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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8773-8.txt b/8773-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..699a9f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/8773-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5138 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birth Control, by Halliday G. Sutherland + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Birth Control + +Author: Halliday G. Sutherland + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8773] +[This file was first posted on August 12, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BIRTH CONTROL *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +BIRTH CONTROL + +A Statement of Christian Doctrine against the Neo-Malthusians + +BY + +HALLIDAY G. SUTHERLAND, M.D. (Edin.) + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I + +THE ESSENTIAL FALLACIES OF MALTHUSIAN TEACHING + +Section 1. MALTHUS AND THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS. + (a) Malthus + (b) The Neo-Malthusians + +Section 2. TEACHING BASED ON FALSE PREMISES. + (a) That Population progresses geometrically + (b) That Food Supply progresses arithmetically + (c) That Overpopulation is the cause of Poverty and Disease + +Section 3. THE ROOT FALLACY + +Section 4. WHAT OVERPOPULATION MEANS + +Section 5. NO EVIDENCE OF OVERPOPULATION + (a) In the Suez Canal Zone + (b) In "Closed Countries" like Japan + +Section 6. A NATURAL LAW CHECKING FERTILITY + +Section 7. OVERPOPULATION IN THE FUTURE + +Section 8. HOW NATIONS HAVE PERISHED + +Section 9. PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES + (a) Disease + (b) War + +Section 10. MORAL CATASTROPHES + + +CHAPTER II + +THE FALSE DEDUCTIONS CONCERNING POVERTY + +Section 1. BIRTH-RATE AND POVERTY + (a) Famines + (b) Abundance + (c) Wages + +Section 2. POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN DUE TO OTHER CAUSES + (a) Under-development + (b) Severance of the Inhabitants from the Soil + +Section 3. CAUSES OF POVERTY IN INDIA + +Section 4. POVERTY IN FACT CAUSES A HIGH BIRTHRATE + (a) Malthusianism is an attack on the Poor + (b) A Hindrance to Reform + (c) A Quack Remedy for Poverty + +Section 5. POVERTY AND CIVILISATION + + +CHAPTER III + +HIGH BIRTH-RATES NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATES + +Section 1. POVERTY AS NOW EXISTING + +Section 2. HIGH BIRTH-RATE NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATE: + PROVED FROM STATISTICS + (a) Canada + (b) Connaught + +Section 3. A LOW BIRTH-RATE NO GUARANTEE OF A LOW DEATH-RATE + +Section 4. VITAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE + +Section 5. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION + + +CHAPTER IV + +HOW RELIGION AFFECTS THE BIRTHRATE + +Section 1. FRENCH STATISTICS MISINTERPRETED BY MALTHUSIANS + +Section 2. EVIDENCE FROM HOLLAND + +Section 3. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + +Section 4. THE SAME RESULTS IN ENGLAND + + +CHAPTER V + +IS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS? + +Section 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED + +Section 2. MR. PELL'S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED + +Section 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE + +Section 4. ILLUSTRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY + (a) Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece + (b) The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES + +Section 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES + +Section 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW + +Section 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION. + +Section 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL + +Section 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT + (a) A Cause of Sterility + (b) Neuroses + (c) Fibroid Tumours + +Section 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION + +Section 3. A CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE + +Section 4. AN INSULT TO TRUE WOMANHOOD + +Section 5. A DEGRADATION OF THE FEMALE SEX + +Section 6. SPECIALLY HURTFUL TO THE POOR + (a) Affecting the Young + (b) Exposing the Poor to Experiment + (c) Tending towards the Servile State + +Section 7. A MENACE TO THE NATION + (a) There is a Limit to lowering the Death-rate + (b) Birth Control tends to extinguish the Birth-rate + (c) A Danger to the Empire + (d) The Dangers of Small Families + +Section 8. THE PLOT AGAINST CHRISTENDOM + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT AGAINST BIRTH CONTROL + +Section 1. AN OFFENCE AGAINST THE LAW OF NATURE + +Section 2. REFLECTED IN THE NORMAL CONSCIENCE + +Section 3. EXPRESSED IN THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS + +Section 4. BIRTH CONTROL CONDEMNED BY PROTESTANT CHURCHES + +APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII + +A NEO-MALTHUSIAN ATTACK ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON BIRTH CONTROL + +Section 1. A FALSE VIEW OF HER DOCTRINE + +Section 2. THE ESSENCE AND PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE + +Section 3. ARTIFICIAL STERILITY WHOLLY CONDEMNED + +Section 4. THE ONLY LAWFUL METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL + +Section 5. CONCLUSION + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + + +BIRTH CONTROL + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +THE ESSENTIAL FALLACIES OF MALTHUSIAN TEACHING + +Section 1. MALTHUS AND THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS + +Birth control, in the sense of the prevention of pregnancy by chemical, +mechanical, or other artificial means, is being widely advocated as a sure +method of lessening poverty and of increasing the physical and mental +health of the nation. It is, therefore, advisable to examine these claims +and the grounds on which they are based. The following investigation will +prove that the propaganda throughout Western Europe and America in favour +of artificial birth control is based on a mere assumption, bolstered up by +economic and statistical fallacies; that Malthusian teaching is contrary to +reason and to fact; that Neo-Malthusian practices are disastrous alike to +nations and to individuals; and that those practices are in themselves an +offence against the Law of Nature, whereby the Divine Will is expressed in +creation. + +(a) _Malthus_ + +The Rev. Thomas Malthus, M.A., in 1798 published his _Essay on the +Principle of Population_. His pamphlet was an answer to Condorcet +and Godwin, who held that vice and poverty were the result of human +institutions and could be remedied by an even distribution of property. +Malthus, on the other hand, believed that population increased more rapidly +than the means of subsistence, and consequently that vice and poverty were +always due to overpopulation and not to any particular form of society or +of government. He stated that owing to the relatively slow rate at +which the food supply of countries was increased, a high birth-rate [1] +inevitably led to all the evils of poverty, war, and high death-rates. +In an infamous passage he wrote that there was no vacant place for the +superfluous child at Nature's mighty feast; that Nature told the child to +be gone; and that she quickly executed her own order. This passage was +modified in the second, and deleted from the third edition of the Essay. In +later editions he maintained that vice and misery had checked population, +that the progress of society might have diminished rather than increased +the "evils resulting from the principle of population," and that by "moral +restraint" overpopulation could be prevented. As Cannan has pointed out, +[2] this last suggestion destroyed the force of the argument against +Godwin, who could have replied that in order to make "moral restraint" +universal a socialist State was necessary. In order to avoid the evils of +overpopulation, Malthus advised people not to marry, or, if they did, +to marry late in life and to limit the number of their children by the +exercise of self-restraint. He reprobated all artificial and unnatural +methods of birth control as immoral, and as removing the necessary stimulus +to industry; but he failed to grasp the whole truth that an increase of +population is necessary as a stimulus not only to industry, but also as +essential to man's moral and intellectual progress. + +(b) _The Neo-Malthusians_ + +The Malthusian League accept the theory of their revered teacher, but, +curiously enough, they reject his advice "as being impracticable and +productive of the greatest possible evils to health and morality." [3] +On the contrary, they advise universal early marriage, combined with +artificial birth control. Although their policy is thus in flat +contradiction to the policy of Malthus, there are two things common to +both. Each is based on the same fallacy, and the aim of both is wide of the +mark. Indeed, the Neo-Malthusian, like Malthus, has "a mist of speculation +over his facts, and a vapour of fact over his ideas." [4] Moreover, as will +be shown here, the path of the Malthusian League, although at first glance +an easy way out of many human difficulties, is in reality the broad road +along which a man or a nation travels to destruction; and as guides the +Neo-Malthusians are utterly unsafe, since they argue from (a) false +premises to (b) false deductions. We shall deal with the former in this +chapter. + + +Section 2. TEACHING BASED ON FALSE PREMISES + +The theory of Malthus is based on three errors, namely (a) that the +population increases in geometrical progression, a progression of 1, 2, +4, 8, 16, and so on upwards; (b) that the food supply increases in +arithmetical progression, a progression of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on +upwards; and (c) that overpopulation is the cause of poverty and disease. +If we show that _de facto_ there _is_ no overpopulation it obviously cannot +be a cause of anything, nor be itself caused by the joint operation of the +first two causes. However, each of the errors can be severally refuted. + +(a) In the first place, it is true that a population _might_ increase in +geometrical progression, and that a woman _might_ bear thirty children +in her lifetime; but it is wrong to assume that because a thing _might_ +happen, it therefore does happen. The population, as a matter of fact, does +not increase in geometrical progression, because Nature [5] places her own +checks on the birth-rate, and no woman bears all the children she might +theoretically bear, apart altogether from artificial birth control. + +(b) Secondly, the food supply does not of necessity increase in +arithmetical progression, because food is produced by human hands, and is +therefore increased in proportion to the increase of workers, unless the +food supply of a country or of the world has reached its limit. The food +supply of the world _might_ reach a limit beyond which it could not +be increased; but as yet this event has not happened, and there is no +indication whatsoever that it is likely to happen. + +Human life is immediately sustained by food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. +Food and clothing are principally derived from fish, fowl, sheep, +cattle, and grain, all of which _tend_, more so than man, to increase in +_geometrical_ ratio, although actually their increase in this progression +is checked by man or by Nature. As regards shelter there can be no increase +at all, either arithmetical or geometrical, apart from the work of human +hands. Again, the stock of fuel in or on the earth cannot increase of +itself, and is gradually becoming exhausted. On the other hand, within +living memory, new sources of fuel, such as petroleum, have been made +available, and old varieties of fuel have been used to better advantage, +as witness the internal-combustion engine driven by smoke from sawdust. +Moreover, in the ocean tides is a vast energy that one day may take the +place of fuel. + +(c) Thirdly, before anyone can reasonably maintain that overpopulation +is the cause of poverty and disease, it is necessary to prove that +overpopulation actually exists or is likely to occur in the future. By +overpopulation we mean the condition of a country in which there are so +many inhabitants that the production of necessaries of livelihood is +insufficient for the support of all, with the result that many people are +overworked or ill-fed. Under these circumstances the population can be said +to _press on the soil_: and unless their methods of production could be +improved, or resources secured from outside, the only possible remedy +against the principle of diminishing returns would be a reduction of +population; otherwise, the death-rate from want and starvation would +gradually rise until it equalled the birth-rate in order to maintain an +unhappy equilibrium. + + +Section 3. THE ROOT FALLACY + +According to Malthusian doctrine overpopulation is the cause of poverty, +disease, and war: and consequently, unless the growth of population is +artificially restrained, all attempts to remedy social evils are futile. +Malthusians claim that "if only the devastating torrent of children could +be arrested for a few years, it would bring untold relief." They hold that +overpopulation is the root of all social evil, and the truth or falsehood +of that proposition is therefore the basis of all their teaching. Now, when +Malthusians are asked to prove that this their basic proposition is true, +they adopt one of two methods, not of proof, but of evasion. Their first +method of evading the question is by asserting that the truth of their +proposition is self-evident and needs no proof. To that we reply that the +falsity of the proposition can and will be proved. Their second device is +to put up a barrage of facts which merely show that all countries, and +indeed the earth itself, would have been overpopulated long ago if the +increase of population had not been limited by certain factors, ranging +from celibacy and late marriages to famines, diseases, wars, and +infanticide. The truth of these facts is indisputable, but it is +nevertheless a manifest breach of logic to argue from the fact of poverty, +disease, and war having checked an increase of population, that therefore +poverty, disease, and war are due to an increase of population. It would be +as reasonable to argue that, because an unlimited increase of insects +is prevented by birds and by climatic changes, therefore an increase of +insects accounts for the existence of birds, and for variations of climate. +Nor is it of any use for Malthusians to say that overpopulation _might_ be +the cause of poverty. They cannot prove that it _is_ the cause of poverty, +and, as will be shown in the following chapter, more obvious and probable +causes are staring them in the face. For our present purpose it will +suffice if we are able to prove that overpopulation has not occurred in the +past and is unlikely to occur in the future. + + +Section 4. WHAT OVERPOPULATION MEANS + +In the first place, the meaning of the word "overpopulation" should +be clearly understood. The word does not mean a very large number of +inhabitants in a country. If that were its meaning the Malthusian fallacy +could be disproved by merely pointing out that poverty exists both in +thinly populated and in thickly populated countries. Now, in reality, +overpopulation would occur whenever the production of the necessities of +life in a country was insufficient for the support of all the inhabitants. +For example, a barren rock in the ocean would be overpopulated, even if it +contained only one inhabitant. It follows that the term "overpopulation" +should be applied only to an economic situation in which the population +presses on the soil. The point may be illustrated by a simple example. + +Let us assume that a fertile island of 100 acres is divided into 10 farms, +each of 10 acres, and each capable of supporting a family of ten. Under +these conditions the island could support a population of 1,000 people +without being overpopulated. If, however, the numbers in each family +increased to 20 the population would _press on the soil_, and the island, +with 2,000 inhabitants, would be an example of overpopulation, and of +poverty due to overpopulation. + +On the other hand, let us assume that there are only 1,000 people on +the island, but that one family of ten individuals has managed to gain +possession of eight farms, in addition to their own, and that the other +nine families are forced to live on one farm. Obviously, 900 people would +be attempting to live under conditions of dire poverty, and the island, +with its population of 1,000, would now offer an excellent example, not of +overpopulation, but of human selfishness. + +My contentions are that poverty is neither solely nor indeed generally +related to economic pressure on the soil; that there are many causes +of poverty apart altogether from overpopulation; and that in reality +overpopulation does not exist in those countries where Malthusians claim to +find proofs of social misery due to a high birthrate. + +If overpopulation in the economic sense occurred in a closed country, whose +inhabitants were either unable or unwilling to send out colonies, it is +obvious that general poverty and misery would result. This _might_ happen +in small islands, but it is of greater interest to know what does happen. + + +Section 5. NO EVIDENCE OF OVERPOPULATION + +In a closed country, producing all its own necessities of life and +incapable of expansion, a high birth-rate would eventually increase the +struggle for existence and would lead to overpopulation, always provided +that, firstly, the high birth-rate is accompanied by a low death-rate, and +secondly, that the high birth-rate is maintained. For example, although +a birth-rate was high, a population would not increase in numbers if the +death-rate was equally high. Therefore, a high birth-rate does not of +necessity imply that population will be increased or that overpopulation +will occur. Again, if the birth-rate fell as the population increased, +the danger of overpopulation would be avoided without the aid of a high +death-rate. For a moment, however, let us assume that the Malthusian +premise is correct, that a high birth-rate has led to overpopulation, and +that the struggle for existence has therefore increased. Then obviously +the death-rate would rise; the effect of the high birth-rate would be +neutralised; and beyond a certain point neither the population nor the +struggle for existence could be further increased. On these grounds +Neo-Malthusians argue that birth-control is necessary precisely to obviate +that cruel device whereby Nature strives to restore the balance upset by a +reckless increase of births; and that the only alternative to frequent and +premature deaths is regulation of the source of life. As a corollary to +this proposition they claim that, if the death-rate be reduced, a country +is bound to become overpopulated unless the births are artificially +controlled. Fortunately it is possible to test the truth of this corollary, +because certain definite observations on this very point have been +recorded. These observations do not support the argument of birth +controllers. + +(a) _In the Suez Canal Zone_ + +In the Suez Canal Zone there was a high death-rate chiefly owing to fever. +According to Malthus it would have been a great mistake to lower this +death-rate, because, if social conditions were improved, the population +would rapidly increase and exceed the resources of the country. Now, in +fact, the social conditions were improved, the death-rate was lowered, and +the subsequent events, utterly refuting the above contention, are thus +noted by Dr. Halford Ross, who was medical officer in that region: + + "During the years 1901 to 1910, health measures in this zone produced a + very considerable fall in the death-rate, from 30.2 per thousand to + 19.6 per thousand; the infant mortality was also reduced very greatly, + and it was expected that, after a lapse of time, the reduction of the + death-rate would result in a rise of the birth-rate, and a + corresponding increase of the population. _But such was not the case_. + When the death-rate fell, the birthrate fell too, and the number of the + population remained the same as before, even after nearly a decade had + passed, and notwithstanding the fact that the whole district had become + much healthier, and one town, Port Said, was converted from an + unhealthy, fever-stricken place into a seaside health resort." [6] + +Moreover, Dr. Halford Ross has told me that artificial birth control +was not practised in this region, and played no part in maintaining a +stationary population. The majority of the people were strict Mohammedans, +amongst whom the practice of birth control is forbidden by the Koran. + +(b) _In "Closed Countries" like Japan_ + +But a much more striking example of the population in a closed country +remaining stationary without the practice of birth control, thus refuting +the contention of our birth controllers, is to be found in their own +periodical, _The Malthusian_. [7] It would appear that in Japan from 1723 +to 1846 the population remained almost stationary, only increasing from +26,065,422 to 26,907,625. In 1867 the Shogunate was abolished, the Emperor +was restored, and Japan began to be a civilised power. Now from 1872 the +population increased by 10,649,990 in twenty-seven years, and "during the +period between 1897 and 1907 the population received an increment of 11.6 +per cent., whereas the food-producing area increased by only 4.4 per +cent.... According to Professor Morimoro, the cost of living is now so high +in Japan that 98 per cent, of the people do not get enough to eat." From +these facts certain obvious deductions may be made. So long as Japan was +a closed country her population remained stationary. When she became a +civilised industrial power the mass of her people became poorer, the +birth-rate rose, and the population increased, this last result being the +real problem to-day in the Far East. In face of these facts it is sheer +comedy to learn that our Malthusians are sending a woman to preach birth +control amongst the Japanese! Do they really believe that for over a +hundred years Japan, unlike most semi-barbaric countries, practised birth +control, and that when she became civilised she refused, unlike most +civilised countries, to continue this practice? There is surely a limit to +human credulity. + +The truth appears to be that in closed countries the population remains +more or less stationary, that Nature herself checks the birth-rate without +the aid of artificial birth control, and that birthrates and death-rates +are independently related to the means of subsistence. + + +Section 6. A NATURAL LAW CHECKING FERTILITY + +During the past century the population of Europe increased by about +160,000,000, but it is utterly unreasonable to assume that this rate of +increase will be maintained during the present century. It would be as +sensible to argue that because a child is four feet high at the age of +ten he will be eight feet high at the age of twenty. Moreover, there is +evidence that, apart altogether from vice, the fertility of a nation is +reduced at every step in civilisation. The cause of this reduction in +fertility is unknown. It is probably a reaction to many complex influences, +and possibly associated with the vast growth of great cities. This decline +in the fertility of a community is a natural protection against the +possibility of overpopulation; but, on the other hand, there is a point +beyond which any further decline in fertility will bring a community within +sight of depopulation and of extinction. + + +Section 7. OVERPOPULATION IN THE FUTURE + +It is a fallacy to say that overpopulation is the cause of poverty and +disease, and that for the simple reason that overpopulation has not yet +occurred. For the growth of a nation we assume that the birth-rate should +exceed the death-rate by from 10 to 20 per thousand, and it is obvious +that in a _closed_ country the evil of overpopulation might appear in +a comparatively short time. The natural remedies in the past have been +emigration and colonisation. According to the birth controllers these +remedies are only temporary, because sooner or later all colonies and +eventually the earth itself will be overpopulated. At the British +Association Meeting in 1890 the population of the earth was said to be +1,500 millions, and it was calculated that only 6,000 millions could live +on the earth. This means that if the birth-rate throughout the world +exceeded the death-rate by only 8 per thousand, the earth would be +overpopulated within 200 years. It is probable that in these calculations +the capacity of the earth to sustain human life has been underestimated; +that the earth could support not four times but sixteen times its present +population; and that the latter figure could be still further increased +by the progress of inventions. But, apart altogether from the accuracy of +these figures, the danger of overpopulation is nothing more or less than a +myth. Indeed, the end of the world, a philosophic and scientific certitude, +is a more imminent event than its overpopulation. + + +Section 8. HOW NATIONS HAVE PERISHED + +Before speculating on what might happen in the future, it is well to +recollect what has happened in the past. The earth has been inhabited for +thousands of years, and modern research has revealed the remains of many +ancient civilisations that have perished. For example, there were the great +nations of Cambodia and of Guatemala. In Crete, about 2000 B.C., there +existed a civilisation where women were dressed as are this evening the +women of London and Paris. That civilisation perished, and even its +language cannot now be deciphered. Why did these civilisations perish? +Surely this momentous question should take precedence over barren +discussions as to whether there will be sufficient food on the land or in +the sea for the inhabitants of the world in 200 years' time. How came it +about that these ancient nations did not double their numbers every fifty +years and fill up the earth long ago? + +The answer is that they were overcome and annihilated by the incidence of +one or other of two dangers that threaten every civilisation, including our +own. These dangers are certain physical and moral catastrophes, against +which there is only one form of natural insurance, namely, a birth-rate +that adequately exceeds the death-rate. They help to illustrate further the +fallacy of the overpopulation scare. + +The following is a general outline of these dangers, and in a later chapter +(p. 70)(see [Reference: Dangers]) I shall quote an example of how +they have operated in the past. + + +Section 9. PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES + +Deaths from famine, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions are +confined to comparatively small areas, and the two physical catastrophes +that may seriously threaten a civilisation may be reduced to endemic +disease and war. + +(a) _Disease_ + +Disease, in the form of malaria, contributed to the fall of ancient Greece +and Rome. In the fourteenth century 25,000,000 people, one-quarter of the +population of Europe, were exterminated by plague, the "Black Death," and +in the sixteenth century smallpox depopulated Spanish America. Although +these particular diseases have lost much of their power owing to the +progress of medical science, we have no right to assume that disease in +general has been conquered by our civilisation, or that a new pestilence +may not appear. On the contrary, in 1805, a new disease, spotted fever, +appeared in Geneva, and within half a century had become endemic throughout +Europe and America. Of this fever during the Great War the late Sir William +Osler wrote: "In cerebro-spinal fever we may be witnessing the struggle of +a new disease to win a place among the great epidemics of the world." There +was a mystery about this disease, because, although unknown in the Arctic +Circle, it appeared in temperate climates during the coldest months of the +year. As I was able to prove in 1915, [8] it is a disease of civilisation. +I found that the causal organism was killed in thirty minutes by a +temperature of 62°F. It was thus obvious that infection could never be +carried by cold air. But in overcrowded rooms where windows are closed, and +the temperature of warm, impure, saturated air was raised by the natural +heat of the body to 80°F or over, the life of the microorganism, expelled +from the mouths of infected people during the act of coughing, was +prolonged. Infection is thus carried from one person to another by warm +currents of moving air, and at the same time resistance against the disease +is lowered. Cold air kills the organism, but cold weather favours the +disease. In that paradox the aetiology of cerebro-spinal fever became as +clear as the means of prevention. The story of spotted fever reveals the +forces of nature fighting against the disease at every turn, and implacably +opposed to its existence, while man alone, of his own will and folly, +harbours infection and creates the only conditions under which the malady +can appear. For example, during two consecutive winters cerebro-spinal +fever had appeared in barracks capable of housing 2,000 men. A simple and +effective method of ventilation was then introduced. From that day to this +not a single case of cerebro-spinal fever has occurred in these barracks, +although there have been outbreaks of this disease in the town in which the +barracks are situated. + +There are many other diseases peculiar to civilisation, and concerning +the wherefore and the why an apposite passage occurs in the works of Sir +William Gull. + + "Causes affecting health and shortening life may be inappreciable in + the individual, but sufficiently obvious when their effect is + multiplied a thousandfold. If the conditions of society render us + liable to many diseases, they in return enable us to establish the + general laws of life and health, a knowledge of which soon becomes a + distributive blessing. The cure of individual diseases, whilst we leave + open the dark fountains from which they spring, is to labour like + Sisyphus, and have our work continually returning upon our hands. And, + again, there are diseases over which, directly, we have little or no + control, as if Providence had set them as signs to direct us to wider + fields of inquiry and exertion. Even partial success is often denied, + lest we should rest satisfied with it, and forget the _truer and better + means_ of prevention." [9] + +Medical and sanitary science have made great progress in the conquest of +enteric fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, and whooping cough. The +mortality from bronchitis and from pulmonary tuberculosis has also been +reduced, but nevertheless tuberculosis still claims more victims in the +prime of life than any other malady. It is a disease of civilisation and is +intimately associated with economic conditions. The history of tuberculosis +has yet to be written. On the other hand, deaths from certain other +diseases are actually increasing, as witness the following figures from the +Reports of the Registrar-General for England and Wales: + + + Disease. Number of Number of + deaths in Deaths in + 1898. 