[122] Aristotle says “want of men was the ruin of Sparta.” Fathers of three sons were exempted from military service, and of four sons from all State burdens.
[123] Several writers have pointed out the importance of these facts and at least one professional historian has insisted strongly upon them, namely O. Seeck in his Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, Berlin, 1910, vol. 1.
[124] On this topic cp. Dr Archdall Reid’s The Present Evolution of Man and his Principles of Heredity, in which books the effects of selection by disease and by alcohol are vividly set out.
[125] Op. cit.
[126] O. Ammon, Gesellschaftsordnung und ihre natürlichen Grundlagen, Jena, 1900.
[127] De Lapouge, Les Sélections Sociales; cf. also W. Alexis, Abhandlungen zur Theorie der Bevölkerungs-und Moralstatistik, Jena, 1903, and W. Schallmayer’s Vererbung und Auslese in ihrer soziologischen und politischen Bedeutung, Jena, 1910.
[128] Ammon’s Law.
[129] Pointed out by Francis Galton and Fouillée.
[130] On the other hand it tends (partly no doubt by deliberate design) to spread itself by insisting upon the duty of procreation. This effect is said to be very considerable in French Canada and only to be partially counteracted by a very high rate of infantile mortality.
[131] The Nineteenth Century for April, 1906.