under which the pre-human ancestor must have lived to the conditions
which we have found reason to attribute to prehistoric races. The
conditions to which species in a state of nature are subjected, and to
which therefore we assume the pre-human ancestor to have been subject,
were described in the second chapter. We found that the fecundity of any
species was connected with the sum of all the unavoidable dangers as we
called them to which the young of the species are exposed. A limit is
set to the development of the strength of fecundity beyond a certain
point by the fact that it cannot be to the advantage of any species that
its “fecundity should increase considerably beyond the point which
ensures the survival of the species, as such an increase would intensify
the struggle between the members of the species—this intensification of
the struggle not bringing any corresponding advantages.”
We are ignorant with regard not only to the form of the pre-human
ancestor, but also with regard to the conditions under which he lived.
We must suppose, however, that his fecundity, like that of any other
species in a state of nature, was of a strength that enabled a
sufficient proportion of his offspring to survive the unavoidable
dangers. As we have seen, that which marks the setting out of man on the
path which led to the dominion over all other species was the growth of
his intellect. The most obvious consequence of this increase in
intellectual power must have been to enable man to protect himself
against many of these dangers. We do not know to what dangers he was
subject, but they must in all probability have been many and serious in
view of his relatively poor equipment with means of defence. Yet we have
only to look at the Tasmanians to find that, when a degree of skill had
been reached not far superior to that of Lower Palaeolithic man, he had
freed himself from most of these dangers. Parasites were not then, so
far as we can tell, a serious menace, and against the attacks of other
species he could defend himself with almost complete success. Whether
his fecundity had come to differ from that of the pre-human ancestor by
that time we cannot tell; in any case the fecundity of prehistoric man
was evidently in the main a legacy of the pre-human ancestor—a degree of
fecundity that had been evolved in the face of quite other conditions.
Since the time of prehistoric man fecundity has increased—this increase
being apparently in the main in the nature of a modification due to
changed conditions of life.
It appears that we must regard the growth of intellect as having enabled
man to avoid the serious consequences which a fecundity in excess of
that necessary to ensure survival would otherwise have brought about.
Excessive fecundity, not therefore being a disadvantage, was not reduced
by selection. It must be remembered that human fecundity is only
relatively excessive; actually man is a slow-breeding animal, and when
we speak of this relatively excessive fecundity, we are not to think of
such a degree of fecundity as would occupy so prominent a place among
the bodily functions as to render man less adaptive than he would have
been had it been less. Fecundity, in other words, could only have become
disadvantageous had it led to greatly increased competition among the
members of the species without any corresponding advantage. This might
perhaps have happened, had not the growth of the intellect indirectly
produced new causes of elimination and intensified some of the formerly
existing factors. Thus the change in food and in the mode of life was
evidently productive of a higher infant mortality; such changes were due
to the growth of the intellect, and the higher mortality consequent upon
them, if not, as is possible, an actual advantage, was at least
countenanced by natural selection.[1286] Such changes therefore were,
other things being equal, tolerated, as were also abstention from
intercourse due to taboos, pre-puberty intercourse, prolonged lactation,
and so on. The practices of abortion and infanticide together with
prolonged abstention from intercourse—also due to the intellect—enabled
man completely to escape any disadvantages which might have arisen from
his relatively excessive fecundity—the reserve, so to speak, of
fecundity being possibly an advantage.
In some such manner as this it seems that we have to regard the present
position of man with reference to fecundity. The strength of fecundity
is in the main a legacy from ancestors who were subject to wholly
different conditions. It is excessive relatively to his present needs;
this excess has, however, not been a disadvantage; for the consequences
which might have been deleterious have been avoided owing indirectly to
the modifications of the conditions of life and directly to the rise of
certain customs all ultimately traceable to the growth of the intellect.
X
HISTORICAL RACES
1. In this chapter we deal with the factors bearing upon fertility and
elimination in the third of the three groups described in Chapter V. In
one important respect this and the following chapter are contrasted with
the preceding chapters. In the latter we were dealing, not with the
facts derived from the peoples whom it was our object directly to
investigate, but with the facts derived from primitive races with the
object of throwing light upon prehistoric races. Here we are dealing
with the facts relating to the peoples whose position it is our object
to consider. The setting out of the facts relating to these races
presents great difficulties. The amount of information is huge, but for
the most part it is far from being of a satisfactory nature, and the
rapid changes which have occurred within the historical period increase
the difficulties. Only a brief review of the subject, designed to
illustrate the more important features, is attempted.
The races under consideration are divided into four sub-groups.
Sub-group 1 includes the civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece,
and Rome up to the fall of the Western Empire. In these countries we
have some knowledge of the progress from Neolithic culture to a culture
exhibiting a far greater command over nature. From this culture is
derived the later civilization of Europe, which we consider under
sub-groups 3 and 4—the former beginning with Europe after the fall of
the Western Empire and ending roughly about A. D. 1760, the date given
by Marshall as marking the beginning of the industrial system, the
latter beginning about 1760, and including all European races and their
derivatives in America, Australia, and so on. Generally speaking,
therefore, sub-group 1 includes the ancient empires, sub-group 3 Europe
from the Roman Empire to the rise of the industrial system, and
sub-group 4 the epoch of the industrial system.
There remain those races which have passed beyond the culture of the
races included in the second group, but which have been out of the main
stream of the evolution which led to the industrial evolution. In
sub-group 2 are included India, China, Persia, Japan, and also the
partly nomadic Arabs and certain other Asiatic peoples. In late years
the customs of the races in this sub-group have been influenced by
contact with Europeans; changes due to this contact will be disregarded,
as were similar changes in the races belonging to the first and second
groups.
In one very important respect the conditions with regard to all races in
the third group differ from those in the preceding groups. Disease is a
factor of the greatest importance, and we may consider in the first
place the facts regarding the prevalence of disease in all groups. What
little there is to be said regarding war, famine, and child mortality in
all the races of this group may also be considered together. With regard
to the other factors we find that in many respects the conditions in the
first two sub-groups are similar and are contrasted with those in the
latter two sub-groups. Therefore, after considering disease and the
other factors mentioned for all groups taken together, it will be
convenient to deal with the sub-groups separately, taking the ancient
empires and the Asiatic peoples first, and mediaeval and modern Europe
afterwards.
2. Something was said in Chapter VI with regard to the evolution of
disease. It was there shown that in all probability most diseases
evolved relatively late in history. The more settled conditions of the
Neolithic Age may have provided the first suitable surroundings for the
evolution and spread of disease. The taking of metals into use was
followed by an increase in the density of population when conditions
became yet more favourable. The use of metals was followed by the rise
of the first civilizations. It was then that men first came to dwell in
towns and cities, and it is interesting to observe that the earliest
cities were very compact. Mr. Hall, speaking of Minoan civilization,
says that the towns were very cramped, ‘more so than the most confined
of European mediaeval cities’.[1287] On the rise therefore of these
early civilizations the conditions were strongly contrasted with those
which, we imagine, must have been prevalent before, and favoured the
spread of disease as it had never been favoured before. From the rise of
the early civilizations until within the last hundred years, conditions
have remained favourable. They may perhaps have been most favourable in
European towns in mediaeval and later times. According to Rogers, ‘the
habits of the people were favourable to pestilence. Every writer during
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who makes his comment on the
customs and practices of English life, adverts to the profuseness of
their diet and the extraordinarily uncleanliness of their habits and
persons. The floor of an ordinary Englishman’s house, as Erasmus
describes it, was inconceivably filthy, in London filthier than
elsewhere, for centuries after these events. The streets and open
ditches of the towns were polluted and noisome beyond measure. The
Englishman disdained all the conditions of health.’[1288]
Turning to the evidence, we find that facts are very scanty for the
earliest times of this period. Such evidence as we have points to the
prevalence of disease during the early civilizations. We know that
pestilence swept over Egypt—the references to the subject in the Bible
being familiar. But precisely what diseases were prevalent are not
known; the descriptions of the symptoms are seldom sufficiently accurate
even in mediaeval times to make it possible to identify the
diseases.[1289] From other evidence it appears that in any case
tuberculosis, leprosy, plague, and bilharzia were common in Egypt. There
is much evidence to show that most diseases only reached Europe in
relatively late times. Plague, for instance, probably first reached
Europe in A. D. 542. It is possible, however, that the pestilence which
ravaged most of Europe between A. D. 164 and 188 was plague.[1290]
Generally speaking, the evidence points to the conclusion that many
diseases came from the East, where they in all probability originated.
Plague, cholera, and small-pox all seem to have had their origin in
India. This conclusion is in harmony with what we know of the origin of
civilization, for it is where men first came to dwell in close proximity
that we should expect to find that disease originated.
With regard to mortality from disease very little accurate information
is available until modern times. It is quite impossible to say, for
instance, whether disease was the cause of a higher mortality in the
Middle Ages than in the times of the Early Empires. All we know is that
it was in both cases an important factor of elimination. Within the last
century disease has come to be in an increasing degree under the control
of scientific methods. Some diseases such as small-pox have been almost
banished from this country; others, such as diphtheria, have been
rendered less lethal. Of the Early Empires there are of course no exact
facts. Macdonell, working on figures from the _Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum_ of the Berlin Academy, found that there was a very low
expectation of life in ancient Rome as compared with the present day.
Whereas in England at the age of fifteen the expectation of life for
boys is forty-five years and for girls forty-eight years, in Rome it was
twenty and fifteen years respectively; and again, whereas in England at
the age of thirty the expectation of life for men is thirty-three, and
for women thirty-six years, in Rome it was nineteen and fourteen
respectively. He also found that, though the death-rate was less high,
the position was much the same in the provinces of Hispania and
Lusitania as in Rome. In Africa, however, the expectation of life was
higher, but this may perhaps be due to the presence of a large number of
colonists.[1291] There is abundant evidence of a high rate of mortality
in Europe up to the opening of the last century. We must remember, says
Rogers, that ‘in the Middle Ages the risks of death from disease were
far greater than they are at present, that medical skill was almost
non-existent, that the conditions of life were eminently unwholesome,
that the diet of the people, during fully one-half of the year, though
abundant, was insalubrious’;[1292] and in another place he says that ‘in
the large towns the deaths, to judge from the return up to the
eighteenth century, greatly exceeded the births’.[1293] Theilhaber,
quoting Goldstein, gives figures which corroborate this view for Basel
and Frankfort.[1294] Halley constructed one of the earliest tables of
mortality for the city of Breslau for the years 1687 to 1691, and they
show that the mortality was ‘considerably higher than that shown by
modern statistics’.[1295] Price constructed a table for Northampton for
the years 1735 to 1780, and it shows a death-rate of 249·31 per thousand
for the ages 0–2, which is far higher than at the present day.[1296]
Finally, though disease has nowadays very largely come under scientific
control, by far the greater number of deaths is due to disease. Thus in
1917 there were 498,922 deaths among the civilian population of England
and Wales. Of these, 20,480 were due to violence (not suicide), 2,495 to
suicide, 2,485 to ill-defined or unknown causes, and 2,598 took place
during pregnancy. Of the remainder all were due to defined diseases.
Enteric fever (typhoid and paratyphoid) accounted for 977, measles for
10,538; whooping cough, 4,509; tuberculosis for 59,934; syphilis for
2,127; cancer for 41,158; pneumonia for 39,832; diphtheria and croup for
4,498; meningitis for 4,761; organic heart disease for 52,692;
bronchitis for 38,907; other respiratory diseases for 7,031; diarrhoea
for 13,311; nephritis and Bright’s disease for 14,298; and congenital
debility for 23,850.[1297]
3. Warfare is the second factor—disease being the first—which among
these races is remarkable in that its effects are not regular. It is
wholly impossible to estimate the loss of life in war until modern
times. Contemporary statements nearly always hugely exaggerate the
numbers engaged in battle and the number slain. ‘In the first Battle of
St. Albans we have been told that five thousand persons were slain. It
is almost certain that not much more than half that number were in
action.’[1298] This is probably equally true of nearly all such
statements. With regard to elimination through warfare there are two
facts to be borne in mind. The first is that, even if the contemporary
statements were correct, war is by no means so important a factor as it
seems at first sight. A practice which resulted in the conscious
limitation of each family by one child would have greater results over a
period of years than there is ever claimed as the direct result of
warfare in reducing numbers over a similar period. The second is that
the indirect elimination following upon warfare is of far greater
importance than the direct elimination. Famine and disease following
warfare were until recent times responsible for many more deaths than
warfare itself. When we are told that during the Thirty Years’ War the
population of Würtemberg was reduced from 500,000 to 46,000,[1299] it
has to be remembered that disease and famine played a greater part than
loss of life in battle. Further, when the direct effects of warfare as a
whole are contrasted with those of disease, it is apparent that they are
relatively insignificant. Elimination from disease, though irregular, is
always in progress within this period; there are lengthy epochs when
there is little or no loss through war. Again, the great epidemics are
far more destructive of life than the great wars; Hecker, for instance,
after a lengthy examination of the various accounts, came to the
conclusion that about a quarter of the inhabitants of Europe perished
during the Black Death.[1300]
The nature which warfare assumed in this period is obviously connected
with the rise and consolidation of large states. Warfare becomes a
matter of policy; it is no longer a cause of a regular degree of
elimination. There is among the races under review in this chapter every
degree between the kind of warfare typical of the races previously
reviewed and that typical of this period. The nomadic races of Asia have
at least until recent times maintained a form of regular warfare.
Vambéry states that there is ‘inveterate and irreconcilable enmity’
between two tribes of Turkomans.[1301] We are told that among such a
primitive people as the Nagas the tribes were formerly in a state of
constant hostility.[1302] Among these people also head hunting was
formerly common and the victims sometimes included women.[1303] ‘One
individual showed Mr. Carnegie his apron which recorded the deaths of
twenty-five individuals—men, women and children—slain by his own
hand.’[1304] Generally speaking, however, we have in this period to
think of warfare as typically of a different nature to that which we
have noticed before, but whether it on the whole accounts directly for a
higher degree of elimination, it is not possible to say.
The features of warfare which are of importance here are its relatively
slight effect in producing elimination, its irregular action, and its
important consequences in bringing about disease and famine. With
disease we have already dealt. Famine appears here for the first time
among the more important factors of elimination, and its appearance is
obviously connected with the higher organization of society which, if
broken down, as by warfare, may give rise to famine.[1305] Social
organization may be broken down by other causes than war, as by some
failure in government. Famine may also result from exceptionally bad
weather in any period; but it would seem that when a certain stage of
organization has been reached the danger is greater than before or
afterwards. There were great famines in England in the years 1194 to
1196, 1257 to 1259, and 1315 to 1316, since when famines have been
unknown. These famines were all connected with bad weather, but the fact
that they have not occurred since is to be attributed rather to superior
social organization and increasing knowledge than to better climatic
conditions. The sudden and prolonged changes of climate which occur in
certain places, as for instance in Peninsular India, tax the resources
even of modern knowledge and skill. In the case of famine, more so even
than in the case of warfare, the loss of life is apt to be
overestimated. Famine somehow strikes the imagination and gives it a
prominence in history which it does not deserve. It is in reality a
minor factor.
