Once they
realized the facts, the majority of Germans naturally welcomed the
so-called war of defense.
The argument was sound. Once the German mothers had submitted to the
plea for overbreeding, it was inevitable that imperialistic Germany
should make war. Once the battalions of unwanted babies came into
existence--babies whom the mothers did not want but which they bore as
a "patriotic duty"--it was too late to avoid international conflict.
The great crime of imperialistic Germany was its high birth rate.
It has always been so. Behind all war has been the pressure of
population. "Historians," says Huxley, "point to the greed and
ambition of rulers, the reckless turbulence of the ruled, to the
debasing effects of wealth and luxury, and to the devastating wars
which have formed a great part of the occupation of mankind, as the
causes of the decay of states and the foundering of old civilizations,
and thereby point their story with a moral. But beneath all this
superficial turmoil lay the deep-seated impulse given by unlimited
multiplication."
Robert Thomas Malthus, formulator of the doctrine which bears his
name, pointed out, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, the
relation of overpopulation to war.
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