“Notwithstanding all that has been and will be accomplished by your enterprising race,” said he, “there are some things about the earth that they will never be able to control or improve. There are two in particular of essential importance. One is the area of the earth’s surface, which your race can never increase no matter what its necessities may be; the other is the slow but very certain refrigeration of the earth’s climate by which we may be sure that a time will be reached in the long distant future when the habitable surface shall gradually be reduced till at last no part of the earth’s surface will be tolerable to any living creature. So in effect while the demand of the race will be for more room it will constantly be required to put up with less.”
“But,” said I, “isn’t that a good ways off? The extreme refrigeration of the earth is a process involving millions of years according to our scientists.”
“Yes, it will be a long time before any important reduction of area can take place, but not long before the present room will become very much cramped. Only a few moments ago we reckoned that by the year 2070 there would be about two acres to each of the 12,000,000,000 of[156] inhabitants, on which to live and move and produce the means of subsistence. If the race should then be doubling every thirty years, in 2100 there will be but one acre for each; and if they keep on increasing in 2130 a half acre; in 2160 a quarter; in 2190 an eighth, in 2220 a sixteenth; in 2250 a lot thirty-three by forty-one and one-fourth feet, which in 2280 is reduced to thirty-three by twenty feet 8 inches and this in 2292 four hundred years after the centennial of the discovery of America by Columbus that was celebrated in your day at Chicago, will be reduced to thirty-three by sixteen and one-half, or two rods by one. If the population should get to be as numerous as that the entire earth would be a city inhabited twelve times as densely as the city of Minneapolis was in your day. This of course is the average. Some places are more desirable than others and these would be more densely packed. Already at the close of the twentieth century many of the pleasanter parts of the earth have become uncomfortably populous, not from want of the means of subsistence, but from want of room to carry on the business and pleasures of life. And yet the growth of population may be said to be just fairly commenced. It is obvious from what can already be seen that it will very soon be necessary to place some artificial restriction on the increase of population or else there will be such suffering among men as will of itself operate to keep down the number of people by killing them off faster and shortening the average duration of life. These questions are already being seriously considered by the philosophers[157] and wise men, and many plans are being discussed.
“There are some pessimists who declare there is no remedy. They say it was an egregious blunder on the part of society to attempt the banishment of suffering. It was suffering that had in all ages kept down the population, so that the world remained roomy enough to live in with some comfort. They hold that suffering is a necessary concomitant of comfort and we are bound to have it both before it, as a necessary antecedent and after it, as a necessary consequent. It is the law of nature and it is vain to try to evade it. By banishing war and want and disease, and reducing the problem of life to an easy pleasant certainty, society, they say, has caused herself to be invaded by fresh innumerable hordes of human beings that step into the arena of life from the secret caves of non-existence as if attracted by the feast of good things that she has provided for herself. When the repressive hand of suffering is lifted a little the human species breed and grow like rabbits until they feel its hard pressure again.
