Chapter XXII (part 1 of 3)

Chapter XXII (part 1 of 3)

CONCLUSION 475

Summary of the argument and of the conclusions.

APPENDIX I 483

Summary of evidence as to restriction of increase amongst Primitive Races.

APPENDIX II 488

LIST OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED 489

INDEX 509

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

A. R. B. E. = Annual Report. Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution.

A. R. S. I. = Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution.

Am. Anth. = American Anthropologist.

Am. Jour. Obstet. = American Journal of Obstetrics.

Am. Stat. Ass. = Publications of the American Statistical Association.

Ann. de Pal. = Annales de Paléontologie.

Ann. Mus. Congo Belge = Annales du Musée du Congo Belge.

Arch. für Anth. = Archiv für Anthropologie.

Aust. Med. Jour. = Australian Medical Journal.

Biol. Bull. = Biological Bulletin.

Bull. Soc. Anth. = Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie.

C. I. A. = Congrès International d’Anthropologie.

Cent. für Min., Geol. und Pal. = Centralblatt für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie.

Coll. Mon. Eth. = Collection de Monographies Ethnographiques.

Eug. Lab. Mem. = Eugenic Laboratory Memoirs.

Eug. Rev. = Eugenics Review.

Geog. Jour. = Geographical Journal.

Int. Arch. Eth. = Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie.

J. A. I. = Journal of the Anthropological Institute.

Jour. Eth. Soc. = Journal of the Ethnological Society.

Jour. Pol. Soc. = Journal of the Polynesian Society.

Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc. = Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society.

J. R. S. S. = Journal of the Royal Statistical Society.

Mem. Am. Anth. Soc. = Memoirs of the American Anthropological and Ethnological Societies.

Mem. Anth. Soc. = Memoirs of the Anthropological Society.

Mem. & Proc. Man. Lit. & Phil. Soc. = Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.

Mém. Soc. Anth. = Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie.

Phil. Trans. = Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. = Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society.

Q. J. M. S. = Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science.

Rev. Col. Inter. = Revue Coloniale Internationale.

Rev. d’Anth. = Revue d’Anthropologie.

Rev. d’Eth. = Revue d’Ethnographie.

S. I. B. E. = Smithsonian Institute, Bureau of Ethnology.

Soc. Rev. = Sociological Review.

Trans. Amer. Gyn. Soc. = Transactions of the American Gynecological Society.

Trans. & Proc. N. Z. Inst. = Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute.

Trans. Edin. Obstet. Soc. = Transactions of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society.

Trans. Eth. Soc. = Transactions of the Ethnological Society.

U. S. Geog. & Geol. Survey = United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region.

Z. G. E. = Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde.

Zeit. für all. Erd. = Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde.

Zeit. für Eth. = Zeitschrift für Ethnologie.

Zeit. für Morph. und Anth. = Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie.

Zeit. für Soc. = Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft.

I HISTORICAL

1. Problems of population fall into two main groups—those connected with the quantity and those connected with the quality of the population. Considerations of the population problem are commonly devoted to one of these chief aspects to the exclusion of the other with the result that the relation between them is seldom appreciated. It is one of the objects of this book to show that all problems of population have the same origin. The development of biological knowledge in the last century, and in particular the discussion of evolution, have made it clear that the whole population question and all the problems arising therefrom have their origin in the fact that mankind has a definite position in the animal kingdom. In the next two chapters an attempt is made to set out the basis of the whole question in the light of modern research, and in the fourth chapter are discussed the nature of the various problems and their relation to one another; first those which are connected with the quantity and then those that are connected with the quality of the population.

This was not, however, the manner in which the question was first approached. There was not, to begin with, an understanding of the zoological position of man leading to a growing comprehension of the problems to which it gave rise. From early days attention was particularly directed to the question of numbers. Between the fifth century b. c. and the eighteenth century a. d.—between, that is to say, the time of Plato and that of Malthus—opinions were often expressed regarding the desirability or otherwise of a dense population. The work of Malthus focussed opinion upon this point. In a restricted sense this problem can be solved without an understanding of the biological origin of the whole question, and the discussion which followed the publication of the Essay on Population has resulted in the general acceptance of a solution by students of political economy. In a wider sense the solution of this problem depends upon a comprehension of its biological origin, and it was not therefore until after the middle of the last century that all the problems connected with quantity fell into their proper setting owing to the work of Darwin and Wallace, both of whom acknowledged their debt to Malthus. The latter, though he did not in any way realize the fact, was discussing a point which is most intimately connected with evolution, and both Darwin and Wallace were influenced by their acquaintance with the work of Malthus in arriving at their explanation of the process of evolution. Thus from the time of Darwin and Wallace it has been possible to view the population problem as a whole, though the discussions of the problems connected with quantity have been pursued independently not only before but also after the publication of the Origin of Species.

Problems of quality did not arouse the same early interest. It is, of course, well known that Plato was occupied with this aspect of the whole problem;[1] Roman authors also commented upon the eugenic bearing of certain practices.[2] In later days in a remarkable book Campanella dwelt upon the importance of good breeding.[3] But the interest in quality was not, as was the interest in quantity, widespread or long maintained; it was not until the origin of living species by evolution had been generally accepted and some knowledge of inheritance had been gained, that problems of quality came to occupy anything more than the passing attention of mankind.[4] J. S. Mill and Buckle, for instance, both of whose opinions were formed just before the time when the importance of heredity came to be appreciated, deny that it is in any way relevant to the study of social problems.[5]

2. In the preface to the greatly enlarged second edition of his famous book Malthus stated that he had found many references to the subject of which he had not been aware when he published the first volume.[6] He acknowledged that several authors had shown themselves to have possessed a grasp of the ‘principle’ which it was the object of his book to demonstrate. Among these he mentions Plato and Aristotle. In these cases Malthus was too anxious to attribute the first enunciation of the ‘principle’ to others. It was only owing to the very peculiar circumstances of Greek life that the problem ever arose at all. A consideration of the ideal city state involved the question as to what was the most desirable number of citizens. This point occupied Plato’s attention, and in one place he deals with it in detail. There should be, he says, 5,040 citizens in the state.[7] In the Republic he explained that the number of citizens was to be kept about the same by a strict regulation of unions.[8] In the Laws, however, no such system is advocated, and he discusses the possibility of a failure to maintain the number.[9] He appears to think that various checks such as infanticide and ‘inundations’ will keep numbers close to the desirable level; if too great an increase takes place, then recourse must be had to emigration. It does not seem that the problem was ever approached more closely in Greek literature.

References to this subject by Roman authors are confined for the most part to laments over the infertility of the old Roman stock. That which drew the attention of the Romans to the subject was thus a peculiar phase of the problem, and the views expressed by them were in consequence usually limited to the search for a remedy for a particular weakness in national life. As we shall point out later, it is doubtful how far infertility was characteristic of all classes; that it was not widespread seems incidentally to be indicated in the following curious passage from Tertullian in which he is led to express views reminiscent of many modern contributions to the subject. Tertullian is confuting the Pythagorean theory of the transmigration of souls, and argues that, if it were true, the number of men must remain unchanged. But, he says, this is obviously not so; population continually increases. This leads him to refer to the state of contemporary civilization. ‘We find’, he says, ‘in the records of the Antiquities of Man[10] that the human race has progressed with a gradual growth of population.... Surely it is obvious enough, if one looks at the whole world, that it is becoming better cultivated and more fully peopled than anciently. All places are now accessible, all are well known, all open to commerce; most pleasant farms have obliterated all traces of what were once dreary and dangerous wastes; cultivated fields have subdued forests; flocks and herds have expelled wild beasts; sandy deserts are sown; rocks are planted; marshes are drained; and where once were hardly solitary cottages are now large cities. No longer are savage islands dreaded, nor their rocky shores feared; everywhere are houses, and inhabitants, and settled government, and civilized life. What most frequently meets our view is our teeming population; our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly supply us from its natural elements; our wants grow more and more keen, and our complaints more bitter in all mouths, whilst nature fails in affording us her usual sustenance. In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as a means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race.’[11]

3. It is not until we arrive at the sixteenth century that we discover any considerable interest in the matter. From thence onwards references are very frequent. In a general way it is not difficult to understand how this comes about. The movement of thought at that time turned to problems of practical importance. The interest in questions connected with population was above all things due to the problems created by the rise and consolidation of the great European states. In some measure also the voyages of discovery and the foundation of colonies drew men’s thoughts to these questions. It is, as we shall see, in the works of the new class of political writers and theorists, and in the descriptions of travel, that we find most references.[12]

These references take for the most part the form of discussions as to the desirability or otherwise of a large population. There is, indeed, often but little discussion; the benefits of a large population seemed so obvious. Men were mostly of the same opinion as the author of the book of Proverbs, ‘in the multitude of the people is the king’s glory; but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.’[13] The reasons are not far to seek. A large population appeared to mean both power and riches. The advantage of a large population in supplying a large army proved most attractive and greatly influenced the authors of the eighteenth century.[14] It has not altogether lost its attraction for some people at the present day, as we shall have reason to notice in a later chapter. This simple view of the benefits of a large population coincided with the development of the mercantile theory of trade. Authors of this school of thought also concluded that upon the whole the larger the population the better. Protests against this point of view are, however, met with from time to time. Those responsible for this opposition to the prevailing opinion were influenced in some cases more by observation than by theory and in other cases more by theory than by observation. As instances of the former several English writers of the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries may be cited; as instances of the latter several authors chiefly belonging to the later part of the eighteenth century. The views of the last-mentioned authors are often influenced by a conception of the relation between population and subsistence closely similar to that of Malthus. But they are not alone in their anticipation of his position. From the sixteenth century onwards we find in passages dealing with population more or less clear statements of the Malthusian position. These authors, however, are not always led to an unfavourable view of an increase in population. Many of them, indeed, support the current view as to the advantages of large numbers. Nevertheless on the whole a consideration of the connexion between population and the food-supply is usually associated with a fear of increase. We may now review in more detail the trend of opinion sketched above. This will bring us to the publication of the Essay on Population.[15]

4. Long before the sixteenth century men gave expression to the view that large numbers are beneficial. ‘Quae familia plus multiplicatur in prolem, amplius cedit ad firmamentum politiae,’ said Saint Thomas Aquinas.[16] But it is only later that we meet with a marked insistence on this view. ‘In my opinion’, says Bodin, ‘they erre much who doubt of a scarcitie by the multitude of citizens and children, when as no cities are more rich nor more famous in arts and discipline than those which abound most with citizens.’[17] According to Botero ‘the greatness of a citty is sayd not to be the largeness of the citty or the circuit of the walls, but in the multitude and the number of the inhabitants and their power’.[18] Machiavelli held very similar views, and Henry IV of France is reported as saying that ‘the strength and riches of kings consist in the number and opulence of their subjects’.[19] In accordance with the views thus widely and strongly held, examples of which might be multiplied almost to any extent, practical measures were taken to encourage the increase of population. Of these the best known is the law of Colbert passed in 1664. Like most of such laws it was modelled on the laws of the later Roman Empire. Similar laws were at one time or another in force in most European countries.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century there arose a school of writers who might be classed as political economists, though the term was not in use. In accordance with the mercantile theory of commerce then predominant a large population was held to be advantageous. The older and vaguer theory that a dense population was necessary if the state was to be powerful was found to coincide with the newer theories as to conditions of prosperous trade. Of these authors Petty and Graunt are celebrated as among the pioneers of statistics. According to the former: ‘fewness of people is real poverty; and a nation in which are eight millions of people are more than twice as rich as the same scope of land in which are but four.’[20] ‘Forasmuch as princes’, says Graunt, ‘are not only powerful but rich according to the number of their people (hands being the father as lands are the mother and womb of wealth) it is no wonder that states by encouraging marriage and hindering licentiousness, advance their own interest, as well as preserve the laws of God from contempt and violation.’[21] Sir Charles Davenant and Sir Josiah Child are two of the foremost authors of this school. The former writes as follows: ‘people are the real strength and riches of a country; we see how impotent Spain is for want of inhabitants with their mines of gold and silver and the best ports and soil in the world; and we see how powerful their numbers make the United Provinces with bad harbours and the worst climate upon earth. It is perhaps better that a people should want country than that a country should want people. When there are but few inhabitants and a large territory, there is nothing but sloth and poverty; but when great numbers are confined to a narrow compass of ground, necessity puts upon them invention, frugality, and industry; which in a nation are always recompensed with power and riches.’[22] The latter refers more than once to the subject. ‘Whatever tends to the population of a country tends to the improvement of it.’[23] ‘Most nations in the civilized parts of the world are more or less rich or poor proportionable to the poverty or plenty of their people and not to the sterility of their lands.’[24] To these quotations we may add one from Sir William Temple: ‘I believe the true and original ground of trade to be a great multitude of people crowded into a small compass of land.’[25]

It would be possible to quote many similar remarks from authors who wrote in the following century. Frederick the Great had very decided opinions. In a letter to Voltaire he says: ‘Je regarde les hommes comme une horde de cerfs dans le pare d’un grand seigneur et qui n’out pas d’autre fonction que de peupler et remplir l’enclos.’[26] Hume speaks of ‘the general rule that the happiness of any society and its populousness are necessary attendants’.[27] Adam Smith says ‘that the most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants’. Nevertheless that which interests us most in the authors of this period is the growing interest in other aspects of the subject.

5. Before referring to the more or less close anticipations of the views of Malthus we may note that these optimistic views were not everywhere accepted. In England particularly, towards the end of the sixteenth century, several writers expressed a dread of over-population. According to Holinshed there were some men ‘affirming that we had already too great a store of people in England; and that youth, by marrying too soon, do nothing profit the countrie, but fill it full of beggars, to the hurt and utter undoing (they saie) of the commonwealth’.[28] Later we find Brückner speaking as follows: ‘there are some who believe that a people can never be too numerous and who speak of increase as if it always contributed to happiness, and who consequently continually urge the sovereign to encourage multiplication. The truth of the matter is, however, often far different, depending on the country and circumstances. In a free and enlightened nation, which has great natural advantages, and which is protected from the invasions of less fortunate neighbours, increasing numbers are a good.... In countries not so circumstanced increase is worse than useless; it is, as a matter of fact, impossible, and attempts in this direction can but result in added suffering and an increased number of deaths.’[29] Arthur Young said the same in more emphatic terms. ‘Of all the subjects of political economy I know not one that has given rise to such a crowd of errors as that of population. It seems for centuries to have been considered as the only test of national prosperity. The politicians of those times, and the majority of them in the present, have been of the opinion that to enumerate the people was the only step to be taken in order to ascertain the degree in which a country was flourishing. In my tour through the North of England, 1769, I entered my caveat against such a doctrine, and presumed to assert “that no nation is rich or powerful by mere numbers of people; it is the industrious class that constitutes a nation’s strength”; that assertion I repeated in my Political Arithmetic in 1774.’[30] About the same time Rousseau remarked that ‘il y a pire disette pour un état que celle d’hommes’.[31]

6. In the eighteenth century the problem was often discussed with reference to the connexion between the population and the food-supply. The contrast between the vast possibilities of increase and the smallness of the actual growth in population also often attracted attention. ‘Through various causes’, says Wallace, ‘there has never been such a number of inhabitants on the earth at any one point of time as might have been raised by the prolific virtue of mankind. The causes of this paucity of inhabitants and the irregularity of increase are manifold. Some may be called physical, as they depend entirely on course of nature, and are independent of mankind. Others are moral and depend on the affections, passions, and institutions of men.... To this last we may refer so many destructive wars which men have waged against one another; great poverty, corrupt institutions, either of a civil or religious kind, intemperance, debauchery, irregular amours, idleness, luxury, and whatever prevents marriage, weakens the generating faculties of men, or renders them negligent or incapable of educating their children, and cultivating the earth to advantage. ’Tis to such destructive causes that we must ascribe the small number of men.’[32] Sir James Steuart devotes a considerable amount of space to this subject. ‘The generative faculty’, he says, ‘resembles a spring loaded with a weight, which always exerts itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance; when food has remained for some time without augmentation or diminution, generation will carry numbers as high as possible; if then food come to be diminished, the spring is overpowered; the force of it becomes less than nothing. Inhabitants will diminish, at least in proportion to the overcharge. If, upon the other hand, food be increased, the spring, which stood at 0, will begin to exert itself in proportion as the resistance diminishes; people will begin to be better fed; they will multiply, and in proportion as they increase in numbers, the food will become scarce again.’[33]

Malthus tells us that when he wrote his first edition the only authors ‘from whose writings he had deduced the principle which formed the main argument of the essay’ were Hume, Wallace, Adam Smith, and Price.[34] In the interval between the publication of the first and second editions of the Essay he found that he had been anticipated more or less by many others. Subsequently many other similar passages have been brought to light. It is not worth while to discuss how far Malthus had been anticipated. It is enough to note some of the opinions that had been expressed. In the eighteenth century the fact that there is a connexion between the population and the food-supply had become a commonplace. ‘La mesure de la subsistance est celle de la population,’[35] said Mirabeau, and the remark could be paralleled many times over.[36] Frequent references to the vast power of human increase may be found much earlier. In his History of the World Raleigh had remarked that were it not for wars, famines, pestilences, and so on, a teeming population all the world over would have resulted long ago.[37] Machiavelli refers more than once to the existence of checks. He attributed the barbarian invasions in the later days of Rome to an unusually rapid increase of the tribes beyond the Rhine and the Danube.[38] One of the most interesting references to the subject is to be found in the work of Botero from which we have already quoted. ‘I say, then, that the augmentation of Cities proceedeth partly out of the virtue generative of men, and partly out of the virtue nutritive of Citties. The virtue generative is without doubt to this day the very same, or at least such as it was three thousand years past. So that if there were no other impediment or let therein, the propagation of mankind would increase without end and the augmentation of Citties would be without terme. And if it do not increase in infinite, I must needs say, it proceedeth out of the defect of nutriment and sustenance sufficient for it.’[39] Later on he continues: ‘although men were as apt to generation in the height and pride of the Roman Empire, as in the first beginning thereof; yet, for all that, the people increased not proportionately. For the virtue nutritive of Citties had no power to go further.... By the selfe same reason, mankinde growne to a certain complete number, hath growne no further. And it is three thousand years agone and more, that the world was replenished as full with people as it is at present.’[40]

What are perhaps more remarkable than these references to the relation of numbers to the food-supply, so far as anticipations of Malthus are concerned, are discussions mentioning the ratios which are found from time to time. In the Primitive Origination of Mankind, Sir Matthew Hale endeavours to show that mankind must have had a beginning and must have an end, and finds support for this thesis in the facts regarding human fecundity. He calculated that the numbers of mankind must increase in a geometrical ratio unless hindered by checks. Obviously it has not done so chiefly because, owing to absence of sufficient food, large numbers are always being removed by various agencies which he enumerates as plagues, famines, wars, floods, and inundations.[41] Sir William Petty deals with the geometrical ratio at some length. He drew up an elaborate table which, assuming four thousand years to have passed since the flood, shows how an estimated world population of 320,000,000 could have been arrived at.[42] The ratios, however, never played a very prominent part in the discussion until after the publication of Malthus’s book. They reappear now and again, as for instance in a book by Saxe.[43]

7. Malthus published his first edition in 1798. He was born in 1766 at the ‘Rookery’, a country house of some size near Dorking. In 1784 he went up to Cambridge. In early days he had shown signs of ability and at the university fulfilled this promise; he gained some prizes and was placed as ninth wrangler in the mathematical tripos of 1788. In 1793 he was elected fellow of his college, but only resided occasionally. In 1798 he was curate at Albury, close to his birthplace; in 1799 he travelled through Sweden, Norway, and Russia, to collect information for his second edition; in 1802, owing to the Peace of Amiens, he was enabled to travel through Switzerland and France. The second edition appeared in 1803. It was virtually a new book. The four succeeding editions that were published in his lifetime were mainly reprints of this edition with some new matter added. In 1804 he married, and in 1805 became Professor of History and Political Economy at Haileybury College, which post he held until his death in 1834.[44]

It would seem that Malthus and his father used often to discuss new books and questions of the day. His father, Daniel Malthus, was inclined to favour the revolutionary school; Robert Malthus thought that he saw serious objections to Godwin’s views on the subject of ‘perfectibility’, and was so much impressed by them that he decided to put his ideas in writing. Whereas in the first edition Malthus was chiefly concerned with controverting Godwin and his school, by the time of the second edition he had lost interest in this side of the matter and his attention was almost entirely devoted to the problem of population.

Such was the origin of the book which focused the attention of men on the population question. In the sixth chapter we shall have to review the position which it sets out and to trace the subsequent development of the theory. It is sufficient to say here that according to Malthus, whereas population tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, food tends to increase in an arithmetical ratio. As a result population is checked by the operation of vice and misery, to which factors he added, in the second edition, moral restraint. Statistics showed, even in the lifetime of Malthus, that the increase of food was not limited to an increase in an arithmetical ratio, and thus in reality the theory fell to the ground. It was, however, only gradually realized that this was so and that the relation between population and the food-supply is connected with the question of the return to industry, which may at any one time be increasing or decreasing according to the operation of many factors, of which the increase in skill is the chief. The points which are of interest in this historical sketch are the strong feelings which the book aroused among the adherents of the various schools of thought, the practical movement to which it gave shape, and finally the influence which it had upon Darwin and Wallace.

8. From what has been said, it is clear that the ground had been well prepared for a favourable reception. Further the ‘populousness of ancient nations’ was a famous theme for controversy in the eighteenth century. There had also been much discussion as to whether the population of England was increasing or decreasing.[45] Again, in part owing to the industrial revolution, and in part owing to the war, questions as to poverty had attracted much attention, and to them Malthus’s book had direct reference. Thus it is not surprising that the success of the first edition was great and immediate.[46] Godwin admitted that it had ‘converted friends of progress by the hundred’.[47] Pitt dropped his Poor Law Bill in 1800 partly because of the opposition of those who had been influenced by the Essay. The earlier supporters of Malthus belonged, for the most part, to the Whig and Utilitarian schools. Pitt, Paley, Copleston, James Mill, Senior, Ricardo, Macintosh, and Whitbread all adhered to Malthus. In 1819 Brougham referred to the ‘principle of population as one of the soundest principles of political economy’.[48] Support for Malthus was especially strong among the Utilitarians. Referring to about the year 1825 J. S. Mill says: ‘Malthus’s principle was quite as much a banner and a point of union among us as any opinion especially belonging to Bentham.’[49]

Opposition was chiefly to be found among the Tories, Revolutionaries, and Radicals. Godwin published a reply to Malthus in 1801, and several years later, finding that the ‘principle’ still gained ground, made another attempt to refute it, which met with as little success as the earlier attempt. As an example of the attitude of the followers of Godwin towards Malthus, the following remarks by Shelley may be quoted. ‘Metaphysics and inquiries into moral and political science have become little else than vain attempts to revive exploded superstitions, or sophisms like those of Mr. Malthus, calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind into a security of everlasting triumph.’[50] The Tory element of the opposition was influenced by the feeling that the ordering of human affairs could not be so innately bad as the Essay seemed to suggest.[51] Southey and Coleridge represent this view; the former attacked the Essay more than once with considerable violence.[52] Cobbett made himself prominent among the critics by inventing the sobriquet ‘Parson’ Malthus. It occurs in the following passage.

‘Why,’ said I, ‘how many children do you reckon to have had at last?’

‘I do not care how many,’ said the man, ‘God never sends mouths without sending meat.’

‘Did you never hear,’ said I, ‘of one Parson Malthus?’

‘No, sir.’

‘If he were to hear of your works, he would be outrageous, for he wants an Act of Parliament to prevent poor people from marrying young, and from having such lots of children.’

‘Oh, the brute,’ exclaimed the wife, while the husband laughed, thinking I was joking.[53]

Hazlitt, who may be classed as a radical, was one of the most violent of the opponents. Indeed, as Mr. Bonar says, ‘Malthus was the best abused man of his age.’[54]

The Essay early became known on the Continent. As far as Germany was concerned, this was attributable, according to von Mohl, to a work by Luden.[55] During the lifetime of Malthus the violence of the opposition gradually weakened and the principle was very generally accepted. For many years such opposition as there was was based rather on religious grounds than upon an understanding of true weaknesses of the theory. Nevertheless Sumner, who was afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and Thomas Chalmers in early days both proclaimed their adherence to the principle.[56] In 1840 three books were published which each attacked the principle on religious grounds. Of the authors, Sadler was a Churchman without apparently any strong political feelings, Alison a Tory, and Doubleday a Radical.[57] That the religious motive continued to inspire opposition may be gathered from an essay by W. P. Greg which appeared at a much later date.[58]

It may be noticed that strong opposition was nearly always exhibited to the views of Malthus by socialistic authors.[59] According to Proudhon, ‘la théorie de Malthus, c’est la théorie de l’assassinat politique, de l’assassinat par philanthropie, pour l’amour de Dieu.’[60] Karl Marx in a well-known passage attacked Malthus in most violent and offensive language.[61]

9. As a result of the Essay, there began within the lifetime of Malthus the advocacy of Neomalthusianism. Malthus himself definitely disapproved of this practical application of his ‘principle’.[62] The practical application of which he approved was made by Miss Martineau in one of her Illustrations to Political Economy, which reads so strangely at the present day.[63] As regards Neomalthusianism it is very generally supposed that active propaganda only began about the time of the famous Bradlaugh-Besant trial in 1876. This, however, is a complete mistake.[64] The first publication of importance in which these ideas were put forward was an article by James Mill in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His language was very guarded but the drift of his remarks unmistakable. Four years later, in 1822, Francis Place wrote a reply to Godwin. He covered much other ground but openly and deliberately advocated these practices. For the next ten years there followed an active propaganda. The events which first brought the whole question into public notice are somewhat curious. In 1823 a number of handbills were sent to Mrs. Fildes, well known in the North for her work among the poor; these bills contained descriptions of the methods which the new school of writers wished to see adopted by the working classes; an anonymous letter accompanied them asking her to help in distributing them. Mrs. Fildes was very indignant, and the whole story was published in the journal called the Black Dwarf. The bills attained a great notoriety and became known as the ‘diabolical handbills’. Suspicion seems to have rested upon Robert Owen; it was stated in the Black Dwarf, and has often been repeated since, that Neomalthusian methods were in use at New Lanark. It is far more probable that Francis Place was the author both of the handbill and of the letter. Whether this is so or not, Place was occupied for the next few years in doing all he could to spread the new opinions, for the sake of which he was prepared to sacrifice much popularity.[65] In 1834 the Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge refused his help because of his opinions on the subject. He was violently attacked by Cobbett and Richard Carlile; the latter was afterwards converted and published in 1825 articles advocating these practices. The articles were reprinted in 1826 as Every Woman’s Book, which went through several editions. At this early date it is clear that on the one hand these books and pamphlets were widely read among the working classes; Carlile in the Republican, for instance, asserted that they were ‘circulating by thousands in the populous districts of the north’. On the other hand Neomalthusian ideas were held by many eminent men of the day. The Utilitarian leaders, if not actually concerned in the propagation of these views, made their approval known. J. S. Mill in his youthful days got into trouble with the police through distributing some of these pamphlets. Grote somewhat later presented to London University a copy of the famous Fruits of Philosophy, of which there will be more to be said below.

After a while the propaganda died down, and for some fifty years there was little heard of it.[66] Some books were, however, published in the interval which subsequent events made famous. R. D. Owen’s Moral Physiology appeared in 1830. Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy and Drysdale’s Elements of Social Science appeared in 1833 and in 1854 respectively. It was many years, however, before they became well known. For many years no objection was taken to the Fruits of Philosophy, or any similar work; such books were allowed to circulate freely. In 1876 a Bristol bookseller, Cook by name, was condemned to two years’ imprisonment for selling an illustrated edition of Knowlton’s work. Soon after another bookseller was also fined. Thereupon Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant determined to take up the subject and fight for what they considered to be the right of freedom of discussion in these matters. They had an edition of the Fruits of Philosophy printed, and took a small shop where it was openly exposed for sale. A prosecution followed. In 1877 they were tried before Sir Alexander Cockburn, the Lord Chief Justice; the Attorney-General prosecuted. The summing-up was distinctly in favour of the accused; the jury, however, returned a verdict of guilty, adding a rider to the effect that they considered the defendants to be innocent of any immoral intention. Judgement was reserved. But in the interval Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant continued to sell the book, and the result was that, instead of merely being bound over, as had been the intention of the judge, they were condemned to six months’ imprisonment and to a fine of six hundred pounds. The judgement was subsequently quashed in a higher court.

The trial was a huge advertisement for Neomalthusianism. For some years spasmodic efforts to punish the sale of Neomalthusian books only served to encourage the propagandists. In 1877 the ‘Neomalthusian League’ was founded and a vigorous propaganda was carried on. The activity of the league in England gradually declined, but not before the movement had spread to foreign countries. Propaganda in other countries followed a very similar course; in 1888 there was a trial in Australia which is as famous in that country as the Bradlaugh-Besant trial in England. Prosecutions occurred in India and in America. In 1891 a remarkable dispute took place in Norway, and a law was finally passed to prohibit the sale of Neomalthusian books. As lately as 1908 a Belgian doctor was condemned to imprisonment for spreading the knowledge of Neomalthusian methods.[67]

10. With this notice of the history of the development of Neomalthusianism we may leave this side of the subject. The history of speculation regarding evolution has been so often described that there is no need to go into the facts here.

It is well known that before Darwin and Wallace turned their attention to the subject, the origin of organisms by evolution as opposed to origin by separate acts of creation had often been suggested. There was already at the beginning of the nineteenth century a considerable accumulation of facts regarding the structure and relation of organisms to one another and regarding the fossil remains of organisms. This evidence was seen to point to evolution as against creation, but until Darwin and Wallace produced their theories no one had been able to formulate a satisfactory hypothesis as to how evolution could have come about. It is of great interest to observe that it was after reading Malthus that both Darwin and Wallace independently formulated their theories. Malthus had, in fact, when taking up for consideration the quantitative aspect of the problem, so far as man was concerned, been dealing with that class of facts upon which, not only the quantitative, but also the qualitative aspect of the problem is based. When Darwin and Wallace, with the problem of evolution before them, which is essentially the problem of quality—the problem of the manner in which one type of organic form can be derived from another type—chanced to read Malthus, their attention was called to the class of facts connected with the birth-rate, the death-rate, and allied phenomena. They realized that among species in a state of nature a somewhat similar state of things existed to that which Malthus, with another aspect of the problem in view, was investigating in the case of man, and from a consideration of these facts they founded independently the hypothesis of natural selection.

It is of interest to note what Darwin and Wallace themselves say as to their indebtedness to Malthus. In a passage in the well-known autobiographical sketch Darwin writes as follows: ‘in October 1838, that is fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus’ ‘Population’, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of animals and plants it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of a new species. Here then I had at last got hold of a theory by which to work.’[68] In two letters that have been published—one to Haeckel[69] and one to Wallace[70]—Darwin also recorded in very similar words his debt to Malthus, and in the Origin of Species, after describing what is meant by the struggle for existence and how it comes about, says, ‘it is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the animal and vegetable kingdoms.’[71] So too Wallace, in his reply, after having been presented with the first Darwin-Wallace medal by the Linnean Society in 1908, acknowledged his debt to Malthus in the following words: ‘both Darwin and myself, at the critical period when our minds were fully stored with a considerable body of preserved information and reflection bearing upon the problem to be solved, had our attention directed to the system of positive checks as expounded by Malthus in his Principle of Population. It is an unimportant detail that Darwin read this book two years after his return from his voyage, while I read it before I went abroad and it was a sudden recollection of its teachings that caused the solution to flash upon me.’[72]

Since the publication of the Origin of Species much attention has been paid to the problem of quality as regards the human race. It was obvious that if the human race had evolved from some lower type, it was probably still in process of evolution, and that the direction of evolution was by no means necessarily upwards. It was also obvious that the further evolution of the race was to some extent at least within human control, if and when men chose to use the means of control that lay within their power. Great impetus was given to this side of the problem by the work of Sir Francis Galton, who coined the word ‘eugenics’.[73] Societies for the study of eugenics and for the advocacy of eugenic ideals have been started in England, in many European countries, in America and elsewhere, and at the present day the educated classes in every country are at least aware of the existence of the problem of the quality, as they have long been aware of the existence of the problem of the quantity, of population.

The development of opinion on this subject has thus run a peculiar course. Attention was drawn in early days to the existence of the problem of numbers, but men were long satisfied with asserting on comparatively simple grounds that a dense population was desirable or undesirable, and they usually came to the conclusion that the more inhabitants in a country, the better for the country. Long before the time of Malthus, and by many different writers, attention was paid to the connexion between numbers and the food-supply. It was Malthus, however, who first aroused public interest in the subject. His book, indeed, made an impression that few books have ever made. Since his time every educated man has had the problem of numbers in mind, and current opinion still often enough reflects the view put forward by Malthus if not in detail—for it is difficult to say what exactly the views of Malthus were—at least in the general and on the whole gloomy and fatalistic manner of regarding the problem. It is owing to the fact that those contributions which, after the time of Malthus, attracted most attention, added little to the development of thought, and owing to the influence of the writings of J. S. Mill, who himself never shook off the profound impression made upon him early in life by the Essay, that the views, or perhaps we should rather say the outlook, of Malthus so long maintained their sway. The development of the modern view as expounded by political economists was not set out in a form that attracted public attention, and it was thus possible for the late Governor of South Africa, when answering a question in the House of Commons a few years ago, to refer to the problem as though no important contribution had been made to the subject since the time of Malthus.

Of the development of opinion regarding the qualitative aspect of the problem there is little to be said. Popular interest in this subject is of comparatively recent birth. That which is interesting to observe is that, as a result of the course which thought has taken, the population problem is seldom seen as a whole, and that the relations one to another of the very numerous questions arising therefrom are scarcely ever appreciated.

II THE BASIS OF THE POPULATION PROBLEM: (1) THE QUANTITATIVE ASPECT

1. In what follows the evolutionary position is taken for granted. It is assumed, that is to say, that the higher forms of life have evolved from lower forms. If we make this assumption, we must suppose that at one time the ancestors of man were living under those conditions to which species in a state of nature are now subject. By species in a state of nature are meant all species of animals and plants with the exception of man and those species which have been domesticated by him. It is the object of this and the following chapter to show that among species in a state of nature the population problem exists both in its quantitative and qualitative aspects, and further that in certain particulars of fundamental importance the position is the same for all such species. Certain propositions may be laid down which hold good for any one of them, and in these chapters it is proposed to show what it is that may be affirmed with regard to all of them. It follows that, since among the ancestors of man the population problem must at one time have taken this form, we shall, as the result of the discussion, arrive at a basis from which we can proceed to study the shape which the problem in its double aspect has assumed in the case of man.

It is necessary to emphasize the fact that this argument does not take the form of developing an analogy between the position of man and that of species in a state of nature. What we are doing is merely to attempt to ascertain the conditions under which the ancestors of man lived, in order that we may follow the changes which have taken place. Further, it may be well to point out that the argument in these chapters will follow rather an unusual course. It may seem that certain facts of considerable general importance are passed over and others of little obvious importance emphasized. The justification for this course will be apparent later when we come to deal with the position with regard to man; for this sketch is not introduced primarily with the object of throwing light upon the position of species in a state of nature, but in order to prepare the way for a discussion of the shape which the problem has assumed in the case of man.

2. At the basis of both aspects of the problem lies the fact of reproduction. All organisms reproduce their kind. Reproduction is clearly a necessity, because all living things are liable to meet death by accident and, unless there was reproduction, every species would soon be extinguished. It is worth while observing that among all higher forms of life a more or less clearly defined limit to the duration of life has been evolved. In other words, natural death after a certain period ensues. It would seem that natural death has been evolved in the following manner. All organisms are subject to the wear and tear of daily life, to meet which there is a faculty of recuperation. Among the lower forms this faculty is very pronounced. The whole animal can be regenerated from a small fragment and, as a result, very serious accidents are not fatal. Among the higher forms there goes, generally speaking, with the advance in structure a loss of the power of regeneration, until among the highest there is little or no power of regeneration; for a certain average length of time the highest organisms withstand the batterings of daily life, gradually fail to recuperate, and finally die. Given the necessity of reproduction to provide for the continuance of the species against accident to its members, this further evolution is not difficult to understand. A power of recovery from all but the most extreme forms of accident is present among the simpler types; the retention of such a power of recovery tends to be incompatible with increasing complexity of structure, and it has, so to speak, been more economical to evolve organisms provided with a power of recuperation only against normal wear and tear over the period during which they remain capable of reproduction. The higher types therefore, after reproducing their kind, die and thus the battle of life is always being resumed by fresh generations.

3. That in some such fashion reproduction has to be explained seems clear; but we are concerned here with the facts of reproduction. It will be necessary later to go into the nature of reproduction in greater detail; all that needs to be said here can be stated quite shortly. There are two forms of reproduction, known respectively as the sexual and asexual; the latter type of reproduction occurs only among plants and the lower animals. As sexual reproduction occurs among all groups of animals and plants, whether asexual reproduction occurs or not (except among the bacteria where the latter type alone is known) and as it is the only type which occurs among the higher groups, asexual reproduction may be disregarded here. The asexual type of reproduction, it may be remarked, introduces no new principle, and those groups among whom it is found are not on that account to be set apart from other groups as though the general conclusions at which we shall arrive were not applicable to them.

To make the process of sexual reproduction clear it is necessary to say something regarding the structure of organisms. Excluding the Protista for the moment, all organisms exhibit a cellular structure. Upon examination under a microscope the living tissues are found to consist of a number of compartments or cells. Among plants the typical cell is in the nature of a small box with thick sides; among animals the sides or cell-walls are very thin. Within the cell-walls there are to be distinguished two chief elements, a central body, the nucleus, and the surrounding cytoplasm. This cytoplasm consists of ordinary granular protoplasm and the nucleus of a special kind of protoplasm. Only protoplasm can properly be spoken of as alive. Those elements in the body which are not protoplasm are either in the course of being turned into protoplasm or are the products of protoplasmic activity. Examples of the latter in man are the hair and the nails, and in the case of other animals, feathers, shells, and so on. As a general rule, each cell contains a single nucleus, but there are cells without a nucleus and cells with more than one nucleus. The name Protista, mentioned above, is given to the lowest animals and plants which are commonly said to consist of a single cell. They may be thus thought of; but the group includes forms with many nuclei of which it can only be said that cell structure has not yet been differentiated. It is therefore possible that the term cell should not be used at all in respect of this group.

Among the Protista sexual reproduction takes very different forms. Essentially, however, it consists in the fusion of two individuals, and if we regard each individual as a cell, it may be said to consist in the fusion of two cells. Among the higher forms the essential feature of sexual reproduction is the same; it consists, that is to say, in the fusion of two cells. It no longer consists in the fusion of two individuals, but in the fusion of two cells, one given off by one individual, and one by the other.

The manner in which these cells, known as gametes, are given off by the male and the female and the manner in which they fuse require some further explanation. What happens in plants is in all important features similar to that which happens among animals, and we may confine our attention to the latter. In every normal member of every species there is a generative organ.[74] It consists of a surrounding wall within which is a mass of developing germ-cells. In the female the fully developed gamete, called the egg or ovum, is, relative to the male gamete, of large size. It is typically a motionless cell containing a varying quantity of food substance which may, as in the case of the bird’s egg, reach a large amount. The male gamete is a much smaller cell. With a few exceptions it consists of a small oval-shaped head, to which is attached, by means of an intervening neck or middle-piece, a long vibratile tail. The head is the nucleus of the cell; if there is any cytoplasm, it is reduced to a very small amount and its presence cannot be readily demonstrated.[75] In strong contrast to the ovum the spermatozoon is typically motile and can swim in those fluids in which fertilization usually takes place.

Fertilization consists in the penetration of an ovum by a spermatozoon. The tail does not always enter the egg; as soon as the head has entered, a change takes place in the egg which sometimes prevents the tail, and usually other spermatozoa, from entering the egg. The head or nucleus of the spermatozoon approaches the nucleus of the egg and fuses with it. At this point, therefore, we have a single cell, known as the zygote, formed by the fusion of two cells, one derived from the male and one from the female. The zygote grows and divides and ultimately gives rise to an adult; into this process of growth it is not necessary to go for the moment. The zygote is to be regarded as a new member of the species the existence of which dates from the fusion of the two nuclei. Whether the zygote lives an independent existence from the beginning, or is retained within the body of the mother for a longer or shorter period, is immaterial so far as the dating of the beginning of the existence of a new individual is concerned. Every man and woman is thus in reality some nine months older than his or her nominal age.

4. Such are the essential features of the process of sexual reproduction through which new members of the species arise. We have now to consider the outward features of the process, which vary very considerably. So various are they, that at first sight it may scarcely seem likely that there is any fundamental generalization that can be made regarding the process as a whole among all species in a state of nature. When we have glanced at the facts and at their interpretation we shall be in a position to discuss what it is that holds good for all such species.

Among all multicellular animals and plants the number of spermatozoa produced is infinitely greater than the number of ova. A single normal sexual emission in man is said to contain about 226,000,000 spermatozoa. This immense production of male gametes makes it likely that a male gamete will meet and fuse with each female gamete. Among the higher animals there are certain instincts which further ensure that the male cells will be brought into the proximity of the female cells. Among other multicellular animals and plants there are no such instincts. Generally speaking, among the latter types fertilization may be thought of as fortuitous. In anemophilous plants, for example, such as the Pines, the male cells or pollen-grains are specially adapted so that they are caught and carried by the wind for long distances. Many million times more male cells than female cells are formed in these plants, and some of them, wafted by the wind, eventually light upon the ovule. So too among such lowly animals as the sea-urchin the male and female cells are extruded into the surrounding sea-water; as these animals live close together, and as the male and female cells ripen and are extruded at the same time, the chance that any egg will remain unfertilized is small, the number of the active spermatozoa being so many times greater than the number of eggs. This simple form of fertilization is characteristic of most plants and of many animals. In plants there are certain complications, in particular those connected with fertilization with the help of insects, into which it is not necessary to go.

The increasing complexity of animal structure is only roughly correlated with increasing complexity in the processes connected with fertilization. Though the most complex form of the process is found among the highest animals, yet some animals, which stand relatively high in the scale, exhibit a simple method of fertilization. Of this the fish are an example, and, further, the more highly developed or bony fish exhibit a simpler form than some of the more lowly-organized cartilaginous fish. In fact, the stage next above that of which the sea-urchin was given as an example can be illustrated from the bony fish. The process in this group consists in the approach of the male to the female alongside of whom he swims, led by a rudimentary development of the sexual instinct. When the female ejects her gametes into the water, the male does the same and the vastly greater number of the male gametes ensures that all or nearly all of the eggs are penetrated by a spermatozoon.[76]

The next stage is that characterized by external copulation. The male clasps the female and when the latter ejects her eggs, he extrudes his spermatozoa at the same time. The meeting of the gametes thus still takes place outside the body of the female. This form of fertilization is found among the Amphibia; the male frog, for example, has specially developed pads on his front feet with which he embraces the female. Internal copulation, though it is to be regarded as the most complex form of the process, is found among such low forms as flat worms,[77] of which the common tapeworm is a member, among many higher Invertebrates such as snails and insects, as well as among cartilaginous fish, birds, and mammals. The essential feature of internal copulation is that the male is provided with a special copulatory organ or penis which he inserts into the female. The male gametes pass through the penis, which takes the form of a tube, directly into the body of the female, and fertilization thus takes place within the body of the female.

5. When fertilization takes place without copulation it might be thought that a small proportion of eggs only would be fertilized, that, so long as fertilization, for instance, depends on the wafting by the wind of a pollen-grain over a considerable distance until it alights on one small spot, or upon the chance meeting of a spermatozoon and an egg in the water, there would be but a small proportion of eggs fertilized. This, however, is not so; observation shows that in a state of nature failure is comparatively rare, and that the majority of female gametes are fertilized. This is in the main due to the vast number of male cells compared with the number of eggs. Among those forms in which copulation takes place, fertilization is clearly dependent upon the strength of the sexual instinct, which impels the male to seek the female. That this instinct is very powerful is well known. It may for the time overcome all other instincts. There is a frenzy of desire among many animals. Male frogs and toads will remain clasping the female for many days waiting for the extrusion of the eggs. Female toads have been discovered smothered by the male in the sexual embrace.[78] It has been noticed that birds, which under usual circumstances are frightened by the sound of a gun, will take no notice when in pursuit of a female.[79] All the evidence points to the fact that, owing to the strength of the sexual instincts, females are rarely left undiscovered by a male in the sexual season. Jenner records that one of a pair of magpies was killed and that on the following day the survivor appeared with another mate. One of this pair was killed and on the next day the survivor again appeared with another mate. This was repeated for seven days and on each occasion the survivor always appeared with a new mate.[80] In this connexion the great development of those forms of secondary sexual characters may be referred to which enable the two sexes to find and recognize one another. Such are recognition marks, call-notes of many insects, birds, and mammals, and the strong odours given off by many animals during the sexual period.

