latter almost always prefer the servitude to which they are accustomed
to an independent life of solitude and friendlessness."

"And what becomes," I asked, "of the younger men who must enter the
world without property, without parents or protectors?"

"We are, after youth has passed, an indolent race. We hardly care, as
a rule, to cultivate our fields or direct our factories; but prefer
devoting the latter half at least of our lives to a somewhat
easy-going cultivation of that division of science which takes hold of
our fancy. These divisions are such as your conversation leads me to
think you would probably consider absurdly minute. A single class of
insects, a single family of plants, the habits of one race of fishes,
suffice for the exclusive study of half a lifetime. Minds of a more
active or more practical bent will spend an equal time over the
construction of a new machine more absolutely automatic than any that
has preceded it. Physical labour is thrown as much as possible on the
young; and even they are now so helped by machinery and by trained
animals, that the eight hours' work which forms their day's labour
hardly tires their muscles. Our tastes render us very anxious to
devolve upon others as soon as possible the preservation and
development of the property we have acquired. A man of moderate means,
long before he has reached his thirtieth [7] year, generally seeks one
assistant; men of larger fortune may want two, five, or ten. These are
chosen, as a rule, by preference from those who have passed the most
stringent and successful collegiate examination. Martial parents are
not prolific, and the mortality in our public nurseries is very large.
I impute it to moral influences, since the chief cause of death is low
vitality, marked nervous depression and want of animal spirits, such
as the total absence of personal tenderness and sympathy must produce
in children. It is popularly ascribed to the over-cultivation of the
race, as plants and animals highly civilised--that is, greatly
modified and bred to an artificial excellence by human agency--are
certainly delicate, unprolific, and especially difficult to rear.
There is little disease in the nurseries, but there is little health
and a deficiency of nervous energy. One fact is significant, however
interpreted, and bears directly on your last question. Since the wide
extension of polygamy, female births are to male about as seven to
six; but the deaths in publ