A fascinating book by a Neo-Malthusian. In other words, Charles Galton Darwin, the grandson of the more famous Charles Darwin, believes that we cannot fight population growth. In the short run, birth control may help. However, in the long run -- and remember, Professor Darwin is looking at the next million years --, all we are doing is breeding humans who have steadily weaker sex drives. People with strong sex drives will have all the fun they like, but without children, thanks to improved methods of limiting births. Meanwhile, people with strong family impulses will continue to have lots of children because they like kids for their own sake. So while we may be steadily modifying our DNA (as yet undiscovered in 1952, when Darwin wrote his book), we shall not succeed in slowing population growth.

Thus, Darwin concludes that the million-year history of the human race will be much like the history of China until recently: billions of people living in poverty on the margin of starvation, and frequently falling below that margin. Occasional scientific breakthroughs will enable the human race temporarily to get ahead of population growth, thereby producing golden ages. But the word "temporarily" must be emphasized here. A grim but probable prediction.