LAWS OF MULTIPLICATION. 295 



of the present rapid rate of increase ; the possibility of earUer 

 marriages, and a probable diminution of vice ; an increase in 

 the fitness of the race by lessening the propagation of unfit 

 types and the exhaustion of the mothers by too frequent child- 

 bearing. Supposing, again, the general adoption of the pro- 

 posal, the neo-Malthusians insist upon the possibility of a 

 heightened standard of comfort among the poorer members 

 of the community, and the removal of obstacles to marriage 

 which stand in the way of those who ought to marry but ought 

 not to be parents. 



Without urging medical objections above referred to, — 

 for in regard to the discussion of these, professional experts 

 must bear the responsibility, — we must emphasise several 

 counter-arguments. Thus it has been maintained, though with 

 no great degree of certitude, that a proposal involving some 

 deliberate and controlled action would tend to be adopted 

 most where least wanted, viz., among the more individuated 

 types, whose numbers would in consequence be proportionately 

 reduced. The diminished rate of increase, which is the most 

 obvious social result of the extensive adoption of neo- 

 Malthusian practices, has long been known to the student of 

 population; and in some countries, particularly France, — 

 although here, no doubt, to some extent the result of peculiarly 

 high individuation, — is a recognised national danger, especially 

 since the diminished population, in being largely freed from the 

 normal acuteness of the struggle for existence, loses many of 

 the advantages of this as well. 



The statistician will doubtless long continue his fashion of 

 confidently estimating the importance and predicting the sur- 

 vival of populations from their quantity and rate of reproduction 

 alone ; but at all this, as naturalists we can only scoff. Even 

 the most conventional exponent of the struggle for existence 

 among us knows, with the barbarian conquerors of old, that "the 

 thicker the grass, the easier it is mown;" that "the wolf cares 

 not how many the sheep may be." It is the most individuated 

 type that prevails in spite, nay, in another sense, positively 

 because of its slower increase ; in a word, the survival of a 

 species or family depends not primarily upon quantity, but 

 upon quality. The future is not to the most numerous popu- 

 lations, but to the most individuated. And as we increas- 

 ingly see that natural history must be treated primarily from 

 the standpoint of the species-regarding sacrifice rather than 



