It is impossible not to perceive the visible and terrible deterioration of our Western races. The causes of it are numerous and very various. The chief of them all is the immensity and the constant and rapid increase of our hours of labor. For the most part, it is compulsory; compelled by trade regulations and trade necessities. But even where no such compulsion exists, there the same ardor of long hours and hard toil exists. I know not what demoniac fire exists in our modern temperament. Compared to ourselves, all former centuries have been positively idle. Our results, no doubt, are immense. From our prolific brain and iron hand, proceeds such a marvellous flood of art, science, inventions, productions, and ideas, that we are actually glutting the markets, not only of the present, but also of the future. But at what cost are we doing all this? At the price of an awful expenditure of strength, and of nervous energy; we are enervating ourselves, our works are prodigious, and _our children_ are miserable. We condemn them to disease, suffering, and premature death even before they are born. _Our spendthrift waste of energy entails feebleness and early death upon them!_ And let it be remembered that this immense amount of production is the work of only a comparatively small number. America does little of it, Asia next to nothing, and even in Europe all, or nearly all, is done by a few millions in the extreme West. The others laugh to see the really working peoples thus wear themselves out. Poor Barbarians! Do you fancy, then, that this Russian or that Backwoodsman, can replace, at need, a mechanic of London or an optician of Paris? No; we have become such by the education and the practice of long centuries. A whole and a very long tradition is in us. What would become of you if we should die? None of you are ready to succeed us. But this same murderous toil, this absolutely suicidal production, if we be willing to accept it for ourselves, it is our duty _not_ to accept it for our children; we have no right thus to _add murder to suicide_. And, yet, that is what we really are doing. They are born already, with our fatigue, our cerebral exhaustion. With a perfectly frightful precocity, they _know_, they _can_, they _will_, and they _do_. But how long? The grave opens for them _so_ early! The human infant, like the young plant, needs rest, air, and a sweet liberty. Do we give our children any of these? No; our very virtues, as well as our vices, deny them all. Everything seems to combine to kill them early. Do we love them? No doubt; and yet our worst malice could not do more than we do to kill them early or to cause them to live miserably, pitifully, sufferingly, effeminate. Such a society as ours, so overworked, so over excited, so constantly agitated, is, (whether society will confess it or not) a real, and a murderous war upon our children.