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356
Hereditary Genius
We have been calculating on the supposition that the population
remains stationary, because it was more convenient to do so, but the
results of our calculation will hold nearly true for all cases. Because,
if population should increase, the larger number of living descendants
tends to counterbalance the diminished number of living ancestry;
and, conversely, if it decreases.
Combining the above ratio of 5 to 3 with those previously obtained,
it results that at the end of one century from the time when the races
M and N started fair, with equal numbers, the proportion of mature
men of race M will be four times as numerous as those of race N; at
the end of two centuries, they will be ten times as numerous, and at
the end of three centuries, no less than twenty-six times as numerous.
I trust the reader will realize the heavy doom which these figures
pronounce against all sub-sections of prolific races in which it is the
custom to put off the period of marriage until middle age. It is a
maxim of Malthus that the period of marriage ought to be delayed in
order that the earth may not be overcrowded by a population for
whom there is no place at the great table of nature. If this doctrine
influenced all classes alike, I should have nothing to say about it here,
one way or another, for it would hardly affect the discussions in this
book; but, as it is put forward as a rule of conduct for the prudent
part of mankind to follow, whilst the imprudent are necessarily left
free to disregard it, I have no hesitation in saying that it is a most
pernicious rule of conduct in its bearing upon race. Its effect would
be such as to cause the race of the prudent to fall, after a few
centuries, into an almost incredible inferiority of numbers to that of
the imprudent, and it is therefore calculated to bring utter ruin upon
the breed of any country where the doctrine prevailed. I protest
against the abler races being encouraged to with
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