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 ASBE 7e Solutions for Instructors

Test Bank for Applied Statistics in Business and

Economics, 7th Edition, David Doane Lori Seward
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Chapter 1
Overview of Statistics
1.1 a. Statistics can be used to 1) determine what a typical commission is and then 2) use that
value to identify commissions that appear to be unusually high.
b. She could use statistics to show the average energy use compared to previous models.
She could also use statistics to show how durable the monitor would be in the field.
c. He could use statistics to calculate the average absenteeism at each plant and then
compare across the three plants.
d. He could calculate average number of defects in each shipment. He could determine
variation in number of defects between the three shipments.
Learning Objective: 01-1

1.2 a. He could calculate the job turnover for each gender for each restaurant. He could then
look at the difference between the various restaurants as well as the difference between
genders.
b. He could calculate the average number of emails received and sent for employees in
different job classifications and make comparisons.
c. The portfolio manager could calculate both the average return and the variation on return
for the six different investments and make comparisons.
d. By studying the busiest times of day for surgery, the administrator could work with
surgeons to spread their surgeries out to better use the facilities. He might also look at
which surgeries take the longest and which are shorter to help with scheduling.
Learning Objective: 01-1

1.3 a. The average business school graduate should expect to use computers to manipulate the
data.
b. Answers will vary. Weak quantitative skills lead to poor decision making because data-
based decision making is a hallmark of successful businesses. If one cannot analyze
data or understand summary analyses, one will be making decisions without full
information.
Learning Objective: 01-2

1.4 a. Answers will vary. Why Not Study: It is difficult to become a statistical “expert” after
taking one introductory college course. A business person should hire statistical experts
and have faith that those who are using statistics are doing it correctly. Why Study: In

1
 fact, most college graduates will use statistics every day. Relying on a consultant to
perform simple or even complex statistical analyses means turning over part of the
business decision-making to someone who doesn’t know your business as well as you
do.
b. Answers will vary. Answers provided in part a will be similar for the subjects of
accounting. Foreign languages are essential in this global business environment of
today. While learning a foreign language can take considerably more time as an adult,
the investment is worth it. Businesses are looking for college graduates that have
quantitative skills and speak a foreign language. Chinese and Spanish are popular
choices.
c. To arrive at an absurd result, and then conclude the original assumption must have been
wrong, since it gave us this absurd result. This is also known as proof by contradiction.
It makes use of the law of excluded middle — a statement which cannot be false, must
then be true. If you state that you will never use statistics in your business profession
then you might conclude that you shouldn’t study statistics. However, the original
assumption of never using statistics is wrong; therefore the conclusion of not needing to
study statistics is also wrong.
Learning Objective: 01-2

1.5 a. Answers will vary.

b. An hour with an expert at the beginning of a project could be the smartest move a
manager can make. A consultant is helpful when your team lacks certain critical skills,
or when an unbiased or informed view cannot be found inside your organization.
Expert consultants can handle domineering or indecisive team members, personality
clashes, fears about adverse findings, and local politics. As in any business decision, the
costs of paying for statistical assistance must be weighed against the benefits. Costs
are: statistician’s time, more time invested in the beginning of a project which may
mean results are not immediate. Benefits include: better sampling strategies which can
result in more useful data, a better understanding of what information can be extracted
from the data, greater confidence in the results.
Learning Objective: 01-2

1.6 a. The ethical issue is that credit card companies are using unfair marketing practices to
entice students to use credit cards. Students are a vulnerable group that has not been
educated about personal finance. Credit card companies are also purchasing student
lists from universities and various student groups. This is also an unethical practice by
the universities.
b. They used an in-person survey given to 1500 students. These students were randomly
solicited at popular places on campus. The sampling technique was a convenience
sample. The report did not attempt to make inferences about the population of college
students. The report simply provided statistics collected from their sample. The naïve
reader would most likely make the inference that the numbers from the sample apply to
the population as a whole. This should be made clearer in the report.
c. The subjects surveyed include 1) how students pay for their education, 2) how they use
credit cards, 3) how many of them use credit cards, and 4) attitudes toward credit card
marketing on campus. It would be interesting to see what the questions were and how
they were worded.

2
 d. Because the survey focused on students’ opinions and did not provide information about
credit card use by the general population it is difficult to conclude that the marketing
practices companies use on campuses are different from those used to market cards to
the general public. Furthermore, it was not obvious that those students who had credit
cards obtained those cards as a direct result of the campus marketing efforts. What was
impressive was the amount of research the group did to support their claims of
unethical practices. The references to other reports and court cases were a better
support for their claims in question 1.
e. Answers vary. In general, because the study was based on a convenience sample the
results cannot be assumed to hold for the general population of students. Also, it would
be good to know how students’ use of credit cards compares to the general public.
f. The list of schools included in the survey is focused in a few states such as
Massachusetts, California, and Colorado. There were very few schools from the
southeast and virtually no private colleges or universities. Because it was a convenience
sample it is not appropriate to extend the results from the survey to the larger
population of college students. However, many of the references cited did suggest that
the problem was widespread.
g. First, they suggest eliminating "freebies" or gifts that would entice students to sign up
for a credit card. Second, they suggest limiting posted marketing materials on campus.
The third solution is to disallow acquisition of students’ lists. Fourth, they suggest that
sponsorship should be discontinued. In other words, credit card companies cannot pay
for student groups to get them new customers. The fifth recommendation is to enhance
student awareness about credit card problems. Finally, they suggest that certain terms
that take advantage of students should be discouraged. For example, hidden fees,
changing contracts, and universal default should be eliminated.
As a follow up to this report note that the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and
Disclosure Act of 2009 or Credit CARD Act of 2009 is a federal law passed by the
United States Congress and signed by President Barack Obama on May 22, 2009. It is
comprehensive credit card reform legislation that aims "...to establish fair and
transparent practices relating to the extension of credit under an open end consumer
credit plan, and for other purposes."[1]
Learning Objective: 01-3

1.7 Answers will vary. Examples include: linking expectations on conduct to the company’s
mission, explaining what is considered acceptable and unacceptable behavior,
providing courses of action for employees when they have questions or believe an
ethical guideline has been violated, documentation so that employees will know the
code, addressing nepotism, addressing romantic relationships, addressing customer
relationships and vendor relationships.
Learning Objective: 01-3

1.8 Mary is falling for Pitfall 3: Conclusions from Rare Events. Just because an event is
unlikely doesn’t mean it will never happen. The probability may be small but there is a
chance of observing the same five winning numbers in the same sequence on two
different days.
Learning Objective: 01-4

3
1.9 Bob is falling for Pitfall 5: Assuming a Causal Link. Statistical association does not prove
causation. Bob also appears to be falling for Pitfall 6: Generalization to Individuals.
Even if there were a link between cell phones and binge drinking, the link would be
between groups of cell phone users and groups of binge drinkers, not necessarily a one
to one link.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.10 a. It is not obvious that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between an individual
choosing to use a radar detector and that individual choosing to vote and wear a
seatbelt.
b. Increasing the use of radar detectors may not influence those who obey laws and are less
concerned with government limitations.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.11 a. No, the method did not “work” in the sense that he increased his chances of winning by
picking the numbers the way he did. Every combination of six numbers has the same
chance of winning. The fact that this winner chose his numbers based on his families’
birthdays and school grade does not increase the chance of him winning.
b. Someone who picks 1-2-3-4-5-6 has just as much chance of winning as anyone else (see
(a)).
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.12 a. The phrase “much more” is not quantified. The study report is not mentioned. There is
no way to determine the veracity of this statement. Six causes of car accidents could be
poor weather, road construction, heavy traffic, inexperienced driver, engine failure, and
drinking. Smoking is not on this list.
b. Smokers might pay less attention to driving when lighting a cigarette.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.13 The percent reduction might not seem important because it appears so small but when
multiplied by millions of calls each day it does translate into a significant improvement.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.14 a. The conclusion was a broad generalization. This can cause ethical issues if action was
taken against employees that had legitimate complaints about management decisions.
b. The sample is too small, and non-random, creating bias.
c. This test is only going to be performed in the laboratory which limits the ability to see
how it works out in the world. Additionally, there is no informed consent.
d. The sample is once again way too small and is non random. This again creates bias
which creates no causal link.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.15 Sarah’s statement is not correct. Most people would feel the difference is practically
important. 0.9% of 231,164 is 2,080 patients.
Learning Objective: 01-4