1919. + + Diseases of the heart and + circulatory system 50,492 69,637 + Cancer 25,196 42,144 + Pneumonia 35,462 38,949 + Influenza 10,405 44,801 + + +In view of these figures it is folly to suppose that the final conquest of +disease is imminent. + +(b) War + +War, foreign or civil, is another sword hanging over civilisations, whereby +the fruits of a long period of growth may be destroyed in a few years. +After the Thirty Years War the recovery of Germany occupied a century and +a half. During the fourteen years of the Taiping rebellion in China whole +provinces were devastated and millions upon millions of people were killed +or died. In spite of the Great War during the past decade, there are some +who would delude themselves and others into the vain belief that, without +a radical change in international relations and a determined effort to +neutralise its causes, there will be no more war; but unless the nations +learn through Christianity that justice is higher than self-interest the +following brilliant passage by Devas is as true to-day as when it was +written in 1901: + + "True that the spread of humanitarianism and cosmopolitanism made many + people think, towards the end of the nineteenth century, that bloodshed + was at an end. But their hopes were dreams: the visible growth of + national rivalry and gigantic armaments can only issue in desperate + struggles; while not a few among the nations are troubled with the + growth of internal dissensions and accumulations of social hatred that + point to bloody catastrophes in the future; and the tremendous means of + destruction that modern science puts in our hands offer frightful + possibilities of slaughter, murderous anarchical outrages, and rivers + of blood shed in pitiless repression." [10] + +Malthusians may inveigh against wars waged to achieve the expansion of a +nation, but so long as international rivalry disregards the moral law their +words will neither stop war nor prevent a Malthusian country from falling +an easy prey to a stronger people. On the contrary, a low birthrate, +by reducing the potential force available for defence, is actually an +incentive to a declaration of war from an envious neighbour, because it +means that he will not hesitate so long when attempting to count the +cost beforehand. In 1850 the population of France and Germany numbered +practically the same, 35,500,000; in 1913 that of France was 39,600,000, +that of Germany 67,000,000. [11] The bearing of these facts on the +Great War is obvious. In 1919 the new Germany, including Silesia, had a +population of just over 60,000,000; whereas, in 1921, France, including +Alsace-Lorraine, had a population of 39,200,000. Thus, despite her victory +in the war, the population of France is less to-day than it was seven years +ago. + + +Section 10. MORAL CATASTROPHES + +In view of past history only an ostrich with its head in the sand can +profess to believe that there will be no calamities in the future to reduce +the population of the earth. And apart from cataclysms of disease or of +war, empires have perished by moral catastrophe. A disbelief in God results +in selfishness, and in various moral catastrophes. In the terse phrase of +Mr. Bernard Shaw, "Voluptuaries prosper and perish." [12] For example, +during the second century B.C. the disease of rationalism, [13] spread over +Greece, and a rapid depopulation of the country began. + +The facts were recorded by Polybius, [14] who expressly states that at the +time of which he is writing serious pestilences did not occur, and that +depopulation was caused by the selfishness of the Greeks, who, being +addicted to pleasure, either did not marry at all or refused to rear more +than one or two children, lest it should be impossible to bring them up in +extravagant luxury. This ancient historian also noted that the death of a +son in war or by pestilence is a serious matter when there are only one or +two sons in a family. Greece fell to the conquering Romans, and they also +in course of time were infected with this evil canker. There came a day +when over the battlements of Constantinople the blood-red Crescent was +unfurled. Later on all Christendom was threatened, and the King of France +appealed to the Pope for men and arms to resist the challenge to Europe +of the Mohammedan world. The Empire of the Turk spread over the whole of +South-Eastern Europe. But once more the evil poison spread, this time into +the homes in many parts of Islam, and to-day the once triumphant foes of +Christianity are decaying nations whose dominions are the appanage of +Europe. In face of these facts it is sheer madness to assume that all the +Great Powers now existing will maintain their population and prove immune +from decay. Indeed, the very propaganda against which this Essay is +directed is in itself positive proof that the seeds of decay have already +been sown within the British Empire. Yet, in an age in which thought and +reason are suppressed by systematised confusion and spiritless perplexity, +the very simplicity of a truth will operate against its general acceptance. + +From the theological point of view, the myth of overpopulation is +definitely of anti-Christian growth, because it assumes that, owing to the +operation of natural instincts implanted in mankind by the Creator, the +only alternative offered to the race is a choice between misery and vice, +an alternative utterly incompatible with Divine goodness in the government +of the world. + +[Footnote 1: The birth-rate is the number of births per 1,000 of the whole +population. In order to make a fair comparison between one community and +another, the birth-rate is often calculated as the number of births per +1,000 married women between 15 and 45 years of age, as these constitute +the great majority of child-bearing mothers. This is called the _corrected +birth-rate_.] + +[Footnote 2: _Economic Review_, January 1892.] + +[Footnote 3: So says the Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The +Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 88.] + +[Footnote 4: Bagehot, _Economic Studies_, p. 193.] + +[Footnote 5: To assign a personality to "Nature" is, of course, a mere +_façon de parler_; the believer holds that the "course of Nature" is an +expression of the Mind and Will of the Creator.] + +[Footnote 6: _Problems of Population_, p. 382.] + +[Footnote 7: _The Malthusian_, July 15, 1921.] + +[Footnote 8: _Lancet_, 1915, vol. ii, p. 862.] + +[Footnote 9: The New Sydenham Society, vol. clvi, section viii, p. 12.] + +[Footnote 10: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 1901, p. 191.] + +[Footnote 11: _Revue Pratique d'Apologétique_, September 15, 1914.] + +[Footnote 12: _Man and Superman_, p. 195.] + +[Footnote 13: By rationalism we mean a denial of God and of responsibility +for conduct to a Higher Being.] + +[Footnote 14: Quoted by W.H.S. Jones, _Malaria and Greek History_ 1909, +p95.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE FALSE DEDUCTIONS CONCERNING POVERTY + +From the original root-fallacy Malthus argued that poverty, prostitution, +war, disease, and a high death-rate are necessary in order to keep down +the population: and from the same false premises birth controllers are +now arguing that a high birth-rate causes (1) poverty, and (2) a high +death-rate. The steps in the argument whereby these amazing conclusions are +reached are as follows. Before the death-rate can be lowered the social +conditions of the people must be improved; if social conditions are +improved there will be an enormous increase of population in geometrical +progression; the food supply of the country and even of the world cannot be +increased at the same rate; and therefore there will be greater poverty +and a higher death-rate unless the birth-rate is lowered. Thus Malthusians +argue. In view of the false premises on which their argument is based, it +is not surprising to find that their deductions are erroneous and contain +many economic and statistical fallacies, to the consideration of which we +may now devote our attention. + + +Section 1. BIRTH-RATE AND POVERTY + +The first false deduction of birth controllers is that a high birth-rate, +by intensifying the struggle for existence, increases poverty. In order to +bolster up this contention, Malthusians quote three arguments concerning +(a) famines, (b) abundance, and (c) wages, and each of these arguments is +fallacious. + +(a) _Famines_ + +The prevalence of famines is quoted as a proof of reckless overpopulation. +Now a famine may occur from several different causes, some within and +others beyond the control of man, but a failure of crops has never yet been +caused by pressure on the soil. On the contrary, famine is less likely to +arise in a country whose soil is intensively cultivated, because intensive +cultivation means a variety of crops, and therefore less risk of all the +crops failing. Moreover, during the past century famine has occurred +in Bengal, where population is dense; in Ireland, where population is +moderate, and in Eastern Russia, where population is scanty. The existence +of famine is therefore no proof that a country is overpopulated, although +it may indicate that a country is badly governed or under-developed. + + +(b) _Abundance_ + +Malthusians also claim that by means of artificial birth control we could +live in a land of abundance. They point out that, as the population of +a new colony increases, the colonists, by applying the methods of +civilisation to the rich soil, become more and more prosperous. Eventually +there comes a time when capital or labour applied to the soil gives a +_maximum_ return _per head_ of population. Once that point has been reached +any further capital or labour applied to the soil will produce a smaller +return per head of population. This "law of diminishing returns" may be +illustrated by a simpler example. Let us suppose that during one year a +market garden worked by one man has produced vegetables to the value of +£10. During the second year the garden is worked by ten men and produces +vegetables to the value of £200. It is obvious that the work of ten men has +produced twice as much per head as the work of one man, because each man +has produced not £10 but £20. During the third year the garden is worked by +twenty men and yields vegetables to the value of £300. The total yield is +greater, but the yield per head is less, because each man has produced not +£20 but £15. The point of maximum production per head has been passed, and +the law of diminishing returns is operating. + +By restricting the birth-rate Malthusians would limit the population to the +number necessary for maximum production per head. Now, in the first place, +it would be very difficult, if not impossible, in the case of a country +with various industries, to decide when the line of maximum production had +been passed at any given time. Moreover, it would be utterly impossible +to fix this line permanently. In the case of our market garden the +introduction of intensive horticulture might mean that maximum production +per head required the work of forty men. Again, the very phrase "maximum +production per head" implies sterling moral qualities in the workers, +and an absence of drones; and sterling moral qualities have never been +prominent in any nation, once the practice of artificial birth control has +been adopted. Lastly, the Christian ideal requires for its realisation, not +a maximum, but an adequate supply of food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. +Christianity teaches that to seek after the maximum enjoyment of material +things is not the chief end of man, because the life of a man in this world +is very short compared with his life in eternity. + + +(c) _Wages_ + +The Wages Fund Theory is an economic reflection of the Malthusian myth. +This theory assumes that a definite fixed sum is available every year for +distribution as wages amongst labourers, so that the more numerous +the labourers the less wages will each one receive. From this theory +Malthusians argue that the only remedy for low wages is artificial birth +control. They carefully refrain from telling the working classes the other +aspect of this Wages Fund theory--namely, that if the workers in one trade +receive a rise in wages, a corresponding reduction must be made in the +wages of others, so that a rise in wages here and there confers no +real benefit on the labouring classes as a whole. That is merely one +illustration of capitalist bias in the Malthusian propaganda. In any case, +economic science has discarded the Wages Fund Theory as a pure fiction. +No fixed or definite sum is available for wages, because the wages of a +labourer are derived from the produce of his work. Even in the case of +making a railway, where wages are paid before the work is completed, the +money is advanced by shareholders on the security of the proceeds that will +eventually accrue from the produce of the labourers. + + +Section 2. POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN DUE TO OTHER CAUSES + +(a) _Under-development_ + +Even if the theory of birth controllers, that a high birth-rate increases +poverty, were as true as it is false, it could not possibly apply to Great +Britain or to any other country open to commercial intercourse with the +world; because there is no evidence that the supply of food in the world +either cannot or will not be increased to meet any actual or possible +demand. Within the British Empire alone there was an increase of 75 per +cent. in the production of wheat between 1901 and 1911. [15] In Great +Britain there has been not only an increase of population but also an +increased consumption of various foods per head of the population. +Moreover, if Britain were as well cultivated as is Flanders we could +produce all or nearly all our own food. [16] + +The truth is that in countries such as England, Belgium, and Bengal, +usually cited by Malthusians, as illustrating the misery that results +from overpopulation, there is no evidence whatsoever to prove that the +population is pressing on the soil. On the contrary, we find ample physical +resources sufficient to support the entire population, and we also find +evidence of human injustice, incapacity, and corruption sufficient to +account for the poverty and misery that exist in these countries. This was +especially so in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century. +[17] Moreover, so far from high birth-rates being the cause of poverty, we +shall find that poverty is one of the causes of a high birth-rate (p. 69). + +(b) _Severance of the Inhabitants from the Soil_ + +It was not a high birth-rate that established organised poverty in England. +In the sixteenth century the greater part of the land, including common +land belonging to the poor, was seized by the rich. They began by robbing +the Catholic Church, and they ended by robbing the people. [18] Once +machinery was introduced in the eighteenth century, the total wealth of +England was enormously increased; but the vast majority of the people +had little share in this increase of wealth that accrued from machinery, +because only a small portion of the people possessed capital. More children +came, but they came to conditions of poverty and of child-labour in the +mills. In countries where more natural and stable social conditions exist, +and where there are many small owners of land, large families, so far from +being a cause of poverty, are of the greatest assistance to their parents +and to themselves. There are means whereby poverty could be reduced, but +artificial birth control would only increase the total poverty of the +State, and therefore of the individual. + +From early down to Tudor times, the majority of the inhabitants of England +lived on small holdings. For example, in the fifteenth century there were +twenty-one small holdings on a particular area measuring 160 acres. During +the sixteenth century the number of holdings on this area had fallen to +six, and in the seventeenth century the 160 acres became _one_ farm. +Occasionally an effort was made to check this process, and by a statute of +Elizabeth penalties were enacted against building any cottages "without +laying four acres of land thereto." On the other hand, acres upon acres +were given to the larger landowners by a series of Acts for the enclosure +of common land, whereby many labourers were deprived of their land. From +the reign of George I to that of George III _nearly four thousand enclosure +bills_ were passed. These wrongs have not been righted. + + "To urge," wrote Professor Bain, "that there is sufficient poverty and + toil in the world without bringing in more to share it than can be + provided for, implies either begging the question at issue--a direct + imputation that the world is at present very badly managed--or that all + persons should take it upon themselves to say how much poverty and toil + will exist in any part of the world in the future, or limit the + productiveness of any race, because inadequate means of feeding, + clothing, or employing them may be adopted in that part of time + sometimes called unborn eternity. As a rule, the result usually has + been: limit the increase of population without adequate cause, and the + reaction causes deterioration or annihilation." [19] + +Lastly, there is evidence that poverty has existed in thinly populated +countries. Richard Cobden, writing in 1836, of Russia, states: "The mass of +the people are sunk in poverty, ignorance, and barbarism, scarcely rising +above a state of nature, and yet it has been estimated that this country +contains more than 750,000 square miles of land, of a quality not inferior +to the best portions of Germany, and upon which a population of 200,000,000 +might find subsistence." [20] + + +Section 3. CAUSES OF POVERTY IN INDIA + +In reality chronic poverty exists both in the thickly-peopled and in the +thinly-peopled regions of India, and therefore the overpopulation theory is +an inadequate explanation. Moreover, there are certain obvious and admitted +evils, sufficient in themselves to account for the chronic poverty of +India, and of these four are quoted by Devas. [21] + + "(1) The grave discouragement to all rural improvement and in + particular to the sinking of deep wells, by the absence outside Bengal + of fixity of tenure, the landholder having the prospect of his + assessment being raised every fifteen or thirty years. (2) Through most + of India the unchecked oppression of usurers, in whose toils many + millions of landholders are so bound as to lack means or motive for the + proper cultivation of the soil. (3) A system of law and police totally + unfit for small cultivators--witness the plague of litigation, appeals + as 250 to 1 in England, habitual perjury, manufactured crime, and + blackmailing by corrupt native police, all destructive of rural amity, + co-operation, and industry. (4) Taxation oppressive both in quantity + and quality: demanded, on pain of eviction and imprisonment, to be paid + punctually and rigidly in cash, instead of optionally or occasionally + in kind, or flexible, according to the variations of the seasons; + moreover, levied on salt, raising the price of this necessity of life + at least ten times, often much more; when precisely an abundant supply + of salt, with the climate and diet of India, is a prime need for men + and cattle." + + +Section 4. POVERTY IN FACT CAUSES A HIGH BIRTH-RATE + +As will be shown in Chapter V, poverty is generally the cause and not the +result of a high birth-rate. The Malthusian doctrine has been and is to-day +a barrier to social reform, because it implies that humane legislation, +by encouraging population, will of necessity defeat the aim of those who +desire to improve the conditions of the poor by methods other than the +practice of artificial birth control. To a very great extent Malthusian +teaching was responsible for the Poor Law of 1834, the most severe in +Europe, the demoralising laxity of the old Poor Law being replaced by +degrading severity. Again, as recently as 1899, a Secretary of State +reiterated the Malthusian doctrine by explaining that great poverty +throughout India was due to the increase of population under the _pax +Britannica_. Now the truth is that if the social conditions of the poor +were improved, we have every reason to believe that their birth-rate would +be reduced, because as civilisation in a community progresses there is a +natural decline in fertility. Hence: + +(a) _Malthusianism is an Attack on the Poor_ + +Both the supporters and the opponents of Malthus are often mistaken in +considering his greatest achievement to be a policy of birth control. +Malthus did a greater and a more evil thing. He forged a law of nature, +namely, _that there is always a limited and insufficient supply of the +necessities of life in the world_. From this false law he argued that, +as population increases too rapidly, the newcomers cannot hope to find a +sufficiency of good things; that the poverty of the masses is not due to +conditions created by man, but to a natural law; and that consequently this +law cannot be altered by any change in political institutions. This new +doctrine was eagerly adopted by the rich, who were thus enabled to argue +that Nature intended that the masses should find no room at her feast; and +that therefore our system of industrial capitalism was in harmony with the +Will of God. Most comforting dogma! Most excellent anodyne for conscience +against acceptance of those rights of man that, being ignored, found +terrible expression in the French Revolution! Without discussion, +without investigation, and without proof, our professors, politicians, +leader-writers, and even our well-meaning socialists, have accepted as +true the bare falsehood that there is always an insufficient supply of the +necessities of life; and to-day this heresy permeates all our practical +politics. In giving this forged law of nature to the rich, Malthus robbed +the poor of hope. Such was his crime against humanity. In the words of +Thorold Rogers, Malthusianism was part and parcel of "a conspiracy, +conceived by the law and carried out by parties interested in its success, +to cheat the English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to +deprive him of hope, and to degrade him into immediate poverty." When +Malthusians enter a slum for the purpose of preaching birth control, it is +right that the people should be told what is written on the passports of +these strangers. + +(b) _A Hindrance to Reform_ + +The teaching of birth control amongst the poor is in itself a crime, +because, apart from the evil practice, the people are asked to believe a +lie, namely, that a high birth-rate is the cause of poverty and that +by means of birth-control their circumstances will be improved. By +one advocate of birth control this weak reasoning and inconsequential +sentimentality have actually been crowded into the compass of a single +sentence: "We must no longer be content to remain indifferent and idle +witnesses of the senseless and unthinking procreating of countless wretched +children, whose parents are diseased and vicious." [22] It is true that +disease, vice, and wretched children are the saddest products of our +industrial system; it is also true that a helpless baby never yet was +guilty of expropriating land, of building slums, of under-paying the +workers, or of rigging the market. Therefore instead of preventing the +birth of children we should set about to rectify the evil conditions which +make the lives of children and adults unhappy. Like many other policies +advocated on behalf of the poor, birth control is immoral if only on this +account, that it distracts attention from the real causes of poverty. In +Spain birth control is not practised. I do not say there is no poverty in +that country, but there is no poverty that resembles the hopeless grinding +poverty of the English poor. For that strange disease, artificial birth +control is a worthless remedy; and it were far better that we should turn +our attention to the simple words of Cardinal Manning: "There is a natural +and divine law, anterior and superior to all human and civil law, by which +men have the right to live of the fruits of the soil on which they are +born, and in which they are buried." [23] + +(c) _A Quack Remedy for Poverty_ + +Artificial birth control is one of the many quack remedies advertised for +the cure of poverty, and G.K. Chesterton has given the final answer to the +Malthusian assertion that some form of birth control is essential _because +houses are scarce_: + + "Consider that simple sentence, and you will see what is the matter + with the modern mind. I do not mean the growth of immorality; I mean + the genesis of gibbering idiocy. There are ten little boys whom you + wish to provide with ten top-hats; and you find there are only eight + top-hats. To a simple mind it would seem not impossible to make two + more hats; to find out whose business it is to make hats, and induce + him to make hats; to agitate against an absurd delay in delivering + hats; to punish anybody who has promised hats and failed to provide + hats. The modern mind is that which says that if we only cut off the + heads of two of the little boys, they will not want hats; and then the + hats will exactly go round. The suggestion that heads are rather more + important than hats is dismissed as a piece of mystical metaphysics. + The assertion that hats were made for heads, and not heads for hats + savours of antiquated dogma. The musty text which says that the body is + more than raiment; the popular prejudice which would prefer the lives + of boys to the mathematical arrangement of hats,--all these things are + alike to be ignored. The logic of enlightenment is merciless; and we + duly summon the headsman to disguise the deficiencies of the hatter. + For it makes very little difference to the logic of the thing, that we + are talking of houses and not of hats.... The fundamental fallacy + remains the same; that we are beginning at the wrong end, because we + have never troubled to consider at what end to begin." [24] + + +Section 5. POVERTY AND CIVILISATION + +A modern writer is burdened by many words that carry an erroneous meaning, +and one of these is the word "civilisation." Intended to mean "The Art +of Living," this word, by wrong usage, now implies that our method of +combining mental culture and bodily comfort is the highest, noblest, and +best way to live. Yet this implication is by no means certain. On the +contrary, the spectacle of our social life would bring tears to eyes +undimmed by the industrial traditions of the past hundred years. This I +know to be true, having once travelled to London in the company of a young +girl who came from the Thirteenth Century. She had lived some twelve years +on the Low Sierra of Andalusia, where in a small sunlit village she may +have vainly imagined our capital to be a city with walls of amethyst and +streets of gold, for when the train passed through that district which +lies to the south of Waterloo, the child wept. "Look at these houses," she +sobbed; "_Dios mio_, they have no view." + +[Footnote 15: Memorandum issued by the Dominions Royal Commission, December +3, 1915 (p. 2).] + +[Footnote 16: Prince Kropotkin, _Fields, Factories, and Workshops_, 1899, +chapter iii.] + +[Footnote 17: Vide _The Economic History of Ireland from the Union to the +Famine_, by S. O'Brien (Longmans, 1921).] + +[Footnote 18: William Cobbett, _Social Effects of the Reformation_. +Catholic Truth Society (H. 132), price 2_d_.] + +[Footnote 19: Quoted by F.P. Atkinson, M.D., in _Edinburgh Medical +Journal_, September 1880, p. 229.] + +[Footnote 20: Ibid., p. 234.] + +[Footnote 21: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 1901, p. 199.] + +[Footnote 22: _British Medical Journal_, July 23, 1921, p. 131.] + +[Footnote 23: Quoted in _Tablet_, November 5, 1921, p. 598.] + +[Footnote 24: Quoted from _America_, October 29, 1921, p. 31.