Population : its law of increase / by Nathan Allen.

  • Nathan Allen
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Population : its law of increase / by Nathan Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/36 page 31
    ol _ There is one way in which a reform in this matter may be effect- ed, or at least commenced. Let the true nature and object of mar- riage be better understood, in accordance with natural laws—in the physical qualifications and adaptations of parties entering it—in a proper knowledge of the duties and responsibilities growing out of this relation. Let the qualities most sought for in marriage, be changed: instead of the slender form, the small waist, the ac- complishments of a fashionable education, the choicest decorations of the person—let a well-developed body, good health, a sound con- stitution, a practical knowledge of domestic duties, be the qualities most preferred—the indispensable pre-requisites. We should then have an increase of healthy offspring, less discontent in the family, a far less number of divorces, and a more perfect union between the husband and the wife, in all their interests, comforts, and happiness in life. It may be said, that this change in the law of human increase, and other evils, which have here been referred to, are a necessary part of an advancing civilization, and grow, in the nature of things, out of the present artificial state of society ; and that such is their origin, growth and necessity, that no reform or improvement can easily be made. But these have been brought about entirely by human agency—principally by a violation of the great laws of life and health. Such evils have never before been found a part of the civil- ization of any race or nation, unless we except the Roman empire. And what is here the testimony of -history from the highest living authority? Prof. Seeley, of Oxtord University, England, after a most thorough analysis of the real causes of the downfall of the Roman empire, says, in a recent treatise:—* The immediate and patent cause of the fall of the empire was, that want of popula- tion which made it impossible to keep up a native army, and which caused a perpetual and insuppressible stream of barbaric immigra- tion” And the.want of this population, sayshe, arose from three causes :— Infanticide,” “ Aversion to marriage,” and “The general reluctance to rear families.” This Empire flourished between four and five hundred years, but the evils here enumerated commenced near the close of the second century,—increased during the third, and culminated before the expiration of the fourth in the downfall of the nation. Shall the purely native population of our country— especially of New England—follow in the footsteps of the Roman Empire, and meet with a similar fate ?
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3