note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 31790-h.htm or 31790-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31790/31790-h/31790-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31790/31790-h.zip) family limitation by margaret h. sanger revised sixth edition 1917 introduction. there is no need for any one to explain to the working men and women in america what this pamphlet is written for or why it is necessary that they should have this information. they know better than i could tell them, so i shall not try. i have tried to give the knowledge of the best french and dutch physicians translated into the simplest english, that all may easily understand. there are various and numerous mechanical means of prevention which i have not mentioned here, mainly because i have not come into personal contact with those who have used them or could recommend them as entirely satisfactory. i feel there is sufficient information given here, which, if followed, will prevent a woman from becoming pregnant unless she desires to do so. if a woman is too indolent to wash and cleanse herself, and the man too selfish to consider the consequences of the act, then it will be difficult to find a preventive to keep the woman from becoming pregnant. of course, it is troublesome to get up to douche, it is also a nuisance to have to trouble about the date of the menstrual period. it seems inartistic and sordid to insert a pessary or a suppository in anticipation of the sexual act. but it is far more sordid to find yourself several years later burdened down with half a dozen unwanted children, helpless, starved, shoddily clothed, dragging at your skirt, yourself a dragged out shadow of the woman you once were. don't be over sentimental in this important phase of hygiene. the inevitable fact is that unless you prevent the male sperm from entering the womb, you are going to become pregnant. women of the working class, especially wage workers, should not have more than two children at most. the average working man can support no more and the average working woman can take care of no more in decent fashion. it has been my experience that more children are not really wanted, but that the women are compelled to have them either from lack of foresight or through ignorance of the hygiene of preventing conception. it is only the workers who are ignorant of the knowledge of how to prevent bringing children in the world to fill jails and hospitals, factories and mills, insane asylums and premature graves. the working women can use direct action by refusing to supply the market with children to be exploited, by refusing to populate the earth with slaves. it is also the one most direct method for you working women to help yourself _today_. pass on this information to your neighbor and comrade workers. write out any of the following information which you are sure will help her, and pass it along where it is needed. spread this important knowledge! * * * * * the small family system: is it injurious or immoral? by dr. c. v. drysdale. b. w. huebsch, new york city. the problem of race-regeneration, by havelock ellis, moffat, yard & co., new york city. the task of social hygiene, by havelock ellis. houghton mifflin & co., boston, mass. the limitation of offspring by the prevention of conception, by dr. wm. j. robinson, critic & guide co., new york city. "what every girl should know" by margaret sanger. paper cover, 25 cents. cloth cover, 50 cents. "what every mother should know" by margaret sanger. paper cover, 25 cents. cloth cover, 50 cents. the above are obtainable from max maisel, 424 grand street, new york city. "the birth control review" edited by margaret sanger. one dollar a year 104 fifth ave., new york city. a nurse's advice to women. every woman who is desirous of preventing conception will follow this advice: don't wait to see if you do _not_ menstruate (monthly sickness) but make it your duty to see that you _do_. if you are due to be "sick" on the eighth of august, do not wait until the eighth to see, but begin as early as the fourth to take a good laxative for the bowels, and continue this each night until the eighth. if there is the slightest possibility that the male fluid has entered the vagina, take on these same nights before retiring, five or ten grains of quinine, with a hot drink. the quinine in capsule form is considered fresher, but if this is taken do not use alcoholic drinks directly after, as it hardens the capsules, thus delaying the action of the quinine. by taking the above precautions you will prevent the ovum from making its nest in the lining of the womb. women of intelligence who refuse to have children until they are ready for them, keep definite track of the date of their menstrual periods. a calendar should be kept, on which can be marked the date of the last menstruation, as well as the date when the next period should occur. women must learn to know their own bodies, and watch and know definitely how regular or irregular they are: if the period comes regularly every twenty-eight days (normal) or every thirty days as is in the case of many young girls. mark it accordingly on your private calendar; do not leave it to memory or guess work. only ignorance and indifference will cause one to be careless in this most important matter. a very good laxative (though it is a patent medicine) is beechams pills. two of these taken night and morning, four days before menstruation, will give a good cleansing of the bowels, and assist with the menstrual flow. castor oil is also a good laxative. the american physicians may object to this advice because beechams pills are a patent medicine. but until they are willing to give open advice on this subject, we must resort to such as the least harmful, until such time as they do. if a woman will give herself attention before the menstrual period arrives, she will almost never have any trouble, but if she neglects herself and waits to see if she "comes around," she is likely to have difficulty. if the action of quinine has not expelled the semen from the uterus, and a week has elapsed with no signs of the menstrual flow, then it is safe to assume conception has taken place. any attempt to interfere with the development of the fertilized ovum is called an abortion. no one can doubt that there are times where an abortion is justifiable but they will become _unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception_. this is the _only_ cure for abortions. there is current among people an idea that conception can take place only at certain times of the month. for instance: ten days after the menstrual period, and four or five days before the next period. this is not to be relied upon at all, for it has been proven again and again that a woman can conceive at any time in the month. do not depend upon this belief, for there is no reliable foundation for it. there is also the knowledge that nursing after child-birth prevents the return of the menstrual flow for several months and conception does not take place. it is well not to depend upon this too much, especially after the fifth or sixth month, for often a woman becomes pregnant again without having "seen anything" or without her realizing that she has become pregnant. she thus finds herself with one at the breast and another in the womb. use some preventative. again, it is believed that conception cannot take place if the woman lies upon her left side at the time of the act. it makes no difference which side she lies upon; she can become pregnant if the semen is not prevented from entering the womb. perhaps the commonest preventive excepting the use of the condom is "coitus interrupts," or withdrawal of the penis from the vagina shortly before the action of the semen. no one can doubt that this is a perfectly safe method; and it is not considered so dangerous to the man as some authorities have formerly viewed it, but it requires a man of the strongest willpower to be certain that he has withdrawn before any of the semen has been deposited in the vagina. it is very difficult to determine exactly whether this has been done. the greatest objection to this is the evil effect upon the woman's nervous condition. if she has not completed her desire, she is under a highly nervous tension, her whole being is perhaps on the verge of satisfaction. she is then left in this dissatisfied state. this does her injury. a mutual and satisfied sexual act is of great benefit to the average woman, the magnetism of it is health giving. when it is not desired on the part of the woman and she has no response, _it should not take place_. this is an act of prostitution and is degrading to the woman's finer sensibility, all the marriage certificates on earth to the contrary notwithstanding. withdrawal on the part of the man should be substituted by some other means that does not injure the woman. douches and their importance. the most important part which every woman should learn in the methods of preventing conception, is to cleanse herself thoroughly by means of the vaginal douche. after the sexual act go as quickly as possible to the bath room and prepare a douche. lie down upon the back in the bath tub. hang the filled douche bag high over the tub, and let the water flow freely into the vagina, to wash out the male sperm which was deposited during the act. do not be afraid to assist the cleansing by introducing the first finger with the tube and washing out the semen from the folds of the membrane. one can soon learn to tell by the feeling when it is sufficiently clean. it is said, that the french women are the most thorough douchers in the world, which helps greatly in keeping the organs in a clean and healthy condition, as well as preventing the male sperm from reaching the womb to mate with the ovum. following are some of the solutions to be used for the douche, which, when carefully used will kill the male sperm or prevent its entering the womb: lysol--is a brown oily liquid which added to water forms a clear soapy solution. one teaspoonful of lysol to 2 quarts of water (warm) makes a good solution for douching. mix into a pitcher or vessel before placing it in the bag. bi-chloride--get the tablets blue or white from the druggist; the blue are less dangerous to have about because of the color. always mix this solution thoroughly in a glass or pitcher before turning it into the bag. never drop the tablet directly into the bag. one tablet to two quarts of water makes a splendid solution for preventive purposes. potassium permanganate--this also makes a good solution, especially where there is a vaginal discharge. the special objection to this is that it stains the skin and clothing. this can be purchased in crystal form, and one teaspoonful dissolved in two quarts of water is the proper strength. chinosol is highly recommended as a vaginal douche, as being less injurious to the membranes than bi-chloride. salt solution--mix four tablespoons of table salt in one quart of warm or cold water and dissolve thoroughly. this is good and cheap. vinegar solution--many peasants in europe use vinegar as an antiseptic almost exclusively. one glassful to two quarts of water is the strength usually desired. cider vinegar is preferred. douche afterward with clear water. cold water douche--this will sometimes remove the semen quite effectively without the aid of an antiseptic. but as the semen can hide itself away in the wrinkled lining of the vaginal cavity, the cold water will only impede its progress for a time. as soon as the warmth of the body revives its activity, the semen continues on its journey to meet the ovum. every woman should possess a good two quart rubber douche bag called fountain syringe. hang it high enough to insure a steady direct flow. bulb syringes, such as the whirling spray syringes, have been found satisfactory by many women for the purpose of injecting antiseptic solutions. directions with syringe. [illustration: fountain syringe.] some women use the douche before the sexual act as a preventive. if this is done, any astringent such as boric acid, alum, citric acid, hydro-chlorate of quinine used in the solution will do. only a pint of solution is needed for this purpose, following the act a larger douche is used as a cleanser. this can also be allowed with the regular antiseptic douche. the use of the condom or "cots." there is little doubt that a thorough douching of the genital passage with an antiseptic solution performed by skilled hands immediately after the sexual act would destroy the male sperm, and nothing else would be necessary. but there is always the possibility that the sperm has entered the womb before the solution can reach it. it is safer therefore to prevent the possibility of the contact of the semen and the ovum, by the interposition of a wall between them. one of the best is the condom or rubber "cot." these are made of soft tissues which envelope the male organ (penis) completely and serve to catch the semen at the time of the act. in this way the sperm does not enter the vagina. the condoms are obtainable at all drug stores at various prices. from two dollars a dozen for the skin gut tissues to one fifty a dozen for the rubber tissue. these are seamless, thin and elastic and yet tough; if properly adjusted will not break. fear of breaking is the main objection to their use. if space has not been allowed for expansion of the penis, at the time the semen is expelled, the tissue is likely to split and the sperm finds its way into the uterus. the woman becomes pregnant without being conscious of it. if on the other hand care is given to the adjustment of the condom, not fitting it too close, it will act as one of the best protectors against both conception and venereal disease. care must be exercised in withdrawing the penis after the act, not to allow the condom to peel off, thereby allowing the semen to pass into the vagina. it is desirable to discard the condom after it has been used once. but as this is not always done, care must be taken to wash the condom in an antiseptic solution before drying it and placing it away for further use. the condom is one of the most commonly known preventatives in the united states. it has another value quite apart from prevention in decreasing the tendency in the male to arrive at the climax in the sexual act before the female. there are few men and women so perfectly mated that the climax of the act is reached together. it is usual for the male to arrive at this stage earlier than the female, with the consequence that he is further incapacitated to satisfy her desire for some time after. during this time the woman is in a highly nervous condition, and it is the opinion of the best medical authorities that a continuous condition of this unsatisfied state brings on or causes disease of her generative organs, besides giving her a perfect horror and repulsion for the sexual act. thousands of well meaning men ask the advice of physicians as to the cause of the sexual coldness and indifference of their wives. nine times out of ten it is the fault of the man, who through ignorance and selfishness and inconsiderateness, has satisfied his own desire and promptly gone off to sleep. the woman in self defense has learned to protect herself from the long hours of sleepless nights and nervous tension by refusing to become interested. the condom will often help in this difficulty. there are many girls who have had no education on this subject, no idea of the physiology of the act, who upon any contact of the semen have a disgust and repulsion, from which it takes some time to recover. much depends upon the education of the girl, but more depends upon the attitude of the man toward the relation. the pessary and the sponge. another form of prevention is the pessary (see cut). this is one of the most common preventive articles used in france as well as among the women of the middle and upper class in america. at one time the cost of these ranged up to seven dollars, as they were imported into this country from france. today they are manufactured in this country, and may be had from fifty cents up to two dollars. the mizpath is the name of one of the best and costs one dollar and a half at any reliable drug store. they come in three sizes--large, medium and small. it is well to get the medium size, as the small ones are only for very small boned women and easily get out of place. [illustration: french pessary--slightly different from the american.] in my estimation a well fitted pessary is the surest method of absolutely preventing conception. i have known hundreds of women who have used it for years with the most satisfactory results. the trouble is women are afraid of their own bodies, and are of course ignorant of their physical construction. they are silly in thinking the pessary can go up too far, or that it could get lost, etc., etc., and therefore discard it. it can not get into the womb, neither can it get lost. the only thing it can do is to come out. and even that will give warning by the discomfort of the bulky feeling it causes, when it is out of place. follow the directions given with each box, and learn to adjust it correctly; one can soon feel that it is on right. after the pessary has been placed into the vagina deeply, it can be fitted well over the neck of the womb. one can feel it is fitted by pressing the finger around the soft part of the pessary, which should completely cover the mouth of the womb. if it is properly adjusted there will be no discomfort, the man will be unconscious that anything is used, and no germ or semen can enter the womb. [illustration: a--womb; b--pessary covering mouth of womb; c--vagina; d--bladder.] if the woman should fall asleep directly after no harm can happen, and it is not necessary to take a douche until the following morning. take part or about a quart of an antiseptic douche before the pessary is removed; after removing it continue the douche and cleanse thoroughly. [illustration: finger touching mouth of womb. a--womb; b--mouth of womb.] wash the pessary in clear cold water, dry well and place away in the box. one should last two years, if cared for. i recommend the use of the pessary as the most convenient, the cheapest and the safest. any nurse or doctor will teach one how to adjust it; then women can teach each other. it is not advisable to wear the pessary all the time. take it out after using, and wear it only when needed. a little experience will teach one that to place it is a simple matter. sponges. sponges can also be had at the drug store. they have a tap attached to them to be conveniently removed. they should be soaked in an antiseptic solution for a few minutes before coitus and then introduced into the vagina far up as they can be placed. some physicians have recommended the use of the cotton plug, instead of the sponge, to be soaked in a solution of three per cent carbolic and glycerine, before the act. the male sperm is destroyed by the weakest solution of carbolic acid. some of the peasants in europe use the cotton plug soaked in vinegar for the same purpose and find it satisfactory. in this country a boric acid solution has been used for the same purpose and with satisfactory results. of course this requires a saturated solution, as, for instance, one teaspoonful of the powder to a cup of water stirred until dissolved. sponges and plugs can be recommended as perfectly safe, if followed by an antiseptic douche before the removal of the plug or sponge, thus preventing the sperm from entering the womb. the problem is: to kill the male sperm upon entering the vagina, or to wash it out or to kill it directly afterwards. a weak solution of alum may also be used for cotton plugs and sponges, _also carbolated vaseline on plugs_. vaginal suppositories. suppositories are becoming more generally used in u. s. a. than any other method of prevention. these may be found at any reliable pharmacy. the majority of them are made from cocoa butter or gelatine, which makes it necessary that they be deposited in the vagina several minutes before the act, in order for them to melt. special ingredients negate the effect of the male seed. vaginal suppository acid citric, 6 grains acid boracic, 1 dram cocoa butter, 90 grains make into 12 suppositories. another suppository, which is the same as the well-known aseptikon, is the following: salicylic acid, 2 grains boric acid, 10 grains quin, purol (alkal), 1 grain chinosol, 2 grains cocoa butter, 90 grains m. f. supos, glob no. 1 (introduce into vagina three minutes before act.) still another found reliable is: boric acid, 10 grains salicylic acid, 2 grains quinine bisulphate, 3 grains cocoa butter, 60 grains practically all vaginal suppositories act as preventives but the most commonly used is the aseptikon, manufactured by the chinosol company. they are to be secured at any reliable druggist's upon demand. they should be kept in a cool place. they are not poisonous and cause no injury to the membranes. they are distributed into a box costing 85 cents. the prescription quoted above can be made up more cheaply however. it is interesting to note that in the rural districts in france the peasant women make up their preventive suppositories themselves, placing them carefully away in glass jars. this is one of the recipes which has been used: gelatine, 1 part water, 2 parts glycerine, 5 parts bisulphate of quinine--one-half a part make this into a paste. allow to spread out and solidify, then cut into pieces of 2 grammes each, wrap separately and put in a cool place (air-tight). i have given in the foregoing pages the most commonly known means of prevention. personally i recommend every woman to use a well fitted pessary and learn to adjust it. carbozine tablets, obtainable from the carbozine laboratory, 3121 south broadway, st. louis, mo., are highly recommended as an antiseptic and cleanser by farmer's wives and others residing in rural districts. a highly recommended suppository, similar to those made and used successfully in germany for over twenty years, is now obtainable from the alotan manufacturing company, 2 rector street, new york city, at the rate of one dozen for sixty cents and two dozen for one dollar. condoms, pessaries, syringes, douche bags, and other rubber articles are obtainable from riker-hegeman drug company, 15 west 34th st., new york city. birth control, or family limitation, has been recommended by some of the leading physicians of the united states and europe. the movement can no longer be set back by setting up the false cry of "obscenity." it has already been incorporated into the private moral code of millions of the most influential families in every civilized country. it will shortly win full acceptation and sanction by public morality as well. in cases of women suffering from serious ailments, such as bright's disease, heart disease, insanities, melancholia, idiocy, consumption, and syphilis, all a physician is allowed to do is to tide these women through their pregnancies if possible. even though the life of the woman is positively endangered, he cannot relieve her without calling a colleague in consultation. therefore, the mortality of mothers suffering from these diseases and their infants is very high, and premature births common. to conserve the lives of these mothers and to prevent the birth of diseased or defective children are factors emphasizing the crying need of a sound and sane educational campaign for birth control. [illustration: ettie a. rout. [_vandyk, london._]] safe marriage a return to sanity by ettie a. rout with preface by sir william arbuthnot lane, bart., c.b., m.s., (consulting surgeon to guy's hospital), etc. london: william heinemann (medical books) ltd. 1922 +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | _prevention of venereal disease_ | | | | by sir archdall reid, k.b.e., m.b. | | | | with an introduction by sir bryan donkin, m.d. | | | | _crown 8vo. 447 pages. 15s. net. weight 2 lbs. inland | | postage, 9d._ | | | | this book is addressed on the one hand to those who would | | prevent venereal disease in themselves, and on the other, to | | those who would prevent it in the community. | | | | _lancet._--"a powerfully written and valuable volume." | | | | _the medical press._--"we _positively assert_ that it is the | | duty of every medical man to _master_ its contents." | | | | london: wm. heinemann (medical books) ltd. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ the french government has bestowed the premier decoration for women, the reconnaissance française, upon miss ettie rout, of the new zealand volunteer sisters, "for work done during the war (as head of anzac soldiers' club in paris), and in 1919-1920 as head of american red cross depôt and canteen at villers-bretonneux, where she helped a great many french soldiers, and rendered precious service to the civilian population of the commune." the war office also conveyed thanks to miss rout "for gallant and distinguished services in the field." "i have it in command from the king," wrote the secretary of state for war, on 1st march, 1919, "to record his majesty's high appreciation of the services rendered." preface. it affords me great pleasure to write a short preface to this book, since it deals with a matter in which i (in common with all those who are intensely interested in the health of our race) am glad to take an active part. to no woman has it been permitted to do the same amount of good, and to save more misery and suffering, both during and after the war, than to miss ettie rout. her superhuman energy and indomitable perseverance enabled her to perform, in the most efficient manner possible, a work which few women would care to handle, and of which but an infinitesimally small number are capable. the french government fully recognised the great services she rendered to the allies, and did her honour. the book she has written is one of very great value, in that its object is the health, happiness, morality and well-being of the community. not only has miss ettie rout the qualities that characterise all great humanitarians, but she also possesses, in a unique degree, an intimate knowledge of the terrible troubles that arise from irregular intercourse, and of the manner in which they can be reduced and perhaps eliminated. in this book she deals with such simple hygienic measures as are little known in england, though they are in common use in france and in the united states, in both of which countries sound practical common sense prevails. she is persuaded that marriage is the goal to be reached by all, and that everything possible should be done to facilitate it, and so to diminish vice. in her efforts to bring about this happy issue she has the good wishes and congratulations of all who have the health of the community at heart. w. arbuthnot lane. 21, cavendish square, london, w.1. _march 25th, 1922._ contents. page foreword xiii i. introduction 17 ii. practical methods of prevention a. for women 32 b. for men 51 iii. medical formulæ 59 iv. compulsory treatment 63 v. conclusion 65 appendix i 69 appendix ii 73 note and advertisement 75 "knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and i linger on the shore, and the individual withers, and the world is more and more." tennyson. foreword. this book embodies the considered opinions of twenty-five years' practical experience of adult life--as an official reporter and journalist, as a voluntary war-worker, and as a married woman. for many of the thoughts and expressions used i am indebted to large numbers of men and women whom i cannot name, and with whom i have been personally and professionally associated in different parts of the world. i am also indebted to the following medical journals for the publication, during the last five years, of many letters, articles, notes, etc.: _the lancet_, _the british medical journal_, _public health_, _municipal engineering_, _hospital_, _new york medical journal_, etc., etc. i have to thank the society for the prevention of venereal disease, the national birth-rate commission, and the joint select committee (house of lords) on criminal law amendment bills for recording various statements and evidence. it remains only to state this fact: that on january 25th, 1922, sir arbuthnot lane, sir frederick mott, surgeon-commander hamilton boyden, of the royal navy, and mr. harman freese, of freese & moon, manufacturing chemists, of 59, bermondsey street, london, s.e.1, met at my home to decide upon the best medical formulæ for self-disinfecting ointment for men and contraceptive-disinfecting-suppositories for women. mr. freese made up sanitary tubes and sanitary suppositories in accordance with these formulæ, but he is prohibited by law from recommending these for the prevention of venereal disease, and forbidden to supply printed directions with them, whereas similar medicaments are being retailed with printed directions in the state of pennsylvania, and the health department circularises medical practitioners thus:- "the self-treatment packet, obtainable at drug stores, to arrest venereal infection after exposure, is approved by the state department of health on the same principle as is antitoxin given to diphtheria contacts. proof is lacking that the use of this packet lowers social standards. reduction in the incidence of venereal disease is a direct result." but not only in the clear, cool air of american state departments of health is the knowledge and love of sexual cleanliness fructifying. in the _dublin review_ for january-march, 1922, there is a wonderfully fine article on "the church and prostitution," by the right rev. monsignor provost w.f. brown, d.d., v.g., in which he quotes from a very recent moral theology, "de castitate," by the rev. a. vermeersch, s.j., professor of moral theology at the gregorian university, rome, published in may, 1921. the author of "de castitate" gives brief answers to three questions put to him, which mgr. brown quotes in the original latin, and of which the following is a translation furnished by a catholic priest:- "you ask 1. whether or not it is formally sinful to use antiseptic ointment before illicit intercourse. 2. whether or not the use of such ointment may be advocated. 3. whether or not it is lawful for chemists to sell it. ad. 1. although it seems that in england (_cf. times_, january, 1917) some have made a scrupulous distinction between the use of this ointment _before_ and _after_, and have forbidden the former while approving the latter, you need make no such distinction (of course, supposing the ointment is not used by a woman to sterilize). it is not wrong to seek means, indifferent in themselves, which will prevent the evil consequences of sin. ad. 2. it would indeed be a sin to reveal such drugs or to persuade their use with the intention to induce a man to commit sin; but there is no harm in telling a man who is certainly going to sin how to avoid the consequences. ad. 3. if men could be restrained from vice by prohibiting the sales, this should be done; but so many are ready to expose themselves to danger that you cannot hope for such a result from forbidding the sale. it is true this removes _fear_, but the general good, and the removal of danger to the innocent justifies this. besides, it is a poor virtue which is kept from sin only by the fear of disease." having gone so far as to admit the desirability and necessity of the medical prevention of sexual diseases, the roman catholic church will certainly find itself later unable to deny the desirability and necessity of preventing the birth of children liable to be born diseased or unfit. it is not practicable for a wife to take any suitable precautions against infection by a diseased husband, which precautions will not at the same time be effective, to a greater or lesser extent, in the prevention of conception. there is no half-way house in the matter of sexual hygiene. ettie a. rout. i.--introduction. at present marriage is easily the most dangerous of all our social institutions. this is partly due to the colossal ignorance of the public in regard to sex, and partly due to the fact that marriage is mainly controlled by lawyers and priests instead of by women and doctors. the legal and religious aspects of marriage are not the primary ones. a marriage may be legal--and miserable; religious--and diseased. the law pays no heed to the suitability of the partners, and the church takes no regard for their health. nevertheless, the basis of marriage is obviously mating, or sexual intercourse. without that there is no marriage, and with it come not merely health and happiness but life itself. cut out sexual intercourse, and society becomes extinct in one generation. every generation must, of necessity, pass through the bodies of its women; there is no other way of obtaining entry into the world. hence, it is clearly the duty of women to understand precisely the processes involved, from beginning to end. with the lower animals sexual intercourse is desired only seasonally, and only for the purpose of reproduction. with the higher animals--man and women--sexual intercourse is desired more or less continuously throughout adult life, and desired much more for romantic than for reproductive considerations--that is, for the sake of health and happiness rather than for the sake of procreation only. a few women, and still fewer men, have no sexual desires. to them sexual abstinence seems more natural than sexual satisfaction. but for the majority of mankind and womankind--for all normally healthy men and women--there is this continuous desire to be happily mated. for the sake of health and happiness there is everything to be said for early marriage, but better late than never.[a] the chief obstacles to early and happy marriage are financial, and these would largely disappear if women were able to control fecundity. the chief obstacles to healthy marriage are the venereal diseases, and these could be extirpated in two or three generations if sexual cleanliness was properly taught to all adults, and if promiscuous intercourse was properly regulated during the same period. unfortunately most women's idea of regulating promiscuous intercourse is to have none of it. this is impossible in the present stage of moral evolution, but it will become increasingly possible as we succeed in extirpating the venereal diseases, particularly syphilis. syphilis is the one great cause of immorality, because persons born with a syphilitic taint (and what family is entirely free from this hereditary disease?) are apt to be mentally and morally deficient; hence, tend to indulge in anti-social and unnatural practices, such as engaging in promiscuous intercourse. [footnote a: marriage, whether early or late, cannot of course benefit and elevate society until the present mischievous and archaic divorce laws are simplified and reformed in accordance with modern sociology and ethics. unhappy and unsuitable marriages necessarily foster immorality and promote disease, and the community as a whole gains by their being dissolved in a ready but responsible and dignified manner. the refusal of the church to marry diseased persons would greatly benefit the nation, whereas its refusal to marry healthy divorced persons not only injures the nation but dishonours the church.--e.a.r.] the normally healthy man is a highly selective creature, and the normally healthy woman still more fastidiously selective in romantic relationship. neither man nor woman is naturally in the least attracted by promiscuous intercourse. on the contrary, it is repugnant to both. both regard the elements of romance, reciprocity and permanence as essential. these elements are present in marriage and absent in prostitution. therefore, it is beneath the dignity of any decent, intelligent woman to suppose that promiscuous relationship can ever be as happy and satisfying and attractive as marriage. this, apart altogether from the fact that marriage is fertile and prostitution infertile. no, both man and woman desire love-relationship, not loveless-relationship; and they are really quite fit to be trusted with the evolution of the race through passionate love and the worship of beauty, as soon as society makes harmonious provision for their normal sexual needs. until society does make early marriage practicable for all healthy adult men and women, say between twenty and twenty-five years of age, extra-marital relationship, however undesirable, is inevitable, because there are many men to whom, at times, any woman is better than no woman. but extra-marital relationship is never even safe, because of its promiscuity and impermanence, except in properly conducted and effectively supervised tolerated houses. the tolerated house is absolutely necessary at present to protect women from disease and immorality, by confining this kind of intercourse as far as possible in certain definite channels. the abolition of the tolerated house spreads both disease and immorality into classes of women who would otherwise be immune, and enormously increases the dangers of promiscuous intercourse. separated from their toilet equipment the women cannot make and keep themselves clean; on the streets they are not taught to refuse intercourse with diseased men; thus their occupation becomes more and more dangerous as medical supervision is removed. they inevitably become diseased; sometimes contract mixed infections, which they pass on to their clients--the future husbands and fathers of the nation--and "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children even unto the third and fourth generation." all this would be impossible if women generally would recognise the primary fact that because a man is immoral that it is no reason why he should become syphilitic. we all want to abolish sin, but failing that we must cease wanting to poison the sinner. we must actively work to save him from the penalties of his folly, for that is the only way in which we can save his victims and succeed ultimately in "making marriage safe." similarly every effort should be made to prevent women becoming diseased, no matter how immoral they may be. the prostitute is very often a woman of peculiar mentality or overdeveloped animal instincts; and many women are driven to prostitution by drink and poverty. the prostitute class is largely recruited from mentally and morally deficient girls, who are themselves the offspring of syphilitic or alcoholic parents. prostitution is the effect--not the cause--of anti-social acts and conditions. we must remedy the causes of these before we can hope to remove the effects. under present social conditions, attempting to abolish prostitution by shutting up tolerated houses is just as idle as attempting to lower the temperature of a room by smashing the thermometer. all we can do is to make and keep these women clean. if we decline to do even that, then diseased women will succeed in contaminating our men much faster than we can instruct the men in sexual cleanliness.[b] [footnote b: diseased women will continue to cater for men so long as they are left free to do so, but as knowledge grows their clients will tend to be limited to _diseased men_. once men clearly understand that _every_ casual connection is a risk of disease, they will certainly tend to run fewer risks.--e.a.r.] and again, just as the medical prevention of venereal disease was not proposed, and has not been applied for the purpose of fostering or condoning promiscuous intercourse,[c] so the conscious control of fecundity by contraception must not be applied in such a way as to lessen the proportion of well-born citizens in the nation taken as a whole. birth-control applied only by the responsible classes of the community combined with indiscriminate fecundity among the irresponsible masses, must inevitably lead to the lowering of the general average in character, brains and physique. it is a form of reverse selection--the responsible being out-bred by the irresponsible. what is wanted is the general application of birth-control by voluntary contraception, and the particular application of voluntary and compulsory sterilisation of the feeble-minded and unfit. [footnote c: my own experience among the troops quite convinced me that the more thoroughly and carefully self-disinfection was taught, the less immorality there was. it was impossible to teach self-disinfection properly without at the same time instilling a living sense of danger into the minds of men and women; and this danger-sense certainly led to more self-restraint.--e.a.r.] enthusiastic advocates of birth-control claim it as a means of _improving the race_. it is not necessarily anything of the kind. you cannot improve a flock of sheep or a herd of cattle by letting all the individuals breed; whether each individual has a small number or a large number of offspring makes comparatively little difference. the way to improve the flock or herd is to breed only from _the best_ and eliminate the unfit as breeding material. changes in environment may improve or deteriorate the individuals of one generation, but such changes are not inheritable, excepting in the case of venereal disease. syphilis, _e.g._, may damage the germ-cells of a man's body, and thus lead to his procreating diseased and damaged offspring--idiots, imbeciles, mental or moral deficients, and so forth, who unfortunately are fertile. thus the prevention of venereal disease is a eugenic force. it is in fact the _only_ eugenic force in operation at present. generally speaking, it is the well-developed and high-spirited and enterprising young men who travel most, and who, therefore, are most likely to contract and spread venereal disease. they come in contact with a much larger number of women than those who stay at home instead of wandering abroad. these well-to-do young travellers often marry the finest of our women, and later in life damage or sterilise them through latent or chronic venereal disease. hence many one-child marriages--due not to the use of contraceptives, but to the action of the gonococcus transferred to the body of the wife. but there is this hope. it is among the mentally alert and well-informed men and women that birth-control is first understood and applied, and it is among this very same class that the medical prevention of venereal disease is also first understood and applied. thus, there will tend to be less disease among this class than among the mentally torpid and ill-informed masses of the community. this in itself will not _improve_ the race, but it will prevent the deterioration of certain classes and increase their numbers. nevertheless, so long as the irresponsible and feeble-minded and diseased are permitted to multiply indiscriminately, as at present, they must ultimately outnumber and overwhelm the classes which are practising self-restraint or applying birth-control. this process may even be hastened by a political enfranchisement, which enables twelve feeble-minded persons to outvote two wise men six times over. thus, to succeed democracy must raise and maintain the general average of brains and character throughout the community. in so far as it permits low-grade individuals to be born in the homes of the masses, and high-grade individuals in the homes of the classes, it is manufacturing a rod to thrash its own back, successful rebellion against which mode of government ends in mere anarchy and chaos.[d] [footnote d: the present need of the white race is to increase its numbers of fit and decrease its numbers of unfit. over-population (except in a few patches of the old world) is not likely to be a problem for the white race for centuries. they have several continents practically empty and undeveloped, and science has as yet touched only the fringe of the possible productivity of the earth in the matter of food supplies. the worst feature of the british empire is that there are too many englishmen and not enough anzacs.--e.a.r.] one duty at any rate is quite clear. no woman should run any chance of conception unless she is certain of her own health and the health of her partner--the man who is to be the father of the child she is to bring into the world. if her husband's health is unsound, and she cannot avoid intercourse, she can certainly take precautions against conception and against infection. the control of fecundity and the control of infection are parallel problems, and generally speaking, the measures a woman takes to prevent conception will also prevent infection. if these precautions are not taken, a woman may not only become seriously ill herself, but she may blast the health of her unborn babe--or infect it herself during or after birth. clearly then it is her personal, as well as her maternal and national, duty to apply preventive measures. women should understand that there is _always_ a great deal of venereal disease--millions of fresh cases every year in the british empire. during the war there were about half-a-million fresh infections per annum among the soldiers in the british armies alone--about two million men infected altogether at the very least.[e] some were cured, others patched up; some very badly treated; some not treated at all; many demobilised while in an infective condition, and thus liable to come home and sow in the bodies of clean women the seeds of diseases picked up in foreign lands in moments of excitement and folly. blame these men if we must, but in all fairness let us ask ourselves: _who infected them?_ and the answer is: _diseased women._ [footnote e: the devastation of these diseases among the british armies abroad (in the rhine, black sea, and palestine areas, etc.) has been much worse since the armistice than during the war. approximately one-fourth (sometimes one-half) of these armies become infected with venereal disease every year. from 1919 to 1921 somewhat soothing statistics were issued for the army of the rhine, but these have now been admitted in parliament to be "_quite unreliable_" (parliamentary debates, house of commons, november 3rd, 1921, p. 1952). it must be remembered that, owing to the exchange value of the £, the english soldier on the rhine is now being paid about £8 or £10 per day; that is, he draws a far higher salary than the highest paid german official; hence there is no riotous pleasure, however expensive and extravagant, which he cannot afford. these conditions do not promote manly virtue or even sexual cleanliness.--e.a.r] the venereal diseases are passed on from one sex to the other in a continuous chain, but the chain can be broken at any time _by either sex_. and now it is the _married women_ on whom we must rely to see that these infections are stopped. leaving women to the chance protection of their partners is demonstrably a failure. here is an extract from a letter sent me recently by an old and experienced medical practitioner:- "i have had many women under treatment _who have been continually re-infected by their husbands_." men and women must both seek knowledge and both accept responsibility for the venereal problem. they must face this problem independently and in co-operation, and above all--face it _honestly_. there is no other way. it is all very well to say that the man is responsible. that is only a partial truth.[f] the woman is equally responsible as soon as she is equally well informed. a woman's body is her own, and she will never be really free until she knows how to look after it properly. if she is fit to vote, fit to pay taxes, fit to hold her own estate under the married women's property act, why should she not learn to exercise intelligent and responsible control over her own self? why do so many women _allow_ themselves to be impregnated and infected against their will? because they do not understand the construction and functions of their own body. when they do understand this, they will guard their own health as carefully as they guard their reputation. they will then not only keep their own sexual organs scrupulously clean, but they will encourage their husbands to do the same. sexual intercourse is far more refreshing and exhilarating in every way when both husband and wife have cleansed their parts immediately before enjoying it. it is only natural that both should wish to be sweet and clean before approaching the closest of all bodily intimacies. [footnote f: it would be much less untrue to say that the remedy for the venereal problem is _clean women_.--e.a.r.] but more than this. every well-informed woman knows that there is far more venereal disease in the world to-day, among men and among women, than there was before the war, and she should train all the members of her household in habits of strict cleanliness. instinctively they will then avoid risking their health by contact with a possible source of defilement, or if the risk has most unfortunately been taken, they will instantly and instinctively remove and destroy the possible infection, in the same rapid and effective way as they would cleanse their boot from filth accidentally coming in contact with it. by all means let the mothers continue to inculcate virtue, but they should also teach sexual cleanliness directly and indirectly, themselves setting the example. after all, the microbes of venereal disease grow almost exclusively in the genital passages, and if these were kept sweet and clean there would soon be an end to venereal disease. it is not a matter of making _vice_ safe: it is a matter of making _marriage_ safe: a matter of restoring and maintaining physical health, family and national, and above all, of protecting innocent women and children, for if vice has its dangers so also in these days has innocence its own peculiar perils, and it is the cry of these victims--often so young and so fair--that must affect us most deeply. more than fourteen years ago, mr. george bernard shaw, in the preface to "getting married," wrote the following regarding "the pathology of marriage":- "as to the evils of disease and contagion, our consciences are sound enough: what is wrong with us is ignorance of the facts. no doubt this is a very formidable ignorance in a country where the first cry of the soul is, 'don't tell me: i don't want to know,' and where frantic denials and furious suppressions indicate everywhere the cowardice and want of faith which conceives life as something too terrible to be faced. in this particular case, 'i don't want to know' takes a righteous air, and becomes 'i don't want to know anything about the diseases which are the just punishment of wretches who should not be mentioned in my presence or in any book that is intended for family reading.' wicked and foolish as the spirit of this attitude is, the practice of it is so easy and lazy and uppish that it is very common, but its cry is drowned by a louder and more sincere one. we who do not want to know, also do not want to go blind, to go mad, to be disfigured, to be barren, to become pestiferous, or to see such things happening to our children. we learn, at last, that the majority of the victims are not the people of whom we so glibly say, 'serve them right,' but quite innocent children and innocent parents, smitten by a contagion which, no matter in what vice it may or may not have originated, contaminates the innocent and the guilty alike, once it is launched, exactly as any other contagious disease does; that indeed it often hits the innocent and misses the guilty, because the guilty know the danger and take elaborate precautions against it, whilst the innocent, who have been either carefully kept from any knowledge of their danger, or erroneously led to believe that contagion is possible through misconduct only, run into danger blindfold. once knock this fact into people's minds, and their self-righteous indifference and intolerance soon change into lively concern for themselves and their families." the facts seem so plain, and yet there is still great opposition to the promotion of a knowledge of sexual cleanliness and self-disinfection. only a short time ago (the end of 1920), sir frederick mott, the great authority on syphilis, felt obliged to oppose some opponents of self-disinfection at a public enquiry in london in this fashion:- "the point is that large numbers of innocent women have suffered from disease. they are rendered sterile, have miscarriages and abortions, and large numbers have been ruined. i have been connected with the london county asylums for twenty-five years, and i have seen in those asylums people from all states of society, and i have seen them die of general paralysis. five per cent. of the people who get syphilis, in spite of treatment, develop this disease. that is only one aspect of it. i was on the royal commission on venereal disease, and sir william osier, who was a great authority, said that he could teach medicine on syphilis alone, because every tissue in the body is affected by it, and that the diseases of blindness, deafness, insanity and every form of disease may be due to syphilis. you have only to consider the effect that it had upon the army, and i understand that more than two army corps were invalided during the war on account of venereal disease. what have you to say to that? does not that create some anxiety?" it is difficult even to read this eloquent appeal--the more eloquent perhaps because it was quite unpremeditated--without being deeply moved. yet the witnesses opposing sir frederick mott were apparently unaffected. of them, as of men of old, it might justly be said:- "he hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted." and now large numbers of hospitals all over the empire are issuing appeals for the means to treat venereal disease. "it is tragic," says one london hospital, "to see the sufferers--men, women and even little children--innocent little mites, knowing not from what they suffer or why they should. it is thought by many that venereal disease is a sign of guilt, but large numbers of our patients are innocent victims." is it not time then that we all stopped repeating timid platitudes about making vice safe, and did something practical to _make marriage safe?_ _why don't we?_ is it because we are afraid to define the terms we use so glibly? we talk of promoting chastity, for example. _what is chastity?_ surely chastity is happy, healthy sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who love one another; and unchastity is sexual intercourse between those who do _not_ love one another. no sexual intercourse at all is neither chastity nor unchastity; it is the negation of both, and it ends in extinction. why trouble so much about a negation that inevitably means racial death? why not devote ourselves to life and love; to the building of a happy healthy human family--a family that instinctively realises that the clean blood-stream of a nation is its most priceless possession? but the national blood-stream can never be clean until there is a complete knowledge of sexual control and sanitation among all of us, and especially among women. one of the very first things which women must learn to understand is the control of conception and the control of venereal diseases. they must learn how to prevent the birth of the unfit; how to secure the birth of the fit; and even though their husbands are infective they must learn how to break the chain of infection in their own bodies, so that what is bad for the race does not become worse. if women are brave enough and wise enough, they can in most cases _wipe out the scourge of venereal diseases from their own hearths and homes_, and ensure that every child born is at least physically fit. but this cannot be done without _knowledge_, and that knowledge is at present lacking. the following pages are written with the object of imparting useful, practical knowledge to sensible and serious women. the women who accept and apply this knowledge can rest calm in the sure and certain faith that it is their offspring who will build up the coming race. ii.--practical methods of prevention. a. for women: sexual reproduction. to understand the practical methods of birth-control, or the control of conception, we must first have a clear view of the processes involved when the reproductive organs are in activity, and of the nature and situation of the sexual organs themselves. the diagrams on pages 34, 35 and 36 show in general outline the reproductive organs of man and woman. now fertilisation does not necessarily occur whenever the male organ comes in contact with the female organ. fertilisation occurs only when a male-cell (spermatazoon) unites with a female-cell (ovum); in other words, when the spermatazoa in the seminal fluid of a man meet and unite with the germ or ovum in the body of a woman. that is the beginning of the child. this union of the two cells need not take place during or immediately after sexual intercourse. it may occur many hours, or even two or three weeks, after connection, because the spermatazoa have motion of their own. they are tiny threadlike bodies, which may work their way towards the ovum long after they have left the body of the man and been placed in the body of the woman, and the uterus has a searching movement, and may by its pulsations draw the spermatazoa upwards. for these reasons a woman cannot be quite sure of the exact time of fertilisation, and hence cannot predict exactly the date of the child-birth. generally the pregnancy lasts nine months, but it may last longer--say ten months on rare occasions; and it may be extended apparently by a delay in fertilisation. prevention of conception. for many reasons which i need not enumerate here, the precautions against impregnation can most easily and effectively be taken by the _woman_, rather than by the man. she is the one fertilised, and therefore she is the one to guard herself against fertilisation. there are _two methods_ of preventing fertilisation:- (1) _the chemical method_, that is, the destruction of the male cells (spermatazoa) by means of a suitable germicidal substance, such as many of the disinfectants; and (2) _the mechanical method_, that is, the adoption of measures which keep the male and the female cells apart from one another. [illustration: inner side of thigh. diagram 1.--female organs of generation in normal condition. this shows diagrammatically the position of the organs if a woman were cut in two between the thighs. the rubber pessary is shown in position, slightly distending upper end of vagina (or front passage), and covering the opening into interior of womb. a suppository introduced beforehand will dissolve and occupy the dotted space above rubber pessary, forming a pool around the mouth of the womb. the walls of the vagina are elastic and collapsible. infection with gonorrhoea may occur in the female urethra (or water passage) or in the vagina, etc. syphilis may infect internal and external parts of female organs; also breasts, mouth, tongue, etc., and other openings of the body.] neither of these two methods in practical application by ordinary women can be said to be _completely certain_. both are apt to fail at times. the chemical method, that is, the application by the woman of a suitable soluble contraceptive suppository before connection, or of a germicidal douche (such as a dilute solution of lysol) after connection, or both these measures taken consecutively, may fail because of some fault in application, or because the seminal fluid actually enters the womb during intercourse; that is to say, when emission takes place, the end of the male organ may be exactly opposite and close to the mouth of the womb, and the spermatazoa in the seminal fluid enter directly into the womb, and cannot then be removed or destroyed by douching or contraceptives of any kind. now if the physical conformation of the reproductive organs of the husband and the wife render this event possible or probable, then soluble suppositories and contraceptive douching are alike unreliable, by themselves or in combination. on the other hand, the mechanical method, that is, the use of a rubber protector, preferably the spiral-spring occlusive[g] "dutch" pessary, by the woman may also fail, because the protector is porous or ill-fitting. but--_if the two methods are combined_, the chemical method and the mechanical method, _then the protection against fertilisation may be regarded as almost absolute_. the completeness of the protection depends, of course, upon the proper application and combination of the measures advised. [footnote g: judging by certain original letters (dated december, 1888, to november, 1892), which i have seen myself, by the courtesy of messrs. e. lambert & son, of 60, queen's road, dalston, london, e.8, the rubber spring pessary was first suggested here by an english doctor, and manufactured for him by mr. e. lambert sen. under date december 23rd, 1888, the doctor wrote:-"i think highly of the watch-spring rim. there will be very little fear of conception with one of these new pessaries properly adjusted, as the rim will press equally all round. the inflated pessary would be the most perfect, however, if you could only contrive some method to prevent escape of air and consequent flattening. such a pessary would be most comfortable."] [illustration: uterus, ovary and fallopian tube. diagram 2.--the fallopian tubes and ovaries are not shown on diagram 1. there are two ovaries and two fallopian tubes, one on each side of the uterus. the female cells or ova are formed in the ovaries and discharged into the fallopian tubes, along which they travel into the uterus. it is believed that the union of the male with the female cell usually occurs in the fallopian tubes, but that it may occur in the uterus.] [illustration: diagram 3.--this diagram shows the male urethra or passage down the male organ as somewhat distended. generally, the walls of this passage are collapsed together. the seminal fluid is discharged down the urethra and emitted at orifice marked "meatus." the small glands indicated are especially liable to be infected with gonorrhoea germs, but infection may occur almost throughout the entire length of the male passage. infection with syphilis may occur on the outside of the male organs and elsewhere.] i have discussed the various measures fully with leading medical authorities in london and paris and elsewhere during the last five years, and have gradually evolved the recommendations made here, and these recommendations have the highest medical and scientific support and approval. other methods than those recommended are referred to in appendix i; to enumerate here those that have been eliminated would be purposeless and confusing. we are satisfied that we have selected the least harmful and most reliable methods known to science yet. these methods and these only will be explained and recommended. everything possible has been done to make the methods _acceptable to women_. unattainable conditions. before detailing these methods, i want to ask every woman to rid her mind of certain false hopes and impossible demands. it is no use asking for something which gives no trouble at all, which costs nothing, and which is at the same time absolutely certain to prevent conception. these conditions are unattainable. but almost absolute control of her reproductive functions is most certainly attainable by every careful, intelligent woman willing to spend a good deal less time and money over her sexual toilet than she now spends over the care of her teeth, for example. sexual toilet outfit. to begin with, it is necessary to obtain suitable sexual toilet outfit, and the requirements for this are as follows:-enamel bidet, soluble suppositories, suitable syringe, and properly-fitting rubber pessary. these are illustrated on pages 38 and 43. [illustration: diagram 4] general conditions. 1. _cleanliness._--sexual control is largely a matter of sexual cleanliness. we must all learn to keep the genital passages cleansed in the same way as we keep all the other openings of the body clean. the ears, eyes, nostrils, mouth, anus, orifice to the urethra, and the vagina should be appropriately cleansed daily. the openings of the body which stand most in need of daily cleansing are the anus and the vagina, and yet many women fail to cleanse these properly at all. every home should have a suitable bidet (preferably fitted into the bath-room, with hot and cold water attached), and every member of the family should be trained from childhood to use the bidet, night and morning, with the same care and regularity as they use their sponge or toothbrush. all over the continent and in the united states of america this is done in well-ordered households nowadays, but hardly anywhere in the british empire is it done at all. 2. _soluble suppositories._--generally speaking, the soluble quinine pessaries or suppositories which are sold in the shops are unreliable. several brands have recently been analysed and found to contain no quinine at all--or particular pessaries have been without sufficient quinine. quinine is fatal to the spermatazoa, and without it these pessaries are simply pieces of soluble cocoa-butter. cocoa-butter is the substance generally chosen for cheap soluble pessaries, because it is easily obtainable, and has what is called a sharp melting point--that is, it dissolves or melts very suddenly and readily at body-heat, but is solid below that heat. cocoa-butter in itself is quite harmless--usually non-irritating (unless it is "rancid")--and it gives some mechanical protection, in the same way as vaseline or any kind of fat or oil would do, provided, of course, it is in the right place to catch and entangle the spermatazoa and thus prevent their uniting with the ovum. research and experiment have proved conclusively that no spermatazoa--indeed, _no microbes or germs of any kind--can pass through a film of oil_. but if the protective covering of grease is incomplete at any point, it may there prove ineffective, and there is no chemical protection whatever if the particular germicide relied upon, such as quinine, has been omitted. quinine is sometimes omitted on the ground of expense, and sometimes because it proves irritating to many women. only really suitable suppositories, guaranteed to be made in accordance with accredited medical formulæ, should be used. these suppositories should be composed of specially selected and tested fats, should be soothing and cleansing, as well as protective; should be stainless, odourless, and quite non-irritating. if they do cause any woman discomfort temporarily, vaseline or soap-suds could be substituted, but might not be quite so certain to prevent conception. 3. _syringe._--the ordinary enema is not a particularly suitable appliance for the purpose of douching. the kind of syringe required is one which will not only flood the vaginal passage with warm water or very weak antiseptic lotion (such as dilute solution of lysol), but one which is sufficiently large for the contents on injection to distend slightly the walls of the vagina, straighten out their folds and furrows, and thus let the cleansing and protecting lotion touch every part as far as possible. a movable rubber flange is necessary to act as a stopper at the mouth of the vagina, and thus enable the woman to retain the lotion for a minute or so. care should be taken, when filling the syringe, to express all the air from it--by filling and refilling it two or three times with the nozzle under water; otherwise the first thing put into the vagina would not be warm water or antiseptic lotion, but simply a large bubble of air. 4. _soluble suppositories and rubber pessaries._--it is quite true that the use of a suitable soluble suppository alone may be sufficient to protect against impregnation, but the protection by this means does undoubtedly fail at times, and therefore, by itself, the soluble suppository is unreliable. still it eliminates the majority of the chances of impregnation. the use of the rubber pessary is also sometimes unsuccessful because it does not fit properly, or because it is porous, or because in removing it some of the seminal fluid from the under-surface may be accidentally spilt in the vagina, and in this way the spermatazoa may later find their way upwards to an ovum. therefore, the soluble suppository and the rubber pessary should be used in combination. a woman should first push up, as far as possible, a suitable suppository, and then insert the rubber pessary (slightly soaped--with soap-suds), so as to occlude the whole of the upper part of her genital passage and thus cover the mouth of the womb and effectively prevent entrance of the spermatazoa. the rubber pessary _must_ in the first instance be fitted by a doctor, because if it does not fit properly it will be ineffective. the seminal fluid may pass by its loose rim and impregnation may result. if the rubber pessary has been properly fitted, and _it is not porous_, the protection should be complete; but if, by any accident, spermatazoa should get beyond the rubber pessary, they will be destroyed and tangled in the melted suppository--provided, of course, that a suitable suppository has been used. it is all a question of getting the right articles to begin with and using them intelligently. but there is this chance--a bare chance--of accidental impregnation, and we want to eliminate all chances, if possible. assuming the rubber pessary fits properly, as it will if skilfully selected and applied in the first instance by a competent medical practitioner, then the seminal fluid must remain in the lower part of the vaginal passage. an hour or two after intercourse, or next morning, this seminal fluid can all be washed away by the use of syringe and bidet. it is far better to sit over the bidet and syringe in that position than to squat down over a basin--an uncomfortable and unsuitable position for douching, because the walls of the vagina in that position may be pressed hard together. the fluid should be retained in the vagina for a minute or two, by pressing the flange of syringe closely against the orifice of the vagina. _after syringing, but not before_, the rubber pessary should be removed (to be washed with soap and water, dried carefully, and put away till required again), and immediately after removing the rubber pessary it is a good plan to facilitate the ejection of the surplus fat of the suppository by urinating and re-syringing. it is quite easy for a woman to insert and remove these rubber pessaries for herself as occasion requires, provided that whilst inserting and removing the pessary she has placed her body in a suitable posture--say, lying on the back with knees drawn up, sitting on bidet, or standing with one foot on a chair, or whatever other position she finds suitable. a doctor's help is needed only when first selecting the right size of pessary. the pessaries are made in ten different sizes, each size being numbered, and the right size can always be obtained on order. no harm may come from wearing the pessary for a day or two, but it is highly desirable as a matter of cleanliness and otherwise to remove the pessary in the morning when performing the sexual toilet. the pessary should, of course, never be worn during the menstrual period. a good rubber pessary should last from three to four months, and it should be tested occasionally by filling it with water to see that there is no hole in it. if it has been fitted shortly after a miscarriage or confinement, refitting is desirable at the end of a few months. but in normal circumstances refitting is not necessary. [illustration: diagram 5.--scale: one-sixth actual size.] [illustration: diagram 6. two forms of suppositories. actual size. these melt rapidly after introduction and provide a pool of antiseptic fluid around mouth of womb.] [illustration: diagram 7. covered spiral spring rubber pessary. seen in profile. it is understood that this is circular. the thickened rim retains this circular shape by means of enclosed spiral spring when the pessary is in position. to insert conveniently, the thumb and forefinger are placed on opposite sides of rim, and the spring pressed into a long oval shape.] 5. _antiseptic douching._--if antiseptics of any kind are used, such as lysol, they should always be used in _very very weak solutions_, and should be varied from time to time. there is no necessity ordinarily to use anything but plain warm water, with perhaps a little table-salt in it, for internal cleansing, and soap and water for external cleansing; then dry parts carefully. but some women prefer a weak antiseptic vaginal wash, as they do a weak antiseptic mouth wash. if a woman is unfortunate enough to be married to a man liable to infect her, then she should follow the same practice as detailed here (every effort, of course, being made for her husband to be cured as soon as possible), and she should use a _special suppository_, as prescribed by her doctor or otherwise authoritatively recommended, and should douche and urinate _immediately after each sexual connection_. she should also, before douching with weak disinfecting lotion, wash thoroughly--internally and externally--with suitable soap and water. this will certainly help to prevent infection in the vagina and elsewhere. the rubber pessary and the suppository will give her a very real measure of protection against the worst of all forms of infection, viz., uterine and ovarian. she can also protect herself against infection in the female urethra--that is, the passage from the bladder--by urinating _immediately after each connection_, as advised. a good deal of nonsense is still talked by some medical practitioners about the alleged harmfulness of douching. the same kind of distracting and misleading statements were made a few years ago regarding antiseptic mouth-washes, which were similarly condemned. fortunately, we are passing out of these dark ages! soon it will be regarded as quite as natural and necessary and desirable to cleanse the genital passages as to rinse out the mouth or wipe the nostrils. it is important to remember that the "_personal equation_" counts for something in choosing a disinfectant, some substances suiting one person and some suiting others. "one man's meat is another man's poison." it is also very desirable to "_ring the changes_" by using, say, lysol one day, something else the next, and so on. using three or four simple disinfectants alternately on different days of the week tends to make the disinfectants less irritating and more efficacious, as well as adding a fresh interest to the toilet performance. on this and other points _personal instruction_ is far the best--provided you can find a good instructor. every man and every woman should seek an opportunity of learning, from competent authority, precisely what to do in the matter of prevention, and what it all means. reading books is all very well, but personal tuition as well is a great advantage. summary. finally, the following briefly summarises the recommendations for women:-1. _before intercourse, wash and be clean._--insert soluble suppository, and then place rubber pessary in position, concave side downwards. this will slip up more easily if slightly soaped. no harm can possibly come either to husband or wife from these appliances, and neither party will be conscious of the presence of the occlusive rubber pessary (some other kinds of rubber pessary have not these advantages). the pessary can be inserted some hours before intercourse, and need not be removed till some hours afterwards. _the rubber pessary should not be worn continuously._ if you have mislaid the rubber pessary, a small sponge, a piece of clean cotton-wool, or even a piece of soft tissue paper can be used. native women in different countries use seaweed, moss, sponge, etc., and japanese women use rice-paper. but these articles are not so clean or effective as the occlusive rubber pessary. if sponge or cotton-wool is used, it should be saturated in contraceptive lotion or smeared with contraceptive ointment before insertion. but always remember--the rubber pessary is cleanest and safest. 2. _after intercourse._--douche next morning (or earlier), remove rubber pessary, wash and dry it and put it away slightly powdered. where there is any chance of venereal infection, the woman should urinate _immediately_ after _each_ connection, wash with soap and water, and then _at once douche with weak and warm disinfecting lotion_. if medically directed, she should also use a little calomel ointment for anointing parts that have been touched in any way. 3. _daily._--cultivate in yourself and in the members of your household habits of sexual cleanliness. _wash and be clean._ apply this to all the openings of the body, but in particular to the vagina, urethra and anus, which should all be cleansed night and morning. this practice is not simply cleansing and refreshing, but it is preventive of many forms of disease, such as piles, etc., etc., and 4. always remember that the spread of this kind of knowledge has been made possible by the long and patient efforts of hundreds of doctors, many of them unknown and forgotten, and that women will best be able to apply this knowledge efficiently by working in loyal co-operation with medical practitioners who have made a special study of these matters.[h] [footnote h: the chief pioneers in teaching birth-control in england were mrs. annie besant, mr. charles bradlaugh, and dr. drysdale, senior.] digest of best preventive precautions. _before connection._ 1. douche with warm water or weak antiseptic lotion (warm). 2. insert suitable suppository. 3. place rubber pessary in position _after connection._ 4. douche. 5. remove rubber pessary. (urinate to facilitate ejection of surplus fat.) 6. douche and dry parts. the use of rubber pessary does _not_ do away with desirability of douching, but it does enable the woman to douche at her own convenience with safety. antiseptic lotions. dr. k.r.d. shaw, of 144, harley street, london, w.1, who has had a very wide experience of "prevention" in different parts of the world during the last twenty-five years, has named the following as suitable disinfecting lotions:- half a teaspoonful of lysol in 5 pints of warm water; _or_ one teaspoonful of sanitas " " _or_ one quarter teaspoonful of bacterol " _or_ 2 grains of sulphate of copper " " n.b.--where there is grave danger of venereal infection, it is an excellent additional precaution to douche first with soap and water, and douche again with antiseptic lotion. the sooner this is done the better. if all or most of these hygienic measures are widely made known to women, it can rightly be claimed that women have been released from the twin terrors of unwanted pregnancy and venereal infection, which are at the present time ruining their marital health and happiness in so many cases. even if _some_ only of these measures are adopted, the nation as a whole cannot fail to benefit mentally, morally and physically. the success of the measures, of course, depends to some extent on their being taken _in time_, but in this, as in many other directions, the old proverb holds good: _better late than never._ ii.--practical methods of prevention.--(_contd._) b. for men: marriage cannot be made safe, of course, so long as men are permitted to contract venereal diseases, and spread them. early marriage will greatly lessen the chances of this; tolerated houses under _effective_ medical supervision (such as we had in paris during the war)[i] would enormously lessen the chances of infection, even where marriage was delayed or interrupted; prophylactic depots where disinfection was properly applied, _and efficiently taught on request_, would be invaluable; but it is at present from self-disinfection, properly understood and efficiently applied, that the community can hope for the greatest and most immediate gain in sexual cleanliness.[j] the following were the directions i gave the anzacs during the war, distributing these with prophylactics for men and for women (the directions for women being printed in french and english); this action was endorsed by all the leading british, american and french military and medical authorities, from the commanders-in-chief downwards, and the effort undoubtedly saved many thousands of men from damage and ruin:- "avoid infection. "if you become infected with v.d., the fault is really your own. either do not risk infection at all, or, risking infection, take proper precautions. these are quite simple. if you take the following precautions _without delay_ you are very very unlikely to contract disease:- 1. use vaseline or some other grease (such as calomel ointment) _beforehand_, to prevent direct contact with the source of infection.* (* note: any personal discomfort or unpleasantness grease causes is counteracted by the woman's having douched beforehand, as should always be done for the sake of cleanliness. a mere film of grease is sufficient to fill up pores of the skin, cover over abrasions, and prevent penetration of microbes, and it greatly facilitates subsequent cleansing.) 2. urinate _immediately_ after _each_ connection to wash away all infective material, and to prevent the invasion of the urethra by the microbes of v.d. 3. wash thoroughly with soap and water, because ordinary soap is destructive to germs--of syphilis and of gonorrhoea--and bathe parts with weak solution of pot. permang. you had far better carry a blue-light outfit with you as a "town dressing," in the same way as you would carry a "field dressing." if you cannot get an outfit, carry a tiny bottle of pot. permang. lotion and a scrap of cotton wool. if you swob yourself _carefully_ with this, you will not become diseased. remember always _it is delay that is dangerous_. if there has been delay, use a syringe sufficiently large for the contents to flood the urethra and slightly distend it, so that every nook and cranny is cleansed. whatever you do, make certain of _going home clean_. be sure of your health and doubly sure before you embark. while you are in the army and on this side of the world you can be cured easily and privately. if you go home infected, there will be embarrassment and expense to yourself and _great danger_ to the women and children you love. _get cured now._" (paris, april, 1919).[k] [footnote i: the following is taken from a paper read by captain h.l. walker, canadian medical service, o.c. report centre (british), paris, at conference on v.d., organised by the american red cross in april, 1918:- "speaking in regard to licensed houses, captain walker said that he _had not found one case of venereal disease_ contracted in a licensed house in the city of paris, and he could only suppose that the people who were responsible for putting the licensed houses in paris out of bounds knew nothing at all about the real facts of the case.... in the licensed houses in the city of paris, during the year 1917, _only five cases of venereal disease_ were contracted; and in 1918, up to april 20th (the day he was speaking), _there had not been one case of venereal disease contracted in a licensed house in the city of paris_. but out of 200 women arrested on the streets of paris during the month of april, _over twenty-five per cent. were found to be infected with venereal disease_. in the months of november and december, 1917, the french authorities had made a round-up on one boulevard of seventy-one women, of whom _fifty-five were infected with venereal disease_; a few days later the french authorities repeated the same procedure on another boulevard; something like _one hundred women_ were arrested, _and ninety-one per cent. were infected with venereal disease_."--p. 134, _public health_ (england), september, 1918. i supervised a tolerated house in paris for over twelve months (1918-1919), and had no cases of disease either among the women or the men. the women attended from 2 p.m. to midnight and resided in their own homes.--e.a.r.] [footnote j: among the first medical men in great britain to recognise the importance and effectiveness of self-disinfection was mr. frank kidd, m.a., m.ch. (camb.), f.r.c.s. (eng.), etc., of the london hospital. a full statement of his evidence before the royal commission on venereal diseases is given in mr. kidd's book, "common diseases of the male urethra" (published by longmans, green and co., 39, paternoster row, london, etc., in 1917). the diagram of male organs of generation i have used on page 36 was taken in outline from mr. kidd's frontispiece, and during the war i found all the illustrations he gave most helpful with the soldiers, although the book itself was written for the purpose of enabling doctors in outlying districts to treat patients on modern lines with success. mr. kidd designed prophylactic tubes, which have been sold in england on his order for more than fifteen years. he tells me they have been used all over the world by his patients, and that as far as he can ascertain "_they have never failed, when used properly and intelligently_."--e.a.r.] [footnote k: since this was written, a large number of experiments have been made with the single treatment tube, containing an ointment destructive of all forms of venereal disease microbes, whether used before or after connection. the pennsylvania department of health is within measurable distance of finding a solution of this problem--the production of a cheap, portable, easily applied and thoroughly efficient self-disinfecting ointment.--e.a.r.] it was clearly proved that so long as men took these simple precautions (which i always explained _personally_) they were very unlikely to contract disease; most cases of disease came from multiple connections with the women of the cafes, etc. it was difficult to impress on ordinary men's minds the fact that _each and every connection was a danger_; that the danger of infection began immediately there was any contact, and that it continued until disinfection, and was renewed as well with each fresh connection during the night. if the danger had continued for several hours in this way, the men were told to go to the medical depot or report to a doctor as soon as possible. when they did so they were saved from disease in the vast majority of cases, even up to twenty-four hours afterwards or a little longer.[l] [footnote l: in 1915-1916 colonel sir james barrett, then a.d.m.s. of the australian force in egypt, had successfully applied prophylaxis, but unfortunately he was invalided for a time to england in november, 1916, and with the evacuation of the dardanelles there was a severe outbreak of v.d. in egypt. prophylaxis was then steadily applied during 1917 by colonel sir james barrett and others, and at the end of 1917 v.d. had been reduced to small proportions. in december, 1917, colonel p.g. elgood, base commandant of port said, wrote:-"fortunately, however, at this stage, i came into contact with colonel sir james barrett, k.b.e., r.a.m.c, and miss e. rout, new zealand volunteer sisterhood. the first suggested that the solution of the problem would not be found in police measures or in medical examination, but in prophylaxis; while the second, in correspondence relating to her own experiences gained in england, encouraged me to advocate this remedy." the successful results of the port said efforts are quoted in full by colonel sir james barrett in his book, "a vision of the possible" (lewis), and colonel barrett had early in 1917 sent me to london the following tremendously valuable letter of advice and warning:- "i suppose my instinct is rather more in the moral direction than many people, but i recognise, as you will see from these articles (published by _lancet_), that it is by direct prophylaxis, and direct prophylaxis alone that we are likely to get rid of this abomination. i should never in any campaign exclude all the additional aids--proper soldiers' clubs, such as i have established in egypt, the influence of decent women, and the one hundred and one factors that go to make a decent and reputable life; but you have, in the long run, to recognise the fact that a percentage of men are certain to seek women who are prepared to cater for them. if the steps indicated are taken, the proof is absolute that the disease can be practically extirpated and without great difficulty. the failure of prophylaxis depends on two factors--firstly, it requires someone charged with responsibility, earnestness and high character to explain to men precisely what they are doing and what it means; and secondly, prophylaxis is of very little use to drunken men. my experience has been that when these precautions are properly used venereal disease may disappear." that proved to be exactly my own experience in the army. failures in the army were due to the absence of proper personal instruction of the men and the laxity of control, and these conditions can always be assumed to exist in any army having a high v.d. infection rate.--e.a.r.] nevertheless, the people who would put sacerdotalism before science, and the still meaner minds who would substitute legality for morality, raised storms of objection to my work, in the midst of which came a few strong, clear calls of understanding and encouragement. one scotch padre wrote me in 1918:- "it is a magnificent adventure for a woman to go practically alone on the very edge of things, and i salute you, and congratulate you, and wish you _god-speed_." an old family doctor, then with a colonial ambulance, wrote:- "many women ... will owe their health and happiness to you, and not a few will be indebted to you for their lives." the editor of the sydney _bulletin_ (australia) was continually publishing helpful articles and paragraphs--after my letters and articles were censored;[m] and from dr. w.h. symes, of christchurch, new zealand, i heard by personal correspondence steadily and wisely all through the war. much later came the following tribute, in a most valuable book written by sir archdall reid and sir bryan donkin ("prevention of venereal disease," published by william heinemann (medical books) limited)[n]:- "sir bryan donkin's letter, which appeared in _the times_, in january, 1917, and other communications which he published as opportunity offered, brought him an introduction from sir j.w. barrett, m.d., then serving as a.d.m.s. with the australian force in egypt, to miss ettie rout, who, by profession a journalist, had come with the australian and new zealand forces with the object of ameliorating, as far as possible, the hardships of war. she had been horrified by the pestilence of venereal disease which broke out among the troops in egypt, england, and elsewhere, and, with extraordinary resolution and courage, had embarked almost single-handed on a campaign of prevention. she furnished sir bryan, and later myself also, with much valuable information, and for her own part fought the battle most strenuously--living among the men, lecturing, finding and instructing lecturers, providing disinfectants, importuning authorities, writing most trenchant letters, establishing medical clubs in england and france, and the like. i think that when the names of those who opposed her are forgotten, the memory of this brave lady will still be green among the descendants of the valiant men for whose welfare she struggled"--p. 176-177. [footnote m: the _new zealand times_ daily newspaper published my first article and was severely reprimanded by the new zealand government for doing so, and all new zealand newspapers were then prohibited from publishing any further articles relating to v.d. in the new zealand forces.