" in any higher or moral sense. The most hideous forms of life
may "survive" and thrust aside the most beautiful. It is only by a
confusion of thought that the processes of organic nature which render
every foot of fertile ground the scene of unending conflict can be used
to explain away the death of children of the slums. The whole theory of
survival is only a statement of what is, not of what ought to be. The
moment that we introduce the operation of human volition and activity,
that, too, becomes one of the factors of "survival." The dog, the cat,
and the cow live by man's will, where the wolf and the hyena have
perished.

But it is time that the Malthusian doctrine,--the fear of
over-population as a hindrance to social reform,--was dismissed from
consideration. It is at best but a worn-out scarecrow shaking its vain
rags in the wind. Population, it is true, increases in a geometrical
ratio. The human race, if favored by environment, can easily double
itself every twenty-five years. If it did this, the time must come,
through sheer power of multiplication, when there would not be standing
room for it on the globe. All of this is undeniable, but it is quite
wide of the mark. It is time enough to cross a bridge when we come to
it. The "standing room" problem is still removed from us by such
uncounted generations that we need give no thought to it. The physical
resources of the globe are as yet only tapped, and not exhausted. We
have done little more than scratch the surface. Because we are crowded
here and there in the ant-hills of our cities, we dream that the world
is full. Because, under our present system, we do not raise enough food
for all, we fear that the food supply is running short. All this is pure
fancy. Let any one consider in his mind's eye the enormous untouched
assets still remaining for mankind in the vast spaces filled with the
tangled forests of South America, or the exuberant fertility of
equatorial Africa or the huge plains of Canada, Australia, Southern
Siberia and the United States, as yet only thinly dotted with human
settlement. There is no need to draw up an anxious balance sheet of our
assets. There is still an uncounted plenty. And every human being born
upon the world represents a power of work that, rightly directed, more
than supplies his wants. The fact that as an infant he does not maintain
himself has nothing to do with the case. This was true even in the
Garden of Eden.

The fundame