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +HIGH BIRTH-RATES NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATES + + +Section 1. POVERTY AS NOW EXISTING + +The second contention of birth controllers is that a high birth-rate, by +increasing poverty, causes a high death-rate. In the first place, there is +no doubt that poverty, necessary features of which are mal-nutrition or +insufficient food and bad housing, is directly associated with a high +death-rate, although this view was once shown by the _Lancet_ to need +important qualifications. + + "With respect to the greater mortality amongst the poor than the rich, + we have yet to learn that the only hope of lessening the death-rate + lies in diminishing the birth-rate. We have no _proof_ as yet that the + majority of the evils at present surrounding the poor are necessarily + attendant upon poverty. We have yet to see a poor population living in + dry, well-drained, well-ventilated houses, properly supplied with pure + water and the means of disposal of refuse. And we have yet to become + acquainted with a poor population spending their scant earnings + entirely, or in a very large proportion, upon the necessities of life; + for such is not the case when half the earnings of a family are thrown + away to provide adulterated alcoholic drinks for one member of it. + Until reforms such as these and others have been carried out, and the + poor are able and willing to conform to known physiological laws, it is + premature to speak of taking measures to lessen the birth-rate--a + proposal, be it said, which makes the humiliating confession of man's + defeat in the battle of life." [25] + +It will be seen that the qualifications practically remove the question +from dispute. [26] If the conditions of the poor were thus altered, +poverty, as it exists to-day, would of course disappear. As things are, +we find that a high death-rate is related to poverty, as is proved, for +example, by the death-rate from tuberculosis being four times greater in +slums than in the best residential quarters of a city. + +The correct answer to the birth controllers is that a high birth-rate is +not the cause of a high death-rate, because high birth-rates, as shown +in the previous chapter, are not the cause of poverty, but vice versa. +Moreover, all the statistical evidence goes to prove that in this matter we +are right and that Malthusians are wrong. + + +Section 2. HIGH BIRTH-RATE NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATE: PROVED FROM +STATISTICS + +In China, where there is said to be a birth-rate of over 50 per 1,000, and +where over 70 per cent. of infants are helped to die, the high death-rate +is due clearly to degraded social customs. In the slums of Great Britain +the high death-rate is also due to degraded social conditions. It is not +due to the birth-rate. Of this the proof is simple, (a) Among the French +Canadians, where the average family numbers about nine, this high +birth-rate is not associated with a high death-rate, but with the increase +of a thrifty, hard-working race. In Ontario the birth-rate went up from +21.10 in 1910 to 24.7 in 1911, and the death-rate _fell_ from 14 to 12.6. +(b) Again, in 1911 the corrected birth-rate for Connaught was 45.3 as +against a crude rate of 24.7 for England and Wales; and in Connaught, where +there is no need for Societies for preventing Parents being Cruel to +their Children, the infant mortality rate [27] is very much lower than +in England, although the birth-rate is much higher and the poverty much +greater. In Bradford, a prosperous English town which pays particular +attention to its mothers and children, the infant mortality in 1917 was +132 per 1,000 and the birth-rate 13.2. In Connaught, where there are no +maternity centres or other aids to survival, but on the contrary a great +dearth of the means of well-being, the infant mortality was only 50, whilst +the birth-rate was actually 45! [28] So untrue is it to say that a high +death-rate is due to a high birth-rate. + + +Section 3. A LOW BIRTH-RATE NO GUARANTEE OF A LOW DEATH-RATE + +Again, birth controllers claim that a low birthrate leads to a low infant +mortality rate. Now, it is really a very extraordinary thing that, whatever +be the statement made by a Malthusian on the subject of birth-control, the +very opposite is found to be the truth. During the last quarter of last +century a _falling_ birth-rate in England was actually accompanied by a +_rising_ infant mortality rate! During 1918 in Ireland [29] the crude +birthrate was 19.9, with an infant mortality rate of 86, whereas in England +and Wales [30] the crude birthrate was 17.7 with an infant mortality rate +of 97, and in the northern boroughs the appalling rate of 120. In England +and Wales the lowest infant mortality rate was found to be in the southern +rural districts, where the rate was 63, but in Connaught the rate was 50.5. +This means that in England a low birth-rate is associated with a high +infant mortality rate, whereas in Ireland a high birth-rate is associated +with a low infant mortality rate. [31] These cold figures prove that in +this matter at least the poorest Irish peasants are richer than the people +of England. + + +Section 4. VITAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE + +The Malthusian claim that a low birth-rate leads to a low death-rate is +also disproved by the vital statistics of France. + + "The death-rate of France has not declined at the same rate as the + birth-rate has, and, while the incidence of mortality in France was + equal to that of England in the middle of the seventies, the English + mortality is now only five-sevenths of the French. England thus + maintains a fair natural increase, although the birth-rate has declined + at an even faster pace than has been the case in France.... + + "The French death-rate is higher than is the case with most of her + neighbours, and it can quite well be reduced. The reasons for her + fairly high mortality are not to be found in climatic conditions, + racial characteristics, or other unchangeable elements of nature, nor + even in her occupations, since some of the most industrial regions have + a low mortality." [32] + +I have tabulated certain vital statistics of twenty Departments of France. + +The following table, covering two periods of five years in twenty +Departments, proves that _the death-rate was lower_ in the ten Departments +having the highest birth-rate in France than in the ten Departments having +the lowest birth-rate. + +TABLE I + + THE TEN DEPARTMENTS HAVING THE HIGHEST BIRTH-RATE FRANCE + 1909-1913 1915-1919 + Rates per 1,000 population Still- Rates per 1,000 + births population +Departments. Living Deaths Natural per 1000 Births deaths + births increase births + +Moselle 27.6 16.5 +11.1 - 14.7 15.4 +Finistère 27.2 18.1 +9.1 4.0 15.9 18.2 +Pas-de-Calais 26.8 17.4 +9.4 4.2 - - +Morbihan 25.7 17.8 +7.9 4.4 15.0 19.0 +Côtes-du-Nord 24.5 20.6 +3.9 4.2 14.4 20.0 +Bas-Rhin. 24.3 16.2 +8.0 - 13.3 16.1 +Meurthe-et- +Moselle 23.2 19.2 +4.0 4.3 - - +Lozère 22.6 17.3 +5.2 4.2 12.4 17.5 +Haut-Rhin. 22.4 16.0 +6.4 - 10.3 15.4 +Vosges 22.0 18.7 +3.3 4.7 - - + +_Total Averages 24.6 17.7 +6.8 4.2 13.7 17.3_ + + + THE TEN DEPARTMENTS HAVING THE LOWEST BIRTH-RATE IN FRANCE + +Côte-d'Or. 15.4 18.2 -2.8 3.1 9.9 20.5 +Allier. 15.1 15.7 -0.6 3.3 8.4 18.8 +Gironde 15.1 17.3 -2.2 4.5 10.1 21.2 +Haute-Garonne. 15.1 20.4 -5.3 4.0 9.0 22.5 +Lot 15.0 21.0 -6.0 4.5 7.5 20.6 +Nièvre 14.9 17.4 -2.5 3.2 8.8 20.0 +Tarn-et-Garonne 14.9 20.1 -5.1 4.7 7.9 20.7 +Yonne 14.4 19.1 -4.7 3.8 8.9 22.0 +Lot-et-Garonne 13.7 19.1 -5.4 4.4 7.4 20.1 +Gers 13.2 19.2 -6.0 4.1 6.8 19.8 + +_Total Averages 14.6 18.7 -4.0 3.9 8.4 20.6_ + +Moreover, the figures show that, prior to 1914, the Departments with the +lowest birth-rate were becoming _depopulated_. On the other hand, the +enormous fall in the birth-rate throughout the country from 1915 to 1919 is +a memorial, very noble, to the heroism of France in the Great War, and to +her 1,175,000 dead. Certain other facts should also be noted. In France the +regulations permit that, when a child has died before registration of the +birth, this may be recorded as a still-birth; and for that reason the +proportion of still-births _appears_ higher than in most other countries. + +Malthusian claims are thus refuted by the vital statistics of France; but +it should be clearly understood that these figures do _not_ prove that the +reverse of the Malthusian theory is true, namely, that a high birth-rate +is the cause of a low death-rate. There is no true correlation between +birthrates and death-rates. + + +Section 5. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION + +As birth controllers rely very much upon statistics, and as figures may +very easily mislead the unwary, it is necessary to point out that the +Malthusian contention that a high birth-rate is the cause of a high +death-rate is not only contrary to reason and to facts, but is also +contrary to the very figures which they quote. A high birth-rate is often +associated with a high death-rate, but a general or uniform correspondence +between birth-rates and death-rates has never been established by modern +statistical methods. To these methods brief reference may be made. A +coefficient of correlation is a number intended to indicate the degree of +similarity between two things, or the extent to which one moves with the +other. If this coefficient is unity, or 1, it indicates that the two things +are similar in all respects, while if it be zero, or 0, it indicates that +there is no resemblance between them. The study of correlation is a first +step to the study of causation, because, until we know to what extent two +things move together, it is useless to consider whether one causes the +movement of the other; but in itself a coefficient of correlation does not +necessarily indicate cause or result. Now in this country, between 1838 and +1912 the birth-rate and the death-rate show a correlation of .84; but if +that period be split into two, the correlation from 1838 to 1876, when the +birth-rate was fluctuating, is _minus_ .12, and in the period after 1876 +the correlation is _plus_ .92. This means that the whole of the positive +correlation is due to the falling of the death-rate, and that birthrates +and death-rates do not of necessity move together. [33] + +After a careful examination of the vital statistics for France, Knud +Stouman concludes as follows: + + "In France no clear correlation exists between the birth-rate and the + death-rate in the various Departments. The coefficient of correlation + between the birth-rate and the general death-rate by Departments + (1909-1913) was 0.0692±0.1067, and including Alsace and + Lorraine--0.0212±0.1054, indicating no correlation whatsoever. A + somewhat different and more interesting table is obtained when the + correlation is made with the mortality at each age class: + + TABLE II + + Under 1 year 0.3647 ± 0.0986 + 1-19 years 0.4884 ± 0.0816 + 20-39 years 0.6228 ± 0.0656 + 40-59 years 0.5028 ± 0.0801 + 60 years and over 0.2577 ± 0.1001 + + "A peculiar configuration is observed in these coefficients in that a + quite pronounced positive correlation exists at the central age + group, but disappears with some regularity towards both extremities + of life. If the mortality has any influence upon the natality this + cannot be in the form of replacement of lost infants and deceased old + people, therefore, as has frequently been suggested. That a high + death-rate at the child-bearing age should be conducive to increased + fertility is absurd, neither does it seem likely that a large number + of children should make the parents more liable to diseases which are + prevalent at this period of life. The reasons must, then, be looked + for in a common factor. + + "Now the only disease of importance representing the same age-curve as + do the correlation coefficients is tuberculosis. This disease causes in + France 2 per cent. of the deaths under one year, 24 per cent. of the + deaths from 1 to 19 years of age, not less than 45 per cent. from 20 to + 39, 18 per cent. at ages 40 to 59, and less than 2 per cent. at the + ages over 60. Will a high tuberculosis mortality, then, be conducive to + great fertility, or do we have to fear that a decrease of the natality + will be the result of energetic measures against tuberculosis? Hardly. + The death-rate may be reduced, then, without detrimental effects upon + the birth-rate. + + "What can the factor be which influences both the tuberculosis + incidence and the birth-rate? We know that the prevalence of + tuberculosis is conditioned principally by poverty and ignorance of + hygiene. The Parisian statistics, as compiled by Dr. Bertillon and + recently by Professor L. Hersch, show a much higher birth-rate in the + poor wards than in the richer districts, and the high birth-rates may + be furnished largely by the poorer elements of the population. A + comfortable degree of wealth does not imply a low birth-rate, as is + abundantly shown elsewhere, and one of the important questions which + suggest themselves to the French statistician and sociologist is + evidently the following: How can the intellectual and economic standard + of the masses be raised without detriment to the natality? + + "We believe that the time is opportune for solving this question. The + past half-century has been lived under the shadow of defeat and with a + sense of limitations, and of impotence against fate. This nightmare is + now thrown off, and, the doors to the world being open and development + free, the French people will learn that new initiative has its full + recompense and that a living and a useful activity can be found for all + the sons and daughters they may get. The habit of home-staying is + broken by the war, and new and great undertakings are developing in the + ruined north-east as well as in the sunny south." [34] + +[Footnote 25: _The Lancet_, 1879, vol. ii, p. 703.] + +[Footnote 26: Poverty is a term of wide import admitting many degrees +according as the victim is deprived more or less completely of the ordinary +necessities in the matters of food, clothing, housing, education, and +recreation. As used by Malthusians and spoken of here it means persistent +lack of one or more of these necessary requisites for decent living. Vide +Parkinson, _Primer of Social Science_ (1918), pp. 225 sqq.] + +[Footnote 27: The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of infants +under one year old per 1,000 births in the same year.] + +[Footnote 28: See Saleeby, _The Factors of Infant Mortality_, edited by +Cory Bigger. _Report on the Physical Welfare of Mothers and Children_, vol. +iv, Ireland (Carnegie U.K. Trust), 1918.] + +[Footnote 29: _Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the Registrar-General for +Ireland, containing a General Abstract of the Numbers of Marriages, Births, +and Deaths_, 1918, pp. x, xxix, and 24.] + +[Footnote 30: _Eighty-first Annual Report of the Registrar-General of +Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales_, 1918, pp. xxiv, xxxii, +and xxxv.] + +[Footnote 31: This is also the emphatic testimony of Sir Arthur Newsholme, +in his _Report of Child Mortality_, issued in connection with the +_Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Local Government Board_ (dated 191?), PP. +77-8.] + +[Footnote 32: Knud Stouman, "The Repopulation of France," _International +Journal of Public Health_, vol. ii, no. 4, p. 421.] + +[Footnote 33: Dr. Major Greenwood. Vide _The Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, +p. 130.] + +[Footnote 34: _International Journal of Public Health_, vol. ii, no. 4, p. +423.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +HOW RELIGION AFFECTS THE BIRTHRATE + + +Section 1. FRENCH STATISTICS MISINTERPRETED BY MALTHUSIANS + +The fact that Malthusians are in the habit of citing the birth-rate in +certain Catholic countries as a point in favour of their propaganda is +only another instance of their maladroit use of figures: because for that +argument there is not the slightest justification. The following paragraph +from a recent speech [35] in the Anglican Church Congress by Lord Dawson, +Physician to the King, is a good example of their methods in controversy: + + "Despite the influence and condemnations of the Church, it (artificial + birth control) has been practised in France for well over half a + century, and in Belgium and other Catholic countries is extending. And + if the Roman Catholic Church, with its compact organisation, its power + of authority, and its discipline, cannot check this procedure, is it + likely that Protestant Churches will be able to do so? For Protestant + religions depend for their strength on _the conviction and esteem they + establish in the heads and hearts of their people_." + +I have italicised the closing words because it would be interesting to +know, in passing, whether anyone denies that these human influences also +contribute to the strength of the Catholic Church. Among recent converts to +the Faith in this country are many Protestant clergymen who may be presumed +to have known what claims "on their conviction and esteem" their communion +had. Moreover, in France, amongst recent converts are some of the great +intellects of that country. If it be not "conviction and esteem" in their +"heads and hearts," what other motive, I ask, has induced Huysmans, Barrés, +and others to make submission to Rome? + +Secondly, it is true that for over half a century the birth-rate of France +has been falling, and that to some extent this decline is due to the use of +contraceptives; but it is also true that during the past fifty years the +Government of France has made a determined but unsuccessful effort to +overthrow the Catholic Church; and that it is in so far as the Government +has weakened Catholic influence and impeded Catholic teaching that the +birth-rate has fallen. The belief of a nation will not influence its +destiny unless that belief is reflected in the actions of the citizens. +Father Herbert Thurston, S.J., [36] thus deals with the argument implied: + + "Catholicism which is merely Catholicism in name, and which amounts to + no more in the supposed believer than a vague purpose of sending for a + priest when he is dying, is not likely to have any restraining effect + upon the decline of the birth-rate. Further, it is precisely because a + really practical Catholicism lays such restrictions upon freedom in + this and in other matters, that members of the educated and comfortable + classes, the men especially, are prone to emancipate themselves from + all religious control with an anti-clerical rancour hardly known in + Protestant lands. Had it not been for these defections from her + teaching, the Catholic Church, in most countries of mixed religion, + would soon become predominant by the mere force of natural fertility. + Even as it is, we believe that a country like France owes such small + measure of natural increase as she still retains almost entirely to the + religious principle of the faithful few. Where the Catholic Church + preserves her sway over the hearts of men the maintenance of a vigorous + stock is assured." + +In the first place, it is noteworthy that the birth-rate varies with +practical Catholicism in France, being much higher in those Departments +where the Church is more flourishing. As was shown by Professor Meyrick +Booth in 1914, there are certain districts of France where the birth-rate +is _higher_ than in the usual English country districts. For example, the +birth-rate in Finistère was 27.1, in Pas-de-Calais 26.6, and in Morbihan +25.8. On the other hand, in many Departments the birth-rate was lower +than the death-rate. This occurred, for example, in Lot, Haute Garonne, +Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, and in Gers. In the two last-named +Departments the birth-rates were 13.6 and 13.0 respectively. + +In the following table I have tabulated more recent figures concerning the +vital statistics in these two groups of Departments, and rates for the +two periods of five years, 1909-1913, and 1915-1919, in each group are +compared. + +It will be noted that in the three Departments, where practical Catholicism +is most flourishing, + +TABLE III + + 1909-1913. 1915-1919. + +Departments. Rates per 1000 Still- Deaths Rates per 1000 + population Births under population + per 1 year + Living Deaths National 1000 per Births Deaths + Births Increase Births 1000 + living + births + +Finistère. 27.2 18.1 +9.1 4.0 116.7 15.9 18.2 +Pas-de-Calais 26.8 17.4 +9.4 4.2 135.3 -- -- +Morbihan. 25.7 17.8 +7.9 4.4 113.7 15.0 19.0 + +_Total Averages. 26.5 17.7 +8.8 4.2 121.9 15.4 18.6_ + +Lot. 15.0 21.0 -6.0 4.5 148.0 7.5 20.6 +Haute Garonne. 15.1 20.4 -5.3 4.0 121.3 9.0 22.5 +Tarn-et-Garonne 14.9 20.1 -5.1 4.7 134.7 7.9 20.7 +Lot-et-Garonne. 13.7 19.1 -5.4 4.4 112.0 7.4 20.1 +Gers. 13.2 19.2 -6.0 4.1 102.4 6.8 19.8 + +_Total Averages. 14.3 19.9 -5.5 4.3 123.6 7.7 20.7_ + + +there is a high birth-rate, and moreover that in these Departments both +the death-rate and the infant mortality rate is _lower_ than in the five +Departments with the lowest birth-rate. + +Professor Meyrick Booth's comments are as follows: + + "The above five departments (in which the decline of population has + been most marked) are adjacent to one another in the fertile valley of + the Garonne, one of the wealthiest parts of France; and we may well + ask: Why should the birth-rate under such favourable conditions be less + than half that which is noted for the bleak district of Finistère? The + noted statistician, M. Leroy-Beaulieu, has some interesting + observations to offer upon this paradoxical state of things. + Considering the country in general, and these districts in particular, + he notes that the most prolific parts of France are those in which the + people have retained their allegiance to the traditional Church (in the + case of the Pas-de-Calais we have a certain degree of adherence to the + orthodox faith combined with the presence of a large mining + population). M. Leroy-Beaulieu expresses the opinion that the Catholic + Church tends, by means of its whole atmosphere, to promote a general + increase of population; for, more than other types of Christianity, it + condemns egoism, materialism, and inordinate ambition for self or + family; and, moreover, it works in the same direction through its + uncompromising condemnation of modern Malthusian practices. He draws + our attention, further, to the new wave of religious life which has + swept over the _haute-bourgeoisie_ of France during the last few + decades; and he does not hesitate to connect this with the fact that + this class is now one of the most prolific (perhaps the most prolific) + in the nation. Space forbids my taking up this subject in detail, but + it appears from a considerable body of figures which have been + collected that, while the average number of children born to each + marriage in the English Protestant upper middle class is not more than + about 2.0 to 2.5, the number born to each marriage in the corresponding + class in France is between 3.0 and 4.0. Taking the foregoing facts into + consideration, it would appear that Roman Catholicism--even in + France--is very considerably more prolific (where the belief of the + people is at all deep) than English Protestantism. This applies both to + the upper and lower classes." [37] + +In all probability Lord Dawson was unaware of the foregoing, but there is +one fact which, as a Neo-Malthusian, he ought to have known, because the +omission of this fact in his address is a serious matter. When referring to +France as a country where birth control had come to stay, _Lord Dawson did +not tell his audience that the Government of France has now suppressed the +only Malthusian periodical in that country, and has proposed a law, whereby +those who engage in birth control propaganda shall be imprisoned_. + + +Section 2. EVIDENCE FROM HOLLAND + +As regards other countries, Holland is usually described as the Mecca of +Malthusians, being "the only country where Neo-Malthusianism has been given +the opportunity of diminishing the excessive birth-rate on eugenic lines, +i.e. in the reduction of the fertility of the poorest classes," [38] and +where a "considerable rise in the wages and general prosperity appears +to have taken place side by side with an unprecedented increase of +population." When we come to investigate this claim we find that, of the +eleven provinces of Holland, two are almost entirely Catholic, these +being North Brabant, with 649,000 inhabitants, and Limburg, with 358,000 +inhabitants. On the other hand, in Friesland, with 366,000 inhabitants, +not more than 8 per cent, are Catholics. The vital statistics for 1913 are +quoted by Father Thurston, S.J.: + + "... We find that in Limburg the crude birth-rate is 33.4, in North + Brabant it is 32.5, but in Friesland it is 24.3. Of course, this is not + the beginning and end of the matter. In North Brabant the death-rate is + 16.36, in Limburg it is 15.28, in Friesland it is only 11.21, but the + fact remains that in the two Catholic provinces the natural increase is + 16.17 and 18.15, while in the non-Catholic province of Friesland it is + 13.15. Further, no one can doubt that in such densely populated + districts as North and South Holland and Gelderland the Catholics, who + number more than 25 per cent, of the inhabitants, exercise a + perceptible influence in raising the birth figures for the whole + kingdom. The results would be very different if the entire country + adopted Neo-Malthusian principles." [39] + + +Section 3. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + +As was proved by the census of religions in 1906, the United States of +America is becoming a great stronghold of the Faith. In Massachusetts the +Catholic Church numbered 1,100,000 members, whereas the total membership +of all the Protestant Churches was 450,000. In Illinois there were about +300,000 Methodists and 1,000,000 Catholics. There were 2,300,000 Catholics +in the State of New York, and about 300,000 Methodists, while no other +Protestant Church numbered more than 200,000. The New England States, once +the home of American Puritanism, are now great centres of Catholicism. + +Professor Meyrick Booth [40] explains this remarkable change as being due +to two causes: (1) The influx of large numbers of European Catholics, who +cling tenaciously to their religion; (2) the greater fertility of these +stocks as compared with the native population. Moreover, he has tabulated +the following statistics: + +TABLE IV + +State. Population Chief Religious Bodies Births & Birth + (1906) Deaths rate per + (b. and d.) 1,000 + +Indiana 2,700,000 Methodist 233,000 b. 36,000 13.0 + Prot. Episcopalian 102,000 d. 36,500 + Disciples 118,000 + R.C. 175,000 +Iowa. 2,224,000 Methodist 164,000 b. 36,000 16.0 + Lutheran 117,000 d. 20,000 + Presbyterian 60,000 + R.C. 207,000 +Maryland. 1,295,000 Methodist 137,000 b. 19,000 15.0 + Prot. Episcopalian 35,000 d. 20,000 + Baptist & smaller, + about 100,000 + R.C. 167,000 +California. 2,377,000 R.C. 354,000 b. 32,100 14.0 + Prot. bodies about d. 32,400 + (All Churches weak) 250,000 +Kentucky 2,290,000 Baptist 312,000 b. 35,000 15.0 + Methodist 156,000 d. 18,000 + R.C. 166,000 + +In these States the birth-rate is low; in three there are actually more +deaths than births; and in all five the proportion of Catholics is +comparatively small. These States may be compared with five others, in +which the Catholic and the foreign elements are well represented: + +TABLE V + +State. Population Chief Religious Birth and Birthrate + (1910) Bodies Deaths per 1000 + +New York. 9,113,000 R.C. 2,280,000 b. 213,000 22.0 + Jews (?) 1,000,000 d. 147,000 + Methodist 300,000 + Presbyterian 200,000 + +Rhode Island 540,000 R.C. 160,000 b. 13,000 24.0 + Baptist 20,000 d. 8,000 + Prot. + Episcopalian 15,000 + +Massachusetts 3,336,000 R.C. 1,080,000 b. 84,000 25.0 + Congregational 120,000 d. 51,000 + Baptist 80,000 + All Protestants + together 450,000 + +Michigan 2,800,000 R.C. 490,000 b. 64,000 23.0 + Methodist 128,000 d. 36,000 + Lutheran 105,000 + +Connecticut 1,114,000 R.C. 300,000 b. 27,000 24.0 + Congregational 66,000 d. 17,000 + Prot. + Episcopalian 37,000 + +In these States the birth-rate is very much higher than in the former. +Furthermore, a New York paper [40] investigated the birth-rate in that +city with special reference to religious belief, and concluded that the +different bodies could be graded as follows with respect to the number of +children per marriage: (1) Jews, (2) Catholics, (3) Protestants (Orthodox), +(4) Protestants (Liberal), and (5) Agnostic. Professor Meyrick Booth, who +is himself a Protestant, concludes his survey of the evidence as follows: + + "looking at the situation as a whole, there is good reason to think + that the Protestant Anglo-Saxons are not only losing ground + _relatively_, but must, at any rate in the East and middle East, be + suffering an actual decrease on a large scale. For it has been shown by + more than one sociologist (see, for example, the statement in _The + Family and the Nation_) that no stock can maintain itself with an + average of less than about four children per marriage, and from all + available data (it has not been found possible to obtain definite + figures for most of the Western and Southern States) we must see that + the average fertility of each marriage in this section of the American + people falls far short of the requisite four children. Judging by all + the figures at hand, the modern Anglo-Saxon American, with his high + standard of comfort, his intensely individualistic outlook on life, and + his intellectual and emancipated but child-refusing wife, is being + gradually thrust aside by the upgrowth of new masses of people of + simpler tastes and hardier and more natural habits. And, what is of + peculiar interest to us, this new population will carry into ascendancy + those religious and moral beliefs which have moulded its type of life. + + "The victory will be, not to those religious beliefs which most closely + correspond to certain requirements of the abstract intellect, but to + those which give rise, in practice, to a mode of life that is simple, + natural, unselfish, and adequately prolific--in other words, to a mode + of life that _works_, that is _Lebensfähig_." [41] + +As things are, the original Protestant stock of America is being swamped by +the growth of the Catholic, the Jewish, and the Negro population. Moreover, +the United States is faced by the grave problem of a rapidly increasing +coloured race. Despite this fact the American Malthusians are now demanding +that a National Bureau should be established to disseminate information +regarding contraceptives throughout their country! And what of the other +reformers? They also are very busy. They have already abolished those +cheering beverages from grapes and grain, or rather they have made alcohol +one of the surreptitious privileges of the rich. They are seeking to +enforce the Sabbath as a day of absolute rest, not for the glory of God but +in order that tired wage-slaves may have their strength renewed for another +week of toil in the factories and the mills. Again, they would uproot +from the homely earth that pleasant weed whose leaves have made slaves of +millions since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh. All these things would they +do. There are some things the reformers have not done, and these things are +recounted by an American writer, Dr. Anthony M. Benedik: + + "The divorce peril, the race-suicide evil, the greed for ill-gotten + gold, things like these the reformers touch not. And these things it is + which harm the soul. Abolishing the use of alcoholic drinks and of + tobacco, putting the blue laws into effect, suppressing all rough + sports, may make a cleaner, more sanitary, more hygienic, a quieter + world. And yet there keep recurring to mind those words of the Master + of mankind, 'What doth it profit a man if he gain the world and suffer + the loss of his soul?' What worthy exchange can a man make for his + soul?" [42] + +On the other hand, it is good to read that the Governor of New York has +recently signed a bill making it a misdemeanour for landlords to refuse +to rent apartments to families in which there are children. In that State +children thus regain equal rights with dogs, cats, and canaries. Is it too +much to