has reduced the birth-rate, just as in the higher mammals we find a greatly diminished fertility as compared with the lower, and a much higher survival-rate among the offspring born.  The average duration of life in this country has increased by about one-third in the last sixty years, and the birth-rate has fallen in almost exactly the same proportion.  The position of a nation in the scale of civilisation may almost be gauged by its births and deaths.  The order in Europe, beginning with the lowest birth-rate, is France, Belgium, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Germany, Spain, Austria, Italy, Hungary, the Balkan States, Russia.  The order of death-rates, again beginning at the bottom, is Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Serbia, Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary, Roumania, Russia.  These two lists, as will be seen, correspond very nearly with the scale of descending civilisation, the only notable exception being the low position of France in the second list.  This anomaly is explained by the fact that France having a stationary population, the death-rate in that country corresponds nearly with the mean expectation of life, whereas in countries where the population is increasing rapidly, either by excess of births over deaths or by immigration, the preponderance of young lives brings the death-rate down.  We must, therefore, be on our guard against supposing that countries with the lowest death-rates are necessarily the most healthy.  In New Zealand, for example, the death-rate is under 10 per 1000, the lowest in the world; and though that country is undoubtedly healthy, no one supposes that the average duration of life in New Zealand is a hundred years.  To ascertain whether a nation is long-lived, we must correct the crude death-rate by taking into account the average age of the population.  When this correction has been made, a low death-rate, and the low birth-rate which necessarily accompanies it, is a sign that the doctors are doing their duty by keeping their patients alive.  If our physicians desire more maternity cases, they must make more work for the undertaker.  Large families almost always mean a high infant mortality; and it is significant that a twelfth child has a very much poorer chance of survival than a first or second.  The agitation for the endowment of motherhood and the reduction of infant mortality is therefore futile, because, while other conditions remain the same, every baby ‘saved’ sends another baby out of the world or prevents him from coming into it.  The number of the people is not determined by philanthropists or even by parents.  Children will come somehow whenever there is room for them, and go when there is none.  But other conditions do not remain the same, and it is in these other conditions that we must seek the causes of expansion or contraction in the numbers of a community.