“Nature, they affirm, is no sentimentalist. Her ways are all direct, hard, cruel and brutal. She is extravagant and wasteful of effort and parsimonious of results. She creates a thousand seeds of grain or grass or tree, only one of which will become a grown plant and reproduce its kind. She is even more prodigal with the spawn of fishes destroying millions for one she brings to maturity. There is nothing to show that she cares any more for the human race than for fishes. When men get[158] too numerous she destroys them as ruthlessly as if they were so many herring or clams. They assert it is impossible to evade or even to improve upon the methods of nature. They point to the teeming multitudes that have swarmed upon the earth during the last century in such comparative security and comfort as to invite a still greater inundation during the century to come; and they declare it to be one of the characteristic stratagems of nature, only restraining her grim and malicious humor in order to make it the more tragic and appalling when she does give it play. And they aver that it would be better even now to drop a large part if not all of the artificial stimulations to the expansion of the population that have by insensible degrees been grafted upon state policy during the last century. Let every tub stand on its own bottom, say they, let natural selection secure the survival of the fittest, and let the unfit be quietly eliminated by whichever of the numerous methods nature finds most applicable. In opposition to these are the optimists who hold that the human race is nature’s pet. If she could be said to plan anything or to have any preferences in favor of anything, it was the human family. After making trial in succession of the Trilobite, the Orthoceras, the Shark, the Megalosaurus, the Pterodactyl, the Mastodon and others, she put them all down and brought forward man and placed him over them all, and made him master of the earth. He was a frail insignificant helpless creature without weight, power or dignity. Other animals could beat him swimming, diving, flying, running, fighting. There was only one[159] thing he could do tolerably well and that was to climb a tree. That was his capital, his stock in trade as one might say, for it developed his hands and quickened his senses. Nature took this unprepossessing, unpromising creature, educated and developed him in her stern school and by her untender methods, put brains into him, civilized him and fitted him to control the world and finally to govern himself. This last lesson he has not yet perfectly mastered, but he is learning more of it every day. Progress, say they, never takes a back track. The pessimistic theory that nature’s plan is to let every fellow look out for himself and the devil take the hindmost, is no longer true. The race has passed that place and the new ideal is; every fellow for all the rest, and no one left behind. Until this is practically realized they say the race will not have fulfilled its destiny, and retreat is impossible. Moreover it is not necessary; for the new departure is after all as natural as the old way, and is in fact only a continuation of it; a turn in the road as it were; and it may quite as well be depended upon to rectify all the difficulties of its own creation. If the principle of mutual succor, sympathy and assistance leads to over population, the same principle must furnish the remedy. The optimists admit the contention of the pessimists that this trouble is looming up, and the philosophers of all schools are beginning to feel serious. They are discussing such figures as we had before us a few moments ago and endeavoring to fix the date at which a halt will have to be called, and the means devised by which it is to[160] be accomplished. Some say the population is dense enough now. Others point out that with the increased means of subsistence there need not be anything uncomfortable in a population of 12,000,000,000 which they estimate will not be reached till 2070, or 70 years from the present (A. D. 2000.) And they are hopeful enough to believe that by that time, human wit will have discovered some way of controlling population without violence to human happiness. All agree that if society is to be maintained on the present scale it is high time to settle the manner in which the great question of population is to be met and handled. It is the most difficult question that has ever demanded human attention.
“In your day there was already beginning to be some discussion in regard to stirpiculture and the scientific regulation of the family and rearing of children. But it did not at that time reach a practical stage. No scientific conclusions on the subject of marriage have yet been able to displace sentiment and instinct. But soon, as I have already told you, the rearing of the children was undertaken by the state and removed from the caprice of sentiment and ignorance greatly to the advantage of the children and of course the race. But the question of marriage remains the same sentimental business it was in the days of Jacob. And with the increasing independence of women it has become even more a question of the feelings than it was in your day when women often married for a home and men sometimes for money. As the problems of life, marriage etc., have become questions[161] of state, inviting and even requiring ample and public discussion, the squeamishness and false modesty with which they were approached in your day have entirely disappeared. The public interest and the rights of the state in the question of the perpetuation of the race are freely admitted and discussed. The public mind has been gradually prepared for this by the gradual assumption by the state of the care and education of the youth, and by its experience in the treatment of criminals. Where the treatment of all the youth is uniform and some after all, turn out to be criminals as they occasionally do, the cause is looked for in their parentage. The state is in condition to keep track of ill born children, and after leaving the schools they are still kept under the eye and guiding advice and restraint if necessary of a special department of the police service. In this way the criminally disposed are known in advance, and much crime is no doubt prevented. The criminally disposed are regarded and treated as mentally diseased.