ask of the House of Commons that they should pass a similar law? We +shall see. + +The dangers of birth control were apparent to that great American, Theodore +Roosevelt, when he said: + + "The greatest of all curses is the curse of sterility, and the severest + of all condemnations should be that visited upon wilful sterility. The + first essential in any civilisation is that the man and the woman shall + be the father and the mother of healthy children, so that the race + shall increase and not decrease." [43] + + +Section 4. THE SAME RESULTS IN ENGLAND + +On a smaller scale the position is the same in England and Wales, where +Catholicism has probably checked to some extent the general decline of +the birth-rate. In 1919 there were only six towns in England [44] with a +birth-rate of over 25 per 1,000, these being St. Helens (25.6), Gateshead +(25.9), South Shields (26.9), Sunderland (27.1), Tynemouth (25.9), and +Middlesbrough (26.7). Now in these towns the Catholic element is very +strong. During the same year in the four registration counties in which +these towns are situated, a larger proportion of marriages were celebrated +according to the rites of the Church of Rome than in the other counties of +England and Wales. [45] The actual proportion of Catholic marriages per +1,000 of all marriages in these four counties was: Lancashire 116, Durham +99, Northumberland 92, and the North Riding of Yorkshire 92. That gives a +fair index of the strength of the Catholic population. Again in 1919 we +find that Preston, a textile town, has a birth-rate of 17.1, whereas two +other textile towns, Bradford and Halifax, have rates of 13.4 and 13.1 +respectively: and there can be little doubt that the relative superiority +of Preston is mainly owing to her large Catholic population. + +The actual birth-rate amongst Catholics in England may be estimated from +information contained in _The Catholic Directory_ for 1914. As that work +gives the Catholic population and the number of infant baptisms during the +previous year in each diocese of Great Britain, and as Catholic children +are always baptized soon after birth, it is possible to estimate the +birth-rate of the Catholic population. Working on these figures Professor +Meyrick Booth [46] has published the following table: + +TABLE VI + +Diocese. Birth-rate per 1,000 of the + Roman Catholic population. + +Menevia (Wales) 45.2 +Middlesbrough 38.0 +Leeds 42.0 +Liverpool 40.0 +Newport 53.0 +Northampton 33.0 +Plymouth 26.0 +Shrewsbury 38.0 +Southwark 39.O +Westminster 36.0 + ---- +Average 38.6 + ---- + +During the same period the general birth-rate amongst the whole population +of England and Wales was about 24 per 1,000. And figures that are even more +remarkable have been published by Mr. W.C.D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham. [47] +These writers, having investigated the number of children in the families +of the landed gentry, show that the birth-rate amongst the aristocracy has +declined. + + "A hundred fertile marriages for each decade from 1831 to 1890 have + been taken consecutively from those families who have held their title + to nobility for at least two preceding generations, thus excluding the + more modern commercial middle-class element in the present Peerage, + which can be better dealt with elsewhere. We then get the full effect + of hereditary stability and a secure position, and do away with any + disturbing influence that might occur from a sudden rise to + prosperity." [48] + +The results were as follows: [Reference: Population] + + Year. Number of children to each + fertile marriage. + + 1831-40 7.1 + 1841-60 6.1 + 1871-80 4.36 + 1881-90 3.13 + +The birth-rate amongst thirty families of the landed gentry, who were +known to be definitely Catholic, was also investigated, with the following +results: + + Years. Number of children to each + fertile marriage. + + 1871-90 6.6 + + (as compared with 3.74 for the landed families as a whole during the + same period.) + +The interpretation of these figures is not a matter of faith, but of +reason. I submit that the facts are _prima facie_ evidence that by +observance of the moral law, as taught by the Catholic Church, even +a highly cultured community is enabled to escape those dangers of +over-civilisation that lead to diminished fertility and consequently to +national decline. + +The truth of this statement has been freely acknowledged by many Anglicans. +According to Canon Edward Lyttelton: "The discipline of the Roman Communion +prohibits the artificial prevention of conception, hence Ireland is the +only part of the United Kingdom in which the birth-rate has not declined, +and the decline is least in places like Liverpool and those districts where +Roman Catholics are most numerous." As we have already seen, there are also +other reasons why Catholicism preserves the fertility of a nation. + +Without wishing to hurt the feelings of the most sensitive materialist, it +is necessary to point out that, apart altogether from the question as to +whether the chief or immediate cause of a declining birth-rate is the +practice of artificial birth control, or, as seems to be possible, a +general lowering of fertility, birth-rates are more dependent on morals +and religion than on race and country. During the past century irreligion +spread throughout France, and the birth-rate fell from 32.2, during the +first decade of the nineteenth century, to 20.6, during the first ten years +of the twentieth century. In America, amongst the descendants of the New +England Puritans a decay of religion and morals has also been accompanied +by a dwindling birth-rate. The decline of the original New England stock in +America has been masked to some extent by the high birth-rate amongst the +immigrant population; but nevertheless it is apparent in the Census Returns +for 1890, when a population of 65,000,000 was expected and only 62,500,000 +was returned. Moreover, there is ample evidence in history that, wherever +the Christian ideal of a family has been abandoned, a race is neither able +to return to the family life of healthy pagan civilisations nor to escape +decay. During the past fifty years in England family life has been +definitely weakened by increased facilities for divorce amongst the rich, +by the discouragement of parental authority amongst the poor, and by the +neglect of all religious teaching in the schools. And thus, in the words +of Charles Devas, "We have of late years, with perverse ingenuity, been +preparing the way for the low birth-rate of irreligion and the high +death-rate of civil disorder." [49] The birth-rate in England and Wales +reached its highest point, 36.3, in 1876, and has gradually fallen to 18.5 +in 1919. During the first two quarters of that year the rate was the lowest +yet recorded. During the pre-war year, 1913, the rate was 24.1. + +In conclusion, the following statements by a Protestant writer are of +interest: + + "Judging from a number of figures which cannot be quoted here, owing to + considerations of space, it would seem that the English middle-class + birth-rate has fallen to the extent of _over 50 per cent_. during the + last forty years; and we have actual figures showing that the + well-to-do artisan birth-rate has declined, _in the last thirty years, + by 52 per cent.!_ Seeing that the Protestant Churches draw their + members mainly from these very classes, we have not far to seek for an + explanation of the empty Sunday Schools...." + + "Under these circumstances it is not in the least necessary for + Protestant ministers and clergymen to cast about them for evidence of + Jesuit machinations wherewith to explain the decline of the Protestant + Churches in this country! Let them rather look at the empty cradles in + the homes of their own congregations!" [50] + +The author of the above-quoted paragraphs thus attributes the decline both +of the birth-rate and of the Protestant Churches to the general adoption of +artificial birth control. With that explanation I disagree, because it +puts the horse behind the cart. When the Protestant faith was strong the +birth-rate of this country was as high as that of Catholic lands. The +Protestant Churches have now been overshadowed by a rebirth of Rationalism, +a growth for which they themselves prepared the soil: and diminished +fertility is the natural product of a civilisation tending towards +materialism. Although the practice of artificial birth control must +obviously contribute towards a falling birth-rate, it is neither the only +nor the ultimate cause of the decline. The ultimate causes of a falling +birth-rate are more complex, and the decline of a community is but the +physical expression of a moral change. That is my thesis. + +[Footnote 35: _Evening Standard_, October 12, 1921.] + +[Footnote 36: "The Declining Birth-rate" in _The Month_, August 1916, p. +157, reprinted by C.T.S. Price 2_d_.] + +[Footnote 37: "Religious Belief as affecting the Growth of Population," +_The Hibbert Journal_, October, 1914, p. 144.] + +[Footnote 38: The Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The Declining +Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 99.] + +[Footnote 39: _The Month_, August 1916, p. 157, C.T.S.: 2_d_.] + +[Footnote 40: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 147.] + +[Footnote 41: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 150.] + +[Footnote 42: "Race-suicide and Dr. Bell," _America_, October 29, 1921, p. +31.] + +[Footnote 43: _Daily Chronicle_, April 25, 1910.] + +[Footnote 44: _Eighty-second Annual Report of the Registrar-General of +Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales_, 1919, p. 89.] + +[Footnote 45: Ibid., p. xxvi.] + +[Footnote 46: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 141.] + +[Footnote 47: _The Family and the Nation_, 1909, pp. 139, 142.] + +[Footnote 48: Quoted in _Universe_, October 22, 1921.] + +[Footnote 49: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 2nd edition, 1901, p. +193.] + +[Footnote 50: Meyrick Booth, B. Sc., Ph.D., _The Hibbert Journal_, October +1914, pp. 142 and 152.] + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +IS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS? + + +Section 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED + +In 1837 Thomas Doubleday [51] maintained that the rising birth-rate of his +own time was closely connected with the fall in the standard of living, and +his argument implied that, in order to check the excessive birth-rate, it +was necessary to improve the condition of the mass of the people. Four +years later he published _The True Law of Population_, wherein he stated +that when the existence of a species is endangered-- + + "A corresponding effort is invariably made by Nature for its + preservation and continuance by an increase of fertility, and that this + especially takes place whenever such danger arises from a diminution of + proper nourishment or food, so that consequently the state of depletion + or the deplethoric state is favourable to fertility, and that, on the + other hand, the plethoric state, or state of repletion, is unfavourable + to fertility in the ratio of the intensity of each state." + +By a series of experiments on plants Doubleday discovered that "whatever +might be the principle of manure, _an overdose_ of it invariably induced +sterility in the plant." Although his formula is deficient in that food is +selected as the one factor in environment which influences fertility, and +although it may be an overstatement to claim that fertility varies in exact +proportion to abundance or to scarcity, nevertheless his formula contains +an important truth which literally knocks the bottom out of the whole +Malthusian case. + +It is a sad reflection that, while the falsehoods of Malthus have been +blindly accepted for the greater part of a century, the work of Doubleday +was almost lost in oblivion. His shade has now been recalled to the full +centre of the stage, and for this the credit is due to Mr. C.E. Pell. His +recent book [52] is a stimulating essay on the declining birth-rate, and +contains much evidence that supports the main contention of Doubleday. +Although it is impossible to agree with all the deductions made by Mr. +Pell, he has nevertheless done a public service by restating the problem of +the birth-rate in a new way, by effectively bursting the Malthusian bubble, +and by tabulating fresh evidence against the birth-controllers. + + +Section 2. MR. PELL'S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED + +Mr. Pell defines the law of births and deaths in two generalisations. The +first is: "We have seen that it is a necessary condition of the success +of the evolutionary scheme that the variation of the inherited potential +degree of fertility between species and species must bear an inverse +proportion to their capacity for survival." [53] At first glance this +statement appears hard to be understood; but it is obviously true--because +it means that a species that is well adapted to its environment can survive +with a low degree of fertility, whereas a species that is not well adapted +to its environment requires a high degree of fertility in order to survive. +Mr. Pell considers that a "capacity for survival" is synonymous with +"nervous energy"; but, as our total knowledge of nervous energy is limited +to the fact that it is neither matter nor any known force, the change in +words does not mark a real advance in knowledge. + +The second generalisation is that "the variation of the degree of animal +fertility in response to the direct action of the environment shall bear +an inverse proportion to the variation of the survival capacity under +that environment." [54] Here Mr. Pell and I part company. I have already +(Chapter III) disputed the causal connection between birth-rate and +death-rate which Mr. Pell here asserts. His generalisation is made by +assuming that birth-rates and death-rates rise and fall together: that +conditions which produce a high death-rate will also produce a high +birth-rate and that conditions which cause a low death-rate will also cause +a low birth-rate; that the increase or decline of a population is due to +the direct action of the environment; and finally that "the _actual_ degree +of fertility is decided by the direct action of the environment." [55] On +that last rock Mr. Pell's barque sinks. The mistake here is analogous to +the old Darwinian fallacy, abandoned by Huxley and by Romanes, that natural +selection is a creative cause of new species. Even if the hypothesis of +evolution--and it is merely a hypothesis--be accepted, the only view +warranted by reason is that variation of species and their actual degree of +fertility may be produced, not by the direct action of environment, but by +the _reaction_ of species to their environment--a very different story. + +There is no statistical evidence to prove a uniform correspondence between +birth-rates and death-rates, and it is improbable that there should be +a physical law of nature whose operations cannot be demonstrated by +mathematical proof. Moreover, we know that the same conditions which cause +a high birth-rate may cause a low death-rate. In the case of the first +settlers in a new country the death-rate is low because the diseases of +civilisation are absent and the settlers are usually young, whereas the +birth-rate is high. If fifty young married couples settle on the virgin +soil of a new country it is probable that for many years an enormous +birth-rate, of over 100, will coexist with a low death-rate. + +In reality a high birth-rate may coexist with a low death-rate, or with a +high death-rate. For example, there is a difference between natural and +artificial poverty, the first being brought about by God, or, if any reader +prefers to have it so, by Nature, and the second being made by man. Under +conditions of natural poverty small groups of people in an open country are +surrounded by land not yet cultivated: whereas artificial poverty means +a population overcrowded and underfed, living in dark tenements or in +back-to-back houses, breathing foul air in ill-ventilated rooms seldom lit +by the sun, working long hours in gas-lit workshops for a sweated wage, +buying the cheapest food in the dearest market, and drugged by bad liquor. +In either case their existence is threatened, although for very different +reasons, and the birth-rate rises; but under conditions of natural poverty +the death-rate is low, whereas in slums the death-rate is high. + + +Section 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE + +It would appear, then, that under conditions of hardship the birth-rate +tends to rise, and that in circumstances of ease the birth-rate tends to +fall. If the existence of the inhabitants in a closed country is threatened +by scarcity, the birth-rate tends to rise. For example, "In some of the +remote parts of the country, Orkney and Shetland, the population remained +practically stationary between the years 1801 and 1811, and in the next ten +years, still years of great scarcity, it increased 15 per cent." [56] + +The governing principle may be expressed in the following generalisation. +When the existence of a community is threatened by adversity the birth-rate +tends to rise; but when the existence of a community is threatened by +prosperity the birth-rate tends to fall. By adversity I mean war, famine, +scarcity, poverty, oppression, an untilled soil, and disease: and by +prosperity I mean wealth, luxury, idleness, a diet too rich--especially in +flesh meat--and over-civilisation, whereby the physical laws of nature +are defied. Now the danger of national decline owing to prosperity can +be avoided by a nation that observes the moral law, and this is the most +probable explanation of the fact that in Ireland, although the general +prosperity of the people has rapidly increased since George Wyndham +displaced landlordism over a large area by small ownership, the birth-rate +has continued to rise. Moreover, the danger to national existence, as we +have already indicated (Chapter I, Section. 10) is greater from moral than +from physical catastrophes, and when both catastrophes are threatened the +ultimate issue depends upon which of the two is the greater. Furthermore, +it would appear that moral catastrophes inevitably lead to physical +catastrophes. This is best illustrated by the fate of ancient Greece. + + +Section 4. ILLUSTRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY [Reference: Dangers] + +The appositeness of this illustration arises from the fact that ancient +Greece reached a very high level of material and intellectual civilisation, +yet perished owing to moral and physical disasters. + +(a) _Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece_ + +The evidence of the moral catastrophe is to be found in the change that +occurred in the Greek character most definitely after the fourth century +before Christ. Of this Mr. W.H.S. Jones has given the following account: + + "Gradually the Greeks lost their brilliance, which had been as the + bright freshness of early youth. This is painfully obvious in their + literature, if not in other forms of art. Their initiative vanished; + they ceased to create and began to comment. Patriotism, with rare + exceptions, became an empty name, for few had the high spirit and + energy to translate into action man's duty to the State. Vacillation, + indecision, fitful outbursts of unhealthy activity followed by cowardly + depression, selfish cruelty, and criminal weakness are characteristic + of the public life of Greece from the struggle with Macedonia to the + final conquest by the arms of Rome. No one can fail to be struck by the + marked difference between the period from Marathon to the Peloponnesian + War and the period from Alexander to Mummius. Philosophy also suffered, + and became deeply pessimistic even in the hands of its best and noblest + exponents. 'Absence of feeling,' 'absence of care'--such were the + highest goals of human endeavour. + + "How far this change was due to other causes is a complicated question. + The population may have suffered from foreign admixture during the + troubled times that followed the death of Alexander. There were, + however, many reasons against the view that these disturbances produced + any appreciable difference of race. The presence of vast numbers of + slaves, not members of households, but the gangs of toilers whom the + increase of commerce brought into the country, pandered to a foolish + pride that looked upon many kinds of honourable labour as being + shameful and unbecoming to a free man. The very institution that made + Greek civilisation possible encouraged idleness, luxury, and still + worse vices. Unnatural vice, which in some States seems to have been + positively encouraged, was prevalent among the Greeks to an almost + incredible extent. It is hard not to believe that much physical harm + was caused thereby; of the loss to moral strength and vigour there is + no need to speak. The city-state, again, however favourable to the + development of public spirit and a sense of responsibility, was doomed + to fail in a struggle against the stronger Powers of Macedon and Rome. + The growth of the scientific spirit destroyed the old religion. The + more intellectual tried to find principles of conduct in philosophy; + the ignorant or half-educated, deprived of the strong moral support + that always comes from sharing the convictions of those abler and wiser + than oneself, fell back upon degrading superstitions. In either case + there was a serious loss of that spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion + which a vigorous religious faith alone can bestow. Without such a + spirit, as history proves conclusively, no nation or people can + survive." [57] + +(b) _The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness_ + +One of the physical catastrophes that probably most accelerated the fall +of Greek civilisation was malarial fever. The parasite of this disease is +carried from man to man by Anopheline mosquitoes. These insects, during +the stage of egg, larva, and nympha, live in water, and afterwards, as +developed insects, in the air. The breeding-grounds, where the eggs are +laid, are shallow pools of stagnant water. For that reason the disease is +most common in marshy country, and tends to disappear when the land is +properly drained. Of this we have an example in England, whence malaria +disappeared as the marshes were drained. + +In Homer there is a disputed reference to malaria, but it is not possible +to ascertain whether the disease was present during the rise of Greek +civilisation, and there are no references to this disease in the literature +from 700 B.C. to 550 B.C. [58] From this date references to malaria +gradually become more frequent, and Hippocrates stated that "those who live +in low, moist, hot districts, and drink the stagnant water, of necessity +suffer from enlarged spleen. They are stunted and ill-shaped, fleshy and +dark, bilious rather than phlegmatic. Their nature is to be cowardly and +adverse from hardship; but good discipline can improve their character in +this respect." [59] After an exhaustive study of the literature, Mr. Jones +concludes "that malaria was endemic throughout the greater part of the +Greek world by 400 B.C." + +Concerning the causes of a malarial epidemic, Sir Ronald Ross writes: [60] +"Suppose that the Anophelines have been present from the first, but that +the number of infected immigrants has been few. Then, possibly, some of +these people have happened to take up their abode in places where the +mosquitoes are rare; others may have recovered quickly; others may not have +chanced to possess parasites in suitable stages when they have been bitten. +Thus, the probability of their spreading infection would be very small. Or, +supposing even that some few new infections have been caused, yet, by our +rough calculations in section 12, _unless the mosquitoes are sufficiently +numerous_ in the locality, the little epidemic may die out after a +while--for instance, during the cool season." The italics are mine, because +some writers have suggested that the decline of Greece was _due_ to +malaria, whereas I submit, as the more logical interpretation of the facts, +that a moral catastrophe led to the neglect of agriculture, whereby the +area of marshy land became more extensive, mosquitoes more numerous, and +the fever more prevalent. + +In view of the foregoing facts, the following Malthusian statement, +although groundless, is nevertheless an amusing example of the errors that +arise from lack of a little knowledge: + + "The difficulty of providing for a high birth-rate in a settled + community was appreciated by the ancient Greeks, notably by Plato and + Aristotle; but their conclusions were swept aside by the warlike spirit + of Rome, and the sentimentality of Christianity, so that only a few + isolated thinkers showed any appreciation of them." [61] + +[Footnote 51: Quoted in _The Law of Births and Deaths_, by Charles Edward +Pell, 1921, chap. xii.] + +[Footnote 52: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921.] + +[Footnote 53: Ibid., p. 40.] + +[Footnote 54: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921, p. 41.] + +[Footnote 55: Ibid., p. 40.] + +[Footnote 56: Dr. John Brownlee, _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 156.] + +[Footnote 57: _Malaria and Greek History_, 1909, pp. 102 et seq.] + +[Footnote 58: Ibid., p. 26.] + +[Footnote 59: Ibid., p. 85.] + +[Footnote 60: _Report on the Prevention of Malaria in Mauritius_, p. 51.] + +[Footnote 61: C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., _The Malthusian Doctrine and +its Modern Aspects_, p. 3.] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES + +Birth controllers claim that the fall in the English birth-rate, which +began to decline in 1876, is mostly due to the use of contraceptives: but +the very fact that this claim is made by these reckless propagandists makes +it imperative that we should scrutinise the evidence very carefully. + + +Section 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES + +In support of the Malthusian contention, Dr. C.V. Drysdale, who is not a +doctor of medicine but a doctor of science, has published the following +statements: + + "... We might note that a recent investigation of the records of the + Quakers (the Society of Friends) reveals the fact that family + limitation has been adopted by them to a most astonishing extent. Their + birthrate [_sic_] stood at 20 per thousand in 1876, and has now + actually fallen to about 8 per thousand. The longevity of Quakers is + well known, and the returns of deaths given by their Society show that + the great majority live to between seventy and ninety years. Infantile + mortality is practically unknown among them, although none of the + special steps so dear to most social reformers have been taken for the + protection of infant life. The Quakers are well known to be very + earnest Christians, and to give the best example of religious morality. + Their probity in business and their self-sacrifice in humanitarian work + of all kinds are renowned. Yet it would seem that they have adopted + family restriction to a greater extent than any other body of people, + and, since the decline of their birth-rate only began in 1876, that it + is due to adoption of preventive methods." [62] + +Again, he translates the following quotation from a Swiss author: + + "In France a national committee has been formed which has as its object + an agitation for the increase of the population. Upon this committee + these [? there] sit, besides President Poincaré, who, although married, + has no children, twenty-four senators and littérateurs. These + twenty-five persons, who preach to their fellow citizens by word and + pen, have between them nineteen children, or not one child on the + average per married couple. Similarly, a Paris journal + (_Intransigeant_, August and September, 1908) had the good idea of + publishing four hundred and forty-five names of the chief Parisian + personalities who are never tired of lending their names in support of + opposition to the artificial restriction of families. I give these + figures briefly without the names, which have no special interest for + us. Anyone interested in the names can consult the paper well known in + upper circles. Among them: + + 176 married couples had 0 children = 0 children + 106 " " " 1 child = 106 " + 88 " " " 2 children = 176 " + 40 " " " 3 " = 120 " + 19 " " " 4 " = 76 " + 7 " " " 5 " = 35 " + 4 " " " 6 " = 24 " + 3 " " " 7 " = 21 " + 1 " " " 9 " = 9 " + 1 " " " 11 " = 11 " + + Total 445 with 578 + + That is, an average one and a third children per couple, while each + single one of these families could much more easily have supported + twenty children than a working-class family a single child." + +"Comment on the above is superfluous," adds Dr. C.V. Drysdale, and with +that remark most people will cordially disagree. The obvious interpretation +of the foregoing figures is that there has been a decline in natural +fertility amongst highly educated and civilised people. But that +interpretation does not suit Dr. Drysdale's book, and hence we have the +disgraceful spectacle of a writer who, in order to bolster up an argument +which is rotten from beginning to end, does not hesitate to launch without +a particle of evidence a charge of gross hypocrisy against the Quakers of +England, a body of men and women who in peace and in war have proved the +sincerity of their faith, and against four hundred and seventy respected +citizens of Paris. Further comment on _that_ is superfluous. At the same +time it is obvious that, in so far as their pernicious propaganda spreads +and is adopted, Malthusians may claim to contribute to the fall of the +birth-rate, and towards the decline of the Empire. + + +Section 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW + +In the course of an inquiry on the fertility of women who had received a +college education, the National Birth Rate Commission [63] attempted to +discover to what extent birth control was practised amongst the middle and +professional classes. Of those amongst whom the inquiry was made 477 gave +definite answers, from which it was ascertained that 289, or 60 per cent., +consciously limited their families, or attempted to do so; and that 188, +or 40 per cent. made no attempt to limit their families. Amongst those who +limited their families 183 stated the means employed, and of these, 105, +or 57 per cent., practised continence, whilst 78, or 43 per cent., used +artificial or