Exhip.it C 123—129.47
cance of these statistics, it must be noted that after taking into ac
count the mortality among children and young persons, and the unfit
ness for parenthood of an appreciable fraction of the adults, a
fully capable couple would have to produce at least four children to
assure the necessary moderate increase in the population which is
required to prevent a people from sinking into stagnation and
deterioration. The dying out of highly gifted families is shown to be more C 124
accentuated in Figure 255, after Bertillon, “ Progeny of the Highly
Gifted in France.’' Four hundred and forty-five of the best
known Frenchmen, with their wives, have not even reproduced that
number of individuals, and this in spite of the fact that repeated
marriages of the same individuals have not been taken into account.
Even if one has been able, up to the present, to live in the hope c 125-126
that the number of persons of more than average ability produced by
the mass of the people is always sufficient to replace those that are
used up, at the present time anxiety about the “ heads ” is replaced
by anxiety about the “hands.” The knowledge of means of pre
venting fertilization spreads incessantly, and is recklessly promul
gated by the neomalthusians and by a shameless industry. We
point to Figure C 125, “ Want of Fertility in French Towns,” after
Jayle, and to Figure C 126, “ Fertility in Prussia.’’ In Berlin fer
tility is decreasing most rapidly; at the end of the sixties it still
amounted to 200 in every 1,000 women of child-bearing age. In the
five years, 1905-1910, only to 84; in the year 1910 only to 74. This
state of things is shown also in the relative increase in numbers of
the first born.
Figure C 127, “ Decrease of Legitimate Fertility in Berlin—the c 127,128 &
two-children system.” The other German towns follow the example ^
of Berlin, Berlin to-day produces 20% less children than are
required to maintain its own population without immigration, and
the same conditions will soon prevail in other towns. Up to now the
country districts in general maintain their fertility (West Prussia on
Figure C 128), but there, too, modern practices begin to make them
selves felt. The town and industrial population increases so rapidly
that the conditions prevailing among them have an ever increasing
effect on-the people as a whole. Thus we see, even at the present
time, a serious decline in fertility among an overwhelming majority of
European States: Figure C 129, Decrease of Fertility in Some
European States.”
