THE DESCENT OR ORIGIN OF MAN 69 



the reproductive power is actually less in barbarous than in 

 civilized races. We know nothing positively on this head, 

 for with savages no census has been taken; but from the 

 concurrent testimony of missionaries, and of others who 

 have long resided with such people, it appears that their 

 families are usually small, and large ones rare. This may 

 be partly accounted for, as it is ^believed, by the women 

 suckling their infants during a long time; but it is highly 

 probable that savages, who often suffer much hardship, and 

 who do not obtain so much nutritious food as civilized men, 

 would be actually less prolific. I have shown in a former 

 work, " that all our domesticated quadrupeds and birds, and 

 all our cultivated plants, are more fertile than the corre- 

 sponding species in a state of nature. It is no valid objec- 

 tion to this conclusion that animals suddenly supplied with 

 an excess of food, or when grown Very fat; and that most 

 plants on sudden removal from very poor to very rich soil, 

 are rendered more or less sterile. We might, therefore, ex- 

 pect that civilized men, who in one sense are highly domes- 

 ticated, would be more prolific than wild men. It is also 

 probable that the increased fertility of civilized nations would 

 become, as with our domestic animals, an inherited charac- 

 ter: it is' at least known that with mankind a tendency 

 to produce twins runs in families." 



Notwithstanding that savages appear to be less prolific 

 than civilized people, they would no doubt rapidly increase 

 if their numbers were not by some means rigidly kept down. 

 The Santali, or hill-tribes of India, have recently afforded a 

 good illustration of this fact ; for, as shown by Mr. Hunter, "" 

 they have increased at an extraordinary rate since vaccina- 

 tion has been introduced, other pestilences mitigated, and 

 war sternly repressed. This increase, however, would not 

 have been possible had not these rude people spread into 



^ "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. il. pp. 111- 

 113, 163. 



69 Mr. Sedgwick, "British and Foreign Medico- Chirurg. Review, July, 

 1863, p. 170. 



e» "The Annals of Rural Bengal," hy W. W. Hunter, 1868, p. 259. 