unnatural methods. + +Now comes a most extraordinary fact. Dr. Major Greenwood, [64] a +statistician whose methods are beyond question, discovered that there was +no real mathematical difference between the number of children in the +"limited" families and the number in the unlimited families. In both groups +of families the number of children was smaller than the average family in +the general population, and in both groups there were fewer children than +in the families of the preceding generation to which the parents belonged. +Dr. Greenwood states that this is _prima facie_ evidence that deliberate +birth control has produced little effect, and that the lowered fertility is +the expression of a natural change. Nevertheless, he holds that the latter +explanation cannot be accepted as wholly proved on the evidence, owing to +certain defects in the data on which his calculations were based. + + "I am of opinion that we should hesitate before adopting that + interpretation in view of the cogent indirect evidence afforded by + other data that the fall of the birth-rate is differential, and that + the differentiation is largely economic. There are at least two + considerations which must be borne in mind in connection with these + schedules. The first is, that all the marriages described as unlimited + may not have been so. I do not suggest that the answers are + intentionally false, but it is possible that many may have considered + that limitation implied the use of mechanical means; that marriages in + which the parties merely abstained from, _or limited the occasions of_, + sexual intercourse may have frequently entered as of unrestricted + fertility." + +The above italics are mine, because, if that surmise be correct, it goes +to prove that the restriction of intercourse to certain periods, which +restriction the married may lawfully practise, is as efficacious in +limiting the size of a family as are those artificial methods of birth +control contrary both to natural and to Christian morality. Dr. Major +Greenwood continues as follows: + + "In the second place, the schedules do not provide us with information + as to when limitation was introduced. We are told, for instance, that + the size of the family was five and that its number was limited. This + may mean _either_ that throughout the duration of the marriage + preventive measures were adopted from time to time, _or_ that _after_ + five children had been born fertile intercourse was stopped. In the + absence of detailed information on this point it is plainly impossible + to form an accurate judgment as to the effect of limitation." + +There are, therefore, no accurate figures to indicate the extent to which +birth control has contributed to the decline in the birth-rate. + + +Section 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION + +Moreover the claim of birth controllers, that the decline in the English +birth-rate is mainly due to the use of contraceptives, is rendered highly +improbable by the fact that the Registrar-General [65] has shown that in +1911 the birth-rate in different classes varied according to the occupation +of the fathers. The figures are these: + + Births per 1,000 married + Social Class. males aged under 55, including + retired. + + 1. Unskilled workmen 213 + 2. Intermediate class 158 + 3. Skilled workmen 153 + 4. Intermediate 132 + 5. Upper and middle class 119 + +Thus, ascending the social scale, we find, in class upon class, that as the +annual income increases the number of children in the family diminishes, +until we come to the old English nobility of whom, according to Darwin, 19 +per cent. are childless. These last have every reason to wish for heirs to +inherit their titles and what land and wealth they possess, and, as their +record in war proves them to be no cowards' breed, it would be a monstrous +indictment to maintain that their childlessness is mostly due to the use +of contraceptives. If _all_ these results arose from the practice of +birth control, it would imply a crescendo of general national selfishness +unparalleled in the history of humanity. No, it is not possible to give +Neo-Malthusians credit, even for all the evil they claim to have achieved. + + +Section 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM + +Nevertheless, artificial birth control is an evil and too prevalent thing. +My contention is that the primary cause of our falling birth-rate is +over-civilisation; one of the most evil products of this over-civilisation, +whereby simple, natural, and unselfish ideals, based on the assumption that +national security depends on the moral and economic strength of family +life, have been replaced largely by a complicated, artificial, and +luxurious individualism; and that diminished fertility, apart from +the practice of artificial birth control, is a result of luxurious +individualism. Even if it be so, one of the most evil products of +over-civilisation is the use of contraceptives, because this practice, more +than any other factor in social life, hastens, directly and indirectly, the +fall of a declining birth-rate; and artificial birth control, to the extent +to which it is practised, therefore aggravates the consequences of a law of +decline already apparent in our midst. I have already said that restriction +of intercourse, as held lawful by the Catholic Church, is possibly as +efficacious in limiting the size of a family as are artificial methods. +If any man shall say that therefore there is no difference between these +methods, let him read the fuller explanation given in another connection on +p. 153. (See [Reference: Explanation]) The method which reason and morality +alike permit is devoid of all those evils, moral, psychological, and +physiological, that follow the use of contraceptives. + +[Footnote 62: _The Small Family System_, pp. 195 and 160, New York, 1917.] + +[Footnote 63: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 323.] + +[Footnote 64: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 324.] + +[Footnote 65: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 9.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL + + +Section 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT + + +Birth control is alleged to be beneficial for men and women, and these +"benefits" are no less amazing than the fallacies on which this practice +is advocated. At the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine +in 1921 the leading physicians on diseases of women condemned the use of +contraceptives. [66] + + _A Cause of Sterility_ + + Dr. R.A. Gibbons, Physician to the Grosvenor Hospital for Women, said + that nowadays it was common for a young married woman to ask her + medical man for advice as to the best method of preventing conception. + The test of relative sterility was the rapidity with which conception + takes place. He had made confidential inquiries in 120 marriages. In + 100 cases preventive measures had been used at one time or another, and + the number of children was well under 2 per marriage. In Paris some + time ago the birth-rate was 104 per 1,000 in the poorer quarters and + only 34 in a rich quarter of the city; in London comparative figures + had been given as 195 and 63 in poor and in rich quarters. These and + similar figures showed that women living in comfort and luxury did not + want to be bothered with confinements. It had been said that the degree + of sterility could be regarded as an index to the morals of a race. + Congenital sterility was rare, but the number of children born in + England was decreasing. It had been estimated that one-third of the + pregnancies in several great cities abroad aborted. Dr. Gibbons then + quoted figures given by Douglas Wight and Amand Routh to show the high + percentage of abortions and stillbirths. In his opinion it was the duty + of medical men to point out to the public that physiological laws could + not be broken with impunity. It had been observed that if the doe were + withheld from the buck at oestral periods atrophy of the ovary took + place. In this connection Dr. Gibbons recalled a large number of + patients who had used contraceptives in early married life, and + subsequently had longed in vain for a child. This applied also to those + who had decided, after the first baby, to have no more children, and + had subsequently regretted their decision. + + _Neuroses_ + + Professor McIlroy, of the London School of Medicine for Women, deplored + the amount of time spent on attempting to cure sterility when + contraceptives were so largely used. The fact that neuroses were + largely the result of the use of contraceptives should be made widely + known, and also that in women the maternal passion was even stronger, + though it might develop later, than sexual passion, and would + ultimately demand satisfaction. + + _Fibroid Tumours_ + + Dr. Arthur E. Giles, Senior Surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women, + endorsed Dr. Gibbons's remarks as to the great unhappiness resulting + from deliberately childless marriages, and he added that he had always + warned patients of this. He believed that quinine had a permanently bad + effect. Those who waited for a convenient season to have a child often + laid up trouble for themselves. On the question of fibroid tumours he + had come to the conclusion that these were not a cause but in a sense a + consequence of sterility. Women who were subjected to sexual excitement + with no physiological outlet appear to have a tendency to develop + fibroids. He would like the opinion to go forth from the section that + the use of contraceptives was a bad thing. + +All these authorities are agreed that the practice of artificial sterility +during early married life is the cause of many women remaining childless, +although later on these women wish in vain for children. To meet this +difficulty one of the advocates of birth control advises all young couples +to make sure of some children before adopting these practices; thus +demanding of young parents, at the very time when it is most irksome, that +very sacrifice of personal comfort and prosperity to prevent which is the +precise object of the vicious practice. Nor is sterility the only penalty. +The disease known as neurasthenia arises both in women _and in men_ in +consequence of these methods. Dr. Mary Sharlieb, [67] after forty years' +experience of diseases of women, writes as follows: + + "Now, on the surface of things, it would seem as if a knowledge of how + to prevent the too rapid increase of a family would be a boon to + over-prolific and heavily burdened mothers. There are, however, certain + reasons which probably convert the supposed advantage into a very real + disadvantage. An experience of well over forty years convinces me that + the artificial limitation of the family causes damage to a woman's + nervous system. The damage done is likely to show itself in inability + to conceive when the restriction voluntarily used is abandoned because + the couple desire offspring. + + "I have for many years asked women who came to me desiring children + whether they have ever practised prevention, and they very frequently + tell me that they did so during the early days of their married life + because they thought that their means were not adequate to the support + of a family. Subsequently they found that conception, thwarted at the + time that desire was present, fails to occur when it becomes + convenient. In such cases, even although examination of the pelvic + organ shows nothing abnormal, all one's endeavours to secure conception + frequently go unrewarded. Sometimes such a woman is not only sterile, + but nervous, and in generally poor health; but the more common + occurrence is that she remains fairly well until the time of the change + of life, when she frequently suffers more, on the nervous side, than + does the woman who has lived a natural married life." + +The late Dr. F.W. Taylor, President of the British Gynaecological Society, +wrote as follows in 1904: + + "Artificial prevention is an evil and a disgrace. The immorality of it, + the degradation of succeeding generations by it, their domination or + subjection by strangers who are stronger because they have not given + way to it, the curses that must assuredly follow the parents of + decadence who started it,--all of this needs to be brought home to the + minds of those who have thoughtlessly or ignorantly accepted it, for it + is to this undoubtedly that we have to attribute not only the + diminishing birth-rate, but the diminishing value of our population. + + "It would be strange indeed if so unnatural a practice, one so + destructive of the best life of the nation, should bring no danger or + disease in its wake, and I am convinced, after many years of + observation, that both sudden danger and chronic disease may be + produced by the methods of prevention very generally employed.... The + natural deduction is that the artificial production of modern times, + the relatively sterile marriage, is an evil thing, even to the + individuals primarily concerned, injurious not only to the race, but to + those who accept it." + +That was the opinion of a distinguished gynaecologist, who also happened +to be a Christian. The reader may protest that the latter fact is entirely +irrelevant to my argument, and that the value of a man's observations +concerning disease is to be judged by his skill and experience as a +physician, and not by his religious beliefs. A most reasonable statement. +Unhappily, the Neo-Malthusians think otherwise. They would have us believe +that because this man was a Christian his opinion, as a gynaecologist, is +worthless. C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., after quoting Dr. Taylor's views, +adds the following foot-note: + + "I have since learnt that Dr. Taylor was a very earnest Christian, and + the author of several sacred hymns and of a pious work, _The Coming of + the Saints_." [68] + +Furthermore, in 1905, the South-Western Branch of the British Medical +Association passed the following resolution: + + "That this Branch is of opinion that the growing use of contraceptives + and ecbolics is fraught with great danger both to the individual and to + the race. That this Branch is of opinion that the advertisements and + sale of such appliances and substances, as well as the publication and + dissemination of literature relating thereto, should be made a penal + offence." [69] + + +Section 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION + +The foregoing opinions are very distasteful to Neo-Malthusians, and these +people, being unable apparently to give a reasoned answer, do not hesitate +to suggest that medical opposition, when not due to religious bias, is +certainly due to mercenary motives. + + "As the Church has a vested interest in souls, so the medical + profession has a vested interest in bodies. Birth is a source of + revenue, direct and indirect. It means maternity fees first; it + generally presupposes preliminary medical treatment of the expectant + mother; and it provides a new human being to be a patient to some + member of the profession, humanly certain to have its share of + infantile diseases, and likely, if it survives them, to produce + children of its own before the final death-bed attendance is + reached." [70] + +That scandalous suggestion has recently been repeated by the President of +the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress under the +following circumstances. On October 31, 1921, the _Sussex Daily News_ +published the following paragraph from its London correspondent. + + "BIRTH CONTROL + + "Reverberations of Lord Dawson's recent sensational address to the + Church Congress on birth control are still being felt as well in + medical as in clerical circles. Indeed, the subject has been discussed + by the lawyers at Gray's Inn. The London Association of the Medical + Women's Federation had so animated a discussion on it that it was + decided to continue it at the next meeting. It is quite evident that + Lord Dawson did not speak for a united medical profession. Indeed, + quite a number of doctors of all creeds are attacking the new Birth + Control Society. A London physician has a pamphlet on the subject in + the Press, and the controversy rages fiercely in the neighbourhood of + 'birth-control' clinics. Much is likely to be made of the example of + France, where the revolt against the practices advocated is now in full + swing, and strong legal measures have been taken and are in + contemplation. French medical opinion is said to be very pronounced on + the subject, and it has, of course, a great deal of clinical experience + to back it." + +On November 8, a second paragraph appeared: + + "BIRTH CONTROL + + "My remark recently that 'a number of doctors of all creeds are + attacking the new Birth-Control Society' has been challenged by the + hon. secretary of the body in question, who observes that I am + misinformed. I must adhere to my statement, which was a record of + personal observation. Many doctors have spoken to me on the subject, + and their opinions on the ethics of birth control differ widely; but I + can only remember one who did not attack this particular society. The + secretary suggests that I am confusing what his society advocates with + something else. As a matter of fact, the whole question of birth + control has been discussed more than once by medical bodies. A doctor + who attended one such discussion shortly after the opening of the + clinic in Holloway told me that, while there was division of opinion on + the general subject, the feeling of the meeting was overwhelming + against the particular teaching given at the clinic, as undesirable and + actively mischievous. The subject is controversial, and I profess to do + no more than record such opinions as are current." + +On November 17 the _Sussex Daily News_ published the following letter: + + "CONSTRUCTIVE BIRTH CONTROL + + "Sir,--Your recent paragraph of 'opinions' about the Mothers' Clinic + and the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress is + not only extremely unrepresentative, but grossly misleading. Your + writer says that he can only remember one doctor who did not attack + this particular society. This implies that the medical profession is + against it, which is absolutely untrue, as is quite evident from the + fact that we have three of the most distinguished medical men in Great + Britain on our list of Vice-Presidents; four others, also very + distinguished, on our Research Committee; and that Dr. E.B. Turner, in + a Press interview after the recent Church Congress, singled out + Constructive Birth Control as the only 'Control' which was not + mischievous. + + "_That there may be medical men who do not approve of birth control is + natural, when one remembers that a doctor has to make his living, and + can do so more easily when women are ailing with incessant pregnancies + than when they maintain themselves in good health by only having + children when fitted to do so. Opinions of medicals, therefore, must be + sifted. The best doctors are with us; the self-seeking and the biassed + may be against us_. + + "Details about the society, including the manifesto signed by a series + of the most distinguished persons, can be obtained on application to + the Honorary Secretary, at ... London, N.19.--Yours, etc. + + "MARIE C. STOPES, + "President Society for Constructive and Racial Progress." + +The italics are mine, and they draw attention to a disgraceful statement +concerning the medical profession. As the reader is aware, certain members +of our profession approve of artificial birth control. What, I ask, would +be the opinion of the general public, and of my friends, if I were so +distraught as to suggest that these men approved of birth control because +they had a financial interest in the sale of contraceptives? That +suggestion would be as reckless and as wicked as the statement made by Dr. +Marie C. Stopes. In the _British Medical Journal_ of November 26 I quoted, +without comment, the above italicised paragraph as her opinion of the +medical profession, and on December 10 the following reply from the lady +appeared: + + "Your two correspondents, Dr. Halliday Sutherland and Dr. Binnie + Dunlop, by quoting paragraphs without their full context, appear to + lend support to views which by implication are, to some extent, + detrimental to my own. This method of controversy has never appealed to + me, but in the interests of the society with which I am associated, I + must be allowed to answer the implications. The paragraph quoted by Dr. + Sutherland is not, as would appear from his letter, a simple opinion of + mine on the medical profession, but was written in reply to a rather + scurrilous paragraph so worded as to lead the public to believe that + the medical profession as a whole was against the Society for + Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress. My answer, which + appeared not only in the papers quoted but in others, contained the + following statement: 'We have three of the most distinguished medical + men in Great Britain on our list of Vice-Presidents; four others, also + very distinguished, on our Research Committee.' Reading these words + before the paragraph your correspondent quotes, and taking all in + conjunction with an attack implying that the entire medical profession + was against us, it is obvious that the position is rather different + from what readers of Dr. Sutherland's letter in your issue of November + 26 might suppose." + +It will be noted that Dr. Stopes does not withdraw but attempts to justify +her scandalous suggestion by stating, firstly, that the full context of her +letter was not quoted by me, and secondly, that her original letter was +written "in reply to a rather scurrilous paragraph." + +As I have now quoted in full her original letter, excepting the address +of her society, and the two paragraphs from the _Sussex Daily News_, my +readers may form their own judgment on the following points: Is it possible +to maintain that the whole context of her original letter puts a different +complexion on her remarks concerning the medical profession? Can either +of the paragraphs from the _Sussex Daily News_ be truthfully described +as "rather scurrilous," or are they fair comment on a matter of public +interest? Moreover, even if a daily paper _had_ published a misleading +paragraph about this society, surely that is not a valid reason why its +President should make a malignant attack, not on journalists, but on the +medical profession? + + +Section 3. A CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE + +Nor does birth control lead to happiness in marriage. On the contrary, +experience shows that the practice is injurious not only to the bodies +but also to the minds of men and women. As no method of contraception is +infallible, the wife who allows or adopts it may find herself in the truly +horrible position of being secretly or openly suspected of infidelity. +Again, when a family has been limited to one or two children and these die, +the parents may find themselves solitary and childless in old age; and +mothers thus bereaved are often the victims of profound and lasting +melancholy. The mother of a large family has her worries, many of them not +due to her children, but to the social evils of our time: and yet she is +less to be pitied than the woman who is losing her beauty after a fevered +life of, vanity and self-indulgence, and who has no one to love her, not +even a child. + +Moreover, these practices have an influence on the relation between husband +and wife, on their emotions towards each other and towards the whole sexual +nisus. Mr. Bernard Shaw recently stated [71] that when people adopt methods +of birth control they are engaging, not in sexual intercourse, but in +reciprocal masturbation. + +That is the plain truth of the matter. Or, from another point of view, it +may be said that the man who adopts these practices is simply using his +wife as he would use a prostitute, as indeed was said long ago by St. +Thomas Aquinas. [72] The excuse offered for illicit sexual intercourse is +not usually pleasure, but that the sex impulse is irresistible: and the +same argument is used for conjugal union with prevention. In both cases the +natural result of union is not desired, and positive means are taken to +prevent it. + +And what of the results on the mutual love, if an old-fashioned word be +not now out of place, and on the self-respect of two people so associated? +Birth control cannot make for happiness, because it means that mutual love +is at the mercy of an animal instinct, neither satisfied nor denied. It is +an old truth that those who seek happiness for itself never find it. And +yet the advocates of birth control have the temerity to claim that these +practices lead to happiness. I presume that of the bliss following marriage +with contraceptives the crowded lists of our divorce courts are an index. +The marriage bond is weakened when a common lasting interest in the care +of children is replaced by transient sexual excitement. Once pregnancy is +abolished there is no natural check on the sexual passions of husband or +wife, for they have learnt how sexual desire may be gratified without the +pain, publicity, and responsibility of having children. In the experience +of the world marriages based merely on passion are seldom happy, and +artificial birth control means passion uncontrolled by nature. These +methods are not practised by nations such as Ireland and Spain, who accept +the moral rule of the natural law expressed in God's commandments and +sanctioned by His judgments; and no man who has ever lived in these +countries could truthfully maintain that the people there, on whom the +burdens of marriage press as elsewhere, are in reality anxious to obtain +facilities for divorce. On the other hand, there are many who allege that +the people of England are shouting out for greater facilities for divorce +than they now possess. At any rate, it is obvious enough that there are +those amongst us who are straining every nerve to force such facilities +upon them. + + +Section 4. AN INSULT TO TRUE WOMANHOOD + +It has been said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel; and +apparently chivalry is the last refuge of a fool. Some of the advocates of +birth control who have never thought the matter out, either passionately or +dispassionately, claim to speak on behalf of women. They protest that "many +women of the educated classes revolt against the drudgery, anxieties, +inconveniences, disease, and disfigurements which attend the yearly +child-bearing advocated by the moralist." [73] + +What moralist? Who ever said it? Again, they plead for women who "revolt" +from the "disfigurement" of the gestation period. The great artist +Botticelli did not think this was disfigurement. What true women do? Are +they not those of whom Kipling writes, "as pale and as stale as a bone"? +And, if so, are these unworthy specimens of their sex worth tears? The vast +majority of women bear the discomforts of gestation and the actual perils +and pangs of birth with exemplary fortitude: and it is a gross slander for +anyone to maintain that a few cowardly and degenerate individuals really +represent that devoted sex. But these writers are indeed well out of the +ruck of ordinary humanity, because they tell us that "whatever the means +employed, and whether righteous or not, the propensity to limit the highest +form of life operates silently and steadily amongst the more thoughtful +members of all civilized countries," and yet add that "it is not perhaps +good taste to consider the means employed to this end." While they thus +approve and commend the practice of birth control as natural to "the +more thoughtful members," they nevertheless question the "good taste" of +discussing the very methods of which they approve, even in the columns of a +medical journal! Again, they tell us that "assuredly continence is not, and +never will be, the principal" method. That may be possibly true, so long as +Christianity is more professed than practised; God knows we are all lacking +enough in self-control. And yet throughout the ages moralists have preached +the advantages of self-control, and we ordinary men and women know that we +could do better, and that others who have gone before us have done better; +but it is the self-styled "thoughtful members" who proclaim to the world +that self-control in matters of sex is an impossibility, and therefore not +to be even attempted. They are no common people--these epicureans, selfish +even in their refinement. In addition to losing their morals, they have +certainly lost their wits. + + +Section 5. A DEGRADATION OF THE FEMALE SEX + +In the Neo-Malthusian propaganda there is yet another fact which--should +be seized by every married woman, because it is a clear indication of a +tendency to reduce women to degrading subjection. No recommendations of +limited intercourse or of self-restraint according to the dictates +of reason or of affection are to be found in the writings of birth +controllers. Unrestrained indulgence, without the risk of consequences, is +their motto. To this end they advocate certain contraceptive methods, and +the reader should note that these methods require precautions to be taken +solely by the woman. If she fails to take these precautions, or if the +precautions themselves fail, all responsibility for the occurrence of +conception rests on her alone; because her Malthusian masters have decided +that she alone is to be, made responsible for preventing the natural or +possible consequences of intercourse. Why? That is a very interesting +question, and one to which a leading Neo-Malthusian has given the answer. + +In 1854 there was published, _Physical, Sexual and Natural Religion: by a +Graduate of Medicine_. In the third edition the title was altered to _The +Elements of Social Science_, and the author's pseudonym to _A Doctor of +Medicine_. This book, which contains over 600 pages of small type, may be +truthfully described as the Bible of Neo-Malthusians, and includes, under +the curious heading _Sexual Religion_, a popular account of all venereal +and other diseases of sex. In the Preface to the first edition, [74] the +anonymous author states: "Had it not been the fear of causing pain to a +relation, I should have felt it my duty to put my name to this work; in +order that any censure passed upon it should fall upon myself alone." The +relation appears to have had a long life, because anonymity was preserved +for fifty years, presumably out of respect for his, or her, feelings: and +he, or she, must have lived as long as the author, who died in 1904 at the +age of seventy-eight; because the author's name was not revealed until a +posthumous edition, the thirty-fifth, appeared in 1905, from which we learn +that the book was written by the late Dr. George Drysdale, brother of +the first President of the Malthusian League, and uncle of the present +incumbent. The last edition, in recompense for its smudgy type, contains a +most welcome announcement by the publisher: + + "PUBLISHER'S NOTE.