To this chapter on optimism and pessimism I would add a small postscript. I would fain have made it a chapter or many chapters, but I have not the room. It is the strong connection between religion and optimism as evinced in a high birth rate, between irreligion and pessimism as shown in a falling off in the population. For that is the great complaint in France to-day. It is noticeable especially amongst the cultured classes, who are absolutely irreligious, and who are absolutely pessimistic: the birth rate is falling so rapidly that France ceases to increase. Only in Normandy, where religion yet retains power, does the birth rate keep up. This is not a solitary instance. All history repeats it. Do you remember Matthew Arnold's lines: "On that hard Pagan world disgust and secret loathing fell, Deep weariness, and sated lust made human life a hell. In his cool hall with haggard eyes the Roman noble lay; He drove abroad in furious guise along the Appian way. * * * * * * * No easier nor no quicker passed the impracticable hours." The Roman Empire fell because there were no more Romans left. They had died out and left no children to succeed them. Where is the highest birth rate to-day in Europe? It is in "priest-ridden" Russia, where the people are without doubt more deeply imbued with their faith than any other people of the West now. In Burma, where religion has such a hold on the people as the world has never known, the birth rate is very high indeed. The Turks in the heyday of their religious enthusiasm increased very rapidly, but now and for long they seem to be stationary, and in the Boers we see again a high birth rate and very strong religious convictions. Our birth rate, on the contrary, is falling with the growing irreligion in certain classes. Not that I wish for a moment to infer that religious feeling causes more children to be born. I have no belief whatever in the usual theories that the fall in birth rates is due to preventive measures, which religion disallows, or to debauchery, which religion controls. The supporters of such a theory admit that they cannot prove it. And there is very much against such an idea. When religion in the early ages of Christianity discouraged marriage and did all in its power to encourage celibacy, it never succeeded in the end. Men and women might go into convents for certain reasons--not, I think, mainly religious--the birth of children from those outside did not alter. And during the priestly rule in Paraguay population disappeared so rapidly the monks were alarmed, and took stringent and strange methods to stop the decay, but in vain--the people had lost heart.