--e.a.r.] [footnote n: see publishers' notice.] alcoholism. it should be noted here that another great difficulty we had was to make men _beware of the dangers of drink_. a man who is in liquor is much more liable to contract venereal disease than a man who is sober. alcohol increases sexual desire, lessens sexual ability, and lowers the sense of responsibility. hence, drunkenness, immorality and disease go hand in hand: a dreadful three. but more than this. the drunken man takes much longer over the sex-act, thereby prolonging the risk of disease, and he runs risks which he would rule out instantly if the fumes of alcohol had not changed the tawdry girl into the glittering fairy. worse than all, he neglects to apply disinfection properly and _promptly_--he falls asleep or forgets all about it till _too late_. men who are determined to have a "night out" should use calomel ointment (or some other substitute) _before they start_; and if they have been in liquor they should disinfect instantly when they recover their sober senses. generally speaking, _an ounce of calomel is worth a ton of salvarsan_. as with young men, so with young girls: a few glasses of wine taken at a supper or a dance--and the first downward step is taken, not because any wrong was intended, but the simple actualities of sex were unknown, and the stimulant took advantage of the ignorance that is miscalled innocence. this kind of thing will continue till the older generation realise that morality depends--not on the maintenance of ignorance and the fear of disease, but on the spread of knowledge and the promotion of virtue. it is not morality, but caution, that is developed by fear, and in this case caution is counteracted by the practical experience that many men are immoral without becoming diseased. one man commits many immoral acts and suffers not at all; another man becomes syphilitic by yielding for the very first time; the penalty is purely fortuitous. there is no necessary connection at all between immorality and disease. the dangers of sexual intercourse are due to dirt and promiscuity rather than to immorality, and in part to the physical conformation of the individual. virtue has far deeper and more substantial foundations than the mere gusts of fear. it is founded on necessary and responsible guardianship of the very gates of life. iii.--medical formulæ. the medical formulæ for venereal disease preventive ointments for men, and venereal disease preventive suppositories and ointments for women, should be decided upon, after thorough investigation and test, by the departments of public health, and none other should be permitted to be sold. printed directions should be issued, duly authorised by the departments of public health, and no other directions should be supplied to the public with the venereal disease preventives. in these respects, to the best of my belief, the division of venereal diseases of the pennsylvania department of health, co-operating with the united states public health service, will play the leading part; is, indeed, already doing so. under the direction of dr. edward martin, commissioner of health, and dr. s. leon gans, director, division of venereal diseases, specimen tubes are tested and approved (with directions and other printed matter)[o] by the health laboratories of the department; and certificates are issued to manufacturing chemists authorising the manufacture of ointments made in accordance with approved formulæ. requests are made officially by the department to retail chemists and druggists to sell, and to medical practitioners to recommend, suitable venereal disease preventives to the general public in a proper manner. in time it will probably be found advisable to authorise only a standard type of tube--preferably the metal tube with elongated nozzle and expanded metal cap--filled with one simple self-disinfecting ointment. [footnote o: in some cases the printed matter used by the drug companies also bears the "_official endorsement_" of the local "_social purity association_" stamped upon it in indelible ink--a magnificent tribute to the educative work of the public health department, as well as to the enlightened courage of the social purity associations. the following is quoted as sample of directions authorised in u.s.a.:-"the use of this package is not to be construed as a licence to exposure. pro-ven, the original preventive. _the only sure_ way to prevent infection: _do not expose yourself._ all exposures should be considered as infections, for 90 per cent. of all "easy women" are infected. by proper use of the contents of this package disease may be prevented, as the action upon the germs is as effective as can be secured by the latest scientific knowledge; if exposed, _use within two hours_. after contact: 1st. urinate. 2nd. remove the cap from tube; take organ in the hand, holding the canal open; insert tip of the tube and squeeze half of the contents into the canal. 3rd. squeeze the remainder on the outside of the organ, rubbing well into the creases and folds under and back of head and clear to the body. 4th. leave ointment on three or four hours. remember: it is best to use _pro-ven_ immediately after exposure; never delay more than two hours if possible. _pro-ven_ is not a cure--it is designed to keep men from getting disease; it can be used as a lubricant and preventive both before and after exposure. _pro-ven_ is harmless and will not cause pain or injury to the sexual organs. insist upon having _pro-ven_. at all good druggists, or directly by mail, 25 cents a tube; 5 tubes, $1.00. booklet mailed free upon request. the pro-ven laboratories, washington, d.c. this product has been tested and approved by the pennsylvania state department of health laboratories." in addition to _pro-ven_, the following proprietary tubes of self-disinfecting ointment have, to my knowledge, been authorised by the department of health, and samples were sent to me:-_procaline_, manufactured by the hawthorne drug speciality co., inc., 88-90, reade street, new york city. _cargenios_, manufactured by h.k. mulford company, philadelphia. _andron_, manufactured by andron hygienic co., 120, w. 32nd st., new york city. _sanitube_, manufactured by the sanitube co., newport, r.i., u.s.a. excellent printed directions and pamphlets accompany these tubes.--e.a.r.] it has been found that the 30 per cent. to 33 per cent. calomel ointments (and suppositories) are not suitable in all cases; and careful investigations are being made to ascertain the best germicide to use. whatever is used must be non-irritating, odourless, stainless, and yet strongly antiseptic. it is possible, i think, that _chinosol_[p] best fulfils the required conditions. it was first suggested by surgeon-commander hamilton boyden, r.n., of the whale island gunnery school, england, who was led to choose it because of its known usefulness in ophthalmic work. it does not matter to the general public what drug is finally selected; all that matters is that it should be of proven value for the purposes required. women can help forward this great work by deciding in their own mind: (1) that the medical prevention of venereal disease is right and wise; and (2) that the authorisation by the public health departments of efficient means of preventing venereal disease will consequently have their support. [footnote p: _chinosol_ (c9h6nkso4), potassium oxyquinol in sulphonate, is a proprietary disinfectant and deodoriser. after some little experience of it in ointments and suppositories, i believe it deodorises these--an important advantage. but further investigation is necessary.--e.a.r.] we must all of us first learn to separate the moral from the medical campaign. both are necessary, but they must be conducted independently. america is doing this; england is not. in england venereal disease is still officially regarded as something to be discussed; in america--as something to be destroyed. thus america is winning and england losing the battle against the venereal microbe. the overseas british dominions will undoubtedly follow the lead of america--particularly that of pennsylvania. hence, these newer countries may have a glorious future, england--only a splendid past.[q] [footnote q: in england the ministry of health refuses to authorise the sale of v.d. preventives; refuses to authorise suitable printed directions; recommends immediate and thorough cleansing but refuses to explain methods or name disinfectants; and claims that persons who sell v.d. preventives as such, with directions, are liable to police prosecution and imprisonment. (_vide_ circular 202, ministry of health, may 31st, 1921.) this may be mere "politics," but it looks uncommonly like fooling with death.--e.a.r.] iv.--compulsory treatment. all women should be in favour of reasonable measures for ensuring the voluntary, and failing that the compulsory, treatment of venereal disease among men and among women.[r] it is troublesome to prevent a man getting disease if he is running into a pool of infection, and such cesspools should be cleaned up or cleared out of the community--_i.e._, cured or quarantined. similarly, it is even more troublesome to prevent a woman becoming infected if she is having relationship with an active gonorrhoeic or syphilitic man, and such men should be treated voluntarily, or compulsorily if they refuse or neglect voluntary treatment. free treatment should be available to poor persons only; providing free treatment for all and sundry, whether they can afford to pay for it or not, is simply encouraging men and women to trust to luck rather than to disinfection. this presupposes that the teaching of self-disinfection has been done confidently and authoritatively. when prevention has been properly taught, then it is fair to penalise those who wilfully neglect to take precautions. it was a great misfortune to the anglo-saxons when the contagious diseases acts were abolished; instead they should have been improved and extended to both sexes. their abolition was the worst blow ever struck at marriage. fortunately, their main principles we are now beginning to re-enact in various sexual hygiene acts. the more "drastic"--_i.e._, the more efficient--these are, the more they should be supported by those who honestly desire to _make marriage safe_. [footnote r: the argument that compulsory treatment would "drive the disease underground" is absurd. venereal disease is underground now.--e.a.r.] apart from voluntary and compulsory treatment for venereal diseases, we certainly need voluntary and compulsory sterilisation of the unfit--diseased and feeble-minded and otherwise unfit persons, who, whatever their other qualifications may be, are unsuitable as parents. but whatever operation is decided upon, for men and for women, must in no way interfere with ordinary sexual activity; otherwise it will be promptly turned down by the general public, no matter what its medical advocates may say. in marriage the partner to be sterilised is obviously the one who is unfit for parenthood.[s] [footnote s: towards the end of last year, extraordinary interest was aroused throughout the united states by a decision of judge royal graham, of the children's court of denver. he had ordered mrs. clyde cassidente to submit to an operation to make further motherhood impossible, because of the under-nourishment of her five children and the habitual insanitary condition of her home. this was the first time any american court had imposed such conditions. judge graham could not legally compel the mother to agree to the operation, but he told her that if she refused he would commit all her children to a home. she then agreed. judge graham was much influenced by the testimony of dr. sunderland, who described the progressive insanitary environment as more children came, and declared that in his opinion the home condition was not due to poverty but to too frequent child-bearing. in the february, 1922, issue of _the birth control review_ (new york) edited by mrs. margaret sanger, the medical officer of a london welfare centre (dr. norman haire, m.b., ch.m.) definitely advocates contraception and sterilisation as a result of his experiences in a very poor part of london. medical officers of many welfare centres now hold similar views. in _the new generation_, the official organ of the malthusian league, dr. barbara crawford, m.b.e., m.b., ch.b., strongly urges birth-control, and says:-"i would go further and say that all those with incurable transmissible disease, all addicted to drugs or alcohol in excess, those habitually criminal or vicious, and the mentally defective, should be rendered sterile by operation, for such as these cannot or will not use control, and their children tend to inherit their parents' taint and to lead maimed and vicious lives."--vol. i, no. 4, p. 3. _the new generation._--e.a.r.] v. conclusion. with the moral and social aspects of birth-control there is no need to deal further, except to say that they have recently been endorsed in england, with fine grace and high authority, by lord dawson of penn (one of the king's physicians), in an address given before the church congress at birmingham, on october 12th, 1921, which has since been republished by messrs. nisbet at a shilling, under the title of "love--marriage--birth-control." the following short extract may be quoted here:- "generally speaking," says lord dawson, "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." as to the prevention of venereal disease, as i have said, what we must aim at is not merely the prevention of sin, but the prevention of the poisoning of the sinner; for, if not, we shall have blind babies, invalid wives, and ruined husbands: broken-hearted and broken-bodied mothers adding one fragment after another to the nation's pile of damaged goods. to the great-hearted public this is becoming intolerable. but they know so little, and they wait so long for what the wise ones fear to tell. not all these fears are sordid; there is a kind and gracious reluctance to shatter ideals. it is hard at times to combine beauty and duty. the way of the truth-teller is not made easier by charges of iconoclasm. "to know all is to forgive all"; that is not paganism but christianity. so also, "let him that is without sin cast the first stone." "to err is human: to forgive divine." humanity, wisdom, tolerance, are wrapped up in these sayings. yet when we think, as think at times we must, of the romantic faith that once was ours, contrasted with the realities of present experience, sex seems to have lost something of its soul of loveliness. and yet--can it ever regain this till men and women are at least _clean_? if not--if the immoral man cannot be made better but rather worse, much worse, by needlessly infecting him with syphilis, then clearly the ideals of beauty and duty demand that we should apply effective sexual sanitation to the nation until such time as we are all, every one of us, free from venereal disease. that time is not yet--and this is the essence of the whole problem. but victory is within sight. when it comes--then, and not till then--sex will regain its soul of loveliness. to this end- "let knowledge grow from more to more, but more of reverence in us dwell, that mind and soul, according well, may make one music as before, but vaster." _tennyson._ note. _the author will reply personally to any serious question concerning the subject matter of this book, provided stamped and addressed envelope is sent to her, c/o the publishers._ appendix i. other methods of contraception. 1. _withdrawal._--immediately before emission the male organ is quickly withdrawn, to avoid emission of seminal fluid in the vagina. many men and women feel this to be unromantic and nerve-racking, and otherwise objectionable. the method is quite commonly practised, but it is unreliable in multiple connections, and where the man has not complete control over himself. it leaves the woman at the mercy of the man for protection against impregnation. 2. _sheath or condom_ ("french letter").--this prevents both conception and infection (excepting in parts not covered by the sheath), but sheaths are apt to break, and sometimes a man infects himself whilst removing the sheath. sheaths impose an impermeable medium between husband and wife, destroy contact, and may thereby prevent the joy of sexual intercourse. in some cases both husband and wife become nervous wrecks, recovering their health when the sheaths are discarded; in other cases it is claimed that no harm has resulted. 3. _antiseptic syringing._--this is generally successful, but not entirely reliable by itself, because seminal fluid may enter the womb during connection. this method is unreliable unless applied _immediately_ after each connection, and syringing at that time is inconvenient and unromantic. 4. _douche can._--this is better than syringing in some ways, because the irrigation can be so arranged as to let the lotion flow into the vagina faster than it can flow out--hence distension of walls of vagina and thorough cleansing. but the arrangement of a runaway for outflowing lotion is inconvenient in most households. 5. _quinine pessaries, etc._--by themselves these are unreliable, no matter what the makers claim on the label. there is usually not enough quinine in them; or if there is enough, it proves irritating. 6. _solid-ring check pessary._--these are reliable only when carefully adjusted over the mouth of the womb, and many women find it very difficult to adjust this kind of pessary correctly; hence numbers of failures. 7. _vaseline and soap-and-water._--using vaseline beforehand, and urinating and using soap-and-water _immediately_ after _each_ connection, is a fairly safe way of avoiding conception and infection. but the vaseline needs to be inserted fairly high up--if possible over the mouth of the womb, and the subsequent washing needs to be very thoroughly done (internally and externally). this method is commonly used by continental women, but it is not entirely reliable by itself. 8. _gold spring check pessary._--this is an instrument, the arms of which spread out inside the womb, and the gold spring keeps the mouth of the womb open, thus facilitating infection and conception. it is claimed as a "preventive"; it is really an abortifacient, and cannot be too strongly condemned, as causing septic miscarriage (authentic records of this are available). a woman can neither insert nor remove this instrument herself. 9. _safe period._--it is often supposed that sexual intercourse midway between the menses is unlikely to result in pregnancy. there is no such "safe period." note.--the method of "self-control" is not referred to here, because one marital relationship per annum might lead to an annual child. in the matter of limitation of offspring, therefore, "self-control" has no value. appendix ii. medical supplies. _rubber pessaries._--medical practitioners can obtain sets of occlusive rubber pessaries from messrs. e. lambert & son, of 60, queen's road, dalston, e.8. this firm has been manufacturing such articles in england since 1888, and now makes them in a wide range of sizes, and of special shape where required. _bidets and syringes._--syringes are easily procurable, but bidets in england at present are sometimes difficult to obtain. good strong enamel bidets can be obtained from messrs. e. lambert & son, of 60, queen's road, e.8., and they also keep the contraceptive suppositories made by mr. harman freese in accordance with medical directions mentioned in foreword. _soluble suppositories (for women)._--these are now being manufactured by mr. harman freese, of freese & moon, 59, bermondsey street, s.e.1, from whom they can be obtained. these suppositories are disinfective as well as contraceptive, but they are at present sold for the ordinary purposes of birth-control. _sanitary tubes (for men)._--these tubes are also manufactured by mr. harman freese, of freese & moon, 59, bermondsey street, s.e.1, in accordance with medical directions mentioned in foreword. it is quite possible to manufacture an ointment which, if properly used, would be a preventive of all forms of venereal disease. the sale of such an ointment is authorised by the state health department of pennsylvania. _information_ as to the medical prevention of venereal disease may be obtained from the hon. sec., society for the prevention of venereal diseases, 143, harley street, w.1. information regarding birth-control has been made available to adults in england for the last half-century by dr. drysdale, sen., and his family and supporters, through the malthusian league, whose present address is 124, victoria street, london, s.w.1., and these pioneers have made a most self-sacrificing effort for the benefit of poor women by establishing a welfare centre at 153a, east street, walworth, london, s.e.17, where free advice is given in birth-control and sexual hygiene, and where medical supplies are available at nominal prices. this centre is supported entirely by voluntary subscriptions and at present stands in dire need of financial help.[t]--e.a.r. [footnote t: at my personal request the publishers have agreed to name the firms and societies mentioned in appendix ii. these notifications are made gratis for the benefit of the medical profession and the general public, and not by way of advertisement.--e.a.r.] note.--every thoughtful woman is urged to buy and study carefully the great work entitled: "prevention of venereal disease," by sir archdall reid, k.b.e., m.b., c.m., f.r.s.e., with an introductory chapter by sir bryan donkin, m.d., f.r.c.p., in order that she may understand the nature of the problems involved and the strength of the opposition to _cleanliness_. _this book is endorsed by the society for the prevention of venereal disease and contains the evidence and arguments on which the society bases its policy, and is addressed to all who would prevent venereal diseases in themselves or in the community._ children may be taught any system of morals--sexual or other; christian, mahomedan, hindoo, papuan, or other. they are intensely imitative and acquire a bias towards local ideas of right and wrong through association with intimate companions. a bias once acquired tends to persist. for that reason parents choose good companions and schools. on the other hand, it is difficult or impossible to convert "hardened sinners," for example, adult non-christians. children, therefore, may be really taught; adults, as a rule, can only be preached at. any man may test the truth of all this by examining his own consciousness. would any amount of preaching cause him to change his present ideas of right and wrong? as little can he alter the bias of other men. as the twig is bent so the tree grows. in various times and places, almost everything from promiscuous sexual intercourse to absolute abstinence from all intercourse has been held holy, or permissible, or damnable. even among christians the widest differences have prevailed as regards the local and contemporary tone. among them, especially among the english speaking peoples, a convention forbids the familiar discussion of sexual matters between children and adults. this convention may be right or wrong. in any case it exists, and is likely to persist for ages. but a knowledge of sex is traditional among boys, and to some extent among girls of the school age. for good or evil, therefore, children are the real teachers of sexual morals in england. children deal with the impressionable age and give the early bias. adults stand aside, and teach only extreme reticence. the discussions of boys are often obscene. as a consequence vast numbers grow up with the idea that unchastity is a gallant adventure, or, at worst, only a peccadillo. even in old age such men look back to past intrigues with satisfaction. after marriage another tradition, or bias, also taught by english boys, comes into action--the tradition to keep the plighted word, to "play the game." the great majority of married englishmen, therefore, are chaste. judging from history, the world, and in particular england, is not more--or less--immoral to-day than at any time during the last 2000 years. during all that time children have taught and adults have preached. doubtless there have been many campaigns of purity in the past--mere campaigns of preaching to adults. they were ineffectual and are forgotten. epochs of licence have almost invariably followed epochs of austerity. modern campaigns of purity never arise except as consequents on medical attempts to prevent venereal disease, and always cease when the attempt to procure sanitation has ceased. in effect, they have been merely campaigns to secure the poisoning of sinners and their victims. the extent of current immorality may be judged from the prevalence of venereal disease. the royal commission of 1913-16 found that ten per cent. of the urban population suffered from syphilis. eighty per cent. of the population of the united kingdom is now urban, and gonorrhoea is six or seven times as prevalent as syphilis. it follows that at least every other person in the kingdom has suffered from venereal disease. probably not a family has escaped infection. in proportion to its prevalence syphilis is not very deadly, yet it has been reckoned as the fourth killing disease. the victims of gonorrhoea are incalculable. venereal diseases fill our hospitals, asylums, and workhouses. they are the principal causes of heart disease, apoplexy, paralysis, insanity, blindness in children, and of that life of sterility and pain to which so many women are condemned. it is said that chastity is the only real safeguard against venereal disease. but this is always said by people who have never stirred a finger to teach chastity, but who have only preached it. at any time there are at least a million of perfectly innocent sufferers, principally women and children, in the united kingdom. during the war a disloyal faction in every dominion endeavoured to prevent the sending of help to the mother country. a principal cry of this faction was, "do not let us send our clean lads to that cesspool, england." england is more than the world-cesspool. since englishmen are the greatest travellers, she has been the principal source of infection for the world. at one time during the war the australasian governments threatened to withdraw their forces unless measures were taken to protect them. when the german offensive was impending a sanitary method was published, so effective that the venereal rate was reduced from 92 to 15 per thousand per annum. the government proposed to bring the method into general use in the army, but was prevented by influences which preferred to see the country poisoned and the british army defeated. while the opponents of sanitation sat snugly at home hundreds of thousands of british soldiers were killed or maimed, enormous material was lost with territory which other hundreds of thousands of brave men had died to win, the war was prolonged, thousands of millions were added to the national debt, and half trained boys and elderly fathers of families were hurried into the firing line. at that time there were in hospitals or in depots, convalescent from venereal disease, enough fully-trained allied soldiers to furnish, not an army corps but a great army, complete almost from g.o.c. to trumpeter. fear of disease does not prevent immorality, as may be judged from the immense prevalence of venereal disorders. but it does drive baser characters to the pursuit and seduction of "decent" girls. in this way nearly all prostitutes begin their careers. prostitutes are much more diseased than other women, who, though often diseased, are seldom suspected of disease. yet, since it has been found statistically that three out of four men acquire their maladies from amateurs, it is manifest that prostitutes only hang on the fringe of a vaster immorality. men, who know more of these diseases than women, are, on the average, much less chaste. medical students who know most are not more moral than other men. plainly venereal diseases are causes, not preventives, of immorality. nothing, therefore, is gained from their prevalence except a flood of death, disability, and misery, which falls alike on the just and unjust. during the war sir archdall reid, employing very simple means, reduced the incidence of disease among the large body of troops in his charge almost to the vanishing point. he could not make them more moral, he did not make them less moral, but at any rate he preserved their services for the country in its hour of need. and he preserved their future wives and children from unmerited death and suffering. other doctors were equally successful. the town authorities of portsmouth and many other boroughs are about to employ these methods for the prevention of disease among the civil population. this book describes them and tells the story of the fight against a wicked and cruel fanaticism. its policy is endorsed by many of the leading men and women in the kingdom--members of both houses of parliament, town authorities, doctors, authors, sociologists and others. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | prevention of venereal disease | | by sir archdall reid, k.b.e., m.b. with an introduction | | by sir bryan donkin, m.d. | | crown 8vo, 15s. net. | | | | sex-problems in women | | by a.c. magian, m.d. demy 8vo, 12s. 6d. net. | | | | the sexual question | | a scientific, psychological and sociological study. by | | dr. august forel. royal 8vo, 25s. net. | | | | the sexual life of our time | | in its relation to modern civilization. by iwan bloch, | | m.d. medium 8vo, 25s. net. | | sold only to the medical and legal professions. | | | | the sexual life of woman | | a physiological, pathological and hygienic study. by | | professor heinrich kisch. super royal, 25s. net. | | sold only to the medical and legal professions. | | | | psychopathia sexualis | | with special reference to antipathic sexual instinct. a | | medico-forensic study by the late dr. r. von krafft | | ebing. royal 8vo, 25s. net. | | sold only to the medical and legal professions. | | | | | | william heinemann (medical books) ltd., | | 20, bedford street, london, w.c.2. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ printed in great britain by woods and sons, ltd., london, n.1. gutenberg (this book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google books project.) the malthusian handbook designed to induce married people to limit their families within their means. price sixpence. london: w. h. reynolds, new cross, s.e. 4th edition.--1898. introduction. in every civilised state the problem of poverty is one which presses for solution. in some european countries it has, at times, locally assumed a critical and menacing form, threatening the very foundations upon which society is based. revolutions have sprung from the fact that people needed food and could not obtain it; and, even in our own "highly favored" land, honest, industrious men are often driven to despair because they can neither get work nor food. occasional outbreaks and demonstrations, however, are by no means the true measure of national poverty. beneath the glittering surface of society there lies a seething mass of want and misery. the victims suffer in silence and make no sign, but their existence constitutes a permanent danger to the general welfare. destitution is in numberless instances the parent of crime and prostitution, with their chain of disastrous consequences; overcrowding, semi-starvation and squalor are the fruitful sources of disease which scruples not to travel beyond its birthplace and to infect the homes of the wealthy. modern society may be fitly compared to a magnificent palace reared in a miasmatic swamp, which fills the air with its death-dealing exhalations. no cunning artifices of builders or engineers can afford protection in such a case. in like manner, society cannot hope to escape from the influences which make for corruption and ultimate dissolution whilst it suffers poverty to remain in its midst. it is, indeed, unnecessary to insist upon the evils and the national dangers arising from poverty; for they are admitted upon all hands. the problem is: how can poverty be abolished? upon this vital point opinions differ widely. the evil is so complex and many-sided that observers are apt to be misled by a partial view of the symptoms. for example, a total abstainer, concentrating his attention upon instances in which poverty has been brought about by excessive indulgence in alcoholic liquors, urges that drink is the "cause of poverty." the socialist asks "why are the many poor?" and answers that the remedy consists in the nationalisation of land and the instruments of production, the abolition of competition, etc. others attribute the existence of poverty to idleness or to want of thrift amongst the workers. in no case, however, is the alleged cause equal to the palpable effect; and it is necessary to extend the enquiry in another direction if we are to discover the cause which, above and beyond all others, produces the want and misery that everybody desires to remove. the purpose of this little work is, first, to show that an excessive increase of population is the source from which these evils arise. in the second place, the means by which population may be kept under control will be explained, for it is useless to warn people of a danger if they are kept in ignorance of the means by which it may be avoided. above all, it is to the poor that this knowledge must be conveyed, for, as we shall show in the following pages, the indigent class multiplies far more rapidly than the well-to-do, and it is upon themselves that the consequent misery necessarily falls. experience teaches that almost all the ills which afflict mankind can be obviated by a careful study of nature and by conduct based upon due observance of natural laws. in the darkness of ignorance men must stumble into many pitfalls; but in the clear light of reason and knowledge they can discern the path which leads to freedom and happiness. the malthusian handbook. chapter i. malthus and the law of population. if it be desired to discover a remedy for an admitted evil, the first step must necessarily be to ascertain its cause. all schemes for the mitigation of the effects of poverty must in the long run end in failure, no matter how ambitious may be the undertakings of those who engage in this futile work. the captain of a sinking vessel does not confine his attention to the pumps, he seeks without delay to stop the inrush of water. and in dealing with the question of poverty it is essential that its root-cause be discovered before any hope of arriving at a solution of the problem can reasonably be entertained. an enquiry into the facts of nature will show that all forms of vegetable and animal life are capable of reproducing themselves in almost boundless profusion. darwin, in his work on the origin of species, points this out with the greatest clearness. he says: "there is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered with the progeny of a single pair. even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years; and at this rate, in a few thousand years, there would literally not be standing-room for his progeny. linnæus has calculated that if an annual plant produced only two seeds--and there is no plant so unproductive as this--and their seedlings next year produced two, and so on, then, in twenty years there would be a million plants." after giving the example of the slow-breeding elephant, he continues: "still more striking is the evidence from our domestic animals of many kinds which have run wild in many parts of the world; if the statements of the rate of increase of slow-breeding cattle and horses in south america, and latterly in australia, had not been well authenticated, they would have been incredible. so it is with plants: cases could be given of introduced plants which have become common throughout whole islands in less than ten years. several of the plants, such as the cardoon and a tall thistle, now most numerous over the wild plains of la plata, clothing square leagues of surface almost to the exclusion of all other plants, have been introduced from europe; and there are plants which now range in india, as i hear from dr. falconer, from cape comorin to the himalayas, which have been imported from america since its discovery. in such cases, and endless instances could be given, no one supposes that the fertility of these animals or plants has been suddenly and temporarily increased in any sensible degree. the obvious explanation is that the conditions of life have been very favorable, and that there has consequently been less destruction of the old and young, and that nearly all the young have been able to breed. in such cases, the geometrical rate of increase, the result of which never fails to be surprising, simply explains the extraordinarily rapid increase and wide diffusion of naturalised productions in their new homes. in a state of nature, almost every plant produces seed, and among animals there are very few that do not annually pair. hence we may confidently assert that all plants and animals are tending to increase at a geometrical ratio; that all would most rapidly stock every station in which they could anyhow exist, and that the geometrical tendency to increase must be checked by destruction at some period of life." it was the observation of this striking fact in nature which led an english clergyman, the rev. thomas b. malthus, to study deeply the question of poverty, and to formulate as "the principle of population" that which is now almost universally regarded as a law of nature. before he published his great work the view was generally accepted that the wealth of a country was in proportion to its population; and statesmen frequently attempted to stimulate, by the distribution of bounties to the parents of excessively large families, the natural rate of increase. a few far-sighted men, such as the elder mirabeau, quesnay, and adam smith, partially perceived the true doctrine; but it remained for malthus to examine the question in all its bearings, and to collect patiently and laboriously an overwhelming array of facts which established his contention beyond all reasonable doubt. it will be well here to give some account of this remarkable man and of the work with which his name is indissolubly associated. thomas robert malthus was born at dorking, surrey, in 1766. at the age of thirty-one he became a fellow of jesus college, cambridge, and shortly afterwards took orders, officiating in a small village in surrey. in the closing years of the eighteenth century, the minds of men in england were powerfully influenced by the great social upheaval taking place in france, and political views in this country were entering upon a new phase. the rights of man were coming to be regarded as something more than a phrase, and a generous desire to promote the welfare of the people was gradually taking the place of selfish indifference. condorcet in france, and william godwin in england, promulgated the view that the happiness of mankind depended chiefly upon the justice of political institutions, and that national welfare could be indefinitely promoted by just government. daniel malthus (the father of thomas robert), a man of sanguine and romantic temperament, warmly espoused the ideas set forth by godwin, and frequently discussed the subject with his son. the younger man, however, by no means shared the paternal enthusiasm, and, following the lines suggested by hume, adam smith, and other writers, he maintained that vice and misery were two powerful obstacles to the improvement of society, and urged, further, that the tendency of mankind to increase more rapidly than the means of subsistence gave rise to these evils. his arguments made a deep impression upon the mind of daniel malthus, who requested his son to put them in writing. this was accordingly done, and in 1798 t. r. malthus published the first edition of his work: an essay on the principle of population, as it affects the future improvement of society; with remarks on the speculations of mr. godwin, mr. condorcet and other writers. (london: 1798. one volume.) this book aroused a lively controversy, the writer's theories and conclusions being attacked and defended by various writers. the great interest excited by his essay caused malthus to enquire still more deeply into the phenomena of poverty, and he determined to travel through europe for the purpose of collecting facts bearing upon the subject. in 1799 he visited the continent, passing through denmark, sweden, and part of russia, and, later, switzerland and savoy. the results of his researches furnished overwhelming proof of the accuracy of his contention; and in 1803 he published a second and much enlarged edition of his essay, in two volumes. during the remainder of his life, malthus thrice edited new editions of his work, which to this day remains the greatest monument of his honorable career. he died on 29th december, 1834. it is not intended here to give an exhaustive analysis of malthus's principle of population. [1] we are concerned only with his theory of population and the conclusions to which that theory points. "the principal object of this essay," says the author, "is to examine the effects of one great cause intimately connected with the very nature of man, which, though it has been constantly and powerfully operating since the commencement of society, has been little noticed by the writers who have treated this subject. the cause to which i allude is the constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it. "dr. franklin has observed that there is no bound to the prolific nature of plants or animals but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each other's means of subsistence. were the face of the earth, he says, vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread with one kind only--as, for instance, with fennel; and were it empty of other inhabitants, it might in a few ages be replenished from one nation only, as, for instance, with englishmen. "this is incontrovertibly true. through the animal and vegetable kingdoms nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand; but has been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them. the germs of existence contained in this earth, if they could freely develop themselves, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years. necessity, that imperious, all-pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds. the race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great restrictive law, and man cannot by any efforts of reason escape from it. "in plants and irrational animals the view of the subject is simple. they are all impelled by a powerful instinct to the increase of their species, and this instinct is interrupted by no doubts about providing for their offspring. wherever, therefore, there is liberty, the power of increase is exerted; and the superabundant effects are repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment." malthus then adduces evidence of the extremely rapid increase of population amongst mankind under conditions in which food is abundant and easily obtainable. he calculates that population, if unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio. but he points out that the food supply can by no means be increased with equal facility. even if it were possible in one period of twenty-five years to double the amount produced, there is no reason to suppose that the operation could be repeated during the following twenty-five years. as the demand for food increased, less fruitful soils would be taken into cultivation, and the additions that could be made to the former average produce would be gradually and regularly diminishing. malthus then makes the following calculation: "let us suppose that the yearly additions which might be made to the former average produce, instead of decreasing, which they certainly would do, were to remain the same; and that the produce of this island might be increased every twenty-five years, by a quantity equal to what it at present produces. the most enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. in a few centuries it would make every acre in the island like a garden. "if this supposition be applied to the whole earth, and if it be allowed that the subsistence for man, which the earth affords, might be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what it at present produces, this will be supposing a rate of increase much greater than we can imagine that any possible exertions of mankind could make it. "it may fairly be pronounced, therefore, that considering the present average state of the earth, the means of subsistence, under circumstances the most favorable to human industry, could not possibly be made to increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio. "the necessary effects of these two different rates of increase, when brought together, will be very striking. let us call the population of this island 11,000,000 (mr. malthus writes in 1806), and suppose the present produce equal to the easy support of such a number. in the first twenty-five years the population would be 22,000,000, and the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence would be equal to this increase. in the next twenty-five years the population would be 44,000,000, and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of 33,000,000. in the next period the population would be 88,000,000, and the means of subsistence just equal to the support of half that number. and at the conclusion of the first century, the population would be 176,000,000, and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of 55,000,000, leaving a population of 121,000,000 totally unprovided for." now let us see how this stupendous possible power of increase in the human race has been kept in check. the positive checks (i.e., checks which have operated through the action of natural laws) to an excessive increase of population comprehend the premature death of children and adults by disease, starvation, war and infanticide. nature has a short and sharp way of dealing with her superfluous children. amongst savage tribes the positive checks alone are brought into operation. the pages of human history teem with tragic records of famines decimating the unhappy victims of over-population; of pestilence stalking through the land, slaying its tens of thousands; of wars devastating countries and overwhelming the inhabitants in ruin, misery and death. in certain parts of the world the pangs of hunger have destroyed in men and women the primal instinct of parental love; and, in the fifth chapter of his work, malthus shows how, in the south sea islands, where the possible expansion of population was extremely small, the frightful expedient of infanticide was largely resorted to by the inhabitants to check their natural increase. even then, however, the pressure on the means of subsistence was so great that food became scarce at certain seasons of the year, and destructive wars ensued. captain vancouver, visiting otaheite for the second time in 1791, found that most of the natives whom he had known fourteen years before had perished in battle. in the course of numerous examples of the effects of over-population upon the condition of the masses in various countries, malthus gives a striking example of the appalling misery to which even industrious laborers were reduced in densely-peopled china. he quotes the words of a jesuit missionary, who stated that a chinaman "will pass whole days in digging the earth, sometimes up to his knees in water, and in the evening is happy to eat a little spoonful of rice, and to drink the insipid water in which it is boiled." this is obviously an exaggeration, since it would be impossible to maintain life under such conditions; but it serves to show the deplorable state to which the workers may be reduced by excessive population. it is unnecessary here to follow malthus through his exhaustive survey of the condition of nations affected by over-population in various stages of the world's history. our purpose is rather to furnish an indication of the principle than to reproduce in detail the observations upon which it is based. the most concise formula in which the theory of malthus has been expressed is as follows: "that population has a constant tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence." chapter ii. the remedy: old and new. the principle stated at the end of the preceding chapter being assumed, the question arises: how can the evils caused by the constant tendency towards over-population be prevented? the method which mr. malthus proposed was the substitution of the prudential (or birth-restricting) for the positive (or life-destroying) check. he advised late marriage and celibacy as the most moral means of restraining population. he urged that men should wait until they were in a position to provide for a family before undertaking the responsibilities consequent upon the marriage state. he says: "our obligation not to marry till we have a fair prospect of being able to support our children will appear to deserve the attention of the moralist, if it can be proved that an attention to these obligations is of more effect in the prevention of misery than all the other virtues combined; and that if, in violation of this duty, it was the general custom to follow the first impulse of nature, and marry at the age of puberty, the universal prevalence of every known virtue in the greatest conceivable degree would fail of rescuing society from the most wretched and deplorable state of want, and all the diseases and famines which usually accompany it." this, then, was the prudential check advocated by malthus; but since his time it has been perceived that his remedy is in itself the cause of evils scarcely less terrible than those which it was designed to remove. further, it is one which, in the vast majority of cases, could not possibly be put into practice; for it assumes a power of mental control over the sexual passion which exists in a comparatively small number of individuals. the physiological evils arising from celibacy, and, in lesser degree, from prolonged abstention from marriage, are of the most disastrous nature. celibacy is necessarily a condition of privation and suffering, since it involves the deliberate and incessant suppression of the most powerful instinct of mankind. the pure and elevating joys of wedded and family life are shut out, and existence is shorn of its most delightful features. the unselfish pleasure of promoting the happiness of a loved wife and children is denied to the morbid and gloomy celibate, doomed to a solitary and cheerless existence. and even when permanent celibacy is not contemplated, marriage may be deferred until the bloom and brightness of life are gone for ever, until delay and disappointment have soured the temper and choked the fountain of affection. dr. bertillon, of paris, has proved conclusively by statistics derived from france, holland and belgium, that married persons, especially males, live much longer than single ones, and are less liable to become insane, criminal, or vicious. it has been shown that the married state reduces the danger of insanity by nearly one-half. with regard to the effects of celibacy upon individuals, dr. holmes coote is reported in the lancet to have said: "no doubt incontinence is a great sin; but the evils connected with continence are productive of far greater misery to society. any person could bear witness to this who has had experience in the wards of lunatic asylums." in addition to the personal ills arising from celibacy, it must be remembered that late marriage directly encourages prostitution, the most hideous blot upon our social state. malthus, indeed, laid great stress upon the duty of chastity whilst young men were engaged in accumulating the means to enable them to marry and rear a family later in life. he might as fitly have preached to the whirlwind, or exhorted the storm to moderate its violence. the power of restraint is given to but few men; and, even when that restraint can be exercised, it is only at the cost of much suffering and physical and moral detriment. the later school of thinkers, whilst adopting the principle formulated by malthus, propound an infinitely better method of compassing the end which he had in view. they advocate early marriage and limited families. it is not necessary that young men and women should sacrifice the youth and freshness of their lives in order that they may marry when the evening shadows are lengthening around them. the blessings of domestic comfort, of intimate companionship and of family love are opened to them in the noontide of life, when the possibility of enjoyment is at its highest point. mrs. annie besant says: "to be in harmony with nature, men and women should be husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and until nature evolves a neuter sex celibacy will ever be a mark of imperfection.... no one who desires society to be happy and healthy should recommend late marriage as a cure for the social evils around us. early marriage is best, both physically and morally; it guards purity, softens the affections, trains the heart, and preserves physical health; it teaches thought for others, gentleness and self-control; it makes men gentler and women braver from the contact of their differing natures. the children that spring from such marriages--where not following each other too rapidly--are more vigorous and healthy than those of middle-aged parents; and in the ordinary course of nature the parents of such children live long enough to see them make their start in life, to aid, strengthen, and counsel them at the beginning of their career." medical science has shown that the size of families is absolutely under the control of parents, if they will but exercise a reasonable degree of care and forethought. a young couple may now enter the marriage-state without misgiving: for the number of their offspring can be regulated in proportion to their means as surely as they can determine the amount of their expenditure upon clothing or luxuries. thus the teachings of malthusianism, combined with the later development of innocent prudential checks, open up boundless possibilities for the improvement of social conditions. when the law of population--a law of nature--is clearly understood, it becomes possible for man, by the exercise of his reason, to control its operation, just as he constructs dykes to protect his crops from floods, or diverts the lightning harmlessly into the ground. let us see, then, how the general adoption of the new-malthusian principle of early marriage and limited families would affect the welfare of individuals and of the nation at large. the knowledge of prudential checks immensely increases the possibility of happiness for every man and woman whose means are "limited." marriage ceases to be a hazardous enterprise, which may bring in its train liabilities terribly out of proportion to the power of meeting them. the husband is relieved from anxiety lest his children may increase whilst his ability to provide suitably for them remains a fixed, or even diminishing, quantity. the wife need no longer dread the burden of continual child-bearing and the incessant servitude of domestic drudgery. how much of the drunkenness that exists amongst the working-class is due to the discomfort of a crowded and cheerless home! the husband, wearied with his day's toil, returns to his narrow lodgings to find his wife, harassed and soured by the petty cares of a large family, sharp in temper and tongue. the tender romance of courtship is dispelled by the never-ending round of household slavery, with the constant need of "making both ends meet," of contriving that every sixpence shall do the work of a shilling. and over all there hangs the haunting fear that sickness or loss of employment may disable the bread-winner, and that the wolf of hunger, ever waiting outside, may show his fangs within the door. little cause is there for wonder that in many cases the sweetheart of happier days becomes a shrew and slattern, or that the toil-worn husband flies to the ruinous joys of the tap-room in a vain attempt to escape from the vexations that surround him in his "home." and what of the children? they are at once the innocent cause and the helpless victims of the misery that encompasses them. the wage that would amply provide for two or three is inadequate for the proper support of seven or eight, and their little frames suffer from insufficient nourishment. the overburdened mother cannot bestow upon so large a flock the loving care and attention that children need for their proper physical and mental development. thus they grow up (if haply they survive), enfeebled in mind and constitution, transmitting to the next generation their own defects in an aggravated form. it is amongst the very poorest of our fellow-creatures that we see the horrors of over-population in their most heartrending aspect. in the squalid courts and alleys of our great cities the dismal stream of child-life is constantly at high-water mark. the parents, ignorant and hopeless, callous by reason of their daily contact with misery, "increase and multiply" instinctively, as do the beasts of the field. amongst the poor the birth-rate is (broadly speaking) double as high as that of the richer classes. a few years ago the birth-rate in wealthy kensington was 20 per 1,000; in the poor district of bethnal green it was 40 per 1,000. this deplorable state of things is not peculiar to great britain: it prevails, with slight variations as to details, in all so-called civilised countries. but the birth-rate tells only one-half of the piteous tale: it is the death-rate which completes the measure of human suffering caused by the insensate increase of population. in the course of his address to the association of sanitary inspectors in 1888, sir edwin chadwick stated that amongst the gentry and professional persons the deaths of children under five years of age in brighton formed 8·93 per cent. of the total deaths, while among the wage-earning class they formed 45·44 per cent. he also said that in brighton the mean (or average) age at death for wage-earners is 28·8 years; for the rich it is 63 years. dr. playfair has shown that 18 per cent. of the children of the upper class, 36 per cent. of those of the tradesman class, and 55 per cent. of those of the workmen die before they reach the age of five years. here we see the painful positive or natural checks to population at work in our very midst. death stands with his sword and ruthlessly strikes out the redundant lives. what pen can picture the frightful suffering indicated by the figures given above? the mother's pangs of child-birth: her protracted agony of grief as she watches the ravages of disease upon the weakly frame of her ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-tended babe: the last dread scene when death releases from its misery the child that should never have been called into existence! this squalid tragedy is enacted a thousand times; and the upshot of it all is five hundred little coffins hastily thrust into the earth. and what of those that survive? here and there one may rise above his fellows in the struggle for existence; but the vast majority of those who pass through the valley of the shadow of death emerge into a laborious and joyless existence. of the males a section will drift into pauperism or crime; many of the females will be driven by want to the shameful traffic of prostitution. the honest and industrious are doomed to a life of incessant toil and privation; and with their numerous offspring will begin another cycle of the obscure tragedy. in this way, the nation ever renews within itself the elements of its own weakness and despair. the question of the unemployed is ultimately a question of over-population; and wages are reduced by the competition, one against another, of desperate men seeking bread for their wives and families. trade unions and other forms of combination may partially and temporarily improve the condition of a section of the workers; but in the long run every advance in comfort is overtaken and swallowed up by the increase of population stimulated by prosperity. thus, unless the teachings of new-malthusianism be generally acted upon, poverty will remain a permanent feature of society; and, as we have already said, the element of poverty is a constant menace to the community at large. the strength of a chain is that of its weakest link. the wealth, luxury, and refinement of society exist upon a frail tenure if the desperation of the poorest class is suffered to pass a certain limit. history has shown us the civilisation of centuries extinguished by hordes of barbarians, driven by hunger from their sterile lands. in paris, during times of revolutionary excitement, the faubourg st. antoine pours forth its thousands of gaunt and tattered spectres to make war upon society. prudence in the matter of population, then, is seen to be the only way of conserving the most valuable and progressive elements in human society. in this, as in other countries, the apostles of the new teaching have been confronted by the prejudices handed down from previous generations; and in the succeeding chapter we shall trace the history of the malthusian movement in england and abroad. chapter iii. the malthusian movement in england. for many years after the publication of mr. malthus's great essay, the principle which he had formulated did not pass beyond the region of more or less academic controversy. the "theory of population" was denounced from countless pulpits and assailed by the pens of ready writers; but, being based upon a patient and accurate observation of the facts of nature, it remained unshaken when the preachers and critics were forgotten. it would be absurd to doubt that so important a contribution to social science influenced the minds and helped to shape the conduct of thoughtful men; but it is beyond question that no organised attempt to popularise and propagate the teachings of malthus, and to make known the nature of preventive checks amongst the people of this country, was undertaken until the year 1877. in the first quarter of the century, richard carlile published a small pamphlet on the subject; but there is no reason to suppose that its effect was appreciable. mr. francis place and mr. robert dale owen in later years wrote essays embodying practically the modern malthusian view. in 1833, dr. charles knowlton, of boston (u.s.a.), issued a small work on the subject of population, entitled the fruits of philosophy. for over forty years the book was sold in england, but its sale was so small that very few people were even acquainted with its title, and it remained in its native obscurity until it was dragged into the light of day by the fortunate folly of persons who imagined that it was possible to check the spread of moral enlightenment by means of legal "repression." in 1876 a police prosecution was instituted against a man in bristol for selling the fruits of philosophy, and a conviction was obtained. in the following year the publisher of the pamphlet was also indicted and committed for trial; but he was liberated on promising that he would no longer issue the work. mr. charles bradlaugh and mrs. annie besant thereupon undertook the task of defending the right of publication. they reprinted and published the pamphlet, formally inviting the authorities to prosecute them. "it was for the sake of free discussion that we published the assailed pamphlet when its former seller yielded to the pressure put upon him by the police; it was not so much in defence of this pamphlet, as to make the way possible for others dealing with the same topic that we risked the penalty which has fallen upon us." [2] the police authorities accepted the challenge, and a prosecution was immediately commenced. the trial, which lasted four days, took place in the court of queen's bench, before lord chief justice cockburn and a special jury. sir hardinge gifford (then solicitor-general), mr. douglas straight and mr. mead appeared for the prosecution; mr. bradlaugh and mrs. besant appeared in person. the indictment charged the defendants with having published and sold an obscene book, with intent to contaminate and corrupt public morals. the author of the fruits of philosophy advocated early marriage with limitation of families, and referred in the course of his work to such preventive checks as were known at that time. the solicitor-general, in opening the case, sought to persuade the jury that dr. knowlton speciously used that line of argument as a disguise and pretext for suggesting illicit intercourse without risk of pregnancy ensuing. an indignant rebuke from sir alexander cockburn caused the solicitor-general to abandon that line of false suggestion, and to fall back upon the contention that it was illegal to issue a work containing "a chapter on restriction, not written in any learned language, but in plain english, in a facile form, and sold ... at sixpence." he therefore asked the jury to declare that the book was an "obscene publication." the speech of the solicitor-general and his general conduct of the case are matters of trivial importance; the notable features of the trial were the addresses of the two defendants and the summing-up by the lord chief justice. mrs. besant's speech to the jury was a remarkable and memorable effort. she examined and discussed the population question in every aspect, contending that, in view of the evils arising from excessive increase, the advocacy of prudential methods was a sacred duty to humanity. in the opening passages of her speech she pointed out, in the most impressive manner, that she pleaded for the welfare of others: it is not as defendant that i plead to you to-day--not simply as defending myself do i stand here--but i speak as counsel for hundreds of the poor, and it is they for whom i defend this case. my clients are scattered up and down through the length and breadth of the land; i find them amongst the poor, amongst whom i have been so much; i find my clients amongst the fathers, who see their wage ever reducing, and prices ever rising; i find my clients amongst the mothers worn out with over-frequent child-bearing, and with two or three little ones around too young to guard themselves, while they have no time to guard them. it is enough for a woman at home to have the care, the clothing, the training of a large family of young children to look to; but it is a harder task when oftentimes the mother, who should be at home with her little ones, has to go out and work in the fields for wage to feed them when her presence is needed in the house. i find my clients among the little children. gentlemen, do you know the fate of so many of these children?--the little ones half-starved because there is food enough for two but not enough for twelve; half-clothed because the mother, no matter what her skill and care, cannot clothe them with the money brought home by the breadwinner of the family; brought up in ignorance, and ignorance means pauperism and crime--gentlemen, your happier circumstances have raised you above this suffering, but on you also this question presses; for these over-large families mean also increased poor-rates, which are growing heavier year by year. these poor are my clients, and if i weary you by length of speech, as i fear i may, i do so because i must think of them more even than i think of your time or trouble. with righteous indignation mrs. besant repelled the accusation that the fruits of philosophy was an "obscene" publication. she showed by a quotation from lord campbell's act (upon which the prosecution was based) that the statutory definition of obscenity could not possibly be applied to a book containing "dry physiological details put forward in dry, technical language." she next proceeded to urge that the right of free discussion upon matters of public welfare was really attacked by the prosecution: do you, gentlemen, think for one moment that myself and my co-defendant are fighting the simple question of the sale or publication of this sixpenny volume of dr. knowlton's? do you think that we would have placed ourselves in the position in which we are at the present moment for the mere profit to be derived from a sixpenny pamphlet of forty-seven pages? no, it is nothing of the sort; we have a much larger interest at stake, and one of vital interest to the public, one which we shall spend our whole lives in trying to uphold. the question really is one of the right to public discussion by means of publication, and that question is bound up in the right to sell this sixpenny pamphlet which the solicitor-general despises on account of its price. it would, however, be impossible to give, by extracts of reasonable length, an adequate idea of the striking and eloquent speech which mrs. besant addressed to the jury in her defence. the whole question of over-population and its consequences was examined with the greatest care and completeness. profoundly convinced of the justice of her cause, mrs. besant pleaded that the teachings of new-malthusianism, by making early marriage possible, promoted happiness and morality. she said: i think, therefore, i may fairly put it that every young man naturally desires to make a home and enter upon married life when first he comes out into the world. i do not believe that any young man sets out with the intention of rushing into fast life and dissipation, but men are frequently drawn into habits of that kind because they fear the results that follow from early marriage. since i am told that our object is to increase immorality, and that we only use the word "marriage" to conceal the foulest designs upon the purity of society, i may say freely that i hold early marriages to be the very salvation of young men, and especially of young men in our large cities. i hold the belief with a depth of conviction which i cannot put to you in words, that for one man and one woman to help, comfort, and support one another, which they are by nature adapted to do, is a state which is to be reached, which is to be perpetuated, by marriage and in no other way. it is only by companionship, and the union between a man and a woman, that this is possible. shut a man out from the loving influence of home, the golden institutions of the fireside, his wife's society, and the happiness of becoming a father, and you induce a life of profligacy. gentlemen, do not be deceived. there is no talk in this book of preventing men and women from becoming parents; all that is sought here is to limit the number of their family. and we do not aim at that because we do not love children, but, on the contrary, because we do love them, and because we wish to prevent them from coming into the world in greater numbers than there is the means of properly providing for. children, i believe, have an influence upon parents purifying in the highest degree, because they teach the parents self-restraint, self-denial, thoughtfulness, and tenderness to an extent that cannot possibly be over-estimated; and it is because i wish to have it made possible for young men and for young women to have these influences brought to bear upon them in their youth, that i advocate the circulation of a book that will put within their reach the knowledge of how to limit the extent of their families within their capabilities of providing for them; for no man can look with pride and happiness upon his home if he has more children than he can clothe and educate. it is because i wish them to marry in the springtime of their youth that i ask you by your verdict in this action to make discussion on these subjects possible, and that men should not be driven to find a substitute for true and pure womanhood and wifehood in other directions. if you render this possible you will make your streets purer and your families happier than they are at present. having in the course of a prolonged speech explained and vindicated the new-malthusian doctrine from misrepresentations inspired by ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry, mrs. besant concluded her memorable address in the following words: i fairly put it that unless you honestly believe that my whole speech to you has been one mass of falsehoods; unless you believe my intent to be a bad intent; unless you believe i have been deliberately deceiving you throughout, and stand here before you in the very worst character a woman could take upon herself, namely, that of striving to corrupt the morals of the young under the false pretence of purity here put forward, and unless you think that, for the after-part of my life, i deserve to pass through it with the brand upon me that twelve gentlemen, after all patience, thought not only that the book was a mistake, the opinions wrong, and the arguments unconvincing, but, in the terrible language of the indictment, that i am guilty of "wickedly devising and contriving as much as in me lay to vitiate and corrupt the morals of youth" as well as of others,--unless, i say, you believe that that has been my object and purpose, on this indictment, i shall call upon you, gentlemen, to return a verdict of "not guilty," and to send me home free, believing from my heart and conscience that i have been guilty only of doing that which i ought to do in grappling honestly with a matter i consider myself justified in grappling with--that terrible poverty and misery which is around us on every hand. unless you are prepared, gentlemen, to brand me with malicious meaning, i ask you, as an english woman, for that justice which it is not impossible to expect at the hands of englishmen--i ask you to give me a verdict of "not guilty," and to send me home unstained. mr. bradlaugh, in his speech, dealt more fully than his co-defendant had been able to do with the legal and physiological aspects of the case. in the clearest fashion he maintained the lawfulness of disseminating the knowledge of innocent prudential checks: i submit to you, gentlemen of the jury, that it is moral to teach poor people to marry early, and that this teaching avoids and will diminish illicit intercourse. i will not weary you with reading the whole of the report on the "employment of women and children in agriculture," from which my co-defendant quoted that terrible extract from the report of bishop fraser. you will there find that the illicit intercourse which we are charged with trying to produce is an illicit intercourse which is going on and bringing with it the birth of the child, and bringing with it the murder of the child by the mother, because there is the pang of starvation and misery and shame to contend with. i say that it is amongst the poor married people that the evils of over-population are chiefly felt, and that it cannot tend to deprave their morals to teach them how to intelligently check this over-population.... i submit that the advocacy of all checks is lawful except such as advocate the destruction of the foetus after conception or of the child after birth. i say that the advocacy of every birth-restricting check is lawful which is not the advocacy of the destruction of human life in any form after that life has been created. assuming the legality of such advocacy, it is useless unless conveyed in plain and simple language: i say that the advocacy of any check amongst the masses to be useful must of necessity be put in the plainest language and in the cheapest form, and be widely spread; and i press that upon you because i understand that the learned solicitor-general in his argument put it that one of the faults of this pamphlet was that it was not obscured in learned language. if we possessed the facility of expressing ourselves in french, or italian, or greek, or latin, or hebrew, or arabic, what earthly use would that be to the poor unfortunate wretches whose misery we want to address? after traversing with his accustomed skill and acumen the charges formulated by the prosecution, mr. bradlaugh concluded his address with a peroration full of passionate eloquence: we want (he said) to make the poor more comfortable; and you tell us we are immoral. we want to prevent them bringing into the world little children to suck death, instead of life, at the breasts of their mother; and you tell us we are immoral. i should not say that, perhaps, for you, gentlemen, may judge things differently from myself; but i know the poor. i belong to them. i was born amongst them. among them are the early associations of my life. such little ability as i possess to-day has come to me in the hard struggle of life. i have had no university to polish my tongue; no alma mater to give to me any eloquence by which to move you. i plead here simply for the class to which i belong, and for the right to tell them what may redeem their poverty and alleviate their misery. and i ask you to believe in your heart of hearts, even if you deliver a verdict against us here--i ask you, at least, to try and believe both for myself and the lady who sits besides me (i hope it for myself, and i earnestly wish it for her), that all through we have meant to do right, even if you think that we have done wrong.... my co-defendant referred, in earnest language, to the letters which she had received from women, and clergymen, and others throughout the country. i, too, have received many warm words of sympathy from those who think that i am right. it is true many of them may be ignorant people, and therefore may be wrong; but they have written to encourage me with their kindly sympathy in my pleading before you. if we are branded with the offence of circulating an obscene book, many of these poor people will still think "no." they think such knowledge would prevent misery in their families, would check hunger in their families, and would hinder disease in their families. do you know what poverty means in a poor man's house? it means that when you are reproaching a poor and ignorant man with brutality, you forget that he is merely struggling against that hardship of life which drives all chivalry and courtesy out of his existence. do not blame poor men too much that they are rough and brutal. think mercifully of a man such as a brick-maker, who, going home after his day's toil, finds six or seven little ones crying for bread, and clinging around his wife for the food which they cannot get. think you such a scene as that is not sufficient to make both himself and her hungry and angry too? gentlemen, it is for you, in your deliverance of guilty or not guilty, to say how we are to go from this court--whether, when we leave this place, if you mark us guilty, his lordship may feel it to be his duty to sentence us, and put upon us the brand of a doom such as your verdict may warrant; or whether, by your verdict of not guilty--which i hope for myself and desire for my co-defendant--we may go out of this court absolved from that shame which this indictment has sought to put upon us. we must pass over the evidence given by dr. alice vickery, dr. c. r. drysdale, mr. bohn and others for the defence; and refer briefly to the summing-up of the lord chief justice (sir alexander cockburn). his lordship dwelt upon "the mischievous character and effect" of the prosecution, and declared that "a more ill-advised and more injudicious proceeding" had probably never been brought into a court of justice. he adverted in terms of severity to the secrecy that had been maintained as to the real originators of the prosecution. in discussing the questions involved, his lordship referred to the theory of malthus as "a theory which astonished the world, though it is now accepted as an irrefragable truth, and has since been adopted by economist after economist. that the evils arising from over-population," he continued, "are evils which, if they could be prevented, it would be the first business of human charity to prevent, there cannot be any doubt. that the evils of population are real, and not imaginary, no one acquainted with the state of society in the present day can possibly deny." upon the question whether or not the advocacy of prudential checks tended to corrupt public morals, his lordship said to the jury: "you must decide that with a due regard and reference to the law, and with an honest and determined desire to maintain the morals of mankind. but, on the other hand, you must carefully consider what is due to public discussion, and with an anxious desire not, from any prejudiced view of this subject, to stifle what may be a subject of legitimate enquiry." the concluding passages of the charge to the jury are so significant that they are here reproduced entire: if you are of opinion that this work of knowlton's, although well intended, and although the publication of it by the defendants may be intended for the benefit of mankind, if you think they have taken an erroneous view as to the effect of the work, and that its entire scope is subversive of the morals of society, if that is your opinion, it is then your bounden duty to find the defendants liable. but whilst that is the case, it is for the prosecution to make out the charge they have undertaken to establish. if you think they have failed--if you think these are matters which may fairly be discussed--that the proper answer to them is by refuting them by argument and not by prosecution, the defendants are entitled to your verdict. or if you have any doubt as to the effect of this work you are bound to bring them in not guilty. i would only say in conclusion, that whatever outrages decency, whatever tends to corrupt the morals of society, and especially the morals and purity of women--whatever tends to have that result is, when published, an offence against the law. but that offence like every other must be made out. if you think it is made out, if there is a conviction in your minds that though they have acted from a desire to do good, yet in your opinion they have done wrong, they have then brought themselves within the definition of the statute. despite the powerful speeches of the defendants and the obviously sympathetic charge of the judge, the jury were not equal to their opportunity to make a clear stand for freedom of discussion. they returned a halting "special" verdict, declaring that the book was "calculated to deprave public morals," but at the same time they entirely exonerated the defendants from any corrupt motives in publishing it. upon this the judge reluctantly directed the jury to return a verdict of guilty. the remainder of the story is most concisely told in mrs. besant's own words: "obviously annoyed at the verdict, the lord chief justice refused to give judgment, and let us go on our own recognisances. when we came up later for judgment, he urged us to surrender the pamphlet as the jury had condemned it; said our whole course with regard to it had been right, but that we ought to yield to the judgment of the jury. we were obstinate, and i shall never forget the pathetic way in which the great judge urged us to submit, and how at last when we persisted that we would continue to sell it till the right to sell it was gained, he said that he would have let us go free if we would have yielded to the court, but our persistence compelled him to sentence us. we gave notice of appeal, promising not to sell till the appeal was decided, and he let us go on our own recognisances. on appeal we quashed the verdict, and went free; we recovered all the pamphlets seized, and publicly sold them; we continued the sale till we received an intimation that no further prosecution would be attempted against us, and then we dropped the sale of the pamphlet and never took it up again." [3] having given an account of this memorable trial, we proceed to trace some of its far-reaching effects. in the first place, dr. knowlton's pamphlet gained immediately an enormous circulation. before the prosecution the annual sales were very small; within three months from the time when proceedings were instituted against the publishers, 125,000 copies were sold. but this result, startling as it appears, was by no means the most important phase of the impetus given to the public mind upon the question of population by the cause célèbre of "the queen versus charles bradlaugh and annie besant." during the trial the newspapers of this country contained lengthy reports of the proceedings, and the remarkable speeches of the defendants were thus carried far and wide. their popular statements of the malthusian position, their description of the evils arising from over-population and the remedies that they proposed were sent forth into many thousands of homes into which no hint of the truth would otherwise have penetrated. the press, with its myriad voices, became, for the time, a mighty organ of new-malthusian propaganda, repeating, in tones that echoed round the world, the eloquent words of two social reformers to whom the miseries of the poor were known, and who had faced the danger of imprisonment and of social obloquy in order to proclaim that which they felt to be the only efficient remedy for poverty. amidst the public excitement caused by this famous trial, the malthusian league was called into existence, and has since carried forward the work of propaganda in an organised and systematic fashion. it was founded to promote the following objects: i. to agitate for the abolition of all penalties on the public discussion of the population question, and to obtain such a statutory definition as shall render it impossible, in the future, to bring such discussions within the scope of the common law as a misdemeanor. ii. to spread among the people, by all practicable means, a knowledge of the law of population, of its consequences, and of its bearing upon human conduct and morals. dr. charles r. drysdale, m.d., f.r.c.s., eng., has from the first been the president of the league, and has devoted himself to the work of explaining and advocating the new-malthusian principle. the list of vice-presidents has included the names of the late m. yves guyot, a distinguished french deputé and minister of state, and of mr. j. bryson, president of the northumberland miners' association. a reference to its present composition will show the reader that the efforts of the league to spread enlightened views on the population question have the approval and sympathy of influential persons in this and in other countries. [4] the work of the league is chiefly carried on by public lectures and meetings, the dissemination of literature, and letters addressed to the editors of newspapers. by these means the public mind is constantly being influenced in the direction of rational views upon the population question. the annual meetings of members and friends of the league have afforded valuable opportunities of obtaining expressions of opinion upon the subject of malthusianism from many influential persons. letters expressing hearty approval of the movement have been received from mrs. mona caird, lord derby, lord pembroke, the late lord bramwell, mr. leonard courtney, m.p., mr. w. b. maclaren, m.p., professor bain, mr. arnold white, mr. g. h. darwin and others. four years after the formation of the league, a "medical branch" was established for the following purposes: i. to aid the malthusian league in its crusade against poverty and the accompanying evils by obtaining the co-operation of qualified medical practitioners, both british and foreign. ii. to obtain a body of scientific opinion on points of sexual physiology and pathology involved in the "population question," and which can only be discussed by those possessed of scientific knowledge. iii. to agitate for a free and open discussion of the population question in all its aspects in the medical press, and thus to obtain a recognition of the scientific oasis and the absolute necessity of neo-malthusianism. it will be seen that the work of this section is of a special and scientific character. the names of the officers and members (given in the appendix) will show that the advocacy of prudential checks to population is sanctioned by a body of physicians of unquestioned eminence. having given an outline of the permanent organisation of malthusian propaganda which grew out of the events of 1877, we proceed to trace briefly the history of the movement from that period. it is in the main a story of petty persecutions on the one side, and, upon the other, of steady persistence in the work of informing the public mind. the principal obstacle to the progress of the movement, and one which it is slowly but surely surmounting, is the prejudice born of ignorance and bigotry. journalists, statesmen and other leaders of opinion do not hesitate to avow their adhesion to the principle formulated by malthus; but they are, almost without exception, dominated by the fear of mrs. grundy, and shrink from incurring the odium which, they imagine, would result from a frank recognition of the only logical outcome of that principle. they join loudly in the chorus on the evils of over-population; but, as a rule, they will lend no public countenance to the distinct advocacy of prudential checks. hence the task of the pioneers of the movement is rendered excessively difficult; but from the very inception of the malthusian league, the work of propaganda has been carried forward with unfailing devotion and singleness of purpose. in its earliest days, the league was called upon to support one of its most respected members under stress of persecution. in february, 1878, mr. edward truelove was prosecuted and tried before lord chief justice cockburn for publishing the hon. robert dale owen's pamphlet entitled moral physiology, and an essay on individual, family, and national poverty, by an anonymous author. mr. w. a. hunter, in defending the case, made a most powerful speech in support of the malthusian position. the jury were unable to agree upon a verdict, and the proceedings came to an abortive termination. three months later, however, mr. truelove was a second time placed upon his trial, the venue meanwhile being changed from the court of queen's bench to the old bailey. a common jury found no difficulty in returning a verdict of guilty, and mr. truelove (then in his sixty-eighth year) was sentenced to pay a fine of £50 and to be imprisoned for four months. a great public meeting was held at st. james's hall on june 6th, when mr. bradlaugh, mrs. besant, dr. drysdale and other friends of the movement protested against the action of the authorities in thus interfering with the right of free discussion, and expressed their admiration of mr. truelove's courage and consistency. mr. truelove endured the privations of imprisonment with fortitude and dignity, sustained by the knowledge that his cause was righteous. he was taken to coldbath fields in a prison-van, handcuffed like a dangerous criminal; compelled to lie on the "plank-bed," and subjected to all the rigors of gaol discipline. during the first three months he was allowed no meat; after that time he was permitted to have six ounces of australian tinned meat per week. happily the confinement and hardships did not prejudicially affect his health. on september 12th he was welcomed back to liberty by a large and enthusiastic gathering of friends at the hall of science, london. the leading members of the malthusian league were present, and mr. moncure d. conway, and the rev. stewart d. headlam attended to do honor to one who had suffered for conscience sake. a purse containing £200 was presented to mr. truelove, together with the following testimonial: to edward truelove, on his release from four months' imprisonment in coldbath fields prison--suffered in defence of the liberty of the press. the undersigned, on behalf of the national secular society and of the malthusian league, desire to welcome you on your return to liberty, and to offer you their heartiest thanks for the courage and endurance you have displayed, in defending the right of free publication of opinion. the battle for the liberty of the press has been steadily waged ever since the invention of printing, and a long muster-roll of names might be given of those who, first at the stake, and since in prison, have in turn paid their share of the penalty-purchase for the victories already achieved. you have worthily entitled yourself to an honorable place in this muster-roll, the more so that you have stood firm in a day when too many temporise and flinch. from almost every part of england, and from remote districts, as well as from the great centres of scotland, many thousands of your fellow countrymen and countrywomen have pleaded for your release, and from all parts of the civilised world expressions have been received, of sympathy with you, and of indignation against your persecutors. as some slight mark of our gratitude and affectionate esteem, and in recognition of the honor with which you have crowned a long life of unwavering courage, we present you this address, and the accompanying purse of gold, begging you to accept with them our sincerest wishes for your future welfare. signed on behalf of the national secular society. chas. bradlaugh, president. robert forder, secretary. the malthusian league. c. drysdale, m.d., president. annie besant, hon. sec. hall of science, 12th september, 1878. the case of mr. truelove was the last prosecution of importance in this country for the publication of works dealing with the population question. the proceedings against mr. bradlaugh and mrs. besant, after being quashed in the court of appeal upon a writ of error, were never renewed. dr. knowlton's pamphlet, the fruits of philosophy, was withdrawn from circulation, and mrs. besant wrote a small book, the law of population: its consequences and its bearing upon human conduct and morals, to take its place. of this work nearly 200,000 copies were circulated in great britain; many pirated editions were published in america and australia; and it was translated into several european languages. it formed the basis of a remarkable judgment by mr. justice windeyer (delivered in the supreme court of new south wales), to which further reference will presently be made. in june, 1887, dr. h. a. allbutt, of leeds, published a sixpenny pamphlet entitled the wife's handbook. the following paragraph, taken from the introduction to the book, will explain its object: "to save the lives and preserve the health of thousands of women, to rescue from death and disease children who may be born, to teach the young wife how to order her health during the most important period of her life, to remove from her mind the popular ignorance in which she may have been reared, and to enable her to learn truths concerning her duties as wife and mother, i have thought fit to write this little work." shortly after its appearance, the spirit of persecution was again manifested, this time in an obscure and technical aspect. as a member of the royal college of physicians of edinburgh, dr. allbutt was professionally amenable to the council of that body; and he was summoned to appear and show cause why he should not be removed from the rolls for the offence of writing and publishing the wife's handbook. the matter was warmly taken up by the malthusian league, and protests were addressed to the college from all parts of great britain and from france, germany, holland, italy, india and jamaica. nothing more was heard of the affair until november, when dr. allbutt received a notice to appear before the general medical council, in london, to show cause why his name should not be struck off the register. on november 23rd the complaint against dr. allbutt was considered by the general medical council, a body composed of twenty-seven physicians. dr. allbutt was represented by mr. wallace (barrister), and the "prosecution" was conducted by mr. muir mackenzie, the legal adviser of the council. the following were the points which the council proceeded to consider: "(1) was the wife's handbook a fair medical treatise, or was it an indecent advertisement? (2) was it practically an injury to the public and an insult to the profession?" mr. wallace, in a very able speech, traversed the suggestions made by the council's solicitor, and challenged the right of an irresponsible body to determine whether any line of advocacy was "subversive of public morality." if dr. allbutt had violated the law, he was amenable to legal proceedings, and it was not for the medical council to sit in judgment upon him. mr. wallace justified the course that dr. allbutt had taken in publishing his work at a low price in order that it might be placed within the reach of the poorest classes. he called the attention of the members to a list of the petitions which had been presented to the council on the subject from all parts of europe. they amounted to over seventy; many of them came from medical, scientific, and political societies. he assured the council that the members of the medical profession were by no means unanimous in condemning mr. allbutt, and it would run against the feelings of a very considerable minority if they decided adversely to his client. the book was written with the express object of saving poor people from the misery, poverty, and starvation which resulted from the over-production of children; and he asked the council, in conclusion, to arrive at a decision which would relieve his client from the imputation which had been cast upon him, and which would restore him to his proper position. the council having deliberated in private, the president delivered the following judgment: "in the opinion of the council, mr. allbutt has committed the offence charged against him, that is to say, of having published and publicly caused to be sold a work entitled the wife's handbook, in london and elsewhere, at so low a price as to bring the work within the reach of the youth of both sexes, to the detriment of public morals. secondly, the offence is, in the opinion of the council, 'infamous conduct in a professional respect.' thirdly, the registrar is hereby ordered to erase the name of mr. h. a. allbutt from the medical register." thus ended the futile attempt of the general medical council to put a stop to the publication of malthusian works "at so low a price." nobody was a penny the worse for the ponderous proceedings of this archaic tribunal. dr. allbutt has never ceased to practise legally as a physician; twenty editions of the wife's handbook have been issued and 180,000 copies sold. this case aroused much attention in the press. the pall mall gazette declared that "the decision of the general medical council to erase from its rolls the name of a physician who published 'at a low price' information as to the best means for preventing the excessive multiplication of children beyond their parents' means of subsistence or the possibility of education and control, will before long become familiar as one of the most glaring illustrations of professional prejudice and human folly. when such a cool-headed respectable as lord derby feels bound to call attention to the increase of 400,000 per annum in our population as one of the most pressing problems of our day, it is really too fatuous for the general medical council to brand as 'infamous' a practitioner who, in a work to which no objection is taken on the score of impropriety or immorality, supplies to the poor information already possessed by the rich." we have to record but one later attempt to interfere with the free discussion of the population question in this country. in october, 1891, mr. h. s. young, m.a., was summoned to appear at bow street police court on a charge of sending through the post a leaflet entitled some reasons for advocating the prudential limitation of families. the proceedings were taken under the post office protection act. mr. besley, in conducting the prosecution, made the remarkable statement that the only check against immorality in this country was the fear of pregnancy! speaking in his own defence, mr. young contended that there was no "obscenity" involved in pointing out to the poor how they might limit their families. the magistrate (mr. lushington) admitted that the leaflet was written in very careful language, and not intended to be at all offensive; but still he held that it was "obscene," convicted mr. young, and ordered him to pay a fine of £20 and costs. the defendant applied to the magistrate to state a case, as he intended to appeal; but mr. lushington refused to do so. this prosecution led to the formation of a free discussion committee, and public meetings were held in various parts of the metropolis, protesting against the infringement of public freedom by legal proceedings. repeated attempts were made by mr. young and his advisers to bring the case before a court of law, but technical difficulties rendered this practically impossible, and the matter was allowed to drop. meantime the propaganda of new-malthusian views is steadily continued. the pages of the malthusian, the monthly organ of the league, bear constant witness to activity which hastes not and rests not. whether its energies are to be again stimulated by persecution, time alone can show. a brief statement concerning the position of the malthusian movement in foreign countries may be usefully added to this chapter. holland.