The statistics of all civilized nations show a gradual and progressive decline in the birth-rate much more marked of recent years.  In Germany, between the years 1875 and 1899, it has diminished from 40 to 35.9 per thousand of the population.  In England and Wales, it dropped from 35 to 29.3 during the same time; in Ireland, from 26 to 22.9; in France, from 26 to 21.9; in the United States of America (between the years 1880 and 1890) the decline has been from 36 to 30; while in New Zealand it gradually and persistently declined from 40.8 in 1880 to 25.6 in 1900.

During the period, 1875-1890, the rapid strides made in industry and production have been unparallelled in the history of the world.  Wealth has accumulated on all sides, and production and distribution have far outrun the needs and demands of population.  To-day food is far more abundant, cheaper, and therefore more accessible to all classes of the people than it was 50 years ago, and coincident with this rapid and abundant increase in those things which go to supply the necessities, the comforts, and even the luxuries of life, there has been a constant and uniform decline in the birth-rate, and this decrease is even more conspicuous in those nations in which the rate of production has been most pronounced.  It would even be true to say that the birth-rate during recent years is in inverse proportion to the rate of production.

At first sight this might appear to falsify the law of population enunciated by Malthus.  Malthus maintained that population tended to increase beyond the means of subsistence; that three checks constantly operated to limit population—­vice, misery, and moral restraint:  vice, due largely to diseased conditions, misery, due to poverty and want, and moral restraint due to a dread of these.  I shall show later that nothing has been said or written to add to or take away from the truth and force of these great principles, but, that the moral restraint of Malthus has been practised to an extent, and in a direction of which the great economist never dreamt.  By moral restraint in the limitation of families Malthus meant only delayed marriage.  In so far as men and women abstained from, or delayed their marriage, on the ground of inability to support a family, they fulfilled the law, and followed the advice of Malthus.  Continence without the marriage bond was assumed; incontinence was classed with another check vice.

Contrary to the expectations arising out of the famous progressions, wealth and production have increased and the birth-rate has decreased.  It is the purpose of this work to show what are the causes that have led to this decline, that those causes are not equally operative through all classes of the people, and that the chief cause of the decline of the birth-rate is the desire on the part of both sexes to limit the number they have to support and educate.  The considerations that lead up to, and, to some extent, justify this desire, will be discussed later.