s as material as anything one can
conceive of, and the fortune which made X the son of A, and not of
another man, is the most material fact in his destiny. If those things
were better understood public opinion about the ethics of marriage and
parentage would undergo a most salutary change. In following the modern
tendency of opinion we have lost sight of the due responsibility of
parents, and our legislation has thrown upon some parents the
responsibility, not only of their own children, but of those of
others.

The relation of parents and children is the only case of sacrifice in
Nature. Elsewhere equivalence of exchange prevails rigorously. The
parents, however, hand down to their children the return for all which
they had themselves inherited from their ancestors. They ought to hand
down the inheritance with increase. It is by this relation that the
human race keeps up a constantly advancing contest with Nature. The
penalty of ceasing an aggressive behavior toward the hardships of life
on the part of mankind is, that we go backward. We cannot stand still.
Now, parental affection constitutes the personal motive which drives
every man in his place to an aggressive and conquering policy toward
the limiting conditions of human life. Affection for wife and children
is also the greatest motive to social ambition and personal
self-respect--that is, to what is technically called a "high standard
of living."

Some people are greatly shocked to read of what is called
Malthusianism, when they read it in a book, who would be greatly
ashamed of themselves if they did not practise Malthusianism in their
own affairs. Among respectable people a man who took upon himself the
cares and expenses of a family before he had secured a regular trade or
profession, or had accumulated some capital, and who allowed his wife
to lose caste, and his children to be dirty, ragged, and neglected,
would be severely blamed by the public opinion of the community. The
standard of living which a man makes for himself and his family, if he
means to earn it, and does not formulate it as a demand which he means
to make on his fellow-men, is a gauge of his self-respect; and a high
standard of living is the moral limit which an intelligent body of men
sets for itself far inside of the natural limits of the sustaining
power of the land, which latter limit is set by starvation, pestilence,
and war. But a high standard of living restrains population; that is,