--several years ago a dutch malthusian league was established by mr. s. van houten (doctor of laws, and deputé), mr. c. v. gerritsen, dr. c. de rooy, dr. lobry de bruyn and others. in 1887 the league numbered amongst its members, in amsterdam alone, six doctors of medicine, eleven doctors of law, and three professors of the university. at amsterdam a dispensary has long been open, where a lady (dr. aletta h. jacobs) and other medical members attend and give advice to those seeking practical information upon prudential checks. large numbers of poor married women apply at the dispensary for instruction as to the best methods by which they can restrict the size of their families. several pamphlets upon the population question have been issued by the dutch malthusian league. in 1887, thirty thousand copies of one of its publications had been circulated in a country with a smaller population than that of london. the most recent pamphlet on malthusianism, from the pen of mr. j. a. van der haven, is entitled the dark netherlands, and the way out of it. the author draws a sad picture of life in some of the poor quarters of holland, where, he says, "laughter is seldom heard, and hunger and early death are constant visitors." there is, however, hope for a brighter future. mr. gerritsen states that in holland "directors of large industrial establishments and railway societies make their workmen acquainted with the means of preventing themselves from drifting into poverty." germany.--the malthusian question has frequently been the subject of discussion in germany. dr. stille, of hanover, dr. hans ferdy, dr. mensinga, dr. zacharias, and other physicians have again and again called public attention to the importance of the subject; but, until lately, no combined effort to influence public opinion has been possible. mr. max hausmeister, of stuttgart, has at length set on foot an organisation for the propaganda of new-malthusian views. on february 12th, 1892, a private meeting was held at stuttgart "to consider the advisability of forming a malthusian society." this led to the establishment of the sozial-harmonische verein (social harmony union), and a monthly journal, die sozial harmonie, was founded "to enlighten the people of germany upon social, political and economic questions and the relation of these to sexual matters." (subscription: 2·50 marks per annum.) germany, with its teeming population of impoverished workers, affords an enormous field for malthusian propaganda. in holland and germany alone, amongst continental countries, has the malthusian view found organised expression. france, whilst extremely prudent in practice, is strongly anti-malthusian in theory, at least so far as the governing class is concerned. drs. lutaud, le blond, and rebanté, of paris, are prominent amongst the adherents of the new-malthusian movement in france. in india, public attention has lately been called to the population question by a prosecution instituted by the police authorities against messrs. taraporewalla & sons, of bombay, for selling copies of a pamphlet entitled true morality; or, the theory and practice of new-malthusianism, by mr. j. r. holmes. the chief presidency magistrate convicted the defendants and imposed a fine of 201 rupees (about £12. 10s.). the conviction was not permitted to pass without public protest. the editor of a bombay journal wrote: "the battle has been fought and won in the west, and the subject is more or less directly treated in the leading reviews, and books and pamphlets are openly sold in england. our duty here is clear enough. are the freethinkers in india, whether new-malthusians or not, to quietly stand by and see the free discussion of this question denied the public? we are perfectly aware that although there are many who will aid in this work, there are few--alas! how few!--who will openly bear the brunt of the fray. however, there is at least one who will do it. but will the others stand round and give whatever help they can, even if silently?" the standard of comfort amongst the teeming native population of india is deplorably low, the average income per head in the north-west provinces not exceeding 22 1/2 rupees (say £1. 8s. 6d.) per year. and yet, forsooth, those who seek to lift the poor ryots from their abysmal poverty and misery are confronted with the smug conventionalities of western europe, and punished as distributors of "obscene" literature! america has no malthusian organisation, but there are many sympathisers with the movement in various parts of the country. dr. e. b. foote, jr., of new york, is a most active and earnest advocate of malthusian views, and has written several popular works on the subject. the customs and postal prohibitions are very stringent as to the admission and transmission of malthusian literature and appliances. some years ago the late mr. d. m. bennett underwent a term of imprisonment at auburn for sending through the post a pamphlet by mr. heywood on the marriage question. just after his arrest mr. bennett stated: "my only object in selling this pamphlet is to vindicate the liberty of thought, of the press, and of the mails. i have always announced that i did not approve of it; but as long as mr. heywood does, i declare that he has a right to mail it as part of his right to publish it, and as a necessary part of the freedom of the press. if this means that i am to go to prison, to prison let it be." from this necessarily slight and incomplete sketch of the position of the movement abroad it will be seen that the theory of malthus is gradually leavening the thought and helping to shape the destinies of the civilised world. chapter iv. a judicial vindication of new-malthusianism. as we have shown in the preceding chapter, repeated attempts have been made to suppress, by legal process, the advocacy of new-malthusian views. those attempts have failed, as they were bound to fail. by the strange irony of fate, indeed, one of the most powerful, logical and convincing vindications of the prudential limitation of families has proceeded from the judicial bench. the famous judgment delivered by mr. justice windeyer, senior puisne judge of the supreme court of new south wales, on december 12th, 1888, is so important a contribution to the discussion of this question that a chapter may profitably be devoted to a summary of its arguments and conclusions. a stipendiary magistrate in new south wales convicted mr. w. w. collins on a charge of selling an "obscene" book, viz., the law of population, written by mrs. annie besant. mr. collins appealed against this conviction to the supreme court, consisting of chief justice darley and justices windeyer and stephen. the sole question at issue was whether the work was "obscene"; and upon this the judgment of the court (the chief justice dissenting) was given that the conviction should be set aside. in delivering judgment, mr. justice windeyer said: a court of law has now to decide for the first time whether it is lawful to argue in a decent way with earnestness of thought and sobriety of language the right of married men and women to limit the number of the children to be begotten by them by such means as medical science says are possible and not injurious to health. of the enormous importance of this question, not only to persons of limited means in every society and country, but to nations, the populations of which have a tendency to increase more rapidly than the means of subsistence, there cannot be the slightest doubt. since the days when malthus first announced his views on the subject to be misrepresented and vilified, as originators of new ideas usually are by the ignorant and unthinking, the question has not only been pressing itself with increased intensity of force upon thinkers and social reformers dealing with it in the abstract, but the necessity of practically dealing with the difficulty of over-population has become a topic publicly discussed by statesmen and politicians. it is no longer a question whether it is expedient to prevent the growth of a pauper population, with all its attendant miseries following upon semi-starvation, over-crowding, disease, and an enfeebled national stamina of constitution; but how countries suffering from all these causes of national decay shall avert national disaster by checking the production of children, whose lives must be too often a misery to themselves, a burden to society, and a danger to the state. his lordship pointed out that public opinion has so far advanced that the abstract necessity of prudential limitation is now generally admitted. "statesmen, reviewers, and ecclesiastics join in a common chorus of exhortation against improvident marriages to the working classes, and preach to them the necessity of deferring the ceremony till they have saved the competency necessary to support the truly british family of ten or twelve children." it is, however, futile to hope that celibacy and continence will furnish the solution of the question. the protestant world has rejected the idea of a celibate clergy as incompatible with purity and the safety of female virtue. how, then, can we expect that men and women, "with their moral nature more or less stunted, huddled together in dens where the bare conditions of living preclude even elementary ideas of modesty, with none of the pleasures of life save those enjoyed in common with the animals--... these victims of a social state, for which the educated are responsible if they do not use their superior wisdom and knowledge for its redress, to exercise all the self-control of which the celibate ecclesiastic is supposed to be incapable"? the judge then proceeded to argue that, as the evils of over-population were almost universally recognised, the duty of making known to the people the practical method of escaping from them must also be recognised: why is the philosopher who describes the nature of the disease from which we are suffering, who detects the causes which induce it and the general character of the remedies to be applied, to be regarded as a sage and a benefactor, but his necessary complement in the evolution of a great idea, the man who works out in practice the theories of the abstract thinker, to be denounced as a criminal? it was only when jenner ventured to act on the theory which he had founded upon his observations that he was denounced and vilified in language which it is now almost impossible to conceive. all history, however, has shown that public opinion advances whilst the law remains stationary; and martyrs must suffer until the law is brought into conformity with the public conscience: a certain number of prosecutions under the law, a certain number of victims to the ignorance or superstition of those who framed it, a certain number of refusals to convict under a growing sense of its unwisdom, injustice and barbarity, seem to be in all societies the stages passed through by laws established for the purpose of coercing the opinions of mankind before they become obsolete, if judge-made, or, if statutes, are repealed as inconsistent with advancing knowledge. with regard to the pamphlet under consideration, the judge pointed out that it did not come before them as an obscene libel at common law. the question, therefore, whether the purpose advocated in the book (i.e., the limitation of families) was inconsistent with the morals of society, was not relevant. they had only to enquire if the details as to prudential checks, given in that pamphlet, were inconsistent with decency. it had been admitted in argument that the greater part of the work, dealing with the abstract necessity of limiting population, was not obscene. the only portion against which obscenity was alleged was the chapter in which the means by which conception could be prevented were stated, and in which the female sexual organs were described as far as necessary for the purpose. the question was thus raised--what is obscenity? after quoting the definition of the word which had been adopted in a previous case, mr. justice windeyer laid down the principle that "it is the circumstances under which language is published, or acts done, that determine whether language or conduct is obscene. no natural function of the body is obscene itself. in the physical constitution of man, including all his natural instincts, there is nothing unholy or unclean." but certain natural actions, if performed in public, would be a gross outrage upon decency. in like manner, language that might be permissible and necessary if used on certain occasions, would manifestly be an outrage upon decency if used when occasion did not warrant it: the question therefore is, when language is objected to as obscene, whether the occasion upon which it has been used warrants its use in the manner resorted to. this view of the law, i find, is taken by the most distinguished writer upon the criminal law of modern days--that most acute thinker, sir james stephen. that learned judge, in his digest of the criminal law, p. 105 submits the following as the true view of the law with reference to the publication of matter that would be obscene if not justified by the occasion: "a person (he says) is justified in exhibiting disgusting objects, or publishing obscene books, papers, writings, pictures, drawings, or other representations, if their exhibition or publication is for the public good, as being necessary or advantageous to religion of morality, to the administration of justice, the pursuit of science, literature or art, or other objects of general interest; but the justification ceases if the publication is made in such a manner, to such an extent, or under such circumstances, as to exceed what the public good requires in regard to the particular matter published." mr. justice windeyer said he accepted this view as the law, and the question for consideration was whether the chapter detailing prudential checks made the publication obscene. to determine this, it was necessary to consider the work as a whole, in order that it might be ascertained whether the language complained of was warranted by the occasion: as it cannot be denied that the question propounded for discussion is of enormous importance, and that it is right to advocate in the abstract the expediency of checking the advancing tide of population, it appears to me impossible to contend that language which tells how this may be done is obscene if it goes no further than is necessary for this purpose. having carefully read the third chapter of the pamphlet, it appears to me to be written in all decent sobriety of language. i see nothing in its language which an earnest-minded man or woman of pure life and morals might not use to one of his or her own sex, if explaining to him or her what was necessary in order to understand the methods suggested by which married people could prevent the number of their children increasing beyond their means of supporting them. there is nothing which points to the conclusion that any language is used with the intention of exciting feelings of wantonness and lust; and it requires but slight acquaintance with the medical profession to discover that the advice given in this chapter is frequently given by them to women suffering from over-childbearing, and to those to whom parturition is dangerous. the information afforded in the third chapter of the pamphlet, if given by a medical man to a patient suffering from over-maternity, or if whispered in matrimonial confidence, or imparted in the privacy existing between the author and the reader of her pamphlet, is not obscenity; though the public proclamation of the same information on a placard in george street or piccadilly, so that all who ran might read, would be an obscenity of the grossest kind, so clearly do the circumstances of a publication alter its character. if admitted, as it is, that the information, physiological and otherwise, given in chapter iii. can be found in medical works of an expensive kind, it cannot affect the character of the information for obscenity that it is given in a cheap form. information cannot be pure, chaste and legal in morocco at a guinea, but impure, obscene and indictable in a paper pamphlet at sixpence. the information, to be of value in a national point of view as a safeguard from the miseries of over-population and overcrowding, must be given wholesale to the masses likely to over-breed. the time is past when knowledge can be kept as the exclusive privilege of any caste or class. the fact that a book may excite prurient thoughts if used for that purpose by the low-minded and the young, does not make it obscene. the objection which has been urged, that the means suggested for the prevention of conception might be availed of by the unmarried and immoral for the purpose of enabling them safely to indulge in vice, is simply the application to this subject of the exploded delusion that knowledge is a dangerous thing.... the time is surely past when countenance can be given to the argument that a knowledge of any truth, either in physics or in the domain of thought, is to be stifled because its abuse might be dangerous to society. the guardianship of the eunuch and the seclusion of the harem were not necessary to build up the national character of english women for chastity; and it is an insult to them to argue that it is necessary to keep them in ignorance on sexual matters to maintain it. ignorance is no more the mother of chastity than of true religion. mr. justice windeyer then examined the contention that the prudential limitation of families is "a violation of natural laws and a frustration of nature's ends": the argument that nature intends every woman to conceive as often as is possible would, if carried to its logical conclusion, result in the indian custom of marrying every female child upon reaching puberty in order that no opportunity of conception should be lost. in all other matters of breeding but the all-important one of the breeding of the human race, the aim of man is to defeat the effects of nature's laws of reproduction, and to limit the number and kind of animals produced to the amount required for the use of man. the forces of nature, blind and ruthless in their effect, we control and defeat in their operation by all the means that science places at our command. to protect churches and hospitals from the operation of nature's laws, we put up conductors to arrest the inexorable effects of lightning, which would remorselessly destroy what piety and humanity would protect. the course of nature is to kill a noble woman, a devoted wife and loving mother, if her pelvis is too small to admit the delivery of a child with an abnormally large head. the practice of civilised man, aided by science, is in such a case of parturition to destroy the infant and to save the mother. the interference with the course of nature is direct, the practice in no way natural; but enlightened public opinion in no way condemns it. but if the pelvis of a woman is so unusually small that she never can be delivered of a child but at the peril of her life, where is the immorality in the husband and wife resorting to any preventive checks that may preserve a life that is dear and perhaps valuable to the world? it is unreasoning prejudice alone that starts the objection that such prevention of all the physical agony involved in a painful and dangerous delivery and possible loss of life is immoral and unnatural. the case of the queen versus bradlaugh and besant (referred to at length in the preceding chapter) had been cited as an authority in support of the contention that the law of population was an obscene book, inasmuch as the pamphlet which was the subject of that prosecution, and for the publication of which the defendants were convicted, advocated the adoption of preventive checks. mr. justice windeyer, however, refused to accept that case as a binding precedent: as i have already pointed out, the case cannot be regarded as an authority upon that point, as there the question was whether the pamphlet was an obscene libel. whether the verdict of the jury was right in that case is not a matter of law, but of opinion. reading the summing-up of lord chief justice cockburn with some knowledge of judicial modes of putting criminal cases to a jury, it appears to me that, though expressing no direct opinion as to its character, the learned chief justice thought that the book was not an obscene libel, and was cautiously guiding the jury to that conclusion. by the opinion of a jury coming to the consideration of so delicate a question of social science as was submitted to them, probably without any previous acquaintance with subjects of the kind, i decline to be in any way bound; and i have no hesitation in saying that, had i been a member of the jury, i should have acted upon the reasoning of lord chief justice cockburn, and acquitted the defendants. not only does the whole tenor of his lordship's summing-up appear to me argumentatively in favor of the defendants, but, from certain passages, it appears to me that the inference is clearly to be drawn that he neither thought the physiological details of the book were obscene, nor was of opinion that its teaching would promote immorality. mr. justice windeyer quoted several passages from the judgment of sir alexander cockburn in support of his view that the lord chief justice did not regard the preventive checks recommended as immoral. how, he asked, could any reasonable man condemn as immoral the wish of married people to bring no more children into the world than they can support, and the adoption of the necessary means to effect that wish? instead of poor, let a case of consumptive parents be taken, or of parents one of whom has developed symptoms of insanity. who could suppose that any jury would regard any means adopted by them to prevent the procreation of a number of children, diseased and rickety, or certain to inherit a taint of insanity, would be otherwise than natural and right, and the adoption of any means that medical science could suggest to prevent it not only not immoral but laudable in the highest degree? if it is not immoral to do what the pamphlet advocates, it seems to me impossible to argue that the mere advocacy itself is a penal offence. the question is, where does the immorality come in? wrongs can only be regarded as such in their relation to others, or as self-regarding. is there in the adoption of preventive intercourse any invasion of the rights of others? certainly none. the use of the preventive checks can only be viewed as a possible wrong in the light of a self-regarding one. how can it be argued with any show of sound reason that the use of preventive checks (adopted, perhaps, from the determination not to bring into the world children that cannot be even fed) can be morally injurious to persons animated by a sense of duty founded upon the noblest altruism? the world would have little need of penal statutes if a consideration of the rights of others actuated the conduct of all mankind. active altruism--the distinctive feature of christian teaching, inculcated in the precept, "do unto others as you would men should do unto you"--can never in its application injuriously react upon the moral nature of those who seek to put it in force with regard to any conduct which may affect the happiness of others. the profound law of ethics, that in trying to do good to others we unconsciously benefit ourselves, is no less true here than in all other phases of human conduct. every thought entertained, every effort made for the good of others, must elevate the thinker and the actor. who will say that the low and vicious parents of east london's gutter children, brought up amidst all the moral horrors of over-crowding, half-starved, and stunted in growth, without elementary notions of decency or morality--who will say that such parents would not have been morally superior if they could have seen the wrong they were doing in bringing such offspring into the world, and had taken measures to prevent it? who will say that the future of society would not have an infinitely better outlook if the breeding of such children were to be prevented by the conjugal prudence of parents in resorting to the use of such means as would prevent their procreation? it is idle to preach to the masse, the necessity of deferred marriage and of a celibate life during the heyday of passion. to attempt to stifle the cry of human nature uttered in the voice of its most powerful instinct, is indeed to fly in the face of nature. like all attempts to regulate conduct by ignoring the facts of human nature, it must signally fail. prostitution with all its horrors is the outcome of enforced unnatural celibacy. to use and not abuse, to direct and control in its operation any god-given faculty, is the true aim of man, the true object of all morality. in concluding this memorable judgment, mr. justice windeyer declared that he would not seek to evade the responsibility of deciding the matter submitted to him by shielding himself behind the decisions of other judges whose unreasoned opinions were of no weight against unrefuted arguments: so strong is the dread of the world's censure upon this topic, that few have courage openly to express their views upon it; and its nature is such that it is only among thinkers who discuss all subjects, or amongst intimate acquaintances, that community of thought upon this question is discovered. but let anyone inquire amongst those who have sufficient education and ability to think for themselves, and who do not idly float, slaves to the current of conventional opinion, and he will discover that numbers of men and women of purest lives, of noblest aspirations, pious, cultivated, and refined, see no moral wrong in teaching the ignorant that it is wrong to bring into the world children to whom they cannot do justice, and who think it folly to stop short in telling them simply and plainly how to prevent it. a more robust view of morals teaches that it is puerile to ignore human passions and human physiology. a clearer perception of truth and the safety of trusting to it, teaches that in law as in religion it is useless trying to limit the knowledge of mankind by any inquisitorial attempts to place upon a judicial index expurgatorius works written with an earnest purpose, and commending themselves to thinkers of well-balanced minds. i will be no party to any such attempt. i do not believe that it was ever meant that the obscene publication act should apply to cases of this kind, but only to the publication of such matter as all good men would regard as lewd and filthy, to lewd and bawdy novels, pictures and exhibitions evidently published and given for lucre's sake. it could never have been intended to stifle the expression of thought by the earnest-minded on a subject of transcendent national importance like the present; and i will not strain it for that purpose. as pointed out by lord chief justice cockburn in the case of the queen versus bradlaugh and besant, all prosecutions of this kind should be regarded as mischievous, even by those who disapprove of the opinions sought to be stifled, inasmuch as they only tend more widely to diffuse the teaching objected to. to those on the other hand who desire its promulgation, it must be matter of congratulation that this, like all attempted persecutions of thinkers, will defeats its own object, and that truth, like a torch, "the more it's shook it shines." as it seems to me that this book is neither obscene in its language, nor by its teaching incites people to obscenity, i am of opinion that the prohibition should go. mr. justice stephen concurred in the judgment given, and the conviction of mr. w. w. collins was therefore set aside. we may fittingly conclude this chapter by reproducing from the malthusian a note in which the writer briefly describes the character of mr. justice windeyer: "in early life i met mr. windeyer at his house at tomago, on the hunter river. his father, then dead, had been quite a notable man in the colony, as an able, intrepid, popular and high-minded politician; and young windeyer seemed to be his father's son--frank, open, unaffected, and with a fine gentlemanly bearing. since then, his career has quite fulfilled its early promise; and, for you, as a warm advocate of new-malthusianism, the strength of support and encouragement lies, i think, very much in the fact that justice windeyer is not only a man of great legal ability but of high moral character." chapter v. prudential checks. if the validity of the malthusian position be admitted, there is no logical escape from the conclusion that the knowledge of innocent means by which families may be limited should be conveyed to the people. yet, with characteristic inconsistency, the public advocacy of malthusianism in the abstract is regarded with approval, whilst the practical application of the principle is met with the parrot-cry of "obscenity," and menaced with penal infliction. in the windeyer judgment it will be noted that the proceedings against mr. collins were based not upon those portions of mrs. besant's pamphlet in which the subject was philosophically discussed, but upon the passages in which the preventive checks were described. an eminent english statesman, mr. john morley, has insisted in a public speech upon the "vital importance" of the population question, and, he added, "i wish that we did not shirk it so much." a popular english clergyman, the rev. h. r. haweis, has declared in a popular weekly newspaper that the most important remedy for poverty is "to control the family growth, according to the family means of support." but when the social reformer passes from vague precept to direct instruction, he is confronted by an anomalous law which threatens him as a foe to public morality. the tragical element in this otherwise ridiculous inconsistency lies in the fact that the knowledge of prudential checks is denied to the very class which most urgently needs such information. it is the poor alone who suffer acutely from the effects of over-population: it is they who feel the actual sting of want when the small wage is distributed over a large family-area. for the well-to-do there is no mystery concerning prudential checks. the family doctor will whisper discreetly into the ear of the wealthy matron whose quiver is sufficiently filled. expensive medical works containing full instructions are at the command of those who can afford to buy them. why should the poor be kept in ignorance upon a matter of supreme importance to them? upon the subject of prudential checks the medical profession as a body has afforded little or no assistance. here, as in many other matters, "doctors differ"; and no steps have as yet been taken to ascertain, by scientific investigation, the best method of preventing conception. the checks now to be described are of two kinds--first, those in which success depends upon self-control; and, second, those in which mechanical appliances are used. i. the practice of withdrawal immediately before the act of coition is completed obtains very extensively in france. this, the most ancient of known methods, is referred to in the bible (genesis xxxviii. 8-9). the efficacy of the check depends, of course, entirely upon the self-control of the husband, and failure is therefore always possible. it may be mentioned that this plan has sometimes been objected to on the ground of supposed injury to health; but no evidence has been adduced in support of the objection. on the other hand, dr. c. r. drysdale has ascertained by personal enquiry that 100 members of the medical profession in paris "had only 174 children in all their married lives, or not two as an average.... the question of the effect produced upon the health of the parents by the use of the physical check of genesis xxxviii. was discussed at the meeting of the international medical congress at amsterdam in 1879; and two medical men of great distinction--mm. lutaud and leblanc--asserted distinctly that these practices of family physical prudence in france were in no way productive of ill-health to either conjoint. and, as they were universally made use of by the medical men of paris in limiting their own families, it was very unlikely that such damage to health as had been spoken of would not have been noted and clearly described long ago if it existed in nature." abstinence from intercourse during a certain period is said to be an effectual method of avoiding conception. this, however, rests upon the assumption that a female is more likely to conceive immediately before or after "menstruation" (the monthly flow). if connection do not take place within five days before, or eight days after, menstruation, the probability of pregnancy is supposed to be diminished. ii. of the various appliances which have been devised for the prevention of conception, the simplest and most effectual is the "sheath" (commonly known as the "french letter"). this an envelope of skin or very thin rubber, and is used by the husband. it completely covers the male organ, and, being closed at the extremity, prevents the semen from being discharged into the vagina. it is obvious that, if the sheath remain intact, it is impossible for conception to take place. the only danger to be guarded against is the breaking or perforation of the sheath, which should in all cases be carefully examined before use. the material may be tested by stretching it gently over the inside of the thumb, when the smallest fracture can be detected. if sheaths of good quality (not necessarily expensive) be used, and reasonable care taken to avoid accidental breakage, this check is certain. the enema syringe is an instrument frequently employed for preventive purposes. a solution (composed of a teaspoonful of alum dissolved in a pint of cold or tepid water) is injected by the female immediately after connection. the vertical and reverse syringe is more likely to act efficiently than the ordinary enema. a very simple and inexpensive method is the use of a small piece of fine sponge, soaked in warm water, and placed in such a position as to cover the mouth of the womb. the chances of failure are diminished by saturating the sponge with a solution of quinine. pessaries of various kinds are sometimes used to prevent conception. the simple pessary (of which there are several modifications) is a small dome-shaped appliance, made of thin rubber, and constructed to fit closely round the neck of the womb. if carefully adjusted and retained in position, the pessary may be relied upon. of late years a new form of pessary has been introduced and is stated to have been used with marked success. it consists of a small cone of cacao-butter, charged with quinine. the pessary is inserted a few minutes before connection takes place; the quinine, being liberated by the dissolution of the fatty substance, destroys the vitality of the seminal fluid. the malthusian league. (founded in 1877.) president: c. r. drysdale, m.d., m.r.c.p. lond., f.r.c.s. eng. vice-presidents: señor aldecoa, director of government charities, madrid. mr. g. anderson, c.e. m. yves guyot, deputé, rue de seine, paris. mr. gerritsen, amsterdam, holland. mr. s. van houten, deputé, the hague. mr. p. murugesa mudaliar, madras. mr. t. parris. dr. stille, hanover. dr. giovanni tari, naples. dr. alice vickeby. hon. secretary: mr. w. h. reynolds, new cross, london, s.e. rules. i.--name. that this society be called "the malthusian league." ii.--objects. that the objects of this society be: 1. to agitate for the abolition of all penalties on the public discussion of the population question, and to obtain such a statutory definition as shall render it impossible, in the future, to bring such discussions within the scope of the common law as a misdemeanor. 2. to spread among the people, by all practicable means, a knowledge of the law of population, of its consequences, and of its bearing upon human conduct and morals. iii.--principles. 1. "that population has a constant tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence." 2. that the checks which counteract this tendency are resolvable into positive or life-destroying, and prudential or birth-restricting. 3. that the positive or life-destroying checks comprehend the premature death of children and adults by disease, starvation, war and infanticide. 4. that the prudential or birth-restricting check consists in the limitation of offspring by abstention from marriage, or by prudence after marriage. 5. that prolonged abstention from marriage--as advocated by malthus--is productive of many diseases and of much sexual vice; early marriage, on the contrary, tends to ensure sexual purity, domestic comfort, social happiness, and individual health; but it is a grave social offence for men and women to bring into the world more children than they can adequately house, feed, clothe and educate. 6. that over-population is the most fruitful source of pauperism, ignorance, crime and disease. 7. that the full and open discussion of the population question is a matter of vital moment to society, and such discussion should be absolutely unfettered by fear of legal penalties. iv.--executive. 1. that the officers of the league consist of a president, vice-presidents, council, treasurer, secretaries, solicitor and auditors. 2. that the government of the league be vested in a council, consisting of a president, vice-presidents, and secretary (by virtue of their respective offices), of twenty members who shall be elected annually at a general meeting, and of a duly-appointed representative from each branch of the league which may hereafter be formed. 3. that the council have power to appoint a treasurer and secretaries from amongst its own members; to elect a president, vice-presidents, and solicitor, subject to the approval of the next general meeting; to fill up vacancies in its own ranks, and to make the necessary bye-laws for carrying out these laws and for the general management of the league. 4. that all candidates for election as officers shall be nominated one month before the annual general meeting, and that such nomination shall be publicly announced, the form and manner to be determined by the council. v.--membership. that the conditions of membership be an annual subscription of one shilling, which shall be taken to imply adhesion to the rules of the league; or an annual subscription of two shillings, which shall entitle the subscriber to receive the malthusian. to constitute life membership, a single payment of one guinea. vi.--general meetings. 1. that a general meeting be held once a year, at such place and time as the council shall determine, at which meeting the presentation of the report and balance sheet and the election of officers shall take precedence of all other business. 2. that, on the receipt of a requisition signed by not less than twenty-five members, a special general meeting be, within one month, called by the council. no other business but that set forth on the notice calling the meeting shall be taken into consideration. 3. that the voting at all meetings be taken by show of hands, except when a poll is demanded, when the voting shall be taken by ballot. vii.--expulsion. that the council have power to expel any member, but the member so expelled shall have a right of appeal to the annual general meeting, or to a special general meeting called for that purpose. viii.--alteration of rules. that no alteration be made in these rules, except at an annual general meeting, by the vote of two-thirds of those present, two months' notice of the proposed alteration having been given to the council. over-population; a lecture delivered for the sunday lecture society, under the title "the law of population: its meaning and menace." by john m. robertson. post free, 2 1/2d. plain home-talk, by edward b. foote, m.d. (u.s.a.) embracing medical common sense. 909 pages, with 200 illustrations. contents: the cause, prevention, and cure of disease--the food we eat--the liquids we drink--the atmosphere we live in--the clothes we wear--bad habits of children and youth--bad habits of manhood and of womanhood--sexual starvation--how to have healthy babies--private words to men--impotency--history of marriage, etc. the book is carefully and thoughtfully written in plain language, easily understood, and with the object of making its readers better parents and better citizens through the knowledge obtained of themselves and their duty to others. no parent should be without this book. useful for every-day reference. post free, six shillings. dr. foote's handbook of health, comprising information of the utmost importance to all who wish to enjoy life. 128 pages, post free, 1/1. the life and writings of t. r. malthus. by c. r. drysdale, m.d. 120 pages, with portrait of malthus. should be read by every student of social problems. post free, 8d. the population question. by dr. c. r. drysdale. a careful and complete statement of the neo-malthusian position. 100 pp., stout wrapper; post free 8d. the over-growth of population, and its remedy. an address to men only, delivered at lambeth baths on tuesday, january 15th, 1889, by william lant carpenter, b.a., b.sc. post free, 2d. early marriage and late parentage. the only solution of the social problem. by oxoniensis. post free, 2 1/2d. the cause of poverty. a paper read at the national liberal club, by dr. c. r. drysdale. post free 2d. poverty: its cause and cure. by m. g. h. post free, 2d. notes [1] this has already been admirably done in two pamphlets by dr. c. r. drysdale, president of the malthusian league: (1) the life and writings of malthus; (2) the population question. [2] preface to special report of trial. [3] lucifer, july, 1891. [4] see appendix. fruits of philosophy a treatise on the population question by charles knowlton edited by charles bradlaugh and annie besant publishers' preface. the pamphlet which we now present to the public is one which has been lately prosecuted under lord gampbell's act, and which we republish, in order to test the right of publication. it was originally written by charles knowlton, m. d., whose degree entitles him to be heard with respect on a medical question. it was first published in england, about forty years ago, by james watson, the gallant radical, who came to london and took up richard carlile's work, when carlile was in jail. he sold it, unchallenged, for many years, approved it, and recommended it. it was printed and published by messrs. holyoake & co., and found its place, with other works of a similar character, in their "freethought directory," of 1853, and was thus identified with freethought literature at the then leading freethought _depot_ mr. austin holyoake, working in con-junction with mr. bradlaugh at the _national reformer_ office, johnson's court, printed and published it in his turn, and this well-known freethought advocate, in his "large or small families," selected this pamphlet, together with r. d. owen's "moral physiology" and the "elements of social science," for special recommendation. mr. charles watts, succeeding to mr. austin holyoake's business, continued the sale, and, when mr. watson died, in 1875, he bought the plates of the work (with others) from mrs. watson, and continued to advertise and to sell it until december 23, 1876. for the last forty years the book has thus been identified with freethought, advertised by leading freethinkers, published under the sanction of their names, and sold in the headquarters of freethought literature. if, during this long period, the party has thus--without one word of protest--circulated an indecent work, the less we talk about freethought morality the better; the work has been largely sold, and, if leading freethinkers have sold it--profiting by the sale--through mere carelessness, few words could be strong enough to brand the indifference which thus scattered obscenity broadcast over the land. the pamphlet has been withdrawn from circulation in consequence of the prosecution instituted against mr. charles watts, but the question of its legality or illegality has not been tried; a plea of "guilty" was put in by the publisher, and the book, therefore, was not examined, nor was any judgment passed upon it; no jury registered a verdict, and the judge stated that he had not read the work. we republish this pamphlet, honestly believing that on all questions affecting the happiness of the people, whether they be theological, political or social, fullest right of free discussion ought to be maintained at all hazards. we do not personally indorse all that dr. knowles says: his "philosophical proem" seems to us full of philosophical mistakes, and--as we are neither of us doctors--we are not prepared to indorse his medical views; but since progress can only be made through discussion, and no discussion is possible where differing opinions are suppressed, we claim the right to publish all opinions, so that the public, enabled to see all sides of a question, may have the materials for forming a sound judgment. the alterations made are very slight, the book was badly printed, and errors of spelling and a few clumsy grammatical expressions have been corrected; the subtitle has been changed, and in one case four lines have been omitted, because they are repeated word for word further on. we have, however, made some additions to the pamphlet, which are in all cases kept distinct from the original text. physiology has made great strides during the past forty years, and not considering it right to circulate erroneous physiology, we submitted the pamphlet to a doctor in whose accurate knowledge we have the fullest confidence, and who is widely known in all parts of the world as the author of the "elements of social science;" the notes signed "g. b." are written by this gentleman. references to other works are given in foot-notes for the assistance of the reader, if he desires to study up the subject further. old radicals will remember that richard carlile published a work entitled "every woman's book," which deals with the same subject and advocates the same object as dr. knowlton's pamphlet r. d. owen objected to the "style and tone" of carlile's "every woman's book," as not being in "good taste," and he wrote his "moral physiology" to do in america what carlile's work was intended to do in england. this work of carlile's was stigmatized as "indecent" and "immoral," because it advocated, as does dr. knowlton's, the use of preventive checks to population. in striving to carry on carlile's work, we cannot expect to escape carlile's reproach; but, whether applauded or condemned, we mean to carry it on, socially as well as politically and theologically. we believe, with the rev. mr. malthus, that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of existence, and that _some_ checks must therefore exercise control over population. the checks now exercised are semi-starvation and preventable disease; the enormous mortality among the infants of the poor is one of the checks which now keep down the population. the checks that ought to control population are scientific, and it is these which we advocate. we think it more moral to prevent the conception of children than, after they are born, to murder them by want of food, air and clothing. we advocate scientific checks to population, because, so long as poor men have large families, pauperism is a necessity, and from pauperism grow crime and disease. the wages which would support the parents and two or three children in comfort and decency, is utterly insufficient to maintain a family of twelve or fourteen, and we consider it a crime to bring into the world human beings doomed to misery or to premature death. it is not only the hard-working classes which are concerned in this question. the poor preacher, the struggling man of business, the young professional man, are often made wretched for life by their inordinately large families, and their years are passed in one long battle to live; meanwhile, the woman's health is sacrificed and her life embittered from the same cause. to all of these we point the way of relief and happiness; for the sake of these we publish what others fear to issue; and we do it confident that if we fail the first time, we shall succeed at last, and that the english public will not permit the authorities to stifle a discussion of the most important social question which can influence a nation's welfare. charles bradlaugh. annie besant. philosophical proem consciousness is not a "principle" or substance of any kind, nor is it, strictly speaking, a property of any substance or being. it is a peculiar action of the nervous system, and the system is said to be sensible, or to possess the property of sensibility, because those sentient actions which constitute our different consciousnesses may be excited in it. the nervous system includes not only the brain and spinal marrow, but numerous soft white cords, called nerves, which extend from the brain and spinal marrow to every part of the body in which a sensation can be excited. a sensation is a sentient action of a nerve and the brain; a thought or idea (both the same thing) is a sentient action of the brain alone. a sensation or a thought is consciousness, and there is no consciousness but that which consists either in a sensation or a thought. agreeable consciousness constitutes what we call happiness, and disagreeable consciousness constitutes misery. as sensations are a higher degree of consciousness than mere thought, it follows that agreeable sensations constitute a more exquisite happiness than agreeable thoughts. that portion of happiness which consists in agreeable sensations is commonly called pleasure. no thoughts are agreeable except those which were originally excited by or have been associated with agreeable sensations. hence, if a person never had experienced any agreeable sensations, he could have no agreeable thoughts, and would, of course, be an entire stranger to happiness. there are five species of sensations--seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling. there are many varieties of feeling--as the feelings of hunger, thirst, cold, hardness, etc. many of these feelings are excited by agents that act upon the exterior of the body, such as solid substances of every kind, heat, and various chemical irritants. these latter feelings are called _passions_. those passions which owe their existence chiefly to the state of the brain, or to causes acting directly upon the brain, are called the moral passion. they are grief, anger, love, etc. they consist of sentient actions, which commence in the brain and extend to the nerves in the region of the stomach, etc. but when the cause of the internal feeling of passion is seated in some organ remote from the brain, as in the stomach, genital organs, etc., the sentient action which constitutes the passion commences in the nerves of such organ and extends to the brain, and the passion is called an _appetite, instinct, or desire_. some of these passions are natural, as hunger, thirst, the reproductive instinct, the desire to urinate, etc. others are gradually acquired by habit a _hankering_ for stimulants, as spirits, opium and tobacco, is one of these. such is the nature of things that our most vivid and agreeable sensations cannot be excited under all circumstances, nor beyond a certain extent under any circumstances, without giving rise in one way or another to an amount of disagreeable consciousness or misery, exceeding the amount of agreeable consciousness which attends such ill-timed or excessive gratification. to excite agreeable sensations to a degree not exceeding this certain extent is temperance; to excite them beyond this extent is intemperance; not to excite them at all is mortification or abstinence. this certain extent varies with different individuals, according to their several circumstances, so that what would be temperance in one person may be intemperance in another. to be free from disagreeable consciousness is to be in a state which, compared with a state of misery, is a happy state; yet absolute happiness does not exist in the absence of misery, if it does, rocks are happy. it consists, as aforesaid, in agreeable consciousness. that which enables a person to excite or maintain agreeable consciousness is not happiness; but the _idea_ of having such in one's possession is agreeable, and of course is a portion of happiness. health and wealth go far in enabling a person to excite and maintain agreeable consciousness. that which gives rise to agreeable consciousness is _good_, and we desire it. if we use it intemperately, such use is bad, but the thing itself is still good. those acts (and intentions are acts of that part of man which intends) of human beings which tend to the promotion of happiness are good, but they are also called _virtuous_, to distinguish them from other things of the same tendency. there is nothing for the word _virtue_ to signify, but virtuous actions. sin signifies nothing but sinful actions, and sinful, wicked, vicious, or bad actions are those which are productive of more misery than happiness. when an individual gratifies any of his instincts in a _temperate_ degree, he adds an item to the sum total of human happiness, and causes the amount of human happiness to exceed the amount of misery farther than if he had not enjoyed himself, therefore it is virtuous, or, to say the least, it is not vicious or sinful for him to do so. but it must ever be remembered that this temperate degree depends on circumstances; that one person's health, pecuniary circumstances, or social relation may be such that it would cause more misery than happiness for him to do an act which being done by a person under different circumstances would cause more happiness than misery. therefore, it would be right for the latter to perform such act, but not for the former. again: owing to his _ignorance_, a man may not be able to gratify a desire without causing misery (wherefore it would be wrong for him to do it), but with knowledge of means to prevent this misery, he may so gratify it that more pleasure than pain will be the result of the act, in which case the act, to say the least, is justifiable. now, therefore, it is virtuous, nay, it is the _duty_, for him who has a knowledge of such means, to convey it to those who have it not, for by so doing he furthers the cause of human happiness. man by nature is endowed with the talent of devising means to remedy or prevent the evils that are liable to arise from gratifying our appetites; and it is as much the duty of the physician to inform mankind of the means to prevent the evils that are liable to arise from gratifying the productive instinct as it is to inform them how to keep clear of the gout or dyspepsia. let not the old ascetic say we ought not to gratify our appetites any further than is necessary to maintain health and to perpetuate the species. mankind will not so abstain, and if any means to prevent the evils that may arise from a farther gratification can be devised, they _need not_. heaven has not only given us the capacity of greater enjoyment, but the talent of devising means to prevent the evils that are liable to arise therefrom, and it becomes us, "with thanksgiving," to make the most of them. fruits of philosophy. chapter i. to limit at will the number of their offspring showing how desirable it is, both in a political and a social point of view, for mankind to be able to limit at will the number of their offspring, without sacrificing the pleasure that attends the gratification of the reproductive instinct. first.---_in a political point of view_.--if population be not restrained by some great physical calamity, such as we have reason to hope will not hereafter be visited upon the children of men, or by some _moral restraint_, the time will come when the earth cannot support its inhabitants. population unrestrained will double three times in a century. hence, computing the present population of the earth at 1,000 millions, there would be at the end of 100 years from the present time, 8,000 millions. at the end of 200 years, 64,000 millions. " " 300 " 512,000 " and so on, multiplying by eight for every additional hundred years. so that in 500 years from the present time there would be thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty eight times as many inhabitants as at present. if the natural increase should go on without check for 1,500 years, one single pair would increase to more than _thirty-five thousand one hundred and eighty-four_ times as many as the present population of the whole earth! some check then there must be, or the time will come when millions will be born but to suffer and to perish for the necessaries of life. to what an inconceivable amount of human misery would such a state of things give rise! and must we say that vice, war, pestilence and famine are desirable to prevent it? must the friends of temperance and domestic happiness stay their efforts? must peace societies excite to war and bloodshed? must the physician cease to investigate the nature of contagion, and to search for the means of destroying its baneful influence? must he that becomes diseased be marked as a victim to die for public good, without the privilege of making an effort to restore him to health? and in case of a failure of crops in one part of the world, must the other parts withhold the means of supporting life that the far greater evil of excessive population throughout the world may be prevented? can there be no effectual moral restraint, attended with far less human misery than such physical calamities as these? most surely there can. but what is it? malthus, an english writer on the subject of population, gives us none but celibacy to a late age. but how foolish it is to suppose that men and women will become as monks and nuns during the very holiday of their existence, and abjure during the fairest years of life the nearest and dearest of social relations, to avert a catastrophe which they and perhaps their children will not live to witness. but, besides being ineffectual, or if effectual, requiring a great sacrifice of enjoyment, this restraint is highly objectionable on the score of its demoralizing tendency. it would give rise to a frightful increase of prostitution, of intemperance and onanism, and prove destructive to health and moral feelings. in spite of preaching, human nature will ever remain the same; and that restraint which forbids the gratification of the reproductive instinct will avail but little with the mass of mankind. the checks to be hereafter mentioned are the only moral restraints to population known to the writer that are unattended with serious objections. besides starvation, with all its accompanying evils, overpopulation is attended with other public evils, of which may be mentioned, ignorance and slavery. where the mass of the people must toil incessantly to obtain support, they must remain ignorant; and where ignorance prevails, tyranny reigns.* * the scientific part of malthus' doctrine of population is not very clearly or correctly given in the above passages. his great theory, now or generally held by the most eminent political economists, is that the increase of population is always powerfully checked in old countries by the difficulty in increasing the supply of food; that the existing evils of poverty and low wages are really at bottom caused by this check, and are brought about by the pressure of population on the soil, and the continual overstocking of the labor markets with laborers; and hence that the only way in which society can escape from poverty, with all its miseries, is by putting a strong restraint on their natural powers of multiplication. "it is not in the nature of things," he says, "that any permanent and general improvement in the condition of the poor can be effected without an increase in the preventive checks to population."--g. r. second--_in a social point of view_.--"is it not notorious that the families of the married often increase beyond which a regard for the young beings coming into the world, and the happiness of those who give them birth, would dictate. in how many instances does the hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a poor family remain slave throughout their lives, tugging at the oar of incessant labor, toiling to live, and living to toil; when, if their offspring had been limited to two or three only, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative affluence? how often is the health of the mother, giving birth every year to an infant--happy if it be not twins--and compelled to toil on, even at those times when nature imperiously calls for some relief from daily drudgery,--how often is the mother's comfort, health, nay, even her life, thus sacrificed? or if care and toil have weighed down the spirit, and at length broken the health of the father; how often is the widow left unable, with the most virtuous intentions, to save her fatherless offspring from becoming degraded objects of charity, or profligate votaries of vice! "nor is this all. many women are so constituted that they cannot give birth to healthy, sometimes not to living children. is it desirable, is it moral, that such women should become pregnant? yet this is continually the case. others there are who ought never to become parents; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to their offspring grievous hereditary diseases, which render such offspring mere subjects of misery throughout their sickly existence. yet such women will not lead a life of celibacy. they marry. they become parents, and the sum of human misery is increased by their doing so. but it is folly to expect that we can induce such persons to live the lives of shakers. nor is it necessary; all that duty requires of them is to refrain from becoming parents. who can estimate the beneficial effect which a rational moral restraint may thus have on the health and beauty and physical improvement of our race throughout future generations?" let us now turn our attention to the case of unmarried youth. "almost all young persons, on reaching the age of maturity, desire to marry. that heart must be very cold, or very isolated, that does not find some object on which to bestow its affections. thus, early marriage would be almost universal did not prudential consideration interfere. the young man thinks, 'i cannot marry yet; i cannot support a family. i must make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement afterwards.' "and so he goes to making money, fully and sincerely resolved in a few years to share it with her whom he now loves. but passions are strong and temptations great. curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the company of those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a dependence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then curses for being what she has made them. there his health and moral feelings are alike made shipwreck. the affections he had thought to treasure up for their first object are chilled by dissipation and blunted by excess. he scarcely retains a passion but avarice. years pass on--years of profligacy and speculation--and his wish is accomplished, his fortune is made. where now are the feelings and resolve of his youth? 'like the dew on the mountain, like the foam on the river, like the bubbles on the fountain, they are gone--and forever.' "he is a man of pleasure, a man of the world. he laughs at the romance of his youth, and marries a fortune. if gaudy equipage and gay parties confer happiness, he is happy. but if these be only the sunshine on the stormy sea below, he is a victim to that system of morality which forbids a reputable connection until the period when provision has been made for a large expected family. had he married the first object of his choice, and simply delayed becoming a father until his prospects seemed to warrant it, how different might have been his lot. until men and women are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except when they themselves desire it, they will ever form mercenary and demoralizing connections, and seek in dissipation the happiness they might have found in domestic life. "i know that this, however common, is not a universal case. sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred at all risks; and who shall say how often a life of unremitting toil and poverty is the consequence. sometimes, if even rarely, the young mind does hold its first resolves. the youth plods through years of cold celibacy and solitary anxiety, happy if, before the best hours of his life are gone and its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the reward of his forbearance and his industry. but even in this comparatively happy case, shall we count for nothing the years of ascetic sacrifice at which after happiness is purchased? the days of youth are not too many, nor its affections too lasting. we may, indeed, if a great object require it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. but is this, in itself, desirable? does not wisdom tell us that such a sacrifice is a dead loss--to the warm-hearted often a grievous one? does not wisdom bid us temperately enjoy the springtimes of life, 'while the evil day come not, nor the years draw nigh, when we shall say we have no pleasure in them?' "let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacrifices the present for the future, chooses wisely between the two evils, profligacy and asceticism. this is true. but let us not imagine the lesser evil to be good. it is _not_ good for man to be alone. it is for no man or woman's happiness or benefit that they should be condemned to shakerism. it is a violence done to the feelings and an injury to the character. a life of rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a life of dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. peevishness, restlessness, vague longings and instability of character, are amongst the least of these. the mind is unsettled, and the judgment warped. even the very instinct which is thus mortified assumes an undue importance, and occupies a portion of the thoughts which does not of right or nature belong to it, and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would not obtain." in many instances, the genital organs are rendered so irritable by the repletion to which unnatural continency gives rise, and by the much thinking caused by such repletion, as to induce a disease known to medical men by the name of _gonorrhoea dormientium_. it consists in an emission or discharge of the semen during sleep. this discharge is immediately excited in most instances by a lascivious dream, but such dream is caused by the repletion and irritability of the genital organs. it is truly astonishing to what a degree of mental anguish the disease gives rise in young men. they do not understand the nature, or rather, the cause of it. they think it depends on a weakness--indeed, the disease is often called a "seminal weakness"--and that the least gratification in a natural way would but serve to increase it. their anxiety about it weakens the whole system. this weakness they erroneously attribute to the discharges; they think themselves totally disqualified for entering into or enjoying the married state. finally, the genital and mental organs act and react upon each other so perniciously as to cause a degree of nervousness, debility, emaciation and melancholy--in a word, wretchedness that sets description at defiance. nothing is so effectual in curing this diseased state of a body and mind in young men as marriage. all restraint, fear and solicitude should be removed. "inasmuch, then, as the scruples of incurring heavy responsibilities deter from forming moral connections and encourage intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge which enables man to limit the number of his offspring would, in the present state of things, save much unhappi-ness and prevent many crimes. young persons sincerely attached to each other, and who might wish to marry, should marry early, merely resolving not to become parents until prudence permitted it. the young man, instead of solitary toil and vulgar dissipation, would enjoy the society and the assistance of her he has chosen as his companion; and the best years of life, whose pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot, nor lost through mortification."* * the passages quoted are from robert dale owen's "moral physiology." chapter ii. on generation i hold the following to be important and undeniable troths: that every man has a natural right both to receive and convey a knowledge of all the facts and discoveries of every art and science, excepting such only as may be secured to some particular person or persons by copyright or patent; that a physical truth in its general effect cannot be a moral evil; that no fact in physics or in morals ought to be concealed from the inquiring mind. some may make a misuse of knowledge, but that is their fault; and it is not right that one person should be deprived of knowledge, of spirits, of razors, or of anything else which is harmless in itself and may be useful to him, because another may misuse it. the subject on generation is not only interesting as a branch of science, but it is so connected with the happiness of mankind that it is highly important in a practical point of view. such, to be sure, is the custom of the age, that it is not considered a proper subject to investigate before a popular assembly, nor is it proper to attend the calls of nature in a like place; yet they must and ought to be attended to, for the good, the happiness of mankind require it; so, too, for like reason, the subject of generation ought to be investigated until it be rightly understood by all people, but at such opportunities as the good sense of every individual will easily decide to be proper. this, i presume to say, not simply upon the abstract principle that all knowledge of nature's workings is useful, and the want of it disadvantageous, but from the known moral fact that ignorance of this process has in many instances proved the cause of a lamentable "mishap," and more especially as it is essential to the attainment of the great advantage, which it is the chief object of this work to bestow upon mankind. people generally, as it was the case with physicians until late years, entertain a very erroneous idea of what takes place in the conception. agreeably to this idea the "check" which i consider far preferable to any other, would not be effectual, as would be obvious to all. consequently, entertaining this idea, people would not have due confidence in it. hence, it is necessary to correct a long-held and widely extended error. but this i cannot expect to do by simply saying it is an error. deeply rooted and hitherto undisputed opinions are not so easily eradicated. if i would convince any one that the steps in one of the most recondite processes of nature are not such as he has always believed, it will greatly serve my purpose to show what these steps are. i must first prepare him to be reasoned with, and then reason the matter all over with him. i must point out the facts which disprove his opinion, and show that my own is unattended with difficulties. but what can be more obvious than that it is absolutely impossible to explain any process or function of the animal economy, so as to be understood, before the names of the organs which perform this function have been defined, that is, before the organs themselves have been described. now it is well known to every anatomist, and indeed it may be obvious to all, that in describing any organ or system of organs, we must always begin with some external and known parts, and proceed regularly, step by step, to the internal and unknown. as in arithmetic, "everything must be understood as you go along."* * this is an americanism, which appears to us to convey a false idea. if it refers to the cases used as illustrations, dr. knowlton is more sparing in his use of them than either dr. bull or dr. chavasse.--publishers' note. fully to effect the objects of this work, it is, therefore, a matter of necessity that i give an anatomical description of certain parts--even external parts--which some, but imagine what i have just said, might think it useless to mention. it is not to gratify the idle curiosity of the light-minded that this book is written; it is for _utility_ in the broad and truly philosophical sense of the term; nay, farther, it shall with the exception of here and there a little spicing*, have confined to _practical utility_. i shall, therefore, endeaver to treat of the subject in this chapter so as to be understood, without giving any description of the male organs of generation; though i hold it an accomplishment for one be able to speak of those organs, as diseases often put them under the necessity of doing, without being compelled use low and vulgar language. but i must briefly describe the female organs; in doing which i must, of course, speak as do other anatomists and physiologists; and whoever objects to this will discover more affectation and prudery than good sense and good will to mankind. the adipose, or fatty matter, immediately over the share bone, forms a considerable prominence in females, which, at the age of puberty, is covered with hair, as in males. this prominence is called mons veneris. the exterior orifice commences immediately below this. on each side of this orifice is a prominence continued from the mons veneris, which is largest above and gradually diminishes as it descends. these two prominences are called the labia externa, or external lips. near the latter end of pregnancy they become somewhat enlarged and relaxed, so that they sustain little or no injury during parturition. just within the upper or anterior commissure, formed by the junction of these lips, a little round oblong body is situated. the body is called the clitoris. most of its length is bound down, as it were, pretty closely to the bone; and it is of very variable size in different females. instances have occurred where it was so enlarged as to allow the female to have venereal commerce with others; and in paris this fact was once made a public exhibition to the medical faculty. women thus formed appear to partake in their general form of the male character, and are called hermaphrodites. the idea of human beings, called hermaphrodites, which could be either father or mother, is, doubtless, erroneous. the clitoris is analogous in its structure to the penis, and like it, is exquisitely sensitive, being, as it is supposed, the principal seat of pleasure. it is subject to erection or distension, like the penis, from like causes. the skin which lines the internal surface of the external lips is folded in such manner as to form two flat bodies, the exterior edges of which are convex. they are called the nymphse. they extend downward, one on each side, from the clitoris to near the middle of the external orifice, somewhat diverging from each other. their use is not very evident the orifice of the urethra (the canal, short in females, which leads to the bladder) is situated an inch or more farther inward than the clitoris, and is a little protuberant. passing by the external lips, the clitoris, the nymphse and the orifice of the urethra, we come to the membrane called the hymen. it is situated just at, or a trifle behind the orifice of the urethra. it is stretched across the passage, and were it a complete septum, it would close up the anterior extremity of that portion of the passage which is called the vagina. but the instances in which the septum or partition is complete are very rare, there being, in almost all cases, an aperture either in its center, or frequently in its anterior edge, giving the membrane the form of a crescent through this aperture passes the menstrual fluid. sometimes, however, this septum is complete, and the menstrual fluid is retained month after month, until appearances and symptoms much like those of pregnancy are produced, giving rise to perhaps unjust suspicions. such cases require the simple operation of dividing the hymen. in many instances the hymen is very imperfect, insomuch that some have doubted whether it is to be found in the generality of virgins. where it exists it is generally ruptured in the first intercourse of the sexes, and the female is said to lose her virginity. in some rare instances it is so very strong as not to be ruptured by such intercourse, and the nature of the difficulty not being understood, the husband has sued for a divorce. but everything may be put to rights by a slight surgical operation. the parts here described are among those called the external parts of generation. the internal organs of generation consist in the female of the vagina, the uterus, the ovaries and their appendages. the vagina is a membranous canal commencing at the hymen and extending to the uterus. it is a little curved, and extends backward and upward between the bladder, which lies before and above it, and that extreme portion of the bowels called the rectum, which lies behind it. the coat of membrane which lines the internal surface of the vagina forms a number of transverse ridges. these are to be found only in the lower or anterior half of the vagina, and they do not extend all round the vagina, but are situated on its anterior and posterior sides, while their lateral sides are smooth. i mention these ridges because a knowledge of them may lead to a more effectual use of one of the checks to be made known hereafter. the uterus or womb is also situated between the bladder and the rectum, but above the vagina. such is its shape that it has been compared to a pear with a long neck. there is, of course, considerable difference between the body and the neck, the first being twice as broad as the last. each of these parts is somewhat flattened. in subjects of mature age, who have been pregnant, the whole of the uterus is about two inches and a half in length, and more than an inch and a half in breadth at the broadest part of the body. it is near an inch in thickness. the neck of the uterus is situated downward, and may be said to be inserted into the upper extremity of the vagina. it extends down into the vagina the better part of an inch. in the uterus is a cavity which approaches the triangular form, and from which a canal passes down through the neck of the uterus into the vagina. this cavity is so small that its sides are almost in contact so that the uterus is a thick, firm organ for so small a one. comparing the cavity of the uterus to a triangle, we say the upper side or line of this triangle is transverse with respect to the body, and the other two lines pass downward and inward, so that they would form an angle below, did they not before they meet take a turn more directly downward to form the canal just mentioned. in each of the upper angles there is an orifice of such size as to admit of a hog's bristle. these little orifices are the mouths of two tubes, called the fallopian tubes, of which more will be said presently. the canal which passes through the neck of the uterus, connecting the cavity of this organ with that of the vagina, is about a quarter of an inch in diameter. it is different from other ducts, for it seems to be a part of the cavity from which it extends, inasmuch as when the cavity of the uterus is enlarged in the progress of pregnancy, this canal is gradually converted into a part of that cavity. the lower extremity of the neck of the uterus is irregularly convex and tumid. the orifice of the canal in it is oval, and so situated that it divides the convex surface of the lower extremity of the neck in two portions, which are called the lips of the uterus. the anterior is thicker than the posterior. the orifice itself is called _os tincã¦_ or _os uteri_, or in english, the mouth of the womb. when the parts are in a weak, relaxed state, the mouth or neck of the uterus is quite low, and in almost all oases it may be reached by a finger introduced into the vagina, especially by a second person, who carries the hand behind. the ovaries are two bodies of a flattened or oval form, one of which is situated on each side of the uterus at a little distance from it, and about as high up as where the uterus becomes narrow to form its neck. the longest diameter of the ovarium is about an inch. each ovarium has a firm coat of membrane. in those who have not been pregnant, it contains from ten to twenty _vesicles_, which are little round bodies, formed of a delicate membrane, and filled with a transparent fluid. some of these vesicles are situated so near the surface of the ovarium as to be prominent on its surface. they are of different sizes, the largest nearly a quarter of a inch in diameter.