{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8773/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8773","id":"gutenberg_8773","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8773","summary":null,"tags":["Birth control","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Malthusianism"],"text":"E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders\n\n\n\nBIRTH CONTROL\n\nA Statement of Christian Doctrine against the Neo-Malthusians\n\nBY\n\nHALLIDAY G. SUTHERLAND, M.D. (Edin.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE ESSENTIAL FALLACIES OF MALTHUSIAN TEACHING\n\nSection 1. MALTHUS AND THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS.\n     (a) Malthus\n     (b) The Neo-Malthusians\n\nSection 2. TEACHING BASED ON FALSE PREMISES.\n     (a) That Population progresses geometrically\n     (b) That Food Supply progresses arithmetically\n     (c) That Overpopulation is the cause of Poverty and Disease\n\nSection 3. THE ROOT FALLACY\n\nSection 4. WHAT OVERPOPULATION MEANS\n\nSection 5. NO EVIDENCE OF OVERPOPULATION\n     (a) In the Suez Canal Zone\n     (b) In \"Closed Countries\" like Japan\n\nSection 6. A NATURAL LAW CHECKING FERTILITY\n\nSection 7. OVERPOPULATION IN THE FUTURE\n\nSection 8. HOW NATIONS HAVE PERISHED\n\nSection 9. PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES\n     (a) Disease\n     (b) War\n\nSection 10. MORAL CATASTROPHES\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE FALSE DEDUCTIONS CONCERNING POVERTY\n\nSection 1. BIRTH-RATE AND POVERTY\n     (a) Famines\n     (b) Abundance\n     (c) Wages\n\nSection 2. POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN DUE TO OTHER CAUSES\n     (a) Under-development\n     (b) Severance of the Inhabitants from the Soil\n\nSection 3. CAUSES OF POVERTY IN INDIA\n\nSection 4. POVERTY IN FACT CAUSES A HIGH BIRTHRATE\n     (a) Malthusianism is an attack on the Poor\n     (b) A Hindrance to Reform\n     (c) A Quack Remedy for Poverty\n\nSection 5. POVERTY AND CIVILISATION\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nHIGH BIRTH-RATES NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATES\n\nSection 1. POVERTY AS NOW EXISTING\n\nSection 2. HIGH BIRTH-RATE NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATE:\n           PROVED FROM STATISTICS\n     (a) Canada\n     (b) Connaught\n\nSection 3. A LOW BIRTH-RATE NO GUARANTEE OF A LOW DEATH-RATE\n\nSection 4. VITAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE\n\nSection 5. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nHOW RELIGION AFFECTS THE BIRTHRATE\n\nSection 1. FRENCH STATISTICS MISINTERPRETED BY MALTHUSIANS\n\nSection 2. EVIDENCE FROM HOLLAND\n\nSection 3. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\nSection 4. THE SAME RESULTS IN ENGLAND\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nIS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS?\n\nSection 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED\n\nSection 2. MR. PELL'S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED\n\nSection 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE\n\nSection 4. ILLUSTRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY\n     (a) Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece\n     (b) The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES\n\nSection 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES\n\nSection 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW\n\nSection 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION.\n\nSection 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL\n\nSection 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT\n     (a) A Cause of Sterility\n     (b) Neuroses\n     (c) Fibroid Tumours\n\nSection 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION\n\nSection 3. A CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE\n\nSection 4. AN INSULT TO TRUE WOMANHOOD\n\nSection 5. A DEGRADATION OF THE FEMALE SEX\n\nSection 6. SPECIALLY HURTFUL TO THE POOR\n     (a) Affecting the Young\n     (b) Exposing the Poor to Experiment\n     (c) Tending towards the Servile State\n\nSection 7. A MENACE TO THE NATION\n     (a) There is a Limit to lowering the Death-rate\n     (b) Birth Control tends to extinguish the Birth-rate\n     (c) A Danger to the Empire\n     (d) The Dangers of Small Families\n\nSection 8. THE PLOT AGAINST CHRISTENDOM\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT AGAINST BIRTH CONTROL\n\nSection 1. AN OFFENCE AGAINST THE LAW OF NATURE\n\nSection 2. REFLECTED IN THE NORMAL CONSCIENCE\n\nSection 3. EXPRESSED IN THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS\n\nSection 4. BIRTH CONTROL CONDEMNED BY PROTESTANT CHURCHES\n\nAPPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII\n\nA NEO-MALTHUSIAN ATTACK ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON BIRTH CONTROL\n\nSection 1. A FALSE VIEW OF HER DOCTRINE\n\nSection 2. THE ESSENCE AND PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE\n\nSection 3. ARTIFICIAL STERILITY WHOLLY CONDEMNED\n\nSection 4. THE ONLY LAWFUL METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL\n\nSection 5. CONCLUSION\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\n\n\nBIRTH CONTROL\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nTHE ESSENTIAL FALLACIES OF MALTHUSIAN TEACHING\n\nSection 1. MALTHUS AND THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS\n\nBirth control, in the sense of the prevention of pregnancy by chemical,\nmechanical, or other artificial means, is being widely advocated as a sure\nmethod of lessening poverty and of increasing the physical and mental\nhealth of the nation. It is, therefore, advisable to examine these claims\nand the grounds on which they are based. The following investigation will\nprove that the propaganda throughout Western Europe and America in favour\nof artificial birth control is based on a mere assumption, bolstered up by\neconomic and statistical fallacies; that Malthusian teaching is contrary to\nreason and to fact; that Neo-Malthusian practices are disastrous alike to\nnations and to individuals; and that those practices are in themselves an\noffence against the Law of Nature, whereby the Divine Will is expressed in\ncreation.\n\n(a) _Malthus_\n\nThe Rev. Thomas Malthus, M.A., in 1798 published his _Essay on the\nPrinciple of Population_. His pamphlet was an answer to Condorcet\nand Godwin, who held that vice and poverty were the result of human\ninstitutions and could be remedied by an even distribution of property.\nMalthus, on the other hand, believed that population increased more rapidly\nthan the means of subsistence, and consequently that vice and poverty were\nalways due to overpopulation and not to any particular form of society or\nof government. He stated that owing to the relatively slow rate at\nwhich the food supply of countries was increased, a high birth-rate [1]\ninevitably led to all the evils of poverty, war, and high death-rates.\nIn an infamous passage he wrote that there was no vacant place for the\nsuperfluous child at Nature's mighty feast; that Nature told the child to\nbe gone; and that she quickly executed her own order. This passage was\nmodified in the second, and deleted from the third edition of the Essay. In\nlater editions he maintained that vice and misery had checked population,\nthat the progress of society might have diminished rather than increased\nthe \"evils resulting from the principle of population,\" and that by \"moral\nrestraint\" overpopulation could be prevented. As Cannan has pointed out,\n[2] this last suggestion destroyed the force of the argument against\nGodwin, who could have replied that in order to make \"moral restraint\"\nuniversal a socialist State was necessary. In order to avoid the evils of\noverpopulation, Malthus advised people not to marry, or, if they did,\nto marry late in life and to limit the number of their children by the\nexercise of self-restraint. He reprobated all artificial and unnatural\nmethods of birth control as immoral, and as removing the necessary stimulus\nto industry; but he failed to grasp the whole truth that an increase of\npopulation is necessary as a stimulus not only to industry, but also as\nessential to man's moral and intellectual progress.\n\n(b) _The Neo-Malthusians_\n\nThe Malthusian League accept the theory of their revered teacher, but,\ncuriously enough, they reject his advice \"as being impracticable and\nproductive of the greatest possible evils to health and morality.\" [3]\nOn the contrary, they advise universal early marriage, combined with\nartificial birth control. Although their policy is thus in flat\ncontradiction to the policy of Malthus, there are two things common to\nboth. Each is based on the same fallacy, and the aim of both is wide of the\nmark. Indeed, the Neo-Malthusian, like Malthus, has \"a mist of speculation\nover his facts, and a vapour of fact over his ideas.\" [4] Moreover, as will\nbe shown here, the path of the Malthusian League, although at first glance\nan easy way out of many human difficulties, is in reality the broad road\nalong which a man or a nation travels to destruction; and as guides the\nNeo-Malthusians are utterly unsafe, since they argue from (a) false\npremises to (b) false deductions. We shall deal with the former in this\nchapter.\n\n\nSection 2. TEACHING BASED ON FALSE PREMISES\n\nThe theory of Malthus is based on three errors, namely (a) that the\npopulation increases in geometrical progression, a progression of 1, 2,\n4, 8, 16, and so on upwards; (b) that the food supply increases in\narithmetical progression, a progression of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on\nupwards; and (c) that overpopulation is the cause of poverty and disease.\nIf we show that _de facto_ there _is_ no overpopulation it obviously cannot\nbe a cause of anything, nor be itself caused by the joint operation of the\nfirst two causes. However, each of the errors can be severally refuted.\n\n(a) In the first place, it is true that a population _might_ increase in\ngeometrical progression, and that a woman _might_ bear thirty children\nin her lifetime; but it is wrong to assume that because a thing _might_\nhappen, it therefore does happen. The population, as a matter of fact, does\nnot increase in geometrical progression, because Nature [5] places her own\nchecks on the birth-rate, and no woman bears all the children she might\ntheoretically bear, apart altogether from artificial birth control.\n\n(b) Secondly, the food supply does not of necessity increase in\narithmetical progression, because food is produced by human hands, and is\ntherefore increased in proportion to the increase of workers, unless the\nfood supply of a country or of the world has reached its limit. The food\nsupply of the world _might_ reach a limit beyond which it could not\nbe increased; but as yet this event has not happened, and there is no\nindication whatsoever that it is likely to happen.\n\nHuman life is immediately sustained by food, clothing, shelter, and fuel.\nFood and clothing are principally derived from fish, fowl, sheep,\ncattle, and grain, all of which _tend_, more so than man, to increase in\n_geometrical_ ratio, although actually their increase in this progression\nis checked by man or by Nature. As regards shelter there can be no increase\nat all, either arithmetical or geometrical, apart from the work of human\nhands. Again, the stock of fuel in or on the earth cannot increase of\nitself, and is gradually becoming exhausted. On the other hand, within\nliving memory, new sources of fuel, such as petroleum, have been made\navailable, and old varieties of fuel have been used to better advantage,\nas witness the internal-combustion engine driven by smoke from sawdust.\nMoreover, in the ocean tides is a vast energy that one day may take the\nplace of fuel.\n\n(c) Thirdly, before anyone can reasonably maintain that overpopulation\nis the cause of poverty and disease, it is necessary to prove that\noverpopulation actually exists or is likely to occur in the future. By\noverpopulation we mean the condition of a country in which there are so\nmany inhabitants that the production of necessaries of livelihood is\ninsufficient for the support of all, with the result that many people are\noverworked or ill-fed. Under these circumstances the population can be said\nto _press on the soil_: and unless their methods of production could be\nimproved, or resources secured from outside, the only possible remedy\nagainst the principle of diminishing returns would be a reduction of\npopulation; otherwise, the death-rate from want and starvation would\ngradually rise until it equalled the birth-rate in order to maintain an\nunhappy equilibrium.\n\n\nSection 3. THE ROOT FALLACY\n\nAccording to Malthusian doctrine overpopulation is the cause of poverty,\ndisease, and war: and consequently, unless the growth of population is\nartificially restrained, all attempts to remedy social evils are futile.\nMalthusians claim that \"if only the devastating torrent of children could\nbe arrested for a few years, it would bring untold relief.\" They hold that\noverpopulation is the root of all social evil, and the truth or falsehood\nof that proposition is therefore the basis of all their teaching. Now, when\nMalthusians are asked to prove that this their basic proposition is true,\nthey adopt one of two methods, not of proof, but of evasion. Their first\nmethod of evading the question is by asserting that the truth of their\nproposition is self-evident and needs no proof. To that we reply that the\nfalsity of the proposition can and will be proved. Their second device is\nto put up a barrage of facts which merely show that all countries, and\nindeed the earth itself, would have been overpopulated long ago if the\nincrease of population had not been limited by certain factors, ranging\nfrom celibacy and late marriages to famines, diseases, wars, and\ninfanticide. The truth of these facts is indisputable, but it is\nnevertheless a manifest breach of logic to argue from the fact of poverty,\ndisease, and war having checked an increase of population, that therefore\npoverty, disease, and war are due to an increase of population. It would be\nas reasonable to argue that, because an unlimited increase of insects\nis prevented by birds and by climatic changes, therefore an increase of\ninsects accounts for the existence of birds, and for variations of climate.\nNor is it of any use for Malthusians to say that overpopulation _might_ be\nthe cause of poverty. They cannot prove that it _is_ the cause of poverty,\nand, as will be shown in the following chapter, more obvious and probable\ncauses are staring them in the face. For our present purpose it will\nsuffice if we are able to prove that overpopulation has not occurred in the\npast and is unlikely to occur in the future.\n\n\nSection 4. WHAT OVERPOPULATION MEANS\n\nIn the first place, the meaning of the word \"overpopulation\" should\nbe clearly understood. The word does not mean a very large number of\ninhabitants in a country. If that were its meaning the Malthusian fallacy\ncould be disproved by merely pointing out that poverty exists both in\nthinly populated and in thickly populated countries. Now, in reality,\noverpopulation would occur whenever the production of the necessities of\nlife in a country was insufficient for the support of all the inhabitants.\nFor example, a barren rock in the ocean would be overpopulated, even if it\ncontained only one inhabitant. It follows that the term \"overpopulation\"\nshould be applied only to an economic situation in which the population\npresses on the soil. The point may be illustrated by a simple example.\n\nLet us assume that a fertile island of 100 acres is divided into 10 farms,\neach of 10 acres, and each capable of supporting a family of ten. Under\nthese conditions the island could support a population of 1,000 people\nwithout being overpopulated. If, however, the numbers in each family\nincreased to 20 the population would _press on the soil_, and the island,\nwith 2,000 inhabitants, would be an example of overpopulation, and of\npoverty due to overpopulation.\n\nOn the other hand, let us assume that there are only 1,000 people on\nthe island, but that one family of ten individuals has managed to gain\npossession of eight farms, in addition to their own, and that the other\nnine families are forced to live on one farm. Obviously, 900 people would\nbe attempting to live under conditions of dire poverty, and the island,\nwith its population of 1,000, would now offer an excellent example, not of\noverpopulation, but of human selfishness.\n\nMy contentions are that poverty is neither solely nor indeed generally\nrelated to economic pressure on the soil; that there are many causes\nof poverty apart altogether from overpopulation; and that in reality\noverpopulation does not exist in those countries where Malthusians claim to\nfind proofs of social misery due to a high birthrate.\n\nIf overpopulation in the economic sense occurred in a closed country, whose\ninhabitants were either unable or unwilling to send out colonies, it is\nobvious that general poverty and misery would result. This _might_ happen\nin small islands, but it is of greater interest to know what does happen.\n\n\nSection 5. NO EVIDENCE OF OVERPOPULATION\n\nIn a closed country, producing all its own necessities of life and\nincapable of expansion, a high birth-rate would eventually increase the\nstruggle for existence and would lead to overpopulation, always provided\nthat, firstly, the high birth-rate is accompanied by a low death-rate, and\nsecondly, that the high birth-rate is maintained. For example, although\na birth-rate was high, a population would not increase in numbers if the\ndeath-rate was equally high. Therefore, a high birth-rate does not of\nnecessity imply that population will be increased or that overpopulation\nwill occur. Again, if the birth-rate fell as the population increased,\nthe danger of overpopulation would be avoided without the aid of a high\ndeath-rate. For a moment, however, let us assume that the Malthusian\npremise is correct, that a high birth-rate has led to overpopulation, and\nthat the struggle for existence has therefore increased. Then obviously\nthe death-rate would rise; the effect of the high birth-rate would be\nneutralised; and beyond a certain point neither the population nor the\nstruggle for existence could be further increased. On these grounds\nNeo-Malthusians argue that birth-control is necessary precisely to obviate\nthat cruel device whereby Nature strives to restore the balance upset by a\nreckless increase of births; and that the only alternative to frequent and\npremature deaths is regulation of the source of life. As a corollary to\nthis proposition they claim that, if the death-rate be reduced, a country\nis bound to become overpopulated unless the births are artificially\ncontrolled. Fortunately it is possible to test the truth of this corollary,\nbecause certain definite observations on this very point have been\nrecorded. These observations do not support the argument of birth\ncontrollers.\n\n(a) _In the Suez Canal Zone_\n\nIn the Suez Canal Zone there was a high death-rate chiefly owing to fever.\nAccording to Malthus it would have been a great mistake to lower this\ndeath-rate, because, if social conditions were improved, the population\nwould rapidly increase and exceed the resources of the country. Now, in\nfact, the social conditions were improved, the death-rate was lowered, and\nthe subsequent events, utterly refuting the above contention, are thus\nnoted by Dr. Halford Ross, who was medical officer in that region:\n\n    \"During the years 1901 to 1910, health measures in this zone produced a\n    very considerable fall in the death-rate, from 30.2 per thousand to\n    19.6 per thousand; the infant mortality was also reduced very greatly,\n    and it was expected that, after a lapse of time, the reduction of the\n    death-rate would result in a rise of the birth-rate, and a\n    corresponding increase of the population. _But such was not the case_.\n    When the death-rate fell, the birthrate fell too, and the number of the\n    population remained the same as before, even after nearly a decade had\n    passed, and notwithstanding the fact that the whole district had become\n    much healthier, and one town, Port Said, was converted from an\n    unhealthy, fever-stricken place into a seaside health resort.\" [6]\n\nMoreover, Dr. Halford Ross has told me that artificial birth control\nwas not practised in this region, and played no part in maintaining a\nstationary population. The majority of the people were strict Mohammedans,\namongst whom the practice of birth control is forbidden by the Koran.\n\n(b) _In \"Closed Countries\" like Japan_\n\nBut a much more striking example of the population in a closed country\nremaining stationary without the practice of birth control, thus refuting\nthe contention of our birth controllers, is to be found in their own\nperiodical, _The Malthusian_. [7] It would appear that in Japan from 1723\nto 1846 the population remained almost stationary, only increasing from\n26,065,422 to 26,907,625. In 1867 the Shogunate was abolished, the Emperor\nwas restored, and Japan began to be a civilised power. Now from 1872 the\npopulation increased by 10,649,990 in twenty-seven years, and \"during the\nperiod between 1897 and 1907 the population received an increment of 11.6\nper cent., whereas the food-producing area increased by only 4.4 per\ncent.... According to Professor Morimoro, the cost of living is now so high\nin Japan that 98 per cent, of the people do not get enough to eat.\" From\nthese facts certain obvious deductions may be made. So long as Japan was\na closed country her population remained stationary. When she became a\ncivilised industrial power the mass of her people became poorer, the\nbirth-rate rose, and the population increased, this last result being the\nreal problem to-day in the Far East. In face of these facts it is sheer\ncomedy to learn that our Malthusians are sending a woman to preach birth\ncontrol amongst the Japanese! Do they really believe that for over a\nhundred years Japan, unlike most semi-barbaric countries, practised birth\ncontrol, and that when she became civilised she refused, unlike most\ncivilised countries, to continue this practice? There is surely a limit to\nhuman credulity.\n\nThe truth appears to be that in closed countries the population remains\nmore or less stationary, that Nature herself checks the birth-rate without\nthe aid of artificial birth control, and that birthrates and death-rates\nare independently related to the means of subsistence.\n\n\nSection 6. A NATURAL LAW CHECKING FERTILITY\n\nDuring the past century the population of Europe increased by about\n160,000,000, but it is utterly unreasonable to assume that this rate of\nincrease will be maintained during the present century. It would be as\nsensible to argue that because a child is four feet high at the age of\nten he will be eight feet high at the age of twenty. Moreover, there is\nevidence that, apart altogether from vice, the fertility of a nation is\nreduced at every step in civilisation. The cause of this reduction in\nfertility is unknown. It is probably a reaction to many complex influences,\nand possibly associated with the vast growth of great cities. This decline\nin the fertility of a community is a natural protection against the\npossibility of overpopulation; but, on the other hand, there is a point\nbeyond which any further decline in fertility will bring a community within\nsight of depopulation and of extinction.\n\n\nSection 7. OVERPOPULATION IN THE FUTURE\n\nIt is a fallacy to say that overpopulation is the cause of poverty and\ndisease, and that for the simple reason that overpopulation has not yet\noccurred. For the growth of a nation we assume that the birth-rate should\nexceed the death-rate by from 10 to 20 per thousand, and it is obvious\nthat in a _closed_ country the evil of overpopulation might appear in\na comparatively short time. The natural remedies in the past have been\nemigration and colonisation. According to the birth controllers these\nremedies are only temporary, because sooner or later all colonies and\neventually the earth itself will be overpopulated. At the British\nAssociation Meeting in 1890 the population of the earth was said to be\n1,500 millions, and it was calculated that only 6,000 millions could live\non the earth. This means that if the birth-rate throughout the world\nexceeded the death-rate by only 8 per thousand, the earth would be\noverpopulated within 200 years. It is probable that in these calculations\nthe capacity of the earth to sustain human life has been underestimated;\nthat the earth could support not four times but sixteen times its present\npopulation; and that the latter figure could be still further increased\nby the progress of inventions. But, apart altogether from the accuracy of\nthese figures, the danger of overpopulation is nothing more or less than a\nmyth. Indeed, the end of the world, a philosophic and scientific certitude,\nis a more imminent event than its overpopulation.\n\n\nSection 8. HOW NATIONS HAVE PERISHED\n\nBefore speculating on what might happen in the future, it is well to\nrecollect what has happened in the past. The earth has been inhabited for\nthousands of years, and modern research has revealed the remains of many\nancient civilisations that have perished. For example, there were the great\nnations of Cambodia and of Guatemala. In Crete, about 2000 B.C., there\nexisted a civilisation where women were dressed as are this evening the\nwomen of London and Paris. That civilisation perished, and even its\nlanguage cannot now be deciphered. Why did these civilisations perish?\nSurely this momentous question should take precedence over barren\ndiscussions as to whether there will be sufficient food on the land or in\nthe sea for the inhabitants of the world in 200 years' time. How came it\nabout that these ancient nations did not double their numbers every fifty\nyears and fill up the earth long ago?\n\nThe answer is that they were overcome and annihilated by the incidence of\none or other of two dangers that threaten every civilisation, including our\nown. These dangers are certain physical and moral catastrophes, against\nwhich there is only one form of natural insurance, namely, a birth-rate\nthat adequately exceeds the death-rate. They help to illustrate further the\nfallacy of the overpopulation scare.\n\nThe following is a general outline of these dangers, and in a later chapter\n(p. 70)(see [Reference: Dangers]) I shall quote an example of how\nthey have operated in the past.\n\n\nSection 9. PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES\n\nDeaths from famine, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions are\nconfined to comparatively small areas, and the two physical catastrophes\nthat may seriously threaten a civilisation may be reduced to endemic\ndisease and war.\n\n(a) _Disease_\n\nDisease, in the form of malaria, contributed to the fall of ancient Greece\nand Rome. In the fourteenth century 25,000,000 people, one-quarter of the\npopulation of Europe, were exterminated by plague, the \"Black Death,\" and\nin the sixteenth century smallpox depopulated Spanish America. Although\nthese particular diseases have lost much of their power owing to the\nprogress of medical science, we have no right to assume that disease in\ngeneral has been conquered by our civilisation, or that a new pestilence\nmay not appear. On the contrary, in 1805, a new disease, spotted fever,\nappeared in Geneva, and within half a century had become endemic throughout\nEurope and America. Of this fever during the Great War the late Sir William\nOsler wrote: \"In cerebro-spinal fever we may be witnessing the struggle of\na new disease to win a place among the great epidemics of the world.\" There\nwas a mystery about this disease, because, although unknown in the Arctic\nCircle, it appeared in temperate climates during the coldest months of the\nyear. As I was able to prove in 1915, [8] it is a disease of civilisation.\nI found that the causal organism was killed in thirty minutes by a\ntemperature of 62\u00b0F. It was thus obvious that infection could never be\ncarried by cold air. But in overcrowded rooms where windows are closed, and\nthe temperature of warm, impure, saturated air was raised by the natural\nheat of the body to 80\u00b0F or over, the life of the microorganism, expelled\nfrom the mouths of infected people during the act of coughing, was\nprolonged. Infection is thus carried from one person to another by warm\ncurrents of moving air, and at the same time resistance against the disease\nis lowered. Cold air kills the organism, but cold weather favours the\ndisease. In that paradox the aetiology of cerebro-spinal fever became as\nclear as the means of prevention. The story of spotted fever reveals the\nforces of nature fighting against the disease at every turn, and implacably\nopposed to its existence, while man alone, of his own will and folly,\nharbours infection and creates the only conditions under which the malady\ncan appear. For example, during two consecutive winters cerebro-spinal\nfever had appeared in barracks capable of housing 2,000 men. A simple and\neffective method of ventilation was then introduced. From that day to this\nnot a single case of cerebro-spinal fever has occurred in these barracks,\nalthough there have been outbreaks of this disease in the town in which the\nbarracks are situated.\n\nThere are many other diseases peculiar to civilisation, and concerning\nthe wherefore and the why an apposite passage occurs in the works of Sir\nWilliam Gull.\n\n    \"Causes affecting health and shortening life may be inappreciable in\n    the individual, but sufficiently obvious when their effect is\n    multiplied a thousandfold. If the conditions of society render us\n    liable to many diseases, they in return enable us to establish the\n    general laws of life and health, a knowledge of which soon becomes a\n    distributive blessing. The cure of individual diseases, whilst we leave\n    open the dark fountains from which they spring, is to labour like\n    Sisyphus, and have our work continually returning upon our hands. And,\n    again, there are diseases over which, directly, we have little or no\n    control, as if Providence had set them as signs to direct us to wider\n    fields of inquiry and exertion. Even partial success is often denied,\n    lest we should rest satisfied with it, and forget the _truer and better\n    means_ of prevention.\" [9]\n\nMedical and sanitary science have made great progress in the conquest of\nenteric fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, and whooping cough. The\nmortality from bronchitis and from pulmonary tuberculosis has also been\nreduced, but nevertheless tuberculosis still claims more victims in the\nprime of life than any other malady. It is a disease of civilisation and is\nintimately associated with economic conditions. The history of tuberculosis\nhas yet to be written. On the other hand, deaths from certain other\ndiseases are actually increasing, as witness the following figures from the\nReports of the Registrar-General for England and Wales:\n\n\n    Disease.                                 Number of    Number of\n                                             deaths in    Deaths in\n                                               1898.        1919.\n\n    Diseases of the heart and\n    circulatory system                        50,492       69,637\n    Cancer                                    25,196       42,144\n    Pneumonia                                 35,462       38,949\n    Influenza                                 10,405       44,801\n\n\nIn view of these figures it is folly to suppose that the final conquest of\ndisease is imminent.