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THE INTERESTS OF POSTERITY 195
195
tions. Every up-grown man or woman represents, as it
were, a social investment, and is bound to recompense
Society for this very fact in two ways—i.e. by useful work
and by the procreation of new lives profitable to State and
Society. Leaving out of account the prophylactic measures
tending to prevent the propagation of diseased and useless
beings, we have to elucidate the methods by which the birth
of serviceable citizens may be augmented.
While the lower classes of Society—significantly called
" proletarians " by the Roman historian, Suetonius—are
very prolific, the upper classes, and especially the
well-to-do, as already mentioned, are deficient in this respect in
a truly alarming manner. The reasons for this phenomenon
are only too patent. The pleasures of Society, the comforts
and luxuries of life, and the available monetae means are,
to no small extent, taxed by the birth and upbringing of
children. While in the lower classes the upbringing of
children does not entail much expenditure—since in their
early years they are turned into money-earning assets,
adding their support to the common family purse—the
upper classes give their children a costly and lengthy
education, providing them afterwards with financial
assistance so as to enable them to keep up the same level of
comfort and social distinction to which they have been
accustomed in their own homes. Proletarians have every
incentive to produce children, while the upper classes make
it very onerous for themselves, and in consequence often
avoid such responsibility. Especially aggravating is the
case of those who have come to age, and yet remain single,
in order to lead a life of selfishness and self-indulgence.
This cannot be tolerated. It should be established as
a principle that it is the duty of every one, who is not
hampered by illness or mental or moral depravity, to provide
for progeny by an adequate number of children. In order
to safeguard the future of the race it is necessary that
families able to produce children should average over three.
People who by physical reasons are not hampered in the
procreation of children should be assessed according to their
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