XXII CONCLUSION

1. An attempt has been made to trace the origin of problems of population from their source and to indicate their nature and interdependence. They have been traced back to man’s place in nature. The ancestors of man must at one time have been subject to the same conditions as those to which all species in a state of nature are subject. These conditions were investigated, and it was shown that fecundity is in the main determined by the sum of all the dangers to which the young of any species are exposed—allowance being made for the fact that a certain proportion of ova will not be fertilized. It was also shown that change or history—if history can be spoken of in this connexion—is due to germinal change alone, and it was further indicated how it may be supposed that germinal change comes about. The early stages in the moving away of the pre-human ancestor from these conditions elude our inquiry, though certain deductions may be made as to the main outline of what happened. For evidence as to the latter stages, until we reach historical times, we are chiefly dependent upon the method of using our knowledge of existing primitive races as throwing light upon prehistoric races.

2. Problems of population fall under two main headings, problems of quantity and problems of quality. But all problems of population are interwoven one with another and the method of solving any quantitative problem bears upon the quality of population. Thus the methods of regulating quantity affect quality by influencing germinal change, and in the later periods of history growth in quantity affects quality by its influence upon tradition. No one problem should be considered without reference to its bearing both upon quantity and quality. At the present day, for instance, differential fertility is almost always considered solely from the point of view of quality; it is forgotten that the reduction in the birth-rate may be that which economic conditions demand and that it may of necessity 476have to begin among the upper classes. Though, therefore, differential fertility by producing unfavourable germinal changes is to be to that degree deplored, yet we have to remember that, so far as quantity is concerned, failure to meet economic requirements might be a much greater misfortune.

3. As regards quantitative problems we saw that from the first period of history onwards—from the time, that is to say, that it began to be possible for man to reap the benefits of co-operation—it was of the utmost importance for every group to approximate to the optimum number. This is the number which—taking into consideration the nature of the environment, the degree of skill employed, the habits and customs of the people concerned, and all other relevant facts—gives the highest average return per head. This number is not fixed once and for all. On the contrary it is constantly varying as the conditions referred to vary, and, as skill has tended to increase throughout history, so has the number economically desirable tended to increase. The errors underlying the wholly different exposition given by Malthus have been indicated; for him there was no such thing as over-population. In his view population had at any one time increased up to the possible limit and was in process of being checked. In the modern view numbers may approximate to the desirable level, may not reach it, or they may exceed it, and if either of two latter positions arise, the return per head will not be as high as it might be.

The quantitative problem presents itself to all races at all times. There is no escaping it. The common notion that it only presents itself at certain times and in certain places is based upon a failure to grasp the strength of fecundity. Almost without exception those factors, which incidentally restrict increase and produce elimination, are insufficient so to reduce fertility as to keep numbers down to the optimum level. There thus arises the need for factors which directly restrict fertility and cause elimination; among primitive races these factors take the form of abortion, infanticide, and prolonged abstention from intercourse. There is no correlation between these factors and the economic stage reached, and therefore we have no grounds for assuming any one factor to have been prevalent at any one stage in pre-history, though we must assume that one or more of these factors was always at work. This assumption is confirmed by 477the fact that, whenever we can catch sight of the emergence of prehistoric races into the light of history, we find one or other of these factors to have been present. Further there is every reason to suppose that normally such of these factors as are in use are effective and that therefore in the first and second periods of history some approximation to the optimum number was normally attained.

The third period is in many respects different from those that preceded it. In the first place the number desirable has been constantly increasing, so much so that increasing numbers are taken as being a normal feature of human society whereas, in fact, numbers throughout human history as a whole have been stationary. It may be that we are nearing a time when numbers will be again normally stationary, for though increase may remain economically desirable, it may cease to be so from a wider point of view of human welfare, when, that is to say, facts other than income per head are taken into account. In the second place there have been frequent failures to attain to the optimum number owing to the many disturbing influences at work. Chief among them are the fluctuations in the number desirable, the erratic action of certain causes of elimination, such as war and disease, and migrations.

Regarding the quantitative problem as a whole, it is evident that the necessity of solving it has had the most profound effect upon all societies at all times. It bears directly upon the relation between the sexes—around which so largely centres human welfare—and upon the most intimate and most valued aspects of the life of every adult—those connected with the family. In the past the solution has been unconsciously or semi-consciously achieved; it has now come within the power of mankind after a due consideration of the position deliberately to decide what the best solution may be.