Generally speaking, the male is always prepared for the act of copulation and the act takes place when the female is ready to receive the male. This is so among mammals whether the male experiences a sexual season known as the ‘rut’, as among stags, or whether he does not, as among dogs; for the period of ‘rut’ lasts longer than the period during which the female is ready to receive the male. The facts, however, regarding the sexual season in mammals are somewhat complicated owing to the nature of the sexual season experienced by the female. A number of different types of mammalian sexual season have been distinguished; it is not necessary, however, to go into these distinctions. It is sufficient to say that each sexual season consists of one or more sexual cycles, known as oestrous cycles. An oestrous cycle may be divided into four periods; the first, known as the pro-oestrous, is the period of preparation which ends in the rupture of the blood-vessels in the mucous membrane of the uterus. When the blood passes to the exterior, it is known as the menstrual flow. The second period or oestrous is the period of desire. This period is always short; in the sheep it lasts about twelve hours and often in other species does not last as long. Only during this latter period will the female receive the male;[81] copulation never takes place at any other period, and yet in spite of the fact that the opportunity for copulation is narrowly restricted, so strong is the sexual instinct in the male, that it is very rare for a female, so far as observation goes, not to engage in copulation at each oestrous. The period of oestrous is followed by the period of metoestrous during which the activity of generation subsides, and the metoestrous is followed by the anoestrous or period of rest, after which another pro-oestrous period begins a new cycle.

The period of oestrous, during which copulation takes place, is usually marked by the presence of ripe female gametes which are therefore at once fertilized. Ripe ova are, however, not always present at oestrous; in the rabbit ovulation takes place an hour and a half after copulation. In the bat there is a very marked want of coincidence between oestrous and ovulation; copulation takes place in the autumn, but ovulation does not take place until the following spring. In such cases the spermatozoa remain alive in the uterus until the female gametes are ripe, when fertilization is achieved; thus in the bat the spermatozoa remain alive for several months. When such cases occur, therefore, it does not mean that the ova are not fertilized. In the monkeys, however, ovulation may occur independently of oestrous and in such a manner that the ova then liberated may not be fertilized.

What has so far been said all goes to show that the majority of ripe ova are always fertilized among species in a state of nature. There must be a certain number of failures among those species which copulate, as when a mammalian female, as must now and again happen, does not engage in copulation during oestrous. Among species which do not copulate, failures are doubtless more frequent. There is probably a greater wastage of eggs when they are adhesive and fixed to some object than when they are pelagic, as is most often the case among marine animals; for when eggs are adhesive the seminal fluid may drift away.

We are now approaching a point at which it is possible to establish the first generalization regarding the process of reproduction among species in a state of nature. It is, however, not possible to make clear what it is intended to convey until something has been said regarding animal behaviour. Some of the most striking differences between one class of animal and another as regards the process of reproduction are connected with the evolution of animal behaviour. So far we have spoken of instinct without defining what is meant, and until something has been said regarding the course and limit of mental evolution among animals, the nature of the common element in all forms of reproduction among all species in a state of nature and the manner in which it differs from what is found among men cannot be set out. It may seem that the following review is taking us somewhat out of our path. It so happens, however, that in view of the questions that will come up later for discussion, such a sketch will be necessary and it may therefore be now undertaken so as to render further amplification unnecessary.

6. Putting aside the behaviour of plants, we find among the lower animals a type of behaviour which, though simple in a certain sense, cannot be adequately explained without a prolonged discussion. Some idea can be obtained of its nature if we consider in what a reflex action consists. When a definite and simple stimulus is followed directly by a definite and simple reaction we have what is called a reflex action. This term, it may be noticed, is usually restricted to cases where a nervous system is present. When similar reactions occur among organisms in which the nervous system has not been differentiated, it has been suggested that the term ‘autotype’ should be used.[82]

Reactions, however, probably never follow invariably upon the repetition of the same stimulus. Among the lowest class of animals, the Protozoa, a free-swimming ciliate Infusorian, will, if it comes into contact with something in the medium which is abnormal, it may be, for example, an alkaline solution, stop and go backwards. This is an example of a reflex action. An analysis of its subsequent movements shows that, if it again and again meets the alkaline solution, some modification of the reaction takes place. The animal may show increased activity until either it is overcome by the disturbing medium or it has freed itself from it. So again after the digestion of food, such an organism shows a different response to the presence of food.

More definite instances of different reactions following upon the same stimulus are provided by experiments of changing the nature of the medium. An Infusorian will react violently against certain new elements in the medium to which after a time it becomes habituated, when the reaction no longer follows. Very interesting experiments have shown that even among the simplest class of organisms there is a certain learning from experience. ‘A Stentor (one of the ciliate Infusorians) if gently touched upon one side will contract upon its stalk, but will soon open out again. Touched once more, it will perhaps bend to one side, and if continually molested in this manner, it will uproot itself in pardonable dudgeon and swim away. That is to say it has several ways of reacting to the stimulus and seeking equilibrium, and, if one fails, it tries another. But now when it anchors itself again, it seems to have learnt something, for if again touched it does not go through the stages of contracting and of bending aside. It keeps to its more radical remedy and moves off again.’[83] It is doubtful whether there is any further complication of this type of behaviour among organisms which do not attain to the kind of behaviour that we have now to describe.

7. Herbert Spencer, as is well known, defined instinct as compound reflex action. Though this definition cannot, for various reasons, be accepted as adequate, it does suggest the essential nature of instinct, which consists in the response to a given but often vague stimulus of a more or less complicated series of reactions. Instinct is more than compound reflex action because it involves the organism as a whole, and is accompanied by, or is the outcome of, a mental process. All mental process is said to involve three aspects—the cognitive or the knowing of an object, the affective or feeling in regard to an object, and the conative or striving to or from an object—and these three aspects are to be found in all instinctive actions. The instinctive action is initiated by a sense-impression and is followed by results so important because the nervous system is innately organized to respond to certain sense-impressions. It is presumed that some kind of emotional excitement, however faint, always follows and that it gives rise to the striving that we see in the form of movement. Instinct has been defined as ‘an inherited or innate psychophysical disposition which determines its possessor to perceive and to pay attention to objects of a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular quality upon perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or, at least, to experience an impulse to such action’.[84]

Every one is acquainted with many examples of instinctive action. ‘There are many instances of insects that invariably lay their eggs in the only place where the grubs, when hatched, will find the food they need and can eat, or where the larvae will be able to attach themselves as parasites to some host in a way that is necessary to their survival. In such cases it is clear that the behaviour of the parent is determined by the impression made on its senses by the appropriate objects or places: e. g. the smell of decaying fish leads the Carrion fly to deposit its eggs upon it; the sight or odour of some particular flower leads another to lay its eggs among the ovules of the flower, which serve as food to the grubs. Others go through more elaborate traits of action, as when the Mason-wasp lays its eggs in a mud nest, fills up the space with caterpillars, which it paralyses by means of well-directed stings, and seals it up; so that the caterpillars remain as a supply of fresh animal food for the young which the parent will never see and of whose needs it can have no knowledge or idea.’[85] To take some examples from among the Vertebrates, ‘pheasants, plovers, moor-hen, domestic chicks and ducklings, with many others, are active soon after birth, and exhibit powers of complex co-ordination, with little or no practice of the necessary limb movements. They walk and balance the body so soon and so well as to show that this mode of procedure is congenital, and has not to be gradually acquired through the guidance of experience. Young water birds swim with neat orderly strokes the first time they are gently placed in the water. Even little chicks a day or two old can swim well.’[86]

Enough has been said in the way of illustration, as numerous examples are familiar to every one. It is possible that instinctive behaviour may have to be attributed to so lowly a group of organisms as the flat worms. Instinct reaches its greatest development among the insects, and some examples have been given above of the amazingly intricate series of actions which are performed by insects, under the guidance of instinct. There have been two lines of mental evolution among animals, one culminating in the insects and the other in the Vertebrates. Among the former instincts have become very specialized; among the latter they have remained far more generalized. Among the latter again there has been a far higher development of intelligence than among the former, thus further distinguishing the two lines of mental evolution. It is probable, however, that intelligence, though certainly at times in a very primitive form, always accompanies instinct, and to the discussion of intelligence we must now turn.

8. We saw how as lowly an animal as an Infusorian can in a sense learn from experience. It is only when learning from experience reaches a more advanced stage that we speak of intelligent action. If we watch one of the higher animals which, under the influence of desire, is striving to satisfy this desire, we find that it behaves in the following manner. An animal, for instance, is shut up in a box with food outside. It is led by instinct to all kinds of sporadic activities; it will clutch and claw and make every kind of effort to extricate itself. If some simple catch has been contrived which opens the door and offers a way of escape, the animal will probably sooner or later accidentally operate the catch and escape. If the animal is replaced in the box many times, it is found to escape on the average sooner. It learns in fact in some degree to operate the catch and thus to gain freedom and food. The question which arises is what degree of mental development we have to assume in order to account for these facts.

The stage in learning from experience which follows next upon that present among some protozoa is exemplified by the chick which at first instinctively pecks at various objects. If it pecks at a yellow caterpillar with an unpleasant taste it will drop it. The next time, or after a series of such experiences, it will avoid the caterpillar. The explanation seems to be that a modified response arises directly from the sight of the caterpillar. The sense-impression has become charged with feeling that first arose as the result of experience. This simple explanation is to be preferred to that which would assume the realization by the chick of the relation between the position when it again finds itself with a yellow caterpillar before it and the nastiness which it previously experienced. The process is thus one of the revival of acquired meaning, and we have now to ask if a higher stage of mental process is ever to be attributed to animals or whether the behaviour of the animal in the cage is to be explained on the same lines as the behaviour of the chick.

‘Let us suppose’, says Professor Hobhouse, ‘revival to operate in a mind capable of perceiving three objects A B C in definite space and time relations, C being something desirable, e. g. food. If the three objects are present to the senses, the first two leading up to the third (e. g. as intervening objects in space), conation will be definitely directed to C via A and B. Let this have happened and then let A alone be given. If the animal is hungry, i.e. if there is a conational basis to go upon, A will, according to the law of revival, excite a conation corresponding to the previous one, but this was a conation definitely directed to B and C in succession as things standing in a definite relation to A. The animal then directs its efforts to a point where, in accordance with the first experience, B and C should be. It looks for them, or if B is some change which brings C about, sets itself to perform B and so obtain C. Its action is directed to something not given, and this appears to be the germ of a conation or practical idea.’[87] It is thus possible that in the behaviour of the animal in the box we may have to recognize the first step towards a higher mental process. Effort may be directed to something not given and thus there may be the first sign of the emergence of an idea. Whether this is so or not, such an idea is certainly not a general idea; it is merely a reference to something to come, and that is all. This is the highest degree of mental development that we can attribute to animals and it may be noticed that, this being so, there can probably be no true memory among animals. Explicit ideas, therefore, among animals, so far as they exist at all, do not give rise to other ideas following one another in sequence. They are isolated and serve merely to guide action.

9. The highest form of mental process attributable to animals reaches a fuller development among men. This stage of mental development has been called the stage of perceptual correlation. How far the apprehensions of direct relationships in consciousness are developed among animals is doubtful; there is no doubt that among men such relations are apprehended. Action, therefore, is not merely connected indirectly with the result, as in the example of the chick; action is undertaken with an end in view. If the chick came to apprehend the relation between the caterpillar and the unpleasant taste, it would have reached the fully developed stage of perceptual correlation; we have seen that we have to assume in this case a simpler state of mental process, though in certain cases a study of animal behaviour does suggest some approach to the higher stage. At this stage, which is fully developed only in man, the world ceases to be presented merely as sense-impressions charged with feeling and takes the shape of a mass of objects of perception related together and underlying the sense-impressions and the feelings evoked by them.

In man there is developed a still higher stage of mental process which is his peculiar possession and chief distinguishing characteristic. This is the stage of conceptual thought. In the perceptual stage activity is guided solely by the presence of the objects perceived. If there is any anticipation of the end, the action from moment to moment is still always guided by what is actually given. In the conceptual stage action is guided by an ideal anticipation of the end. What underlies mental process at this stage is generalization. The situation as given is broken up and analysed; elements common to it and to previous situations are recognized and synthesized. These two processes of analysis and synthesis go on side by side and concepts are formed which are outside the world of perception. Common elements in the perceptual order are recognized and there is thus made possible a grasp of the continuity running through experience.

Man is thus no longer guided by what is immediately given in experience; he can make plans and shape his actions with an ideal end in view. With the development of conceptual thought goes the development of language, whereby man learns from others and passes on to others what is in his mind. Of the stage of conceptual thought there will be more to say in a later chapter. This further development is only mentioned here in order to contrast mental process in its highest form in man with the process in animals.

10. We have now to consider the bearing of mental development upon the process of reproduction. All animals are endowed with a certain power of reproduction which we shall call fecundity. Fecundity is measured by the number of ripe ova produced, the number of spermatozoa having no direct bearing on fecundity. We have seen that the highest animals—those most nearly related to man—are gifted with instinct and intelligence. The value of intelligence lies in the fact that it enables instinct to adapt itself to the special circumstances of the moment and thus to bring about its end more surely. The sexual instinct is in this manner assisted by intelligence, and among animals which copulate the power of reproduction is thus able to realize itself to the full or almost to the full. There may be certain failures to achieve reproduction and certain cases of perverted instinct; to some of these cases we have already referred. Broadly speaking, however, it is true that the highest development in animals of instinct and intelligence works towards the fulfilment of that degree of fecundity which is innately given. It follows, therefore, that in this sense mental development among animals has not in any fashion changed the position of the higher animals when compared with that of the lower animals. Reproduction in the sea-urchin and reproduction among the mammals—vastly as the mental processes differ—is still similar in this respect. The power of reproduction is realized to the full or almost to the full. All that instinct and intelligence do is to ensure that in this more complex process of fertilization the full power of reproduction is as nearly as possible realized—that is to say, that nearly all ova are fertilized.

Among men, even in the lowest stage in which they have been studied, the position is entirely different. Owing to the development of conceptual thought men act with some ideal object in view. Customs grow up which in their origin must be traced to some process of reasoning, however obscure, and action deliberately undertaken, as well as custom, may affect the realization of the power of reproduction. Thus among the lowest of primitive races we find that men abstain from intercourse for various motives which we must regard as due to the presence of reason. Or again, they may practise certain forms of mutilation of the sexual organs which may affect the power of reproduction. The origin of such a custom may be hidden; it may be almost certain that it was not originated with any understanding of its effect upon reproduction and even that its effect has never been recognized; nevertheless originally such a custom could only have arisen if reason was present. Similarly, among the lowest races there are abundant examples of the practices of abortion and infanticide which, though they do not affect fecundity, have an important bearing upon the quantitative aspect of the population problem and are again the products of reason.

Among men, therefore, owing to the development of a higher stage of mental power, fecundity is not realized to the full, and we have to distinguish between the power of reproduction, which we have called fecundity, and the actual degree of reproduction, which we shall call fertility. It may, perhaps, assist to emphasize what is meant if for a moment we think of the reproductive process among animals as ‘mechanical’. The introduction of this term should not be taken to have any ultimate significance—any reference whatever to the true nature of mental process. It is only used as a convenient term to illustrate the difference between reproduction among animals and among men. Among all species in a state of nature reproduction may be thought of as ‘mechanical’, whereas reproduction among men is never ‘mechanical’. The number of young produced in the case of the human species is far from being completely correlated with the fecundity. There may be all degrees of difference between fecundity and fertility. Among species in a state of nature fecundity and fertility are for all practical purposes one and the same thing because reproduction is ‘mechanical’ whatever may be the stage which mental development has reached. Further, such differences as exist among species in a state of nature between fecundity—the number of ripe ova—and fertility—the number of fertilized ova—are due to failures of the gametes to meet and may be called, just as the whole process may be called, ‘mechanical’. Such ‘mechanical’ differences between fecundity and fertility may also be found in man but the chief cause of the differences in the case of man is altogether of another kind and is due, as we have seen, directly to the development of conceptual thought.

It was said above that it was proposed to show that certain generalizations can be made regarding the process of reproduction among species in a state of nature. This then is the first generalization. (Fecundity and fertility are closely correlated and, compared with the position among men, reproduction may be thought of as ‘mechanical’ and even the failures to realize the full power of fecundity may be thought of as ‘mechanical’.)

11. It has been mentioned that fecundity is very large among all species in a state of nature and we have now to ask what it is that determines how large it shall be. As we have seen, the fecundity is roughly measured by the number of ova produced, and this number clearly depends upon many factors, such as the beginning and duration of the mature period, the number of eggs produced at any one time, and the length of the period between the epochs of egg production. Into details of the proximate causes of the differences in fecundity it is not necessary to go. What it is desired to know is what factor or factors in general ultimately determine the strength of fecundity in each species. We may first take some examples of the degree of fecundity drawn from various groups.

The common whelk lays its eggs in capsules of which a great number are produced. It has been calculated that a small clump of such capsules of about two cubic inches in size contains about 200,000 eggs. Another mollusc, Aplysia, may lay from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 at a time. ‘An oyster may have sixty million eggs and the average American yield is sixteen millions.’[88] The number of eggs found attached to the edible crab in the breeding season varies between half a million and three millions. A single pair of flies may produce 20,000 larvae. The number of eggs produced by parasites may very largely exceed these numbers. Among the vertebrates the fish are the most prolific class. ‘In a Ling 61 inches long and weighing 54 pounds the ovaries contained 28,361,000 eggs; a cod of 21½ pounds 6,652,000. The least prolific of British food fishes is the herring, in which the number of ovarian eggs varied from 21,000 to 47,000 in four specimens examined.’[89]

These vast numbers of eggs produced at any one time make theoretically possible a prodigious rate of increase. It has been calculated that a single cholera bacillus can give rise to sixteen hundred trillion of bacilli in a day, forming a solid mass weighing a hundred tons. ‘Wallace quotes Kerner to the effect that a common British weed (Sisymbrium sophia) often has three-quarters of a million seeds; if all grew to maturity for only three years the whole of the land surface of the globe would not hold them. An annual plant with only two seeds would be represented by 1,048,576 in the twenty-first year.... If all the progeny of one oyster survived and multiplied, its great-great-grand-children would number thirty-six with thirty-three noughts after it, and the heap of the shells would be eight times the size of the world. Huxley calculated that if the descendants of a single green-fly all survived and multiplied they would, at the end of summer, weigh down the population of China. The common house-fly lays eggs in batches of 120 to 150 at a time, and may lay five or six of these batches during its life of about three weeks in very hot weather. At the end of summer, if all developed, and if there were six generations, the progeny of a single pair, pressed together into a solid mass, would occupy a space of something like a quarter of a million cubic feet, allowing 200,000 flies to a cubic foot.’[90] ‘There is no exception’, says Darwin, in a well-known passage, ‘to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate, that, if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty years, and at this rate in less than a thousand years there would literally not be standing room for his progeny. Linnaeus has calculated that if an annual plant produced only two seeds—and there is no plant so unproductive as this—and their seedlings next year produced two, and so on, then in twenty years there would be a million plants. The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum rate of natural increase; it will be safest to assume that it begins breeding when thirty years old, and goes on breeding until ninety years old, bringing forth six young in the interval, and surviving till 100 years old; if this be so, after a period of 740 to 750 years there would be nearly ninety million elephants alive, descended from the first pair.’[91]

12. These examples show that the power of fecundity, which is always huge, is in many instances much greater than in others. Were it not for the fact that normally all but a small proportion of eggs are always fertilized, it might be suggested that in those cases in which there was no copulation a much larger number of eggs was necessary than among the higher forms, in order that a sufficient number should be fertilized. This, however, can only be a partial explanation of the larger number of eggs among those lower forms where there is no copulation.

In order to obtain an answer to the question as to what it is which determines the fecundity of any species, it is necessary to look into certain features of the life of animals and plants in a state of nature. Observation and deduction bring one remarkable fact to light. The number of adults of any species at any one season of the year, when compared with the number in the corresponding period in other years, remains upon the whole constant. This fact cannot be based upon statistics, for we cannot take anything approaching to a census. Nevertheless, it is an unavoidable deduction from the known facts. The more emphasis that is laid upon variations in numbers from season to season, the more apparent does it become that such differences are trivial when compared with the possible rate of increase. But we know that all but a small proportion of eggs are fertilized, and as we date the existence of a new member of the species from the moment of fertilization, it is clear that the numbers composing every new generation greatly exceed the number of adults to which the new generation owes its existence. It follows, therefore, that all but a small proportion of the young of each generation perish before the adult stage is reached. The most remarkable increases in the adults of any species ever recorded are negligible compared with the possible increase, and observation shows that as a general rule there is no increase at all.

Fecundity is, therefore, in some manner connected with this fact that the great majority of fertilized eggs do not give rise to adults, and in order to throw further light upon this connexion we must ask how it is that the young perish.

13. To make clear how it is that the young of every species perish on so large a scale, it is necessary to refer to the interdependence of all living organisms. This can perhaps best be illustrated by reference to the chief distinction between animals and plants. A difference in the mode of nutrition is that which chiefly distinguishes animals from plants. There are other differences but their importance is small compared with that we may now describe. The need of food is common to all living things and is due to the nature of the living substance called protoplasm—the physical basis of all life. Protoplasm is of a very complex constitution. It is for ever wasting away and if life is to be preserved food must be supplied to compensate for the loss. The need is as great among plants as it is among animals, but the means of supplying it are fundamentally different.

Plants feed upon very simple substances—salts of nitric acid, salts of ammonia, and carbonic acid. Among green plants carbonic acid is taken in from the air through small apertures in the leaves known as stomata; the salts of nitric acid and ammonia are absorbed from solution in the water of the soil. Carbonic acid and water are synthesized within the cells of the plant into starch; starch is converted into sugar and the sugar is combined with the salts of nitric acid and ammonia to form amino-acids which are eventually transformed into proteids. Thus the plant makes good the unavoidable waste of its living substance by elaborating the highly complex protoplasm from the simplest elements.

The method pursued by animals is entirely different. They feed upon complicated substances, which may be divided into proteids, fats, and carbo-hydrates. These substances do not take their places directly in the living cells of the body; they first undergo a process of digestion, after which they are assimilated. Digestion involves the breaking down of these complex foods to a certain stage; proteids, for example, are reduced to amino-acids, and starches to sugars. In these forms they are soluble and are taken up by the walls of the alimentary canal and are afterwards resynthesized into proteids and starches.

The importance of this distinction lies in the fact that the only method of obtaining the highly complex substances necessary for animals is to feed upon the tissues of other animals or plants. It is obvious that every animal species cannot feed upon some other animal species; in the end animals as a whole must depend upon plants because plants alone are able to elaborate the substances which animals need. In a sense, therefore, animals are parasitic upon plants; in any case the existence of animals is bound up with the continued existence of plants. This interdependence of living organisms runs all through the conditions under which species in a state of nature live and takes a variety of shapes. The dependence of one organism upon another is largely connected with the question of the provision of appropriate surroundings which are often only found in the proximity of certain other species. Many species can only flourish in the neighbourhood of trees. The interdependence between certain species is very intimate. There are many examples of what is known as symbiosis, as when a certain species of sea anemone lives on the back of a particular species of crab. Again, parasites, which alternate between one host and another, are dependent upon finding a member of a particular species at a certain time in their life-history, as otherwise they perish. Many examples of interdependence are within common knowledge, and, bearing this feature of organic life in mind, we may go on to ask how it is that, through the elimination of a great proportion of the young of every species, the number of adults remains upon the whole constant.

14. Taking animals first, it is probable that the most common cause of elimination lies in the fact that the young of all species are consumed by members of other species. It is difficult to estimate even roughly the relative importance of the various causes of elimination; ‘the causes’, says Darwin, ‘which check the natural tendency of each species to increase are most obscure’.[92] The particular factor mentioned, however, certainly takes a very prominent place. The young of marine and fresh-water animals almost all form food for other species and are obviously exposed to attack. So too, though perhaps not to so great a degree, are the young of terrestrial animals; whether we think of the larvae of insects or the eggs of birds, we find that they are in most cases liable to be consumed by enemies. Even where copulation is internal, the developing embryo is, except among mammals, seldom long retained within the body of the mother, and once exposed to the outside world it almost invariably becomes an object of prey to many enemies. In fact, wherever we look, this cause of elimination plays a very great part, arising immediately from that aspect of the interdependence of species which is derived from the mode among animals of making up for the wastage of protoplasm.

Elimination again is largely due to failure to find those conditions under which alone life can continue. These conditions may be connected with the nature of the organic or of the inorganic surroundings. When the young of the flat worm, known as the Liver Fluke, which infects sheep and causes a serious disease, passes from the sheep to the exterior, it can only maintain itself for a certain time in the free-living form. Unless within this time it meets with a certain species of snail into which it penetrates, it will die. Besides such failures to find suitable organic surroundings, there may be failures to find suitable inorganic surroundings. The larvae of such species as the mussel, which require suitable surroundings to which to attach themselves in order that the adult form may develop, will perish if such surroundings are not available. There is a further class of factors connected with the inorganic surroundings which bring about elimination. They may be summed up under the heading of external circumstances. Variations in temperature, moisture and so on, when they pass beyond a certain limit, which is more or less clearly marked for each species, are followed by death. Under this heading comes also death from accident, as when animals perish from the violence of storms and in any similar fashion. It is of interest to note that starvation is seldom the primary cause of death. It may be a secondary result of abnormal external circumstances; extreme cold, though not affecting directly the members of one species, may be fatal to members of another species upon which the former feed. But when circumstances are normal, so far as observation goes, starvation is rare.

15. Among plants the same three groups of factors can be traced, though their relative importance is not the same as among animals. Elimination through consumption as food, for instance, by other species is not so important. To a large extent plants can serve as food for animals and survive. Nevertheless the young, especially in the form of seeds, are very subject to attack by animals; seeds are one of the principal forms of food for many animal species, and this form of elimination plays a large part among plants. Dependence upon suitable organic and inorganic surroundings plays much the same rôle as it does among animals. Some species can only flourish in the shade of trees and others in the open. Some species require one kind of soil and others another. The importance of external circumstances again is very similar.

There is another factor of a somewhat different nature which is of great importance. ‘With plants’, says Darwin, ‘there is a vast destruction of seeds, but, from some observations which I have made, it appears that the seedlings suffer most from germinating in ground already thickly stocked with other plants.’[93] In order that a seed may germinate, it must not only fall upon suitable soil but must find enough suitable soil unoccupied. Otherwise it will not germinate or will not develop into an adult. This is different from anything which happens among animals, and is clearly an approach to starvation. It is, however, better thought of as the result of the inability of any given area to support more than a given amount of life. The endowment of any area may be such as to render it incapable of supporting life at all, or it may be such as to render it capable of supporting any degree of life up to and beyond that for which there is space. In the sea the amount of nitrogen is the limiting factor, and the deficiency of nitrogen is such that the question of space does not arise.[94] In many parts of the world’s surface, however, the endowment is such that more plants could be supported than there is space for.

In this connexion it may be noted that the limitation of the surface of the earth is not a cause of elimination in the true sense. This is best seen if we imagine the surface to be extended. If to a continent already inhabited there is added an unoccupied area, there will, if the new area is generally of the same nature as that alone formerly existing, be a spreading of organic life over the new area. It will only be at the fringe of the occupied area that there will be any difference in the amount of elimination of plant life. Unless the occupied area is of very small extent, there will be no difference except within this narrow fringe. In the fringe there will be a lessening of elimination, other things being equal, because there will not be the same number of seeds which fail to grow into plants owing to the previous occupation of suitable soil, as in the more central parts of the area. When the new area has been entirely occupied, the same conditions as existed in the smaller area will exist throughout the larger area. Further, if the surface available for occupation were indefinite in extent, there would, except at the fringe, which would in this case be permanent, be no difference as regards the amount of elimination. All that has been said applies equally well if, instead of imagining these additions to take place after evolution had reached its present stage, we imagine evolution to have taken place from the beginning on an area of indefinite extent.

16. We have, therefore, some idea of the manner in which the young of animals and plants perish. Let us consider any animal species; we find that the young are faced with a large number of dangers. The new members of the species may be consumed by some enemy before they have developed beyond the stage of the fertilized egg or at any stage in their development. They may in general not meet with favourable organic and inorganic surroundings, or at some particular stage they may not meet with the environment necessary. At any time they may perish from unfavourable external circumstances. The position of young plants is similar, and in addition they may fail to find sufficient space in which to live.

The dangers which any species encounters remain both in kind and in degree fairly constant over a considerable period of time, and, unless in each generation a number of young survives at least equal to the number of adults in the generation to which it owes its birth, the species will decline. It follows that the power of reproduction must be such as to ensure that at least this number of young will survive. The power of reproduction in any species is therefore connected with the sum of all the dangers which the young of the species encounter. But it is not true that the greater the fecundity the better for the species. Reproduction over and above this degree would place the young in a less favourable position. Competition bringing no corresponding advantages would be increased, and starvation or injurious semi-starvation would result. Any considerable increase in the strength of fecundity beyond that which is essential could not therefore be beneficial.[95]

The facts regarding the conditions of life and the dangers to which the young of different species are exposed coincide with the view that the strength of reproduction is in the main determined by the sum of these dangers. The greater strength of fecundity among those species which shed their eggs into the water cannot be attributed, as we have seen, to any failure of fertilization on a large scale; it may be attributed, however, to the numerous dangers which the young of such species must encounter. The chance that any single fertilized egg will grow into an adult is far less in these cases than when the eggs are retained in the body of the mother and when the young are guarded by the parent, and, unless fecundity was on a large scale, a sufficient number would not survive. Among plants reproduction must always be on a large scale because it is necessary to ensure that a sufficient number of seeds will fall, not only on suitable ground, but on suitable ground that is not so occupied as to prevent growth to the adult stage, in addition to the necessity of providing such numbers as will ensure a sufficient number passing through all the other dangers. Eggs and young abandoned by the parents may be variously exposed to danger. The development of instincts common among insects which lead to the hiding of eggs in places where danger of destruction at the hand of enemies is decreased, and to the provision of food for the young when they develop from the eggs, is accompanied by a decrease in fecundity. Further developments of the parental instinct are accompanied by decreases in fecundity as the degree of danger lessens. Parental care for the young is not uncommon among the invertebrates. There are a number of cases in which the young are retained in brood-pouches, as for instance by the common water-flea. The fresh-water leech, Clepsine, broods over its young. Among the vertebrates the fish for the most part take no care of their young. Some fish, however, such as Gasterosteus, the Stickleback, make nests. No great advance is found among the Amphibia or among the reptiles. One reptilian group, however, the Chelonia, shows a remarkable advance; they live in pairs and guard their young with care. If marriage be defined as ‘a more or less durable connexion between male and female lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring’,[96] then the beginning of marriage is discernable in this group. This more or less durable connexion between male and female is a well-known characteristic of birds, as is also care for the young. ‘Most birds when they pair do so for good and all until one or the other dies.’[97] The connexion is not so durable, and the parental instinct is not so highly developed, among mammals as among birds. The retention of the young within the body of the mammalian mother, however, greatly decreases the dangers to which the young are exposed. It is also worthy of note that those species both of birds and mammals which prey upon others are on the whole less fecund than other species, a fact which is to be connected with the lower degree of danger to which their offspring are exposed.

The lower degree of danger to which the young are exposed, the less the fecundity; and the less the fecundity, provided that it reaches the strength necessary to preserve the species, the better on the whole for the species. In this manner we reach the second generalization regarding the quantitative aspect of the population problem among species in a state of nature, which may be stated by saying that the strength of fecundity in any species is determined by the sum of all the dangers to which the young of that species are exposed. This must be qualified, in so far as fecundity and fertility are not the same, by adding to the dangers to which the young are exposed the danger that a certain proportion of eggs will not be fertilized. It follows that among men, since fecundity and fertility are not the same for quite other than ‘mechanical’ reasons, fecundity is not directly related to the dangers to which the young are exposed. It is clear that, when men, as is now the case on a large scale, both abstain from intercourse and interfere with the natural result of intercourse, and at the same time increase in number, the strength of fecundity is considerably greater than that which would enable a sufficient number of young to escape the unavoidable dangers. But the ancestors of man must once have been subject to the same conditions as those to which species in a state of nature are now subject, and it will be into the causes and results of this progressive divergence from the former conditions that we shall look in the first part of this book.

III THE BASIS OF THE POPULATION PROBLEM: (2) THE QUALITATIVE ASPECT

1. We have now to consider the qualitative aspect of the population problem. There are two questions to which an answer is required. First we ask: What is the nature of the changes which occur? In other words, if we may speak of history among animals and plants, we want to know what kind of changes underlie the facts which go to make up that history. The second question is: How have these changes come about? There is no doubt about the answer to the first question, and it can be given very shortly. Though there is a certain consensus of agreement regarding the answer to the second question, there are considerable differences, of opinion over points which are not unimportant, and in order to deal adequately with these points a long discussion would be required for which there is no space. All that can be done here is to set out the most important facts; they will provide a satisfactory answer to the first question and enable some indication to be given of the lines which the answer to the second must follow.

However slight the treatment of the problem, it must begin with a reference to the physical basis of inheritance. Some description has been given of the process of fertilization. It was said that only the head and middle-piece of the spermatozoon penetrate the egg, and that no cytoplasm or ordinary granular protoplasm can be demonstrated in these parts of the spermatozoon. The head is the nucleus of the cell, while the middle-piece contains the centrosome, a body which is attached to the nucleus and plays an important part when the nucleus divides. From these facts a very important conclusion follows. It is known that both parents contribute equally to the offspring; therefore as the male parent contributes only a nucleus and its appanage the centrosome, the basis of the inherited qualities must be sought in the nucleus.

Attention is thus directed to the nucleus, which can sometimes be seen in the living cell. Its detailed structure can, however, only be made out in specimens which have been preserved and stained. The nucleus is then seen to consist of a thin wall within which is contained a colourless sap. In the sap are a number of beads of a darkly staining substance known as chromatin suspended on delicate threads of a substance known as linin. The division of a cell is always preceded by the division of the nucleus and, when the nucleus divides, the chromatin undergoes certain remarkable changes. The beads of chromatin become aggregated together into rods—the number of rods which appear being invariably constant in the same species, though varying from species to species. These rods are known as chromosomes. Beyond saying that the rods divide into two and that each daughter nucleus, and therefore each daughter cell, is provided with that number of chromosomes which is typical for the species, it is not necessary to follow the details of the process of division any farther. Stated in the briefest possible form, this is what happens during ordinary cell-division, such as that which takes place when a fertilized egg is growing from a single cell into a multicellular adult.

There is one remarkable exception to this type of nuclear division. In the last division but one of those series of divisions which lead to the formation of both male and female gametes, half, and not the full number of chromosomes, is transmitted to each daughter nucleus. If therefore the typical number of chromosomes in the nucleus of one species is eight and in another four, the number of chromosomes in the gametes will be four and two respectively. In the former species the nucleus of the egg will have four chromosomes, and that of the spermatozoon also four, and the full number typical of the species will only be restored when the nucleus of the spermatozoon fuses with the nucleus of the egg in fertilization.

The invariable reappearance of the same number of chromosomes in ordinary cell-division, their reduction to half that number in the last division but one which precedes the formation of the gametes, the complicated mechanism which is employed and other evidence all lead to the conclusion that the location of the basis of the hereditary qualities can be further narrowed and sought in the chromatin—in one element, that is to say, of the nucleus.[98]

2. The nucleus must not be thought of as isolated from the rest of the cell; there is a constant and active interchange between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. It has actually been demonstrated that at times particles stream out from the nucleus into the cytoplasm. The nucleus is the centre of activity; without the nucleus the cell cannot live. This being so, how are we to view the process of development from the fertilized egg to the adult? The process can be studied in detail. The egg divides into two cells, then into four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two cells, and so on. The gradual differentiation of the organs can be watched and their lineage to certain cells in earlier stages traced. At every stage the developing organism comes under the influence of certain stimuli provided by the surrounding conditions. Very many elements in the environment act as stimuli; among them are light, temperature, gravitation, food, and so on. Provided that the environment is normal, provided, that is to say, that the variations in the stimuli do not exceed certain limits, an adult member of the species will be formed. What is implied in the term ‘normal environment’ will be more fully discussed in Chapter XIV, where the results of subjection to an abnormal environment will also be studied. That a large number of stimuli varying within only narrow limits are necessary, will there also be shown to have been proved.

The process of development, therefore, takes the shape of the growth of a particular organic form through the play of certain stimuli upon the germinal constitution. The germinal constitution has, as we have seen, apparently to be identified with the constitution of the chromosomes of the fertilized egg, of which half are derived from the father and half from the mother. It is known that the characters, which the organism exhibits, in some manner have a basis in the germinal constitution. The number of these separate characters is very large. What view then are we to take of the nature of the germinal constitution? In the first place every character as seen in the organism is the result of the play of certain stimuli upon something in the germinal constitution. This something can only be thought of as predispositions to the development of certain characters under certain stimuli and to the development of characters differing in degree or in kind from the former characters under other stimuli. It is altogether misleading to speak of anything but predispositions as present in the germinal constitution, though, of course, for the sake of brevity other phraseology may be employed once this point is understood. When, therefore, we speak of the inheritance of any character, we mean that there is a predisposition in the germinal constitutions both of the parent and of the offspring to develop this character under certain stimuli, which stimuli must play both upon the parent and upon the offspring if the character is to be manifested in both of them.

If we have to regard the germinal constitution as somehow containing very many separate predispositions or, as they are often called, factors, is it in the second place possible to say in what these factors consist? No definite answer to this question can as yet be given. Certain hypotheses have been put forward. Weismann, for instance, suggested that the factors were to be sought in groups of molecules of chromatin. It is not necessary, however, to postulate definite and separate particles as the physical basis of the predispositions. The protoplasmic molecule is a very complex structure consisting of a very large number of atoms. Similar atoms may be differently grouped within a molecule, and different predispositions may well be functions of different groupings.

3. In order that we may answer the first of the two problems set out at the beginning of the chapter we must consider in rather more detail in what the development of an organism consists.[99] Every character is, as we have seen, the result of the influence of the environment upon what is innately given. If two individuals were endowed with precisely similar germinal constitutions, and if precisely similar stimuli played upon each of them, then the adult forms would be similar in respect of all their characters. But if the stimuli are not similar, if, for instance, more food is provided in one case than in another, then, though the germinal constitutions are similar, one adult may be larger than the other. Again, let us suppose that the germinal constitutions differ, that, for instance, there is in one case a predisposition to the development of greater size than in the other, then, even if the stimuli are similar, the adult forms will differ. The larger members of each of these pairs may thus resemble one another very closely in outward characters; but this close resemblance will not be due to similar germinal constitutions. It follows that by mere outward inspection no conclusion can be reached as to the germinal constitution. There are, therefore, two classes of influences at work, and alterations in either class of influence will bring about alterations in the resulting organism; similar characters may be the product of one kind of predisposition and one kind of stimulus, or of a different predisposition and a different stimulus. It also follows that we cannot speak of certain characters as inherited and of others as acquired. Let us suppose that some departure from the normal structure occurs. It may be due to a change in the environment, that is to say, to a new stimulus acting upon an unchanged germinal constitution, or it may be due to a change in the germinal constitution when no change in the environment takes place. It should not be said that in the former case the new departure is acquired and in the latter case that it is inherited. What has happened is that in the former case a new stimulus acting upon the old factors has brought forth a new character, and in the latter case that the old stimulus has brought forth a new character because it has acted upon a different factor.

Though the popular distinction between characters which are acquired and characters which are inherited is misleading, there are, nevertheless, two kinds of variation. A new departure may be due to a change in the germinal constitution. In this case the new character will reappear in future generations, provided that the changed germinal constitution remains and provided that the complex of stimuli which composed the environment does not change. Such a variation may be called a ‘mutation’. A new departure may also be due to a new stimulus acting upon an unchanged germinal constitution. In this case the new character will only reappear in future generations provided that the new stimulus remains. Such a variation may be called a ‘modification’. Mutations, therefore, are transmitted in the germinal constitution, while modifications are not so transmitted.

4. Already we have reached the answer to the first problem. Permanent change in organic form is due to germinal change. But before we go on and ask how germinal changes, that have arisen, become established, we must consider further the difficult problem of the manner in which germinal changes arise. A reference first to what are known as ‘pure line’ investigations and afterwards to Mendelian phenomena will illustrate what is known as to the nature of existing germinal differences; for until we have some such information, we cannot profitably ask how existing germinal differences arise. The best known ‘pure line’ experiments are those carried out by Johannsen with beans. The flowers of beans fertilize themselves; the offspring, therefore, have approximately the same germinal constitution. The offspring constitute a ‘pure line’, for by a ‘pure line’ is meant a group of children which are the offspring of a single parent. The character selected for investigation was weight and it was found that, if beans were collected from a bean-field and weighed, every gradation occurred between a minimum of about 20 centigrams and a maximum of about 90 centigrams. When the beans were separated into three classes—heavy, medium, and light—sown and plants raised from them, the average weight of the beans produced by the plants derived from the heavier seed was greater, though not proportionately greater, than the mean weight of all the beans, and that the average weight produced by the plants derived from the lighter seed was less, though not proportionately less, than the mean weight of all the beans. There was, in fact, a certain regression on the part of the heavy and light classes to the mean weight. A similar tendency to regression to the mean can be observed when other characters are similarly studied. The average stature, for example, of the offspring of tall parents is slightly nearer the mean stature of the race than the average stature of the parents.

This tendency to regression to the mean has long been known, but it was not until Johannsen proceeded farther and investigated inheritance within a ‘pure line’ that it was understood. In the experiment described, no attention was paid to the ‘pure line’. When Johannsen separated the beans produced by the self-fertilization of a single plant, divided them into heavier, medium, and lighter classes, sowed them and weighed their progeny, he discovered a very interesting fact. The average weight of the progeny of a heavy bean and of a light bean belonging to the same ‘pure line’ was the same. The conclusion to be drawn from this result is that the differences in weight between the offspring of a single self-fertilized plant are due to differences in the stimuli which play upon them. Obviously the stimuli do differ; the weight is affected by differences in light, shade, number, and position of the beans in a pod and so on. But since the offspring of a single plant have approximately the same germinal constitution, the average weight of the offspring of light beans, which are light because of subjection to less favourable stimuli than the average, will not be on that account lighter than the mean weight of the strain, and similarly mutatis mutandis with regard to the offspring of the heavy beans.

It follows, therefore, with regard to this particular character that there are a number of different strains in the population. The beans arising from any one strain are not of the same weight because they have been subjected to different stimuli. If each strain was pure and if differences in environmental stimuli could be removed, then beans gathered from a bean-field would not exhibit a simple gradation in weight: there would be a number of steps and as many steps as there were strains. In actual fact, the modifications produce the gradation which is observed. The fact that the nature of the germinal constitution cannot, as stated above, be determined by a mere inspection of the characters is exemplified by this experiment. If we take a bean weighing, say, 55 centigrams, it may belong to a strain which varies, say, between 20 and 65 centigrams, or to a strain which varies between 40 and 90 centigrams. It is only when this bean is sown, and the weight of the offspring calculated, that the strain to which it belongs can be ascertained. The experiment further shows why regression towards the mean is observed, when, instead of limiting investigation to a ‘pure line’, beans differing in a certain respect from the average, by, for instance, greater weight, are selected and sown. Such beans will belong to several different strains; they will, however, include more which have been favourably than unfavourably influenced by the surroundings. The average of the weight of all their offspring will therefore be less than the average weight of the parents. At this point we touch upon the problem of selection, but before we go on to deal with this question, it is necessary to say something more about variation and the origin of variations.

5. Self-fertilization is very exceptional, and what happens in the case of the beans, though illuminating, is not typical. As a general rule in reproduction, two parents contribute to the germinal constitution of the offspring. Strains, therefore, do not remain pure, as in the case of the bean, because they are continually crossed; we require to know what happens when crossing takes place. This study, first successfully undertaken by Mendel, has been greatly extended in late years. We may first illustrate in the simplest form what it was that Mendel discovered and then go on to inquire what deductions bearing upon the question we have to answer are to be drawn from it.

A large number of experiments of the following kind has been made. Two strains in any species are chosen; these strains exhibit opposed characters. Such characters may be tallness and dwarfness, colour of the flower, shape of the comb in fowls, condition of the seed, whether smooth or wrinkled, and so on. We may call one character A and the other a. The two strains are crossed, and in the first generation the offspring are all alike and exhibit a character, A′. This character may be the same as either A or a, a blend between them or something wholly new. Whatever form it may take, it is produced by the interaction of A and a. The members of this first generation are then interbred, and of the second generation one quarter exhibit the character A, one quarter the character a, and the remaining half the character A′. If the quarter exhibiting the character A are interbred, all the offspring exhibit the character A, and the same holds good regarding the quarter exhibiting the character a; but if the half exhibiting A′ are interbred, the offspring will split up in the same proportion as in the previous generation, one quarter exhibiting A, one quarter a, and one-half A′. This result holds good for any number of generations so long as interbreeding is continued.

Into the very numerous complications which occur it is not necessary to go. They are all interpreted by extensions of the simple explanation which is applied in the elementary case given above. It is supposed that all characters which behave on crossing as above are represented in the germinal constitution by factors which behave as separate units; such characters are called ‘unit-characters’, and such factors ‘unit-factors’. It is further supposed that each gamete bears one unit-factor only in respect of each unit-character. If the strain is pure, as in the case of the two strains exhibiting characters A and a, then all the gametes will bear the unit-factors for A and a respectively, and the fertilized eggs resulting from the crosses between them will therefore contain both unit-factors. The hybrids, which, as we have seen, exhibit the character A′, will produce gametes, half of which bear the unit-factor for A and half the unit-factor for a. When the hybrids interbreed, on the average of chances one quarter of the fertilized eggs will have two factors for A, one quarter two factors for a, and one-half both a factor for A′ and a factor for a. In this manner the splitting up of the second generation is explained.

