(2) Now suppose the case of a man who is the butt of everybody’s ridicule for his stubborn stupidity and intractable indolence. Suppose his condition of utter unworthiness, from the intellectual and moral point of view, to be moreover aggravated by poor health. This man, too, we presume, claiming by law the right of parenthood, forces upon the community half-a-dozen new members in the form of his offspring, who are so far like him that the competent authority can scarcely cover the cost of their clothes and food by the produce of their labours, and has to encroach upon other resources of the State in order to provide for them. Here again we have a profound perturbation, resulting from the pressing of a new set of members upon the community by the act of procreation. Nobody asked for them, nobody wanted them. But now they have come, everybody has to work a little more or a little longer in order to provide for them. In its ultimate analysis this is once more a coercive act, an act which, though tolerated by the State that admits the individual’s right to parenthood, thus turns out to be an act of violence. It certainly was not deliberate, or designed particularly to harass the community; but it forces an extra burden on the social body, it is therefore tantamount to an act of violence: it is in fact an act of violence. Now here we have two extreme instances of violence entering a socialistic society against which it would appear to be impossible [p105] to take any preventive measures.[19] And how did the violence enter?--In the same way as it enters all life, all Nature, all societies: through the act of procreation. Between the two extreme cases given the imaginative reader will easily be able to supply a vast number of intermediate cases, which though perhaps less powerful in the ultimate violence of their effect on the community would nevertheless partake each in its way of the nature of violence. The act of procreation is thus an act which in the long run amounts to a means of pressing any number from one to a dozen (sometimes more) of new members upon a community, which members may, in one way or another, cause a profound perturbation of the balance of that community. The act of procreation is, therefore, an act of violence, of trespass, of invasion. The continuity of a species in Nature is secured by procreation; but the balance of Nature is constantly made to fluctuate around a mean by the act, notwithstanding loss from predatory and other causes. In human society the continuity of the species is secured by procreation; but since reciprocal destruction does not occur to nearly the same extent among human beings as it does among the lower animals[20], in a healthy society, which is an increasing society, the balance of the community, far from fluctuating around a mean, tends to be thrown ever more seriously out with each successive generation.