“There has been much discussion pro and con of this mode of punishment, or—as some prefer to express it—mode of treatment. But it is now generally conceded that society is entirely justifiable in employing this mode of defense, especially since capital punishment has been abolished, and this is the maximum penalty that is corporally inflicted. The public mind having had before it the operation of this treatment as a sort of object lesson is the more ready to listen to the proposition that is now being discussed to use this same treatment for the[162] defense of society against herself. The question is one that must be approached with the utmost consideration and tenderness as well as fairness and justice applied after the most careful and expert selection and with due regard to the character and physical and mental qualities that are due to be expected from such conditions. It is natural selection they say, artificially applied without the circumlocution and tedious delay of nature’s ordinary methods. Left to herself, nature in the long run provides for the survival of the fittest. We now propose say they to make the same provision in the short run. We are now approaching one of those crises in human affairs in which something has to be done, and if men have not the wit to do it themselves, nature takes hold and performs it in her hard way with small tenderness for anybody’s feelings or notions of propriety. If we are competent, we will find some way out of this difficulty without losing our civilization; if we are not, nature will put us back in the primer of barbarism, to learn it all over again as she has done a dozen times before. We have it in our power, and it is our obvious duty to reduce the population, or to stop its increase, and to do it in the very scientific manner that is at our disposal, by which the best blood is selected for transmission and the poorest is quietly eliminated without shock or pain to the individual or to society. Not only can the best blood in general be made exclusive, but any particular brand of best blood can be picked out to receive special encouragement. We can preserve a class of talent invaluable[163] to civilization that nature could not be depended on to select for preservation in the hard struggle for existence—the gentle, the unselfish, the intellectual worker and the poet. Nor can she be depended on to eliminate the ruffianly, brutal, criminal and selfish members whose room is better than their company. Rather these are the very ones she would be likely to save.
“This is all in our hands, say they, and if we have the nerve to carry it out, we can make the earth a perpetual paradise. All we have to do is to disqualify in their infancy the stirps whose posterity we prefer not to see.”
The Professor paused here and changed the profile to his ‘jokers’ or middle pair of hands and proceeded to roll up the 20th century and expose the 21st.
“I believe,” he resumed, “that we had better step forward another century, take our stand at the year 2100 and survey the century retrospectively, as we have done the 20th. It seems more natural to speak of it in the past tense since we have become accustomed to that way.”
“All right,” I answered, “consider it done. I am already there.”
“Do you not remember,” he went on, “that a little while ago you expressed a wish that it might have been your lot to live say 200 years later than you did, so as to share and experience the glory your race would have attained by that time? Well you are in effect now there, and while you shall never experience it in your own person, you shall[164] have a close glimpse of it and be able to compare your anticipation with the reality.
“We are now celebrating January 1, 2100. As you look around, you see very much that is unfamiliar and miss many things you used to see. Take a map of the world and examine it. You will find only three general governments on earth. First is the “Great union of Free States”, which you have heard of, but now comprising all America, the Pacific Islands, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, The West Indies, Ireland and Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, New Guinea and the Philippines. Thus you see the principal change in this government during the century consists in the full annexation of all the South American States north of Chili and Argentine, and the Annexation of England, Scotland and Wales and the Scandinavian states. The language of this great empire is almost exclusively English, which however, has been greatly corrupted, some say, or enriched according to others, by the incorporation of a large number of foreign words, mostly Spanish, due to the intimate relations between the English speaking peoples and those who used the Spanish and Portuguese. South America has been settled and cultivated and is the most productive county on earth; a fairy land, a paradise. Nothing can compare with it except some of the finest portions of the Sahara desert, which has been developed by the French; and some of the East India Islands.