4
1.16 The headline implies causation but we cannot assume causation just because the repeal
came before the increase in deaths. The deaths could have been going up each year
before this study or there could be other variables contributing to the increase in deaths.
Although the research accounts for some third variables such as increased registrations,
it does not prove causality.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.17 a. Many people have math “phobia”, and because statistics involves math the subject can
sound scary. The subject of statistics has a reputation for being difficult and this can
cause fear of the unknown.
b. There is usually not the same fear towards an ethics class. This is because there is much
more emphasis on unethical behavior in the media, to the extent that ethical behavior
and an understanding of how to be ethical is widely accepted as a requirement to
graduate and then succeed.
Learning Objective: 01-2

1.18 Random sampling of cans of sauce for a specific manufacturer can be used to assess quality
control.
Learning Objective: 01-1

1.19 a. The consultant can analyze the responses from the 80 purchasing managers noting that
the linen supplier should not make any conclusions about the managers who did not
respond. The consultant should not use the responses to ambiguous questions. She
should suggest that the supplier redesign both the survey questions and the survey
methods to increase the response rates.
b. An imperfect analysis would be a mistake because the supplier may make changes to
their business that upset those customers not responding to the survey or those
customers not sent a survey.
Learning Objective: 01-1

1.20 All of these involve taking samples from the population of interest and estimating the value
of the variable of interest (e.g., average height, average width of a car, etc.)
Learning Objective: 01-1

1.21 Hannah’s statement is correct in the sense that we should not use the percentage to describe
the population of all musicians. This was not a random sample. It is merely a statistic
that describes this group of deceased musicians. She correctly recognized Pitfall 2:
Making conclusions from nonrandom samples.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.22 Sarah is falling for Pitfalls 5 and 6. A statistical association does not mean causation. And
even if there were evidence to support cause and effect, extending the result about
groups to an individual is not appropriate.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.23 Tom is falling for Pitfall 2: Conclusions from Nonrandom Samples. Tom’s team is a
nonrandom sample. In order to conclude that helmets are not needed, Tom would need

5
 to take a random sample of lacrosse players from several age groups, ability levels, and
geographies.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.24 Just because it is not statistically significant does not mean it is not important. Reducing
the risk of death from prostate cancer is extremely important even if it is a small
reduction. Something can also be statistically significant without being important.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.25 a. Class attendance, time spent studying, natural ability of student, interest level in subject,
instructor’s ability, or performance in course prerequisites. Smoking is not on the list.
b. Most likely students who earn A’s are also making good decisions about their health.
Students who smoke might also be making poor choices surrounding their study habits.
c. Giving up smoking alone may not stop a student from using poor study habits nor is it
likely to increase their interest in a topic.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.26 Curiosity, parents’ who smoke, friends who smoke, seeing teenagers smoke in movies and
TV, boredom, wanting to look cool. Yes, seeing movie and TV stars smoking was on
the list.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.27 a. We need to know the total number of philosophy majors to evaluate this.
b. We don’t know the number of students in each major.
c. This statement suffers from self-selection bias. There are likely many more marketing
majors who choose to take the GMAT and therefore a wider range of abilities than the
abilities of physics majors who choose to take the GMAT.
d. The GMAT is just one indicator of managerial skill and ability. It is not the only
predictor of success in management.
Learning Objective: 01-4

1.28 a. The graph is much more useful. We can clearly see that as square feet in the restaurant
increases, so does interior seats. It is a fairly strong linear relationship.
b. The last three data points on the far right show restaurants that have large square feet as
well as a lot of interior seats. The point all the way to the left shows the opposite, small
square footage with hardly any interior seats.
Learning Objective: 01-1

1.29 a. The graph is more helpful. The visual illustration allows you to quickly see the results
and the obvious decline in salad sales.
b. We can quickly see that the month of May saw most salads sold, while the month of
December saw the least salads sold.
Learning Objective: 01-1

1.30 Answers will vary.

Learning Objective: 01-4

6
7
Other documents randomly have
different content
case? This inquiry has been but partially answered in the course of
the foregoing argument.
Many specialities of the reproductive process are manifestly due
to the natural selection of favourable variations. Whether a creature
lays a few large eggs or many small ones equal in weight to the few
large, is not determined by any physiological necessity: here the only
assignable cause is the survival of varieties in which the matter
devoted to reproduction happens to be divided into portions of such
size and number as most to favour multiplication. Whether in any
case there are frequent small broods or larger broods at longer
intervals, depends wholly on the constitutional peculiarity that has
arisen from the dying out of families in which the sizes and intervals
of the broods were least suited to the conditions of life. Whether a
species of animal produces many offspring of which it takes no care
or a few of which it takes much care—that is, whether its
reproductive surplus is laid out wholly in germs or partly in germs
and partly in labour on their behalf—must have been decided by that
moulding of constitution to conditions slowly effected through the
more frequent preservation of descendants from those whose
reproductive habits were best adapted to the circumstances of the
species. Given a certain surplus available for race-preservation, and
it is clear that by indirect equilibration only, can there be established
the more or less peculiar distribution of this surplus which we see in
each case. Obviously, too, survival of the fittest has a share in
determining the proportion between the amount of matter that goes
to Individuation and the amount that goes to Genesis. Whether the
interests of the species are most subserved by a higher evolution of
the individual joined with a diminished fertility, or by a lower
evolution of the individual joined with an increased fertility, are
questions ever being experimentally answered. If the more-
developed and less-prolific variety has a greater number of
survivors, it becomes established and predominant. If, contrariwise,
the conditions of life being simple, the larger or more-organized
individuals gain nothing by their greater size or better organization;
then the greater fertility of the less evolved ones, will insure to their
descendants an increasing predominance.
But direct equilibration all along maintains the limits within which
indirect equilibration thus works. The necessary antagonism we have
traced, rigidly restricts the changes that natural selection can
produce, under given conditions, in either direction. A greater
demand for Individuation, be it a demand caused by some
spontaneous variation or by an adaptive increase of structure and
function, inevitably diminishes the supply for Genesis; and natural
selection cannot, other things remaining the same, restore the rate
of Genesis while the higher Individuation is maintained. Conversely,
survival of the fittest, acting on a species that has, by spontaneous
variation or otherwise, become more prolific, cannot again raise its
lowered Individuation, so long as everything else continues constant.

