At a certain stage of the evolutionary process, Nature seems to have awakened to a realization of the fact that it was better, from every point of view, to produce A FEW superior beings rather than a vast number of inferior ones. Here, at last, Nature discloses a heretofore hidden aim, namely, the production of quality rather than quantity; and once she has started on this new path, she has pursued it with even greater eagerness than that of reproduction pure and simple. And here we pause to note a principle laid down by the students of Evolution, viz., that ADVANCING EVOLUTION IS ACCOMPANIED BY DECLINING FERTILITY. This new stage of Nature's processes is marked by a constant and invariable manifestation of diminished number of offspring, accompanied by an increased amount of time and care in the creation and breeding of each of the young creatures. Accompanying this, we find that the reproductive life of the creature is shortened, and confined to more or less special periods; these periods beginning much later, and ending much earlier, and even during their continuance tending to operate in cycles of activity. Here, we see, NATURE, GROWN WISER BY EXPERIENCE, HERSELF BEGAN TO EXERCISE HER POWER IN THE DIRECTION OF BIRTH CONTROL--THE USE OF PREVENTIVE CHECKS ON REPRODUCTION. A writer has said along these lines: "As reproduction slackened, evolution was greatly accelerated. A highly important and essential aspect of this greater individuation is a higher survival value. The more complex and better equipped creature can meet and subdue difficulties and dangers to which the more lowly organized creature that came before--produced wholesale in a way which Nature seems to look back on as cheap and nasty--succumbed helplessly without an effort. The idea of economy began to assert itself in the world. It became clear in the course of evolution that it is better to produce really good and highly efficient organisms, at whatever cost, than to be content with cheap production on a wholesale scale. They allowed greater developmental progress to be made, and they lasted better. Even before man began it was proved in the animal world that THE DEATH-RATE FALLS AS THE BIRTH-RATE FALLS."