What is important in this explanation is the conception of unit-factors. The extension of the explanation to cover the more complicated cases does not involve any modification of principle. It follows that the germinal constitution contains a very large number of unit-factors; what therefore is innately given in the germinal constitution is a collection of such unit-factors. Each unit-character based upon a unit-factor can theoretically be separately distinguished and isolated. The complications to which references have been made are in part due to the difficulty of distinguishing unit-characters. What is apparently a simple character may not be a unit-character, but a combination of unit-characters. This apparently simple character cannot appear unless all the unit-factors, upon which these unit-characters are based, are present in the germinal constitution.

It may next be asked whether all unit-factors behave in this manner when crossed. To this no definite answer can yet be given. The successful analysis of apparently contradictory cases and the continual discovery of characters which do behave in this fashion seem to point to an affirmative answer. The suggestion is that, when this mode of behaviour cannot be demonstrated, it is because the unit-characters have not yet been distinguished and isolated.

This brief reference to ‘pure line’ investigations and to the Mendelian analysis of crossing leads therefore to the following conclusions. When, as in the case of the self-fertilizing bean, the strains are kept pure, existing germinal differences in respect of any character are found to be of the nature of steps which are usually small—though in outward manifestation the differences are smoothed over by the influence of environmental stimuli. This is the nature of the germinal differences, and they remain what they are—apart from the origin of new factors or of the loss of old factors, and apart from the effects of a differential death-rate. When, as is usually the case, biparental reproduction takes place, the position is more complicated: strains are being continually crossed, and, as the result of the chance mixture of factors in the germinal constitution of the children, the offspring of the same parents differ in their germinal constitution one from the other. Therefore, in any species in which biparental reproduction takes place, new combinations are constantly arising; but, though in this manner the germinal constitution may in a sense change, the change is due simply to a shuffling of factors. What we require now to ask is what is known as regards the manner in which new factors arise and are added to the germinal constitution, and the manner in which old factors drop out and are lost from the germinal constitution; for it is only owing to such additions and to such losses that true germinal change occurs, and that shuffling is rendered possible.

6. The interpretation of the results of the crossing of different strains has shown what kind of changes underlie the appearance of certain mutations. It has been shown that many of the varieties of domesticated species have originated by the apparent loss of one or more unit-factors.[100] Thus the numerous varieties of domestic rabbits and of sweet-peas are all descended from a single wild species of rabbit and of pea, and differ from the wild stock not by an addition to, but by an apparent subtraction from, the total number of factors in the germinal composition of the wild stock. The reasoning which has led to this conclusion need not be followed here; one proof is that when certain varieties are crossed, characters of the original stock reappear, due to the fact that, one variety having apparently lost one factor and the other another, crossing results in the re-combination of the factors necessary to the manifestation of the original character.

This is a strange conclusion, but it seems nevertheless to be true that in this manner many domestic varieties have arisen. If this was the only manner in which mutations could come about, then we should be driven to imagine that the most elementary form of life contained within it innumerable factors, and that evolution has merely consisted in the apparent dropping out of factors. This conclusion has indeed been tentatively suggested. But until it has been definitely shown that this is the only manner in which mutations originate, it must be supposed that changes in and additions to the complex of factors can and do occur. And we may note that certain distinguishing characters of domestic varieties of fowls and of pigeons appear to have arisen by the addition of factors; thus the ‘single comb’ of fowls is the original character of the wild stock which has been modified by the apparent addition of other factors and not by the dropping out of one or more existing factors. It is again not necessary to go into the reasons which have led to this conclusion. The conclusion is a deduction from the analysis of crosses between different breeds of fowls.

7. For the most part we are quite ignorant as to the causes which have led to the apparent losses and apparent additions of factors, though a few observations seem to indicate certain circumstances under which the dropping out of factors may take place. In this connexion some reference must be made to the problem as to the inheritance of acquired characters, though it follows from what has been said above regarding terminology, that we should more correctly speak of this problem as the question whether modifications in any one direction tend to be followed by mutations in the same direction. As the result of prolonged discussion and controversy it is now generally held that nothing of the kind takes place. It is almost universally agreed, for instance, that such modifications as are induced among men at the present day do not lead to mutations in the same direction. Therefore we may for the purposes of this book, so far as man is concerned, take it that acquired characters are not inherited. But looking at the problem as a whole it cannot be regarded as settled. There is, for example, some evidence of the parallel induction of modifications and of mutations; but the question may be raised whether such cases if substantiated fall under the heading of the inheritance of acquired characters. Again, some biologists regarding the problems of evolution generally find difficulty in arriving at an explanation unless under certain circumstances adaptive variations are followed by mutations.

We are thus left with the fact that mutations arise, and may be either large or small. Outwardly, variations in characters are usually continuous, because the environmental stimuli vary continuously, smooth over and obscure the differences due to mutation, as in the case of the beans mentioned above. But, discounting the influence of the environment, the mutations themselves may form a series separated by steps that are so small as to be scarcely measurable or which may be very large. The weight of the beans is an example of the former kind of mutation; the so-called ‘meristic’ variations, when another member is added to a series, the addition, for instance, of a vertebra to the vertebral column, is an example of the latter kind.

Whenever a mutation occurs, we have to think of it as founded upon some change in the germinal constitution. Such changes are of the nature of modifications of factors—and may be positive (leading to the apparent addition of factors), negative (leading to the apparent loss of factors), or qualitative. But of the nature of these changes we know little, and of their causes less. What is important, however, is that these changes do occur. Further, they occur in all directions. The direction is, of course, in a sense determined by the starting-point—by what is already given in the germinal constitution—but, given the starting-point, mutations apparently occur in all directions. It is a matter of importance to know whether mutations ever tend to occur more in one direction than in another. Nothing definite has been ascertained as to this particular problem, though, as we shall note later, certain facts with regard to the evolution of animals suggest that there have been tendencies to change along certain lines. It may also be asked whether the continued selection of a character in any way affects the direction of the variation of the germinal constitution. To this again there is as yet no definite answer. On the whole it is not probable that selection has any such effect.

8. So far, therefore, as we have at present gone, we have found that permanent change is of the nature of germinal change. We have also discussed the nature of germinal differences as they exist between different individuals, and we have discussed the nature and causes of germinal change. With regard to variation there is much which is doubtful and obscure, but bearing in mind the essential features of what is certainly known, we may turn to consider what passes in the organic world. Upon this subject there is much less uncertainty. We have seen how huge is fecundity. Of the young in any generation, only about that number survives which equals the number of adults in the generation from which they are derived. For normally in the organic world the total number of adults of any species at corresponding periods in succeeding years remains much the same. The instances of a marked increase in the number of any species are rare, and are usually traceable to the intervention of man, as the result of which certain of the dangers which normally confront the young have been removed. It follows, therefore, that normally of the many thousands of fertilized eggs of a fish, for example, all but two perish. Even when the most rapid increase ever observed is taking place, the great majority of young perish. From a consideration of the circumstances it is evident that upon the whole those individuals which present certain characters will have a better chance of surviving than others which do not present these characters.

This point demands further consideration, because upon it turns the whole question of natural selection. What is involved in this theory is that the death-rate is selective, that those individuals which are best adapted to the surroundings which confront the species do, on the whole, have a better chance of survival. It is adaptation which determines fitness, but the concept of adaptation does not of necessity include any idea of progress. Given any complex of surroundings such as that which confronts any species, there may be a more or less close fitting of the organisms to this complex. The closeness of this fitting may have been obtained by a simplification of structure, a complication of structure, or it may be that for long ages the closeness of the fitting has been attained by the elimination of departures from the mean of the species in any direction and the preservation of the average type.

In this connexion it has often been pointed out that the death-rate in certain cases is not selective, and does not therefore involve the survival of the more fit and the elimination of the less fit. When the whale opens its mouth and engulfs vast numbers of small organisms upon which it feeds, there is apparently no escaping of certain types of these organisms accompanied by a greater elimination of other types. But these cases are not on the whole common, and further there is nothing in such cases which counteracts selection; it merely means that sometimes selection is not operative. A consideration of the mode of operation of the factors of elimination, the general nature of which has been indicated, leads without any doubt to the conclusion that in the vast majority of cases, when any organism meets its death, either that organism does not possess some character which other organisms possess and which have enabled them to survive, or it possesses some character which other organisms do not possess, and which at some crucial moment has told against it. This subject could be considered at great length, but it must suffice to say here that the more experienced naturalists are, and the greater the knowledge they have of the conditions of organic life, the more it is borne in upon them that the death-rate is upon the whole selective, and that the best adapted types have a better chance of survival than other types.

From the nature of the case it must be difficult to obtain statistical evidence of natural selection. There are, however, certain cases known which are of great interest. Bumpus, for instance, after a storm in America collected 136 sparrows, all of which had been injured. Of these 72 recovered, while the remainder died. He weighed and measured all the specimens and compared the figures for the survivors with the figures for those which had perished. It was found that the average type of the latter was larger and heavier than the average type of the former. It was also observed that there was a less wide range of variability among the survivors than among the dead, showing that the favoured type approximated more closely than the others to the average type of the species. This favouring of the average type has been shown to occur by other observations, and it may be supposed that normally it is the average type of any species which is best fitted to the particular niche in nature occupied by the species, and that therefore adaptation will be measured by the nearness of approach to this type. When, on the other hand, circumstances are changing, some deviation from the average type will be favoured.

9. This leads us to ask in more detail what it is that happens in the process of selection. Selection has been likened in its action to a sieve separating the fit from the unfit. But fitness is measured by the characters exhibited, and these characters may be either of the nature of mutations or of modifications. What is exhibited is selected quite apart from the underlying nature of the character; but it is only when variations of the nature of mutations are selected that there results any change in the composition of the germinal constitution of the species. So far as selection is merely that of modifications within a strain, there will be no change in the average germinal constitution of the progeny. It is only in so far as selection is a selection of strains that there will be any change. If the strains among the beans referred to above can be isolated, then the strain with the predisposition towards the greatest weight can be isolated, the other strains eliminated, and the average weight brought up to that found in this strain. If the strains cannot be isolated, then an approximation only to this result can be made by the continued selection of strains of the greatest weight, and this is what occurs in nature.

This leads to the most important conclusion of all. Selection can only act upon what is given. We may put aside the possible but quite unproved influence of selection upon the direction of mutation. Apart from this, selection can have no other effect than to eliminate certain strains and to favour others. Supposing that under changing circumstances a certain character is favoured, all that can happen through selection is that the strain exhibiting this character will be favoured and all other strains gradually eliminated. Further than this change cannot proceed until mutations have occurred in the direction of further increase in this character. As has been said, selection is no more than a sieve; as a rule it is occupied in separating out the extreme types and favouring the mean, but at times under certain circumstances it will favour some type that deviates from the mean, but it can do no more than favour what types are at any given moment in existence.[101]

10. We set out to answer two questions regarding quality. We asked in what change among species in a state of nature consisted. The answer to this is clear; it consists in changes in the germinal constitution. If we can speak of history in connexion with species in a state of nature, then their history is based solely upon germinal change. We also asked how change came about. It is less easy to answer in a few words. Obscure as are many of the details connected with the process, there is a sufficient measure of agreement regarding the main facts to enable an answer shortly to be formulated. The answer rests upon two series of facts. The observed characters of organisms are based upon certain predispositions in the germinal constitution. These predispositions or factors under the stimuli of the environment give rise to the various characters. These factors are derived from both parents through the fusion of the gametes, and the complex of factors in the offspring is the result of a chance mixture of factors. There may further at times be a dropping out, an addition to, and perhaps a modification of the factors. Secondly, the death-rate is selective. Although the result of selection is confused by the effect of modifications which smooth over the differences due to differences in the germinal constitution, the effect is that individuals with certain factors are favoured and others with different factors are eliminated. Therefore the average nature of the factors may be changed should any type, other than that approximating to the normal type, be favoured.

It is possible in this manner to understand how change has come about. There are many difficulties, but they are all capable of fairly satisfactory explanation. None at least is insuperable. There is one problem which is perhaps somewhat difficult to solve unless a particular supposition is introduced. This problem is connected with the evolution of organs along certain lines, as, for instance, the evolution of horns and teeth in the vertebrates. This class of evidence has chiefly impressed itself upon palaeontologists, and one of the most distinguished of them has stated that from this class of evidence he concludes that ‘there are fundamental predispositions to vary in certain directions’.[102] This is the supposition which it may be necessary to introduce, but which does not in any way conflict with what has been said.

IV THE POPULATION PROBLEM AMONG MEN

1. It has been shown in the last two chapters in what the population problem among species in a state of nature consists. With regard to the quantitative aspect in particular it has been shown that among such species mental evolution, greatly as the stage reached differs between the lowest and the highest forms, has not attained a point at which the essential features of the position have in consequence been affected. Enough has been said to show that in the case of the most primitive races of man now living mental evolution has reached a point in consequence of which the quantitative problem has assumed a totally different aspect.

With regard to the qualitative problem the question also arises as to how far mental evolution in man has affected the position. In one very important respect mental evolution has wholly altered the position of man as regards this aspect of the problem, as it has regarding the quantitative aspect. How this has come about may be considered after it has been observed that mental evolution has also been the cause of other changes which, while they do not alter the fundamental position of man as regards the qualitative aspect, yet are of great importance.

As we have seen among species in a state of nature change is founded upon germinal change. So, too, among men there is germinal change, and so far as history (using the term in the widest sense to include what is often rather meaninglessly called ‘pre-history’) is connected with germinal change, so far it is of essentially the same nature as change among other species. But both the direction and intensity of germinal change among men have been greatly influenced by mental evolution. Certain causes of elimination have been removed wholly or in part, others have been introduced. The facts are familiar; there is no need to labour the point. It is also worth noting that, should it be found that mutation frequently arises owing to alterations in the environment during the formation of the germ-cells, such a discovery might have considerable bearing upon the position in man. Owing to human activity under the guidance of reason, the environment has been profoundly changed in many directions, and without question in consequence of such changes the germ-cells of human beings are subject during their development to far more varied stimuli than are those of other species. This, however, is only a possibility. Nothing is known with certainty upon the subject. It may be that the great variety of foods, the absorption of alcohol and nicotine, the various occupations and customs, and many other factors, all ultimately traceable to reason, may, some of them in some way, tend to bring about mutation in man.

It is by making possible the development of tradition that the evolution of reason has fundamentally changed the nature of the qualitative problem among men. Into the nature and origin of tradition it will be necessary to go in another chapter. Here all that is required is an indication of its main features in order that its connexion with the problem of change may be understood. In the stage of conceptual thought reached by man, the formation of free ideas is the outstanding feature. With the development of conceptual thought went the development of language. By language ideas can be passed from one man to another and also from one generation to another. There are other ways in which the results of reasoning can be handed on, but they need not be considered at present. What is important is that they can be and are handed on. Let us consider for a moment the question of skill. Some improvement may be made in the methods of hunting or of fishing. It may, of course, be lost, but it may be, and perhaps usually is, transmitted to other men by the inventor and afterwards to succeeding generations. Tradition is, in fact, cumulative. Even among the most primitive races now existing there is a huge mass of tradition. Succeeding generations do not necessarily start at the beginning again. They start with the experience of the race behind them, so far as it has been preserved.

Among the higher animals there is a certain handing on of what has been learnt by experience; to this extent there is tradition also among them. We shall return to this point later. So relatively unimportant, however, is tradition among other animals, that we may for the moment regard tradition as something which is found among men only. It is clear that tradition has played some part in any case in producing the changes which we call history. We have only to think of the rise of Japan to the position of a great power in the last half of the nineteenth century. The rise of Japan was an outstanding fact in the history of that period and it was clearly in the main, if not wholly, a traditional and not a germinal change. It took the form of a rapid absorption of European tradition. The evolution of reason has thus introduced into the problem of the causes of human history a factor which is not present in the case of other species; it has also modified the course of selection, but this, as we have seen, has not made a fundamental difference between the position of man and that of species in a state of nature.

The problem before us is therefore as follows. Owing to the fact of reproduction the population problem in both its aspects exists for all species in a state of nature and further presents fundamentally the same features for all such species. The ancestors of man were at one time subject to the same conditions from which they have, step by step, moved away owing to the development of the faculty of reason. We have to trace the causes and results of this moving away—of the progressive modifications of the conditions existing among species in a state of nature.

Though the problem has two aspects, they are closely interwoven. Changes which affect numbers also influence the quality of population. The discussion has hitherto taken the form of an introduction to the problem as a whole, and the two next chapters, the subject-matter of which will be indicated in what follows, will also be devoted to certain problems which equally bear upon both aspects of the question. From the seventh chapter onwards the two aspects are treated independently; we deal first with the quantitative and then with the qualitative aspect. Nevertheless we shall, when dealing with the quantitative problem, present evidence which we shall consider again later when treating of the qualitative problem. The book thus falls into three parts; the first six chapters are introductory to the problem as a whole, the next six chapters are concerned with problems of quantity (though many of the facts brought forward will be found also to bear later upon quality), and the following nine chapters with problems of quality. The last chapter sums up our conclusions as to the whole problem.

2. We may next ask what data are required in order that we may look into the changes away from the conditions under which the pre-human ancestor lived towards the conditions which now exist. In order that we may consider the quantitative aspect of the problem, it is evident that we require some knowledge regarding fecundity and as full details as possible regarding the factors which bear upon fertility and elimination. It is only when we are provided with such information that we can hope to be able to determine how it is that numbers are regulated among men.

In addition to such information, it will be desirable to have information regarding various social customs and the general conditions of life. As regards the inquiry into the qualitative part of the problem, it is clear that facts regarding fertility and elimination are again of value inasmuch as they throw light upon the nature and intensity of selection. For the second part of the problem it is also necessary to have in mind the main facts regarding the changes which are summed up as history into the causes of which we have to inquire; and in addition it will be necessary, in order that we may attempt some estimate of the relative importance of change in the germinal constitution on the one hand and of the other factor or factors of the nature indicated above on the other hand, to make some inquiry into the conditions which determine the nature of these latter factors. This will involve a reference to certain elementary facts of psychology together with some discussion of the origin, formation, preservation, and so on, of tradition.

If we first ask how far the data desired are available, we may afterwards go on to discuss how the facts are best presented. Our information is obviously very incomplete as regards the history of social habits and customs. Historical records do not take us farther back than at the most six thousand years, and the information available with respect to social customs, except for the latter part of the period, is very inadequate. If we take a broad view of history, written records have reference only to relatively modern times. There are two other sources of evidence upon which we have to rely and they are as follows.

Some indication of the bare outline of the course which history has taken can be gathered from a study of the fossil and cultural remains of man. The fossil remains are in the form of skeletons or portions of skeletons and the cultural remains in the shape of tools, weapons, and other traces of his mode of life that man has left behind him. It is interesting to observe that an attempt can be made to date these remains. They occur in certain strata, and estimates can be made of the length of time which has elapsed since these strata were deposited. Though a very large measure of doubt must surround any such estimates, nevertheless there is a certain measure of agreement concerning the facts which is of great interest. It is, therefore, possible to draw up a table showing these strata, together with what we should perhaps call guesses at the dates at which they began to be laid down. It can also be shown in the table what fossil and cultural remains are found in the respective strata.

The information, however, which we thus gain is very meagre. A study of fossil remains can only provide us with an outline of the facts connected with the evolution of the skeleton. More can be gathered from a study of the cultural remains, and certain deductions of considerable interest can be made especially in connexion with our present purpose so far as the evolution of skill is concerned. But, of course, we can in this manner gather nothing as to the nature of the social customs and institutions belonging to the races which practised these skilled methods. The question we have to face is whether this very bare outline of the facts of history can in any manner be filled in.

3. There is a further source of evidence which we have to consider. There has come under the observation of civilized man a large number of races in a low stage of culture. The evolution of culture or of control over the surroundings took place more quickly among certain races than among others. Some races got left out of the main stream of evolution, and finally in relatively recent years the more advanced races arrived at a stage where they were in a position completely to dominate the latter. The more primitive races were unable to offer any serious resistance to the civilized races. It was, therefore, possible to regard these primitive races dispassionately and scientifically; this study has led to the collection of a vast amount of information regarding these primitive races. These data are for many reasons often of a very unsatisfactory nature; of this the chief cause is that, before an accurate study was begun, contact with civilized races had often had a considerable influence upon the former mode of life of the primitive races. What we require and what is difficult to obtain is information as to the conditions under which these races lived before they came into contact with Europeans. With regard to the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence there will be more to say later.

It is of primary importance to observe that these races are not to be regarded as actual representatives of certain stages through which civilized races have passed. We know that in the evolution of control over nature civilized races have passed through certain stages of culture; the first stage was marked by the use of unpolished stone implements and the obtaining of food by hunting and fishing only; the second stage was marked by the use of polished stone implements and the obtaining of food by agriculture and the domestication of animals.[103] These two broad divisions—the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic—may be subdivided. But no primitive race can be regarded as representing any definite stage in exact detail, whether in the first or in the second of the two broad divisions through which civilized races have passed. While the culture of the ancestors of civilized man was evolving from that of the Palaeolithic stage to that of the present day, the culture of certain other races did not progress as far even as the Neolithic stage. But the culture of these races did not remain unmodified; it followed in each case a line of evolution of its own. These races are therefore to be regarded as specialized representatives of the earlier stages of culture through which the civilized races passed. Nevertheless, specialized though their culture may be, the general conditions of their existence are certainly similar to the general conditions which must have characterized the corresponding stage in the evolution of the culture of civilized races. That is to say, the broad features which characterize the conditions found among hunting and fishing races must also have characterized the conditions under which our Palaeolithic ancestors lived.

There is here obviously suggested a method whereby the framework of history arrived at by the evidence of fossil and cultural remains may be filled in. The broad conclusions drawn from a study of hunting and fishing races may be applied to Palaeolithic races. But this method must be used with great caution; it has undoubtedly been pressed too far. It is possible to divide hunting and fishing races into groups and to compare these groups with stages in the evolution of Palaeolithic culture. How far it is in any way valid to attribute in this fashion particular social institutions which characterize lower, middle, and upper hunting races to lower, middle, and upper Palaeolithic races respectively is very doubtful. It is not proposed here to attempt to carry the method as far as this. For one thing, so far as the subject has been worked out, there is no clear correlation between different factors affecting fertility and elimination on the one hand and stages in culture among hunting races on the other hand. Thus, as it happens, any attempt to carry this method into more detail is not productive of results, and therefore it is not worth while to inquire whether results would be valid or not. All that it is proposed to do here is to examine the evidence regarding the prevalence of certain customs, habits, and so on, among hunting races, and to apply the broad conclusions founded on this evidence to the ancestors of civilized races who supported themselves by hunting. In this manner only is it at all possible to fill in the framework of history provided by the remains of culture and by fossils, and thus to arrive at any conclusions regarding the course of the movement away from the conditions found in the pre-human ancestor to those found among civilized races.

4. With regard to the question as to the way in which this evidence may be most conveniently set out, it is proposed to proceed in the following manner. Before we come to the evidence regarding fertility and elimination, something has to be said regarding fecundity in man, and that will be the subject of the fifth chapter. In the following chapter the evidence regarding fossil and cultural remains will be very briefly discussed, just so far as, in the first place, provides the necessary historical facts to form a basis for the discussion of the qualitative problem and as, in the second place, provides the framework into which we can fit the conclusions which we shall draw from a study of primitive races. In the seventh chapter the evidence drawn from a study of hunting races will be reviewed in so far as it throws light upon fertility and elimination. In the eighth chapter the evidence bearing upon these problems, so far as the agricultural races are concerned, will be similarly set out. In the ninth chapter the evidence will be discussed in its bearing upon the quantitative problem among these races—all reference to the qualitative problem being left for later chapters. In the tenth chapter the evidence for the historical races will be similarly reviewed, and in the eleventh chapter similarly discussed. The twelfth chapter will be devoted to a discussion of certain problems connected with the quantitative problem at the present day. The twelfth chapter therefore will complete the treatment of the first or quantitative aspect of the problem, and in the remaining chapters will be discussed the second or qualitative problem. Already there will have been presented a large part of the evidence necessary for the discussion of the second problem—namely, the evidence connected with the outline of the facts of history and that connected with fertility and elimination. What other evidence is necessary can be given as and when required.

V HUMAN FECUNDITY

1. As a preliminary to the separate inquiries into the two aspects of the problem, it is necessary briefly to consider the question of human fecundity.

We may ask, in the first place, whether, taking a broad view of human history, there is any reason to believe that human fecundity has changed since the epoch of the pre-human ancestor, and, if so, whether it has increased or diminished. Secondly, there are a number of habits and customs which have been practised in different degrees at different times, such as prolonged lactation, polygamy, and so on, and we may also ask what bearing, if any, such habits and customs have upon fecundity.

There is much connected with the subject which is difficult and obscure. It is, in particular, often difficult to ascertain whether any differences in fecundity, as may be found to exist, are of the nature of racial or of environmental differences. Into such points, however, we need not go. We are concerned only with the question as to whether there are differences in fecundity, and we may confine our attention to a notice of any broad differences which do exist and to the question whether certain habits and customs widely practised at one time or another and supposed to bear upon fecundity do or do not have the influence attributed to them. We may begin with the first question set out above. In order to obtain an answer to this question we have to rely upon evidence derived from various sources, partly from primitive races, which we assume in general to exhibit conditions prevalent among prehistoric races, and partly from evidence derived from a study of the mammalian species which have been subject to changes comparable with those to which man has in the course of his history been subject.

2. From what has been said regarding the nature of reproduction in Chapter II, it follows that it is the female rather than the male that we have to consider. The male gametes vastly outnumber the female, and, generally speaking, the male is always ready for intercourse. When studying the possibility of increasing the fecundity of domestic species, attention can, as pointed out by Marshall in the case of sheep,[104] be limited to the female. Taking a broad view of the matter, it is clear that there has been no change in fecundity due to any change in male reproductive power.

There are, nevertheless, two points concerning the male which we may notice before we pass to the consideration of the female. First, with regard to the problem as to changes in fecundity during the course of history, we shall bring forward evidence to show that good conditions favour an increase in the reproductive power of the mammalian female. There is reason to think that good conditions have a similar effect on males. Thus among some mammalian species in a state of nature there is a special ‘rutting season’ for the male, and it is not infrequently found that in captivity the males of such species will rut all the year round.[105] We shall also bring forward evidence to show that with improvements in conditions, sexual excitement is more easily aroused and that there has been an increase in the development of the generative organs, and we may note here that these observations apply to the male as well as to the female. As, however, any increase in male reproductive capacity can have had no general influence upon fecundity, we may, so far as the question of any general increase or decrease in fecundity is concerned, neglect the male and confine our attention to the female.

Secondly, with respect to the influence of certain factors at particular times, it is in nearly all cases the female and not the male which is affected. But it may be observed that sterile marriages are in part due to male sterility. Mayer estimates that this is so in a third of such marriages.[106] Kelly gives the result of an investigation into 110 cases, of which 59 per cent. are attributed to the male.[107] Male sterility is due either to inborn or acquired conditions. So far as sterility due to the former is concerned, there do not appear to be any grounds for thinking that it has to any important extent varied from one epoch to another. So far, however, as sterility due to disease is concerned, there have been in all probability certain changes. Gonorrhoea is perhaps the most important of those diseases which bring about sterility. Of the 59 cases mentioned above 12 per cent. were due to gonorrhoea. Other diseases may cause sterility, such as tubercle and epididymitis. Relatively to the historical period as usually defined, gonorrhoea is an old disease; but we shall find reason for thinking that the great majority of diseases have evolved since the time of the pre-human ancestor, and to the extent to which this is true it must be allowed that male sterility due to disease is more or less recent. With these remarks we may leave the question of male sterility, as it is relatively of little importance.

3. It is therefore to factors which influence the female generative process that we must look for the causes of such increase or decrease of fecundity as are of importance. Certain factors may be put aside on the grounds that there is no reason to think that they have been of more importance at one time than at another. Such are malformations of any kind that prevent the meeting of the male and female gametes.[108] With regard to the factors of importance it is by their influence upon different aspects of the female generative process that they are best classified. There are three main aspects of this process, variations in any of which will influence fecundity. These are the length of the mature period, the interval between births, and the number at a birth.

Some reference to the nature of the female sexual cycle in mammals has been made. The beginning of maturity is usually measured by observing the beginning of menstruation. It is, perhaps, worthy of mention that the beginning of menstruation does not always coincide with the beginning of ovulation. Thus the estimation of the duration of the mature period made by watching for the beginning and end of menstruation is not always exact; the difference is not of consequence here, but the fact that a difference is possible emphasizes that what is essential in the whole process is ovulation. The true mature period is the period during which ovulation occurs. The interval between births is also dependent upon ovulation and so is number at a birth.[109] In fact what we are asking is in the main what factors influence ovulation.

4. The information regarding the duration of the mature period is not satisfactory. Though there is a large amount of information about the beginning of menstruation, there is little information about the age at which it ends. There are at least three factors which influence the age at which menstruation begins—climate, race, and general nature of the surrounding conditions.

Generally speaking, the hotter the climate the earlier menstruation begins. Englemann gives the following figures:[110]

Zone. Average Age for Menstruation. Tropics 12·9 years Temperate 15·5 „ Cold 16·5 „

and Krieger gives the following figures:[111]

Place. Average Age for Menstruation. Christiania 16 years 9 months 25 days Berlin 15 „ 7 „ 25 „ London 15 „ 1 „ 14 „ Lyons 14 „ 5 „ 29 „ Marseilles 13 „ 11 „ 11 „ Calcutta 12 „ 6 „ 0 „ Sierra Leone 10 „ 0 „ 0 „

It further appears that there is a tendency for menstruation to end earlier in hot climates; so much so that upon the whole the mature period is shorter in hot than in cold climates.

There is, however, no very close or definite connexion between climate and menstruation. In the United States it has not been found possible to detect any influence of climate upon menstruation, though this country stretches from 29° to 45° of latitude, and has a temperature the annual average of which varies from 40° F. to 70° F. But if the conditions concerning the different racial elements in the population of the country are examined, it is found that in whatever part of the country they may be the average age for each racial element remains constant, and usually varies slightly from the average age for the whole population.[112] There are other indications that the age at which menstruation begins are connected with differences in race. Krieger quotes the following from Joachim for girls in Hungary:[113]

Race. Average Age of Menstruation. Slavonic 16 to 17 years Magyar 15 „ 16 „ Jewish 14 „ 15 „ Styrian 13 „ 14 „

Other figures show that Jewesses menstruate earlier than the average age for menstruation in the country in which they live.[114]

What is of chief interest to us is that good conditions also influence the age at which menstruation begins. The better the conditions, the earlier does it begin. Further, it is also known that the mature period tends to be prolonged where conditions are good. It is known, for example, that the mature period comes to an end earlier among the labouring than among the richer classes.[115] Therefore good conditions tend to be connected not only with an earlier beginning but also with a longer duration of the mature period. Thus Mayer found the average age at which menstruation began among 3,000 women of the upper classes to be 14·69 years, and among 3,000 poor women to be 16·0 years.[116] Several observers have recorded the average age for the beginning of menstruation among the different classes in the population. The following table is given by Krieger:[117]

_Brienne de Tilt. Krieger. Ravn. Boisment._ Yrs. Mths. Yrs. Mths. Yrs. Mths. Yrs. Mths. Upper Class 13 8 13 5½ 14 1⅙ 14 3 Middle Class 14 5 14 3½ 15 4–2/6 15 5½ Lower Class 14 1 16 8⅙ 16 5¼

5. With regard to the question as to the interval between births some interesting indirect evidence is obtained from what we can learn regarding the former condition of the sexual cycle in man. A sketch was given in the second chapter of the main features of the mammalian sexual cycle. These cycles may follow one another without any prolonged interval, or there may be a lengthy period of rest. In monkeys and also in man the interval is short; but the former cannot breed at every heat period; special sexual seasons are experienced at definite times of the year when breeding takes place. It is probable that ovulation is limited to this special season, and that, although copulation may take place at other seasons of the year, conception can only follow copulation at this special season.[118] In civilized man, so far as is known, ovulation is never confined to any particular season of the year; conception can, therefore, follow copulation at any period. But we do find evidence of the former existence in man of a special sexual season, and this is of particular interest because it suggests that at one time there was in man, as there usually is in monkeys, one season only during which conception could follow copulation.

This evidence has been reviewed by Westermarck, by Ploss and Bartels, and by Havelock Ellis.[119] Some examples of this evidence may be cited in order to show upon what facts this suggestion is founded. According to Mr. Johnston, the Indians of California “have their rutting season as regularly as have the deer, the elk, the antelope, or any other animals”. And Mr. Powers confirms the correctness of this statement, at least with regard to some of these Indians, saying that spring ‘is a literal St. Valentine’s day with them, as with the natural birds and beasts of the forest’. As regards the Goddanes in Luzon, Mr. Foreman tells us that ‘it is the custom of young men about to marry to vie with each other in presenting to the sires of their future brides all the scalps that they are able to take from their enemies, as proof of their manliness and courage. This practice prevails at a season of the year when the tree—popularly called by the Spaniards “the fire tree”—is in bloom.’ Speaking of the Watch-an-dies in the western part of Australia, Mr. Oldfield remarks, ‘Like the beasts of the field, the savage has but one time for copulation in the year. About the middle of the spring the Watch-an-dies begin to think of holding their grand semi-religious festival of Caa-ro, preparatory to the performance of the important duty of procreation. A similar feast was, according to Mr. Bonwick, celebrated by the Tasmanians at the same time of the year.’[120] Similar evidence is forthcoming as regards many other primitive races. It is interesting to note that among civilized races there are traces of customs which point to the former existence of a season of sexual licence. Such were the mediaeval Feast of Fools, and the classical festivals of Brumalia and Rosalia.[121] ‘Feasts, similar to the erotic feasts which were indulged in by the ancients ... were still practised to some extent in Russia and in some parts of India at a much later date, while such customs as “gwneyd Bragod” and possibly our own “bean feasts” may not improbably be the modern representatives of these ancient customs in our own country.’[122]

This evidence all points to a former condition when conceptions could only take place at one season of the year. We must suppose that it has gradually become possible for copulation to be followed by conception at any period, and that therefore fecundity has increased.[123] Some light is thrown upon the causes that underlie these changes by a reference to certain facts regarding other species. Before we turn to this question reference may be made to the phenomenon of ‘mittelschmerz’—or intermenstrual pain. It is not uncommon and is sometimes accompanied by a discharge. The interpretation of this phenomenon is doubtful. One explanation, however, has some interest for us. It is suggested that it may represent the first steps in the establishment of a different variety of sexual cycle in which the dioestrous periods occur fortnightly instead of monthly. If this interpretation is correct, it would mean that the sexual cycle is evolving in the direction of still greater fecundity.[124]

6. It has frequently been observed that when members of a wild species are brought into captivity there is a change in the sexual season. This change may be in the direction of an increase or of a decrease in the generative power. If the bringing into captivity involves such an alteration of conditions as to disorganize the generative process, then a decrease in fecundity may result. It frequently happens, for instance, that carnivores are infertile in captivity, and this may be due among other things to the absence of fresh meat.[125] Generally speaking, however, if the alterations do not produce disorganization, an increase in fecundity results, and as there is no reason to suppose that the change in human circumstances was ever of such a nature as to produce disorganization, we must suppose, on the analogy of what happens among other mammalian species, that, if the betterment of the conditions has had any effect, it has been in the direction of an increase in fecundity.

A few examples of what is meant may be given. The wild dog of South America, the wolf, and the fox breed only once a year under natural conditions; in captivity they experience two annual heats like the dog.[126] The otter in the wild state breeds but once a year; in captivity oestrous may occur at regular monthly intervals all the year round.[127] Bears are monoestrous in the wild state; in the Zoological Gardens oestrous may be experienced for two or three months.[128] With regard to the Ungulata we have numerous facts of the same nature. The red deer offers the best example; under natural conditions there are two dioestrous cycles lasting three weeks; in captivity the sexual season extends over the whole year.[129] The facts are somewhat similar in respect to cattle and horses. Examples might also be taken from other mammalian classes. The wild rabbit breeds from February to May; in captivity the sexual season lasts nearly the whole year. Further it may be noticed that among lower groups good conditions are, as is well known, markedly favourable to increased fecundity.

Before we go on to look into the causes of this increase in fecundity, it may be noticed that the number of young produced at a birth among domestic species is on an average greater than that produced by the wild ancestor. This evidence, it will be observed, refers to the third factor which bears upon the increase in fecundity. The wild rabbit is said to produce at the most six young at a time; the tame rabbit has four to eleven, and a case is known in which eighteen were born, all of which survived.[130] The wild sow bears from four to eight, and sometimes twelve, young. The domestic sow is considered to be of no value unless she produces at least eight at a birth. Equally remarkable examples are to be found outside the Mammals. ‘The hen of Gallus bankiva lays from six to ten eggs; the tame one in the course of a year from eighty to one hundred.’

7. It is clear that one common feature in the conditions surrounding domesticated species and civilized man, as compared with species in a state of nature, is the increase in the richness and regularity of the food-supply, and the general betterment of the environment. In fact, just as this increase in the richness of the surroundings may increase the length of the mature period, so it may increase the number at a birth and also decrease the interval between births. That this is the result of an improved environment in the case of the sheep has been shown by Marshall. He found, for instance, that in ‘Scotch Blackfoot, Cheviot, and other Scottish sheep the normal percentage of ova discharged at any single oestrous is not appreciably in excess of the usual percentage of births at the lambing season’.[131] This, it may be noted, is an example of what was said in the second chapter regarding, in the first place, the measurement of fecundity by the number of ripe ova produced, and, in the second place, regarding the fertilization on the average of all, or nearly all, ripe ova. Marshall also found that ‘there was every reason for supposing that the processes of growth and maturation can be very largely influenced both by insufficiency of food-supply on the one hand and by artificial stimulation on the other’.[132] What apparently happens is that insufficiency of food retards the development of the ova and may cause the degeneration of some of them. Therefore if the food-supply is good, there will be more ripe ova at the sexual season, fewer sterile females, and a greater number of twin births. ‘There is overwhelming evidence,’ says Heape, ‘that flocks in good condition at tupping time have a higher subsequent development of fertility than flocks in poor condition at tupping time.’[133] By ‘good’ condition is meant not a ‘fat’ but a strong, healthy, and vigorous animal.

It may be asked whether there is any evidence as to the increase in numbers at a birth in the human female. Among civilized races about one birth in eighty to ninety is on the average a twin birth. Our knowledge of primitive races is not sufficiently precise to enable any estimate to be made regarding the frequency of twin births among them. There are, however, very numerous references in the accounts of these races to the superstitions attaching to twin births. The nature of these superstitions, and in general the mystery felt to surround twin births, very strongly suggests that the phenomenon is rare. It can only be said that it is probable that twin births are rarer among primitive races than among civilized races.

So far, therefore, as we have gone, the evidence points to the conclusion that two of the three factors which determine fecundity have varied in the direction of increasing fecundity, and that possibly the third factor may have varied in the same direction. It has also been noted that similar changes have been observed to take place in animals which have been subject to better conditions. The fact that human conditions have certainly been bettered suggests that the same cause may have been at work in the case of man. There is, however, no doubt that changes in the case of man are not wholly explicable in this way. In part the differences are racial differences, and to the degree in which the differences are racial they cannot be attributed to the direct effect of the surroundings.

8. Additional support to the view that fecundity has increased with civilization is given by certain other types of evidence. In the first place it appears to be a fact that the reproductive organs of the more primitive races of mankind are smaller and in all respects less well developed than those of civilized races.[134] It is not meant that the organs differ qualitatively in any way; they are merely smaller relatively to the other organs than among civilized races. It is doubtful how we should interpret these facts; but it does not seem unreasonable to assume a connexion between a lesser development of the reproductive organs and a lower degree of fecundity.

Secondly, we have a considerable body of evidence with respect to the strength of sexual desire among these races.[135] Many observers have recorded their opinion that the members of these more primitive races do not experience sexual excitement to the same degree as do the members of the more civilized races. There are other observations which record the difficulty experienced in obtaining sexual erethism. It seems reasonable to associate these observations with a lower degree of fecundity than that found among civilized races.

In this connexion the fact that lack of sexual excitement renders fertilization less likely is relevant. As fertilization has been achieved with the female in a condition of narcosis,[136] it is clear that sexual excitement is not necessary. Nevertheless, if the question of sexual excitement has any bearing at all upon the degree of fecundity as between higher and lower races, it must be in the direction of rendering the lower races less fertile.

It was observed in the second chapter that the willingness of the female to receive the male at any time in the sexual cycle is a peculiarity of man. It may be observed in passing that evidence has lately been brought forward suggesting that the indifference of the female to the point in the sexual cycle at which intercourse takes place has been exaggerated, or rather that the existence of periods of desire has been somewhat overlooked.[137] However this may be, what concerns us here is the peculiar fact that the male is received by the female at any time in the sexual cycle. It is possible that copulation at one time in the sexual cycle is more likely to result in conception than at other times, though the facts are obscure. But whether this is so or not is scarcely relevant to our purpose, because there is no reason to think that there have been any variations in the practice of copulation between one time and another or between one race and another, as could have sensibly affected fecundity even if the limitation of copulation to one period of the sexual cycle is of marked importance.

9. Lastly, we have to refer to what we may call the statistical evidence. The interpretation of the evidence as to number of children among primitive races is so difficult a matter that it cannot in itself be held to throw much light upon the question of fecundity. The trend of the evidence, however, certainly supports the conclusion that fecundity is less among primitive races than among civilized races. There are a vast number of observations recorded by travellers regarding the number of children among these races. For the most part these observations have reference only to the number of children seen alive, and therefore are not even a measure of the fertility—far less a measure of the fecundity.

Practically all such observations emphasize the small size of the families. When dealing with hunting and agricultural races in another connexion we shall have reason to refer in some detail to this evidence. Here we may give a few typical examples of this evidence, remembering that it is evidence for the most part of the number of children seen and not of the number of children born, though, in selecting the following examples for quotation, an effort has been made to pick out those in which the authors have attempted to discount the effects of infanticide and other factors of elimination.

Of the Australians Curr remarks: ‘I am of opinion that the Australian females bear on an average six children, or did before the advent of the whites and whilst living in their natural state.’[138] Spencer and Gillen state that sterility is common among the Australians[139] and that the number of children rarely exceeds four or five and is generally two or three.[140] Of the Eskimos we read: ‘the women are not prolific. Although all the adults are or have been married, many of them are childless, and few have more than two children. One woman was known to have had at least four. Dr. Simpson heard of a “rare case” where one woman had borne seven children.’[141] ‘On the average the pure breed Greenlanders are not prolific. Two, three, or four children to each marriage is the general rule, though there are instances of families of six or eight or even more.’[142] Of the American Indians there is a large amount of evidence. Dr. Holder, who combined medical knowledge with exceptional opportunities for observation, says: ‘With Indians large families are the exception. The Crow tribe, of less than 2,500 people, is divided into 630 families, which gives less than four to each family, and this includes parents and often grandparents and relatives by affinity or adoption, leaving the average offspring, to each child-bearing woman decidedly lower than in white communities.’[143] Speaking of the Indians of Vancouver Island, Sproat says: ‘As a rule they have few children.’[144] Bancroft reports of the Nootka tribe: ‘Women rarely have more than two or three children.’[145] Of the Chinooks: ‘Barrenness is common, the birth of twins rare, and families do not usually exceed two children.’[146] Catlin says: ‘It is a very rare occurrence for an Indian woman to be “blessed” with more than four or five children during her life; generally they are contented with two or three.’[147]

It is merely suggested here that evidence of this kind, which will be much amplified in the following chapters, may have to be interpreted as pointing to a lower degree of fecundity among these lower races than among the civilized races. The trend of the evidence is at least suggestive when it is remembered that according to the estimate made by Matthews Duncan a normal woman among civilized races living in wedlock throughout the mature period under favourable circumstances should bear from ten to twelve children.[148]

If the view suggested is correct, we should expect to find in such countries as India and China a higher fecundity than among primitive races, but a lower fecundity than among European races. There is some indication that this is so. At first sight it might seem that the well-known fertility of these races indicated a higher fecundity than in Europe. When, however, in the case of India, not the crude fertility, but the fertility corrected for the number of married women of reproductive age is calculated, it is found to be lower than in Europe. The figures per 1,000 are 160 in India and 196 in England.[149] It has, of course, to be remembered that there are in both countries certain factors bearing upon fertility—early marriage in India and restraint from intercourse and contraceptive methods in England. But it can hardly be supposed that the former is more effective than the latter in decreasing fecundity, and it is probable that we have here an indication of lower fecundity in India.

10. All the evidence, therefore, points to the same conclusion. If there has been any general change in the strength of human fecundity in the course of human history, using that phrase in the widest sense, it has been in the direction of an increase. It is not necessary for our present purpose to attempt to be more precise. This view is, as we shall show below, that of the best authorities. It may be noticed that different opinions are frequently expressed by authors who are not professional biologists.[150] Such opinions are in most cases so vaguely worded that it is seldom clear what precisely is meant. In many cases it is fairly evident that it is intended to imply that there is some connexion between growth of civilization and decrease in fecundity. So far as this is what is meant, there is no evidence for this view. (There is no indication whatever that increasing intellectual activity is accompanied by decreasing fecundity. On the other hand, inasmuch as intellectual activity is connected with an amelioration in the conditions, to that degree there is a connexion between it and an increase in fecundity.) Such views clearly owe their origin to the attention paid to the decline in the birth-rate. It is not always realized that a declining birth-rate may be due to a decline in fertility alone, wholly unconnected with a decline in fecundity.