§ 364. Here, however, a qualification must be made. It was

parenthetically remarked in § 327, that the inverse variation between
Individuation and Genesis is not exact; and it was hinted that a
slight modification of statement would be requisite at a more
advanced stage of the argument. We have now reached the proper
place for specifying this modification.
Each increment of evolution entails a decrement of reproduction
which is not accurately proportionate, but somewhat less than
proportionate. The gain in the one direction is not wholly cancelled
by a loss in the other direction, but only partially cancelled: leaving a
margin of profit to the species. Though augmented power of self-
maintenance habitually necessitates diminished power of race-
propagation, yet the product of the two factors is greater than
before; so that the forces preservative of race become, thereafter, in
excess of the forces destructive of race, and the race spreads. We
shall soon see why this happens.
Every advance in evolution implies an economy. That any increase
in bulk, or structure, or activity, may become established, the life of
the organism must be to some extent facilitated by the change—the
cost of self-support must be, on the average, reduced. If the greater
complexity, or the larger size, or the more agile movement, entails
on the individual an outlay that is not repaid in food more-easily
obtained, or danger more-easily escaped; then the individual will be
at a relative disadvantage, and its diminished posterity will
disappear. If the extra outlay is but just made good by the extra
advantage, the modified individual will not survive longer, or leave
more descendants, than the unmodified individuals. Consequently, it
is only when the expense of greater individuation is out-balanced by
a subsequent saving, that it can tend to subserve the preservation of
the individual, and, by implication, the preservation of the race. The
vital capital invested in the alteration must bring a more than
equivalent return. A few instances will show that, whether the
change results from direct equilibration or from indirect equilibration,
this must happen. Suppose a creature takes to performing some act
in an unusual way—leaps where ordinarily its kindred crawl, eludes
pursuit by diving instead of, like others of its kind, by swimming
along the surface, escapes by doubling instead of by speed. Clearly,
perseverance in the modified habit will, other things equal, imply
that it takes less effort. The creature’s sensations will ever prompt
desistance from the more laborious course; and hence a congenital
habit is not likely to be diverged from unless an economy of force is
achieved by the divergence. Assuming, then, that the new method
has no advantage over the old in directly diminishing the chances of
death, the establishment of it, and of the structural complications
involved, nevertheless implies a physiological gain. Suppose, again,
that an animal takes to some abundant food previously refused by
its kind. It is likely to persist only if the comparative ease in
obtaining this food, more than compensates for any want of
adaptation to its digestive organs; so that superposed modifications
of the digestive organs are likely to arise only when an average
economy results. What now must be the influence on the creature’s
system as a whole? Diminished expenditure in any direction, or
increased nutrition however effected, will leave a greater surplus of
materials. The animal will be physiological richer. Part of its
augmented wealth will go towards its own greater individuation—its
size, or its strength, or both, will increase; while another part will go
towards more active genesis. Just as a state of plethora directly
produced enhances fertility; so will such a state indirectly produced.
In another way, the same thing must result from those additions
to bulk or complexity or activity that are due to survival of the fittest.
Any change which prolongs individual life will, other things remaining
the same, further the production of offspring. Even when it is not,
like the foregoing, a means of economizing the forces of the
individual, still, if it increases the chances of escaping destruction, it
increases the chances of leaving posterity. Any further degree of
evolution, therefore, will be established only where the cost of it is
more than repaid: part of the gain being shown in the lengthened
life of the individual, and part in the greater production of other
individuals.
We have here the solution of various minor anomalies by which
the inverse variation of Individuation and Genesis is obscured. Take
as an instance the fertility of the Blackbird as compared with that of
the Linnet. Both birds lay five eggs, and both usually have two
broods. Yet the Blackbird is far the larger of the two, and ought,
according to the general law, to be much less prolific. What causes
this nonconformity? We shall find an answer in their respective foods
and habits. Except during the time that it is rearing its young, the
Linnet collects only vegetal food—lives during the winter on the
seeds it finds in the fields, or, when hard pressed, picks up around
farms; and to obtain this spare diet is continually flying about. The
result, if it survives the frost and snow, is a considerable depletion;
and it recovers its condition only after some length of spring
weather. The Blackbird, on the other hand, is omnivorous. While it
eats grain and fruit when they come in its way, it depends largely on
animal food. It cuts to pieces and devours the dew-worms which,
morning and evening, it finds on the surface of a lawn, and, even
discovering where they are, unearths them; it swallows slugs, and
breaking snail-shells, either with its beak or by hammering them
against stones, tears out their tenants; and it eats beetles and
larvæ. Thus the strength of the Blackbird opens to it a store of good
food, much of which is inaccessible to so small and weak a bird as a
Linnet—a store especially helpful to it during the cold months, when
the hybernating snails in hedge-bottoms yield it abundant provision.
The result is that the Blackbird is ready to breed very early in spring,
and is able during the summer to rear a second, and sometimes
even a third, brood. Here, then, a higher degree of Individuation
secures advantages so great, as to much more than compensate its
cost. It is not that the decline of Genesis is less than proportionate
to the increase of Individuation, but there is no decline at all.
Comparison of the Rat with the Mouse yields a parallel result.
Though they differ greatly in size, yet the one is as prolific as the
other. This absence of difference cannot be ascribed to their unlike
degrees of activity. We must seek its cause in some facility of living
secured to the Rat by its greater intelligence, greater power and
courage, greater ability to utilize what it finds. The Rat is notoriously
cunning; and its cunning gives success to its foraging expeditions. It
is not, like the Mouse, limited mainly to vegetal food; but while it
eats grain and beans like the Mouse, it also eats flesh and carrion,
devours young poultry and eggs. The result is that, without a
proportionate increase of expenditure, it gets a far larger supply of
nourishment than the Mouse; and relative excess of nourishment
makes possible a larger size without a smaller rate of multiplication.
How clearly this is the cause, we see in the contrast between the
common Rat and the Water-Rat. While the common Rat has
ordinarily several broods a-year of from 10 to 12 each, the Water-
Rat, though somewhat smaller, has but 5 or 6 in a brood, and but
one brood, or sometimes two broods, a-year. But the Water-Rat lives
on vegetal food, and it lacks all that its bold, sagacious, omnivorous
congener gains from the warmth as well as the abundance which
men’s habitations yield.
The inverse variation of Individuation and Genesis is, therefore,
but approximate. Recognizing the truth that every increment of
evolution which is appropriate to the circumstances of an organism,
brings an advantage somewhat in excess of its cost; we see the
general law, as more strictly stated, to be that Genesis decreases not
quite so fast as Individuation increases. Whether the greater
Individuation takes the form of a larger bulk and accompanying
access of strength; whether it be shown in higher speed or agility;
whether it consists in a modification of structure which facilitates
some habitual movement, or in a visceral change that helps to utilize
better the absorbed aliment; the ultimate effect is identical. There is
either a more economical performance of the same actions, internal
or external, or there is a securing of greater advantages by modified
actions, which cost no more, or have an increased cost less than the
increased gain. In any case the result is a greater surplus of vital
capital, part of which goes to the aggrandizement of the individual,
and part to the formation of new individuals. While the higher tide of
nutritive matters, everywhere filling the parent-organism, adds to its
power of self-maintenance, it also causes a reproductive overflow
larger than before.
Hence every type which is best adapted to its conditions, (and
this on the average means every higher type), has a rate of
multiplication that insures a tendency to predominate. Survival of the
fittest, acting alone, is ever replacing inferior species by superior
species. But beyond the longer survival, and therefore greater
chance of leaving offspring, which superiority gives, we see here
another way in which the spread of the superior is insured. Though
the more-evolved organism is the less fertile absolutely, it is the
more fertile relatively.
 CHAPTER XII.
MULTIPLICATION OF THE HUMAN RACE.

