birth-rate and a high social standing might have been entirely accounted for sixty years ago by postponement of marriage, and that such postponement may still account for 50 per cent of it.33
It is not enough, however, to consider the mechanism by which the birth-rate declines; to realize the significance of the decline we must consider the causes which set the mechanism in action.
We begin to obtain a truer insight into the meaning
of the curve of a country's birth-rate when we realize that it is in relation with the industrial and commercial activity of the country. 34 It is sometimes stated that a high birth-rate goes with a high degree of national prosperity. That, however, is scarcely the case; we have to look into the matter a little more closely. And, when we do so, we find that, not only is the statement of a supposed connection between a high birth-rate and a high degree of prosperity an imperfect statement; it is altogether misleading.
If, in the first place, we attempt to consider the state of things among savages, we find, indeed, great variations, and the birth-rate is not infrequently low. But, on the whole, it