That fecundity has increased was the opinion of Darwin. ‘There is reason to suspect’, he says, ‘that the reproductive power is actually less in barbarous than in civilized races.... It is highly probable that savages, who often suffer much hardship and do not obtain so much nutritious food as civilized men, would be actually less prolific.’[151] According to Heape, ‘it would seem highly probable that the reproductive power of man has increased with civilization, precisely as it may be increased in the lower animals by domestication; that the effect of a regular supply of good food, together with all the other stimulating factors available and exercised in modern civilized communities, has resulted in such great activity of the generative organs, and so great an increase in the supply of the reproductive elements, that conception in the healthy human female may be said to be possible almost at any time during the reproductive period.’[152]

It is interesting to note that no differences in fecundity can be observed as between modern civilized races.[153] The conclusion we have reached is merely that there has been, broadly speaking, an increase in fecundity, and that in large measure this is explicable as a result of the betterment of conditions, and there is nothing to lead us to expect that there would on this account be any difference between modern European races.

11. We may now pass to a brief consideration of certain habits, customs, and other factors which, operative from time to time, have, or are widely supposed to have, an influence upon fecundity, and in some cases upon fertility; for though fertility is not, properly speaking, considered in this chapter, it is convenient to deal with certain matters here.

To polygamy has often been attributed a decrease in the number of children born to a woman. Whether it is supposed that the practice of polygamy in some way decreases fecundity or has an influence upon fertility is not clear. In any case there is no evidence that it has any influence either upon fecundity or upon fertility. There is no reason to think that polygamy is attended by any structural or physiological changes such as would influence fecundity, and the statistical evidence does not show any difference in the average number of children born, whether monogamy or polygamy is practised. Theal investigated this question as far as marriages among Bantu women are concerned. He collected a number of returns and sums up the returns as follows. ‘Altogether these returns embraced 393, the wives or widows of monogamists, mostly professing Christians, and 591 women, the wives or widows of polygamists. In a few instances it was noted that the women might not have passed the age of child-bearing. The 393 women, wives of monogamists, had borne 2,223 children, that is on an average 5·65 children to a woman. The 591 women, wives of polygamists, had borne 3,298 children, that is on an average 5·58 children to each woman. Thus monogamy made hardly any appreciable difference in the birth-rate.’[154]

The question of the influence of lactation on fecundity is of considerable importance, but unfortunately no very definite conclusions can be drawn from the facts known. There is a considerable amount of evidence to the effect that the continuance of lactation to some extent inhibits heat in animals and menstruation in women. Though the effect of continued lactation is doubtless in this direction, it cannot be said to be of any very definite strength. It is stated that mares giving suck are liable to miss a season.[155] ‘There can be no doubt that in the case of sows early weaning is conducive to a more frequent recurrence of oestrous and an increased number of litters.’[156] ‘The return of menstruation during lactation in women has been dealt with recently by Heil and Dingwall Fordyce. Heil, who has studied the conditions of 200 nursing mothers, expresses the belief that the recurrence of menstruation and not the condition of amenorrhoea is the normal state during lactation, but that menstruation is not so frequent in the later lactations as in the earlier ones. Fordyce has reached similar conclusions, finding that menstruation occurred during lactation in 40 per cent. of the cases in which suckling was performed, while in 92 per cent. of the cases its return was within nine months of parturition, and that menstruation during lactation was commoner with the earlier than with the later lactations, showing that age is an important factor.’[157]

There is another question of importance. It may be asked what influence age at marriage has upon fecundity. As far as the age of the husband is concerned, there is scarcely any influence at all. For any given age of wife the fecundity remains nearly the same, whatever the age of the husband. The age of the wife, however, is of importance, apart from the fact that delay in marriage reduces the use made of the limited period of maturity. For a woman is not equally fecund throughout the mature period. The earlier years are the most fecund years, and therefore postponement of marriage reduces the fecundity, other things being equal, by more than the fraction of the mature period which is passed in celibacy. According to Dunlop’s observations on marriage in Scotland ‘the effect of one year’s delay of marriage is to reduce the average family by fully one-third of a child, or that three years’ delay may be expected to result in the family being one child less. This result may be fairly correct in general, but it cannot be strictly applied, for the crude observations show that the effect of one year’s delay is not constant through the fertile period of the woman’s life, but is greater for the younger and less for the later years. Thus a year’s delay when the woman is aged from 20 to 25 averages 0·45 of a child, 0·37 when she is aged from 25 to 30, 0·32 when she is aged from 30 to 35, 0·29 when she is aged from 35 to 40, and 0·19 when she is aged from 40 to 45.’[158] It requires, it may be noticed, a delay of about forty years on the part of the husband to decrease the number of children by one child.[159]

A further problem is the influence of sexual intercourse before puberty upon fecundity. Exactly what influence early intercourse has upon the generative organs and their functions is not clear. It is known, however, that early intercourse is injurious to the general health, and it is not difficult to understand in a general way how, if this is so, the reproductive functions would be adversely affected. In the Punjab Census Report ‘it has been shown that the states which practise early marriage on an extensive scale have generally a smaller proportion of females at the age period 12 to 15. Inquiries into a large number of cases show that, when the marriage of young people is consummated at an early age, a fairly large number of wives dies of phthisis or some other disease of the respiratory organs or from some ovarian complication within ten years of the consummation of marriage.’[160] It is also known that when of two races both living a similar kind of life under similar conditions, one practises early marriage and the other does not, as for example the Hindus and Mohammedans in India, fertility is higher among the latter than among the former.[161]

Finally, it may be noted that the development of fat may lead to sterility. It is a fact well known to breeders that excessive fatness is accompanied by sterility. Animals that have been fattened for agricultural shows are often barren. There is no doubt that the development of fat may have the same effect in women. It is not quite clear why the development of fat should be inimical to fecundity; formerly it was supposed that the sperm was prevented from reaching the ovum owing to the presence of a mechanical obstruction. Although this may at times be the cause, it seems that the presence of an excessive amount of fat has a deleterious influence upon the metabolism of the organism and that the maturation of the ova must be in some way affected. Marshall found signs of abnormal ovarian metabolism in interstitial tissue of the ovaries of fat cows and heifers.[162] Sterility, it may be remarked, is not to be regarded as an ultimate consequence of ‘good’ conditions which have been made too ‘good’. ‘Good’ conditions do not merely consist in abundant food, but also in sufficient exercise and so on. The development of fat in such a degree as to cause sterility is due to an excessive amount of food—an abundant food-supply being one only of the factors going to make up ‘good’ conditions—to the exclusion of other factors.

12. In conclusion, some calculations may be conveniently added to illustrate the strength of human fecundity, which, as we shall see, is constantly under-estimated. Let us consider a population of a million born in the same year, half of whom are males and half females. Let us suppose that they all marry, each couple before the age of twenty producing two children, half of whom are girls and half boys. For the sake of simplicity we may imagine that at the end of each twenty-year period the parents die simultaneously with the birth of their offspring. Then, if the children marry and produce offspring as did their parents, we shall have a standard population of 1,000,000, which will neither increase nor decrease so long as these conditions are fulfilled. If, however, the average number of children is 2½ per couple, then in 100 years the population will be 3,050,000; if three, 7,954,000; if four, 32,000,000; if five, 97,650,000.

VI HUMAN HISTORY

1. As a further preliminary to the separate inquiries into the two parts of the problem, we have to sketch the main outlines of history in its broadest aspect. The facts will in themselves form an important element in the subject-matter when we come in the second part of the book to discuss the qualitative problem. They also form, as explained in the third chapter, a framework into which such knowledge as we have of primitive races may be fitted with all the necessary qualifications and safeguards. The procedure will be in the first place to glance at the main subdivisions of the sedimentary deposits, and to ask how far they can be dated. In this fashion alone can we arrive at any chronological basis with regard to human evolution. We have then to refer to the evolution of the Primate branch of the mammals to which man belongs, and afterwards to the evolution of the bodily form of man. As the fossils upon which the evidence is based are connected with certain geological strata, some vague indication of their date, or at least of their relative appearance in time, can be arrived at, in any case with regard to the later forms. We can then refer to the evidence of the cultural remains of man and correlate this evidence with that derived from the fossil remains. In this fashion some indication can be obtained of the evolution of culture and of the physical form of man anterior to the last three or four thousand years. For the last period written records are available, and supplement the evidence derived from cultural remains. Finally we have to discuss the manner in which we can use the evidence derived from primitive races to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.

2. The deposition of the sedimentary strata is usually divided into four main periods, each of which is subdivided into smaller eras. The following table shows the divisions most commonly adopted.

{ Recent { Quaternary { Pleistocene { Cainozoic { { Pliocene { { Miocene { Tertiary { Oligocene { Eocene

{ Cretaceous Secondary { Jurassic { Triassic

{ Permian { Carboniferous Primary { Devonian { Silurian { Cambrian

Archaeozoic Precambrian

It is with the Cainozoic period that we are alone concerned, and chiefly with the Pleistocene and Recent subdivisions of that period. Before we consider the Quaternary epoch, one or two facts with regard to the dating of the other periods may be mentioned. However long it is supposed that the deposition of the sedimentary deposits has occupied, it is usually held that the Archaeozoic period occupied at least half of the whole length of time. This supposition is rendered necessary by the fact that already in the Cambrian era organisms of a high degree of complexity are found; thus in this era Crustaceans, Brachiopods, and Worms are common; Echinoderms, Coelenterates, and Sponges are also known. In the Silurian most of the classes of the animal kingdom are represented, the exceptions being amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The presence of fish shows that by this time vertebrates had already been evolved. Amphibians first appear in the Carboniferous and reptiles in the Permian. Birds first occur in the Upper Jurassic and mammals towards the close of the Triassic. The estimates as to the time occupied by the deposition of all these strata taken together vary very greatly—the average being about 100,000,000 years, though it should be mentioned that as long a period as 1,000,000,000 years has been proposed.[163] With regard to the length of time which it is supposed that the later subdivisions of the Cainozoic period have covered, it may be noticed that Penck estimates the length of the Pliocene and Miocene periods at about two and three million years respectively.

It is the dating of the subdivisions of the Pleistocene epoch that is of interest here. This era is also known as the glacial epoch. During this period large areas both in the northern and southern hemispheres were covered by the formation of glaciers or by the advance of previously-existing glaciers. It is now almost universally admitted that in Europe at least there were four separate advances of the ice. After reaching on each occasion a point of maximum extension, the ice retreated, and there were thus three inter-glacial or genial epochs, while the period since the fourth glaciation is known as the Recent period. The limit of the extension of the ice varied in each glaciation, and was at its maximum in the second glaciation. These separate glaciations and intervening genial periods serve to subdivide the Pleistocene era, and when fossil and cultural remains are discovered an attempt is made to ascertain in which of these subdivisions they occur.

Nothing more than guesses can be made as to the length of the glacial period as a whole and of the subdivisions, and these guesses differ very widely. Osborn gives the following list of estimates:[164]

1863. C. Lyell 800,000 years 1874. J. D. Dana 720,000 „ 1893. C. D. Walcott 400,000 „ 1893. W. Upham 100,000 „ 1894. A. Heim 100,000 „ 1900. W. J. Sollas 400,000 „ 1909. A. Penck 520,000–800,000 years 1914. J. Geikie 620,000 (minimum) years

Osborn adopts the more conservative estimate of Penck for the duration of the whole period, and gives a subdivision of the period, which is as follows:[165]

│ Period. Relative Duration. Grand Totals. ───────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────── │Recent 25,000 25,000 ───────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────── Pleistocene│Fourth Glacial 25,000 50,000 „ │Third Genial 100,000 150,000 „ │Third Glacial 25,000 175,000 „ │Second Genial 200,000 375,000 „ │Second Glacial 25,000 400,000 „ │First Genial 75,000 475,000 „ │First Glacial 25,000 500,000

3. With man are associated among mammals more or less closely five groups of animals—the Anthropoid apes, the Platyrrhini or Old World monkeys, the Catarrhini or New World monkeys, the Lemurs, and the Tarsii. It is clear that all these groups diverged from a common stem; the first divergence, however, must have occurred not later than the Eocene. To ascertain the interrelationship of these groups and the order of their divergence we have to rely chiefly upon the evidence provided by fossils. This evidence is very incomplete and, so far as the definitely pre-human ancestor is concerned, is lacking entirely until we come to a form known as Pithecanthropus, found in Java in a deposit attributed either to the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene. With regard to the evolution of the Primate stock it is usual to assume that the Lemurs[166] and the Tarsii branched off from the main stem very early, and that the Catarrhini followed by the Platyrrhini branched off in the Eocene. It is usual, therefore, to assume that in Oligocene times there was existing a Primate stock ancestral both to the anthropoid apes and to man. It is possible that Propliopithecus from the Fayum is a representative of this common stock from which the gibbons branched off in the Miocene in one direction, and the orang, chimpanzee, gorilla, and man in another. Man, it is imagined, branched off from this latter stock in the early Miocene and the orang shortly afterwards, the separation of the chimpanzee and gorilla occurring somewhat later. Various ancestral gibbons (Pliopithecus and Pliohylobates) and ancestral anthropoids (Dryopithecus, Neopithecus, and Palaeopithecus) are known from the Miocene and Pliocene, but nothing has come to light as yet of the distinctively pre-human stock in these times.

Apart from the question as to how the distinctively human stock is related to the rest of the primate stock, there is much to be said for the view that the pre-human ancestor of Miocene times was a small arboreal primate which probably lived in a restricted area. But of the mode of life we have of course no direct knowledge. It is possible, however, that the mode of life of the anthropoid apes may give some indication of the conditions under which the pre-human ancestor lived. That they are all confined to warm climates in the Old World is suggestive when it is remembered that Pithecanthropus was found in Java. They are all more or less arboreal. The orang seldom comes to the ground; the chimpanzee, though more arboreal than the gorilla, is less so than the orang, while the gorilla is the least arboreal of all. The first two species construct nests in the trees, and the same is asserted of the gorilla, though this appears to be doubtful. They all adopt in varying degrees a semi-erect attitude from time to time. They exhibit a certain development of the social instinct; the gorilla is seen in bands, the gibbons congregate in the evening in groups. It seems certain that marriage in the sense in which Westermarck employs the term exists among them; it is asserted that they are all polygamous, though the chimpanzee may be monogamous. In any case they are not promiscuous in their sexual relations.

If a guess is to be made at all as to the mode of life of the pre-human ancestor, it is most reasonable to assume that it was something after the same kind. But whereas the apes are powerful specialized animals, the pre-human ancestor must have been a weaker and more generalized primate, having specialized only in the increase of the brain. It was this character which undoubtedly enabled him to maintain himself, and which compensated for the relative absence of other means of defence. The apes, on the other hand, are well able to look after themselves. ‘The orang, as Selenka informs us, is more than a match for the dangerous carnivora with which he has to contend, and the gorilla is monarch of the woods.’[167]

When we survey the Tertiary period as a whole we see that there was a rapid and varied evolution of the mammalian stock in Eocene and Oligocene times which culminated in the Miocene. All classes of mammals were in process of rapid evolution. After this epoch of evolution, specialization, and adaptation, the way was opened to the taking of the lead by a species which exceeded others rather in intelligence than in bodily superiority. The pre-human ancestor, we must suppose, had somewhat fallen behind in this contest to achieve adaptation by means of specialization, and could not then have taken a prominent place among mammalian species. Nevertheless, somehow he managed to maintain himself, and ultimately, as we shall point out later on, the retention of a generalized bodily form became of a very distinct advantage in that it enabled the best use to be made of his growing intellect.

4. The fossil remains of man from the Pleistocene are few and incomplete. It is a matter of great interest to observe in what subdivision of the Pleistocene these fossils occur, in which glacial or genial epoch, that is to say, they are found, as in this manner some indication can be gained, if not of their absolute, then of their relative, distance from the present epoch in time. As already mentioned, abundant evidence of human cultural remains are also found in the Pleistocene, and these remains likewise can be associated with the subdivisions of the period. Various names have been given to these cultural periods, and we shall glance later at the evidence upon which these periods are based. But it will be of assistance now to give a table showing how the cultural periods are connected with the subdivisions of the epoch, as it will thus be apparent how the fossil remains stand in relation not only to the glacial and genial periods, but also to the cultural periods.[168]

With regard to this table, except in respect to epochs of the later post-glacial period, the dates are only intended to give an idea of relative distance in time.[169] Some approximation to accuracy can be obtained for the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages. In the case of the latter two epochs, different dates have been given for the beginning of the period in the Orient and in Europe. The remaining dates refer to Europe only. As many cultures, so far as can be deduced from the evidence, came from the Orient, the beginnings of such culture periods in the Orient are doubtless to be dated some considerable time before they first appeared in Europe. The names of the cultural periods, it may be remarked, are taken from the places where either specimens of the culture were first found, or where they are seen at their best. Thus Chellean is derived from Chelles—a palaeolithic station close to Paris—Acheulean from St. Acheul in the valley of the Somme, Mousterian from Le Moustier on the right bank of the Vézère, and so on.

Period. Date. Culture. Racial Type. ───────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────── Post-Glacial 1,000 B.C. Iron │Europe „ 1,800 „ „ │Orient ───────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────── „ 2,000 „ Bronze │Europe „ 4,000 „ „ │Orient ───────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────── „ 5,000 „ Neolithic │Copper „ 7,000 „ „ │Swiss Lake Modern racial │ types. „ 10,000 „ „ │Early ───────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────── „ 12,000 „ Upper │Azilian Palaeolithic│ „ 16,000 „ „ │Magdalenian Brünn and other │ races. „ 20,000 „ „ │Solutrian „ 25,000 „ „ │Aurignacian Cro-Magnon and │ Grimaldi. ───────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────── Fourth 50,000 „ Middle │Mousterian H. Glacial Palaeolithic│ neanderthalensis. ───────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────── Third Genial 150,000 „ Lower │Acheulean Palaeolithic│ „ │Chellean Third Glacial 175,000 „ „ │Pre-Chellean Eoanthropus. ───────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────── Second Genial 375,000 „ │ H. heidelbergensis. Second 400,000 „ │ Glacial │ First Genial 475,000 „ │ First Glacial 500,000 „ │ Beginning of 525,000 „ │ Pithecanthropus. Pleistocene │

5. Turning to the fossil remains of man we have first to deal with Pithecanthropus. In September 1891 Dr. Eugene Dubois of Amsterdam discovered at Trinil in Java certain fossil remains; he continued to excavate for some two years, and succeeded in finding other remains, all of which he attributed to the same individual. To this individual he gave the name of Pithecanthropus erectus.[170] Dubois considered that the strata in which Pithecanthropus was found belonged to the Pliocene. Very great interest naturally attaches to this question; Dubois’s view has been challenged: subsequent visitors to Trinil have very carefully considered the matter, and the weight of scientific opinion now favours the attribution of the strata to the early Pleistocene.[171]

The scantiness of the remains renders a reconstruction of the individual a difficult and doubtful matter. Nevertheless, after some twenty years of discussion there is a very general agreement that Pithecanthropus was in many respects intermediate in type between modern man and the hypothetical pre-human ancestor. The bones of the cranium are fused, the brow ridges massive, and there is a marked narrowing behind the orbit—all ape-like features. Further the cranium is flattened somewhat as among the apes, but not to so great a degree; the altitudinal index is 34·2; of the average European it is 52; of Neanderthal man 40·4. The cranial capacity is about 855 c.c., or 250 c.c. greater than the largest known skull of any of the Simiidae, whereas the average cranial capacity of the Australian, the lowest living race, is about 1190 c.c. The femur has only a slight curvature, and is decidedly human, indicating that its possessor was some 1650–1700 mm. in height, and probably walked upright. The teeth are simian rather than human, the roots diverge and the crowns are large; they exhibit, nevertheless, certain human features.

If we attempt to reconstruct Pithecanthropus, we must picture a creature half ape, half man, which was probably terrestrial and erect. His body weight must have been about 70 kilograms. If this fact is correct, it provides a very useful method of estimating the relation of Pithecanthropus to the apes on one hand and to man on the other. We know roughly what proportion brain weight bears to body weight. If Pithecanthropus had been human—given the brain weight deduced from the cranial capacity—the body weight should be 19 kilograms. If Pithecanthropus had been simian, the body weight should be 230 kilograms. We have in fact reason to think that it was about 70 kilograms, which emphasizes the intermediate position of Dubois’s famous discovery.

It is further probable that Pithecanthropus had free use of the arms, the legs having become specialized for progression. It is quite possible that he may have employed tools of wood or of stone, though there is no evidence to this effect. It is further possible that some rudimentary form of speech may have been employed. The motor centre for speech is found in a particular area of the brain known as Broca’s area. This area can be identified in the brain cast of Pithecanthropus, and it is stated to be twice as great as in the apes, but only half as large as in man. ‘The undeveloped forehead of Pithecanthropus and the diminutive frontal area of the brain indicate that the Trinil race had a limited faculty of profiting by experience and accumulated tradition, for in this prefrontal area of the brain are located the powers of attention and of control of the activities of all other parts of the brain. In the brain of the ape the sensory areas of touch, taste, and vision predominate, and these are well developed in Pithecanthropus. The central area of the brain, which is the storehouse of the memory of action and the feelings associated with them, is also well developed, but the prefrontal area, which is the seat of the faculty of profiting by experience or of recalling the consequences of previous responses to experience, is developed to a very limited degree.’[172]

Pithecanthropus is thus a form of the highest interest in the history of man. Provisionally, it may be put at the dawn of the Pleistocene. Uncertainty also surrounds the position of the next human remains to be mentioned, which consist of a lower jaw from the Mauer Sands near Heidelberg.[173] It is generally agreed that these sands were deposited in a genial epoch, and opinion now inclines to associate them with the second genial epoch. The jaw itself is very simian, scarcely showing any approach to human characters. The teeth, however, are remarkably human, and it is said that in some respects the teeth of existing primitive races approach the simian condition more nearly than do the teeth of the Heidelberg race. The relation of this form to Pithecanthropus and to those which follow may be left for consideration until we have completed our sketch of human fossil types.

There remains a third early form to be mentioned—Eoanthropus dawsoni from Piltdown near Lewis.[174] The gravel in which Eoanthropus was found was certainly deposited in a warm period. It probably dates from either the second or the third genial epoch, but great uncertainty attaches to the correlation of these gravels with the phases of the glacial period. Some implements found near the bones have been referred to the pre-Chellean culture period, which would indicate the third genial epoch. The mammalian fauna seems also to favour the reference of these strata to the same period.

The remains of Eoanthropus consist of the greater part of the brain case and part of the right mandible with the first and second molars in situ. The canine tooth was found later. The skull has been reconstructed from several fragments. There has been much controversy as to the correct method of performing this reconstruction. The first estimate of the cranial capacity put it at about 1,100 c.c. Woodward has later revised his estimate, and arrived at a figure approaching 1,300 c.c. Keith has suggested a higher figure. The bones of the skull are very thick, brow ridges are almost absent, and the forehead is very steep. The jaw, on the other hand, is even more ape-like than the jaw of Heidelberg man; it slopes away with scarcely any vestige of a chin, the pre-molar series of teeth is parallel, and the molars do not decrease in size backwards. It is owing to the simian features of the jaw that the authors felt justified in creating a new species for these remains. Although the absence of brow ridges and the presence of a steep forehead are characters which mark the higher human types, they are also found among all young apes. It is thus possible that Eoanthropus may represent in the general form of the skull the missing Miocene and Pliocene ancestor more nearly than Pithecanthropus. The brain, though very primitive, was decidedly human; there was a moderate development of those areas connected with speech.

6. It is a matter of doubt to what subdivisions of the Pleistocene the types hitherto mentioned should be assigned and with what cultures, if any, they should be connected. At this point we come to a region of less uncertainty. Associated with Mousterian implements and with the deposits of the fourth glacial period we find a distinct type of man whom we may call Mousterian or Neanderthal; for it was in the Neanderthal near Düsseldorf that the first specimen of this race was discovered in 1856.[175] Since that date several other examples of this type have been found. Some of the specimens have been preserved almost complete, and Professor Boule has been able to make a detailed study of the skeleton from La Chapelle-aux-Saints.[176] In the course of his memoir he institutes a comparison between this and other examples of Neanderthal man, and shows that they all agree in the possession of certain features of importance. Neanderthal man was small but massive; the facial portion of the head was much developed in comparison with the cranial; the head was low and narrow, the forehead receding, the occiput protruding, the orbits large, and the brow ridges heavy. The lower jaw was strong, the chin rudimentary, and the hinder molar teeth primitive. The vertebral column indicates a less upright posture than that of modern man. With regard to one feature—the cranial capacity—there is great variability. The cranial capacity of the Gibraltar skull is only 1,296 c.c., whilst that of the Chapelle-aux-Saints specimen is 1,620 c.c. According to Boule, however, this variation is no greater than that found among modern European skulls. He makes out the average capacity of Neanderthal man as 1,400 c.c.; this estimate is far lower than that usually given; it is often said that the average capacity approaches 1,600 c.c.

The Neanderthal race forms a very distinct type. It is found only in the Middle Palaeolithic period.[177] Of its origin there will be something to be said later; it appears that it died out before the Upper Palaeolithic age began, for, as we shall see, apparently none of the types which occurs later descended from this race.

7. The Upper Palaeolithic culture is associated with the end of the fourth glacial epoch. In place of the remains of Neanderthal man we find the remains of several types, none of which shows any affinity to Neanderthal man. On the contrary they all approximate more or less closely to modern man. At one bound we seem, when looking at the fossil remains from this epoch in Europe, to have passed into the modern period so far as human bodily form is concerned. As we shall see later, it is probable that the various types entered Europe from the East, and probably originated somewhere in Western Asia. The most important of these types is known as Cro-Magnon man. It is found throughout the Late Palaeolithic period. The first specimen was found at Cro-Magnon in the valley of the Vézère. Other specimens have been found in the Grotte de Grimaldi and assigned to the beginning of the Aurignacian, the first subdivision of the Upper Palaeolithic, and others again at Obercassel, and assigned to the Magdalenian, or last subdivision of the Upper Palaeolithic. In modern France in the region of Périgueux there is existing at the present day a type which in so many features resembles Cro-Magnon man that it may be a survival from Upper Palaeolithic times.

The general features of the chief types of the Upper Palaeolithic may be very briefly indicated. The skull of Cro-Magnon man was narrow, the face low and broad; the brow ridges project slightly; the orbits are low and rectangular; the nose is long and narrow and the root broad. Cro-Magnon man was tall, approaching an average of 6 ft. in height; the cranial capacity was large, being somewhere about 1,600 c.c.[178]

In the Grotte de Grimaldi were also found two skeletons of what has been called the Grimaldi race. No other skeletons of this type have been found in Europe. There are two points to notice about this type; first it is not relatively speaking a low type; the cranial capacity was, for instance, 1,580 c.c.; secondly, it shows undoubted resemblance to the Negroid type. The skull is narrow, the face large and low, and prognathism is marked. The orbits are large and of low vertical height, the nose broad and flat.

The third type is that found at Brünn and again at Brux in connexion with Solutrian culture (middle of Upper Palaeolithic). The skull is very long and generally of a lower type than the Cro-Magnon skull. In certain respects there is a slight resemblance to the Neanderthal type. Finally from deposits at the close of the late Palaeolithic period at Offnet two further types are known. One of them is a long-headed race not unlike the Mediterranean type of European at the present day. The other is a broad-headed race, which is not unlike the Alpine type of modern European.

In a general sketch further details need not be added. There is no essential difference between the physical type existing in Neolithic times and that of modern man. Leaving the discussion of the interrelationship and origin of these types until after we have spoken of the evolution of culture, what we have found so far is that in the beginning of the Pleistocene and in the early Palaeolithic there are three primitive types of man known, and that in the Middle Palaeolithic there is a peculiar type with many primitive features, whereas in the Upper Palaeolithic we are in the presence of types which for the most part differ but little from modern races, and even show affinity to certain modern races in particular cases.[179]

8. We have now to give some account of the evolution of culture as shown by the implements and other remains left by primitive man. The story of the first identification of stone implements by Boucher de Perthes is well known. Gradually a succession of periods has been recognized, and the names given to them have already been introduced in the preceding pages. Of the two main periods—Palaeolithic and Neolithic—the first is distinguished by the facts that stone implements were not polished, agriculture was not practised, pottery was not made,[180] and animals were not domesticated. Within the Palaeolithic period several successive types of culture can be distinguished, but before we deal with them something must be said regarding the so-called Eolithic period.

There are found in many places stones supposed to exhibit a very primitive form of human workmanship. To them the name of eoliths has been given. They have been described from the

Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene. Many archaeologists believe that they are the remains of a primitive form of culture which preceded the Palaeolithic form of culture. The matter is still under debate.

We may note that eoliths exhibit very little variation. The same types appear from the Oligocene onwards, and if there was an eolithic culture it must have lasted some millions of years and been accompanied by little or no progress in the fashioning of implements. An exception must be made in the case of the so-called ‘rostro-carinate’ implements described by Mr. Reid Moir, and attributed to the late Pliocene.[181] These stones are of a distinctive type, and apparently do not occur in the Oligocene and the Miocene.[182] There are several considerations which make it difficult to accept eoliths as genuine remains of an early culture; some of these considerations do not apply to the rostro-carinate type, and some apply with less force, (a) Breuil has pointed out that as good eoliths occur in the Eocene as in the later strata.[183] Apart from this, the occurrence of eoliths in the Oligocene, taken together with the immense length of the period during which no progress in skill was made, is almost incompatible with what we must suppose to have been the course of human evolution. The various classes of mammals were in rapid evolution at this time, and it is difficult to understand how, before this period of mammalian expansion, man alone could have evolved to something akin to the type of the early Pleistocene, and then for so long a period have failed to progress.[184] If indeed Propliopithecus, or any similar form in the Oligocene, is a type from or near the line of human ascent, then we cannot allow Oligocene eoliths to be genuine artefacts, and there is no reason why, if we reject Oligocene eoliths, we should consider Miocene or Pliocene eoliths to be genuine. (b) Numerous observations have been made showing that stones similar to eoliths are formed under natural conditions of pressure, wave action, and so on. It is of particular interest to note that even the rostro-carinate type can be thus formed.[185] (c) Upon the whole eoliths are only found where other stones of the same composition are found, whereas palaeoliths may be found anywhere—the deduction, of course, being that eoliths, inasmuch as they are formed under natural agencies, remain associated with other stones of the same composition whereas palaeoliths were widely distributed by those who used them. The question of eoliths is very far from being settled. Lest it be thought that the difficulties in the way of accepting eoliths as genuine have been exaggerated owing to some bias, it may be mentioned that the chief deduction we shall draw from human history as a whole would be considerably strengthened if eoliths could be regarded as genuine artefacts. If we cannot accept eoliths as without question genuine, it does not mean that before the Palaeolithic period man did not make and use stone implements. Undoubtedly he did so. But it may be from the nature of the case that it is impossible to recognize these instruments.[186]

9. In a warm period of the Pleistocene, now almost universally identified with the third genial epoch, occur the first implements of undoubted human workmanship. Within this early Palaeolithic epoch three phases of culture are distinguished, the pre-Chellean, Chellean, and Acheulean. It is worth while observing that M. Rutot, who is a foremost supporter of the eolithic theory, remarks, on arriving in a general review of the evidence at this pre-Chellean period, that there can be observed the ‘apparition subite d’objets nouveaux’.[187] It is precisely these ‘objets nouveaux’ which many authorities consider as the first genuine artefacts, and not as mere improvements of a more primitive type of implement.

The typical instrument of the Chellean period was the hand axe—a stone shaped to fit the hand, and used for striking blows.[188] Knives and scrapers were also common. In the Acheulean or latest period of the Palaeolithic there is seen a general improvement in workmanship. The hand axe is lighter and more carefully worked. There is a great variety of small implements, often showing a considerable degree of care and skill. For the first time there is in the Acheulean era evidence that man employed fire. It does not appear that bone was yet used for making implements. It can be shown that early Palaeolithic implements represent a steady and continual advance in skill with the improvement of old types and the development of new types.

During the late Acheulean period it was becoming colder, and the succeeding stage, or Middle Palaeolithic era, falls almost wholly within the fourth glacial period. Man began to make his home in caves, and we are well acquainted with the physical type under the name of Neanderthal man, described above. There are again traces of fire. Some kind of ceremonial burial was employed. A skeleton found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints showed that the body had been carefully disposed for burial; implements had been placed close to the body, one fine implement lying within reach of the left hand. There is a marked difference as regards the stone implements between this and the preceding period. A different method of shaping implements was employed. There is some inclination to regard the Mousterian stone industry as of a lower grade than the stage previously attained. With regard to this stage in general we may note that it is the first in which we have a detailed knowledge of the physical type and in which we have some indication of the stage of psychical development as shown by the employment of ceremonial burial.

This stage is sharply divided from that which follows it. So far as is known, Neanderthal man disappears at the end of the Middle Palaeolithic, and Mousterian industry is replaced by the Aurignacian, a wholly new type of culture, presumably introduced by some new racial element. As we have seen, there are several racial types in the Upper Palaeolithic, and the Cro-Magnon type, which occurs from the beginning of this period, may have brought the new culture into Europe. The art of stone implement making reached a height during the Aurignacian never previously approached; knives and scrapers were especially finely shaped. In the Solutrian, or middle period of the Upper Palaeolithic, stone implement making reached the highest point to which it attained in the Palaeolithic period. The workmanship exhibited in the well-known willow and laurel leaf lance-heads is very fine. Bone tools are first found in the Upper Palaeolithic. It is clear from the disposition of the skeletons that burials were again employed, and indicate, if not a belief in a future life in our meaning of the phrase, at least the presence of a body of tradition regarding the state of the deceased. It is not certain whether man at this stage possessed the bow and arrow. Nothing can, of course, be known with certainty regarding the degree to which perishable substances were manufactured; it can only be said that in all probability skins and furs were used as clothing, that basketwork was understood, and nets constructed. The most remarkable remains which have been preserved from this period are the drawings and paintings on the walls of caverns. They are found throughout the Upper Palaeolithic period, and indicate a high degree of skill and taste.[189]

That the Solutrian Age shows an improvement upon the Aurignacian from the point of view of stone implement making has been indicated. It also shows a similar improvement as regards bone implements; bone needles with perforated eyes, for instance, occur for the first time. There is a distinct improvement in the drawings and paintings. In the next or Magdalenian period of the Upper Palaeolithic there is a loss of skill so far as stone implements are concerned; there is no general decadence, however, as the making of implements from bone, horn, and ivory shows a considerable advance. Further, drawing and painting reached their highest development. The remains from this era are very abundant and well known, and exhibit a vast number of types of implements giving a general impression of a considerable degree of material wealth relatively to the fact that agriculture was not practised.

At the very end of the Upper Palaeolithic the Magdalenian culture is succeeded by a rather obscure stage known as the Azilian-Tardenoisian. There is again a sudden and very distinct break in the evolution of culture. In nearly all respects there is a failure to reach the previous level of skill. Both flint and bone implements are of inferior workmanship. The artistic spirit vanishes. Little is known about this culture; possibly man at this period was not so unskilled, as at first sight seems to have been the case, for he had apparently domesticated the dog.[190]

10. Neolithic culture is marked by the practice of agriculture, the domestication of animals,[191] the polishing of stone implements, and the making of pottery.[192] Though it is strongly contrasted with the preceding culture, there is considerable evidence of a transition period. This evidence, however, is generally interpreted as indicating the infiltration of the new culture from the East, and not the evolution of the new culture in Europe. Even at this relatively recent period in history the chronology is vague. The Swiss Lake Dwellings (Robehausian period) represent the typical fully developed European Neolithic culture, and are dated about 8000 to 7000 B.C. Farther East there is evidence of a far greater antiquity. Montelius on the basis of De Morgan’s observations at Susa calculated that the Neolithic Age began there about 20,000 years ago.[193] Sir Arthur Evans estimates that at least 14,000 years have elapsed since the beginning of the Neolithic period at Cnossus.[194] All that can be said is that the Neolithic culture was flourishing in the eighth millennium B. C. in many parts of Europe, having been brought from farther East, where it had originated at a considerably earlier date. It has proved very difficult to subdivide the Neolithic epoch into successive periods. In the Palaeolithic period superimposed deposits containing relics of various cultures are not infrequently found, thus enabling the succession of culture periods to be made out. In the Neolithic period evidence of this kind is for the most part lacking. It is not proposed to enter upon the subject here beyond saying that three stages are recognized by French archaeologists, the Campignienne, the Chasséo-Robenhaussienne, and the Carnacéenne. The first of these stages is markedly more primitive than the succeeding stages. The second is that of the Swiss Lake Dwellings, and the third that of Megalithic monuments—Dolmens, Menhirs, Cromlechs, Allées Couvertes, stone circles, and so on.[195]

What has been said regarding culture periods in general—namely, that they are not definite periods in time in the history of mankind as a whole, but epochs through which different races have passed at different times—is well illustrated in the case of the Neolithic. The Neolithic culture had existed some thousands of years in Western Asia before it penetrated into Europe, and was practised in some parts of Europe, in Britain, for instance, up to about 2000 B. C. or later, for thousands of years after metals had been taken into use elsewhere. In general the Neolithic period has to be regarded as a period of great advance in material wealth. Relatively to Palaeolithic men, Neolithic men were rich, and often lived in villages of some size. Several animals were domesticated, several varieties of cereals cultivated, linen was manufactured, and the vine as well as a large number of fruit-trees known. It appears that many at least of the well-known trading routes used in the Bronze Age were open in the Neolithic Age. Some of these routes brought the Baltic into communication with the Mediterranean, one began at Venice, passed over the Brenner, and reached the Danube by means of the Inn; thence it traversed the Bohemian forest to the Moldau, and thus reached the Elbe, which was followed to its mouth. Another began at Trieste, and passing through Laibach and Grätz reached the Danube by means of the Leitha; thence it followed the March, traversed Moravia, passed through Silesia along the Oder, while the Vistula was reached by striking across Posen, the principal terminus being Danzig.[196]

11. Obscurity surrounds the location and date of the first use of metal.[197] Gold was probably the first metal known to man; it is found in the pure state in many countries, and would attract attention owing to its lustre. It was not, however, of economic importance until much later. In all probability man learnt the art of metal working from the accidental reduction of ore that formed one of the ring of stones round the camp fire. Copper may have been first used where it appears at the surface in a pure state, having been beaten into implements, as was done by the Indians near Lake Superior; the use of this metal is, however, until heat is employed, to be regarded merely as a variation of the art of stone implement making, and does not form the first step in the art of metal working for which knowledge of reduction by heat is required. It is frequently said that an age of copper preceded the age of bronze, and in many places copper implements were used before bronze implements. Probably the occurrence of a Copper Age in any one place was dependent upon the nature of the ore found there. Copper is frequently associated with tin and other metals in a state of nature. We may suppose that the first metal workers were simply trying to get metal—being aware that metal could be obtained by heating certain kinds of stone—and that in some places they got copper and in other places bronze. Later they learnt to add a definite percentage of tin or some other metal, and thus to produce an alloy of definite composition. Thus a true Bronze Age followed either a Copper Age or an accidental Bronze Age. It is somewhat curious that iron was not taken sooner into use, for less heat is required than in the case of copper for reduction—700° C. to 800° C. as against 1,100° C.

Whether there was more than one place of origin of the use of any metal in the Old World is not known. Copper was independently taken into use in the New World, and the use of copper may have originated independently in North and South America.[198] Bronze was known in Peru. Heat was certainly employed for hammering and annealing copper, and casting may have been employed. Iron was sometimes used in North America to make ornaments. With regard to the Old World a claim is made for many countries as the original home of metal working. Reisner found copper daggers, spear heads, harpoons, pins, needles, and bracelets in the graves of the middle pre-Dynastic period of Egypt; by the time of the first dynasty the Egyptians were ‘in possession of a full equipment of copper weapons’.[199] In the early pre-Dynastic period metallic pigments containing copper were in use, and it is possible that the reduction of copper may have been first suggested by some accidental fusion of these substances. It is further claimed that there is evidence of the local evolution of copper implements since the earliest forms imitate stone implements, and the later forms are merely improvements of pre-existing types.[200] Reisner concludes that there is no reason to assume that the invention came from beyond the frontiers of Egypt.[201] The Sumerians, on the other hand, when we first meet them at a very early date, must have been using copper for some considerable time. All that can be said with certainty is that the use of metals originated in the Orient, probably before 4000 B. C.—possibly some two or three thousand years earlier. Copper, it may be noticed, occurs in Armenia, in the upper basin of the Tigris and in Sinai amongst other places. The use of bronze gradually spread over Europe. It is found in Crete about 3000 B. C., in Southern Thessaly about 2500 B. C., and seems to have reached England about 2000 B. C. or somewhat later. Generally speaking, we can connect the taking into use of metals with the rise of the first civilizations. These civilizations reached their greatest development before the introduction of iron. The whole Minoan civilization, the Mycenean survival of Minoan civilization on the mainland,[202] the most glorious period of Egyptian history up to and including the greater part of the Second Empire, the Sumerian kingdom, the earlier periods of Babylonia and Assyria, all fall within the Bronze Age.

Though it is clear that a great advance took place in the Bronze Age, it is not evident how far this advance is attributable to the taking of metals into use and how far to other discoveries which were made about the same time. The first use of the wheel and of the plough, for instance, dates from this period, and very considerable importance without question is attributable to the plough. Still greater importance is in all probability to be attributed to writing, which again was first used about this time. At a far earlier period various methods of marking sticks had doubtless been employed as aids to memory, as they are still employed by the Australians, and some progress may have been made towards such a system as that of the use of knotted cords in Peru. But the invention of writing properly speaking came much later. By the time of the fourth dynasty Egyptian writing had reached its final form, and the Sumerians, when we first meet them, were using cuneiform writing. This invention of such great import, whether it arose independently or not in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China, was evidently roughly coincident with the first use of metals.

Estimates as to the date of the first use of iron in the Mesopotamian region vary considerably; 1500 B. C. to 1300 B. C. is the date most usually given. In Egypt the earliest known iron weapon dates from 1200 B. C. By 900 B. C. the use of iron had spread over most of Europe. It reached Scandinavia about 500 B. C. It was introduced into Greece by the Thresprotian invasion, which put an end to the Mycenean period, and inaugurated the Homeric Age. It is possible that the Etruscans brought the knowledge of iron to Italy where they arrived during the eleventh century B. C. Upon the whole, opinion inclines to the view that the use of iron originated in Western Asia. Claims have also been made for Europe (neighbourhood of Hallstatt) as the place of origin,[203] for Egypt, and for Africa south of Egypt.[204] With regard to Egyptian claims it may be noticed that iron does not become common until after 1200 B. C. But four examples of iron have been found in Egypt from periods before this date—some of them belonging to very early times. The finding of these pieces of iron presents a rather difficult problem, of which the solution seems to be that iron was very occasionally used, and probably only for ornamental purposes, long before 1200 B. C. in Egypt; it was not, however, brought into general use at this early date.

It is not necessary to carry this sketch of cultural evolution any farther. The Bronze Age marks a turning-point in history. The outline at least of the subsequent course of events is sufficiently familiar. One point may be noticed. We have found reason to place the centre of progress somewhere in the Orient. After metal has been taken into use the centre of progress begins to shift westwards. Once metals had been introduced into Crete, for instance, Minoan civilization was in any case largely an autochthonous growth. Speaking of Crete, Hall says: ‘We have nothing to show any intrusion of any other culture system which in any way suddenly modifies or alters the course of this development, which is that of the civilization of a single people raising itself on its own lines from Neolithic barbarism. Its first development from the static condition in which it had existed for many centuries in the Neolithic stage was sudden, and the dynamic influence which was given by the acquisition of metal speedily carried it to the great height of cultivation which we have seen.’[205] Hitherto—before, that is to say, the taking into use of metal—the centre of progress has been looked for in Central Asia.[206] There had been progress in Europe within the culture periods, but the great steps in progress were made in the East.

12. Let us now review what has so far been said in this chapter. Such indications as the evidence provides point to the origin of man in the eastern portion of the Old World, and probably in a warm climate. The principal facts in favour of this view are the distribution of the anthropoids, the occurrence of Pithecanthropus in Java, and the failure to find any evidence of the antiquity of man in the New World.[207] Unless Pithecanthropus is to be attributed to the Pliocene, we have no knowledge of man before the Pleistocene. It would seem that the pre-human ancestor of the Miocene and Pliocene was probably rather an obscure member of the primate stock retaining generalized features. Somehow without specialization he managed to survive—possibly in some very limited area. When the rapid evolution of bodily form among the mammals had slowed down, the only specialization in which the pre-human ancestor had indulged began to stand him in good stead. That it carried him as far as it did—to the dominion over all living things—was made possible by the fact that his bodily form was not specialized, but was capable of being turned into an instrument of the mind. The evidence seems to indicate the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene as the era when man began to develop along this path.