§ 365. The relative fertility of Man considered as a species, and

those changes in Man’s fertility which occur under changed
conditions, must conform to the laws which we have traced thus far.
As a matter of course, the inverse variation between Individuation
and Genesis holds of him as of all other organized beings. His
extremely low rate of multiplication—far below that of all terrestrial
Mammals except the Elephant, (which though otherwise less evolved
is, in extent of integration, more evolved)—we shall recognize as the
necessary concomitant of his much higher evolution. And the causes
of increase or decrease in his fertility, special or general, temporary
or permanent, we shall expect to find in those changes of bulk, of
structure, or of expenditure, which we have in all other cases seen
associated with such effects.
In the absence of detailed proof that these parallelisms exist, it
might suffice to contemplate the several communities between the
reproductive function in human beings and other beings. I do not
refer simply to the fact that genesis proceeds in a similar manner;
but I refer to the similarity of the relation between the generative
function and the functions which have for their joint end the
preservation of the individual. In Man, as in other creatures that
expend much, genesis commences only when growth and
development are declining in rapidity and approaching their
termination. Among the higher organisms in general, the
reproductive activity, continuing during the prime of life, ceases
when the vigour declines, leaving a closing period of infertility; and
in like manner among ourselves, barrenness supervenes when
middle age brings the surplus vitality to an end. So, too, it is found
that in Man, as in beings of lower orders, there is a period at which
fecundity culminates. In § 341, facts were cited showing that at the
commencement of the reproductive period, animals bear fewer
offspring than afterwards; and that towards the close of the
reproductive period, there is a decrease in the number produced. In
like manner it is shown by the tables of Dr. Duncan’s recent work,
that the fecundity of women increases up to the age of about 25
years, and continuing high with but slight diminution till after 30,
then gradually wanes. It is the same with the sizes and weights of
offspring. Infants born of women from 25 to 29 years of age, are
both longer and heavier than infants born of younger or older
women; and this difference has the same implication as the greater
total weight of the offspring produced at a birth, during the most
fecund age of a pluriparous animal. Once more, there is the fact that
a too-early bearing of young produces on a woman the same
injurious effects as on an inferior creature—an arrest of growth and
an enfeeblement of constitution.
Considering these general and special parallelisms, we might
safely infer that variations of human fertility conform to the same
laws as do variations of fertility in general. But it is not needful to
content ourselves with an implication. Evidence is assignable that
what causes increase or decrease of genesis in other creatures,
causes increase or decrease of genesis in Man. It is true that, even
more than hitherto, our reasonings are beset by difficulties. So
numerous are the inequalities in the conditions, that but few
unobjectionable comparisons can be made. The human races differ
considerably in their sizes, and notably in their degrees of cerebral
development. The countries they inhabit entail on them widely
different consumptions of matter for maintenance of temperature.
Both in their qualities and quantities the foods they live on are
unlike; and the supply is here regular and there very irregular. Their
expenditures in bodily action are extremely unequal; and even still
more unequal are their expenditures in mental action. Hence the
factors, varying so much in their amounts and combinations, can
scarcely ever have their respective effects identified. Nevertheless
there are a few comparisons the results of which may withstand
criticism.
 § 366. The increase of fertility caused by a nutrition that is greatly
in excess of the expenditure, is to be detected by contrasting
populations of the same race, or allied races, one of which obtains
good and abundant sustenance much more easily than the other.
Three cases may here be set down.
The traveller Barrow, describing the Cape-Boers, says:—“Unwilling
to work and unable to think,” ... “indulging to excess in the
gratification of every sensual appetite, the African peasant grows to
an unwieldy size;” and respecting the other sex, he adds—“the
women of the African peasantry lead a life of the most listless
inactivity,” Then, after illustrating these statements, he goes on to
note “the prolific tendency of all the African peasantry. Six or seven
children in a family are considered as very few; from a dozen to
twenty are not uncommon.” The native races of this region yield
evidence to the same effect. Speaking of the cruelly-used Hottentots
(he is writing a century ago), who, while they are poor and ill-fed,
have to do all the work for the idle Boers, Barrow says that they
“seldom have more than two or three children; and many of the
women are barren.” This unusual infertility stands in remarkable
contrast with the unusual fertility of the Kaffirs, of whom he
afterwards gives an account. Rich in cattle, leading easy lives, and
living almost exclusively on animal food (chiefly milk with occasional
flesh), these people were then reputed to have a very high rate of
multiplication. Barrow writes:—“They are said to be exceedingly
prolific; that twins are almost as frequent as single births, and that it
is no uncommon thing for a woman to have three at a time.”
Probably both these statements are in excess of the truth; but there
is room for large discounts without destroying the extreme
difference. A third instance is that of the French-Canadians. “Nous
sommes terribles pour les enfants!” observed one of them to Prof.
Johnston, who tells us that the man who said this “was one of
fourteen children—was himself the father of fourteen, and assured
me that from eight to sixteen was the usual number of the farmers’
families. He even named one or two women who had brought their
husbands five-and-twenty, and threatened ‘le vingt-sixième pour le
prêtre.’” From these large families, joined with the early marriages
and low rate of mortality, it results that, by natural increase, “there
are added to the French-Canadian population of Lower Canada four
persons for every one that is added to the population of England.”
Now these French-Canadians are described by Prof. Johnston as
home-loving, contented, unenterprising; and as living in a region
where “land and subsistence are easily obtained.” Very moderate
industry brings to them liberal supplies of necessaries; and they pass
a considerable portion of the year in idleness. Hence the cost of
Individuation being much reduced, the rate of Genesis is much
increased. That this uncommon fertility is not due to any direct
influence of the locality, is implied by the fact that along with the
“restless, discontented, striving, burning energy of their Saxon
neighbours,” no such rate of multiplication is observed; while further
south, where the physical circumstances are more favourable if
anything, the Anglo-Saxons, leading lives of excessive activity, have
a fertility below the average. And that the peculiarity is not a direct
effect of race, is proved by the fact that in Europe, the rural French
are certainly not more prolific than the rural English.
To every reader there will probably occur the seemingly-adverse
evidence furnished by the Irish; who, though not well fed, multiply
fast. Part of this more rapid increase is due to the earlier marriages
common among them, and consequent quicker succession of
generations—a factor which, as we have seen, has a larger effect
than any other on the rate of multiplication. Part of it is due to the
greater generality of marriage—to the comparative smallness of the
number who die without having had the opportunity of producing
offspring. The effects of these causes having been deducted, we
may doubt whether the Irish, individually considered, would be
found more prolific than the English. Perhaps, however, it will be said
that, considering their diet, they ought to be less prolific. This is by
no means obvious. It is not simply a question of nutriment absorbed.
It is a question of how much remains after the expenditure in self-
maintenance. Now a notorious peculiarity in the life of the Irish
peasant is, that he obtains a return of food which is large in
proportion to his outlay in labour. The cultivation of his potatoe-
ground occupies each cottager but a small part of the year; and the
domestic economy of his wife is not of a kind to entail on her much
daily exertion. Consequently the crop, tolerably abundant in quantity
though innutritive in quality, possibly suffices to meet the
comparatively-low expenditure, and to leave a good surplus for
genesis—perhaps a greater surplus than remains to the males and
females of the English peasantry, who, though fed on better food,
are harder worked.
We conclude, then, that in the human race, as in all other races,
such absolute or relative abundance of nutriment as leaves a large
excess after defraying the cost of carrying on parental life, is
accompanied by a high rate of genesis.[66]

