nd control, according as offspring are or are not considered
desirable.

The sense of the desirability of offspring may, in the first
place, be determined by social rather than individual considerations.
To the group or the state a large birth-rate, a
steady increase of the number of births over the number of
deaths, may be made desirable by the need of a large population
for agriculture, herding, or war. In primitive tribes,
superiority in numbers must have been, under conditions of
competitive warfare, a pronounced asset. In any imperialistic
regime, where military conquest is highly regarded, the
maintenance and replenishment of large armies is a factor that
has entered into reflection on the question of population.

In cases where a small ruling class is benefited by the labor
of a slave or serf class, there is, at least for the ruling classes,
a marked utility in the increase in population. It means just
so much opportunity for increase of wealth on the part of
landowning and slaveholding or serf-controlling classes. In
any country, increase in the labor supply means just so much
more human energy for the control of natural resources, so
many more units of energy for the production of national
wealth.

Offspring may come to be reflectively desired by the individual
as a means of perpetuating property, family, or fame.
A man cannot nonchalantly face the prospect of obliteration,
and the biological fact of death may be circumvented by the
equally real fact of reproduction. A man's individuality, we
have already had occasion to see, is enhanced by his possessions,
and if his fortune or estate is handed down he shall not
altogether have been obliterated from the earth. Similarly,
where a family has become a great tradition, there may be a
deliberate desire on the part of an individual to have the
name and tradition carried on, to keep the old lineage current
and conspicuous among men. A man may think through his
children to keep his own fame alive in posterity. At least his
name shall be known, and if, as so often happens, a son follows
in his father's profession, carries on his father's business,
farm, or philanthropies, the individual attains at least some
measure of vicarious immortality. His own ways, habits,
traditions are carried on.

A man may, moreover, come to desire offspring for the
pleasures and responsibilities of domesticity and parenthood.
There is a parental instinct as such, certainly very str