Just as the East was probably the place of man’s origin, so it remained the seat of both bodily and cultural evolution. There is no sign of the evolution of human physical form in Europe, nor is there any evidence of the evolution of the main stages of culture in Europe until after the taking of metals into use, though there is evidence both of progress and of decay within the culture periods. The evidence points to the conclusion that successive waves of immigrants brought with them new cultures from the East. Some may have entered Europe from Africa, as perhaps did the Cro-Magnons, bringing the Aurignacian culture. These waves of migration are not, however, to be regarded as comparable to migrations within the historical period—the Islamic migrations of the Arabs, for instance. These earlier movements were rather of the nature of slow driftings of peoples. They may have been connected with climatic changes and have occupied long periods of time. Quite possibly when we appear to see the extinction of one culture and the sudden replacement of it by another, what in fact happened was that, owing to climatic changes, those who practised the earlier culture had shifted elsewhere before the newcomers occupied the area in question.

With regard to the bodily evolution of man the first detailed knowledge we have is of the Neanderthal race. We know that Neanderthal man lived in the fourth glacial period. Before this epoch we know nothing of human bodily evolution except from three imperfect specimens which we cannot assign definitely to any period in the Pleistocene beyond placing them before the Middle Palaeolithic. No definite conclusions can be drawn as to the relation of these three forms one to another, or to the forms which follow.

Pithecanthropus may or may not be on the direct line leading to all the higher races. There is some probability that Heidelberg man is a forerunner of Neanderthal man, whereas Eoanthropus would seem to be related on the one hand to the hypothetical Pliocene ancestor, and on the other hand to the Late and not to the Middle Palaeolithic races. It is quite possible that, as Europe was not the scene of human evolution, Piltdown and Heidelberg men represent varieties which have died out, and not stages from the main line of human evolution. This is certainly the case with the Neanderthal race. In the Upper Palaeolithic we find races of as high a physical type as those of the present day, but we have no certain knowledge of their direct ancestors.

By far the most remarkable feature of the whole process has been the speeding up of the rate of progress of the evolution of culture. This speeding up would be very much emphasized if we could accept eoliths as genuine, as indicating, that is to say, the existence of an eolithic culture before the Palaeolithic culture extending over an immense period of time. As it is, the acceleration of the rate of progress is striking enough. The whole Palaeolithic period probably lasted at least 100,000 years. Regarding this period as a whole, we can observe a noteworthy speeding up of progress in the last part of the period. A few thousand years only separate the early from the late divisions of the Upper Palaeolithic and the progress exhibited is very considerable, whereas but relatively little progress is visible during the huge length of time which the Lower Palaeolithic must have occupied. The whole progress made, however, up to the opening of the Bronze Age is insignificant compared with that made since. Nevertheless, progress has not been uniform within the historical era. There have been periods of stagnation and even of decadence. Little progress in command over nature was made between the time of the later Egyptian civilization and the later Middle Ages as compared with the progress made in the last hundred years. Progress in skill gathered speed in the thirteenth century, and the speeding up became very marked in the eighteenth century. There has been a similar lack of uniformity in the evolution of culture where culture is judged by standards other than command over nature.

13. How far can we employ our knowledge of primitive races to fill in this framework? Some reference has been made in the fourth chapter to the position which these races occupy. It was pointed out that they represent ‘relicts’ of stages of culture through which the civilized races have passed, due allowance being made for the fact that they have developed to some degree on specialized lines of their own since their separation from the main stream of progress. In some few cases, as in the example of the Seri Indians, there may have been decadence.

Broadly speaking, these races fall into two groups. There are the hunting and fishing races, and there are those which practise a primitive form of agriculture. The former, it is to be presumed, ceased to be in any important manner influenced by, if they were not wholly cut off from, the main current of cultural evolution before the end of the Palaeolithic Age. The latter may have remained more or less in contact with the main stream of evolution until late Neolithic times, or they may have lost touch earlier and have acquired independently the art of agriculture, as was presumably the case with those American Indians who practise agriculture. The chief hunting and fishing races are the Tasmanians, Australians, Bushmen, Eskimos, and certain of the American Indians. Professor Sollas has drawn up a comparison between the culture of some of these races and that of certain epochs in the Palaeolithic era. He has shown that Tasmanian and Australian culture may be compared with early and late phases respectively of the Middle Palaeolithic. A very striking similarity indeed can be shown between the Aurignacian culture and that of the Bushmen on the one hand and between the Magdalenian culture and that of the Eskimo on the other. When we consider the osteological evidence, however, we do not find any striking similarity between Neanderthal man and Australians and Tasmanians. The existence of the negroid skeleton of Grimaldi is suggestive, but the likeness between it and the Bushmen type is not close. The skull found at Chancelade, however, and generally considered as an aberrant type of Cro-Magnon man does show a very curious resemblance to the Eskimo skull. Thus though we cannot think of the Tasmanians and Australians as actual relicts of the Neanderthal racial type, which we know in Europe, we may think of Australian culture in its broad general features as representative of the Middle Palaeolithic.[208]

As has been already indicated in the fourth chapter, it is not proposed to attempt to carry the method so far as to attribute to peoples of different Palaeolithic cultures peculiarities of certain primitive hunting and fishing races. All that it is proposed to do is to look into the general conditions which obtain among hunting and fishing races with the object of throwing light upon the conditions in the Palaeolithic era as a whole. Similarly it is proposed to throw light upon the Neolithic period by an inquiry into the conditions obtaining among primitive agricultural races. This method is clearly legitimate. It may nevertheless be said at once that as a matter of fact, so far as the most important conclusions are concerned, we shall find no reasons for thinking that hunting and fishing races differ from agricultural races. The legitimacy of the method is therefore not strictly relevant. It follows from this that the splitting up of the data and the consideration separately of hunting and of agricultural races is in reality only a matter of convenience.

14. Before we embark upon this attempt to throw light upon such general characteristics of prehistoric races as are relevant to our particular purpose, there is another point to be considered. One supposition regarding the mode of life of man in early days is that he lived in groups of polygamous families. As monogamy occurs among some of the lowest of existing primitive races, he may have been monogamous. In any case it seems that early man was not promiscuous in his sexual relations. Whatever his primitive mode of life may have been, man gradually rose to the recognition of common bonds and to the observation in common of certain rules and restrictions. Primitive social organization in fact gradually came into being, and this step, slowly and painfully achieved as it no doubt was, represents one of the most important steps ever achieved by man. Then for the first time he began to reap the benefits of co-operation. Clearly we must imagine a primitive form of social organization to have existed in the late Palaeolithic; the attainment to so relatively high a degree of skill and achievement is not otherwise comprehensible. The achievements of late Palaeolithic man indicate the presence of a considerable body of tradition, and the presence of tradition in any considerable amount indicates social organization. It is difficult to come to any conclusion with regard to early and Middle Palaeolithic times. The mode of life of Neanderthal man is perhaps apt to be considered as more primitive than was in fact the case, owing to the somewhat brutal form attributed to his bodily features. It has to be remembered that he practised ceremonial burial, and was acquainted with the use of fire—very significant facts which render it on the whole probable that social organization of a kind existed. Possibly we may have to suppose that social organization existed among lower Palaeolithic men. They too employed fire, and it may well be that their mode of life was not very different from that of the Tasmanians.

Among all primitive races we find a form of social organization, and unless it has been achieved more than once they are all ‘relicts’ of the periods succeeding that in which men wandered in family groups. In the first place, therefore, primitive races are only comparable with prehistoric races which have achieved this great step forward. They throw little or no light upon the conditions anterior to the taking of this step. Further, when we look into the life of these races, we find that the form of social organization is rigid. Men are bound hand and foot by custom.[209] It has been suggested that the peculiarly rigid nature of the social organization among these races—the fact that they are soaked in tradition—is due to their having been left out of the main stream of progress. It has been suggested in fact that, while other races have gone forward, they have more or less stagnated, and that—this is what is important—the relative stagnation has been the cause of the rigidness of the organization. It follows that, to the extent to which this is so, primitive races are not properly comparable with prehistoric races. But it may be doubted if the facts are altogether as sometimes alleged. Doubtless the earliest social organization was far less rigid than it afterwards became, and we must beware of attributing to those early races, which first became socially organized, the features characteristic of primitive races, at least in many aspects. But we must date back the origin of social organization in all probability nearer 100,000 than 50,000 years ago. In other words, later Palaeolithic races must have had some thousands of years of social organization behind them. Is then the peculiar rigidity of the organization of primitive races altogether to be regarded as an acquirement attained during the 15,000, 20,000, 30,000 years, or whatever the period may have been, since they have been out of the main stream of progress? It can scarcely be so. A hardening of the system may have taken place, but not to such an extent as to render it impossible to make comparisons between primitive races and prehistoric races, and, what concerns us, to render unacceptable the attribution to prehistoric races of those general conditions of life found among primitive races, which will form the subject-matter of the next two chapters.

VII HUNTING AND FISHING RACES

1. We now pass to a consideration of the quantitative problem. In this chapter we deal with hunting and fishing races. We require information first regarding those factors which hinder the realization to the full of the power of fecundity, and secondly regarding those factors which cause elimination. Not until we have this information can we hope to determine how numbers are regulated among these races. This inquiry is not intended to be exhaustive; our aim is merely to gain an idea of the nature of the more important factors which are in operation. When we come to the interpretation of the evidence, there will be more to say both as to the incompleteness of the evidence as here presented and as to the inherent difficulties of ascertaining what the position was before European influence had made itself felt.

2. We may first consider sexual intercourse before maturity. It is perhaps more difficult to determine the prevalence of this custom than that of any other practice which we shall have to examine in the course of this chapter. The difficulty is due to the nature of the facts under discussion; first it is clearly not easy to ascertain them and comparatively few authors have the intimate knowledge necessary to enable definite statements to be made; secondly such veiled and guarded language is often used that the true state of the case remains uncertain. We shall see that marriage, or at any rate cohabitation, very soon after puberty is the universal rule among these races. Statements therefore concerning ‘very early’ marriage must, in the absence of more exact information, be taken to mean no more than that marriage follows at once after puberty. Of the Tasmanians there is no certain information. Statements exist to the effect that marriages are sometimes consummated in Australia before puberty;[210] these statements are seldom specific or on good authority. The more trustworthy accounts state definitely that, no matter at what age betrothal occurs, the husband does not claim his wife until she is mature.[211] The existence of early betrothal as a widespread habit has no doubt betrayed some authors into an error.[212] We know little of the customs of the Bushmen in this as in most other respects. Statements have been made, however, to the effect that marriage took place at so early an age that the girls could not have been mature.[213]

Passing to the Eskimos it would appear that pre-puberty intercourse is not uncommon. Of the Eskimos of Greenland we read as follows: ‘Often indeed he marries before there is any chance of the union being productive.’[214] Murdoch says of the Port Barrow Eskimos that ‘promiscuous sexual intercourse between married or unmarried people, or even among children, appears to be looked upon merely as a matter for amusement’;[215] similarly Turner says of the Eskimos of the Ungava district that ‘many of the females are taken before that period’ (i.e. before maturity).[216] There are some indications that similar habits occur among the Indian tribes of the far north and of the Pacific Coast. Ross reports of the Eastern Tinneh that ‘they marry sometimes, but not often at ten, and have their menses at thirteen’.[217] Bearing in mind the average age at which menstruation begins among American Indians, the following statement by Gibbs, referring to the tribes of Western Washington and North-western Oregon, points to the same conclusion. ‘Cohabitation of unmarried females among their own people brings no disgrace if unaccompanied by child-birth. ... This commences at a very early age, perhaps ten or twelve years.’[218] There does not seem to be any definite statement with regard to the Californians; nevertheless the common accounts of marriage at twelve or thereabouts, coupled with statements as to freedom before marriage, are suggestive. Speaking generally of the Californians, Powers says that ‘marriage frequently takes place at the age of twelve or fourteen’,[219] and that ‘there is scarcely an attribute known as virtue or chastity in either sex before marriage’.[220] Another observer speaks of very early marriage among the Comanches in such a manner as to suggest that it may be consummated before puberty.[221] Lastly, there is some information for certain other races which belong to this group. We are told that among the Fuegians sexual relations begin at about ten to twelve years of age,[222] whereas menstruation begins at about fourteen or fifteen years of age.[223] Of the Veddahs we read that ‘marriage takes place at an early age; it was said that marriage sometimes takes place before puberty, and as we have heard of this at Herrebedda, Barrdaraduwa, and Omuni, we see no reason to doubt the truth of the statement’.[224]

3. There is ample evidence to the effect that the period of lactation is always prolonged among these races. Speaking of the Tasmanians, Ling Roth mentions two years[225] and Bonwick three to four[226] as the length of this period. Of the central Australians Eyre says that ‘infants are not often weaned until between two and three years old’.[227] Of the Western Australians Grey says that ‘the native women suckle their children until they are past the age of two or three years’.[228] For the Southern Australians, Eylmann mentions four years,[229] for the Narrinyeri, Taplin two years,[230] for the aborigines of Encounter Bay, Meyer ‘a considerable time, sometimes to the age of five or six years’,[231] for the aborigines of Victoria, Curr three years,[232] and for the natives of King George’s Sound, Brown four to five years.[233]

From America the evidence is similar. Among the Port Barrow Eskimos the children are nursed until about three or four years of age.[234] Nansen states that ‘Greenland mothers are very slow to wean their children. They often give suck until the child is three or four, and I have even heard of cases in which children of ten or over continue to take the breast.’[235] Crantz, speaking of the same country, corroborates this evidence,[236] and Bessels mentions a case from Smith Sound in which a child was suckled up to seven years of age.[237] Heriot, speaking generally of the Indian tribes of the North, mentions ‘the length of time employed by the women in nursing their children, whom they nourish for three or four years’,[238] and Long gives four, five, and even six years.[239] For the Ingaliks Dall mentions three years,[240] for the Eastern Tinneh Ross three or four,[241] for the Thlinkeet Krause four years,[242] and Lord for the Indians of Puget Sound two or three years.[243] Speaking of the Ahts of Vancouver Island, Sproat says he has seen ‘a boy of four following his mother for her milk’,[244] and of the tribes of California Schoolcraft that ‘children are sometimes not weaned until five years of age’.[245] Similarly the Nootkas suckle their children until they are three or four years old,[246] and Chinooks their children ‘until three, four, or five years old’.[247] The facts are similar for the inland Salish and Shushwap[248] as well as for the tribes of Oregon and Washington[249] and the Chepewayans.[250] So also in South America the Puelches[251] and the Abipones[252] suckle their children for three years, and the same is reported of the Fuegians[253] and of the Andaman Islanders who ‘never wean their babies so long as they are able to suckle them’.[254] Among the Ghiliaks suckling is continued up to the age of three years.[255]

4. Initiation ceremonies at the period of maturity are of common occurrence among primitive races. These ceremonies are sometimes accompanied by mutilation of the genital organs; but there is apparently no reason to believe that this mutilation has any effect upon fecundity, except possibly among the Australians.[256] It is unnecessary to describe the exact nature of the operations performed upon Australian boys and girls. The operations are severe and it seems very possible at first sight that they might affect the reproductive power. The opinion of authorities is divided on this point. Spencer and Gillen think that the operations may have an injurious effect;[257] others, such as Roth[258] and Mathews,[259] hold the contrary view. Upon the whole, opinion inclines to the latter side.

Less doubt exists with regard to the assertion sometimes made that these ceremonies are practised with the intention of producing sterility, or in any case relative sterility.[260] For this there is no good evidence and the best authorities definitely assert that it is not so.[261] Another assertion has been made for which there is even less foundation; it is said, for instance, that ‘in some tribes we find it a custom that every man submits to this operation after the birth of his second or third child’.[262] It would appear that as a matter of fact the operation is performed at puberty and at no other time.

5. The three further factors to be considered which may have a bearing upon fecundity are all connected with marriage. It has been shown by Westermarck that marriage exists as an institution among all races, however primitive.[263] What we have to ask is whether there is any postponement of marriage, whether, that is to say, there is any temporary or permanent celibacy and, so far as fecundity is concerned, the age of women at marriage alone is relevant. The evidence points to the fact that marriage of women takes place almost universally among these races if not before, then at or very soon after, puberty. This is Westermarck’s conclusion, after a wide survey of the races belonging both to this and the next group. It will be sufficient to give some examples of the evidence and then to note a few cases in which some postponement is reported.

Summing up the evidence with regard to the Australians, Malinowski says that in general it is true that there are no unmarried girls under sixteen and no widows under forty-five, though there is some evidence with regard to the existence of unmarried females;[264] thus Smyth, speaking of the inhabitants of Victoria, records that girls were married between the ages of ten and twelve,[265] and similar evidence is given by Taplin of the inhabitants of South Australia.[266] In Australia there is no evidence worth mentioning of either temporary or permanent celibacy. Apart from the instances to be given below the evidence with regard to other races in this group is very similar to that given before of the Australians. Thus the average age for a girl to marry in Vancouver Island was sixteen.[267] among the Californians generally between twelve and fourteen,[268] and among the Stseelis and Skaulits tribes fifteen.[269] Veddah girls married between eleven and twelve.[270]

There is no doubt that, generally speaking, postponement of marriage is rare, though occasionally some slight delay is reported, as in the instances given in what follows. It should be mentioned, however, that from time to time there is quite a considerable delay upon the part of the man amongst these races; to this point we shall return later. As regards women, Crantz states that sometimes Eskimo girls do not marry until they are twenty.[271] Hill Tout, speaking of the Salish and the Tinneh, says ‘with the exception of the Carrier tribes early marriages were everywhere the custom’.[272] The same author mentions that among the Thompson tribes girls did not marry until seventeen or eighteen,[273] and this is confirmed by Teit.[274] The latter author gives somewhat similar evidence for the Shushwap,[275] and also says that among the Lillooet Indians girls are isolated for two years after puberty, and only marry when from sixteen to twenty years old.[276] As regards South America we are told by Musters that among the Tehuelches the girls ‘often remain several years spinsters’,[277] and by Dobrizhoffer that among the Abipones girls do not marry before their twentieth year.[278]

There is one other matter to which reference may be made here. There is often very considerable disparity in age between husband and wife at marriage among primitive races. It is frequently the practice for the girls on reaching the age of puberty to be taken in marriage by the older men, while the young men marry women twice their age.[279] Since, however, as pointed out in Chapter IV the age of the husband has little or no effect upon fertility, this practice is of no importance from our present point of view. The important fact which results from the evidence is that almost universally among these races the women are married at or soon after puberty and remain married throughout the mature period.

6. Among almost every uncivilized race there are numerous occasions upon which sexual intercourse is tabooed. Common instances are those of taboo during the preparations for a hunting party or a military expedition. It is not worth while to enumerate these occasions, because with one exception it does not seem that they can, even when considered together, have any marked effect upon fertility.[280] The exception referred to is the prohibition upon intercourse that follows the birth of a child. This taboo is of very great importance among certain races that we shall consider in the eighth chapter. As regards hunting and fishing races there is no record of its existence in Tasmania, Australia, among the Bushmen, the Eskimos, or any other people of importance with the exception of the American Indians. The evidence in this case is scanty; there are certain difficulties and the matter is better left for discussion in the next chapter when we come to deal with the agricultural races of this part of the world. It is enough to say here that certain early observers, speaking generally of the American Indians, refer to this custom, and that two early observers speaking specifically of two hunting tribes—one in North and one in South America—record this custom. Cabeça de Vaca says that the Yguazas abstain from intercourse for two years after child-birth,[281] and Dobrizhoffer records of the Abipones that ‘the mothers suckle their children for three years, during which time they have no conjugal intercourse with their husbands’.[282]

7. At this point we may refer to the remarkable fullness and unanimity of the evidence with regard to the number of children observed among these races. The evidence is to the effect that the number of children is always small.[283] Bonwick says that ‘families were never large with the Tasmanians’,[284] and that ‘the native woman as a rule had very few children, and fewer still were ... permitted to live’;[285] he attributes this to the fact that women did not begin to bear children until after several years of marriage,[286] and that women ceased to bear at or soon after the age of thirty-five.[287] Abundant evidence is forthcoming from Australia. ‘Large families of children are unusual among the aborigines,’ says Dawson, ‘however many may be born, rarely more than four are allowed to grow up.’[288] Lumholtz remarks that there are seldom more than three or four children.[289] Mathew referring to two Queensland tribes records that ‘the number of children in a family was small on the average. Six would be rare. I know of no aboriginal family with more than five who survived infancy.’[290] Grey obtained some statistics in Western Australia with reference to the average number of children born by women who had passed child-bearing age. ‘Forty-one females, of whose families I have obtained (from themselves and others) lists upon the accuracy of which I can rely, had 188 children, or about 4·6 children each.’[291] Among the native tribes of Central Australia the number of children in a family rarely exceeds four or five, and is generally two or three;[292] at the same time sterility is common; the greatest fertility is noticed among the stout and the strong, whereas the thin and weak have scarcely any children.[293] Eyre quotes some observations of Moorehouse, also made in Central Australia, and says that ‘his investigations have led to the conclusion that each woman has on an average five children born (nine being the greatest number known)’;[294] Eyre adds that he agrees with this estimate. Schürmann records that ‘the number of children reared by each family is variable, but in general very limited, rarely exceeding four’. He adds the interesting information that in spite of early marriage he has not observed that they have children at an earlier age than is common among the Europeans, and says that it is rare for a mother to have children ‘in rapid succession’.[295] Wilhelmi’s evidence is similar; with reference to the aborigines of the Port Lincoln district he states that ‘the number of children in a family varies considerably; but, on the whole, it is limited—seldom exceeding four’; he also adds that it seldom happens that ‘children are born in a family quick after one another’.[296]

Stow remarks that ‘the Bushmen seldom had large families’;[297] Theal, on the other hand, says that ‘the earliest Dutch colonists observed that they were remarkably prolific’[298]—one of the very few statements which attribute a high fertility to any of these races. Passing now to the New World we find a similar abundance of evidence pointing to the same conclusion. ‘The Greenlanders are not very prolific. A woman has commonly three or four children, but at most six; they generally bear but one child in two or three years.’[299] Writing more than a hundred years later than Crantz, Nansen gives very similar testimony, which has already been quoted,[300] as has that of Murdoch for the Port Barrow Eskimos.[301] The latter adds that ‘they do not commonly bear children before the age of twenty’.[302] According to Bessels the number in an Eskimo family near Smith Sound is on the average two; this low figure is due to infanticide, he goes on to say.[303] In the Ungava district ‘the number of children born varies greatly, for, although these Eskimo are not a prolific race, a couple may occasionally claim parentage of as many as ten children. Two or three is the usual number.’[304] Armstrong notes of the Eskimos generally ‘that they are not a prolific race from all that I could learn’.[305] Of the Aleutes Ritter says that the average number in a family is two or three.[306]

Writing of the neighbourhood of Hudson Bay, Hearne says: ‘Providence is very kind in causing these people to be less prolific than the inhabitants of civilized nations; it is very uncommon to see one woman have more than five or six children; and these are always born at such a distance from one another, that the younger is generally two or three years old before another is born into the world.’[307] Among the Eastern Tinneh to be confined once every three years is ‘a high average’.[308] The author responsible for this statement goes on to say that ‘the women are capable of bearing children from fourteen to forty-five—a long period of their lives—but in it very few infants are produced. Families on an average contain three children ... and ten is the greatest number I have seen.’ In Alaska ‘the females of the coast tribes are not fruitful, and to see four children of one mother is quite a rare occurrence, one or two being the common number of children to a family’.[309] The evidence of Sproat for the Ahts and of Bancroft for the Nootkas and the Chinooks has already been quoted.[310] Among the Omahas ‘the usual number of children may be stated at from four to six in a family’.[311] Of the Sound Indians Bancroft states that ‘the women are not prolific, three or four being ordinarily the limit of their offspring’.[312] The woman of the interior of the Pacific Coast ‘is not prolific’,[313] and the number in a Chepewayan family is on the average four.[314] In California ‘barrenness was not infrequent, twins very uncommon, and the general average of families did not exceed two children’.[315] Of the same people Baegert states that ‘it is certain that many of their women are barren and that a great number of them bear not more than one child’.[316] Of the Comanches we read: ‘they are not a prolific race; indeed it is but seldom that a woman has more than three or four children.’[317] Among the Puelches of South America ‘children are not nearly so numerous as might be imagined’; this is due in part, however, according to the author, to infanticide.[318] According to Bridges, in Tierra del Fuego ‘few women have more than six children owing to the great length of time between the several births’.[319] Of the same people, Hyades and Deniker record their opinion that four is the average number of children to a married woman.[320] They add that in spite of early marriage very few young couples of eighteen to twenty years of age had any children, although sterility was rare.[321]

Of the other races which belong to this group the evidence points to a similar conclusion.[322] Man thinks that three or four is an average number of children in an Andamanese family, and six is the largest number he met with.[323] Portman mentions three as an average.[324] The Sarasins are of opinion that Veddah women are fairly prolific and that the small families recorded are due to infant mortality.[325] Of the Tuski tribes Dall says ‘they are not prolific’,[326] and according to Deniker ‘the Ghiliak women do not have many children; it is rare to find more than two or three to a family’.[327]

8. We now come to the consideration of the factors of elimination. The first practice, the extent of which we have to investigate, is that of abortion. The methods employed need not be specified in each case; the use of violent physical means is perhaps the most common; among other methods the drinking of various decoctions is frequently referred to. Doubt is sometimes expressed as to the efficacy of some of these means—especially that of the last named. It may be that in some cases it is of the nature of a magical ceremony without any practical result; as a general rule, however, there is no doubt that the methods used are effective.

Among the Tasmanians ‘abortion was frequently practised’.[328] Statements are sometimes made which seem to imply that abortion was not uncommon among the Australians.[329] A survey of the literature does not support this view; the practice is indeed mentioned occasionally, but it is clearly negligible in comparison with the universal presence of infanticide. Curr says that it is occasionally employed.[330] In Collins’s account of the aborigines in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson there is a reference to ‘the horrid and cruel custom of endeavouring to cause a miscarriage’.[331] Palmer records the practice as occurring among the Mythuggadi tribe,[332] and Roth says it is common among certain districts of North-west and Central Queensland.[333] Abortion has been noticed among the Eskimos, but never as a common practice.[334] It is among the Indian tribes of the North and the Pacific Coast that we find the most numerous references to this custom.[335] Speaking of the tribes near Hudson Bay, Ellis mentions ‘a very strange maxim of policy which prevails much amongst them, which is that of suffering rather than of obliging their women to procure frequent abortions by the use of a certain herb common in that country’.[336] Similar facts are recorded of the Knisteneaux.[337] Abortion is not ‘uncommon among the Haidahs’.[338] The Nootkas ‘frequently prevent the increase of their families by abortion’.[339] Lord says that the ‘causing of abortion’ is ‘not uncommon’ among the natives of Puget Sound,[340] while we find this practice spoken of as ‘common’ in Vancouver Island.[341] Teit mentions abortion as being ‘rarely practised’ among the Thompson Indians,[342] and as ‘rare’ among the Shushwap.[343] Gibbs speaks of abortion as being ‘almost universal’ among the tribes of Western Washington and North-western Oregon.[344] According to Bancroft abortion is of ‘frequent occurrence’ among the Chinooks, and ‘not uncommon’ among the inland tribes.[345] Powers also records the practice among the Kabinapek of California,[346] and Castelnau among the Guaycurus[347] and Rengger among the Payaguas.[348] Cooper, who has reviewed the evidence so far as the Fuegians are concerned, states that ‘deliberate abortion is common’.[349]

9. There is one common form of infanticide—the killing of deformed children—which can have no importance so far as numbers are concerned. But this practice may be noted here because of its bearing upon quality. We may also note in particular when the killing is said to be of female children.[350]

Bonwick states that infanticide was fairly prevalent in Tasmania.[351] Ling Roth, who summarizes the evidence of several authors, finds it somewhat conflicting; but it would seem that infanticide undoubtedly occurred though it is not known with any certainty whether it was practised on a large scale or not.[352] In Australia infanticide is practised on a very large scale. Parker states that it was very frequent and that deformed children were always killed.[353] Lumholtz’s testimony is similar,[354] while, according to Dawson, no matter how many children are born, ‘rarely more than four are allowed to grow up’—the deformed children apparently always being destroyed.[355] According to an estimate made by Curr of conditions in Victoria ‘nearly one-half [of the children born to any one married woman] fell victims to infanticide’[356], and more girls than boys perished.[357] According to Wilhelmi, if, as rarely happens, births follow one another quickly among the aborigines of the Port Lincoln district, ‘the youngest is generally destroyed’;[358] Beveridge says that the practice prevails in Victoria and Riverina ‘to a very considerable extent’.[359] This last statement is supported by that of Mathews to the effect that ‘infanticide is common’ in New South Wales and Victoria.[360] Among the inhabitants of the River Darling region ‘it seems to have been the custom to kill many of the children directly after birth’,[361] and in Southern Australia infanticide was very prevalent.[362] According to Howitt infanticide was practised ‘to some extent’ among the Mining Tribe,[363] in the Tongeranka tribe it was ‘common’;[364] in the Mukjarawaint tribe ‘the grandparents had to decide whether a child was to be kept alive or not’;[365] in all the tribes of the Wotjo nation and also the Tatuthi and other tribes of the Murray River frontage, when a child was weak and sickly they used to kill its infant brother and sister and feed it with the flesh to make it strong;[366] in the Wadthaurung tribe the practice was evidently not uncommon;[367] in the Narrinyeri tribe infanticide appears to have been very prevalent, so that ‘more than one-half of the children fell victims to this atrocious custom’,[368] whilst deformed children seem always to have been killed both in this case[369] and among the aborigines of Encounter Bay.[370] Infanticide was common among the tribes of Port Lincoln—girls being less often spared than boys[371]—among the Dieyerie tribe, where deformed children were never spared,[372] among two Queensland tribes,[373] in the neighbourhood of Port Darwin,[374] in Central Australia,[375] and among the Northern tribes of Central Australia.[376] In Western Australia deformed children were always killed.[377]

Our information with regard to the Bushmen suggests that infanticide was prevalent, though not confined to new born children. ‘The Bushmen will kill their children without remorse on various occasions; as when they are ill-shaped, when they are in want of food, when the father of a child has forsaken its mother, or when obliged to flee from the fathers of others.’[378] Infanticide is more common than abortion among the Eskimos.[379] Nelson says that in the neighbourhood of Behring Straits even girls of four to six years of age are at times killed.[380] Among the Central Eskimos ‘it is practised to some extent’, though apparently only girls and the children of widows and widowers are destroyed.[381] Murdoch never heard of infanticide in the Port Barrow region,[382] but says that it is reported to be ‘frequently practised among the Eskimo of Smith Sound without regard of sex’ and that female infanticide occurs among the people of King William Land.[383] It is also recorded of the inhabitants of Smith Sound by Bessels that, after two children have been born, any others that may come are more often than not killed.[384] In Greenland ‘the heathen Eskimo killed deformed children, and those that seem too sickly to live, as well as those that lose their mothers at birth, when no one else can be found to take charge of them’.[385] Killing of deformed children is also reported by Smith,[386] and that of children who have lost their parents by Rink.[387] Among the Aleuts infanticide is said to be rare,[388] but among the Malemutes infanticide, especially of girls, was not infrequent.[389]

Infanticide is frequently practised among the Kutchins[390] and the killing of deformed children by the inhabitants of the Copper River District is especially mentioned in the account of Jacobsen’s journey.[391] Among the Chinooks Lord says it is ‘not uncommon’[392] and Bancroft that it is of ‘frequent occurrence’.[393] The Thompson Indians seldom kill their children, and a woman who did so was reprimanded.[394] With the Haidahs, on the other hand, infanticide is reported to be ‘not uncommon’,[395] and among the tribes between the Frazer and Columbia Rivers it was formerly common.[396] The same impression is gained from accounts of the Chepewayans.[397] The Koniagas ‘prize boy babies, but frequently kill the girls’.[398] Powers, referring generally to the Californians, speaks of ‘the prevalence of the crime of infanticide’;[399] in particular he records that it was common among the Gallinomero, who never spared deformed children,[400] that among the Kabinapek[401] and the Nishinan[402] children who had lost their mother were killed, and that deformed children were destroyed by the Woruk.[403] Among the Yguazes infanticide was fairly frequent.[404] The Abipones of South America ‘do not bring up more than two children to a family, the others being killed to save trouble;’[405] According to another observer ‘they seldom rear but one child of each sex, murdering the rest as fast as they come into the world, till the eldest are strong enough to walk alone’.[406] This practice, on the other hand, is said to be ‘extremely rare’ among the Botocudos.[407] It occurs among the Guaycurus.[408] Among the Puelches infanticide is common and deformed children are always killed.[409] In spite of what has sometimes been said, infanticide ‘only occurs occasionally’ among the Fuegians.[410] In the literature with regard to the Veddahs reviewed by the Sarasins, there is only one author who mentions infanticide.[411]

10. Wars[412] were apparently common between the Tasmanian tribes, but we have no trustworthy information as to their character.[413] Of conditions in Australia we have abundant evidence; the literature has been recently studied by Wheeler.[414] He distinguishes between regulated and unregulated warfare, of which the latter is rare.[415] By regulated warfare is meant not only that the use of heralds, messengers, and preliminary negotiations is recognized, but also that the fighting itself is regulated in such a manner as to restrict bloodshed. Most commonly, if it comes to fighting, the two opposing sides meet and throw boomerangs until one or two men are knocked down. Then, before further damage is done, fighting stops and peace is re-established—not a single life perhaps having been lost.[416] Unregulated warfare is a more serious matter; a war party may attack and destroy a local group of some other tribe without observing any of the formalities described above.[417] In the latter case women are sometimes slain, although this never happens in regulated warfare.[418] On the whole the loss of life owing to warfare in Australia must be very small.

The Bushmen gained the reputation of being vigorous fighters during the wars with the colonists and managed to inspire terror throughout a large part of Africa. We have, however, but little information as to their habits before they were so rudely disturbed and, it must be said, so barbarously treated. ‘They never appear’, says Stow, ‘to have had great wars against each other; sudden quarrels among rival huntsmen, ending in lively skirmishes, which owing to their nimbleness and presence of mind, caused little damage to life or limb, appear to have been the extent of their individual and tribal differences.’[419] Of the Eskimos about the Behring Strait Nelson says that ‘an almost continuous inter-tribal warfare’ formerly existed;[420] such a state of things is clearly uncommon; in Greenland, for instance, we are told that war is rare,[421] whereas among the Central Eskimos real wars have never happened.[422] Nevertheless a good deal of fighting seems often to occur between the Eskimos and the Tinneh, whom they hate and fear. ‘Along the line of contact with the Tinneh tribes of the Interior a bitter feud was always in existence,’ says Nelson,[423] who is confirmed by Bancroft,[424] Hall,[425] and Ellis.[426] Of the Malemutes we are told that ‘the occupants of the several islands are almost constantly at war’.[427]

It is among the American Indians both in the North and South that we find war to be more frequent and sanguinary than elsewhere. Certain tribes are more peaceful than others, but in the lives of only a few did war play an unimportant part. In addition to the evidence of actual fighting we have, what is suggestive in this connexion, many accounts of the large part which martial training played in the upbringing of these races. ‘The whole force of public opinion in our Indian communities’, says Schoolcraft, ‘is concentrated upon this point, its early Lodge teachings, its dances, its religious rites, the harangues of prominent actors made at public assemblies, all, in fact, that serves to awaken and fire ambition in the mind of the savage, is clustered about the idea of future distinction in war.’[428] ‘They are’, says an eighteenth-century traveller, ‘early possessed with the notion that war ought to be the chief business of their lives.’[429] And war does play a very large part in their lives. ‘All Indian tribes are frequently at war with one another,’ says Harmon.[430] The Thlinkeet are often at war[431] and the same applies to all the tribes of the Pacific Coast, including the Haidahs,[432] the Ahts,[433] and the Kwakiutl.[434] Among some of these tribes, however, as, for example, the Chinooks,[435] frequent as fighting may be, it is not very sanguinary. The Northern tribes of the interior we have seen to be at war with the Eskimos from time to time, and we are told that among themselves it is practically continuous.[436] The Inland tribes are perhaps somewhat less warlike,[437] though the accounts of the Shushwap,[438] Lillooets,[439] and Thompson Indians[440] give the impression of tribes among whom fighting—and fighting of a severe kind—is by no means infrequent. The Crees and the Blackfeet, for instance, waged ‘unceasing war’;[441] the warlike instinct of the Chepewayans is well known.[442] The tribes of Western Washington and Northern Oregon engaged in constant warfare, though the actual encounters did not result in any great loss of life.[443] In Central California ‘battles, though frequent, were not attended with much loss of life’.[444] In Southern California we hear of ‘frequent and deadly wars’[445] from one author and of ‘continual wars’ from another,[446] the last laying stress upon warfare as an important factor in the population question. The Seri Indians of Tiburon Island engage in practically continuous warfare,[447] and the Comanches ‘highly honour bravery on the battlefield’. From early youth they are taught the art of war.[448] ‘In consequence of continual hostilities’ the Ygauzas ‘cannot travel the country nor make many exchanges’.[449] Among the Puelches war is both common and sanguinary,[450] and the same is the case with regard to the Guaycurus[451] and the Charruas.[452] The Fuegians are ‘almost always at war with adjoining tribes; they seldom meet, but a hostile encounter is the result’.[453]

11. Passing to the consideration of feuds it is found that they originate largely from motives of blood revenge. The expression blood revenge suggests retribution for a murder actually committed, but among primitive races the origin of blood revenge is far more often the natural death of some member of the tribe. Owing to the almost universal belief among these races that death is never natural in our sense of the word, the loss of a relation or fellow-tribesman is attributed to magical influence, and the guilt fastened upon some individual by a process of magical divination. It appears that women are judged to be equally capable with men of causing death, and that therefore elimination from this cause falls equally upon both sexes.

‘No such thing as natural death is recognized by the [Australian] natives; a man who dies has of necessity been killed by another man or perhaps even by a woman.’[454] ‘If an Abipon die from being pierced by many wounds, or from having his bones broken, or his strength exhausted from extreme old age, his countrymen all deny that wounds or weakness occasioned his death, and anxiously try to discover by which of the jugglers and for what reason he was killed.’[455] I Among different races the holding of this belief has different results. With regard to Australia, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in the passage quoted above continue as follows: ‘sooner or later that man or woman will be attacked. In the normal condition of the tribe every death meant the killing of another individual’—the guilty person being indicated by a medicine man.[456] The avenging party is at times merely directed by the medicine man to proceed in a certain direction and after a march, it may be of a considerable distance, discovers another local group which it entirely wipes out.[457] At other times an individual near by is indicated and at once dispatched. It is obvious that if such results commonly followed upon the death of every tribesman the population would rapidly diminish, and, as a matter of fact, serious as the consequences of this belief are, there are many indications that blood revenge is not carried out with the extreme rigour that the above passage would seem to indicate. Probably most deaths go unavenged,[458] yet in spite of this blood revenge must be accounted as a factor of importance in Australia,[459] especially as it affects women as well as men.[460]

Among the races belonging to the second group we shall meet with a somewhat similar state of affairs. But, widespread as this belief is, it does not appear to provoke bloodshed among the other races belonging to this group on any large scale. We hear of feuds among the Eskimos and the punishment of witchcraft by death. Murder is also reported as occurring among the Eskimos. ‘It is not a rare occurrence that a man who is offended by another man takes revenge by killing the offender,’ and a feud then follows which may last for generations.[461] Blood feuds originating in actual murder are also recorded of various Indian tribes;[462] but it does not appear that bloodshed, owing to belief in witchcraft, occurs on any significant scale either in North or South America. Of the Haidahs we are told that ‘death is ascribed to the ill-will and malign influence of an enemy and one suspected of causing the death of a prominent individual must be ready to die’.[463] Niblack, speaking of the Coast tribes from Southern Alaska to British Columbia and thus including the Haidahs, says: ‘all severe diseases or illnesses are ascribed to the evil influence of enemies, and in the case of the death of an important personage, a victim is usually found who has presumably charmed away the life of the deceased.’[464] The implication is, of course, that a victim is only sought on rare occasions, as on the death of a prominent man.

12. The custom of killing the old and the sick is of sufficient importance to deserve mention. Among these races it is not uncommon and is connected with the nomadic nature of their existence.[465] The Tasmanians would seem to have been in the habit of abandoning the sick and infirm.[466] There is some evidence of this habit in Australia,[467] but on the whole sick and aged are well looked after in that country.[468] ‘The Bushmen frequently forsake their aged relations when removing from place to place for the sake of hunting. In this case they leave the old person with a piece of meat and an ostrich egg-shell full of water; as soon as this little stock is exhausted, the poor deserted creature must perish by hunger or become the prey of wild beasts.’[469] The aged are not treated well by the Eskimos. In the Ungava district they are put to death,[470] and among the Central Eskimos a man may kill his aged parents.[471] ‘On the East coast (of Greenland) it sometimes happens that old people, who seem likely to die are drowned, or else drown themselves.’[472] For the most part the Indians treat their sick and aged well; but there are some instances to the contrary. The Queka Indians abandon the sick and aged.[473] The Ahts,[474] the tribes of Washington,[475] and the Chepewayans[476] did the same. The Central Californians killed the old people,[477] and, according to MacGee the Seri ‘often abandoned the sick and aged who cannot keep up with them in their constant wanderings to and fro’.[478] In some of the accounts of the Fuegians similar habits are attributed to them; there is, however, some reason to doubt their accuracy.[479] These practices certainly occur among the Zaporos.[480]

13. We have now to mention certain other modes of elimination. That form of elimination, which we saw to be of great importance among animals in a state of nature whereby the young perish on a large scale because they are consumed by other species, is of little importance among men who have reached the stage of the lowest races known to us.[481]

The subject of elimination from disease can be approached from different aspects. We can ask what evidence there is regarding the prevalence of disease among primitive races when they first came under the observation of Europeans. This evidence is of somewhat doubtful value. It is also of assistance to ask how far these races were immune from diseases prevalent in Europe; for it is in general to be inferred that marked liability to disease is a sign that no immunity has been evolved against disease because it was previously absent. We can further consider the question of the evolution of disease in general and ask to what conclusions it points. The latter aspect of the matter can be taken first.

The organisms which cause disease do not belong all to one class. Some, such as the bacteria, are plants, others are animals. Further, those species which cause disease are closely related to other quite innocuous species. Non-virulent diphtheroid bacteria are, for instance, found in the throat. What has happened has been that certain species, belonging to different groups in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, have taken to a parasitic mode of life. It is not very difficult to imagine how this could occur. It is to be presumed that organisms now parasitic were once free-living and saprophytic. There is a bacillus which lives on grass; it is closely related to the tubercle bacillus but is harmless. Such an organism might be frequently swallowed; if liable to destruction, resistance might be evolved.[482] Its presence might be innocuous, or it might not be so and a new disease might be the consequence. The invasion of a host by a parasite appears usually to be followed by a struggle—on the part of the host to get rid of the parasite, and on the part of the parasite to maintain itself within the host—in the course of which struggle the parasite may develop activities noxious to the host. To this struggle there are different possible solutions. But, when we find the struggle in progress, it is a fair assumption that the association of host and parasite is recent. The very fact of disease, therefore, suggests that it is of relatively recent origin.

There are two further facts which are relevant in this connexion. Diseases are very rare among species in a state of nature. Such diseases as we know of among animals and plants occur for the most part among domesticated species. Again, there are certain conditions which favour the evolution of disease; these conditions are found among domesticated species and also among civilized man. There are many ways in which disease can be transmitted—by insects, by liquid particles in the air, by drinking water, by water used for bathing, by water introduced within the tissues, and so on. Transmission by all these means, with the partial exception of transmission by insects, is obviously very greatly favoured by the aggregation of the members of the host species. In fact only when such aggregation occurs can we understand how disease on a large scale could be evolved. The aggregation of men, such as occurred within the third period, into villages and towns, gave rise to conditions under which bacteria could flourish in close proximity to man; under these conditions there was far more opportunity for bacteria and other micro-organisms to become parasitic than before. The suggestion, therefore, is that most diseases evolved in that relatively recent period when, owing to the increase in skill, men came to live in close proximity under settled conditions.

This suggestion is supported by two other lines of evidence. It would appear that Australia and America were upon their discovery free from most of the diseases known in Europe. With regard to the former Davidson says: ‘Australia presents us with a spectacle of a continent, from the pathology of which entire classes of diseases, prevalent in other divisions of the globe, were, until comparatively recent times, completely absent. Thus the whole class of eruptive fevers—small-pox, scarlet fever, and measles—so fatal elsewhere, were unknown. Epidemic cholera, relapsing fever, yellow fever, whooping cough, and diphtheria were equally absent, as also was syphilis.... Leprosy was absent from the southern continent.’[483] The facts with regard to America are very similar. It has been asserted that the only lethal disease of importance present in America before the visit of Columbus was malaria, and it is worthy of note that malaria is an insect-born disease. The question whether tuberculosis was known in America before the discovery has been studied by Hrdlicka, who concludes that, though it cannot be affirmed that it did not exist, it is highly improbable that it did.[484] Again, the marked liability on the part of primitive races to common European diseases points strongly to the fact that no immunity had been evolved against these diseases because they were formerly unknown. Since contact with Europeans has been established, these races have been swept by epidemics, such as the epidemic of measles which carried off a large proportion of the population of Fiji in 1875.