--... It is due alike to the reader and the publisher + to explain why the present edition is printed (in the main) from + stereotypes that have seen fifty years' service. The cost of resetting + the work would be prohibitive on the basis of present (and probable + future) sales. To some extent the plates have been repaired; but such + an expedient can do no more than remove the worse causes of offence." + +But the fact with which I am at present concerned is that in every edition +all contraceptive methods that apply to the male are _condemned_ for the +following reasons: + + "The first of these modes [_coitus interruptus_] is physically + injurious, and is apt to produce nervous disorder and sexual + enfeeblement and congestion, from the sudden interruption it gives to + the venereal act, whose _pleasure_ moreover it interferes with. The + second, namely the sheath, _dulls the enjoyment_, and frequently + produces impotence in the man and disgust in both parties; so that it + also is injurious" (p. 349).... "Any preventive means, to be + satisfactory, must be used by the woman, as _it spoils the passion and + the impulsiveness_ of the venereal act _if the man have to think of + them_" (p. 350). + +The italics are mine, but the following comments are by a woman, who was +moreover the first woman to qualify in medicine--the late Dr. Elizabeth +Blackwell. + + "Here, in this chief teacher of the Neo-Malthusians, the cloven foot is + fully revealed. This popular author, who in many parts of his book + denounces marriage as the enslavement of men and women, who sneers at + continence, and rages at Christianity as a vanishing superstition--all + under a special pretence of benevolence and desire for the advancement + of the human race, here clearly, shows what he is aiming at, and what + his doctrines lead to. Male sexual pleasure must not be interfered + with, male lust may be indulged in to any extent that pleasure demands, + but woman must take the entire responsibility, that male indulgence be + not disturbed by any inconvenient claims from paternity. Whatever + consequences ensue the woman is to blame, and must bear the whole + responsibility. + + "A doctrine more diabolical in its theory and more destructive in its + practical consequences has never been invented. This is the doctrine of + Neo-Malthusianism." [75] + + +Section 6. SPECIALLY HURTFUL TO THE POOR + +(a) _Affecting the Young_ + +There are three special and peculiar evils that attend the teaching of +birth control amongst the poor. Of the first a doctor has written as +follows: + + "Morally, the doctrine is indefensible--it follows the line of least + resistance, and sacrifices the spirit to the flesh. Materially, it is + fraught with grave danger to the home and to our national existence. It + is proposed to disseminate a knowledge of contraceptive methods + throughout the overcrowded homes of the ill-fed, ill-clad poor. Now it + is in these homes that the moral sense has already but little chance of + development, where the child of eight or ten already knows far more + than is good for the health of either body or mind, and, though we may + succeed in reducing the size of the family, yet the means we employ + will militate against the raising of the moral tone of the household, + and the children will not be any less precocious than before." [76] + +That danger is ignored by the advocates of birth-control. "But he that +shall scandalise one of these little ones that believe in Me, it were +better for, him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he +were drowned in the depth, of the sea." [77] + +(b) _Exposing the Poor to Experiment_ + +Secondly, the ordinary decent instincts of the poor are against these +practices, and indeed they have used them less than any other class. But, +owing to their poverty, lack of learning, and helplessness, the poor are +the natural victims of those who seek to make experiments on their fellows. +In the midst of a London slum a woman, who is a doctor of German philosophy +(Munich), has opened a Birth Control Clinic, where working women are +instructed in a method of contraception described by Professor McIlroy as +"the most harmful method of which I have had experience." [78] When we +remember that millions are being spent by the Ministry of Health and by +Local Authorities--on pure milk for necessitous expectant and nursing +mothers, on Maternity Clinics to guard the health of mothers before and +after childbirth, for the provision of skilled midwives, and on Infant +Welfare Centres--all for the single purpose of bringing healthy children +into our midst, it is truly amazing that this monstrous campaign of birth +control should be tolerated by the Home Secretary. Charles Bradlaugh was +condemned to jail for a less serious crime. + +(c) _Tending towards the Servile State_ + +Thirdly, the policy of birth control opens the way to an extension of the +Servile State, [79] because women as well as men could then be placed under +conditions of economic slavery. Hitherto, the rule has been that during +child-bearing age a woman must be supported by her husband, and the general +feeling of the community has been opposed to any conditions likely to force +married women on to the industrial market. In her own home a woman works +hard, but she is working for the benefit of _her_ family and not directly +for the benefit of a stranger. If, instead of bearing children, women +practise birth control, and if children are to be denied to the poor as a +privilege of the rich, then it would be very easy to exploit the women of +the poorer classes. If women have no young children why should they be +exempt from the economic pressure that is applied to men? And indeed, +where birth control is practised women tend more and more to supplant men, +especially in ill-paid grades of work. One of the birth controllers has +suggested that young couples, who otherwise could not afford to marry, +should marry but have no children, and thus continue to work at their +respective employments during the day. As the girl would have little time +for cooking and other domestic duties, this immoralist is practically +subverting the very idea of a home! The English poor have already lost even +the meaning of the word "property," and if the birth controllers had their +way the meaning of the word "home" would soon follow. The aim of birth +control is generally masked by falsehood, but the urging of this policy +on the poor points unmistakably to the Servile State. When a nation, or +a section of a nation, is oppressed, their birth-rate rises. That is the +immutable law of nature as witnessed in history. Thus, the Israelites +increased under the oppression of the Pharaohs. Thus, the Irish, from the +Union to the Famine, multiplied prodigiously under the oppression of an +iniquitous political and land system. By the operation of this law the +oppressed grow in numbers, and break their chains. + + +Section 7. A MENACE TO THE NATION + +(a) _There is a Limit to lowering the Death-rate_ + +Birth controllers believe that a high birth-rate is the cause of a high +death-rate, and that over-population is the cause of poverty. Yet, in spite +of their beliefs, they make the following statement: "Neo-Malthusians have +not aimed at reducing population, but only at reducing unnecessary death, +which injures the community without adding to its numbers." [80] In defence +of this statement they argue that if the death-rate falls people will +live longer, and therefore the population will not decrease, although the +birth-rate is lowered. There are two fallacies in their argument. They +overlook the fact that every one of us must die, and that therefore there +is a limit beyond which a death-rate cannot possibly fall, whereas there +is no limit, except zero, to the possible fall in a birth-rate. If a +birth-rate fell to nothing and no children were born, it is obvious that +the population would eventually vanish. The second fallacy is that a low +birth-rate will permanently lower the death-rate. At first a falling +birth-rate increases the proportion of young adults in the population, and, +as the death-rate during early adult life is relatively low, the total +death-rate tends to fall for a time. Sooner or later there is an increase +in the proportion of old people in the population, and, as the death-rate +during old age is high, the total death-rate tends to rise. That is now +happening in England, and these are the _actual facts_ as recorded by the +Registrar-General: + + "It may be pointed out that, though the effect of the fall in the + birth-rate has hitherto been an a sense advantageous in that it has + increased the proportions living at the working ages, a tendency to the + reversal of this fact has already set in, and may be expected to + develop as time goes on.... + + "The general characteristics of the figures indicate very clearly the + effects of the long-continued decline in the birth-rate of this + country, and show, by the example of France, the type of + age-distribution which a further continuance of the decline is likely + to produce. The present age-distribution of the English population is + still favourable to low death-rates, but is becoming less so than it + was in 1901. The movements along the curve of the point of maximum + heaping up population, referred to on page 61 (See [Reference: + Population]), has shifted this from age 20-25 to a period ten years + later, when mortality is appreciably higher."--Census of England and + Wales, 1911. General Report, with Appendices, pp. 62 and 65. + +Of these facts the birth controllers, would appear to be ignorant. That +is a charitable assumption; but, in view of the vital importance of this +question their ignorance is culpable. + +(b) _Birth Control tends to extinguish the Birth-rate_ + +Whatever may be the nebulous aim of birth controllers, the actual results +of birth control are quite definite. We have no accurate information +regarding the extent to which, birth control is practised, for, needless to +say, the Malthusians can provide us with no exact figures bearing on this +question; but we do know that birth control, when adopted, is mostly +practised amongst the better paid artisans and wealthier classes. After +full examination of the evidence; the National Birth-rate Commission were +unanimously agreed "That the greater incidence of infant mortality upon the +less prosperous classes does not reduce their effective fertility to the +level of that of the wealthier classes." [81] It is probable that this +Commission overestimated the extent to which birth control has contributed +to the declining birth-rate; but, even so, this does not alter the obvious +fact that artificial birth control, when adopted, reduces fertility to +a lower level than Nature intended. If language has any meaning, birth +control means a falling birth-rate, and a falling birth-rate means +depopulation. Here and there this evil practice may increase the material +prosperity of an individual, but it lowers the prosperity of the nation +by reducing the number of citizens. Moreover, as birth control is not +a prevailing vice amongst semi-civilised peoples, the adoption of this +practice by civilised nations means that the proportion of civilised to +uncivilised inhabitants of the world will be reduced. If birth control had +been extensively practised in the past the colonisation of the British +Empire would have been a physical impossibility; and to-day, in our +vast overseas dominions, are great empty spaces whose untilled soil and +excellent climate await a population. Is that population to be white, or +yellow? A question which to-day fills the Australian with apprehension. + +(c) _A Danger to the Empire_ + +Many people are honestly perplexed by Neo-Malthusian propaganda, and are +honestly ignorant of the truth concerning the population and the food +supply of the British Empire. They think that _if_ the population is +increasing faster than the food supply, there is at least one argument in +favour of artificial birth control from a practical, although possibly not +from an ethical, point of view. They apply to that propaganda the ordinary +test of the world, namely, 'Will it work?' rather than that other test +which asks, 'Is it right?' The question I would put to people who reason in +that way, and they are many, is a very simple one. If it can be proved that +Neo-Malthusian propaganda is based on an absolute falsehood, will it not +follow that the chief argument in favour of artificial birth control has +been destroyed? Let us put this matter to the proof. Neo-Malthusians state +that the population of the Empire is increasing more rapidly than the +food supply. That is a definite statement. It is either true or false. +To discover the truth, it is necessary to refer to the Memorandum of the +Dominions Royal Commission, and it may be noted that publications of that +sort are not usually read by the general public to whom the Neo-Malthusians +appeal. The public are aware that the staff of life is made from wheat, but +they are not aware of the following facts, which prove that in this matter, +at any rate, Neo-Malthusian statements are absolutely false. In foreign +countries the increase of the wheat area is proceeding at practically the +same rate as the increase of population. Within the British Empire _the +wheat area is increasing more rabidly than the population_. + +Between 1901 and 1911 the percentage increase of the wheat area _was nearly +seven times greater_ than the increase of population; and the percentage +increase in the actual production of wheat _was nearly twelve times +greater_ than the increase of population. As these facts alone completely +refute the Neo-Malthusian argument, it is advisable to reproduce here the +official statistics. [82] + + "The requirements of wheat [83] for the United Kingdom and the extent + to which Home and overseas supplies contributed towards these + requirements during the period under review can be briefly summarised + by the following table, viz.: + + Normal Supplies Proportion of supply + Annual requirements + average Home Overseas Home Overseas + + Million Million Million Per Per + cwts cwts cwts cent cent + 1901-5 138.8 28.7 110.1 20.7 79.3 + 1906-10 143.2 31.9 111.3 22.3 77.7 + 1911-13 149.2 32.9 116.3 22.1 77.9 + + "The main sources of overseas supply are too well known to require + recapitulation here. The imports from the Dominions and India and their + proportionate contribution to the United Kingdom's total imports and + wheat requirements since 1901 have been as follows: + + 1901-5 + Percentage + From Annual Total Total + average imports requirements + + Million Per Per + cwts cent cent + + Canada 10.3 9.2 7.4 + Australia 6.6 5.9 4.8 + New Zealand .4 .4 .3 + India 15.5 13.9 11.2 + + 32.8 29.4 23.7 + + + 1906-10 + Percentage + From Annual Total Total + average imports requirements + + Million Per Per + cwts cent cent + + Canada 17.2 15.1 12.0 + Australia 9.4 8.2 6.6 + New Zealand .3 .3 .2 + India 13.3 11.7 9.3 + + 32.8 29.4 23.7 + + + 1911-13 + Percentage + From Annual Total Total + average imports requirements + + Million Per Per + cwts cent cent + + Canada 24.5 20.5 16.4 + Australia 12.6 10.6 8.4 + New Zealand .4 .3 .3 + India 21.5 18.0 14.4 + + 59.0 49.4 39.5 + + "The large increase in the proportion received from the Dominions is, + of course, mainly due to the great extension of wheat cultivation in + Western Canada since the beginning of the century." [84] + + _Future Supplies_ + + "As the United Kingdom is dependent for so large a proportion of its + wheat supplies on the surplus of oversea countries, it is of material + interest to examine whether this surplus is increasing, or whether the + growth of population is proceeding more rapidly than the extension of + the wheat-growing area. + + "The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1912 estimated [85] that the + extension of the wheat area and the growth of population during the + period 1901-1911 was as follows: + + Wheat area Percent Population. Percent + Wheat-growing age in age in + countries. 1901. 1911. crease 1901. 1911. crease + + British Empire Thousand Thousand Thousands Thousands + (United Kingdom, acres. acres. + Canada, + Australia, + New Zealand, + and India). 34,696 50,490 +45.5 283,385 302,154 + 6.6 + European + countries. 98,326 115,105 +17.1 291,685 337,181 +15.6 + Others 67,908 81,408 +19.9 139,927 168,818 +20.6 + + "_It is important to find that, while in foreign countries, both + European and extra-European, the increase of wheat area is proceeding + at practically the same rate as the increase of population, in the + British Empire the wheat area is developing far more rapidly, so that + the Empire as a whole is becoming more self-supporting. + + "The total production of wheat within the British Empire, which was + 227,500,000 cwts. in 1901, had risen to 399,700,000 cwts. in 1911, an + increase of 75 per cent_. + + "The relative yield per acre in 1911 was as follows:" + + Yield per acre. + + Average for five + years, 1906-10. 1911. + Bushels. Bushels. + + United Kingdom 32.88 32.96 + Canada 17.56[86] 20.80[87] + Australia 11.74 9.65[88] + New Zealand 28.72 36.73 + India + (including Native States) 11.44 12.02 + +The foregoing facts destroy the chief Neo-Malthusian argument, and, as +birth control tends to extinguish the birth-rate, this Neo-Malthusian +propaganda is a menace to the Empire. In fact, the danger is very great for +the simple reason that the proportion of white people within the Empire is +very small. + + "The British Empire's share of the world's people is very large, but it + mainly consists, it should be remembered, of Asiatics and African + natives. The Empire as a whole contains about 450 millions of the + world's 1,800 millions, made up roundly as follows: + + United Kingdom 47,000,000 + Self-governing Dominions 22,000,000 + Rest of the Empire (chiefly India, + 319 millions) 378,000,000 + Total 447,000,000 + + "Of the great aggregate Empire population of 447 millions, the white + people account for no more than 65 millions. That is to say, outside + the United Kingdom itself the Empire has only 18 million white people, + or less than four million families. That figure, of course, includes + Boers, French-Canadians, and others of foreign extraction. This fact is + clearly not realized by those present-day Malthusians who assure us + that too many Britons are being born." [89] + +It is also well to remember that depopulation in Italy preceded the +disintegration of the Roman Empire. Historians have estimated that, while +under the Republic, Italy could raise an army of 800,000 men, under Titus +that number was halved. + +Unfortunately there are some to whom this argument will not appeal, and +wandering about in our midst are a few lost souls, so bemused by the +doctrines of international finance that they see no virtue in patriotism +or, in other words, in the love that a man has for his own home. They are +unmoved by the story of sacrifice, of thrift, and of patient trust in +God that is told for instance in the history of the Protestant manses of +Scotland, where ministers on slender stipends brought up families of ten +and twelve, where the boys won scholarships at the universities, and where +women were the mothers of men. + +These days have been recalled by Norman Macleod: + + "The minister, like most of his brethren, soon took to himself a wife, + the daughter of a neighbouring 'gentleman tacksman,' and the + grand-daughter of a minister, well born and well bred; and never did + man find a help more meet for him. In that manse they lived for nearly + fifty years, and there were born to them sixteen children; yet neither + father nor mother could ever lay hand on a child and say, 'We wish this + one had not been.' They were all a source of unmingled joy...." [90] + + "A 'wise' neighbour once remarked, 'That minister with his large family + will ruin himself, and if he dies they will be beggars.' Yet there has + never been a beggar among then to the fourth generation." [91] + +How did they manage to provide for their children? In this pagan, spoon-fed +age, many people will laugh when they read the answer--in a family letter, +written more than a hundred years ago by a man who was poor: + + "But the thought--I cannot provide for these! Take care, minister, the + anxiety of your affection does not unhinge that confidence with which + the Christian ought to repose upon the wise and good providence of + God! What though you are to leave your children poor and friendless? + Is the arm of the Lord shortened, that He cannot help? Is His ear + heavy, that He cannot hear? You yourself have been no more than an + instrument in the hand of His goodness; and is His goodness, pray, + bound up in your feeble arm? Do you what you can; leave the rest to + God. Let them be good, and fear the Lord, and keep His commandments, + and He will provide for them in His own way and in His own time. Why, + then, wilt thou be cast down, O my soul; why disquieted within me? + Trust thou in the Lord! Under all the changes and the cares and the + troubles of this life, may the consolations of religion support our + spirits. In the multitude of thoughts within me, Thy comforts O my + God, delight my soul! But no more of this preaching-like harangue, of + which, I doubt not, you wish to be relieved. Let me rather reply to + your letter, and tell you my news." [92] + +That letter was written by Norman Macleod, ordained in 1774, and minister +of the Church of Scotland in Morven for some forty years. His stipend was +£40, afterwards raised to £80. He had a family of sixteen. One of his sons +was minister in Campbelltown, and later in Glasgow. He had a family of +eleven. His eldest son was Chaplain to Queen Victoria, and wrote the +_Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_. + +The birth controllers ask why we should bring up children at great cost and +trouble to ourselves, and they have been well answered by a non-Catholic +writer, Dr. W.E. Home. [93] + + "One of my acquaintances refuses to have a second child because he + could not then play golf. Is there, then, no pleasure in children which + shall compensate for the troubles and expenses they bring upon you? I + notice that the penurious Roman Catholic French Canadian farmers are + spreading out of Quebec and occupying more and more of Ontario. I fancy + these hard-living parents would think their struggles to bring up their + large (ten to twenty) families worth while when they see how their + group is strengthening its position. If a race comes to find no + instinctive pleasure in children it will probably be swept away by + others more virile. One man will live where another will starve; + prudence and selfishness are not identical. + + "In her book, _The Strength of a People_, Mrs. Bosanquet, who signed + the Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission, tells the story of two + girls in domestic service who became engaged. One was imprudent, + married at once, lived in lodgings, trusted to the Church and the + parish doctor to see her through her first confinement, had no + foresight or management, every succeeding child only added to her + worries, and her marriage was a failure. The other was prudent, did not + marry till, after six months, she and her fiancé had chosen a house and + its furniture. Then she married, and their house was their own careful + choice; every table and chair reminded them of the afternoon they had + had together when it was chosen; they were amusement enough to + themselves, and they saved their money for the expenses of her + confinement. He had not to seek amusement outside his home, did his + work with a high sanction and got promoted, and each child was only an + added pleasure. Idyllic; yes, but sometimes true. One of the happiest + men I have known was a Marine sergeant with ten children, and a bed in + his house for stray boys he thought he should help. + + "One of my friends married young and had five children; this required + management. He certainly could not go trips, take courses and extra + qualifications, but he did his work all right, and his sons were there + to help in the war, and one of them has won a position of Imperial + usefulness far above that of his father or me. Is that no compensation + to his parents for old-time difficulties they have by now almost + forgotten? A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit." + +Dr. W.E. Home is right, and the Neo-Malthusian golfer is wrong. Moreover, +he is wrong as a golfer. Golf requires skill, a fine co-ordination of sight +and touch, much patience and self-control: and many unfortunate people lack +these qualities of mind and body, and are therefore unable to play this +game with pleasure to themselves or to others. Consequently every golfer, +no matter whether he accepts the hypothesis of Spencer or that of Weismann +concerning the inheritance of acquired characteristics, should rejoice to +see his large family in the links as a good omen for the future of this +game, although there be some other reasons that also justify the existence +of children. + +_(d) The Dangers of Small Families_ + +In a Malthusian leaflet, written for the poor Dr. Binnie Dunlop states: + + "You must at least admit that there would be nothing like the usual + poverty if married couples had only one child for every 20s. or so, a + week of wages. Yet the population would continue to increase rapidly, + because very few of the children of small families die or grow up + weakly; and it would become stronger, richer, and of course much + happier." [94] + +The false suggestion contained in his first sentence, namely that a high +birth-rate is the cause of poverty, has already been exposed (Chap. II), +and apparently Dr. Binnie Dunlop has never considered _why_ so many of the +English people should be so poor as to enable him to make use of their very +poverty in order to tempt them to adopt an evil method of birth control. +Moreover, his second contention, that a small family produces a higher type +of child, better fed, better trained, and healthier, than is found amongst +the children of large families is contrary to the following facts, as +stated by Professor Meyrick Booth: + + "1. A civilisation cannot be maintained with an average of less than + about four children per marriage; a smaller number will lead to actual + extinction. + + "2. Much information exists tending to show that heredity strongly + favours the third, fourth, fifth, and subsequent children born to a + given couple, rather than the _first two_, who are peculiarly apt to + inherit some of the commonest physical and mental defects (upon this + important point the records of the University of London Eugenics + Laboratory should be consulted). A population with a low birth-rate + thus naturally tends to degenerate. _It is the normal, and not the + small family, that gives the best children_. + + "3. The present differential birth-rate--high amongst the less + intelligent classes and low amongst the most capable families--so far + from leading upwards, is causing the race to breed to a lower type. + + "4. The small family encourages the growth of luxury and the + development of what M. Leroy-Beaulieu calls _l'esprit arriviste_. + + "5. The popular idea that _childbirth is injurious_ to a woman's health + is probably _quite erroneous_. Where the _birth-rate is high the health + of the woman is apparently better_ than where it is artificially low. + + "6. A study of history does not show that nations with low birth-rates + have been able to attain to a higher level of civilisation. Such + nations have been thrust into the background by their hardier + neighbours." [95] + +Moreover, M. Leroy-Beaulieu, in _La Question de la Population_ [96] states +that those districts of France which show an exceptionally low birthrate +are distinguished by a peculiar atmosphere of materialism, and that their +inhabitants exhibit, in a high degree, an attitude of mind well named +_l'esprit arriviste_--the desire to concentrate on outward success, to push +on, to be climbers, to advance themselves and their children in fashionable +society. This spirit means the willing sacrifice of all ideals of ethics +or of patriotism to family egoism. To this mental attitude, and to the +corresponding absence of religion, he attributes the decline of population. +In conclusion the following evidence is quoted by Professor Meyrick Booth: + + "The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for July 1911 contains a valuable account, + by a doctor resident in Gascony, of the state of things in that part of + France (where, it will be remembered, the birth-rate is especially + low). He expresses with the utmost emphasis the conviction that the + Gascons are deteriorating, physically and mentally, and points out, at + the same time, that the decline of population has had an injurious + effect upon the economic condition of the country. 