

 said, that the upper classes will marry later in life, and the 

 later the marriage the less the fertility. 