Before leaving the subject of warfare, it is interesting to note, in
view of what will be said later regarding the influence of Christian
teaching in assisting to put a stop to abortion and infanticide, that
the early Church was also opposed to warfare. According to Clement of
Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and Lactantius, all warfare was unlawful
for the converted. Under Domitian a Christian soldier who refused to
fight was executed. There was a controversy between Celsus and Origen on
this matter. The view of the latter was that the prayers of Christians
were more effective than their swords. This attitude, however, was soon
abandoned, and by the time of Constantine the army was largely
Christian.[1306]
4. In the groups already discussed we have found child mortality to be
an important factor. We traced it to certain factors such as
carelessness, ignorance, and practices such as bathing new-born babies
in cold water. Within the historical period child mortality also plays
an important part. Though there is little or no evidence of the practice
of such customs as those referred to, ignorance and carelessness are
familiar enough among the less educated classes at the present day, and
in addition disease exacts a very heavy toll of infant life. In fact,
whereas among primitive races the actual cause of the death of children
appears generally to be exposure or debility following on the results of
ignorant and careless treatment, among the races of this group the
actual cause of death is usually disease to which children have been
more or less predisposed by the treatment they have received.
There is little exact evidence as to the conditions among the historical
races, but the general impression gained from the literary evidence is
that infant mortality was high. The high rate of child mortality among
Asiatic races is well known. In the period 1902 to 1911 the average
deaths of children for one thousand births was in the United Provinces
352, in Bombay 320, in Burma 332, and in the Punjab 306.[1307] Referring
to these figures, Wattal comments on the ‘extremely unsanitary
conditions of child-birth and the appalling ignorance prevalent on the
subject’.[1308] With regard to ignorance it is everywhere the same
story. Of the modern Egyptians we are told that ‘the children are foul
in the eyes, and are allowed to munch such indigestible dainties as
beans and bread as soon as they have teeth with which to bite, while the
mother protests to the lady doctor that nothing but milk has ever passed
the child’s lips, though its little hand may actually be holding a hunch
of raw potato’.[1309]
Of the Middle Ages again there is no exact evidence, but all we know
points to a very high child mortality. Some figures for the eighteenth
century from the country have been quoted and doubtless there was a
considerably higher death-rate in the towns.[1310] From the general
conditions and from the prevalence of disease it is obvious that it
could not have been otherwise.
Within the last century there has been in most European countries a
considerable decrease in child mortality. The degree of mortality varies
greatly from country to country. For the same period as that for which
the Indian figures were given the figures are for England and Wales
127·3, France 132·4, Germany 186·6, Hungary 207·6. New Zealand 64·4,
Sweden 84·4, Australia 87·5, and Scotland 116·1.[1311] Some further
reference to this subject and particularly to the differences between
the various countries will be made in Chapter XI.
5. With this reference to the importance of disease, war, famine, and
child mortality throughout the historical period we may pass to the
consideration of the remaining factors, dealing first with the ancient
empires and Asiatic peoples and afterwards with Europe from the fall of
the Roman Empire. We shall find that considerable differences exist
regarding the importance of the various factors as between these two
divisions. Roughly speaking, with the exception of the importance of
disease, conditions in the ancient empires and in Asiatic countries are
similar to those in previous groups. In Europe after the introduction of
Christianity we shall find that certain factors become of little or no
importance, whereas others appear for the first time, and finally in the
modern period we shall discover further changes. It is therefore
convenient to consider the conditions in the first two sub-groups taken
together and afterwards those in the latter two sub-groups.
All the evidence goes to show that celibacy and postponement of marriage
were very rare in the ancient empires and are very rare among Asiatic
peoples. The only instances to the contrary are such cases as those of
the later days of the Roman Empire; such cases are wholly exceptional
and what there is to be said about them will be deferred to the next
chapter. Generally speaking, every one married at or soon after the age
of puberty. In Greece ‘in various places criminal proceedings might be
taken against celibates’.[1312] Though the figures on which he worked
were small, Macdonell found that marriages in Rome took place between
the ages of ten and twenty.[1313] In all these countries we find
examples of religious celibacy. In Egypt[1314] and Chaldea[1315] there
were celibates of both sexes for religious reasons, in Rome there were
vestal virgins, in Persia Sun Priestesses who did not marry, and in
India and Tibet there are similar examples.[1316] But unlike Christian
celibacy, these instances of celibacy were of no importance whatever as
regards the question of numbers. The religious celibates never formed
more than an insignificant fraction of the whole population. In general,
as we shall see later, marriage was strongly encouraged by religions
other than Christianity for the mass of mankind. The one other important
exception would seem to be Buddhism, which not only forbade marriage to
the sacerdotal caste, but discouraged marriage among all those who would
attain to wisdom. It would appear, however, that celibacy, though
possibly widespread in the earlier days of Buddhism, soon ceased to be
practised except by a small proportion of the adherents of Buddha. ‘It
is said that in Nepal, under the modern Gurkha rule, the celibate
occupies a lower position than the married monk, to whom the services in
the temples are committed. It is said, too, that the Lamas of Sikkim and
other northern countries constantly have children living with them,
though they do not admit them to be their own. Yet for all that celibacy
is the rule, and, nominally at any rate, the great majority of Lamistic
monks in Western Asia are unmarried coenobites, who live together in
monasteries.’[1317]
Much evidence could be given as to the view taken of celibacy and of the
duty of marrying early. ‘The Oriental’, says Polak, ‘does not understand
how any one can remain a celibate who has the chance to marry.’[1318]
‘Le célibat’, says Fustel de Coulanges, ‘devait être à la fois une
impiété grave et un malheur; une impiété, parce que le célibataire
mettait en péril le bonheur des mânes de sa famille; un malheur, parce
qu’il ne devait reçevoir lui-même aucun culte après sa mort et ne devait
pas connaître ce qui réjouit les mânes. C’était à la fois pour lui et
pour ces ancêtres une sorte de damnation.’[1319] Doughty describes the
reasons for the absence of celibacy among the Arabs.[1320] The same
conditions are found in China.[1321] Of Corea, Ross says ‘the male human
being who is never married is never called a “man”, whatever his age,
but goes by the name of “yataw”, a name given by the Chinese to
unmarriageable young girls, and the man of thirteen or fourteen has a
perfect right to strike, abuse, order about the “yatow” of thirty who
dares not so much as open his lips to complain’.[1322] ‘Among natives of
India’, says Kerr, ‘it is considered an indispensable duty to enter into
the marriage state.’[1323] ‘A Hindoo male’, according to Wattal, ‘must
marry and beget children—son, if you please—to perform his funeral rites
lest his spirit wander uneasily in the waste places of the earth. The
very name of son, “Putra”, means one who saves his father’s soul from
the hell called “Puta”. A Hindoo maiden unmarried at puberty is a source
of social obloquy to her family and of damnation to her ancestors. Among
the Mohammedans, who are not handicapped by such penalties, the marriage
state is equally common, partly owing to Hindoo example, and partly to
the general conditions of life in primitive society where a wife is
almost a necessity both as a domestic drudge and as a helpmate in field
work.’[1324]
Early marriage is considered to be a duty for all. Westermarck quotes
Mohammed as saying: ‘whenever a servant of God marries verily he
perfects half his religion’.[1325] According to the Laws of Manu it is a
religious duty incumbent upon all.[1326] In the Vedic Age marriage was
much encouraged and offspring greatly desired.[1327] Confucianism and
Zoroastrianism similarly encouraged marriage. ‘A youth’, says Dubois,
speaking of India, ‘who was not married before he was eighteen was
considered by them to be sinning against the command of the Creator,
which says “Increase and Multiply”.’[1328] ‘Almost all Chinese,’ says
Gray, ‘robust or infirm, well formed or deformed, are called upon by
their parents to marry so soon as they have attained the age of
puberty.’[1329] ‘Marriage and the upbringing of offspring became a duty
incumbent upon every Chinese who is normally fit for marriage’,[1330]
say two modern Chinese authors. Similar statements are to be found
regarding Burma,[1331] Upper Siam,[1332] Persia,[1333] the
Mongols,[1334] and the Kalmucks.[1335]
6. Marriage before the age of puberty is not uncommon and is very
prevalent in India. It is doubtful how far intercourse takes place
before maturity. In the North-West Provinces of India it is stated that
in most cases there is no cohabitation before puberty.[1336] This
statement is confirmed by Risley; he further states that in Bengal
cohabitation begins at once.[1337] In India in 1901, 243,500 girls were
married under the age of five, 2,030,000 between the ages of five and
ten, and 6,585,000 between the ages of ten and fifteen.[1338] Eram,
speaking generally of the East, states that pre-puberty marriages are
not rare.[1339] We hear that 10 per cent. of the Kirghiz marry before
the beginning of menstruation.[1340] Among the Annamites[1341] and the
Todas[1342] intercourse sometimes occurs before puberty. Macdonell’s
figures for Rome, already referred to, show that marriage must sometimes
have taken place before puberty.
7. The ancient Egyptians suckled their children for two or three
years.[1343] The suckling period is prolonged in Arabia.[1344] In the
Koran mothers are recommended to suckle for two years.[1345] Among
Asiatic races lactation is usually extended for a considerable length of
time. The Japanese sometimes do not wean their children until the fourth
year.[1346] The poorer classes in Persia suckle until the third
year.[1347] In Upper Siam ‘infants are generally suckled three
years’.[1348] In Turkey lactation is also prolonged.[1349] Generally
speaking, the evidence is to the effect that the suckling period is
always prolonged—the average being perhaps somewhere about two to three
years.
8. In sub-group 1 many examples are found of restraint from sexual
intercourse being imposed upon married persons at certain seasons.
Examples from Egypt are given by Müller.[1350] According to the Laws of
Manu separation from the wife was obligatory at certain periods—for
instance, at new and full moon and on certain days of the month.[1351]
Similar conditions existed in Persia.[1352] Such restrictions, however,
are not of much importance. Of prolonged abstention from intercourse
there is little evidence. In China, according to Gray, ‘a husband is not
expected to cohabit with his wife after she has conceived, nor after the
child is born, during the whole period that it is being nourished at the
mother’s breast. Any violation of this rule is supposed not only to
cause the child to become sickly but to provoke the displeasure of the
ancestors and to bring misfortune upon all members of the family.
Wealthy Chinese are generally very careful in the practice of such
abstention.’[1353] It is quite clear, however, from what we know of
Chinese fertility that this custom is not widely practised among the
people as a whole. Smith speaks of ‘the objection of the Arabs to
intercourse with a nursing mother which was supposed to hurt the
suckling’.[1354] In Turkey also there is said to be no intercourse
during lactation.[1355] There are thus indications of the practice of
this important custom, and it may be that it existed in such a degree as
to have exerted considerable influence.[1356]
9. There is a general impression that the knowledge of contraceptive
methods has only been acquired in modern times. This, however, is not
correct. We have already seen that there is evidence of their use in the
second group. In the third group there is evidence of the knowledge of
certain methods in early times. Theilhaber gives some particulars
regarding their employment among the Jews, German tribes, Arabs, the
Franks before their conversion to Christianity, the Greeks, and the
Romans.[1357] Methods are employed at the present day in China[1358] and
in India,[1359] though there is some doubt as to how far they are
effective. According to Wattal there is some statistical evidence from
India which may be interpreted either as a result of such practices or
as a result of abstention from intercourse.[1360] There is not
sufficient evidence to allow of any exact estimate being made of the
extent of these practices. Generally speaking, however, it would appear
that it is not until we arrive at the latest period of human history
that we find these practices to be of considerable importance.
10. With regard to the size of families in early times there is little
exact evidence. Among Asiatic peoples at the present day we have some
evidence of the degree of fertility, whereas hitherto the evidence has
been only that of the number of children surviving after infanticide and
infant mortality had taken their toll. This evidence from the Asiatic
races we may now turn to discuss, but we may note before doing so that
the evidence for the remaining races of the first sub-group gives a
rather different impression than that which we obtain when studying
primitive races; upon the whole we get the impression that families were
at least not so markedly small as among primitive races.[1361]
Fertility is often said to be higher in the East than in Europe. So far
as India is concerned this is not so. The error has arisen because
attention has been paid to the crude birth-rate. When the crude
birth-rate is corrected for the number of married females of
reproductive age, then the true birth-rate is found to be lower than in
Europe. ‘The total number of births registered in England and Wales
during the year 1911 was 881,138, which when calculated on the total
population gives a crude birth-rate of 24·4 per thousand. The total
number of births registered in India during the same year was 9,209,703,
which when calculated on the total population gives a crude birth-rate
of 38·59 per thousand. It would seem therefore that the fertility in
India is higher than in England. But this is not so. The total number of
females of reproductive age (15 to 45) in England and Wales at the
census of 1911 was 8,988,745 and if we calculate the births per thousand
of such females the figure stands at 98. The total number of females of
those ages in India in 1911 was 71,535,861 and the corresponding Indian
figure is 128. If, however, we calculate the births on the number of
married females of reproductive ages the Indian figure stands at 160
while the English figure is 196.’[1362]
The fertility in other Asiatic countries is often said to be very high;
it is asserted to approach 50 per 1,000 in China. Exact figures are,
however, lacking. There is no doubt that the corrected birth-rate would
be much less. Among nomadic people the evidence is to the effect that
the number of children is small, and this is probably connected with the
practice of abortion, which is common for instance among the Arabs.
11. We have now to give some account of the factors which have a bearing
upon elimination in the third group. Of these the first is abortion.
Classical literature is full of references to the subject. Plato and
Aristotle both permitted abortion. ‘No law in Greece or in the Roman
republic or during the greater part of the Empire condemned it.’[1363]
‘A long chain of writers both pagan and Christian represent the practice
as avowed and almost universal. They describe it as resulting, not
simply from licentiousness or from poverty, but even from so slight a
motive as vanity which made mothers shrink from the disfigurement of
child-birth. They speak of a mother who had never destroyed her
offspring as deserving of signal praise and they assure us that the
frequency of the crime was such that it gave rise to a regular
profession.’[1364] The practice was more common in Rome than in
Greece.[1365] It was deplored, nevertheless, by many authors including
Ovid, Juvenal, and Seneca. Some details of the methods employed are
given by Theilhaber.[1366]
In sub-group 2 we find the practice to be widespread. Eram comments upon
its frequency throughout the East.[1367] Wilkins says that ‘the crime of
procuring abortion is one of the commonest in India’, and quotes Dr.