\n\n(b) War\n\nWar, foreign or civil, is another sword hanging over civilisations, whereby\nthe fruits of a long period of growth may be destroyed in a few years.\nAfter the Thirty Years War the recovery of Germany occupied a century and\na half. During the fourteen years of the Taiping rebellion in China whole\nprovinces were devastated and millions upon millions of people were killed\nor died. In spite of the Great War during the past decade, there are some\nwho would delude themselves and others into the vain belief that, without\na radical change in international relations and a determined effort to\nneutralise its causes, there will be no more war; but unless the nations\nlearn through Christianity that justice is higher than self-interest the\nfollowing brilliant passage by Devas is as true to-day as when it was\nwritten in 1901:\n\n    \"True that the spread of humanitarianism and cosmopolitanism made many\n    people think, towards the end of the nineteenth century, that bloodshed\n    was at an end. But their hopes were dreams: the visible growth of\n    national rivalry and gigantic armaments can only issue in desperate\n    struggles; while not a few among the nations are troubled with the\n    growth of internal dissensions and accumulations of social hatred that\n    point to bloody catastrophes in the future; and the tremendous means of\n    destruction that modern science puts in our hands offer frightful\n    possibilities of slaughter, murderous anarchical outrages, and rivers\n    of blood shed in pitiless repression.\" [10]\n\nMalthusians may inveigh against wars waged to achieve the expansion of a\nnation, but so long as international rivalry disregards the moral law their\nwords will neither stop war nor prevent a Malthusian country from falling\nan easy prey to a stronger people. On the contrary, a low birthrate,\nby reducing the potential force available for defence, is actually an\nincentive to a declaration of war from an envious neighbour, because it\nmeans that he will not hesitate so long when attempting to count the\ncost beforehand. In 1850 the population of France and Germany numbered\npractically the same, 35,500,000; in 1913 that of France was 39,600,000,\nthat of Germany 67,000,000. [11] The bearing of these facts on the\nGreat War is obvious. In 1919 the new Germany, including Silesia, had a\npopulation of just over 60,000,000; whereas, in 1921, France, including\nAlsace-Lorraine, had a population of 39,200,000. Thus, despite her victory\nin the war, the population of France is less to-day than it was seven years\nago.\n\n\nSection 10. MORAL CATASTROPHES\n\nIn view of past history only an ostrich with its head in the sand can\nprofess to believe that there will be no calamities in the future to reduce\nthe population of the earth. And apart from cataclysms of disease or of\nwar, empires have perished by moral catastrophe. A disbelief in God results\nin selfishness, and in various moral catastrophes. In the terse phrase of\nMr. Bernard Shaw, \"Voluptuaries prosper and perish.\" [12] For example,\nduring the second century B.C. the disease of rationalism, [13] spread over\nGreece, and a rapid depopulation of the country began.\n\nThe facts were recorded by Polybius, [14] who expressly states that at the\ntime of which he is writing serious pestilences did not occur, and that\ndepopulation was caused by the selfishness of the Greeks, who, being\naddicted to pleasure, either did not marry at all or refused to rear more\nthan one or two children, lest it should be impossible to bring them up in\nextravagant luxury. This ancient historian also noted that the death of a\nson in war or by pestilence is a serious matter when there are only one or\ntwo sons in a family. Greece fell to the conquering Romans, and they also\nin course of time were infected with this evil canker. There came a day\nwhen over the battlements of Constantinople the blood-red Crescent was\nunfurled. Later on all Christendom was threatened, and the King of France\nappealed to the Pope for men and arms to resist the challenge to Europe\nof the Mohammedan world. The Empire of the Turk spread over the whole of\nSouth-Eastern Europe. But once more the evil poison spread, this time into\nthe homes in many parts of Islam, and to-day the once triumphant foes of\nChristianity are decaying nations whose dominions are the appanage of\nEurope. In face of these facts it is sheer madness to assume that all the\nGreat Powers now existing will maintain their population and prove immune\nfrom decay. Indeed, the very propaganda against which this Essay is\ndirected is in itself positive proof that the seeds of decay have already\nbeen sown within the British Empire. Yet, in an age in which thought and\nreason are suppressed by systematised confusion and spiritless perplexity,\nthe very simplicity of a truth will operate against its general acceptance.\n\nFrom the theological point of view, the myth of overpopulation is\ndefinitely of anti-Christian growth, because it assumes that, owing to the\noperation of natural instincts implanted in mankind by the Creator, the\nonly alternative offered to the race is a choice between misery and vice,\nan alternative utterly incompatible with Divine goodness in the government\nof the world.\n\n[Footnote 1: The birth-rate is the number of births per 1,000 of the whole\npopulation. In order to make a fair comparison between one community and\nanother, the birth-rate is often calculated as the number of births per\n1,000 married women between 15 and 45 years of age, as these constitute\nthe great majority of child-bearing mothers. This is called the _corrected\nbirth-rate_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Economic Review_, January 1892.]\n\n[Footnote 3: So says the Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The\nDeclining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 88.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Bagehot, _Economic Studies_, p. 193.]\n\n[Footnote 5: To assign a personality to \"Nature\" is, of course, a mere\n_fa\u00e7on de parler_; the believer holds that the \"course of Nature\" is an\nexpression of the Mind and Will of the Creator.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Problems of Population_, p. 382.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _The Malthusian_, July 15, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Lancet_, 1915, vol. ii, p. 862.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The New Sydenham Society, vol. clvi, section viii, p. 12.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 1901, p. 191.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Revue Pratique d'Apolog\u00e9tique_, September 15, 1914.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Man and Superman_, p. 195.]\n\n[Footnote 13: By rationalism we mean a denial of God and of responsibility\nfor conduct to a Higher Being.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Quoted by W.H.S. Jones, _Malaria and Greek History_ 1909,\np95.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nTHE FALSE DEDUCTIONS CONCERNING POVERTY\n\nFrom the original root-fallacy Malthus argued that poverty, prostitution,\nwar, disease, and a high death-rate are necessary in order to keep down\nthe population: and from the same false premises birth controllers are\nnow arguing that a high birth-rate causes (1) poverty, and (2) a high\ndeath-rate. The steps in the argument whereby these amazing conclusions are\nreached are as follows. Before the death-rate can be lowered the social\nconditions of the people must be improved; if social conditions are\nimproved there will be an enormous increase of population in geometrical\nprogression; the food supply of the country and even of the world cannot be\nincreased at the same rate; and therefore there will be greater poverty\nand a higher death-rate unless the birth-rate is lowered. Thus Malthusians\nargue. In view of the false premises on which their argument is based, it\nis not surprising to find that their deductions are erroneous and contain\nmany economic and statistical fallacies, to the consideration of which we\nmay now devote our attention.\n\n\nSection 1. BIRTH-RATE AND POVERTY\n\nThe first false deduction of birth controllers is that a high birth-rate,\nby intensifying the struggle for existence, increases poverty. In order to\nbolster up this contention, Malthusians quote three arguments concerning\n(a) famines, (b) abundance, and (c) wages, and each of these arguments is\nfallacious.\n\n(a) _Famines_\n\nThe prevalence of famines is quoted as a proof of reckless overpopulation.\nNow a famine may occur from several different causes, some within and\nothers beyond the control of man, but a failure of crops has never yet been\ncaused by pressure on the soil. On the contrary, famine is less likely to\narise in a country whose soil is intensively cultivated, because intensive\ncultivation means a variety of crops, and therefore less risk of all the\ncrops failing. Moreover, during the past century famine has occurred\nin Bengal, where population is dense; in Ireland, where population is\nmoderate, and in Eastern Russia, where population is scanty. The existence\nof famine is therefore no proof that a country is overpopulated, although\nit may indicate that a country is badly governed or under-developed.\n\n\n(b) _Abundance_\n\nMalthusians also claim that by means of artificial birth control we could\nlive in a land of abundance. They point out that, as the population of\na new colony increases, the colonists, by applying the methods of\ncivilisation to the rich soil, become more and more prosperous. Eventually\nthere comes a time when capital or labour applied to the soil gives a\n_maximum_ return _per head_ of population. Once that point has been reached\nany further capital or labour applied to the soil will produce a smaller\nreturn per head of population. This \"law of diminishing returns\" may be\nillustrated by a simpler example. Let us suppose that during one year a\nmarket garden worked by one man has produced vegetables to the value of\n\u00a310. During the second year the garden is worked by ten men and produces\nvegetables to the value of \u00a3200. It is obvious that the work of ten men has\nproduced twice as much per head as the work of one man, because each man\nhas produced not \u00a310 but \u00a320. During the third year the garden is worked by\ntwenty men and yields vegetables to the value of \u00a3300. The total yield is\ngreater, but the yield per head is less, because each man has produced not\n\u00a320 but \u00a315. The point of maximum production per head has been passed, and\nthe law of diminishing returns is operating.\n\nBy restricting the birth-rate Malthusians would limit the population to the\nnumber necessary for maximum production per head. Now, in the first place,\nit would be very difficult, if not impossible, in the case of a country\nwith various industries, to decide when the line of maximum production had\nbeen passed at any given time. Moreover, it would be utterly impossible\nto fix this line permanently. In the case of our market garden the\nintroduction of intensive horticulture might mean that maximum production\nper head required the work of forty men. Again, the very phrase \"maximum\nproduction per head\" implies sterling moral qualities in the workers,\nand an absence of drones; and sterling moral qualities have never been\nprominent in any nation, once the practice of artificial birth control has\nbeen adopted. Lastly, the Christian ideal requires for its realisation, not\na maximum, but an adequate supply of food, clothing, shelter, and fuel.\nChristianity teaches that to seek after the maximum enjoyment of material\nthings is not the chief end of man, because the life of a man in this world\nis very short compared with his life in eternity.\n\n\n(c) _Wages_\n\nThe Wages Fund Theory is an economic reflection of the Malthusian myth.\nThis theory assumes that a definite fixed sum is available every year for\ndistribution as wages amongst labourers, so that the more numerous\nthe labourers the less wages will each one receive. From this theory\nMalthusians argue that the only remedy for low wages is artificial birth\ncontrol. They carefully refrain from telling the working classes the other\naspect of this Wages Fund theory--namely, that if the workers in one trade\nreceive a rise in wages, a corresponding reduction must be made in the\nwages of others, so that a rise in wages here and there confers no\nreal benefit on the labouring classes as a whole. That is merely one\nillustration of capitalist bias in the Malthusian propaganda. In any case,\neconomic science has discarded the Wages Fund Theory as a pure fiction.\nNo fixed or definite sum is available for wages, because the wages of a\nlabourer are derived from the produce of his work. Even in the case of\nmaking a railway, where wages are paid before the work is completed, the\nmoney is advanced by shareholders on the security of the proceeds that will\neventually accrue from the produce of the labourers.\n\n\nSection 2. POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN DUE TO OTHER CAUSES\n\n(a) _Under-development_\n\nEven if the theory of birth controllers, that a high birth-rate increases\npoverty, were as true as it is false, it could not possibly apply to Great\nBritain or to any other country open to commercial intercourse with the\nworld; because there is no evidence that the supply of food in the world\neither cannot or will not be increased to meet any actual or possible\ndemand. Within the British Empire alone there was an increase of 75 per\ncent. in the production of wheat between 1901 and 1911. [15] In Great\nBritain there has been not only an increase of population but also an\nincreased consumption of various foods per head of the population.\nMoreover, if Britain were as well cultivated as is Flanders we could\nproduce all or nearly all our own food. [16]\n\nThe truth is that in countries such as England, Belgium, and Bengal,\nusually cited by Malthusians, as illustrating the misery that results\nfrom overpopulation, there is no evidence whatsoever to prove that the\npopulation is pressing on the soil. On the contrary, we find ample physical\nresources sufficient to support the entire population, and we also find\nevidence of human injustice, incapacity, and corruption sufficient to\naccount for the poverty and misery that exist in these countries. This was\nespecially so in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century.\n[17] Moreover, so far from high birth-rates being the cause of poverty, we\nshall find that poverty is one of the causes of a high birth-rate (p. 69).\n\n(b) _Severance of the Inhabitants from the Soil_\n\nIt was not a high birth-rate that established organised poverty in England.\nIn the sixteenth century the greater part of the land, including common\nland belonging to the poor, was seized by the rich. They began by robbing\nthe Catholic Church, and they ended by robbing the people. [18] Once\nmachinery was introduced in the eighteenth century, the total wealth of\nEngland was enormously increased; but the vast majority of the people\nhad little share in this increase of wealth that accrued from machinery,\nbecause only a small portion of the people possessed capital. More children\ncame, but they came to conditions of poverty and of child-labour in the\nmills. In countries where more natural and stable social conditions exist,\nand where there are many small owners of land, large families, so far from\nbeing a cause of poverty, are of the greatest assistance to their parents\nand to themselves. There are means whereby poverty could be reduced, but\nartificial birth control would only increase the total poverty of the\nState, and therefore of the individual.\n\nFrom early down to Tudor times, the majority of the inhabitants of England\nlived on small holdings. For example, in the fifteenth century there were\ntwenty-one small holdings on a particular area measuring 160 acres. During\nthe sixteenth century the number of holdings on this area had fallen to\nsix, and in the seventeenth century the 160 acres became _one_ farm.\nOccasionally an effort was made to check this process, and by a statute of\nElizabeth penalties were enacted against building any cottages \"without\nlaying four acres of land thereto.\" On the other hand, acres upon acres\nwere given to the larger landowners by a series of Acts for the enclosure\nof common land, whereby many labourers were deprived of their land. From\nthe reign of George I to that of George III _nearly four thousand enclosure\nbills_ were passed. These wrongs have not been righted.\n\n    \"To urge,\" wrote Professor Bain, \"that there is sufficient poverty and\n    toil in the world without bringing in more to share it than can be\n    provided for, implies either begging the question at issue--a direct\n    imputation that the world is at present very badly managed--or that all\n    persons should take it upon themselves to say how much poverty and toil\n    will exist in any part of the world in the future, or limit the\n    productiveness of any race, because inadequate means of feeding,\n    clothing, or employing them may be adopted in that part of time\n    sometimes called unborn eternity. As a rule, the result usually has\n    been: limit the increase of population without adequate cause, and the\n    reaction causes deterioration or annihilation.\" [19]\n\nLastly, there is evidence that poverty has existed in thinly populated\ncountries. Richard Cobden, writing in 1836, of Russia, states: \"The mass of\nthe people are sunk in poverty, ignorance, and barbarism, scarcely rising\nabove a state of nature, and yet it has been estimated that this country\ncontains more than 750,000 square miles of land, of a quality not inferior\nto the best portions of Germany, and upon which a population of 200,000,000\nmight find subsistence.\" [20]\n\n\nSection 3. CAUSES OF POVERTY IN INDIA\n\nIn reality chronic poverty exists both in the thickly-peopled and in the\nthinly-peopled regions of India, and therefore the overpopulation theory is\nan inadequate explanation. Moreover, there are certain obvious and admitted\nevils, sufficient in themselves to account for the chronic poverty of\nIndia, and of these four are quoted by Devas. [21]\n\n    \"(1) The grave discouragement to all rural improvement and in\n    particular to the sinking of deep wells, by the absence outside Bengal\n    of fixity of tenure, the landholder having the prospect of his\n    assessment being raised every fifteen or thirty years. (2) Through most\n    of India the unchecked oppression of usurers, in whose toils many\n    millions of landholders are so bound as to lack means or motive for the\n    proper cultivation of the soil. (3) A system of law and police totally\n    unfit for small cultivators--witness the plague of litigation, appeals\n    as 250 to 1 in England, habitual perjury, manufactured crime, and\n    blackmailing by corrupt native police, all destructive of rural amity,\n    co-operation, and industry. (4) Taxation oppressive both in quantity\n    and quality: demanded, on pain of eviction and imprisonment, to be paid\n    punctually and rigidly in cash, instead of optionally or occasionally\n    in kind, or flexible, according to the variations of the seasons;\n    moreover, levied on salt, raising the price of this necessity of life\n    at least ten times, often much more; when precisely an abundant supply\n    of salt, with the climate and diet of India, is a prime need for men\n    and cattle.\"\n\n\nSection 4. POVERTY IN FACT CAUSES A HIGH BIRTH-RATE\n\nAs will be shown in Chapter V, poverty is generally the cause and not the\nresult of a high birth-rate. The Malthusian doctrine has been and is to-day\na barrier to social reform, because it implies that humane legislation,\nby encouraging population, will of necessity defeat the aim of those who\ndesire to improve the conditions of the poor by methods other than the\npractice of artificial birth control. To a very great extent Malthusian\nteaching was responsible for the Poor Law of 1834, the most severe in\nEurope, the demoralising laxity of the old Poor Law being replaced by\ndegrading severity. Again, as recently as 1899, a Secretary of State\nreiterated the Malthusian doctrine by explaining that great poverty\nthroughout India was due to the increase of population under the _pax\nBritannica_. Now the truth is that if the social conditions of the poor\nwere improved, we have every reason to believe that their birth-rate would\nbe reduced, because as civilisation in a community progresses there is a\nnatural decline in fertility. Hence:\n\n(a) _Malthusianism is an Attack on the Poor_\n\nBoth the supporters and the opponents of Malthus are often mistaken in\nconsidering his greatest achievement to be a policy of birth control.\nMalthus did a greater and a more evil thing. He forged a law of nature,\nnamely, _that there is always a limited and insufficient supply of the\nnecessities of life in the world_. From this false law he argued that,\nas population increases too rapidly, the newcomers cannot hope to find a\nsufficiency of good things; that the poverty of the masses is not due to\nconditions created by man, but to a natural law; and that consequently this\nlaw cannot be altered by any change in political institutions. This new\ndoctrine was eagerly adopted by the rich, who were thus enabled to argue\nthat Nature intended that the masses should find no room at her feast; and\nthat therefore our system of industrial capitalism was in harmony with the\nWill of God. Most comforting dogma! Most excellent anodyne for conscience\nagainst acceptance of those rights of man that, being ignored, found\nterrible expression in the French Revolution! Without discussion,\nwithout investigation, and without proof, our professors, politicians,\nleader-writers, and even our well-meaning socialists, have accepted as\ntrue the bare falsehood that there is always an insufficient supply of the\nnecessities of life; and to-day this heresy permeates all our practical\npolitics. In giving this forged law of nature to the rich, Malthus robbed\nthe poor of hope. Such was his crime against humanity. In the words of\nThorold Rogers, Malthusianism was part and parcel of \"a conspiracy,\nconceived by the law and carried out by parties interested in its success,\nto cheat the English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to\ndeprive him of hope, and to degrade him into immediate poverty.\" When\nMalthusians enter a slum for the purpose of preaching birth control, it is\nright that the people should be told what is written on the passports of\nthese strangers.\n\n(b) _A Hindrance to Reform_\n\nThe teaching of birth control amongst the poor is in itself a crime,\nbecause, apart from the evil practice, the people are asked to believe a\nlie, namely, that a high birth-rate is the cause of poverty and that\nby means of birth-control their circumstances will be improved. By\none advocate of birth control this weak reasoning and inconsequential\nsentimentality have actually been crowded into the compass of a single\nsentence: \"We must no longer be content to remain indifferent and idle\nwitnesses of the senseless and unthinking procreating of countless wretched\nchildren, whose parents are diseased and vicious.\" [22] It is true that\ndisease, vice, and wretched children are the saddest products of our\nindustrial system; it is also true that a helpless baby never yet was\nguilty of expropriating land, of building slums, of under-paying the\nworkers, or of rigging the market. Therefore instead of preventing the\nbirth of children we should set about to rectify the evil conditions which\nmake the lives of children and adults unhappy. Like many other policies\nadvocated on behalf of the poor, birth control is immoral if only on this\naccount, that it distracts attention from the real causes of poverty. In\nSpain birth control is not practised. I do not say there is no poverty in\nthat country, but there is no poverty that resembles the hopeless grinding\npoverty of the English poor. For that strange disease, artificial birth\ncontrol is a worthless remedy; and it were far better that we should turn\nour attention to the simple words of Cardinal Manning: \"There is a natural\nand divine law, anterior and superior to all human and civil law, by which\nmen have the right to live of the fruits of the soil on which they are\nborn, and in which they are buried.\" [23]\n\n(c) _A Quack Remedy for Poverty_\n\nArtificial birth control is one of the many quack remedies advertised for\nthe cure of poverty, and G.K. Chesterton has given the final answer to the\nMalthusian assertion that some form of birth control is essential _because\nhouses are scarce_:\n\n    \"Consider that simple sentence, and you will see what is the matter\n    with the modern mind. I do not mean the growth of immorality; I mean\n    the genesis of gibbering idiocy. There are ten little boys whom you\n    wish to provide with ten top-hats; and you find there are only eight\n    top-hats. To a simple mind it would seem not impossible to make two\n    more hats; to find out whose business it is to make hats, and induce\n    him to make hats; to agitate against an absurd delay in delivering\n    hats; to punish anybody who has promised hats and failed to provide\n    hats. The modern mind is that which says that if we only cut off the\n    heads of two of the little boys, they will not want hats; and then the\n    hats will exactly go round. The suggestion that heads are rather more\n    important than hats is dismissed as a piece of mystical metaphysics.\n    The assertion that hats were made for heads, and not heads for hats\n    savours of antiquated dogma. The musty text which says that the body is\n    more than raiment; the popular prejudice which would prefer the lives\n    of boys to the mathematical arrangement of hats,--all these things are\n    alike to be ignored. The logic of enlightenment is merciless; and we\n    duly summon the headsman to disguise the deficiencies of the hatter.\n    For it makes very little difference to the logic of the thing, that we\n    are talking of houses and not of hats.... The fundamental fallacy\n    remains the same; that we are beginning at the wrong end, because we\n    have never troubled to consider at what end to begin.\" [24]\n\n\nSection 5. POVERTY AND CIVILISATION\n\nA modern writer is burdened by many words that carry an erroneous meaning,\nand one of these is the word \"civilisation.\" Intended to mean \"The Art\nof Living,\" this word, by wrong usage, now implies that our method of\ncombining mental culture and bodily comfort is the highest, noblest, and\nbest way to live. Yet this implication is by no means certain. On the\ncontrary, the spectacle of our social life would bring tears to eyes\nundimmed by the industrial traditions of the past hundred years. This I\nknow to be true, having once travelled to London in the company of a young\ngirl who came from the Thirteenth Century. She had lived some twelve years\non the Low Sierra of Andalusia, where in a small sunlit village she may\nhave vainly imagined our capital to be a city with walls of amethyst and\nstreets of gold, for when the train passed through that district which\nlies to the south of Waterloo, the child wept. \"Look at these houses,\" she\nsobbed; \"_Dios mio_, they have no view.\"\n\n[Footnote 15: Memorandum issued by the Dominions Royal Commission, December\n3, 1915 (p. 2).]\n\n[Footnote 16: Prince Kropotkin, _Fields, Factories, and Workshops_, 1899,\nchapter iii.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Vide _The Economic History of Ireland from the Union to the\nFamine_, by S. O'Brien (Longmans, 1921).]\n\n[Footnote 18: William Cobbett, _Social Effects of the Reformation_.\nCatholic Truth Society (H. 132), price 2_d_.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Quoted by F.P. Atkinson, M.D., in _Edinburgh Medical\nJournal_, September 1880, p. 229.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Ibid., p. 234.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 1901, p. 199.]\n\n[Footnote 22: _British Medical Journal_, July 23, 1921, p. 131.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Quoted in _Tablet_, November 5, 1921, p. 598.]\n\n[Footnote 24: Quoted from _America_, October 29, 1921, p. 31.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nHIGH BIRTH-RATES NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATES\n\n\nSection 1. POVERTY AS NOW EXISTING\n\nThe second contention of birth controllers is that a high birth-rate, by\nincreasing poverty, causes a high death-rate. In the first place, there is\nno doubt that poverty, necessary features of which are mal-nutrition or\ninsufficient food and bad housing, is directly associated with a high\ndeath-rate, although this view was once shown by the _Lancet_ to need\nimportant qualifications.\n\n    \"With respect to the greater mortality amongst the poor than the rich,\n    we have yet to learn that the only hope of lessening the death-rate\n    lies in diminishing the birth-rate. We have no _proof_ as yet that the\n    majority of the evils at present surrounding the poor are necessarily\n    attendant upon poverty. We have yet to see a poor population living in\n    dry, well-drained, well-ventilated houses, properly supplied with pure\n    water and the means of disposal of refuse. And we have yet to become\n    acquainted with a poor population spending their scant earnings\n    entirely, or in a very large proportion, upon the necessities of life;\n    for such is not the case when half the earnings of a family are thrown\n    away to provide adulterated alcoholic drinks for one member of it.\n    Until reforms such as these and others have been carried out, and the\n    poor are able and willing to conform to known physiological laws, it is\n    premature to speak of taking measures to lessen the birth-rate--a\n    proposal, be it said, which makes the humiliating confession of man's\n    defeat in the battle of life.\" [25]\n\nIt will be seen that the qualifications practically remove the question\nfrom dispute. [26] If the conditions of the poor were thus altered,\npoverty, as it exists to-day, would of course disappear. As things are,\nwe find that a high death-rate is related to poverty, as is proved, for\nexample, by the death-rate from tuberculosis being four times greater in\nslums than in the best residential quarters of a city.\n\nThe correct answer to the birth controllers is that a high birth-rate is\nnot the cause of a high death-rate, because high birth-rates, as shown\nin the previous chapter, are not the cause of poverty, but vice versa.\nMoreover, all the statistical evidence goes to prove that in this matter we\nare right and that Malthusians are wrong.\n\n\nSection 2. HIGH BIRTH-RATE NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATE: PROVED FROM\nSTATISTICS\n\nIn China, where there is said to be a birth-rate of over 50 per 1,000, and\nwhere over 70 per cent. of infants are helped to die, the high death-rate\nis due clearly to degraded social customs. In the slums of Great Britain\nthe high death-rate is also due to degraded social conditions. It is not\ndue to the birth-rate. Of this the proof is simple, (a) Among the French\nCanadians, where the average family numbers about nine, this high\nbirth-rate is not associated with a high death-rate, but with the increase\nof a thrifty, hard-working race. In Ontario the birth-rate went up from\n21.10 in 1910 to 24.7 in 1911, and the death-rate _fell_ from 14 to 12.6.