* * the vesicles here mentioned are the so-called graafian vesicles, or ovisacs, each of which contains in its interior a little ovum or egg. in the human female the ovum is extremely minute, so as only to be visible with the aid of a lens. the graafian vesicles are not limited to a certain small number, as was formerly thought, but continue to be formed in the ovaries, and to discharge at intervals mature ova during the whole of the fruitful period.--g. r. in those in whom conception has ever taken place, some of these vesicles are removed, and in their place a cicatrix or scar is formed which continues through life. however, the number of cicatrices does not always correspond with the number of conceptions. they often exceed it, and are sometimes found where conception has not been known to take place. the fallopian tubes are two canals four or five inches in length, proceeding from the upper angles of the cavity of the uterus, in a transverse direction in respect to the body. having so proceeded for some distance they turn downward toward the ovaries. at their commencement in the uterus they are very small, but they enlarge as much as they progress. the large ends, which hang loose, terminate in open mouths, the margins of which consist of fimbriated processes, and nearly touch the ovaria. we are now prepared to treat of conception. yet, as menstruation is closely connected with it, and as a knowledge of many things concerning menstruation may contribute much to the well-being of females, for whom this work is at least as much designed as for males, i shall first briefly treat of this subject. menstruation.--when females arrive at the age of puberty they begin to have a discharge once every month, by way of the vagina, of the color of blood. this discharge is termed the menses. to have it is to menstruate. the age at which menstruation commences varies with different individuals, and also in different climates. the warmer the climate the earlier it commences and ceases. in temperate climates it generally commences at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and it ceases at forty-four, or a little later. * whenever it commences the girl acquires a more womanly appearance. it is a secretion of the uterus, or, in other words, the minute vessels distributed to the inner coat of uterus, select as it were, from the blood, and pour out in a gradual manner the materials of this fluid. it has one of the properties, color, of blood, but it does not coagulate, or separate into different parts like blood, and cannot properly be called blood.** * dr. chavasse, on p. 94 of his "advice to a wife" published by w. h. smith & son gives instances of very early menstruation and consequent fecundity.--publishers' note, ** "the menstrual discharge," says dr. kirkes, "consists of blood effused from the inner surface of the uterus, and mixed with mucus from the uterus, vagina, and the external parts of the generative apparatus. being diluted by this admixture, the menstrual blood coagulates less perfectly than ordinary blood; and the frequent acidity of the vaginal mucus tends still further to diminish its coagulability."- handbook of physiology, 8th ed., p. 727, 1874.--g. r. when this discharge is in all respects regular, it amounts in most females to six or eight ounces, and from two to four days' continuance. during its continuance the women is said to be unwell, or out of order. various unpleasant feelings are liable to attend it; but when it is attended with severe pain, as it not infrequently is, it becomes a disease, and the woman is not likely to conceive until it is cured. during the existence of the "turns," or "monthlies," as they are often called, indigestible food, dancing in warm rooms, sudden exposure to cold or wet, and mental agitations, should be avoided as much as possible. the "turns" do not continue during pregnancy, nor nursing, unless nursing be continued after the "turns" recommence. some women, it is true, are subject to a slight hemorrhage that sometimes occurs with considerable regularity during pregnancy, and which has led them to suppose they have their turns at such times; but it is not so; the discharge at such times is real blood.* * consult on the whole of this dr. chavasse's book, pp. 91 101, where full details are given.--publishers' note. the use of the menstrual discharge seems to be to prepare the uterine system for conception. for females do not become pregnant before they commence, nor after they cease having turns; nor while they are suppressed by some disease, by cold or by nursing. some credible women, however, have said that they become pregnant while nursing, without having had any turn since their last lying-in. it is believed that in these oases they had some discharge, colorless, perhaps, which they did not notice, but which answered the purposes of the common one. women are not nearly so likely to conceive during the week before a monthly as during the week immediately after.* but although the use of this secretion seems to be to prepare for conception, it is not to be inferred that the reproductive instinct ceases at the "turn of life," or when the woman ceases to menstruate. on the contrary, it is said that this passion often increases at this period, and continues in a greater or less degree to an extreme age. * see, however, dr. bull's "hints to mothers," pp. 31-58, and 127-129 (published by longmans, green & co.)- publishers' note. conception.--the part performed by the male in the reproduction of the species consists in exciting the organism of the female, and depositing the semen in the vagina. before i inquire what takes place in the females i propose to speak of the semen. this fluid, which is secreted by the testicles, may be said to possess three kinds of properties, physical, chemical, physiological. its physical properties are known to every one--it is a thickish, nearly opaque fluid, of a peculiar odor, saltish taste, etc. as to its chemical properties, it is found by analysis to consist of 900 parts of water, 60 of animal muscilage, 10 of soda, 30 of phosphate of lime. its physiological property is that of exciting the female genital organs in a peculiar manner. when the semen is examined by microscope, there can be distinguished a multitude of small animalculã¦, which appear to have a rounded head and a long tail. these animalculã¦ move with a certain degree of rapidity. they appear to avoid the light and to delight in the shade. leeuwenhoek, if not the discoverer of the seminal animalculse, was the first who brought the fact of their existence fully before the public. with respect to their size, he remarked that ten thousand of them might exist in a space not larger than a grain of sand. they have a definite figure, and are obviously different from the animalculse found in any other fluid.* * see dr. carpenter's "animal physiology," p. 558 (published by h. g. bonn); nichol's "human physiology," pp. 253-255 (published by trubner & co.)--publishers' note. leeuwenhoek believed them to be the beginnings of future animals--that they are of different sexes, upon which depends the future sex of the foetus. be this as it may, it appears to be admitted on all hands that the animalculã¦ are present in the semen of the various species of male animals, and that they cannot be detected when either from age or disease the animals are rendered sterile. "hence," says bostock, "we can scarcely refuse our assent to the position that these animalculã¦ are in some way or other instrumental to the production of the foetus." the secretion of the semen commences at the age of puberty. before this period the testicles secrete a viscid, transparent fluid, which has never been analyzed, but which is doubtless essentially different from semen. the revolution which the whole economy undergoes at this period, such as the tone of the voice, and development of hairs, the beard, the increase of the muscles and bones, etc., is intimately connected with the testicles and the secretion of this fluid.* "eunuchs preserve the same form as in childhood; their voice is effeminate, they have no beard, their disposition is timid; and finally their physical and moral character very nearly resembles that of females. nevertheless, many of them take delight in venereal intercourse, and give themselves up with ardor to a connection which must always prove unfruitful."** * nichol's "human physiology," pp. 256-257. --publishers' note ** magendic's physiology.--author's note. the part performed by the female in the reproduction of the species is far more complicated than that performed by the male. it consists, in the first instance, in providing a substance which, in connection with the male secretion, is to constitute the foetus; in furnishing a suitable situation in which the foetus may be developed; in affording due nourishment for its growth; in bringing it forth, and afterward furnishing it with food especially adapted to the digestive organs of the young animal. some parts of this process are not well understood, and such variety of hypotheses have been proposed to explain them that drelincourt, who lived in the latter part of the seventeenth century, is said to have collected two hundred and sixty hypotheses of generation. it ought to be known that women have conceived when the semen was merely applied to the parts anterior to the hymen, as the internal surface of the external lips, the nymphã¦, etc. this is proved by the fact that several cases of pregnancy have occurred when the hymen was entire. the fact need not surprise us, for, agreeable to the theory of absorption, we have to account for it only to suppose that some of the absorbent vessels are situated anterior to the hymen--a supposition by no means unreasonable. there are two peculiarities of the human species respecting conception which i will notice. first, unlike other animals they are liable, and for what has been proved to the contrary, equally liable--to conceive at all seasons of the year. second, a woman rarely, if ever, conceives until after having several sexual connections; nor does one connection in fifty cause conception in the matrimonial state, where the husband and wife live together uninterruptedly. public women rarely conceive, owing probably to a weakened state of the genital system, induced by too frequent and promiscuous intercourse. it is universally agreed, that some time after a fruitful connection, a vesicle (two in case of twins) of one or the other ovary becomes so enlarged that it bursts forth from the ovary and takes the name of ovum, which is taken up, or rather received, as it bursts forth, by the fimbriated extremity of the fallopian tube, and is then conducted along the tube into the uterus, to the inner surface of which it attaches itself.* * since dr. knowlton's work was written, the very important fact has been discovered that ova are periodically discharged from the ovaries in the human female and other animals, not in consequence of fruitful connection having taken place, as was formerly believed, but quite independently of intercourse with the male. such a discharge of ova occurs in the lower animals at the time of heat or rut, and in women during menstruation. at each menstrual period, a graafian vesicle becomes enlarged, bursts, and lets the ovum which it contains escape into the fallopian tube, along which it passes to the uterus. "it has long been known," says dr. kirke, "that in the so-called oviparous animals, the separation of ova from the ovary may take place independently of impregnation by the male, or even of sexual union. and it is now established that a like maturation and discharge of ova, independently of coition, occurs in mammalia, the periods at which the matured ova are separated from the ovaries and received into the fallopian tubes being indicated in the lower mammalia by the phenomena of _heat_ or _rut_; in the human female by the phenomena of _menstruation_. sexual desire manifests itself in the human female to a greater degree at these periods, and in the female of mammiferous animals at no other time. if the union of the sexes takes place, the ovum may be fecundated, and if no union occur, it perishes. from what has been said it may therefore be concluded that the two states, heat and menstruation, are analogous, and that the essential accompaniment of both is the maturation and extrusion of ova."--"handbook of physiology," page 724.--g. r. here it becomes developed into a full grown foetus, and is brought forth about forty-two weeks from the time of conception by a process termed parturition. but one grand question is, how the semen operates itself, or any part thereof reaches the ovary, and if so, in what way it is conveyed to them. it was long the opinion that the semen was ejected into the uterus in the act of coition, and that it afterward, by some unknown means, found its way into and along the fallopian tubes to the ovary. but there are several facts which weigh heavily against this opinion, and some that entirely forbid it. in the first place, there are several well attested instances in which impregnation took place while the hymen remained entire, where the vagina terminated in the rectum, where it was so contracted by a cicatrix as not to admit the penis. in all these cases the semen could not have been lodged anywhere near the mouth of the uterus, much less ejected into it. secondly, it has followed a connection where from some defect in the male organs, as the urethra terminating some inches behind the end of the penis, and it is clear that the semen could not have been injected into the uterus, nor even near its mouth. third, the neck of the unimpregnated uterus is so narrow as merely to admit a probe, and is filled with a thick tenacious fluid, which seemingly could not be forced away by any force which the male organ possesses of ejecting the semen, even if the mouth of the male urethra were in opposition with that of the uterus. but fourth, the mouth of the uterus is by no means fixed. by various causes it is made to assume various situations, and probably the mouth of the urethra rarely comes in contact with it. fifth. "the tenacity of the male semen is such as renders its passage through the small aperture in the neck of the uterus impossible, even by a power of force much superior to that which we may rationally suppose to reside in the male organs of generation." sixth. "harvey and degraaf dissected animals at almost every period after coition for the express purpose of discovering the semen, but were never able to detect the smallest vestige of it in the uterus in any one instance."* * dewees' essay on superfoetation.--author's note. aware of the insurmountable objection to this view of the manner in which the semen reaches the ovary, it has been supposed by some physiologists that the semen is absorbed from the vagina into the great circulating system, where it is mixed, of course, with the blood, and goes the whole round of the circulation subject to the influence of those causes which produce great changes in the latter fluid. to this hypothesis it may be objected, that while there is no direct evidence in support of it, it is exceedingly unreasonable, inasmuch as we can scarcely believe that the semen can go the whole round of circulation, and then find its way to the ovary in such a pure unaltered state as the experiments of spallanzani prove it must be in, that it may impregnate. a third set of theorists have maintained that an imperceptible something, which they have called _aura seminalis_, passes from the semen lodged in the vagina to the ovary, and excites those actions which are essential to the development of an ovum. others, again, have told us that it is all done by sympathy. that neither the semen nor any volatile part of it finds its way to the ovary; but that the semen excites the parts with which it is in contact in a peculiar manner, and by the law of animal economy, termed sympathy, or consent of parts, a peculiar action commences in the ovary, by which an ovum is developed. to both these conjectures it may be objected that they have no other foundation but the supposed necessity of adopting them, to account for the effect of impregnation; and, further, they "make no provision for the formation of mules; for the peculiarities of, and likeness to, parents, and for the propagation of predisposition to disease, from parent to child; for the production of mulattoes," etc. a fifth, and to me far more satisfactory view of the subject than any other, is that advanced by our distinguished countryman, dr. dewees, of philadelphia. it appears to harmonize with all known facts relating to the conception and something from analogy may also be drawn in its favor. it is this, that there is a set of absorbent vessels, leading directly from the inner surface of the _labia externa_ and the vagina, to the ovaries, the whole office of which vessels is to absorb the semen and convey it to the ovaries.* i do not know that these vessels have yet been fully discovered, but in a note on the sixteenth page of his "essays on various subjects," the doctor says: "the existence of these vessels is now rendered almost certain, as dr. gartner, of copenhagen, has discovered a duct leading from the ovary to the vagina." * this view is not held at the present day. the commonly received doctrine now is that the seminal fluid enters the uterus, whether during the intercourse or after it, and passes along the fallopian tubes to the ovaries; and that fecundation takes place at some point of this course, most frequently in the tubes, but also at times in the ovary itself, or even, perhaps, in the uterus. it is essentially necessary for fecundation that the spermatozoa should come into actual contact with the ovum. "that the spermatozoa make their way toward the ovarium, and fecundate the ovum either before it entirely quits the ovisac or very shortly afterward," says dr. carpenter, "appears to be the general rule in regard to the mammalia; and their power of movement must obviously be both vigorous and long continued to enable them to traverse so great an extent of mucous membrane, especially when it is remembered that they ascend in opposition to the direction of the ciliary movement of the epithelial cells and to the downward peristaltic action of the fallopian tubes. * * * there can be no doubt that it is the contact of the spermatozoa with the ovum, and in the changes which occur as the immediate consequence of that contact, that the act of fecundation essentially consists." --"principles of human physiology," 8th ed., p. 961,1876.--g.r. another question of considerable moment relating to generation is from which parent are the first rudiments of the foetus derived. the earliest hypothesis with which we are acquainted, and which has received the support of some of the most eminent of the moderns, ascribes the original formation of the foetus to the combination of particles of matter derived from each of the parents. this hypothesis naturally presents itself to the mind as the obvious method of explaining the necessity for the cooperation of the two sexes, and the resemblance in external form, and even in mind and character, which the offspring often bears to the male parent. "the principal objections," says bostock, "to his hypothesis, independent of the want of any direct proof of a female seminal fluid, are of two descriptions, those which depend upon the supposed impossibility of unorganized matter forming an organized being, and those which are derived from observations and experiments of haller and spallanzani, which they brought forward in support of their theory of pre-existent germs." in relation to these objections i remark, first those whose experience has been with hale females, i suspect, can have no doubt but that the female organism increases like that of the male, until an emission of fluid of some kind or other takes place. but whether this secretion may properly be called semen, whether any part of it unites with the male semen in forming the rudiments of the foetus, is another question. for my part i am inclined to the opinion that it does not.* i rather regard it as the result of exalted excitation, analogous to the increased secretion of other organs from increased stimulation; and if it may be for any object or use, as it probably is, it is that of affording nature a means of relieving herself; or, in other words, of quieting the venereal passion. if this passion, being once roused, could not by some means or other be calmed, it would command by far too great a portion of our thoughts, and with many constitutions the individuals, whether male or female, could not conduct themselves with due decorum. one fact which leads me to think that the female secretion in the act of coition is not essential to impregnation is, that many females have conceived, if their unbiased testimony may be relied on, when they experienced no pleasure. in these cases it is more than probable that there was no orgasm, nor any secretion or emission of fluid on the part of the female. * with regard to this secretion in the female, which has nothing of a seminal character, dr. carpenter observes: "its admixture with the male semen has been supposed to have some connection with impregnation; but no proof whatever has been given that any such admixture is necessary."--"human physiology," p. 991.--g. r. as to the objection of the supposed impossibility of unorganized matter forming an organized being, i do not believe such a thing takes place, even if we admit that "the original formation of the foetus is a combination of particles of matter derived from each of the parents." what do, or rather what ought we to mean by organized matter? not, surely, that it exhibits some obvious physical structure, unlike what is to be found in inorganic matter, but that it exhibits phenomena, and of course may be said to possess properties unlike any kind of inorganic matter. matter unites with matter in three ways, mechanically, chemically and organically, and each mode of union gives rise to properties peculiar to itself. when matter unites organically, the substance or being so formed exhibits some phenomena essentially different from what inorganic bodies exhibit. it is on this account that we ascribe to organic bodies certain properties, which we call physiological properties, such as contractility, sensibility, life, etc. when, from any cause, these bodies have undergone such a change that they no longer exhibit the phenomena peculiar to them, they are said to have lost these properties, and to be dead. a substance need not possess all the physiological properties of an animal of the higher orders to entitle it to the name of an organized or living substance, nor need it possess the physical property of solidity. the blood, as well as many of the secretions, does several things, exhibits several phenomena, which no mechanical or mere chemical combinations of matter do exhibit. we must therefore ascribe to it certain physiological properties, and regard it as an organized, a living fluid, as was contended by the celebrated john hunter. so with respect to the semen, it certainly possesses physiological properties, one in particular peculiar to itself, namely, the property of impregnating the female; and upon no sound principle can it be regarded in any other light than as an organized, and of course a living fluid. and if the female secretion or any part of it unite with the male secretion in the formation of the rudiments or the foetus in a different manner than any other substance would, then it certainly has the property of doing so, whether we give this property a name or not; and a regard to the soundest principles of physiology compels us to class this property with the physiological or vital, and of course to regard this secretion as an organized and living fluid so, then, unorganized matter does not form an organized being, admitting the hypothesis before us as correct. that organized being should give rise to other organized beings under favorable circumstances as to nourishment, warmth, etc., is no more wonderful than that fire should give rise to fire when air and fuel are present. to be sure, there are some minute steps in the processes which are not fully known to us; still, if they ever should be known, we should unquestionably see that there is a natural cause for every one of them; and that they are all consonant with certain laws of the animal economy. we should see no necessity of attempting to explain the process of generation by bringing to our aid, or rather to the darkening of the subject, any imaginary principle, as the _visus formaticus_ of blumenbach. as to the "observations and experiments of haller and spallanzani," i think, with dr. bostock, that they weigh but little, if any, against the theory before us. i shall not be at the labor of bringing them forward and showing their futility as objections to this theory, for i am far from insisting on the correctness of it; that is, i do not insist that any part of the female secretion, during coition, unites with the male semen in the formation of the rudiments of the foetus. the second hypothesis or theory, i shall notice, as to the rudiments of the foetus, is that of leeuwenhoek, who regarded the seminal animalculse of the male semen as the proper rudiments of the foetus, and thought that the office of the female is to afford them a suitable receptacle where they may be supported and nourished until they are able to exist by the exercise of their own functions. this is essentially the view of the subject which i intend to give more particularly presently. i know of no serious objections to this hypothesis, nothing but the "extreme improbability," as its opponents say, "that these animalculã¦ should be the rudiments of being so totally dissimilar to them." but i wish to know if there is more difference between a foetus and a seminal animalcule than there is between a foetus and a few material particles in some other form than that of such animalcule? the third hypothesis, or that of pre-existing germs, proceeded upon a precisely opposite view of the subject to that of leeuwenhoek, namely, that the foetus is properly the production of the female; that it exists previous to the sexual congress, with all its organs, in some parts of the uterine system; and that it receives no proper addition from the male, but that the seminal fluid acts merely by exciting the powers of the foetus, or endowing it with vitality. it is not known who first proposed this hypothesis; but strange as it may appear, it has had the support of such names as bonnet, haller and spallanzani, and met with a favorable reception in the middle of the last century. agreeable to this hypothesis, our common mother, eve, contained a number of homuncules (little men) one within another, like a nest of boxes, and all within her ovaries, equal to all the number of births that have ever been, or ever will be, not to reckon abortions. were i to bring forward all the facts and arguments that have been advanced in support of this idea, it seems to me i should fail to convince sound minds of its correctness; as to arguments against it, they surely seem uncalled for. having now presented several hypotheses of generation, some as to the manner in which the semen reaches or influences the ovary, and others as to the rudiments of the foetus, i shall now bring together those views which, upon the whole, appear to me the most satisfactory. i believe, with dr. dewees, that a set of absorbent vessels extend from the innermost surface of the _labia externa_, and from the vagina to the ovary, the whole office of which is to take up the semen or some part thereof, and convey it to the ovary. i believe, with leeuwenhoek, that the seminal animalculã¦ are the proper rudiments of the foetus, and are perhaps of different sexes; that in cases of impregnation one of them is carried not only to, but into a vesicle of an ovary, which is in a condition to receive and be duly affected by it.* it is here surrounded by the albuminous fluid which the vesicle contains. this fluid being somewhat changed in its qualities by its new-comer, stimulates the minute vessels of the parts which surround it, and thus causes more of this fluid to be formed; and while it affords the animalcule material for its development, it puts the delicate membrane of the ovary which retains it in its place upon the stretch, and finally bursts forth surrounded probably by an exceedingly delicate membrane of its own. this membrane, with the albuminous fluid it contains and the animalcule in the center of it, constitutes the ovum or egg. it is received by the fimbriated extremity of the fallopian tube, which by this time has grasped the ovary, and is by this tube slowly conveyed into the uterus, to the inner surface of which it attaches itself, through the medium of the membrane, which is formed by the uterus itself in the interim between impregnation and the arriving of the ovum in the way i have just mentioned. * the opinion that the spermatozoa of seminal filaments are real animalculã¦ is now abandoned, but it is held by dr. carpenter and other authorities that they actually, as here stated, penetrate into the interior of the ovum. "the nature of impregnation," says dr. hermann, "is as yet unknown. in all probability it is, above all, essential, in order that it should occur, that one or more spermatozoa should penetrate the ovum. at any rate, spermatozoa have been found within the fecundated eggs of the most diverse species of animals."--elements of "human physiology," translated from the 5th ed., by dr. gamgee, p. 534, 1875.--g. r. the idea that a seminal animalcule enters an ovum while it remains in the ovary, was never before advanced to my knowledge; hence i consider it incumbent upon me to advance some reason for the opinion. first, it is admitted on all hands that the seminal animalculã¦ are essential to impregnation, since "they cannot be detected when either from age or disease the animal is rendered sterile." second, the ovum is impregnated while it remains in the ovary. true, those who never met with dr. dewees' theory, and who, consequently, have adopted the idea that the semen is ejected into the uterus, as the least improbable of any with which they were acquainted, have found it very difficult to dispose of the fact that the ovum is impregnated in the ovary, and have consequently presumed this is not generally the case. they admit it is certainly so sometimes, and that it is difficult to reject the conclusion that it is always so. dr. bostock--who, doubtless, had not met with dewees' theory at the time he wrote, and who admits it impossible to conceive how the semen can find its way along the fallopian tubes, how it can find its way toward the ovary, farther, at most, than into the uterus, and, consequently, cannot see how the ovum can be impregnated into the ovary--says, "perhaps the most rational supposition may be that the ovum is transmitted to the uterus in the unimpregnated state; but there are certain facts which seem almost incompatible with this idea, especially the cases which not infrequently occur of perfect foetuses having been found in the tubes, or where they escaped them into the cavity of the abdomen. hence it is demonstrated the ovum is occasionally impregnated in the tubes (why did he not say ovaria?), and we can scarcely resist the conclusion that it must always be the case."..."haller discusses this hypothesis (bostock's 'most natural supposition, perhaps') and decides against it."..."the experiments of cruikshank, which were very numerous, and appear to have been made with the requisite degree of skill and correctness, led to the conclusion that the rudiment of the young animal is perfected in the ovarium."... "a case is detailed by dr. granville, of a foetus which appears to have been lodged in the body of the ovarium itself, and is considered by its author as a proof that conception always takes place in this organ." the above quotations are from the third volume of bostock's physiology. now, as the seminal animalculã¦ are essential to impregnation, and as the ovum is impregnated in the ovarium, what more probable conjecture can we form than that an animalcule, as the real proper rudiment of the foetus, enters the ovum, where, being surrounded with albuminous fluid with which it is nourished, it gradually becomes developed? it may be noticed that leeuwenhoek estimates that ten thousand animalculã¦ of the human semen may exist in a space not larger than a grain of sand. there can, therefore, be no difficulty in admitting that they may find their way along exceedingly minute vessels from the vagina, not only to, but into the ovum while situated in the ovarium. i think no one can be disposed to maintain that the animalculã¦ merely reaches the surface of the ovum and thus impregnates it. but possibly some may contend that its sole office is to stimulate the ovum, and in this way set going that train of actions which are essential to impregnation. but there is no evidence in favor of this last idea, and certainly it does not so well harmonize with the fact that the offspring generally partakes more or less of the character of its male parent. as dr. dewees says of the doctrine of sympathy, "it makes no provision for the formation of mules; for the peculiarities of and likeness of parents; and for the propagation of predisposition to disease from parent to child; for the production of mulattoes," etc. considering it important to do away with the popular and mischievous error that the semen must enter the uterus to effect impregnation, i shall, in addition to what has been already advanced, here notice the experiments of dr. haighton. he divided the fallopian tubes in numerous instances, and that after the operation a foetus is never produced, but that _corpora lutea_ were formed. the obvious conclusions from these facts are that the semen does not traverse the fallopian tubes to reach the ovaria; yet, that the ovum becomes impregnated while in the ovarium and, consequently, that the semen reaches the ovum in some way, except by the uterus and fallopian tubes. i may remark, however, that a _corpus luteum_ is not positive proof that impregnation at some time or other has taken place; yet they are so rarely found in virgins that they were regarded as such proofs until the time of blumenbach, a writer of the present century.* * a _corpus luteum_ is a little yellowish body, formed in the ovary by changes that take place in the graafian vesicle after it has burst and discharged its contents. _corpora lutea_ were formerly considered a sure sign of impregnation, as they were thought to be developed only or chiefly in cases of pregnancy, but it is now known that they occur in all cases where a vesicle has been ruptured and an ovum discharged; though they attain a larger, size and are longer visible in the ovary when pregnancy takes place than when it does not.--g. r. "harvey and degraaf dissected animals at most every period after coition for the express purpose of discovering the semen, but were never able to detect the smallest vestige of it in the uterus in any one instance."--dewells essay on superfoetation. the fact of superfoetation furnishes a very strong argument against the idea that the semen enters the uterus in impregnation. a woman being impregnated while she is already impregnated constitutes superfoetation. it is established beyond a doubt that such instances have occurred, yet those who have supposed that it is necessary for the semen to pass through the mouth of the uterus to produce conception have urged that superfoetation could not take place, because, say they--and they say correctly--"so soon as impregnation shall have taken place, the _os uteri_ closes and becomes impervious to the semen ejected in subsequent acts of coition." dr. dewees related two cases, evidently cases of superfoetation, that occurred to his own personal knowledge. the first shows that, agreeable to the old theory, the semen must have met with other difficulties than a closed month of the uterus,--it must have passed through several membranes, as well as the waters surrounding the foetus, to have reached even the uterine extremity of a fallopian tube. the second case i will give in his own words: "a white woman, servant to mr. h., of abington township, montgomery county, was delivered about five and twenty years since of twins, one of which was perfectly white, the other perfectly black. when i resided in that neighborhood i was in the habit of seeing them almost daily and also had frequent conversations with mrs. h. respecting them. she was present at their birth, so that no possible deception could have been practiced respecting them. the white girl is delicate, fair-skinned, light-haired and blue eyed, and is said very much to resemble the mother. the other has all the characteristic marks of the african; short of stature, flat, broad-nosed, thick-lipped, woolly-headed, flat-footed, and projecting heels; she is said to resemble a negro they had on the farm, but with whom the woman would never acknowledge an intimacy; but of this there was no doubt, as both he and the white man, with whom her connection was detected, ran from the neighborhood as soon as it was known the girl was with child." i am aware that some have thought that they had actually discovered semen in the uterus, while ruysch, an anatomist of considerable eminence, who flourished at the close of the seventeenth century, asserted in the most unequivocal manner that he found the semen in its gross white state in one of the fallopian tubes of a woman, who died very soon after, or during the act of coition; but says dewees, "the semen, after it has escaped from the penis, quickly loses its albuminous appearance and becomes as thin and transparent as water. and we are certain that ruysch was mistaken. some alteration in the natural secretion of the parts was mistaken for semen. this was nowise difficult for him to do, as he had a particular theory to support, and more especially as this supposed discovery made so much for it. it is not merely speculative when we say that some change in the natural secretion of the parts may be mistaken for semen, for we have the testimony of morgani on our side. he tells us he has seen similar appearances in several instances in virgins and others, who have been subject during their lives to leucorrhã¦, and that it has been mistaken by some for male semen." on the whole i would say, that in some instances, where the mouth of the uterus is uncommonly relaxed, the semen may, as it were, accidentally have found its way into it; but that is not generally the case, nor is it essential to impregnation; and further, that whatever semen may at any time be lodged in the uterus, has nothing to do with conception. it is not consistent with analogy to suppose that the uterus has vessels for absorbing the semen and conveying it to the ovaria, considering the other important functions which we know it performs. the circumstances under which a female is most likely to conceive are, first, when she is in health; second, between the ages of twenty-six and thirty; third, after she has for a season been deprived of those intercourses she had previously enjoyed; fourth, soon after menstruating. respect-ing this latter circumstance, dr. dewees remarks, "perhaps it is not erring greatly to say, that the woman is liable to conceive at any part of the menstrual interval. it is generally supposed, however, that the most favorable instant is immediately after the catamenia have ceased." perhaps this is so as a general rule, but it is certainly liable to exceptions,* and he relates the following case which occurred to his own notice: * this view, which concerns a question of the utmost practical importance, is held at the present day by the great physiologists. it is believed that although conception may occur at other times, it is much more likely to happen from intercourse a few days before or after the menstrual periods; that is to say, during the time when ova are in process of being ripened and detached from the ovaries, and before they perish and are conveyed out of the body. "there is good reason to believe," says dr. carpenter, "that in the human female the sexual feeling becomes stronger at the period of menstruation; and it is quite certain that there is a greater aptitude for conception immediately before and after that epoch, than there is at any immediate period. this question has been made the subject of special inquiry by m. raciborski, who affirms that the exceptions to the rule--that conception occurs immediately before or after or during menstruation--are not more than six or seven per cent. indeed, in his latest work on the subject, he gives the details of fifteen cases, in which the date of conception could be accurately fixed, and the time of the last appearance of the catamenia was also known, and in all but one of them the correspondence between the periods was very close."--"human physiology," p. 959. so, too, dr. kirkes remarks, that "although conception is not confined to the periods of menstruation, yet it is more likely to occur within a few days after cessation of the menstrual flux than at other times."--"handbook of physiology," p. 725. "the husband of a lady who was obliged to absent himself many months in consequence of the embarrassment of his affairs, returned one night clandestinely, his visit being only known to his wife, his mother, and myself. the consequence of this visit was the impregnation of his wife. the lady was at that time within a week of her menstrual period; but as this did not fail to take place, she was led to hope that she had not suffered by the visit of her husband. but her catamenia not appearing at the next period, gave rise to a fear that she had not escaped! and the birth of a child nine months and thirteen days from the night of the clandestine visit proved her apprehensions too well grounded." i think this case is an exception to a general rule; and, furthermore, favors an idea which reason and a limited observation, rather than positive knowledge, has led me to advance, the above, namely, that a woman is more likely to conceive, other things being the same, after being deprived for a season of those intercourses she had previously enjoyed. had this lady's husband remained constantly at home, she would probably either not have conceived at all, or have done so a fortnight sooner than she did. this case is also remarkable for two other facts: one, "that a woman in perfect health, and pregnant with a healthy child, may exceed the period of nine months by several days; the other, that a check is not always immediately given to the catamenial flow by an ovum being impregnated." probably it is not so generally so as many suppose. the term of utero-gestation, or the length of time from conception to the commencement of labor, is not precisely determined by physiologists. "it seems, however," says dr. dewees, "from the best calculations that can be made, that nine calendar months, or forty weeks, approaches the truth so nearly that we can scarcely need or desire more accuracy, could it be obtained." unquestionably, however, some cases exceed this period by many days, or even weeks, and it has been a question much agitated, how far this period is ever exceeded. it is a question of some moment in a legal point of view. cases are reported where the usual period was exceeded by five or six months; cases, too, where the circumstances attending them and the respectability of their reporters are such as to command our belief. dr. dewees has paid much attention to this subject, and he declares himself entirely convinced "that the commonly fixed period may be extended from thirteen days to six weeks, under the influence of certain causes or peculiarities of constitution."* * see tables in dr. bull's "hints to mothers," pp. 130-141. --publishers' note. these occasional departures from the general rule will, perhaps, be the more readily admitted when we consider that they are not confined to the human species. from the experiments of tessier, it appears that the term of utero-gestation varies greatly with the cow, sheep, horse, swine and other animals to which his attention was directed. properly connected with the subject of generation are the signs of pregnancy. dr. dewees remarks that "our experience furnishes no certain mark by which the moment conception takes place is to be distinguished. all appeals by the women to particular sensations experienced at the instant should be very guardedly received, for we are certain they cannot be relied upon; for enjoyment and indifference are alike fallacious. nor are certain nervous tremblings, nausea, palpitation of the heart, the sensation of something flowing from them during coition, etc, more to be relied upon." burns, however, says, "some women feel, immediately after conception, a peculiar sensation, which apprises them of their situation, but such instances are not frequent, and generally the first circumstances which lead a woman to suppose herself pregnant are the suppression of the menses;" a fickle appetite, some sickness, perhaps vomiting, especially in the morning; returning qualms, or languor in the afternoon; she is liable to heartburn, and to disturbed sleep. the breasts at first often become smaller and sometimes tender; but about the third month they enlarge, and occasionally become painful. the nipple is surrounded with an aureole or circle of a brown color, or at least of a color sensibly deeper or darker than before. she loses her looks, becomes paler, and the under part of the lower eyelid is often somewhat of a leaden hue. the features become sharper, and sometimes the whole body begins to emaciate, while the pulse quickens. in many instances particular sympathies take place, causing salivation, toothache, jaundice, etc. in other cases very little disturbance is produced, and the woman is not certain of her condition until the time of quickening, which is generally about four months from conception. it is possible for a woman to mistake the effects of wind for the motion of the child, especially if they have never borne children, and be anxious for a family; but the sensation produced by wind in the bowels is not confined to one spot, but is often felt at a part of the abdomen where the motion of a child could not possibly be felt. quite as frequently, perhaps, do fleshy women think themselves dropsical, and mistake motions of the child for movements of water within the abdominal cavity. the motion of the child is not to be confounded with the sensation sometimes produced by the uterus rising out of the pelvis, which produces the feeling of fluttering. at the end of the fourth month, the uterus becomes so large that it is obliged to rise out of the pelvis, and if this elevation takes place suddenly, the sensation accompanying it is pretty strong, and the woman at the time feels sick or faint, and in irritable habits; even a hysterical fit may accompany it after this the morning sickness and other sympathetic effects of pregnancy generally abate, and the health improves. very soon after impregnation, if blood be drawn and suffered to stand a short time undisturbed, it will become sizy, of a yellowish or bluish color, and somewhat of an oily appearance. but we cannot from such appearances of the blood alone pronounce a woman pregnant, for a suppression of the menses, accompanied with a febrile state, may give the blood a like appearance as pregnancy, so also may some local disease. of the above-mentioned symptoms, perhaps there is no _one_ on which we can place more reliance than the increased color of the circle around the nipple.* * see "advice to a wife," p. h. chavasse, pp. 115-124, where many details are given.--publishers' note. six or eight weeks after conception, the most sure way of ascertaining pregnancy is to examine the mouth and neck of the uterus, by way of the vagina. the uterus will be found lower down than formerly, its mouth is not directed so much forward as before impregnation, and is more completely closed, and the neck is felt to be thicker, or increased in circumference. when raised on the finger it is found to be heavier or more resisting. whoever makes this examination must have examined the same uterus in an unimpregnated state, and retained a tolerably correct idea of its feeling at that time, or he will be liable to uncertainty, because the uterus of one woman is naturally different in magnitude from another, and the uterus is frequently lower down than natural from other causes than pregnancy.* * no one but a doctor, or one trained in physiology could, of course, make any such examination with safety and utility.--publishers' note. it has not been fully ascertained how long it is after a fruitful connection before an effect is produced upon the ovaria, that is before any alteration could be discovered, were the female to be dissected. but brighton's experiments have established the fact, that with rabbits, whose term of utero-gestation is but thirty days, no effect is propagated to the ovaria until nearly fifty hours after coition; we should judge, therefore, that with the human species it must be several days, and it is generally estimated by physiologists that the ovum does not reach the uterus until the expiration of twenty days from the time of connection.* * "the time occupied in the passage of the ovum from the ovary to the uterus," says dr. kirkes, "occupies probably eight or ten days in the human female."--"handbook of physiology," p. 741.--g. r. it is probable that in all cases in which any matter is absorbed from any part of the animal system, some little time is required for such matter, after its application, to stimulate and arouse the absorbent vessels to action; hence it is probable that after the semen is lodged in the vagina, it is many minutes, possibly some hours, before any part of it is absorbed. chapter iii. of promoting and checking conception sterility depends either on imperfect organization, or imperfect action of the organs of generation. in the former cases, which are rare, the menses do not generally appear, the breasts are not developed, and the sexual desire is inconsiderable. there is no remedy in these cases. the action may be imperfect in several respects. the menses may be obstructed or sparing, or they may be too profuse or frequent. it is extremely rare for a woman to conceive who does not menstruate regularly. hence where this is the case the first step is to regulate this periodical discharge. for this purpose the advice of a physician will generally be required, for these irregularities depend upon such various causes and require such a variety of treatment that it would be inconsistent with the plan of this work to give instructions for remedying them. a state of exhaustion or weakness of the uterine system, occasioned by too frequent intercourse, is a frequent cause of sterility. the sterility of prostitutes is attributed to this cause, but i doubt it being the only one. with females who are apparently healthy, the most frequent cause is a torpor, rather than weakness of the genital organs. for the removal of sterility from this cause, i shall give some instructions, and this i do the more readily because the requisite means are such as will regulate the menses in many cases, where they do not appear so early in life, so freely or so frequently as they ought. in the first place, it will generally be necessary to do something toward invigorating the system by exercise in the open air, by nourishing food of easy digestion, by sufficient dress, particularly flannel, and especially by strict temperance in all things. with this view, also, some scales which fall from the blacksmith's anvil, or some steel filings may be put into old cider or wine (cider the best), and after standing a week or so, as much may be taken two or three times a day as can be borne without disturbing the stomach. all the while the bowels are to be kept rather open by taking from one to three of _pill rufi_ every night on going to bed. these pills consist of four parts of aloes, two parts of myrrh, and one of saffron, by weight. these measures having been regularly pursued until the system be brought into a vigorous state, medicines which are more particularly calculated to arouse the genital organs from a state of torpor may be commenced, and continued for months if necessary. the cheapest, most simple (and i am not prepared to say it is not the most effectual in many cases) is cayenne. all the virtues of this article are not generally known even to physicians. i know it does not have the effect upon the coats of the stomach that many have conjectured. it may be taken in the quantity of from one to two rising teaspoonsful, or even more, everyday up on food or on any liquid vehicle. another medicine of much efficacy is dewees' volatile tincture of guaiac. it is generally kept by apothecaries, and is prepared as follows: take of gum guaicum, in powder, eight ounces; carbonate of potash, or of soda, or (what will answer) saleratus, three drachms; allspice, in powder, two ounces; any common spirits of good strength, two pounds, or what is about the same two pints and a gill. put all into a bottle, which may be shaken now and then, and use of it may be commenced in a few days. to every gill of this, at least a large teaspoon-ful of spirits of ammonia is to be added. a teaspoonful is to be taken for a dose, three times a day, in a glass of milk, cider or wine. it is usually given before eating; but if it should chance to offend the stomach when taken before breakfast, it may in this case be taken an hour after. dr. dewees found this tincture, taken perhaps for months, the most effectual remedy for painful menstruation, which is an obstinate complaint. if there be frequent strong pulse, heat, thirst, florid countenance, etc., it is not to be taken until these symptoms be removed by low diet, a few doses of salts, and bleeding, if required. a third medicine for arousing the genital organs, is tincture of spanish flies. but i doubt its being equal, in sterility, to the above mentioned medicines, though it may exceed them in some cases, and may be tried if these fail. a drachm of them may be put to two gills of spirits. dose, 25 drops, in water, three times a day, increasing each one by two or three drops, until some degree of stranguary occurs, then omit until this pass off, as it will in a day or two. should the stranguary be severe, drink freely of milk and water, slippery elm, or flaxseed tea. in many cases of sterility, where the general health is considerably in fault, and especially when the digestive organs are torpid, i should have much faith in a thomsonian course. it is calculated to arouse the capillary vessels throughout the whole system, and thus to open the secretions, to remove obstructions, and free the blood of those effete and phlegmy materials which nature requires to be thrown off. the views of the thomsonian as to heat and cold appear to me unphilosophical. but this has nothing to do with the efficiency of their measures. in relation to sterility, i would here bring to mind, what has before been stated, that a woman is most likely to conceive immediately after a menstrual turn. and now, also, let me suggest the idea that nature's delicate beginnings may be frustrated by the same means that put her a going. this idea is certainly important when the woman is known to have miscarried a number of times. sterility is sometimes to be attributed to the male, though he apparently be in perfect health. it would be an interesting fact to ascertain if there be no seminal animalculã¦ in these cases; and whether medicines of any kind are available. it has been ascertained that a male and female may be sterile in relation to each other, though neither of them be so with others. the foregoing measures for sterility are also suitable in cases of impotency. this term, i believe, is generally con-lined to, and defined as a want of desire or ability, or both on the part of the male; but i see no good reason why it should not comprehend the case in which there is neither desire nor pleasure with the female. such females, it is true, may be fruitful; but so, on the other hand, the semen may not have lost its fecundating property. impotency, at a young or middle age, and in some situations in life especially, is certainly a serious misfortune, to say the least of it. the whole evil by no means consists, in every case, in the loss of a source of pleasure. all young people ought to be apprised of the causes of it--causes which, in many instances, greatly lessen one's ability of giving and receiving that pleasure which is the root of domestic happiness. i shall allude to one cause, that of premature, and especially solitary gratification, in another place. intemperance in the use of spirits is another powerful cause. even a moderate use of spirits, and also of tobacco, in any form, have some effect it is a law of animal economy, that no one part of the system can be stimulated or excited, without an expense of vitality, as it is termed. the part which is stimulated draws the energy from other parts. and hence it is, that close and deep study, as well as all the mental passions when excessive, impair the venereal appetite. all excesses, all diseases and modes of life which impair the general health, impair this appetite, but some things more directly and powerfully than others. as to the remedies for impotency, they are much the same as for sterility. it is of the first importance that the mind be relieved from all care and anxiety. the general health is to be improved by temperance, proper exercise in the open air, cheerful company, change of scenery, or some occupation to divert the mind without requiring much exercise of it; nourishing food of easy digestion; flannel worn next to the skin. the cold bath may be tried, and if it be followed by agreeable feelings, it will do good. the bowels may be gently stimulated by the pills before mentioned; and the preparation of iron also, already mentioned, should be taken. to stimulate the genital organs more directly, cayenne, dewees' tincture of guaiac, or tincture of flies, may be taken. i have given directions for making and taking the tincture of flies, chiefly because it is esteemed one of the best remedies for impotency caused by or connected with nocturnal emissions, to which i have before alluded. it is in cases where little or no pleasure, nor erection, attend these emissions--cases brought on by debauchery, or in elderly persons--that i would recommend tincture of flies, and the other measures above mentioned. in some bad cases, enormous doses of this tincture are required, say two or three hundred drops. yet the best rule for taking it is that already given, namely, begin with small doses, and gradually increase until some stranguary be felt, or some benefit be received. in this affection, as well as in all cases of impaired virility, the means i have mentioned are to be pursued for a long time, unless relief be obtained. these have cured after having been taken for a year or more without the result. in all cases of impotency not evidently depending upon disease of some part besides the genital organs, i should have much confidence in blisters applied to the lower part of the spine. occasional nocturnal emissions, accompanied with erection and pleasure, are by no means to be considered a disease, though they have given many a one such uneasiness. even if they be frequent, and the system considerably debilitated, if not caused by debauch, and the person be young, marriage is the proper measure. there have been several means proposed and practiced for checking conception. i shall briefly notice them, though a knowledge of the best is what most concerns us. that of withdrawal immediately before emission is certainly effectual, if practiced with sufficient care. but if (as i believe) dr. dewees' theory of conception be correct, and as spallanzani's experiments show that only a trifle of semen, even largely diluted with water, may impregnate by being injected into the vagina, it is clear that nothing short of entire withdrawal is to be depended upon. but the old notion that the semen must enter the uterus to cause conception, has led many to believe that a partial withdrawal is sufficient, and it is on this account that this error has proved mischievous, as all important errors generally do. it is said by those who speak from experience that the practice of withdrawal has an effect upon the health similar to intemperance in eating. as the subsequent exhaustion is probably mainly owing to the shock the nervous system sustains in the act of coition, this opinion may be correct. it is further said that this practice serves to keep alive those fine feelings with which married people first come together. still, i leave it for every one to decide for himself whether this check be so far from satisfactory as not to render some other very desirable. as to the baudruche, which consists in a covering used by the male, made of very delicate skin, it is by no means calculated to come into general use. it has been used to secure immunity from syphilitic affections. another check which the old idea of conception has led some to recommend with considerable confidence, consists in introducing into the vagina, previous to connection, a very delicate piece of sponge, moistened with water, to be immediately afterward withdrawn by means of a very narrow ribbon attached to it, but, as our views would lead us to expect, this check has not proved a sure preventive. as there are many little ridges or folds in the vagina, we cannot suppose the withdrawal of the sponge would dislodge all the semen in every instance. if, however, it were well moistened with some liquid which acted chemically upon the semen, it would be pretty likely to destroy the fecundating property of what might remain. but if this check were ever so sure, it would, in my opinion, fall short of being equal, all things considered, to the one i am about to mention--one which not only dislodges the semen pretty effectually, but at the same time destroys the fecundating property of the whole of it. it consists in syringing the vagina immediately after connection with a solution of sulphate of zinc, of alum, pearl-ash, or any salt that acts chemically on the semen, and at the same time produces no unfavorable effect on the female. in all probability a vegetable astringent would answer--as an infusion of white oak bark, of red rose leaves, of nut-galls, and the like. a lump of either of the above-mentioned salts, of the size of a chestnut, may be dissolved in a pint of water, making the solution weaker or stronger, as it may be borne without any irritation of the parts to which it is applied. these solutions will not lose their virtues by age. a female syringe, which will be required in the use of the check, may be had at the shop of an apothecary for a shilling or less. if preferred, the semen may be dislodged as far as it can be, by syringing with simple water, after which some of the solution is to be injected, to destroy the fecundating property of what may remain lodged between the ridges of the vagina, etc. i know the use of this check requires the woman to leave her bed for a few moments, but this is its only objection; and it would be unreasonable to suppose that any check can ever be devised entirely free of objections. in its favor it may be said, it costs nearly nothing; it is sure; it requires no sacrifice of pleasure; it is in the hand of the female; it is to be used after, instead of before the connection, a weighty consideration in its favor, as a moment's reflection will convince any one; and last, but not least, it is conducive to cleanliness, and preserves the parts from relaxation and disease. the vagina may be very much contracted by a persevering use of astringent injections, and they are constantly used for this purpose in cases of _procidentia uteri_, or a sinking down of the womb; subject as women are to _fluor albus_, and other diseases of the genital organs, it is rather a matter of wonder that they are not more so, considering the prevailing practices. those who have used this check (and some have used it, to my certain knowledge with entire success for nine or ten years, and under such circumstances as leave no room to doubt its efficacy) affirm that they would be at the trouble of using injections merely for the purposes of health and cleanliness. by actual experiment it has been rendered highly probable that pregnancy may, in many instances, be prevented by injections of simple water, applied with a tolerable degree of care. but simple water has failed, and its occasional failure is what we should expect, considering the anatomy of the parts, and the results of spallanzani's experiments heretofore alluded to. this much did i say respecting this check in the first edition of this work. that is what i call the chemical check. the idea of destroying the fecundating property of the semen was original, if it did not originate with me. my attention was drawn to the subject by the perusal of "moral physiology." such was my confidence in the chemical idea that i sat down and wrote this work in july, 1831. but the reflection that i did not know that this check would never fail, and that if it should, i might do someone an injury in recommending it, caused the manuscript to lie on hand until the following december. some time in november i fell in with an old acquaintance, who agreeably surprised me by stating that to his personal knowledge this last check had been used as above stated. i have since conversed with a gentleman with whom i was acquainted, who stated that, being in baltimore some few years ago, he was there informed of this check by those who have no doubt of its efficacy. from what has as yet fell under my observation, i am not warranted in drawing any conclusion. i can only say that i have never known it to fail. such are my views on the whole subject, that it would require many instances of its reputed failure to satisfy me that such failures were not owing to an insufficient use of it. i even believe that quite cold water alone, if thoroughly used, would be sufficient. in spallanzani's experiments warm water was unquestionably used. as the seminal animalcule are essential to impregnation, all we have to do is to change the condition of, or, if you will, to kill them; and as they are so exceedingly small and delicate, this is doubtless easily done, and hence cold water may be sufficient. what has now been advanced in this work will enable the reader to judge for himself or herself of the efficacy of the chemical or syringe check, and time will probably determine whether i am correct in this matter. i do know that those married females who have much desire to escape will not stand for the little trouble of using this check, especially when they consider that on the score of cleanliness and health alone it is worth the trouble. a great part of the time no check is necessary, and women of experience and observation, with the information conveyed by this work, will be able to judge pretty correctly when it is and when it is not. they may rest assured that none of the salts mentioned will have any deleterious effect. the sulphate of zinc is commonly known by the name of white vitriol. this, as well as alum, have been extensively used for leucorrhã¦. acetate of lead would doubtless be effectual--indeed, it has proven to be so; but i do not recommend it, because i conceive it possible that a long continued use of it might impair the instinct. i hope that no failures will be charged of efficacy of this check which ought to be attributed to negligence or insufficient use of it. i will therefore recommend at least two applications of the syringe, the sooner the surer, yet it is my opinion that five minutes' delay would not prove mischievous--perhaps not ten. chapter iv. remarks on the reproductive instinct i scarcely need observe that by this instinct is meant the desire for sexual intercourse. blumenbach speaks of this instinct as "superior to all others in universality and violence." perhaps hunger is an exception. but surely no instinct commands a greater proportion of our thoughts or has a greater influence upon happiness for better or for worse. "controlled by reason and chastened by good feelings, it gives to social intercourse much of its charm and zest, but directed by selfishness or governed by force, it is prolific of misery and degradation. in itself it appears to be the most social and least selfish of all instincts. it fits us to give even while we receive pleasure, and among cultivated beings the former power is even more highly valued than the latter. not one of our instincts perhaps affords larger scope for the exercise of disinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral feelings of our race. not one gives birth to relations more gentle, more humanizing and endearing; not one lies more immediately at the root of the kindliest charities and most generous impulses that honor and bless human nature. it is a much more noble, because less purely selfish, instinct than hunger or thirst. it is an instinct that entwines itself around the warmest feelings and best affections of the heart"--_moral physiology_. but too frequently its strength, together with a want of moral culture, is such that it is not "controlled by reason;" and consequently, from time immemorial, it has been gratified, either in a mischievous manner, or to such an intemperate degree, or under such improper circumstances, as to give rise to an incalculable amount of human misery. for this reason it has, by some, been regarded as a low, degrading and "carnal" passion, with which family life must be ever at war. but in the instinct itself the philosopher sees nothing deserving of degrading epithets. he sees not that nature should war against herself. he believes that in savage life it _is_, and in wisely organized society of duly enlightened and civilized beings it should be the source of ten-fold more happiness than misery. a part of the evil consequences to which this instinct is daily giving rise under the present state of things, it belongs more particularly to the moralist to point out; whilst of others it falls within the province of the physician to treat. but let me first remark that physicians have hitherto fallen far short of giving those instructions concerning this instinct which its importance demands. in books, pamphlets, journals, etc., they have laid much before the public respecting eating, drinking, bathing, lacing, air, exercise, etc., but have passed by the still more important subject now before us, giving only here and there spine faint allusion to it this, it is true, the customs, not to say pruderies, of the age have compelled them to do, in publications designed for the public eye, yet, in some small work, indicated by its title to be for private perusal, they might, with the utmost propriety, have embodied much highly useful instruction in relation to this instinct. this instinct is liable to be gratified at improper times, to an intemperate degree, and in a mischievous manner. true philosophy dictates that this and all other appetites be so gratified as will most conduce to human happiness--not merely the happiness attending the gratification of one of the senses, but all the senses--not merely sensual happiness, but intellectual--not merely the happiness of the individual, but of the human family. first.--of the times at which this instinct ought not to be gratified. with females it ought not to be gratified until they are seventeen or eighteen years of age, and with males not until they are a year or two older. the reason is, if they refrain until these ages, the passion will hold out the longer, and they will be able to derive much more pleasure from it in after life, than if earlier gratified, especially to any great extent a due regard to health also enjoins with most persons some restraint on this instinct--indeed, at all times, but especially for a few years after the above-mentioned ages. it ought not to be rashly gratified at first. begin temperately, and as the system becomes more mature, and habituated to the effects naturally produced by the gratification of this instinct, it will bear more without injury. many young married people, ignorant of the consequences, have debilitated the whole system--the genital system in particular; have impaired their mental energies; have induced consumptive and other diseases; have rendered themselves irritable, unsocial, melancholy and finally much impaired, perhaps destroyed their affection for each other by an undue gratification of the reproductive instinct. in almost all diseases, if gratified at all, it should be very temperately. it ought not to be gratified during menstruation, as it might prove productive to the man of symptoms similar to those of syphilis, but more probably to the woman of a weakening disease called _fluor albus_. in case of pregnancy a temperate gratification for the first two or three months may be of no injury to the woman or the coming offspring. but it ought to be known that the growth of the foetus in utero may be impaired, and the seeds of future bodily infirmity and mental imbecility of the offspring may be sown by much indulgence during utero-gestation or pregnancy, especially when the woman experiences much pleasure in such indulgences. having already glanced at some of the bad effects of an undue gratification of this instinct, i have but little more to offer under the head of intemperate degree. it will be borne in mind that intemperance in this thing is not to be decided by numbers, but that it depends on circumstances; and what would be temperance in one, may be intemperance in another. and with respect to an individual, too, what he might enjoy with impunity, were he a laboring man, or a man whose business requires but little mental exercise, would, were he a student, unfit him for the successful prosecution of his studies. intemperance in the gratification of this instinct has a tendency to lead to intemperance in the use of ardent spirits. the languor, depression of spirits, in some instances faintness and want of appetite, induced by intemperate gratification, call loudly for some stimulus, and give a relish to spirits. thus the individual is led to drink. this inflames the blood, the passions, and leads to further indulgence. this again calls for more spirits; and thus two vicious habits are commenced, which mutually increase each other. strange as it may appear to those unacquainted with the animal economy, an intemperate indulgence sometimes gives rise to the same disease--so far as the name makes it so--that is frequently cured by a temperate indulgence; viz, nocturnal emissions. every young married woman ought to know that the male system is exhausted in a far greater degree than the female by gratification. it seems, indeed, to have but little effect, comparatively, upon some females. but with respect to the male, it has been estimated by tissot that the loss of one ounce of semen is equal in its effects upon the system of forty ounces of blood. as it respects the immediate effects, this estimation, generally speaking, may not be too great. but a man living on a full meat diet might, doubtless, part with fifty ounces of semen in the course of a year, with far less detriment to the system than with 2,000 ounces of blood. it is a fact, that mode of living, independent of occupation, makes a great difference with respect to what the system will bear. a full meat diet, turtles, oysters, eggs, spirits, wine, etc., certainly promote the secretion of semen, and enable the system to bear its emission. but a cool vegetable and milk diet calms all the passions, the venereal especially. most men adopting such a diet as this will suffer no inconvenience in extending the intervals of their gratification to three or four weeks; on the contrary, they will enjoy clear intellect, and a fine flow of spirits. this is the diet for men of literary pursuits, especially the unmarried. as to the mischievous manner, it consists in the unnatural habit of onanism, or solitary gratification; it is an antisocial and demoralizing habit, which, while it proves no quietus to the mind, impairs the bodily powers as well as mental, and not infrequently leads to insanity. while the gratification of the reproductive instinct in such manner as mentioned leads to bad consequences, a temperate and natural gratification, under proper circumstances, is attended with good, besides the mere attendant pleasure, which alone is enough to recommend such gratification. i admit that human beings might be so constituted that if they had no reproductive instinct to gratify, they might enjoy health; but being constituted as they are, this instinct cannot be mortified with impunity. it is a fact universally admitted, that unmarried females do not enjoy so much good health and attain to so great an age as the married; notwithstanding that the latter are subject to the diseases and pains incident to child-bearing. a temperate gratification promotes the secretions, and the appetite for food; calms the restless passions; induces pleasant sleep; awakens social feeling; and adds a zest to life which makes one conscious that life is worth preserving. appendix [i here connect with this work, by way of appendix, the following extract from an article which appeared in the boston investigator, a paper which, _mirabile dictu_, is so "crazy" as to be open to the investigation of all subjects which mightily concern mankind.] the only seeming objection of much weight that can be brought against diffusing a knowledge of checks is, that it will serve to increase illegal connections. now, this is exactly the contrary effect of that which those who have diffused such knowledge most confidently believe will arise from it. to diminish such connections is indeed one of the grand objects of this publication,--an object which laws and prisons cannot, or, at least, do not, accomplish. why is there so much prostitution in the land? the true answer to the question is not, and never will be, because the people have become acquainted with certain facts in physiology; it is because there are so many unmarried men and women,--men of dissipation and profligacy, owing to their not having married in their younger days and settled down in life. but why are there so many unmarried people in the country? not because young hearts when they arrive at the age of maturity do not desire to marry; but because prudential considerations interfere. the young man thinks: i cannot marry yet; i cannot support a family; i must make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement afterward. and so it is, that through fear of having a family, before they have made a little headway in the world, and of being thereby compelled to "tug at the oar of incessant labor throughout their lives," thousands of young men do not marry, but go abroad into the world and form vicious acquaintances and practices. the truth, then, is this,--there is so much illegal connection in the land, because the people had not, twenty years ago, that very information which, it would seem, some, doubtless through want of due reflection, are apprehensive will increase this evil. i might quote pages to the point from "every woman's book," but i fear my communication would be too lengthy. i content myself with a few lines. "but when it has become the custom here as elsewhere to limit the number of children, so that none need have more than they wish, no man will fear to take a wife; all will marry while young; debauchery will diminish; while good morals and religious duties will be promoted." it has been asked if a general knowledge of checks would not diminish the general increase of population? i think that such would not be the result in this country until such result would be desirable. in my opinion the effect would be a good many more families (and, on the whole, as many births), but not so many overgrown and poverty-stricken ones. it has been said, it is better to let nature take her course. now, in the broadest sense of the word "nature," i say so too. in this sense there is nothing unnatural in the universe. but if we limit the sense of the word nature so as not to include what we mean by art, then is civilized life one continued warfare against nature. it is by art that we subdue the forest; by art we contend against the elements; by art we combat the natural tendency of disease, etc. as to the outrageous slander which here and there one has been heard to utter against the fair sex, in saying that fear of conception is the foundation of their chastity, it must be the sentiment of a "carnal heart," which has been peculiarly unfortunate in its acquaintances. "to the pure, all things are pure." chastity, as well as its opposite, is in a great degree constitutional; and ought, in a like degree, to be regarded as a physical property, if i may so say, rather than a moral quality. where the constitution is favorable a very indifferent degree of moral training is sufficient to secure the virgin without the influence of the above-mentioned fear; but where it is the reverse you may coop up the individual in the narrow dark cage of ignorance and fear, as you will, but still you must watch. an eminent moralist has said, "that chastity which will not bear the light [of physiology] is scarcely worth preserving." but verily, i believe there is very little such in the market. what there be is naturally short-lived, and, after its demise, the unhappily constituted individual stands in great need of this light to save her from ignominy. what might it not have prevented in the fall river affair? and if one of two things must happen--either the destruction of fecundity or the destruction of life--which of the two is the greater evil? in these cases alone this light is calculated to do sufficient good to counterbalance all the evil that would arise from it; so that we should have its important advantages to the married in a political, a domestic and a medical point of view, as so much clear gain. this, of course, is my opinion; but since i have probably reflected more upon the subject than all the persons concerned in my imprisonment put together, until it can be shown that i have not as clear a head and as pure a heart as any of them, i think it entitled to some weight. woman and the new race by margaret sanger with a preface by havelock ellis * * * * * * new york 1920 * * * * * * dedicated to the memory of my mother, a mother who gave birth to eleven living children * * * * * * preface the modern woman movement, like the modern labour movement, may be said to have begun in the eighteenth century. the labour movement arose out of the industrial revolution with its resultant tendency to over-population, to unrestricted competition, to social misery and disorder. the woman movement appeared as an at first neglected by-product of the french revolution with its impulses of general human expansion, of freedom and of equality. since then, as we know, these two movements have each had a great and vigorous career which is still far from completed. on the whole they have moved independently along separate lines, and have at times seemed indeed almost hostile to each other. that has ceased to be the case. of recent years it has been seen not only that these two movements are not hostile, but that they may work together harmoniously for similar ends. one final step remained to be taken--it had to be realised not only that the labour movement could give the secret of success to the woman movement by its method and organization, but that on the other hand, woman held the secret without which labour is impotent to reach its ends. woman, by virtue of motherhood is the regulator of the birthrate, the sacred disposer of human production. it is in the deliberate restraint and measurement of human production that the fundamental problems of the family, the nation, the whole brotherhood of mankind find their solution. the health and longevity of the individual, the economic welfare of the workers, the general level of culture of the community, the possibility of abolishing from the world the desolating scourge of war--all these like great human needs, depend, primarily and fundamentally, on the wise limitation of the human output. it does not certainly make them inevitable, but it renders them possible of accomplishment; without it they have been clearly and repeatedly proved to be impossible. these facts have long been known to the few who view the world realistically. but it is not the few who rule the world. it is the masses--the ignorant, emotional, volatile, superstitious masses--who rule the world. it is they who choose the few supreme persons who manage or mismanage the world's affairs. even the most stupid of us must be able to see how it is done now, for during recent years the whole process has been displayed before us on the very largest scale. the lesson has not been altogether in vain. it is furnishing a new stimulus to those who are working for the increase of knowledge, and of practical action based on knowledge, among the masses, the masses who alone possess the power to change the force of the world for good or for evil, and by growth in wisdom to raise the human race on to a higher level. that is why the little book by margaret sanger, whose right to speak with authority on these matters we all recognize, cannot be too widely read. to the few who think, though they may here and there differ on points of detail, it is all as familiar as a. b. c. but to the millions who rule the world it is not familiar, and still less to the handful of superior persons whom the masses elect to supreme positions. therefore, let this book be read; let it be read by every man and woman who can read. and the sooner it is not only read but acted on, the better for the world. havelock ellis. * * * * * * contents chapter i woman's error and her debt ii woman's struggle for freedom iii the material of the new race iv two classes of women v the wickedness op creating large families vi cries of despair vii when should a woman avoid having children? viii birth control--a parents' problem or woman's? ix continence--is it practicable or desirable? x contraceptives or abortion? xi are preventive means certain? xii will birth control help the cause of labor? xiii battalions of unwanted babies the cause of war xiv woman and the new morality xv legislating woman's morals xvi why not birth control clinics in america? xvii progress we have made xviii the goal * * * * * * woman and the new race * * * * * chapter i woman's error and her debt the most far-reaching social development of modern times is the revolt of woman against sex servitude. the most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood. beside this force, the elaborate international programmes of modern statesmen are weak and superficial. diplomats may formulate leagues of nations and nations may pledge their utmost strength to maintain them, statesmen may dream of reconstructing the world out of alliances, hegemonies and spheres of influence, but woman, continuing to produce explosive populations, will convert these pledges into the proverbial scraps of paper; or she may, by controlling birth, lift motherhood to the plane of a voluntary, intelligent function, and remake the world. when the world is thus remade, it will exceed the dream of statesman, reformer and revolutionist. only in recent years has woman's position as the gentler and weaker half of the human family been emphatically and generally questioned. men assumed that this was woman's place; woman herself accepted it. it seldom occurred to anyone to ask whether she would go on occupying it forever. upon the mere surface of woman's organized protests there were no indications that she was desirous of achieving a fundamental change in her position. she claimed the right of suffrage and legislative regulation of her working hours, and asked that her property rights be equal to those of the man. none of these demands, however, affected directly the most vital factors of her existence. whether she won her point or failed to win it, she remained a dominated weakling in a society controlled by men. woman's acceptance of her inferior status was the more real because it was unconscious. she had chained herself to her place in society and the family through the maternal functions of her nature, and only chains thus strong could have bound her to her lot as a brood animal for the masculine civilizations of the world. in accepting her rôle as the "weaker and gentler half," she accepted that function. in turn, the acceptance of that function fixed the more firmly her rank as an inferior. caught in this "vicious circle," woman has, through her reproductive ability, founded and perpetuated the tyrannies of the earth. whether it was the tyranny of a monarchy, an oligarchy or a republic, the one indispensable factor of its existence was, as it is now, hordes of human beings--human beings so plentiful as to be cheap, and so cheap that ignorance was their natural lot. upon the rock of an unenlightened, submissive maternity have these been founded; upon the product of such a maternity have they flourished. no despot ever flung forth his legions to die in foreign conquest, no privilege-ruled nation ever erupted across its borders, to lock in death embrace with another, but behind them loomed the driving power of a population too large for its boundaries and its natural resources. no period of low wages or of idleness with their want among the workers, no peonage or sweatshop, no child-labor factory, ever came into being, save from the same source. nor have famine and plague been as much "acts of god" as acts of too prolific mothers. they, also, as all students know, have their basic causes in over-population. the creators of over-population are the women, who, while wringing their hands over each fresh horror, submit anew to their task of producing the multitudes who will bring about the _next_ tragedy of civilization. while unknowingly laying the foundations of tyrannies and providing the human tinder for racial conflagrations, woman was also unknowingly creating slums, filling asylums with insane, and institutions with other defectives. she was replenishing the ranks of the prostitutes, furnishing grist for the criminal courts and inmates for prisons. had she planned deliberately to achieve this tragic total of human waste and misery, she could hardly have done it more effectively. woman's passivity under the burden of her disastrous task was almost altogether that of ignorant resignation. she knew virtually nothing about her reproductive nature and less about the consequences of her excessive child-bearing. it is true that, obeying the inner urge of their