Chevers as saying that abortion is ‘an act of almost daily commission’
and has become ‘a trade among certain of the lower midwives’. It is
especially common in Bengal—perhaps 10,000 being destroyed
monthly.[1368] According to Matignon, in China abortion is legal and
usual during the three-year suckling period.[1369] It is also common in
Annam,[1370] in Japan,[1371] Persia,[1372] and Turkey.[1373] Infanticide
was condemned by Mohammed but not abortion, which is frequent among the
Arabs.[1374] In Turkey it is very common;[1375] it is said to be brought
about after the second birth if the husband consents.[1376] The fact
that in later times we hear of enactments against abortion among the
Burgundians, Ripuarians, Visigoths, Bavarians, Saxons, Frisians, and
Lombards seems to point to the conclusion that the practice was common
before their conversion to Christianity.[1377]
12. There is some reason for believing that infanticide was common among
the Egyptians at the time of Moses.[1378] ‘The ancient Jews seem to have
themselves practised infanticide, for as late as the time of Isaiah they
are reproached with the habit of “slaying the children in the valleys
under the clefts of the rocks”. In 2 Chron. xxviii. 3 and xxxiii. 6 the
same statement is made. It is true that these cases may have partaken of
the nature of human sacrifices rather than of ordinary infanticide, but
the two generally prevailed together, and we have express testimony that
both of them existed at that time among all the surrounding nations,
Phoenicians, Aramaeans, Syrians, and Babylonians as well as among their
kindred the Carthaginians.’[1379]
Glotz has an interesting chapter on the subject of infanticide in
Greece. In prehistoric times in Greece the head of the family could, as
among all people of ‘Aryan origin’, dispose of his children as he
wished.[1380] After examining the myths it is clear, according to Glotz,
that infanticide was a daily occurrence during the period at which myths
were being formed.[1381] In historical times it was universal. Most
often infanticide was ordered by the father, who generally on the fifth,
sometimes on the seventh or tenth, day after the birth publicly
proclaimed whether he would keep the child or not.[1382] If he decided
not to keep the child, it was exposed, and there is reason to think that
most of the exposed children died.[1383] Infanticide was enjoined by the
ideal legislation of Plato and Aristotle and by the actual legislation
of Lycurgus and Solon. Summing up his examination of this subject Glotz
says: ‘L’opinion de la Grèce ancienne est donc à peu près unanime. Reçue
dans la vie privée, cette pratique a été admise en droit par les
législatures et fondées en raison par les maîtres de la pensée.’[1384]
In very early times infanticide was general in Rome. Later the right of
the father to destroy his children was somewhat restricted. ‘The power
of life and death, which in Rome was originally conceded to the father
over his children, would appear to involve an unlimited permission of
infanticide; but a very old law, popularly ascribed to Romulus, in this
respect restricted the parental rights, enjoining the father to bring up
all his male children, and at least his eldest female child, forbidding
him to destroy any well-formed child till it had completed its third
year, when the affections of the parents might be supposed to be
developed, but permitting the exposition of deformed or maimed children
with the consent of their five nearest relations.’[1385] There is
evidence to show that this permission was frequently utilized. The plots
of Plautus and Terence sometimes turn upon the reappearance of children
supposed to have been destroyed. ‘Pliny says that infanticide is really
a lamentable necessity “seeing that the fertility of some women is so
over-abundant in children that it needs some such practice to
counterbalance it” while ... Seneca saw nothing reprehensible in
it.’[1386] Suetonius has several allusions to the matter which prove
that infanticide was accepted by the Romans in a very matter-of-fact
spirit. For instance, in describing the public grief for the death of
Germanicus, he mentions that many women exposed their infants. The
opening of the fourteenth episode of the _Golden Ass_ of Apuleius
describes how a husband before going forth on a journey directed his
young wife that the coming babe if a girl was to be destroyed; the whole
being related as a perfectly natural and common occurrence.[1387]
Among the Arabs it was very prevalent before the time of Mohammed, by
whom it was forbidden. Instances are given by Smith to show the extent
of the practice.[1388] Discussing the matter in another place Smith says
that Wilken ‘doubts whether among the Arabs the practice was carried to
such an extent as to do more than keep the sexes balanced—men being more
exposed than women to violent deaths; but there is evidence that, at any
rate in some places and at some times, there was a strong pressure of
public opinion against bearing any daughter, even though she were the
only child of her parents. If we take along with this the fact that
wealthy and powerful men had often several wives, there can, I think, be
no question that, at least in some parts of the country, wives must have
been so scarce that the mass of the tribesmen must have been driven to
practise polyandry.’[1389] The evidence from China is somewhat
conflicting; this is probably to be accounted for by the variations in
habits in different parts of the country. Norman has collected evidence
to show its wide extent. ‘The testimony’, he says, ‘of a Chinese teacher
is as follows: “Infanticide is very common among the poor, and even
people in pretty easy circumstances. There is hardly a family in which
at least one child has not been destroyed, and in some families four or
five are disposed of.”... Another man, who is now a member of the
Christian Church, says that in his village there is hardly a family that
has not destroyed two or three children.... A lady contributor to the
_North China Daily News_ furnished the following statistics: “I find
that 160 Chinese women, all over 50 years of age, had borne 631 sons and
538 daughters. Of the sons 366 or nearly 60 per cent. had lived more
than 10 years; while of the daughters only 205 or 38 per cent. had lived
10 years. The 160 women had, according to their own statement, destroyed
158 of their daughters; but none had ever destroyed a boy. As only four
women reared more than three girls, the probability is that the
infanticides confessed to are considerably below the truth. I have
occasionally been told by a woman that she had forgotten just how many
girls she had had more than she wanted. The greatest number of
infanticides confessed to by any one woman is eleven.”’[1390] Gray
states that infanticide prevails to a huge extent and gives an example
of a young husband who had had three sons and four daughters. Of the
latter three had been killed.[1391] According to Douglas the practice
prevails among the poorer classes ‘to an alarming extent’.[1392] Abeel
speaks of infanticide in China as ‘very common’.[1393] ‘In Pekin,’ he
says, ‘after deducting more than one-half for the natural deaths the
number of exposed children is, according to Barrow, about 4,000 a
year.... In some Provinces not one in three is suffered to live.’[1394]
The practice is said to be specially prevalent in South China.[1395]
Milne says that in Canton ‘infanticide was rare. Dr. Williams, however,
states that though the practice is rare in Canton it is common in Amoy.
He thinks that in general the proportion of children killed is not
great, but mentions two provinces wherein the practice prevails to an
atrocious extent, twenty to thirty per cent. of the female children,
therefore, ten to fifteen per cent. of the total number of infants born,
being put to death.’[1396] The important fact, upon which we shall
comment in the next chapter, seems to be that in China infanticide is
practised not so much as a regular habit as in times of distress. Moule
thinks that infanticide is connected with times of want, and Douglas
that it is in general only committed by the poorer classes in times of
distress. Norman emphasizes the fact that it is chiefly committed by the
poorer classes. Giles denies its existence altogether.[1397] It is
therefore of particular interest to find two modern Chinese authors
speaking as follows. ‘One must not assume that such a custom is
prevalent; flagrant and sometimes dramatic accounts, of which we have
heard so much, only hold true in certain districts and at times of
famine.’[1398] According to Faulds infanticide was formerly common in
Japan.[1399]
It is said that infanticide was formerly characteristic of five-sixths
of British India.[1400] Recently it was common in Central India,
Rajputana, Cutch Bhooj, Agra Province, Khondistan, among the Jats, and
in the Punjab generally.[1401] The Mysore census for 1852 showed that in
a population of 3,410,382 there was a 10 per cent. excess of males in
the adult population in spite of a 16 per cent. excess of female
births.[1402] It is stated to exist among the Nagas[1403] though the
evidence is conflicting.[1404] It was formerly ‘very common all over the
Jeypore country’.[1405] It was especially prevalent among the Khond
people,[1406] where ‘it was expressly sanctioned and promoted by their
religious doctrine’.[1407] It was also common among the Todas.[1408]
‘Lieut.-General Walker estimated that about 33,000 female children were
annually put to death in Cutch and Gujerat, a rate amounting to about
one-fourth of the total births and therefore to about half of the girls
born. Watson and Kaye assert that “no criminality either by law or usage
was ever attached among the Rajputs to infanticide. The child was
smothered in milk or else opium was smeared upon the mother’s breasts in
quantities sufficient to cause immediate death.” The _Encyclopaedia of
India_ asserts that in one of the districts of this Province, while
there were 82,400 boys, there were only 35,137 girls at the 1874
enumeration, a discrepancy which clearly showed that more than one-half
of the girls had been destroyed.’[1409]
It is worthy of note that in addition to infanticide ‘the wilful neglect
of female children operates destructively in every town and village
throughout the length and breadth of India’.[1410] This is especially
noticeable where in recent days infanticide has much diminished. Thus in
Rajputana girls are allowed to die when in the case of a boy medical aid
would be summoned.[1411]
Infanticide was extensively practised among the Teutonic tribes before
their conversion to Christianity.[1412] The well-known statement of
Tacitus that the Germans did not practise infanticide is certainly
erroneous. Lecky suggests that the whole passage is to be taken rather
as an indirect way of scolding his own people than as a sober statement
of fact about another. ‘Guizot regards the picture which Tacitus draws
as being analogous to the portrait Fenimore Cooper gives of the Red
Indians.’[1413] There is ample evidence that the practice was common.
‘Grimm declares that “all the Teutonic Sagas are full of the exposure of
children, and there can be no doubt that in the early days of heathenism
it was lawful”. Müller says that all the Teutonic races in early times
had the right of exposing their children, but in the course of centuries
it came to be exercised only by the parent.... It is related that, when
in A. D. 1000 the Norsemen of Iceland were converted to Christianity,
they stipulated that the right of slaying their infants should not be
removed.’[1414] There is evidence from graves that infanticide was
practised in Neolithic times in England.[1415] It is thus of particular
interest to notice that, where we can catch sight of peoples emerging
out of the prehistoric period, we find infanticide established as a
practice; the conclusions derived from the direct evidence of the
peoples of this group are thus linked on to the conclusion to which in
the last chapter we came from indirect evidence.[1416]
13. Turning to sub-groups three and four, disease, war, famine, and
child mortality have already been dealt with. The remaining factors are
those in respect of which there is a contrast between these sub-groups
and those just considered. Furthermore, as regards these factors there
are certain important differences as between what we may call mediaeval
and modern races.
Of pre-puberty intercourse there is no evidence. Among modern races it
is certainly negligible. If it occurred at all in the mediaeval period
it was very uncommon, and we may therefore regard this factor as of no
account. Hitherto we have found that, though far from being universal,
it is a fairly common practice. Its disappearance thus makes one
distinction between these races and those which we have previously
studied.
The length of the suckling period marks a similar distinction. It is not
possible to lay down any hard and fast distinction; even at the present
day in certain country districts it is prolonged, as, for instance, in
Hungary for several years according to Gönezi.[1417] Generally speaking,
however, the tendency has been for a reduction to the conditions which
now rule in Western Europe.
14. A far more remarkable difference between these races and those
hitherto considered is provided by the conditions regarding celibacy and
the postponement of marriage. Hitherto we have found that, with the
exception of a very few individuals who chiefly for religious reasons
did not marry, all women, if indeed not married before puberty, got
married soon after. Such postponement of marriage as occurred was
confined to men, and therefore neither celibacy nor postponement had any
effect upon numbers. At this point we come upon wholly new conditions.
The views of St. Paul with regard to marriage are well known and the
attitude of all early Christians authors is similar though usually more
pronounced. If marriage was tolerable, virginity was in any case
preferable. ‘For why’, says Tertullian, ‘should we long to bear
children, whom, when we have them, we desire to send before us ...
ourselves also longing to be removed from this most wicked world....
Therefore whether marriage be for the sake of the flesh, or of the world
or of having descendants, not one of these necessities belongeth to the
servants of God.’[1418] Such a passage as this can be paralleled in the
works of almost any of the Fathers. They return to the subject over and
over again. St. Augustine did not avoid the practical difficulty. ‘But I
am aware’, he says, ‘of some that murmur. What, say they, if all men
should abstain from sexual intercourse, whence will the human race
exist? Would that all would thus; ... much more speedily would the City
of God be filled and the end of the world hastened.’[1419] There are
many decrees of the early Council regarding celibacy. It was first
enjoined by the Popes in 385.[1420] Gregory VII was very zealous on
behalf of celibacy, and owing to his efforts it became very general in
Europe in the eleventh century though it was not rigidly enforced until
the thirteenth century among the clergy.[1421] Much earlier, however, in
certain countries celibacy had come, under the influence of Christian
teaching, to be of importance. It was initiated by Paul the Theban and
St. Antony after the Decian persecution[1422] and according to Schönberg
there were at one time in a single diocese in Egypt 20,000 men and
10,000 women celibates.[1423] It was felt to be necessary to take steps
to limit the extent of the practice, and in 381 the Council of Saragossa
forbade virgins to take the veil unless over forty years of age.[1424]
Thus under the influence of Christianity celibacy became for the first
time in human history a factor of importance. That the celibate is to be
preferred to the married state is emphasized by the Council of
Trent.[1425]
Also in this period for the first time in the history of the world
postponement of marriage became of importance. The evidence as to the
age at marriage is unfortunately far from exact. There is, however, a
very large amount of evidence which shows that, at least in the society
typical of most European countries from the tenth century onwards,
marriage was, except among the privileged classes, always somewhat, and
often very long, postponed both for men and women, though more for the
former than the latter. This postponement was brought about by the
pressure of social conditions, customs, and laws. To these conditions
and customs it will be necessary to refer in the next chapter, and it
will suffice to say here that, generally speaking, in the country there
was a limited number of households and that, until death made vacancies,
there was no house for those wishing to marry, who in consequence had to
wait, and that in the towns guild restrictions bound apprentices for a
large number of years during which they might not marry, and that at
many times in many places the poor were prohibited from marrying.
There is very little statistical evidence. The matter has been
investigated by Rubin, who worked with the Danish figures for the
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. ‘It was the universal
rule’, he says, ‘that as soon as the obstacles ... were surmounted,
every one proceeded to get married.’[1426] Apart, therefore, from
religious celibacy, there was no voluntary celibacy such as we find at
the present day. But these obstacles in the case of the dependent class
were serious, and marriage was long postponed by men in this class,
though postponed for a shorter time by women than by men. ‘Even though
the social and economic structure of the community of old restrained one
section of the population—the dependent section—from marriage, the other
part of the population, the independent section, married far earlier
than nowadays. There was perhaps ... some holding back in certain
circles of the best society. But for ordinary independent people
marriage at an early age was a matter of course. Those who could marry
early, then, did so. But those who were unable to marry till late in
life—when they no longer held the position of journeymen, labourer,
&c.—yet married.’[1427] With regard to women there was ‘a state of
affairs resembling that found in the case of men, a compulsory condition
of celibacy for certain sections of the population.... In certain
classes of the population there were a good many more unmarried women at
something over twenty years of age than there are now.’[1428] Summing up
his conclusions the same author says ‘in spite of the fact that in the
independent section of the community marriage took place, as a rule, at
an earlier age in the eighteenth century than it does now, the average
age of marriage was yet higher at that time, because the more numerous
dependent class married later’, and adds that ‘there must have been a
difference between the age of the bride and bridegroom considerably
greater than in the marriages of our time’.[1429]
The state of things indicated above is that typical of mediaeval Europe
and lasted up to the industrial revolution. It is not to be supposed
that there was any abrupt change from the conditions prevalent before;
on the contrary the conditions described developed slowly as European
mediaeval society assumed its typical aspect. The growth of these
conditions is connected with the disappearance of abortion and
infanticide, and, as we shall see; there is evidence that there was a
lengthy period during which these customs continued to be practised
after the introduction of Christianity.
The transition from the conditions of what we have called the mediaeval
period to those of the modern period was relatively sudden. The economic
changes connected with the rise of the industrial system in the latter
half of the eighteenth century did away with the obstacles to marriage
which have been mentioned. As a result the average age at marriage was
lowered. In England between 1867 and 1888 it was for men twenty-six and
for women twenty-four. The question of the age at marriage in the modern
period need not detain us because it was not the variations in that
factor which have controlled numbers. There have been variations, but
these variations have been compensated for by other factors.
Celibacy for religious reasons, which at certain times and places was of
great importance in the mediaeval period, has ceased to be of any
importance in the modern period. On the other hand, for the first time
in history voluntary celibacy on grounds other than religious has come
to be of importance. ‘In the course of this century [nineteenth century]
Wappaus found that in Saxony 14·6 of the unmarried adult population died
single; in Sweden 14·9 per cent., in the Netherlands 14·2 per cent., and
in France 20·6 per cent.’[1430] The returns of the thirteenth United
States[1431] Census showed that of the females 35–44 years of age 10 per
cent. were single.
In this connexion there is another matter which may be mentioned here.
It will be referred to in detail later on. Whereas in the mediaeval
period the independent class married early and the dependent class
considerably later, in the modern period this has been reversed. It is
now the wage-earning class which marries earlier than the independent
class.
15. Contraceptive methods were known in the mediaeval period,[1432] but
there is no evidence that either these practices or restraint from
intercourse between married persons were of any importance. According to
Rubin, ‘so far as the eighteenth century ... is concerned, it may be
taken as a fact that in the main the limit of fertility of marriage was
set by nature alone.’[1433] This applies equally to the whole of the
period. In this respect, therefore, this period resembles those which
preceded it.