\n(b) Again, in 1911 the corrected birth-rate for Connaught was 45.3 as\nagainst a crude rate of 24.7 for England and Wales; and in Connaught, where\nthere is no need for Societies for preventing Parents being Cruel to\ntheir Children, the infant mortality rate [27] is very much lower than\nin England, although the birth-rate is much higher and the poverty much\ngreater. In Bradford, a prosperous English town which pays particular\nattention to its mothers and children, the infant mortality in 1917 was\n132 per 1,000 and the birth-rate 13.2. In Connaught, where there are no\nmaternity centres or other aids to survival, but on the contrary a great\ndearth of the means of well-being, the infant mortality was only 50, whilst\nthe birth-rate was actually 45! [28] So untrue is it to say that a high\ndeath-rate is due to a high birth-rate.\n\n\nSection 3. A LOW BIRTH-RATE NO GUARANTEE OF A LOW DEATH-RATE\n\nAgain, birth controllers claim that a low birthrate leads to a low infant\nmortality rate. Now, it is really a very extraordinary thing that, whatever\nbe the statement made by a Malthusian on the subject of birth-control, the\nvery opposite is found to be the truth. During the last quarter of last\ncentury a _falling_ birth-rate in England was actually accompanied by a\n_rising_ infant mortality rate! During 1918 in Ireland [29] the crude\nbirthrate was 19.9, with an infant mortality rate of 86, whereas in England\nand Wales [30] the crude birthrate was 17.7 with an infant mortality rate\nof 97, and in the northern boroughs the appalling rate of 120. In England\nand Wales the lowest infant mortality rate was found to be in the southern\nrural districts, where the rate was 63, but in Connaught the rate was 50.5.\nThis means that in England a low birth-rate is associated with a high\ninfant mortality rate, whereas in Ireland a high birth-rate is associated\nwith a low infant mortality rate. [31] These cold figures prove that in\nthis matter at least the poorest Irish peasants are richer than the people\nof England.\n\n\nSection 4. VITAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE\n\nThe Malthusian claim that a low birth-rate leads to a low death-rate is\nalso disproved by the vital statistics of France.\n\n    \"The death-rate of France has not declined at the same rate as the\n    birth-rate has, and, while the incidence of mortality in France was\n    equal to that of England in the middle of the seventies, the English\n    mortality is now only five-sevenths of the French. England thus\n    maintains a fair natural increase, although the birth-rate has declined\n    at an even faster pace than has been the case in France....\n\n    \"The French death-rate is higher than is the case with most of her\n    neighbours, and it can quite well be reduced. The reasons for her\n    fairly high mortality are not to be found in climatic conditions,\n    racial characteristics, or other unchangeable elements of nature, nor\n    even in her occupations, since some of the most industrial regions have\n    a low mortality.\" [32]\n\nI have tabulated certain vital statistics of twenty Departments of France.\n\nThe following table, covering two periods of five years in twenty\nDepartments, proves that _the death-rate was lower_ in the ten Departments\nhaving the highest birth-rate in France than in the ten Departments having\nthe lowest birth-rate.\n\nTABLE I\n\n     THE TEN DEPARTMENTS HAVING THE HIGHEST BIRTH-RATE FRANCE\n                            1909-1913                    1915-1919\n                Rates per 1,000 population  Still-  Rates per 1,000\n                                            births     population\nDepartments.    Living   Deaths   Natural   per 1000  Births deaths\n                births            increase  births\n\nMoselle         27.6     16.5      +11.1     -         14.7    15.4\nFinist\u00e8re       27.2     18.1       +9.1     4.0       15.9    18.2\nPas-de-Calais   26.8     17.4       +9.4     4.2         -       -\nMorbihan        25.7     17.8       +7.9     4.4       15.0    19.0\nC\u00f4tes-du-Nord   24.5     20.6       +3.9     4.2       14.4    20.0\nBas-Rhin.       24.3     16.2       +8.0      -        13.3    16.1\nMeurthe-et-\nMoselle         23.2     19.2       +4.0     4.3         -       -\nLoz\u00e8re          22.6     17.3       +5.2     4.2       12.4    17.5\nHaut-Rhin.      22.4     16.0       +6.4      -        10.3    15.4\nVosges          22.0     18.7       +3.3     4.7         -       -\n\n_Total Averages 24.6     17.7       +6.8     4.2       13.7    17.3_\n\n\n     THE TEN DEPARTMENTS HAVING THE LOWEST BIRTH-RATE IN FRANCE\n\nC\u00f4te-d'Or.      15.4     18.2       -2.8     3.1        9.9    20.5\nAllier.         15.1     15.7       -0.6     3.3        8.4    18.8\nGironde         15.1     17.3       -2.2     4.5       10.1    21.2\nHaute-Garonne.  15.1     20.4       -5.3     4.0        9.0    22.5\nLot             15.0     21.0       -6.0     4.5        7.5    20.6\nNi\u00e8vre          14.9     17.4       -2.5     3.2        8.8    20.0\nTarn-et-Garonne 14.9     20.1       -5.1     4.7        7.9    20.7\nYonne           14.4     19.1       -4.7     3.8        8.9    22.0\nLot-et-Garonne  13.7     19.1       -5.4     4.4        7.4    20.1\nGers            13.2     19.2       -6.0     4.1        6.8    19.8\n\n_Total Averages 14.6     18.7       -4.0     3.9        8.4    20.6_\n\nMoreover, the figures show that, prior to 1914, the Departments with the\nlowest birth-rate were becoming _depopulated_. On the other hand, the\nenormous fall in the birth-rate throughout the country from 1915 to 1919 is\na memorial, very noble, to the heroism of France in the Great War, and to\nher 1,175,000 dead. Certain other facts should also be noted. In France the\nregulations permit that, when a child has died before registration of the\nbirth, this may be recorded as a still-birth; and for that reason the\nproportion of still-births _appears_ higher than in most other countries.\n\nMalthusian claims are thus refuted by the vital statistics of France; but\nit should be clearly understood that these figures do _not_ prove that the\nreverse of the Malthusian theory is true, namely, that a high birth-rate\nis the cause of a low death-rate. There is no true correlation between\nbirthrates and death-rates.\n\n\nSection 5. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION\n\nAs birth controllers rely very much upon statistics, and as figures may\nvery easily mislead the unwary, it is necessary to point out that the\nMalthusian contention that a high birth-rate is the cause of a high\ndeath-rate is not only contrary to reason and to facts, but is also\ncontrary to the very figures which they quote. A high birth-rate is often\nassociated with a high death-rate, but a general or uniform correspondence\nbetween birth-rates and death-rates has never been established by modern\nstatistical methods. To these methods brief reference may be made. A\ncoefficient of correlation is a number intended to indicate the degree of\nsimilarity between two things, or the extent to which one moves with the\nother. If this coefficient is unity, or 1, it indicates that the two things\nare similar in all respects, while if it be zero, or 0, it indicates that\nthere is no resemblance between them. The study of correlation is a first\nstep to the study of causation, because, until we know to what extent two\nthings move together, it is useless to consider whether one causes the\nmovement of the other; but in itself a coefficient of correlation does not\nnecessarily indicate cause or result. Now in this country, between 1838 and\n1912 the birth-rate and the death-rate show a correlation of .84; but if\nthat period be split into two, the correlation from 1838 to 1876, when the\nbirth-rate was fluctuating, is _minus_ .12, and in the period after 1876\nthe correlation is _plus_ .92. This means that the whole of the positive\ncorrelation is due to the falling of the death-rate, and that birthrates\nand death-rates do not of necessity move together. [33]\n\nAfter a careful examination of the vital statistics for France, Knud\nStouman concludes as follows:\n\n    \"In France no clear correlation exists between the birth-rate and the\n    death-rate in the various Departments. The coefficient of correlation\n    between the birth-rate and the general death-rate by Departments\n    (1909-1913) was 0.0692\u00b10.1067, and including Alsace and\n    Lorraine--0.0212\u00b10.1054, indicating no correlation whatsoever. A\n    somewhat different and more interesting table is obtained when the\n    correlation is made with the mortality at each age class:\n\n    TABLE II\n\n    Under 1 year        0.3647 \u00b1 0.0986\n    1-19 years          0.4884 \u00b1 0.0816\n    20-39 years         0.6228 \u00b1 0.0656\n    40-59 years         0.5028 \u00b1 0.0801\n    60 years and over   0.2577 \u00b1 0.1001\n\n    \"A peculiar configuration is observed in these coefficients in that a\n    quite pronounced positive correlation exists at the central age\n    group, but disappears with some regularity towards both extremities\n    of life. If the mortality has any influence upon the natality this\n    cannot be in the form of replacement of lost infants and deceased old\n    people, therefore, as has frequently been suggested. That a high\n    death-rate at the child-bearing age should be conducive to increased\n    fertility is absurd, neither does it seem likely that a large number\n    of children should make the parents more liable to diseases which are\n    prevalent at this period of life. The reasons must, then, be looked\n    for in a common factor.\n\n    \"Now the only disease of importance representing the same age-curve as\n    do the correlation coefficients is tuberculosis. This disease causes in\n    France 2 per cent. of the deaths under one year, 24 per cent. of the\n    deaths from 1 to 19 years of age, not less than 45 per cent. from 20 to\n    39, 18 per cent. at ages 40 to 59, and less than 2 per cent. at the\n    ages over 60. Will a high tuberculosis mortality, then, be conducive to\n    great fertility, or do we have to fear that a decrease of the natality\n    will be the result of energetic measures against tuberculosis? Hardly.\n    The death-rate may be reduced, then, without detrimental effects upon\n    the birth-rate.\n\n    \"What can the factor be which influences both the tuberculosis\n    incidence and the birth-rate? We know that the prevalence of\n    tuberculosis is conditioned principally by poverty and ignorance of\n    hygiene. The Parisian statistics, as compiled by Dr. Bertillon and\n    recently by Professor L. Hersch, show a much higher birth-rate in the\n    poor wards than in the richer districts, and the high birth-rates may\n    be furnished largely by the poorer elements of the population. A\n    comfortable degree of wealth does not imply a low birth-rate, as is\n    abundantly shown elsewhere, and one of the important questions which\n    suggest themselves to the French statistician and sociologist is\n    evidently the following: How can the intellectual and economic standard\n    of the masses be raised without detriment to the natality?\n\n    \"We believe that the time is opportune for solving this question. The\n    past half-century has been lived under the shadow of defeat and with a\n    sense of limitations, and of impotence against fate. This nightmare is\n    now thrown off, and, the doors to the world being open and development\n    free, the French people will learn that new initiative has its full\n    recompense and that a living and a useful activity can be found for all\n    the sons and daughters they may get. The habit of home-staying is\n    broken by the war, and new and great undertakings are developing in the\n    ruined north-east as well as in the sunny south.\" [34]\n\n[Footnote 25: _The Lancet_, 1879, vol. ii, p. 703.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Poverty is a term of wide import admitting many degrees\naccording as the victim is deprived more or less completely of the ordinary\nnecessities in the matters of food, clothing, housing, education, and\nrecreation. As used by Malthusians and spoken of here it means persistent\nlack of one or more of these necessary requisites for decent living. Vide\nParkinson, _Primer of Social Science_ (1918), pp. 225 sqq.]\n\n[Footnote 27: The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of infants\nunder one year old per 1,000 births in the same year.]\n\n[Footnote 28: See Saleeby, _The Factors of Infant Mortality_, edited by\nCory Bigger. _Report on the Physical Welfare of Mothers and Children_, vol.\niv, Ireland (Carnegie U.K. Trust), 1918.]\n\n[Footnote 29: _Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the Registrar-General for\nIreland, containing a General Abstract of the Numbers of Marriages, Births,\nand Deaths_, 1918, pp. x, xxix, and 24.]\n\n[Footnote 30: _Eighty-first Annual Report of the Registrar-General of\nBirths, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales_, 1918, pp. xxiv, xxxii,\nand xxxv.]\n\n[Footnote 31: This is also the emphatic testimony of Sir Arthur Newsholme,\nin his _Report of Child Mortality_, issued in connection with the\n_Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Local Government Board_ (dated 191?), PP.\n77-8.]\n\n[Footnote 32: Knud Stouman, \"The Repopulation of France,\" _International\nJournal of Public Health_, vol. ii, no. 4, p. 421.]\n\n[Footnote 33: Dr. Major Greenwood. Vide _The Declining Birth-rate_, 1916,\np. 130.]\n\n[Footnote 34: _International Journal of Public Health_, vol. ii, no. 4, p.\n423.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nHOW RELIGION AFFECTS THE BIRTHRATE\n\n\nSection 1. FRENCH STATISTICS MISINTERPRETED BY MALTHUSIANS\n\nThe fact that Malthusians are in the habit of citing the birth-rate in\ncertain Catholic countries as a point in favour of their propaganda is\nonly another instance of their maladroit use of figures: because for that\nargument there is not the slightest justification. The following paragraph\nfrom a recent speech [35] in the Anglican Church Congress by Lord Dawson,\nPhysician to the King, is a good example of their methods in controversy:\n\n    \"Despite the influence and condemnations of the Church, it (artificial\n    birth control) has been practised in France for well over half a\n    century, and in Belgium and other Catholic countries is extending. And\n    if the Roman Catholic Church, with its compact organisation, its power\n    of authority, and its discipline, cannot check this procedure, is it\n    likely that Protestant Churches will be able to do so? For Protestant\n    religions depend for their strength on _the conviction and esteem they\n    establish in the heads and hearts of their people_.\"\n\nI have italicised the closing words because it would be interesting to\nknow, in passing, whether anyone denies that these human influences also\ncontribute to the strength of the Catholic Church. Among recent converts to\nthe Faith in this country are many Protestant clergymen who may be presumed\nto have known what claims \"on their conviction and esteem\" their communion\nhad. Moreover, in France, amongst recent converts are some of the great\nintellects of that country. If it be not \"conviction and esteem\" in their\n\"heads and hearts,\" what other motive, I ask, has induced Huysmans, Barr\u00e9s,\nand others to make submission to Rome?\n\nSecondly, it is true that for over half a century the birth-rate of France\nhas been falling, and that to some extent this decline is due to the use of\ncontraceptives; but it is also true that during the past fifty years the\nGovernment of France has made a determined but unsuccessful effort to\noverthrow the Catholic Church; and that it is in so far as the Government\nhas weakened Catholic influence and impeded Catholic teaching that the\nbirth-rate has fallen. The belief of a nation will not influence its\ndestiny unless that belief is reflected in the actions of the citizens.\nFather Herbert Thurston, S.J., [36] thus deals with the argument implied:\n\n    \"Catholicism which is merely Catholicism in name, and which amounts to\n    no more in the supposed believer than a vague purpose of sending for a\n    priest when he is dying, is not likely to have any restraining effect\n    upon the decline of the birth-rate. Further, it is precisely because a\n    really practical Catholicism lays such restrictions upon freedom in\n    this and in other matters, that members of the educated and comfortable\n    classes, the men especially, are prone to emancipate themselves from\n    all religious control with an anti-clerical rancour hardly known in\n    Protestant lands. Had it not been for these defections from her\n    teaching, the Catholic Church, in most countries of mixed religion,\n    would soon become predominant by the mere force of natural fertility.\n    Even as it is, we believe that a country like France owes such small\n    measure of natural increase as she still retains almost entirely to the\n    religious principle of the faithful few. Where the Catholic Church\n    preserves her sway over the hearts of men the maintenance of a vigorous\n    stock is assured.\"\n\nIn the first place, it is noteworthy that the birth-rate varies with\npractical Catholicism in France, being much higher in those Departments\nwhere the Church is more flourishing. As was shown by Professor Meyrick\nBooth in 1914, there are certain districts of France where the birth-rate\nis _higher_ than in the usual English country districts. For example, the\nbirth-rate in Finist\u00e8re was 27.1, in Pas-de-Calais 26.6, and in Morbihan\n25.8. On the other hand, in many Departments the birth-rate was lower\nthan the death-rate. This occurred, for example, in Lot, Haute Garonne,\nTarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, and in Gers. In the two last-named\nDepartments the birth-rates were 13.6 and 13.0 respectively.\n\nIn the following table I have tabulated more recent figures concerning the\nvital statistics in these two groups of Departments, and rates for the\ntwo periods of five years, 1909-1913, and 1915-1919, in each group are\ncompared.\n\nIt will be noted that in the three Departments, where practical Catholicism\nis most flourishing,\n\nTABLE III\n\n                             1909-1913.                 1915-1919.\n\nDepartments.          Rates per 1000     Still- Deaths Rates per 1000\n                       population        Births under   population\n                                         per    1 year\n                  Living Deaths National 1000   per    Births Deaths\n                  Births        Increase Births 1000\n                                                living\n                                                births\n\nFinist\u00e8re.         27.2   18.1   +9.1     4.0    116.7  15.9   18.2\nPas-de-Calais      26.8   17.4   +9.4     4.2    135.3   --     --\nMorbihan.          25.7   17.8   +7.9     4.4    113.7  15.0   19.0\n\n_Total Averages.   26.5   17.7   +8.8     4.2    121.9  15.4   18.6_\n\nLot.               15.0   21.0   -6.0     4.5    148.0   7.5   20.6\nHaute Garonne.     15.1   20.4   -5.3     4.0    121.3   9.0   22.5\nTarn-et-Garonne    14.9   20.1   -5.1     4.7    134.7   7.9   20.7\nLot-et-Garonne.    13.7   19.1   -5.4     4.4    112.0   7.4   20.1\nGers.              13.2   19.2   -6.0     4.1    102.4   6.8   19.8\n\n_Total Averages.   14.3   19.9   -5.5     4.3    123.6   7.7   20.7_\n\n\nthere is a high birth-rate, and moreover that in these Departments both\nthe death-rate and the infant mortality rate is _lower_ than in the five\nDepartments with the lowest birth-rate.\n\nProfessor Meyrick Booth's comments are as follows:\n\n    \"The above five departments (in which the decline of population has\n    been most marked) are adjacent to one another in the fertile valley of\n    the Garonne, one of the wealthiest parts of France; and we may well\n    ask: Why should the birth-rate under such favourable conditions be less\n    than half that which is noted for the bleak district of Finist\u00e8re? The\n    noted statistician, M. Leroy-Beaulieu, has some interesting\n    observations to offer upon this paradoxical state of things.\n    Considering the country in general, and these districts in particular,\n    he notes that the most prolific parts of France are those in which the\n    people have retained their allegiance to the traditional Church (in the\n    case of the Pas-de-Calais we have a certain degree of adherence to the\n    orthodox faith combined with the presence of a large mining\n    population). M. Leroy-Beaulieu expresses the opinion that the Catholic\n    Church tends, by means of its whole atmosphere, to promote a general\n    increase of population; for, more than other types of Christianity, it\n    condemns egoism, materialism, and inordinate ambition for self or\n    family; and, moreover, it works in the same direction through its\n    uncompromising condemnation of modern Malthusian practices. He draws\n    our attention, further, to the new wave of religious life which has\n    swept over the _haute-bourgeoisie_ of France during the last few\n    decades; and he does not hesitate to connect this with the fact that\n    this class is now one of the most prolific (perhaps the most prolific)\n    in the nation. Space forbids my taking up this subject in detail, but\n    it appears from a considerable body of figures which have been\n    collected that, while the average number of children born to each\n    marriage in the English Protestant upper middle class is not more than\n    about 2.0 to 2.5, the number born to each marriage in the corresponding\n    class in France is between 3.0 and 4.0. Taking the foregoing facts into\n    consideration, it would appear that Roman Catholicism--even in\n    France--is very considerably more prolific (where the belief of the\n    people is at all deep) than English Protestantism. This applies both to\n    the upper and lower classes.\" [37]\n\nIn all probability Lord Dawson was unaware of the foregoing, but there is\none fact which, as a Neo-Malthusian, he ought to have known, because the\nomission of this fact in his address is a serious matter. When referring to\nFrance as a country where birth control had come to stay, _Lord Dawson did\nnot tell his audience that the Government of France has now suppressed the\nonly Malthusian periodical in that country, and has proposed a law, whereby\nthose who engage in birth control propaganda shall be imprisoned_.\n\n\nSection 2. EVIDENCE FROM HOLLAND\n\nAs regards other countries, Holland is usually described as the Mecca of\nMalthusians, being \"the only country where Neo-Malthusianism has been given\nthe opportunity of diminishing the excessive birth-rate on eugenic lines,\ni.e. in the reduction of the fertility of the poorest classes,\" [38] and\nwhere a \"considerable rise in the wages and general prosperity appears\nto have taken place side by side with an unprecedented increase of\npopulation.\" When we come to investigate this claim we find that, of the\neleven provinces of Holland, two are almost entirely Catholic, these\nbeing North Brabant, with 649,000 inhabitants, and Limburg, with 358,000\ninhabitants. On the other hand, in Friesland, with 366,000 inhabitants,\nnot more than 8 per cent, are Catholics. The vital statistics for 1913 are\nquoted by Father Thurston, S.J.:\n\n    \"... We find that in Limburg the crude birth-rate is 33.4, in North\n    Brabant it is 32.5, but in Friesland it is 24.3. Of course, this is not\n    the beginning and end of the matter. In North Brabant the death-rate is\n    16.36, in Limburg it is 15.28, in Friesland it is only 11.21, but the\n    fact remains that in the two Catholic provinces the natural increase is\n    16.17 and 18.15, while in the non-Catholic province of Friesland it is\n    13.15. Further, no one can doubt that in such densely populated\n    districts as North and South Holland and Gelderland the Catholics, who\n    number more than 25 per cent, of the inhabitants, exercise a\n    perceptible influence in raising the birth figures for the whole\n    kingdom. The results would be very different if the entire country\n    adopted Neo-Malthusian principles.\" [39]\n\n\nSection 3. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\nAs was proved by the census of religions in 1906, the United States of\nAmerica is becoming a great stronghold of the Faith. In Massachusetts the\nCatholic Church numbered 1,100,000 members, whereas the total membership\nof all the Protestant Churches was 450,000. In Illinois there were about\n300,000 Methodists and 1,000,000 Catholics. There were 2,300,000 Catholics\nin the State of New York, and about 300,000 Methodists, while no other\nProtestant Church numbered more than 200,000. The New England States, once\nthe home of American Puritanism, are now great centres of Catholicism.\n\nProfessor Meyrick Booth [40] explains this remarkable change as being due\nto two causes: (1) The influx of large numbers of European Catholics, who\ncling tenaciously to their religion; (2) the greater fertility of these\nstocks as compared with the native population. Moreover, he has tabulated\nthe following statistics:\n\nTABLE IV\n\nState.      Population   Chief Religious Bodies     Births &     Birth\n                                (1906)              Deaths       rate per\n                                                   (b. and d.)   1,000\n\nIndiana     2,700,000  Methodist           233,000  b. 36,000    13.0\n                       Prot. Episcopalian  102,000  d. 36,500\n                       Disciples           118,000\n                       R.C.                175,000\nIowa.       2,224,000  Methodist           164,000  b. 36,000    16.0\n                       Lutheran            117,000  d. 20,000\n                       Presbyterian         60,000\n                       R.C.                207,000\nMaryland.   1,295,000  Methodist           137,000  b. 19,000    15.0\n                       Prot. Episcopalian   35,000  d. 20,000\n                       Baptist & smaller,\n                        about              100,000\n                       R.C.                167,000\nCalifornia. 2,377,000  R.C.                354,000  b. 32,100    14.0\n                       Prot. bodies about           d. 32,400\n                       (All Churches weak) 250,000\nKentucky    2,290,000  Baptist             312,000  b. 35,000    15.0\n                       Methodist           156,000  d. 18,000\n                       R.C.                166,000\n\nIn these States the birth-rate is low; in three there are actually more\ndeaths than births; and in all five the proportion of Catholics is\ncomparatively small. These States may be compared with five others, in\nwhich the Catholic and the foreign elements are well represented:\n\nTABLE V\n\nState.          Population   Chief Religious     Birth and  Birthrate\n                  (1910)       Bodies             Deaths     per 1000\n\nNew York.       9,113,000  R.C.         2,280,000 b. 213,000   22.0\n                           Jews     (?) 1,000,000 d. 147,000\n                           Methodist      300,000\n                           Presbyterian   200,000\n\nRhode Island      540,000  R.C.           160,000 b.  13,000   24.0\n                           Baptist         20,000 d.   8,000\n                           Prot.\n                            Episcopalian   15,000\n\nMassachusetts   3,336,000  R.C.         1,080,000 b.  84,000   25.0\n                           Congregational 120,000 d.  51,000\n                           Baptist         80,000\n                           All Protestants\n                              together    450,000\n\nMichigan        2,800,000  R.C.           490,000 b.  64,000   23.0\n                           Methodist      128,000 d.  36,000\n                           Lutheran       105,000\n\nConnecticut     1,114,000  R.C.           300,000 b.  27,000   24.0\n                           Congregational  66,000 d.  17,000\n                           Prot.\n                             Episcopalian  37,000\n\nIn these States the birth-rate is very much higher than in the former.\nFurthermore, a New York paper [40] investigated the birth-rate in that\ncity with special reference to religious belief, and concluded that the\ndifferent bodies could be graded as follows with respect to the number of\nchildren per marriage: (1) Jews, (2) Catholics, (3) Protestants (Orthodox),\n(4) Protestants (Liberal), and (5) Agnostic. Professor Meyrick Booth, who\nis himself a Protestant, concludes his survey of the evidence as follows:\n\n    \"looking at the situation as a whole, there is good reason to think\n    that the Protestant Anglo-Saxons are not only losing ground\n    _relatively_, but must, at any rate in the East and middle East, be\n    suffering an actual decrease on a large scale. For it has been shown by\n    more than one sociologist (see, for example, the statement in _The\n    Family and the Nation_) that no stock can maintain itself with an\n    average of less than about four children per marriage, and from all\n    available data (it has not been found possible to obtain definite\n    figures for most of the Western and Southern States) we must see that\n    the average fertility of each marriage in this section of the American\n    people falls far short of the requisite four children. Judging by all\n    the figures at hand, the modern Anglo-Saxon American, with his high\n    standard of comfort, his intensely individualistic outlook on life, and\n    his intellectual and emancipated but child-refusing wife, is being\n    gradually thrust aside by the upgrowth of new masses of people of\n    simpler tastes and hardier and more natural habits. And, what is of\n    peculiar interest to us, this new population will carry into ascendancy\n    those religious and moral beliefs which have moulded its type of life.\n\n    \"The victory will be, not to those religious beliefs which most closely\n    correspond to certain requirements of the abstract intellect, but to\n    those which give rise, in practice, to a mode of life that is simple,\n    natural, unselfish, and adequately prolific--in other words, to a mode\n    of life that _works_, that is _Lebensf\u00e4hig_.\" [41]\n\nAs things are, the original Protestant stock of America is being swamped by\nthe growth of the Catholic, the Jewish, and the Negro population. Moreover,\nthe United States is faced by the grave problem of a rapidly increasing\ncoloured race. Despite this fact the American Malthusians are now demanding\nthat a National Bureau should be established to disseminate information\nregarding contraceptives throughout their country! And what of the other\nreformers? They also are very busy. They have already abolished those\ncheering beverages from grapes and grain, or rather they have made alcohol\none of the surreptitious privileges of the rich. They are seeking to\nenforce the Sabbath as a day of absolute rest, not for the glory of God but\nin order that tired wage-slaves may have their strength renewed for another\nweek of toil in the factories and the mills. Again, they would uproot\nfrom the homely earth that pleasant weed whose leaves have made slaves of\nmillions since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh. All these things would they\ndo. There are some things the reformers have not done, and these things are\nrecounted by an American writer, Dr. Anthony M. Benedik:\n\n    \"The divorce peril, the race-suicide evil, the greed for ill-gotten\n    gold, things like these the reformers touch not. And these things it is\n    which harm the soul. Abolishing the use of alcoholic drinks and of\n    tobacco, putting the blue laws into effect, suppressing all rough\n    sports, may make a cleaner, more sanitary, more hygienic, a quieter\n    world. And yet there keep recurring to mind those words of the Master\n    of mankind, 'What doth it profit a man if he gain the world and suffer\n    the loss of his soul?' What worthy exchange can a man make for his\n    soul?