SECTION CCLII.. Positive Decrease of Population.

POSITIVE DECREASE OF POPULATION.

The way of vice is steep. Where the aversion to the sacrifices and to the limitations of liberty imposed by marriage, has permeated the great body of the people; where, indeed, the immoral tendencies counter to population described in § 249 ff. have been largely developed, they very readily cease to be mere checks, and population may positively decline. While in the case of fresh and vigorous nations, the mere loss of men caused by wars, pestilence, etc., is very easily made up;[252-1] that reproductive power may here be too much enfeebled to fill up the gap again. It has happened more than once that the decline of a period has been frightfully promoted by great plagues, which have swept away in whole masses the remnants of a former and better generation.[252-2] The return of the relatively small population of its childhood to a nation in its senility cannot be ascribed exclusively to a decrease in its means of subsistence and to a less advantageous distribution of them.[252-3] [252-4] The depopulation, however, of Greece and Rome in their decline might be hard to understand were it not for the slavery of the lower class.[252-5]