Whatever effects may have to be attributed to these factors in the
former periods, it is within the modern period that they first become of
primary importance. Something was said in the First Chapter as to the
history of the so-called Neomalthusian propaganda, and it was pointed
out that it began relatively early in the century. It is obviously very
difficult to obtain any definite facts regarding the extent of these
practices, but a very great body of evidence points to the conclusion
that, not only have these practices come to be of great importance, but
also that it is by means of variation in their use, together with
deliberate restraint from intercourse between married persons, by which
population has come to be regulated.
With regard to definite evidence the results of an inquiry carried out
by the National Birth-Rate Commission may be quoted. Of 481 schedules
issued, 366 gave definite replies regarding the limitation of births. In
288 cases the marriages were specifically stated to be limited, and in
203 of these 288 cases there were further particulars. In 105 cases
(51·7 per cent.) limitation appears to have been due merely to
restriction of intercourse to periods when conception was believed to be
unlikely or to abstention from intercourse. There were 98 cases in which
contraceptive methods were apparently employed.[1434]
16. We now come to a consideration of the three practices which we found
to be of such importance in the first two groups. Of prolonged restraint
from intercourse imposed as a social custom there is no trace. It was
certainly not characteristic of the mediaeval period; it is possible
that in the earlier portion of the period, of which in these respects we
have little definite knowledge, the practice may have been continued
from the times previous to conversion to Christianity, just as we shall
find that abortion and infanticide were continued in some cases. It is
important also to notice that abortion and infanticide, at least in the
form of well-recognized social customs, are also absent. For the first
time in history none of these practices are in common use. We may
shortly consider how they came to disappear.
‘Abortion’, says Lecky, ‘was probably regarded by the average Roman of
the later days of Paganism much as an Englishman in the last century
regarded convivial excess, as certainly wrong, but so venial as scarcely
to deserve censure. The language of the Christians from the very
beginning was widely different. With unswerving consistency and with the
strongest emphasis, they denounced the practice, not simply as inhuman,
but as definitely murder.’[1435] The evidence goes to show that the
Christian objection to abortion was the chief factor in bringing this
practice into discredit. The Christian attitude was due to the belief
that children in the womb possessed souls. St. Clement of Alexandria,
for instance, was of opinion that such children had guardian angels. It
is probable that abortion was not stamped out altogether; it may have
continued to some extent throughout the whole mediaeval period; it is
known to be practised to a considerable extent among the less educated
classes in the more advanced countries at the present day.[1436] Figures
have been given which show that abortion is at the present day a
considerable factor in France. But it is clear that from being a factor
of the first importance it has come to be altogether a secondary factor
and what is more to be regarded definitely as criminal.
The first protest against infanticide was made by Philo in the first
century A. D.[1437] The Christians opposed infanticide as they did
abortion, but it does not appear that Christian influence played as
large a part in putting down this practice as it did in the case of
abortion. Speaking of the later days of the Empire, Lecky says that ‘the
legislators then absolutely condemned it and it was indirectly
discouraged by laws which accorded special privileges to the fathers of
many children.... Pagan and Christian authorities are united in speaking
of infanticide as a crying vice of the Empire and Tertullian observed
that no laws were more easily or constantly evaded than those which
condemned it. A broad distinction was popularly drawn between
infanticide and exposition. The latter, though probably condemned, was
certainly not punished by law; it was practised on a gigantic scale with
absolute impunity, noticed by writers with most frigid indifference,
and, at least in the case of destitute parents, considered a very venial
offence.’[1438] Finally in 374 Valentinian made all infanticide a
capital offence and particularly enjoined the punishment of exposition.
There is much evidence to show that many centuries elapsed before the
practice was finally suppressed in Europe. It was apparently common in
France up to the time of Charlemagne, who made it a capital offence. A
law of the Spanish Visigoths in the seventh century punished both
abortion and infanticide with death.[1439]
The disappearance of both these practices is connected with the
evolution of the typical conditions of mediaeval society which are
marked, as we saw, by postponement of marriage and religious celibacy.
As the former went out the latter came in, and we shall find that
numbers came to be regulated by the peculiar methods of the latter
period as they had previously been regulated by those of the former.
17. Mention may perhaps be made of the influence of venereal disease.
Gonorrhoea has long been prevalent; there is some reason to think that
it was known in Assyria. Syphilis is of more recent introduction into
Europe and may be of more recent evolution. Though syphilis is a
frequent cause of abortions, still-births, and infant mortality, it does
not produce sterility. The presence of gonorrhoea tends to prevent
conception in women and, if not cured within a certain time, it may
cause permanent sterility. A considerable proportion of the sterile
marriages at the present day may, as indicated in the Fourth Chapter, be
due to gonorrhoea. Though no great influence is to be attributed to
venereal diseases when the whole question is broadly viewed, it may be
remembered that within the third period they have been prevalent and
thus further distinguish that period from the first two periods.[1440]
XI
THE REGULATION OF NUMBERS AMONG HISTORICAL RACES
1. At the beginning of the Ninth Chapter it was shown that under any
given conditions there is a certain density of population which is the
most desirable. What was there said applies whenever men enjoy the
benefits of co-operation. In the first and second groups, most men are
engaged in the production of food, and, except in some races in the
second group, the distinction between rich and poor, the division of
labour, and other complications of social life are not far advanced.
Where such complications are much increased, as in the third group, it
may seem that so simple an idea as that of an optimum number is no
longer even in general valid. It must suffice here to state that such
complications do not destroy the general validity of this view. In fact
the quotation from Professor Cannan given in the Sixth Chapter has
direct reference to modern conditions, and the principle there laid down
was intended by him to apply to the economic conditions of the present
day, though it is, as he says, also applicable to any society once
co-operation has arisen.
Among the complications of social life to which we may refer are those
connected with property, the division of labour, and the division into
classes. The latest development connected with property—the introduction
of the capitalist system and the appearance of a large class of wage
earners—does not change the general position. One remarkable modern
development of the division of labour results in one country devoting
itself largely to manufacture while another may devote itself to the
production of food. Of all such complications there is only one which so
modifies the idea of an optimum number as to require mention in a broad
survey. That complication is the division into classes. Where there is a
more or less well-marked division into classes performing more or less
well-defined kinds of labour, there is nevertheless generally such an
ebb and flow between them that there can hardly be any question, broadly
speaking, of over-population in any one class. This, however, may not
always be so, and in particular at the present day it may be that in the
lowest social class there is over-population though not in the nation as
a whole. It may be that in this class there is a failure to attain to
such a standard of living as is within reach owing to over-population,
and whether this does in fact happen will have to be discussed later.
In the Ninth Chapter, when discussing the data of the first and second
groups, we showed how approximation to the desirable number might be
brought about and we further came to the conclusion that normally there
was such an approximation. It is proposed here to treat the data for the
third group in the same fashion, though the treatment will be even
slighter than in the case of the other groups. Subsequently we shall
discuss the chief causes of failure of adjustment in this and in the
preceding groups. Lastly we shall touch upon the questions of migration
and war which have often been held to be caused by over-population.
2. The difficulties in dealing with the first sub-group are so great
that we shall only devote a very few words to the consideration of the
problems that arise. The facts regarding the social conditions in Egypt,
Assyria, and other great empires are very scanty. It is only with regard
to Greece and Rome that we have any considerable amount of information.
Our conclusions as to what was in the main the position with regard to
the ancient empires will be rather in the nature of a deduction when we
have completed our sketch of all the races in the third group.
How adjustment may be conceived to have come about in these races is in
the absence of knowledge of their social conditions not possible to
illustrate. We know, however, that the social life of these races was
based upon the cultivation of the land. It is true that in addition to
the cultivator we find the artisan and the wage-earner.[1441] The
question as to how the increase of the artisan, merchant, and
wage-earning classes may be kept down to the desirable level will be
discussed when dealing with the third and fourth sub-groups, and, as in
general the conditions are probably much the same everywhere, we may
omit the consideration of what happens among these classes in this
sub-group. With regard to the cultivators we have already seen, when
dealing with the second group, how, when either family or village
communities are limited to a certain area, we can understand that the
undesirability of such an increase as would cause the average earnings
to fall below the possible maximum not only might, but actually does,
result in a limitation of increase. So again here among the cultivators,
we can suppose that the danger of an undue increase was brought to
notice in the same fashion. We shall also discuss in some little detail
what happens among the cultivators in the third sub-group, and thus we
can omit the consideration of what facts there are for this sub-group
and merely ask what methods there are whereby increase could have been
checked.
Of fertility we have little evidence. It has to be remembered that on
general grounds fecundity was if anything greater than among the races
of the former groups. Lactation was apparently often prolonged and
pre-puberty marriage may not have been uncommon. Disease and war were
very important as factors of elimination, and moreover they were both
erratic in their action. It is no longer possible to think of a certain
average degree of elimination from these causes which varied little from
year to year. On the other hand there is no difficulty in supposing that
abortion and infanticide were employed in varying degrees to meet the
situation. It may be observed that abortion in Rome and infanticide in
Greece were practised systematically, and not merely when pressure had
arisen but in order that it might not arise. Thus Hesiod recommends the
cultivator not to bring up more than one son at home, for thus ‘wealth
will increase in the house’.[1442] What practices were in use among the
Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, and other peoples we do not
know in any detail, though there is considerable evidence of the
prevalence of infanticide. There may have been a tendency to practise
these customs to some average degree, but there is no difficulty in
supposing that following upon war and pestilence there would be such a
relaxation as soon to bring numbers up to the former level. The question
as to how far we may assume these methods to have been effective will be
left for discussion until later in the chapter.
3. There is a great variety of races in the second sub-group; they fall
under the headings of the more or less nomadic peoples, the more
primitive peoples of India, who in many respects are comparable to the
races of the second group but who have been to some extent influenced by
Eur-Asiatic culture and the chief races of India and China. Those races
which fall under the second and third headings are predominantly
agricultural; 75 per cent. of the population of Bengal, for instance, is
supported directly or indirectly by agriculture. Whether, as in many
parts of India, the village community system obtains,[1443] or whether,
as in China, there is family or individual ownership of the land,[1444]
what was said above regarding the possibility of the desirable number
making itself felt also applies here. So also does what was there said
about the position of the artisan and wage-earner. As a typical example
of the manner in which the pressure is felt where the family system
obtains in an agricultural community, we may take the conditions in
China as described by two Chinese authors. ‘In a village the well-to-do
family is a rare exception, and the typical family is the working-class
family. The father is, as a rule, a husbandman, and the sons follow his
footsteps. If they do not possess a piece of land of their own they
cultivate either the land of the ancestral hall, of the village temple,
or that of any private owner. The mother, daughter, and daughter-in-law
do the household work together, and also add considerably to the family
income by such employment as may be carried on in the home. The earnings
of all the members of a family are given to the mother in a hotch-potch
for the maintenance of the corporate whole. The family from our point of
view is a living organism which possesses a spirit quite apart from the
individuals who form it. Each member does not live and work for himself,
but for the family to which he belongs. Every other member has a claim
on his earnings.’[1445] Another author, after describing this system,
tells us that ‘any member of the family who should disgrace himself in
any way, as by becoming an inveterate gambler and permanently neglecting
his work, or by developing the opium vice to great excess, would be
formally cast out, his name being struck off the ancestral register. Men
of this stamp generally sink lower and lower, until they swell the ranks
of the professional beggars, to die perhaps in a ditch.’[1446]
With regard to the nomadic peoples we always find that they are
restricted to clearly marked territories. Robertson Smith, after
describing the local groups among the Arabs, goes on to say that ‘the
nomadic Arabs, whose way of life supplied the type in which all Arabian
society was mainly moulded, are not to be thought of as roaming quite at
large through the length and breadth of the peninsula. Each group, or
confederation of groups, had its own pastures, and still more its own
waters, beyond which it could not move without immediate risk of a
hostile encounter.’[1447] Somewhat similar conditions are recorded of
all nomadic people.[1448]
4. When we consider the factors which bear upon fertility and
elimination, we find that, as in the first sub-group, war and disease
are of importance—especially the latter—and that, further, the amount of
elimination to which they give rise is very irregular from one period to
another. For some thousands of years India appears to have been subject
to the passage of scourge after scourge, sweeping away hundreds of
thousands of the population. Famine at times is the cause of many
deaths, and is due in part, as it is in varying degrees among all races,
to climatic factors. It happens, however, that in India these conditions
are such as to produce famine more often than anywhere else. Peninsular
India is ‘subject to excessive variations [of rainfall] distributed
quite irregularly and over very long periods. In such regions years of
adequate rainfall and abundant yield may follow in successive decades at
a time during which a considerable population settles and opens up the
country; then follow a few years of drought with high temperature and
aridity; and unless migration and storage works are practicable and are
executed in time, the land is deserted.’[1449] Famine is also due at
times to some failure in social organization or to some failure to keep
up the previous level of skill, as, for instance, to maintain irrigation
works.
Fecundity, as we have seen, is probably, on the whole, higher among
these races than among the races of the second group. Pre-puberty
marriage in India probably has a considerable influence in reducing
fertility, at least among the Hindu part of the population. With regard
to practices limiting fertility and causing elimination, we have seen
that infanticide and abortion are widespread and perhaps to some small
extent contraceptive practices or prudential restraint are employed by
all these races. It may also be noticed that there is plenty of evidence
that in former times in any case marriage customs existed which ensured
that before marriage took place the bridegroom was competent to support
a family at the recognized standard of living. ‘The days are still
remembered when no young Munda could marry before he was able to
construct a plough with his own hands, nor would a Munda girl be given
away in marriage before she could, with her own hands, weave mats with
palm leaves and spin cotton.’[1450]
5. There is no reason for thinking that over-population occurs among the
nomadic people such as the Arabs; presumably the methods we have seen to
be in use are effective. There has been much discussion as to whether
over-population exists in India, and there is a very great difference of
opinion on the matter. Hitherto, in order to throw some light on this
point, we have had to rely on general evidence; here, for the first
time, there is some exact evidence of the kind which should enable a
definite answer to be given. What we want to know in the case of India
is whether the real income per head is increasing or not with the
increase of population. Unfortunately the evidence in India is somewhat
contradictory. It has recently been summed up by Wattal.[1451] He shows
that some of the arguments in favour of the view that there is no
over-population are of very doubtful validity. It has been said, for
instance, that large areas are sparsely populated; in this connexion it
has to be remembered that the soil is poor in these areas. It has also
been said that the complaints about insufficiency of labour point to the
same conclusion. There are, however, many reasons to account for this
fact. On the other hand, Wattal points out that the acreage per unit of
the agricultural population hardly exceeds one and a half acres and
further shows a tendency to fall. He also points out that in Europe 250
persons to the square mile is thought to be the limit of density where
agriculture is practised, whereas in India from four to five times that
number in many places find their support on an area of this size. He
finds the explanation of this not in any superiority of soil or of skill
but in the lowness of the standard of living. Four persons subsist on an
income that would hardly support one person in Europe. The lowness of
the standard of living, the small area of land per head, and the
tendency for the amount of land per labourer to decrease points strongly
to the conclusion that over-population does occur in many parts of
India.
It is also probable that many parts of China are over-populated. The
apparent overcrowding and the low standard of living lend support to
this views and in this connexion it is interesting to note that
infanticide is practised not so much as a regular custom but at times
when, numbers being so great, no further increase could be supported.