\" [42]\n\nOn the other hand, it is good to read that the Governor of New York has\nrecently signed a bill making it a misdemeanour for landlords to refuse\nto rent apartments to families in which there are children. In that State\nchildren thus regain equal rights with dogs, cats, and canaries. Is it too\nmuch to ask of the House of Commons that they should pass a similar law? We\nshall see.\n\nThe dangers of birth control were apparent to that great American, Theodore\nRoosevelt, when he said:\n\n    \"The greatest of all curses is the curse of sterility, and the severest\n    of all condemnations should be that visited upon wilful sterility. The\n    first essential in any civilisation is that the man and the woman shall\n    be the father and the mother of healthy children, so that the race\n    shall increase and not decrease.\" [43]\n\n\nSection 4. THE SAME RESULTS IN ENGLAND\n\nOn a smaller scale the position is the same in England and Wales, where\nCatholicism has probably checked to some extent the general decline of\nthe birth-rate. In 1919 there were only six towns in England [44] with a\nbirth-rate of over 25 per 1,000, these being St. Helens (25.6), Gateshead\n(25.9), South Shields (26.9), Sunderland (27.1), Tynemouth (25.9), and\nMiddlesbrough (26.7). Now in these towns the Catholic element is very\nstrong. During the same year in the four registration counties in which\nthese towns are situated, a larger proportion of marriages were celebrated\naccording to the rites of the Church of Rome than in the other counties of\nEngland and Wales. [45] The actual proportion of Catholic marriages per\n1,000 of all marriages in these four counties was: Lancashire 116, Durham\n99, Northumberland 92, and the North Riding of Yorkshire 92. That gives a\nfair index of the strength of the Catholic population. Again in 1919 we\nfind that Preston, a textile town, has a birth-rate of 17.1, whereas two\nother textile towns, Bradford and Halifax, have rates of 13.4 and 13.1\nrespectively: and there can be little doubt that the relative superiority\nof Preston is mainly owing to her large Catholic population.\n\nThe actual birth-rate amongst Catholics in England may be estimated from\ninformation contained in _The Catholic Directory_ for 1914. As that work\ngives the Catholic population and the number of infant baptisms during the\nprevious year in each diocese of Great Britain, and as Catholic children\nare always baptized soon after birth, it is possible to estimate the\nbirth-rate of the Catholic population. Working on these figures Professor\nMeyrick Booth [46] has published the following table:\n\nTABLE VI\n\nDiocese.           Birth-rate per 1,000 of the\n                   Roman Catholic population.\n\nMenevia (Wales)        45.2\nMiddlesbrough          38.0\nLeeds                  42.0\nLiverpool              40.0\nNewport                53.0\nNorthampton            33.0\nPlymouth               26.0\nShrewsbury             38.0\nSouthwark              39.O\nWestminster            36.0\n                       ----\nAverage                38.6\n                       ----\n\nDuring the same period the general birth-rate amongst the whole population\nof England and Wales was about 24 per 1,000. And figures that are even more\nremarkable have been published by Mr. W.C.D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham. [47]\nThese writers, having investigated the number of children in the families\nof the landed gentry, show that the birth-rate amongst the aristocracy has\ndeclined.\n\n    \"A hundred fertile marriages for each decade from 1831 to 1890 have\n    been taken consecutively from those families who have held their title\n    to nobility for at least two preceding generations, thus excluding the\n    more modern commercial middle-class element in the present Peerage,\n    which can be better dealt with elsewhere. We then get the full effect\n    of hereditary stability and a secure position, and do away with any\n    disturbing influence that might occur from a sudden rise to\n    prosperity.\" [48]\n\nThe results were as follows: [Reference: Population]\n\n    Year.         Number of children to each\n    fertile marriage.\n\n    1831-40               7.1\n    1841-60               6.1\n    1871-80               4.36\n    1881-90               3.13\n\nThe birth-rate amongst thirty families of the landed gentry, who were\nknown to be definitely Catholic, was also investigated, with the following\nresults:\n\n    Years.         Number of children to each\n    fertile marriage.\n\n    1871-90               6.6\n\n    (as compared with 3.74 for the landed families as a whole during the\n    same period.)\n\nThe interpretation of these figures is not a matter of faith, but of\nreason. I submit that the facts are _prima facie_ evidence that by\nobservance of the moral law, as taught by the Catholic Church, even\na highly cultured community is enabled to escape those dangers of\nover-civilisation that lead to diminished fertility and consequently to\nnational decline.\n\nThe truth of this statement has been freely acknowledged by many Anglicans.\nAccording to Canon Edward Lyttelton: \"The discipline of the Roman Communion\nprohibits the artificial prevention of conception, hence Ireland is the\nonly part of the United Kingdom in which the birth-rate has not declined,\nand the decline is least in places like Liverpool and those districts where\nRoman Catholics are most numerous.\" As we have already seen, there are also\nother reasons why Catholicism preserves the fertility of a nation.\n\nWithout wishing to hurt the feelings of the most sensitive materialist, it\nis necessary to point out that, apart altogether from the question as to\nwhether the chief or immediate cause of a declining birth-rate is the\npractice of artificial birth control, or, as seems to be possible, a\ngeneral lowering of fertility, birth-rates are more dependent on morals\nand religion than on race and country. During the past century irreligion\nspread throughout France, and the birth-rate fell from 32.2, during the\nfirst decade of the nineteenth century, to 20.6, during the first ten years\nof the twentieth century. In America, amongst the descendants of the New\nEngland Puritans a decay of religion and morals has also been accompanied\nby a dwindling birth-rate. The decline of the original New England stock in\nAmerica has been masked to some extent by the high birth-rate amongst the\nimmigrant population; but nevertheless it is apparent in the Census Returns\nfor 1890, when a population of 65,000,000 was expected and only 62,500,000\nwas returned. Moreover, there is ample evidence in history that, wherever\nthe Christian ideal of a family has been abandoned, a race is neither able\nto return to the family life of healthy pagan civilisations nor to escape\ndecay. During the past fifty years in England family life has been\ndefinitely weakened by increased facilities for divorce amongst the rich,\nby the discouragement of parental authority amongst the poor, and by the\nneglect of all religious teaching in the schools. And thus, in the words\nof Charles Devas, \"We have of late years, with perverse ingenuity, been\npreparing the way for the low birth-rate of irreligion and the high\ndeath-rate of civil disorder.\" [49] The birth-rate in England and Wales\nreached its highest point, 36.3, in 1876, and has gradually fallen to 18.5\nin 1919. During the first two quarters of that year the rate was the lowest\nyet recorded. During the pre-war year, 1913, the rate was 24.1.\n\nIn conclusion, the following statements by a Protestant writer are of\ninterest:\n\n    \"Judging from a number of figures which cannot be quoted here, owing to\n    considerations of space, it would seem that the English middle-class\n    birth-rate has fallen to the extent of _over 50 per cent_. during the\n    last forty years; and we have actual figures showing that the\n    well-to-do artisan birth-rate has declined, _in the last thirty years,\n    by 52 per cent.!_ Seeing that the Protestant Churches draw their\n    members mainly from these very classes, we have not far to seek for an\n    explanation of the empty Sunday Schools....\"\n\n    \"Under these circumstances it is not in the least necessary for\n    Protestant ministers and clergymen to cast about them for evidence of\n    Jesuit machinations wherewith to explain the decline of the Protestant\n    Churches in this country! Let them rather look at the empty cradles in\n    the homes of their own congregations!\" [50]\n\nThe author of the above-quoted paragraphs thus attributes the decline both\nof the birth-rate and of the Protestant Churches to the general adoption of\nartificial birth control. With that explanation I disagree, because it\nputs the horse behind the cart. When the Protestant faith was strong the\nbirth-rate of this country was as high as that of Catholic lands. The\nProtestant Churches have now been overshadowed by a rebirth of Rationalism,\na growth for which they themselves prepared the soil: and diminished\nfertility is the natural product of a civilisation tending towards\nmaterialism. Although the practice of artificial birth control must\nobviously contribute towards a falling birth-rate, it is neither the only\nnor the ultimate cause of the decline. The ultimate causes of a falling\nbirth-rate are more complex, and the decline of a community is but the\nphysical expression of a moral change. That is my thesis.\n\n[Footnote 35: _Evening Standard_, October 12, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 36: \"The Declining Birth-rate\" in _The Month_, August 1916, p.\n157, reprinted by C.T.S. Price 2_d_.]\n\n[Footnote 37: \"Religious Belief as affecting the Growth of Population,\"\n_The Hibbert Journal_, October, 1914, p. 144.]\n\n[Footnote 38: The Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The Declining\nBirth-rate_, 1916, p. 99.]\n\n[Footnote 39: _The Month_, August 1916, p. 157, C.T.S.: 2_d_.]\n\n[Footnote 40: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 147.]\n\n[Footnote 41: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 150.]\n\n[Footnote 42: \"Race-suicide and Dr. Bell,\" _America_, October 29, 1921, p.\n31.]\n\n[Footnote 43: _Daily Chronicle_, April 25, 1910.]\n\n[Footnote 44: _Eighty-second Annual Report of the Registrar-General of\nBirths, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales_, 1919, p. 89.]\n\n[Footnote 45: Ibid., p. xxvi.]\n\n[Footnote 46: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 141.]\n\n[Footnote 47: _The Family and the Nation_, 1909, pp. 139, 142.]\n\n[Footnote 48: Quoted in _Universe_, October 22, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 2nd edition, 1901, p.\n193.]\n\n[Footnote 50: Meyrick Booth, B. Sc., Ph.D., _The Hibbert Journal_, October\n1914, pp. 142 and 152.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nIS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS?\n\n\nSection 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED\n\nIn 1837 Thomas Doubleday [51] maintained that the rising birth-rate of his\nown time was closely connected with the fall in the standard of living, and\nhis argument implied that, in order to check the excessive birth-rate, it\nwas necessary to improve the condition of the mass of the people. Four\nyears later he published _The True Law of Population_, wherein he stated\nthat when the existence of a species is endangered--\n\n    \"A corresponding effort is invariably made by Nature for its\n    preservation and continuance by an increase of fertility, and that this\n    especially takes place whenever such danger arises from a diminution of\n    proper nourishment or food, so that consequently the state of depletion\n    or the deplethoric state is favourable to fertility, and that, on the\n    other hand, the plethoric state, or state of repletion, is unfavourable\n    to fertility in the ratio of the intensity of each state.\"\n\nBy a series of experiments on plants Doubleday discovered that \"whatever\nmight be the principle of manure, _an overdose_ of it invariably induced\nsterility in the plant.\" Although his formula is deficient in that food is\nselected as the one factor in environment which influences fertility, and\nalthough it may be an overstatement to claim that fertility varies in exact\nproportion to abundance or to scarcity, nevertheless his formula contains\nan important truth which literally knocks the bottom out of the whole\nMalthusian case.\n\nIt is a sad reflection that, while the falsehoods of Malthus have been\nblindly accepted for the greater part of a century, the work of Doubleday\nwas almost lost in oblivion. His shade has now been recalled to the full\ncentre of the stage, and for this the credit is due to Mr. C.E. Pell. His\nrecent book [52] is a stimulating essay on the declining birth-rate, and\ncontains much evidence that supports the main contention of Doubleday.\nAlthough it is impossible to agree with all the deductions made by Mr.\nPell, he has nevertheless done a public service by restating the problem of\nthe birth-rate in a new way, by effectively bursting the Malthusian bubble,\nand by tabulating fresh evidence against the birth-controllers.\n\n\nSection 2. MR. PELL'S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED\n\nMr. Pell defines the law of births and deaths in two generalisations. The\nfirst is: \"We have seen that it is a necessary condition of the success\nof the evolutionary scheme that the variation of the inherited potential\ndegree of fertility between species and species must bear an inverse\nproportion to their capacity for survival.\" [53] At first glance this\nstatement appears hard to be understood; but it is obviously true--because\nit means that a species that is well adapted to its environment can survive\nwith a low degree of fertility, whereas a species that is not well adapted\nto its environment requires a high degree of fertility in order to survive.\nMr. Pell considers that a \"capacity for survival\" is synonymous with\n\"nervous energy\"; but, as our total knowledge of nervous energy is limited\nto the fact that it is neither matter nor any known force, the change in\nwords does not mark a real advance in knowledge.\n\nThe second generalisation is that \"the variation of the degree of animal\nfertility in response to the direct action of the environment shall bear\nan inverse proportion to the variation of the survival capacity under\nthat environment.\" [54] Here Mr. Pell and I part company. I have already\n(Chapter III) disputed the causal connection between birth-rate and\ndeath-rate which Mr. Pell here asserts. His generalisation is made by\nassuming that birth-rates and death-rates rise and fall together: that\nconditions which produce a high death-rate will also produce a high\nbirth-rate and that conditions which cause a low death-rate will also cause\na low birth-rate; that the increase or decline of a population is due to\nthe direct action of the environment; and finally that \"the _actual_ degree\nof fertility is decided by the direct action of the environment.\" [55] On\nthat last rock Mr. Pell's barque sinks. The mistake here is analogous to\nthe old Darwinian fallacy, abandoned by Huxley and by Romanes, that natural\nselection is a creative cause of new species. Even if the hypothesis of\nevolution--and it is merely a hypothesis--be accepted, the only view\nwarranted by reason is that variation of species and their actual degree of\nfertility may be produced, not by the direct action of environment, but by\nthe _reaction_ of species to their environment--a very different story.\n\nThere is no statistical evidence to prove a uniform correspondence between\nbirth-rates and death-rates, and it is improbable that there should be\na physical law of nature whose operations cannot be demonstrated by\nmathematical proof. Moreover, we know that the same conditions which cause\na high birth-rate may cause a low death-rate. In the case of the first\nsettlers in a new country the death-rate is low because the diseases of\ncivilisation are absent and the settlers are usually young, whereas the\nbirth-rate is high. If fifty young married couples settle on the virgin\nsoil of a new country it is probable that for many years an enormous\nbirth-rate, of over 100, will coexist with a low death-rate.\n\nIn reality a high birth-rate may coexist with a low death-rate, or with a\nhigh death-rate. For example, there is a difference between natural and\nartificial poverty, the first being brought about by God, or, if any reader\nprefers to have it so, by Nature, and the second being made by man. Under\nconditions of natural poverty small groups of people in an open country are\nsurrounded by land not yet cultivated: whereas artificial poverty means\na population overcrowded and underfed, living in dark tenements or in\nback-to-back houses, breathing foul air in ill-ventilated rooms seldom lit\nby the sun, working long hours in gas-lit workshops for a sweated wage,\nbuying the cheapest food in the dearest market, and drugged by bad liquor.\nIn either case their existence is threatened, although for very different\nreasons, and the birth-rate rises; but under conditions of natural poverty\nthe death-rate is low, whereas in slums the death-rate is high.\n\n\nSection 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE\n\nIt would appear, then, that under conditions of hardship the birth-rate\ntends to rise, and that in circumstances of ease the birth-rate tends to\nfall. If the existence of the inhabitants in a closed country is threatened\nby scarcity, the birth-rate tends to rise. For example, \"In some of the\nremote parts of the country, Orkney and Shetland, the population remained\npractically stationary between the years 1801 and 1811, and in the next ten\nyears, still years of great scarcity, it increased 15 per cent.\" [56]\n\nThe governing principle may be expressed in the following generalisation.\nWhen the existence of a community is threatened by adversity the birth-rate\ntends to rise; but when the existence of a community is threatened by\nprosperity the birth-rate tends to fall. By adversity I mean war, famine,\nscarcity, poverty, oppression, an untilled soil, and disease: and by\nprosperity I mean wealth, luxury, idleness, a diet too rich--especially in\nflesh meat--and over-civilisation, whereby the physical laws of nature\nare defied. Now the danger of national decline owing to prosperity can\nbe avoided by a nation that observes the moral law, and this is the most\nprobable explanation of the fact that in Ireland, although the general\nprosperity of the people has rapidly increased since George Wyndham\ndisplaced landlordism over a large area by small ownership, the birth-rate\nhas continued to rise. Moreover, the danger to national existence, as we\nhave already indicated (Chapter I, Section. 10) is greater from moral than\nfrom physical catastrophes, and when both catastrophes are threatened the\nultimate issue depends upon which of the two is the greater. Furthermore,\nit would appear that moral catastrophes inevitably lead to physical\ncatastrophes. This is best illustrated by the fate of ancient Greece.\n\n\nSection 4. ILLUSTRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY [Reference: Dangers]\n\nThe appositeness of this illustration arises from the fact that ancient\nGreece reached a very high level of material and intellectual civilisation,\nyet perished owing to moral and physical disasters.\n\n(a) _Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece_\n\nThe evidence of the moral catastrophe is to be found in the change that\noccurred in the Greek character most definitely after the fourth century\nbefore Christ. Of this Mr. W.H.S. Jones has given the following account:\n\n    \"Gradually the Greeks lost their brilliance, which had been as the\n    bright freshness of early youth. This is painfully obvious in their\n    literature, if not in other forms of art. Their initiative vanished;\n    they ceased to create and began to comment. Patriotism, with rare\n    exceptions, became an empty name, for few had the high spirit and\n    energy to translate into action man's duty to the State. Vacillation,\n    indecision, fitful outbursts of unhealthy activity followed by cowardly\n    depression, selfish cruelty, and criminal weakness are characteristic\n    of the public life of Greece from the struggle with Macedonia to the\n    final conquest by the arms of Rome. No one can fail to be struck by the\n    marked difference between the period from Marathon to the Peloponnesian\n    War and the period from Alexander to Mummius. Philosophy also suffered,\n    and became deeply pessimistic even in the hands of its best and noblest\n    exponents. 'Absence of feeling,' 'absence of care'--such were the\n    highest goals of human endeavour.\n\n    \"How far this change was due to other causes is a complicated question.\n    The population may have suffered from foreign admixture during the\n    troubled times that followed the death of Alexander. There were,\n    however, many reasons against the view that these disturbances produced\n    any appreciable difference of race. The presence of vast numbers of\n    slaves, not members of households, but the gangs of toilers whom the\n    increase of commerce brought into the country, pandered to a foolish\n    pride that looked upon many kinds of honourable labour as being\n    shameful and unbecoming to a free man. The very institution that made\n    Greek civilisation possible encouraged idleness, luxury, and still\n    worse vices. Unnatural vice, which in some States seems to have been\n    positively encouraged, was prevalent among the Greeks to an almost\n    incredible extent. It is hard not to believe that much physical harm\n    was caused thereby; of the loss to moral strength and vigour there is\n    no need to speak. The city-state, again, however favourable to the\n    development of public spirit and a sense of responsibility, was doomed\n    to fail in a struggle against the stronger Powers of Macedon and Rome.\n    The growth of the scientific spirit destroyed the old religion. The\n    more intellectual tried to find principles of conduct in philosophy;\n    the ignorant or half-educated, deprived of the strong moral support\n    that always comes from sharing the convictions of those abler and wiser\n    than oneself, fell back upon degrading superstitions. In either case\n    there was a serious loss of that spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion\n    which a vigorous religious faith alone can bestow. Without such a\n    spirit, as history proves conclusively, no nation or people can\n    survive.\" [57]\n\n(b) _The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness_\n\nOne of the physical catastrophes that probably most accelerated the fall\nof Greek civilisation was malarial fever. The parasite of this disease is\ncarried from man to man by Anopheline mosquitoes. These insects, during\nthe stage of egg, larva, and nympha, live in water, and afterwards, as\ndeveloped insects, in the air. The breeding-grounds, where the eggs are\nlaid, are shallow pools of stagnant water. For that reason the disease is\nmost common in marshy country, and tends to disappear when the land is\nproperly drained. Of this we have an example in England, whence malaria\ndisappeared as the marshes were drained.\n\nIn Homer there is a disputed reference to malaria, but it is not possible\nto ascertain whether the disease was present during the rise of Greek\ncivilisation, and there are no references to this disease in the literature\nfrom 700 B.C. to 550 B.C. [58] From this date references to malaria\ngradually become more frequent, and Hippocrates stated that \"those who live\nin low, moist, hot districts, and drink the stagnant water, of necessity\nsuffer from enlarged spleen. They are stunted and ill-shaped, fleshy and\ndark, bilious rather than phlegmatic. Their nature is to be cowardly and\nadverse from hardship; but good discipline can improve their character in\nthis respect.\" [59] After an exhaustive study of the literature, Mr. Jones\nconcludes \"that malaria was endemic throughout the greater part of the\nGreek world by 400 B.C.\"\n\nConcerning the causes of a malarial epidemic, Sir Ronald Ross writes: [60]\n\"Suppose that the Anophelines have been present from the first, but that\nthe number of infected immigrants has been few. Then, possibly, some of\nthese people have happened to take up their abode in places where the\nmosquitoes are rare; others may have recovered quickly; others may not have\nchanced to possess parasites in suitable stages when they have been bitten.\nThus, the probability of their spreading infection would be very small. Or,\nsupposing even that some few new infections have been caused, yet, by our\nrough calculations in section 12, _unless the mosquitoes are sufficiently\nnumerous_ in the locality, the little epidemic may die out after a\nwhile--for instance, during the cool season.\" The italics are mine, because\nsome writers have suggested that the decline of Greece was _due_ to\nmalaria, whereas I submit, as the more logical interpretation of the facts,\nthat a moral catastrophe led to the neglect of agriculture, whereby the\narea of marshy land became more extensive, mosquitoes more numerous, and\nthe fever more prevalent.\n\nIn view of the foregoing facts, the following Malthusian statement,\nalthough groundless, is nevertheless an amusing example of the errors that\narise from lack of a little knowledge:\n\n    \"The difficulty of providing for a high birth-rate in a settled\n    community was appreciated by the ancient Greeks, notably by Plato and\n    Aristotle; but their conclusions were swept aside by the warlike spirit\n    of Rome, and the sentimentality of Christianity, so that only a few\n    isolated thinkers showed any appreciation of them.\" [61]\n\n[Footnote 51: Quoted in _The Law of Births and Deaths_, by Charles Edward\nPell, 1921, chap. xii.]\n\n[Footnote 52: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 53: Ibid., p. 40.]\n\n[Footnote 54: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921, p. 41.]\n\n[Footnote 55: Ibid., p. 40.]\n\n[Footnote 56: Dr. John Brownlee, _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 156.]\n\n[Footnote 57: _Malaria and Greek History_, 1909, pp. 102 et seq.]\n\n[Footnote 58: Ibid., p. 26.]\n\n[Footnote 59: Ibid., p. 85.]\n\n[Footnote 60: _Report on the Prevention of Malaria in Mauritius_, p. 51.]\n\n[Footnote 61: C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., _The Malthusian Doctrine and\nits Modern Aspects_, p. 3.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nTHE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES\n\nBirth controllers claim that the fall in the English birth-rate, which\nbegan to decline in 1876, is mostly due to the use of contraceptives: but\nthe very fact that this claim is made by these reckless propagandists makes\nit imperative that we should scrutinise the evidence very carefully.\n\n\nSection 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES\n\nIn support of the Malthusian contention, Dr. C.V. Drysdale, who is not a\ndoctor of medicine but a doctor of science, has published the following\nstatements:\n\n    \"... We might note that a recent investigation of the records of the\n    Quakers (the Society of Friends) reveals the fact that family\n    limitation has been adopted by them to a most astonishing extent. Their\n    birthrate [_sic_] stood at 20 per thousand in 1876, and has now\n    actually fallen to about 8 per thousand. The longevity of Quakers is\n    well known, and the returns of deaths given by their Society show that\n    the great majority live to between seventy and ninety years. Infantile\n    mortality is practically unknown among them, although none of the\n    special steps so dear to most social reformers have been taken for the\n    protection of infant life. The Quakers are well known to be very\n    earnest Christians, and to give the best example of religious morality.\n    Their probity in business and their self-sacrifice in humanitarian work\n    of all kinds are renowned. Yet it would seem that they have adopted\n    family restriction to a greater extent than any other body of people,\n    and, since the decline of their birth-rate only began in 1876, that it\n    is due to adoption of preventive methods.\" [62]\n\nAgain, he translates the following quotation from a Swiss author:\n\n    \"In France a national committee has been formed which has as its object\n    an agitation for the increase of the population. Upon this committee\n    these [? there] sit, besides President Poincar\u00e9, who, although married,\n    has no children, twenty-four senators and litt\u00e9rateurs. These\n    twenty-five persons, who preach to their fellow citizens by word and\n    pen, have between them nineteen children, or not one child on the\n    average per married couple. Similarly, a Paris journal\n    (_Intransigeant_, August and September, 1908) had the good idea of\n    publishing four hundred and forty-five names of the chief Parisian\n    personalities who are never tired of lending their names in support of\n    opposition to the artificial restriction of families. I give these\n    figures briefly without the names, which have no special interest for\n    us. Anyone interested in the names can consult the paper well known in\n    upper circles. Among them:\n\n          176 married couples had 0 children =   0 children\n          106    \"       \"     \"  1 child    = 106    \"\n           88    \"       \"     \"  2 children = 176    \"\n           40    \"       \"     \"  3    \"     = 120    \"\n           19    \"       \"     \"  4    \"     =  76    \"\n            7    \"       \"     \"  5    \"     =  35    \"\n            4    \"       \"     \"  6    \"     =  24    \"\n            3    \"       \"     \"  7    \"     =  21    \"\n            1    \"       \"     \"  9    \"     =   9    \"\n            1    \"       \"     \" 11    \"     =  11    \"\n\n    Total 445                             with 578\n\n    That is, an average one and a third children per couple, while each\n    single one of these families could much more easily have supported\n    twenty children than a working-class family a single child.\"\n\n\"Comment on the above is superfluous,\" adds Dr. C.V. Drysdale, and with\nthat remark most people will cordially disagree. The obvious interpretation\nof the foregoing figures is that there has been a decline in natural\nfertility amongst highly educated and civilised people. But that\ninterpretation does not suit Dr. Drysdale's book, and hence we have the\ndisgraceful spectacle of a writer who, in order to bolster up an argument\nwhich is rotten from beginning to end, does not hesitate to launch without\na particle of evidence a charge of gross hypocrisy against the Quakers of\nEngland, a body of men and women who in peace and in war have proved the\nsincerity of their faith, and against four hundred and seventy respected\ncitizens of Paris. Further comment on _that_ is superfluous. At the same\ntime it is obvious that, in so far as their pernicious propaganda spreads\nand is adopted, Malthusians may claim to contribute to the fall of the\nbirth-rate, and towards the decline of the Empire.\n\n\nSection 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW\n\nIn the course of an inquiry on the fertility of women who had received a\ncollege education, the National Birth Rate Commission [63] attempted to\ndiscover to what extent birth control was practised amongst the middle and\nprofessional classes. Of those amongst whom the inquiry was made 477 gave\ndefinite answers, from which it was ascertained that 289, or 60 per cent.,\nconsciously limited their families, or attempted to do so; and that 188,\nor 40 per cent. made no attempt to limit their families. Amongst those who\nlimited their families 183 stated the means employed, and of these, 105,\nor 57 per cent., practised continence, whilst 78, or 43 per cent., used\nartificial or unnatural methods.