It is not to be concluded that most diseases are recent in the ordinary sense of the word, but only when a broad view is taken of human history. It is known, for instance, that tuberculosis, plague, leprosy, and bilharzia existed in ancient Egypt. Where and when diseases originated we cannot say, but the fact that certain widely-spread diseases can be traced to a previously limited and localized incidence—cholera, for instance, to the Ganges Valley—suggests that such diseases originated in those places in relatively recent times and spread thence. But in spite of such indications the place of origin of most diseases is obscure; syphilis was often said to have been introduced from America; the evidence, however, that it was apparently present in Germany in 1495 is against this view.[485] It is further of great interest to note that certain diseases may have evolved in very recent days. Diphtheria may date from the beginning of the last century and trench fever may be a new disease.

Little as we may know regarding the facts concerning any one disease, the general conclusion is not doubtful. It was not until the third period, and, therefore, only among the races of the third group, that disease became a factor of the first importance in elimination. Some diseases may have reached the African races through Egypt; and to the extent to which this has occurred they are not typical representatives of the time preceding the last of the three periods.[486]

14. In further support of this conclusion some passages may be quoted regarding the races in this group when they had been little influenced by contact with Europeans. Such passages are perhaps not of great weight as evidence of the former absence of disease; they are, however, worth notice because they also bear upon another subject that will come up for discussion in the ninth chapter. According to Bonwick ‘there are strong reasons to believe that, before connexion with the whites, the aborigines [Tasmanians] were a healthy as well as a happy people’.[487] Of the Australians Curr says that ‘as a rule the health of the blacks in their wild state was excellent’.[488] Longevity may be considered as evidence of good health, and of the presence of aged people in Australia many observers speak. ‘From numerous instances it would appear that the former generations were fairly long aged. Almost every small community would have in it two or three men or women over seventy years of age, and here and there some centenarians would be met with.’[489] So, too, Burchell records having noticed many old people among the Bushmen.[490] Writing of the Eskimos in a medical journal Smith calls them ‘uncommonly healthy’.[491] This is the opinion that one gains from other accounts,[492] some of which specially mention longevity as a characteristic.[493] ‘The North Americans are in general robust and of a healthful temperament, calculated to live to an advanced age.’[494] Another author says that the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains are ‘in general subject to few diseases’.[495] Krause quotes the opinion of a doctor who lived among the Thlinkeets in the year 1836 to the effect that they were a strong, healthy people.[496] Of the Shushwap we are told that they were formerly healthy and lived to a great age.[497] Hill Tout sums up the situation with regard to the Salish as follows: ‘the great age, to which both men and women formerly lived, shows the vigour of the race and the general wholesomeness of their lives and condition.’[498] ‘The Nootkas are generally a long-lived race, and from the beginning to the failing of manhood undergo little change in appearance. Jowitt states that during his captivity of three years at Nootka Sound, only five natural deaths occurred, and the people suffered scarcely any disease except the cholic.’[499] Powers, referring to the Californians as a whole, calls them ‘a healthy, long-lived race’,[500] and Baegert speaks of them as ‘strong, hardy, and much healthier than the many thousands who live in daily abundance’[501] [in civilized countries]. Among the Abipones ‘the diseases which in Europe fill houses with sick persons and graves with the dead bodies are unknown here.... You scarce hear once in three years of any of them dying of a fever, pleurisy, or consumption.’[502] Hardt mentions the good health of the Botocudos[503] and King and Fitzroy consider the Patagonians to be very healthy.[504]

15. There remains one other matter to be mentioned. There is abundant evidence that the rate of child mortality is very high amongst all these races. The causes of death are various; disease is seldom mentioned, and death is most often due to exposure as the result of improper treatment or of certain customs, or to want of suitable food. In Tasmania it was difficult to rear children largely owing to the fact that suitable food was not available.[505] Turner says of the Eskimos of the Ungava District that ‘many die in early childhood’,[506] and this would seem to be generally true of this race. The reason usually given is the absence of proper food;[507] and it is not difficult to understand that the peculiar Eskimo diet should be unsuitable for children. Child mortality is heavy among the Indians, ‘only a small proportion coming to maturity’.[508] The reason given in this case is generally the absence not only of knowledge with regard to the simplest requirements of children, but of any reasonable care of them.[509] To this we may add—as the evidence will show—the practice of extraordinary customs which seem designed to eliminate all but those with the strongest constitutions. ‘With all the affection of the mother, the women are almost completely ignorant of ordinary sanitary rules as to feeding, exposure, &c., with the result that infant mortality is something terrible in almost every tribe.’[510] Heriot speaks of ‘incredible fatigues, whose excess occasions the death of many long before the age of maturity’.[511] According to Domenech: ‘many Indians die in infancy; their mothers, to inure them to suffering and to strengthen their constitution, do not take all the necessary care of them.... Till the age of ten or twelve years they are kept quite naked, having only in winter a garment which we would hardly call such in the warmest summer.’[512] Throughout America it is a common custom to bathe even new-born children in cold water at all seasons of the year, and to this Krause attributes the high child mortality that he records among the Thlinkeet.[513] ‘Many children [of the Eastern Tinneh] die at an early age,’ according to one author,[514] whilst from another we hear that ‘the infant is not allowed food until four days after birth, in order to accustom it to fasting in the next world’.[515] Nootka mothers ‘roll their children in the snow to make them hardy’,[516] and the Thompson Indians take small care of their children, allowing them to run about without any protection.[517] Of the Californians the Jesuit missionary Baegert, who dwelt long among them when they were almost uninfluenced by European culture, says: ‘that many infants die among them is not surprising: on the contrary, it would be a great wonder if a great number remained alive. For when the poor child first sees the light of day, there is no other cradle provided for it but the hard soil, or the still harder shell of a turtle, in which the mother places it, without much covering, and drags it about wherever she goes. And in order to be unencumbered and enabled to use her limbs with greater freedom while running in the fields, she will leave it sometimes in charge of some old woman, and thus deprive the poor creature for ten hours or more of its natural nourishment. As soon as the child is a few months old the mother places it, perfectly naked, astraddle on her shoulders, its legs hanging down on both sides in front, and it has consequently to learn how to ride before it can stand on its feet. In this guise the mother roams about all day, exposing her helpless charge to the hot rays of the sun and the chilly winds that sweep over the inhospitable country.’[518] Conditions seem to be much the same in South America. Dobrizhoffer tells us that the Abipones plunge their new-born babies into a cold stream,[519] and Guinnard says that very few diseases occur among the children of the Puelches, though child mortality is high.[520] ‘Few [Fuegian] women save all their children; most die in early infancy.’[521] So, too, among the Andamanese child mortality is said to be excessive[522] and is ascribed to injudicious management on the part of the parents.[523] According to the Sarasins it is the high death-rate that is the cause of the small size of the Veddah families which they observed.[524] New-born Ghiliak children are bathed ‘often when it is 40° below zero. The children who can survive such an experience are necessarily very strong.’[525] ‘According to Schrenck, the Ghiliak woman never dares “to give birth to a child at home; she must, in spite of severity of season or of stormy weather, go out of the hut for the purpose. In late autumn or in winter they build a special hut for the woman, but a very uncomfortable one, so that the mother and the child suffer the cold and feel the wind”.’[526]

This concludes our survey of the races of the first group. Before we consider what conclusions are to be drawn from these facts, we have to deal in the same fashion with the races of the second group. This will form the subject-matter of the next chapter.

VIII PRIMITIVE AGRICULTURAL RACES

1. It is necessary first to explain what races will be considered. The lower limit has already been made clear. As regards the upper limit, some description has been given of the stage of Neolithic culture, and the races to be considered here are those which may be in general compared with the Neolithic races. The comparison can only be rough; as we saw, the subsequent evolution of culture was rapid; metals came into use, and, generally speaking, about the time of the first taking of metals into use arose the first great empires. At this point we clearly enter upon a new epoch and the upper limit in time is defined by the rise of Eur-Asiatic civilization. We wish to study here the conditions anterior to this step in the evolution of culture. It so happens that this Eur-Asiatic culture has influenced in varying degrees many of the races of Africa, Oceania, and Asia. The upper limit among the races to be considered here is best defined by the degree to which they have been influenced by this culture. America stands apart as there has clearly been no influence of this culture upon the races in that continent. But it should be remembered that in some places in America a degree of culture was reached which was probably higher than that to which any Neolithic race attained.[527] Nevertheless all the races of America not already dealt with may be considered here. Many African races are acquainted with the use of iron; it has been suggested that the knowledge of the use of this metal originated in Africa; this, however, is doubtful and the existence of this practice is probably to be regarded as due to the spread of an element of Eur-Asiatic culture. The use of the plough is also an example of the spread of an element of this culture;[528] roughly speaking the use of the plough does not spread towards the west, south of the latitude of Lake Chad; towards the east it extends farther south, and on this account the Gallas, Somalis, and Abyssinians can scarcely be considered as representative of the second group of races.[529] The peculiarity of the Oceanic region is that many of the races now found there undoubtedly migrated from some point on or close to the Asiatic coast after Eur-Asiatic culture had reached a high degree of development. Nevertheless they are for the most part ignorant of the use of metal and of the plough.[530] The Dyaks are metal users and the plough is known in parts of Borneo. We shall not on this account, however, exclude the Dyaks from consideration here. The true Malays on the other hand will be excluded; they are Mohammedans and, originally located in Sumatra, spread in the twelfth century over a large part of this area. On the fringe of Asia are a number of races which, though in a broad survey are of no great importance, may be noticed here. Such are the Ostiaks, Yakuts, Chuckchees, Samoyeds, and so on.[531] What races are dealt with here may be made more clear by a reference to those which will be considered in Chapters X and XI. In those chapters we shall consider the ancient empires, the classical races, mediaeval and modern Europe and its derivatives as well as the chief races of Asia, whether pastoral such as the Arabs or existing by a higher form of agriculture than that practised by the races to be noticed here. In this manner we shall obtain a broad view of the conditions both before and after the rise of Eur-Asiatic civilization.

It is obvious that we have before us a very large mass of material—too large, in fact, to be dealt with without further subdivision. It might seem that the only reasonable course is to distinguish between various grades of agricultural progress, and to consider in turn those races which fall into each grade. Such distinctions have been made by Professor Hobhouse and his collaborators, who recognize three grades of agriculture and two grades of pastoral nomadism. As has already been indicated, we do not find any correlation between economic stages and the factors bearing upon fertility and elimination. What we do find is a certain correlation between these factors and large geographical areas, and in what follows the races of the second group will be considered according to the geographical areas in which they are situated, and not according to the stage of economic progress which they have reached. The areas selected are as follows. There is, in the first place, America; secondly, there is Africa, and thirdly Oceania. The first two areas are, on the whole, fairly homogeneous; though the third area is not so homogeneous, the level of agricultural skill is fairly uniform—nearly all these races falling into Hobhouse’s second grade. Lastly, there are the Asiatic peoples among whom Eur-Asiatic culture has not penetrated; many of them are inhabitants of the northern fringe of the continent. It will be noticed that the pastoral races chiefly fall within the last group. The so-called pastoral races of America—the Navahos, for instance—have only acquired domestic animals since coming into contact with Europeans. The pastoral races of Africa are with difficulty distinguished from their neighbours, who also raise cattle but practise some agriculture at the same time. It will thus be observed that this mode of classification is, as a matter of fact, roughly in correspondence with the mode of classification based upon the stage of economic progress reached.

America

2. We have now to examine in turn the races of these four regions. The procedure will be that followed when dealing with hunting and fishing races. As before we begin with examples of intercourse before maturity. This may take the form of marriage before puberty or of less regular connexions. As Mr. Hartland says, ‘it would appear that sexual intercourse before puberty is either recognized by a formal marriage or tolerated as the gratification of a natural instinct among a great variety of peoples in all quarters of the globe’.[532] It will be sufficient here to note a few instances of this practice. Of the tribes of Guatemala, Bancroft says that ‘marriages take place at an early age, often before puberty’,[533] and the same would seem to be the case among the Navahos.[534] Accounts of the great laxity of manners and of early intercourse are given of some North American tribes—as, for instance, of the Hurons and the Illinois by Charlevoix.[535] The same is also commonly reported of the Brazilian tribes in such a manner as to leave little doubt that intercourse before puberty is common among them.[536]

3. Generally speaking, throughout America lactation lasted two years or more.[537] The suckling period indeed sometimes extended over several years; thus among the Sioux it might be continued until the child was five years old;[538] of the Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco, Hawtrey says that ‘it is customary to suckle children till five or six years of age’;[539] Bancroft reports that a child might be suckled until eight years old among the Chichmics.[540] Two years would appear to be about the minimum; in Mexico[541] and Guiana[542] it was three years or more. D’Orbigny gives three years,[543] and Forbes one or more, often two, for the Aymara Indians.[544] In Mexico suckling was said to last three or four years.[545]

4. With regard to postponement of marriage the facts are very similar to those in respect to the races of the first group. As an almost universal rule girls are married soon after puberty, if not before. There is no postponement of marriage of a nature to affect fertility in any noticeable manner. There is at times a certain postponement of marriage among the male part of the population, and occasionally some evidence of lifelong celibacy. This, however, has no bearing upon fertility; it is of interest in another connexion, and we shall on that account return to it later.

5. As noticed in the last chapter there are among nearly all primitive races a number of occasions upon which sexual intercourse is prohibited. Alone among these prohibitions, that against intercourse for some time after the birth of a child is of importance as a factor bearing upon fertility. We shall find that in Africa this prohibition becomes of very great importance. The evidence as to the existence of this prohibition in America is somewhat puzzling. In the last chapter two instances were given in which intercourse during lactation was prohibited in two hunting races. Both these instances are reported by authors who made their observations many years ago when the customs of the American Indians had been less modified by contact with white men than is the case with most of the observations upon which we have to rely. We also find that two other observers, who wrote more than a hundred years ago, record the existence of this custom. It is not clear to what tribes these remarks refer—whether to hunting peoples or to agricultural peoples, or to both. Weld says: ‘They suckle the few children they have for several years, during which time, at least among many of the tribes, they avoid all connexion with their husbands.’[546] Heriot speaks of ‘the length of time employed by the women in rearing their children, whom they nourish for three or four years, during which period they cohabit not with their husbands’.[547] In addition to this evidence we have the following records of the existence of this practice for various agricultural races. Two eighteenth-century writers—Le Beau, speaking of the Iroquois,[548] and Charlevoix of the Illinois[549]—state that intercourse was prohibited during lactation. Speaking of the Crow tribe, Holder mentions that abstention from intercourse during lactation was observed.[550] In Mexico, according to Bancroft, the suckling period lasted for three years or longer, and during this time there was often no intercourse.[551] D’Orbigny says of the Moxos and Chiquitos that the mother ‘invariably suckles her children for three years or more, during which time she has no relations whatever with her husband’.[552] There do not seem to be any denials of the existence of this practice except in the following instance; in most individual cases there is no mention of the practice. The exception referred to is in the case of the Fuegians. Hyades and Deniker, referring to the statement of D’Orbigny mentioned above, remark that sexual relations are resumed within two months of the birth of a child among the Fuegians.[553] It is not possible to arrive at any conclusion as to what the condition of affairs was before the habits of the Indians had been much modified by contact with white men. The fact, however, that the habit is definitely recorded by various authors, who for the most part made their observations at a time when the habits of these races were far less modified than when the more detailed accounts were written from which these races are best known, strongly suggests that this custom was formerly widespread.

There is no evidence of the use of any effective methods to prevent fertilization. We are told that among the Shawnees ‘the girls drink the juice of a certain herb which prevents conception, and often renders them barren throughout life’.[554] But in those cases which have been carefully investigated it would seem that such methods are not in fact effective. Hrdlicka, for instance, referring to a number of tribes, among whom are the Apaches, Navahos, Pueblos, Pimas, Nahua, Aztec, and Uti, says that ‘there is a very general belief among the Indians visited that sterility may be artificially induced’.[555] On investigation, however, it was found that the substances used were quite ineffective.

6. Among agricultural, as among hunting and fishing races, we find numerous references to the small average number of children in a family. Speaking generally of the Indians of the North, Weld states that the number of children is small,[556] and Le Beau that the number of children born is less than in Europe.[557] Charlevoix comments on the small size of the family among the Iroquois and attributes it to early intercourse, abstention from intercourse during lactation, and to prolonged lactation.[558] Catlin, whose experience was chiefly obtained among the Mandans, has given the estimate quoted in the fourth chapter,[559] and Holder’s estimate for the Crow tribe has also been cited.[560] Of the Sioux we are told that ‘sterility among women is by no means uncommon’,[561] and of the south-west Texas tribes ‘they are not prolific—a woman seldom having more than three children’.[562] In South America the facts are similar. Nordenskiöld visited the tribes between Peru and Bolivia. ‘The families are not large,’ he says, ‘they live in monogamy, and one sees in each family one to three children; in the largest family that I saw (and that was among the Atsahuaca Indians) there were four children.’[563] Of the Aymara Indians of the same district we are told that ‘there seem to be but few large families—very seldom more than four children, and often less than that number’.[564] Spix and Martins, travelling in Brazil, ‘seldom saw more than four children in a family’.[565] Azara was much impressed by the small number of children that he observed in South America. He investigated the matter among the Guaranis with particular care, and found that the average number in a family was four.[566] Taking into account various factors he came to the conclusion that the number of children born was less than among the Spaniards.[567] Rengger, who also visited the Guaranis, is of the same general opinion though he estimates the average number in a family to be smaller than does Azara;[568] to the Guanas he allows only two or at the most three children.[569] According to von Martius the marriages of the Macusis ‘are not rich in children’.[570] D’Orbigny carefully investigated the average number of children in a family among the Moxos and Chiquitos; he found it to be roughly about two in the case of the former and three in that of the latter. He attributed the small number to early intercourse and also to abstention from intercourse at certain periods.[571] Two is the average number of children in a family of the tribes of the Upper Hualaga, and marriages are often sterile.[572]

7. We have now to examine the extent of the practices of abortion and infanticide; with regard to the former, we may repeat what was said above—namely, that there is every reason to suppose the methods used are usually effective. Among the Sioux, Keating says that ‘married females frequently obtain miscarriages with the knowledge and consent of their husband’;[573] this fact is confirmed by Schoolcraft.[574] It was very common in the Crow tribe.[575] In a report upon the tribes of the South-western United States and Northern Mexico, Hrdlicka states that ‘artificial abortion is practised by all the tribes visited’.[576] The tribes visited include, among others, the Apaches, Navahos, Pueblos, Pimas, Nahua, Otommi, and Aztec. The Pima Indians practised abortion if conception took place before the previous child had been weaned; the suckling period among these people lasted until the child was six or seven years old.[577] The habit is recorded of the Menomini tribe and of the Zunis, though it is rare among the latter.[578] Among the Cheyennes ‘it has long been the custom that a woman should not have a second child until her first is ten years old’.[579] Abortion is not mentioned in this case, but in view of the widespread prevalence of this custom, abortion is presumably the means used to bring about this result. In Mexico[580] and throughout South America abortion was commonly employed. ‘The use of the means of abortion is common and explains the small number of children’, says Karl von den Steinen of the Bakairi.[581] It is especially frequent in Brazil and among the Indians of the Chaco.[582]

8. Compared with the prevalence of abortion, infanticide was not very common among the agricultural tribes of the northern half of the Continent. It was occasionally practised among the Sioux, and more girls were killed than boys.[583] Of the Creeks it is said that ‘to destroy a new-born infant is not uncommon’.[584] It was common among the Pimas.[585] Infanticide is usually confined to the killing of deformed children, and in this form it is recorded of the Apaches, Mohaves, Navahos, Zuni, and the Tepecano.[586] Infanticide is more common in South America. It is found in Brazil among the Guanas[587] and the Mbayas.[588] The former are said to kill more girls than boys. It is also practised to a considerable extent in the Chaco. ‘Infanticide is quite common among the Lenguas, an interval of seven or eight years being always observable between children of the same family.’[589] Grubb states that the first child is always killed if a girl.[590] The killing of deformed children is reported from many parts, including Dutch Guiana[591] and Peru.[592]

9. War plays no less a part in the lives of the agricultural than of the hunting tribes in America. It was perhaps more murderous among the famous tribes of the Atlantic coast and the great plains than anywhere else except possibly Brazil. ‘As all nations of the Indians in their natural condition’, says Catlin, ‘are unceasingly at war with the tribes that are about them, for the adjustment of ancient and never ending feuds, as well as from a love of glory, to which in Indian life the battlefield is almost the only road, their warriors are killed off to that extent, that in many instances two and sometimes three women to a man are found in a tribe.’[593] Another author, himself a member of the tribe, describes the manner in which the young Ojebway Indian is brought up to regard war as his chief object in life. ‘When they are young a spirit of war is instilled into their bosom; and in order to excite them to courage and ambition, the parents and the old wise men recount to them the wonderful exploits of the braves in former days, such as a single warrior stealing up secretly to a village, killing a number of the enemy, taking off their scalps, and making his escape before the remainder were apprised of the slaughter.’[594] So again, ‘among the earliest songs to which a Dacotah child listens are those of war. As soon as he begins to totter about, he carries as a plaything a miniature bow and arrow. The first thing he is taught as great and truly noble is taking a scalp, and he wants to perform an act which is so manly. At the age of sixteen he is often on the warpath.’[595]

The neighbouring tribes maintained feuds that must have been the cause of a regular and by no means inconsiderable amount of elimination. The Crows were at war with the Blackfeet,[596] the Sioux with the Ojebway,[597] the Minnetanes with the Shoshones.[598] The Sioux are said to have killed women.[599] Farther south the Yuchi and other members of the Creek Confederacy were very warlike.[600] The Pueblo Indians were more peaceful, though they were subject to vigorous and frequent attacks from the Apache and other neighbours.[601] The wars undertaken by the empires of Mexico and Peru were of rather a different nature. Both states pursued a regular policy of aggression towards the less advanced peoples who surrounded them. These wars partook more of the nature of raids upon the weaker nations for the purpose of robbery than of great sporting contests, as were on the whole the wars of the northern tribes. Throughout South America warfare seems to have been a regular feature of inter-tribal relation. It was usually very sanguinary. According to Wallace the Mandrucos fight with their neighbours every year.[602] Much the same is reported by Church of the Araras, Mogos, Masas, and other tribes of the Amazon basin,[603] and also by White of the north-western regions of the southern half of the Continent.[604] The peoples of the Chaco were formerly at continual war with the Guaranis.[605]

10. There are frequent references to blood feuds in the accounts of these races. Blood feuds are only to be with difficulty distinguished from warfare; feuds between man and man and between family and family merge into those feuds between tribes that are called warfare. It will be sufficient here to note that a considerable amount of elimination must among certain tribes arise from that peculiar form of blood feud which is connected with the belief that natural death is caused by some enemy. In Guiana ‘a person dies and it is supposed that an enemy has secured the agency of an evil spirit to compass his death. Some sorcerer, employed by the friends of the deceased for that purpose, pretends by his incantations to discover the guilty individual or family, or at any rate to indicate the quarter where they dwell. A near relative of the deceased is then charged with the work of vengeance.... If the supposed offender cannot be slain, some innocent member of his family—man, woman, or little child—must suffer instead.’[606] The Uaupes of the upper waters of the Rio Negro ‘scarcely seem to think that death can occur naturally, always imputing it either to direct poisoning or to the charms of some enemy, and on this supposition will proceed to revenge it. This they generally do by poison.’[607] It is difficult to ascertain how far these beliefs are acted upon; it seems nevertheless clear that among certain tribes a considerable amount of elimination must be attributed to this source.

11. It is not necessary to repeat here what was said in the former chapter with regard to disease. Our conclusion was that in all probability most diseases did not evolve until at or about the beginning of the third period. We therefore regard this source of elimination as of relatively small importance among the races of this group whether in America or elsewhere. We may note a few examples of the evidence to the effect that these races were formerly on the whole remarkably healthy and long-lived. Catlin says that the Mandans were ‘undoubtedly a longer lived and healthier race’ than most civilized peoples.[608] According to Le Beau the Iroquois were ‘practically never ill’; in spite of a climate that he himself found trying, ‘they were’ he says, ‘nearly all strong and robust’, and had few diseases.[609] ‘On the whole, the Yuchi, men, women, and children, are a remarkably healthy set of people.’[610] The Shawnees are ‘very healthy and are exempt from many diseases’.[611] Spix and Martius, with their extensive knowledge of the Indians of Brazil, say in general that ‘the Indians are seldom sick and generally live to an advanced age’.[612]

12. There is among the agricultural races of America as among the hunting races, and, as we shall see, among all primitive races, a very high rate of child mortality. As before we find the chief causes to be lack of knowledge, lack of care, lack of suitable food and surroundings, and certain peculiar customs.[613] It is not necessary to review the evidence in detail. Of the Sioux we are told that ‘many die in infancy caused by exposure’.[614] Another observer uses the same phrase, and adds that ‘their mothers, to inure them to suffering and to strengthen their constitution, do not take all the necessary care of them’.[615] Lumholtz attributes child mortality in part to the eating of unsuitable food.[616] Not only in North America but also in Brazil are new-born children regularly dipped in cold water.[617]

Africa

13. Pre-puberty intercourse is common throughout Africa both in the form of recognized early marriage and of irregular but tolerated early sexual relations. Among the Cross River natives ‘until she reach the age of puberty, a girl is permitted by her parents and by her betrothed to go about freely and have as many lovers as she pleases’.[618] A considerable proportion of marriages among the Ibo-speaking people of Nigeria take place before puberty.[619] In the Congo districts the habit is specially common.[620] Sexual relations commence early among the Bushongo; after reaching the age of puberty ‘a girl is not supposed to have further sexual relations before marriage’.[621] It is also recorded by van Overbergh of the Mangbetu,[622] by Delhaise of the Warego,[623] by de Rochebrune of the Onolove.[624] Speaking of the Bangala, Weeks says that ‘above the age of five years it would be impossible to find a girl who was a virgin’.[625] ‘The sexual morality of the Bahuana is conspicuous by its absence; the unmarried indulge as they please from a very early age, and the girls before puberty.’[626] Torday and Joyce, who are responsible for this statement, speak very similarly of the Bambala,[627] and du Chaillu of the Mpongwe.[628] The Masai and the Nandi in East Africa have a regularized system of intercourse before puberty.[629] It also occurs among the tribes inhabiting the Baringo district[630] and among the Swaheli.[631] Children of the Wapagoro, in what was German East Africa, are brought together by their parents when about seven years of age, and are separated for a period when menstruation begins—that is to say, about three years later.[632] Pre-puberty marriage was formerly very prevalent among the Makonde[633] and the Wanjamuesi[634] of the same district. ‘As regards the little girls over nearly the whole of British Central Africa, chastity before puberty is an unknown condition. Before a girl is become a woman it is a matter of absolute indifference what she does, and scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about five years of age.’[635] Similar testimony is given by Stannus[636] and by Maugham[637] for the same district.

14. The suckling period would appear to last nearer three than two years on the average. A few examples may be given. Ewe-speaking people, two or three years;[638] Yoruba-speaking people, three years;[639] the Tenda, two and a half to three years;[640] in Liberia, three or four years;[641] the Kagero, two to three and sometimes five years;[642] the Hausa, two years;[643] the Bushongo, two years;[644] in the Congo Basin, at least two years on the average;[645] the Mangbetu, a year and a half or longer;[646] in West Africa, on the average two to three years;[647] the Mayombe, two years or longer;[648] in Uganda, at least two years;[649] the Nandi, two years;[650] the Kuku, three years;[651] the Wamakonde, Wakaua, and Wamuera, three years;[652] the Baganda, three years;[653] the Wadschagga, two years[654] the Wanjamuesi, two to three years;[655] the Wazaramo, two to three years;[656] the Baronga, three years;[657] in the Madi district of Central Africa, three years;[658] in South Africa, two years, according to Lichtenstein,[659] frequently until three years, according to Kidd.[660]

15. There is little or no evidence of any postponement of marriage among girls. The facts with regard to men will be given later. According to Denham and Clapperton, girls in Bornu ‘rarely marry until they are fourteen or fifteen; often not so young’.[661] Among the Bangala, girls marry at the age of sixteen to eighteen.[662] ‘In the primitive Bantu tribe every girl gets married, some, however, sooner than others.’[663] The average age at marriage among girls south of Lake Nyassa is fifteen.[664] ‘For the whole of the Bantu tribes south of the Limpopo the average [age at marriage for girls] would probably be between fifteen and sixteen.’[665]

16. Throughout the negroid and Bantu races of Africa sexual intercourse is almost invariably prohibited for some time after child-birth. As a rule the prohibition holds good so long as suckling lasts, and this we have seen to mean more nearly three than two years. In some cases the period is shorter, and there are instances where it only endures for a few months. There are also very rare examples of the exact opposite—namely, of a prohibition against breaking off intercourse. As the evidence given below shows, to this custom we must attribute very great importance.

A Ewe-speaking woman ‘may not admit the male ... while suckling’.[666] Among the Yoruba-speaking people ‘during the period of lactation the wife must not cohabit with her husband’.[667] Intercourse during the suckling period is prohibited by the Kagero,[668] the Hausa,[669] and in Benin.[670] In the Warri district of the Niger Protectorate it is ‘customary for a woman to avoid cohabitation with her husband for nearly three years after pregnancy’.[671] Mungo Park, who travelled through this district, observed that ‘three years’ nursing is not uncommon, and during this period the husband devotes his whole attention to his other wives’.[672] Other authors record similar facts for other West African races. The Moioa abstain for four years,[673] the Gallinas until the child can talk and walk,[674] the Hobbés during lactation;[675] Nassau, speaking generally of the Cameroon district, mentions three years,[676] and Reade, speaking of Ashanti, mentions the period of lactation.[677] With regard to the Congo district, Cureau,[678] Johnston,[679] and Ward[680] mention prohibition during the suckling period. Among the Bangala ‘during the suckling period the husband has no sexual relations with his wife, or the child will become thin and weak and probably die’.[681] Another account of the same people mentions two years as the length of the period.[682] Prohibition during lactation is also recorded of the Mayombe,[683] the Ababua,[684] and the Bayaka.[685] Intercourse is only resumed among the Mandja[686] and the Warega[687] when the child can walk. The Adio of the Upper Congo region form a curious exception; soon after birth intercourse again takes place; if it did not, the child would die, since the father would thereby show no affection for the mother.[688] The Kuku only interrupt intercourse for three or four months,[689] although suckling lasts three years,[690] and among the Nandi prohibition only extends over a period of three months,[691] while lactation lasts two years.[692] Similarly ‘among the Awa-Wanga many believe that within five or six days of the birth of a child the parents must cohabit or the child will die’.[693]

The last-mentioned cases are rare exceptions; the customs that we saw to be normal in the west of Africa are also normal elsewhere in Africa. In Uganda ‘a woman must live apart from her husband for two years, at which time the children are weaned’.[694] A Baganda woman ‘lived apart from her husband for three years while nursing her child’.[695] When a woman in the region of the Rovuma river ‘bears a child she lives completely apart from her husband till the child is able to speak, as otherwise it is believed that harm, if not death, would come to the infant’.[696] A year is mentioned as the length of the prohibited period among the Swaheli,[697] and the duration of lactation as the period among the tribes of the Baringo district[698] and among the Wanjamuesi.[699] On the other hand the prohibited period is short among some of the tribes of what was German East Africa; it is two months in Konde-land,[700] three months among the Wapagoro,[701] and ‘a few months’ among the Wagogo.[702] In British Central Africa the wife does not resume sexual intercourse with her husband for two years, unless she is the only wife, when six months to one year is allowed to elapse.[703] In the Miri district the period is six months, although suckling lasts for two years,[704] and the same is recorded of the Atonga.[705] Speaking of Baronga, Junod says that there is no cohabitation until the child is weaned, and mentions that this is so among all the Bantu races of South Africa,[706] Kidd confirms Junod’s statement, and says that most Kaffir women live in strict seclusion from their husbands while they are suckling their children, which frequently lasts for three years.[707] In Loango the suckling period is the prohibited period.[708]

17. Among the races hitherto surveyed there is no evidence of the existence of any practice that renders sexual intercourse fruitless. There are numerous instances of magical practices that are supposed to have this result, but we have no reason to think that any of them are effective. In Africa we again meet with similar magical practices, and we must similarly account them to be without effect. In this area, however, we also meet with for the first time practices of quite a different nature. Many races in different parts of the Continent are acquainted with means of preventing fertilization. It is not necessary to describe how this end is achieved.[709] Any one who is interested in the subject can turn to Junod’s account. The methods employed in other parts of Africa are apparently similar to those there described. Knowledge of these methods extends throughout South Africa,[710] the Congo,[711] what was formerly German East Africa,[712] and probably elsewhere. Generally speaking this practice is employed under two different circumstances; measures may be taken to prevent conception by those who are not married and who do not wish to be married for some time; they may also be used by married people under certain circumstances, as for example by parents in the Thonga tribe who may have intercourse when the child begins to crawl, but who must avoid conception until the child is weaned.[713] Again, young married couples in the neighbourhood of Port Herald live in a special house so long as they are unable to build a house for themselves, and during this time no children must be conceived.[714]

18. Almost without exception the average number of children is everywhere recorded as small. Mungo Park, referring apparently to the Mandingoes, says that ‘few women have more than five or six children’.[715] In Northern Nigeria, four to five is given as the maximum number.[716] Talbot collected some statistics for the Ekoi people; the average number born to sixty-one married women was 4·3.[717] ‘The marriages’, says Burton of the Egbas, ‘are not very prolific’.[718] Assinien women very exceptionally have more than six children, according to Mondière:[719] in Liberia families are said to be small.[720] Among the Bangala ‘it is rare for a woman to have more than two or three children’;[721] another observer, speaking of the same people, remarks that ‘there was much sterility’.[722] Cureau, speaking generally of the tribes of the Congo Basin, says that families are small.[723] Kuku women bear three children on the average.[724] The number of children is given as three to five for the Baholoholo,[725] three to four for the Bambala,[726] and the same for the Warega;[727] among the Mangbetu families are not large,[728] while ‘on an average a Bayaka woman bears three children; families of more than four are rare’.[729] Turning to the races of the eastern side of the Continent we find that the average Swaheli family is given as consisting of two children.[730] Figures have been collected concerning forty-nine families of the Akikuyu, from which it appears that the average number of children is between three and five.[731] The Bakene women ‘are, as a rule, strong and healthy and have children, though few of them ever have so many as six, three being the average number for each wife’.[732] Two or three—at the most five—children are born to the Wanjamuesi mother.[733] Among the tribes south of Lake Nyassa ‘the average number of children in a family is three to five’.[734] The Makalaka ‘race is not prolific, and the women ... seldom bear more than an average of three children.’[735] Lastly, the Hottentots have ‘seldom more than two or three children’, and ‘many of the women are barren’,[736] while similarly in Madagascar the natives ‘do not, as a rule, have large families, and a considerable portion is childless’.[737]

19. Abortion is practised by many races in various parts of Africa. Among the Tenda people married women rarely practise abortion, unmarried women more frequently;[738] Tremearne mentions it in speaking of some of the Nigerian tribes.[739] It appears to be on the whole more common in the Congo district than elsewhere in Africa. ‘The practice of provoking abortion is a very common one throughout Congoland (though ignored, for example, by the Bayaka), but most of all in the North and Centre.’[740] With regard to particular races in this district, we find abortion mentioned as common among the Bangala,[741] Bahuana,[742] Warega,[743] Ababua,[744] and Onolove[745]; it exists but is less common among the Mangbetu,[746] and the Bushongo.[747] In what was German South-west Africa abortion is very frequently employed.[748] It would appear to be less frequently practised in the eastern half of the Continent. It is known among the Akamba[749] and the Swaheli.[750] In what was formerly the German Nyassa district[751] and in British Central Africa it is said to be not uncommon[752]; the same is said of the Zambezi Valley.[753] Abortion is ‘almost universally practised by all classes of female in Kaffir society’.[754] It is mentioned in connexion with Madagascar.[755]

20. Almost every tribe throughout Africa kills children under certain circumstances which they believe to be unpropitious. Examples of such circumstances are peculiarities in the process of birth, the birth of twins, or the cutting of the upper teeth before the lower. Motherless children are also sometimes killed. The cumulative effect of these habits cannot be considerable, and we may disregard them. It is an almost invariable rule that infanticide—in the sense in which we use the term when speaking of the Australians—is unknown in Africa. The only exceptions are to be found among the Hottentots and in Madagascar—in both cases the races practising infanticide not being of Negroid or Bantu stock. The former are said to have killed their female children fairly frequently;[756] in Madagascar infanticide was very common.[757] Among the various unpropitious circumstances mentioned above, there is one which is widely recognized in Africa, and which is of interest to us. Children who are abnormal or deformed are nearly always killed. Among other instances this practice is recorded of the Hausa,[758] Kagero,[759] the Congo tribes generally—the Fangs being especially mentioned in this respect[760]—the Mandja,[761] the Basonge,[762] the Ababua,[763] the Bushongo,[764] the Wanika,[765] the Wakamba,[766] in the Lenda district,[767] in the Lind Hinterland,[768] in British Central Africa,[769] in Portuguese East Africa,[770] among the Kaffirs[771] and the Hottentots.[772]

21. The nature and frequency of warfare varies very greatly in different parts of the Continent. Although among some few tribes and in some districts war is as murderous as in America, it is on the whole far less effective as an agent of elimination than in that country. The position is somewhat complicated by the fact that the more northern Negroid races have long been in contact with Hamitic and Semitic tribes; the latter have made war on the former and greatly influenced the history of the Negroid races. Movements have been set on foot and passed like waves over the whole Continent.

War is not a very serious matter among the Gallinas of Sierra Leone[773] or the Ewe-speaking people of Togoland.[774] It was very different in Dahomey[775] and Benin;[776] the Amazons of the former region have often been described.[777] Tremearne gives an account of the head hunters of Nigeria, whose habits must have been the cause of a great deal of elimination.[778] Throughout the whole of this region, especially in Ashanti[779] and Benin, human sacrifice is practised on a large scale, and results in a considerable loss of life.[780] Passing farther south towards the Congo region, we find that warfare is a moderately important factor of elimination.[781] Weeks describes family, town, and district fights—the last two developing out of the former; considerable loss of life and material damage appears to follow.[782] Du Chaillu describes what he calls ‘blood feuds’ in the Shekiani tribe; ‘frequently a dozen villages are involved, ... the killing and robbing goes on for months and even for years’.[783] Again, ‘when war has rarely broken out in the country [of the Bakalai] there is no rest or safety. No man or woman in any village can take a step in any direction, day or night, without fear of death.... At last whole districts are depopulated; those who are not killed desert their villages.’[784] Burrows, describing the tribes of the Upper Welle district, says that they all live ‘in a perpetual state of internecine warfare’.[785] War and human sacrifice have a perceptible effect upon the numbers of the Banyala;[786] fighting is frequent among the Bambala, but is not very sanguinary.[787] Of the Bahuana we hear that ‘wars are frequent, and in some cases last for years’,[788] of the Bayaka that, though ‘frequent’, wars ‘do not seem to have any appreciable effect upon the population’.[789] The Baganda are a warlike people, and fighting occurs yearly with the neighbouring tribes. Though a regular cause of the loss of life, such wars are not so serious as the intermittent civil wars ‘which also broke out from time to time in Uganda between rival princes who laid claim to the throne. These latter wars were by far the most disastrous that could happen to the country; and during the few weeks they lasted, untold damage was done and a great loss of life took place.’[790] In this district the presence of the Masai tribe was a continuous source of murderous war.[791] Among the Akanda ‘no warriors but those who had killed a Masai were supposed to be able to marry’;[792] between the Akikuyu and the Masai perpetual war was waged.[793] Of the tribes of the Baringo district it is said that they are all good fighters, and that war is a sanguinary affair.[794] The pastoral Bahima are, on the other hand, a peaceable people.[795] ‘It is doubtful whether (in Central Africa) great loss of life occurs in any of the wars among the natives.’[796] In South Africa the military qualities of the Zulus are well known; all through this region in former days warfare was regularly waged, and was a constant source of elimination.[797] Of the Hottentots we hear that the tribes ‘were constantly at war with each other’;[798] from another account it would seem that the fighting was neither very prolonged nor sanguinary.[799]

22. Belief in witchcraft as the cause of death is common throughout Africa; furthermore as a result of this belief the supposed offender is often slain. There seems to be no doubt that among many tribes this factor of elimination is of some importance. Speaking of Kalabar, Hutchinson says: ‘They cannot believe, or at least they will not try to understand, how natural causes create diseases, but attribute them and subsequent death to “ifod” or witchcraft. Hence a plan is adopted to find out the perpetrator by fixing on a number of persons, and compelling them as the alternative of the Egbo law of decapitation, to take a quantity of a poisonous nut, which is supposed to be innocuous if the accused be innocent, and to be fatal if guilty.’[800] Even among the relatively advanced Baganda, ‘death from natural causes rarely presented itself to the native mind as a feasible explanation for the end of life; illness was much more likely to be the result of malice finding vent in magical art’.[801] Torday mentions the Bayaka as an exception to the general rule in that they accept illness as a cause of death, though ‘trials for witchcraft are not unknown’.[802] Though the belief is widespread that the cause of death is to be sought in magic, the amount of elimination varies considerably from place to place. Formerly in British Central Africa ‘it was so general that deaths due to it were in the larger villages matters of daily occurrence’.[803] Among the South African tribes ‘the number of persons who perished on charges of dealing with witchcraft was very great’.[804] In West Africa it was undoubtedly common.[805] For the Congo district, Burrows[806] and Du Chaillu,[807] for Central Africa, Werner[808] and Macdonald,[809] for South Africa, Junod,[810] and for Madagascar, Parker,[811] bring similar evidence. Speaking of the Congo region, Weeks says that three forms of death are recognized; (1) by act of God; (2) by another’s witchcraft; (3) by one’s own witchcraft. Thus to die by the swamping of a canoe is a case of the first, to die by being swamped and eaten by a crocodile is an example of the second, because ‘no crocodile will upset a canoe unless told to do so by a witch’. Deaths from the second cause and executions following upon them appear to be frequent.[812]

23. With respect to disease the African races are in a somewhat different position when compared with the other races of this group. Owing to the fact that they have never been wholly cut off from Eur-Asiatic civilization, some diseases have penetrated among them which are not found, for instance, among the American agricultural races who were cut off from the rest of mankind long before the origin of the third period. It is a very difficult matter to decide what diseases are African in origin and what diseases have found their way into Africa from the north. It is possible that sleeping sickness and black-water fever are African in origin. It is certain, however, that most of the diseases which cause a large amount of elimination among the African races at the present time have been imported from Asia. Among the latter are dengue fever, small-pox, bubonic plague, cholera, Asiatic relapsing fever, dysentery, typhus, and syphilis.[813] Nevertheless in spite of the fact that disease is of more importance in Africa than in America, there is a considerable amount of evidence to the effect that upon the whole before the advent of the white man the African races were healthy and long-lived. Thus Theal says that the Bantu races of South Africa were formerly ‘subject to few diseases’,[814] and Roscoe, that the Baganda ‘were happy and healthy before the introduction of European civilization’.[815] In earlier days the Basuto were remarkable for their healthiness;[816] they lived to a great age. We are also told that the Hottentots suffered from few diseases.[817]

24. We find many records of a high death-rate among children. Undoubtedly this is largely due nowadays to diseases that have been introduced into Africa within the last few hundred years. The evidence seems to show, however, that, when we discount this factor, child mortality is still high, and is due to ignorance and want of care on the part of the mother. Both Harris[818] and Talbot,[819] speaking of West Africa, remark upon the high rate of infant mortality, and connect it with want of care. ‘As soon as an infant is able to walk, it is permitted to run about with great freedom,’ says Mungo Park.[820] According to Du Chaillu, ‘they know nothing scarcely of the care of children, and lose a great proportion through mistake in treatment in infancy’.[821] In the Congo region, ‘that a great portion of the children die—once they are born—is evident from the Baptist Mission records, extending over more than twenty years. This is chiefly due to unsuitable, indigestable, or insufficient food. Grenfell has some notes on the preposterous attempts to feed infants a few weeks old with manioc paste.’[822] Among the Mangbetu many children die, ‘as they are left to look after themselves at about two or three years of age’.[823] Weeks[824] and van Overbergh[825] also record high infant mortality for other tribes of this region. It is interesting to observe that Delhaise, speaking of the Warega—an isolated and primitive people—says that disease is rare among the children, though the death-rate is high.[826] According to Gutmann, many children die in infancy among the Wadschagga, owing to the very unsuitable methods of feeding. A mother takes food from her mouth and presses it into that of her child.[827] Similarly a high infant death-rate and want of care is recorded of the Zulus,[828] Basutos,[829] and Kaffir[830] races generally.

Oceania

25. Intercourse before the age of puberty is not very common among the races of Oceania. In New Zealand, however, it was frequent. ‘It often happened that a girl would have intercourse with a youth before she arrived at puberty. At times marriage took place and was consummated at this early age.’[831] This state of things is confirmed by several other authors.[832] Dumas says it formerly occurred in Hawaii,[833] and from an account given by Kubary it seems to have been practised in the Pelew Islands.[834] Although Brainne does not actually say so, his account seems clearly to indicate that intercourse occurs before puberty in New Caledonia,[835] and the same may be deduced from Codrington’s account of Banks’s Island[836] and from Danks’s description of the marriage customs of the New Britain group.[837] Krieger mentions pre-puberty intercourse in British New Guinea,[838] while Murray says that among the Baru and other tribes girls are married when between seven and ten years old, adding that marriage is consummated immediately.[839] According to Seligman among the Sinaugolo ‘connection often takes place before menstruation is established’.[840] The same is reported as occurring among the Javanese[841] and very occasionally among the Topebatos of Celebes.[842]

26. The average length of the suckling period would seem to be at least two years and is probably longer. A few facts may be given. In Samoa it lasts two years,[843] in the Solomon Islands two years or more,[844] in New Caledonia more than three years,[845] in Fiji two or three years,[846] in the Bismarck Archipelago often up to three years,[847] in what was German New Guinea about three years,[848] in Sarawak three to five years,[849] among the Bontoc Igorot slightly less than two years,[850] and among the Ainu four or five years.[851]

27. Of postponement of marriage among girls there is again practically no evidence. In the Society Islands girls were married when between twelve and sixteen years of age.[852] In the Western Islands of the Torres Straits girls marry a few years younger than the men, of whom the age of marriage is given as between twenty and twenty-five.[853] Very occasionally, as in the above cases, there would seem to be some insignificant postponement of marriage. In general, however, it is clear that practically all women are married from the beginning of and throughout the mature period.