Moule says that infanticide is ‘local and spasmodic’ rather than
‘chronic and national’ and notices that it is especially connected with
‘want from flood, or famine or civil war’.[1452] There is much other
evidence to the same effect.[1453] It will be remembered that some
evidence was given in the last chapter pointing to the great prevalence
of infanticide; it is necessary to remember that such conditions are
consistent with a state of over-population. The prevalence of such a
custom in no way shows that numbers are as a result being kept down to
the desirable level. These customs may bring about this result, or they
may, in a country in the position in which there is reason to believe
that many parts of China now are, merely eliminate those for whom there
is no place at all. Almost the same amount of infanticide, which would
limit numbers to a desirable level in a country where such a level was
being maintained, would, in a country where numbers were already
excessive, merely cut off those for whom enough food to support
existence could not be found.
What, then, is the cause of the over-population which almost certainly
exists in parts of India and China? The irregularity of the factors of
elimination is itself no bar to the adjustment of population, but this
irregularity may indirectly have an important bearing upon the outlook
of man and ultimately upon the behaviour of the mass of the population.
Great scourges must tend to produce a hopelessness of outlook. When time
and again war and disease sweep through a country, there must arise a
tendency for the standard of living to be lost sight of. Gradually there
may come about a condition of things when there is no hope or fear.
European influence may have had an ill effect. The lessening of
elimination through disease and war does not of necessity in itself tend
to bring about any over-population. On the contrary, it tends rather to
remove the causes which produce degraded social conditions and the
consequences referred to above which flow from them. But in other ways
European influence is not beneficial. Those customs, for instance, which
insist upon the bridegroom possessing a certain degree of skill break
down, and unless a more or less distinctly formulated ambition takes
their place, there is nothing to ensure that the necessary effort to
secure the highest standard of living that is possible will be made.
That which is common to these races, where over-population is suspected,
is the absence of hope and fear alike, of ambition and of a standard of
living; they are contented to subsist on what will just support life.
Such conditions are fatal to the attainment of the desirable number.
Abortion and infanticide may still be practised, but as a rule only in
the presence of absolute need, not as regular customs before the need
arises. To the bringing about of these conditions the factors mentioned
above contribute, but they probably never represent the whole cause. In
these cases we seem always to find that political misfortunes have
overtaken these peoples. They have suffered from oppression in one form
or another and gradually the old customs have been lost; hope and
ambition have faded from the outlook. In consequence of oppression the
mass of the people has by degrees sunk to a degraded condition in which
neither the former customs are practised nor is an individual effort, as
a rule, made towards the attainment of the best which the skilled
methods available, surroundings and so on, make possible.
It is also probable that there is over-population in Egypt; it is
probable, that is to say, that with the recent increase of the fellaheen
population there has been a decrease in the income per head. Any one who
has had an opportunity of watching the behaviour of the fellaheen side
by side with that of members of some race such as the Somalis cannot
fail to have been very much impressed. The fellaheen cultivate one of
the richest countries on earth, and they have within their grasp and to
some extent within their use a considerable degree of modern skilled
methods. At an Egyptian port these men were to be seen at work during
the war. From time to time Somalis disembarked with shiploads of camels.
The Somalis live in a country which relatively to Egypt is infertile and
have little knowledge of skilled methods. Stepping ashore for the first
time in a modern port, bewildered as was inevitable with his
surroundings, the Somali, nevertheless, showed himself a man. He carried
a certain pride with him. The fellaheen grovelled to him; the Somali
obviously despised him. The Somali is a man who has not suffered from a
tradition of oppression as has the Egyptian fellah; it is easy to
understand how among the Somalis conditions would arise and would be
maintained whereby excess of numbers would not reduce them to a bare
level of subsistence, whereas among the fellaheen numbers probably tend
to be regulated by the ability of the land to keep men alive in spite of
the possibility of the return per head being far higher in Egypt than in
Somaliland.
6. Passing to the third sub-group we come for the first time upon
conditions substantially different to those with which we have hitherto
met. All those factors, which in previous groups we have noticed as
having a bearing upon fertility, have either diminished in importance or
more often have vanished altogether. Lactation was not prolonged, there
was no pre-puberty marriage, and there is no evidence of restraint from
intercourse between married persons being imposed as a social custom.
Though the knowledge of contraceptive practices may have been present
there is no evidence of their extensive use. It has also to be
remembered that fecundity, if anything, was increasing. On the other
hand disease was the cause of a very high death-rate, higher almost
certainly than in any previous age.
The most striking difference, however, between this and former
sub-groups is the absence of abortion and infanticide. Further, we find
what we have never found before, or rather never in such a degree as to
be of any importance, postponement of marriage and celibacy; in other
words, for the older methods there has been substituted a new method
whereby fertility may be reduced. We have now to inquire how the
realization of the desirability of some limitation brought about the
most important factor—postponement of marriage—and how effective it was.
With regard to religious celibacy, which was of less importance and
ceased to be of any importance in England during the sixteenth century,
we may merely notice its existence. Under conditions, such as we shall
describe, and which rendered marriage difficult, monastic institutions
were obviously a refuge for many for whom there was little prospect of
marriage.[1454] The estimates of the number of religious celibates are
too vague and conflicting to be worth analysing. It can only be regarded
as a secondary factor representing the most extreme result of the
working of the pressure which we are about to describe.
7. The following sketch is in the main confined to conditions in England
since the thirteenth century, and we may first notice that in that
century ‘almost every one not only possessed land, but cultivated
it’.[1455] Yet the serf, in addition to the pressure to postpone
marriage which was felt by all cultivators, was definitely restricted
with regard to marriage. Besides being unable to move away from his
manor, ‘the serf was disabled from marrying his daughter without licence
and fine. Very numerous instances are found of these kinds of payment,
under the name of mercheta, in the earliest times. Similarly fines are
paid for marrying a daughter outside the manor, for marrying a nief, i.
e. a female serf, who was possessed of property, and men of another
manor for marrying a female serf from her lord’s manor. I have found
traces of this custom,’ says Rogers, ‘though they become very infrequent
far on into the fifteenth century.’[1456] Such facts are to be regarded
as the legal enforcement among serfs of that amount of postponement
which was on the average enforced by circumstances upon cultivators in
general. As villein tenements were usually indivisible, the question
arises as to what happened when there was more than one son. ‘The
indivisibility of villein tenements is chiefly conspicuous in the law of
inheritance; all the land went to one of the sons if there were several;
very often the youngest inherited; and this custom, to which mere chance
has given the name of Borough English, was considered as one of the
proofs of villeinage. It is certainly a custom of great importance, and
probably it depended on the fact that the elder brothers left the land
at the earliest opportunity and during their father’s life. Where did
they go to? It is easy to guess that they sought work out of the manor
as craftsmen or labourers; that they served the lord as servants,
craftsmen and the like; that they were provided with holdings, which for
some reason did not descend to male heirs; that they were endowed with
some demesne land, or fitted out to claim land from the waste. We may
find for all these suppositions some supporting quotations in the
records. But still it would be hard to believe that the entire increase
of population found an exit by these by-paths. If no exit was found, the
brothers had to remain on their father’s plot, and the fact that they
did so can be proved, if it needs proof, from the documents. The unity
of the holding was not disturbed in this case; there was no
division.’[1457] Here we see the pressure at work. The tenement would in
general be of the size which could well support a family, and a tenement
might not be divided, thus ensuring that there was no overcrowding of
families until life could only just be supported.
8. Far more important than any particular disabilities regarding
marriage which attach to serfs are the conditions making very difficult
any increase in population which are always found among cultivators.
When a village has as many hands as it requires, the number of houses is
not increased. Speaking generally of the Middle Ages Pollard says that
‘the number of holdings was almost stationary and the number of families
fixed’.[1458] The number of hands in a village found to be required
would be about that which experience has shown to produce the largest
average income. Any further increase is made very difficult, if not
impossible. ‘Country life was as elsewhere rigid in its habits; young
people found it difficult to establish themselves till some married pair
had passed from the scene and made a vacancy in their own parish; for
migration to another parish was seldom thought of by an agricultural
labourer under ordinary circumstances. Consequently whenever a plague or
famine thinned the population, there were always many waiting to be
married, who filled the vacant places.’[1459]
Such always are the conditions among cultivators in a settled country;
it is forced to the notice of every one that not more than a certain
number of hands are required and postponement of marriage is thus
imposed upon the younger people. Neither land nor houses are available
for them at an early age. ‘Before the Reformation, not only were early
marriages determinately discouraged, but the opportunity for them did
not exist. A labourer living in a cottage by himself was a rare
exception to the rule; and the work of the fields was performed
generally ... by servants who lived in the families of the squire or
farmer, and who, while in that position, commonly remained single, and
married only when by prudence they had saved a sufficient sum to enable
them to enter some other position.’[1460] Miss Davies, working on
figures for the parish of Corsley, found reason for thinking that at any
one time there was usually a number of younger people who were debarred
from marrying and were waiting their turn, so to speak, until they could
step into places vacated by members of an older generation.[1461]
9. In addition to those who cultivated the land there were merchants and
craftsmen who for the most part lived in the towns. ‘The essence of the
mediaeval town was the formation of gilds of merchants and craftsmen’
and ‘within the limits of the corporation gilds had the monopoly of
manufacture or trade’.[1462] Membership of a guild was a birthright or
an inheritance, and newcomers could only enter after a long period of
apprenticeship. The result of this system of apprenticeship was to bring
about the postponement of marriage, and thus to limit the undue increase
of population. ‘The position of a son who acquired a holding when his
parent died is analogous to that of an apprentice who cannot set up as a
master till given permission by the proper authorities. It is quite
plain that in the eyes of the ordinary man in the sixteenth century one
of the advantages of a system of compulsory apprenticeship was that it
prevented youths marrying at a very early age, e. g. an Act (2 and 3
Philip and Mary) forbids the admitting of any one to the freedom of the
City of London before the age of twenty-four, and enacts that
apprentices are not to be taken so young that they will come out of
their time before they are twenty-four. The reason alleged for this rule
is that distress in the city of which “one of the chief occasions is by
reason of the over-hasty marriages and the over soon setting up of
householdes by the younge folke of the city ... be they never so younge
and so unskilful”.’ Again a petition of the weavers states (Hist. MSS.
Com. Cd. 784, p. 114): ‘whereas by the former good laws of their trade
none could exercise the same until he had served an apprenticeship for
seven years and attained the age of twenty-four, now in these disordered
times many apprentices having forsaken parents and masters ... refuse to
serve out their time, but before they are 18 or 20 years old betake
themselves to marriage.’[1463]
Rubin, whose conclusions regarding the age at marriage in the sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have already been quoted, sums up
the position in these words: ‘The domestic servant class then, as now,
was unmarried, but that class was much more numerous than at present.
Subordinates in the industrial class and in handicrafts were not, as in
our own time, free and independent, but lived for the most part in the
houses of their masters, and, at any rate, were accustomed to wait until
they became masters before marrying; the chances of attaining the
position of master were greater than now. The same rule applied to other
journeymen in various employments, whether in town or country.’[1464]
Thus in the town as well as on the land the pressure was at work. The
result was twofold. Marriage was made difficult, and many sought refuge
in lifelong celibacy in religious institutions. Again, a standard of
skill was insisted upon which tended to ensure that young husbands would
be able to support a family as well as ensuring that they would not have
a family at all until there was a place for them. And it must be assumed
that the number of families felt to be desirable was somewhere about
that which given all circumstances produces the maximum benefit from
co-operation. It may also be observed that we can in evidence of the
above kind detect the recognition of a standard of living—the essential
feature in any community in which an approach to the desirable number is
to be attained. For this standard of living is only the income per head
which, given all the circumstances, is the highest within reach.
10. Regulations prohibiting the marriage of the poor were not uncommon
in this period. ‘In Bavaria ... the regulations of the Government and
the Police Ordinances of 1616 forbade the marriage of servants, day
labourers, and others without property, and the punishments by which
those were threatened by the legislation of 1751 who, without the
permission of the superior authorities, entered into wedlock, and were
afterwards unable to support themselves without begging or the like,
extended to corporal chastisement and the like.’[1465] The Poor Law
Commission of 1834 obtained reports regarding the regulations in various
European countries. Of Denmark we hear that ‘all those persons who are
in receipt of parish relief are not allowed to marry unless by
permission granted on special grounds by the Commissioners’.[1466] In
Würtemberg no subject of the state could marry until he possessed ‘the
rights of a member of a community or a settled non-freeman. But even
such a one must prove to the magistrates before his marriage that he
possesses sufficient means of subsistence. The want of such means of
subsistence is considered as existing, (_a_) in every one who is not
primarily qualified in the exercises of a liberal art or science, or for
exercising on his own account, commerce, a profession, agriculture or
some other business sufficient for the support of a family, or possesses
sufficient property for the independent support of a family; and (_b_)
in every one who, at the time of the intended marriage, is the subject
of political or police investigation, for vagabondage, prodigality,
habitual idleness, notorious propensity to drinking, or repeated fraud,
repeated theft or systematic begging, or who has been punished for the
same, during the two years immediately preceding, or who in the course
of the three preceding years (except in the case of misfortune not
incurred by his own fault) has received assistance from public funds for
his own support, or is in receipt of such at the time of the intended
marriage.’[1467]
11. Somewhat similar conditions to those which led to postponement of
marriage in England were operative elsewhere. Looking at this period in
general there is little doubt that the restrictions upon increase were
upon the whole effective. There were fluctuations in the nearness of
approach to the desirable number; at times for some reason too great an
increase became noticeable. Adjustment, however, soon followed. ‘There
was reason to believe that towards the middle of the fifteenth century
there was a considerable increase in population, unaccompanied by any
great improvement in the means of production, and consequently a
relative over-population in many European countries. The frequent
complaints of poverty and lack of employment which led eventually to
stringent measures against foreign competitors, confirms the evidence
from other sources to show that the gilds were being overstocked with
journeymen who could hardly hope to attain the position of householders
and employers. In the callings where the old-world organization was
effective there was an increasing tendency, during the fifteenth
century, to restrict the avenues by which the freedom to exercise a
craft could be obtained; larger fines were demanded on admission, while
the social qualifications of those who were eligible as apprentices were
raised.’[1468] At other times certain social changes caused
over-population. Such was the case in the sixteenth century owing to the
enclosures. ‘According to one calculation made in 1548 three hundred
thousand men had been thrown out of work by the decay of agriculture—or
about ten per cent. of the whole population.’[1469] What is important,
however, is that in general the determination of the people to maintain
the standard of living brought about adjustment—which at this period
usually took the form of making marriage more difficult.
There were also instances of a definite failure over a long period to
achieve adjustment. Such a case is that of Ireland in the eighteenth
century. The potato was introduced about 1585, and when taken into
cultivation throughout the country could have enabled a larger
population to subsist at a higher standard of living. So degraded,
however, did the social conditions become, that the introduction of the
potato merely enabled a larger population to subsist at the lowest
standard which would support life. The conditions of that period have
been described in the following passage by Goldwin Smith: ‘The mass of
the people were socially and economically in a state the most
deplorable, perhaps, which history records as having existed in any
civilized nation.... The Irish gentry were probably the very worst upper
class with which a country was ever afflicted. Their habits grew beyond
measure brutal and reckless. Their drunkenness, their blasphemy, their
ferocious duelling, left the squires of England far behind.... Over the
Roman Catholic poor on their estates these “vermin of the kingdom”, as
Arthur Young calls them, exercised a tyranny compared with which the
arbitrary rule of the old chiefs over their clans was probably a
parental authority used with beneficence and justly repaid by gratitude
and affection.... All moral restraints on the growth of population were
removed by the compulsory ignorance into which Protestant ascendancy and
the penal laws had plunged the Catholic peasantry and by the abject
wretchedness of their lot.... The island became utterly overcharged with
population.’[1470]
In this period it is not common to find over-population on this scale
for so long a time. In all countries there were periods when population
was excessive, but as a rule the circumstances were seldom such that the
vigour of the people did not before long bring about a return to a
higher standard.