'L'hyponatalité est + une cause précise et directe de la dégénérescence de la race,' he + writes. And, dealing with the belief that a low birthrate will result + in the development of a superior type of child, he says: 'C'est une + illusion qui ne résiste pas à la lumière des faits tels que les montre + l'étude démographique de nos villages gascons. Depuis que beaucoup de + bancs restent vides à la petite école, les écoliers ne sont ni mieux + doués, ni plus travailleurs, et ils sont certainement moins vigoureux.' + And again, 'La quantité est en général la condition première et + souveraine de la qualité.'" [97] + + +Section 8. THE PLOT AGAINST CHRISTENDOM + +All purposive actions are ultimately based on philosophy of one sort or +another. If, for example, we find a rich man founding hospitals for the +poor, we may assume that he believes in the principle of Charity. It +is, therefore, of prime importance to determine what kind of philosophy +underlies Neo-Malthusian propaganda. The birth controllers profess to +be actuated solely by feelings of compassion and of benevolence towards +suffering humanity; and it is on these grounds that they are appealing to +the Church of England to bless their work, or at least to lend to +their propaganda a cloak of respectability. Now, the very fact that +Neo-Malthusians are sincere in their mistaken and dangerous convictions +makes it all the more necessary that we should discover the doctrines +on which their propaganda was originally based; because, although their +economic fallacies were borrowed from Malthus, their philosophy came from a +different source. + +This philosophy is to be found, naked and unashamed, in a book entitled +_The Elements of Social Science_. I have already referred to this work +as the Bible of Neo-Malthusians, and its teaching has been endorsed as +recently as 1905 by the official journal of the Malthusian League, as +witness the following eulogy, whose last lines recall the happy days of +Bret Harte in the Far West, and the eloquent periods of our old and valued +friend Colonel Starbottle: + + "This work should be read by all followers of J.S. Mill, Garnier, and + the Neo-Malthusian school of economists. We could give a long criticism + of the many important chapters in this book; but, as we might be + considered as prejudiced in its favour because of our agreement with + its aims, we prefer to cite the opinion given by the editor of that + widely circulated and most enlightened paper _The Weekly Times and + Echo_, which appears in its issue of October 8." [98] + +Before quoting from the book an explanation is due to my readers. I do not +suggest that all of those who are to-day supporting the propaganda for +artificial birth control would agree with its foolish blasphemies and +drivelling imbecilities; but it is nevertheless necessary to quote these +things, because our birth controllers are too wise in their day and +generation to reveal to the public, still less to the Church of England, +_the philosophy on which Neo-Malthusianism was originally based, and from +which it has grown_. Moreover, the Malthusians claim that it was the author +of the _Elements of Social Science_ "who interested Mr. Charles Bradlaugh +and Mrs. Annie Besant in the question." [99] Four quotations from the last +edition of the book will suffice: + + "But this is a certain truth, that any human being, any one of us, + no matter how fallen and degraded, is an infinitely more glorious + and adorable being than any God that ever was or will be + conceived" (p. 413). + +In justice to the memory of John Stuart Mill, whom Malthusians are ever +quoting, it should be noted that the foregoing blasphemy is nothing more +nor less than a burlesque of Positivism or of Agnosticism. The teaching of +Mill, Bain, and of Herbert Spencer was that the knowledge of God and of +His nature is impossible, because our senses are the _only_ source of +knowledge. Their reasoning was wrong--because a primary condition of all +knowledge is memory, in itself an intuition, because primary mathematical +axioms are intellectual intuitions, and because mind has the power of +abstraction; but, even so, not one of these men was capable of having +written the above-quoted passage. The next quotation refers to marriage. + + "Marriage is based upon the idea that constant and unvarying love is + the only one which is pure and honourable, and which should be + recognised as morally good. But there could not be a greater error than + this. Love is, like all other human passions and appetites, subject to + change, deriving a great part of its force and continuance from variety + in its objects; and to attempt to fix it to an invariable channel is to + try to alter the laws of its nature"(p. 353). + +That quotation is an example of how evil ideas may arise from muddled +thinking: because if the word "lust" be substituted for the word "love" in +the third sentence, the remaining forty-five words would merely convey a +simple truth, expressed by Kipling in two lines: + + "For the more you 'ave known o' the others + The less will you settle to one." + +Very few people, I suppose, are so foolish as to believe that man is by +nature either a chaste or a constant animal, and indeed in this respect he +appears to his disadvantage when compared with certain varieties of birds, +which are _by nature_ constant to each other. On the other hand, millions +of people believe that man is able to overcome his animal nature; and for +the past two thousand years the civilised races of the world have held +that this is a goal towards which mankind should strive. In the opinion of +Christendom chastity and marriage are both morally good, but, according to +the philosophy of our Neo-Malthusian author, they are morally evil. + + "Chastity, or complete sexual abstinence, so far from being a virtue, + is invariably a great natural sin" (p. 162). + +Is it not obvious that to the writers of such passages love is synonymous +with animalism, with lust? It is by no means necessary to go to saints or +to moralists for a refutation of this Neo-Malthusian philosophy. Does any +decent ordinary man or woman agree with it? Ask the man in the street. Turn +the pages of our literature. Refer to Chaucer or Spenser, to Shakespeare or +Milton, refer to Fielding or Burns or Scott or Tennyson. Some of these men +were very imperfect; but they all knew the difference between lust and +love; and it is because they can tell us at least something of that which +is precious, enduring, ethereal, and divine in love that we read their +pages and honour their names. Not one of these men could have written the +following sentence: + + "Marriage distracts our attention from the real sexual + duties, and this is one of its worst effects" (p. 366). + +Now it is certain that if "the real sexual duties" are represented by +promiscuous fornication, then both marriage and chastity are evil things. +That philosophy is very old. From time immemorial--it has been advocated by +one of the most powerful intelligences in the universe. Such is the soil +on which the Neo-Malthusian fungus has grown--a soil that would rot the +foundations of Europe. + +[Footnote 66: _The Lancet_, May 14, 1921, p. 1024] + +[Footnote 67: _British Medical Journal_, 1921, vol. ii, p. 93.] + +[Footnote 68: _The Small Family System_, 2nd edit., p. 2.] + +[Footnote 69: _Supplement to The British Medical Journal_, March 18, 1905, +p. 110.] + +[Footnote 70: _Common Sense on the Population Question_, by Teresa +Billington-Greig, p. 4. Published by the Malthusian League.] + +[Footnote 71: _Medico-Legal Society_, July 7, 1921.] + +[Footnote 72: _Suppl. Qu_. 49, Art. 6: "_Voluptates meretricias vir in +uxore quoerit quando nihil aliud in ea attendit quam quod in meretrice +attenderet_" (A husband seeks from his wife harlot pleasures when he asks +from her only what he might ask from a harlot). Quoted by the Rev. Vincent +McNabb, O.P., _The Catholic Gazette_, September 1921, p. 195.] + +[Footnote 73: _British Medical Journal_, 1921, vol. ii, p. 169.] + +[Footnote 74: Reproduced in fourth edition, 1861.] + +[Footnote 75: _Essays in Medical Sociology_, 1899. Revised and printed +for private circulation, p. 95, (Copy in Library of Royal Society of +Medicine).] + +[Footnote 76: _British Medical Journal_, August 20, 1921, p. 302.] + +[Footnote 77: St. Matt. xviii. 6.] + +[Footnote 78: _Proceedings of the Medico-Legal Society_, July 7, 1921] + +[Footnote 79: "That arrangement of society in which so considerable a +number of the families and individuals are constrained by positive law to +labour for the advantage of other families and individuals as to stamp +the whole community with the mark of such labour we call The Servile +State."--Hilaire Belloc, _The Servile State_, 1912, p. 16.] + +[Footnote 80: The Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The Declining +Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 89.] + +[Footnote 81: _The Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 37.] + +[Footnote 82: Dominions Royal Commission, Memorandum and Tables relating to +the Food and Raw Material Requirements of the United Kingdom: prepared by +the Royal Commission on the Natural Resources, Trade, and Legislation of +Certain Portions of His Majesty's Dominions. November, 1915, pp. 1 and 2. +My italics--H.G.S.] + +[Footnote 83: i.e. grain, wheatmeal, and flour] + +[Footnote 84: For particulars of this increase see Canada Year Book 1913, +p. 144.] + +[Footnote 85: See pp. 387-8 of [Cd. 6588].] + +[Footnote 86: Average for period 1907-1910 and excluding British Columbia, +where the yield per acre in 1911, the only year for which figures are +available, averaged 29-37 bushels.] + +[Footnote 87: Including British Columbia.] + +[Footnote 88: Below the average. The yield per acre in 1912 was 12.53 +bushels, and in 1913 11.18.] + +[Footnote 89: The Observer, Nov. 11, 1921.] + +[Footnote 90: _Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_, by Norman Macleod, +D.D., 1876, p. 27.] + +[Footnote 91: Ibid., p. 34.] + +[Footnote 92: Ibid., p. 91.] + +[Footnote 93: British Medical Journal, August 13, 1921, p. 261.] + +[Footnote 94: Leaflet of the Malthusian League.] + +[Footnote 95: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 153. My +italics.--H.G.S.] + +[Footnote 96: Quoted by Professor Meyrick Booth, _The Hibbert Journal_, +October 1914, p. 153.] + +[Footnote 97: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914.] + +[Footnote 98: _The Malthusian_, November 1905, p. 84] + +[Footnote 99: C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., _The Small Family System_, +1918, p. 150.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT AGAINST BIRTH CONTROL + + +Section 1. AN OFFENCE AGAINST THE LAW OF NATURE + +Birth control is against the law of nature, which Christians believe to be +the reflection of the divine law in human affairs, and any violation of +this law was held to be vicious even by the ancient pagan world. To this +argument an advocate of birth control has made answer: + + "We interfere with nature at every point--we shave, cut our hair, cook + our food, fill cavities in our teeth (or wear artificial teeth), clothe + ourselves, wear boots, hats, and wash our faces, so why should birth + alone be sacred from the touch and play of human moulding?" [100] + +Why? For a very simple reason. Birth control belongs to the moral sphere; +it essentially affects man's progress in good, whereas all the other things +that he mentions have no more moral significance than has the practice of +agriculture. Regarded in the light of the law of nature they are neutral +actions, neither good nor bad in themselves, raising no question of right +or wrong, and having no real bearing on the accomplishment of human +destiny. To make no distinction between the merely physical law of nature +(expressed in the invariable tendency of everything to act according to +its kind) and the natural moral law which governs human conduct, is to +pronounce oneself a materialist. Yet even a materialist ought to denounce +the practice of birth control, as it violates the laws of nature which +regulate physical well-being. "But," says the materialist, "it is not +possible for anyone to act against nature, because all actions take place +_in_ nature, and therefore every act is a natural act." Quite so: in that +sense murder is a natural act; even unnatural vice is a natural act. Will +any one defend them? There is a natural law in the physical world, and +there is a natural law in conscience--a law of right conduct. Certain +actions are under the control of the human will, which is able to rebel +against the moral law of nature, and the pagan poet Aeschylus traces all +human sorrow to "the perverse human will omnipresent." + +As birth control means the deliberate frustration of a natural act +which might have issued in a new life, it is an unnatural crime, and is +stigmatised by theologians as a sin akin to murder. To this charge birth +controllers further reply that millions of the elements of procreation are +destroyed by Nature herself, and that "to add one more to these millions +sacrificed by Nature is surely no crime." This attempt at argument is +pathetic. If these people knew even the A.B.C. of biology, they would know +that millions of those elements are allowed to perish by Nature for a +definite purpose--namely, _to make procreation more certain_. It is in +order that the one may achieve the desired end that it is reinforced by +millions of others. Moreover, although millions of deaths in the world +occur every year from natural causes, it would nevertheless, I fear, be a +crime if I were to cause one more death by murdering a birth controller. + + +Section 2. REFLECTED IN THE NORMAL CONSCIENCE + +In common with irrational animals we have instincts, appetites, and +passions; but, unlike the animals, we have the power to reflect whether an +action is right or wrong in itself apart from its consequences. This power +of moral judgment is called conscience; and it is conscience which reflects +the natural law (the Divine Nature expressed in creation). As conscience, +when violated, can and does give rise to an unpleasant feeling of shame in +the mind, we have good reason to believe that it exists for the purpose of +preventing us from doing shameful actions, just as our eyes are intended, +amongst other things, to prevent us from walking over precipices. Moreover, +if the conscience is active, instructed, and unbiassed, it will invariably +give the correct answer to any question of right or wrong. + +It is possible to assert, without fear of contradiction, that no ordinary +decent man or woman approaches or begins the practice of artificial birth +control without experiencing at first unpleasant feelings of uneasiness, +hesitation, repugnance, shame, and remorse. Later on these feelings may be +overcome by habit, for the voice of conscience will cease when it has been +frequently ignored. This does not alter the fact that at first the natural +moral instincts of both men and women do revolt against these practices. To +the conscience of mankind birth control is a shameful action. + + +Section 3. EXPRESSED IN THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS + +The dictates of conscience go to form the science of ethics. According to +ethics, the practice of birth control means the doing of an act whilst at +the same time frustrating the object for which the act is intended. It is +like using language to conceal the truth, or using appetite so as to injure +rather than to promote health. During the decline of the Roman Empire men +gorged themselves with food, took an emetic, vomited, and then sat down to +eat again. They satiated their appetite and frustrated the object for which +appetite is intended. The practice of birth control is parallel to this +piggishness. No one can deny that the sexual impulse has for aim the +procreation of children. The birth controllers seek to gratify the impulse, +yet to defeat the aim; and they are so honest in their mistaken convictions +that, when faced with this argument, they boldly adopt an attitude which +spells intellectual and moral anarchy. They say that it is simply a waste +of time to discuss the moral aspect of this practice. Without being able +to dispute the truth that birth control is against nature, conscience, and +ethics, they attempt to prove that at any rate the results of this practice +are beneficial, or in other words that a good end justifies the use of evil +means. This is a doctrine that has been universally repudiated by mankind. +[101] Nevertheless, if birth control, in spite of its being an offence +against moral and natural law, was really beneficial to humanity, then +birth controllers would be able to claim pragmatic justification for the +practices, and to argue that what actually and universally tends to the +good of mankind cannot be bad in itself. Birth control, as I have already +shown, does not conform to these conditions; therefore that argument also +fails. + + +Section 4. BIRTH CONTROL CONDEMNED BY PROTESTANT CHURCHES + +The Protestants, at the time of the Reformation, retained and even +exaggerated certain beliefs of the undivided Catholic Church. None of them +doubted, for instance, that the Bible was the Word of God and therefore +a guide to moral conduct. They knew that artificial birth control is +forbidden by the Bible, and that in the Old Testament the punishment for +that sin was death. [102] In 1876, when Charles Bradlaugh advocated in a +notorious pamphlet the practice of birth control, his views were denounced +from every Protestant pulpit in the land, and were widely repudiated by +the upper and middle classes of England. But it would seem that Protestant +morality is now disappearing with the spread of indifferentism, and the +Protestant Churches have no longer the same influence on the public and +private life of the nation. Protestantism has lasted for 400 years, but +though it has lasted longer than any other form of belief which took rise +in the sixteenth century, it is now also dying. + +In 1919 the number of people over seven years of age in England who +professed belief in _any_ church was 10,833,795 (out of 40,000,000), and +the church attendance equalled 7,000,000, or about 1 out of every 5 people. +[103] + +Again, a Commission appointed by the Protestant Churches to inquire into +the religious beliefs held in the British armies of the Great War has +endorsed the following statements: + + "Everyone must be struck with the appalling ignorance of the simplest + religious truths. Probably 80 per cent, of these men from the Midlands + had never heard of the sacraments.... It is not only that the men do + not know the meaning of 'Church of England'; they are ignorant of the + historical facts of the life of our Lord. Nor must it be assumed that + this ignorance is confined to men who have passed through the + elementary schools. The same verdict is recorded upon those who have + been educated in our public schools.... The men are hopelessly + perplexed by the lack of Christian unity." [104] + +In my opinion these statements are exaggerations, but that was not the view +of the Commission. As regards Scotland, it has recently been stated at the +Lothian Synod of the United Free Church that in 1911 at least 37 per cent. +of the men and women of Scotland were without church connection. [105] + +In 1870, of every 1,000 marriages, 760 were according to the rites of the +Established Church, but in 1919 the proportion had fallen to 597. During +the same period civil marriages without religious ceremonial increased from +98 to 231 per 1,000. [106] These figures are an index of the religious +complexion of the country. The Protestant Churches are being strangled by +the development of a germ that was inherent in them from the beginning, and +that growth is Rationalism. The majority of the upper, professional, and +artisan class can no longer be claimed as staunch Protestants, but as +vague theists; and amongst these educated people, misled by false ideas of +pleasure and by pernicious nonsense written about self-realisation, the +practice of birth control has spread most alarmingly. This is an evil +against which all religious bodies who retain a belief in the fundamental +facts of Christianity might surely unite in action. + +In a Catholic country there would be no need, in the furtherance of public +welfare, to write on the evils of birth control. The teaching of the +Catholic Church would be generally accepted, and a moral law generally +accepted by the inhabitants of a country gives strength to the State. But +Great Britain, no longer Catholic, is now in some danger of ceasing to +be even a Christian country. In 1885 it was asserted, "England alone is +reported to contain some seven hundred sects, each of whom proves a whole +system of theology and morals from the Bible." [107] Each of these that now +survives gives its own particular explanation of the law of God, which it +honestly tries to follow, but at one point or another each and every sect +differs from its neighbours. On account of these differences of opinion +many people say: "The Churches cannot agree amongst themselves as to what +is truth; they cannot all be right; it is, therefore, impossible for me to +know with certainty what to believe; and, to be quite honest, it may save +me a lot of bother just at present to have no very firm belief at all." +This means that in Great Britain _there is no uniform moral law covering +all human conduct and generally accepted by the mass of the people_. As the +practice of artificial birth-rate control is not only contrary to Christian +morality, but is also a menace to the prosperity and well-being of the +nation, the absence of a uniform moral law, common to all the people and +forbidding this practice, is a source of grave weakness in the State. + + + + +APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII + + +A NEO-MALTHUSIAN ATTACK ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND + +As was proved in a previous chapter (p. 120) artificial birth control was +originally based on Atheism, and on a philosophy of moral anarchy. Further +proof of this fact is to be found in the course of a most edifying dispute +between two rival Neo-Malthusians. This quarrel is between Dr. Marie C. +Stopes, President of the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial +Progress, who is not a Doctor of Medicine but of Philosophy, and Dr. Binnie +Dunlop, who is a Bachelor of Medicine: and when birth controllers fall +out we may humbly hope that truth will prevail. Dr. Stopes maintains that +artificial birth control was not an atheistic movement, whereas Dr. Binnie +Dunlop contends that the pioneers of the movement were Atheists. The +beginning of the trouble was a letter written by Dr. Stopes to the _British +Medical Journal_, in which she made the following statement: + + "Dr. Martindale is reported in your pages to have given an address to + medical women in which she pointed out that the birth control movement + in England dated from the Bradlaugh trial in 1877. Had she attended the + presidential address of the Society for Constructive Birth Control she + would have learned that there was a very flourishing movement, centring + round Dr. Trall in 1866, years before Bradlaugh touched the subject, + and also a considerable movement earlier than that. This point is + important, as 'birth control' has hitherto (erroneously) been much + prejudiced in popular opinion by being supposed to be an atheistical + movement originated by Bradlaugh." [108] + +Dr. Stopes, who has been working overtime in the attempt to obtain some +religious sanction for her propaganda, is ready not only to throw the +Atheists overboard, but also to assert that a flourishing movement for +artificial birth control centred round the late Dr. Trall, who was a +Christian. Her letter was answered by Dr. Binnie Dunlop as follows: + + "Dr. Marie C. Stopes, whose valuable books I constantly recommend, + protests (page 872) against the statement that the birth control + movement in England dated from the trial of Charles Bradlaugh in + 1877--for re-publishing Dr. Knowlton's pamphlet, _The Fruits of + Philosophy_ because the Government had interdicted it. She must admit, + however, that there was no _organised_ movement anywhere until + Bradlaugh and the Doctors Drysdale, immediately after the trial, + founded the Malthusian League, and that the decline of Europe's + birthrate began in that year. It may now seem unfortunate that the + pioneers of the contraceptives idea, from 1818 onwards (James Mill, + Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, John Stuart Mill, Dr. + Knowlton, Dr. George Drysdale, Dr. C.R. Drysdale, and Charles + Bradlaugh), were all Free-thinkers; and Dr. Stopes harps on the + religious and praiseworthy Dr. Trall, an American, who published + _Sexual Physiology_ in 1866. But Dr. Trall was not at all a strong + advocate of contraceptive methods. After a brief but helpful reference + to the idea of placing a mechanical obstruction, such as a sponge, + against the _os uteri_, he said: + + "Let it be distinctly understood that I do not approve any method for + preventing pregnancy except that of abstinence, nor any means for + producing abortion, on the ground that it is or can be in any sense + physiological. It is only the least of two evils. When people will live + physiologically there will be no need of preventive measures, nor will + there be any need for works of this kind." [109] + +That is a most informative letter. In simple language Dr. Binnie Dunlop +tells the remarkable story of how in 1876 three Atheists, merely by forming +a little Society in London, were able to cause an immediate fall in the +birth-rate of Europe. When you come to think of it, that was a stupendous +thing for any three men to have achieved. I am very glad that Dr. Binnie +Dunlop has defended the Atheists and has painted the late Dr. Trail, +despite that "brief but helpful reference," in his true colours as a +Christian. Nevertheless, Dr. Stopes had the last word: + + "As regards Dr. Dunlop, he now shifts the Atheists' position by adding + the word 'organised.' The Atheists never tire of repeating certain + definite misstatements, examples of which are: 'If it were not for the + fact that the despised Atheists, Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, + faced imprisonment, misrepresentation, insult, and ostracism for this + cause forty-four years ago, she [Dr. Stopes] would not be able to + conduct her campaign to-day' (_Literary Guide_, November, 1921); and + 'Before the Knowlton trial, neither rich nor poor knew anything worth + counting about contraceptive devices' (_Malthusian_, November 15, + 1921). Variations of these statements have been incessantly made, and I + dealt with their contentions in the presidential address for the C.B.C. + Meanwhile to them I reply that: 'There has never been in this country + any law against the dissemination of properly presented birth control + information, and _before, during, and after_ the Bradlaugh trial + properly presented information on birth control was extending its range + with full liberty.' My address is now in the press, and when published + will make public not only new matter from manuscript letters of very + early date in my possession, but other overlooked historical facts. I + have already told Dr. Dunlop I refuse to be drawn into a discussion on + facts an account of which is still in the press." [110] + +The lady, by her dissertation on the Laws of England, makes a clumsy effort +to evade the point at issue, which is quite simple, namely, whether it was +Atheists or Christians who initiated the Neo-Malthusian movement, organised +or unorganised. Dr. Binnie Dunlop has here proved his case. I also do +maintain that in this matter all credit must be given to the Atheists; and +that it would be truly contemptible to deny this fact merely in order to +pander to a popular prejudice against Atheism. Nor am I shaken in this +opinion when Dr. Stopes points out that there was a Neo-Malthusian movement +prior to 1876. Of course there was a movement, but it was always an +atheistic movement. In the past no Christian doctor, and indeed no +Christian man or woman, advocated artificial birth control. Let us give the +Neo-Malthusian his due. + +Until recently both the Church of England and the medical profession +presented practically a united front against Neo-Malthusian teaching; and, +as late as 1914, the Malthusian League did not hesitate to make use of the +following calumnies, very mean, very spiteful, very imbecile: + + "Take the clergy. They are the officers of a Church that has made + marriage a source of revenue and of social control; they preach from a + sacred book that bids the chosen people of God 'multiply and replenish + the earth'; they know that large families generally tend to preserve + clerical influence and authority; and they claim that every baby is a + new soul presented to God and, therefore, for His honour and glory, the + greatest possible number of souls should be produced." [111] + +That feeble attempt to poison the atmosphere was naturally ignored by +intelligent people; and more than once Lambeth has ruled that artificial +birth control is sin. Unfortunately, within the Church of England, in spite +of the Lambeth ruling, there is still discussion as to whether artificial +birth control is or is not sin, the Bishops, as a whole, making a loyal +effort to uphold Christian teaching against a campaign waged by Malthusians +in order to obtain religious sanction for their evil propaganda. Although +many Malthusians are rationalists, they are well aware that without some +religious sanction their policy could never emerge from the dim underworld +of unmentioned and unrespected things, and could never be advocated +openly in the light of day. To this end birth control is camouflaged by +pseudo-poetic and pseudo-religious phraseology, and the Anglican Church is +asked to alter her teaching. Birth controllers realise that it is useless +to ask this of the Catholic Church, a Rock in their path, but "as regards +the Church of England, which makes no claim to infallibility, the case is +different, and discussion is possible." [112] + +Let us consider, firstly, the teaching of the Church of England on this +matter. At the Lambeth Conference of 1908 the Bishops affirmed "that +deliberate tampering with nascent life is repugnant to Christian morality." +In 1914 a Committee of Bishops issued a Memorandum [113] in which +artificial birth control is condemned as "dangerous, demoralising, and +sinful." The memorandum was approved by a large majority of the Diocesan +Bishops, although in the opinion of Dean Inge "this is emphatically a +matter in which every man and woman must judge for themselves, and must +refrain from judging others." [114] The Bishops also held that in some +marriages it may be desirable, on grounds of prudence or of health, to +limit the number of children. In these circumstances they advised the +practice of self-restraint; and, as regards a limited use of marriage, they +added the following statement: + + "It seems to most of us only a legitimate application of such + self-restraint that in certain cases (which only the parties' own + judgment and conscience can settle) intercourse should be restricted by + consent to certain times at which it is less likely to lead to + conception. This is only to use natural conditions; it is approved by + good medical authority; it means self-denial and not self-indulgence. + And we believe it to be quite legitimate, or at least not to be + condemned." + +A _small_ minority of Bishops held that prolonged or even perpetual +abstinence from intercourse is the only legitimate method of limiting a +family. Finally, in Resolution 68 of the Lambeth Conference in 1920, the +Bishops stated that: + + "We utter an emphatic warning against the use of unnatural means for + the avoidance of conception, together with the grave + dangers--physical, moral, and religious--thereby incurred, and against + the evils with which the extension of such use threatens the race. In + opposition to the teaching which, under the name of science and + religion, encourages married people in the deliberate cultivation of + sexual union as an end in itself, we steadfastly uphold what must + always be regarded as the governing consideration of Christian + marriage. One is the primary purpose for which marriage + exists--namely, the continuation of the race through the gift and + heritage of children; the other is the paramount importance in married + life of deliberate and thoughtful self-control." [115] + +And the Committee on "Problems of Marriage and Sexual Morality" felt called +upon "to utter an earnest warning against the use of any unnatural means by +which conception is frustrated." [116] + +If Resolution 68 be read in conjunction with the Memorandum of 1914, the +teaching of the Church of England is plain to any sane man or woman; it is +one with the teaching of the Church Catholic. Artificial birth control is +condemned as sin, but, under certain circumstances, the limitation of a +family by continence or by _restricted intercourse_ is permitted. As this +teaching forbids Neo-Malthusian practices, birth controllers have tried to +make the Church alter her teaching to suit their opinions. Although their +methods in controversy against the Church must be condemned by everyone who +values intellectual honesty, the reader, of his charity, should remember +that Malthusians are unable to defend their policy, either on logical or on +moral grounds. Without attempting to prove that the teaching of the +Church is wrong, birth controllers began the attack by _a complete +misrepresentation_ of what that teaching actually is. This unenviable task +was undertaken by Lord Dawson of Penn, at the Birmingham Church Congress of +1921. + +After quoting Resolution 68, Lord Dawson said: + + "Now the plain meaning of this statement is that sexual union should + take place for the sole purpose of procreation, that sexual union as + _an_ end in itself--not, mind you, _the_ only end--(there we should all + agree), but sexual union as _an_ end in itself is to be condemned. + + "That means that sexual intercourse should rightly take place _only_ + for the purpose of procreation. + + "Quite a large family could easily result from quite a few sexual + unions. For the rest the couple should be celibate. Any intercourse not + having procreation as its intention is 'sexual union as an end in + itself,' and therefore by inference condemned by the Lambeth + Conference. + + "Think of the facts of life. Let us recall our own love--our marriage, + our honeymoon. Has not sexual union over and over again been the + physical expression of our love without thought or intention of + procreation? Have we all been wrong? Or is it that the Church lacks + that vital contact with the realities of life which accounts for the + gulf between her and the people? + + "The love envisaged by the Lambeth Conference is an invertebrate, + joyless thing--not worth the having. Fortunately it is in contrast to + the real thing as practised by clergy and laity. + + "Fancy an ardent lover (and what respect have you for a lover who is + not ardent?)