Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/894

 878 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The economic causes of excessive population are regarded as most important. Loria is followed closely at this point. So long as there was unoccupied land population and subsistence was in equilibrium, either because the earth yielded plenty or because its infertility deter- mined a low rate of procreation. The author does not mention the bal- ancing weights of famine, hardship, infanticide and war which figure so greatly in savage life. The emphasis is laid on the assertion that capi- talists urge on the production of children in order to have a surplus of laborers, thus keeping up the rate of profit and depressing the rate of wages. Whatever criticism may do with Loria's subtle argument it will always seem entirely superfluous to offer inducements to the proletariat to produce more children. What should be said of this sentence (p. 185)? "Nothing is neglected by the capitalist class counsels, incitements, relaxation of morals to push the poor to bear more children."

The misfortunes of the poor are not due to their improvidence and to the excess of the birth rate among them, but the excessive produc- tion of children is caused by the demand of manufacturers for more hands (p. 189). The employment of women and children (p. 200) is spoken of as a necessary consequence of capitalism. The man who receives a low salary is compelled to have more children to work for the family support (p. 208). English trades unions and legislation have proved that the employment of children is by no means a fatal necessity.

Two corollaries are drawn from the economic argument (p. 222) : (i) The lower the economic situation and the moral sentiments of the working classes, the more surely are they impelled to seek purely sen- sual enjoyments, and thus an excessive fecundity follows. (2) Every amelioration in the general diffusion of wealth acts favorably on fecun- dity, that is, reduces it to reasonable limits. His explanation is that people who have higher pleasures are not so sensual. Then he cites the United States and the small landowners of France as illustrious examples of the virtue of moral restraint, the very people whom he seems to charge elsewhere with using detestable means of preventing births. In the corollaries he admits low moral sentiments as causes of fecundity, whereas his argument seems to require him to ascribe the low morality to low wages. He inclines to accept Spencer's theory of high individuation as a check on fertility, but does not adequately and clearly show how it can be of any service within that part of the future which is of any practical interest to living men.