\n\nNow comes a most extraordinary fact. Dr. Major Greenwood, [64] a\nstatistician whose methods are beyond question, discovered that there was\nno real mathematical difference between the number of children in the\n\"limited\" families and the number in the unlimited families. In both groups\nof families the number of children was smaller than the average family in\nthe general population, and in both groups there were fewer children than\nin the families of the preceding generation to which the parents belonged.\nDr. Greenwood states that this is _prima facie_ evidence that deliberate\nbirth control has produced little effect, and that the lowered fertility is\nthe expression of a natural change. Nevertheless, he holds that the latter\nexplanation cannot be accepted as wholly proved on the evidence, owing to\ncertain defects in the data on which his calculations were based.\n\n    \"I am of opinion that we should hesitate before adopting that\n    interpretation in view of the cogent indirect evidence afforded by\n    other data that the fall of the birth-rate is differential, and that\n    the differentiation is largely economic. There are at least two\n    considerations which must be borne in mind in connection with these\n    schedules. The first is, that all the marriages described as unlimited\n    may not have been so. I do not suggest that the answers are\n    intentionally false, but it is possible that many may have considered\n    that limitation implied the use of mechanical means; that marriages in\n    which the parties merely abstained from, _or limited the occasions of_,\n    sexual intercourse may have frequently entered as of unrestricted\n    fertility.\"\n\nThe above italics are mine, because, if that surmise be correct, it goes\nto prove that the restriction of intercourse to certain periods, which\nrestriction the married may lawfully practise, is as efficacious in\nlimiting the size of a family as are those artificial methods of birth\ncontrol contrary both to natural and to Christian morality. Dr. Major\nGreenwood continues as follows:\n\n    \"In the second place, the schedules do not provide us with information\n    as to when limitation was introduced. We are told, for instance, that\n    the size of the family was five and that its number was limited. This\n    may mean _either_ that throughout the duration of the marriage\n    preventive measures were adopted from time to time, _or_ that _after_\n    five children had been born fertile intercourse was stopped. In the\n    absence of detailed information on this point it is plainly impossible\n    to form an accurate judgment as to the effect of limitation.\"\n\nThere are, therefore, no accurate figures to indicate the extent to which\nbirth control has contributed to the decline in the birth-rate.\n\n\nSection 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION\n\nMoreover the claim of birth controllers, that the decline in the English\nbirth-rate is mainly due to the use of contraceptives, is rendered highly\nimprobable by the fact that the Registrar-General [65] has shown that in\n1911 the birth-rate in different classes varied according to the occupation\nof the fathers. The figures are these:\n\n                                       Births per 1,000 married\n        Social Class.                males aged under 55, including\n                                                  retired.\n\n    1. Unskilled workmen                           213\n    2. Intermediate class                          158\n    3. Skilled workmen                             153\n    4. Intermediate                                132\n    5. Upper and middle class                      119\n\nThus, ascending the social scale, we find, in class upon class, that as the\nannual income increases the number of children in the family diminishes,\nuntil we come to the old English nobility of whom, according to Darwin, 19\nper cent. are childless. These last have every reason to wish for heirs to\ninherit their titles and what land and wealth they possess, and, as their\nrecord in war proves them to be no cowards' breed, it would be a monstrous\nindictment to maintain that their childlessness is mostly due to the use\nof contraceptives. If _all_ these results arose from the practice of\nbirth control, it would imply a crescendo of general national selfishness\nunparalleled in the history of humanity. No, it is not possible to give\nNeo-Malthusians credit, even for all the evil they claim to have achieved.\n\n\nSection 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM\n\nNevertheless, artificial birth control is an evil and too prevalent thing.\nMy contention is that the primary cause of our falling birth-rate is\nover-civilisation; one of the most evil products of this over-civilisation,\nwhereby simple, natural, and unselfish ideals, based on the assumption that\nnational security depends on the moral and economic strength of family\nlife, have been replaced largely by a complicated, artificial, and\nluxurious individualism; and that diminished fertility, apart from\nthe practice of artificial birth control, is a result of luxurious\nindividualism. Even if it be so, one of the most evil products of\nover-civilisation is the use of contraceptives, because this practice, more\nthan any other factor in social life, hastens, directly and indirectly, the\nfall of a declining birth-rate; and artificial birth control, to the extent\nto which it is practised, therefore aggravates the consequences of a law of\ndecline already apparent in our midst. I have already said that restriction\nof intercourse, as held lawful by the Catholic Church, is possibly as\nefficacious in limiting the size of a family as are artificial methods.\nIf any man shall say that therefore there is no difference between these\nmethods, let him read the fuller explanation given in another connection on\np. 153. (See [Reference: Explanation]) The method which reason and morality\nalike permit is devoid of all those evils, moral, psychological, and\nphysiological, that follow the use of contraceptives.\n\n[Footnote 62: _The Small Family System_, pp. 195 and 160, New York, 1917.]\n\n[Footnote 63: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 323.]\n\n[Footnote 64: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 324.]\n\n[Footnote 65: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 9.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nTHE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL\n\n\nSection 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT\n\n\nBirth control is alleged to be beneficial for men and women, and these\n\"benefits\" are no less amazing than the fallacies on which this practice\nis advocated. At the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine\nin 1921 the leading physicians on diseases of women condemned the use of\ncontraceptives. [66]\n\n    _A Cause of Sterility_\n\n    Dr. R.A. Gibbons, Physician to the Grosvenor Hospital for Women, said\n    that nowadays it was common for a young married woman to ask her\n    medical man for advice as to the best method of preventing conception.\n    The test of relative sterility was the rapidity with which conception\n    takes place. He had made confidential inquiries in 120 marriages. In\n    100 cases preventive measures had been used at one time or another, and\n    the number of children was well under 2 per marriage. In Paris some\n    time ago the birth-rate was 104 per 1,000 in the poorer quarters and\n    only 34 in a rich quarter of the city; in London comparative figures\n    had been given as 195 and 63 in poor and in rich quarters. These and\n    similar figures showed that women living in comfort and luxury did not\n    want to be bothered with confinements. It had been said that the degree\n    of sterility could be regarded as an index to the morals of a race.\n    Congenital sterility was rare, but the number of children born in\n    England was decreasing. It had been estimated that one-third of the\n    pregnancies in several great cities abroad aborted. Dr. Gibbons then\n    quoted figures given by Douglas Wight and Amand Routh to show the high\n    percentage of abortions and stillbirths. In his opinion it was the duty\n    of medical men to point out to the public that physiological laws could\n    not be broken with impunity. It had been observed that if the doe were\n    withheld from the buck at oestral periods atrophy of the ovary took\n    place. In this connection Dr. Gibbons recalled a large number of\n    patients who had used contraceptives in early married life, and\n    subsequently had longed in vain for a child. This applied also to those\n    who had decided, after the first baby, to have no more children, and\n    had subsequently regretted their decision.\n\n    _Neuroses_\n\n    Professor McIlroy, of the London School of Medicine for Women, deplored\n    the amount of time spent on attempting to cure sterility when\n    contraceptives were so largely used. The fact that neuroses were\n    largely the result of the use of contraceptives should be made widely\n    known, and also that in women the maternal passion was even stronger,\n    though it might develop later, than sexual passion, and would\n    ultimately demand satisfaction.\n\n    _Fibroid Tumours_\n\n    Dr. Arthur E. Giles, Senior Surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women,\n    endorsed Dr. Gibbons's remarks as to the great unhappiness resulting\n    from deliberately childless marriages, and he added that he had always\n    warned patients of this. He believed that quinine had a permanently bad\n    effect. Those who waited for a convenient season to have a child often\n    laid up trouble for themselves. On the question of fibroid tumours he\n    had come to the conclusion that these were not a cause but in a sense a\n    consequence of sterility. Women who were subjected to sexual excitement\n    with no physiological outlet appear to have a tendency to develop\n    fibroids. He would like the opinion to go forth from the section that\n    the use of contraceptives was a bad thing.\n\nAll these authorities are agreed that the practice of artificial sterility\nduring early married life is the cause of many women remaining childless,\nalthough later on these women wish in vain for children. To meet this\ndifficulty one of the advocates of birth control advises all young couples\nto make sure of some children before adopting these practices; thus\ndemanding of young parents, at the very time when it is most irksome, that\nvery sacrifice of personal comfort and prosperity to prevent which is the\nprecise object of the vicious practice. Nor is sterility the only penalty.\nThe disease known as neurasthenia arises both in women _and in men_ in\nconsequence of these methods. Dr. Mary Sharlieb, [67] after forty years'\nexperience of diseases of women, writes as follows:\n\n    \"Now, on the surface of things, it would seem as if a knowledge of how\n    to prevent the too rapid increase of a family would be a boon to\n    over-prolific and heavily burdened mothers. There are, however, certain\n    reasons which probably convert the supposed advantage into a very real\n    disadvantage. An experience of well over forty years convinces me that\n    the artificial limitation of the family causes damage to a woman's\n    nervous system. The damage done is likely to show itself in inability\n    to conceive when the restriction voluntarily used is abandoned because\n    the couple desire offspring.\n\n    \"I have for many years asked women who came to me desiring children\n    whether they have ever practised prevention, and they very frequently\n    tell me that they did so during the early days of their married life\n    because they thought that their means were not adequate to the support\n    of a family. Subsequently they found that conception, thwarted at the\n    time that desire was present, fails to occur when it becomes\n    convenient. In such cases, even although examination of the pelvic\n    organ shows nothing abnormal, all one's endeavours to secure conception\n    frequently go unrewarded. Sometimes such a woman is not only sterile,\n    but nervous, and in generally poor health; but the more common\n    occurrence is that she remains fairly well until the time of the change\n    of life, when she frequently suffers more, on the nervous side, than\n    does the woman who has lived a natural married life.\"\n\nThe late Dr. F.W. Taylor, President of the British Gynaecological Society,\nwrote as follows in 1904:\n\n    \"Artificial prevention is an evil and a disgrace. The immorality of it,\n    the degradation of succeeding generations by it, their domination or\n    subjection by strangers who are stronger because they have not given\n    way to it, the curses that must assuredly follow the parents of\n    decadence who started it,--all of this needs to be brought home to the\n    minds of those who have thoughtlessly or ignorantly accepted it, for it\n    is to this undoubtedly that we have to attribute not only the\n    diminishing birth-rate, but the diminishing value of our population.\n\n    \"It would be strange indeed if so unnatural a practice, one so\n    destructive of the best life of the nation, should bring no danger or\n    disease in its wake, and I am convinced, after many years of\n    observation, that both sudden danger and chronic disease may be\n    produced by the methods of prevention very generally employed.... The\n    natural deduction is that the artificial production of modern times,\n    the relatively sterile marriage, is an evil thing, even to the\n    individuals primarily concerned, injurious not only to the race, but to\n    those who accept it.\"\n\nThat was the opinion of a distinguished gynaecologist, who also happened\nto be a Christian. The reader may protest that the latter fact is entirely\nirrelevant to my argument, and that the value of a man's observations\nconcerning disease is to be judged by his skill and experience as a\nphysician, and not by his religious beliefs. A most reasonable statement.\nUnhappily, the Neo-Malthusians think otherwise. They would have us believe\nthat because this man was a Christian his opinion, as a gynaecologist, is\nworthless. C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., after quoting Dr. Taylor's views,\nadds the following foot-note:\n\n    \"I have since learnt that Dr. Taylor was a very earnest Christian, and\n    the author of several sacred hymns and of a pious work, _The Coming of\n    the Saints_.\" [68]\n\nFurthermore, in 1905, the South-Western Branch of the British Medical\nAssociation passed the following resolution:\n\n    \"That this Branch is of opinion that the growing use of contraceptives\n    and ecbolics is fraught with great danger both to the individual and to\n    the race. That this Branch is of opinion that the advertisements and\n    sale of such appliances and substances, as well as the publication and\n    dissemination of literature relating thereto, should be made a penal\n    offence.\" [69]\n\n\nSection 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION\n\nThe foregoing opinions are very distasteful to Neo-Malthusians, and these\npeople, being unable apparently to give a reasoned answer, do not hesitate\nto suggest that medical opposition, when not due to religious bias, is\ncertainly due to mercenary motives.\n\n    \"As the Church has a vested interest in souls, so the medical\n    profession has a vested interest in bodies. Birth is a source of\n    revenue, direct and indirect. It means maternity fees first; it\n    generally presupposes preliminary medical treatment of the expectant\n    mother; and it provides a new human being to be a patient to some\n    member of the profession, humanly certain to have its share of\n    infantile diseases, and likely, if it survives them, to produce\n    children of its own before the final death-bed attendance is\n    reached.\" [70]\n\nThat scandalous suggestion has recently been repeated by the President of\nthe Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress under the\nfollowing circumstances. On October 31, 1921, the _Sussex Daily News_\npublished the following paragraph from its London correspondent.\n\n    \"BIRTH CONTROL\n\n    \"Reverberations of Lord Dawson's recent sensational address to the\n    Church Congress on birth control are still being felt as well in\n    medical as in clerical circles. Indeed, the subject has been discussed\n    by the lawyers at Gray's Inn. The London Association of the Medical\n    Women's Federation had so animated a discussion on it that it was\n    decided to continue it at the next meeting. It is quite evident that\n    Lord Dawson did not speak for a united medical profession. Indeed,\n    quite a number of doctors of all creeds are attacking the new Birth\n    Control Society. A London physician has a pamphlet on the subject in\n    the Press, and the controversy rages fiercely in the neighbourhood of\n    'birth-control' clinics. Much is likely to be made of the example of\n    France, where the revolt against the practices advocated is now in full\n    swing, and strong legal measures have been taken and are in\n    contemplation. French medical opinion is said to be very pronounced on\n    the subject, and it has, of course, a great deal of clinical experience\n    to back it.\"\n\nOn November 8, a second paragraph appeared:\n\n    \"BIRTH CONTROL\n\n    \"My remark recently that 'a number of doctors of all creeds are\n    attacking the new Birth-Control Society' has been challenged by the\n    hon. secretary of the body in question, who observes that I am\n    misinformed. I must adhere to my statement, which was a record of\n    personal observation. Many doctors have spoken to me on the subject,\n    and their opinions on the ethics of birth control differ widely; but I\n    can only remember one who did not attack this particular society. The\n    secretary suggests that I am confusing what his society advocates with\n    something else. As a matter of fact, the whole question of birth\n    control has been discussed more than once by medical bodies. A doctor\n    who attended one such discussion shortly after the opening of the\n    clinic in Holloway told me that, while there was division of opinion on\n    the general subject, the feeling of the meeting was overwhelming\n    against the particular teaching given at the clinic, as undesirable and\n    actively mischievous. The subject is controversial, and I profess to do\n    no more than record such opinions as are current.\"\n\nOn November 17 the _Sussex Daily News_ published the following letter:\n\n    \"CONSTRUCTIVE BIRTH CONTROL\n\n    \"Sir,--Your recent paragraph of 'opinions' about the Mothers' Clinic\n    and the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress is\n    not only extremely unrepresentative, but grossly misleading. Your\n    writer says that he can only remember one doctor who did not attack\n    this particular society. This implies that the medical profession is\n    against it, which is absolutely untrue, as is quite evident from the\n    fact that we have three of the most distinguished medical men in Great\n    Britain on our list of Vice-Presidents; four others, also very\n    distinguished, on our Research Committee; and that Dr. E.B. Turner, in\n    a Press interview after the recent Church Congress, singled out\n    Constructive Birth Control as the only 'Control' which was not\n    mischievous.\n\n    \"_That there may be medical men who do not approve of birth control is\n    natural, when one remembers that a doctor has to make his living, and\n    can do so more easily when women are ailing with incessant pregnancies\n    than when they maintain themselves in good health by only having\n    children when fitted to do so. Opinions of medicals, therefore, must be\n    sifted. The best doctors are with us; the self-seeking and the biassed\n    may be against us_.\n\n    \"Details about the society, including the manifesto signed by a series\n    of the most distinguished persons, can be obtained on application to\n    the Honorary Secretary, at ... London, N.19.--Yours, etc.\n\n    \"MARIE C. STOPES,\n    \"President Society for Constructive and Racial Progress.\"\n\nThe italics are mine, and they draw attention to a disgraceful statement\nconcerning the medical profession. As the reader is aware, certain members\nof our profession approve of artificial birth control. What, I ask, would\nbe the opinion of the general public, and of my friends, if I were so\ndistraught as to suggest that these men approved of birth control because\nthey had a financial interest in the sale of contraceptives? That\nsuggestion would be as reckless and as wicked as the statement made by Dr.\nMarie C. Stopes. In the _British Medical Journal_ of November 26 I quoted,\nwithout comment, the above italicised paragraph as her opinion of the\nmedical profession, and on December 10 the following reply from the lady\nappeared:\n\n    \"Your two correspondents, Dr. Halliday Sutherland and Dr. Binnie\n    Dunlop, by quoting paragraphs without their full context, appear to\n    lend support to views which by implication are, to some extent,\n    detrimental to my own. This method of controversy has never appealed to\n    me, but in the interests of the society with which I am associated, I\n    must be allowed to answer the implications. The paragraph quoted by Dr.\n    Sutherland is not, as would appear from his letter, a simple opinion of\n    mine on the medical profession, but was written in reply to a rather\n    scurrilous paragraph so worded as to lead the public to believe that\n    the medical profession as a whole was against the Society for\n    Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress. My answer, which\n    appeared not only in the papers quoted but in others, contained the\n    following statement: 'We have three of the most distinguished medical\n    men in Great Britain on our list of Vice-Presidents; four others, also\n    very distinguished, on our Research Committee.' Reading these words\n    before the paragraph your correspondent quotes, and taking all in\n    conjunction with an attack implying that the entire medical profession\n    was against us, it is obvious that the position is rather different\n    from what readers of Dr. Sutherland's letter in your issue of November\n    26 might suppose.\"\n\nIt will be noted that Dr. Stopes does not withdraw but attempts to justify\nher scandalous suggestion by stating, firstly, that the full context of her\nletter was not quoted by me, and secondly, that her original letter was\nwritten \"in reply to a rather scurrilous paragraph.\"\n\nAs I have now quoted in full her original letter, excepting the address\nof her society, and the two paragraphs from the _Sussex Daily News_, my\nreaders may form their own judgment on the following points: Is it possible\nto maintain that the whole context of her original letter puts a different\ncomplexion on her remarks concerning the medical profession? Can either\nof the paragraphs from the _Sussex Daily News_ be truthfully described\nas \"rather scurrilous,\" or are they fair comment on a matter of public\ninterest? Moreover, even if a daily paper _had_ published a misleading\nparagraph about this society, surely that is not a valid reason why its\nPresident should make a malignant attack, not on journalists, but on the\nmedical profession?\n\n\nSection 3. A CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE\n\nNor does birth control lead to happiness in marriage. On the contrary,\nexperience shows that the practice is injurious not only to the bodies\nbut also to the minds of men and women. As no method of contraception is\ninfallible, the wife who allows or adopts it may find herself in the truly\nhorrible position of being secretly or openly suspected of infidelity.\nAgain, when a family has been limited to one or two children and these die,\nthe parents may find themselves solitary and childless in old age; and\nmothers thus bereaved are often the victims of profound and lasting\nmelancholy. The mother of a large family has her worries, many of them not\ndue to her children, but to the social evils of our time: and yet she is\nless to be pitied than the woman who is losing her beauty after a fevered\nlife of, vanity and self-indulgence, and who has no one to love her, not\neven a child.\n\nMoreover, these practices have an influence on the relation between husband\nand wife, on their emotions towards each other and towards the whole sexual\nnisus. Mr. Bernard Shaw recently stated [71] that when people adopt methods\nof birth control they are engaging, not in sexual intercourse, but in\nreciprocal masturbation.\n\nThat is the plain truth of the matter. Or, from another point of view, it\nmay be said that the man who adopts these practices is simply using his\nwife as he would use a prostitute, as indeed was said long ago by St.\nThomas Aquinas. [72] The excuse offered for illicit sexual intercourse is\nnot usually pleasure, but that the sex impulse is irresistible: and the\nsame argument is used for conjugal union with prevention. In both cases the\nnatural result of union is not desired, and positive means are taken to\nprevent it.\n\nAnd what of the results on the mutual love, if an old-fashioned word be\nnot now out of place, and on the self-respect of two people so associated?\nBirth control cannot make for happiness, because it means that mutual love\nis at the mercy of an animal instinct, neither satisfied nor denied. It is\nan old truth that those who seek happiness for itself never find it. And\nyet the advocates of birth control have the temerity to claim that these\npractices lead to happiness. I presume that of the bliss following marriage\nwith contraceptives the crowded lists of our divorce courts are an index.\nThe marriage bond is weakened when a common lasting interest in the care\nof children is replaced by transient sexual excitement. Once pregnancy is\nabolished there is no natural check on the sexual passions of husband or\nwife, for they have learnt how sexual desire may be gratified without the\npain, publicity, and responsibility of having children. In the experience\nof the world marriages based merely on passion are seldom happy, and\nartificial birth control means passion uncontrolled by nature. These\nmethods are not practised by nations such as Ireland and Spain, who accept\nthe moral rule of the natural law expressed in God's commandments and\nsanctioned by His judgments; and no man who has ever lived in these\ncountries could truthfully maintain that the people there, on whom the\nburdens of marriage press as elsewhere, are in reality anxious to obtain\nfacilities for divorce. On the other hand, there are many who allege that\nthe people of England are shouting out for greater facilities for divorce\nthan they now possess. At any rate, it is obvious enough that there are\nthose amongst us who are straining every nerve to force such facilities\nupon them.\n\n\nSection 4. AN INSULT TO TRUE WOMANHOOD\n\nIt has been said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel; and\napparently chivalry is the last refuge of a fool. Some of the advocates of\nbirth control who have never thought the matter out, either passionately or\ndispassionately, claim to speak on behalf of women. They protest that \"many\nwomen of the educated classes revolt against the drudgery, anxieties,\ninconveniences, disease, and disfigurements which attend the yearly\nchild-bearing advocated by the moralist.\" [73]\n\nWhat moralist? Who ever said it? Again, they plead for women who \"revolt\"\nfrom the \"disfigurement\" of the gestation period. The great artist\nBotticelli did not think this was disfigurement. What true women do? Are\nthey not those of whom Kipling writes, \"as pale and as stale as a bone\"?\nAnd, if so, are these unworthy specimens of their sex worth tears? The vast\nmajority of women bear the discomforts of gestation and the actual perils\nand pangs of birth with exemplary fortitude: and it is a gross slander for\nanyone to maintain that a few cowardly and degenerate individuals really\nrepresent that devoted sex. But these writers are indeed well out of the\nruck of ordinary humanity, because they tell us that \"whatever the means\nemployed, and whether righteous or not, the propensity to limit the highest\nform of life operates silently and steadily amongst the more thoughtful\nmembers of all civilized countries,\" and yet add that \"it is not perhaps\ngood taste to consider the means employed to this end.\" While they thus\napprove and commend the practice of birth control as natural to \"the\nmore thoughtful members,\" they nevertheless question the \"good taste\" of\ndiscussing the very methods of which they approve, even in the columns of a\nmedical journal! Again, they tell us that \"assuredly continence is not, and\nnever will be, the principal\" method. That may be possibly true, so long as\nChristianity is more professed than practised; God knows we are all lacking\nenough in self-control. And yet throughout the ages moralists have preached\nthe advantages of self-control, and we ordinary men and women know that we\ncould do better, and that others who have gone before us have done better;\nbut it is the self-styled \"thoughtful members\" who proclaim to the world\nthat self-control in matters of sex is an impossibility, and therefore not\nto be even attempted. They are no common people--these epicureans, selfish\neven in their refinement. In addition to losing their morals, they have\ncertainly lost their wits.\n\n\nSection 5. A DEGRADATION OF THE FEMALE SEX\n\nIn the Neo-Malthusian propaganda there is yet another fact which--should\nbe seized by every married woman, because it is a clear indication of a\ntendency to reduce women to degrading subjection. No recommendations of\nlimited intercourse or of self-restraint according to the dictates\nof reason or of affection are to be found in the writings of birth\ncontrollers. Unrestrained indulgence, without the risk of consequences, is\ntheir motto. To this end they advocate certain contraceptive methods, and\nthe reader should note that these methods require precautions to be taken\nsolely by the woman. If she fails to take these precautions, or if the\nprecautions themselves fail, all responsibility for the occurrence of\nconception rests on her alone; because her Malthusian masters have decided\nthat she alone is to be, made responsible for preventing the natural or\npossible consequences of intercourse. Why? That is a very interesting\nquestion, and one to which a leading Neo-Malthusian has given the answer.\n\nIn 1854 there was published, _Physical, Sexual and Natural Religion: by a\nGraduate of Medicine_. In the third edition the title was altered to _The\nElements of Social Science_, and the author's pseudonym to _A Doctor of\nMedicine_. This book, which contains over 600 pages of small type, may be\ntruthfully described as the Bible of Neo-Malthusians, and includes, under\nthe curious heading _Sexual Religion_, a popular account of all venereal\nand other diseases of sex. In the Preface to the first edition, [74] the\nanonymous author states: \"Had it not been the fear of causing pain to a\nrelation, I should have felt it my duty to put my name to this work; in\norder that any censure passed upon it should fall upon myself alone.\" The\nrelation appears to have had a long life, because anonymity was preserved\nfor fifty years, presumably out of respect for his, or her, feelings: and\nhe, or she, must have lived as long as the author, who died in 1904 at the\nage of seventy-eight; because the author's name was not revealed until a\nposthumous edition, the thirty-fifth, appeared in 1905, from which we learn\nthat the book was written by the late Dr. George Drysdale, brother of\nthe first President of the Malthusian League, and uncle of the present\nincumbent. The last edition, in recompense for its smudgy type, contains a\nmost welcome announcement by the publisher:\n\n    \"PUBLISHER'S NOTE.