Apart from such cases of foreign influence, we may perhaps say that irregular connections between the sexes have on the whole exhibited a tendency to increase along with the progress of civilization. Dr. Fritsch remarks that the Bushmans are much stricter in that matter than their far more advanced neighbours.[359] Robert Drury assures us that, in Madagascar, “there are more modest women, in proportion to the number of people, than in England.”[360] Tacitus praised the chastity of the Germanic youth, in contrast to the licentiousness of the highly civilized Romans. These statements may to a certain extent be considered typical. In Europe, there are born among towns-people, on an average, twice as many bastard children, in proportion to the number of births, as among the inhabitants of the country, who generally lead a more natural life. In France, according to Wappäus, the ratio was found even so great as 15·13 to 4·24; though in Saxony, with its manufacturing country people, it was only as 15·39 to 14·64.[361] Nay, in Gratz and Munich the illegitimate births are even more numerous than the legitimate.[362] The prostitution of the towns makes the difference in morality still greater; and unfortunately the evil is growing. Almost everywhere prostitution increases in a higher ratio than population.[363] In consideration of these facts, it is almost ridiculous to speak of the immorality of unmarried people among savages as a relic of an alleged primitive stage of promiscuity. There are several factors in civilization which account for this bad result. The more unnatural mode of living and the greater number of excitements exercise, no doubt, a deteriorating influence on morality; and poverty makes prostitutes of many girls who are little more than children. But the chief factor is the growing number of unmarried people. It is proved that, in the cities of Europe, prostitution increases according as the number of marriages decreases.[364] It has also been established, thanks to the statistical investigations of Engel and others, that the fewer the marriages contracted in a year, the greater is the ratio of illegitimate births.[365] Thus, by making celibacy more common, civilization promotes sexual irregularity. It is true that more elevated moral feelings, concomitants of a higher mental development, may, to a certain extent, put the drag on passion. But in a savage condition of life, where every full-grown man marries as soon as possible; where almost every girl, when she reaches the age of puberty, is given in marriage; where, consequently, bachelors and spinsters are of rare occurrence,—there is comparatively little reason for illegitimate relations.[366] Marriage, it seems to me, is the natural form of the sexual relations of man, as of his nearest allies among the lower animals. Far from being a relic of the primitive life of man, irregularity in this respect is an anomaly arising chiefly from