[17] See the author's paper, “The Psychology of Parenthood,” Eugenics Review, April, 1909.
[18] An authoritative statement on this point has already been quoted from Sir E. Ray Lankester's Romanes Lecture of 1905, p. 42.
[19] The exception of one or two large animals, like the elephant, is not important. In proportion to body weight man's birth-rate is lower than theirs. And it is to be noted that the “infant” mortality is very low in this case, where the birth-rate is so low. Says Darwin, of the young elephant. “None are destroyed by beasts of prey; for even the tiger in India most rarely dares to attack a young elephant protected by its dam.” The dam has no factory to go to, and no beast of prey to sell her alcohol.
[20] “The fulmar petrel lays but one egg, yet it is believed to be the most numerous bird in the world.” (Origin of Species, popular edition, p. 81).
[21] The Wheat Problem, by Sir Wm. Crookes, F.R.S., 2nd edition, 1905. The Chemical News Office, 15, Newcastle St., Farringdon St., E.C.
[22] See Chap. iii. of the Origin of Species.
[23] Including even such an exceptional student as Dr. George Newman, who, in his book on Infant Mortality, regards a falling birth-rate as an essential evil, and actually declares without qualification that the factors “which lower the birth-rate tend to raise the infant death-rate.”
[24] It is not necessary to point out again the exception of the elephant, nor to explain it.
[25] Mr. Galton believes their number has been exaggerated.
[26] Quoted from the author's lectures on Individualism and Collectivism (Williams and Norgate, 1906).