natures, _some_ women revolted. they went even to the extreme of infanticide and abortion. usually their revolts were not general enough. they fought as individuals, not as a mass. in the mass they sank back into blind and hopeless subjection. they went on breeding with staggering rapidity those numberless, undesired children who become the clogs and the destroyers of civilizations. to-day, however, woman is rising in fundamental revolt. even her efforts at mere reform are, as we shall see later, steps in that direction. underneath each of them is the feminine urge to complete freedom. millions of women are asserting their right to voluntary motherhood. they are determined to decide for themselves whether they shall become mothers, under what conditions and when. this is the fundamental revolt referred to. it is for woman the key to the temple of liberty. even as birth control is the means by which woman attains basic freedom, so it is the means by which she must and will uproot the evil she has wrought through her submission. as she has unconsciously and ignorantly brought about social disaster, so must and will she consciously and intelligently _undo_ that disaster and create a new and a better order. the task is hers. it cannot be avoided by excuses, nor can it be delegated. it is not enough for woman to point to the self-evident domination of man. nor does it avail to plead the guilt of rulers and the exploiters of labor. it makes no difference that she does not formulate industrial systems nor that she is an instinctive believer in social justice. in her submission lies her error and her guilt. by her failure to withhold the multitudes of children who have made inevitable the most flagrant of our social evils, she incurred a debt to society. regardless of her own wrongs, regardless of her lack of opportunity and regardless of all other considerations, _she_ must pay that debt. she must not think to pay this debt in any superficial way. she cannot pay it with palliatives--with child-labor laws, prohibition, regulation of prostitution and agitation against war. political nostrums and social panaceas are but incidentally and superficially useful. they do not touch the source of the social disease. war, famine, poverty and oppression of the workers will continue while woman makes life cheap. they will cease only when she limits her reproductivity and human life is no longer a thing to be wasted. two chief obstacles hinder the discharge of this tremendous obligation. the first and the lesser is the legal barrier. dark-age laws would still deny to her the knowledge of her reproductive nature. such knowledge is indispensable to intelligent motherhood and she must achieve it, despite absurd statutes and equally absurd moral canons. the second and more serious barrier is her own ignorance of the extent and effect of her submission. until she knows the evil her subjection has wrought to herself, to her progeny and to the world at large, she cannot wipe out that evil. to get rid of these obstacles is to invite attack from the forces of reaction which are so strongly entrenched in our present-day society. it means warfare in every phase of her life. nevertheless, at whatever cost, she must emerge from her ignorance and assume her responsibility. she can do this only when she has awakened to a knowledge of herself and of the consequences of her ignorance. the first step is birth control. through birth control she will attain to voluntary motherhood. having attained this, the basic freedom of her sex, she will cease to enslave herself and the mass of humanity. then, through the understanding of the intuitive forward urge within her, she will not stop at patching up the world; she will remake it. chapter ii woman's struggle for freedom behind all customs of whatever nature; behind all social unrest, behind all movements, behind all revolutions, are great driving forces, which in their action and reaction upon conditions, give character to civilization. if, in seeking to discover the source of a custom, of a movement or of a revolution, we stop at surface conditions, we shall never discern more than a superficial aspect of the underlying truth. this is the error into which the historian has almost universally fallen. it is also a common error among sociologists. it is the fashion nowadays, for instance, to explain all social unrest in terms of economic conditions. this is a valuable working theory and has done much to awaken men to their injustice toward one another, but it ignores the forces within humanity which drive it to revolt. it is these forces, rather than the conditions upon which they react, that are the important factors. conditions change, but the animating force goes on forever. so, too, with woman's struggle for emancipation. women in all lands and all ages have instinctively desired family limitation. usually this desire has been laid to economic pressure. frequently the pressure has existed, but the driving force behind woman's aspiration _toward freedom_ has lain deeper. it has asserted itself among the rich and among the poor, among the intelligent and the unintelligent. it has been manifested in such horrors as infanticide, child abandonment and abortion. the only term sufficiently comprehensive to define this motive power of woman's nature is the _feminine spirit_. that spirit manifests itself most frequently in motherhood, but it is greater than maternity. woman herself, all that she is, all that she has ever been, all that she may be, is but the outworking of this inner spiritual urge. given free play, this supreme law of her nature asserts itself in beneficent ways; interfered with, it becomes destructive. only when we understand this can we comprehend the efforts of the feminine spirit to liberate itself. when the outworking of this force within her is hampered by the bearing and the care of too many children, woman rebels. hence it is that, from time immemorial, she has sought some form of family limitation. when she has not employed such measures consciously, she has done so instinctively. where laws, customs and religious restrictions do not prevent, she has recourse to contraceptives. otherwise, she resorts to child abandonment, abortion and infanticide, or resigns herself hopelessly to enforced maternity. these violent means of freeing herself from the chains of her own reproductivity have been most in evidence where economic conditions have made the care of children even more of a burden than it would otherwise have been. but, whether in the luxurious home of the athenian, the poverty-ridden dwelling of the chinese, or the crude hut of the primitive australian savage, the woman whose development has been interfered with by the bearing and rearing of children has tried desperately, frantically, too often in vain, to take and hold her freedom. individual men have sometimes acquiesced in these violent measures, but in the mass they have opposed. by law, by religious canons, by public opinion, by penalties ranging all the way from ostracism to beheading, they have sought to crush this effort. neither threat of hell nor the infliction of physical punishment has availed. women have deceived and dared, resisted and defied the power of church and state. quietly, desperately, consciously, they have marched to the gates of death to gain the liberty which the feminine spirit has desired. in savage life as well as in barbarism and civilization has woman's instinctive urge to freedom and a wider development asserted itself in an effort, successful or otherwise, to curtail her family. "the custom of infanticide prevails or has prevailed," says westermark in his monumental work, _the origin and development of the moral idea_, "not only in the savage world but among the semi-civilized and civilized races." with the savage mother, family limitation ran largely to infanticide, although that practice was frequently accompanied by abortion as a tribal means. as mclennan says in his "studies in ancient history," infanticide was formerly very common among the savages of new zealand, and "it was generally perpetrated by the mother." he notes much the same state of affairs among the primitive australians, except that abortion was _also_ frequently employed. in numerous north american indian tribes, he says, infanticide and abortion were not uncommon, and the indians of central america were found by him "to have gone to extremes in the use of abortives." when a traveller reproached the women of one of the south american indian tribes for the practice of infanticide, mclennan says he was met by the retort, "men have no business to meddle with women's affairs." mclennan ventures the opinion that the practice of abortion so widely noted among indians in the western hemisphere, "must have supervened on a practice of infanticide." similar practices have been found to prevail wherever historians have dug deep into the life of savage people. infanticide, at least, was practiced by african tribes, by the primitive peoples of japan, india and western europe, as well as in china, and in early greece and rome. the ancient hebrews are sometimes pointed out as the one possible exception to this practice, because the mosaic law, as it has come down to us, is silent upon the subject. westermark is of the opinion that it "hardly occurred among the hebrews in historic times. but we have reason to believe that at an earlier period, among them, as among other branches of the semitic race, child murder was frequently practiced as a sacrificial rite." westermark found that "the murder of female infants, whether by the direct employment of homicidal means, or exposure to privation and neglect, has for ages been a common practice or even a genuine custom among various hindu castes." still further light is shed upon the real sources of the practice, as well as upon the improvement of the status of woman through the practice, by an english student of conditions in india. captain s. charles macpherson, of the madras army, in the journal of the royal asiatic society for 1852, said: "i can here but very briefly advert to the customs and feelings which the practice of infanticide (among the khonds of orissa) alternately springs from and produces. the influence and privileges of women are exceedingly great among the khonds, and are, i believe, greatest among the tribes which practice infanticide. their opinions have great weight in all public and private affairs; their direct participation is often considered essential in the former." if infanticide did not spring from a desire within the woman herself, from a desire stronger than motherhood, would it prevail where women enjoy an influence equal to that of men? and does not the fact that the women in question do enjoy such influence, point unmistakably to the motive behind the practice? infanticide did not go out of fashion with the advance from savagery to barbarism and civilization. rather, it became, as in greece and rome, a recognized custom with advocates among leaders of thought and action. so did abortion, which some authorities regard as a development springing from infanticide and tending to supersede it as a means of getting rid of undesired children. as progress is made toward civilization, infanticide, then, actually increased. this tendency was noted by westermark, who also calls attention to the conclusions of fison and howitt (in kamilaroi and kurnai). "mr. fison who has lived for a long time among uncivilized races," says westermark, "thinks it will be found that infanticide is far less common among the lower savages than among the more advanced tribes." following this same tendency into civilized countries, we find infanticide either advocated by philosophers and authorized by law, as in greece and rome, or widely practiced in spite of the law, civil and ecclesiastical. the status of infanticide as an established, legalized custom in greece, is well summed up by westermark, who says: "the exposure of deformed or sickly infants was undoubtedly an ancient custom in greece; in sparta, at least, it was enjoined by law. it was also approved of by the most enlightened among the greek philosophers. plato condemns all those children who are imperfect in limbs as well as those who are born of depraved citizens." aristotle, who believed that the state should fix the number of children each married pair should have, has this to say in _politics_, book vii, chapter v: "with respect to the exposing and nurturing of children, let it be a law that nothing mutilated shall be nurtured. and in order to avoid having too great a number of children, if it be not permitted by the laws of the country to expose them, it is then requisite to define how many a man may have; and if any have more than the prescribed number, some means must be adopted that the fruit be destroyed in the womb of the mother before sense and life are generated in it." aristotle was a conscious advocate of family limitation even if attained by violent means. "it is necessary," he says, "to take care that the increase of the people should not exceed a certain number in order to avoid poverty and its concomitants, sedition and other evils." in athens, while the citizen wives were unable to throw off the restrictions of the laws which kept them at home, the great number of _hetera_, or stranger women, were the glory of the "golden age." the homes of these women who were free from the burden of too many children became the gathering places of philosophers, poets, sculptors and statesmen. the _hetera_ were their companions, their inspiration and their teachers. aspasia, one of the greatest women of antiquity, was such an emancipated individuality. true to the urge of the feminine spirit, she, like sappho, the poetess of lesbia, sought to arouse the greek wives to the expression of their individual selves. one writer says of her efforts: "this woman determined to do her utmost to elevate her sex. the one method of culture open to women at that time was poetry. there was no other form of literature, and accordingly she systematically trained her pupils to be poets, and to weave into the verse the noblest maxims of the intellect and the deepest emotions of the heart. young pupils with richly endowed minds flocked to her from all countries and formed a kind of woman's college. "there can be no doubt that these young women were impelled to seek the society of sappho from disgust with the low drudgery and monotonous routine to which woman's life was sacrificed, and they were anxious to rise to something nobler and better." can there be any doubt that the unfortunate "citizen wives" of athens, bound by law to their homes, envied the brilliant careers of the "stranger women," and sought all possible means of freedom? and can there be any doubt that they acquiesced in the practice of infanticide as a means to that end? otherwise, how could the custom of destroying infants have been so thoroughly embedded in the jurisprudence, the thought and the very core of athenian civilization? as to the spartan women, aristotle says that they ruled their husbands and owned two-fifths of the land. surely, had they not approved of infanticide for some very strong reasons of their own, they would have abolished it. athens and sparta must be regarded as giving very strong indications that the grecian women not only approved of family limitation by the destruction of unwanted children, but that at least part of their motive was personal freedom. in rome, an avowedly militaristic nation, living by conquest of weaker states, all sound children were saved. but the weakly or deformed were drowned. says seneca: "we destroy monstrous births, and we also drown our children if they are born weakly or unnaturally formed." wives of romans, however, were relieved of much of the drudgery of child rearing by the slaves which rome took by the thousands and brought home. thus they were free to attain an advanced position and to become the advisors of their husbands in politics, making and unmaking political careers. when we come to look into the proverbial infanticide of the chinese, we find the same positive indications that it grew out of the instinctive purpose of woman to free herself from the bondage of too great reproductivity. "in the poorest districts of china," says westermark, "female infants are often destroyed by their parents immediately after their birth, chiefly on account of poverty. though disapproved of by educated chinese, the practice is treated with forbearance or indifference by the man of the people and is acquiesced in by the mandarins." "when seriously appealed to on the subject," says the rev. j. doolittle in _social life of the chinese_, "though all deprecate it as contrary to the dictates of reason and the instincts of nature, many are ready boldly to apologize for it and declare it to be necessary, especially in the families of the excessively poor." here again the wide prevalence of the custom is the first and best proof that women are driven by some great pressure within themselves to accede to it. if further proof were necessary, it is afforded by the testimony of occidentals who have lived in china, that chinese midwives are extremely skillful in producing early abortion. abortions are not performed without the consent and usually only at the demand of the woman. in china, as in india, the religions of the country condemned, even as they to-day condemn, infanticide. both foreign and native governments have sought to make an end of the custom. but in both countries it still prevails. nor are these eastern countries substantially different from their western neighbors. the record of western europe is summarized by oscar helmuth werner, ph.d., in his book, _"the unmarried mother in german literature."_ "infanticide," says dr. werner, "was the most common crime in western europe from the middle ages down to the end of the eighteenth century." this fact, of course, means that it was even more largely practiced by the married than the unmarried, the married mothers being far greater in number. "another problem which confronted the church," he says in another place, "was the practice of exposure and killing of children by legal parents." a sort of final word from dr. werner is this: "infanticide by legal parents has practically ceased in civilized countries, but abortion, its substitute, has not." how desperately woman desired freedom to develop herself as an individual, apart from motherhood, is indicated by the fact that infanticide was "the most common crime of western europe," in spite of the fact that some of the most terrible punishments ever inflicted by law were meted out to those women who sought this means of escape from the burden of unwanted children. dr. werner shows that in germany, for instance, in the year 1532, it was the law that those guilty of infanticide were "to be buried alive or impaled. in order to prevent desperation, however, they shall be drowned if it is possible to get to a stream or river, in which they shall be torn with glowing tongs beforehand." notwithstanding the fact that at one time in germany, the punishment was that of drowning in a sack containing a serpent, a cat and a dog--in order that the utmost agony might be inflicted--one sovereign alone condemned 20,000 women to death for infanticide, without noticeably reducing the practice. to-day, in spite of the huge numbers of abortions and the multiplication of foundlings' homes and orphans' asylums, infanticide is still an occasional crime in all countries. as to woman's share in the practice, let us add this word from havelock ellis, taken from the chapter on "morbid psychic phenomena" in his book, _man and woman_: "infanticide is the crime in which women stand out in the greatest contrast to men; in italy, for example, for every 100 men guilty of infanticide, there are 477 women." and he remarks later that when a man commits this crime, "he usually does it at the instance of some woman." infanticide tends to disappear as skill in producing abortions is developed or knowledge of contraceptives is spread, and only then. one authority, as will be seen in a later chapter, estimates the number of abortions performed annually in the united states at 1,000,000, and another believes that double that number are produced. "among the hindus and mohammedans, artificial abortion is extremely common," says westermark. "in persia every illegitimate pregnancy ends with abortion. in turkey, both among the rich and the poor, even married women very commonly procure abortion after they have given birth to two children, one of which is a boy." the nations mentioned are typical of the world, except those countries where information concerning contraceptives has enabled women to limit their families without recourse to operations. it is apparent that nothing short of contraceptives can put an end to the horrors of abortion and infanticide. the roman catholic church, which has fought these practices from the beginning, has been unable to check them; and no more powerful agency could have been brought into play. it took that church, even in the days of its unlimited power, many centuries to come to its present sweeping condemnation of abortion. the severity of the condemnation depended upon the time at which the development of the foetus was interfered with. an illuminating resume of the church's efforts in this direction is given by dr. william burke ryan in his authoritative and exhaustive study entitled "_infanticide; its law, prevalence, prevention and history"_. dr. ryan says: "theologians of the church of rome made a distinction between the inanimate and the animate foetus to which the soul is added by the creation of god, and adopted the opinions of some of the old philosophers, more particularly those of aristotle, as to animation in the male and female, but the canon law altogether negatived the doctrine of the stoics, for innocent ii condemned the following proposition: "'it seems probable that the foetus does not possess a rational soul as long as it is in the womb, and only begins to possess it when born, and consequently in no abortion is homicide committed.' sextus v inflicted severe penalties for the crime of abortion at any period; these were in some degree mitigated by gregory xiv, who, however, still held that those producing the abortion of an animated foetus should be subject to them, viz., and excommunication reserved to the bishop and also an 'irregularity' reserved to the pope himself for absolution." to-day, the roman church stands firmly upon the proposition that "directly intended, artificial abortion must be regarded as wrongful killing, as murder." [footnote: pastoral medicine] but it required a long time for it to reach that point, in the face of the demand for relief from large families. as it was with the fight of the church against abortion, so it is with the effort to prevent abortion in the united states to-day. all efforts to stop the practice are futile. apparently, the numbers of these illegal operations are increasing from year to year. from year to year more women will undergo the humiliation, the danger and the horror of them, and the terrible record, begun with the infanticide of the primitive peoples, will go on piling up its volume of human misery and racial damage, until society awakens to the fact that a fundamental remedy must be applied. to apply such a remedy, society must recognize the terrible lesson taught by the innumerable centuries of infanticide and foeticide. if these abhorrent practices could have been ended by punishment and suppression, they would have ceased long ago. but to continue suppression and punishment, and let the matter rest there, is only to miss the lesson--only to permit conditions to go from bad to worse. what is that lesson? it is this: woman's desire for freedom is born of the feminine spirit, which is the absolute, elemental, inner urge of womanhood. it is the strongest force in her nature; it cannot be destroyed; it can merely be diverted from its natural expression into violent and destructive channels. the chief obstacles to the normal expression of this force are undesired pregnancy and the burden of unwanted children. these obstacles have always been and always will be swept aside by a considerable proportion of women. driven by the irresistible force within them, they will always seek wider freedom and greater self-development, regardless of the cost. the sole question that society has to answer is, how shall women be permitted to attain this end? are you horrified at the record set down in this chapter? it is well that you should be. you cannot help society to apply the fundamental remedy unless you know these facts and are conscious of their fullest significance. society, in dealing with the feminine spirit, has its choice of clearly defined alternatives. it can continue to resort to violence in an effort to enslave the elemental urge of womanhood, making of woman a mere instrument of reproduction and punishing her when she revolts. or, it can permit her to choose whether she shall become a mother and how many children she will have. it can go on trying to crush that which is uncrushable, or it can recognize woman's claim to freedom, and cease to impose diverting and destructive barriers. if we choose the latter course, we must not only remove all restrictions upon the use of scientific contraceptives, but we must legalize and encourage their use. this problem comes home with peculiar force to the people of america. do we want the millions of abortions performed annually to be multiplied? do we want the precious, tender qualities of womanhood, so much needed for our racial development, to perish in these sordid, abnormal experiences? or, do we wish to permit woman to find her way to fundamental freedom through safe, unobjectionable, scientific means? we have our choice. upon our answer to these questions depends in a tremendous degree the character and the capabilities of the future american race. chapter iii the materials of the new race each of us has an ideal of what the american of the future should be. we have been told times without number that out of the mixture of stocks, the intermingling of ideas and aspirations, there is to come a race greater than any which has contributed to the population of the united states. what is the basis for this hope that is so generally indulged in? if the hope is founded upon realities, how may it be realized? to understand the difficulties and the obstacles to be overcome before the dream of a greater race in america can be attained, is to understand something of the task before the women who shall give birth to that race. what material is there for a greater american race? what elements make up our present millions? where do they live? how do they live? in what direction does our national civilization bend their ideals? what is the effect of the "melting pot" upon the foreigner, once he begins to "melt"? are we now producing a freer, juster, more intelligent, more idealistic, creative people out of the varied ingredients here? before we can answer these questions, we must consider briefly the races which have contributed to american population. among our more than 100,000,000 population are negroes, indians, chinese and other colored people to the number of 11,000,000. there are also 14,500,000 persons of foreign birth. besides these there are 14,000,000 children of foreign-born parents and 6,500,000 persons whose fathers or mothers were born on foreign soil, making a total of 46,000,000 people of foreign stock. fifty per cent of our population is of the native white strain. of the foreign stock in the united states, the last general census, compiled in 1910, shows that 25.7 per cent was german, 14 per cent was irish, 8.5 per cent was russian or finnish, 7.2 was english, 6.5 per cent italian and 6.2 per cent austrian. the abstract of the same census points out several significant facts. the western european strains in this country are represented by a majority of native-born children of foreign-born or mixed parentage. this is because the immigration from those sources has been checked. on the other hand, immigration from southern and eastern europe, including russia and finland, increased 175.4 per cent from 1900 to 1910. during that period, the slums of europe dumped their submerged inhabitants into america at a rate almost double that of the preceding decade, and the flow was still increasing at the time the census was taken. so it is more than likely that when the next census is taken it will be found that following 1910 there was an even greater flow from spain, italy, hungary, austria, russia, finland, and other countries where the iron hand of economic and political tyrannies had crushed great populations into ignorance and want. these peoples have not been in the united states long enough to produce great families. the census of 1920 will in all probability tell a story of a greater and more serious problem than did the last. over one-fourth of all the immigrants over fourteen years of age, admitted during the two decades preceding 1910, were illiterate. of the 8,398,000 who arrived in the 1900-1910 period, 2,238,000 could not read or write. there were 1,600,000 illiterate foreigners in the united states when the 1910 census was taken. do these elements give promise of a better race? are we doing anything genuinely constructive to overcome this situation? two-thirds of the white foreign stock in the united states live in cities. four-fifths of the populations of chicago and new york are of this stock. more than two-thirds of the populations of boston, cleveland, detroit, buffalo, pittsburgh, milwaukee, newark, jersey city, providence, worcester, scranton, paterson, fall river, lowell, cambridge, bridgeport, st. paul, minneapolis and san francisco are of other than native white ancestry. of the fifty principal cities of the united states there are only fourteen in which fifty per cent of the population is of unmixed native white parentage. only one state in the union--north carolina--has less than one per cent of the white foreign stock. new york, new jersey, delaware, massachusetts, connecticut, rhode island, michigan, illinois, wisconsin, minnesota, the dakotas, montana and utah have more than fifty per cent foreign stock. eleven states, including those on the pacific coast, have from 35 to 50 per cent. maine, ohio and kansas have from 25 to 35 per cent. maryland, indiana, missouri and texas have from 15 to 25 per cent. these proportions are increasing rather than decreasing, owing to the extraordinarily high birth rate of the foreign strains. a special analysis of 1915 vital statistics for certain states, in the world almanac for 1918, shows that foreign-born mothers gave birth to nearly 62 per cent of the children born in connecticut, nearly 58 per cent in massachusetts, nearly 33 per cent in michigan, nearly 58 per cent in rhode island, more than 43 per cent in new hampshire, more than 54 per cent in new york and more than 38 per cent in pennsylvania. all these figures, be it remembered, fail to include foreign stock of the second generation after landing. if the statistics for children who have native parents but foreign-born grandparents, or who have one foreign-born parent, were given, they would doubtless leave but a small percentage of births from stocks native to the soil for several generations. immigrants or their children constitute the majority of workers employed in many of our industries. "seven out of ten of those who work in our iron and steel industries are drawn from this class," says the national geographic magazine (february, 1917), "seven out of ten of our bituminous coal miners belong to it. three out of four who work in packing towns were born abroad or are children of those who were born abroad; four out of five of those who make our silk goods, seven out of eight of those employed in woolen mills, nine out of ten of those who refine our petroleum, and nineteen out of twenty of those who manufacture our sugar are immigrants or the children of immigrants." and it might have shown a similarly high percentage of those in the ready-made clothing industries, railway and public works construction of the less skilled sort, and a number of others. that these foreigners who have come in hordes have brought with them their ignorance of hygiene and modern ways of living and that they are handicapped by religious superstitions is only too true. but they also bring in their hearts a desire for freedom from all the tyrannies that afflict the earth. they would not be here if they did not bear within them the hardihood of pioneers, a courage of no mean order. they have the simple faith that in america they will find equality, liberty and an opportunity for a decent livelihood. and they have something else. the cell plasms of these peoples are freighted with the potentialities of the best in old world civilization. they come from lands rich in the traditions of courage, of art, music, letters, science and philosophy. americans no longer consider themselves cultured unless they have journeyed to these lands to find access to the treasures created by men and women of this same blood. the immigrant brings the possibilities of all these things to our shores, but where is the opportunity to reproduce in the new world the cultures of the old? what opportunities have we given to these peoples to enrich our civilization? we have greeted them as "a lot of ignorant foreigners," we have shouted at, bustled and kicked them. our industries have taken advantage of their ignorance of the country's ways to take their toil in mills and mines and factories at starvation wages. we have herded them into slums to become diseased, to become social burdens or to die. we have huddled them together like rabbits to multiply their numbers and their misery. instead of saying that we americanize them, we should confess that we animalize them. the only freedom we seem to have given them is the freedom to make heavier and more secure their chains. what hope is there for racial progress in this human material, treated more carelessly and brutally than the cheapest factory product? nor are all our social handicaps bound up in the immigrant. there were in the united states, when the federal industrial relations committee finished its work in 1915, several million migratory workers, most of them white, many of them married but separated from their families, who were compelled, like themselves, to struggle with dire want. there were in 1910 more than 2,353,000 tenant farmers, two-thirds of whom lived and worked under the terrible conditions which the industrial relations commission's report showed to prevail in the south and southwest. these tenant farmers, as the report showed, were always in want, and were compelled by the very terms of the prevailing tenant contracts to produce children who must go to the fields and do the work of adults. the census proved that this tenancy was on the increase, the number of tenants in all but the new england and middle atlantic states having increased approximately 30 per cent from 1900 to 1910. moreover, there were in the united states in 1910, 5,516,163 illiterates. of these 1,378,884 were of pure native white stock. in some states in the south as much as 29 per cent of the population is illiterate, many of these, of course, being negroes. there is still another factor to be considered--a factor which because of its great scope is more ominous than any yet mentioned. this is the underpaid mass of workers in the united states--workers whose low wages are forcing them deeper into want each day. let senator borah, not a radical nor even a reformer, but a leader of the republican party, tell the story. "fifty-seven per cent of the families in the united states have incomes of $800 or less," said he in a speech before the senate, august 24, 1917, "seventy per cent of the families of our country have incomes of $1,000 or less. tell me how a man so situated can have shelter for his family; how he can provide food and clothing. he is an industrial peon. his home is scant and pinched beyond the power of language to tell. he sees his wife and children on the ragged edge of hunger from week to week and month to month. if sickness comes, he faces suicide or crime. he cannot educate his children; he cannot fit them for citizenship; he cannot even fit them as soldiers to die for their country. "it is the tragedy of our whole national life--how these people live in such times as these. we have not yet gathered the fruits of such an industrial condition in this country. we have been saved thus far by reason of the newness of our national life, our vast public lands now almost exhausted, our great natural resources now fast being seized and held, but the hour of reckoning will come." senator borah was thinking, doubtless, of open revolution, of bloodshed and the destruction of property. in a far more terrible sense, the reckoning which he has referred to is already upon us. the ills we suffer as the result of the conditions now prevailing in the united states are appalling in their sum. it is these conditions that produce the 3,000,000 child laborers of the united states; child slaves who undergo hardships that blight them physically and mentally, leaving them fit only to produce human beings whose deficiencies and misfortunes will exceed their own. from these same elements, living under these same conditions come the feebleminded and other defectives. just how many feebleminded there are in the united states, no one knows, because no attempt has ever been made to give public care to all of them, and families are more inclined to conceal than to reveal the mental defects of their members. estimates vary from 350,000 at the present time to nearly 400,000 as early as 1890, henry h. goddard, ph. d., of the vineland, n. j., training school, being authority for the latter statement. only 34,137 of these unfortunates were under institutional care in the united states in 1916, the rest being free to propagate their kind--piling up public burdens for future generations. the feebleminded are notoriously prolific in reproduction. the close relationship between poverty and ignorance and the production of feebleminded is shown by anne moore, ph.d., in a report to the public education association of new york in 1911. she found that an overwhelming proportion of the classified feebleminded children in new york schools came from large families living in overcrowded slum conditions, and that only a small percentage were born of native parents. sixty thousand prostitutes go and come anew each year in the united states. this army of unfortunates, as social workers and scientists testify, come from families living under like conditions of want. in the new york city schools alone in december, 1916, 61 per cent of the children were suffering from undernourishment and 21 per cent in immediate danger of it. these facts, also the result of the conditions outlined, were discovered by the city bureau of child hygiene. another item in the sordid list is that of venereal disease. in his pamphlet entitled "_the venereal diseases_," issued in 1918, dr. hermann m. biggs head of the new york state department of health quoted authorities who gave estimates of the amount of syphilis and gonorrhea in the united states. one says that 60 per cent of the men contract one disease or the other at some time. another said that 40 per cent of the population of new york city had syphilis, one of the most terrible of all maladies. poverty, delayed marriage, prostitution--a brief and terrible chain accounts for this scourge. finally, there is tuberculosis, bred by bad housing conditions and contributed to in frightful measure by poor food and unhealthy surroundings during the hours of employment. dr. frederick l. hoffman, director of the national association for the study and prevention of tuberculosis and foremost statistical authority upon tuberculosis in the united states, says: "we know of 2,000,000 tubercular persons in the united states." does this picture horrify the reader? this is not the whole truth. a few scattered statistics lack the power to reflect the broken lives of overworked fathers, the ceaseless, increasing pain of overburdened mothers and the agony of childhood fighting its way against the handicaps of ill health, insufficient food, inadequate training and stifling toil. can we expect to remedy this situation by dismissing the problem of the submerged native elements with legislative palliatives or treating it with careless scorn? do we better it by driving out of the immigrant's heart the dream of liberty that brought him to our shores? do we solve the problem by giving him, instead of an opportunity to develop his own culture, low wages, a home in the slums and those pseudo-patriotic preachments which constitute our machine-made "americanization"? every detail of this sordid situation means a problem that must be solved before we can even clear the way for a greater race in america. nor is there any hope of solving any of these problems if we continue to attack them in the usual way. men have sentimentalized about them and legislated upon them. they have denounced them and they have applied reforms. but it has all been ridiculously, cruelly futile. this is the condition of things for which those stand who demand more and more children. each child born under such conditions but makes them worse--each child in its own person suffers the consequence of the intensified evils. if we are to develop in america a new race with a racial soul, we must keep the birth rate within the scope of our ability to understand as well as to educate. we must not encourage reproduction beyond our capacity to assimilate our numbers so as to make the coming generation into such physically fit, mentally capable, socially alert individuals as are the ideal of a democracy. the intelligence of a people is of slow evolutional development--it lags far behind the reproductive ability. it is far too slow to cope with conditions created by an increasing population, unless that increase is carefully regulated. we must, therefore, not permit an increase in population that we are not prepared to care for to the best advantage--that we are not prepared to do justice to, educationally and economically. we must popularize birth control thinking. we must not leave it haphazardly to be the privilege of the already privileged. we must put this means of freedom and growth into the hands of the masses. we must set motherhood free. we must give the foreign and submerged mother knowledge that will enable her to prevent bringing to birth children she does not want. we know that in each of these submerged and semisubmerged elements of the population there are rich factors of racial culture. motherhood is the channel through which these cultures flow. motherhood, when free to choose the father, free to choose the time and the number of children who shall result from the union, automatically works in wondrous ways. it refuses to bring forth weaklings; refuses to bring forth slaves; refuses to bear children who must live under the conditions described. it withholds the unfit, brings forth the fit; brings few children into homes where there is not sufficient to provide for them. instinctively it avoids all those things which multiply racial handicaps. under such circumstances we can hope that the "melting pot" will refine. we shall see that it will save the precious metals of racial culture, fused into an amalgam of physical perfection, mental strength and spiritual progress. such an american race, containing the best of all racial elements, could give to the world a vision and a leadership beyond our present imagination. chapter iv two classes of women thus far we have been discussing mainly one class in america--the workers. most women who belong to the workers' families have no accurate or reliable knowledge of contraceptives, and are, therefore, bringing children into the world so rapidly that they, their families and their class are overwhelmed with numbers. out of these numbers, as has been shown, have grown many of the burdens with which society in general is weighted; out of them have come, also, the want, disease, hard living conditions and general misery of the workers. the women of this class are the greatest sufferers of all. not only do they bear the material hardships and deprivations in common with the rest of the family, but in the case of the mother, these are intensified. it is the man and the child who have first call upon the insufficient amount of food. it is the man and the child who get the recreation, if there is any to be had, for the man's hours of labor are usually limited by law or by his labor union. it is the woman who suffers first from hunger, the woman whose clothing is least adequate, the woman who must work all hours, even though she is not compelled, as in the case of millions, to go into a factory to add to her husband's scanty income. it is she, too, whose health breaks first and most hopelessly, under the long hours of work, the drain of frequent childbearing, and often almost constant nursing of babies. there are no eight-hour laws to protect the mother against overwork and toil in the home; no laws to protect her against ill health and the diseases of pregnancy and reproduction. in fact there has been almost no thought or consideration given for the protection of the mother in the home of the workingman. there are no general health statistics to tell the full story of the physical ills suffered by women as a result of too great reproductivity. but we get some light upon conditions through the statistics on maternal mortality, compiled by dr. grace l. meigs, for the children's bureau of the united states department of labor. these figures do not include the deaths of women suffering from diseases complicated by pregnancy. "in 1913, in this country at least 15,000 women, it is estimated, died from conditions caused by childbirth; about 7,000 of these died from childbed fever and the remaining 8,000 from diseases now known to be to a great extent preventable or curable," says dr. meigs in her summary, "physicians and statisticians agree that these figures are a _great underestimate_." think of it--the needless deaths of 15,000 women a "great underestimate"! yet even this number means that virtually every hour of the day and night two women die as the result of childbirth in the healthiest and supposedly the most progressive country in the world. it is apparent that dr. meigs leaves out of consideration the many thousands of deaths each year of women who become pregnant while suffering from tuberculosis. dr. s. adolphus knopf, addressing the forty-fourth annual convention of the american public health association, in cincinnati in 1916, called attention to the fact that some authors hold that "65 per cent of the women afflicted with tuberculosis, even when afflicted only in the relatively early and curable stages, die as the result of pregnancy which could have been avoided and their lives saved had they but known some means of prevention." nor were syphilis, various kidney and heart disorders and other diseases, often rendered fatal by pregnancy, taken into account by dr. meigs' survey. still, leaving out all the hundreds of thousands of women who die because pregnancy has complicated serious diseases, dr. meigs finds that "in 1913, the death rate per 100,000 of the population from all conditions caused by childbirth was little lower than that from typhoid fever. this rate would be almost quadrupled if only the group of the population which can be affected, women of child-bearing ages, were considered. in 1913, childbirth caused more deaths among women 15 to 44 years old than any disease except tuberculosis." from what sort of homes come these deaths from childbirth? most of them occur in overcrowded dwellings, where food, care, sanitation, nursing and medical attention are inadequate. where do we find most of the tuberculosis and much of the other disease which is aggravated by pregnancy? in the same sort of home. the deadly chain of misery is all too plain to anyone who takes the trouble to observe it. a woman of the working class marries and with her husband lives in a degree of comfort upon his earnings. her household duties are not beyond her strength. then the children begin to come--one, two, three, four, possibly five or more. the earnings of the husband do not increase as rapidly as the family does. food, clothing and general comfort in the home grow less as the numbers of the family increase. the woman's work grows heavier, and her strength is less with each child. possibly--probably--she has to go into a factory to add to her husband's earnings. there she toils, doing her housework at night. her health goes, and the crowded conditions and lack of necessities in the home help to bring about disease--especially tuberculosis. under the circumstances, the woman's chances of recovering from each succeeding childbirth grow less. less too are the chances of the child's surviving, as shown by tables in another chapter. unwanted children, poverty, ill health, misery, death--these are the links in the chain, and they are common to most of the families in the class described in the preceding chapter. nor is the full story of the woman's sufferings yet told. grievous as is her material condition, her spiritual deprivations are still greater. by the very fact of its existence, mother love demands its expression toward the child. by that same fact, it becomes a necessary factor in the child's development. the mother of too many children, in a crowded home where want, ill health and antagonism are perpetually created, is deprived of this simplest personal expression. she can give nothing to her child of herself, of her personality. training is impossible and sympathetic guidance equally so. instead, such a mother is tired, nervous, irritated and ill-tempered; a determent, often, instead of a help to her children. motherhood becomes a disaster and childhood a tragedy. it goes without saying that this woman loses also all opportunity of personal expression outside her home. she has neither a chance to develop social qualities nor to indulge in social pleasures. the feminine element in her--that spirit which blossoms forth now and then in women free from such burdens--cannot assert itself. she can contribute nothing to the wellbeing of the community. she is a breeding machine and a drudge--she is not an asset but a liability to her neighborhood, to her class, to society. she can be nothing as long as she is denied means of limiting her family. in sharp contrast with these women who ignorantly bring forth large families and who thereby enslave themselves, we find a few women who have one, two or three children or no children at all. these women, with the exception of the childless ones, live full-rounded lives. they are found not only in the ranks of the rich and the well-to-do, but in the ranks of labor as well. they have but one point of basic difference from their enslaved sisters--they are not burdened with the rearing of large families. we have no need to call upon the historian, the sociologist nor the statistician for our knowledge of this situation. we meet it every day in the ordinary routine of our lives. the women who are the great teachers, the great writers, the artists, musicians, physicians, the leaders of public movements, the great suffragists, reformers, labor leaders and revolutionaries are those who are not compelled to give lavishly of their physical and spiritual strength in bearing and rearing large families. the situation is too familiar for discussion. where a woman with a large family is contributing directly to the progress of her times or the betterment of social conditions, it is usually because she has sufficient wealth to employ trained nurses, governesses, and others who perform the duties necessary to child rearing. she is a rarity and is universally recognized as such. the women with small families, however, are free to make their choice of those social pleasures which are the right of every human being and necessary to each one's full development. they can be and are, each according to her individual capacity, comrades and companions to their husbands--a privilege denied to the mother of many children. theirs is the opportunity to keep abreast of the times, to make and cultivate a varied circle of friends, to seek amusements as suits their taste and means, to know the meaning of real recreation. all these things remain unrealized desires to the prolific mother. women who have a knowledge of contraceptives are not compelled to make the choice between a maternal experience and a marred love life; they are not forced to balance motherhood against social and spiritual activities. motherhood is for them to choose, as it should be for every woman to choose. choosing to become mothers, they do not thereby shut themselves away from thorough companionship with their husbands, from friends, from culture, from all those manifold experiences which are necessary to the completeness and the joy of life. fit mothers of the race are these, the courted comrades of the men they choose, rather than the "slaves of slaves." for theirs is the magic power--the power of limiting their families to such numbers as will permit them to live full-rounded lives. such lives are the expression of the feminine spirit which is woman _and all of her_--not merely art, nor professional skill, nor intellect--but all that woman is, or may achieve. chapter v the wickedness of creating large families the most serious evil of our times is that of encouraging the bringing into the world of large families. the most immoral practice of the day is breeding too many children. these statements may startle those who have never made a thorough investigation of the problem. they are, nevertheless, well considered, and the truth of them is abundantly borne out by an examination of facts and conditions which are part of everyday experience or observation. the immorality of large families lies not only in their injury to the members of those families but in their injury to society. if one were asked offhand to name the greatest evil of the day one might, in the light of one's education by the newspapers, or by agitators, make any one of a number of replies. one might say prostitution, the oppression of labor, child labor, or war. yet the poverty and neglect which drives a girl into prostitution usually has its source in a family too large to be properly cared for by the mother, if the girl is not actually subnormal because her mother bore too many children, and, therefore, the more likely to become a prostitute. labor is oppressed because it is too plentiful; wages go up and conditions improve when labor is scarce. large families make plentiful labor and they also provide the workers for the child-labor factories as well as the armies of unemployed. that population, swelled by overbreeding, is a basic cause of war, we shall see in a later chapter. without the large family, not one of these evils could exist to any considerable extent, much less to the extent that they exist to-day. the large family--especially the family too large to receive adequate care--is the one thing necessary to the perpetuation of these and other evils and is therefore a greater evil than any one of them. first of the manifold immoralities involved in the producing of a large family is the outrage upon the womanhood of the mother. if no mother bore children against her will or against her feminine instinct, there would be few large families. the average mother of a baby every year or two has been forced into unwilling motherhood, so far as the later arrivals are concerned. it is not the less immoral when the power which compels enslavement is the church, state or the propaganda of well-meaning patriots clamoring against "race suicide." the wrong is as great as if the enslaving force were the unbridled passions of her husband. the wrong to the unwilling mother, deprived of her liberty, and all opportunity of self-development, is in itself enough to condemn large families as immoral. the outrage upon the woman does not end there, however. excessive childbearing is now recognized by the medical profession as one of the most prolific causes of ill health in women. there are in america hundreds of thousands of women, in good health when they married, who have within a few years become physical wrecks, incapable of mothering their children, incapable of enjoying life. "every physician," writes dr. wm. j. robinson in _birth control or the limitation of offspring_, "knows that too frequent childbirth, nursing and the sleepless nights that are required in bringing up a child exhaust the vitality of thousands of mothers, make them prematurely old, or turn them into chronic invalids." the effect of the large family upon the father is only less disastrous than it is upon the mother. the spectacle of the young man, happy in health, strength and the prospect of a joyful love life, makes us smile in sympathy. but this same young man ten years later is likely to present a spectacle as sorry as it is familiar. if he finds that the children come one after another at short intervals--so fast indeed that no matter how hard he works, nor how many hours, he cannot keep pace with their needs--the lover whom all the world loves will have been converted into a disheartened, threadbare incompetent, whom all the world pities or despises. instead of being the happy, competent father, supporting one or two children as they should be supported, he is the frantic struggler against the burden of five or six, with the tragic prospect of several more. the ranks of the physically weakened, mentally dejected and spiritually hopeless young fathers of large families attest all too strongly the immorality of the system. if its effects upon the mother and the wage-earning father were not enough to condemn the large family as an institution, its effects upon the child would make the case against it conclusive. in the united states, some 300,000 children under one year of age die each twelve months. approximately ninety per cent of these deaths are directly or indirectly due to malnutrition, to other diseased conditions resulting from poverty, or to excessive childbearing by the mother. the direct relationship between the size of the wage-earner's family and the death of children less than one year old has been revealed by a number of studies of the infant death rate. one of the clearest of these was that made by arthur geissler among miners and cited by dr. alfred ploetz before the first international eugenic congress. [footnote: problems in eugenics, london, 1913.] taking 26,000 births from unselected marriages, and omitting families having one and two children, geissler got this result: deaths during first year. 1st born children 23% 2nd " " 20% 3rd " " 21% 4th " " 23% 5th " " 26% 6th " " 29% 7th " " 31% 8th " " 33% 9th " " 36% 10th " " 41% 11th " " 51% 12th " " 60% thus we see that the second and third children have a very good chance to live through the first year. children arriving later have less and less chance, until the twelfth has hardly any chance at all to live twelve months. this does not complete the case, however, for those who care to go farther into the subject will find that many of those who live for a year die before they reach the age of five. many, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the immorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of proof at hand, it may be offered for the sake of those who find difficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. the most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. the same factors which create the terrible infant mortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the ages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the health rate of the surviving members. moreover, the overcrowded homes of large families reared in poverty further contribute to this condition. lack of medical attention is still another factor, so that the child who must struggle for health in competition with other members of a closely packed family has still great difficulties to meet after its poor constitution and malnutrition have been accounted for. the probability of a child handicapped by a weak constitution, an overcrowded home, inadequate food and care, and possibly a deficient mental equipment, winding up in prison or an almshouse, is too evident for comment. every jail, hospital for the insane, reformatory and institution for the feebleminded cries out against the evils of too prolific breeding among wage-workers. we shall see when we come to consider the relation of voluntary motherhood to the rights of labor and to the prevention of war that the large family of the worker makes possible his oppression, and that it also is the chief cause of such human holocausts as the one just closed after the four and a half bloodiest years in history. no such extended consideration is necessary to indicate from what source the young slaves in the child-labor factories come. they come from large impoverished families--from families in which the older children must put their often feeble strength to the task of supporting the younger. the immorality of bringing large families into the world is recognized by those who are combatting the child-labor evil. mary alden hopkins, writing in harper's weekly in 1915, quotes owen r. lovejoy, general secretary of the national child labor committee, as follows: "how many are too many? ... any more than the mother can look after and the father make a living for ... under present conditions as soon as there are too many children for the father to feed, some of them go to work in the mine or factory or store or mill near by. in doing this, they not only injure their tender growing bodies, but indirectly, they drag down the father's wage ... the home becomes a mere rendezvous for the nightly gathering of bodies numb with weariness and minds drunk with sleep." and if they survive the factory, they marry to perpetuate and multiply their ignorance, weakness and diseases. what have large families to do with prostitution? ask anyone who has studied the problem. the size of the family has a direct bearing on the lives of thousands of girls who are living in prostitution. poverty, lack of care and training during adolescence, overcrowded housing conditions which accompany large families are universally recognized causes of "waywardness" in girls. social workers have cried out in vain against these conditions, pointing to their inevitable results. in the foreword to "downward paths," a. maude royden says: "intimately connected with this aspect of the question is that of home and housing, especially of the child. the age at which children are first corrupted is almost incredibly early, until we consider the nature of the surroundings in which they grow up. insufficient space, over-crowding, the herding together of all ages and both sexes--these things break down the barriers of a natural modesty and reserve. where decency is practically impossible, unchastity will follow, and follow almost as a matter of course." and the child who has no place to play except in the street, who lacks mother care, whose chief emotional experience is the longing for the necessities of life? we know too well the end of the sorry tale. the forlorn figures of the shadows where lurk the girls who sell themselves that they may eat and be clothed rise up to damn the moral dogmatists, who mouth their sickening exhortations to the wives and mothers of the workers to breed, breed, breed. the evidence is conclusive as regards the large family of the wage-worker. social workers, physicians and reformers cry out to stop the breeding of these, who must exist in want until they become permanent members of the ranks of the unfit. but what of the family of the wealthy or the merely well-to-do? it is among these classes that we find the women who have attained to voluntary motherhood. it is to these classes, too, that the "race suicide" alarmists have from time to time addressed specially emphasized pleas for more children. the advocates of more prolific breeding urge that these same women have more intelligence, better health, more time to care for children and more means to support them. they therefore declare that it is the duty of such women to populate the land with strong, healthy, intelligent offspring--to bear children in great numbers. it is high time to expose the sheer foolishness of this argument. the first absurdity is that the women who are in comfortable circumstances could continue to be cultured and of social value if they were the mothers of large families. neither could they maintain their present standard of health nor impart it to their children. while it is true that they have resources at their command which ease the burden of child-bearing and child rearing immeasurably, it is also true that the wealthy mother, as well as the poverty-stricken mother, must give from her own system certain elements which it takes time to replace. excessive childbearing is harder on the woman who lacks care than on the one who does not, but both alike must give their bodies time to recover from the strain of childbearing. if the women in fortunate circumstances gave ear to the demand of masculine "race-suicide"[a] fanatics they could within a few years be down to the condition of their sisters who lack time to cultivate their talents and intellects. a vigorous, intelligent, fruitfully cultured motherhood is all but impossible if no restriction is placed by that motherhood upon the number of children. [footnote a: interesting and perhaps surprising light is thrown upon the origin of the term "race suicide" by the following quotation from an article by harold bolce in the cosmopolitan (new york) for may, 1909: "'the sole effect of prolificacy is to fill the cemeteries with tiny graves, sacrifices of the innocents to the moloch of immoderate maternity.' thus insists edward a. ross, professor of sociology in the university of wisconsin; and he protests against the 'dwarfing of women and the cheapening of men' as regards the restriction of the birth rate as a 'movement at bottom salutary, and its evils minor, transient and curable.' this is virile gospel, and particularly significant coming from the teacher who invented the term 'race suicide,' which many have erroneously attributed to mr. roosevelt."] wage-workers and salaried people have a vital interest in the size of the families of those better situated in life. large families among the rich are immoral not only because they invade the natural right of woman to the control of her own body, to self-development and to self-expression, but because they are oppressive to the poorer elements of society. if the upper and middle classes of society had kept pace with the poorer elements of society in reproduction during the past fifty years, the working class to-day would be forced down to the level of the chinese whose wage standard is said to be a few handfuls of rice a day. if these considerations are not enough to halt the masculine advocate of large families who reminds us of the days of our mothers and grandmothers, let it be remembered that bearing and rearing six or eight children to-day is a far different matter from what it was in the generations just preceding. physically and nervously, the woman of to-day is not fitted to bear children as frequently as was her mother and her mother's mother. the high tension of modern life and the complicating of woman's everyday existence have doubtless contributed to this result. and who of us can say, until a careful scientific investigation is made, how much the rapid development of tuberculosis and other grave diseases, even among the well-nurtured, may be due to the depletion of the physical capital of the unborn by the too prolific childbearing of preceding generations of mothers? the immorality of bringing into being a large family is a wrong-doing shared by three--the mother, the father and society. upon all three falls the burden of guilt. it may be said for the mother and father that they are usually ignorant. what shall be said of society? what shall be said of us who permit outworn laws and customs to persist in piling up the appalling sum of public expense, misery and spiritual degradation? the indictment against the large unwanted family is written in human woe. who in the light of intelligent understanding shall have the brazenness to stand up and defend it? one thing we know--the woman who has escaped the chains of too great reproductivity will never again wear them. the birth rate of the wealthy and upper classes will never appreciably rise. the woman of these classes is free of her most oppressive bonds. being free, we have a right to expect much of her. we expect her to give still greater expression to her feminine spirit--we expect her to enrich the intellectual, artistic, moral and spiritual life of the world. we expect her to demolish old systems of morals, a degenerate prudery, dark-age religious concepts, laws that enslave women by denying them the knowledge of their bodies, and information as to contraceptives. these must go to the scrapheap of vicious, cast-off things. hers is the power to send them there. shall we look to her to strike the first blow which shall wrench her sisters from the grip of the dead hand of the past? chapter vi cries of despair and society's problems before we pass to a further consideration of our subject, shall we not pause to take a still closer look at the human misery wrought by the enslavement of women through unwilling motherhood? would you know the appalling sum of this misery better than any author, any scientist, any physician, any social worker can tell you? hear the story from the lips of the women themselves. learn at first hand what it means to make a broken drudge of a woman who might have been the happy mother of a few strong children. learn from the words of the victims of involuntary motherhood what it means to them, to their children and to society to force the physically unfit or the unwilling to bear children. when you have learned, stop to ask yourself what is the worth of the law, the moral code, the tradition, the religion, that for the sake of an outworn dogma of submission would wreck the lives of these women, condemn their progeny to pain, want, disease and helplessness. ask yourself if these letters, these cries of despair, born of the anguish of woman's sex slavery are not in themselves enough to stop the mouths of the demagogues, the imperialists and the ecclesiastics who clamor for more and yet more children? and if the pain of others has no power to move your heart and stir your hands and brain to action, ask yourself the more selfish question: can the children of these unfortunate mothers be other than a burden to society--a burden which reflects itself in innumerable phases of cost, crime and general social detriment? "for our own sakes--for our children's sakes--" plead the mothers, "help us! let us be women, rather than breeding machines." the women who thus cry out are pleading not only for themselves and their children, but for society itself. their plea is for us and ours--it is the plea for happier conditions, for higher ideals, for a stronger, more vigorous, more highly developed race. the letters in this chapter are the voices of humble prophets crying out to us stop our national habit of human waste. they are warnings against disaster which we now share and must continue to share as it grows worse, unless we heed the warning and put our national house in order. each and every unwanted child is likely to be in some way a social liability. it is only the wanted child who is likely to be a social asset. if we have faith in this intuitive demand of the unfortunate mothers, if we understand both its dire and its hopeful significance, we shall dispose of those social problems which so insistently and menacingly confront us today. for the instinct of maternity to protect its own fruits, the instinct of womanhood to be free to give something besides surplus of children to the world, cannot go astray. the rising generation is always the material of progress, and motherhood is the agency for the improvement and the strengthening and guiding of that generation. the excerpts contained in this chapter are typical of the letters which come to me by the thousands. they tell their own story, simply--sometimes ungrammatically and illiterately, but nevertheless irresistibly. it is the story of slow murder of the helpless by a society that shields itself behind ancient, inhuman moral creeds--which dares to weigh those dead creeds against the agony of the living who pray for the "mercy of death." can a mother who would "rather die" than bear more children serve society by bearing still others? can children carried through nine months of dread and unspeakable mental anguish and born into an atmosphere of fear and anger, to grow up uneducated and in want, be a benefit to the world? here is what the mother says: "i have read in the paper about you and am very interested in birth control i am a mother of four living children and one dead the oldest 10 and baby 22 months old. i am very nervous and sickly after my children. i would like you to advise me what to do to prevent from having any more as i would rather die than have another. i am keeping away from my husband as much as i can, but it causes quarrels and almost separation. all my babies have had marasmus in the first year of their lives and i almost lost my baby last summer. i always worry about my children so much. my husband works in a brass foundry it is not a very good job and living is so high that we have to live as cheap as possible. i've only got 2 rooms and kitchen and i do all my work and sewing which is very hard for me." shall this woman continue to be forced into a life of unnatural continence which further aggravates her ill health and produces constant discord? shall she go on having children who come into being with a heritage of ill health and poverty, and who are bound to become public burdens? or would it be the better policy to let motherhood follow its instinct to save itself, its offspring and society from these ills? or shall women be forced into abortion, as is testified by the mother whose daughters are mothers, and who, in the hope of saving them from both slavery and the destruction of their unborn children, wrote the letter which follows: "i have born and raised 6 children and i know all the hardships of raising a large family. i am now 53 years old and past having children but i have 3 daughters that have 2 children each and they say they will die before they will have any more and every now and again they go to a doctor and get rid of one and some day i think it will kill them but they say they don't care for they will be better dead than live in hell with a big family and nothing to raise them on. it is for there sakes i wish you to give me that information." what could the three women mentioned in this letter contribute to the wellbeing of the future american race? nothing, except by doing exactly what they wish to do--refusing to bear children that they do not want and cannot care for. their instinct is sound--but what is to be said of the position of society at large, which forces women who are in the grip of a sound instinct to seek repeated abortions in order to follow that instinct? are we not compelling women to choose between inflicting injury upon themselves, their children and the community, and undergoing an abhorrent operation which kills the tenderness and delicacy of womanhood, even as it may injure or kill the body? will the offspring of a paralytic, who must perforce neglect the physical care and training of her children, enhance the common good by their coming? here is a letter from a paralytic mother, whose days and nights are tortured by the thought of another child, and whose reason is tottering at the prospect of leaving her children without her care: "i sent for a copy of your magazine and now feel i must write you to see if you can help me. "i was a high school girl who married a day laborer seven years ago. in a few months i will again be a mother, the fourth child in less than six years. while carrying my babies am always partly paralyzed on one side. do not know the cause but the doctor said at last birth we must be 'more careful,' as i could not stand having so many children. am always very sick for a long time and have to have chloroform. "we can afford help only about 3 weeks, until i am on my feet again, after confinement. i work as hard as i can but my work and my children are always neglected. i wonder if my body does survive this next birth if my reason will. "it is terrible to think of bringing these little bodies and souls into the world without means or strength to care for them. and i can see no relief unless you give it to me or tell me where to get it. i am weaker each time and i know that this must be the last one, for it would be better for me to go, than to bring more neglected babies into the world. i can hardly sleep at night for worrying. is there an answer for women like me?" in another chapter, we have gotten a glimpse of the menace of the feebleminded. here is a woman who is praying for help to avoid adding to the number of mentally helpless: "my baby is only 10 months old and the oldest one of four is 7, and more care than a baby, has always been helpless. we do not own a roof over our heads and i am so discouraged i want to die if nothing can be done. can't you help me just this time and then i know i can take care of myself. ignorance on this all important subject has put me where i am. i don't know how to be sure of bringing myself around. i beg of you to help me and anything i can do to help further your wonderful work i will do. only help me this once, no one will know only i will be blessed. "i not only have a terrible time when i am confined but caring for the oldest child it preys so on my mind that i fear more defective children. help me please!" the offspring of one feebleminded man named jukes has cost the public in one way and another $1,300,000 in seventy-five years. do we want more such families? is this woman standing guard for the general welfare? had she been permitted the use of contraceptives before she was forced to make a vain plea for abortion, would she not have rendered a service to her fellow citizens, as well as to herself? millions are spent in the united states every year to combat tuberculosis. the national waste involved in illness and deaths from tuberculosis runs up into the billions. is it then good business, to say nothing of the humane aspects of the situation, to compel the writer of the following letter to go on adding to the number of the tubercular? which is the guardian of public welfare here--the mother instinct which wishes to avoid bearing tubercular children, or the statute which forbids her to know how to avoid adding to the census of "white plague" victims? the letter reads: "kindly pardon me for writing this to you, not knowing what trouble this may cause you. but i've heard of you through a friend and realize you are a friend of humanity. if people would see with your light, the world would be healthy. i married the first time when i was eighteen years old, a drinking man. i became mother to five children. in 1908 my husband died of consumption. i lost two of my oldest children from the same disease, one at 16 and the other at 23. the youngest of them all, a sweet girl of nineteen, now lies at ---sanatorium expecting to leave us at any time. the other sister and brother look very poorly. "i have always worked very hard, because i had to. in 1913 i married again, a good man this time, but a laboring man, and our constant fear and trouble is what may happen if we bring children into the world. i'm forty-six years old this month and not very well any more, either. so a godsend will be some one who can tell me how to care for myself, so i can be free from suffering and also not bring mortals to earth to suffer and die." not even the blindest of all dogmatists can ignore the danger to the community of to-day and the race of to-morrow in permitting an insane woman to go on bearing children. here is a letter which tells a two-sided story--how mother instinct, even when clouded by periodic insanity, seeks to protect itself and society, and how society prevents her from attaining that end: "there is a woman in this town who has six children and is expecting another. directly after the birth of a child, she goes insane, a raving maniac, and they send her to the insane asylum. while she is gone, her home and children are cared for by neighbors. after about six months, they discharge her and she comes home and is in a family way again in a few months. still the doctors will do nothing for her. "she is a well-educated woman and says if she would not have any more children, she is sure she could be entirely free from these insane spells. "if you will send me one of your pamphlets, i will give it to her and several others equally deserving. "hoping you will see fit to grant my request, i remain, etc." the very word "syphilis" brings a shudder to anyone who is familiar with the horrors of the malady. not only in the suffering brought to the victim himself and in the danger of infecting others, but in the dire legacy of helplessness and disease which is left to the offspring of the syphilitic, is this the most destructive socially, of all "plagues." here is a letter, which as a criticism of our present public policy in regard to national waste and to contraceptives, defies comment: "i was left without a father when a girl of fourteen years old. i was the oldest child of five. my mother had no means of support except her two hands, so we worked at anything we could, my job being nurse girl at home while mother worked most of the time, as she could earn more money than i could, for she could do harder work. "i wasn't very strong and finally after two years my mother got so tired and worn out trying to make a living for so many, she married again, and as she married a poor man, we children were not much better off. at the age of seventeen i married a man, a brakeman on the ---railroad, who was eleven years older than i. he drank some and was a very frail-looking man, but i was very ignorant of the world and did not think of anything but making a home for myself and husband. after eleven months i had a little girl born to me. i did not want more children, but my mother-in-law told me it was a terrible sin to do anything to keep from having children and that the lord only sent just what i could take care of and if i heard of anything to do i was told it was injurious, so i did not try. "in eleven months again, october 25, i had another little puny girl. in twenty-three months, sept. 25th, i had a seven-lb. boy. in ten months, july 15, i had a seven-months baby that lived five hours. in eleven months, june 20, i had another little girl. in seventeen months, nov. 30, another boy. in nine months a four months' miscarriage. in twelve months another girl, and in three and a half years another girl. "all of these children were born into poverty; the father's health was always poor, and when the third girl was born he was discharged from the road because of his disability, yet he was still able to put children into the world. when the oldest child was twelve years old the father died of concussion of the brain while the youngest child was born two months after his death. "now, mrs. sanger, i did not want those children, because even in my ignorance i had sense enough to know that i had no right to bring those children into such a world where they could not have decent care, for i was not able to do it myself nor hire it done. i prayed and i prayed that they would die when they were born. praying did no good and to-day i have read and studied enough to know that i am the mother of seven living children and that i committed a crime by bringing them into the world, their father was syphilitic (i did not know about such things when i was a girl). one son is to be sent to mexico, while one of my girls is a victim of the white slave traffic. "i raised my family in a little college town in ---and am well known there, for i made my living washing and working for the college people while i raised my little brood. i often wondered why those educated well-to-do people never had so many children. i have one married daughter who is tubercular, and she also has two little girls, only a year apart. i feel so bad about it, and write to ask you to send me information for her. don't stop your good work; don't think it's not appreciated; for there are hundreds of women like myself who are not afraid to risk their lives to help you to get this information to poor women who need it." there is no need to go on repeating these cries. these letters have come to me by the thousands. there are enough of them to fill many volumes--each with its own individual tragedy, each with its own warning to society. every ill that we are trying to cure to-day is reflected in them. the wife who through an unwilling continence drives her husband to prostitution; habitual drunkenness, which prohibition may or may not have disposed of as a social problem; mothers who toil in mills and whose children must follow them to that toil, adding to the long train of evils involved in child labor; mothers who have brought eight, ten, twelve or fifteen undernourished, weakly children into the world to become public burdens of one sort or another--all these and more, with the ever-present economic problem, and women who are remaining unmarried because they fear a large family which must exist in want; men who are living abnormal lives for the same reason. all the social handicaps and evils of the day are woven into these letters--and out of each of them rises these challenging facts: first, oppressed motherhood knows that the cure for these evils lies in birth control; second, society has not yet learned to permit motherhood to stand guard for itself, its children, the common good and the coming race. and one reading such letters, and realizing their significance, is constrained to wonder how long such a situation can exist. chapter vii when should a woman avoid having children? are overburdened mothers justified in their appeals for contraceptives or abortions? what shall we say to women who write such letters as those published in the preceding chapter? will anyone, after reading those letters, dare to say to these women that they should go on bringing helpless children into the world to share their increasing misery? the women who thus cry for aid are the victims of ignorance. awakening from that ignorance, they are demanding relief. had they been permitted a knowledge of their sex functions, had they had some guiding principle of motherhood, those who at this late day are asking for contraceptives would have swept aside all barriers and procured them long ago. those who are appealing for abortions would never have been in such a situation. to say to these women that they should continue their helpless breeding of the helpless is stupid brutality. the facts set forth earlier in this book, and the cries of tortured motherhood which echo through the letters just referred to, are more than ample evidence that there are times when it is woman's highest duty to refuse to bear children. there has seemed to be a great deal of disagreement among the medical authorities who have attempted to say when a woman should not have children. this disagreement has been rendered even more confusing by a babel of voices from the ranks of sociologists. within the past few years, however, so much light has been shed upon the subject that it is now comparatively easy for the student to separate the well-founded conclusions from those which are of doubtful value, or plainly worthless. the opinions which i summarize here are not so much my own, originally, as those of medical authorities who have made deep and careful investigations. there is, however, nothing set forth here which i have not in my own studies tested and proved correct. in addition to carrying the weight of the best medical authority, a fact easily confirmed by the first specialist you meet, they are further reinforced by the findings of the federal children's bureau, and other organizations which have examined infant mortality and compiled rates. to the woman who wishes to have children, we must give these answers to the question when not to have them. childbearing should be avoided within two or three years after the birth of the last child. common sense and science unite in pointing out that the mother requires at least this much time to regain her strength and replenish her system in order to give another baby proper nourishment after its birth. authorities are insistent upon their warnings that too frequent childbearing wrecks the woman's health. weakness of the reproductive organs and pelvic ailments almost certainly result if a woman bears children too frequently. by all means there should be no children when either mother or father suffers from such diseases as tuberculosis, gonorrhea, syphilis, cancer, epilepsy, insanity, drunkenness and mental disorders. in the case of the mother, heart disease, kidney trouble and pelvic deformities are also a serious bar to childbearing. thousands of volumes have been written by physicians upon the danger to mothers and offspring of having children when one or both parents are suffering from the diseases mentioned above. as authorities have pointed out in all these books, the jails, hospitals for the insane, poorhouses and houses of prostitution are filled with the children born of such parents, while an astounding number of their children are either stillborn or die in infancy. these facts are now so well known that they would need little discussion here, even if space permitted. miscarriages, which are particularly frequent in cases of syphilis and pelvic deformities, are a great source of danger to the health and even to the life of the mother. where either parent suffers from gonorrhea, the child is in danger of being born blind. tuberculosis in the parent leaves the child's system in such condition that it is likely to suffer from the disease. childbearing is also a grave danger to the tubercular mother. a tendency to insanity, if not insanity itself, may be transmitted to the child, or it may be feebleminded if one of the parents is insane or suffers from any mental disorder. drunkenness in the parent or parents has been found to be the cause of feeblemindedness in the offspring and to leave the child with a constitution too weak to resist disease as it should. no more children should be born when the parents, though healthy themselves, find that their children are physically or mentally defective. no matter how much they