--... It is due alike to the reader and the publisher\n    to explain why the present edition is printed (in the main) from\n    stereotypes that have seen fifty years' service. The cost of resetting\n    the work would be prohibitive on the basis of present (and probable\n    future) sales. To some extent the plates have been repaired; but such\n    an expedient can do no more than remove the worse causes of offence.\"\n\nBut the fact with which I am at present concerned is that in every edition\nall contraceptive methods that apply to the male are _condemned_ for the\nfollowing reasons:\n\n    \"The first of these modes [_coitus interruptus_] is physically\n    injurious, and is apt to produce nervous disorder and sexual\n    enfeeblement and congestion, from the sudden interruption it gives to\n    the venereal act, whose _pleasure_ moreover it interferes with. The\n    second, namely the sheath, _dulls the enjoyment_, and frequently\n    produces impotence in the man and disgust in both parties; so that it\n    also is injurious\" (p. 349).... \"Any preventive means, to be\n    satisfactory, must be used by the woman, as _it spoils the passion and\n    the impulsiveness_ of the venereal act _if the man have to think of\n    them_\" (p. 350).\n\nThe italics are mine, but the following comments are by a woman, who was\nmoreover the first woman to qualify in medicine--the late Dr. Elizabeth\nBlackwell.\n\n    \"Here, in this chief teacher of the Neo-Malthusians, the cloven foot is\n    fully revealed. This popular author, who in many parts of his book\n    denounces marriage as the enslavement of men and women, who sneers at\n    continence, and rages at Christianity as a vanishing superstition--all\n    under a special pretence of benevolence and desire for the advancement\n    of the human race, here clearly, shows what he is aiming at, and what\n    his doctrines lead to. Male sexual pleasure must not be interfered\n    with, male lust may be indulged in to any extent that pleasure demands,\n    but woman must take the entire responsibility, that male indulgence be\n    not disturbed by any inconvenient claims from paternity. Whatever\n    consequences ensue the woman is to blame, and must bear the whole\n    responsibility.\n\n    \"A doctrine more diabolical in its theory and more destructive in its\n    practical consequences has never been invented. This is the doctrine of\n    Neo-Malthusianism.\" [75]\n\n\nSection 6. SPECIALLY HURTFUL TO THE POOR\n\n(a) _Affecting the Young_\n\nThere are three special and peculiar evils that attend the teaching of\nbirth control amongst the poor. Of the first a doctor has written as\nfollows:\n\n    \"Morally, the doctrine is indefensible--it follows the line of least\n    resistance, and sacrifices the spirit to the flesh. Materially, it is\n    fraught with grave danger to the home and to our national existence. It\n    is proposed to disseminate a knowledge of contraceptive methods\n    throughout the overcrowded homes of the ill-fed, ill-clad poor. Now it\n    is in these homes that the moral sense has already but little chance of\n    development, where the child of eight or ten already knows far more\n    than is good for the health of either body or mind, and, though we may\n    succeed in reducing the size of the family, yet the means we employ\n    will militate against the raising of the moral tone of the household,\n    and the children will not be any less precocious than before.\" [76]\n\nThat danger is ignored by the advocates of birth-control. \"But he that\nshall scandalise one of these little ones that believe in Me, it were\nbetter for, him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he\nwere drowned in the depth, of the sea.\" [77]\n\n(b) _Exposing the Poor to Experiment_\n\nSecondly, the ordinary decent instincts of the poor are against these\npractices, and indeed they have used them less than any other class. But,\nowing to their poverty, lack of learning, and helplessness, the poor are\nthe natural victims of those who seek to make experiments on their fellows.\nIn the midst of a London slum a woman, who is a doctor of German philosophy\n(Munich), has opened a Birth Control Clinic, where working women are\ninstructed in a method of contraception described by Professor McIlroy as\n\"the most harmful method of which I have had experience.\" [78] When we\nremember that millions are being spent by the Ministry of Health and by\nLocal Authorities--on pure milk for necessitous expectant and nursing\nmothers, on Maternity Clinics to guard the health of mothers before and\nafter childbirth, for the provision of skilled midwives, and on Infant\nWelfare Centres--all for the single purpose of bringing healthy children\ninto our midst, it is truly amazing that this monstrous campaign of birth\ncontrol should be tolerated by the Home Secretary. Charles Bradlaugh was\ncondemned to jail for a less serious crime.\n\n(c) _Tending towards the Servile State_\n\nThirdly, the policy of birth control opens the way to an extension of the\nServile State, [79] because women as well as men could then be placed under\nconditions of economic slavery. Hitherto, the rule has been that during\nchild-bearing age a woman must be supported by her husband, and the general\nfeeling of the community has been opposed to any conditions likely to force\nmarried women on to the industrial market. In her own home a woman works\nhard, but she is working for the benefit of _her_ family and not directly\nfor the benefit of a stranger. If, instead of bearing children, women\npractise birth control, and if children are to be denied to the poor as a\nprivilege of the rich, then it would be very easy to exploit the women of\nthe poorer classes. If women have no young children why should they be\nexempt from the economic pressure that is applied to men? And indeed,\nwhere birth control is practised women tend more and more to supplant men,\nespecially in ill-paid grades of work. One of the birth controllers has\nsuggested that young couples, who otherwise could not afford to marry,\nshould marry but have no children, and thus continue to work at their\nrespective employments during the day. As the girl would have little time\nfor cooking and other domestic duties, this immoralist is practically\nsubverting the very idea of a home! The English poor have already lost even\nthe meaning of the word \"property,\" and if the birth controllers had their\nway the meaning of the word \"home\" would soon follow. The aim of birth\ncontrol is generally masked by falsehood, but the urging of this policy\non the poor points unmistakably to the Servile State. When a nation, or\na section of a nation, is oppressed, their birth-rate rises. That is the\nimmutable law of nature as witnessed in history. Thus, the Israelites\nincreased under the oppression of the Pharaohs. Thus, the Irish, from the\nUnion to the Famine, multiplied prodigiously under the oppression of an\niniquitous political and land system. By the operation of this law the\noppressed grow in numbers, and break their chains.\n\n\nSection 7. A MENACE TO THE NATION\n\n(a) _There is a Limit to lowering the Death-rate_\n\nBirth controllers believe that a high birth-rate is the cause of a high\ndeath-rate, and that over-population is the cause of poverty. Yet, in spite\nof their beliefs, they make the following statement: \"Neo-Malthusians have\nnot aimed at reducing population, but only at reducing unnecessary death,\nwhich injures the community without adding to its numbers.\" [80] In defence\nof this statement they argue that if the death-rate falls people will\nlive longer, and therefore the population will not decrease, although the\nbirth-rate is lowered. There are two fallacies in their argument. They\noverlook the fact that every one of us must die, and that therefore there\nis a limit beyond which a death-rate cannot possibly fall, whereas there\nis no limit, except zero, to the possible fall in a birth-rate. If a\nbirth-rate fell to nothing and no children were born, it is obvious that\nthe population would eventually vanish. The second fallacy is that a low\nbirth-rate will permanently lower the death-rate. At first a falling\nbirth-rate increases the proportion of young adults in the population, and,\nas the death-rate during early adult life is relatively low, the total\ndeath-rate tends to fall for a time. Sooner or later there is an increase\nin the proportion of old people in the population, and, as the death-rate\nduring old age is high, the total death-rate tends to rise. That is now\nhappening in England, and these are the _actual facts_ as recorded by the\nRegistrar-General:\n\n    \"It may be pointed out that, though the effect of the fall in the\n    birth-rate has hitherto been an a sense advantageous in that it has\n    increased the proportions living at the working ages, a tendency to the\n    reversal of this fact has already set in, and may be expected to\n    develop as time goes on....\n\n    \"The general characteristics of the figures indicate very clearly the\n    effects of the long-continued decline in the birth-rate of this\n    country, and show, by the example of France, the type of\n    age-distribution which a further continuance of the decline is likely\n    to produce. The present age-distribution of the English population is\n    still favourable to low death-rates, but is becoming less so than it\n    was in 1901. The movements along the curve of the point of maximum\n    heaping up population, referred to on page 61 (See [Reference:\n    Population]), has shifted this from age 20-25 to a period ten years\n    later, when mortality is appreciably higher.\"--Census of England and\n    Wales, 1911. General Report, with Appendices, pp. 62 and 65.\n\nOf these facts the birth controllers, would appear to be ignorant. That\nis a charitable assumption; but, in view of the vital importance of this\nquestion their ignorance is culpable.\n\n(b) _Birth Control tends to extinguish the Birth-rate_\n\nWhatever may be the nebulous aim of birth controllers, the actual results\nof birth control are quite definite. We have no accurate information\nregarding the extent to which, birth control is practised, for, needless to\nsay, the Malthusians can provide us with no exact figures bearing on this\nquestion; but we do know that birth control, when adopted, is mostly\npractised amongst the better paid artisans and wealthier classes. After\nfull examination of the evidence; the National Birth-rate Commission were\nunanimously agreed \"That the greater incidence of infant mortality upon the\nless prosperous classes does not reduce their effective fertility to the\nlevel of that of the wealthier classes.\" [81] It is probable that this\nCommission overestimated the extent to which birth control has contributed\nto the declining birth-rate; but, even so, this does not alter the obvious\nfact that artificial birth control, when adopted, reduces fertility to\na lower level than Nature intended. If language has any meaning, birth\ncontrol means a falling birth-rate, and a falling birth-rate means\ndepopulation. Here and there this evil practice may increase the material\nprosperity of an individual, but it lowers the prosperity of the nation\nby reducing the number of citizens. Moreover, as birth control is not\na prevailing vice amongst semi-civilised peoples, the adoption of this\npractice by civilised nations means that the proportion of civilised to\nuncivilised inhabitants of the world will be reduced. If birth control had\nbeen extensively practised in the past the colonisation of the British\nEmpire would have been a physical impossibility; and to-day, in our\nvast overseas dominions, are great empty spaces whose untilled soil and\nexcellent climate await a population. Is that population to be white, or\nyellow? A question which to-day fills the Australian with apprehension.\n\n(c) _A Danger to the Empire_\n\nMany people are honestly perplexed by Neo-Malthusian propaganda, and are\nhonestly ignorant of the truth concerning the population and the food\nsupply of the British Empire. They think that _if_ the population is\nincreasing faster than the food supply, there is at least one argument in\nfavour of artificial birth control from a practical, although possibly not\nfrom an ethical, point of view. They apply to that propaganda the ordinary\ntest of the world, namely, 'Will it work?' rather than that other test\nwhich asks, 'Is it right?' The question I would put to people who reason in\nthat way, and they are many, is a very simple one. If it can be proved that\nNeo-Malthusian propaganda is based on an absolute falsehood, will it not\nfollow that the chief argument in favour of artificial birth control has\nbeen destroyed? Let us put this matter to the proof. Neo-Malthusians state\nthat the population of the Empire is increasing more rapidly than the\nfood supply. That is a definite statement. It is either true or false.\nTo discover the truth, it is necessary to refer to the Memorandum of the\nDominions Royal Commission, and it may be noted that publications of that\nsort are not usually read by the general public to whom the Neo-Malthusians\nappeal. The public are aware that the staff of life is made from wheat, but\nthey are not aware of the following facts, which prove that in this matter,\nat any rate, Neo-Malthusian statements are absolutely false. In foreign\ncountries the increase of the wheat area is proceeding at practically the\nsame rate as the increase of population. Within the British Empire _the\nwheat area is increasing more rabidly than the population_.\n\nBetween 1901 and 1911 the percentage increase of the wheat area _was nearly\nseven times greater_ than the increase of population; and the percentage\nincrease in the actual production of wheat _was nearly twelve times\ngreater_ than the increase of population. As these facts alone completely\nrefute the Neo-Malthusian argument, it is advisable to reproduce here the\nofficial statistics. [82]\n\n    \"The requirements of wheat [83] for the United Kingdom and the extent\n    to which Home and overseas supplies contributed towards these\n    requirements during the period under review can be briefly summarised\n    by the following table, viz.:\n\n                      Normal       Supplies      Proportion of supply\n    Annual        requirements\n    average                      Home  Overseas    Home    Overseas\n\n                     Million   Million  Million    Per      Per\n                       cwts      cwts    cwts      cent     cent\n    1901-5            138.8      28.7    110.1     20.7     79.3\n    1906-10           143.2      31.9    111.3     22.3     77.7\n    1911-13           149.2      32.9    116.3     22.1     77.9\n\n    \"The main sources of overseas supply are too well known to require\n    recapitulation here. The imports from the Dominions and India and their\n    proportionate contribution to the United Kingdom's total imports and\n    wheat requirements since 1901 have been as follows:\n\n                1901-5\n                          Percentage\n     From       Annual   Total      Total\n               average  imports  requirements\n\n               Million    Per     Per\n                  cwts    cent    cent\n\n     Canada       10.3     9.2     7.4\n     Australia     6.6     5.9     4.8\n     New Zealand    .4      .4      .3\n     India        15.5    13.9    11.2\n\n                  32.8    29.4    23.7\n\n\n                1906-10\n                          Percentage\n     From       Annual   Total      Total\n               average  imports  requirements\n\n               Million    Per     Per\n                  cwts    cent    cent\n\n     Canada       17.2    15.1    12.0\n     Australia     9.4     8.2     6.6\n     New Zealand    .3      .3      .2\n     India        13.3    11.7     9.3\n\n                  32.8    29.4    23.7\n\n\n                1911-13\n                          Percentage\n     From       Annual   Total      Total\n               average  imports  requirements\n\n               Million    Per     Per\n                  cwts    cent    cent\n\n     Canada       24.5    20.5    16.4\n     Australia    12.6    10.6     8.4\n     New Zealand    .4      .3      .3\n     India        21.5    18.0    14.4\n\n                  59.0    49.4    39.5\n\n    \"The large increase in the proportion received from the Dominions is,\n    of course, mainly due to the great extension of wheat cultivation in\n    Western Canada since the beginning of the century.\" [84]\n\n    _Future Supplies_\n\n    \"As the United Kingdom is dependent for so large a proportion of its\n    wheat supplies on the surplus of oversea countries, it is of material\n    interest to examine whether this surplus is increasing, or whether the\n    growth of population is proceeding more rapidly than the extension of\n    the wheat-growing area.\n\n    \"The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1912 estimated [85] that the\n    extension of the wheat area and the growth of population during the\n    period 1901-1911 was as follows:\n\n                       Wheat area     Percent     Population.     Percent\n    Wheat-growing                      age in                      age in\n    countries.       1901.     1911.   crease    1901.     1911.   crease\n\n    British Empire  Thousand  Thousand         Thousands Thousands\n     (United Kingdom,  acres.    acres.\n     Canada,\n     Australia,\n     New Zealand,\n     and India).     34,696    50,490   +45.5   283,385   302,154   + 6.6\n    European\n      countries.     98,326   115,105   +17.1   291,685   337,181   +15.6\n    Others           67,908    81,408   +19.9   139,927   168,818   +20.6\n\n    \"_It is important to find that, while in foreign countries, both\n    European and extra-European, the increase of wheat area is proceeding\n    at practically the same rate as the increase of population, in the\n    British Empire the wheat area is developing far more rapidly, so that\n    the Empire as a whole is becoming more self-supporting.\n\n    \"The total production of wheat within the British Empire, which was\n    227,500,000 cwts. in 1901, had risen to 399,700,000 cwts. in 1911, an\n    increase of 75 per cent_.\n\n    \"The relative yield per acre in 1911 was as follows:\"\n\n                                     Yield per acre.\n\n                             Average for five\n                              years, 1906-10.    1911.\n                                 Bushels.      Bushels.\n\n    United Kingdom                32.88         32.96\n    Canada                        17.56[86]     20.80[87]\n    Australia                     11.74          9.65[88]\n    New Zealand                   28.72         36.73\n    India\n     (including Native States)    11.44         12.02\n\nThe foregoing facts destroy the chief Neo-Malthusian argument, and, as\nbirth control tends to extinguish the birth-rate, this Neo-Malthusian\npropaganda is a menace to the Empire. In fact, the danger is very great for\nthe simple reason that the proportion of white people within the Empire is\nvery small.\n\n    \"The British Empire's share of the world's people is very large, but it\n    mainly consists, it should be remembered, of Asiatics and African\n    natives. The Empire as a whole contains about 450 millions of the\n    world's 1,800 millions, made up roundly as follows:\n\n    United Kingdom                      47,000,000\n    Self-governing Dominions            22,000,000\n    Rest of the Empire (chiefly India,\n      319 millions)                    378,000,000\n    Total                              447,000,000\n\n    \"Of the great aggregate Empire population of 447 millions, the white\n    people account for no more than 65 millions. That is to say, outside\n    the United Kingdom itself the Empire has only 18 million white people,\n    or less than four million families. That figure, of course, includes\n    Boers, French-Canadians, and others of foreign extraction. This fact is\n    clearly not realized by those present-day Malthusians who assure us\n    that too many Britons are being born.\" [89]\n\nIt is also well to remember that depopulation in Italy preceded the\ndisintegration of the Roman Empire. Historians have estimated that, while\nunder the Republic, Italy could raise an army of 800,000 men, under Titus\nthat number was halved.\n\nUnfortunately there are some to whom this argument will not appeal, and\nwandering about in our midst are a few lost souls, so bemused by the\ndoctrines of international finance that they see no virtue in patriotism\nor, in other words, in the love that a man has for his own home. They are\nunmoved by the story of sacrifice, of thrift, and of patient trust in\nGod that is told for instance in the history of the Protestant manses of\nScotland, where ministers on slender stipends brought up families of ten\nand twelve, where the boys won scholarships at the universities, and where\nwomen were the mothers of men.\n\nThese days have been recalled by Norman Macleod:\n\n    \"The minister, like most of his brethren, soon took to himself a wife,\n    the daughter of a neighbouring 'gentleman tacksman,' and the\n    grand-daughter of a minister, well born and well bred; and never did\n    man find a help more meet for him. In that manse they lived for nearly\n    fifty years, and there were born to them sixteen children; yet neither\n    father nor mother could ever lay hand on a child and say, 'We wish this\n    one had not been.' They were all a source of unmingled joy....\" [90]\n\n    \"A 'wise' neighbour once remarked, 'That minister with his large family\n    will ruin himself, and if he dies they will be beggars.' Yet there has\n    never been a beggar among then to the fourth generation.\" [91]\n\nHow did they manage to provide for their children? In this pagan, spoon-fed\nage, many people will laugh when they read the answer--in a family letter,\nwritten more than a hundred years ago by a man who was poor:\n\n    \"But the thought--I cannot provide for these! Take care, minister, the\n    anxiety of your affection does not unhinge that confidence with which\n    the Christian ought to repose upon the wise and good providence of\n    God! What though you are to leave your children poor and friendless?\n    Is the arm of the Lord shortened, that He cannot help? Is His ear\n    heavy, that He cannot hear? You yourself have been no more than an\n    instrument in the hand of His goodness; and is His goodness, pray,\n    bound up in your feeble arm? Do you what you can; leave the rest to\n    God. Let them be good, and fear the Lord, and keep His commandments,\n    and He will provide for them in His own way and in His own time. Why,\n    then, wilt thou be cast down, O my soul; why disquieted within me?\n    Trust thou in the Lord! Under all the changes and the cares and the\n    troubles of this life, may the consolations of religion support our\n    spirits. In the multitude of thoughts within me, Thy comforts O my\n    God, delight my soul! But no more of this preaching-like harangue, of\n    which, I doubt not, you wish to be relieved. Let me rather reply to\n    your letter, and tell you my news.\" [92]\n\nThat letter was written by Norman Macleod, ordained in 1774, and minister\nof the Church of Scotland in Morven for some forty years. His stipend was\n\u00a340, afterwards raised to \u00a380. He had a family of sixteen. One of his sons\nwas minister in Campbelltown, and later in Glasgow. He had a family of\neleven. His eldest son was Chaplain to Queen Victoria, and wrote the\n_Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_.\n\nThe birth controllers ask why we should bring up children at great cost and\ntrouble to ourselves, and they have been well answered by a non-Catholic\nwriter, Dr. W.E. Home. [93]\n\n    \"One of my acquaintances refuses to have a second child because he\n    could not then play golf. Is there, then, no pleasure in children which\n    shall compensate for the troubles and expenses they bring upon you? I\n    notice that the penurious Roman Catholic French Canadian farmers are\n    spreading out of Quebec and occupying more and more of Ontario. I fancy\n    these hard-living parents would think their struggles to bring up their\n    large (ten to twenty) families worth while when they see how their\n    group is strengthening its position. If a race comes to find no\n    instinctive pleasure in children it will probably be swept away by\n    others more virile. One man will live where another will starve;\n    prudence and selfishness are not identical.\n\n    \"In her book, _The Strength of a People_, Mrs. Bosanquet, who signed\n    the Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission, tells the story of two\n    girls in domestic service who became engaged. One was imprudent,\n    married at once, lived in lodgings, trusted to the Church and the\n    parish doctor to see her through her first confinement, had no\n    foresight or management, every succeeding child only added to her\n    worries, and her marriage was a failure. The other was prudent, did not\n    marry till, after six months, she and her fianc\u00e9 had chosen a house and\n    its furniture. Then she married, and their house was their own careful\n    choice; every table and chair reminded them of the afternoon they had\n    had together when it was chosen; they were amusement enough to\n    themselves, and they saved their money for the expenses of her\n    confinement. He had not to seek amusement outside his home, did his\n    work with a high sanction and got promoted, and each child was only an\n    added pleasure. Idyllic; yes, but sometimes true. One of the happiest\n    men I have known was a Marine sergeant with ten children, and a bed in\n    his house for stray boys he thought he should help.\n\n    \"One of my friends married young and had five children; this required\n    management. He certainly could not go trips, take courses and extra\n    qualifications, but he did his work all right, and his sons were there\n    to help in the war, and one of them has won a position of Imperial\n    usefulness far above that of his father or me. Is that no compensation\n    to his parents for old-time difficulties they have by now almost\n    forgotten? A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit.\"\n\nDr. W.E. Home is right, and the Neo-Malthusian golfer is wrong. Moreover,\nhe is wrong as a golfer. Golf requires skill, a fine co-ordination of sight\nand touch, much patience and self-control: and many unfortunate people lack\nthese qualities of mind and body, and are therefore unable to play this\ngame with pleasure to themselves or to others. Consequently every golfer,\nno matter whether he accepts the hypothesis of Spencer or that of Weismann\nconcerning the inheritance of acquired characteristics, should rejoice to\nsee his large family in the links as a good omen for the future of this\ngame, although there be some other reasons that also justify the existence\nof children.\n\n_(d) The Dangers of Small Families_\n\nIn a Malthusian leaflet, written for the poor Dr. Binnie Dunlop states:\n\n    \"You must at least admit that there would be nothing like the usual\n    poverty if married couples had only one child for every 20s. or so, a\n    week of wages. Yet the population would continue to increase rapidly,\n    because very few of the children of small families die or grow up\n    weakly; and it would become stronger, richer, and of course much\n    happier.\" [94]\n\nThe false suggestion contained in his first sentence, namely that a high\nbirth-rate is the cause of poverty, has already been exposed (Chap. II),\nand apparently Dr. Binnie Dunlop has never considered _why_ so many of the\nEnglish people should be so poor as to enable him to make use of their very\npoverty in order to tempt them to adopt an evil method of birth control.\nMoreover, his second contention, that a small family produces a higher type\nof child, better fed, better trained, and healthier, than is found amongst\nthe children of large families is contrary to the following facts, as\nstated by Professor Meyrick Booth:\n\n    \"1. A civilisation cannot be maintained with an average of less than\n    about four children per marriage; a smaller number will lead to actual\n    extinction.\n\n    \"2. Much information exists tending to show that heredity strongly\n    favours the third, fourth, fifth, and subsequent children born to a\n    given couple, rather than the _first two_, who are peculiarly apt to\n    inherit some of the commonest physical and mental defects (upon this\n    important point the records of the University of London Eugenics\n    Laboratory should be consulted). A population with a low birth-rate\n    thus naturally tends to degenerate. _It is the normal, and not the\n    small family, that gives the best children_.\n\n    \"3. The present differential birth-rate--high amongst the less\n    intelligent classes and low amongst the most capable families--so far\n    from leading upwards, is causing the race to breed to a lower type.\n\n    \"4. The small family encourages the growth of luxury and the\n    development of what M. Leroy-Beaulieu calls _l'esprit arriviste_.\n\n    \"5. The popular idea that _childbirth is injurious_ to a woman's health\n    is probably _quite erroneous_. Where the _birth-rate is high the health\n    of the woman is apparently better_ than where it is artificially low.\n\n    \"6. A study of history does not show that nations with low birth-rates\n    have been able to attain to a higher level of civilisation. Such\n    nations have been thrust into the background by their hardier\n    neighbours.\" [95]\n\nMoreover, M. Leroy-Beaulieu, in _La Question de la Population_ [96] states\nthat those districts of France which show an exceptionally low birthrate\nare distinguished by a peculiar atmosphere of materialism, and that their\ninhabitants exhibit, in a high degree, an attitude of mind well named\n_l'esprit arriviste_--the desire to concentrate on outward success, to push\non, to be climbers, to advance themselves and their children in fashionable\nsociety. This spirit means the willing sacrifice of all ideals of ethics\nor of patriotism to family egoism. To this mental attitude, and to the\ncorresponding absence of religion, he attributes the decline of population.\nIn conclusion the following evidence is quoted by Professor Meyrick Booth:\n\n    \"The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for July 1911 contains a valuable account,\n    by a doctor resident in Gascony, of the state of things in that part of\n    France (where, it will be remembered, the birth-rate is especially\n    low). He expresses with the utmost emphasis the conviction that the\n    Gascons are deteriorating, physically and mentally, and points out, at\n    the same time, that the decline of population has had an injurious\n    effect upon the economic condition of the country. 'L'hyponatalit\u00e9 est\n    une cause pr\u00e9cise et directe de la d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9rescence de la race,' he\n    writes. And, dealing with the belief that a low birthrate will result\n    in the development of a superior type of child, he says: 'C'est une\n    illusion qui ne r\u00e9siste pas \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re des faits tels que les montre\n    l'\u00e9tude d\u00e9mographique de nos villages gascons. Depuis que beaucoup de\n    bancs restent vides \u00e0 la petite \u00e9cole, les \u00e9coliers ne sont ni mieux\n    dou\u00e9s, ni plus travailleurs, et ils sont certainement moins vigoureux.'\n    And again, 'La quantit\u00e9 est en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral la condition premi\u00e8re et\n    souveraine de la qualit\u00e9.'