THE EISE IN THE VALUE OF BABIES 13 



It is probable that the decline of the birth-rate is 

 due, as Adam Smith noted long ago, to socio-biologic 

 rather than moral causes. There would seem to be 

 some subtle physiological reaction, tending practically 

 to the atrophy of the maternal function — not merely 

 of child-bearing, but of child-nursing also — as a 

 result of intellectual and nervous development, and 

 the general complexity of life, which belong to a high 

 state of civilization. It has been urged that intel- 

 lectual development suggests artificial checks on gen- 

 eration," but he would be a rash man who would con- 

 tend that such checks are more common among the 

 richest than among the very poorest, or that foeticide 

 is more common in the mansions than in the tenements. 

 I, for one, do not believe it." It is much more likely 

 that the difference is due to an automatic check upon 

 the purely animal, or physical, functions of the human 

 organism which operates with the extension of other 

 functions, such as the nervous and intellectual. 



Whatever reason may exist for the decline, there 

 can be no doubt as to the fact, nor any as to the fear 

 with which the spectre of race suicide oppresses 

 almost every one of the progressive modern nations. 

 It is that fear which, more than anything else, is 

 responsible for the tremendous amount of social effort 

 which is now being directed towards the promotion 

 of the physical welfare of children, for that dominant 

 tendency in the social legislation of our time which 

 marks this as being preeminently the children's age. 