28. The important taboo upon sexual intercourse for a period after child-birth is common. The Maori cease to cohabit ‘after child-birth till the child is weaned’.[854] ‘Throughout the Western Islands (of the Torres Straits) cohabitation ceases early in pregnancy and is not resumed for some time, the baby sleeping between the husband and wife. This restriction is in force in Maburag until the child spontaneously endeavours to move about. As a matter of fact another child is seldom born until the previous one is some three or four years old.’[855] In Savage Island ‘the child was usually suckled about twelve months, during which period there was strict sexual abstention between the parents’.[856] According to Kubary the prohibited period lasted ten months in the Pelew Islands,[857] and according to Krämer, six months in Samoa.[858] A married woman among the Sinaugola ‘is supposed to forego cohabitation during the period of suckling’.[859] In the neighbourhood of Finschafen in New Guinea, intercourse is not resumed until the child can walk and speak.[860] With regard to the Solomon Islands, Ribbe speaks of a ‘long period’ of prohibition;[861] with reference to New Caledonia, Glaumont speaks of several months[862] and another observer of a considerable time in this connexion.[863] ‘After the birth of a child (in the Bismarck Archipelago) the husband was not supposed to cohabit with his wife until the child could walk.’[864] ‘During the whole of this time [two or three years], unless he had more than one wife, a Fijian was obliged to lead a life of celibacy.’[865] The same author says that ‘in Tonga and the Gilbert Islands the separation is rigidly enforced’.[866] Another account places the length of the period of separation in Fiji at three or ‘even four years’.[867]

29. Here, as elsewhere, we find numerous references to practices intended to render conception impossible. A good example is found in Seligman’s account of the Sinaugolo. ‘There is generally a woman in the village or one of the surrounding villages who is supposed to be gifted with a power inherited from her mother of causing women to become “hageabani”, literally incapable of having more children. Suppose that a woman considers that she has had enough children, she will by stealth seize an opportunity of consulting such a woman and will pay for services. The woman gifted with the power sits down behind and as close as possible to her patient, over whose abdomen she makes passes while muttering incomprehensible charms. At the same time herbs or roots are burnt, the smoke of which the patient inhales.’[868] Such practices are obviously purely magical, and are quite ineffective. There are many definite statements with regard to particular races that no effective practices are known. In a few cases it is asserted that conception can be and is prevented. Krieger, for instance, says that in what was German New Guinea methods of preventing conception are known.[869] Pfeil gives a circumstantial account of a method said to be employed in New Ireland.[870] It seems clear, nevertheless, that the prevention of conception can be of but little importance in this region.

30. There is the same remarkable unanimity of evidence with regard to the small average size of families in Oceania as elsewhere. In New Zealand ‘families are usually small in number’.[871] According to Dieffenbach, ‘families are not large; there are rarely more than two or three children’,[872] while Brown says ‘they have very few children. Large families are never seen among them; perhaps two would be a high average compared with the number of marriages.’[873] There are rarely more than three children in a family in the Western Islands of the Torres Straits;[874] in the Eastern Islands the number varies from two to six, leaving childless marriages out of account.[875] In the Sandwich Islands the average is said to be three.[876] ‘There were few instances of large families’ in Samoa; ‘four or five would be the average.’[877] Three is said to be the average among the Aru Islanders,[878] while in the Pelew Islands marriages are reported to be often childless.[879] ‘I have never known’, says Melville of the Marquesas, ‘of more than two youngsters living together in the same home, and but seldom even that number.’[880] Tautain, who collected some figures for these islands, found the birth-rate to be very low.[881] In the Kingsmill Islands ‘a woman seldom has more than two children, and never more than three’.[882] Dr. Seligman is under the impression that ‘childless marriages are not very uncommon’ among the Koitu and Motu of New Guinea;[883] and Stone says of the latter that ‘as a rule their progeny is not numerous’.[884] Krieger remarks upon the small families in New Guinea, attributing the fact to abortion and infanticide.[885] In the Bismarck Archipelago ‘families as a rule are not very large.... A large number of the women have no children.’[886] Three is the average number in New Ireland; a family of four or five is considered large.[887] In New Caledonia there are seldom more than three in a family.[888] Fijian women are not prolific.[889] Ling Roth, surveying the literature of Sarawak, notes that the small size of the families has often been remarked upon, and quotes the statements of Houghton and Whitehead.[890] According to the former, ‘in general there are more than two children in a family; on an average three or four, very seldom only one child’. ‘The families of the natives’, says Whitehead, ‘are very small; in one or two instances I have known them to contain eight or more by one mother, but many women have only three or four, most one or two children; and it is by no means uncommon to find them childless.’ Brooke estimated ‘four or five births to every married woman’.[891] Wallace was impressed by the same fact, and took some pains to investigate the matter. ‘From inquiries at almost every Dyak tribe I visited, I ascertained that the women had rarely more than three or four children, and an old chief assured me that he had never known a woman have more than seven.’[892] So, too, according to Bock, ‘a Dyak family seldom consists of more than three or four children’.[893] Hagen estimates four children born per fertile married woman as the average among the Orang Kubu of Sumatra;[894] while Marsden, writing in the eighteenth century, was struck by the small average fertility; ‘women are by nature unprolific’ in Sumatra, was his opinion.[895] Two or three is the average in Nias;[896] ‘the average number of persons in one family in Java, where it is perhaps as large, if not larger than elsewhere, is estimated at only four or four and a half’.[897] Kreutz has compiled some figures for Celebes. He makes two and a half children to be the average per married woman among the Tolage and four among the Topebatos.[898] The Ainus ‘are not at all prolific’;[899] while according to another author, ‘not many children are born, usually three or four’.[900]

31. Abortion and infanticide are common, and there are many places where both practices are employed. Abortion is often spoken of among the Maoris; it would appear to be fairly common.[901] In the Murray Islands of the Torres Straits ‘abortion was very common’;[902] and in the Western Islands it is very frequent according to Haddon,[903] and similar facts are recorded of the Eastern Islands.[904] Abortion was known in Hawaii;[905] in the Kingsmill or Gilbert Islands it was extremely prevalent,[906] and also in Samoa.[907] It was practised at times in Rotuma[908] and in Savage Island.[909] Abortion seems to be fairly common in Fiji.[910] It is said to be ‘fairly frequent’ in the New Hebrides;[911] according to Jamieson, ‘a certain proportion of women die in endeavouring to procure abortion’.[912] There is very similar evidence from New Caledonia[913] and the Solomon Islands; it was probably more prevalent in the latter than in the former, especially among the south-eastern islands of the group.[914] In the Bismarck Archipelago it is reported to be frequently practised,[915] and so also in the Aru Islands[916] and the island of Flores.[917] Similar evidence comes from all parts of New Guinea.[918] It is specially mentioned for the Gulf of Geelink,[919] among the Baru tribe,[920] near Dorej,[921] among the Mafulu people,[922] among the Koitu and the Motu,[923] and the Southern Massim.[924] It is also practised in Nias,[925] Central Celebes,[926] among the Bontoc Igorot,[927] and in the Mitchell group.[928]

32. Infanticide was very prevalent in New Zealand—far more so than abortion. ‘Infanticide is frequent among the New Zealanders’;[929] according to another observer ‘it was formerly very common’;[930] or again, ‘it was formerly very prevalent’.[931] We hear of the ‘wholesale destruction of human life through infanticide’.[932] There is evidence that girls were more often killed than boys.[933] Infanticide occurred in the Western Islands of the Torres Straits;[934] among the Eastern Islanders ‘after a certain number had been born, all succeeding children were destroyed’.[935] In the Gilbert Islands it is very prevalent;[936] in Samoa and Tonga,[937] on the other hand, it is either absent[938] or very rare.[939] It appears to have been fairly common in Savage Island,[940] in Tikopia (Barwell Islands),[941] and in Nissau.[942] ‘Infanticide was committed on a large scale’ in Rarotonga[943] and in Funafuti,[944] but it probably reached its greatest extent in Tahiti. The famous secret society known as the Areoi is said to have enjoined the killing of all children upon its members. In any case it was very prevalent in the island, and not confined to the Areoi.[945] ‘The first missionaries have published it as their opinion that not less than two-thirds of the children were murdered by their own parents.’[946] Infanticide was not known in the Caroline Islands[947] (with the exception of Pelew). It was apparently as common in the Sandwich Islands as in Tahiti.[948] It was also practised in Fiji, but girls were destroyed in preference to boys.[949] Glaumond states that it is ‘very common’ in New Caledonia,[950] and this is confirmed by Bernard[951] and Moncelin.[952] The last named mentions that girls are killed in preference to boys. It is moderately common in the New Hebrides, and again more girls are killed than boys;[953] according to Meinecke it is not so frequent in Tala as in Fate.[954] Infanticide is ‘very common’ in Banks’s Island,[955] in Radack,[956] in Vaitapu,[957] and in the Marquesas.[958] It would not seem to be very prevalent in the Solomon Islands, except in Ugi, where both Elton[959] and Guppy[960] report it to be common. Otherwise, in the rest of the group it seems to be rare,[961] and is absent in San Christoval.[962] It was formerly common in the Bismarck Archipelago.[963] There is evidence of the existence of the habit in various parts of New Guinea; according to Seligman it is ‘common’ among the Southern Massim;[964] among the Northern Massim it is practised if there is a large family of girls.[965] The same is said of the Mafulu people.[966] Otherwise it would seem, generally speaking, that infanticide is somewhat rare in New Guinea. Murray suspects its existence among the Baru tribe,[967] and Erdweg among the inhabitants of Tumleo.[968] Newton says that he only knows one district in British New Guinea where it is frequently practised.[969] So, too, among the Dyaks it is decidedly uncommon.[970] Lastly, it may be noticed that there exists ‘in some parts of the Solomons and New Hebrides a most remarkable state of things, all the children are killed, chiefly by infanticide, it would appear, and substitutes purchased’.[971]

33. Warfare occurs everywhere in Oceania;[972] apparently there is not a single case in which it is definitely recorded to be absent. In some islands it is as murderous as anywhere in America, though on the whole it cannot be regarded as anything like such an important cause of elimination as in that Continent. The Maories were especially skilled in the art of war which ‘carries off a large number of their strongest men, and has often proved so destructive to a tribe, that it has been broken up entirely and has disappeared’.[973] In the Murray Islands there is frequent fighting and raiding of the neighbouring islands and coasts;[974] and the same is true of all the islands of the Torres Straits, though it is commoner in the western than in the eastern islands.[975] ‘A life for a life’ is, we are told, the principle underlying warfare among these people;[976] in the Sandwich Islands elimination from this cause must have been very considerable; we hear, for example, of ‘the sanguinary character of their frequent wars’.[977] It is much the same in Tahiti; ‘their wars were merciless and destructive’;[978] ‘occasions of hostility were also at times remarkably trivial, though not so their consequences.’[979] War seems to be equally frequent in Samoa, though possibly less murderous.[980] Brown believes that ‘the wars of the Samoans tended for a long time to check the natural increase of the population’.[981] ‘There was never any difficulty in finding a reason, if a fight was desired (in Rotuma), as any pretext could be seized.’[982] Such fights were sometimes followed by very considerable slaughter.[983] ‘War, either offensive or defensive, was their continual delight [in Rarotonga]. A state of peace was rarely known to continue long between the tribes.... These quarrels invariably led to fighting, in which the warriors of each tribe engaged with the utmost desperation and cruelty.’[984] War was the favourite occupation of the Kingsmill Islanders,[985] and in the Pelew Islands it was their ‘daily concern’.[986] Warfare is said to have been especially developed in the Marshall Islands.[987] According to Williams, ‘Fiji is rarely free from war and its attendant evils’;[988] ‘natural deaths are reduced to a small number among the heathen Fijians, by the prevalence of war and various systems of murder which custom demands.’[989] On the other hand, it is interesting to note that Thomson thinks that the destructive nature of warfare in Fiji is exaggerated as elsewhere in Oceania. He gives the following account of his own experiences in another island as an example of what he found warfare really to mean. ‘As we travelled along the coast we found that every village had its frontier; a stream mouth, or a sapling stuck upright in the sand, beyond which none would venture. The natives did their best to dissuade us from crossing these boundaries by representing their neighbours as thirsting for the blood of strangers. But on the other side of the frontier we found a meek folk, lost in wonder that we had come through the last stage of our journey unscathed, so cruel and ferocious were its inhabitants. Every man lived in active terror of his neighbours, and went armed to his plantation, but this did not prevent him from being a most skilful and industrious husbandman, or from living to a good old age. The fear being mutual, there was scarcely any war; an occasional attack upon a woman or upon an unarmed man served to keep the hereditary feud alive.’[990] It may very well be that the murderous nature of warfare has often been exaggerated, and that as a matter of fact the true state of affairs often approximates more closely to the picture given by this author.

In the New Hebrides fighting is said to be fairly frequent;[991] in New Caledonia it is certainly common, though perhaps not very serious.[992] So too in the Solomon Islands there is ‘unceasing war’.[993] According to Romilly, ‘in a battle the victorious party, if they can surprise their enemies sufficiently to admit of a wholesale massacre, kill not only the men, but also all the women and children’.[994] A very similar general impression is gained from descriptions of New Guinea. ‘The Western section of the Koita, especially the Arauwa and the Rokurokuna, were formerly involved in almost continual warfare with Kabadi; apart from this long continual struggle the Koita appear to have carried on little inter-tribal fighting.... A considerable number of people fell in these encounters.’[995] Other accounts of New Guinea give the impression that, however frequent the fighting, the losses were not large.[996] Among the Dyaks, on the other hand, warfare is not only frequent but also sanguinary;[997] women and children are killed at times.[998] Fighting occurs between the Ainu clans, and is the cause of much loss of life.[999]

34. It is not necessary to discuss the prevalence of feuds in general, as they are not to be distinguished from warfare. But in addition to the special case of murder following upon natural death, one form of homicide deserves mention as it is of considerable importance in this region, though not uncommon elsewhere—especially in Nigeria. Head hunting is popularly connected with Borneo, but it is also practised in New Guinea and the neighbouring islands. The taking of a head is counted a proof of manliness; in Kiwai Island, Fly River, it enables a young man to secure a wife more easily.[1000] Thomson saw thirteen skulls over the door of a house in an inland village in Normanby Island.[1001] Woodford found whole villages devastated owing to the prevalence of this habit.[1002] Speaking of the New Hebrides, Hickson says that ‘in the olden times a fresh human head was an indispensable preliminary to any marriage negotiations’.[1003] Among the Sea Dyaks (Ibans) it is certainly a form of sport; the other inhabitants of Borneo are said only to practise it as a part of warfare.[1004] It is not true to say that in Borneo the taking of a head is indispensable for a youth who wishes to marry,[1005] though considerable prestige clearly attaches to it.[1006] Without doubt the practice is responsible for a large number of deaths,[1007] and the head of a woman or child is equally valuable as that of a man.[1008] The habit is also very prevalent among the Bontoc Igorot. ‘For unknown generations these people have been fierce head hunters. Nine-tenths of the men in the pueblos of Bontoc and Samoki wear on the breast the indelible tatoo emblem which proclaims them takers of human heads.’[1009] Women and children over five years of age are killed.[1010]

The failure to recognize natural death as such is as prevalent in this region as in the others which we have surveyed. Speaking of New Guinea, Romilly says ‘in the native opinion there is no such thing as a “natural death”. If a man escapes a violent death and dies of fever or pneumonia, it is said that he has been bewitched and that a devil has killed him.’[1011] So, too, von der Sande in his description of Humboldt Bay records that ‘the opinion is generally held that death is always caused by the evil desire of other persons’;[1012] in consequence numerous murders follow.

35. With regard to the prevalence of disease it is sufficient to say that disease was certainly less common than in Africa. It is probably true that disease was of as little importance as a factor of elimination as in America.[1013]

The evidence with regard to infant mortality shows that it is again considerable, and due to ignorance and want of care. Speaking of New Guinea, Newton says that ‘the rate of infant mortality is high, but it is often due, so we suspect, to the absolute belief that a child must have some taro to eat—where taro is the staple food—if it is to thrive.... Infants not twenty-four hours old have had taro given them.’[1014] Kreutz found that many more children died in the second than in the first year; this he attributed to the fact that, whereas while in the first year they are well looked after, in the second year, when they begin to crawl about, they often die from want of attention.[1015] Turner states that not less than two-thirds of the children in Samoa died in childhood from carelessness and mismanagement,[1016] and of the Bontoc Igorot we are told that children are brought up without any sign of knowledge as to how they should be treated from the point of view of health.[1017]

Asia

36. It is not worth while to deal at length with the remaining peoples who are to be classed with this group. For the most part they are herders of reindeer; the more western races have long been in contact with Eur-Asiatic civilization; even the Chuckee were discovered in the first half of the seventeenth century,[1018] while the Yukaghis were converted to Christianity two hundred years ago.[1019] It is interesting to note, however, that generally speaking the conditions among them are similar to what we have found elsewhere.

Suckling lasts three years among the Koryak[1020] and the Tunguses,[1021] while Yakut mothers sometimes suckle their children until the latter are five years of age.[1022] There is no evidence of postponement of marriage; the early age at which it takes place has been remarked on for most of these races.[1023] As regards the number of children, Krasheninicoff says of the inhabitants of Kamtchatka that ‘in general these people are not fruitful’.[1024] Sograff comments on the small number of Samoyed children.[1025] Jochelson found an average of over five to married women above forty years old.[1026] Abortion and infanticide are common in Kamtchatka;[1027] Stellers comments especially on the prevalence of abortion which is very frequently employed.[1028] The Samoyeds destroyed deformed children.[1029] There are the usual comments on the general good health of these people. Both Ostyaks and Samoyeds ‘enjoy the best of health and attain a very old age’.[1030] Infant mortality is large.[1031]

IX THE REGULATION OF NUMBERS AMONG PRIMITIVE RACES

1. We have now to ask what light these facts throw upon the quantitative aspect of the problem. Remembering that among all the races concerning which facts have been given there exists that form of primitive social organization the nature of which has been referred to, we may first examine briefly the theory of population as it applies to society in which there is co-operation; for the existence of this primitive form of social organization implies co-operation. We may then go on to apply what we learn from this review of the theory of population to the facts, so far as they concern the races of the first and second groups. We may next ask how far we can apply what we learn from primitive races to prehistoric races up to the opening of the third period, and finally we may inquire how it is to be supposed that the transition took place from the conditions under which the pre-human ancestor, lived to those under which the earliest societies, of which we can indirectly gain any knowledge, must be supposed to have lived.

Malthus was the first writer to set out a theory in detail and to support it with evidence.[1032] Of the origin of his book some account has been given in the first chapter. In this book Malthus, according to his own account, attempted to show three things—that population was limited by the means of subsistence, that it almost always increases when the means of subsistence increase, and that there are three checks upon increase—vice, misery, and moral restraint. By ‘vice’ and ‘misery’ he meant disease, war, poverty, and so on. By ‘moral restraint’ he meant restraint from sexual intercourse. This last check was not mentioned in the first edition of the Essay; it was introduced for the first time in the second edition.

It is important to observe the nature of the argument put forth by Malthus. (The whole theory is one of the comparative rapidity of the increase of population and of the increase of food.) Population, he said, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio, food only in an arithmetical ratio. Therefore there must always be checks at work limiting population. He made a survey of the social conditions in different countries, and pointed to the evidence of the existence of various forms of vice and misery; where moral restraint was practised, there was less vice and misery; where no moral restraint was practised, vice and misery reached their greatest prevalence. Furthermore the checks taken together must always be effective; it was, according to Malthus, merely a question of what kind of checks should be in operation. It was desirable in his view to increase ‘moral restraint’ in order to decrease ‘vice’ and ‘misery’. It also follows that, if the checks were always effective, there could be no such thing as over-population. The conception of over-population, properly speaking, did not enter into the theory at all. It belongs to the later theory, which is based upon the productiveness of industry—an idea which finds no place in his book.

In the later editions Malthus made certain reservations about the impossibility of subsistence increasing faster than in an arithmetical ratio. Facts incompatible with the theory regarding the increase of population in America had come to light, and he admitted the possibility of the increase of subsistence in a geometrical ratio in new countries under certain conditions. He maintained, however, that in general subsistence could not increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio, and that his theory was therefore in essential features still correct. The ratios were at the basis of his theory, and sum up the whole essence of the argument. It has frequently been said, however, that Malthus did not attach much importance to the ratios. Professor Nicholson, for example, says that he used them ‘not strictly—but as the basis for a simile’.[1033] But Professor Cannan has shown that there is no foundation whatever for this view, and quotes a passage from Malthus exhibiting the importance which the latter attributed to this part of his theory.[1034]

That subsistence can only increase in an arithmetical ratio, or in other words that the periodical additions to the average annual produce cannot be increased, has long ago been disproved by statistics. Such figures as caused Malthus to make his reservations about new countries have been forthcoming for old countries also. In his own lifetime the census showed the falsity of the arithmetical ratio for so ‘old’ a country as England. It is not necessary to go into the facts, which are well known and beyond dispute. It is only the result of the proof of the fallacy contained in the arithmetical ratio part of the theory that concerns us. The result was that the whole argument collapsed, founded as it was on the comparative rapidity of the increase of population and of food. As Professor Cannan says: ‘The Essay on the Principle of Population falls to the ground as an argument, and remains only a chaos of facts collected to illustrate the effect of laws which do not exist. Beyond the arithmetical ratio theory, there is nothing whatever in the Essay to show why subsistence for man should not increase as fast as an “unchecked population”. “With every mouth God sends a pair of hands,” so why should not the larger population be able to maintain itself as well as the former?’[1035]

2. The answer to this question was in process of being discovered during the lifetime of Malthus. In the early years of the century attention was drawn to the high price of corn, to the position of agriculture, and especially to the fact that less rich land was being brought under cultivation. From the discussion which ensued, and to which Malthus contributed, there arose the idea of decreasing returns to agriculture. It has been pointed out that it must always have been recognized in practice that it did not ‘pay’ to employ more than a certain amount of labour on a given area of land. In these years, however, for the first time the principle which underlay this fact was made clear. West and Ricardo were chiefly responsible for bringing the matter to light. The development of the theory need not occupy us. It may be formulated shortly here. ‘Whether we consider an acre of land or a whole country, after a certain point is reached, the return to a given amount of labour and capital will diminish. It will do so, however, only under the supposition that the arts of agriculture, using the phrase in the broadest sense, remain stationary.’[1036] The law is not limited to agriculture. It is applicable to all industry. Whenever some agent in production, upon which an industry is absolutely dependent, is strictly limited, after a time equal increments of capital and labour will not produce equal returns. In other words the returns to the same doses of capital and labour will diminish. This, however, will only occur when, as stated above, the supply of some agent in production is restricted; otherwise when an industry enlarges there will, as a rule, be an increasing return. The more labour, apart from diminishing returns, the better.

When speaking of agriculture it was said that diminishing returns only supervene when there are no improvements in the arts of agriculture. This is true in general of all other industries. Any increase in the arts of production will in general admit of more labour and capital being profitably employed; if there are no further improvements, there will after a time come a point when diminishing returns will again supervene. The following out of the working of these laws in detail would call for a long and intricate discussion. Since the problem of quantity is only touched upon in its broadest outlines, such a discussion is not necessary here. The broad fact which emerges, and which alone is relevant here, is that, since the laws in general are applicable to all industry, there will be, taking into account on the one hand the known arts of production and on the other hand the habits and so on of any people at any one time in any given area, a certain density of population which will be the most desirable from the point of view of return per head of population. There will, in fact, under any given circumstances always be an optimum number; if the population fails to reach that number or if it exceeds it, the return per head will not be so large as it would be if it attained that number. This conception is of such importance that its formulation in other words by a modern economist may be quoted. ‘At any given time, or, which comes to the same thing, knowledge and circumstances remaining the same, there is what may be called a point of maximum return, when the amount of labour is such that both an increase and a decrease in it would diminish proportionate returns.... If we suppose all the difficulties about the measurements of the returns to all industries taken together to be somehow overcome, we can see that at any given time, or knowledge and circumstances remaining the same, just as there is a point of maximum return in each industry, so there must be in all industries taken together. If the population is not large enough to bring all returns up to this point, returns will be less than they might be, and the remedy is increase of population; if, on the other hand, population is so great that the point has been passed, returns are again less than they might be, and the remedy is decrease of population.’[1037]

This idea of an optimum number is one which can be developed in great detail. It is only necessary here to notice that when, as in the higher economic stages, the arts of production on the one hand are improving and the habits and so on of any people are on the other hand constantly altering, the most desirable density is in consequence frequently changing. In the lower stages, when progress in skill is slow and social conditions more or less stationary, the optimum number may remain about the same over long periods of time. Further, with regard to progress in skill, inasmuch as the productivity of labour is enhanced by every improvement in the arts of production, the result of such progress will be that the return per head will, as a rule, increase. Such progress will thus, as a rule, allow of a larger population which will have a larger income per head.

This idea of an optimum density of population is wholly different to that put forward by Malthus. To him the problem was one of the relative increase of population and of food; with us it is one of the density of population and of the productiveness of industry. To Malthus the position was much the same in all ages; in his view population, except under unusual circumstances, had in any country at any given time always increased up to the limit of subsistence, and was in process of being checked—chiefly by vice and misery. In the modern view increase in skill has brought to an increasingly dense population a larger income per head. The chief cause of the largest possible income not on all occasions being reached is that at times the density of population increases beyond the optimum number for the given conditions, though at other times the failure of population to reach the desirable level may produce the same result.

Though the problem of diminishing returns was being discussed as the successive editions of the Essay appeared, the idea was not applied by Malthus to the population question. This was undertaken by later writers. The development of the modern theory need not detain us; it is of interest, however, to observe that J. S. Mill, whose influence over contemporary thought was so great, never shook off the deep impression made upon him early in life by the Malthusian theory. He exhibited a remarkable dread of over-population, and in his Principles of Political Economy seems to have regarded diminishing returns as so often arising that only rarely could an increase in population be advantageous. He appears in fact to have thought that after a certain stage all further increase in population was harmful, and to have looked upon ‘the degree of industry which is required for the maximum productiveness of industry as something fixed once and for all’.[1038] Mill’s view, therefore, though founded upon the productiveness of industry, differs from the modern view to which it has given place. It has since been clearly established that there is no maximum density desirable from the point of view of productiveness; so long as skill increases, other things being equal, so long will the desirable density increase. The influence of Mill’s writings has had the effect of keeping alive in England longer than elsewhere the pessimistic view of the problem which the teaching of Malthus had originally given rise to.[1039] So strong were Mill’s opinions that he regarded the limitation of the family by virtuous restraint as one of the most desirable of social reforms. He was led in the following passage to express views that are strongly in contrast with those of the many who now deplore the decline of the birth-rate among the upper social classes of to-day. ‘Little improvement’, he said, ‘can be expected in morality until the producing of large families is regarded with the same feelings as drunkenness or any other physical excess. But while the aristocracy and clergy are foremost to give the example of this kind of incontinence, what can be expected of the poor?’[1040]

3. This conception of an optimum number holds good wherever there is social co-operation between groups of men living within definite areas. As we have seen a primitive form of social organization exists among all these races. This implies in itself a certain degree of co-operation. It remains to show that these races are all, without exception, divided into groups which are strictly limited to definite areas—contrary to the still common notion that they wander where they please—and we may further note that the inhabitants of these areas co-operate to a greater or less degree in the search for food, and that there is a social obligation upon each man to do his share. We may review the evidence, beginning with the first point, which is of such importance that it may be treated at some length.

It is both misleading and dangerous to apply terms carrying modern legal conceptions to these races; unfortunately, any terms that may be used are to some extent biased. We have, however, somehow to describe the results of investigation into the customs of these races, and it has been found that among all these races, without exception, groups of men are recognized as, if not owning, then as enjoying the usufruct of certain very clearly defined areas. According to Ling Roth it is not clear whether the Tasmanian tribes had any definite hunting grounds or not.[1041] Bonwick confidently asserts that it was so,[1042] and Wheeler thinks that the conditions in Tasmania were probably the same as in Australia.[1043] From Australia we have abundant evidence; the facts recorded from different parts of the continent vary considerably, and we must either believe that customs differed from place to place, which is not at all unlikely, or that many observers are mistaken, which, considering the positive nature of their assertions, is not very probable. Wheeler has reviewed the evidence and sums up his conclusions as follows: ‘Our information shows the existence in some, at any rate, of the areas of Australia of what must be held to be private ownership in land, but it does not follow that the whole of the tribal territory was so allotted. The unit would generally be the individual family, but there are a few indications that the ownership might even be vested in single persons within the family, other than the head. The clearest mentions of individual or of family ownership seem to come from the south-eastern area, where the physiographic conditions are most varied, and where, in consequence, fishing rights become important. But it seems likewise that the rights of families or of individuals, as also those of local groups, were, in general, subject to tribal over-rights, though we have no clear information on this point.’[1044]

There is no doubt, in the first place, that the tribes were everywhere restricted to clearly defined territories.[1045] Doubt only arises with regard to the smaller groups. The usual mode of living is in small groups of one to three families, which usually form a portion of a local group, but which may exceptionally be actual local groups. Only in the more fertile districts is the number of families living in contact greater.[1046] These local groups, into which the tribes are divided, seem generally to have their clearly defined areas within the tribal territory. Thus Brown, speaking of the Kariera tribe of Western Australia, says that ‘the country of a local group, with all its products, animal, vegetable, and mineral, belongs to the members of the group in common. Any member of the group has the right to hunt over the country of his group at all times. He may not, however, hunt over the country of any other local group without the permission of its owners.’[1047]

In some parts no further subdivision of the land was recognized. ‘I could not find’, says Brown of Western Australia, ‘any evidence of the individual ownership of any part of the soil or of any of its products. The whole of the territory of the group and everything in it seem to belong equally to all the members of the group.’[1048] In other parts we hear of family ownership; Stanbridge says of Victoria that the tribal land ‘has been from time immemorable parcelled out among its families and transmitted by direct descent to the present generation’.[1049] Further, some accounts speak of individual ownership. The natives of King George’s Sound ‘who live together have the exclusive right of fishing and hunting upon the neighbouring grounds, which are, in fact, divided into individual properties, the quantity of land owned by each individual being very considerable’.[1050] Eyre speaks of the parcelling out of territory among the individual members of the tribe. ‘Every male has some portion of land, of which he can always point out the exact boundaries. These properties are subdivided by a father among his sons during his own lifetime, and descend in almost hereditary succession.’[1051] As further examples of the ideas held by the Australians on the subject of property, it may be noticed that Smyth describes individual property in trees which passes by inheritance,[1052] while Lumholtz says that ‘if a native finds a hive of honey in a tree, but has not an immediate opportunity of chopping it out, he can safely leave it till some other day; the discoverer owns it, and nobody else will touch it, if he has either given an account of it or marked the tree, as is the custom in some parts of Western Queensland’.[1053]

Wherever we turn we find similar evidence of the recognition of distinct areas over which groups have more or less exclusive rights.[1054] Every tribe certainly has its own clearly defined territory; it seems further very probable that in most places the tribal territory is divided among local groups, if indeed the subdivision does not go farther. The Bushmen were formerly divided into tribes occupying ‘well defined tracts of country, which they looked upon as their own ancestral hunting ground’.[1055] Their respect for property is shown by the fact that, when a man found a bees’ nest, he put his mark upon it, and thenceforward it became ‘the sacred property of the finder’.[1056] Klutschak describes distinct territories for the Eskimo tribes, who confine their seasonal migrations to these definite areas.[1057] Subdivision of land does not seem to go farther than subdivision among the villages; the inhabitants of a village had the right to refuse to allow any strangers to settle permanently in the neighbourhood. ‘If a new family wished to settle at an inhabited place, the newcomers had to await the consent of the people already settled there, which was given by certain signs of civility or welcome, the strangers having meanwhile put their boat ashore, but not yet begun bringing up their goods. If these signs were not given they pushed the boat off again and went on to look for another place.’[1058] It is so well known that the American Indians recognized clearly defined tribal boundaries that we need not attempt to illustrate the fact by means of references.[1059] It is perhaps not so well known that there are also many indications of family and even of individual property in land. In the first place we often hear of the right of the inhabitants of a village to clearly defined tracts. ‘Each tribe had its village sites and contiguous hunting and fishing grounds; as long as the people lived on these sites and regularly went to their hunting grounds, they could claim them against all intruders.’[1060] Of the Carrier Tribes, Harmon says that ‘the people of every village have a certain extent of country, which they consider their own, and in which they may hunt and fish; but they may not transcend these bounds, without purchasing the privilege from those who claim the land’.[1061] Of the Western Tinneh, Hill Tout records that the heads of the clan own the hunting grounds, ‘the limits of which were always very clearly defined’.[1062] Among the more nomadic Eastern Tinneh we hear that bands used the same hunting grounds; these areas, however, were not regarded as belonging exclusively to them.[1063] Among the Salish of the Interior, ‘all hunting, fishing, root and berry grounds were common property and shared in by all alike’; whereas among those of the coast the food grounds were the property of the septs and local groups.[1064] From other accounts it appears that family and individual ownership were recognized in some places. This applies especially with regard to the fishing stations of the Pacific Coast tribes, where ‘varying lengths of shore were held as private fishing rights by heads of families, and these rights were passed from father to son and were always respected’.[1065] Swanton gives an especially interesting account of the practices of the Haidahs of Queen Charlotte Islands. ‘Each Haidah family had its own creek or creeks, or portion of a creek, where its smoke houses stood. Some of the smaller creeks are said to have no owners; and, on the other hand, some families are said to have had no land. In the latter cases they were obliged to wait until another family was through before picking berries, and had to pay for the privilege. Any family might pick berries on the land belonging to another after the owners had finished picking, if it obtained the consent of the latter and paid a certain price.’[1066] Referring to the Sitkin Indians, Elliot says that ‘the coastline, and especially the margins of streams and rivers, are duly divided up among the different families. These tracts are regarded as strictly private property.’[1067] Krause further gives an account of what can only be called individual private property in land among the Thlinkeets.[1068] The remarkable system in vogue among the Veddahs deserves notice. ‘The whole Veddah country was divided into small hunting regions, of which each family possessed one. The arrangements were most elaborate; the size of the tracts varied in accordance with the goodness of the land, and each included a portion of hill country to which each family thus had access during the rainy season without trespassing upon the ground of other families.’[1069] Cooper has very fully reviewed the evidence for the Fuegians. It has been stated that communism existed among them. This is not correct. ‘While all Fuegians are nomads,’ he says, ‘yet a Yaghan, for instance, is chary of poaching on Alacalufan or Onan territory. Even within recognized tribal territory the existence of more or less definitely marked off family hunting grounds is explicitly attested for the Onas by Professor Furlong and Dr. Dabbene and implicitly by Dr. Gallardo.’[1070]

4. Passing now to the races of the second group it is everywhere found that tribal territories are recognized, and it has been shown that, compared with hunting and fishing races, there is an increase in the number of cases in which land is held by smaller groups, if not by individuals, and a corresponding decrease in the number of cases in which communal ownership is recognized.[1071] The details of the variation in land tenure are not relevant, and a few descriptions of the conditions among different tribes will serve as examples of the manner in which groups of men among these races drew their means of subsistence from clearly defined areas. ‘Among the Navahos a section of territory was parcelled out and held as clan land and, as descent in the tribe was traced through the mother, was spoken of by members of the clan as “my mother’s land”. Upon such tracts the woman worked raising maize, &c., and the product was recognized as their property.’[1072] Of the North American Indians generally we are told that ‘occupancy gradually established a claim or right to possess the tract from which a tribe or individual derived food. This occupancy was the only land tenure recognized by the Indian; he never of himself reached the conception of the land as merchantable.... As long as a person planted a certain tract the claim was not disputed, but if its cultivation were neglected, any one who chose might take it. Among the Zuni, according to Cushing, if a man, either before or after marriage, takes up a field of unappropriated land, it belongs strictly to him, but is spoken of as the property of his clan, or on his death it may be cultivated by any member of that clan, though preferably by near relatives, but not by his wife or children, who must be of another clan.’[1073] So, too, among the Omahas maize was cultivated in patches of one-half to three acres in size; property in these patches was recognized so long as cultivation was continued. Afterwards any one could take them.[1074] In Mexico there was an elaborate system of land tenure.[1075] Conditions in South America were very similar to those in North America. Spix and Martius speaking of Brazil say: ‘The savages consider the lands they have put under cultivation to be in some measure the property of their tribe.... One or several families unite to clear a part of the virgin forest and plant maize, manioc, cotton, or bananas.... The same ground is cultivated every year, because it would be too difficult every year to clear new portions of the forest.... A field cultivated for several years is considered to belong to a family, and the neighbours recognize these rights.’[1076]

The rights over land are very similar in Africa. Bartle Frere says that ‘it is clear, from the accounts of early Dutch and other travellers in South Africa, that every Hottentot tribe had its territory, into which strangers might not intrude for pasture or hunting, without the leave of the whole tribe; each kraal had its pasture lands distinct, over which the people of that section of the tribe moved their mat huts, as the need of their herds, for grass or water, rendered advisable. As each kraal had more or less of a family constitution, it is difficult to say how far the pasture lands were held in common, or as the property of the individual occupant.’[1077] Of the Ewe-speaking people, Ellis says that among most tribes there is no private property in land but that the family in occupation of any tract cannot be disturbed.[1078] Of the Yoruba-speaking people the same author says that land, belonging to the community collectively, is vested in the chief, who distributes among households and families as required. No man can be depossessed of land once allotted to him, and the usufruct descends to his children, but the land cannot be sold.[1079] ‘It is doubtful’, says Talbot, ‘whether any part of the Ekoi country remains at present unowned.’[1080] According to Scott Elliot the rights of property in land of the different families in Sierra Leone are carefully maintained, especially in times of famine.[1081] In Northern Nigeria a ‘man is free to mark out a farm on any unoccupied land’, and has a claim to it as long as he cultivates it.[1082] Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo ‘the boundaries of a town are well defined, and the lands belonging to a town are well known to all other towns in the neighbourhood. If an animal is killed on ground owned by a town other than that to which the huntsman belongs, he has to send a portion—generally the head—to the chief of the town which claims the ground.’[1083] Further, ‘every woman had her farm, which was her exclusive property, and not even a fellow wife had any rights over it’.[1084] The hunting grounds of the Bushongo are well defined; the usufruct of the soil belongs to individuals, and trees are private property.[1085] Among the Mangbetu ‘every tribe has an accurate knowledge of the boundary of the territory over which it can hunt, move about, and establish its villages’.[1086] Hobley states that among the Akamba there is individual property in land which passes on the death of the father to the sons.[1087] The limits of the properties are very well defined and well known among the Ababua; cultivation renders the title good.[1088] The Baganda ‘lived in their gardens or plantations. These gardens were often joined one to the other, and a number of people lived in a community, often forming four or five miles of continuous garden with families living each on their own plot.’[1089] Even the fallow land among the Akikuyu was ‘all in private ownership’, and could not be brought into cultivation without the owner’s consent.[1090] In British Central Africa a man making a garden is ‘perfectly free to choose so long as the ground is not in cultivation, or has not been bespoken by some one else; and, once marked, no one can interfere with it’.[1091] Of the same region we are told that ‘these negroes have clear ideas of property. The waste land is usually considered to belong to the chief, but plantations and enclosures belong personally to the individual who originally made them.... Natives have clear ideas of large or small estates, or of their kingdom; and in the case of the former they are marked by the planting of certain trees of thick growth, while of course streams and mountains are recognized as boundaries and natural limits of territories.’[1092] Of the Thonga tribe in Portuguese East Africa we hear that ‘each man has his own field which he tills’.[1093] Speaking of the Bantu races south of the Zambezi, Theal says that ‘the chief apportioned to each head of a family sufficient ground for a garden according to his needs, and it remained in that individual’s possession as long as it was cultivated’.[1094] So Conder says of Bechuanaland, ‘the land belongs to the chief. He divides it among his head men and they in turn among their people. There is no division of grazing land. The mealie fields are practically the property of the cultivator so long as they are tilled. I found each patch to belong to an individual, and to be divided generally by untilled land from the next patch.’[1095] Among the Ovaherero the whole land is common property, but the rights of tribes and also of individuals to particular spots are recognized so long as they are occupied. Whoever first appropriates a spring and the surrounding pastures can maintain his right.[1096]

The conditions in Oceania are in their main elements, which alone are relevant, similar to those in America and Africa. In the Pelew Islands every family had its plot of land, which was considered as private property so long as it was occupied and cultivated.[1097] In New Zealand ‘land was held primarily by tribal rights; and within this tribal right each free warrior of the tribe had particular rights over some portion’.[1098] In Sarawak ‘each tribe had its limits, which have been handed down from father to son for ages, so that every old man of a tribe knows the exact extent of its district’.[1099] In British New Guinea we hear of ‘properly regulated and well-defined property rights, certainly not bounded by surveyed lines commonly used to indicate European land claims, but marked and known by natural features such as surface conditions afford’.[1100] It may also be noticed that rights over certain areas are recognized by the peoples of Northern Asia, such as the Tunguses and the Yakuts.[1101]

5. Passing to the second and third points we find that within these areas there is evidence even among the most primitive hunters of co-operation in the search for food and of strict rules for the division of the available food. Coupled with this we find that there is a social obligation which is strongly enforced for every man to do his share. Thus, where hunting and fishing can only be carried out by joint parties, strict rules exist for the division of the catch among those who have taken part and among their dependents. This may be illustrated by a few examples. Howitt gives many details of the rules in force in Australia with regard to the division of food. These rules not only differ from place to place but also for the various forms of game. Thus among the Kurnai ‘a wombat is cooked, then cut open and skinned. The skin is cut into strips and divided with parts of the animal thus. The head to the person who killed the animal. His father the right rib; mother the left ribs and backbone, which, with some of the skin, she gives to her parents. Her husband’s parents receive some of the skin. The elder brother gets the right shoulder, the younger the left. The elder sister gets the right hind leg, the younger the left hind leg, and the rump and the liver are sent to the young men in the camp.’[1102] ‘If a man only killed enough game or procured enough food for himself, his wife and his children, then he need not divide with others; but if he found that his father had no food, he would give them what he had and go out and look for more.’[1103] ‘All the males in the Chepara tribe are expected to provide food, if not sick. If a man is lazy and stays in camp, he is jeered at and insulted by the others.’[1104]

The principal features of the Australian customs as described above are to be found among all hunting and fishing races, though such elaborate rules as are usual in Australia are somewhat uncommon elsewhere. The Bushmen may have had their rules for the division of game; all we are told is to the effect that they shared food. ‘When one feasted they all partook; and when one hungered they all equally suffered.’[1105] We have evidence both of the sharing of food and of the dividing up of game among the Eskimos. Details of the latter are given by Nansen;[1106] with regard to the former we have frequent references to the division of food within the villages among all who need it.[1107] Of the Eskimos we are also told that ‘it might be considered a law that every man, as far as he was able to do it, should practise the trade of a hunter on the sea, until he was either disabled by old age or had a son to succeed him. This duty neglected, he brought upon himself the reprehension not only of the other members of his own family, but also of the wider community.’[1108] Rules for the division of food were almost universal among the Indians; when a hunter of the Hare tribe kills an animal, he is only allowed the tongue and ribs; the rest is distributed according to a system.[1109] So, too, among the Lillooet a regular partition of the game took place, of which one of the features was ‘that the persons who had the game had no preference over others’.[1110] Such phrases as ‘studied equity in the distribution of necessaries’,[1111] which is applied to the Seri Indians, indicate the existence of similar rules.[1112]

Conditions are similar among the races of the second group. In Fiji ‘public opinion took care that no man in the community shirked his work’.[1113] In New Ireland, ‘should a man neglect his family, a mode of punishment very similar to one practised by schoolboys among civilized races is adopted. A double row of men, women, and children—the whole population of the village—armed with stiff birches is formed; and at a signal from the chief the delinquent is obliged to run a certain number of times through the lines and receive a general castigation from the rods of the villagers’.[1114] Of the Pawumwa Haseman says ‘all work together.... If any one refuses to assist in planting, the chief forces him to work. I saw one Indian with a long scar on the side of his head and neck, the result of punishment for laziness.’[1115]

6. It is thus clear that within any group in any primitive race, the members of which co-operate together to obtain their food from a definite area to which they are confined, the principle of the optimum number holds good. There is, that is to say, taking into account the abundance of game, the fertility of the land, the skilled methods in use, and all other factors, a density of population which, if attained, will enable the greatest possible average income per head to be earned; if the density is greater or if it is less than this desirable density, the average income will be less than it might have been. Obviously it must be a very great advantage for any group to approximate to this desirable density. There are three possibilities open to any group. The desirable number may be approached, it may be exceeded up to the point where men can only just exist, or it may not be reached. Extreme departures from the optimum number must be very disadvantageous; if numbers increase until they are limited by starvation only, then no benefit arises from the use of any skilled methods that may be known. Under such circumstances all inventions in the methods of hunting, fishing, and cultivating the ground profit nothing. Social conditions must also inevitably be unstable where starvation alone limits numbers.