--the type you would like your daughter to marry--virile, + ambitious, chivalrous--a man who means to work hard and love hard. + Fancy putting before these lovers--eager and expectant of the joys + before them--the Lambeth picture of marriage. Do you expect to gain + their confidence?" [117] + +That sort of appeal is not very effective, even as rhetoric; but it is very +easy to give an exact parallel. Fancy a fond father (and what respect have +you for a father who is not fond?) being told by his daughter's suitor that +he, his prospective son-in-law, looked forward to the physical joys of +marriage, but intended to insist on his wife using contraceptives. Would +any father regard such a one as the type he would like his daughter to +marry? + +There is, unfortunately, another answer to Lord Dawson, and I put it in the +form of a question. Can any intelligent man or woman, Catholic, Protestant, +or rationalist, maintain that Lord Dawson has given a fair, a true, or an +honest statement of the teaching of the Church of England? Moreover, it +is past all understanding how a gross libel on Anglican doctrine has been +overlooked by those most concerned. The address is actually hailed +as "wise, bold, and humane in the highest sense of the word" by _The +Spectator_, [118] and that amazing journal, "expert as ever in making the +worse appear the better cause in a way that appeals to clergymen," goes on +to say: "Lord Dawson fearlessly and plainly opposed the teachings of the +Roman Church and the alleged teachings of the Anglican." + +Having by a travesty of truth created a false theological bogey, bearing +little resemblance either to Catholic or to Anglican teaching, Lord Dawson +proceeds to demolish his own creation by a somewhat boisterous eulogy of +sex-love. Now sex-love is an instinct and involves no question of good +or evil apart from the circumstances in which it is either gratified or +denied; but, in view of the freedom with which Lord Dawson discussed this +topic, it is only right to note that it was left to the Rev. R.J. Campbell +to add to the gaiety of nations by his subsequent protest that the +_Marriage Service_ "contains expressions which are offensive to modern +delicacy of feeling." + +That protest is also a first-rate example of the anarchical state of the +modern mind. The Rev. R.J. Campbell is a modern mind, so is Mr. George +Bernard Shaw; but the latter refers to "the sober decency, earnestness, and +authority" [119] of those very passages to which the former objects. + +Lord Dawson's eulogy of sexual intercourse was but a prelude to his plea +for the use of contraceptives: + + "I will next consider Artificial Control. The forces in modern life + which make for birth control are so strong that only convincing reasons + will make people desist from it. It is said to be unnatural and + intrinsically immoral. This word 'unnatural' perplexes me. Why? + Civilisation involves the chaining of natural forces and their + conversion to man's will and uses. Much of medicine and surgery + consists of means to overcome nature." + +That paragraph illustrates precisely the confused use of the word +"natural," which I have already criticised (p. 124). Lord Dawson says he +is perplexed, and I agree with him. Civilisation, he says, involves the +conversion of natural forces to man's will. So does every crime. Is that +any defence of crime? Even if physical nature be described as non-moral, +that description cannot be applied to the inward nature of will and +conscience. That I will an act may show it is in accordance with nature +in a certain sense, but the fact of its being in accordance with physical +nature does not justify my act. Does Lord Dawson agree? Or does he think +that any action in accordance with the physical laws of nature, which means +any action whatsoever, is justified; and does he approve therefore of mere +moral anarchy? His confusion of thought concerning the use of the word +"natural" is followed by the inevitable sequence of false analogies: + + "When anaesthetics were first used at child-birth there was an outcry + on the part of many worthy and religious people that their use under + such circumstances was unnatural and wicked, because God meant woman to + suffer the struggles and pains of child-birth. Now we all admit it is + right to control the process of child-birth, and to save the mother as + much pain as possible. It is no more unnatural to control conception by + artificial means than to control child-birth by artificial means. + Surely the whole question turns on whether these artificial means are + for the good or harm of the individual and the community. + + "Generally speaking, birth control before the first child is + inadvisable. On the other hand, the justifiable use of birth control + would seem to be to limit the number of children when such is + desirable, and to spread out their arrival in such a way as to serve + their true interests and those of their home. + + "Once more, careful distinction needs to be made between the use and + the bad effects of the abuse of birth control. That its abuse produces + grave harm I fully agree--harm to parents, to families, and to the + nation. But abuse is not a just condemnation of legitimate use. + Over-eating, over-drinking, over-smoking, over-sleeping, over-work do + not carry condemnation of eating, drinking, smoking, sleeping, work." + +These long extracts are here quoted because, as _The Spectator_ has +remarked, "an attempt at a detailed summary might destroy the careful +balance which is essential to Lord Dawson's purpose." It might indeed; and +many a true word is written inadvertently and despite the wisdom of the +serpent. As Lord Dawson believes that Malthusian practice is not of +necessity sinful, and as he is urging the Church to remove a ban on that +practice, it is necessary for him to prove in the first place that his +opinion is right and that the teaching of the Church is wrong. Elsewhere in +these pages I have stated _the reasons why_ Christian morality brands the +_act_ of artificial birth control as intrinsically a sin, a _malum in se_, +and those reasons have never been disproved by Lord Dawson or by anyone. +His comparison between the use of contraceptives and eating or drinking is +a false analogy. Eating is a natural act, not in itself sinful, whereas the +use of contraceptives is an unnatural act, in itself a sin. The extent +to which artificial birth control is practised neither increases nor +diminishes the sinful nature of the act, but merely indicates the number +of times the same sin is committed. Lord Dawson admits the danger of +Neo-Malthusian methods being carried to excess, and counsels that these +practices be used in moderation; but is it likely that those who have +discarded the teaching of a Church and the dictates of the moral law will +be seriously influenced by what he calls "an appeal to patriotism"? + +Now there is one appeal to patriotism which Lord Dawson could have made but +did not make. He might have pleaded that for the sake of the nation all +attempts at unnatural birth control amongst the wealthier and more leisured +citizens should be abandoned forthwith, and that the lawful form should be +confined to those few cases where limitation of the family is justified on +genuine medical grounds. But he refrained from making that appeal, and +his plea for the use of contraceptives in moderation is more likely to be +quoted with approval in the boudoirs of Mayfair than in humbler homes. + +Lord Dawson's grave error in failing to anticipate the inevitable +consequences of his deplorable speech is becoming more and more apparent. +In the columns of _The Daily Herald_, cheek by jowl with advertisements +concerning "Herbalists," "Safe and Sure Treatment for Anaemia, +Irregularities, etc.," "Knowledge for Young Wives," and "Surgical Goods and +Appliances," there appears the following notice: + + "Lord Dawson, the King's Physician, says, 'Birth control has come to + stay.' Following up this honest and daring declaration, the Liberator + League have decided to distribute 10,000 copies of its publications + free to applicants sending stamped addressed envelopes to J.W. Gott, + Secretary ... London, N.W.5." + +A stamped addressed envelope brought in return sample copies of two undated +newsprints, entitled _The Rib Tickler_ and _The Liberator_, and, to the +honour of newsvendors, we learn that these papers are "not supplied by +newsagents." The first print is devoted to Blasphemy, and the second to +Birth Control. Both papers are edited by J.W. Gott, "of London, Leeds, +Liverpool, and other prisons," who, when he is not in jail for selling +blasphemous or obscene literature, earns a livelihood by a propaganda of +"Secularism, Socialism, and Neo-Malthusianism," combined with the sale of +contraceptives. At Birmingham in 1921 this individual, according to his own +statement, was charged, on eleven summonses, with having sent "an obscene +book" and "obscene literature" through the post, and with "publishing a +blasphemous libel of and concerning the Holy Scriptures and the Christian +Religion." "The Malthusian League (at their own expense, for which I here +wish to thank them) sent their Hon. Secretary, Dr. Binnie Dunlop, who gave +evidence" ... that the Council of the Malthusian League ... "most strongly +protests against the description of G. Hardy's book, _How to prevent +Pregnancy_, as obscene, for that book gives in a perfectly refined and +scientific way this urgently needed information." This opinion was not +shared by the jury, who brought in a verdict of guilty, and Gott was +sentenced to six months' imprisonment. From the _Liberator_ we learn that +the Treasurer of the Liberator League was fined £20, having been found +guilty on the following summons--"for that you on the eleventh day of +September 1920, at the Parish of Consett, in the County aforesaid, +unlawfully, wickedly, maliciously, and scandalously did sell to divers +persons, whose names are unknown, in a public street, there situate, a +certain lewd, wicked, scandalous, and obscene print entitled 'Large or +Small Families,' against the Peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, His +Crown and Dignity." + +Lord Dawson's advice was indeed perilous because "the British Empire and +all its traditions will decline and fall if the Motherland is faithless +to motherhood"; [120] and the nation would do better to pay heed to the +following words of His Majesty the King: "The foundations of national glory +are in the homes of the people. They will only remain unshaken while the +family life of our race and nation is strong, simple, and pure." + +All Lord Dawson's arguments are hoary fallacies. "Once more, careful +distinction needs to be made between"--anaesthetics and contraceptives. +Anaesthetics assist the birth of a child, whereas contraceptives frustrate +the act of procreation. The old explanation that man's progress has +been achieved by harnessing and not by opposing the forces of nature is +dismissed with ignominy. The age-long teaching of Hippocrates that the +healing art was based on the _Vis Medicatrix Naturae_ is overthrown by +Lord Dawson of Penn, in a single sentence; and in place of the Father of +Medicine as a guide to health of body and mind, there comes the King's +Physician: + + "To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson lights." + +When a great leader announces the birth of a new epoch, it is meet that the +rank and file remain silent; and at this Congress of the Church of +England no jarring interruptions marred the solemnity of the moment. No +old-fashioned doctor was there to utter a futile protest, and there was no +simple-minded clergyman to rise in the name of Christ and give Lord Dawson +the lie. Without dissent, on a public platform of the Established Church, +presided over by a Bishop, and in full view of the nation, "the moth-eaten +mantle of Malthus, the godless robe of Bradlaugh, and the discarded +garments of Mrs. Besant," [121] were donned--by the successor of Lister. +It was a proud moment for the birth controllers, but for that national +institution called "Ecclesia Anglicana" a moment full of shame. + +[Footnote 100: _British Medical Journal_, August 6, 1921, p. 219.] + +[Footnote 101: There is, or perhaps we should say there was, a legacy of +1,000 Rhenish guilders awaiting anyone who, in the judgment of the faculty +of law in the University of Heidelberg or of Bonn, is able to establish the +fact that any Jesuit ever taught this doctrine or anything equivalent to +it. Vide _The Antidote_, vol. iii, p. 125, C.T.S., London.] + +[Footnote 102: Gen. xxxviii. 9-10] + +[Footnote 103: Vide _Catholic Times_, August 27, 1921, p. 7.] + +[Footnote 104: _The Army and Religion_, 1919, p. 448.] + +[Footnote 105: _Universe_, November 4, 1921, p. 3.] + +[Footnote 106: _Eighty-second Annual Report of the Registrar-General of +England and Wales_, 1919, p. xiv.] + +[Footnote 107: _The Times_, January 13, 1885.] + +[Footnote 108: _British Medical Journal_, November 19, 1921, p. 872.] + +[Footnote 109: _British Medical Journal_, November 26, 1921, p. 924] + +[Footnote 110: _British Medical Journal_, December 10, 1921, p. 1016.] + +[Footnote 111: _Common Sense on the Population Question_, p. 4] + +[Footnote 112: Dr. C.K. Millard, in _The Modern Churchman_, May 1919.] + +[Footnote 113: Reproduced in _The Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 386.] + +[Footnote 114: _Outspoken Essays_, 1919, p. 75.] + +[Footnote 115: _Report_, p. 44.] + +[Footnote 116: Ibid., p. 112.] + +[Footnote 117: _Evening Standard_, October 12, 1921.] + +[Footnote 118: October 15, 1921.] + +[Footnote 119: _Man and Superman_, Act III, p. 125.] + +[Footnote 120: _Sunday Express_, October 16, 1921.] + +[Footnote 121: On becoming a Theosophist, Mrs. Besant retracted her +approval of Neo-Malthusianism.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON BIRTH CONTROL + + +Section 1. A FALSE VIEW OF HER DOCTRINE + +One of the marks of the Catholic Church, whereby she may be distinguished +from all other Churches, is that her teaching is always clear and above all +logical. Yet this fact has not saved her teaching from misrepresentation +in the hands of Malthusians. For example, Dr. C. Killick Millard writes as +follows: + + "The Churches have taught that it was the divine wish that human beings + should multiply and population increase--the more rapidly the better; + the traditional authority for this being the instruction given to Noah + and his family, after the Deluge, to 'be fruitful and multiply and + replenish the earth.' The Churches have continued to teach that the + duty of man was _to obey the divine command_ and still _to increase and + multiply_, and until recently any attempt by married couples to + restrict or regulate the birth-rate was denounced as sinful. + + "This is still the orthodox attitude, I believe, of the Roman Catholic + Church, with its celibate priesthood; but, as it is clearly useless to + reason with those who claim infallibility, it is unnecessary to discuss + the question further so far as Roman Catholicism is concerned." [122] + +Now, although it may be unnecessary for Dr. Millard to discuss the question +further, he will, I am sure, regret having inadvertently misstated the +truth. The Catholic Church has never denounced as sinful "_any_ attempt by +married couples to restrict or regulate the birth-rate." On the contrary, +the Catholic Church has taught, by her greatest doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, +"that the essence of marriage is not primarily in the begetting of +offspring, but in the indissoluble union between husband and wife." [123] + + +Section 2. THE ESSENCE AND PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE + +There is an obvious distinction between the _essence_ of a thing and the +_ends_ or purposes for which the thing exists. For example, in a business +partnership the _essence_ of the partnership is a legal instrument, +whereas the _purposes_ or _ends_ of the partnership are various commercial +projects. The following is a clear statement, by Father Vincent McNabb, +O.P., [124] of Catholic teaching concerning the nature and end of marriage: + + "Marriage is an indissoluble state of life wherein a man and a woman + agree to give each other power over their bodies for the begetting, + birth, and upbringing of offspring. The natural and primary end of + marriage is this duty towards offspring. But, as sin has despoiled the + human will and disturbed human relations, marriage has now the + secondary end of allaying sexual lust. + + "But it is a principle of ethics that what is primary cannot be set + aside as if it were secondary, nor can the secondary be sought as if it + were primary. To invert the ethical order is to bring in that disorder + which is called sin. If the human act brings in a slight disorder, it + is venial sin; if the human act brings in a grievous disorder it is a + grievous or mortal sin. + + "It is a grievous disorder, and, therefore, a grievous sin, to desire + satisfaction in such sexual intercourse as could not result in the + begetting of offspring. + + "As the wedded pair have given each other power over their bodies it + would be a grave sin for one to refuse either altogether or for a + considerable time the fulfilment of the marriage debt. But it is not a + sin if by mutual agreement the wedded pair refrain from the marriage + debt for a time, or for ever. As a rule, and speaking objectively, it + would be heroic virtue for a wedded pair to abstain for a long time, + and still more for ever, from the marriage debt. To counsel such a + practice indiscriminately would be a sinful want of prudence, and, in a + confessor, of professional knowledge. + + "It is quite clear that by mutual consent, even without any further + motive, the wedded pair can abstain from marital intercourse. Still + more may they abstain for a time or for ever, for a good motive, e.g. + in order to have time for prayer, for good works, for bringing up such + family as they already have to support." + + +Section 3. ARTIFICIAL STERILITY WHOLLY CONDEMNED + +Artificial birth control is an offence against the law of God, and is +therefore forbidden by the Catholic Church. Any Catholic who wilfully +adopts this practice violates the law of God in a serious matter, and is +therefore guilty of mortal sin, an outrageous and deliberate insult offered +by a human creature to the Infinite Majesty. + +The Catholic Church teaches that men and women should control the sex +impulse just as they should control their appetite for food or drink. +The principal end of marriage, as we have seen, is the purpose of its +institution, the procreation and bringing up of children. The secondary end +of marriage is mutual assistance and companionship, and a remedy against +concupiscence. Where it is advisable, owing to the health of the mother or +owing to reasons of prudence as distinct from selfishness, to limit the +number of children, the Catholic Church points out that this should be done +by the exercise of self-control, or by restricted use. As those who deny +the possibility or even the wisdom of self-restraint are not likely to pay +the slightest attention to the teaching of the Church, I will quote the +opinions of two clear-thinking, non-Catholic writers. + +Mr. George Bernard Shaw has said: + + "I have no prejudices. The superstitious view of the Catholic Church is + that a priest is something entirely different from an ordinary man. I + know a great many Catholic priests, and they are men who have had a + great deal of experience. They have at the back a Church which has had + for many years to consider the giving of domestic advice to people. If + you go to a Catholic priest and tell him that a life of sexual + abstinence means a life of utter misery, he laughs. And obviously for a + very good reason. If you go to Westminster Cathedral you will hear + voices which sound extremely well, and very differently from the voices + of the gentlemen who sing at music-halls, and who would not be able to + sing in that way if they did not lead a life extremely different from + the Catholic priest.... + + "I may say that I am in favour of birth control. I am in favour of it + for its own sake. I do not like to see any human being absolutely the + slave of what we used to call 'Nature.' Every human action ought to be + controlled, and you make a step in civilisation with something which + has been uncontrollable. I am therefore in favour of control for its + own sake. But when you go from that to the methods of control, that is + a very different thing. As Dr. Routh said, we have to find out methods + which will not induce people to declare that they cannot exist without + sexual intercourse." [125] + +Of course the use of contraceptives is the very negation of self-control. + +The late Sir William Osier, speaking of venereal disease, says: + + "Personal purity is the prophylaxis which we as physicians are + especially bound to advocate. Continence may be a hard condition ... + but it can be borne, and it is our duty to urge this lesson upon young + and old who seek our advice on matters sexual." + + +Section 4. THE ONLY LAWFUL METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL + +There _are_ methods of control whereby people are enabled to exist, and to +exist happily, without being slaves to the sex impulse. These methods are +those of the Catholic Church. Her people are encouraged to take a higher +and a nobler view of marriage, to overcome their egoism and selfishness, +and to practise moderation and self-restraint in the lawful use of marital +rights. The Church urges her people to strengthen their self-restraint +by observing the penitential seasons, especially Lent; by fasting or by +abstaining from flesh meat at other times, if necessary by abstaining from +alcohol; and by seeking that supernatural help which comes to those who +receive the Sacraments worthily. When all other deterrents fail, it is +lawful, according to the teaching of the Church, for married people to +limit intercourse to the mid-menstrual period, when, although conception +may occur, it is less likely to occur than at other times. + +All other methods are absolutely and without exception forbidden. This +limited use of marriage, which, as we have seen, is within the rights of +the married, differs from all methods of artificial birth-control as day +differs from night, because: [Reference: Explanation] + +(1) No positive or direct obstacle is used against procreation. + +(2) The intercourse is natural, in contradistinction to what is equivalent +to self-abuse. + +(3) Self-restraint is practised in that the intercourse is limited to +certain times. + +(4) There is no risk to mental or physical health. + +(5) There is no evil will to _defeat_ the course of nature; at worst there +is merely an absence of heroism. + +Even if the question be considered solely as a matter of physiology +the difference between these methods is apparent. Physiologists and +gynaecologists believe that in natural intercourse there is, apart from +fertilisation, an absorption of certain substances into the system of the +woman. The rôle of this absorption is at present obscure, but it obviously +exists for a purpose; and it is permissible to speculate whether, under +natural conditions of intercourse, there is not a mutual biological +reaction that makes, amongst other things, for physical compatibility. +Whatever be its purpose or explanation in the marvellous mechanism of +nature, this absorption of vital substances is either hindered or is +absolutely prevented by artificial methods of birth control; whereas, in +the method permitted by the teaching of the Catholic Church there is no +interference with a physiological process. Even those who fail, from their +lack of training, to comprehend moral distinctions in this matter should be +able to appreciate the difference between a method that is physiological +and one that is unphysiological. + +There are thousands who know little of the Catholic or of any other faith, +and thousands who believe the Catholic Church to be everything except what +it is. These people have no infallible rule of faith and morals, and when +confronted, as they now are, by a dangerous, insidious campaign in favour +of birth control, they do not react consistently or at all. It was +therefore thought advisable to issue this statement in defence of the +position of the Catholic Church; but the reader should remember that the +teaching of the Church on this matter is held by her members to be true, +not merely because it agrees with the notions of all right-thinking men and +women, not because it is in harmony with economic, statistical, social, and +biological truth, but principally because they know this teaching to be +an authoritative declaration of the law of God. The Ten Commandments have +their pragmatic justification; they make for the good of the race; but the +Christian obeys them as expressions of the Divine Will. + + +Section 5. CONCLUSION + +Our declining birth-rate is a fact of the utmost gravity, and a more +serious position has never confronted the British people. Here in the midst +of a great nation, at the end of a victorious war, the law of decline is +working, and by that law the greatest empires in the world have perished. +In comparison with that single fact all other dangers, be they of war, of +politics, or of disease, are of little moment. Attempts have already been +made to avert the consequences by the partial endowment of motherhood +and by a saving of infant life. Physiologists are now seeking among the +endocrinous glands and the vitamines for a substance to assist procreation. +"Where are my children?" was the question shouted yesterday from the +cinemas. "Let us have children, children at any price," will be the cry +of to-morrow. And all these thoughts were once in the mind of Augustus, +Emperor of the world from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, from Mount Atlas +to the Danube and the Rhine. + +The Catholic Church has never taught that "an avalanche of children" should +be brought into the world regardless of consequences. God is not mocked; as +men sow, so shall they reap, and against a law of nature both the transient +amelioration wrought by philanthropists and the subtle expediences of +scientific politicians are alike futile. If our civilisation is to survive +we must abandon those ideals that lead to decline. There is only one +civilisation immune from decay, and that civilisation endures on the +practical eugenics once taught by a united Christendom and now expounded +almost solely by the Catholic Church. + +[Footnote 122: _The Modern Churchman_, May 1919.] + +[Footnote 123: Rev. 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Leroy-Beaulieu. + +_Dépopulation et Civilisation_. 1890. Arsène Dumont. + +_Natalie_. Dr. Bertillon Père. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BIRTH CONTROL *** + +This file should be named 8773-8.txt or 8773-8.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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