desire children, no man and woman have a right to bring into the world those who are to suffer from mental or physical affliction. it condemns the child to a life of misery and places upon the community the burden of caring for it, probably for its defective descendants for many generations. generally speaking, no woman should bear a child before she is twenty-two years old. it is better still that she wait until she is twenty-five. high infant mortality rates for mothers under twenty-two attest this fact. it is highly desirable from the mother's standpoint to postpone childbearing until she has attained a ripe physical and mental development, as the bearing and nursing of infants interferes with such development. it is also all important to the child; the offspring of a woman who is twenty-five or somewhat older has the best chance of good physical and mental equipment. in brief, a woman should avoid having children unless both she and the father are in such physical and mental condition as to assure the child a healthy physical and mental being. this is the answer that must be made to women whose children are fairly sure of good care, sufficient food, adequate clothing, a fit place to live and at least a fair education. a distinctly different and exceedingly important side of the problem must be considered when the women workers, the wives and the mothers of workers, wish to know when to avoid having children. such a woman must answer her own question. what anyone else may tell her is far less important than what she herself shall reply to a society that demands more and more children and which gives them less and less when they arrive. what shall this woman say to a society that would make of her body a reproductive machine only to waste prodigally the fruit of her being? does society value her offspring? does it not let them die by the hundreds of thousands of want, hunger and preventable disease? does it not drive them to the factories, the mills, the mines and the stores to be stunted physically and mentally? does it not throw them into the labor market to be competitors with her and their father? do we not find the children of the south filling the mills, working side by side with their mothers, while the fathers remain at home? do we not find the father, mother and child competing with one another for their daily bread? does society not herd them in slums? does it not drive the girls to prostitution and the boys to crime? does it educate them for free-spirited manhood and womanhood? does it even give them during their babyhood fit places to live in, fit clothes to wear, fit food to eat, or a clean place to play? does it even permit the mother to give them a mother's care? the woman of the workers knows what society does with her offspring. knowing the bitter truth, learned in unspeakable anguish, what shall this woman say to society? the power is in her hands. she can bring forth more children to perpetuate these conditions, or she can withhold the human grist from these cruel mills which grind only disaster. shall she say to society that she will go on multiplying the misery that she herself has endured? shall she go on breeding children who can only suffer and die? rather, shall she not say that until society puts a higher value upon motherhood she will not be a mother? shall she not sacrifice her mother instincts for the common good and say that until children are held as something better than commodities upon the labor market, she will bear no more? shall she not give up her desire for even a small family, and say to society that until the world is made fit for children to live in, she will have no children at all? chapter viii birth control--a parents' problem or woman's? the problem of birth control has arisen directly from the effort of the feminine spirit to free itself from bondage. woman herself has wrought that bondage through her reproductive powers and while enslaving herself has enslaved the world. the physical suffering to be relieved is chiefly woman's. hers, too, is the love life that dies first under the blight of too prolific breeding. within her is wrapped up the future of the race--it is hers to make or mar. all of these considerations point unmistakably to one fact--it is woman's duty as well as her privilege to lay hold of the means of freedom. whatever men may do, she cannot escape the responsibility. for ages she has been deprived of the opportunity to meet this obligation. she is now emerging from her helplessness. even as no one can share the suffering of the overburdened mother, so no one can do this work for her. others may help, but she and she alone can free herself. the basic freedom of the world is woman's freedom. a free race cannot be born of slave mothers. a woman enchained cannot choose but give a measure of that bondage to her sons and daughters. no woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. no woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother. it does not greatly alter the case that some women call themselves free because they earn their own livings, while others profess freedom because they defy the conventions of sex relationship. she who earns her own living gains a sort of freedom that is not to be undervalued, but in quality and in quantity it is of little account beside the untrammeled choice of mating or not mating, of being a mother or not being a mother. she gains food and clothing and shelter, at least, without submitting to the charity of her companion, but the earning of her own living does not give her the development of her inner sex urge, far deeper and more powerful in its outworkings than any of these externals. in order to have that development, she must still meet and solve the problem of motherhood. with the so-called "free" woman, who chooses a mate in defiance of convention, freedom is largely a question of character and audacity. if she does attain to an unrestricted choice of a mate, she is still in a position to be enslaved through her reproductive powers. indeed, the pressure of law and custom upon the woman not legally married is likely to make her more of a slave than the woman fortunate enough to marry the man of her choice. look at it from any standpoint you will, suggest any solution you will, conventional or unconventional, sanctioned by law or in defiance of law, woman is in the same position, fundamentally, until she is able to determine for herself whether she will be a mother and to fix the number of her offspring. this unavoidable situation is alone enough to make birth control, first of all, a woman's problem. on the very face of the matter, voluntary motherhood is chiefly the concern of the woman. it is persistently urged, however, that since sex expression is the act of two, the responsibility of controlling the results should not be placed upon woman alone. is it fair, it is asked, to give her, instead of the man, the task of protecting herself when she is, perhaps, less rugged in physique than her mate, and has, at all events, the normal, periodic inconveniences of her sex? we must examine this phase of her problem in two lights--that of the ideal, and of the conditions working toward the ideal. in an ideal society, no doubt, birth control would become the concern of the man as well as the woman. the hard, inescapable fact which we encounter to-day is that man has not only refused any such responsibility, but has individually and collectively sought to prevent woman from obtaining knowledge by which she could assume this responsibility for herself. she is still in the position of a dependent to-day because her mate has refused to consider her as an individual apart from his needs. she is still bound because she has in the past left the solution of the problem to him. having left it to him, she finds that instead of rights, she has only such privileges as she has gained by petitioning, coaxing and cozening. having left it to him, she is exploited, driven and enslaved to his desires. while it is true that he suffers many evils as the consequence of this situation, she suffers vastly more. while it is true that he should be awakened to the cause of these evils, we know that they come home to her with crushing force every day. it is she who has the long burden of carrying, bearing and rearing the unwanted children. it is she who must watch beside the beds of pain where lie the babies who suffer because they have come into overcrowded homes. it is her heart that the sight of the deformed, the subnormal, the undernourished, the overworked child smites first and oftenest and hardest. it is _her_ love life that dies first in the fear of undesired pregnancy. it is her opportunity for self expression that perishes first and most hopelessly because of it. conditions, rather than theories, facts, rather than dreams, govern the problem. they place it squarely upon the shoulders of woman. she has learned that whatever the moral responsibility of the man in this direction may be, he does not discharge it. she has learned that, lovable and considerate as the individual husband may be, she has nothing to expect from men in the mass, when they make laws and decree customs. she knows that regardless of what ought to be, the brutal, unavoidable fact is that she will never receive her freedom until she takes it for herself. having learned this much, she has yet something more to learn. women are too much inclined to follow in the footsteps of men, to try to think as men think, to try to solve the general problems of life as men solve them. if after attaining their freedom, women accept conditions in the spheres of government, industry, art, morals and religion as they find them, they will be but taking a leaf out of man's book. the woman is not needed to do man's work. she is not needed to think man's thoughts. she need not fear that the masculine mind, almost universally dominant, will fail to take care of its own. her mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities. woman must not accept; she must challenge. she must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that within her which struggles for expression. her eyes must be less upon what is and more clearly upon what should be. she must listen only with a frankly questioning attitude to the dogmatized opinions of man-made society. when she chooses her new, free course of action, it must be in the light of her own opinion--of her own intuition. only so can she give play to the feminine spirit. only thus can she free her mate from the bondage which he wrought for himself when he wrought hers. only thus can she restore to him that of which he robbed himself in restricting her. only thus can she remake the world. the world is, indeed, hers to remake, it is hers to build and to recreate. even as she has permitted the suppression of her own feminine element and the consequent impoverishment of industry, art, letters, science, morals, religions and social intercourse, so it is hers to enrich all these. woman must have her freedom--the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she shall be a mother and how many children she will have. regardless of what man's attitude may be, that problem is hers--and before it can be his, it is hers alone. she goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. as it is the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this ordeal, so it is her right to decide whether she will endure it. that right to decide imposes upon her the duty of clearing the way to knowledge by which she may make and carry out the decision. birth control is woman's problem. the quicker she accepts it as hers and hers alone, the quicker will society respect motherhood. the quicker, too, will the world be made a fit place for her children to live. chapter ix continence--is it practicable or desirable? thousands of well-intentioned people who agree that there are times and conditions under which it is woman's highest duty to avoid having children advocate continence as the one permissible means of birth control. few of these people agree with one another, however, as to what continence is. some have in mind absolute continence. others urge continence for periods varying from a few weeks to many years. still others are thinking of karezza, or male continence, as it is sometimes called. the majority of physicians and sex psychologists hold that the practice of absolute continence is, for the greater part of the human race, an absurdity. were such continence to be practiced, there is no doubt that it would be a most effective check upon the birth rate. it is seldom practiced, however, and when adhered to under compulsion the usual result is injury to the nervous system and to the general health. among healthy persons, this method is practicable only with those who have a degree of mentally controlled development as yet neither often experienced nor even imagined by the mass of humanity. absolute continence was the ideal of the early christian church for all of its communicants, as shall be seen in another chapter. we shall also see how the church abandoned this standard and now confines the doctrine of celibacy to the unmarried, to the priesthood and the nuns. celibacy has been practiced in all ages by a few artists, propagandists and revolutionists in order that their minds may be single to the work which has claimed their lives and all the forces of their beings may be bent in one direction. sometimes, too, such persons have remained celibate to avoid the burden of caring for a family. the rev. dr. thomas robert malthus, who in 1798 issued the first of those works which exemplified what is called the malthusian doctrine, also advocated celibacy or absolute continence until middle age. malthus propounded the now widely recognized principle that population tends to increase faster than the food supply and that unlimited reproduction brings poverty and many other evils upon a nation. his theological training naturally inclined him to favor continence--not so much from its practicability, perhaps, as because he believed that it was the only possible method. we would be ignoring a vital truth if we failed to recognize the fact that there are individuals who through absorption in religious zeal, consecration to a cause, or devotion to creative work are able to live for years or for a lifetime a celibate existence. it is doubtless true that the number of those who are thus able to transmute their sex forces into other creative forms is increasing. it is not with these, however, that we are concerned. rather it is with the mass of humanity, who practice continence under some sort of compulsion. what is the result of forcing continence upon those who are not fitted or do not desire to practice it? the majority opinion of medical science and the evidence of statistics are united on this point. enforced continence is injurious--often highly so. "physiology," writes dr. j. rutgers in _rassenverbesserung_, "teaches that every function gains in power and efficiency through a certain degree of control, but that the too extended suppression of a desire gives rise to pathological disturbances and in time cripples the function. especially in the case of women may the damage entailed by too long continued sexual abstinence bring about deep disturbances." all this, be it understood, refers to persons of mature age. for young men and women under certain ages, statistics and the preponderance of medical opinion agree that continence is highly advisable, in many cases seemingly altogether necessary to future happiness. the famous dr. bertillon, of france, inventor of the bertillon system of measurements for the human body, has made, perhaps, the most exhaustive of all studies in this direction. he demonstrates a large mortality for the boy who marries before his twentieth year. when single, the mortality of french youths averages only 14 per thousand; among married youths it rises to 100 per thousand. which shows that it is six or eight times more perilous for a youth to be incontinent than continent up to that age. dr. bertillon's conclusions are that men should marry between their twenty-fifth and thirtieth years, and that women should marry when they have passed twenty. with the single exception of young men and women below the ages noted, dr. bertillon's statistics tell a very different story. and where it relates to celibates, it is a shocking one. "dr. bertillon shows that in france, belgium and holland married men live considerably longer than single ones," writes dr. charles r. drysdale, in summing up the matter in "_the population question_" "and are much less subject to becoming insane, criminal or vicious." from the same studies we learn that the conjugal state is also more favorable to the health of the woman over twenty years of age, in the three countries covered. an analysis of criminal records showed that more than twice as many unmarried men and women had been held for crimes of all kinds than married persons. rates based upon 10,000 cases of insanity among men and women in the same countries showed 3.95 per thousand for male celibates against 2.17 for married men. for single women the rate was 3.4 against but 1.9 for married women. insanity was reduced one-half among women by marriage. more startling still is the evidence of the mortality statistics. bertillon found that the death rates of bachelors and widowers averaged from nearly two to nearly three times as high as those of married men of the same ages. dr. mayer, in his _rapports conjugaux_, showed that the death rates among the celibate religious orders studied were nearly twice as high as those of the laity. can anyone knowing the facts ask that we recommend continence as a birth-control measure? virtually all of the dangers to health involved in absolute continence are involved also in the practice of continence broken only when it is desired to bring a child into the world. in the opinion of some medical authorities, it is even worse, because of the almost constant excitation of unsatisfied sex desire by the presence of the mate. people who think that they believe in this sort of family limitation have much to say about "self-control." usually they will admit that to abstain from all but a single act of sexual intercourse each year is an indication of high powers of self-restraint. yet that one act, performed only once a year, might be sufficient to "keep a woman with one child in her womb and another at her breast" during her entire childbearing period. that would mean from eighteen to twenty-four children for each mother, provided she survived so many births and lactations. contraceptives are quite as necessary to these "self-controlled" ones who do not desire children every year as to those who lead normal, happy love lives. from the necessity of contraceptives and from the dangers of this limited continence certain persons are, of course, relieved. they are the ones whose mental and spiritual development is so high as to make this practice natural to them. these individuals are so exceedingly rare, however, that they need not be discussed here. moreover, they are capable of solving their own problems. few who advocate the doctrine of absolute continence live up to it strictly. i met one woman who assured me that she had observed it faithfully in the thirteen years since her youngest child was born. she had such a loathing for sexual union, however, that it was doubtless the easiest and best thing for her to do. loathing, disgust or indifference to the sex relationship nearly always lies behind the advocacy to continence except for the conscious purpose of creating children. in other words, while one in ten thousand persons may find full play for a diverted and transmuted sex force in other creative functions, the rest avoid the sex union from repression. these are two widely different situations--one may make for racial progress and the happiness of the few individuals capable of it; the other poisons the race at its fountain and brings nothing but the discontent, unhappiness and misery which follow enforced continence. for all that, an increasing number of persons, mostly women, are advocating continence within marriage. sexual union is nearly always spoken of by such persons as something in itself repugnant, disgusting, low and lustful. consciously or unconsciously, they look upon it as a hardship, to be endured only, to bring "god's image and likeness" into the world. their very attitude precludes any great probability that their progeny will possess an abundance of such qualities. much of the responsibility for this feeling upon the part of many thousands of women must be laid to two thousand years of christian teaching that all sex expression is unclean. part of it, too, must be laid to the dominant male's habit of violating the love rights of his mate. the habit referred to grows out of the assumed and legalized right of the husband to have sexual satisfaction at any time he desires, regardless of the woman's repugnance for it. the law of the state upholds him in this regard. a husband need not support his wife if she refuses to comply with his sexual demands. of the two groups of women who regard physical union either with disgust and loathing, or with indifference, the former are the less numerous. nevertheless, there are many thousands of them. i have listened to their stories often, both as a nurse in obstetrical cases and as a propagandist for birth control. an almost universal cause of their attitude is a sad lack of understanding of the great beauties of the normal, idealistic love act. neither do they understand the uplifting power of such unions for both men and women. ignorance of life, ignorance of all but the sheer reproductive function of mating, and especially a wrong training, are most largely responsible for this tragic state of affairs. when this ignorance extends to the man in such a degree as to permit him to have the all too frequent coarse and brutal attitude toward sex matters, the tragedy is only deepened. truly the church and those "moralists" who have been insisting upon keeping sex matters in the dark have a huge list of concealed crimes to answer for. the right kind of a book, a series of clear, scientific lectures, or a common-sense talk with either the man or woman will often do away with most of the repugnance to physical union. when the repugnance is gone, the way is open to that upliftment through sex idealism which is the birthright of all women and men. when i have had the confidence of women indifferent to physical union, i have found the fault usually lay with the husband. his idea of marriage is too often that of providing a home for a female who would in turn provide for his physical needs, including sexual satisfaction. such a husband usually excludes such satisfaction from the category of the wife's needs, physical or spiritual. this man is not concerned with his wife's sex urge, save as it responds to his own at times of his choosing. man's code has taught woman to be quite ashamed of such desires. usually she speaks of indifference without regret; often proudly. she seems to regard herself as more chaste and highly endowed in purity than other women who confess to feeling physical attraction toward their husbands. she also secretly considers herself far superior to the husband who makes no concealment of his desire toward her. nevertheless, because of this desire upon the husband's part, she goes on "pretending" to mutual interest in the relationship. only the truth, plainly spoken, can help these people. the woman is condemned to physical, mental and spiritual misery by the ignorance which society has fixed upon her. she has her choice between an enforced continence, with its health-wrecking consequences and its constant aggravation of domestic discord, and the sort of prostitution legalized by the marriage ceremony. the man may choose between enforced continence and its effects, or he may resort to an unmarried relationship or to prostitution. neither of these people--the one schooled directly or indirectly by the church and the other trained in the sex ethics of the gutter--can hope to lift the other to the regenerating influences of a pure, clean, happy love life. as long as we leave sex education to the gutter and houses of prostitution, we shall have millions of just such miserable marriage failures. such continence as is involved in dependence upon the so-called "safe period" for family limitation will harm no one. the difficulty here is that the method is not practical. it simply does not work. the woman who employs this method finds herself in the same predicament as the one who believes that she is not in danger of pregnancy when she does not respond passionately to her husband. that this woman is more likely to conceive than the emotional one, is a well-known fact. the woman who refuses to use contraceptives, but who rejects sex expression except for a few days in the month, is likely to learn too soon the fallacy of her theory as a birth-control method. for a long time the "safe period" was suggested by physicians. it was also the one method of birth control countenanced by the ecclesiastics. women are learning from experience and specialists are discovering by investigation that the "safe period" is anything but safe for all women. some women are never free from the possibility of conception from puberty to the menopause. others seemingly have "safe periods" for a time, only to become pregnant when they have begun to feel secure in their theory. here again, continence must give way, as a method of birth control, to contraceptives. in the same category as the "safe period," as a method of birth control, must be placed so-called "male continence." the same practice is also variously known as "karezza," "sedular absorption" and "zugassent's discovery." those who regard it as a method of family limitation are likely to find themselves disappointed. as a form of continence, however, if it can be called continence, it is asserted to bring none of the long course of evils which too often follow the practice of lifelong abstinence, or abstinence broken only when a child is desired. its devotees testify that they avoid ill effects and achieve the highest possible results. these results are due, probably, to two factors. first, those who practice karezza are usually of a high mental and spiritual development and are, therefore, capable of an exalted degree of self-control without actual repression. second, they have the benefit of that magnetic interchange between man and woman which makes for physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. this stimulation becomes destructive irritation in ordinary forms of continence. the oneida community, a religious group comprising about 130 men and 150 women, which occupied a part of an old indian reservation in the state of new york, were the chief exponents of "male continence." the practice was a religious requirement with them and they laid great stress upon three different functions which they attributed to the sexual organs. they held that these functions were urinary, reproductive and amative, each separate and distinct in its use from the others. cases are cited in which both men and women are said to have preserved their youth and their sexual powers to a ripe old age, and to have prolonged their honeymoons throughout married life. the theory, however, interesting as it may be when considered as "continence," is not to be relied upon as a method of birth control. summing it all up, then, continence may meet the needs of a few natures, but it does not meet the needs of the masses. to enforce continence upon those whose natures do not demand it, is an injustice, the cruelty and the danger of which has been underestimated rather than exaggerated. it matters not whether this wrong is committed by the church, through some outworn dogma; by the state, through the laws prohibiting contraceptives, or by society, through the conditions which prevent marriage when young men and women reach the age at which they have need of marriage. the world has been governed too long by repression. the more fundamental the force that is repressed the more destructive its action. the disastrous effects of repressing the sex force are written plainly in the health rates, the mortality statistics, the records of crime and the entry books of the hospitals for the insane. yet this is not all the tale, for there are still the little understood hosts of sexually abnormal people and the monotonous misery of millions who do not die early nor end violently, but who are, nevertheless, devoid of the joys of a natural love life. as a means of birth control, continence is as impracticable for most people as it is undesirable. celibate women doubtless have their place in the regeneration of the world, but it is not they, after all, who will, through experience and understanding recreate it. it is mainly through fullness of expression and experience in life that the mass of women, having attained freedom, will accomplish this unparalleled task. the need of women's lives is not repression, but the greatest possible expression and fulfillment of their desires upon the highest possible plane. they cannot reach higher planes through ignorance and compulsion. they can attain them only through knowledge and the cultivation of a higher, happier attitude toward sex. sex life must be stripped of its fear. this is one of the great functions of contraceptives. that which is enshrouded in fear becomes morbid. that which is morbid cannot be really beautiful. a true understanding of every phase of the love life, and such an understanding alone, can reveal it in its purity--in its power of upliftment. force and fear have failed from the beginning of time. their fruits are wrecks and wretchedness. knowledge and freedom to choose or reject the sexual embrace, according as it is lovely or unlovely, and these alone, can solve the problem. these alone make possible between man and woman that indissoluble tie and mutual passion, and common understanding, in which lies the hope of a higher race. chapter x contraceptives or abortion? society has not yet learned the significance of the age-long effort of the feminine spirit to free itself of the burden of excessive childbearing. it has been singularly blind to the real forces underlying the cause of infanticide, child abandonment and abortion. it has permitted the highest and most powerful thing in woman's nature to be hindered, diverted, repressed and confused. society has permitted this inner urge of woman to be rendered violent by repression until it has expressed itself in cruel forms of family limitation, which this same society has promptly labeled "crimes" and sought to punish. it has gone on blindly forcing women into these "crimes," deaf alike to their entreaties and to the lessons of history. as we have seen in the second chapter of this book, child abandonment and infanticide are by no means obsolete practices. as for abortion, it has not decreased but increased with the advance of civilization. the reader will recall that one authority says that there are 1,000,000 abortions in the united states every year, while another estimates double that number. most of the women of the middle and upper classes in america seem secure in their knowledge of contraceptives as a means of birth control. under present conditions, when the laws in most states regard this knowledge, howsoever it be imparted, as illicit, and the federal statutes prohibit the sending of it through the mails, even the women in more fortunate circumstances sometimes have difficulty in getting scientific information. nevertheless, so strong is their purpose that they do obtain it and use it, correctly or incorrectly. the great majority of women, however, belong to the working class. nearly all of these women will fall into one of two general groups--the ones who are having children against their wills, and those who, to escape this evil, find refuge in abortion. being given their choice by society--to continue to be overburdened mothers or to submit to a humiliating, repulsive, painful and too often gravely dangerous operation, those women in whom the feminine urge to freedom is strongest choose the abortionist. one group goes on bringing children to birth, hoping that they will be born dead or die. the women of the other group strive consciously by drastic means to protect themselves and the children already born. "our examinations," says dr. max hirsch, an authority on the subject, "have informed us that the largest number of abortions (in the united states) are performed on married women. this fact brings us to the conclusion that contraceptive measures among the upper classes and the practice of abortion among the lower class, are the real means employed to regulate the number of offspring." thus a high percentage of women in comfortable circumstances escape overbreeding by the use of contraceptives. a similarly high percentage of women not in comfortable circumstances are forced to submit to forced maternity, because their only alternative at present is abortion. when accidental conception takes place, some women of both classes resort to abortion if they can obtain the services of an abortionist. when society holds up its hands in horror at the "crime" of abortion, it forgets at whose door the first and principal responsibility for this practice rests. does anyone imagine that a woman would submit to abortion if not denied the knowledge of scientific, effective contraceptives? does anyone believe that physicians and midwives who perform abortions go from door to door soliciting patronage? the abortionist could not continue his practice for twenty-four hours if it were not for the fact that women come desperately begging for such operations. he could not stay out of jail a day if women did not so generally approve of his services as to hold his identity an open but seldom-betrayed secret. the question, then, is not whether family limitation should be practiced. it _is_ being practiced; it has been practiced for ages and it will always be practiced. the question that society must answer is this: shall family limitation be achieved through birth control or abortion? shall normal, safe, effective contraceptives be employed, or shall we continue to force women to the abnormal, often dangerous surgical operation? this question, too, the church, the state and the moralist must answer. the knowledge of contraceptive methods may yet for a time be denied to the woman of the working class, but those who are responsible for denying it to her, and she herself, should understand clearly the dangers to which she is exposed because of the laws which force her into the hands of the abortionist. to understand the more clearly the difference between birth control by contraceptives and family limitation through abortion it is necessary to know something of the processes of conception. knowledge of these processes will also enable us to comprehend more thoroughly the dangers to which woman is exposed by our antiquated laws, and how much better it would be for her to employ such preventive measures as would keep her out of the hands of the abortionist, into which the laws now drive her. in every woman's ovaries are imbedded millions of ovules or eggs. they are in every female at birth, and as the girl develops into womanhood, these ovules develop also. at a certain age, varying slightly with the individual, the ripest ovule leaves the nest or ovary and comes down one of the tubes connecting with the womb and passes out of the body. when this takes place, it is said that the girl is at the age of puberty. when it reaches the womb the ovule is ready for the process of conception--that is, fertilization by the male sperm. at the time the ovule is ripening, the womb is preparing to receive it. this preparation consists of a reinforced blood supply brought to its lining. if fertilization takes place, the fertilized ovule or ovum will cling to the lining of the womb and there gather its nourishment. if fertilization does not take place, the ovum passes out of the body and the uterus throws off its surplus blood supply. this is called the menstrual period. it occurs about once a month or every twenty-eight days. in the male organs there are glands called testes. they secrete a fluid called the semen. in the semen is the life-giving principle called the sperm. when intercourse takes place, if no preventive is employed, the semen is deposited in the woman's vagina. the ovule is not in the vagina, but is in the womb, farther up, or perhaps in the tube on its way to the womb. as steel is attracted to the magnet, the sperm of the male starts on its way to seek the ovum. several of these sperm cells start, but only one enters the ovum and is absorbed into it. this process is called fertilization, conception or impregnation. if no children are desired, the meeting of the male sperm and the ovum must be prevented. when scientific means are employed to prevent this meeting, one is said to practice birth control. the means used is known as a contraceptive. if, however, a contraceptive is not used and the sperm meets the ovule and development begins, any attempt at removing it or stopping its further growth is called abortion. there is no doubt that women are apt to look upon abortion as of little consequence and to treat it accordingly. an abortion is as important a matter as a confinement and requires as much attention as the birth of a child at its full term. "the immediate dangers of abortion," says dr. j. clifton edgar, in his book, "_the practice of obstetrics_," "are hemorrhage, retention of an adherent placenta, sepsis, tetanus, perforation of the uterus. they also cause sterility, anemia, malignant diseases, displacements, neurosis, and endometritis." in plain, everyday language, in an abortion there is always a very serious risk to the health and often to the life of the patient. it is only the women of wealth who can afford the best medical skill, care and treatment both at the time of the operation and afterwards. in this way they escape the usual serious consequences. the women whose incomes are limited and who must continue at work before they have recovered from the effects of an abortion are the great army of sufferers. it is among such that the deaths due to abortion usually ensue. it is these, too, who are most often forced to resort to such operations. if death does not result, the woman who has undergone an abortion is not altogether safe from harm. the womb may not return to its natural size, but remain large and heavy, tending to fall away from its natural position. abortion often leaves the uterus in a condition to conceive easily again and unless prevention is strictly followed another pregnancy will surely occur. frequent abortions tend to cause barrenness and serious, painful pelvic ailments. these and other conditions arising from such operations are very likely to ruin a woman's general health. while there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, i assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in america each year are a disgrace to civilization. the effects of such operations upon a woman, serious as they may be, are nothing as compared to the injury done her general health by drugs taken to produce the same result. even such drugs as are prescribed by physicians have harmful effects, and nostrums recommended by druggists are often worse still. even more drastic may be the effect upon the unborn child, for many women fill their systems with poisonous drugs during the first weeks of their pregnancy, only to decide at last, when drugs have failed, as they usually do, to bring the child to birth. there are no statistics, of course, by which we may compute the amount of suffering to mother and child from the use of such drugs, but we know that the total of physical weakness and disease must be astounding. we know that the woman's own system feels the strain of these drugs and that the embryo is usually poisoned by them. the child is likely to be rickety, have heart trouble, kidney disorder, or to be generally weak in its powers of resistance. if it does not die before it reaches its first year, it is probable that it will have to struggle against some of these weaknesses until its adolescent period. it needs no assertion of mine to call attention to the grim fact that the laws prohibiting the imparting of information concerning the preventing of conception are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year in this country and an untold amount of sickness and sorrow. the suffering and the death of these women is squarely upon the heads of the lawmakers and the puritanical, masculine-minded person who insist upon retaining the abominable legal restrictions. try as they will they cannot escape the truth, nor hide it under the cloak of stupid hypocrisy. if the laws against imparting knowledge of scientific birth control were repealed, nearly all of the 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 women who undergo abortions in the united states each year would escape the agony of the surgeon's instruments and the long trail of disease, suffering and death which so often follows. "he who would combat abortion," says dr. hirsch, "and at the same time combat contraceptive measures may be likened to the person who would fight contagious diseases and forbid disinfection. for contraceptive measures are important weapons in the fight against abortion. "america has a law since 1873 which prohibits by criminal statute the distribution and regulation of contraceptive measures. it follows, therefore, that america stands at the head of all nations in the huge number of abortions." there is the case in a nutshell. family limitation will always be practiced as it is now being practiced--either by birth control or by abortion. we know that. the one means health and happiness--a stronger, better race. the other means disease, suffering, death. the woman who goes to the abortionist's table is not a criminal but a martyr--a martyr to the bitter, unthinkable conditions brought about by the blindness of society at large. these conditions give her the choice between the surgeon's instruments and the sacrificing of what is highest and holiest in her--her aspiration to freedom, her desire to protect the children already hers. these conditions--not the woman--outface society with this question: "contraceptives or abortion--which shall it be?" chapter xi are preventive means certain? there are several means of preventing conception which are both certain and harmless. what those means are the state laws forbid me to say. if i should defy the state laws and name those contraceptives, the federal laws would forbid this book's going through the mails. nor can i, without coming into conflict with the laws, tell _why_ these means are reliable. it is difficult to discuss the subject without using franker language than the statutes permit, and i do not wish to violate the law in this particular book. "can i rely upon this? is it certain? will it prevent absolutely?" such questions, always asked by women who seek advice concerning contraceptives, testify both to their fear of involuntary motherhood and their doubt as to any and all means offered for their deliverance. doubt as to the certainty of contraceptives arises from two sources. one is the uninformed element in the medical profession. a physician who belongs to this element may object to birth control upon general grounds, or he may repeat old-fashioned objections to cover his ignorance of contraceptives. for, strange as it may seem, there is an amazing ignorance among physicians of this supremely important subject. the uninformed objector often assumes to speak with the voice of authority, asserting that there are no thoroughly dependable contraceptives that are not injurious to the user. the other source of distrust is the experience of the woman herself. having no place to go for scientific advice, she gathers her information from neighbors and friends. one offers this suggestion, another offers that, each urging the means that she has found successful and condemning others. all this is very confusing and extremely disturbing to the woman who, for one reason or another, is living in constant fear of pregnancy. it is not at all surprising that such a state of affairs exists. there has been so much secrecy about the whole subject and so much dependence upon amateurish and nonprofessional advice that it is almost impossible for anyone to procure reliable information or to recognize it when given. this is especially true in the united states where there are both federal and state laws to punish those who disseminate knowledge of birth-control methods. even under present conditions, however, there is a certain amount of reliable information concerning methods of birth control. we know that there are several methods of prevention which are not only dependable, but which can be used without injury either to the man or the woman. knowledge of what these methods are and how to apply them should be available to every married man and woman. it is safe to predict that in a very few years they will be available. some methods are more dependable than others, just as there are some more simple of adjustment than others. some are cheap and less durable; others are expensive and last for years. there are some which for a quarter of a century have stood the test of certainty in holland, france, england and the united states among the wealthier classes, as the falling birth rate among these classes indicates. and just as the reliable, primitive wheelbarrow is antiquated beside the latest airplane, so, as scientific investigators turn their attention more and more to this field, will the awkward, troublesome methods of the past give way to the simpler, more convenient methods of the morrow. although the law forbids information concerning reliable means of contraception, it is hardly likely that it can be invoked to prevent warnings against widely practiced methods which are not reliable. the employment of such methods leads not only to disappointment but often to ill health. one of the most common practices of this kind is that of nursing one baby too long in the hope of preventing the birth of the next. the "poor whites" of the south and many of the foreign-born women of the united states pin their hopes to this method. often they persist in nursing a child until it is eighteen months old--almost always until they become pregnant again. prolonged nursing hurts both child and mother, it is said. in the child it causes a tendency to brain disease, probably through disordered digestion and nutrition. in the mother it causes a strong tendency to deafness and blindness. if a child is nursed after it is twelve months old, it is generally pale, flabby and unhealthy, often rickety, one authority points out, while the mother is usually nervous, emaciated and hysterical. if pregnancy occurs under these conditions, the mother not only injures her own health but that of the next child, often developing in it a weakness of constitution which it never overcomes. moreover, prolonged nursing has been found to be unreliable as a contraceptive. we know this upon good authority. it should not be depended upon at all. in the same class is the so-called "safe period" referred to in another chapter. for many women there is never any "safe period." others have "safe periods" for a number of years, only to find themselves pregnant because these periods have ceased without warning. one of the most frequent of all the mistakes made in recommending contraceptives is the advice to use an antiseptic or cold-water douche. this error seems to be surprisingly persistent. i am particularly surprised to hear from women that such douches have been prescribed by physicians. any physician who knows the first rudiments of physiology and anatomy must also know that necessary and important as an antiseptic douche is as a cleanser and hygienic measure, it is assuredly not to be advised as a means of preventing conception. a woman may, and often does, become pregnant before she can make use of a douche. this is particularly likely to happen if her uterus is low. and the woman who does much walking, who stands for long hours or who uses the sewing machine a great deal is likely to have a low uterus. it is then much easier for the spermatazoa to enter almost directly into the womb than it would otherwise be, and the douche, no matter how soon it is used, is likely to be ineffective. the tendency of the uterus to drop under strain goes far to explain why some women who have depended upon the douche for years suddenly find themselves pregnant. do not depend upon the douche. as a cleansing agent, it is a necessary part of every woman's toilet, but it is not a preventive. even if the douche were dependable, the absence of sanitary convenience from households in remote districts and the difficulty of using a douche in crowded tenements would prevent many women from making use of it. despite the unreliability of some methods and the harmfulness of some others, there _are_ methods which are both harmless and certain. this much the woman who is seeking means of limiting her family may be told here. _in using any method_, whatsoever, all depends upon the care taken to use it properly. no surgeon, no matter how perfect his instruments, would expect perfect results from the simplest operation did he not exercise the greatest possible care. common sense, good judgment and taking pains are necessary in the use of all contraceptives. more and more perfect means of preventing conception will be developed as women insist upon them. every woman should make it plain to her physician that she expects him to be informed upon this subject. she should refuse to accept evasive answers. an increasing demand upon physicians will inevitably result in laboratory researches and experimentation. such investigation is indeed already beginning and we may expect great progress in contraceptive methods in the near future. we may also expect more authoritative opinions upon preventive methods and devices. when women confidently and insistently demand them, they will have access to contraceptives which are both certain and harmless. chapter xii will birth control help the cause of labor? labor seems instinctively to have recognized the fact that its servitude springs from numbers. seldom, however, has it applied its knowledge logically and thoroughly. the basic principle of craft unionism is limitation of the number of workers in a given trade. this has been labor's most frequent expedient for righting its wrongs. every unionist knows, as a matter of course, that if that number is kept small enough, his organization can compel increases of wages, steady employment and decent working conditions. craft unionism has succeeded in attaining these insofar as it has been able to apply this principle. it has failed insofar as it has been unable to apply it. the weakness of craft unionism is that it does not carry its principle far enough. it applies its policy of limitation of numbers only to the trade. in his home, the worker, whether he is a unionist or non-unionist, goes on producing large numbers of children to compete with him eventually in the labor market. "the history of labor," says teresa billington-greig in the _common sense of the population question_, "is the history of an ever unsuccessful effort upon the part of man to bring his productive ability as a worker up to his reproductive ability. it has been a losing battle all the way." the small percentage of highly skilled, organized workers lead in the struggle for better conditions. craft unions, by limiting the number of men available for any one trade, manage to procure better pay, shorter hours and other advantages for their members. disaster, in the form of famine, pestilence, tidal waves, earthquakes or war, sometimes limits the number of available workers. then those who live in parts of the world that are not affected, or who stay at home during wars, reap a temporary advantage. these advantages, however, are quickly offset by increased prices, or by competition for jobs when soldiers return from war. this form of limitation of numbers works to the advantage of labor as long as it is available, but great disasters are not constantly in operation while the worker's reproductive ability is. so in a few years they have lost what nature's destructiveness won for them. the great mass of the workers--including children and women--are unskilled and unorganized. not only that, they are for some considerable part of the time seeking employment. they are, of course, poorly paid. thus, through their low wages and their seeking of employment, they always come into direct competition with one another and with the skilled and organized workmen. as their families live in want and are often diseased, they create the chief social problems of the day. they bring children into the world as fast as women can bear them. with each child they increase their own misery and provide another worker to force down wages and prolong hours, through competition for employment. this has been the way of labor from the beginning. it is labor's way in every country. having discovered that there is no relief in legislation, labor organizes to limit its numbers in certain trades. meanwhile the women of the working class go on breeding more workers to wipe out in the future the advantages gained for the present. in paris, for instance, the proletarian quarters of the city show a birth rate more than three times as high as the birth rate in the well-to-do sections. "dr. jacques bartillon furnishes us with statistics which prove that the birth rate in any quarter of paris is in inverse ratio to its degree of affluence," says g. hardy in _how to prevent pregnancy_. "the rich champs-elysees has a birth rate a third of that bellerville or of the buttes-chaumont. from 1,000 women from the age of fifteen to fifty, menimontant gives 116 births; the champs-elysees thirty-four births. "it is the same in berlin. for 1,000 women from the age of fifteen to that of fifty, a very poor quarter gives 157 births; a rich quarter gives 47 births." and so it is the world over. the very word "proletarian," as hardy points out, means "producer of children." the children thus carelessly produced undermine the health of the mother, deepen the family's poverty, destroy the happiness of the home, and dishearten the father; all this in addition to being future competitors in the labor market. too often their increasing number drives the mother herself into industry, where her beggarly wages tend to lower the level of those of her husband. the first sickening feature of this general situation is the high infant mortality among the children of the workers. many children come merely to sap the strength of the mother, suffer and die, leaving to show for their coming and going only an increased burden of sorrow and debt. the lower the family income, the more of these babies die before they are a year old. a survey of infant mortality in johnstown, pa., by the federal children's bureau, gave these typical results for the year 1911: infant mortality father's earnings rate under $521.................. 197.3 $521 to $624................ 193.1 $625 to $779................ 163.1 $780 to $899................ 168.4 $900 to $1,199.............. 142.3 $1,200 or over.............. 102. ample........................ 88. these figures do not represent the total income of all families. neither will money buy as much in 1920 as it did in 1911. seventy per cent of the people of the united states have incomes of less than $1,000. this means that from 142 to 197 children born into such families die before they are one year old. the births and deaths of these children represent just so much useless burden of anguish and sorrow to the workers. despite this high infant death rate, the workers of the united states still have more children than they can care for. there are enough of them left over to provide 3,000,000 child laborers, who by working for a pittance crowd their parents out of employment and force the families deeper into poverty. when all is said and done, the workers who produce large families have themselves to blame for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed grasping for jobs, for the strike breakers, for the policemen who beat up and arrest strikers and for the soldiers who shoot strikers down. all these come from the families of workingmen. their fathers and mothers are workers for wages. out of the loins of labor they come into the world and compel surplus labor to betray labor that is employed. nor is this all. when a workman of superior strength and skill, protected by his union, manages to maintain a large or moderate sized family in a degree of comfort, there always comes a time when he must strike to preserve what he has won. if he is not beaten by unorganized workers who seek his job, he still has to face the possibility of listening to the cries of several hungry children. if the strike is a long one, these cries often down the promptings of loyalty and class interest--often they defeat him when nothing else could. is it any wonder that under handicaps like these labor becomes confused and flounders? it has been offered a multitude of remedies--political reforms, wage legislation, statutory regulation of hours, and so on. it has been invited to embrace craft and industrial unionism, syndicalism, anarchism, socialism as panaceas for its liberation. except in a few countries, it has not attained to aggressive power, but has been a tool for unscrupulous politicians. even with the temporary advantages gained by the wiping out of millions of workers in the great war, labor's problem remains unsolved. it has now, as always, to contend with the crop of young laborers coming into the market, and with the ever-present "labor-saving" machine which, instead of relieving the worker's situation, makes it all the harder for him to escape. fewer laborers are needed to-day for a given amount of production and distribution than before the invention of these machines. yet, owing to the increase in the number of the workers, labor finds itself enslaved instead of liberated by the machine. "hitherto," says john stuart mill, "it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. they have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes." that, in a few words, sums up the greater part of labor's progress. we blame capitalism and its wasteful, brutal industrial system for all our social problems, but our numbers were vast and our bondage grievous before modern industry came into existence. we may curse the trusts, but our subjection was accomplished before the trusts had emerged from the brain of evolution. we may blame public officials and individual employers, but our burdens were crushing before these were born. we look now here, now there, for the cause of our condition--everywhere but at the one to blame. we fight again and again for our rights, only to be conquered by our own kind, our own children, our brother's, our neighbor's. let us carry to its logical conclusion the principle of limitation which has been partially applied by labor unions. the way to get rid of labor problems, unemployment, low wages, the surplus, unwanted population, is to stop breeding. they come from our own ranks--from our own families. the way to get better wages, shorter hours, a new system for the advancement of labor, is to make labor's numbers fewer. let us not wait for war, famine and plague to do it. let us cease bringing unwanted children into the world to suffer a while, add to our burdens and die. let us cease bringing others into the world to compete with us for a living. let the women workers practice birth control. what are the concrete things which the worker can gain at once through birth control? first, a small family can live much better than a large one upon the wages now received. workers could be better fed, clothed and educated. again, fewer children in the families of the workers would tend to check the rise in the prices of food, which are forced up as the demand increases. within a few years it would reduce the number of workers competing for jobs. the worker could the more easily force society to give him more of the product of his labor--or all of it. and while these things are taking place, the slums, with their disease, their moral degradation and all their sordid accompaniments, would automatically disappear. no worker would need to live in such tenements--hence they would be modernized or torn down. at the same time, the few children that were being born to the workers would be stronger, healthier, more courageous. they would be fit human beings--not miserable victims of murderous conditions. birth control does not propose to replace any of the idealistic movements and philosophies of the workers. it is not a substitute, it precedes. it is of itself a principle that lifts the heaviest of the burdens that afflict labor. it can and it must be the foundation upon which any permanently successful improvement in conditions is attained. it is, therefore, a necessary prelude in all effective propaganda. a few years of systematic agitation for birth control would put labor in a position to solve all its problems. labor, organized or unorganized, must take heed of this fact. groups and parties working for a new social order must include it in their programmes. no social system, no workers' democracy, no socialist republic can operate successfully and maintain its ideals unless the practice of birth control is encouraged to a marked and efficient degree. in spain i saw a bull fight. it was in the great arena at barcelona. as bull after bull went down, his magnificent, defeated strength bleeding away through wounds inflicted by his weak but skillful assailant, i thought of the world of workers and their oppressors. as each bull was sent into the arena, he was confronted by one assailant and twenty _confusers_. there was but one enemy for him to face, but there were twenty brilliant flags, each of a different color, to distract his attention from the man who held the weapon. no sooner was his real antagonist in danger, than one of the confusers fluttered a flag before his anger-maddened eyes. with one toss of his horns he could have ripped the life from the toreador, but his confusers were always there with the flags. one after another he charged them, only to spend the force of his lunges in the empty air. he found that as he was about to toss one of his confusers into the air, he was confronted by another flag, which he charged with equal futility. finally, utterly bewildered and exhausted, too spiritless to meet the attack, he falls under the sword thrust of the toreador. and the sun shines in the deep blue overhead, the band plays, the ten thousand gayly-clad spectators shout, while the victim is dragged out to make room for another. it is the drama of labor. it will be the drama of labor until labor finds its real enemy. that enemy is the reproductive ability of the working class which gluts the channels of progress with the helpless and weak, and stimulates the tyrants of the world in their oppression of mankind. chapter xiii battalions of unwanted babies the cause of war in every nation of militaristic tendencies we find the reactionaries demanding a higher and still higher birth rate. their plea is, first, that great armies are needed to defend the country from its possible enemies; second, that a huge population is required to assure the country its proper place among the powers of the world. at bottom the two pleas are the same. as soon as the country becomes overpopulated, these reactionaries proclaim loudly its moral right to expand. they point to the huge population, which in the name of patriotism they have previously demanded should be brought into being. again pleading patriotism, they declare that it is the moral right of the nation to take by force such room as it needs. then comes war--usually against some nation supposed to be less well prepared than the aggressor. diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts, and politicians violently denounce the politicians of other countries. there is a long beating of tom-toms by the press and all other agencies for influencing public opinion. facts are distorted and lies invented until the common people cannot get at the truth. yet, when the war is over, if not before, we always find that "a place in the sun," "a path to the sea," "a route to india" or something of the sort is at the bottom of the trouble. these are merely other names for expansion. the "need of expansion" is only another name for overpopulation. one supreme example is sufficient to drive home this truth. that the great war, from the horror of which we are just beginning to emerge, had its source in overpopulation is too evident to be denied by any serious student of current history. for the past one hundred years most of the nations of europe have been piling up terrific debts to humanity by the encouragement of unlimited numbers. the rulers of these nations and their militarists have constantly called upon the people to breed, breed, breed! large populations meant more people to produce wealth, more people to pay taxes, more trade for the merchants, more soldiers to protect the wealth. but more people also meant need of greater food supplies, an urgent and natural need for expansion. as shown by c.v. drysdale's famous "war map of europe," the great conflict began among the high birth rate countries--germany, with its rate of 31.7, austria-hungary with 33.7 and 36.7, respectively, russia with 45.4, serbia with 38.6. italy with her 38.7 came in, as the world is now well informed through the publication of secret treaties by the soviet government of russia, upon the promise of territory held by austria. england, owing to her small home area, is cramped with her comparatively low birth rate of 26.3. france, among the belligerents, is conspicuous for her low birth rate of 19.9, but stood in the way of expansion of high birth rate germany. nearly all of the persistently neutral countries--holland, denmark, norway, sweden and switzerland have low birth rates, the average being a little over 26. owing to the part germany played in the war, a survey of her birth statistics is decidedly illuminating. the increase in the german birth rate up to 1876 was great. though it began to decline then, the decline was not sufficient to offset the tremendous increase of the previous years. there were more millions to produce children, so while the average number of births per thousand was somewhat smaller, the net increase in population was still huge. from 41,000,000 in 1871, the year the empire was founded, the german population grew to approximately 67,000,000 in 1918. meanwhile her food supply increased only a very small per cent. in 1910, russia had a birth rate even higher than germany's had ever been--a little less than 48 per thousand. when czarist russia wanted an outlet to the mediterranean by way of constantinople, she was thinking of her increasing population. germany was thinking of her increasing population when she spoke as with one voice of a "place in the sun." "for some decades," said the royal prussian journal, in an article quoted by the malthusian (london) of april 15, 1911, "the great growth of german population has been almost entirely forced into the towns, since of the four millions of increase in five years, only a few can find places in agriculture, as most properties are too small to permit of letting off a portion. and as regards the larger farms, the tendency of modern, cheaper machine methods is rather to produce a saving of the more costly manual labor." "for some time past germany has no longer been in the position of feeding her own population, and large quantities of food as raw-materials have to be imported, for which exports have to be exchanged. it is doubtful whether even this can for long keep pace with the present rate of increase of population." there were other utterances which just as frankly acknowledged that, having produced surplus population, germany proposed to procure by means of war the expansion necessary to care for it. adelyne more, in "uncontrolled breeding," a study of the birth rate in its relation to war, quoted the berliner post: "can a great and rapidly growing nation like germany always renounce all claims to further development or to the expansion of its political power? the final settlement with france and england, the expansion of our colonial possessions, in order to create new german homes for the overflow of our population--these are problems which must be faced in the near future." this was published in 1913. just as frank was the recognition of the true cause of international conflicts by a number of british authorities. in "uncontrolled breeding," the author quotes the british national commission's report on the declining birth rate: "the pressure of population in any country brings, as a chief historic consequence, overflows and migrations not only for peaceful settlement, but for conquest and for the subjugation and exploitation of weaker peoples. this always remains a chief cause of international disputes." the militaristic claim for germany's right to new territory was simply a claim to the right of life and food for the german babies--the same right that a chick claims to burst its shell. if there had not been other millions of people claiming the same right, there would have been no war. but there were other millions. the german rulers and leaders pointed out the fact that expansion meant more business for german merchants, more work for german workmen at better wages, and more opportunities for germans abroad. they also pointed out that lack of expansion meant crowding and crushing at home, hard times, heavy burdens, lack of opportunity for germans, and what not. in this way, they gave the people of the empire a startling and true picture of what would happen from overcrowding. once they realized the facts, the majority of germans naturally welcomed the so-called war of defense. the argument was sound. once the german mothers had submitted to the plea for overbreeding, it was inevitable that imperialistic germany should make war. once the battalions of unwanted babies came into existence--babies whom the mothers did not want but which they bore as a "patriotic duty"--it was too late to avoid international conflict. the great crime of imperialistic germany was its high birth rate. it has always been so. behind all war has been the pressure of population. "historians," says huxley, "point to the greed and ambition of rulers, the reckless turbulence of the ruled, to the debasing effects of wealth and luxury, and to the devastating wars which have formed a great part of the occupation of mankind, as the causes of the decay of states and the foundering of old civilizations, and thereby point their story with a moral. but beneath all this superficial turmoil lay the deep-seated impulse given by unlimited multiplication." robert thomas malthus, formulator of the doctrine which bears his name, pointed out, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, the relation of overpopulation to war. he showed that mankind tends to increase faster than the food supply. he demonstrated that were it not for the more common diseases, for plague, famine, floods and wars, human beings would crowd each other to such an extent that the misery would be even greater than it now is. these he described as "natural checks," pointing out that as long as no other checks are employed, such disasters are unavoidable. if we do not exercise sufficient judgment to regulate the birth rate, we encounter disease, starvation and war. both darwin and john stuart mill recognized, by inference at least, the fact that so-called "natural checks"--and among them war--will operate if some sort of limitation is not employed. in his _origin of species_, darwin says: "there is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate, if not destroyed, that the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair." elsewhere he observes that we do not permit helpless human beings to die off, but we create philanthropies and charities, build asylums and hospitals and keep the medical profession busy preserving those who could not otherwise survive. john stuart mill, supporting the views of malthus, speaks to exactly the same effect in regard to the multiplying power of organic beings, among them humanity. in other words, let countries become overpopulated and war is inevitable. it follows as daylight follows the sunrise. when charles bradlaugh and mrs. annie besant were on trial in england in 1877 for publishing information concerning contraceptives, mrs. besant put the case bluntly to the court and the jury: "i have no doubt that if natural checks were allowed to operate right through the human as they do in the animal world, a better result would follow. among the brutes, the weaker are driven to the wall, the diseased fall out in the race of life. the old brutes, when feeble or sickly, are killed. if men insisted that those who were sickly should be allowed to die without help of medicine or science, if those who are weak were put upon one side and crushed, if those who were old and useless were killed, if those who were not capable of providing food for themselves were allowed to starve, if all this were done, the struggle for existence among men would be as real as it is among brutes and would doubtless result in the production of a higher race of men. "but are you willing to do that or to allow it to be done?" we are not willing to let it be done. mother hearts cling to children, no matter how diseased, misshapen and miserable. sons and daughters hold fast to parents, no matter how helpless. we do not allow the weak to depart; neither do we cease to bring more weak and helpless beings into the world. among the dire results is war, which kills off, not the weak and the helpless, but the strong and the fit. what shall be done? we have our choice of one of three policies. we may abandon our science and leave the weak and diseased to die, or kill them, as the brutes do. or we may go on overpopulating the earth and have our famines and our wars while the earth exists. or we can accept the third, sane, sensible, moral and practicable plan of birth control. we can refuse to bring weak, the helpless and the unwanted children into the world. we can refuse to overcrowd families, nations and the earth. there are these ways to meet the situation, and only these three ways. the world will never abandon its preventive and curative science; it may be expected to elevate and extend it beyond our present imagination. the efforts to do away with famine and the opposition to war are growing by leaps and bounds. upon these efforts are largely based our modern social revolutions. there remains only the third expedient--birth control, the real cure for war. this fact was called to the attention of the peace conference in paris, in 1919, by the malthusian league, which adopted the following resolution at its annual general meeting in london in june of that year: "the malthusian league desires to point out that the proposed scheme for the league of nations has neglected to take account of the important questions of _the pressure of population_, which _causes the great international economic competition_ and rivalry, and of the _increase of population_, which is put forward as a justification for _claiming increase of territory_. it, therefore, wishes to put on record its belief that the league of nations will only be able to fulfill its aim _when it adds a clause_ to the following effect: "'that each nation desiring to enter into the league of nations shall pledge itself _so to restrict its birth rate_ that its people shall be able to live in comfort _in their own dominions without need_ for territorial expansion, and that it shall recognize that _increase of population shall not justify_ a demand either for increase of territory or for the compulsion of other nations to admit its emigrants; so that when all nations in the league have shown their ability to live on their own resources without international rivalry, they will be in a position to fuse into an international federation, and territorial boundaries will then have little significance.'" as a matter of course, the peace conference paid no attention to the resolution, for, as pointed out by frank a. vanderlip, the american financier, that conference not only ignored the economic factors of the world situation, but seemed unaware that europe had produced more people than its fields could feed. so the resolution amounted to so much propaganda and nothing more. this remedy can be applied only by woman and she will apply it. she must and will see past the call of pretended patriotism and of glory of empire and perceive what is true and what is false in these things. she will discover what base uses the militarist and the exploiter make of the idealism of peoples. under the clamor of the press, permeating the ravings of the jingoes, she will hear the voice of napoleon, the archtype of the militarists of all nations, calling for "fodder for cannon." "woman is given to us that she may bear children," said he. "woman is our property, we are not hers, because she produces children for us--we do not yield any to her. she is, therefore, our possession as the fruit tree is that of the gardener." that is what the imperialist is _thinking_ when he speaks of the glory of the empire and the prestige of the nation. every country has its appeal--its shibboleth--ready for the lips of the imperialist. german rulers pointed to the comfort of the workers, to old-age pensions, maternal benefits and minimum wage regulations, and other material benefits, when they wished to inspire soldiers for the fatherland. england's strongest argument, perhaps, was a certain phase of liberty which she guarantees her subjects, and the protection afforded them wherever they may go. france and the united states, too, have their appeals to the idealism of democracy--appeals which the politicians of both countries know well how to use, though the peoples of both lands are beginning to awake to the fact that their countries have been living on the glories of their revolutions and traditions, rather than the substance of freedom. behind the boast of old-age pensions, material benefits and wage regulations, behind the bombast concerning liberty in this country and tyranny in that, behind all the slogans and shibboleths coined out of the ideals of the peoples for the uses of imperialism, woman must and will see the iron hand of that same imperialism, condemning women to breed and men to die for the will of the rulers. upon woman the burden and the horrors of war are heaviest. her heart is the hardest wrung when the husband or the son comes home to be buried or to live a shattered wreck. upon her devolve the extra tasks of filling out the ranks of workers in the war industries, in addition to caring for the children and replenishing the war-diminished population. hers is the crushing weight and the sickening of soul. and it is out of her womb that those things proceed. when she sees what lies behind the glory and the horror, the boasting and the burden, and gets the vision, the human perspective, she will end war. she will kill war by the simple process of starving it to death. for she will refuse longer to produce the human food upon which the monster feeds. chapter xiv woman and the new morality upon the shoulders of the woman conscious of her freedom rests the responsibility of creating a new sex morality. the vital difference between a morality thus created by women and the so-called morality of to-day, is that the new standard will be based upon knowledge and freedom while the old is founded upon ignorance and submission. what part will birth control play in bringing forth this new standard? what effect will its practice have upon woman's moral development? will it lift her to heights that she has not yet achieved, and if so, how? why is the question of morality always raised by the objector to birth control? all these questions must be answered if we are to get a true picture of the relation of the feminine spirit to morals. they can best be answered by considering, first, the source of our present standard of sex morals and the reasons why those standards are what they are; and, second, the source and probable nature of the new morality. we get most of our notions of sex morality from the christian church--more particularly from the oldest existing christian church, known as the roman catholic. the church has generally defined the "immoral woman" as one who mates out of wedlock. virtually, it lets it go at that. in its practical workings, there is nothing in the church code of morals to protect the woman, either from unwilling submission to the wishes of her husband, from undesired pregnancy, nor from any other of the outrages only too familiar to many married women. nothing is said about the crime of bringing an unwanted child into the world, where often it cannot be adequately cared for and is, therefore, condemned to a life of misery. the church's one point of insistence is upon the right of itself to legalize marriage and to compel the woman to submit to whatever such marriage may bring. it is true that there are remedies of divorce in the case of the state, but the church has adhered strictly to the principle that marriage, once consummated, is indissoluble. thus, in its operation, the church's code of sex morals has nothing to do with the basic sex rights of the woman, but enforces, rather, the assumed property rights of the man to the body and the services of his wife. they are man-made codes; their vital factor, as they apply to woman, is submission to the man. closely associated with and underlying the principle of submission, has been the doctrine that the sex life is in itself unclean. it follows, therefore, that all knowledge of the sex physiology or sex functions is also unclean and taboo. upon this teaching has been founded woman's subjection by the church and, largely through the influence of the church, her subjection by the state to the needs of the man. let us see how these principles have affected the development of the present moral codes and some of their shifting standards. when we have finished this analysis, we shall know why objectors to birth control raise the "morality" question. the church has sought to keep women ignorant upon the plea of keeping them "pure." to this end it has used the state as its moral policeman. men have largely broken the grip of the ecclesiastics upon masculine education. the ban upon geology and astronomy, because they refute the biblical version of the creation of the world, are no longer effective. medicine, biology and the doctrine of evolution have won their way to recognition in spite of the united opposition of the clerics. so, too, has the right of woman to go unveiled, to be educated, and to speak from public platforms, been asserted in spite of the condemnations of the church, which denounced them as destructive of feminine purity. only in sex matters has it succeeded in keeping the bugaboo alive. it clings to this last stronghold of ignorance, knowing that woman free from sexual domination would produce a race spiritually free and strong enough to break the last of the bonds of intellectual darkness. it is within the marriage bonds, rather than outside them, that the greatest immorality of men has been perpetrated. church and state, through their canons and their laws, have encouraged this immorality. it is here that the woman who is to win her way to the new morality will meet the most difficult part of her task of moral house cleaning. in the days when the church was striving for supremacy, when it needed single-minded preachers, proselyters and teachers, it fastened upon its people the idea that all sexual union, in marriage or out of it, is sinful. that idea colors the doctrines of the church of rome and many other christian denominations to this hour. "marriage, even for the sake of children was a carnal indulgence" in earlier times, as principal donaldson points out in "_the position of women among the early christians._" [footnote: contemporary review, 1889.] it was held that the child was "conceived in sin," and that as the result of the sex act, an unclean spirit had possession of it. this spirit can be removed only by baptism, and the roman catholic baptismal service even yet contains these words: "go out of him, thou unclean spirit, and give place unto the holy spirit, the paraclete." in the _intellectual development of europe_, john william draper, speaking of the teaching of celibacy among the early fathers, [footnote: 2-vol. 1, page 426.] says: "the sinfulness of the marriage relation and the preeminent value of chastity followed from their principles. if it was objected to such practices that by their universal adoption the human species would soon be extinguished and no man would remain to offer praises to god, these zealots, remembering the temptations from which they had escaped, with truth replied that there would always be sinners enough in the world to avoid that disaster, and that out of their evil work, good would be brought. saint jerome offers us the pregnant reflection that though it may be marriage that fills the earth, it is virginity that replenishes heaven." the early church taught that there were enough children on earth. it needed missionaries more than it needed babies, and impressed upon its followers the idea that the birth wails of the infant were a protest against being born into so sordid a world. thus are we presented with one of the enormous inconsistencies of the church in sex matters. the teachings of the "early fathers" were effect the advocacy of an attempt to enforce birth control through absolute continence, while later it reverted, as it reverts to-day, to the mosaic injunction to "be fruitful and multiply." the very force of the sex urge in humanity compelled the church to abandon the teaching of celibacy for its general membership. paul, who preferred to see christians unmarried rather than married, had recognized the power of this force. in the seventh chapter of the first epistle to the corinthians (according to the douay translation of the vulgate, which is accepted by the church of rome), he said: "8--but i say unto you the unmarried and the widows; it is good if they continue even as i. "9--but if they do not contain themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to be burnt." when the church became a political power rather than a strictly religious institution, it needed a high birth rate to provide laymen to support its increasingly expensive organization. it then began to exploit the sex force for its own interest. it reversed its position in regard to children. it encouraged marriage under its own control and exhorted women to bear as many children as possible. the world was just as sordid and the birth wails of the infants were just as piteous, but the needs of the hierarchy had changed. so it modified the standard of sex morality to suit its own requirements--marriage now became a sacrament. shrewd in changing its general policy from celibacy to marriage, the church was equally shrewd in perpetuating the doctrine of woman's subjection for its own interest. that doctrine was emphatically stated in the third chapter of the first epistle of peter and the fifth chapter of paul's epistle to the ephesians. in the douay version of the latter, we find this: "22--let women be subject to their husbands as to the lord. "23--because the husband is the head of the wife; as christ is the head of the church. "24--therefore, as the church is subject to christ, so let the wives be to their husbands in all things." these doctrines, together with the teaching that sex life is of itself unclean, formed the basis of morality as fixed by the roman church. nor does the st. james version of the bible, generally used by protestant churches to-day, differ greatly in these particulars from the accepted roman catholic version, as a comparison will show. if christianity turned the clock of general progress back a thousand years, it turned back the clock two thousand years for woman. its greatest outrage upon her was to forbid her to control the function of motherhood under any circumstances, thus limiting her life's work to bringing forth and rearing children. coincident with this, the churchmen deprived her of her place in and before the courts, in the schools, in literature, art and society. they shut from her heart and her mind the knowledge of her love life and her reproductive functions. they chained her to the position into which they had thrust her, so that it is only after centuries of effort that she is even beginning to regain what was wrested from her. "christianity had no favorable effect upon women," says donaldson, "but tended to lower their character and contract the range of their activity. at the time when christianity dawned upon the world, women had attained great freedom, power and influence in the roman empire. tradition was in favor of restriction, but by a concurrence of circumstances, women had been liberated from the enslaving fetters of the old legal forms. they enjoyed freedom of intercourse in society. they walked in the public thoroughfares with veils that did not hide their faces. they dined in the company of men. they studied literature and philosophy. they took part in political movements. they were allowed to defend their own law cases if they liked, and they helped their husbands in the government of provinces and the writing of books." and again: "one would have imagined that christianity would have favored the extension of woman's freedom. in a very short time women are seen only in two capacities--as martyrs and deaconesses (or nuns). now what the early christians did was to strike the male out of the definition of man, and human being out of the definition of woman. man was a human being made to serve the highest and noblest purposes; woman was a female, made to serve only one." thus the position attained by women of greece and rome through the exercise of family limitation, and in a considerable degree of voluntary motherhood, was swept away by the rising tide of christianity. it would seem that this pernicious result was premeditated, and that from the very early days of christianity, there were among the hierarchy those who recognized the creative power of the feminine spirit, the force of which they sought to turn to their own uses. certain it is that the hierarchy created about the whole love life of woman an atmosphere of degradation. fear and shame have stood as grim guardians against the gate of knowledge and constructive idealism. the sex life of women has been clouded in darkness, restrictive, repressive