506 LAWS OF MULTIPLICATION. 



and social conditions lower or raise the cost of self- 

 preservation. 



Be this as it may, however, it is manifest that in the end, 

 pressure of population and its accompanying evils will dis- 

 appear ; and will leave a state of things requiring from each 

 individual no more than a normal and pleasurable activity. 

 Cessation in the decrease of fertility implies cessation in 

 the development of the nervous system ; and this implies a 

 nervous system that has become equal to all that is demanded 

 of it — has not to do more than is natural to it. But that 

 exercise of faculties which does not exceed what is natural, 

 constitutes gratification. In the end, therefore, the ob- 

 tainment of subsistence and discharge of all the parental 

 and social duties, will require just that kind and that amount 

 of action needful to health and happiness. 



The necessary antagonism of Individuation and Genesis, 

 not only, then, fulfils with precision the a priori law of 

 maintenance of race, from the Monad up to Man, but ensures 

 final attainment of the highest form of this maintenance — 

 a form in which the amount of life shall be the greatest 

 possible, and the births and deaths the fewest possible. This 

 antagonism could not fail to work out the results we see it 

 working out. The excess of fertility has itself rendered the 

 process of civilization inevitable ; and the process of civiliza- 

 tion must inevitably diminish fertility, and at last destroy its 

 excess. From the beginning, pressure of population has 

 been the proximate cause of progress. It produced the 

 original diffusion of the race. It compelled men to abandon 

 predatory habits and take to agriculture. It led to the 

 clearing of the Earth's surface. It forced men into the 

 social state ; made social organization inevitable ; and has 

 developed the social sentiments. It has stimulated to pro- 

 gressive improvements in production, and to increased skill 

 and intelligence. It is daily thrusting us into closer contact 

 and more mutually-dependent relationships. And after having 

 caused, as it ultimately must, the due peopling of the globe, 



