Let us compare the lowly herring with the highly evolved elephant. The herring multiplies with enormous rapidity and on a vast scale, and it possesses a very small brain, and is almost totally unequipped to grapple with the special difficulties of its life, to which it succumbs on a wholesale scale. A single elephant is carried for about two years in its mother's womb, and is carefully guarded by her for many years after birth; it possesses a large brain, and its muscular system is as remarkable for its delicacy as for its power, and is guided by the most sensitive perceptions. It is fully equipped for all the dangers of life, save for those which have been introduced by the subtle ingenuity of modern man. Though a single pair of elephants produces so few offspring, yet their high cost is justified, for each of them has a reasonable chance of surviving to old age. This contrast, from the point of view of reproduction, of the herring and the elephant, well illustrates the principle of evolution previously referred to. It brings clearly into view the difference between Nature's earlier and her later methods--the ever increasing preference for quality over quantity. Unless we grasp this underlying principle of Nature in its wider aspects we may fail to perceive its operations in the case of man, which latter we may now consider. It is, of course, impossible to speak positively regarding the birth-rate and death-rate of the pre-historic primitive races of mankind, for there is not data upon which to base such a report. But reasoning upon the basis of conditions existing among the primitive tribes of the present time we are justified in holding that in the early stages of the evolution of the race there was manifested a high birth-rate and a correspondingly high death-rate. Upon the basis of conditions now existing among savage tribes it would appear that primitive man has a higher birth-rate than the average of mankind today, and likewise a higher death-rate. The rapidly increasing number of children born to the tribe was counteracted by deaths among children caused by neglect, poverty, and disease. In some cases the population was prevented from becoming larger than the means of subsistence justified by the practice of infanticide.