\" [97]\n\n\nSection 8. THE PLOT AGAINST CHRISTENDOM\n\nAll purposive actions are ultimately based on philosophy of one sort or\nanother. If, for example, we find a rich man founding hospitals for the\npoor, we may assume that he believes in the principle of Charity. It\nis, therefore, of prime importance to determine what kind of philosophy\nunderlies Neo-Malthusian propaganda. The birth controllers profess to\nbe actuated solely by feelings of compassion and of benevolence towards\nsuffering humanity; and it is on these grounds that they are appealing to\nthe Church of England to bless their work, or at least to lend to\ntheir propaganda a cloak of respectability. Now, the very fact that\nNeo-Malthusians are sincere in their mistaken and dangerous convictions\nmakes it all the more necessary that we should discover the doctrines\non which their propaganda was originally based; because, although their\neconomic fallacies were borrowed from Malthus, their philosophy came from a\ndifferent source.\n\nThis philosophy is to be found, naked and unashamed, in a book entitled\n_The Elements of Social Science_. I have already referred to this work\nas the Bible of Neo-Malthusians, and its teaching has been endorsed as\nrecently as 1905 by the official journal of the Malthusian League, as\nwitness the following eulogy, whose last lines recall the happy days of\nBret Harte in the Far West, and the eloquent periods of our old and valued\nfriend Colonel Starbottle:\n\n    \"This work should be read by all followers of J.S. Mill, Garnier, and\n    the Neo-Malthusian school of economists. We could give a long criticism\n    of the many important chapters in this book; but, as we might be\n    considered as prejudiced in its favour because of our agreement with\n    its aims, we prefer to cite the opinion given by the editor of that\n    widely circulated and most enlightened paper _The Weekly Times and\n    Echo_, which appears in its issue of October 8.\" [98]\n\nBefore quoting from the book an explanation is due to my readers. I do not\nsuggest that all of those who are to-day supporting the propaganda for\nartificial birth control would agree with its foolish blasphemies and\ndrivelling imbecilities; but it is nevertheless necessary to quote these\nthings, because our birth controllers are too wise in their day and\ngeneration to reveal to the public, still less to the Church of England,\n_the philosophy on which Neo-Malthusianism was originally based, and from\nwhich it has grown_. Moreover, the Malthusians claim that it was the author\nof the _Elements of Social Science_ \"who interested Mr. Charles Bradlaugh\nand Mrs. Annie Besant in the question.\" [99] Four quotations from the last\nedition of the book will suffice:\n\n    \"But this is a certain truth, that any human being, any one of us,\n    no matter how fallen and degraded, is an infinitely more glorious\n    and adorable being than any God that ever was or will be\n    conceived\" (p. 413).\n\nIn justice to the memory of John Stuart Mill, whom Malthusians are ever\nquoting, it should be noted that the foregoing blasphemy is nothing more\nnor less than a burlesque of Positivism or of Agnosticism. The teaching of\nMill, Bain, and of Herbert Spencer was that the knowledge of God and of\nHis nature is impossible, because our senses are the _only_ source of\nknowledge. Their reasoning was wrong--because a primary condition of all\nknowledge is memory, in itself an intuition, because primary mathematical\naxioms are intellectual intuitions, and because mind has the power of\nabstraction; but, even so, not one of these men was capable of having\nwritten the above-quoted passage. The next quotation refers to marriage.\n\n    \"Marriage is based upon the idea that constant and unvarying love is\n    the only one which is pure and honourable, and which should be\n    recognised as morally good. But there could not be a greater error than\n    this. Love is, like all other human passions and appetites, subject to\n    change, deriving a great part of its force and continuance from variety\n    in its objects; and to attempt to fix it to an invariable channel is to\n    try to alter the laws of its nature\"(p. 353).\n\nThat quotation is an example of how evil ideas may arise from muddled\nthinking: because if the word \"lust\" be substituted for the word \"love\" in\nthe third sentence, the remaining forty-five words would merely convey a\nsimple truth, expressed by Kipling in two lines:\n\n    \"For the more you 'ave known o' the others\n    The less will you settle to one.\"\n\nVery few people, I suppose, are so foolish as to believe that man is by\nnature either a chaste or a constant animal, and indeed in this respect he\nappears to his disadvantage when compared with certain varieties of birds,\nwhich are _by nature_ constant to each other. On the other hand, millions\nof people believe that man is able to overcome his animal nature; and for\nthe past two thousand years the civilised races of the world have held\nthat this is a goal towards which mankind should strive. In the opinion of\nChristendom chastity and marriage are both morally good, but, according to\nthe philosophy of our Neo-Malthusian author, they are morally evil.\n\n    \"Chastity, or complete sexual abstinence, so far from being a virtue,\n    is invariably a great natural sin\" (p. 162).\n\nIs it not obvious that to the writers of such passages love is synonymous\nwith animalism, with lust? It is by no means necessary to go to saints or\nto moralists for a refutation of this Neo-Malthusian philosophy. Does any\ndecent ordinary man or woman agree with it? Ask the man in the street. Turn\nthe pages of our literature. Refer to Chaucer or Spenser, to Shakespeare or\nMilton, refer to Fielding or Burns or Scott or Tennyson. Some of these men\nwere very imperfect; but they all knew the difference between lust and\nlove; and it is because they can tell us at least something of that which\nis precious, enduring, ethereal, and divine in love that we read their\npages and honour their names. Not one of these men could have written the\nfollowing sentence:\n\n            \"Marriage distracts our attention from the real sexual\n            duties, and this is one of its worst effects\" (p. 366).\n\nNow it is certain that if \"the real sexual duties\" are represented by\npromiscuous fornication, then both marriage and chastity are evil things.\nThat philosophy is very old. From time immemorial--it has been advocated by\none of the most powerful intelligences in the universe. Such is the soil\non which the Neo-Malthusian fungus has grown--a soil that would rot the\nfoundations of Europe.\n\n[Footnote 66: _The Lancet_, May 14, 1921, p. 1024]\n\n[Footnote 67: _British Medical Journal_, 1921, vol. ii, p. 93.]\n\n[Footnote 68: _The Small Family System_, 2nd edit., p. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 69: _Supplement to The British Medical Journal_, March 18, 1905,\np. 110.]\n\n[Footnote 70: _Common Sense on the Population Question_, by Teresa\nBillington-Greig, p. 4. Published by the Malthusian League.]\n\n[Footnote 71: _Medico-Legal Society_, July 7, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 72: _Suppl. Qu_. 49, Art. 6: \"_Voluptates meretricias vir in\nuxore quoerit quando nihil aliud in ea attendit quam quod in meretrice\nattenderet_\" (A husband seeks from his wife harlot pleasures when he asks\nfrom her only what he might ask from a harlot). Quoted by the Rev. Vincent\nMcNabb, O.P., _The Catholic Gazette_, September 1921, p. 195.]\n\n[Footnote 73: _British Medical Journal_, 1921, vol. ii, p. 169.]\n\n[Footnote 74: Reproduced in fourth edition, 1861.]\n\n[Footnote 75: _Essays in Medical Sociology_, 1899. Revised and printed\nfor private circulation, p. 95, (Copy in Library of Royal Society of\nMedicine).]\n\n[Footnote 76: _British Medical Journal_, August 20, 1921, p. 302.]\n\n[Footnote 77: St. Matt. xviii. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 78: _Proceedings of the Medico-Legal Society_, July 7, 1921]\n\n[Footnote 79: \"That arrangement of society in which so considerable a\nnumber of the families and individuals are constrained by positive law to\nlabour for the advantage of other families and individuals as to stamp\nthe whole community with the mark of such labour we call The Servile\nState.\"--Hilaire Belloc, _The Servile State_, 1912, p. 16.]\n\n[Footnote 80: The Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The Declining\nBirth-rate_, 1916, p. 89.]\n\n[Footnote 81: _The Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 37.]\n\n[Footnote 82: Dominions Royal Commission, Memorandum and Tables relating to\nthe Food and Raw Material Requirements of the United Kingdom: prepared by\nthe Royal Commission on the Natural Resources, Trade, and Legislation of\nCertain Portions of His Majesty's Dominions. November, 1915, pp. 1 and 2.\nMy italics--H.G.S.]\n\n[Footnote 83: i.e. grain, wheatmeal, and flour]\n\n[Footnote 84: For particulars of this increase see Canada Year Book 1913,\np. 144.]\n\n[Footnote 85: See pp. 387-8 of [Cd. 6588].]\n\n[Footnote 86: Average for period 1907-1910 and excluding British Columbia,\nwhere the yield per acre in 1911, the only year for which figures are\navailable, averaged 29-37 bushels.]\n\n[Footnote 87: Including British Columbia.]\n\n[Footnote 88: Below the average. The yield per acre in 1912 was 12.53\nbushels, and in 1913 11.18.]\n\n[Footnote 89: The Observer, Nov. 11, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 90: _Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_, by Norman Macleod,\nD.D., 1876, p. 27.]\n\n[Footnote 91: Ibid., p. 34.]\n\n[Footnote 92: Ibid., p. 91.]\n\n[Footnote 93: British Medical Journal, August 13, 1921, p. 261.]\n\n[Footnote 94: Leaflet of the Malthusian League.]\n\n[Footnote 95: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 153. My\nitalics.--H.G.S.]\n\n[Footnote 96: Quoted by Professor Meyrick Booth, _The Hibbert Journal_,\nOctober 1914, p. 153.]\n\n[Footnote 97: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914.]\n\n[Footnote 98: _The Malthusian_, November 1905, p. 84]\n\n[Footnote 99: C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., _The Small Family System_,\n1918, p. 150.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT AGAINST BIRTH CONTROL\n\n\nSection 1. AN OFFENCE AGAINST THE LAW OF NATURE\n\nBirth control is against the law of nature, which Christians believe to be\nthe reflection of the divine law in human affairs, and any violation of\nthis law was held to be vicious even by the ancient pagan world. To this\nargument an advocate of birth control has made answer:\n\n    \"We interfere with nature at every point--we shave, cut our hair, cook\n    our food, fill cavities in our teeth (or wear artificial teeth), clothe\n    ourselves, wear boots, hats, and wash our faces, so why should birth\n    alone be sacred from the touch and play of human moulding?\" [100]\n\nWhy? For a very simple reason. Birth control belongs to the moral sphere;\nit essentially affects man's progress in good, whereas all the other things\nthat he mentions have no more moral significance than has the practice of\nagriculture. Regarded in the light of the law of nature they are neutral\nactions, neither good nor bad in themselves, raising no question of right\nor wrong, and having no real bearing on the accomplishment of human\ndestiny. To make no distinction between the merely physical law of nature\n(expressed in the invariable tendency of everything to act according to\nits kind) and the natural moral law which governs human conduct, is to\npronounce oneself a materialist. Yet even a materialist ought to denounce\nthe practice of birth control, as it violates the laws of nature which\nregulate physical well-being. \"But,\" says the materialist, \"it is not\npossible for anyone to act against nature, because all actions take place\n_in_ nature, and therefore every act is a natural act.\" Quite so: in that\nsense murder is a natural act; even unnatural vice is a natural act. Will\nany one defend them? There is a natural law in the physical world, and\nthere is a natural law in conscience--a law of right conduct. Certain\nactions are under the control of the human will, which is able to rebel\nagainst the moral law of nature, and the pagan poet Aeschylus traces all\nhuman sorrow to \"the perverse human will omnipresent.\"\n\nAs birth control means the deliberate frustration of a natural act\nwhich might have issued in a new life, it is an unnatural crime, and is\nstigmatised by theologians as a sin akin to murder. To this charge birth\ncontrollers further reply that millions of the elements of procreation are\ndestroyed by Nature herself, and that \"to add one more to these millions\nsacrificed by Nature is surely no crime.\" This attempt at argument is\npathetic. If these people knew even the A.B.C. of biology, they would know\nthat millions of those elements are allowed to perish by Nature for a\ndefinite purpose--namely, _to make procreation more certain_. It is in\norder that the one may achieve the desired end that it is reinforced by\nmillions of others. Moreover, although millions of deaths in the world\noccur every year from natural causes, it would nevertheless, I fear, be a\ncrime if I were to cause one more death by murdering a birth controller.\n\n\nSection 2. REFLECTED IN THE NORMAL CONSCIENCE\n\nIn common with irrational animals we have instincts, appetites, and\npassions; but, unlike the animals, we have the power to reflect whether an\naction is right or wrong in itself apart from its consequences. This power\nof moral judgment is called conscience; and it is conscience which reflects\nthe natural law (the Divine Nature expressed in creation). As conscience,\nwhen violated, can and does give rise to an unpleasant feeling of shame in\nthe mind, we have good reason to believe that it exists for the purpose of\npreventing us from doing shameful actions, just as our eyes are intended,\namongst other things, to prevent us from walking over precipices. Moreover,\nif the conscience is active, instructed, and unbiassed, it will invariably\ngive the correct answer to any question of right or wrong.\n\nIt is possible to assert, without fear of contradiction, that no ordinary\ndecent man or woman approaches or begins the practice of artificial birth\ncontrol without experiencing at first unpleasant feelings of uneasiness,\nhesitation, repugnance, shame, and remorse. Later on these feelings may be\novercome by habit, for the voice of conscience will cease when it has been\nfrequently ignored. This does not alter the fact that at first the natural\nmoral instincts of both men and women do revolt against these practices. To\nthe conscience of mankind birth control is a shameful action.\n\n\nSection 3. EXPRESSED IN THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS\n\nThe dictates of conscience go to form the science of ethics. According to\nethics, the practice of birth control means the doing of an act whilst at\nthe same time frustrating the object for which the act is intended. It is\nlike using language to conceal the truth, or using appetite so as to injure\nrather than to promote health. During the decline of the Roman Empire men\ngorged themselves with food, took an emetic, vomited, and then sat down to\neat again. They satiated their appetite and frustrated the object for which\nappetite is intended. The practice of birth control is parallel to this\npiggishness. No one can deny that the sexual impulse has for aim the\nprocreation of children. The birth controllers seek to gratify the impulse,\nyet to defeat the aim; and they are so honest in their mistaken convictions\nthat, when faced with this argument, they boldly adopt an attitude which\nspells intellectual and moral anarchy. They say that it is simply a waste\nof time to discuss the moral aspect of this practice. Without being able\nto dispute the truth that birth control is against nature, conscience, and\nethics, they attempt to prove that at any rate the results of this practice\nare beneficial, or in other words that a good end justifies the use of evil\nmeans. This is a doctrine that has been universally repudiated by mankind.\n[101] Nevertheless, if birth control, in spite of its being an offence\nagainst moral and natural law, was really beneficial to humanity, then\nbirth controllers would be able to claim pragmatic justification for the\npractices, and to argue that what actually and universally tends to the\ngood of mankind cannot be bad in itself. Birth control, as I have already\nshown, does not conform to these conditions; therefore that argument also\nfails.\n\n\nSection 4. BIRTH CONTROL CONDEMNED BY PROTESTANT CHURCHES\n\nThe Protestants, at the time of the Reformation, retained and even\nexaggerated certain beliefs of the undivided Catholic Church. None of them\ndoubted, for instance, that the Bible was the Word of God and therefore\na guide to moral conduct. They knew that artificial birth control is\nforbidden by the Bible, and that in the Old Testament the punishment for\nthat sin was death. [102] In 1876, when Charles Bradlaugh advocated in a\nnotorious pamphlet the practice of birth control, his views were denounced\nfrom every Protestant pulpit in the land, and were widely repudiated by\nthe upper and middle classes of England. But it would seem that Protestant\nmorality is now disappearing with the spread of indifferentism, and the\nProtestant Churches have no longer the same influence on the public and\nprivate life of the nation. Protestantism has lasted for 400 years, but\nthough it has lasted longer than any other form of belief which took rise\nin the sixteenth century, it is now also dying.\n\nIn 1919 the number of people over seven years of age in England who\nprofessed belief in _any_ church was 10,833,795 (out of 40,000,000), and\nthe church attendance equalled 7,000,000, or about 1 out of every 5 people.\n[103]\n\nAgain, a Commission appointed by the Protestant Churches to inquire into\nthe religious beliefs held in the British armies of the Great War has\nendorsed the following statements:\n\n    \"Everyone must be struck with the appalling ignorance of the simplest\n    religious truths. Probably 80 per cent, of these men from the Midlands\n    had never heard of the sacraments.... It is not only that the men do\n    not know the meaning of 'Church of England'; they are ignorant of the\n    historical facts of the life of our Lord. Nor must it be assumed that\n    this ignorance is confined to men who have passed through the\n    elementary schools. The same verdict is recorded upon those who have\n    been educated in our public schools.... The men are hopelessly\n    perplexed by the lack of Christian unity.\" [104]\n\nIn my opinion these statements are exaggerations, but that was not the view\nof the Commission. As regards Scotland, it has recently been stated at the\nLothian Synod of the United Free Church that in 1911 at least 37 per cent.\nof the men and women of Scotland were without church connection. [105]\n\nIn 1870, of every 1,000 marriages, 760 were according to the rites of the\nEstablished Church, but in 1919 the proportion had fallen to 597. During\nthe same period civil marriages without religious ceremonial increased from\n98 to 231 per 1,000. [106] These figures are an index of the religious\ncomplexion of the country. The Protestant Churches are being strangled by\nthe development of a germ that was inherent in them from the beginning, and\nthat growth is Rationalism. The majority of the upper, professional, and\nartisan class can no longer be claimed as staunch Protestants, but as\nvague theists; and amongst these educated people, misled by false ideas of\npleasure and by pernicious nonsense written about self-realisation, the\npractice of birth control has spread most alarmingly. This is an evil\nagainst which all religious bodies who retain a belief in the fundamental\nfacts of Christianity might surely unite in action.\n\nIn a Catholic country there would be no need, in the furtherance of public\nwelfare, to write on the evils of birth control. The teaching of the\nCatholic Church would be generally accepted, and a moral law generally\naccepted by the inhabitants of a country gives strength to the State. But\nGreat Britain, no longer Catholic, is now in some danger of ceasing to\nbe even a Christian country. In 1885 it was asserted, \"England alone is\nreported to contain some seven hundred sects, each of whom proves a whole\nsystem of theology and morals from the Bible.\" [107] Each of these that now\nsurvives gives its own particular explanation of the law of God, which it\nhonestly tries to follow, but at one point or another each and every sect\ndiffers from its neighbours. On account of these differences of opinion\nmany people say: \"The Churches cannot agree amongst themselves as to what\nis truth; they cannot all be right; it is, therefore, impossible for me to\nknow with certainty what to believe; and, to be quite honest, it may save\nme a lot of bother just at present to have no very firm belief at all.\"\nThis means that in Great Britain _there is no uniform moral law covering\nall human conduct and generally accepted by the mass of the people_. As the\npractice of artificial birth-rate control is not only contrary to Christian\nmorality, but is also a menace to the prosperity and well-being of the\nnation, the absence of a uniform moral law, common to all the people and\nforbidding this practice, is a source of grave weakness in the State.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII\n\n\nA NEO-MALTHUSIAN ATTACK ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND\n\nAs was proved in a previous chapter (p. 120) artificial birth control was\noriginally based on Atheism, and on a philosophy of moral anarchy. Further\nproof of this fact is to be found in the course of a most edifying dispute\nbetween two rival Neo-Malthusians. This quarrel is between Dr. Marie C.\nStopes, President of the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial\nProgress, who is not a Doctor of Medicine but of Philosophy, and Dr. Binnie\nDunlop, who is a Bachelor of Medicine: and when birth controllers fall\nout we may humbly hope that truth will prevail. Dr. Stopes maintains that\nartificial birth control was not an atheistic movement, whereas Dr. Binnie\nDunlop contends that the pioneers of the movement were Atheists. The\nbeginning of the trouble was a letter written by Dr. Stopes to the _British\nMedical Journal_, in which she made the following statement:\n\n    \"Dr. Martindale is reported in your pages to have given an address to\n    medical women in which she pointed out that the birth control movement\n    in England dated from the Bradlaugh trial in 1877. Had she attended the\n    presidential address of the Society for Constructive Birth Control she\n    would have learned that there was a very flourishing movement, centring\n    round Dr. Trall in 1866, years before Bradlaugh touched the subject,\n    and also a considerable movement earlier than that. This point is\n    important, as 'birth control' has hitherto (erroneously) been much\n    prejudiced in popular opinion by being supposed to be an atheistical\n    movement originated by Bradlaugh.\" [108]\n\nDr. Stopes, who has been working overtime in the attempt to obtain some\nreligious sanction for her propaganda, is ready not only to throw the\nAtheists overboard, but also to assert that a flourishing movement for\nartificial birth control centred round the late Dr. Trall, who was a\nChristian. Her letter was answered by Dr. Binnie Dunlop as follows:\n\n    \"Dr. Marie C. Stopes, whose valuable books I constantly recommend,\n    protests (page 872) against the statement that the birth control\n    movement in England dated from the trial of Charles Bradlaugh in\n    1877--for re-publishing Dr. Knowlton's pamphlet, _The Fruits of\n    Philosophy_ because the Government had interdicted it. She must admit,\n    however, that there was no _organised_ movement anywhere until\n    Bradlaugh and the Doctors Drysdale, immediately after the trial,\n    founded the Malthusian League, and that the decline of Europe's\n    birthrate began in that year. It may now seem unfortunate that the\n    pioneers of the contraceptives idea, from 1818 onwards (James Mill,\n    Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, John Stuart Mill, Dr.\n    Knowlton, Dr. George Drysdale, Dr. C.R. Drysdale, and Charles\n    Bradlaugh), were all Free-thinkers; and Dr. Stopes harps on the\n    religious and praiseworthy Dr. Trall, an American, who published\n    _Sexual Physiology_ in 1866. But Dr. Trall was not at all a strong\n    advocate of contraceptive methods. After a brief but helpful reference\n    to the idea of placing a mechanical obstruction, such as a sponge,\n    against the _os uteri_, he said:\n\n    \"Let it be distinctly understood that I do not approve any method for\n    preventing pregnancy except that of abstinence, nor any means for\n    producing abortion, on the ground that it is or can be in any sense\n    physiological. It is only the least of two evils. When people will live\n    physiologically there will be no need of preventive measures, nor will\n    there be any need for works of this kind.\" [109]\n\nThat is a most informative letter. In simple language Dr. Binnie Dunlop\ntells the remarkable story of how in 1876 three Atheists, merely by forming\na little Society in London, were able to cause an immediate fall in the\nbirth-rate of Europe. When you come to think of it, that was a stupendous\nthing for any three men to have achieved. I am very glad that Dr. Binnie\nDunlop has defended the Atheists and has painted the late Dr. Trail,\ndespite that \"brief but helpful reference,\" in his true colours as a\nChristian. Nevertheless, Dr. Stopes had the last word:\n\n    \"As regards Dr. Dunlop, he now shifts the Atheists' position by adding\n    the word 'organised.' The Atheists never tire of repeating certain\n    definite misstatements, examples of which are: 'If it were not for the\n    fact that the despised Atheists, Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant,\n    faced imprisonment, misrepresentation, insult, and ostracism for this\n    cause forty-four years ago, she [Dr. Stopes] would not be able to\n    conduct her campaign to-day' (_Literary Guide_, November, 1921); and\n    'Before the Knowlton trial, neither rich nor poor knew anything worth\n    counting about contraceptive devices' (_Malthusian_, November 15,\n    1921). Variations of these statements have been incessantly made, and I\n    dealt with their contentions in the presidential address for the C.B.C.\n    Meanwhile to them I reply that: 'There has never been in this country\n    any law against the dissemination of properly presented birth control\n    information, and _before, during, and after_ the Bradlaugh trial\n    properly presented information on birth control was extending its range\n    with full liberty.' My address is now in the press, and when published\n    will make public not only new matter from manuscript letters of very\n    early date in my possession, but other overlooked historical facts. I\n    have already told Dr. Dunlop I refuse to be drawn into a discussion on\n    facts an account of which is still in the press.\" [110]\n\nThe lady, by her dissertation on the Laws of England, makes a clumsy effort\nto evade the point at issue, which is quite simple, namely, whether it was\nAtheists or Christians who initiated the Neo-Malthusian movement, organised\nor unorganised. Dr. Binnie Dunlop has here proved his case. I also do\nmaintain that in this matter all credit must be given to the Atheists; and\nthat it would be truly contemptible to deny this fact merely in order to\npander to a popular prejudice against Atheism. Nor am I shaken in this\nopinion when Dr. Stopes points out that there was a Neo-Malthusian movement\nprior to 1876. Of course there was a movement, but it was always an\natheistic movement. In the past no Christian doctor, and indeed no\nChristian man or woman, advocated artificial birth control. Let us give the\nNeo-Malthusian his due.\n\nUntil recently both the Church of England and the medical profession\npresented practically a united front against Neo-Malthusian teaching; and,\nas late as 1914, the Malthusian League did not hesitate to make use of the\nfollowing calumnies, very mean, very spiteful, very imbecile:\n\n    \"Take the clergy. They are the officers of a Church that has made\n    marriage a source of revenue and of social control; they preach from a\n    sacred book that bids the chosen people of God 'multiply and replenish\n    the earth'; they know that large families generally tend to preserve\n    clerical influence and authority; and they claim that every baby is a\n    new soul presented to God and, therefore, for His honour and glory, the\n    greatest possible number of souls should be produced.\" [111]\n\nThat feeble attempt to poison the atmosphere was naturally ignored by\nintelligent people; and more than once Lambeth has ruled that artificial\nbirth control is sin. Unfortunately, within the Church of England, in spite\nof the Lambeth ruling, there is still discussion as to whether artificial\nbirth control is or is not sin, the Bishops, as a whole, making a loyal\neffort to uphold Christian teaching against a campaign waged by Malthusians\nin order to obtain religious sanction for their evil propaganda. Although\nmany Malthusians are rationalists, they are well aware that without some\nreligious sanction their policy could never emerge from the dim underworld\nof unmentioned and unrespected things, and could never be advocated\nopenly in the light of day. To this end birth control is camouflaged by\npseudo-poetic and pseudo-religious phraseology, and the Anglican Church is\nasked to alter her teaching. Birth controllers realise that it is useless\nto ask this of the Catholic Church, a Rock in their path, but \"as regards\nthe Church of England, which makes no claim to infallibility, the case is\ndifferent, and discussion is possible.\" [112]\n\nLet us consider, firstly, the teaching of the Church of England on this\nmatter. At the Lambeth Conference of 1908 the Bishops affirmed \"that\ndeliberate tampering with nascent life is repugnant to Christian morality.\"\nIn 1914 a Committee of Bishops issued a Memorandum [113] in which\nartificial birth control is condemned as \"dangerous, demoralising, and\nsinful.\" The memorandum was approved by a large majority of the Diocesan\nBishops, although in the opinion of Dean Inge \"this is emphatically a\nmatter in which every man and woman must judge for themselves, and must\nrefrain from judging others.\" [114] The Bishops also held that in some\nmarriages it may be desirable, on grounds of prudence or of health, to\nlimit the number of children. In these circumstances they advised the\npractice of self-restraint; and, as regards a limited use of marriage, they\nadded the following statement:\n\n    \"It seems to most of us only a legitimate application of such\n    self-restraint that in certain cases (which only the parties' own\n    judgment and conscience can settle) intercourse should be restricted by\n    consent to certain times at which it is less likely to lead to\n    conception. This is only to use natural conditions; it is approved by\n    good medical authority; it means self-denial and not self-indulgence.\n    And we believe it to be quite legitimate, or at least not to be\n    condemned.