Putting aside altogether the question of infanticide, such a state of things is far from incredible when we remember the extremely insanitary state of China, the superstitions that flourish unchecked, and the famines, floods, and pestilences that devastate the country. It would appear probable that when vital statistics are introduced into China they will reveal a condition of things very similar to that we find in Russia, but in a more marked degree. No doubt it is a state of things which will be remedied. It is a not unreasonable assumption, supported by many indications, that China will follow Japan in the adoption of Western methods of civilization. 21 These methods, as we know, involve in the end a low birth-rate with a general tendency to a lower death-rate. Neither in the near nor in the remote future, under present conditions or under probable future conditions, is there any reason for imagining that the Chinese are likely to replace the Europeans in Europe. 22
This preliminary survey of the ground may enable us to realize that not only must we be cautious in attaching importance to the crude birth-rate until it is corrected, but that even as usually corrected the birth-rate can give us no clue at all to natural increase because there is a marked tendency for the birth-rate and the infantile death-rate to rise or sink together. Moreover, it is evident that we have also to realize that from the point of view of society and civilization there is a vast difference between the natural increase which is achieved by the effort of an enormously high birth-rate to overcome an almost correspondingly high death-rate and the natural increase which is attained by the dominance of a low birth-rate over a still lower death-rate.
Having thus cleared the ground, we may proceed to attempt the interpretation of the declining birth-rate which marks civilization, and to discuss its significance.