Spencer Heath

Item 948

Penciling in pocket notebook 947

February 1934?

AN EPITOME OF THE BIOLOGIC ANSWER TO MALTHUS

The nearer any organism is to extinction the more essentially prolific it becomes. A plant cut down in mid season springs up again only to bear seeds. Those animal forms the conditions of whose existence include the greatest hazards bear the most numerous young. Those states of society in which men are most like to perish make them most prone to reproduce. It is nature’s lesson and nature’s law that a population’s rate of increase diminishes while its subsistence and security increase. Nature strives ever for the higher organic forms and as she achieves quality, value and beauty she casts off the quantitative prudence by which she led herself to these.