This process, which is plain to see on the largest scale throughout living nature, may be more minutely studied, as it acts within a narrower range, in the human species. Here we statistically formulate it in the terms of birth-rate and death-rate; by the mutual relationship of the two courses of the birth-rate and death-rate we are able to estimate the evolutionary rank of a nation, and the degree in which it has succeeded in subordinating the primitive standard of quantity to the higher and later standard of quality. Especially in Europe we can investigate this relationship by the help of statistics which in some cases extend back for nearly a century. We can trace the various phases through which each nation passes, the effects of prosperity, the influence of education and sanitary improvement, the general complex development of civilization, in each case moving forward, though not regularly and steadily, to higher stages by means of a falling birth-rate, which is to some extent compensated by a falling death-rate, the two rates nearly always running parallel, so that a temporary rise in the birth-rate is usually accompanied by a rise in the death-rate, by a return, that is to say, towards the conditions which we find at the beginning of animal life, and a steady fall in the birth-rate is always accompanied by a fall in the death-rate. It is thus clear that the birth-rate combined with the death-rate constitutes a delicate instrument for the measurement of civilization, and that the record of their combined curves registers the upward or downward course of every nation. The curves, as we know, tend to be parallel, and when they are not parallel we are in the presence of a rare and abnormal state of things which is usually temporary or transitional. A study of the statistics of European countries furnishes us with evidence of the facts above stated. It is instructive to perceive how closely the birth-rate and the death-rate of the several European countries agree. It is perceived that THE EIGHT COUNTRIES OF EUROPE WHICH REGISTER THE HIGHEST BIRTH-RATE ARE THE IDENTICAL COUNTRIES REGISTERING THE HIGHEST DEATH-RATE. This is as might be expected, for a very high birth-rate seems fatally to involve a very high death-rate. The study of the following table may prove interesting--it certainly is instructive. In the following table the European countries having the highest birth-rate are stated in the order of rank according to size of such rate; and the countries having the heaviest death-rate are stated in the order of their rank in size of such rate: Highest European Birth-Rate. Highest European Death-Rate.