“Next is the Russo-Asiatic empire that comprises Russia in Europe and all Asia except Arabia. It is styled the ‘Russasia.’ The government is a limited[165] monarchy, very much like that of Great Britain in your day. The Russians in Europe and Siberia are represented by a parliament, which is the supreme legislative authority for the entire empire. The Asiatic States are governed by governors appointed by the emperor at St. Petersburg and most of them have local legislatures that regulate their local affairs. All China and parts of India, Persia and Tartary, and Afghanistan are divided into convenient sized states possessing this local autonomy. All of this territory is being developed by the combined enterprise of the Russians and the Chinese, the latter scarcely second to the former. Mongolia and Mantchooria have been supplied with railroads and settled by both Chinese and Russians. The Chinese have also migrated in great numbers into Tartary and settled up what used to be the western end of the Chinese empire. They have even settled in great numbers in Russia and in western Asia. A great change came over the Chinese after their war with Japan in 1894-5. They perceived that they were beaten by western methods, and they suddenly conceived a respect for the ways of the foreign devils as extreme as their contempt for them had been before. They had always been on good terms with the Russians while they disliked the English, French and Americans. Having determined to adopt western ways, they selected the Russians for their instructors and welcomed their capital and enterprise in the introduction of railways, opening mines, improving their water ways, introducing western machinery and manufactures. When the Russians in order to protect[166] their interests began a military occupation of the country, they were not opposed, but rather welcomed by the progressive party. The Chinese were not a military people, and were really in need of a coalition that would enable them to resist the aggressions of the nations of western Europe, and the Japanese. The remodeling of Chinese institutions under the tutelage of the Russians advanced rapidly. Probably the most radical and important innovation was the introduction of the Russian alphabet and the phonetic spelling of the Chinese language by its use. This enabled the Chinese youth to learn their own language much more easily, and it led directly to the study of the Russian which became very necessary to a large extent, on account of the intimate intercourse between the two people, and on account of the new ideas, processes and things, the names of which were Russian without Chinese equivalents. This finally led to the universal use of Russian by the educated Chinese.
“After the formal annexation of China, the Russian became the official language, and the Chinese language has gradually fallen into disuse and is now almost extinct. The Chinese say of their ancient tongue and the bug marks and turkey tracks that constituted its written expression, “we were little children when we used that language.”
“The Russian has also to a great extent superseded the Tartar, Turkish, Persian and other tongues current in Central Asia. In doing this, however, it has become considerably corrupted itself.
[167]
“The third great empire comprises all the territory not included in the other two, and embraces all of Continental Europe except Russia and the Scandinavian States, and all of Africa except that part south of the 10th parallel of S. Lat. and Arabia. It is called the Euro-Afric Confederacy. Tremendous activity has been displayed by the Europeans in the settlement and improvement of Africa during the past two centuries. The whole continent has been gridironed with railroads, all of it has been civilized and the most unpromising part—the Sahara desert has been made a vast garden.
“The French have been most active in the northern part, the Italians in the eastern part, the Portuguese and Germans in the central portions, the English in the southern. The Congo and German States being open to free trade, they came to be frequented by merchants from all Europe and these were soon followed by permanent settlers. After a time these people became tired of being governed from Europe, and set up for themselves, declaring themselves independent, much as the United States did in 1776. But in this case there was no opposition for the principle of free intercourse and unrestricted trade having been firmly established, the mother countries did not care to superintend the internal affairs of the young states, and readily consented to their independence. But this independence proved to be the forerunner of a more extensive union namely the Euro-Afric Confederacy. It was the last to be formed of the three great empires that now cover the world. The states comprising it are mostly republics. But a[168] few in middle Africa, Guinea and the Sondan, are limited monarchies. The native races of Africa are rapidly being displaced by the Europeans and will totally disappear in a few generations as the North American Indians did in your day. A large migration of Negroes took place from the United States to Africa during the 20th century, but they did not thrive, and the race is vastly reduced both in Africa and America.”
“That is strange,” said I, “for in my day the negroes were very numerous in the southern states—a majority in some places—and the question how they were to be disposed of constituted one of the questions of state of that period.”
“True,” he replied, “but up to that time there had been no very severe competition for the means of living. But it became more and more difficult from that time on to make a living, and wherever there is strong competition between men, the strong positive, vigorous and hard, are sure to crowd the softer and weaker out, and take the prize they are struggling for. In your day the negroes were generally content, in fact were compelled to be content, with su............