§ 367. Evidence of the converse truth, that relative increase of

expenditure, leaving a diminished surplus, reduces the degree of
fertility, is not wanting. Some of it has been set down for the sake of
antithesis in the foregoing section. Here may be grouped a few facts
of a more special kind having the same implication.
To prove that much bodily labour renders women less prolific,
requires more evidence than has at present been collected.
Nevertheless it may be noted that De Boismont in France and Dr.
Szukits in Austria, have shown by extensive statistical comparisons,
that the reproductive age is reached a year later by women of the
labouring class than by middle-class women; and while ascribing this
delay in part to inferior nutrition, we may suspect that it is in part
due to greater muscular expenditure. A kindred fact, admitting of a
kindred interpretation, may be added. Though the comparatively-low
rate of increase in France is attributed to other causes, yet, very
possibly, one of its causes is the greater proportion of hard work
entailed on French women, by the excessive abstraction of men for
non-productive occupations, military and civil. The higher rate of
multiplication in England than in continental countries generally, is
not improbably furthered by the easier lives which English women
lead.
That absolute or relative infertility is commonly produced in
women by mental labour carried to excess, is more clearly shown.
Though the regimen of upper-class girls is not what it should be,
yet, considering that their feeding is better than that of girls
belonging to the poorer classes, while, in most other respects, their
physical treatment is not worse, the deficiency of reproductive power
among them may be reasonably attributed to the overtaxing of their
brains—an overtaxing which produces a serious reaction on the
physique. This diminution of reproductive power is not shown only
by the greater frequency of absolute sterility; nor is it shown only in
the earlier cessation of child-bearing; but it is also shown in the very
frequent inability of such women to suckle their infants. In its full
sense, the reproductive power means the power to bear a well-
developed infant and to supply that infant with the natural food for
the natural period. Most of the flat-chested girls who survive their
high-pressure education, are incompetent to do this. Were their
fertility measured by the number of children they could rear without
artificial aid, they would prove relatively very infertile.
The cost of reproduction to males being so much less than it is to
females, the antagonism between Genesis and Individuation is not
often shown in men by suppression of generative power consequent
on unusual expenditure in bodily action. Nevertheless, there are
indications that this results in extreme cases. We read that the
ancient athletæ rarely had children; and among such of their
modern representatives as acrobats, an allied relation of cause and
effect is alleged. Indirectly this truth, or rather its converse, appears
to have been ascertained by those who train men for feats of
strength—they find it needful to insist on continence.
Special proofs that in men great cerebral expenditure diminishes
or destroys generative power, are difficult to obtain. It is, indeed,
asserted that intense application to mathematics, requiring as it does
extreme concentration of thought, is apt to have this result; and it is
asserted, too, that this result is produced by the excessive emotional
excitement of gambling. Then, again, it is a matter of common
remark how frequently men of unusual mental activity leave no
offspring. But facts of this kind admit of another interpretation. The
reaction of the brain on the body is so violent—the overtaxing of the
nervous system is so apt to prostrate the heart and derange the
digestion; that the incapacities caused in these cases, are probably
often due more to constitutional disturbance than to the direct
deduction which excessive action entails. Such instances harmonize
with the hypothesis; but how far they yield it positive support we
cannot say.

§ 368. An objection must here be guarded against. It is likely to

be urged that since the civilized races are, on the average, larger
than many of the uncivilized races; and since they are also
somewhat more complex as well as more active; they ought, in
conformity with the alleged general law, to be less prolific. There is,
however, no evidence to prove that they are so: on the whole, they
seem rather the reverse.
The reply is that were all other things equal, these superior
varieties of men should have inferior rates of increase. But other
things are not equal; and it is to the inequality of other things that
this apparent anomaly is attributable. Already we have seen how
much more fertile domesticated animals are than their wild kindred;
and the causes of this greater fertility are also the causes of the
greater fertility, relative or absolute, which civilized men exhibit
when compared with savages.
There is the difference in amount of food. Australians, Fuegians,
and sundry races that might be named as having low rates of
multiplication, are obviously underfed. The sketches of natives
contained in the volumes of Livingstone, Baker, and others, yield
clear proofs of the extreme depletion common among the
uncivilized. In quality as well as in quantity, their feeding is bad. Wild
fruits, insects, larvæ, vermin, &c., which we refuse with disgust,
often enter largely into their dietary. Much of this inferior food they
eat uncooked; and they have not our elaborate appliances for
mechanically-preparing it, and rejecting its useless parts. So that
they live on matters of less nutritive value, which cost more both to
masticate and to digest. Further, to uncivilized men supplies of food
come very irregularly. Long periods of scarcity are divided by short
periods of abundance. And though by gorging when opportunity
occurs, something is done towards compensating for previous
fasting, yet the effects of prolonged starvation cannot be neutralized
by occasional enormous meals. Bearing in mind, too, that
improvident as they are, savages often bestir themselves only under
pressure of hunger, we may fairly consider them as habitually ill-
nourished—may see that even the poorer classes of civilized men,
making regular meals on food separated from innutritive matters,
easy to masticate and digest, tolerably good in quality and adequate
if not abundant in quantity, are much better nourished.
Then, again, though a greater consumption in muscular action
appears to be undergone by civilized men than by savages; and
though it is probably true that among our labouring people the daily
repairs cost more; yet in many cases there does not exist so much
difference as we are apt to suppose. The chase is very laborious;
and great amounts of exertion are gone through by the lowest races
in seeking and securing the odds and ends of wild food on which
they largely depend. We naturally assume that because barbarians
are averse to regular labour, their muscular action is less than our
own. But this is not necessarily true. The monotonous toil is what
they cannot tolerate; and they may be ready to go through as much
or more exertion when it is joined with excitement. If we remember
that the sportsman who gladly scrambles up and down rough hill-
sides all day after grouse or deer, would think himself hardly used
had he to spend as much effort and time in digging; we shall see
that a savage who is the reverse of industrious, may nevertheless be
subject to a muscular waste not very different in amount from that
undergone by the industrious. When it is added that a larger
physiological expenditure is entailed on the uncivilized than on the
civilized by the absence of good appliances for shelter and protection
—that in some cases they have to make good a greater loss of heat,
and in other cases suffer much wear from irritating swarms of
insects; we shall see that the total cost of self-maintenance among
them is probably in many cases little less, and in some cases more,
than it is among ourselves.
So that though, on the average, the civilized are probably larger
than the savage; and though they are, in their nervous systems at
least, somewhat more complex; and though, other things equal,
they ought to be the less prolific; yet other things are so unequal as
to make it quite conformable to the general law that they should be
more prolific. In § 365 we observed how, among inferior animals,
higher evolution sometimes makes self-preservation far easier, by
opening the way to resources previously unavailable: so involving an
undiminished, or even an increased, rate of genesis. And similarly
we may expect that among races of men, those whose slight further
developments have been followed by habits and arts which
immensely facilitate life, will not exhibit a lower degree of fertility,
and may even exhibit a higher.

