d._, III, 61.

[882] _Ibid._, II, 29.

[883] _Heart of Africa_, I, 374.

[884] Von Kremer, _Kulturgesch. d. Orients_, II, 128.

[885] Pischon, _Einfluss d. Islam_, 25-29.

[886] _Ibid._, 31.

[887] _Globus_, XXX, 127; Vambery, _Sittenbilder aus dem
Morgenlande_, 25.

[888] Hauri, _Islam_, 149.

[889] _Ibid._, 150.

[890] _Ibid._, 153.

[891] _Utopia_, II, 53.

[892] _Utopia_, II, 132, 144, 147.

[893] _Brit. Peasantry_, 71.

[894] Mad. Knight's _Journey_ (1704).

[895] Hildreth, _Hist. U. S._, I, 372.

[896] Fauriel, _Last Days of the Consulate_, 31.

[897] Cator, _Head-hunters_, 198.

[898] _Heart of Africa_, II, 421.

[899] _N. S., Amer. Anthrop._, VI, 563.

[900] Nassau, _Fetishism in West Afr._, 14 ff.

CHAPTER VII

ABORTION, INFANTICIDE, KILLING THE OLD

The able-bodied and the burdens.--The advantages and
disadvantages of the aged. Respect and contempt for them.--
Abortion and infanticide.--Relation of parent and child.--
Population policy.--The burden and benefit of children.--
Individual and group interest in children.--Abortion in
ethnography.--Abortion renounced.--Infanticide in
ethnography.--Infanticide renounced.--Ethics of abortion and
infanticide.--Christian mores as to abortion and infanticide.--
Respect and contempt for the aged.--The aged in ethnography.--
Killing the old.--Killing the old in ethnography.--Special
exigencies of the civilized.--How the customs of infanticide and
killing the old were changed.

+314. The competent part of society; the burdens.+ The able-bodied and
competent part of a society is the adults in the prime of life. These
have to bear all the societal burdens, among which are the care of those
too young and of those too old to care for themselves. It is certain
that at a very early time in the history of human society the burden of
bearing and rearing children, and the evils of overpopulation, were
perceived as facts, and policies were instinctively adopted to protect
the adults. The facts caused pain, and the acts resolved upon to avoid
it were very summary, and were adopted with very little reasoning.
Abortion and infanticide protected the society, unless its situation
with respect to neighbors was such that war and pestilence kept down the
numbers and made children valuable for war. The numbers p