For Society to bestow the same care and provision on all its children that the wisest parent now seeks to bestow on his would develop the race faster than anything conceivable. That this method would at once improve the individual, the race, and the productivity of both, is clear. That it would “pauperise” has been shown to be an erroneous deduction from the Want theory; under which we are indeed all potential, and some actual, paupers. The further claim that it would tend to a too rapid increase of population, especially among the least fit, should be carefully examined. The Malthusian error is in assuming that a given rate of reproduction is fixed and final. If Malthus had studied the subject more deeply, he would have found that the rate of reproduction varies widely, not only in the “animal kingdom” but the man. This variation is relative to other conditions; and has been thus formulated by Spencer, “Reproduction is in inverse proportion to individuation.” The lower the efficiency of the individual, the more young ones it has. Progressive specialisation, bringing a higher degree of individual efficiency, carries with it a decrease in the rate of reproduction. The myriad eggs of the fish or insect are followed as species develop by the lesser litters of high-grade quadrupeds, till we reach one at a birth. A fish that only laid one egg at a time would not have a very tall family tree. In man we have the general rule of one at a time; but we have it more times in some cases than in others. The human birth rate varies widely, too; and the action of the same law, a higher development of the individual, higher specialisation, leads to a lower birth rate. There are also artificial variants, as so painfully shown in the dwindling of France’s population; but quite apart from any morbid processes of stirpiculture lies this broad and beautiful law,—the higher specialisation of the individual tends to reduce the birth rate. This is shown with clearness through all the turbid cross-currents of our mistaken behaviour; the most developed kind of people have the least children, and the least developed kind of people have the most children. Even in folk lore we see it indicated—“there was once a King and a Queen who were perfectly happy, except that they had no children,” and on the other hand, “The poor man hath his quiver full.”