An elderly man, trying only to learn the law of social
inertia and the limits of social divergence could not compel the
Superintendent of the Census to ask every young woman whether she
wanted children, and how many; he could not even require of an
octogenarian Senate the passage of a law obliging every woman,
married or not, to bear one baby -- at the expense of the
Treasury -- before she was thirty years old, under penalty of
solitary confinement for life; yet these were vital statistics in
more senses than all that bore the name, and tended more directly
to the foundation of a serious society in the future. He could
draw no conclusions whatever except from the birth-rate. He could
not frankly discuss the matter with the young women themselves,
although they would have gladly discussed it, because Faust was
helpless in the tragedy of woman. He could suggest nothing. The
Marguerite of the future could alone decide whether she were
better off than the Marguerite of the past; whether she would
rather be victim to a man, a church, or a machine.
Between these various forms of inevitable inertia -- sex and
race -- the student of multiplicity felt inclined to admit that
-- ignorance against ignorance -- the Russian problem seemed to
him somewhat easier of treatment than the American. Inertia of
race and bulk would require an immense force to overcome it, but
in time it might perhaps be partially overcome.
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