\"\n\nA _small_ minority of Bishops held that prolonged or even perpetual\nabstinence from intercourse is the only legitimate method of limiting a\nfamily. Finally, in Resolution 68 of the Lambeth Conference in 1920, the\nBishops stated that:\n\n    \"We utter an emphatic warning against the use of unnatural means for\n    the avoidance of conception, together with the grave\n    dangers--physical, moral, and religious--thereby incurred, and against\n    the evils with which the extension of such use threatens the race. In\n    opposition to the teaching which, under the name of science and\n    religion, encourages married people in the deliberate cultivation of\n    sexual union as an end in itself, we steadfastly uphold what must\n    always be regarded as the governing consideration of Christian\n    marriage. One is the primary purpose for which marriage\n    exists--namely, the continuation of the race through the gift and\n    heritage of children; the other is the paramount importance in married\n    life of deliberate and thoughtful self-control.\" [115]\n\nAnd the Committee on \"Problems of Marriage and Sexual Morality\" felt called\nupon \"to utter an earnest warning against the use of any unnatural means by\nwhich conception is frustrated.\" [116]\n\nIf Resolution 68 be read in conjunction with the Memorandum of 1914, the\nteaching of the Church of England is plain to any sane man or woman; it is\none with the teaching of the Church Catholic. Artificial birth control is\ncondemned as sin, but, under certain circumstances, the limitation of a\nfamily by continence or by _restricted intercourse_ is permitted. As this\nteaching forbids Neo-Malthusian practices, birth controllers have tried to\nmake the Church alter her teaching to suit their opinions. Although their\nmethods in controversy against the Church must be condemned by everyone who\nvalues intellectual honesty, the reader, of his charity, should remember\nthat Malthusians are unable to defend their policy, either on logical or on\nmoral grounds. Without attempting to prove that the teaching of the\nChurch is wrong, birth controllers began the attack by _a complete\nmisrepresentation_ of what that teaching actually is. This unenviable task\nwas undertaken by Lord Dawson of Penn, at the Birmingham Church Congress of\n1921.\n\nAfter quoting Resolution 68, Lord Dawson said:\n\n    \"Now the plain meaning of this statement is that sexual union should\n    take place for the sole purpose of procreation, that sexual union as\n    _an_ end in itself--not, mind you, _the_ only end--(there we should all\n    agree), but sexual union as _an_ end in itself is to be condemned.\n\n    \"That means that sexual intercourse should rightly take place _only_\n    for the purpose of procreation.\n\n    \"Quite a large family could easily result from quite a few sexual\n    unions. For the rest the couple should be celibate. Any intercourse not\n    having procreation as its intention is 'sexual union as an end in\n    itself,' and therefore by inference condemned by the Lambeth\n    Conference.\n\n    \"Think of the facts of life. Let us recall our own love--our marriage,\n    our honeymoon. Has not sexual union over and over again been the\n    physical expression of our love without thought or intention of\n    procreation? Have we all been wrong? Or is it that the Church lacks\n    that vital contact with the realities of life which accounts for the\n    gulf between her and the people?\n\n    \"The love envisaged by the Lambeth Conference is an invertebrate,\n    joyless thing--not worth the having. Fortunately it is in contrast to\n    the real thing as practised by clergy and laity.\n\n    \"Fancy an ardent lover (and what respect have you for a lover who is\n    not ardent?)--the type you would like your daughter to marry--virile,\n    ambitious, chivalrous--a man who means to work hard and love hard.\n    Fancy putting before these lovers--eager and expectant of the joys\n    before them--the Lambeth picture of marriage. Do you expect to gain\n    their confidence?\" [117]\n\nThat sort of appeal is not very effective, even as rhetoric; but it is very\neasy to give an exact parallel. Fancy a fond father (and what respect have\nyou for a father who is not fond?) being told by his daughter's suitor that\nhe, his prospective son-in-law, looked forward to the physical joys of\nmarriage, but intended to insist on his wife using contraceptives. Would\nany father regard such a one as the type he would like his daughter to\nmarry?\n\nThere is, unfortunately, another answer to Lord Dawson, and I put it in the\nform of a question. Can any intelligent man or woman, Catholic, Protestant,\nor rationalist, maintain that Lord Dawson has given a fair, a true, or an\nhonest statement of the teaching of the Church of England? Moreover, it\nis past all understanding how a gross libel on Anglican doctrine has been\noverlooked by those most concerned. The address is actually hailed\nas \"wise, bold, and humane in the highest sense of the word\" by _The\nSpectator_, [118] and that amazing journal, \"expert as ever in making the\nworse appear the better cause in a way that appeals to clergymen,\" goes on\nto say: \"Lord Dawson fearlessly and plainly opposed the teachings of the\nRoman Church and the alleged teachings of the Anglican.\"\n\nHaving by a travesty of truth created a false theological bogey, bearing\nlittle resemblance either to Catholic or to Anglican teaching, Lord Dawson\nproceeds to demolish his own creation by a somewhat boisterous eulogy of\nsex-love. Now sex-love is an instinct and involves no question of good\nor evil apart from the circumstances in which it is either gratified or\ndenied; but, in view of the freedom with which Lord Dawson discussed this\ntopic, it is only right to note that it was left to the Rev. R.J. Campbell\nto add to the gaiety of nations by his subsequent protest that the\n_Marriage Service_ \"contains expressions which are offensive to modern\ndelicacy of feeling.\"\n\nThat protest is also a first-rate example of the anarchical state of the\nmodern mind. The Rev. R.J. Campbell is a modern mind, so is Mr. George\nBernard Shaw; but the latter refers to \"the sober decency, earnestness, and\nauthority\" [119] of those very passages to which the former objects.\n\nLord Dawson's eulogy of sexual intercourse was but a prelude to his plea\nfor the use of contraceptives:\n\n    \"I will next consider Artificial Control. The forces in modern life\n    which make for birth control are so strong that only convincing reasons\n    will make people desist from it. It is said to be unnatural and\n    intrinsically immoral. This word 'unnatural' perplexes me. Why?\n    Civilisation involves the chaining of natural forces and their\n    conversion to man's will and uses. Much of medicine and surgery\n    consists of means to overcome nature.\"\n\nThat paragraph illustrates precisely the confused use of the word\n\"natural,\" which I have already criticised (p. 124). Lord Dawson says he\nis perplexed, and I agree with him. Civilisation, he says, involves the\nconversion of natural forces to man's will. So does every crime. Is that\nany defence of crime? Even if physical nature be described as non-moral,\nthat description cannot be applied to the inward nature of will and\nconscience. That I will an act may show it is in accordance with nature\nin a certain sense, but the fact of its being in accordance with physical\nnature does not justify my act. Does Lord Dawson agree? Or does he think\nthat any action in accordance with the physical laws of nature, which means\nany action whatsoever, is justified; and does he approve therefore of mere\nmoral anarchy? His confusion of thought concerning the use of the word\n\"natural\" is followed by the inevitable sequence of false analogies:\n\n    \"When anaesthetics were first used at child-birth there was an outcry\n    on the part of many worthy and religious people that their use under\n    such circumstances was unnatural and wicked, because God meant woman to\n    suffer the struggles and pains of child-birth. Now we all admit it is\n    right to control the process of child-birth, and to save the mother as\n    much pain as possible. It is no more unnatural to control conception by\n    artificial means than to control child-birth by artificial means.\n    Surely the whole question turns on whether these artificial means are\n    for the good or harm of the individual and the community.\n\n    \"Generally speaking, birth control before the first child is\n    inadvisable. On the other hand, the justifiable use of birth control\n    would seem to be to limit the number of children when such is\n    desirable, and to spread out their arrival in such a way as to serve\n    their true interests and those of their home.\n\n    \"Once more, careful distinction needs to be made between the use and\n    the bad effects of the abuse of birth control. That its abuse produces\n    grave harm I fully agree--harm to parents, to families, and to the\n    nation. But abuse is not a just condemnation of legitimate use.\n    Over-eating, over-drinking, over-smoking, over-sleeping, over-work do\n    not carry condemnation of eating, drinking, smoking, sleeping, work.\"\n\nThese long extracts are here quoted because, as _The Spectator_ has\nremarked, \"an attempt at a detailed summary might destroy the careful\nbalance which is essential to Lord Dawson's purpose.\" It might indeed; and\nmany a true word is written inadvertently and despite the wisdom of the\nserpent. As Lord Dawson believes that Malthusian practice is not of\nnecessity sinful, and as he is urging the Church to remove a ban on that\npractice, it is necessary for him to prove in the first place that his\nopinion is right and that the teaching of the Church is wrong. Elsewhere in\nthese pages I have stated _the reasons why_ Christian morality brands the\n_act_ of artificial birth control as intrinsically a sin, a _malum in se_,\nand those reasons have never been disproved by Lord Dawson or by anyone.\nHis comparison between the use of contraceptives and eating or drinking is\na false analogy. Eating is a natural act, not in itself sinful, whereas the\nuse of contraceptives is an unnatural act, in itself a sin. The extent\nto which artificial birth control is practised neither increases nor\ndiminishes the sinful nature of the act, but merely indicates the number\nof times the same sin is committed. Lord Dawson admits the danger of\nNeo-Malthusian methods being carried to excess, and counsels that these\npractices be used in moderation; but is it likely that those who have\ndiscarded the teaching of a Church and the dictates of the moral law will\nbe seriously influenced by what he calls \"an appeal to patriotism\"?\n\nNow there is one appeal to patriotism which Lord Dawson could have made but\ndid not make. He might have pleaded that for the sake of the nation all\nattempts at unnatural birth control amongst the wealthier and more leisured\ncitizens should be abandoned forthwith, and that the lawful form should be\nconfined to those few cases where limitation of the family is justified on\ngenuine medical grounds. But he refrained from making that appeal, and\nhis plea for the use of contraceptives in moderation is more likely to be\nquoted with approval in the boudoirs of Mayfair than in humbler homes.\n\nLord Dawson's grave error in failing to anticipate the inevitable\nconsequences of his deplorable speech is becoming more and more apparent.\nIn the columns of _The Daily Herald_, cheek by jowl with advertisements\nconcerning \"Herbalists,\" \"Safe and Sure Treatment for Anaemia,\nIrregularities, etc.,\" \"Knowledge for Young Wives,\" and \"Surgical Goods and\nAppliances,\" there appears the following notice:\n\n    \"Lord Dawson, the King's Physician, says, 'Birth control has come to\n    stay.' Following up this honest and daring declaration, the Liberator\n    League have decided to distribute 10,000 copies of its publications\n    free to applicants sending stamped addressed envelopes to J.W. Gott,\n    Secretary ... London, N.W.5.\"\n\nA stamped addressed envelope brought in return sample copies of two undated\nnewsprints, entitled _The Rib Tickler_ and _The Liberator_, and, to the\nhonour of newsvendors, we learn that these papers are \"not supplied by\nnewsagents.\" The first print is devoted to Blasphemy, and the second to\nBirth Control. Both papers are edited by J.W. Gott, \"of London, Leeds,\nLiverpool, and other prisons,\" who, when he is not in jail for selling\nblasphemous or obscene literature, earns a livelihood by a propaganda of\n\"Secularism, Socialism, and Neo-Malthusianism,\" combined with the sale of\ncontraceptives. At Birmingham in 1921 this individual, according to his own\nstatement, was charged, on eleven summonses, with having sent \"an obscene\nbook\" and \"obscene literature\" through the post, and with \"publishing a\nblasphemous libel of and concerning the Holy Scriptures and the Christian\nReligion.\" \"The Malthusian League (at their own expense, for which I here\nwish to thank them) sent their Hon. Secretary, Dr. Binnie Dunlop, who gave\nevidence\" ... that the Council of the Malthusian League ... \"most strongly\nprotests against the description of G. Hardy's book, _How to prevent\nPregnancy_, as obscene, for that book gives in a perfectly refined and\nscientific way this urgently needed information.\" This opinion was not\nshared by the jury, who brought in a verdict of guilty, and Gott was\nsentenced to six months' imprisonment. From the _Liberator_ we learn that\nthe Treasurer of the Liberator League was fined \u00a320, having been found\nguilty on the following summons--\"for that you on the eleventh day of\nSeptember 1920, at the Parish of Consett, in the County aforesaid,\nunlawfully, wickedly, maliciously, and scandalously did sell to divers\npersons, whose names are unknown, in a public street, there situate, a\ncertain lewd, wicked, scandalous, and obscene print entitled 'Large or\nSmall Families,' against the Peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, His\nCrown and Dignity.\"\n\nLord Dawson's advice was indeed perilous because \"the British Empire and\nall its traditions will decline and fall if the Motherland is faithless\nto motherhood\"; [120] and the nation would do better to pay heed to the\nfollowing words of His Majesty the King: \"The foundations of national glory\nare in the homes of the people. They will only remain unshaken while the\nfamily life of our race and nation is strong, simple, and pure.\"\n\nAll Lord Dawson's arguments are hoary fallacies. \"Once more, careful\ndistinction needs to be made between\"--anaesthetics and contraceptives.\nAnaesthetics assist the birth of a child, whereas contraceptives frustrate\nthe act of procreation. The old explanation that man's progress has\nbeen achieved by harnessing and not by opposing the forces of nature is\ndismissed with ignominy. The age-long teaching of Hippocrates that the\nhealing art was based on the _Vis Medicatrix Naturae_ is overthrown by\nLord Dawson of Penn, in a single sentence; and in place of the Father of\nMedicine as a guide to health of body and mind, there comes the King's\nPhysician:\n\n    \"To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson lights.\"\n\nWhen a great leader announces the birth of a new epoch, it is meet that the\nrank and file remain silent; and at this Congress of the Church of\nEngland no jarring interruptions marred the solemnity of the moment. No\nold-fashioned doctor was there to utter a futile protest, and there was no\nsimple-minded clergyman to rise in the name of Christ and give Lord Dawson\nthe lie. Without dissent, on a public platform of the Established Church,\npresided over by a Bishop, and in full view of the nation, \"the moth-eaten\nmantle of Malthus, the godless robe of Bradlaugh, and the discarded\ngarments of Mrs. Besant,\" [121] were donned--by the successor of Lister.\nIt was a proud moment for the birth controllers, but for that national\ninstitution called \"Ecclesia Anglicana\" a moment full of shame.\n\n[Footnote 100: _British Medical Journal_, August 6, 1921, p. 219.]\n\n[Footnote 101: There is, or perhaps we should say there was, a legacy of\n1,000 Rhenish guilders awaiting anyone who, in the judgment of the faculty\nof law in the University of Heidelberg or of Bonn, is able to establish the\nfact that any Jesuit ever taught this doctrine or anything equivalent to\nit. Vide _The Antidote_, vol. iii, p. 125, C.T.S., London.]\n\n[Footnote 102: Gen. xxxviii. 9-10]\n\n[Footnote 103: Vide _Catholic Times_, August 27, 1921, p. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 104: _The Army and Religion_, 1919, p. 448.]\n\n[Footnote 105: _Universe_, November 4, 1921, p. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 106: _Eighty-second Annual Report of the Registrar-General of\nEngland and Wales_, 1919, p. xiv.]\n\n[Footnote 107: _The Times_, January 13, 1885.]\n\n[Footnote 108: _British Medical Journal_, November 19, 1921, p. 872.]\n\n[Footnote 109: _British Medical Journal_, November 26, 1921, p. 924]\n\n[Footnote 110: _British Medical Journal_, December 10, 1921, p. 1016.]\n\n[Footnote 111: _Common Sense on the Population Question_, p. 4]\n\n[Footnote 112: Dr. C.K. Millard, in _The Modern Churchman_, May 1919.]\n\n[Footnote 113: Reproduced in _The Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 386.]\n\n[Footnote 114: _Outspoken Essays_, 1919, p. 75.]\n\n[Footnote 115: _Report_, p. 44.]\n\n[Footnote 116: Ibid., p. 112.]\n\n[Footnote 117: _Evening Standard_, October 12, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 118: October 15, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 119: _Man and Superman_, Act III, p. 125.]\n\n[Footnote 120: _Sunday Express_, October 16, 1921.]\n\n[Footnote 121: On becoming a Theosophist, Mrs. Besant retracted her\napproval of Neo-Malthusianism.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nTHE TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON BIRTH CONTROL\n\n\nSection 1. A FALSE VIEW OF HER DOCTRINE\n\nOne of the marks of the Catholic Church, whereby she may be distinguished\nfrom all other Churches, is that her teaching is always clear and above all\nlogical. Yet this fact has not saved her teaching from misrepresentation\nin the hands of Malthusians. For example, Dr. C. Killick Millard writes as\nfollows:\n\n    \"The Churches have taught that it was the divine wish that human beings\n    should multiply and population increase--the more rapidly the better;\n    the traditional authority for this being the instruction given to Noah\n    and his family, after the Deluge, to 'be fruitful and multiply and\n    replenish the earth.' The Churches have continued to teach that the\n    duty of man was _to obey the divine command_ and still _to increase and\n    multiply_, and until recently any attempt by married couples to\n    restrict or regulate the birth-rate was denounced as sinful.\n\n    \"This is still the orthodox attitude, I believe, of the Roman Catholic\n    Church, with its celibate priesthood; but, as it is clearly useless to\n    reason with those who claim infallibility, it is unnecessary to discuss\n    the question further so far as Roman Catholicism is concerned.\" [122]\n\nNow, although it may be unnecessary for Dr. Millard to discuss the question\nfurther, he will, I am sure, regret having inadvertently misstated the\ntruth. The Catholic Church has never denounced as sinful \"_any_ attempt by\nmarried couples to restrict or regulate the birth-rate.\" On the contrary,\nthe Catholic Church has taught, by her greatest doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas,\n\"that the essence of marriage is not primarily in the begetting of\noffspring, but in the indissoluble union between husband and wife.\" [123]\n\n\nSection 2. THE ESSENCE AND PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE\n\nThere is an obvious distinction between the _essence_ of a thing and the\n_ends_ or purposes for which the thing exists. For example, in a business\npartnership the _essence_ of the partnership is a legal instrument,\nwhereas the _purposes_ or _ends_ of the partnership are various commercial\nprojects. The following is a clear statement, by Father Vincent McNabb,\nO.P., [124] of Catholic teaching concerning the nature and end of marriage:\n\n    \"Marriage is an indissoluble state of life wherein a man and a woman\n    agree to give each other power over their bodies for the begetting,\n    birth, and upbringing of offspring. The natural and primary end of\n    marriage is this duty towards offspring. But, as sin has despoiled the\n    human will and disturbed human relations, marriage has now the\n    secondary end of allaying sexual lust.\n\n    \"But it is a principle of ethics that what is primary cannot be set\n    aside as if it were secondary, nor can the secondary be sought as if it\n    were primary. To invert the ethical order is to bring in that disorder\n    which is called sin. If the human act brings in a slight disorder, it\n    is venial sin; if the human act brings in a grievous disorder it is a\n    grievous or mortal sin.\n\n    \"It is a grievous disorder, and, therefore, a grievous sin, to desire\n    satisfaction in such sexual intercourse as could not result in the\n    begetting of offspring.\n\n    \"As the wedded pair have given each other power over their bodies it\n    would be a grave sin for one to refuse either altogether or for a\n    considerable time the fulfilment of the marriage debt. But it is not a\n    sin if by mutual agreement the wedded pair refrain from the marriage\n    debt for a time, or for ever. As a rule, and speaking objectively, it\n    would be heroic virtue for a wedded pair to abstain for a long time,\n    and still more for ever, from the marriage debt. To counsel such a\n    practice indiscriminately would be a sinful want of prudence, and, in a\n    confessor, of professional knowledge.\n\n    \"It is quite clear that by mutual consent, even without any further\n    motive, the wedded pair can abstain from marital intercourse. Still\n    more may they abstain for a time or for ever, for a good motive, e.g.\n    in order to have time for prayer, for good works, for bringing up such\n    family as they already have to support.\"\n\n\nSection 3. ARTIFICIAL STERILITY WHOLLY CONDEMNED\n\nArtificial birth control is an offence against the law of God, and is\ntherefore forbidden by the Catholic Church. Any Catholic who wilfully\nadopts this practice violates the law of God in a serious matter, and is\ntherefore guilty of mortal sin, an outrageous and deliberate insult offered\nby a human creature to the Infinite Majesty.\n\nThe Catholic Church teaches that men and women should control the sex\nimpulse just as they should control their appetite for food or drink.\nThe principal end of marriage, as we have seen, is the purpose of its\ninstitution, the procreation and bringing up of children. The secondary end\nof marriage is mutual assistance and companionship, and a remedy against\nconcupiscence. Where it is advisable, owing to the health of the mother or\nowing to reasons of prudence as distinct from selfishness, to limit the\nnumber of children, the Catholic Church points out that this should be done\nby the exercise of self-control, or by restricted use. As those who deny\nthe possibility or even the wisdom of self-restraint are not likely to pay\nthe slightest attention to the teaching of the Church, I will quote the\nopinions of two clear-thinking, non-Catholic writers.\n\nMr. George Bernard Shaw has said:\n\n    \"I have no prejudices. The superstitious view of the Catholic Church is\n    that a priest is something entirely different from an ordinary man. I\n    know a great many Catholic priests, and they are men who have had a\n    great deal of experience. They have at the back a Church which has had\n    for many years to consider the giving of domestic advice to people. If\n    you go to a Catholic priest and tell him that a life of sexual\n    abstinence means a life of utter misery, he laughs. And obviously for a\n    very good reason. If you go to Westminster Cathedral you will hear\n    voices which sound extremely well, and very differently from the voices\n    of the gentlemen who sing at music-halls, and who would not be able to\n    sing in that way if they did not lead a life extremely different from\n    the Catholic priest....\n\n    \"I may say that I am in favour of birth control. I am in favour of it\n    for its own sake. I do not like to see any human being absolutely the\n    slave of what we used to call 'Nature.' Every human action ought to be\n    controlled, and you make a step in civilisation with something which\n    has been uncontrollable. I am therefore in favour of control for its\n    own sake. But when you go from that to the methods of control, that is\n    a very different thing. As Dr. Routh said, we have to find out methods\n    which will not induce people to declare that they cannot exist without\n    sexual intercourse.\" [125]\n\nOf course the use of contraceptives is the very negation of self-control.\n\nThe late Sir William Osier, speaking of venereal disease, says:\n\n    \"Personal purity is the prophylaxis which we as physicians are\n    especially bound to advocate. Continence may be a hard condition ...\n    but it can be borne, and it is our duty to urge this lesson upon young\n    and old who seek our advice on matters sexual.\"\n\n\nSection 4. THE ONLY LAWFUL METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL\n\nThere _are_ methods of control whereby people are enabled to exist, and to\nexist happily, without being slaves to the sex impulse. These methods are\nthose of the Catholic Church. Her people are encouraged to take a higher\nand a nobler view of marriage, to overcome their egoism and selfishness,\nand to practise moderation and self-restraint in the lawful use of marital\nrights. The Church urges her people to strengthen their self-restraint\nby observing the penitential seasons, especially Lent; by fasting or by\nabstaining from flesh meat at other times, if necessary by abstaining from\nalcohol; and by seeking that supernatural help which comes to those who\nreceive the Sacraments worthily. When all other deterrents fail, it is\nlawful, according to the teaching of the Church, for married people to\nlimit intercourse to the mid-menstrual period, when, although conception\nmay occur, it is less likely to occur than at other times.\n\nAll other methods are absolutely and without exception forbidden. This\nlimited use of marriage, which, as we have seen, is within the rights of\nthe married, differs from all methods of artificial birth-control as day\ndiffers from night, because: [Reference: Explanation]\n\n(1) No positive or direct obstacle is used against procreation.\n\n(2) The intercourse is natural, in contradistinction to what is equivalent\nto self-abuse.\n\n(3) Self-restraint is practised in that the intercourse is limited to\ncertain times.\n\n(4) There is no risk to mental or physical health.\n\n(5) There is no evil will to _defeat_ the course of nature; at worst there\nis merely an absence of heroism.\n\nEven if the question be considered solely as a matter of physiology\nthe difference between these methods is apparent. Physiologists and\ngynaecologists believe that in natural intercourse there is, apart from\nfertilisation, an absorption of certain substances into the system of the\nwoman. The r\u00f4le of this absorption is at present obscure, but it obviously\nexists for a purpose; and it is permissible to speculate whether, under\nnatural conditions of intercourse, there is not a mutual biological\nreaction that makes, amongst other things, for physical compatibility.\nWhatever be its purpose or explanation in the marvellous mechanism of\nnature, this absorption of vital substances is either hindered or is\nabsolutely prevented by artificial methods of birth control; whereas, in\nthe method permitted by the teaching of the Catholic Church there is no\ninterference with a physiological process. Even those who fail, from their\nlack of training, to comprehend moral distinctions in this matter should be\nable to appreciate the difference between a method that is physiological\nand one that is unphysiological.\n\nThere are thousands who know little of the Catholic or of any other faith,\nand thousands who believe the Catholic Church to be everything except what\nit is. These people have no infallible rule of faith and morals, and when\nconfronted, as they now are, by a dangerous, insidious campaign in favour\nof birth control, they do not react consistently or at all. It was\ntherefore thought advisable to issue this statement in defence of the\nposition of the Catholic Church; but the reader should remember that the\nteaching of the Church on this matter is held by her members to be true,\nnot merely because it agrees with the notions of all right-thinking men and\nwomen, not because it is in harmony with economic, statistical, social, and\nbiological truth, but principally because they know this teaching to be\nan authoritative declaration of the law of God. The Ten Commandments have\ntheir pragmatic justification; they make for the good of the race; but the\nChristian obeys them as expressions of the Divine Will.\n\n\nSection 5. CONCLUSION\n\nOur declining birth-rate is a fact of the utmost gravity, and a more\nserious position has never confronted the British people. Here in the midst\nof a great nation, at the end of a victorious war, the law of decline is\nworking, and by that law the greatest empires in the world have perished.\nIn comparison with that single fact all other dangers, be they of war, of\npolitics, or of disease, are of little moment. Attempts have already been\nmade to avert the consequences by the partial endowment of motherhood\nand by a saving of infant life. Physiologists are now seeking among the\nendocrinous glands and the vitamines for a substance to assist procreation.\n\"Where are my children?\" was the question shouted yesterday from the\ncinemas. \"Let us have children, children at any price,\" will be the cry\nof to-morrow. And all these thoughts were once in the mind of Augustus,\nEmperor of the world from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, from Mount Atlas\nto the Danube and the Rhine.\n\nThe Catholic Church has never taught that \"an avalanche of children\" should\nbe brought into the world regardless of consequences. God is not mocked; as\nmen sow, so shall they reap, and against a law of nature both the transient\namelioration wrought by philanthropists and the subtle expediences of\nscientific politicians are alike futile. If our civilisation is to survive\nwe must abandon those ideals that lead to decline. There is only one\ncivilisation immune from decay, and that civilisation endures on the\npractical eugenics once taught by a united Christendom and now expounded\nalmost solely by the Catholic Church.\n\n[Footnote 122: _The Modern Churchman_, May 1919.]\n\n[Footnote 123: Rev. Vincent McNabb, O.P., _The Catholic Gazette_, September\n1921, p. 194]\n\n[Footnote 124: Ibid]\n\n[Footnote 125: Speech at the Medico-Legal Society, July 7, 1921.]\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\nA.--GENERAL PUBLICATIONS\n\n_Marriage and the Sex Problem_. By Dr. F.W. Foerster. Translated by\nMargaret Booth, B. Sc., Ph.D. London, 1912.\n\n_The Menace of the Empty Cradle_. By Bernard Vaughan, S.J. London, 1917.\n\n_Coffins or Cradles_. By Sir James Marchant. 1916.\n\n_Moral Principles and Medical Practice_. By C. Coppens, S.J., and H.\nSpalding, S.J.\n\n_The Family and the Nation_. By W.C.D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham. London,\n1909.\n\n_The Law of Births and Deaths_. By Charles Edward Pell. London, 1921.\n\n_The Declining Birth-rate_. Report of the National Birthrate Commission.\nLondon, 1916.\n\n_The Church and Labour (A Compendium of Official Utterances)_. Edited by\nJohn A. 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Levasseur. 1891.\n\n_La Question de la Population_. Leroy-Beaulieu.\n\n_D\u00e9population et Civilisation_. 1890. Ars\u00e8ne Dumont.\n\n_Natalie_. Dr. Bertillon P\u00e8re.","title":"Birth Control: A Statement of Christian Doctrine against the Neo-Malthusians","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":40324}