12. In the fourth sub-group there is available a far larger amount of
information, and more exact estimates as to the position are rendered
possible than could be the case before. We have first to ask whether
there is evidence of over-population. Where, as in this period, there
has been a rapid increase in numbers the question is more easy to answer
than when asked in connexion with periods which, compared with the
present conditions, were relatively static. We can form a judgement
based upon the relative increase in wealth and in population and upon
the average real wages over a number of years. The following figures
show that wealth has grown more quickly than population.[1471]
_Wealth of Great _Population._
Britain._
£
1865 6,113,000,000 1861 28,927,485
1875 8,548,000,000 1871 31,484,661
1885 10,037,000,000 1881 34,884,848
1895 10,663,000,000 1891 37,732,922
1905 13,036,000,000 1901 41,458,721
1909 13,986,000,000 1911 45,216,665
The following figures show that real wages have risen during the
period.[1472] With regard to the drop in real wages in the last years
shown in this table it has to be remembered that such minor fluctuations
may be due under complex modern conditions to a variety of causes. The
condition of credit, the share taken of the total income by capital and
many other factors, the action of some of which, there is good reason to
think, was the cause of the decline in real wages noticeable in the
early years of the present century, all affect real wages.
_Nominal Wages._ _Cost of Living._ _Real Wages._
1880 100 100 100
1881–5 101 96 105
1886–90 104 89 117
1891–5 110 88 125
1896–1900 115 87 132
1901–5 121 91 133
1906–10 126 94 134
1911 128 96 133
1912 132 100 132
1913 134 100 134
All the evidence points to the same conclusion—namely, that throughout
this period there has, on the whole, been an increase in the average
real income per head, and that therefore there has been no
over-population in England. On the whole the same conclusion applies to
other countries in which the industrial conditions are more or less
similar. It is well known that during this period there have been very
remarkable fluctuations in the birth-rate. In England it was stationary
from about 1840 to 1880. Since that date it has declined by about
one-third.[1473] It seems clear that during this latter period the rapid
increase of the former period ceased to be economically advantageous. In
other words the decline has been in response to changing economic
conditions. What we have now to ask is how the desirability of a limited
increase under the conditions existing in this period can have been so
realized that the adjustment of numbers to economic requirements took
place.
13. The factors bearing upon fertility and elimination are in this
sub-group in the main the same as those in the former sub-group. The
factors which did or may have limited fertility in the earlier groups
are again absent. Postponement of marriage is, as in the third
sub-group, an important factor and in addition for the first time
contraceptive practices play a large part. The importance of
contraceptive practices, together with the decline in the birth-rate,
due to the start made in this period towards the mastering of disease,
are the chief differences to be noticed when comparing conditions in
this sub-group with those in the former. It may also be noticed that the
factors of elimination are more regular in their operation; epidemics of
disease are rare and war does not now, as so often formerly, indirectly
cause a large death-rate. The methods of limiting increase are confined
to those which reduce fertility with the exception of the practice of
abortion, which is still of some importance in the lower social classes.
It is important to observe that, although the postponement of marriage
has throughout the period had an important bearing upon fertility, it
has not been, as in the former sub-group, by raising or reducing the age
of marriage that the change in fertility has been chiefly due.[1474]
This change has been due to diminished fertility which is to be chiefly
accounted for by the conscious limitation of fertility in the form
either of abstention from intercourse between married persons or of the
use of contraceptive practices. We are not able to measure the
prevalence of the different forms of conscious limitation and thus
definitely to associate them with the declining birth-rate. We do not
find, however, any such increase in other factors, such as venereal
disease, which diminish fertility, as will account for the facts. We
have no reason for supposing that fecundity has diminished, and as we
have strong reasons for thinking that conscious limitation has been
increasingly practised, we must attribute the changes to this
cause.[1475]
14. In this sub-group we may roughly distinguish between property
owners, professional classes, peasant proprietors, and wage earners. The
distinguishing feature has been the rise of a very large wage-earning
class not possessed of property. The peasant proprietor, who, though a
property owner, is to be distinguished from other property owners, is of
little importance in England. In other countries, however, the class of
peasant proprietors is of importance, and we may first ask how the
desirability of limiting increase is brought home to them.
As we have seen, wherever men owe their living to the produce of a
definite area of land, whether ownership is vested in families or in
village communities, the situation is in the main always much the same.
That more than a certain number cannot maintain the standard of living
upon a certain area must be obvious. It may be more or less definitely
realized by each individual; it is also enshrined in the social
conventions of such people. The conditions in French rural districts
have been much studied, and there is a large amount of evidence pointing
to the conclusion that families are consciously limited owing to the
realization that large families are not economically advantageous. Legal
regulations and social customs as to the inheritance of landed property
are of considerable importance in France and other countries in this
connexion, but there is no space to enter upon the subject here. The
conditions are, generally speaking, clear; any one who is acquainted
with the conditions of life in the country districts of France,
Switzerland, or Norway, for instance, has probably observed what is
going on. Somewhat as has been described for the Middle Ages in England,
the number of houses, and consequently the number of families, is not
increased. Further, when marriage takes place the number of children is
clearly limited by considerations based on the economic conditions.
There is, of course, always an opportunity for the young people to go to
the towns and work for wages, and we must now ask what the conditions
are among the wage-earning classes.
Hitherto, with the exception of the artisans of the Middle Ages, we have
always found men in groups of varying size supporting themselves upon a
restricted area. In the case of the wage earners it is more difficult to
understand how the desirability of limitation can become translated into
customs or habits whether consciously or unconsciously followed,
because, first, we are no longer dealing with a small group confined in
the knowledge of all of them to a certain area, and, secondly, because
restrictive customs in the nature of taboos have little chance of
establishing themselves to-day. There are no restrictions of importance
on the entrance to various trades; there is at least nothing comparable
to the restrictions imposed by the guilds. A young man of the
wage-earning class finds no hindrance to marriage and further finds that
the maximum rate of earning he is ever likely to attain to is within his
grasp at an early age. Why therefore should he not marry early? Compared
with the mediaeval period he does marry early. As Rubin says, ‘the
journeymen and servants of former times were as a rule unmarried, while
in our times skilled workmen and factory employees, on account of the
high level of their earnings (and the fact that they are received in
money, not in kind), and because, for the greater part, as stated
earlier, they attain no better position by waiting—are married as
journeymen or labourers.’[1476] We have now to ask why the wage earners
should, if they do not limit fertility by postponing marriage, limit
fertility by conscious restriction of their families.
This is not an easy question to answer. As there are no barriers to
marriage, so to the production of a large family there are no barriers
in the form of social conditions or customs which must be conformed to.
There is apparently no hindrance to the production of as many children
as can be fed—that is to say, to the increase of population to the level
at which life can just be supported. Such an increase, however, does not
take place. To understand why it is so we must first realize how
powerful the desire to better the social conditions and to raise the
standard of living has been among the wage earners. Mr. and Mrs. Hammond
have lately described the conditions under which the village labourer
existed in the earlier years of the last century.[1477] During the
agricultural depression which followed the Napoleonic Wars the most
determined effort was made by the governing classes to induce the
labourer to lower his standard of living in the very mistaken hope that
such a change would ease the position. Above all things the labourers
were urged to abandon the use of wheaten bread and to accept some
substitute. All kinds of arguments and many forms of pressure were
employed. The labourers, however, were obstinate. They clung to their
standard of living and in England, at least since the Industrial
Revolution, this determination to maintain, and if possible to raise,
the standard has been powerfully manifested by the wage-earning
class.[1478] Returning now to the question we have to answer, we may say
that this determination becomes translated into a system of family
limitation, and that the decline in the birth-rate which is due to
conscious limitation has been in correspondence with changing economic
conditions. The previous rate of increase was no longer desirable in the
interest of the wage-earning classes, and it has been checked.
Nevertheless it has not been checked by a fully conscious realization of
the position. At the most there has only been a semi-conscious
understanding of what is involved. In the main we have to think of this
determination as achieving its end by an unconscious adaptation of
social habits and practices to the needs of the time. There have been
other factors at work tending in the same direction. The influence of
factory legislation in restricting the employment of children has been
to render large families of less economic advantage. Again among more
highly paid sections of the wage-earning classes certain influences,
which are not economic at all but rather social, have also tended
towards reduction in fertility.
It may be observed that, where the determination to maintain the
standard of living is not strongly manifested, there over-population may
occur. Thus in England, and in all industrial countries, there is at the
bottom of the social scale a thriftless, unskilled, and casually
employed class in which the limitation of families is little, if at all,
practised. Among this class the desire to improve conditions is seldom
shown and in consequence the birth-rate is not limited. If the members
of this class ‘restricted considerably their rate of growth, there is’,
says Hobson, ‘reasonable ground for holding that they would make a
double economic gain, being paid at a higher rate, for more efficient
and more regular work.’[1479]
The conditions among the professional classes need not detain us. In
addition to feeling, as do the working classes, the benefit in a general
way of restriction, there are many other factors which come in. Of these
perhaps the most important is the question of the age at which the
maximum income is attained. As these classes form only a small
proportion of the population, and as we shall have to discuss in the
following chapter the causes of the lower rate of increase in these
classes than among the wage-earning class—having in view the possible
bearing upon certain problems of qualitative change—we can omit any
further discussion here, merely observing that no question of
over-population arises. Possibly there may be relative under-population
in something the same way as there is over-population in the lowest
grade—whether this is so or not depending largely upon the ease with
which the professional classes are recruited from below.
15. The discussion of historical races has been brief and was only
entered upon in order to round off the subject. There are other points
in connexion with the adjustment of numbers to which allusion must be
made. It will be convenient, however, first to review shortly our
conclusions regarding the problem of adjustment as a whole and then to
ask in respect of the various periods in turn what we are led to think
that the position must have been.
Reasons have been given for thinking that, if any general change in
fecundity has taken place in the course of history, it has been in the
direction of increase. In any case fecundity is very large—the
theoretical power of increase, that is to say, is very great. Some
figures were given at the end of the fourth chapter in illustration of
this fact. There is a tendency noticeable in nearly all discussions of
questions of quantity to under-estimate the power of increase. Another
calculation previously given may therefore be recalled. It has been
shown that at the present average rate of increase of the population of
the world—a rate of increase which is obviously everywhere very severely
restricted—a single pair would produce in 1,750 years descendants equal
in number to the present population of the world.
In connexion with the under-estimation of the power of increase, is the
over-estimation of the relief given by any factor which allows of a
growth of population—increase in skill or migration, for example. It is
constantly assumed that, when such a factor can be detected in
operation, there is, so to speak, a complete outlet for fecundity. This
is the idea which lies at the basis of such statements as those which
speak of ‘surplus population’ as being drawn off by migration. When,
however, a calculation is made, it is seen that the relief given is,
except under very unusual circumstances, almost negligible. It was shown
on p. 105 that under the circumstances mentioned a population of
1,000,000 would remain stable so long as to each married woman there was
born an average of two children. But if the average was 2½ children,
then in a hundred years the population would be 3,050,000. It follows,
therefore, that most unusually favourable circumstances only make room
for a fraction of the possible increase and that migration likewise only
draws off an insignificant fraction of the possible additions to the
population.
Starting with such considerations and taking into account the fact that,
wherever social co-operation exists, there must be within any area a
certain desirable density of population—the optimum number—it has been
argued that there will come about an approximation to this number owing
to the practice of certain habits and customs restrictive of increase.
It has further been argued that, except under most unusual
circumstances, habits and customs having primarily, and not merely
incidentally, this result, must everywhere exist. This is seldom
realized. Professor Myres, for instance, after remarking upon the
fertility of ancient Egypt and of Assyria, says that ‘anything like
infanticide was out of the question’.[1480] It is clear from the context
that he is thinking not of infanticide in particular but of any
practices restrictive of increase—the implication being that in a
fertile country, where skill is increasing, there is a sufficient outlet
for the increase of population resulting from the power of human
increase. Again, it has been asserted that the Bantu races do not commit
infanticide—at least on a large scale—as do many other primitive races,
because, inasmuch as they have been in movement for an unknown length of
time, the attrition following upon the war that is always in progress at
the fringe of the movement is sufficient to absorb the ‘surplus
population’. But it has been forgotten that the Bantu races practise
prolonged abstention from intercourse—a custom quite as effective as
abortion and infanticide—as may be seen when the evidence as to the
small average number in a family is considered;[1481] for the average
number in a Bantu family is as small as among primitive races in
general, and it cannot be held that attrition through war falls
seriously upon others than adults. It therefore follows that war among
these people affords but an insignificant amount of relief.
16. Turning now to the methods of adjustment, we may take the first two
groups together and afterwards the third group. War and migration,
however, may be put aside and considered separately at the end of the
chapter. As regards the first two groups it is necessary to say no more
than this: evidence has been produced to show that everywhere among
primitive races either abortion, infanticide, or prolonged abstention
from intercourse are practised in such a degree and in such a manner as
to have as their primary result the restriction of increase.
The question as to how far these practices are effective in bringing
about an approximation to the desirable number is not easily answered.
As regards those primitive races which have come under European
observation there is no definite evidence because, before exact
observation could be made, the conditions of life had wholly changed.
But, putting aside the fact that the evidence, such as it is, does
suggest an approximation, it may be observed that conditions were such
as to render an approximation easy. Skill increased so slowly that for
long periods of time the desirable number remained about the same; the
factors of elimination, such as war and disease, were not erratic in
their action; social organization was not complex in the economic sense
and therefore the danger of break-downs followed by changes in the
desirable number was absent. Thus we may conclude that, in all
probability, in primitive society an approximation was normally
attained.
In the third period we meet with wholly different conditions. Social
organization becomes elaborate in the economic sense, war and disease
become erratic in their operation, and, relatively to what was the case
before, skill increases rapidly. As a result the desirable number
frequently changes, becoming on the whole larger, particularly in those
periods with which we are best acquainted. There has in consequence
grown up an idea that throughout human history population has been
increasing, whereas in fact it is far more correct to regard population
as normally having been stable. It may not improbably turn out that the
third period is in this respect peculiar and we may be approaching a
period when population will again normally be stable. However that may
be, the changes mentioned tend to make adjustment more difficult; on the
other hand, there have been at the same time at work changes tending to
facilitate adjustment among which growing freedom from convention and
increasing sensitiveness to the economic situation may be particularly
noticed. As regards the methods of adjustment, evidence has been adduced
to show that, up to the opening of what we have called the mediaeval
period, one or other of the same methods were in use that were in vogue
before, that all these methods ceased to be practised in the mediaeval
period and were replaced by postponement of marriage, and that finally
in the modern period deliberate restriction has replaced postponement of
marriage.
The question of the effectiveness of adjustment in this period has been
touched upon. In general it may be said that under-population is rare.
Under-population seldom arises and then generally as a result of the
abnormal incidence of war or disease. It sometimes happens that for a
long period an area once densely populated maintains but a sparse
population and this is not infrequently taken to indicate
under-population. But such situations generally arise when for one
reason or another—such as the destruction of capital during prolonged
war, or the breakdown of artificial works upon which the food-supply
depends—there has been a decrease in the density desirable. Thus the
Mesopotamian watercourses were neglected by the Mongol conquerors in the
thirteenth century and in consequence the optimum number for that area
declined. Such a situation should therefore not be taken as indicating,
without further inquiry, under-population.