and morbid. women have not had the opportunity to know themselves, nor have they been permitted to give play to their inner natures, that they might create a morality practical, idealistic and high for their own needs. on the other hand, church and state have forbidden women to leave their legal mates, or to refuse to submit to the marital embrace, no matter how filthy, drunken, diseased or otherwise repulsive the man might be--no matter how much of a crime it might be to bring to birth a child by him. woman was and is condemned to a system under which the lawful rapes exceed the unlawful ones a million to one. she has had nothing to say as to whether she shall have strength sufficient to give a child a fair physical and mental start in life; she has had as little to do with determining whether her own body shall be wrecked by excessive child-bearing. she has been adjured not to complain of the burden of caring for children she has not wanted. only the married woman who has been constantly loved by the most understanding and considerate of husbands has escaped these horrors. besides the wrongs done to women in marriage, those involved in promiscuity, infidelities and rapes become inconsequential in nature and in number. out of woman's inner nature, in rebellion against these conditions, is rising the new morality. let it be realized that this creation of new sex ideals is a challenge to the church. being a challenge to the church, it is also, in less degree, a challenge to the state. the woman who takes a fearless stand for the incoming sex ideals must expect to be assailed by reactionaries of every kind. imperialists and exploiters will fight hardest in the open, but the ecclesiastic will fight longest in the dark. he understands the situation best of all; he best knows what reaction he has to fear from the morals of women who have attained liberty. for, be it repeated, the church has always known and feared the spiritual potentialities of woman's freedom. and in this lies the answer to the question why the opponent of birth control raises the moral issue. sex morals for women have been one-sided; they have been purely negative, inhibitory and repressive. they have been fixed by agencies which have sought to keep women enslaved; which have been determined, even as they are now, to use woman solely as an asset to the church, the state and the man. any means of freedom which will enable women to live and think for themselves first, will be attacked as immoral by these selfish agencies. what effect will the practice of birth control have upon woman's moral development? as we have seen in other chapters, it will break her bonds. it will free her to understand the cravings and soul needs of herself and other women. it will enable her to develop her love nature separate from and independent of her maternal nature. it goes without saying that the woman whose children are desired and are of such number that she can not only give them adequate care but keep herself mentally and spiritually alive, as well as physically fit, can discharge her duties to her children much better than the overworked, broken and querulous mother of a large, unwanted family. thus the way is open to her for a twofold development; first, through her own full rounded life, and next, through her loving, unstrained, full-hearted relationship with her offspring. the bloom of mother love will have an opportunity to infuse itself into her soul and make her, indeed, the fond, affectionate guardian of her offspring that sentiment now pictures her but hard facts deny her the privilege of being. she will preserve also her love life with her mate in its ripening perfection. she will want children with a deeper passion, and will love them with a far greater love. in spite of the age-long teaching that sex life in itself is unclean, the world has been moving to a realization that a great love between a man and woman is a holy thing, freighted with great possibilities for spiritual growth. the fear of unwanted children removed, the assurance that she will have a sufficient amount of time in which to develop her love life to its greatest beauty, with its comradeship in many fields--these will lift woman by the very soaring quality of her innermost self to spiritual heights that few have attained. then the coming of eagerly desired children will but enrich life in all its avenues, rather than enslave and impoverish it as do unwanted ones to-day. what healthier grounds for the growth of sound morals could possibly exist than the ample spiritual life of the woman just depicted? free to follow the feminine spirit, which dwells in the sanctuary of her nature, she will, in her daily life, give expression to that high idealism which is the fruit of that spirit when it is unhampered and unviolated. the love for her mate will flower in beauty of deeds that are pure because they are the natural expression of her physical, mental and spiritual being. the love for desired children will come to blossom in a spirituality that is high because it is free to reach the heights. the moral force of woman's nature will be unchained--and of its own dynamic power will uplift her to a plane unimagined by those holding fast to the old standards of church morality. love is the greatest force of the universe; freed of its bonds of submission and unwanted progeny, it will formulate and compel of its own nature observance to standards of purity far beyond the highest conception of the average moralist. the feminine spirit, animated by joyous, triumphant love, will make its own high tenets of morality. free womanhood, out of the depths of its rich experiences, will observe and comply with the inner demands of its being. the manner in which it learns to do this best may be said to be the moral law of woman's being. so, in whatever words the new morality may ultimately be expressed, we can at least be sure that it will meet certain needs. first of all, it will meet the physical and psychic requirements of the woman herself, for she cannot adequately perform the feminine functions until these are met. second, it will meet the needs of the child to be conceived in a love which is eager to bring forth a new life, to be brought into a home where love and harmony prevail, a home in which proper preparation has been made for its coming. this situation implies in turn a number of conditions. foremost among them is woman's knowledge of her sexual nature, both in its physiology and its spiritual significance. she must not only know her own body, its care and its needs, but she must know the power of the sex force, its use, its abuse, as well as how to direct it for the benefit of the race. thus she can transmit to her children an equipment that will enable them to break the bonds that have held humanity enslaved for ages. to achieve this she must have a knowledge of birth control. she must also assert and maintain her right to refuse the marital embrace except when urged by her inner nature. the truth makes free. viewed in its true aspect, the very beauty and wonder of the creative impulse will make evident its essential purity. we will then instinctively idealize and keep holy that physical-spiritual expression which is the foundation of all human life, and in that conception of sex will the race he exalted. what can we expect of offspring that are the result of "accidents"--who are brought into being undesired and in fear? what can we hope for from a morality that surrounds each physical union, for the woman, with an atmosphere of submission and shame? what can we say for a morality that leaves the husband at liberty to communicate to his wife a venereal disease? subversion of the sex urge to ulterior purposes has dragged it to the level of the gutter. recognition of its true nature and purpose must lift the race to spiritual freedom. out of our growing knowledge we are evolving new and saner ideas of life in general. out of our increasing sex knowledge we shall evolve new ideals of sex. these ideals will spring from the innermost needs of women. they will serve these needs and express them. they will be the foundation of a moral code that will tend to make fruitful the impulse which is the source, the soul and the crowning glory of our sexual natures. when women have raised the standards of sex ideals and purged the human mind of its unclean conception of sex, the fountain of the race will have been cleansed. mothers will bring forth, in purity and in joy, a race that is morally and spiritually free. chapter xv legislating woman's morals one of the important duties before those women who are demanding birth control as a means to a new race is the changing of our so-called obscenity laws. this will be no easy undertaking; it is usually much easier to enact statutes than to revise them. laws are seldom exactly what they seem, rarely what their advocates claim for them. the "obscenity" statutes are particularly deceptive. enacted, avowedly, to protect society against the obscene and the lewd, they make no distinction between the scientific works of human emancipators like forel and ellis and printed matter such as they are ostensibly aimed at. naturally enough, then, detectives and narrow-minded judges and prosecutors who would chuckle over pictures that would make a clean-minded woman shudder, unite to suppress the scientific works and the birth-control treatises which would enable men and women to attain higher physical, mental, moral and spiritual standards. woman, bent upon her freedom and seeking to make a better world, will not permit the indecent and unclean forces of reaction to mask themselves forever behind the plea that it is necessary to keep her in ignorance to preserve her purity. in the birth-control movement, she has already begun to fight for her right to have, without legal interference, all knowledge pertaining to her sex nature. this is the third and most important of the epoch-making battles for general liberty upon american soil. it is most important because it is to purify the very fountain of the race and make the race completely free. the first and most dramatic of the three great struggles for liberty reached its apex, as we know, in the american revolution. it had for its object the right to hold such political beliefs as one might choose, and to act in accordance with those beliefs. if this political freedom is now lost to us, it is because we did not hold strongly enough to those liberties fought for by our forefathers. nearly a hundred years after the revolution the battle for religious liberty came to a climax in the career of robert g. ingersoll. his championship of the much vaunted and little exercised freedom of religious opinion swept the blasphemy laws into the lumber room of outworn tyrannies. those yet remaining upon the statute books are invoked but rarely, and then the effort to enforce them is ridiculous. within a few years the tragic combination of false moral standards and infamous obscenity laws will be as ridiculous in the public mind as are the now all but forgotten blasphemy laws. if the obscenity laws are not radically revised or repealed, few reactionaries will dare to face the public derision that will greet their attempts to use them to stay woman's progress. the french have a saying concerning "mort main"--the dead hand. this hand of the past reaches up into the present to smother the rising flame of modern ideals, to reforge our chains when we have broken them, to arrest progress. it is the hand of such as have lived on earth but have not loved humanity. at the call of those who fear progress and freedom, it rises from the gloom of forgotten things to oppress the living. it is the dead hand that holds imprisoned within the obscenity laws all direct information concerning birth control. it is the dead hand that thus compels millions of american women to remain in the bondage of maternity. previous to the year 1868, the obscenity laws of the various states in the union contained no specific prohibition of information concerning contraceptives. in that year, however, the general assembly of new york passed an act which specifically included the subject of contraceptives. the act made it exactly as great an offense to give such information as to exhibit the sort of pictures and writings at which the legislation was ostensibly aimed. in 1873, the late anthony comstock, who with a list of contributors, most of whom did not realize the real effects of his work, constituted the so-called society for the suppression of vice, succeeded in obtaining the passage of the federal obscenity act. this act was presented as one to prevent the circulation of pornographic literature and pictures among school children. as such, it was rushed through with two hundred sixty other acts in the closing hours of the congress. this act made it a crime to use the mails to convey contraceptives or information concerning contraceptives. other acts later made the original law applicable to express companies and other common carriers, as well as to the mails. with this precedent established--a precedent which a majority of the congressmen could hardly have understood because of the hasty passage of the act--comstock secured the enactment of state laws to the same effect. meanwhile, the provisions regarding contraceptives had been dropped from the amended new york state law of 1872. in 1873, however, a new section, said to have been drafted by comstock himself, was substituted for the one enacted in 1872, and that section is essentially the substance of the present law. none of these acts made it an offense to prevent conception--all of them provided punishment for anyone disseminating information concerning the prevention of conception. in the federal statutes, the maximum penalties were fixed at a fine of $5,000 or five years imprisonment, or both. the usual maximum penalty under a state law is a fine of $1,000 or one year's imprisonment, or both. comstock has passed out of public notice. his body has been entombed but the evil that he did lives after him. his dead hand still reaches forth to keep the subject of prevention of conception where he placed it--in the same legal category with things unclean and vile. forty years ago the laws were changed and the chief work of comstock's life accomplished. those laws still live, legal monuments to ignorance and to oppression. through those laws reaches the dead hand to bring to the operating table each year hundreds of thousands of women who undergo the agony of abortion. each year this hand reaches out to compel the birth of hundreds of thousands of infants who must die before they are twelve months old. like many laws upon our statute books, these are being persistently and intelligently violated. few members of the well-to-do and wealthy classes think for a single moment of obeying them. they limit their families to one, two or three well-cared-for children. usually the prosecutor who presents the case against a birth-control advocate, trapped by a detective hired by the comstock society, has no children at all or a small family. the family of the judge who passes upon the case is likely to be smaller still. the words "it is the law" sums it all up for these officials when they pass sentence in court. but these words, so magical to the official mind, have no weight when these same officials are adjusting their own private lives. they then obey the higher laws of their own beings--they break the obsolete statutes for themselves while enforcing them for others. this is not the situation with the poorer people of the united states, however. millions of them know nothing of reliable contraceptives. when women of the impoverished strata of society do not break these laws against contraceptives, they violate those laws of their inner beings which tell them not to bring children into the world to live in want, disease and general misery. they break the first law of nature, which is that of self preservation. bound by false morals, enchained by false conceptions of religion, hindered by false laws, they endure until the pressure becomes so great that morals, religion and laws alike fail to restrain them. then they for a brief respite resort to the surgeon's instruments. for many years the semi-official witch hunting of the comstock organization had a remarkable and a deadly effect. everyone, whether it was novelist, essayist, publicist, propagandist or artist, who sought to throw definite light upon the forbidden subject of sex, or upon family limitation, was prosecuted if detected. among the many books suppressed were works by physicians designed to warn young men and women away from the pitfalls of venereal diseases and sexual errors. the darkness that surrounded the whole field of sex was made as complete as possible. since then the feeling of the awakened women of america has intensified. the rapidity with which women are going into industry, the increasing hardship and poverty of the lower strata of society, the arousing of public conscience, have all operated to give force and volume to the demand for woman's right to control her own body that she may work out her own salvation. those who believe in strictly legal measures, as well as those who believe both in legal measures and in open defiance of these brutal and unjust laws, are demanding amendments to the obscenity statutes, which shall remove information concerning contraceptives from its present classification among things filthy and obscene. an amendment typical of those offered is that drawn up for the new york statutes under the direction of samuel mcclure lindsey, of columbia university. the words and sentences in italics are those which it proposed to add: "(section 1145.) physicians' instruments _and information_. an article or instrument used or applied by physicians lawfully practicing, or by their direction or prescription, for the cure or prevention of disease, is not an article of indecent or immoral nature or use, within this article. the supplying of such articles to such physicians or by their direction or prescription, is not an offense under this article. _the giving by a duly licensed physician or registered nurse lawfully practicing, of information or advice in regard to, or the supplying to any person of any article or medicine for the prevention of, conception is not a violation of any provision of this article._" this proposed amendment should without doubt include midwives as well as nurses. there are thousands of women who never see a nurse or a physician. under this section, even as it now stands, physicians have a right to prescribe contraceptives, but few of them have claimed that right or have even known that it has existed. it does exist, however, and was specifically declared by the new york state court of appeals, as we shall see when we consider that court's opinion in the sanger case, farther on in the book. it can do no harm to make the intent of the law as regards physicians plainer, and it would be an immense step forward to include nurses and midwives in the section. with this addition it would remove one of the most serious obstacles to the freedom and advancement of american womanhood. every woman interested in the welfare of women in general should make it her business to agitate for such a change in the obscenity laws. the above provision would take care of the case of the woman who is ill, or who is plainly about to become ill, but it does not take care of the vast body of women who have not yet ruined their health by childbearing and who are not yet suffering from diseases complicated by pregnancy. if this amendment had been attached to the laws in all the states, there would still remain much to be done. shall we go on indefinitely driving the now healthy mother of two children into the hands of the abortionist, where she goes in preference to constant ill health, overwork and the witnessing of dying and starving babies? it is each woman's duty to herself and to society to hasten the repeal of all laws against the communication of birth-control information now that she has the vote, she should use her political influence to strike, first of all, at these restrictive statutes. it is not to her credit that a district attorney, arguing against a birth control advocate, is able to show that women have made no effort to wipe out such laws in states where they have had the ballot for years. it is time that women assert themselves upon this fundamental right, and the first and best use they can make of the ballot is in this direction. these laws were made by men and have been instruments of martyrdom and death for unnumbered thousands of women. women now have the opportunity to sweep them into the trash heap. they will do it at once unless, like men, they use the ballot for those political honors which many years of experience have taught men to be hollow. it is only a question of how long it will take women to make up their minds to this result. the law of woman's being is stronger than any statute, and the man-made law must sooner or later give way to it. man has not protected woman in matters most vital to her--but she is awaking and will sooner or later realize this and assert herself. if she acts in mass now, it will be another cheering evidence that she is moving consciously toward her goal. chapter xvi why not birth-control clinics in america [footnote: this chapter, in substance, and largely in language, appeared under the present title in the march, 1920, issue of american medicine (new york) and is incorporated in this book by courtesy of that publication.] the absurd cruelty of permitting thousands of women each year to go through abortions to prevent the aggravation of diseases for which they are under treatment assuredly cannot be much longer ignored by the medical profession. responsibility for the inestimable damage done by the practice of permitting patients suffering from certain ailments to become pregnant, because of their ignorance of contraceptives, when the physician knows that if pregnancy goes to its full term it will hasten the disease and lead to the patient's death, must in all fairness be laid at his door. what these diseases are and what dangers are involved in pregnancy are known to every practitioner of standing. specialists have not been negligent in pointing out the situation. eager to enhance or protect their reputations in the profession, they continually call out to one another: "don't let the patient bear a child--don't let pregnancy continue." the warning has been sounded most often, perhaps, in the cases of tubercular women. "in view of the fact that the tubercular process becomes exacerbated either during pregnancy or after childbirth, most authorities recommend that abortion be induced as a matter of routine in all tubercular women," says dr. j. whitridge williams, obstetrician-in-chief to the johns hopkins hospital, in his treatise on _obstetrics_. dr. thomas watts eden, obstetrician and gynecologist to charing cross hospital and member of the staffs of other notable british hospitals, extends but does not complete the list in this paragraph on page 652 of his _practical obstetrics_: "certain of the conditions enumerated form absolute indications for the induction of abortion. these are nephritis, uncompensated valvular lesions of the heart, advanced tuberculosis, insanity, irremediable malignant tumors, hydatidiform mole, uncontrollable uterine hemorrhage, and acute hydramnios." we know that abortion, when performed by skilled hands, under right conditions, brings almost no danger to the life of the patient, and we also know that particular diseases can be more easily combatted after such an abortion than during a pregnancy allowed to come to full term. but why not adopt the easier, safer, less repulsive course and prevent conception altogether? why put these thousands of women who each year undergo such abortions to the pain they entail and in whatever danger attends them? why continue to send home women to whom pregnancy is a grave danger with the futile advice: "now don't get this way again!" they are sent back to husbands who have generations of passion and passion's claim to outlet. they are sent back without being given information as to how to prevent the dangerous pregnancy and are expected, presumably, to depend for their safety upon the husband's continence. the wife and husband are thrown together to bring about once more the same condition. back comes the patient again in a few months to be aborted and told once more not to do it again. does any physician believe that the picture is overdrawn? i have known of many such cases. a recent one that came under my observation was that of a woman who suffered from a disease of the kidneys. five times she was taken to a maternity hospital in an ambulance after falling in offices or in the street. one of the foremost gynecologists of america sent her out three times without giving her information as to the contraceptive means which would have prevented a repetition of this experience. why does this situation exist? we do not question the good intent nor the high purposes of these physicians. we know that they observe a high standard of ethics and that they are working for the uplift of the race. but here is a situation that is absurd--hideously absurd. what is the matter? several factors contribute to this state of affairs. first, the subject of contraception has been kept in the dark, even in medical colleges and in hospitals. abortion has been openly discussed as a necessity under certain conditions, but the subject of contraception, as any physician will admit, has not yet been brought to the front. it has escaped specialized attention in the laboratories and the research departments. thus there has been no professional stamp of approval by great bodies of experimenters. the result is that the average physician has felt that contraceptive methods are not yet established as certainties and has, for that reason, refused to direct _their use_. specialists are so busy with their own particular subjects and general practitioners are so taken up with their daily routine that they cannot give to the problem of contraception the attention it must have. consultation rooms in charge of reputable physicians who have specialized in contraception, assisted by registered nurses--in a word, clinics designed for this specialty, would meet this crying need. such clinics should deal with each woman individually, taking into account her particular disease, her temperament, her mentality and her condition, both physical and economic. their sole function should be to prevent pregnancy. in accomplishing this purpose, a higher standard of hygiene is attained. not only would a burden be removed from the physician who sends a woman to such a clinic, but there would be an improvement in the woman's general condition which would in a number of ways reflect itself in benefit to her family. all this for the diseased woman. but every argument that can be made for preventive medicine can be made for birth-control clinics for the use of the woman who has not yet lost her health. sound and vigorous at the time of her marriage, she could remain so if given advice as to by what means she could space her children and limit their number. when she is not given such information, she is plunged blindly into married life and a few years is likely to find her with a large family, herself diseased and damaged, an unfit breeder of the unfit, and still ignorant! what are the fruits of this woeful ignorance in which women have been kept? first, a tremendous infant mortality--hundreds of thousands of babies dying annually of diseases which flourish in poverty and neglect. next, the rapid increase of the feebleminded, of criminal types and of the pathetic victims of toil in the child-labor factories. another result is the familiar overcrowding of tenements, the forcing of the children into the street, the ensuing prostitution, alcoholism and almost universal physical and moral unfitness. those abhorrent conditions point to a blunder upon the part of those to whom we have entrusted the care of the health of the individual, the family and the race. the medical profession, neglecting the principle involved in preventive medicine, has permitted these conditions to come about. if they were unavoidable, we should have to bear with them, but they are not unavoidable, as shown by facts and figures from other countries where contraceptive information is available. in holland, for instance, where the information concerning contraceptives has been accessible to the people, through clinics and pamphlets, since 1881, the general death rate and the infant mortality rate have fallen until they are the lowest in europe. amsterdam and the hague have the lowest infant mortality rates of any cities in the world. it is good to know that the first of the birth-control clinics of holland followed shortly after a thorough and enthusiastic discussion of the subject at an international medical congress in amsterdam in 1878. the dutch neo-malthusian league was founded in 1881. the first birth-control clinic in the world was opened in 1885 by dr. aletta jacobs in amsterdam. so great were the results obtained that there has been a remarkable increase in the wealth, stamina, stature and longevity of the people, as well as a gradual increase in the population. these clinics must not be confused with the white enameled rooms which we associate with the term in america. they are ordinary offices with the necessary equipment, or rooms in the homes of the nurses, fitted out for the work. they are places for consultation and examination, opened by specially trained nurses who have been instructed by dr. j. rutgers, of the hague, secretary of the neo-malthusian league, who has devoted his life to this work. there have been more than fifty nurses trained specially for this work by dr. rutgers. as a nurse completes her course of training, she establishes herself in a community and her place of consultation is called a clinic. the general results of this service are best judged by tables included in the _annual summary of marriages, births and deaths in england, wales, etc., for 1912_. [footnote: (see table on page 208.)] in amsterdam, the birth rate dropped from 37.1 for the period of 1881-85 to 24.7 for 1906 and 23.3 in 1912. during the same periods, the death rate fell from 25.1 to 13.1, and in 1912 to 11.2. infant mortality for the same period fell from 203 for each thousand living births to 90, and in 1912 to 64. illegitimate fertility also decreased. results in other cities, as shown by the table at the end of this chapter, are exactly similar. in the australian commonwealth, where birth control is taken as a matter of course, and information concerning contraceptives is available to the masses, the births were so well distributed in 1915 that while the birth rate was 27.3, there was an infant death rate of only 10.7. new zealand, which is also one of the typical birth-control countries, had a birth rate of 25.3 and an infant death rate of only 9.1 for the same year. these figures are in marked and happy contrast with those for the birth registration of the united states, where the reports for 1916 show a birth rate of 24.8, but an infant death rate of 14.7. a similar comparison may be made with the german empire in 1913, where there was a birth rate of 27.5 in 1913 and an infant mortality rate of 15. in these countries, birth control information is not so generally within the reach of the masses and, consequently, the largest percentage of births come to that class least able to bring children to full maturity, as indicated in the infant mortality rates. in conclusion, i am going to make a statement which may at first seem exaggerated, but which is, nevertheless, carefully considered. the effort toward racial progress that is being made to-day by the medical profession, by social workers, by the various charitable and philanthropic organizations and by state institutions for the physically and mentally unfit, is practically wasted. all these forces are in a very emphatic sense marking time. they will continue to mark time until the medical profession recognizes the fact that the ever increasing tide of the unfit is overwhelming all that these agencies are doing for society. they will continue to mark time until they get at the source of these destructive conditions and apply a fundamental remedy. that remedy is birth control. ----------------------------------------------[footnote: amsterdam [malthusian (birth control) league started 1881; dr. aletta jacobs gave advice to poor women, 1885]: 1881-85 1906-10 1912 birth rate......... 37.1 27.7 23.3 per 1,000 of population death rate......... 25.1 13.1 11.2 per 1,000 of population infantile mortality: deaths in first year................ 203 90 64 per thousand living births the hague [now headquarters of the neo-malthusian (birth control) league]: 1881-85 1906-10 1912 birth rate........... 38.7 27.5 23.6 per 1,000 of population death rate........... 23.3 13.2 10.9 per 1,000 of population infantile mortality: deaths in first year................. 214 99 66 per thousand living births these figures are the lowest in the whole list of death rates and infantile mortalities in the summary of births and deaths in cities in this report. rotterdam: 1881-85 1906-10 1912 birth rate.......... 37.4 32.0 29.0 per 1,000 of population death rate.......... 24.2 13.4 11.3 per 1,000 of population infantile mortality: deaths in first year................ 209 105 79 per thousand living births fertility and illegitimacy rates: 1880-2 1890-2 1900-2 (legitimate births per 1,000 married women legitimate fertility.. 306.4 296.5 252.7 aged 15 to 45.) 1880-2 1890-2 1900-2 (illegitimate births per 1,000 unmarried women, illegitimate fertility..16.1 16.3 11.3 aged 15 to 45.) the hague: 1880-2 1890-2 1900-2 legitimate fertility.... 346.5 303.9 255.0 illegitimate fertility... 13.4 13.6 7.7 rotterdam: 1880-2 1890-2 1900-2 legitimate fertility.... 331.4 312.0 299.0 illegitimate fertility... 17.4 16.5 13.1] chapter xvii progress we have made the silence of the centuries has been broken. the wrongs of woman and the rights of woman have found voices. these voices differ from all others that have been raised in woman's behalf. they are not the individual protests of great feminine minds, nor the masculine remedies for masculine oppression suggested by the stricken consciences of a few men. great voices are heard, both of women and of men, but intermingled with them are millions of voices demanding freedom. let it be repeated that movements mothered by emancipated women are often deceptive in character. the demand for suffrage, the agitation against child labor, the regulation of working hours for women, the insistence upon mothers' pensions are palliatives all. yet as woman's understanding develops and she learns to think at the urgence of her own inner nature, rather than at the dictates of men, she moves on from these palliatives to fundamental remedies. so at the crest of the wave of woman's revolt comes the movement for voluntary motherhood--not a separate, isolated movement, but the manifestation of a cosmic force--the force that moves the wave itself. the walls of the cloister have fallen before the cries of a rising womanhood. the barriers of prurient puritanism are being demolished. free woman has torn the veil of indecency from the secrets of life to reveal them in their power and their purity. womanhood yet bound has beheld and understood. a public whose thoughts and opinions had been governed by men and by women engulfed in the old order has been shocked awake. sneers and jests at birth control are giving way to a reverent understanding of the needs of woman. they who to-day deny the right of a woman to control her own body speak with the hardihood of invincible ignorance or with the folly of those blind ones who in all ages have opposed the light of progress. few there are to insist openly that woman remain a passive instrument of reproduction. the subject of birth control is being lifted out of the mire into which it was cast by puritanism and given its proper place among the sciences and the ideals of this generation. with this effort has come an illumination of all other social problems. society is beginning to give ear to the promise of modern womanhood: "when you have ceased to chain me, i shall by the virtue of a free motherhood remake the world." it would be miraculous indeed if that victory which has been won, had been gained without great toil, insufferable anguish and sacrifice such as all persons experience when they dare to brave the conventions of the dead past or blaze a trail for a new order. but where the vision is clear, the faith deep, forces unseen rally to assist and carry one over barriers which would otherwise have been insurmountable. no part of this wave of woman's emancipation has won its way without such vision and faith. this is the one movement in which pioneering was unnecessary. the cry for deliverance always goes up. it is its own pioneer. the facts have always stared us in the face. no one who has worked among women can be ignorant of them. i remember that ever since i was a child, the idea of large families associated itself with poverty in my mind. as i grew to womanhood, and found myself working in hospitals and in the homes of the rich and the poor, the association between the two ideas grew stronger. in every home of the poor, women asked me the same question. as far back as 1900, i began to inquire of my associates among the nurses what one could tell these worried women who asked constantly: "what can i do?" it is the voice of the elemental urge of woman--it has always been there; and whether we have heeded it or neglected it, we have always heard it. out of this cry came the birth control movement. economic conditions have naturally made this elemental need more plain; sometimes they have lent a more desperate voice to woman's cry for freedom. men and women have arisen since knowlton and robert dale owen, to advocate the use of contraceptives, but aside from these two none has come forward to separate it from other issues of _sex_ freedom. but the birth control movement as a movement for woman's _basic_ freedom was born of that unceasing cry of the socially repressed, spiritually stifled woman who is constantly demanding: "what can i do to avoid more children?" when it came time to arouse new public interest in birth control and organize a movement, it was found expedient to employ direct and drastic methods to awaken a slumbering public. the woman rebel, a monthly magazine, was established to proclaim the gospel of revolt. when its mission was accomplished and the words "birth control" were on their way to be a symbol of woman's freedom in all civilized tongues, it went out of existence. the deceptive "obscenity law," invoked oftener to repress womanhood and smother scientific knowledge than to restrain the distribution of verbal and pictorial pornography, was deliberately challenged. this course had two purposes. it challenged the constitutionality of the law and thereby brought knowledge of contraceptives to hundreds of thousands of women. the first general, organized effort reached in various ways to all parts of the united states. particular attention was paid to the mining districts of west virginia and montana, the mill towns of new england and the cotton districts of the southern states. men and women from all these districts welcomed the movement. they sent letters pledging their loyalty and their active assistance. they participated directly and indirectly in the protest which awakened the country. as time went on, the work was extended to various foreign elements of the population, this being made possible by the enthusiastic cooperation of workers who speak the foreign languages. leagues were formed to organize those who favored changing the laws. lectures were delivered throughout the united states. articles were written by eminent physicians, scientists, reformers and revolutionists. debates were arranged. newspapers and magazines of all kinds, classes and languages gave the subject of birth control serious attention, taking one side or the other of the discussion that was aroused. new books on the subject began to appear. books by foreign authors were reprinted and distributed in the united states. the birth control review, edited by voluntary effort and supported by a stock company of women who make contributions instead of taking dividends, was founded and continues its work. after a year's study in foreign countries for the purpose of supplementing the knowledge gained in my fourteen years as a nurse, i came back to the united states determined to open a clinic. i had decided that there could be no better way of demonstrating to the public the necessity of birth control and the welcome it would receive than by taking the knowledge of contraceptive methods directly to those who most needed it. a clinic was opened in brooklyn. there 480 women received information before the police closed the consulting rooms and arrested ethel byrne, a registered nurse, fania mindell, a translator, and myself. the purpose of this clinic was to demonstrate to the public the practicability and the necessity of such institutions. all women who came seeking information were workingmen's wives. all had children. no unmarried girls came at all. men came whose wives had nursing children and could not come. women came from the farther parts of long island, from cities in massachusetts and connecticut and even more distant places. mothers brought their married daughters. some whose ages were from 25 to 35 looked fifty, but the clinic gave them new hope to face the years ahead. these women invariably expressed their love for children, but voiced a common plea for means to avoid others, in order that they might give sufficient care to those already born. they wanted them "to grow up decent." for ten days the two rooms of this clinic were crowded to their utmost. then came the police. we were hauled off to jail and eventually convicted of a "crime." ethel byrne instituted a hunger strike for eleven days, which attracted attention throughout the nation. it brought to public notice the fact that women were ready to die for the principle of voluntary motherhood. so strong was the sentiment evoked that governor whitman pardoned mrs. byrne. no single act of self-sacrifice in the history of the birth-control movement has done more to awaken the conscience of the public or to arouse the courage of women, than did ethel byrne's deed of uncompromising resentment at the outrage of jailing women who were attempting to disseminate knowledge which would emancipate the motherhood of america. courage like hers and like that of others who have undergone arrest and imprisonment, or who night after night and day after day have faced street crowds to speak or to sell literature--the faith and the untiring labors of still others who have not come into public notice--have given the movement its dauntless character and assure the final victory. one dismal fact had become clear long before the brownsville clinic was opened. the medical profession as a whole had ignored the tragic cry of womanhood for relief from forced maternity. the private practitioners, one after another, shook their heads and replied: "it cannot be done. it is against the law," and the same answer came from clinics and public hospitals. the decision of the new york state court of appeals has disposed of that objection, however, though as yet few physicians have cared to make public the fact that they take advantage of the decision. while the decision of the lower courts in my own case was upheld, partly because i was a nurse and not a physician, the court incidentally held that under the laws as they now stand in new york, any physician has a right to impart information concerning contraceptives to women as a measure for curing or preventing disease. the united states supreme court threw out my appeal without consideration of the merits of the case. therefore, the decision of the new york state court of appeals stands. and under that decision, a physician has a right, and it is therefore his duty, to prescribe contraceptives in such cases, at least, as those involving disease. it is true that section 1142 of the penal code of new york state does not except the medical man, and does not allow him to instruct his patient in birth control methods, even though she is suffering from tuberculosis, syphilis, kidney disorders or heart disease. without looking farther, the physicians had let that section go at its face value. no doctor had questioned either its purpose or its legal scope. the medical profession was content to let this apparent limitation upon its rights stand, and it remained for a woman to go to jail to demonstrate the fact that under another section of the same code--1145--the physician had the vital right just described. it is safe to say that many physicians do not even yet know of their legal rights in this matter. but here is what the new york state court of appeals said on january 8, 1918, in an opinion thus far unquestioned and which is the law of the state: "secondly, by section 1145 of the penal law, physicians are excepted from the provisions of this act under circumstances therein mentioned. this section reads: 'an article or instrument, used or applied by physicians lawfully practicing, or by their direction or prescription, for the cure or prevention of disease, is not an article of indecent or immoral nature or use, within this article. the supplying of such articles to such physicians or by their direction or prescription, is not an offense under this article.' "this exception in behalf of physicians does not permit advertisements regarding such matters, nor promiscuous advice to patients irrespective of their condition, but it is broad enough to protect the physician who in good faith gives such help or advice to a married person to cure or prevent disease. 'disease,' by webster's international dictionary, is defined to be, 'an alteration in the state of the body, or of some of its organs, interrupting or disturbing the performance of the vital functions, and causing or threatening pain and sickness; illness, disorder.' "the protection thus afforded the physician would also extend to the druggist, or vendor, acting upon the physician's prescription or order." section 1142, which shamelessly classes contraceptive information with abortion and things obscene, still stands, but under the decision of the court of appeals, it is the law of new york state that physicians have the right which they were seemingly denied. such is probably the fact, also, in many other states, for the so-called "obscenity" laws are modelled more or less, after the same pattern. one of the chief results of the brownsville clinic was that of establishing for physicians a right which they neglected to establish for themselves, but which they are bound, in the very nature of things, to exercise to an increasing degree. similar tests by women in other states would doubtless establish the right elsewhere in america. we know of some thirty-five arrests of women and men who have dared entrenched prejudice and the law to further the cause of birth control. the persistent work in behalf of the movement, attended as it was by danger of fines and jail sentences, seemed to puzzle the authorities. sometimes they dismissed the arrested persons, sometimes they fined them, sometimes they imprisoned them. but the protests went on, and through these self-sacrifices, word of the movement went constantly to more and more people. each of these arrests brought added publicity. each became a center of local agitation. each brought a part of the public, at least, face to face with the issue between the women of america and this barbarous law. many thousands of letters have been answered and thousands of women have been given personal consultations. each letter and each consultation means another center of influence from which the gospel of voluntary motherhood spreads. forced thus to the front, the problems of birth control and the right of voluntary motherhood have been brought more and more to the attention of medical students, nurses, midwives, physicians, scientists and sociologists. a new literature, ranging all the way from discussion of the means of preventing conception to the social, political, ethical, moral and spiritual possibilities of birth control, is coming into being. woman's cry for liberty is infusing itself into the thoughts and the consciences and the aspirations of the intellectual leaders as well as into the idealism of society. it is but a few years since it was said of the woman rebel that it was "the first un-veiled head raised in america." it is but a few years since men as well as women trembled at the temerity of a public discussion in which the subject of sex was mentioned. but, measured in progress, it is a far cry from those days. the public has read of birth control on the first page of its newspapers. it has discussed it in meetings and in clubs. it has been a favorite topic of discussion at correct teas. the scientist is giving it reverent and profound attention. even the minister, seeking to keep abreast of the times, proclaims it from the pulpit. and everywhere, serious-minded women and men, those with the vision, with a comprehension of present and future needs of society, are working to bring this message to those who have not yet realized its immense and regenerating import. the american public, in a word, has been permeated with the message of birth control. its reaction to that message has been exceedingly encouraging. people by the thousands have flocked to the meetings. only the official mind, serving ancient prejudices under the cloak of "law and order," has been in opposition. it is plain that puritanism is in the throes of a lingering death. if anyone doubts it, let it be remembered that the same people who, a few years ago, formed the official opinion of puritanism have so far forsaken puritanism as to flood the country with millions of pamphlets discussing sex matters and venereal disease. this literature was distributed by the united states government, by state governments, by the y.m.c.a., the y.w.c.a., and by similar organizations. it treated the physiology of sex far more definitely than has birth-control literature. this official educational barrage was at once a splendid salute to the right of women and men to know their own bodies and the last heavy firing in the main battle against ignorance in the field of sex. what remains now is but to take advantage of the victories. what does it all mean? it means that american womanhood is blasting its way through the débris of crumbling moral and religious systems toward freedom. it means that the path is all but clear. it means that woman has but to press on, more courageously, more confidently, with her face set more firmly toward the goal. chapter xviii the goal what is the goal of woman's upward struggle? is it voluntary motherhood? is it general freedom? or is it the birth of a new race? for freedom is not fruitless, but prolific of higher things. being the most sacred aspect of woman's freedom, voluntary motherhood is motherhood in its highest and holiest form. it is motherhood unchained--motherhood ready to obey its own urge to remake the world. voluntary motherhood implies a new morality--a vigorous, constructive, liberated morality. that morality will, first of all, prevent the submergence of womanhood into motherhood. it will set its face against the conversion of women into mechanical maternity and toward the creation of a new race. woman's rôle has been that of an incubator and little more. she has given birth to an incubated race. she has given to her children what little she was permitted to give, but of herself, of her personality, almost nothing. in the mass, she has brought forth quantity, not quality. the requirement of a male dominated civilization has been numbers. she has met that requirement. it is the essential function of voluntary motherhood to choose its own mate, to determine the time of childbearing and to regulate strictly the number of offspring. natural affection upon her part, instead of selection dictated by social or economic advantage, will give her a better fatherhood for her children. the exercise of her right to decide how many children she will have and when she shall have them will procure for her the time necessary to the development of other faculties than that of reproduction. she will give play to her tastes, her talents and her ambitions. she will become a full-rounded human being. thus and only thus will woman be able to transmit to her offspring those qualities which make for a greater race. the importance of developing these qualities in the mothers for transmission to the children is apparent when we recall certain well-established principles of biology. in all of the animal species below the human, motherhood has a clearly discernible superiority over fatherhood. it is the first pulse of organic life. fatherhood is the fertilizing element. its development, compared to that of the mother cell, is comparatively new. likewise, its influence upon the progeny is comparatively small. there are weighty authorities who assert that through the female alone comes those modifications of form, capacity and ability which constitute evolutionary progress. it was the mothers who first developed cunning in chase, ingenuity in escaping enemies, skill in obtaining food, and adaptability. it was they also who attained unfailing discretion in leadership, adaptation to environment and boldness in attack. when the animal kingdom as a whole is surveyed, these stand out as distinctly feminine traits. they stand out also as the characteristics by which the progress of species is measured. why is all this true of the lower species yet not true of human beings? the secret is revealed by one significant fact--the female's functions in these animal species are not limited to motherhood alone. every organ and faculty is fully employed and perfected. through the development of the individual mother, better and higher types of animals are produced and carried forward. in a word, natural law makes the female the expression and the conveyor of racial efficiency. birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives. so, in compliance with nature's working plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we can expect of it efficient motherhood. if we are to make racial progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman. then and then only can the mother cease to be an incubator and be a mother indeed. then only can she transmit to her sons and daughters the qualities which make strong individuals and, collectively, a strong race. voluntary motherhood also implies the right of marriage without maternity. two utterly different functions are developed in the two relationships. in order to give the mate relationship its full and free play, it is necessary that no woman should be a mother against her will. there are other reasons, of course--reasons more frequently emphasized--but the reason just mentioned should never be overlooked. it is as important to the race as to the woman, for through it is developed that high love impulse which, conveyed to the child, attunes and perfects its being. marriage, quite aside from parentage, also gives two people invaluable experience. when parentage follows in its proper time, it is a better parentage because of the mutual adjustment and development--because of the knowledge thus gained. few couples are fitted to understand the sacred mystery of child life until they have solved some of the problems arising out of their own love lives. maternal love, which usually follows upon a happy, satisfying mate love, becomes a strong and urgent craving. it then exists for two powerful, creative functions. first, for its own sake, and then for the sake of further enriching the conjugal relationship. it is from such soil that the new life should spring. it is the inherent right of the new life to have its inception in such physical ground, in such spiritual atmosphere. the child thus born is indeed a flower of love and tremendous joy. it has within it the seeds of courage and of power. this child will have the greatest strength to surmount hardships, to withstand tyrannies, to set still higher the mark of human achievement. shall we pause here to speak again of the rights of womanhood, in itself and of itself, to be absolutely free? we have talked of this right so much in these pages, only to learn that in the end, a free womanhood turns of its own desire to a free and happy motherhood, a motherhood which does not submerge the woman, but which is enriched because she is unsubmerged. when we voice, then, the necessity of setting the feminine spirit utterly and absolutely free, thought turns naturally not to rights of the woman, nor indeed of the mother, but to the rights of the child--of all children in the world. for this is the miracle of free womanhood, that in its freedom it becomes the race mother and opens its heart in fruitful affection for humanity. how narrow, how pitifully puny has become motherhood in its chains! the modern motherhood enfolds one or two adoring children of its own blood, and cherishes, protects and loves them. it does not reach out to all children. when motherhood is a high privilege, not a sordid, slavish requirement, it will encircle all. its deep, passionate intensity will overflow the limits of blood relationship. its beauty will shine upon all, for its beauty is of the soul, whose power of enfoldment is unbounded. when motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a new race. there will be no killing of babies in the womb by abortion, nor through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be infanticide. neither will children die by inches in mills and factories. no man will dare to break a child's life upon the wheel of toil. voluntary motherhood will not be passive, resigned, or weak. out of its craving will come forth a fierceness of love for its fruits that will make such men as remain unawakened stand aghast at its fury when offended. the tigress is less terrible in defense of her offspring than will be the human mother. the daughters of such women will not be given over to injustice and to prostitution; the sons will not perish in industry nor upon the battle field. nor could they meet these all too common fates if an undaunted motherhood were there to defend. childhood and youth will be too valuable in the eyes of society to waste them in the murderous mills of blind greed and hate. this is the dawn. womanhood shakes off its bondage. it asserts its right to be free. in its freedom, its thoughts turn to the race. like begets like. we gather perfect fruit from perfect trees. the race is but the amplification of its mother body, the multiplication of flesh habitations--beautified and perfected for souls akin to the mother soul. the relentless efforts of reactionary authority to suppress the message of birth control and of voluntary motherhood are futile. the powers of reaction cannot now prevent the feminine spirit from breaking its bonds. when the last fetter falls the evils that have resulted from the suppression of woman's will to freedom will pass. child slavery, prostitution, feeblemindedness, physical deterioration, hunger, oppression and war will disappear from the earth. in their subjection women have not been brave enough, strong enough, pure enough to bring forth great sons and daughters. abused soil brings forth stunted growths. an abused motherhood has brought forth a low order of humanity. great beings come forth at the call of high desire. fearless motherhood goes out in love and passion for justice to all mankind. it brings forth fruits after its own kind. when the womb becomes fruitful through the desire of an aspiring love, another newton will come forth to unlock further the secrets of the earth and the stars. there will come a plato who will be understood, a socrates who will drink no hemlock, and a jesus who will not die upon the cross. these and the race that is to be in america await upon a motherhood that is to be sacred because it is free. the pivot of civilization by margaret sanger to alice drysdale vickery whose prophetic vision of liberated womanhood has been an inspiration "i dream of a world in which the spirits of women are flames stronger than fire, a world in which modesty has become courage and yet remains modesty, a world in which women are as unlike men as ever they were in the world i sought to destroy, a world in which women shine with a loveliness of self-revelation as enchanting as ever the old legends told, and yet a world which would immeasurably transcend the old world in the self-sacrificing passion of human service. i have dreamed of that world ever since i began to dream at all." --havelock ellis contents introduction by h. g. wells chapter i a new truth emerges ii conscripted motherhood iii "children troop down from heaven" iv the fertility of the feeble-minded v the cruelty of charity vi neglected factors of the world problem vii is revolution the remedy? viii dangers of cradle competition ix a moral necessity x science the ally xi education and expression xii woman and the future appendix: principles and aims of the american birth control league introduction birth control, mrs. sanger claims, and claims rightly, to be a question of fundamental importance at the present time. i do not know how far one is justified in calling it the pivot or the corner-stone of a progressive civilization. these terms involve a criticism of metaphors that may take us far away from the question in hand. birth control is no new thing in human experience, and it has been practised in societies of the most various types and fortunes. but there can be little doubt that at the present time it is a test issue between two widely different interpretations of the word civilization, and of what is good in life and conduct. the way in which men and women range themselves in this controversy is more simply and directly indicative of their general intellectual quality than any other single indication. i do not wish to imply by this that the people who oppose are more or less intellectual than the people who advocate birth control, but only that they have fundamentally contrasted general ideas,--that, mentally, they are different. very simple, very complex, very dull and very brilliant persons may be found in either camp, but all those in either camp have certain attitudes in common which they share with one another, and do not share with those in the other camp. there have been many definitions of civilization. civilization is a complexity of countless aspects, and may be validly defined in a great number of relationships. a reader of james harvey robinson's mind in the making will find it very reasonable to define a civilization as a system of society-making ideas at issue with reality. just so far as the system of ideas meets the needs and conditions of survival or is able to adapt itself to the needs and conditions of survival of the society it dominates, so far will that society continue and prosper. we are beginning to realize that in the past and under different conditions from our own, societies have existed with systems of ideas and with methods of thought very widely contrasting with what we should consider right and sane to-day. the extraordinary neolithic civilizations of the american continent that flourished before the coming of the europeans, seem to have got along with concepts that involved pedantries and cruelties and a kind of systematic unreason, which find their closest parallels to-day in the art and writings of certain types of lunatic. there are collections of drawings from english and american asylums extraordinarily parallel in their spirit and quality with the maya inscriptions of central america. yet these neolithic american societies got along for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, they respected seed-time and harvest, they bred and they maintained a grotesque and terrible order. and they produced quite beautiful works of art. yet their surplus of population was disposed of by an organization of sacrificial slaughter unparalleled in the records of mankind. many of the institutions that seemed most normal and respectable to them, filled the invading europeans with perplexity and horror. when we realize clearly this possibility of civilizations being based on very different sets of moral ideas and upon different intellectual methods, we are better able to appreciate the profound significance of the schism in our modern community, which gives us side by side, honest and intelligent people who regard birth control as something essentially sweet, sane, clean, desirable and necessary, and others equally honest and with as good a claim to intelligence who regard it as not merely unreasonable and unwholesome, but as intolerable and abominable. we are living not in a simple and complete civilization, but in a conflict of at least two civilizations, based on entirely different fundamental ideas, pursuing different methods and with different aims and ends. i will call one of these civilizations our traditional or authoritative civilization. it rests upon the thing that is, and upon the thing that has been. it insists upon respect for custom and usage; it discourages criticism and enquiry. it is very ancient and conservative, or, going beyond conservation, it is reactionary. the vehement hostility of many catholic priests and prelates towards new views of human origins, and new views of moral questions, has led many careless thinkers to identify this old traditional civilization with christianity, but that identification ignores the strongly revolutionary and initiatory spirit that has always animated christianity, and is untrue even to the realities of orthodox catholic teaching. the vituperation of individual catholics must not be confused with the deliberate doctrines of the church which have, on the whole, been conspicuously cautious and balanced and sane in these matters. the ideas and practices of the old civilization are older and more widespread than and not identifiable with either christian or catholic culture, and it will be a great misfortune if the issues between the old civilization and the new are allowed to slip into the deep ruts of religious controversies that are only accidentally and intermittently parallel. contrasted with the ancient civilization, with the traditional disposition, which accepts institutions and moral values as though they were a part of nature, we have what i may call--with an evident bias in its favour--the civilization of enquiry, of experimental knowledge, creative and progressive civilization. the first great outbreak of the spirit of this civilization was in republican greece; the martyrdom of socrates, the fearless utopianism of plato, the ambitious encyclopaedism of aristotle, mark the dawn of a new courage and a new wilfulness in human affairs. the fear of set limitations, of punitive and restrictive laws imposed by fate upon human life was visibly fading in human minds. these names mark the first clear realization that to a large extent, and possibly to an illimitable extent, man's moral and social life and his general destiny could be seized upon and controlled by man. but--he must have knowledge. said the ancient civilization--and it says it still through a multitude of vigorous voices and harsh repressive acts: "let man learn his duty and obey." says the new civilization, with ever-increasing confidence: "let man know, and trust him." for long ages, the old civilization kept the new subordinate, apologetic and ineffective, but for the last two centuries, the new has fought its way to a position of contentious equality. the two go on side by side, jostling upon a thousand issues. the world changes, the conditions of life change rapidly, through that development of organized science which is the natural method of the new civilization. the old tradition demands that national loyalties and ancient belligerence should continue. the new has produced means of communication that break down the pens and separations of human life upon which nationalist emotion depends. the old tradition insists upon its ancient blood-letting of war; the new knowledge carries that war to undreamt of levels of destruction. the ancient system needed an unrestricted breeding to meet the normal waste of life through war, pestilence, and a multitude of hitherto unpreventable diseases. the new knowledge sweeps away the venerable checks of pestilence and disease, and confronts us with the congestions and explosive dangers of an over-populated world. the old tradition demands a special prolific class doomed to labor and subservience; the new points to mechanism and to scientific organization as a means of escape from this immemorial subjugation. upon every main issue in life, there is this quarrel between the method of submission and the method of knowledge. more and more do men of science and intelligent people generally realize the hopelessness of pouring new wine into old bottles. more and more clearly do they grasp the significance of the great teacher's parable. the new civilization is saying to the old now: "we cannot go on making power for you to spend upon international conflict. you must stop waving flags and bandying insults. you must organize the peace of the world; you must subdue yourselves to the federation of all mankind. and we cannot go on giving you health, freedom, enlargement, limitless wealth, if all our gifts to you are to be swamped by an indiscriminate torrent of progeny. we want fewer and better children who can be reared up to their full possibilities in unencumbered homes, and we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict upon us." and there at the passionate and crucial question, this essential and fundamental question, whether procreation is still to be a superstitious and often disastrous mystery, undertaken in fear and ignorance, reluctantly and under the sway of blind desires, or whether it is to become a deliberate creative act, the two civilizations join issue now. it is a conflict from which it is almost impossible to abstain. our acts, our way of living, our social tolerance, our very silences will count in this crucial decision between the old and the new. in a plain and lucid style without any emotional appeals, mrs. margaret sanger sets out the case of the new order against the old. there have been several able books published recently upon the question of birth control, from the point of view of a woman's personal life, and from the point of view of married happiness, but i do not think there has been any book as yet, popularly accessible, which presents this matter from the point of view of the public good, and as a necessary step to the further improvement of human life as a whole. i am inclined to think that there has hitherto been rather too much personal emotion spent upon this business and far too little attention given to its broader aspects. mrs. sanger with her extraordinary breadth of outlook and the real scientific quality of her mind, has now redressed the balance. she has lifted this question from out of the warm atmosphere of troubled domesticity in which it has hitherto been discussed, to its proper level of a predominantly important human affair. h.g. wells easton glebe, dunmow, essex., england the pivot of civilization chapter i: a new truth emerges be not ashamed, women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest, you are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul. --walt whitman this book aims to be neither the first word on the tangled problems of human society to-day, nor the last. my aim has been to emphasize, by the use of concrete and challenging examples and neglected facts, the need of a new approach to individual and social problems. its central challenge is that civilization, in any true sense of the word, is based upon the control and guidance of the great natural instinct of sex. mastery of this force is possible only through the instrument of birth control. it may be objected that in the following pages i have rushed in where academic scholars have feared to tread, and that as an active propagandist i am lacking in the scholarship and documentary preparation to undertake such a stupendous task. my only defense is that, from my point of view at least, too many are already studying and investigating social problems from without, with a sort of olympian detachment. and on the other hand, too few of those who are engaged in this endless war for human betterment have found the time to give to the world those truths not always hidden but practically unquarried, which may be secured only after years of active service. of late, we have been treated to accounts written by well-meaning ladies and gentlemen who have assumed clever disguises and have gone out to work--for a week or a month--among the proletariat. but can we thus learn anything new of the fundamental problems of working men, working women, working children? something, perhaps, but not those great central problems of hunger and sex. we have been told that only those who themselves have suffered the pangs of starvation can truly understand hunger. you might come into the closest contact with a starving man; yet, if you were yourself well-fed, no amount of sympathy could give you actual insight into the psychology of his suffering. this suggests an objective and a subjective approach to all social problems. whatever the weakness of the subjective (or, if you prefer, the feminine) approach, it has at least the virtue that its conclusions are tested by experience. observation of facts about you, intimate subjective reaction to such facts, generate in your mind certain fundamental convictions,--truths you can ignore no more than you can ignore such truths as come as the fruit of bitter but valuable personal experience. regarding myself, i may say that my experience in the course of the past twelve or fifteen years has been of a type to force upon me certain convictions that demand expression. for years i had believed that the solution of all our troubles was to be found in well-defined programmes of political and legislative action. at first, i concentrated my whole attention upon these, only to discover that politicians and law-makers are just as confused and as much at a loss in solving fundamental problems as anyone else. and i am speaking here not so much of the corrupt and ignorant politician as of those idealists and reformers who think that by the ballot society may be led to an earthly paradise. they may honestly desire and intend to do great things. they may positively glow--before election--with enthusiasm at the prospect they imagine political victory may open to them. time after time, i was struck by the change in their attitude after the briefest enjoyment of this illusory power. men are elected during some wave of reform, let us say, elected to legislate into practical working existence some great ideal. they want to do big things; but a short time in office is enough to show the political idealist that he can accomplish nothing, that his reform must be debased and dragged into the dust, so that even if it becomes enacted, it may be not merely of no benefit, but a positive evil. it is scarcely necessary to emphasize this point. it is an accepted commonplace of american politics. so much of life, so large a part of all our social problems, moreover, remains untouched by political and legislative action. this is an old truth too often ignored by those who plan political campaigns upon the most superficial knowledge of human nature. my own eyes were opened to the limitations of political action when, as an organizer for a political group in new york, i attended by chance a meeting of women laundry-workers who were on strike. we believed we could help these women with a legislative measure and asked their support. "oh! that stuff!" exclaimed one of these women. "don't you know that we women might be dead and buried if we waited for politicians and lawmakers to right our wrongs?" this set me to thinking--not merely of the immediate problem--but to asking myself how much any male politician could understand of the wrongs inflicted upon poor working women. i threw the weight of my study and activity into the economic and industrial struggle. here i discovered men and women fired with the glorious vision of a new world, of a proletarian world emancipated, a utopian world,--it glowed in romantic colours for the majority of those with whom i came in closest contact. the next step, the immediate step, was another matter, less romantic and too often less encouraging. in their ardor, some of the labor leaders of that period almost convinced us that the millennium was just around the corner. those were the pre-war days of dramatic strikes. but even when most under the spell of the new vision, the sight of the overburdened wives of the strikers, with their puny babies and their broods of under-fed children, made us stop and think of a neglected factor in the march toward our earthly paradise. it was well enough to ask the poor men workers to carry on the battle against economic injustice. but what results could be expected when they were forced in addition to carry the burden of their ever-growing families? this question loomed large to those of us who came into intimate contact with the women and children. we saw that in the final analysis the real burden of economic and industrial warfare was thrust upon the frail, all-too-frail shoulders of the children, the very babies--the coming generation. in their wan faces, in their undernourished bodies, would be indelibly written the bitter defeat of their parents. the eloquence of those who led the underpaid and half-starved workers could no longer, for me, at least, ring with conviction. something more than the purely economic interpretation was involved. the bitter struggle for bread, for a home and material comfort, was but one phase of the problem. there was another phase, perhaps even more fundamental, that had been absolutely neglected by the adherents of the new dogmas. that other phase was the driving power of instinct, a power uncontrolled and unnoticed. the great fundamental instinct of sex was expressing itself in these ever-growing broods, in the prosperity of the slum midwife and her colleague the slum undertaker. in spite of all my sympathy with the dream of liberated labor, i was driven to ask whether this urging power of sex, this deep instinct, was not at least partially responsible, along with industrial injustice, for the widespread misery of the world. to find an answer to this problem which at that point in my experience i could not solve, i determined to study conditions in europe. perhaps there i might discover a new approach, a great illumination. just before the outbreak of the war, i visited france, spain, germany and great britain. everywhere i found the same dogmas and prejudices among labor leaders, the same intense but limited vision, the same insistence upon the purely economic phases of human nature, the same belief that if the problem of hunger were solved, the question of the women and children would take care of itself. in this attitude i discovered, then, what seemed to me to be purely masculine reasoning; and because it was purely masculine, it could at best be but half true. feminine insight must be brought to bear on all questions; and here, it struck me, the fallacy of the masculine, the all-too-masculine, was brutally exposed. i was encouraged and strengthened in this attitude by the support of certain leaders who had studied human nature and who had reached the same conclusion: that civilization could not solve the problem of hunger until it recognized the titanic strength of the sexual instinct. in spain, i found that lorenzo portet, who was carrying on the work of the martyred francisco ferrer, had reached this same conclusion. in italy, enrico malatesta, the valiant leader who was after the war to play so dramatic a role, was likewise combating the current dogma of the orthodox socialists. in berlin, rudolph rocker was engaged in the thankless task of puncturing the articles of faith of the orthodox marxian religion. it is quite needless to add that these men who had probed beneath the surface of the problem and had diagnosed so much more completely the complex malady of contemporary society were intensely disliked by the superficial theorists of the neo-marxian school. the gospel of marx had, however, been too long and too thoroughly inculcated into the minds of millions of workers in europe, to be discarded. it is a flattering doctrine, since it teaches the laborer that all the fault is with someone else, that he is the victim of circumstances, and not even a partner in the creation of his own and his child's misery. not without significance was the additional discovery that i made. i found that the marxian influence tended to lead workers to believe that, irrespective of the health of the poor mothers, the earning capacity of the wage-earning fathers, or the upbringing of the children, increase of the proletarian family was a benefit, not a detriment to the revolutionary movement. the greater the number of hungry mouths, the emptier the stomachs, the more quickly would the "class war" be precipitated. the greater the increase in population among the proletariat, the greater the incentive to revolution. this may not be sound marxian theory; but it is the manner in which it is popularly accepted. it is the popular belief, wherever the marxian influence is strong. this i found especially in england and scotland. in speaking to groups of dockworkers on strike in glasgow, and before the communist and co-operative guilds throughout england, i discovered a prevailing opposition to the recognition of sex as a factor in the perpetuation of poverty. the leaders and theorists were immovable in their opposition. but when once i succeeded in breaking through the surface opposition of the rank and file of the workers, i found that they were willing to recognize the power of this neglected factor in their lives. so central, so fundamental in the life of every man and woman is this problem that they need be taught no elaborate or imposing theory to explain their troubles. to approach their problems by the avenue of sex and reproduction is to reveal at once their fundamental relations to the whole economic and biological structure of society. their interest is immediately and completely awakened. but always, as i soon discovered, the ideas and habits of thought of these submerged masses have been formed through the press, the church, through political institutions, all of which had built up a conspiracy of silence around a subject that is of no less vital importance than that of hunger. a great wall separates the masses from those imperative truths that must be known and flung wide if civilization is to be saved. as currently constituted, church, press, education seem to-day organized to exploit the ignorance and the prejudices of the masses, rather than to light their way to self-salvation. such was the situation in 1914, when i returned to america, determined, since the exclusively masculine point of view had dominated too long, that the other half of the truth should be made known. the birth control movement was launched because it was in this form that the whole relation of woman and child--eternal emblem of the future of society--could be more effectively dramatized. the amazing growth of this movement dates from the moment when in my home a small group organized the first birth control league. since then we have been criticized for our choice of the term "birth control" to express the idea of modern scientific contraception. i have yet to hear any criticism of this term that is not based upon some false and hypocritical sense of modesty, or that does not arise out of a semi-prurient misunderstanding of its aim. on the other hand: nothing better expresses the idea of purposive, responsible, and self-directed guidance of the reproductive powers. those critics who condemn birth control as a negative, destructive idea, concerned only with self-gratification, might profitably open the nearest dictionary for a definition of "control." there they would discover that the verb "control" means to exercise a directing, guiding, or restraining influence;--to direct, to regulate, to counteract. control is guidance, direction, foresight. it implies intelligence, forethought and responsibility. they will find in the standard dictionary a quotation from lecky to the effect that, "the greatest of all evils in politics is power without control." in what phase of life is not "power without control" an evil? birth control, therefore, means not merely the limitation of births, but the application of intelligent guidance over the reproductive power. it means the substitution of reason and intelligence for the blind play of instinct. the term "birth control" had the immense practical advantage of compressing into two short words the answer to the inarticulate demands of millions of men and women in all countries. at the time this slogan was formulated, i had not yet come to the complete realization of the great truth that had been thus crystallized. it was the response to the overwhelming, heart-breaking appeals that came by every mail for aid and advice, which revealed a great truth that lay dormant, a truth that seemed to spring into full vitality almost over night--that could never again be crushed to earth! nor could i then have realized the number and the power of the enemies who were to be aroused into activity by this idea. so completely was i dominated by this conviction of the efficacy of "control," that i could not until later realize the extent of the sacrifices that were to be exacted of me and of those who supported my campaign. the very idea of birth control resurrected the spirit of the witch-hunters of salem. could they have usurped the power, they would have burned us at the stake. lacking that power, they used the weapon of suppression, and invoked medieval statutes to send us to jail. these tactics had an effect the very opposite to that intended. they demonstrated the vitality of the idea of birth control, and acted as counter-irritant on the actively intelligent sections of the american community. nor was the interest aroused confined merely to america. the neo-malthusian movement in great britain with its history of undaunted bravery, came to our support; and i had the comfort of knowing that the finest minds of england did not hesitate a moment in the expression of their sympathy and support. in america, on the other hand, i found from the beginning until very recently that the so-called intellectuals exhibited a curious and almost inexplicable reticence in supporting birth control. they even hesitated to voice any public protest against the campaign to crush us which was inaugurated and sustained by the most reactionary and sinister forces in american life. it was not inertia or any lack of interest on the part of the masses that stood in our way. it was the indifference of the intellectual leaders. writers, teachers, ministers, editors, who form a class dictating, if not creating, public opinion, are, in this country, singularly inhibited or unconscious of their true function in the community. one of their first duties, it is certain, should be to champion the constitutional right of free speech and free press, to welcome any idea that tends to awaken the critical attention of the great american public. but those who reveal themselves as fully cognizant of this public duty are in the minority, and must possess more than average courage to survive the enmity such an attitude provokes. one of the chief aims of the present volume is to stimulate american intellectuals to abandon the mental habits which prevent them from seeing human nature as a whole, instead of as something that can be pigeonholed into various compartments or classes. birth control affords an approach to the study of humanity because it cuts through the limitations of current methods. it is economic, biological, psychological and spiritual in its aspects. it awakens the vision of mankind moving and changing, of humanity growing and developing, coming to fruition, of a race creative, flowering into beautiful expression through talent and genius. as a social programme, birth control is not merely concerned with population questions. in this respect, it is a distinct step in advance of earlier malthusian doctrines, which concerned themselves chiefly with economics and population. birth control concerns itself with the spirit no less than the body. it looks for the liberation of the spirit of woman and through woman of the child. to-day motherhood is wasted, penalized, tortured. children brought into the world by unwilling mothers suffer an initial handicap that cannot be measured by cold statistics. their lives are blighted from the start. to substantiate this fact, i have chosen to present the conclusions of reports on child labor and records of defect and delinquency published by organizations with no bias in favour of birth control. the evidence is before us. it crowds in upon us from all sides. but prior to this new approach, no attempt had been made to correlate the effects of the blind and irresponsible play of the sexual instinct with its deep-rooted causes. the duty of the educator and the intellectual creator of public opinion is, in this connection, of the greatest importance. for centuries official moralists, priests, clergymen and teachers, statesmen and politicians have preached the doctrine of glorious and divine fertility. to-day, we are confronted with the world-wide spectacle of the realization of this doctrine. it is not without significance that the moron and the imbecile set the pace in living up to this teaching, and that the intellectuals, the educators, the archbishops, bishops, priests, who are most insistent on it, are the staunchest adherents in their own lives of celibacy and non-fertility. it is time to point out to the champions of unceasing and indiscriminate fertility the results of their teaching. one of the greatest difficulties in giving to the public a book of this type is the impossibility of keeping pace with the events and changes of a movement that is now, throughout the world, striking root and growing. the changed attitude of the american press indicates that enlightened public opinion no longer tolerates a policy of silence upon a question of the most vital importance. almost simultaneously in england and america, two incidents have broken through the prejudice and the guarded silence of centuries. at the church congress in birmingham, october 12, 1921, lord dawson, the king's physician, in criticizing the report of the lambeth conference concerning birth control, delivered an address defending this practice. of such bravery and eloquence that it could not be ignored, this address electrified the entire british public. it aroused a storm of abuse, and yet succeeded, as no propaganda could, in mobilizing the forces of progress and intelligence in the support of the cause. just one month later, the first american birth control conference culminated in a significant and dramatic incident. at the close of the conference a mass meeting was scheduled in the town hall, new york city, to discuss the morality of birth control. mr. harold cox, editor of the edinburgh review, who had come to new york to attend the conference, was to lead the discussion. it seemed only natural for us to call together scientists, educators, members of the medical profession, and theologians of all denominations, to ask their opinion upon this uncertain and important phase of the controversy. letters were sent to eminent men and women in different parts of the world. in this letter we asked the following questions:-1. is over-population a menace to the peace of the world? 