4. Turning now to the problems of quality, we found that change among species in a state of nature, and therefore among our pre-human ancestors, was due to germinal change alone. Just as man has moved away from the position in which all species in a state of nature are situated as regards quantity, so he has moved away from the position in which they are placed as regards quality. Human history, in other words, is not explicable as due to germinal change alone. Tradition becomes a factor 478of ever-increasing importance; the direct influence of the environment also assumes a greater importance than among species in a state of nature, though it remains relatively insignificant compared with changes in tradition and changes in the germinal constitution. Germinal change, however, retains almost its full importance so far as permanent changes in physical characters are concerned.

We have seen that physical characters as presented to us are the expression of the interaction between certain germinal predispositions and a certain environment, and that, disease apart, such variations as usually occur in the environment do not in any notable manner affect these characters. Tradition does not enter directly into the expression of physical character; it alters the environment, it is true, but that is another matter. Nevertheless when we come to investigate the smaller differences, such as those which are found as between members of different classes in a modern community, the greatest caution is necessary before the differences in the environment are ruled out as contributory factors in producing these differences. Broadly speaking, we may say that differences in stature, eye colour, eyesight, muscular power, and so on, are all, though in varying degrees, because different organs vary in their susceptibility to environmental differences, expressions of germinal differences. It follows that, so far at least as physical characters are concerned, the germinal constitution is of primary importance. Disease due to parasites is a question apart. The parasites might be eliminated, or conceivably preventive medicine might render susceptibility to disease of little account. Disease due to structural defects must be classed with other physical characters and, whether it be that we are considering health (immunity from parasitic disease excepted), stature, eye colour, or any other physical character, it is to the germinal constitution that we must look as the factor of chief importance.

It is not, however, of changes in physical characters but of changes in mental characters of which we think when we ask what it is that has caused those events the recording of which is the province of historians. There are three factors to be considered, germinal change, traditional change, and the direct effect of the environment, which latter factor we may pass over, merely recalling that it can at times—as in the case of chronic disease 479affecting at one time a large proportion of the inhabitants of a country—appreciably retard progress. It is never in the true sense a cause of progress. In thus relegating the direct effect of the environment to a very subsidiary place among the factors, we are not dismissing the environment as of little account in human history or in the lives of individual men and women. Though the direct effect of the environment on the germinal constitution is seldom clearly distinguished from its effect in moulding tradition, yet it is wholly distinct; and in fact, while attributing to the former little importance, we have found the latter to be of increasing importance until it comes altogether to dominate germinal change.

Nevertheless when this distinction is realized and an unbiased effort made to estimate the relative importance of these factors, it seems that the position is often curiously misunderstood. It is frequently suggested that the achievement of our race in the future and of mankind in general will somehow depend principally upon the course of germinal change, and that it is in the lives of men at the present day or at any given time that environment in its bearing upon tradition is of importance. But this is a misconception of the position. Bearing in mind the discussions in former chapters as to what is inherited and as to the direct influence of the environment, let us ask wherein the importance of germinal differences is to be sought, first as between men at the present day and afterwards in history as a whole. With regard to physical characteristics it is clear that, disease apart, men are what they are owing principally to their native endowment. Whether a man is tall or short, dark or fair, has blue or brown eyes, or what is, apart from the possibility of a correlation between these and more valuable characters, of more importance, whether he is healthy, vigorous, strong, endowed with good eyesight and hearing, in short with a sound constitution—this is a matter principally of native endowment, supposing the differences in the environment not to exceed those which now on the average occur. And the same applies to mental characters with an allowance made for the marked degree of susceptibility which temperament exhibits to changes in the environment. Whether a man has more than the average degree of intellect, is markedly assertive, pugnacious, or inquisitive, is capable of withstanding or recovering from fatigue, depends upon his native endowment. 480But it is at the same time true that achievement is in very large degree governed by tradition. This is true if the criterion of achievement is an historical criterion, as, for instance, when a man of one race is compared with another man of the same race belonging to a different epoch or when a man of one race is compared with a man of another race. It is not true when the comparison is made between two men of the same class within the same race because within classes in a race tradition is more or less equalized. And where tradition is equalized, there achievement is a measure of innate endowment, and it is within a class usually so equalized that at any given time the outward manifestation of mental characters is nearly as much a measure of native endowment as are those of physical characters. Therefore not what a man achieves as judged by historical standards, not whether his thought will follow primitive or common-sense lines, is dependent upon his endowment, but what he will make of the tradition of his time—his performance, in other words, compared with that of men around him.

