Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/519

Rh by the voluntary sterility of the families. "Agrarian inquiry in France," he says in another place, "has established that proprietors, and chiefly small proprietors, have an aversion to fecundity, and a tendency to accept Malthusian practices; while, on the other hand, only the working classes, or those who are without property, remain devoted to the social duty of having children." And this practice is not confined to the French rich, but is "a universal phenomenon," caused by the fear people have of falling from the higher to the lower classes, and of having their comforts and social advantages diminished.

Nor do I need to appeal to any high authorities or statistical data (which are usually most grievously abused and misinterpreted) to establish the reality of facts that are open to the observation of everyone: that marriages are diminishing; that the family relations are becoming looser; that (against the advice of Malthus) parents do limit the number of their offspring; and, what is still more significant, that not only the desire for offspring diminishes with civilization, but the love of offspring as well. These are not remote social phenomena, but common events and conditions capable of being verified by the most superficial observation of civilized life; and they are phenomena of a psycho-economic nature, not to be confounded with purely biological phenomena.

From the foregoing exposition it may be judged how far, and under what limitations, the preservation of the race, even considered in its most vital points, can be accepted as a spring of action and a law of human nature; while the legitimacy of erecting it into a supreme standard of justice and morality does not seem to be warranted by the actual facts of society.