Man receives at birth the requisite store of life energy for the life journey. He cannot replenish this, but must die after the store is exhausted. It is entirely different in the life of a people. A people can supplement and renew itself indefinitely by propagation through the family. Its living energy need not therefore expire, if its individual members do not wish to have that happen. There is no such thing as the inevitable decline of a people.
Occasionally one also finds the contrary opinion represented which assumes that a people can never die. This is just as false as the belief in the inevitable death of a people. It is true that, with the present distribution of the population, there no longer exists territory that is uninhabited because of the dying out of a people. For a territory with too small a population inevitably attracts persons from over- populated areas. in this way the population of a territory can be maintained. But a people with a low birth rate lose their original character by such an infiltration of foreigners until, in the end, they are completely overwhelmed by them. So it was in ancient Greece as in ancient Rome.
The high calling of motherhood has once again become the natural task and accomplishment of every sound woman. A large family of children is again a mark of distinction before the whole nation.