Chapter XXVIII: Section 3: The Law of Decline

It would appear, then, that under conditions of hardship the birth-rate tends to rise, and that in circumstances of ease the birth-rate tends to fall. If the existence of the inhabitants in a closed country is threatened by scarcity, the birth-rate tends to rise. For example, "In some of the remote parts of the country, Orkney and Shetland, the population remained practically stationary between the years 1801 and 1811, and in the next ten years, still years of great scarcity, it increased 15 per cent." [56]

The governing principle may be expressed in the following generalisation. When the existence of a community is threatened by adversity the birth-rate tends to rise; but when the existence of a community is threatened by prosperity the birth-rate tends to fall. By adversity I mean war, famine, scarcity, poverty, oppression, an untilled soil, and disease: and by prosperity I mean wealth, luxury, idleness, a diet too rich--especially in flesh meat--and over-civilisation, whereby the physical laws of nature are defied. Now the danger of national decline owing to prosperity can be avoided by a nation that observes the moral law, and this is the most probable explanation of the fact that in Ireland, although the general prosperity of the people has rapidly increased since George Wyndham displaced landlordism over a large area by small ownership, the birth-rate has continued to rise. Moreover, the danger to national existence, as we have already indicated (Chapter I, Section. 10) is greater from moral than from physical catastrophes, and when both catastrophes are threatened the ultimate issue depends upon which of the two is the greater. Furthermore, it would appear that moral catastrophes inevitably lead to physical catastrophes. This is best illustrated by the fate of ancient Greece.