population of Great Britain. Undoubtedly this prosecution was an important factor in the movement, but we cannot doubt that, even if the prosecution had not taken place, the course of social progress must still have pursued the same course. It is noteworthy that it was about this same period, in various European countries, that the tide turned, and the excessively high birth-rate began to fall.9 Recklessness was giving place to foresight and self-control. Such foresight and self-control are of the essence of civilization.10
It cannot be disputed that the transformation by which the propagation of the race became deliberate and voluntary has not been established in social custom without a certain amount of protestation from various sides. No social change, however beneficial, ever is established without such protestation, which may, therefore, be regarded as an inevitable and probably a salutary part of social change. Even some would-be scientific persons, with a display of elaborate statistics, set forth various alarmistic doctrines. If, said these persons, this new movement goes on at the present pace, and if all other conditions remain unchanged, then all sorts of terrible results will ensue. But the alarming conclusion failed to ensue, and for a very sufficient reason. The assumed premises of the argument were unsound. Nothing ever goes on at the same pace, nor do all other conditions ever remain unchanged.
The world is a living fire, as Heraclitus long ago put it. All things are in perpetual flux. Life is a process of perpetual movement. It is idle to bid the world stand still, and then to argue about the consequences. The world will not stand still, it is for ever revolving, for ever revealing some new facet that had not been allowed for in the neatly arranged mechanism of the statistician.
It is perhaps unnecessary to dwell on a point which is now at last, one may hope, becoming clear to most intelligent persons. But I may perhaps