This being so, how are numbers regulated? We may observe to begin with that there is a number of factors at work among all these races which incidentally limit increase. This they may do either by decreasing fertility or by increasing elimination. To the former class belong pre-puberty intercourse and prolonged lactation, to the latter war and lack of care of children. Two characteristics of these factors are noteworthy. The effect they have upon the limitation of increase is incidental; it is the chance accompaniment of the practice of certain customs or of certain habits. In the second place the working of any single factor, so far as it reduces fertility or increases elimination, is fairly regular; in any primitive race at any given time such habits as prolonged lactation and early intercourse, when they occur, cause a certain definite reduction of fertility; and such customs as those of war and those connected with the upbringing of children cause a certain definite amount of elimination. The nature of the factors present and the degree of their incidence varies considerably from race to race, but it follows from what has been said above that in any primitive race over a considerable length of time the amount by which fertility is decreased and the amount of elimination which is caused remain fairly constant.

There is another class of factors the primary and not the incidental function of which it is either to reduce fertility or to cause elimination. These factors are prolonged abstention from intercourse, abortion, and infanticide. The view put forward here is that normally in every primitive race one or more of these customs are in use, and that the degree to which they are practised is such that there is an approach to the optimum number. With regard to this view we may first deal with the question as to the prevalence of these customs. We may then refer to the evidence as to the nature and origin of these practices. We shall then be in a position to ask how it may be supposed that they are so practised as to bring about that amount of restriction of increase which will result in an approach to the optimum number being made.

7. The evidence regarding the practice of these customs—prolonged abstention from intercourse, abortion, and infanticide—has already been given in the last two chapters. This evidence is also summed up in the Appendix to which the reader is invited to turn. No attempt has been made to conduct an exhaustive inquiry; but it is claimed that there is ample evidence of the widespread prevalence of one or more of these practices. There is no indication of the correlation of any one practice with any one economic stage. As far as the evidence goes, any practice may be in use in any economic stage. To the meaning of this we shall refer later. It is further claimed that, when the influence of contact with Europeans is taken into account, the evidence of the existence of these customs is still more impressive; for the observations upon which we have to rely have for the greater part been made after these races had been in contact with Europeans, and such contact is followed by a diminution of these practices.

One of the first changes brought about by this contact is connected with the introduction of diseases previously unknown. These diseases are often peculiarly fatal, causing a very high death-rate, and it is clear that, unless the practices of abstention from intercourse, abortion, and infanticide were largely abandoned, the race would perish. There is no difficulty in understanding how these practices would actually be abandoned soon after the introduction of disease. The proximate causes of these practices are largely, as we shall see, the difficulty of transporting many young children and the undesirability of having more than one child during the period of lactation. If disease began to carry off many children, the immediate causes for these practices would largely or entirely disappear and so would the customs themselves.[1116]

Apart from the introduction of disease, the effect of contact is in other ways to reduce the extent of these practices. Contact has often resulted in warfare between aboriginal races and European settlers—as in Tasmania, Australia, and America, or as between the Bushmen and the Boers. The largely increased death-rate would, as in the case of disease, be followed by a diminution of the extent of these practices. Further, under other conditions, as for instance in Polynesia, the efforts of missionaries have long been directed to putting a stop to these customs.[1117] We may also note that there is often a bias on the part of observers to under-estimate the extent of the employment of infanticide and abortion. Many observers are attracted by the races who come under their notice and seem to think that these practices are incompatible with the kindly nature or pleasant disposition of the people they describe—that in fact the attribution to them of such customs as a normal feature of existence is a kind of libel—and if they report them at all, they persuade themselves into thinking that they are infrequent and abnormal. We have only to remember the objection taken to the interpretation of the finds in neolithic graves in England as evidences of infanticide—an objection based on the dislike of believing that our ancestors could have been guilty of such a habit. Or, again, we may remember that Tacitus, when desirous of holding up the Germanic tribes as an example to the Romans of his day, declared that they never committed infanticide—the implication being again that infanticide is to be regarded as a degenerate and unworthy custom.[1118]

Nevertheless, in spite of all such tendencies working for the rapid disappearance of these customs, and in spite of the bias against believing in their existence, there is, as the Appendix shows, ample evidence that one or more of these practices are recorded for almost every people.

8. We may now consider the evidence regarding the origin and nature of these practices. We shall find that abortion and infanticide arise owing to the difficulty of providing for more than one child at a time. We shall also find that these customs are practised as normal features of social life and in such a manner as to keep the number of children at a fairly constant average figure. There is frequently a belief that a particular number of children is the right number of children. Further, it will be seen that the number of children to be preserved is a matter for consideration in which the wishes of not only the parents but also of the relations and of the community in general have to be taken into account, and that the practices are enforced by social pressure.

A large amount of evidence has been given to the effect that the number of children is always small—the number, that is to say, after these practices have taken effect. This is in itself evidence, it may be noticed, that these practices do result in reducing the number of children to a small constant average. Some additional evidence may now be noted.

According to Curr infanticide in Australia ‘resulted principally from the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of transporting several children of tender age from place to place on their frequent marches’,[1119] and later he observes that ‘infanticide was common among the Bangerang.... They themselves gave as their reason for it the impossibility of the woman carrying more than one infant in their constant wanderings.’[1120] ‘Every child which was born before the one which preceded it could walk was destroyed, because the mother was regarded as incapable of carrying two,’[1121] says another observer of the Narrinyeri tribe. Considerable information is given by Howitt for various Australian tribes. ‘Infanticide is practised by the Mining to some extent, the mode of killing being by starvation. After a few days of short commons the child becomes peevish and troublesome, and in consequence more neglected, being placed by itself away from the camp and fires, and it is said to be afflicted with Mupurn (magic). When death ends its sufferings Mupurn is the cause. The reason they give for this practice is that if their numbers increase too rapidly there would not be enough food for everybody. Yet they are very fond of their offspring, and very indulgent to those they keep, rarely striking them, and a mother would give all the food she had to her children, going hungry herself.’[1122] ‘In the Tongaranka tribe the practice of infanticide was common, because a baby was frequently too much trouble to look after, and it was often the mother who killed it. But it was not done until the family consisted of three or four; but after that too much work in hunting had to be done to keep the family in food.... In the Mukjarawaint tribe the children belonged to the grandparents, though the parents had care of them. If, for instance, a boy was born and then a girl, the father’s parents might take them, or the mother’s parents, and so also with another couple of children. If, then, another child was born and one of the grandparents took it, it would be kept. If not, it was killed, there being too many children. The grandparents had to decide whether a child was to be kept alive or not. If not, then either the grandfather or father killed it, by striking it against the mother’s knee, and then knocking it on the head.... According to Buckley, if a family increased too rapidly in the Wadthawing tribe, as, for instance, when a woman had a child within twelve months of the previous one, there was a consultation in the tribe as to whether it should live or not.... Infanticide in the Kurnai tribe arose through the difficulty of carrying a baby when there were other children, especially when the next youngest was not able to walk.’[1123] Of the aborigines of the River Darling we are told that ‘it seems to have been the custom to kill many of the children directly after birth, to save trouble and privation in time of drought, when long distances must be travelled in the search for food and water’,[1124] and the same proximate cause of infanticide is mentioned by Beveridge.[1125] Of the women in the Port Lincoln district it is said that they put forward as the cause of infanticide the fact that they ‘cannot suckle and carry two children together’;[1126] similar reasons are said to be given by the women of Central Australia.[1127] Speaking of the natives of Port Darwin Foelsche says that the reason for infanticide is that ‘too many children encumber the parents in travelling about for food’.[1128] It is also worthy of note in connexion with Howitt’s statement about there being at times a dread of over-population that, according to Spencer and Gillen, this is not the case at any rate in Central Australia;[1129] according to Curr, however, ‘in many tribes there is a great fear of a want of food arising from over-population’.[1130] Among the tribes of Port Lincoln ‘the number of children reared by each family is ... very limited, rarely exceeding four’, and ‘if a mother has children in rapid succession ... the young infant is killed’.[1131] In the Dieyerie tribe about 30 per cent. of the children are destroyed at birth.[1132] In the neighbourhood of Port Darwin children are killed ‘where a woman has more than three or four’.[1133] In Central Australia ‘each mother only rears, upon an average, two children’.[1134] Among the Northern tribes of Central Australia the number of children is kept down by infanticide to two or three.[1135]

Similar evidence is forthcoming for other races of this group. Thus of the Puelches Guinnard says that ‘among these almost primitive creatures, children are not nearly so numerous as might be imagined, for the existence of the new born infant is submitted to the judgment of the father and mother, who decide on its life or death’.[1136] Charlevoix says of the Abipones that ‘they seldom rear but one of each sex, murdering the rest as fast as they come into the world, till the eldest are strong enough to walk alone. They think to justify this cruelty by saying that, as they are almost constantly travelling from one place to another, it is impossible for them to take care of more infants than two at a time; one to be carried by the father, the other by the mother.’[1137]

Turning to races of the second group in Funafuti every mother was allowed to keep alternate children, but the second, fourth, and so on had to be destroyed.[1138] ‘A Tikopian family is usually limited to four children, any excess of this number being killed by burying them alive in the house or just outside it; occasionally five or six may be kept alive but never more. If the first four children are girls one or more of these may be killed in the hope that the succeeding children may be boys, in which case the lives of the boys would be spared.’[1139] In New Guinea, in the later years of marriage, abortion is used in order to lessen the number of children, since a large family would mean too much work for the parents.[1140] In the Kingsmill Islands ‘a woman seldom has more than two children, and never more than three; when she discovers herself to be enceinte for the third or fourth time, the foetus is discharged by a midwife’.[1141] In the Sandwich Islands, ‘however numerous the children among the lower orders, parents seldom rear more than two or three, and many spare only one; all the others are destroyed, sometimes shortly after birth, generally during the first year of their age’.[1142] ‘They consider three children a burden,’ says the same author in another passage, ‘and are unwilling to cultivate a little more ground, or undertake the small additional labour necessary to the support of their offspring during the helpless period of infancy and childhood.’[1143] ‘No married pair (among the Gilbert Islanders) are allowed by their law to have nor bear more than four children, that is only four children get the chance of life. The woman has the right to rear or to endeavour to rear one child. It rests with the husband to decide how many children shall live, and this depends on how much land there is to divide.’[1144] In Fiji ‘infanticide is more prevalent among the poor classes than the rich’.[1145] Speaking of the Murray Islands Hunt says that ‘after a certain number had been born, all succeeding children were destroyed, lest the food-supply should become deficient’.[1146] Codrington says of the Melanesians that ‘abortion and infanticide were very common. If a woman did not want the trouble of bringing up a child, desired to appear young, was afraid the husband might think the birth before its time, or wished to spite her husband, she would find some one to procure abortion.... Infanticide was more prevalent in some islands than others.... The old women of the village generally determined whether a new-born child should live; if not promising in appearance or likely to be troublesome, it was made away with.’[1147] Among the Mafulu of British New Guinea a woman must not give birth to a child unless she can give a pig to a village feast, and consequently children are often destroyed either by abortion or infanticide, both of which are common.[1148] Of the Western Islands in the Torres Straits we hear that ‘few women rear more than three children, and besides most of those born before marriage are doomed to be killed immediately after birth, unless the father—which is seldom the case—is desirous of saving the child.... Even of other infants some, especially females, are made away with in a similar manner when the mother is disinclined to support it.’[1149] Of the Eastern Islands it is said that ‘after a certain number had been born, all succeeding children were destroyed, lest the food-supply should become insufficient’.[1150]

Rengger, who remarks upon the small number of children among the Guaranis, traces it to the regular practice of abortion after a certain number had been born.[1151] ‘Infanticide is quite common among the Lenguas, an interval of seven or eight years being always observable between children of the same family. Not only are babies, which are born in the interval, immediately killed, but abortion is also practised.’[1152] Among the Creek Indians ‘to destroy a new-born infant is not uncommon in families that are grown so numerous as to be supported with difficulty’.[1153] Of the Cheyennes it is said that ‘it has been the custom that a woman should not have a second child until her first is ten years old. When that age is reached, the man is likely to go with his wife and child to some large dance or public gathering, and there ... to announce publicly that now this child is going to have a little brother or sister.’[1154] There is sometimes evidence, for instance among the Sioux[1155] and the Brazilian tribes,[1156] that abortion is committed after consultation with the husband. Among the Pima Indians ‘sometimes a mother nursed a child until it was six or seven years old, and if she became pregnant in the meantime she induced abortion’.[1157] In Fiji there was no cohabitation until the child was two years old. ‘This separation ... was in bygone times invariably enforced’ and abortion was practised when there had been enough children.[1158] Speaking also of Fiji Seeman says that ‘relatives of a woman take it as a public insult if a child should be born before the customary three or four years have elapsed, and they consider themselves in duty bound to avenge it in an equally public manner’.[1159] Similarly Gutmann says of the Wadschagga that it is considered most disgraceful if a woman, who is still suckling a two years child, again becomes a mother, and that in consequence abortion is frequent.[1160] In German New Guinea, according to Krieger, only three children are as a rule brought up owing to a fear of scarcity of food.[1161] In Radeck ‘every mother is allowed to bring up only three children; every fourth and succeeding one she is obliged to bury alive herself’.[1162] Infanticide was ordered by law in Vaitapu and not more than two children were allowed in a family.[1163] Of the Roro-speaking tribes of New Guinea we are told that ‘formerly it was not customary for a woman to have children until her garden was bearing well’.[1164] In the New Hebrides ‘infanticide was sadly prevalent. As the burden of plantation and other work devolved on the woman, she thought she could not attend to more than two or three children, and that the rest must be buried as soon as born.’[1165] In the New Britain group ‘after marriage children are not borne by the woman for a period of from two to four years. I am informed that this is the result of a popular dislike to speedily becoming a mother on the part of the women, who use various means to procure abortion and use them successfully.... A considerable period elapses between the birth of one child and the birth of another. The general term is about three years. One child is always well out of hand before another appears.’[1166] We may also note that, according to Rivers, infanticide is frequent among the Todas and is practised not when food runs short but as a regular custom.[1167]

It will be remembered that, when setting out in the last two chapters the evidence for the extent of abortion and of infanticide, these practices were in many cases stated to be committed when there was a certain number of children thus corroborating the evidence given to this effect above.

9. We are now in a position to discuss the manner in which numbers are regulated among these races, leaving until later the discussion as to how the position among these races was derived from that among species in a state of nature. Everywhere groups of men are, as we have seen, confined to definite areas. Among the few things which the men composing these groups do know with accuracy are the limits within which their food must be obtained. Further they co-operate in the search for food. It follows, therefore, that within any such area there is—taking all the relevant facts into account—an optimum number. The advantages to any group of approaching this number are immense; a wide departure from this number can only be socially disastrous. We found that within any group there is a number of factors—some of which reduce fertility and others of which increase elimination—and that the average amount of restriction of increase resulting from the action of these factors was fairly constant. We also found that there were certain other factors—prolonged abstention from intercourse, abortion, and infanticide—which are everywhere present and considerably restrict increase. If, as we shall see later, there is reason to think that some approach to the optimum is everywhere attained, it is clear that the former factors cannot of themselves alone sufficiently restrict increase. It is therefore to the latter factors, the primary function of which it is to restrict increase, that we must look when we seek for the mechanism by which numbers are brought near the desirable level.

It is clear how these factors originate. Among more or less nomadic peoples abortion and infanticide are practised because of the difficulty of transporting and of suckling more than one child at a time. Abstention from intercourse arises as a taboo. The problem we have to face is how these practices could come to be of the necessary intensity. Now men and groups of men are naturally selected on account of the customs they practise just as they are selected on account of their mental and physical characters. Those groups practising the most advantageous customs will have an advantage in the constant struggle between adjacent groups over those that practise less advantageous customs. Few customs can be more advantageous than those which limit the number of a group to the desirable number, and there is no difficulty in understanding how—once any of these three customs had originated—it would by a process of natural selection come to be so practised that it would produce an approximation to the desirable number. There would grow up an idea that it was the right thing to bring up a certain limited number of children, and the limitation of the family would be enforced by convention.

Though, however, adjustment is understandable as the result of a natural selection of customs, the evidence shows that there is even among the most primitive races at times at least some deliberation as to whether a child shall be allowed to live. In the more advanced races there is increasing evidence of deliberation. It cannot be supposed that in deliberation of this kind there is any grasp of the true position regarding the importance of the optimum number, but it may be supposed that under these circumstances the actual position at the moment as to whether there are too many or too few in the group does weigh when taking the decision. To all members of such a group, confined as they are within the knowledge of them all to a limited area, the disadvantages of too many mouths must be obvious. Therefore even among the more primitive races there may be some semi-conscious adjustment of numbers by means of one of these methods. However this may be, it is clear that, even if there is no semi-conscious deliberation among the lower groups, there is to some extent an automatic adjustment to the needs of the moment. Suppose disease or severe weather, for instance, to produce a higher rate of infant mortality, then abortion and infanticide, inasmuch as they are practised because of the difficulty of transporting more than one child, will be less practised.

10. Leaving aside for the moment the evidence that an approximation to the desirable number is in this manner attained, we may note that in order that the system should be effective, something more is necessary. The conception of an optimum number involves the idea of a standard of living. The attainment of the optimum number indicates that the highest standard, which is possible taking all the circumstances into account, has been reached. In order that the standard of living may be maintained, it is not merely enough that numbers should be restricted; the younger generation must become proficient in the skilled methods which make this standard possible of attainment, and in particular it is important that the young men should not marry unless they are both energetic and skilful—unless, that is to say, they are both willing to keep up and are capable of keeping up the standard of living previously attained. There is abundant evidence to the effect that pressure is exerted upon the younger generation. It is commonly recognized that among primitive races the girls marry at or soon after puberty. It is not so often recognized that the young men not infrequently do not marry until some years later. The inefficient and the physically incapable sometimes do not marry at all. In such facts we may see evidence of the pressure exerted by social conditions and conventions. We find also that not only are young men carefully instructed in the skilled methods, but that the parents of the bride anxiously inquire as to the bridegroom’s energy and capability of supporting a family. The conditions regarding marriage have been much studied, and in marriage by service and marriage by purchase we can observe the pressure which forces a young man to show himself proficient in the skilled methods which are in use among his people. Obligations on the would-be bridegroom to work and save up the purchase money or to serve his future parents-in-law make it necessary for the young man to learn skilled methods and to exhibit energy and competence before marriage, whereby it is in any case rendered unlikely that new families will be set up which will adopt a lower standard of living than that of the previous generation. At the evidence for these facts we may now glance.

In Australia betrothals generally take place in infancy and marriage follows later; these betrothals are usually arranged as exchanges, but the system shows some features of marriage by purchase.[1168] Considerable postponement of marriage is often observed, especially among the less skilled members of the community; thirty is mentioned as a not uncommon age for marriage.[1169] Among the Eskimos there is a very strong feeling that a boy must show himself proficient in the difficult arts of hunting and fishing as practised by them. A young man seldom marries until he is over twenty, though often betrothed when an infant.[1170] Before that age he cannot learn all the methods of hunting game, managing a kayak, and so on. Marriage is considered impossible because he would not be in a position to maintain his family, and it is the necessity of showing that he is in this position before marriage is allowed which is remarked upon by all observers of Eskimo life.[1171] The usual form of marriage in America is by purchase.[1172] As a rule, the amount to be paid is relatively large, and the boy must either spend some time in getting it together or else obtain it from his father. At other times marriage is by service. Thus among the Kenai the bridegroom performs a year’s service,[1173] and among the Haidahs boys were often betrothed at an early age and went to live with the girl’s family and worked for them until marriage.[1174] A Seri bridegroom leaves his own family and enters that of the bride for a year; ‘he must display and exercise skill in turtle fishing, strength in the chase, subtlety in warfare and all other physical qualities of competent manhood’.[1175] Among the Jakun a husband ‘is expected to provide a hut, cooking pots and other necessary articles such as will suffice to enable house-keeping to be started with reasonable comfort’.[1176] Among the Fuegians ‘as soon as a youth is able to maintain a wife by his exertions in fishing and bird catching, he obtains the consent of her relations, and does some piece of work, such as helping to make a canoe, or preparing sealskins’.[1177]

In this connexion it may be noticed that we often hear of the scorn poured upon the weak and unsuccessful; it appears to be the case that such men sometimes never marry.[1178] Among the Kutchins ‘poor men, whose abilities as hunters are small, and who have been unable to accumulate herds, remain bachelors’.[1179] One of the most difficult things an Eskimo has to learn is how to catch seals. ‘The poor wretch’ that cannot do so ‘is despised to the last degree, and is obliged to subsist on women’s diet, such as scolpings, which he can fish for on the ice, mussels, periwinkles, dried herrings, &c.’[1180] With regard to postponement of marriage, from twenty-three to twenty-five is the usual age of marriage for men among the Thompson Indians,[1181] from twenty-one to twenty-five for men among the Lillooets,[1182] and twenty-five among the Abipones.[1183]

With regard to the races of the second group, among the Topebatos men marry when about eighteen. They have both to present gifts to, and to do work for, their future parents-in-law.[1184] The bridegroom also works for his future parents-in-law among the Bontoc Igorot.[1185] In Fiji ‘young men of the lower orders married rather late in life for a primitive people, rarely, it appears, before the age of twenty-five’.[1186] Later the same author says that ‘marriages were often delayed for years when the bridegroom’s family were too poor to acquire property commensurate with their pride’.[1187] In the Maldive Islands ‘although a man is allowed four wives at a time, it is only on condition of his being able to support them’.[1188] In the Caroline Islands ‘a suitor serves for his wife in the house of his father-in-law elect as Jacob did with Laban and frequently has his pains for nothing’.[1189] Marriage by purchase is common in New Guinea and often results in a postponement of marriage while the purchase money is being collected.[1190] Speaking of the New Britain Group, Danks says ‘some I have met who have never married, but the cause lay in their inability to raise the shell money with which to purchase a wife’.[1191] In Sumatra marriage by purchase is said to constitute a certain hindrance to marriage, in spite of which, however, there are few celibates.[1192] Among the Negritos of Zambala the amount of the purchase money is large and ‘there is no doubt that the gifts made represent almost all the wealth of which a young man and family can boast’.[1193] In the Western Islands of the Torres Straits men marry when between twenty and twenty-five years old,[1194] marriage being by purchase.[1195] In certain cases where head hunting is practised prowess in this art must be shown before marriage.[1196] In certain parts of Borneo ‘it is a rule among all the tribes that no youth can regularly wear a mandan, or be married or associate with the opposite sex, till he has been on one or more head hunting expeditions’.[1197]

Marriage by purchase is often found in Africa. The necessity of collecting the purchase money frequently involves some postponement of marriage. Formerly among the Thonga a man generally married when about twenty-five years old,[1198] but there was some variation in the age owing to the varying difficulty experienced in getting together the necessary cattle.[1199] Sooner or later nearly all the men among this tribe get married;[1200] and this is true of all Bantu peoples. ‘The kind of individual called a bachelor does not abound among the Bantu. The wretched, the invalids, the weak-minded only, are deprived of the legal marriage which for the black man is and remains the one object in life.’[1201] Sometimes in South Africa ‘a young man too poor to acquire a wife by the transfer of cattle would make an arrangement with the father of the girl to live with her and serve him’.[1202] Among the Baronga young men do not marry for several years after puberty.[1203] Werner’s description of marriage among the Zulus is of particular interest. ‘The price paid by the Zulus (under the name of Lobola) and others cannot properly be called purchase, being rather in the nature of a settlement or guarantee that the suitor is able to support a wife; it is held by her family in trust for her and her children.’[1204] The same author, speaking generally of British Central Africa, says that ‘young men may have to wait for some years, owing to lack of means or other reasons. In the country under the Angoni chiefs they are called on ... to “serve their time”, herding the chief’s cattle, and later, perhaps, going to war.’[1205] The men of the Akikuyu are described as ‘not marrying very young’.[1206] Roscoe enumerates the various articles required to make up a bride’s price among the Baganda, and adds that ‘they were difficult to obtain and represented a large sum to a poor person, so that it took him a long time to collect them; a man frequently spent twelve months begging among his relatives and friends the amount asked; for though as a rule he had secured some of the things before he went to ask for the lady, there would still be a balance to find’.[1207] Among the Wapagoro regular sexual intercourse is practised by children. At puberty they are separated and the boy must then begin to collect the purchase money, and not until he has finished may intercourse be resumed.[1208] Plas notes postponement of marriage among the Kuku owing to the amount of the purchase money.[1209] An interesting account of the Akamba is given by Dundas. ‘During his lifetime a man so divides his stock that he allots a portion to each of his wives. On his death the portion of each wife goes to her son or sons.... If the cattle left are not numerous enough to buy a wife for each son they are left with the eldest son until the increase suffices for the purchase of a wife for him. When the increase is again large enough it is given to the second son to buy a wife, and so on until each has a wife.’[1210] According to Johnston, ‘the Masai warrior is not allowed by the elders of his tribe to marry until he has reached about thirty years of age and has accumulated a fair amount of property or else so distinguished himself by his bravery as to merit an early retirement’.[1211] Among the Bangala, if a man is accepted by a girl he has to pay the ‘bespoke’ money, after which ‘the girl is reserved for him until such time as he can pay the whole or larger part of the marriage money’, and, while he is collecting this money, he will build a house if he does not already own one.[1212] Further, ‘a man can marry as many women as he can afford to pay marriage money for, but to each he must give a house’,[1213] and as a result of the high marriage price, if his family cannot help him, a man ‘cannot save enough to procure a wife until he is thirty or even older’.[1214] Cureau states that in the Congo basin a bride’s relatives are much interested in estimating a suitor’s capabilities of supporting a family and of, in general, doing well.[1215] Among the Ekoi people, ‘by a native custom if a man wishes to marry an Ekoi maiden he must serve her people for some considerable time, usually from two to three years. His work mostly consists in helping to clear bush for next season’s farms, but other services may be required of him. During this time he is expected to make presents to the relations of his future wife.’[1216]

Very similar institutions are found in America. Among the Nandowensis, ‘when one of their young men has fixed upon a young woman he approves of, he discovers his passion to her parents, who give him an invitation to come and live with them in their tent. He assiduously accepts the offer, and by so doing engages to reside in it for a whole year, in the character of a married servant. During this time he hunts, and brings all the game he kills to the family, by which means the father has an opportunity of seeing whether he is able to provide for the support of his daughter and the children that might be the consequence of their union.’[1217] Among the Ojebway Indians marriage is also by service and the future father-in-law is described as being anxious that the suitor should be a good hunter.[1218] Of the Natchez it is said to be ‘rare for young men to marry before they be five-and-twenty. Till they arrive at that age they are looked upon as too weak, without understanding and experience.’[1219] According to Dorsey, men of the Omaha tribe did not marry formerly until between twenty-five and thirty.[1220] Among the Attakapas, ‘if a savage desires to marry a girl whose father is still living, he approaches the latter; the latter then inquires if he is a brave warrior, a good hunter’, if he can make weapons, and so on.[1221] In Mexico men married about twenty.[1222] In British Guiana marriage is by service, and the bridegroom must show that he is capable of taking a man’s part; within a certain time he must clear a piece of land of a given area.[1223] Another author gives further details: ‘Before he is allowed to choose at all he must prove that he is a man and can do a man’s work.’ There are various tests. Among others ‘he clears a space in the forest to be planted with cassaba, and brings in as much game and fish as possible, to show that he is able to support himself and others’.[1224] In Peru a man had to be twenty-four years old before he could marry.[1225] Von Martius states that the system of marriage by purchase in Brazil is to be regarded as a symbol that the bridegroom can support a family.[1226] Men among the Guanas marry when over twenty.[1227]

11. The evidence so far adduced shows that the mechanism whereby numbers may be kept near to the desirable level is everywhere present. When inquiring into the nature of the mechanism, we found certain indications that it was effective. The regularity with which certain customs are practised, the small average number of children, and other facts afford strong but not conclusive evidence that an approach is normally made to the optimum number. We may now ask what further evidence there is as to the position in this respect.

Conclusive evidence is not available. It is only when we are able, as among some of the races in the third group, accurately to measure the average income over a period of years during which numbers are changing that we can arrive at a definite result. With regard to other races we have to adopt methods which, though less precise, nevertheless afford important evidence. We may inquire into the general conditions of life and ask whether there are indications of the approach to the highest standard of living within reach, or whether living is more usually reduced to the bare level of subsistence. We may ask whether famine and starvation frequently occur, what the average physical condition of the people is, whether old age is often reached, whether, in short, the conditions are such as we should expect to find them when the optimum number was approached, or as we should expect to find them when the numbers reached the maximum which could just be kept alive.

The conception of savage life which formerly prevailed was that primitive races were always in a condition of semi-starvation.[1228] In this connexion it has to be remembered that the conception of the optimum number has regard to all the conditions, and that among these races, taking the degree of skill, social customs, and so on into account, there would be, even if the optimum number was attained, times of scarcity, if not of famine. The existence of times of scarcity, therefore, is no evidence that, so far as numbers are concerned, these races have not attained the best conditions possible for them. It is undoubtedly the fact that they are physiologically adapted to withstand periods of scarcity in a manner that civilized men are not adapted, and it is interesting to observe that, according to the results of certain experiments, occasional periods of semi-starvation are far less harmful than is continual under-feeding.[1229]

Descriptions of the Australians suggest the picture of anything but an emaciated people in a condition of semi-starvation. In one place Spencer and Gillen speak of them as well nourished;[1230] in another place they describe a typical Arunta as ‘by no means poor in physique; in fact he might often serve a sculptor for a model, and, when walking behind a native, you are continually struck with his proportions and beautiful carriage’.[1231] These authors go on to say, however, that ‘there are times when he is hard pressed and during a long continuance of drought his life is not a happy one’.[1232] So, too, Schürmann says of the tribes of Port Lincoln: ‘the male sex exhibits a great deal of unstudied natural grace in their deportment, their walk is perfectly erect and free, motions of the body easy and gestures natural under all circumstances.’[1233] Further, we are told that ‘their food, if of indifferent quality, was at least wholesome and readily procurable, six hours a day abundantly sufficing for that purpose, so that hunger was little known’,[1234] and that ‘in most of the districts with an indigenous population game is so abundant compared to the number of inhabitants, as to enable every one to procure for himself and his family as many pounds of meat a day as his heart desired’.[1235] Perhaps this is too optimistic a view; there are certainly many references to lean times when food is difficult to procure. ‘In few parts of Australia’, says Thomas, ‘can the native count on anything like regular supplies of food’,[1236] and we hear of those powers of enduring hunger and thirst so common among these races and so incomprehensible to Europeans.[1237]

Burchell is enthusiastic about the Bushmen; ‘as we rode onwards, I could not cease admiring the beautiful symmetrical form of our Bushman guide, who walked and sometimes ran before us, with a gait the most easy and free that I ever beheld. All the limbs, unshackled by clothing, moved with a grace never perhaps seen in Europe. The contemplation of his well-proportioned, although small and delicate figure, his upright manly port, his firm and bold step, and the consciousness of liberty which beamed in his countenance afforded us indescribable pleasure.’[1238] Nevertheless the Bushmen had ‘periods of fasting’[1239] and were ‘often destitute of food for several successive days during seasons when both roots and game were scarce’.[1240] They were also ‘capable of remaining a long time without food, and could then devour immense quantities of meat without any ill effect’.[1241]

In most countries a lean season occurs periodically once or more every year. Such lean seasons are more exacting in some regions than others. The Australians manage to subsist for the most part without storing up food;[1242] in other countries the storing of food becomes a necessity.[1243] We often find that where food has to be stored up the stock runs low towards the end of the lean season. The Eskimos have to depend for many months upon the food they have preserved, and if for any reason, as for instance the late formation of the floe, their calculations are upset, they may be placed in a very trying situation.[1244] Of them we hear stories, as of other races, regarding their powers of withstanding hunger; ‘a man who has eaten nothing for three days, at least nothing but sea grass, can manage his little kayak or canoe in the most furious waves’.[1245]

Of the Kutchins of the Peel River we are told that they are ‘an athletic and fine-looking race, considerably above the average stature, most of them being upwards of six feet in height and remarkably well proportioned’.[1246] ‘The Indians north of the Columbia are, for the most part, good-looking, robust men, some of them having fine, symmetrical forms. They have been represented as diminutive; with crooked legs and uncouth features. This is not correct; but, as a general rule, the direct reverse is the truth.’[1247] The Montagnais are described as ‘tall, strong, erect, well-proportioned and agile’;[1248] on the other hand, we hear that they are liable to shortages of food, are able to go without food for three days together at a time, and are guilty of great excesses of eating and drinking when food is plentiful.[1249] Hardisty says that the Loucheux can always obtain food except under very unfavourable circumstances.[1250] ‘It sometimes happens that the Ahts are in straits for want of food, when the fish do not appear until late in the spring,’[1251] but ‘they can bear the want of food a long time without becoming exhausted’.[1252] The account of the Californians given by the acute Jesuit missionary Baegert is of particular interest. ‘Notwithstanding the barrenness of the country, a Californian hardly ever dies of hunger, except perhaps now and then an individual that falls sick in the wilderness and a great distance from the mission, for those who are in good health trouble themselves very little about such patients, even if these should happen to be their husbands, wives or other relations, and a little child that has lost its mother or both parents is also occasionally in danger of starving to death.... The food of the Californians is certainly of a mean quality, yet it keeps them in a healthy condition, and they become strong and grow old in spite of their poor diet.’[1253] ‘Californians can endure hunger easier and much longer than other people; whereas they will eat enormously if a chance is given.’[1254] Three days without food appeals differently to an observer in a mission station on the one hand and to a prisoner among the Indians on the other. ‘So protracted was the hunger we experienced,’ says Cabeça de Vaca, ‘that many times I was three days without eating anything. The natives also endured as much, and it appeared to me a thing impossible that life could be so prolonged.’ The same author goes on to say, however, that ‘they are a merry people considering the hunger that they suffer; notwithstanding they never cease to dance nor to observe their festivities and ceremonies. To them the happiest part of the year is the season of eating prickly pears; for then they have hunger no longer, and pass all the time in dancing and they eat day and night.... It occurred to us many times while we were among this people, and there was no food, to be three or four days without eating, when they, to revive our spirits, would say to us not to be sad, that soon there would be pears and we should enjoy plenty, and drink of the juice, and that our bellies would be very big, and we should be content and joyful, having no hunger.’[1255]

It is submitted that the conditions indicated by the type of evidence of which examples have been given above are not compatible with the state of existence on the bare means of subsistence.[1256] With this evidence there should be considered the facts given in the sixth chapter regarding the good health and advanced age to which these races generally attain.

Turning to races of the second group, in the Eastern Islands of the Torres Straits ‘nutritious food is generally very scarce at the end of the dry season’.[1257] The Dyaks usually experience a season when it is difficult to procure food.[1258] We are told that famine was unknown in Fiji,[1259] but that from November to February there was sometimes a scarcity when the last yam crop had been consumed and the next crop had not ripened.[1260] So too among the Baganda ‘no one ever went hungry while the old customs were observed’,[1261] but there are at times lean seasons. ‘When food is abundant they have their three meals daily; when it is scarce they content themselves with two, and hope for the rain and a plentiful supply of fruit.’[1262] Cureau, describing the races of the Congo Basin, gives a general description of the conditions which corresponds very closely with that just quoted for the Baganda.[1263] In British Central Africa “the time of hunger” comes after the rains, when the last year’s corn is eaten, and the new is not yet ripe—about March’.[1264] Of the Kagero of Northern Nigeria we are told that the ‘people are naturally more healthy and better conditioned in December, say, than in August’, because towards the end of the year there is plenty of food from the harvest whereas later in the wet season there is usually a scarcity.[1265] So of the Mandja of the Northern Congo we are told that ‘generally by the month of October, the Mandja family has consumed its reserves of food; thereupon follows want for two months’.[1266] In North America Catlin describes times of scarcity among the Mandans[1267] and im Thurm describes similar conditions in Guiana.[1268]

Of the fine development of physical form there is abundant evidence. The inhabitants of Timor Laut are ‘handsome-featured fellows, tall, erect, and with splendidly formed bodies’.[1269] One of the earlier travellers, Kotzebue, was very much struck with the physical features of the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands[1270] and of Radeck.[1271] So, too, in Africa the Akikuyu are ‘exceedingly strong, muscular, healthy and well set up’.[1272] ‘The Damaras, generally speaking, are an exceedingly fine race of men. Indeed it is by no means unusual to meet with individuals six feet and some inches in height, and symmetrically well proportioned withal. Their features are, besides, good and regular; and many might serve as perfect models of the human figure.’[1273] As in the case of the races of the first group, we are told that formerly these people lived to a great age. ‘Under natural conditions the Bantu were a longer lived people than the Europeans.’[1274] Catlin was greatly impressed with the physical fitness of the North American Indians. He never saw ‘a more hardy and healthy race of men’, while the women were ‘exceedingly healthy and robust’.[1275] According to Heriot, ‘the North Americans are in general robust, and of a healthful temperament, calculated to live to an advanced age’.[1276] Du Pratz speaks highly of the physical characteristics of the Natchez and much similar evidence could be quoted.[1277] Azara, for instance, says that the Payaguas lived to an advanced age[1278] and also mentions especially the fine physical features of the Mbayas[1279] and of the Charruas.[1280] Of the Mandrucos Wallace says that ‘their figures are generally superb; and I have never felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest statue, as at the living illustrations of the beauty of the human form. The development of the chest is such as I believe never exists in the best formed Europeans, exhibiting a splendid series of convex undulations, without a hollow in any part of it.’[1281] Humboldt remarks of the Chaymas that both men and women ‘are very muscular, but fleshy and plump’.[1282] So, too, Spix and Martius, speaking of Brazilian tribes, say that ‘the Indians are seldom sick and generally live to an advanced age’.[1283]

Lastly it may be observed as evidence of some weight that, as between different races, the higher the skill and the greater the natural richness of the surroundings, the higher, so far as we can judge, is the return per head. Though the return cannot be measured, all that we know of the conditions of life point to this conclusion, whether we contrast the agricultural races in general with the hunting and fishing races, or whether we contrast such hunting and fishing races as those of the north-west coast of America with the Fuegians.

12. The conclusions derived from a study of the first two groups are therefore to the effect that an approximation to the desirable number is normally attained by the practice of one or more of the three customs mentioned. As a result, the small average size of the family is arrived at—the size being just about that which allows for the average mortality from various causes later in life, so that in the next generation there will be as nearly as possible the same number of adults as in the former generation. It may be that, as an occasional coincidence, just that amount of reduction of fertility and just that amount of elimination necessary to bring about approximation are effected by means of those factors which were described as having incidentally these results. But such a coincidence must be very rare and the evidence shows that the practice of one or more of the other class of factors is widespread, if not universal. Further, it has been shown that a more or less automatic adjustment is attained by means of variations in the intensity of the operation of these latter factors, whereas it is difficult to see how it could come about by variations in the former factors only, and, however unprogressive social organization and general conditions may be, some adjustment must be necessary from time to time.

It has been observed that there is no apparent connexion between the practice of any of these customs and the different economic stages, and it may be stated that an investigation undertaken to see if any connexion could be detected was without result. This conclusion is not surprising. The problem of how to control numbers is one which is presented to all races at all times. We have grouped races according to their economic status; but there is no reason to expect that under any one economic system a particular method of controlling population would be adopted more than any other method—no reason, for instance, why infanticide rather than abortion should be practised under one system rather than under another. As has been said, the problem is always present, and the method adopted must originally have depended upon some factor quite independent of the economic stage; abortion, for instance, might have been practised in one country because of the presence of some herb which experience showed to be effective, while in another country a taboo upon sexual intercourse for magical reasons might have been developed into a taboo during lactation.

This survey of primitive races is limited to the elucidation as to what is normally the position as regards the regulation of numbers. The evidence is not sufficiently detailed to allow us to judge whether in any one particular instance there was or was not a close approximation to the desirable number before contact with Europeans had changed their conditions. It is merely suggested that there was in general a tendency for such an approximation to occur and it may further be deduced that, since the desirable number remained the same over a great length of time, rendering the approximation, so to speak, easy of attainment, the adjustment to the optimum number normally came about. And in this connexion the limitation to clearly defined areas may be borne in mind. The very fact of the universal recognition and careful maintenance of these areas is an indication that such was the normal condition. Migration is abnormal, and this fact is apt to be forgotten for two reasons. First, when reviewing the course of history, migrations stand out as the chief, if not the only, known facts and the huge intervals of time between one movement and another are forgotten. Secondly, our knowledge of primitive races is largely derived from observations made when migration had been set on foot owing to contact with Europeans, as, for instance, in America. Migration may be a disturbing factor, upsetting the adjustment of numbers; but it is an abnormal condition and hence it is disregarded here.

And here, in answer to the objections that a greater prevalence of infanticide and so on is assumed than there is evidence for, we may, bearing in mind the many reasons why the evidence is deficient, reply that this assumption is not unreasonable. If such an assumption is not made, the position among these races is not comprehensible. It may be granted, for instance, that there is evidence of the practice of infanticide on a large scale among certain Australian tribes; but it may be pointed out that similar evidence is lacking in the case of other tribes. Allowing that a far more detailed examination of the evidence is desirable than there is space for here, especially with regard to the nature of the evidence and the date to which it refers, we may ask what it is supposed was going on among those tribes who did not, as it may be alleged, practise infanticide—abortion and abstention from intercourse being uncommon or unknown in Australia. The fecundity of all Australians is presumably very similar; it would be very remarkable indeed if it were not. The factors tending to lessen fertility and to produce elimination do not differ so very much from one tribe to another. It must follow that, if one tribe practised infanticide on a large scale and maintained its numbers nevertheless, another tribe which did not do so must have been rapidly increasing. This rapid increase is not compatible with the strict maintenance of well-defined territories and with all that we know of normal inter-tribal relations, and it is submitted that the assumption made here, namely that infanticide or some other custom was almost always practised, provides the only explanation of the position.[1284]

Lastly it may be recalled that there are many indications that fecundity is somewhat less among these races than among modern races. However this may be, it has always to be remembered that the power of increase is nevertheless huge. It has been, for instance, calculated that between the years 1906 and 1911 the population of the world was increasing at such a rate that it would double itself in about sixty years. At this rate of increase the estimated population of the world in 1914—namely, 1,694,000,000—would be produced by the progeny of a single pair in 1,782 years.[1285] Furthermore, this is occurring under conditions in which the increase is everywhere obviously and severely checked in very many ways; therefore, even if the fecundity among these races is less than among civilized races, it must not be thought that there is thereby brought about any considerable alleviation of the problem as to how numbers should be controlled.

13. We have now to ask how far the conclusions to which we have come regarding primitive races are applicable to prehistoric races. In the first place, they are clearly only applicable to races among whom social organization has become established; for it is only when men begin to reap the advantages of co-operation that the conception of the optimum number arises. As we have seen, it is not possible to say when primitive social organization arose. It must certainly have been present in the Upper Palaeolithic; the evidence of the presence of a large body of tradition is otherwise incomprehensible. As suggested, it may very well be that we should look for the origin of social organization in the Lower Palaeolithic. Among the Tasmanians, whose skill was not much in advance of that of Acheulean man, there was a primitive form of social organization. Nevertheless, wherever the beginnings of social organization are to be placed, we must suppose that a long period of time elapsed before it assumed that rigid form characteristic of primitive races. Giving all due weight to this consideration, we must assume that in, and perhaps before, the Upper Palaeolithic era the position with regard to numbers was in all essentials similar to that among primitive races. It is not uncommon to meet with statements to the effect that man was a wanderer until he began to practise agriculture. This is a mistake if it implies that after social organization had arisen definite areas for different groups of men were not recognized. There can be no direct proof of this; but the fact that, wherever we look, absolutely without exception we find among all primitive races the recognition and careful maintenance of such areas, just as much among hunting and fishing as among agricultural races, must lead us to suppose that among the more skilled hunters of pre-history similar conditions normally obtained. It is altogether unreasonable and without foundation to suppose that the recognition of areas is a development subsequent to the separation of primitive races from the main line of social evolution. If then the recognition of areas, which probably arose with the development of social organization, was a characteristic of the later prehistoric races, we are led to conclude that the desirability of attaining to and maintaining the optimum number must have had the same consequences as among primitive races. It must, in other words, have resulted in the practice of infanticide, of abortion, or of abstention from intercourse. For there is no reason to assume that the factors bearing upon fertility and elimination reached a considerably greater intensity than among primitive races. We have, however, no reason to assume that any one of these habits was practised rather than another, for there is, as we have seen, no correlation between these factors and stages in economic development. All that we assume is that in one way or another adjustment was brought about, and in corroboration of this we may note, as will be pointed out in the next chapter, that as prehistoric races emerge into the light of history there is abundant evidence of the practice by them of one or other of these customs.

14. Lastly we may ask how we are to view the change from the conditions 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]

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