Over-population is less rare. It may be due to the neglect of ancient
practices having as their effort the restriction of increase without the
taking into use at the same time of new practices. This sometimes
happens when a higher and a lower civilization come into contact and has
been one of the causes of over-population in India. It may also arise
when on the passing away of old practices some influence may militate
against the taking up of new practices. In this manner the influence of
the Catholic Church, which has been directed against contraceptive
practices, may have tended to produce over-population in Ireland. More
commonly, however, over-population arises in this period as the result
of a spirit of apathy and listlessness. Under such circumstances, which
are usually the result of social oppression or political misfortunes, no
effort is made to keep up the standard of living and in consequence the
machinery designed to restrict increase breaks down.
Taking the third period in more detail, we have as regards the last
section of that period definite evidence to the effect that
approximation is fairly close. There are minor fluctuations in the
nearness of approach to the desirable number. That, however, which it is
in any broad view of the whole problem of quantity desirable to
emphasize, is the nearness of approach—the fact that in any country at
any given time within this period the numbers present are, roughly
speaking, those economically desirable. We shall, indeed, find later,
when dealing with war and when referring again to this subject in the
next chapter, that minor differences in the nearness of approach as
between countries in close proximity may be of considerable importance.
Within the mediaeval period, in spite of the very high death-rate from
disease, over-population occurred in England from time to time. The fact
that wages rose after the Black Death, and that, after the decline in
the population which took place in the last years of the seventeenth
century and in the opening years of the eighteenth century, the average
man was more prosperous, points to this conclusion, as does the fact
that frequent attempts were made to render the restrictions upon
marriage more severe. It seems probable that there was a similar
tendency towards over-population in most European countries, and the
reason would appear to be that postponement of marriage did not bring
about a sufficient restriction of increase; postponement of marriage was
not in fact a sufficient substitute for abortion, infanticide, and
abstinence from intercourse, in spite of the prevalence of disease.
Under-population was less frequent; when it occurred it was sometimes
due in part to a spirit of luxury and selfishness following upon a
period of expansion and prosperity, as in the later history of Spain.
There may for similar reasons be under-population among the richer
classes in Europe and America to-day.
With regard to the preceding period we have considerable knowledge of
the conditions in Greece and Rome. The history of both countries
presents very similar features. In the earlier times practices
restrictive of increase comparable with those found among primitive
races were operative. There followed a vigorous epoch of colonization
and then a period of decadence. These periods of decadence have been
much discussed. In these discussions it is sometimes forgotten that the
destruction of capital in civil war on a large scale, especially in the
last century B. C. in Rome, must have diminished the numbers desirable.
But in spite of this it is clear that we are here again in the presence
of examples of decline, at least among the richer classes, owing to the
presence of selfishness and luxury; this is certainly the conclusion to
which a study of Polybius leads as regards Greece, while the admirable
works of Sir Samuel Dill render the position in Rome equally
clear.[1482] Our knowledge of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia is
insufficient to enable any judgement to be passed on conditions in these
countries.
18. Our conclusions, therefore, are broadly as follows. Within the first
two periods failure to approach the optimum number is rare. Within the
third period departures away from the desirable number are less rare but
are usually checked so long as the tone of society remains healthy and
vigorous. In an oppressed society over-population not infrequently
arises; in a selfish and luxurious society there may at times be
under-population.
In the main, changes in numbers come about in response to economic
requirements. We should not therefore attribute directly to changes in
the quantity of population great historical events. Thus we may agree
with Mr. Keynes when he says that ‘some of the catastrophes of past
history, which have thrown back human progress for centuries, have been
due to the reactions following on the sudden termination, whether in the
course of Nature or by the act of man, of temporarily favourable
conditions which have permitted the growth of population beyond what
could be provided for when the favourable conditions were at an
end’.[1483] But we cannot agree when he says that ‘the great events of
history are often due to secular changes in the growth of population and
other fundamental economic causes, which, escaping by their gradual
character the notice of contemporary observers, are attributed to the
follies of statesmen or the fanaticism of atheists. Thus the
extraordinary occurrences of the past two years in Russia, that vast
upheaval of Society, which has overturned what seemed most
stable—religion, the basis of property, the ownership of land, as well
as forms of government and the hierarchy of classes—may owe more to the
deep influences of expanding numbers than to Lenin or Nicholas; and the
disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a
greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power
of ideas or the errors of autocracy.’[1484] In the first passage it is
suggested that consequences of great import may follow when events so
derange social organization that the numbers previously maintained
cannot be supported. To this we may agree; the attribution of the
catastrophe is not directly to changes in numbers. In the second passage
it is suggested that national fertility may be so much in excess of
requirements as to disrupt social organization. To this we cannot agree.
In general increase is in response to economic requirements and, when it
is in excess and is not within a reasonable time curbed, the conditions
which result are not those which, though they may have important
consequences, produce the kind of result here attributed to them.
19. Both war and migration are frequently said to be the consequences of
over-population. We may take migration first.
It may be as well to give some typical expressions of this point of
view. Mr. Haddon says, ‘when reduced to its simplest terms a migration
is caused by an expulsion and an attraction, the former nearly always
resulting from a dearth of food or from over-population, which
practically comes to the same thing. Sooner or later a time comes when
the increase of the population of a country exceeds its normal
food-supply.’[1485] In the Report of the National Birth-Rate Commission
we read that ‘a pressure of population in any country brings as a chief
historic consequence overflows and migrations into neighbouring and
other accessible countries’.[1486] Professor Myres, speaking of the
Greek migrations of the eighth to the sixth centuries B. C., attributes
them to the fact that ‘population had overtaken the means of
subsistence’.[1487]
It is not altogether clear what is meant by such statements. Very
frequently it seems to be implied that there commonly exists a condition
in which there is more than enough food in an area occupied by an
existing population, that sooner or later population catches up, so to
speak, the food-supply and that migration afterwards follows any further
increase of population. We may first look at this point of view. All
that has so far been said goes to show that only for very short periods
and under very unusual circumstances can there be under any conditions
of social organization a state of under-population. Even if we put aside
the idea of an optimum number, we must regard the population, which any
area is capable of supporting, as strictly limited. Given the vast power
of increase that we know always to be present, there cannot commonly be
a condition of under-population—a condition, that is to say, in which
population has ceased to increase before it was checked by the food
limit. For we are not dealing with the spread of population into
unoccupied areas; that occurred perhaps before there was any social
organization. We are dealing with a period in which all portions of the
earth’s surface, relative to the degree of skill attained, had long been
fully occupied. Though increase of skill may at times enable regions
previously quite infertile to be occupied, this is altogether an
exceptional case; increase of skill normally merely allows of an
increase of density in the same area. General considerations point to
the normal condition being of necessity either one in which population
has increased up to the level of subsistence or one in which it has
increased to the optimum level, and the evidence presented shows that as
a rule some approximation to the latter condition is attained. General
considerations on the one hand and the evidence on the other both render
wholly unacceptable the idea that commonly there is a condition of
under-population which is followed by migration when the pressure due to
the catching up of the amount of food available by the increase of
population begins to be felt. Further, no support is given to this view
by the facts known regarding any particular migration. What evidence is
there, with regard to the Greek migrations referred to by Professor
Myres, that for some unknown length of time, for some unknown reason,
the increase of population had not reached the limit made possible by
the food-supply? Unless there is definite evidence of peculiar
circumstances in some peculiar combination, such a theory cannot be held
to account for migration. The idea of population catching up the means
of subsistence and bringing about a crisis followed by migration is the
product of an altogether unhistorical view of the matter.[1488]
We do know, indeed, that at times a condition of under-population arises
chiefly owing to the irregular action of certain factors of elimination.
Disease has been known to remove one-third of the population of a
country in two or three years. There does not, however, appear to be a
single instance in which migration can be traced to the recovery from
such a catastrophe. What appears usually to happen is that there is a
certain relaxation of the pressure which before either hindered marriage
or caused abortion or infanticide to be practised; population increases
until the pressure again makes itself felt. And it may be observed that
it is not following upon exceptional conditions such as these that
migration is supposed by the authors quoted to take place. It is
supposed to take place because not infrequently there is a condition of
under-population for which there is in fact no evidence whatever. This
view further clearly implies an over-estimate of the relief afforded by
migration. The calculations given on a previous page apply here.
The view criticized above is sometimes so expressed as not to lay stress
upon under-population as the condition which ultimately gives rise to
migration. It is merely asserted that over-population is in some manner
the cause of migration, and we may now examine this view. Let us recall
what we found to be the condition in those countries in which
over-population had undoubtedly occurred. We found the distinguishing
feature of the social conditions of those countries to be the absence of
hope, of a spirit of enterprise, and of a determination to maintain a
standard of living. It most emphatically is not where such conditions
are prevalent that migration takes place. All that we know of migration
points to precisely the opposite. It is not from countries in the
condition of India and China at the present day or of Ireland in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that waves of migration arise.
Migrating races exhibit the opposite characters. With them we associate
enterprise, hopefulness, courage, and so on. The conclusion cannot on
general grounds be doubtful. Migration does not arise where a condition
of over-population has come about. Further, if we examine the evidence
of particular migration in no case can it be shown that migration has
begun as a direct result of those conditions.[1489] It is true that
compared with the numerous migrations of which we have knowledge, there
are but few cases concerning which we have detailed information of the
social conditions. But where this information does exist, in no instance
do we find evidence that migration began after a condition of
over-population had come about.
It may be that what is implied by those who put forward the view that
migration is somehow connected with over-population is somewhat
different. It may be implied that migration occurs when what we have
called the optimum number has been attained. If our general conclusions
on this subject are borne in mind, it is clear that something more than
this is required as an explanation. Migration occurs irregularly at long
intervals; adjustment of population to some point approximating to the
desirable level is always going on. Clearly it cannot be in the ordinary
process of adjustment that some impetus to migration occurs; there must
be some particular predisposing factor or factors at work. What are
these factors? It would seem to rest with those who put forward the
theory to show what they are, and this has not been done.
On the other hand, there is another explanation which appears to account
at least in part for nearly every migration of which we have some
knowledge of the circumstances, and it may be that an explanation on
similar lines accounts at least in part for most of the later migrations
in history. There is nothing novel in this explanation; it is admitted
as an explanation of many migrations by Mr. Haddon.[1490] He admits that
many migrations have been undertaken for political or religious reasons
and instances the voyage of the _Mayflower_ and the Islamic and
Buddhistic movements. That which is common to these explanations is that
migration is undertaken in response to some idea. There is no question
of over-population at all, and in all those cases in which we have any
detailed knowledge of the conditions connected with migration we find
that we can point to some idea as the motive force. Why, therefore, when
details are not known, should another explanation be sought? It is
suggested that essentially the same explanation is the most reasonable
explanation of all migrations, at least in historical times. With regard
to the earlier movements we find that migrations appear to occur where a
high level of skill has been reached in some area. Where races are in
contact with others of a markedly lower degree of skill there arises a
tendency for the former to eject the latter. The immediate motive is
desire to possess their land where the land is fertile relative to the
skill of the first mentioned race. Thus the Bantu people have pushed
back the Bushmen until the latter were left with regions infertile
relatively to the Bantu culture. Throughout human history there must
have been this tendency for migrations to follow the great steps in the
acquirement of power over nature. But there is no reason to think that,
even in early times, migrations only arose as a result of increase of
skill. What we know of even the most primitive races, such as the
Australians, shows that we can imagine movements to have been initiated
quite apart from any differences in skill. The accounts given of the
respect in which the older men are held among the Australians renders it
possible to understand how an impulse to movement might be initiated by
them which, once having taken shape, might have far-reaching
consequences. We have further accounts of the existence of a spirit of
restlessness among primitive races. This restlessness proves on analysis
to be nothing more than the currency of an idea—an idea that some
benefit would arise if a movement took place.
We have, however, to remember when dealing with this matter that many if
not most of the migrations of pre-history were probably not migrations
at all in the usual sense of the term. They are probably better thought
of as driftings of people; they may have occupied very long periods of
time and have been connected with slow changes in climate. At any one
time the movement may have been quite imperceptible, and, when this was
so, such driftings are seen clearly enough to have had nothing to do
with over-population if the immensity of the power of increase is borne
in mind.
Some reference may now be made to the much-discussed theory to the
effect that historical migrations are due to climatic changes. Ellsworth
Huntington has put forward in a number of publications the view that not
only have important climatic changes occurred within the historical
period, but that these changes have been what he calls ‘pulsatory’—that
is to say, there has been an alteration between humid and arid
conditions in many parts of the world.[1491] This view has been
contested.[1492] In particular doubt has been cast upon the ‘pulsatory’
nature of such changes as have taken place. Whether this view as to
climatic change is correct or not is of no particular importance for our
present purpose; for on the one hand it has been shown that certain
migrations, particularly those in Central Asia, where the evidence as to
the pulsatory nature of the change is said to be most clear, are
explicable as due to political changes,[1493] while on the other hand it
does not appear to be possible in general to correlate the migrations of
history, which are essentially rapid movements, with slow changes of
climate. It seems likely that population would adjust itself to slow
climatic changes without difficulty or with as little difficulty as it
adjusts itself to other changes which alter the optimum density. Extreme
climatic changes very slowly brought about, as doubtless took place in
pre-history, might result in driftings,[1494] but the less extreme
changes in climate during the historical period have in all probability
been without any pronounced effect upon movement.
Enough has been said to show that, whereas there is much that can be
adduced both on theoretical grounds and after a review of the evidence
against the theory attributing migration to over-population, there is
much to recommend the extension of the explanation already admitted in
many cases. But even if migration is not a result of over-population, it
may seriously affect the adjustment of population, once it has been set
on foot. And it is to the observation of the secondary disturbing effect
of migration on population that we may attribute the error of tracing
migration to over-population.
When, however, all allowances are made, the easy manner in which the
common theory of migration is assumed to be true and is used by writers
of great authority is very surprising. Mr. Hogarth, for instance, in a
well-known and very delightful book alluding to the Chaldean or fourth
great wave of migration from Arabia, is led to explain all these Arabian
migrations as follows: ‘The great Southern Peninsula’, he says, ‘is for
the most part a highland steppe endowed with a singularly pure air and
an uncontaminated soil. It breeds, consequently, a healthy population
whose mortality, compared with its death-rate, is unusually high; but
since the peculiar conditions of its surface preclude the development of
its internal food-supply beyond a point long ago reached, the surplus
population which rapidly accumulates within it is forced from time to
time to seek its sustenance elsewhere.’[1495] Let us consider this
theory for a moment. To begin with, so far as relatively to the
civilizations of the valleys of the Nile and of the Euphrates disease
was rare and the death-rate on that account low, so far the position in
Arabia merely approximated to that normal among primitive races.
Therefore the healthy conditions taken by themselves do not necessarily
form an incentive to migration. The remainder of the argument rests upon
an over-estimate of the relief afforded either by increased skill or by
migration. It is implied by Mr. Hogarth that, could additional skill
have been applied to the increase of food, the ‘surplus population’
would have been absorbed; but that it was not so absorbed and found
relief in migration. The calculations already given show how illusory is
the idea that relief can be thus afforded. In such arguments the
strength of human fecundity is always under-estimated. Further the
theory assumes a condition of things within Arabia which is very
difficult to understand. The Chaldean migration took place about 800 B.
C., the third or Aramean, about 1500 B. C., the second or Canaanite,
about 2500 B. C., and we may add a fifth or Islamic in the seventh
century A. D. The shortest interval between these movements is 800
years. We are asked to suppose that for several hundred years there was
an increase of population over and above that which could properly be
supported; for evidently it is not supposed that the increases occurred
only shortly before the migrations. Now we know that abortion and
infanticide were practised regularly in Arabia. The increase therefore
must have been small compared with the possible increase, and yet these
methods were not according to the theory effective in producing that
position which it must be the object of every vigorous society to
attain. A very small increase in the degree to which these practices
were performed would have brought about this result, and is it not far
more reasonable to suppose that an approximation to this desirable
position was normally attained rather than to suppose that there was a
chronic failure the results of which could only have been socially
disastrous?