Achievement, therefore, as judged historically, is in very large measure to be explained as due to the influence of the environment upon the origin and transmission of tradition. Up to a certain stage, however, and, when the whole of human history is taken into account, up to a late stage, achievement was in the main dependent upon germinal change. But this late stage is anterior by many thousands of years to the beginning of history in the usual meaning of that term. Beginning not later than the last period of the Palaeolithic, the explanation of the course of events is in the main to be sought not in germinal change but in the influence of environment upon tradition. The importance of germinal change in the later stages is by no means negligible. Germinal change, however, was not so much the cause of the course which events followed as a consequence of these events. The effect reacted upon the cause and accelerated the process. Finally when considering the latest phase of history—the latest phase, that is to say, when taking a broad view—we reach the following conclusion. We find that the great acceleration of the rate of progress which characterizes the history of the period is to be explained, not by a change in quality, but by the growth in quantity of the population which, though it does not of necessity lead to, is the indispensable condition precedent to, the breakdown 481of the segmentary organization of society and to the rise of the organic type of social organization. This is the paradox of the population problem. Change among species in a state of nature is based upon germinal change alone; change among our pre-human ancestors was equally a matter of change in the quality of population; but the explanation of the most outstanding fact in recent history broadly viewed is to be sought in a change in quantity rather than in quality of population.

The explanation of the course of events since late Palaeolithic times as due to tradition on the lines indicated in the last chapter is in general satisfactory, provided that on the one hand allowance is made for the fact that differences in race do imply differences in mental and moral qualities, which arising on the whole together with changes in tradition, reinforce the tendency to change along certain lines, and that on the other hand apparently chance happenings do give turns and twists to the course of events. The reconciliation of this latter phenomenon with the general trend of the argument is not difficult. Under certain conditions the death or even the indisposition of some prominent man or the whim of a powerful minister may appear to divert the course of events. Nevertheless in reality such events have only a passing effect and do not obscure the broad workings of the factors we have indicated.

The relation of the innate qualities to tradition may be illustrated by the use of a metaphor. Tradition may be likened to some vast structure which mankind is building. Each generation adds a few bricks to the structure. The part of the building to which any one man contributes, whether it is to the ground floor or to one of the upper stories, wholly depends upon the race and epoch to which he belongs; so too does for the most part the kind of brick he will lay and the methods he will employ in laying it. His contribution to the structure is governed by the plan of the building as elaborated by previous generations and by the bricks they have prepared and the methods of laying them they have introduced. But in any generation whether a man will lay a brick at all or whether he will do it energetically and intelligently as compared with his fellow-workers will depend upon the innate qualities with which he is endowed.

Our conclusion therefore must be something after this kind. Those who base upon germinal change their hopes for the physical condition of the human race in the future are building upon 482sound foundations. However much our power to control and regulate vital processes may increase—and it is clearly upon the verge of a very great increase—in the end a satisfactory physical condition can only be the product of a certain germinal constitution. On the other hand, those who think that germinal change in mental characters will effect the evolution of society and mould the course of history are upon the whole mistaken. The course of history is in the main dependent upon changes in tradition which are for the most part independent of germinal change. Just as the outstanding happenings in the last century—the turning of thought and conduct in Germany, for example, along certain lines, which ended in so great a catastrophe—were due to changes in tradition and not to changes in the germinal constitution, so whether the problems now pressing upon European society are to be solved or whether some greater catastrophe, reaching a climax in a long course of years or bursting suddenly upon us, is to be the outcome, will depend upon changes in tradition and not upon germinal change. The reason for this lies in the fact that the vast accumulation of tradition overlays the outward expression of mental character, determines the direction of intellectual activity and moulds the expression of the instinctive faculties. But as far as tradition is equalized, so far do innate mental differences manifest themselves as between man and man, and since tradition is more or less equalized, if not within races, at least within classes in the same race, to that degree is mental endowment of pre-eminent importance to the individual.

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