§ 369. One more objection has to be met—a kindred objection to

which there is a kindred reply. Cases may be named of men
conspicuous for activity, bodily and mental, who were also noted,
not for less generative power than usual, but for more. As their
superiorities indicate higher degrees of evolution, it may be urged
that such men should, according to the theory, have lower degrees
of reproductive activity. The fact that here, along with increased
powers of self-preservation, there go increased powers of race-
propagation, seems irreconcilable with the general doctrine.
Reconciliation is not difficult however.
The cases are analogous to some before named, in which more
abundant food simultaneously aggrandizes the individual and adds
to the production of new individuals: the difference between the
cases being, that instead of a better external supply of materials
there is a better internal utilization of materials. Creatures of the
same species notoriously differ in goodness of constitution. Here
there is some visceral defect, showing itself in feebleness of all the
functions; while here some peculiarity of organic balance, some high
quality of tissue, some abundance or potency of the digestive juices,
gives to the system a perpetual high tide of rich blood, which serves
at once to enhance the vital activities and to raise the power of
propagation. Such variations, however, are independent of changes
in the proportion between Individuation and Genesis. This remains
the same, while both are increased or decreased by the increase or
decrease of the common stock of materials.
An illustration will best clear up any perplexity. Let us say that the
fuel burnt in the furnace of a locomotive steam-engine, answers to
the food which a man consumes. Let us say that the produced
steam expended in working the engine, corresponds to that portion
of absorbed nutriment which carries on the man’s functions and
activities. And let us say that the steam blowing off at the safety-
valve, answers to that portion of the absorbed nutriment which goes
to the propagation of the race. Such being the conditions of the
case, several kinds of variations are possible. All other circumstances
remaining the same, there may be changes of proportion between
the steam used for working the engine and the steam that escapes
by the safety-valve. There may be a structural or organic change of
proportion. By enlarging the safety-valve or weakening its spring,
while the cylinders are reduced in size, there may be established a
constitutionally-small power of locomotion and a constitutionally-
large amount of escape-steam; and inverse variations so produced,
will answer to the inverse variations between Individuation and
Genesis which different types of organisms show us. Again, there
may be a functional change of proportion. If the engine has to draw
a considerable load, the abstraction of steam by the cylinders greatly
reduces the discharge by the safety-valve; and if a high velocity is
kept up, the discharge from the safety-valve entirely ceases.
Conversely, if the velocity is low, the escape-steam bears a large
ratio to the steam consumed by the motor apparatus; and if the
engine becomes stationary the whole of the steam escapes by the
safety-valve. This inverse variation answers to that which we have
traced between Expenditure and Genesis, as displayed in the
contrasts between species of the same type but unlike activities, and
in the contrasts between active and inactive individuals of the same
species. But now beyond these inverse variations between the
quantities of consumed steam and escape-steam, which are
structurally and functionally caused, there are coincident variations,
producible in both by changes in the quantity of steam supplied—
changes which may be caused in several ways. In the first place, the
fuel thrown into the furnace may be increased or made better. Other
things equal, there will result a more active locomotion as well as a
greater escape; and this will answer to that simultaneous addition to
its individual vigour and its reproductive activity, caused in an animal
by a larger quantity, or a superior quality, of food. In the second
place, the steam generated may be economized. Loss by radiation
from the boiler may be lessened by a covering of non-conducting
substances; and part of the steam thus prevented from condensing,
will go to increase the working power of the engine, while part will
be added to the quantity blowing off. This variation corresponds to
that simultaneous addition to bodily vigour and propagative power,
which results in animals that have to expend less in keeping up their
temperatures. In the third place, by improvement of the steam-
generating apparatus, more steam may be obtained from a given
weight of fuel. A better-formed evaporating surface, or boiler tubes
which conduct more rapidly, or an increased number of them may
cause a larger absorption of heat from the burning mass or the hot
gases it gives off; and the extra steam generated by this extra heat
will, as before, augment both the motive force and the emission
through the safety-valve. And this last case of coincident variation, is
parallel to the case with which we are here concerned—the
augmentation of individual expenditure and of reproductive energy,
that may be caused by a superiority of some organ on which the
utilizing or economizing of materials depends.
 Manifestly, therefore, an increased expenditure for Genesis, or an
increased expenditure for Individuation, may arise in one of two
quite different ways—either by diminution of the antagonistic
expenditure, or by addition to the store which supplies both
expenditures; and confusion results from not distinguishing between
these. Given the ratio 4 to 20, as expressive of the relative costs of
Genesis and Individuation; then the expenditure for Genesis may be
raised to 5 while the expenditure for Individuation is raised to 25,
without any alteration of type, merely by favourable circumstances
or superiority of constitution. On the other hand, circumstances
remaining the same, the expenditure for Genesis may be raised from
4 to 5, by lowering the expenditure for Individuation from 20 to 19:
which change of ratio may be either functional and temporary, or
structural and permanent. And only when it is the last does it
illustrate that inverse variation between degree of evolution and
degree of procreative dissolution, which we have everywhere seen.

§ 370. There is no reason to suppose, then, that the laws of

multiplication which hold of other beings, do not hold of the human
being. On the contrary, there are special facts which unite with
general implications to show that these laws do hold of the human
being. The absence of direct evidence in some cases where it might
be looked for, we find fully explained when all the factors are taken
into account. And certain seemingly-adverse facts prove, on
examination, to be facts belonging to a different category from that
in which they are placed, and harmonize with the rest when rightly
interpreted.
The conformity of human fertility to the laws of multiplication in
general, being granted, it remains to inquire what effects must be
caused by permanent changes in men’s natures and circumstances.
Thus far we have observed how, by their exceptionally-high
evolution and exceptionally-low fertility, mankind display the inverse
variation between Individuation and Genesis, in one of its extremes.
And we have also observed how mankind, like other kinds, are
functionally changed in their rates of multiplication by changes of
conditions. But we have not observed how alteration of structure in
Man entails alteration of fertility. The influence of this factor is so
entangled with the influences of other factors which are for the
present more potent, that we cannot recognize it. Here, if we
proceed at all, we must proceed deductively.

[Note.—From among the publications of the American Academy of

Political and Social Science, there was sent to me some years ago an
essay entitled “The Significance of a Decreasing Birth Rate” by
(Miss) J. L. Brownell, Fellow in Political Science, Bryn Mawr College.
This essay contains a number of elaborate comparisons drawn from
the vital statistics of the tenth United States Census. The results of
these comparisons are thus summed up:—
“1. Whether or not it be true that the means spoken of by Dr.
Billings, M. Dumont, M. Levasseur, and Dr. Edson has become an
important factor in the diminishing birth-rate of civilized countries, it is
evident that it is not the only factor, and that, quite apart from
voluntary prevention, there is a distinct problem to be investigated.
This is shown by the fact that the white and the colored birth-rate
vary together.
“2. Mr. Spencer’s generalization that the birth-rate diminishes as
the rate of individual evolution increases is confirmed by a comparison
of the birth-rates with the death-rates from nervous diseases, and
also with the density of population, the values of agricultural and
manufactured products, and the mortgage indebtedness.”
Of course multitudinous differences of race, class, mode of living,
occupation, locality, make it difficult to draw positive inferences from
the data; but the inferences above drawn are held to remain
outstanding after allowing for all the qualifying conditions.]
 CHAPTER XIII.
HUMAN POPULATION IN THE FUTURE.

§ 371. Any further evolution in the most highly-evolved of

terrestrial beings, Man, must be of the same nature as evolution in
general. Structurally considered, it may consist in greater
integration, or greater differentiation, or both—augmented bulk, or
increased heterogeneity and definiteness, or a combination of the
two. Functionally considered, it may consist in a larger sum of
actions, or more multiplied varieties of actions, or both—a larger
amount of sensible and insensible motion generated, or motions
more numerous in their kinds and more intricate and exact in their
co-ordinations, or motions that are greater alike in quantity,
complexity, and precision.
Expressing the change in terms of that more special evolution
displayed by organisms; we may say that it must be one which
further adapts the moving equilibrium of organic actions. As was
pointed out in First Principles, § 173, “the maintenance of such a
moving equilibrium, requires the habitual genesis of internal forces
corresponding in number, directions, and amounts to the external
incident forces—as many inner functions, single or combined, as
there are single or combined outer actions to be met.” And it was
also pointed out that “the structural complexity accompanying
functional equilibration, is definable as one in which there are as
many specialized parts as are capable, separately and jointly, of
counteracting the separate and joint forces amid which the organism
exists.” Clearly, then, since all incompletenesses in Man as now
constituted, are failures to meet certain of the outer actions (mostly
involved, remote, irregular), to which he is exposed; every advance
implies additional co-ordinations of actions and accompanying
complexities of organization.
Or, to specialize still further this conception of future progress, we
may consider it as an advance towards completion of that
continuous adjustment of internal to external relations, which Life
shows us. In Part I. of this work, where it was shown that the
correspondence between inner and outer actions which under its
phenomenal aspect, we call Life, is a particular kind of what, in
terms of Evolution, we called a moving equilibrium; it was shown
that the degree of life varies as the degree of correspondence.
Greater evolution or higher life implies, then, such modifications of
human nature as shall make more exact the existing
correspondences, or shall establish additional correspondences, or
both. Connexions of phenomena of a rare, distant, unobtrusive, or
intricate kind, which we either suffer from or do not take advantage
of, have to be responded to by new connexions of ideas, and acts
properly combined and proportioned: there must be increase of
knowledge, or skill, or power, or of all these. And to effect this more
extensive, more varied, and more accurate, co-ordination of actions,
there must be organization of still greater heterogeneity and
definiteness.