There are two other considerations which may be adduced in favour of the
view here advanced. Migration, in the first place, takes place rather
from vigorous communities than from countries where social conditions
have long been depressed by over-population. In the second place, the
migrations in question are susceptible of another explanation. Regarding
the only one of these migrations of which we have detailed knowledge—the
Islamic—we know that it was prompted by the currency of an idea, and why
should we not assume that the previous migrations were so prompted
rather than fall back on the theory of over-population which raises so
many difficulties?
20. It has often been said that war is a ‘biological necessity’.
‘Wherever we look in nature’, says General von Bernhardi, ‘we find that
war is a fundamental law of development. This great verity, which has
been recognized in past ages, has been convincingly demonstrated in
modern times by Charles Darwin. He proved that nature is ruled by an
unceasing struggle for existence, by the right of the stronger, and that
this struggle in its apparent cruelty brings about a selection
eliminating the weak and the unwholesome.’[1496] This has been a
favourite contention of German publicists.[1497] It is not necessary to
show here that such views rest upon a fundamental misunderstanding as to
what is implied by the term ‘struggle for existence’. The error has been
recently exposed by Mr. Chalmers Mitchell, who in particular has pointed
out that there is nothing in the relationship between species in a state
of nature which can in any sense be called war and further that modern
nations are not units of the same order as species.[1498]
It has also been held that war originates from the necessity for the
search for food. ‘La guerre’, said Comte, ‘constitue à l’origine le
moyen le plus simple de se procurer les subsistances.’[1499] There is no
foundation whatever for this view based either on what we know of
species in a state of nature or of the conditions obtaining among
primitive races. The same may be said of the theory that ‘eagerness to
acquire property was originally the cause and object of war’.[1500]
The idea that over-population is the cause of war is sometimes carried
back to some such ‘biological’ origin as that indicated above; in
disproof of such views no more need be said. More often we meet with
statements such as the following: ‘The population question pushes
Germany on. For the most part it is inland peoples that have most
severely felt that pressure of a growing population. Islanders and coast
dwellers can expand over the seas. But when inland peoples outgrow their
bounds, they must burst them.’[1501] Such a statement is a striking
example of the over-estimation of the relief afforded by war and by
migration and of the under-estimation of the power of fecundity. What
has been said above regarding migration is again applicable here.
If our contention that over-population is not the cause of migration is
well founded, then the argument that war is also due to over-population
falls to the ground. Precisely the same conditions which are supposed to
push nations on to fight are also supposed to push them on to migrate.
As we shall see later, this by no means implies that questions of
population do not at times enter into the situation when war breaks out.
What then is the cause of war? It is probable that the instinct of
pugnacity led to fighting when men lived in groups of families—at least
between the males for the headship of the family. It is further probable
that, as social organization slowly evolved, sporadic fighting of this
kind was continued and led to fighting between groups. But in very early
times tradition began to overlay and obscure the manifestations of
instinct; the manner in which this occurs will form an important part of
the discussion in the second part of this book. It is enough to say here
that among primitive races tradition can be of such a nature as
altogether to overlay the instinct of pugnacity, as among certain
peoples, who though not devoid of the instinct scarcely ever fight
because of the existence of powerful social conventions and customs
inhibiting its expression. Thus, though war may form an outlet for
pugnacity, it can no longer be said that it is the direct consequence of
pugnacity. War, in fact, gradually becomes a custom. That this is now
essentially the nature of war needs no proof. It is obviously at the
present day a mode of action whereby the highly organized governments of
modern nations try to achieve some political end.[1502]
It has, however, to be remembered that warfare takes a place among the
factors of elimination and that the greater the amount of elimination
through war, the less need there is for the practices of abortion and
infanticide. But this is quite a different thing from saying that
warfare results from over-population or from the pressure of population.
It merely implies that, given the power of increase, warfare is a factor
which may perform to a small degree the elimination necessary in order
that numbers should not exceed the desirable limit and is therefore
tolerated—other things being equal—as a factor in social life by the
natural selection of customs.
It has nevertheless to be allowed that, when war breaks out, the
position as regards population may form an element in the situation—just
as the passions which have been aroused may do so though they cannot be
regarded as the cause of modern war. Let us consider the late war.
Broadly speaking in all European countries increase in population was in
response to economic requirements. Yet there were what we have called
minor fluctuations away from the desirable economic density. France and
Germany represented two opposite tendencies—towards under- and
over-population respectively. These relatively slight differences were
greatly exaggerated in popular opinion owing to the attention paid to
the birth-rate. The Germans were thinking and talking of expansion
whereas the French were stay-at-home people. The Germans looked across
the frontier and thought they saw a half-empty country which they could
well develop with their ‘surplus’ population, while the French thought
they saw a teeming population ready to burst its bonds and overwhelm
them. Again, as between England and Germany it appeared to many Germans
that, while Germany had little or no opportunity of expansion, Great
Britain had owing to her overseas dominions ample opportunity. But
increase is governed by the conditions within a country, and the fact
that emigration from Great Britain to Greater Britain was possible did
not enter into the situation as regards the control of increase in Great
Britain; very many people in this country, however, as well as in
Germany, if they did not actually think that it did so, at least held
opinions which were in fact founded upon this supposition. Thus though
in actual fact England broadly speaking restricted her population as did
Germany in accordance with the economic situation within the country,
yet the position of England with reference to Greater Britain had an
influence upon the situation, and many Germans thought that unless there
was an outlet for ‘surplus population’ Germany would eventually be
over-populated, whereas the fact is that, as we have seen, so long as
conditions remain healthy in a country, over-population does not
arise.[1503]
This subject could be elaborated at great length. Upon analysis it would
always be found that, though certain aspects of the population problem
and certain mistaken views of the position may and do predispose nations
and governments towards war, it is not true strictly speaking to say
that the population question is in any sense a cause of war. War has now
merely become a mode of action whereby an organized state tries to
achieve certain political ends. It is within the power of mankind to
renounce this mode of action. There is nothing in the nature of man or
of social organization which renders war inevitable. ‘Dieu ne leur a
donné ni des canons de vingt-quatre ni des baïonnettes, et ils se sont
fait des baïonnettes et des canons pour se détruire.’[1504]
XII
SOME MODERN PROBLEMS
1. The present period, which may be dated from 1760 in England and from
rather a later date in most European countries, has been marked by an
unparalleled increase of population. The rate of increase has for some
years been slowing down. This outburst of population is sometimes
referred to as though there was something mysterious about it. It was,
in fact, merely the response to increase in skill, and similarly the
declining birth-rate is, at least for the most part, merely the response
to the fact that skill is no longer increasing so fast.[1505] The fact
that the upper social classes began to restrict their increase before
the lower social classes is partly due to the fact that they are more
sensitive to economic requirements. This point is almost always
overlooked in discussions of the question of differential fertility, and
when forming any judgement on this subject the possible loss in quality
has—though it is a very difficult problem—to be balanced against the
gain in arriving at an adjustment of quantity. There may be more to be
said for Mill’s opinion quoted on a previous page than most eugenists
would be willing to admit.
Before we go on to notice some of the many problems that arise,
something may be said as to the future. So deeply have men been
impressed by this increase that the most pessimistic prophecies have
been published as to the fate in store for the human race. Numerous
calculations have been made to show that within a certain length of time
there will only be standing room. Mr. Knibbs has calculated that, if the
rate of increase of the population of the world obtaining in the five
years preceding 1911 was to be continued, there would in 500 years be
246,114 millions. He is appalled by the prospect. ‘No artifices of
cultivation,’ he says, ‘nor any possible diminutions of human stature,
so as to decrease the necessary quantity of food per person, can
possibly relieve the gravity of the situation. In no case can the
increase of 1 per cent. per annum be maintained for five
centuries.’[1506] This pessimism is baseless; he appears to regard
increase as something inevitable that cannot be stopped—forgetting that
throughout the greater part of human history numbers have been for all
practical purposes stationary, and that increase only exceptionally
outruns economic requirements.[1507] There is no room, it is true, for
mere complacency. Though the desirable density may as a rule result from
economic pressure without conscious effort, it does not follow that it
would not be better if adjustment was consciously brought about. And it
may be that if and when men begin consciously to adjust numbers, they
may have to take some criterion other than the economic into account. To
this point we may now turn.
2. So far we have proceeded on the assumption that the only criterion
was the economic criterion—that the only test whereby the desirable
number might be ascertained was the test founded on the average income
per head. There does not seem to be any reason for supposing that there
is any limit to the increase of skill in the production of food, and
that therefore there is any limit to the desirable number so long as the
criterion remains economic. This suggests that at some point mankind
will have to introduce another method of estimating what density is
desirable, as it is clear that the economic advantages of increase
somewhere come into conflict with other ideals as to desirable social
conditions. In other words, at some point a larger income would not be
worth having if it necessitated too large a population.
It would require a lengthy discussion of many points and the weighing up
of many factors before it would be possible to come to any definite
conclusion on this subject. It may be observed that there are those who
with some apparent reason doubt whether, taking the broadest view of
human welfare, a denser population than that now existing in Belgium can
be thought desirable. It also seems reasonable to hold that our great
cities, and in particular London, have passed the limit that allows of
the development of the most healthy social conditions. It is a matter of
doubt whether such agglomerations of population are or will remain
necessary even if the total population of the country was to increase.
There are two considerations which are relevant here. First it may be
objected that in spite of the high average density of population in this
and other countries, it is still easy to find large areas which are
sparsely populated, and that their existence shows that there can be as
yet no question of overcrowding beyond what is the socially desirable
limit. But it must be remembered that the great mass of the population
scarcely ever moves out of the densely populated areas, and that if they
attempted to get out into the country, if only for holidays—as with
increased leisure and higher incomes they will soon attempt to do—there
would soon be little left of the solitude which can now be easily found.
The other consideration that is very relevant in this connexion is the
average income per head. ‘Before the war’, says Professor Bowley, ‘the
home income would not have yielded more than £230 gross annually per
family of five, or £170 net after all rates and taxes were paid and an
adequate sum invested in home industries.’[1508] No one can regard this
position as satisfactory. On all hands it is agreed that it must be
increased even by those who with justice insist upon the fact that any
general improvement must be accompanied by a decrease in the emphasis
now laid upon material comfort. Income can, of course, be increased
without increasing population, but probably it cannot be increased so
fast.
3. There are at least two other points of view from which the density
desirable may be considered. England, for instance, is in a peculiar
position with regard to her food-supply, a fraction only of which is
produced in the country while the rest is imported. Only by this method
can England maintain her present population. How far in the case of war,
or in a lesser degree in the case of social or economic disturbances
elsewhere, such a position is compatible with national safety is
certainly a matter for careful consideration. It seems scarcely likely
that the decision would ever be taken to limit population on this
account alone in view of the economic sacrifices which it would entail.
In addition to treating the question as it affects safety in the sense
just alluded to, it may also be treated from the purely military point
of view. The desire for a dense population so frequently expressed from
the sixteenth century onwards, as noted in the first chapter, is largely
based on the fact that the larger the population the more potential
soldiers there are. Harrison, for instance, wrote as follows: ‘Some also
do grudge at the great increase of people in these days thinking a
necessary brood of cattle far better than a superfluous augmentation of
mankind. But if it should come to pass that any foreign invasion should
be made, which the Lord God forbid for his mercy’s sake, then should
these men find that a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and
bags of money, and complain of the want when it is too late to seek the
remedy.’[1509] This attitude was especially noticeable in Germany before
the war. A German author comments on the ‘mad craze for numbers’, and
goes on to add that ‘at the back is rather the desire, which I admit is
often vague, for as many soldiers as possible’.[1510] It is by no means
absent in England. In the second Report of the National Birth-Rate
Commission we read as follows: ‘But in the event of a war similar to
that which we have just experienced, what would happen to us with a
greatly reduced birth-rate? Surely all we have would be taken, and we
must become slaves—as we should be to-day if we had entered on the
struggle with Germany without adequate man-power. Moreover what would
happen to our Empire?’[1511] It may be doubted whether there has been
produced by such considerations in recent times even in Germany any
effect upon numbers; probably economic forces have overruled such
considerations altogether. It is possible that they may have had some
influence upon military nations in earlier days. It is to be imagined
and certainly to be hoped that they will not mould views on this subject
in future.
4. As has been indicated, such departures as there are among European
nations at the present day from the desirable density are of the nature
of minor fluctuations. Europe is not from the point of view of
productiveness over-populated (or was not in 1914; it is very difficult
to sum up the position in this respect since the loss of capital owing
to the war). There is no ground for the pessimism of Sir Thomas Holdich,
who says that ‘Asia affords no asylum for overcrowded Europe’.[1512]
It may be observed that the phenomenon of unemployment as generally seen
in industrial countries is not evidence of over-population. It has been
shown by Beveridge that unemployment, such as now occurs in England, is
in no way connected with over-population. It is due to certain
maladjustments in the industrial system, such as the decay of
industries, the seasonal and cyclical fluctuations of trade, and the
position as to the normal reserve of labour. The industrial system so
functions that, unless special measures are adopted, there is always a
certain amount of unemployment. Unemployment is thus ‘a problem of
industry’ as Beveridge has called it.[1513] It may also be observed that
the remarkable differences in the return per head as between different
countries are in any case very largely due to the amount of skill
employed and not to the nearness of approximation to the desirable
number.[1514]
At any given time in any nation it is desirable either that population
should be stable or that there should be a certain ratio of increase. It
is clear that increase may be brought about under many different
conditions. A high birth-rate and a high death-rate may give the same
ratio of increase as a low birth-rate and a low death-rate. These
conditions have been much studied; the consideration of them falls
outside this book. But we may note that, as far as numbers and the
direct effect of the environment are concerned, but not necessarily so
far as quality is concerned, a low birth-rate and a low death-rate
represent more healthy conditions than a high birth-rate and a high
death-rate. There is a certain correlation between the birth-rate and
the death-rate, though it is often exaggerated. In Japan, for instance,
there has recently been a tendency towards a decrease in the birth-rate
and an increase in the death-rate. It is necessary to beware of those
sweeping generalizations which assert that a high birth-rate means a
high death-rate and vice versa. It may also be noted that the decrease
in the birth-rate has been attained in different European countries in
very different ways. Thus, whereas in England the decrease has been
general throughout the country, in Germany it has been almost entirely
confined to the towns.[1515]
Here, however, the discussion is limited to general principles; problems
of this nature cannot be further inquired into. We have already noted
that minor fluctuations in the nearness of approach to the optimum
number as between neighbouring countries may increase, if it does not
give rise to, friction between them. We may further note here that such
consequences only follow when there are differences of nationality
involved. When within an area inhabited by one nationality some part of
it is becoming under-populated—say the urban districts—population flows
in from other districts and in this case from the country. But when one
country is tending towards under-population and a neighbouring country
towards over-population, there is but little flow of population and but
little adjustment. Various difficulties, some legal, others sentimental,
check the movement towards the less fully populated country.
Nevertheless, there is some movement. Thus there were resident in France
in 1911 1,132,696 foreigners.[1516] But this immigration only went a
little way towards bringing up the population towards the level which
was apparently economically desirable, and there thus arose a position
which aggravated the tension between France and Germany.
There are certain ‘new’ countries where curious conditions obtain. Their
position cannot be judged in the same manner as can that of a country
which has long been settled. The occupation of such countries can only
proceed at a certain pace, and if it went more quickly we should have a
peculiar condition of relative over-population. There is reason to think
that population in many of these countries has not grown as quickly as
it might have done, and that there is, in fact, a condition of relative
under-population.