The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1883-04-04


that 'but one fish in a thousand reaches
maturity" and "of every 1000 children
DorE, only 6O4 attain adult age"
Thus it seems that nature
permits 900 fish out of every 200 to perish,
and of every FIVE human beings only two
survive the infantile period. Thus does ma
ture relentlessly weed out and destroy her
inferior or surplus products. The ceaseless
struggle for existence becomes a murderous
scramble, and even the fittest survive only
by fighting. 1t is we'll said that
'Big feas have little heas
On their back to bite em.
While little feas have lesser IDEAS,
And so ad infiritum"
Thus while it is admitted that the super
fecundity OF nature is wise provision, it
is equally apparent that the law by which
the weaker and inferior are destroyed
that the stronger and superior" may sur
vive, is also an exhibition of wisdom. II
the extraordinary production everywhere
going on we're not met by destructive forces
to remove the surplus nature would at once
defeat its purposes, and the world would be-
come one vast lazsr house. The writer
says:
Since the propagation of human beings goes
on with entire recklessness to disquality of the
product and the means of subsistence, some
strong corrective is absolutely necessary to estab
lish limits to population and to secure the con-
tinued development of the race. II every begot
ten child lived to the average age of forty, in a
very few years there would not be stsndingroom
on the earth for its people Even with such prop
no Ia ~
produces bu. six offspring In her bearing period
of ninety years, we are told that If the species
had ne parasitic or other enemies. it would only
be 7lO years until elephants overran the earth.
Where. then. would we assign limits to the pro-
ductiveness of the 7cO. coo GOO human females on
the globe, each OF whom Is capable of producing
twenty children in her thirty years Of bearine2
When such questions with all the facts
they bring to view are under discussion the
conclusion is inevitable that after all there
is not too much death in the world; in fact
If there was a little more of it humanity
would be the gamer, since those who did
survive would not be required TO fight for
existence so continuously and desperately
'Below the human strata" says the writer
superintendent generation is neutralizsdhy
the simple device of having every organism
pray upon some other one. Big fish eat little
fish, birds devour insects, and so on
throughout the entire realm of animated
nature below the human strata Man
alone being practically exempt from what
is apparently an inseparable condition of all
other forms of animal life,' creates means
for his own destruction. He preys
on myraids of created things
The entire animal and vegetable
Kingdoms are subject to his con-
troll, and still there is not enough
to satisfy his demands, and hence in various
ways he turns upon himself" 1t must be
assumed that in this exhibition of self-de-
structiveness man obeys law of his nature
while at the same time he is the subject OF
other laws, all OF which operate to remove
the weak and inferior of the human family
and it is just here that the writer observes
the economic functions of vice" Moral
lists deplore suicide, the immoderate use
of stimulants, lives of pleasure, a "short
life and a merry one" etc. They fail to
observe that the surplus of the human fam
lily must be reduced in some way. "Compe-
tent English statisticians," says the writer,
estimate that after q man has begun
drinking beer in large quantities it takes
him 21.7 years to kill himself, and
whisky drinker shortens the time to 161
years. Intempersnce, beipg among the
milder vices, kills slowly. Sexual sins slay
more rapidly, and the higher grades of vice
do their work with swiftness proportionate
to their hagrabcy.' Vice." says the writ
er, sis not so much a cause as an effect; not
50 much disease as symptom. Vice does
not make nature weak or reflective; weak
and defective nature expresses its weakness
and defects in vice, and that expression
brings about in one way or another the SOW
ereign remedy of extermIna,ion;" and the
writer holds that Temperance agitatOrs"
are mistaken when they assert that "the de-
mon alcohol is yearly dragging down to dis
honorable graves hundreds Of Thousands OF
the brightest and fairest of the land" simp-
ly because with very few exceptions, every
one who goes TO perditioa by the alcohol
route would reach that destination by some
OthtE highway IL iuc dlCOnOl line were uOi
running" and adds:
If. as the temperance agitators insist, "intem-
perance is yearly dragging hundred thousand of
the men and women Of our country down to the
grave" then love of scientific truth compels the
statement that intempeTance, while doing some
harm, as is usually the case with natural agents,
Is also doing an immense amount of good. BY far
the greater portion OF those who thus succumb to
alcoholiz ation, and 20 the deadly practices
that usually accompany IL, are thieves
thugs, prostitutes, gamblers sharpers ruffins and
other memhers OF the criminal and quds-criminal
classes, ur~a whom whisky accommodatingly
performs the Office of judge and executioner. cut
ting their careers of at an average Of FIVE years,
where, without this interDosition. they would be
extended 10 POSSIBLY twenty OF thirty. The GER
tainty and celebrity with which 1t ferrets out and
destroys these classes recommends it strongly
over the ordinary processes of justice.
1t ie in such statements that the writer
has its economic and beneficial functions.
1t helps 10 reduce the human surplus. It
goes hand in hand with all the sconrges,
malaria, sewer-gas ard death breeding filth
in all of the great cities. 1t is held as
general proposition that war is wickedness;
that disasters by sea and land are largely
attributable TO causes which have their orr
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