§ 372. Let us, before proceeding, consider in what particular ways

this further evolution, this higher life, this greater co-ordination of
actions, may be expected to show itself.
Will it be in strength? Probably not to any considerable degree.
Mechanical appliances are fast supplanting brute force, and
doubtless will continue doing this. Though at present civilized
nations largely depend for self-preservation on vigour of limb, and
are likely to do so while wars continue; yet that progressive
adaptation to the social state which must at last bring wars to an
end, will leave the amount of muscular power to adjust itself to the
requirements of a peaceful regime. Though, taking all things into
account, the muscular power then required may not be less than
now, there seems no reason why more should be required.
Will it be swiftness or agility? Probably not. In savages these are
important elements of the ability to maintain life; but in civilized men
they aid self-preservation in quite minor degrees, and there seems
no circumstance likely to necessitate an increase of them. By games
and gymnastic competitions, such attributes may indeed be
artificially increased; but no artificial increase which does not bring a
proportionate advantage can be permanent; since, other things
equal, individuals and societies that devote the same amounts of
energy in ways which subserve life more effectually, must by and by
predominate.
Will it be in mechanical skill, that is, in the better-co-ordination of
complex movements? Most likely in some degree. Awkwardness is
continually entailing injuries and deaths. Moreover the complicated
tools which civilization brings into use, are constantly requiring
greater delicacy of manipulation. All the arts, industrial and æsthetic,
as they develop, imply a corresponding development of perceptive
and executive faculties in men: the two act and react.
Will it be in intelligence? Largely, no doubt. There is ample room
for advance in this direction, and ample demand for it. Our lives are
universally shortened by our ignorance. In attaining complete
knowledge of our own natures and of the natures of surrounding
things—in ascertaining the conditions of existence to which we must
conform, and in discovering means of conforming to them under all
variations of seasons and circumstances; we have abundant scope
for intellectual progress.
Will it be in morality, that is, in greater power of self-regulation?
Largely also: perhaps most largely. Right conduct is usually come
short of more from defect of will than defect of knowledge. For the
right co-ordination of those complex actions which constitute human
life in its civilized form, there goes not only the pre-requisite—
recognition of the proper course; but the further pre-requisite—a
due impulse to pursue that course. On calling to mind our daily
failures to fulfil often-repeated resolutions, we shall perceive that
lack of the needful desire, rather than lack of the needful insight, is
the chief cause of faulty action. A further endowment of those
feelings which civilization is developing in us—sentiments responding
to the requirements of the social state—emotive faculties that find
their gratifications in the duties devolving on us—must be acquired
before the crimes, excesses, diseases, improvidences, dishonesties,
and cruelties, that now so greatly diminish the duration of life, can
cease.
Thus, looking at the several possibilities, and asking what
direction this further evolution, this more complete moving
equilibrium, this better adjustment of inner to outer relations, this
more perfect co-ordination of actions, is likely to take; we conclude
that it must take mainly the direction of a higher intellectual and
emotional development.

§ 373. This conclusion we shall find equally forced on us if we

inquire for the causes which are to bring about such results. No
more in the case of Man than in the case of any other being, can we
presume that evolution has taken place, or will hereafter take place,
spontaneously. In the past, at present, and in the future, all
modifications, functional and organic, have been, are, and must be,
immediately or remotely consequent on surrounding conditions.
What, then, are those changes in the environment to which, by
direct or indirect equilibration, the human organism has been
adjusting itself, is adjusting itself now, and will continue to adjust
itself? And how do they necessitate a higher evolution of the
organism?
Civilization, everywhere having for its antecedent the increase of
population, and everywhere having for one of its consequences a
decrease of certain race-destroying forces, has for a further
consequence an increase of certain other race-destroying forces.
Danger of death from predatory animals lessens as men grow more
numerous. Though, as they spread over the Earth and divide into
tribes, men become wild beasts to one another, yet the danger of
death from this cause also diminishes as tribes coalesce into nations.
But the danger of death which does not diminish, is that produced
by augmentation of numbers itself—the danger from deficiency of
food. Supposing human nature to remain unchanged, the mortality
hence resulting would, on the average, rise as human beings
multiplied. If mortality, under such conditions, does not rise, it must
be because the supply of food also augments; and this implies some
change in human habits wrought by stress of human needs. Here,
then, is the permanent cause of modification to which civilized men
are exposed. Though the intensity of its action is ever being
mitigated in one direction by greater production of food, it is, in the
other direction, ever being added to by the greater production of
individuals. Manifestly, the wants of their redundant numbers
constitute the only stimulus mankind have to obtain more
necessaries of life. Were not the demand beyond the supply, there
would be no motive to increase the supply. And manifestly, this
excess of demand over supply is perennial: this pressure of
population, of which it is the index, cannot be eluded. Though by the
emigration that takes place when the pressure arrives at a certain
intensity, temporary relief is from time to time obtained; yet as, by
this process, all habitable countries must become peopled, it follows
that in the end the pressure, whatever it may then be, must be
borne in full.
This constant increase of people beyond the means of subsistence
causes, then, a never-ceasing requirement for skill, intelligence, and
self-control—involves, therefore, a constant exercise of these and
gradual growth of them. Every industrial improvement is at once the
product of a higher form of humanity, and demands that higher form
of humanity to carry it into practice. The application of science to the
arts, is the bringing to bear greater intelligence for satisfying our
wants, and implies continued progress of that intelligence. To get
more produce from the acre, the farmer must study chemistry, must
adopt new mechanical appliances, and must, by the multiplication of
processes, cultivate both his own powers and the powers of his
labourers. To meet the requirements of the market, the
manufacturer is perpetually improving his old machines and
inventing new ones; and by the premium of high wages incites
artizans to acquire greater skill. The daily-widening ramifications of
commerce entail on the merchant a need for more knowledge and
more complex calculations; while the lessening profits of the ship-
owner force him to build more scientifically, to get captains of higher
intelligence and better crews. In all cases pressure of population is
the original cause. Were it not for the competition this entails, more
thought and energy would not daily be spent on the business of life;
and growth of mental power would not take place. Difficulty in
getting a living is alike the incentive to a higher education of
children, and to a more intense and long-continued application in
adults. In the mother it prompts foresight, economy, and skilful
house-keeping; in the father, laborious days and constant self-denial.
Nothing but necessity could make men submit to this discipline; and
nothing but this discipline could produce a continued progression.
In this case, as in many others, Nature secures each step in
advance by a succession of trials; which are perpetually repeated,
and cannot fail to be repeated, until success is achieved. All mankind
in turn subject themselves more or less to the discipline described;
they either may or may not advance under it; but, in the nature of
things, only those who do advance under it eventually survive. For,
necessarily, families and races whom this increasing difficulty of
getting a living which excess of fertility entails, does not stimulate to
improvements in production—that is, to greater mental activity—are
on the high road to extinction; and must ultimately be supplanted by
those whom the pressure does so stimulate. This truth we have
recently seen exemplified in Ireland. And here, indeed, without
further illustration, it will be seen that premature death, under all its
forms and from all its causes, cannot fail to work in the same
direction. For as those prematurely carried off must, in the average
of cases, be those in whom the power of self-preservation is the
least, it unavoidably follows that those left behind to continue the
race, must be those in whom the power of self-preservation is the
greatest—must be the select of their generation. So that, whether
the dangers to existence be of the kind produced by excess of
fertility, or of any other kind, it is clear that by the ceaseless exercise
of the faculties needed to contend with them, and by the death of all
men who fail to contend with them successfully, there is ensured a
constant progress towards a higher degree of skill, intelligence, and
self-regulation—a better co-ordination of actions—a more complete
life.[67]

