Social evolution / by Benjamin Kidd.

  • Benjamin Kidd
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Social evolution / by Benjamin Kidd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The above table has been prepared from the data supplied by fhe Annuaire de Statistique de la Belgujue for 1889; the figures relating to education and wages refer to the year 1880, no later data being available, while the birth-rates are for the year 1888. It shows that in all the Flemish provinces the birth-rate is high, education little advanced, and wages low, similar conditions being observable in Brabant; while, on the other hand, in the Walloon provinces the birth-rate is very low, wages are much higher, and, with the exception of Hainault, where there are a large number of coal mines, education is much more advanced. Thus we may take it that in general (but we are not prepared to say that it is an absolute rule without exception) a low birth-rate goes hand in hand with high wages and the spread of education. It also appears to be particularly associated with democratic aspirations, and still more with a lessening of religious belief on the part of the people, and a modification of the old ideas of resignation and submission to their lot. Thus what it has been agreed to call civilisation, which is really the development of material ease, of education, of equality, and of aspirations to rise and to succeed in life, has undoubtedly conduced to a diminution of the birth-rate. It cannot be said that this falling off in the number of births, if it only brings in its train a smaller increase and not a diminu- tion of the population in the old countries, is an actual misfortune, for the human race cannot go on indefinitely increasing on a planet which itself does not increase. But in the present condition of the world, now that so many lands are insufficiently populated, and that nations have established a forced military service, and are ready at any moment to declare war one with the other, this reduction of births, particularly when it manifests itself in a country like France for example, must certainly be regarded as a relative misfortune. In one respect it is particularly unfortunate. This is that in the case of a family consisting of one or two children, the excessive tenderness of the parents, their perpetual fears of misfortune happening to their offspring, and the manner in which the latter are frequently indulged, have the effect of depriving the male children of any spirit of boldness and enter- prise and of any power of endurance. From this evil France is suffering at the present day.
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