§ 374. The proposition at which we have thus arrived is, then,

that excess of fertility, through the changes it is ever working in
Man’s environment, is itself the cause of Man’s further evolution; and
the obvious corollary here to be drawn is, that Man’s further
evolution so brought about, itself necessitates a decline in his
fertility.
All future progress in civilization which the never-ceasing pressure
of population must produce, will be accompanied by an enhanced
cost of Individuation, both in structure and function; and more
especially in nervous structure and function. The peaceful struggle
for existence in societies ever growing more crowded and more
complicated, must have for its concomitant an increase of the great
nervous centres in mass, in complexity, in activity. That larger body
of emotion needed as a fountain of energy for men who have to
hold their places and rear their families under the intensifying
competition of social life, is, other things equal, the correlative of
larger brain. Those higher feelings presupposed by the better self-
regulation which, in a better society, can alone enable the individual
to leave a persistent posterity, are, other things equal, the
correlatives of a more complex brain; as are also those more
numerous, more varied, more general, and more abstract ideas,
which must also become increasingly requisite for successful life as
society advances. And the genesis of this larger quantity of feeling
and thought, in a brain thus augmented in size and developed in
structure, is, other things equal, the correlative of a greater wear of
nervous tissue and greater consumption of materials to repair it. So
that both in original cost of construction and in subsequent cost of
working, the nervous system must become a heavier tax on the
organism. Already the brain of the civilized man is larger by nearly
thirty per cent. than the brain of the savage. Already, too, it presents
an increased heterogeneity—especially in the distribution of its
convolutions. And further changes like these which have taken place
under the discipline of civilized life, we infer will continue to take
place. But everywhere and always, evolution is antagonistic to
procreative dissolution. Whether it be in greater growth of the
organs which subserve self-maintenance, whether it be in their
added complexity of structure, or whether it be in their higher
activity, the abstraction of the required materials implies a
diminished reserve of materials for race-maintenance. And we have
seen reason to believe that this antagonism between Individuation
and Genesis, becomes unusually marked where the nervous system
is concerned, because of the costliness of nervous structure and
function. In § 346 was pointed out the apparent connexion between
high cerebral development and prolonged delay of sexual maturity;
and in §§ 366, 367, the evidence went to show that where
exceptional fertility exists there is sluggishness of mind, and that
where there has been during education excessive expenditure in
mental action, there frequently follows a complete or partial
infertility. Hence the particular kind of further evolution which Man is
hereafter to undergo, is one which, more than any other, may be
expected to cause a decline in his power of reproduction.
The higher nervous development and greater expenditure in
nervous action, here described as indirectly brought about by
increase of numbers, and as thereafter becoming a check on the
increase of numbers, must not be taken to imply an intenser strain—
a mentally-laborious life. The greater emotional and intellectual
power and activity above contemplated, must be understood as
becoming, by small increments, organic, spontaneous, and
pleasurable. As, even when relieved from the pressure of necessity,
large-brained Europeans voluntarily enter on enterprises and
activities which the savage could not keep up even to satisfy urgent
wants; so, their still larger-brained descendants will, in a still higher
degree, find their gratifications in careers entailing still greater
mental expenditures. This enhanced demand for materials to
establish and carry on the psychical functions, will be a constitutional
demand. We must conceive the type gradually so modified, that the
more-developed nervous system irresistibly draws off, for its normal
and unforced activities, a larger proportion of the common stock of
nutriment; and while so increasing the intensity, completeness, and
length of the individual life, necessarily diminishing the reserve
applicable to the setting up of new lives—no longer required to be so
numerous.
Though the working of this process will doubtless be interfered
with and modified in the future, as it has been in the past, by the
facilitations of living which civilization brings; yet nothing beyond
temporary interruptions can so be caused. However much the
industrial arts may be improved, there must be a limit to the
improvement; while, with a rate of multiplication in excess of the
rate of mortality, population must continually tread on the heels of
production. So that though, during the earlier stages of civilization,
an increased amount of food may accrue from a given amount of
labour, there must come a time when this relation will be reversed,
and when every additional increment of food will be obtained by a
more than proportionate labour: the disproportion growing ever
higher, and the diminution of the reproductive power becoming
greater.

§ 375. There now remains but to inquire towards what limit this
progress tends. So long as the fertility of the race is more than
sufficient to balance the diminution by deaths, population must
continue to increase. So long as population continues to increase,
there must be pressure on the means of subsistence. And so long as
there is pressure on the means of subsistence, further mental
development must go on, and further diminution of fertility must
result; provided that the actions and reactions which have been
described are not artificially interfered with. I append this qualifying
clause advisedly, and especially emphasize it, because these actions
and reactions have been hitherto, and are now, greatly interfered
with by governments, and the continuance of the interferences may
retard, if not stop, that further evolution which would else go on.
I refer to those hindrances to the survival of the fittest which in
earlier times resulted from the undiscriminating charities of
monasteries and in later times from the operation of Poor Laws. Of
course if the competition which increasing pressure of population
entails, is prevented from acting on a considerable part of the
community, such part, saved from the needed intellectual and moral
stress, will not undergo any further mental development; and must
ever tend to leave a posterity, and an increasing posterity, in which
none of that higher individuation which checks genesis takes place.
Such State-meddlings with the natural play of actions and reactions
produce a further evil equally great or greater. For those who are not
self-maintained, or but partially self-maintained, are supplied with
the means they lack by the better members of the community; and
these better members have thus not only to support themselves and
their offspring, but also to support or aid the inferior members and
their offspring. The under-working of one part is accompanied by the
over-working of the other part—by a working which at each stage of
progress exceeds that which the normal conditions necessitate, and
results sometimes in illness, premature age, or death, or in lessened
number of children, or in imperfect rearing of children: the bad are
fostered and the good are repressed.
It does not follow that the struggle for life and the survival of the
fittest must be left to work out their effects without mitigation. It is
contended only that there shall not be a forcible burdening of the
superior for the support of the inferior. Such aid to the inferior as the
superior voluntarily yield, kept as it will be within moderate limits,
may be given with benefit to both—relief to the one, moral culture to
the other. And aid willingly given (little to the least worthy and more
to the most worthy) will usually be so given as not to further the
increase of the unworthy. For in proportion as the emotional nature
becomes more evolved, and there grows up a higher sense of
parental responsibility, the begetting of children that cannot be
properly reared will be universally held intolerable. If, as we see,
public opinion in many places and times becomes coercive enough to
force men to fight duels, we can scarcely doubt that at a higher
stage of evolution it may become so coercive as to prevent men
from marrying improvidently. If the frowns of their fellows can make
men commit immoral acts, surely they may make men refrain from
immoral acts—especially when the actors themselves feel that the
threatened frowns would be justified. Hence with a higher moral
nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.
In brief, the sole requirement is that there shall be no extensive
suspension of that natural relation between merit and benefit which
constitutes justice. Holding, then, that this all-essential condition will
itself come to be recognized and enforced by a more evolved
humanity, let us consider what is the goal towards which the
restraint on genesis by individuation progresses.

§ 375a. Supposing the Sun’s light and heat, on which all

terrestrial life depends, to continue abundant for a period long
enough to allow the entire evolution we are contemplating; there are
still certain changes which must prevent such complete adjustment
of human nature to surrounding conditions, as would permit the rate
of multiplication to become equal to the rate of mortality. As before
pointed out (§ 148), during an epoch of 21,000 years each
hemisphere goes through a cycle of temperate seasons and seasons
extreme in their heat and cold—variations which are themselves
alternately exaggerated and mitigated in the course of far longer
cycles; and we saw that these cause perpetual ebbings and flowings
of species over different parts of the Earth’s surface. Further, by slow
but inevitable geologic changes, especially those of elevation and
subsidence, the climate and physical characters of every habitat are
modified; while old habitats are destroyed and new are formed. This,
too, we noted as a constant cause of migrations and of resulting
alterations of environment. Now though the human race differs from
other races in having a power of artificially counteracting external
changes, yet there are limits to this power; and, even were there no
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