2. would the legal dissemination of scientific birth control information, through the medium of clinics by the medical profession, be the most logical method of checking the problem of over-population? 3. would knowledge of birth control change the moral attitude of men and women toward the marriage bond, or lower the moral standards of the youth of the country? 4. do you believe that knowledge which enables parents to limit their families will make for human happiness, and raise the moral, social and intellectual standards of population? we sent this questionnaire not only to those who we thought might agree with us, but we sent it also to our known opponents. when i arrived at the town hall the entrance was guarded by policemen. they told me there would be no meeting. before my arrival our executives had been greeted by monsignor dineen, secretary of archbishop hayes, of the roman catholic archdiocese, who informed them that the meeting would be prohibited on the ground that it was contrary to public morals. the police had closed the doors. when they opened them to permit the exit of the large audience which had gathered, mr. cox and i entered. i attempted to exercise my constitutional right of free speech, but was prohibited and arrested. miss mary winsor, who protested against this unwarranted arrest, was likewise dragged off to the police station. the case was dismissed the following morning. the ecclesiastic instigators of the affair were conspicuous by their absence from the police court. but the incident was enough to expose the opponents of birth control and the extreme methods they used to combat our progress. the case was too flagrant, too gross an affront, to pass unnoticed by the newspapers. the progress of our movement was indicated in the changed attitude of the american press, which had perceived the danger to the public of the unlawful tactics used by the enemies of birth control in preventing open discussion of a vital question. no social idea has inspired its advocates with more bravery, tenacity, and courage than birth control. from the early days of francis place and richard carlile, to those of the drysdales and edward trulove, of bradlaugh and mrs. annie besant, its advocates have faced imprisonment and ostracism. in the whole history of the english movement, there has been no more courageous figure than that of the venerable alice drysdale vickery, the undaunted torch-bearer who has bridged the silence of forty-four years--since the bradlaugh-besant trial. she stands head and shoulders above the professional feminists. serenely has she withstood jeers and jests. to-day, she continues to point out to the younger generation which is devoted to newer palliatives the fundamental relation between sex and hunger. the first american birth control conference, held at the same time as the washington conference for the limitation of armaments, marks a turning-point in our approach to social problems. the conference made evident the fact that in every field of scientific and social endeavour the most penetrating thinkers are now turning to the consideration of our problem as a fundamental necessity to american civilization. they are coming to see that a qualitative factor as opposed to a quantitative one is of primary importance in dealing with the great masses of humanity. certain fundamental convictions should be made clear here. the programme for birth control is not a charity. it is not aiming to interfere in the private lives of poor people, to tell them how many children they should have, nor to sit in judgment upon their fitness to become parents. it aims, rather, to awaken responsibility, to answer the demand for a scientific means by which and through which each human life may be self-directed and self-controlled. the exponent of birth control, in short, is convinced that social regeneration, no less than individual regeneration, must come from within. every potential parent, and especially every potential mother, must be brought to an acute realization of the primary and individual responsibility of bringing children into this world. not until the parents of this world are given control over their reproductive faculties will it be possible to improve the quality of the generations of the future, or even to maintain civilization at its present level. only when given intelligent mastery of the procreative powers can the great mass of humanity be aroused to a realization of responsibility of parenthood. we have come to the conclusion, based on widespread investigation and experience, that education for parenthood must be based upon the needs and demands of the people themselves. an idealistic code of sexual ethics, imposed from above, a set of rules devised by high-minded theorists who fail to take into account the living conditions and desires of the masses, can never be of the slightest value in effecting change in the customs of the people. systems so imposed in the past have revealed their woeful inability to prevent the sexual and racial chaos into which the world has drifted. the universal demand for practical education in birth control is one of the most hopeful signs that the masses themselves to-day possess the divine spark of regeneration. it remains for the courageous and the enlightened to answer this demand, to kindle the spark, to direct a thorough education in sex hygiene based upon this intense interest. birth control is thus the entering wedge for the educator. in answering the needs of these thousands upon thousands of submerged mothers, it is possible to use their interest as the foundation for education in prophylaxis, hygiene and infant welfare. the potential mother can then be shown that maternity need not be slavery but may be the most effective avenue to self-development and self-realization. upon this basis only may we improve the quality of the race. the lack of balance between the birth-rate of the "unfit" and the "fit," admittedly the greatest present menace to the civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken, should not be held up for emulation to the mentally and physically fit, and therefore less fertile, parents of the educated and well-to-do classes. on the contrary, the most urgent problem to-day is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. possibly drastic and spartan methods may be forced upon american society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupid, cruel sentimentalism. to effect the salvation of the generations of the future--nay, of the generations of to-day--our greatest need, first of all, is the ability to face the situation without flinching; to cooperate in the formation of a code of sexual ethics based upon a thorough biological and psychological understanding of human nature; and then to answer the questions and the needs of the people with all the intelligence and honesty at our command. if we can summon the bravery to do this, we shall best be serving the pivotal interests of civilization. to conclude this introduction: my initiation, as i have confessed, was primarily an emotional one. my interest in birth control was awakened by experience. research and investigation have followed. our effort has been to raise our program from the plane of the emotional to the plane of the scientific. any social progress, it is my belief, must purge itself of sentimentalism and pass through the crucible of science. we are willing to submit birth control to this test. it is part of the purpose of this book to appeal to the scientist for aid, to arouse that interest which will result in widespread research and investigation. i believe that my personal experience with this idea must be that of the race at large. we must temper our emotion and enthusiasm with the impersonal determination of science. we must unite in the task of creating an instrument of steel, strong but supple, if we are to triumph finally in the war for human emancipation. chapter ii: conscripted motherhood "their poor, old ravaged and stiffened faces, their poor, old bodies dried up with ceaseless toil, their patient souls made me weep. they are our conscripts. they are the venerable ones whom we should reverence. all the mystery of womanhood seems incarnated in their ugly being--the mothers! the mothers! ye are all one!" --from the letters of william james motherhood, which is not only the oldest but the most important profession in the world, has received few of the benefits of civilization. it is a curious fact that a civilization devoted to mother-worship, that publicly professes a worship of mother and child, should close its eyes to the appalling waste of human life and human energy resulting from those dire consequences of leaving the whole problem of child-bearing to chance and blind instinct. it would be untrue to say that among the civilized nations of the world to-day, the profession of motherhood remains in a barbarous state. the bitter truth is that motherhood, among the larger part of our population, does not rise to the level of the barbarous or the primitive. conditions of life among the primitive tribes were rude enough and severe enough to prevent the unhealthy growth of sentimentality, and to discourage the irresponsible production of defective children. moreover, there is ample evidence to indicate that even among the most primitive peoples the function of maternity was recognized as of primary and central importance to the community. if we define civilization as increased and increasing responsibility based on vision and foresight, it becomes painfully evident that the profession of motherhood as practised to-day is in no sense civilized. educated people derive their ideas of maternity for the most part, either from the experience of their own set, or from visits to impressive hospitals where women of the upper classes receive the advantages of modern science and modern nursing. from these charming pictures they derive their complacent views of the beauty of motherhood and their confidence for the future of the race. the other side of the picture is revealed only to the trained investigator, to the patient and impartial observer who visits not merely one or two "homes of the poor," but makes detailed studies of town after town, obtains the history of each mother, and finally correlates and analyzes this evidence. upon such a basis are we able to draw conclusions concerning this strange business of bringing children into the world. every year i receive thousands of letters from women in all parts of america, desperate appeals to aid them to extricate themselves from the trap of compulsory maternity. lest i be accused of bias and exaggeration in drawing my conclusions from these painful human documents, i prefer to present a number of typical cases recorded in the reports of the united states government, and in the evidence of trained and impartial investigators of social agencies more generally opposed to the doctrine of birth control than biased in favor of it. a perusal of the reports on infant mortality in widely varying industrial centers of the united states, published during the past decade by the children's bureau of the united states department of labor, forces us to a realization of the immediate need of detailed statistics concerning the practice and results of uncontrolled breeding. some such effort as this has been made by the galton laboratory of national eugenics in great britain. the children's bureau reports only incidentally present this impressive evidence. they fail to coordinate it. while there is always the danger of drawing giant conclusions from pigmy premises, here is overwhelming evidence concerning irresponsible parenthood that is ignored by governmental and social agencies. i have chosen a small number of typical cases from these reports. though drawn from widely varying sources, they all emphasize the greatest crime of modern civilization--that of permitting motherhood to be left to blind chance, and to be mainly a function of the most abysmally ignorant and irresponsible classes of the community. here is a fairly typical case from johnstown, pennsylvania. a woman of thirty-eight years had undergone thirteen pregnancies in seventeen years. of eleven live births and two premature stillbirths, only two children were alive at the time of the government agent's visit. the second to eighth, the eleventh and the thirteenth had died of bowel trouble, at ages ranging from three weeks to four months. the only cause of these deaths the mother could give was that "food did not agree with them." she confessed quite frankly that she believed in feeding babies, and gave them everything anybody told her to give them. she began to give them at the age of one month, bread, potatoes, egg, crackers, etc. for the last baby that died, this mother had bought a goat and gave its milk to the baby; the goat got sick, but the mother continued to give her baby its milk until the goat went dry. moreover, she directed the feeding of her daughter's baby until it died at the age of three months. "on account of the many children she had had, the neighbors consider her an authority on baby care." lest this case be considered too tragically ridiculous to be accepted as typical, the reader may verify it with an almost interminable list of similar cases.(1) parental irresponsibility is significantly illustrated in another case: a mother who had four live births and two stillbirths in twelve years lost all of her babies during their first year. she was so anxious that at least one child should live that she consulted a physician concerning the care of the last one. "upon his advice," to quote the government report, "she gave up her twenty boarders immediately after the child's birth, and devoted all her time to it. thinks she did not stop her hard work soon enough; says she has always worked too hard, keeping boarders in this country, and cutting wood and carrying it and water on her back in the old country. also says the carrying of water and cases of beer in this country is a great strain on her." but the illuminating point in this case is that the father was furious because all the babies died. to show his disrespect for the wife who could only give birth to babies that died, he wore a red necktie to the funeral of the last. yet this woman, the government agent reports, would follow and profit by any instruction that might be given her. it is true that the cases reported from johnstown, pennsylvania, do not represent completely "americanized" families. this lack does not prevent them, however, by their unceasing fertility from producing the americans of to-morrow. of the more immediate conditions surrounding child-birth, we are presented with this evidence, given by one woman concerning the birth of her last child: on five o'clock on wednesday evening she went to her sister's house to return a washboard, after finishing a day's washing. the baby was born while she was there. her sister was too young to aid her in any way. she was not accustomed to a midwife, she confessed. she cut the cord herself, washed the new-born baby at her sister's house, walked home, cooked supper for her boarders, and went to bed by eight o'clock. the next day she got up and ironed. this tired her out, she said, so she stayed in bed for two whole days. she milked cows the day after the birth of the baby and sold the milk as well. later in the week, when she became tired, she hired someone to do that portion of her work. this woman, we are further informed, kept cows, chickens, and lodgers, and earned additional money by doing laundry and charwork. at times her husband deserted her. his earnings amounted to $1.70 a day, while a fifteen-year-old son earned $1.10 in a coal mine. one searches in vain for some picture of sacred motherhood, as depicted in popular plays and motion pictures, something more normal and encouraging. then one comes to the bitter realization that these, in very truth, are the "normal" cases, not the exceptions. the exceptions are apt to indicate, instead, the close relationship of this irresponsible and chance parenthood to the great social problems of feeble-mindedness, crime and syphilis. nor is this type of motherhood confined to newly arrived immigrant mothers, as a government report from akron, ohio, sufficiently indicates. in this city, the government agents discovered that more than five hundred mothers were ignorant of the accepted principles of infant feeding, or, if familiar with them, did not practise them. "this ignorance or indifference was not confined to foreign-born mothers.... a native mother reported that she gave her two-weeks-old baby ice cream, and that before his sixth month, he was sitting at the table `eating everything."' this was in a town in which there were comparatively few cases of extreme poverty. the degradation of motherhood, the damnation of the next generation before it is born, is exposed in all its catastrophic misery, in the reports of the national consumers' league. in her report of living conditions among night-working mothers in thirty-nine textile mills in rhode island, based on exhaustive studies, mrs. florence kelley describes the "normal" life of these women: "when the worker, cruelly tired from ten hours' work, comes home in the early morning, she usually scrambles together breakfast for the family. eating little or nothing herself, and that hastily, she tumbles into bed--not the immaculate bed in an airy bed-room with dark shades, but one still warm from its night occupants, in a stuffy little bed-room, darkened imperfectly if at all. after sleeping exhaustedly for an hour perhaps she bestirs herself to get the children off to school, or care for insistent little ones, too young to appreciate that mother is tired out and must sleep. perhaps later in the forenoon, she again drops into a fitful sleep, or she may have to wait until after dinner. there is the midday meal to get, and, if her husband cannot come home, his dinner-pail to pack with a hot lunch to be sent or carried to him. if he is not at home, the lunch is rather a makeshift. the midday meal is scarcely over before supper must be thought of. this has to be eaten hurriedly before the family are ready, for the mother must be in the mill at work, by 6, 6:30 or 7 p.m.... many women in their inadequate english, summed up their daily routine by, 'oh, me all time tired. too much work, too much baby, too little sleep!'" "only sixteen of the 166 married women were without children; thirty-two had three or more; twenty had children one year old or under. there were 160 children under school-age, below six years, and 246 of school age." "a woman in ordinary circumstances," adds this impartial investigator, "with a husband and three children, if she does her own work, feels that her hands are full. how these mill-workers, many of them frail-looking, and many with confessedly poor health, can ever do two jobs is a mystery, when they are seen in their homes dragging about, pale, hollow-eyed and listless, often needlessly sharp and impatient with the children. these children are not only not mothered, never cherished, they are nagged and buffeted. the mothers are not superwomen, and like all human beings, they have a certain amount of strength and when that breaks, their nerves suffer." we are presented with a vivid picture of one of these slave-mothers: a woman of thirty-eight who looks at least fifty with her worn, furrowed face. asked why she had been working at night for the past two years, she pointed to a six-months old baby she was carrying, to the five small children swarming about her, and answered laconically, "too much children!" she volunteered the information that there had been two more who had died. when asked why they had died, the poor mother shrugged her shoulders listlessly, and replied, "don't know." in addition to bearing and rearing these children, her work would sap the vitality of any ordinary person. "she got home soon after four in the morning, cooked breakfast for the family and ate hastily herself. at 4.30 she was in bed, staying there until eight. but part of that time was disturbed for the children were noisy and the apartment was a tiny, dingy place in a basement. at eight she started the three oldest boys to school, and cleaned up the debris of breakfast and of supper the night before. at twelve she carried a hot lunch to her husband and had dinner ready for the three school children. in the afternoon, there were again dishes and cooking, and caring for three babies aged five, three years, and six months. at five, supper was ready for the family. the mother ate by herself and was off to work at 5:45." another of the night-working mothers was a frail looking frenchwoman of twenty-seven years, with a husband and five children ranging from eight years to fourteen months. three other children had died. when visited, she was doing a huge washing. she was forced into night work to meet the expenses of the family. she estimated that she succeeded in getting five hours' sleep during the day. "i take my baby to bed with me, but he cries, and my little four-year-old boy cries, too, and comes in to make me get up, so you can't call that a very good sleep." the problem among unmarried women or those without family is not the same, this investigator points out. "they sleep longer by day than they normally would by night." we are also informed that pregnant women work at night in the mills, sometimes up to the very hour of delivery. "it's queer," exclaimed a woman supervisor of one of the rhode island mills, "but some women, both on the day and the night shift, will stick to their work right up to the last minute, and will use every means to deceive you about their condition. i go around and talk to them, but make little impression. we have had several narrow escapes.... a polish mother with five children had worked in a mill by day or by night, ever since her marriage, stopping only to have her babies. one little girl had died several years ago, and the youngest child, says mrs. kelley, did not look promising. it had none of the charm of babyhood; its body and clothing were filthy; and its lower lip and chin covered with repulsive black sores." it should be remembered that the consumers' league, which publishes these reports on women in industry, is not advocating birth control education, but is aiming "to awaken responsibility for conditions under which goods are produced, and through investigation, education and legislation, to mobilize public opinion in behalf of enlightened standards for workers and honest products for all." nevertheless, in miss agnes de lima's report of conditions in passaic, new jersey, we find the same tale of penalized, prostrate motherhood, bearing the crushing burden of economic injustice and cruelty; the same blind but overpowering instincts of love and hunger driving young women into the factories to work, night in and night out, to support their procession of uncared for and undernourished babies. it is the married women with young children who work on the inferno-like shifts. they are driven to it by the low wages of their husbands. they choose night work in order to be with their children in the daytime. they are afraid of the neglect and ill-treatment the children might receive at the hands of paid caretakers. thus they condemn themselves to eighteen or twenty hours of daily toil. surely no mother with three, four, five or six children can secure much rest by day. "take almost any house"--we read in the report of conditions in new jersey--"knock at almost any door and you will find a weary, tousled woman, half-dressed, doing her housework, or trying to snatch an hour or two of sleep after her long night of work in the mill. ... the facts are there for any one to see; the hopeless and exhausted woman, her cluttered three or four rooms, the swarm of sickly and neglected children." these women claimed that night work was unavoidable, as their husbands received so little pay. this in spite of all our vaunted "high wages." only three women were found who went into the drudgery of night work without being obliged to do so. two had no children, and their husbands' earnings were sufficient for their needs. one of these was saving for a trip to europe, and chose the night shift because she found it less strenuous than the day. only four of the hundred women reported upon were unmarried, and ninety-two of the married women had children. of the four childless married women, one had lost two children, and another was recovering from a recent miscarriage. there were five widows. the average number of children was three in a family. thirty-nine of the mothers had four or more. three of them had six children, and six of them had seven children apiece. these women ranged between the ages of twenty-five and forty, and more than half the children were less than seven years of age. most of them had babies of one, two and three years of age. at the risk of repetition, we quote one of the typical cases reported by miss de lima with features practically identical with the individual cases reported from rhode island. it is of a mother who comes home from work at 5:30 every morning, falls on the bed from exhaustion, arises again at eight or nine o'clock to see that the older children are sent off to school. a son of five, like the rest of the children, is on a diet of coffee,--milk costs too much. after the children have left for school, the overworked mother again tries to sleep, though the small son bothers her a great deal. besides, she must clean the house, wash, iron, mend, sew and prepare the midday meal. she tries to snatch a little sleep in the afternoon, but explains: "when you got big family, all time work. night-time in mill drag so long, so long; day-time in home go so quick." by five, this mother must get the family's supper ready, and dress for the night's work, which begins at seven. the investigator further reports: "the next day was a holiday, and for a diversion, mrs. n. thought she would go up to the cemetery: `i got some children up there,' she explained, `and same time i get some air. no, i don't go nowheres, just to the mill and then home."' here again, as in all reports on women in industry, we find the prevalence of pregnant women working on night-shifts, often to the very day of their delivery. "oh, yes, plenty women, big bellies, work in the night time," one of the toiling mothers volunteered. "shame they go, but what can do?" the abuse was general. many mothers confessed that owing to poverty they themselves worked up to the last week or even day before the birth of their children. births were even reported in one of the mills during the night shift. a foreman told of permitting a night-working woman to leave at 6.30 one morning, and of the birth of her baby at 7.30. several women told of leaving the day-shift because of pregnancy and of securing places on the night-shift where their condition was less conspicuous, and the bosses more tolerant. one mother defended her right to stay at work, says the report, claiming that as long as she could do her work, it was nobody's business. in a doorway sat a sickly and bloodless woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy. her first baby had died of general debility. she had worked at night in the mill until the very day of its birth. this time the boss had told her she could stay if she wished, but reminded her of what had happened last time. so she had stopped work, as the baby was expected any day. again and again we read the same story, which varied only in detail: the mother in the three black rooms; the sagging porch overflowing with pale and sickly children; the over-worked mother of seven, still nursing her youngest, who is two or three months old. worn and haggard, with a skeleton-like child pulling at her breast, the women tries to make the investigator understand. the grandmother helps to interpret. "she never sleeps," explains the old woman, "how can she with so many children?" she works up to the last moment before her baby comes, and returns to work as soon as they are four weeks old. another apartment in the same house; another of those night-working mothers, who had just stopped because she is pregnant. the boss had kindly given her permission to stay on, but she found the reaching on the heavy spinning machines too hard. three children, ranging in age from five to twelve years, are all sickly and forlorn and must be cared for. there is a tubercular husband, who is unable to work steadily, and is able to bring in only $12 a week. two of the babies had died, one because the mother had returned to work too soon after its birth and had lost her milk. she had fed him tea and bread, "so he died." the most heartrending feature of it all--in these homes of the mothers who work at night--is the expression in the faces of the children; children of chance, dressed in rags, undernourished, underclothed, all predisposed to the ravages of chronic and epidemic disease. the reports on infant mortality published under the direction of the children's bureau substantiate for the united states of america the findings of the galton laboratory for great britain, showing that an abnormally high rate of fertility is usually associated with poverty, filth, disease, feeblemindedness and a high infant mortality rate. it is a commonplace truism that a high birth-rate is accompanied by a high infant-mortality rate. no longer is it necessary to dissociate cause and effect, to try to determine whether the high birth rate is the cause of the high infant mortality rate. it is sufficient to know that they are organically correlated along with other anti-social factors detrimental to individual, national and racial welfare. the figures presented by hibbs (2) likewise reveal a much higher infant mortality rate for the later born children of large families. the statistics which show that the greatest number of children are born to parents whose earnings are the lowest,(3) that the direst poverty is associated with uncontrolled fecundity emphasize the character of the parenthood we are depending upon to create the race of the future. a distinguished american opponent of birth control some years ago spoke of the "racial" value of this high infant mortality rate among the "unfit." he forgot, however, that the survival-rate of the children born of these overworked and fatigued mothers may nevertheless be large enough, aided and abetted by philanthropies and charities, to form the greater part of the population of to-morrow. as dr. karl pearson has stated: "degenerate stocks under present social conditions are not short-lived; they live to have more than the normal size of family." reports of charitable organizations; the famous "one hundred neediest cases" presented every year by the new york times to arouse the sentimental generosity of its readers; statistics of public and private hospitals, charities and corrections; analyses of pauperism in town and country--all tell the same tale of uncontrolled and irresponsible fecundity. the facts, the figures, the appalling truth are there for all to read. it is only in the remedy proposed, the effective solution, that investigators and students of the problem disagree. confronted with the "startling and disgraceful" conditions of affairs indicated by the fact that a quarter of a million babies die every year in the united states before they are one year old, and that no less than 23,000 women die in childbirth, a large number of experts and enthusiasts have placed their hopes in maternity-benefit measures. such measures sharply illustrate the superficial and fragmentary manner in which the whole problem of motherhood is studied to-day. it seeks a laisser faire policy of parenthood or marriage, with an indiscriminating paternalism concerning maternity. it is as though the government were to say: "increase and multiply; we shall assume the responsibility of keeping your babies alive." even granting that the administration of these measures might be made effective and effectual, which is more than doubtful, we see that they are based upon a complete ignorance or disregard of the most important fact in the situation--that of indiscriminate and irresponsible fecundity. they tacitly assume that all parenthood is desirable, that all children should be born, and that infant mortality can be controlled by external aid. in the great world-problem of creating the men and women of to-morrow, it is not merely a question of sustaining the lives of all children, irrespective of their hereditary and physical qualities, to the point where they, in turn, may reproduce their kind. advocates of birth control offer and accept no such superficial solution. this philosophy is based upon a clearer vision and a more profound comprehension of human life. of immediate relief for the crushed and enslaved motherhood of the world through state aid, no better criticism has been made than that of havelock ellis: "to the theoretical philanthropist, eager to reform the world on paper, nothing seems simpler than to cure the present evils of child-rearing by setting up state nurseries which are at once to relieve mothers of everything connected with the men of the future beyond the pleasure--if such it happens to be--of conceiving them, and the trouble of bearing them, and at the same time to rear them up independently of the home, in a wholesome, economical and scientific manner. nothing seems simpler, but from the fundamental psychological point of view nothing is falser.... a state which admits that the individuals composing it are incompetent to perform their most sacred and intimate functions, and takes it upon itself to perform them itself instead, attempts a task that would be undesirable, even if it were possible of achievement.(4)" it may be replied that maternity benefit measures aim merely to aid mothers more adequately to fulfil their biological and social functions. but from the point of view of birth control, that will never be possible until the crushing exigencies of overcrowding are removed--overcrowding of pregnancies as well as of homes. as long as the mother remains the passive victim of blind instinct, instead of the conscious, responsible instrument of the life-force, controlling and directing its expression, there can be no solution to the intricate and complex problems that confront the whole world to-day. this is, of course, impossible as long as women are driven into the factories, on night as well as day shifts, as long as children and girls and young women are driven into industries to labor that is physically deteriorating as a preparation for the supreme function of maternity. the philosophy of birth control insists that motherhood, no less than any other human function, must undergo scientific study, must be voluntarily directed and controlled with intelligence and foresight. as long as we countenance what h. g. wells has well termed "the monstrous absurdity of women discharging their supreme social function, bearing and rearing children, in their spare time, as it were, while they `earn their living' by contributing some half-mechanical element to some trivial industrial product" any attempt to furnish "maternal education" is bound to fall on stony ground. children brought into the world as the chance consequences of the blind play of uncontrolled instinct, become likewise the helpless victims of their environment. it is because children are cheaply conceived that the infant mortality rate is high. but the greatest evil, perhaps the greatest crime, of our so-called civilization of to-day, is not to be gauged by the infant-mortality rate. in truth, unfortunate babies who depart during their first twelve months are more fortunate in many respects than those who survive to undergo punishment for their parents' cruel ignorance and complacent fecundity. if motherhood is wasted under the present regime of "glorious fertility," childhood is not merely wasted, but actually destroyed. let us look at this matter from the point of view of the children who survive. (1) u.s. department of labor: children's bureau. infant mortality series, no. 3, pp. 81, 82, 83, 84. (2) henry h. hibbs, jr. infant mortality: its relation to social and industrial conditions, p. 39. russell sage foundation, new york, 1916. (3) cf. u. s. department of labor. children's bureau: infant mortality series, no. 11. p. 36. (4) havelock ellis, sex in relation to society, p. 31. chapter iii: "children troop down from heaven...." failure of emotional, sentimental and so-called idealistic efforts, based on hysterical enthusiasm, to improve social conditions, is nowhere better exemplified than in the undervaluation of child-life. a few years ago, the scandal of children under fourteen working in cotton mills was exposed. there was muckraking and agitation. a wave of moral indignation swept over america. there arose a loud cry for immediate action. then, having more or less successfully settled this particular matter, the american people heaved a sigh of relief, settled back, and complacently congratulated itself that the problem of child labor had been settled once and for all. conditions are worse to-day than before. not only is there child labor in practically every state in the union, but we are now forced to realize the evils that result from child labor, of child laborers now grown into manhood and womanhood. but we wish here to point out a neglected aspect of this problem. child labor shows us how cheaply we value childhood. and moreover, it shows us that cheap childhood is the inevitable result of chance parenthood. child labor is organically bound up with the problem of uncontrolled breeding and the large family. the selective draft of 1917--which was designed to choose for military service only those fulfiling definite requirements of physical and mental fitness--showed some of the results of child labor. it established the fact that the majority of american children never got beyond the sixth grade, because they were forced to leave school at that time. our over-advertised compulsory education does not compel--and does not educate. the selective-draft, it is our duty to emphasize this fact, revealed that 38 per cent. of the young men (more than a million) were rejected because of physical ill-health and defects. and 25 per cent. were illiterate. these young men were the children of yesterday. authorities tell us that 75 per cent. of the school-children are defective. this means that no less than fifteen million schoolchildren, out of 22,000,000 in the united states, are physically or mentally below par. this is the soil in which all sorts of serious evils strike root. it is a truism that children are the chief asset of a nation. yet while the united states government allotted 92.8 per cent. of its appropriations for 1920 toward war expenses, three per cent. to public works, 3.2 per cent. to "primary governmental functions," no more than one per cent. is appropriated to education, research and development. of this one per cent., only a small proportion is devoted to public health. the conservation of childhood is a minor consideration. while three cents is spent for the more or less doubtful protection of women and children, fifty cents is given to the bureau of animal industry, for the protection of domestic animals. in 1919, the state of kansas appropriated $25,000 to protect the health of pigs, and $4,000 to protect the health of children. in four years our federal government appropriated--roughly speaking--$81,000,000 for the improvement of rivers; $13,000,000 for forest conservation; $8,000,000 for the experimental plant industry; $7,000,000 for the experimental animal industry; $4,000,000 to combat the foot and mouth disease; and less than half a million for the protection of child life. competent authorities tell us that no less than 75 per cent. of american children leave school between the ages of fourteen and sixteen to go to work. this number is increasing. according to the recently published report on "the administration of the first child labor law," in five states in which it was necessary for the children's bureau to handle directly the working certificates of children, one-fifth of the 25,000 children who applied for certificates left school when they were in the fourth grade; nearly a tenth of them had never attended school at all or had not gone beyond the first grade; and only one-twenty-fifth had gone as far as the eighth grade. but their educational equipment was even more limited than the grade they attended would indicate. of the children applying to go to work 1,803 had not advanced further than the first grade even when they had gone to school at all; 3,379 could not even sign their own names legibly, and nearly 2,000 of them could not write at all. the report brings automatically into view the vicious circle of child-labor, illiteracy, bodily and mental defect, poverty and delinquency. and like all reports on child labor, the large family and reckless breeding looms large in the background as one of the chief factors in the problem. despite all our boasting of the american public school, of the equal opportunity afforded to every child in america, we have the shortest school-term, and the shortest school-day of any of the civilized countries. in the united states of america, there are 106 illiterates to every thousand people. in england there are 58 per thousand, sweden and norway have one per thousand. the united states is the most illiterate country in the world--that is, of the so-called civilized countries. of the 5,000,000 illiterates in the united states, 58 per cent. are white and 28 per cent. native whites. illiteracy not only is the index of inequality of opportunity. it speaks as well a lack of consideration for the children. it means either that children have been forced out of school to go to work, or that they are mentally and physically defective.(1) one is tempted to ask why a society, which has failed so lamentably to protect the already existing child life upon which its very perpetuation depends, takes upon itself the reckless encouragement of indiscriminate procreation. the united states government has recently inaugurated a policy of restricting immigration from foreign countries. until it is able to protect childhood from criminal exploitation, until it has made possible a reasonable hope of life, liberty and growth for american children, it should likewise recognize the wisdom of voluntary restriction in the production of children. reports on child labor published by the national child labor committee only incidentally reveal the correlation of this evil with that of large families. yet this is evident throughout. the investigators are more bent upon regarding child labor as a cause of illiteracy. but it is no less a consequence of irresponsibility in breeding. a sinister aspect of this is revealed by theresa wolfson's study of child-labor in the beet-fields of michigan.(2) as one weeder put it: "poor man make no money, make plenty children--plenty children good for sugar-beet business." further illuminating details are given by miss wolfson: "why did they come to the beet-fields? most frequently families with large numbers of children said that they felt that the city was no place to raise children--things too expensive and children ran wild--in the country all the children could work." living conditions are abominable and unspeakably wretched. an old woodshed, a long-abandoned barn, and occasionally a tottering, ramshackle farmer's house are the common types. "one family of eleven, the youngest child two years, the oldest sixteen years, lived in an old country store which had but one window; the wind and rain came through the holes in the walls, the ceiling was very low and the smoke from the stove filled the room. here the family ate, slept, cooked and washed." "in tuscola county a family of six was found living in a one-room shack with no windows. light and ventilation was secured through the open doors. little charles, eight years of age, was left at home to take care of dan, annie and pete, whose ages were five years, four years, and three months, respectively. in addition, he cooked the noonday meal and brought it to his parents in the field. the filth and choking odors of the shack made it almost unbearable, yet the baby was sleeping in a heap of rags piled up in a corner." social philosophers of a certain school advocate the return to the land--it is only in the overcrowded city, they claim, that the evils resulting from the large family are possible. there is, according to this philosophy, no overcrowding, no over-population in the country, where in the open air and sunlight every child has an opportunity for health and growth. this idyllic conception of american country life does not correspond with the picture presented by this investigator, who points out: "to promote the physical and mental development of the child, we forbid his employment in factories, shops and stores. on the other hand, we are prone to believe that the right kind of farm-work is healthful and the best thing for children. but for a child to crawl along the ground, weeding beets in the hot sun for fourteen hours a day--the average workday--is far from being the best thing. the law of compensation is bound to work in some way, and the immediate result of this agricultural work is interference with school attendance." how closely related this form of child-slavery is to the over-large family, is definitely illustrated: "in the one hundred and thirty-three families visited, there were six hundred children. a conversation held with a 'rooshian-german' woman is indicative of the size of most of the families:" "how many children have you?" inquired the investigator. "eight--julius, und rose, und martha, dey is mine; gottlieb und philip, und frieda, dey is my husband's;--und otto und charlie--dey are ours." families with ten and twelve children were frequently found, while those of six and eight children are the general rule. the advantage of a large family in the beet fields is that it does the most work. in the one hundred thirty-three families interviewed, there were one hundred eighty-six children under the age of six years, ranging from eight weeks up; thirty-six children between the ages of six and eight, approximately twenty-five of whom had never been to school, and eleven over sixteen years of age who had never been to school. one ten-year-old boy had never been to school because he was a mental defective; one child of nine was practically blinded by cataracts. this child was found groping his way down the beet-rows pulling out weeds and feeling for the beet-plants--in the glare of the sun he had lost all sense of light and dark. of the three hundred and forty children who were not going or had never gone to school, only four had reached the point of graduation, and only one had gone to high school. these large families migrated to the beet-fields in early spring. seventy-two per cent. of them are retarded. when we realize that feeble-mindedness is arrested development and retardation, we see that these "beet children" are artificially retarded in their growth, and that the tendency is to reduce their intelligence to the level of the congenital imbecile. nor must it be concluded that these large "beet" families are always the "ignorant foreigner" so despised by our respectable press. the following case throws some light on this matter, reported in the same pamphlet: "an american family, considered a prize by the agent because of the fact that there were nine children, turned out to be a `flunk.' they could not work in the beet-fields, they ran up a bill at the country-store, and one day the father and the eldest son, a boy of nineteen, were seen running through the railroad station to catch an out-going train. the grocer thought they were `jumping' their bill. he telephoned ahead to the sheriff of the next town. they were taken off the train by the sheriff and given the option of going back to the farm or staying in jail. they preferred to stay in jail, and remained there for two weeks. meanwhile, the mother and her eight children, ranging in ages form seventeen years to nine months, had to manage the best way they could. at the end of two weeks, father and son were set free.... during all of this period the farmers of the community sent in provisions to keep the wife and children from starving." does this case not sum up in a nutshell the typical american intelligence confronted with the problem of the too-large family--industrial slavery tempered with sentimentality! let us turn to a young, possibly a more progressive state. consider the case of "california, the golden" as it is named by emma duke, in her study of child-labor in the imperial valley, "as fertile as the valley of the nile."(3) here, cotton is king, and rich ranchers, absentee landlords and others exploit it. less than ten years ago ranchers would bring in hordes of laboring families, but refuse to assume any responsibility in housing them, merely permitting them to sleep on the grounds of the ranch. conditions have been somewhat improved, but, sometimes, we read, "a one roomed straw house with an area of fifteen by twenty feet will serve as a home for an entire family, which not only cooks but sleeps in the same room." here, as in michigan among the beets, children are "thick as bees." all kinds of children pick, miss duke reports, "even those as young as three years! five-year-old children pick steadily all day.... many white american children are among them--pure american stock, who have gradually moved from the carolinas, tennessee, and other southern states to arkansas, texas, oklahoma, arizona, and on into the imperial valley." some of these children, it seems, wanted to attend school, but their fathers did not want to work; so the children were forced to become bread-winners. one man whose children were working with him in the fields said, "please, lady, don't send them to school; let them pick a while longer. i ain't got my new auto paid for yet." the native white american mother of children working in the fields proudly remarked: "no; they ain't never been to school, nor me nor their poppy, nor their granddads and grandmoms. we've always been pickers!"--and she spat her tobacco over the field in expert fashion. "in the valley one hears from townspeople," writes the investigator, "that pickers make ten dollars a day, working the whole family. with that qualification, the statement is ambiguous. one mexican in the imperial valley was the father of thirty-three children--`about thirteen or fourteen living,' he said. if they all worked at cotton-picking, they would doubtless altogether make more than ten dollars a day." one of the child laborers revealed the economic advantage--to the parents--in numerous progeny: "us kids most always drag from forty to fifty pounds of cotton before we take it to be weighed. three of us pick. i'm twelve years old and my bag is twelve feet long. i can drag nearly a hundred pounds. my sister is ten years old, and her bag is eight feet long. my little brother is seven and his bag is five feet long." evidence abounds in the publications of the national child labor committee of this type of fecund parenthood.(4) it is not merely a question of the large family versus the small family. even comparatively small families among migratory workers of this sort have been large families. the high infant mortality rate has carried off the weaker children. those who survive are merely those who have been strong enough to survive the most unfavorable living conditions. no; it is a situation not unique, nor even unusual in human history, of greed and stupidity and cupidity encouraging the procreative instinct toward the manufacture of slaves. we hear these days of the selfishness and the degradation of healthy and well-educated women who refuse motherhood; but we hear little of the more sinister selfishness of men and women who bring babies into the world to become child-slaves of the kind described in these reports of child labor. the history of child labor in the english factories in the nineteenth century throws a suggestive light on this situation. these child-workers were really called into being by the industrial situation. the population grew, as dean inge has described it, like crops in a newly irrigated desert. during the nineteenth century, the numbers were nearly quadrupled. "let those who think that the population of a country can be increased at will, consider whether it is likely that any physical, moral, or psychological change came over the nation co-incidentally with the inventions of the spinning jenny and the steam engine. it is too obvious for dispute that it was the possession of capital wanting employment, and of natural advantages for using it, that called those multitudes of human beings into existence, to eat the food which they paid for by their labor."(5) but when child labor in the factories became such a scandal and such a disgrace that child-labor was finally forbidden by laws that possessed the advantage over our own that they were enforced, the proletariat ceased to supply children. almost by magic the birth rate among the workers declined. since children were no longer of economic value to the factories, they were evidently a drug in the home. this movement, it should not be forgotten however, was coincident with the agitation and education in birth control stimulated by the besant-bradlaugh trial. large families among migratory agricultural laborers in our own country are likewise brought into existence in response to an industrial demand. the enforcement of the child labor laws and the extension of their restrictions are therefore an urgent necessity, not so much, as some of our child-labor authorities believe, to enable these children to go to school, as to prevent the recruiting of our next generation from the least intelligent and most unskilled classes in the community. as long as we officially encourage and countenance the production of large families, the evils of child labor will confront us. on the other hand, the prohibition of child labor may help, as in the case of english factories, in the decline of the birth rate. uncontrolled breeding and child labor go hand in hand. and to-day when we are confronted with the evils of the latter, in the form of widespread illiteracy and defect, we should seek causes more deeply rooted than the enslavement of children. the cost to society is incalculable, as the national child labor committee points out. "it is not only through the lowered power, the stunting and the moral degeneration of its individual members, but in actual expense, through the necessary provision for the human junk, created by premature employment, in poor-houses, hospitals, police and courts, jails and by charitable organizations." to-day we are paying for the folly of the over-production--and its consequences in permanent injury to plastic childhood--of yesterday. to-morrow, we shall be forced to pay for our ruthless disregard of our surplus children of to-day. the child-laborer of one or two decades ago has become the shifting laborer of to-day, stunted, underfed, illiterate, unskilled, unorganized and unorganizable. "he is the last person to be hired and the first to be fired." boys and girls under fourteen years of age are no longer permitted to work in factories, mills, canneries and establishments whose products are to be shipped out of the particular state, and children under sixteen can no longer work in mines and quarries. but this affects only one quarter of our army of child labor--work in local industries, stores, and farms, homework in dark and unsanitary tenements is still permitted. children work in "homes" on artificial flowers, finishing shoddy garments, sewing their very life's blood and that of the race into tawdry clothes and gewgaws that are the most unanswerable comments upon our vaunted "civilization." and to-day, we must not forget, the child-laborer of yesterday is becoming the father or the mother of the child-laborer of to-morrow. "any nation that works its women is damned," once wrote woods hutchinson. the nation that works its children, one is tempted to add, is committing suicide. loud-mouthed defenders of american democracy pay no attention to the strange fact that, although "the average education among all american adults is only the sixth grade," every one of these adults has an equal power at the polls. the american nation, with all its worship of efficiency and thrift, complacently forgets that "every child defective in body, education or character is a charge upon the community," as herbert hoover declared in an address before the american child hygiene association (october, 1920): "the nation as a whole," he added, "has the obligation of such measures toward its children... as will yield to them an equal opportunity at their start in life. if we could grapple with the whole child situation for one generation, our public health, our economic efficiency, the moral character, sanity and stability of our people would advance three generations in one." the great irrefutable fact that is ignored or neglected is that the american nation officially places a low value upon the lives of its children. the brutal truth is that children are cheap. when over-production in this field is curtailed by voluntary restriction, when the birth rate among the working classes takes a sharp decline, the value of children will rise. then only will the infant mortality rate decline, and child labor vanish. investigations of child labor emphasize its evils by pointing out that these children are kept out of school, and that they miss the advantages of american public school education. they express the current confidence in compulsory education and the magical benefits to be derived from the public school. but we need to qualify our faith in education, and particularly our faith in the american public school. educators are just beginning to wake up to the dangers inherent in the attempt to teach the brightest child and the mentally defective child at the same time. they are beginning to test the possibilities of a "vertical" classification as well as a "horizontal" one. that is, each class must be divided into what are termed gifted, bright, average, dull, normal, and defective. in the past the helter-skelter crowding and over-crowding together of all classes of children of approximately the same age, produced only a dull leveling to mediocrity.(6) an investigation of forty schools in new york city, typical of hundreds of others, reveals deplorable conditions of overcrowding and lack of sanitation.(7) the worst conditions are to be found in locations the most densely populated. thus of public school no. 51, located almost in the center of the notorious "hell's kitchen" section, we read: "the play space which is provided is a mockery of the worst kind. the basement play-room is dark, damp, poorly lighted, poorly ventilated, foul smelling, unclean, and wholly unfit for children for purposes of play. the drainpipes from the roof have decayed to such a degree that in some instances as little as a quarter of the pipe remains. on rainy days, water enters the classrooms, hallways, corridors, and is thrown against windows because the pipes have rotted away. the narrow stairways and halls are similar to those of jails and dungeons of a century ago. the classrooms are poorly lighted, inadequately equipped, and in some cases so small that the desks of pupils and teachers occupy almost all of the floor-space." another school, located a short distance from fifth avenue, the "wealthiest street in the world," is described as an "old shell of a structure, erected decades ago as a modern school building. nearly two thousand children are crowded into class-rooms having a total seating capacity of scarcely one thousand. narrow doorways, intricate hallways and antiquated stairways, dark and precipitous, keep ever alive the danger of disaster from fire or panic. only the eternal vigilance of exceptional supervision has served to lessen the fear of such a catastrophe. artificial light is necessary, even on the brightest days, in many of the class-rooms. in most of the classrooms, it is always necessary when the sky is slightly overcast." there is no ventilating system. in the crowded east side section conditions are reported to be no better. the public education association's report on public school no. 130 points out that the site at the corner of hester and baxter streets was purchased by the city years ago as a school site, but that there has been so much "tweedledeeing and tweedleduming" that the new building which is to replace the old, has not even yet been planned! meanwhile, year after year, thousands of children are compelled to study daily in dark and dingy class-rooms. "artificial light is continually necessary," declares the report. "the ventilation is extremely poor. the fire hazard is naturally great. there are no rest-rooms whatever for the teachers." other schools in the neighborhood reveal conditions even worse. in two of them, for example; "in accordance with the requirements of the syllabus in hygiene in the schools, the vision of the children is regularly tested. in a recent test of this character, it was found in public school 108, the rate of defective vision in the various grades ranged from 50 to 64 per cent.! in public school 106, the rate ranged from 43 to 94 per cent.!" the conditions, we are assured, are no exceptions to the rule of public schools in new york, where the fatal effects of overcrowding in education may be observed in their most sinister but significant aspects. the forgotten fact in this case is that efforts for universal and compulsory education cannot keep pace with the overproduction of children. even at the best, leaving out of consideration the public school system as the inevitable prey and plundering-ground of the cheap politician and job-hunter, present methods of wholesale and syndicated "education" are not suited to compete with the unceasing, unthinking, untiring procreative powers of our swarming, spawning populations. into such schools as described in the recent reports of the public education association, no intelligent parent would dare send his child. they are not merely fire-traps and culture-grounds of infection, but of moral and intellectual contamination as well. more and more are public schools in america becoming institutions for subjecting children to a narrow and reactionary orthodoxy, aiming to crush out all signs of individuality, and to turn out boys and girls compressed into a standardized pattern, with ready-made ideas on politics, religion, morality, and economics. true education cannot grow out of such compulsory herding of children in filthy fire-traps. character, ability, and reasoning power are not to be developed in this fashion. indeed, it is to be doubted whether even a completely successful educational system could offset the evils of indiscriminate breeding and compensate for the misfortune of being a superfluous child. in recognizing the great need of education, we have failed to recognize the greater need of inborn health and character. "if it were necessary to choose between the task of getting children educated and getting them well born and healthy," writes havelock ellis, "it would be better to abandon education. there have been many great peoples who never dreamed of national systems of education; there have been no great peoples without the art of producing healthy and vigorous children. the matter becomes of peculiar importance in great industrial states, like england, the united states and germany, because in such states, a tacit conspiracy tends to grow up to subordinate national ends to individual ends, and practically to work for the deterioration of the race."(8) much less can education solve the great problem of child labor. rather, under the conditions prevailing in modern society, child labor and the failure of the public schools to educate are both indices of a more deeply rooted evil. both bespeak the undervaluation of the child. this undervaluation, this cheapening of child life, is to speak crudely but frankly the direct result of overproduction. "restriction of output" is an immediate necessity if we wish to regain control of the real values, so that unimpeded, unhindered, and without danger of inner corruption, humanity may protect its own health and powers. (1) i am indebted to the national child labor committee for these statistics, as well as for many of the facts that follow. (2) "people who go to beets" pamphlet no. 299, national child labor committee. (3) california the golden, by emma duke. reprinted from the american child, vol. ii, no. 3. november 1920. (4) cf. child welfare in oklahoma; child welfare in alabama; child welfare in north carolina; child welfare in kentucky; child welfare in tennessee. also, children in agriculture, by ruth mcintire, and other studies. (5) w. r. inge: outspoken essays: p. 92 (6) cf. tredgold: inheritance and educability. eugenics review, vol. xiii, no. i, pp. 839 et seq. (7) cf. new york times, june 4, 1921. (8) "studies in the psychology of sex," vol. vi. p. 20. chapter iv: the fertility of the feeble-minded what vesture have you woven for my year? o man and woman who have fashioned it together, is it fine and clean and strong, made in such reverence of holy joy, of such unsullied substance, that your hearts leap with glad awe to see it clothing me, the glory of whose nakedness you know? "the song of the unborn" amelia josephine burr there is but one practical and feasible program in handling the great problem of the feeble-minded. that is, as the best authorities are agreed, to prevent the birth of those who would transmit imbecility to their descendants. feeble-mindedness as investigations and statistics from every country indicate, is invariably associated with an abnormally high rate of fertility. modern conditions of civilization, as we are continually being reminded, furnish the most favorable breeding-ground for the mental defective, the moron, the imbecile. "we protect the members of a weak strain," says davenport, "up to the period of reproduction, and then let them free upon the community, and encourage them to leave a large progeny of `feeble-minded': which in turn, protected from mortality and carefully nurtured up to the reproductive period, are again set free to reproduce, and so the stupid work goes on of preserving and increasing our socially unfit strains." the philosophy of birth control points out that as long as civilized communities encourage unrestrained fecundity in the "normal" members of the population--always of course under the cloak of decency and morality--and penalize every attempt to introduce the principle of discrimination and responsibility in parenthood, they will be faced with the ever-increasing problem of feeble-mindedness, that fertile parent of degeneracy, crime, and pauperism. small as the percentage of the imbecile and half-witted may seem in comparison with the normal members of the community, it should always be remembered that feeble-mindedness is not an unrelated expression of modern civilization. its roots strike deep into the social fabric. modern studies indicate that insanity, epilepsy, criminality, prostitution, pauperism, and mental defect, are all organically bound up together and that the least intelligent and the thoroughly degenerate classes in every community are the most prolific. feeble-mindedness in one generation becomes pauperism or insanity in the next. there is every indication that feeble-mindedness in its protean forms is on the increase, that it has leaped the barriers, and that there is truly, as some of the scientific eugenists have pointed out, a feeble-minded peril to future generations--unless the feeble-minded are prevented from reproducing their kind. to meet this emergency is the immediate and peremptory duty of every state and of all communities. the curious situation has come about that while our statesmen are busy upon their propaganda of "repopulation," and are encouraging the production of large families, they are ignoring the exigent problem of the elimination of the feeble-minded. in this, however, the politicians are at one with the traditions of a civilization which, with its charities and philanthropies, has propped up the defective and degenerate and relieved them of the burdens borne by the healthy sections of the community, thus enabling them more easily and more numerously to propagate their kind. "with the very highest motives," declares dr. walter e. fernald, "modern philanthropic efforts often tend to foster and increase the growth of defect in the community.... the only feeble-minded persons who now receive any official consideration are those who have already become dependent or delinquent, many of whom have already become parents. we lock the barn-door after the horse is stolen. we now have state commissions for controlling the gipsy-moth and the boll weevil, the foot-and-mouth disease, and for protecting the shell-fish and wild game, but we have no commission which even attempts to modify or to control the vast moral and economic forces represented by the feeble-minded persons at large in the community." how the feeble-minded and their always numerous progeny run the gamut of police, alms-houses, courts, penal institutions, "charities and corrections," tramp shelters, lying-in hospitals, and relief afforded by privately endowed religious and social agencies, is shown in any number of reports and studies of family histories. we find cases of feeble-mindedness and mental defect in the reports on infant mortality referred to in a previous chapter, as well as in other reports published by the united states government. here is a typical case showing the astonishing ability to "increase and multiply," organically bound up with delinquency and defect of various types: "the parents of a feeble-minded girl, twenty years of age, who was committed to the kansas state industrial farm on a vagrancy charge, lived in a thickly populated negro district which was reported by the police to be the headquarters for the criminal element of the surrounding state.... the mother married at fourteen, and her first child was born at fifteen. in rapid succession she gave birth to sixteen live-born children and had one miscarriage. the first child, a girl, married but separated from her husband.... the fourth, fifth and sixth, all girls, died in infancy or early childhood. the seventh, a girl, remarried after the death of her husband, from whom she had been separated. the eighth, a boy who early in life began to exhibit criminal tendencies, was in prison for highway robbery and burglary. the ninth, a girl, normal mentally, was in quarantine at the kansas state industrial farm at the time this study was made; she had lived with a man as his common-law wife, and had also been arrested several times for soliciting. the tenth, a boy, was involved in several delinquencies when young and was sent to the detention-house but did not remain there long. the eleventh, a boy... at the age of seventeen was sentenced to the penitentiary for twenty years on a charge of first-degree robbery; after serving a portion of his time, he was paroled, and later was shot and killed in a fight. the twelfth, a boy, was at fifteen years of age implicated in a murder and sent to the industrial school, but escaped from there on a bicycle which he had stolen; at eighteen, he was shot and killed by a woman. the thirteenth child, feeble-minded, is the girl of the study. the fourteenth, a boy was considered by police to be the best member of the family; his mother reported him to be much slower mentally than his sister just mentioned; he had been arrested several times. once, he was held in the detention-home and once sent to the state industrial school; at other times, he was placed on probation. the fifteenth, a girl sixteen years old, has for a long time had a bad reputation. subsequent to the commitment of her sister to the kansas state industrial farm, she was arrested on a charge of vagrancy, found to be syphilitic, and quarantined in a state other than kansas. at the time of her arrest, she stated that prostitution was her occupation. the last child was a boy of thirteen years whose history was not secured...."(1) the notorious fecundity of feeble-minded women is emphasized in studies and investigations of the problem, coming from all countries. "the feeble-minded woman is twice as prolific as the normal one." sir james crichton-browne speaks of the great numbers of feeble-minded girls, wholly unfit to become mothers, who return to the work-house year after year to bear children, "many of whom happily die, but some of whom survive to recruit our idiot establishments and to repeat their mothers' performances." tredgold points out that the number of children born to the feeble-minded is abnormally high. feeble-minded women "constitute a permanent menace to the race and one which becomes serious at a time when the decline of the birth-rate is... unmistakable." dr. tredgold points out that "the average number of children born in a family is four," whereas in these degenerate families, we find an average of 7.3 to each. out of this total only a little more than one-third--456 out of a total of 1,269 children--can be considered profitable members of the community, and that, be it remembered, at the parents' valuation. another significant point is the number of mentally defective children who survive. "out of the total number of 526 mentally affected persons in the 150 families, there are 245 in the present generation--an unusually large survival."(2) speaking for bradford, england, dr. helen u. campbell touches another significant and interesting point usually neglected by the advocates of mothers' pensions, milk-stations, and maternity-education programs. "we are also confronted with the problem of the actually mentally deficient, of the more or less feeble-minded, and the deranged, epileptic... or otherwise mentally abnormal mother," writes this authority. "the `bad mothering' of these cases is quite unimprovable at an infant welfare center, and a very definite if not relatively very large percentage of our infants are suffering severely as a result of dependence upon such `mothering."'(3) thus we are brought face to face with another problem of infant mortality. are we to check the infant mortality rate among the feeble-minded and aid the unfortunate offspring to grow up, a menace to the civilized community even when not actually certifiable as mentally defective or not obviously imbecile? other figures and studies indicate the close relationship between feeble-mindedness and the spread of venereal scourges. we are informed that in michigan, 75 per cent. of the prostitute class is infected with some form of venereal disease, and that 75 per cent. of the infected are mentally defective,--morons, imbeciles, or "border-line" cases most dangerous to the community at large. at least 25 per cent. of the inmates of our prisons, according to dr. fernald, are mentally defective and belong either to the feeble-minded or to the defective-delinquent class. nearly 50 per cent. of the girls sent to reformatories are mental defectives. to-day, society treats feeble-minded or "defective delinquent" men or women as "criminals," sentences them to prison or reformatory for a "term," and then releases them at the expiration of their sentences. they are usually at liberty just long enough to reproduce their kind, and then they return again and again to prison. the truth of this statement is evident from the extremely large proportion in institutions of neglected and dependent children, who are the feeble-minded offspring of such feeble-minded parents. confronted with these shocking truths about the menace of feeble-mindedness to the race, a menace acute because of the unceasing and unrestrained fertility of such defectives, we are apt to become the victims of a "wild panic for instant action." there is no occasion for hysterical, ill-considered action, specialists tell us. they direct our attention to another phase of the problem, that of the so-called "good feeble-minded." we are informed that imbecility, in itself, is not synonymous with badness. if it is fostered in a "suitable environment," it may express itself in terms of good citizenship and useful occupation. it may thus be transmuted into a docile, tractable, and peaceable element of the community. the moron and the feeble-minded, thus protected, so we are assured, may even marry some brighter member of the community, and thus lessen the chances of procreating another generation of imbeciles. we read further that some of our doctors believe that "in our social scale, there is a place for the good feeble-minded." in such a reckless and thoughtless differentiation between the "bad" and the "good" feeble-minded, we find new evidence of the conventional middle-class bias that also finds expression among some of the eugenists. we do not object to feeble-mindedness simply because it leads to immorality and criminality; nor can we approve of it when it expresses itself in docility, submissiveness and obedience. we object because both are burdens and dangers to the intelligence of the community. as a matter of fact, there is sufficient evidence to lead us to believe that the so-called "borderline cases" are a greater menace than the out-and-out "defective delinquents" who can be supervised, controlled and prevented from procreating their kind. the advent of the binet-simon and similar psychological tests indicates that the mental defective who is glib and plausible, bright looking and attractive, but with a mental vision of seven, eight or nine years, may not merely lower the whole level of intelligence in a school or in a society, but may be encouraged by church and state to increase and multiply until he dominates and gives the prevailing "color"--culturally speaking--to an entire community. the presence in the public schools of the mentally defective children of men and women who should never have been parents is a problem that is becoming more and more difficult, and is one of the chief reasons for lower educational standards. as one of the greatest living authorities on the subject, dr. a. tredgold, has pointed out,(4) this has created a destructive conflict of purpose. "in the case of children with a low intellectual capacity, much of the education at present provided is for all practical purposes a complete waste of time, money and patience.... on the other hand, for children of high intellectual capacity, our present system does not go far enough. i believe that much innate potentiality remains undeveloped, even amongst the working classes, owing to the absence of opportunity for higher education, to the disadvantage of the nation. in consequence of these fundamental differences, the catchword `equality of opportunity' is meaningless and mere claptrap in the absence of any equality to respond to such opportunity. what is wanted is not equality of opportunity, but education adapted to individual potentiality; and if the time and money now spent in the fruitless attempt to make silk-purses out of sows' ears, were devoted to the higher education of children of good natural capacity, it would contribute enormously to national efficiency." in a much more complex manner than has been recognized even by students of this problem, the destiny and the progress of civilization and of human expression has been hindered and held back by this burden of the imbecile and the moron. while we may admire the patience and the deep human sympathy with which the great specialists in feeble-mindedness have expressed the hope of drying up the sources of this evil or of rendering it harmless, we should not permit sympathy or sentimentality to blind us to the fact that health and vitality and human growth likewise need cultivation. "a laisser faire policy," writes one investigator, "simply allows the social sore to spread. and a quasi laisser faire policy wherein we allow the defective to commit crime and then interfere and imprison him, wherein we grant the defective the personal liberty to do as he pleases, until he pleases to descend to a plane of living below the animal level, and try to care for a few of his descendants who are so helpless that they can no longer exercise that personal liberty to do as they please,"--such a policy increases and multiplies the dangers of the over-fertile feeble-minded.(5) the mental survey of the state of oregon recently published by the united states health service, sets an excellent example and should be followed by every state in the union and every civilized country as well. it is greatly to the credit of the western state that it is one of the first officially to recognize the primary importance of this problem and to realize that facts, no matter how fatal to self-satisfaction, must be faced. this survey, authorized by the state legislature, and carried out by the university of oregon, in collaboration with dr. c. l. carlisle of the public health service, aided by a large number of volunteers, shows that only a small percentage of mental defectives and morons are in the care of institutions. the rest are widely scattered and their condition unknown or neglected. they are docile and submissive, they do not attract attention to themselves as do the criminal delinquents and the insane. nevertheless, it is estimated that they number no less than 75,000 men, women, and children, out of a total population of 783,000, or about ten per cent. oregon, it is thought, is no exception to other states. yet under our present conditions, these people are actually encouraged to increase and multiply and replenish the earth. concerning the importance of the oregon survey, we may quote surgeon general h. c. cumming: "the prevention and correction of mental defectives is one of the great public health problems of to-day. it enters into many phases of our work and its influence continually crops up unexpectedly. for instance, work of the public health service in connection with juvenile courts shows that a marked proportion of juvenile delinquency is traceable to some degree of mental deficiency in the offender. for years public health officials have concerned themselves only with the disorders of physical health; but now they are realizing the significance of mental health also. the work in oregon constitutes the first state-wide survey which even begins to disclose the enormous drain on a state, caused by mental defects. one of the objects of the work was to obtain for the people of oregon an idea of the problem that confronted them and the heavy annual loss, both economic and industrial, that it entailed. another was to enable the legislators to devise a program that would stop much of the loss, restore to health and bring to lives of industrial usefulness, many of those now down and out, and above all, to save hundreds of children from growing up to lives of misery." it will be interesting to see how many of our state legislatures have the intelligence and the courage to follow in the footsteps of oregon in this respect. nothing could more effectually stimulate discussion, and awaken intelligence as to the extravagance and cost to the community of our present codes of traditional morality. but we should make sure in all such surveys, that mental defect is not concealed even in such dignified bodies as state legislatures and among those leaders who are urging men and women to reckless and irresponsible procreation. i have touched upon these various aspects of the complex problem of the feeble-minded, and the menace of the moron to human society, not merely for the purpose of reiterating that it is one of the greatest and most difficult social problems of modern times, demanding an immediate, stern and definite policy, but because it illustrates the actual harvest of reliance upon traditional morality, upon the biblical injunction to increase and multiply, a policy still taught by politician, priest and militarist. motherhood has been held universally sacred; yet, as bouchacourt pointed out, "to-day, the dregs of the human species, the blind, the deaf-mute, the degenerate, the nervous, the vicious, the idiotic, the imbecile, the cretins and the epileptics--are better protected than pregnant women." the syphilitic, the irresponsible, the feeble-minded are encouraged to breed unhindered, while all the powerful forces of tradition, of custom, or prejudice, have bolstered up the desperate effort to block the inevitable influence of true civilization in spreading the principles of independence, self-reliance, discrimination and foresight upon which the great practice of intelligent parenthood is based. to-day we are confronted by the results of this official policy. there is no escaping it; there is no explaining it away. surely it is an amazing and discouraging phenomenon that the very governments that have seen fit to interfere in practically every phase of the normal citizen's life, dare not attempt to restrain, either by force or persuasion, the moron and the imbecile from producing his large family of feeble-minded offspring. in my own experience, i recall vividly the case of a feeble-minded girl who every year, for a long period, received the expert attention of a great specialist in one of the best-known maternity hospitals of new york city. the great obstetrician, for the benefit of interns and medical students, performed each year a caesarian operation upon this unfortunate creature to bring into the world her defective, and, in one case at least, her syphilitic, infant. "nelly" was then sent to a special room and placed under the care of a day nurse and a night nurse, with extra and special nourishment provided. each year she returned to the hospital. such cases are not exceptions; any experienced doctor or nurse can recount similar stories. in the interest of medical science this practice may be justified. i am not criticising it from that point of view. i realize as well as the most conservative moralist that humanity requires that healthy members of the race should make certain sacrifices to preserve from death those unfortunates who are born with hereditary taints. but there is a point at which philanthropy may become positively dysgenic, when charity is converted into injustice to the self-supporting citizen, into positive injury to the future of the race. such a point, it seems obvious, is reached when the incurably defective are permitted to procreate and thus increase their numbers. the problem of the dependent, delinquent and defective elements in modern society, we must repeat, cannot be minimized because of their alleged small numerical proportion to the rest of the population. the proportion seems small only because we accustom ourselves to the habit of looking upon feeble-mindedness as a separate and distinct calamity to the race, as a chance phenomenon unrelated to the sexual and biological customs not only condoned but even encouraged by our so-called civilization. the actual dangers can only be fully realized when we have acquired definite information concerning the financial and cultural cost of these classes to the community, when we become fully cognizant of the burden of the imbecile upon the whole human race; when we see the funds that should be available for human development, for scientific, artistic and philosophic research, being diverted annually, by hundreds of millions of dollars, to the care and segregation of men, women, and children who never should have been born. the advocate of birth control realizes as well as all intelligent thinkers the dangers of interfering with personal liberty. our whole philosophy is, in fact, based upon the fundamental assumption that man is a self-conscious, self-governing creature, that he should not be treated as a domestic animal; that he must be left free, at least within certain wide limits, to follow his own wishes in the matter of mating and in the procreation of children. nor do we believe that the community could or should send to the lethal chamber the defective progeny resulting from irresponsible and unintelligent breeding. but modern society, which has respected the personal liberty of the individual only in regard to the unrestricted and irresponsible bringing into the world of filth and poverty an overcrowding procession of infants foredoomed to death or hereditable disease, is now confronted with the problem of protecting itself and its future generations against the inevitable consequences of this long-practised policy of laisser-faire. the emergency problem of segregation and sterilization must be faced immediately. every feeble-minded girl or woman of the hereditary type, especially of the moron class, should be segregated during the reproductive period. otherwise, she is almost certain to bear imbecile children, who in turn are just as certain to breed other defectives. the male defectives are no less dangerous. segregation carried out for one or two generations would give us only partial control of the problem. moreover, when we realize that each feeble-minded person is a potential source of an endless progeny of defect, we prefer the policy of immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited to the feeble-minded. this, i say, is an emergency measure. but how are we to prevent the repetition in the future of a new harvest of imbecility, the recurrence of new generations of morons and defectives, as the logical and inevitable consequence of the universal application of the traditional and widely approved command to increase and multiply? at the present moment, we are offered three distinct and more or less mutually exclusive policies by which civilization may hope to protect itself and the generations of the future from the allied dangers of imbecility, defect and delinquency. no one can understand the necessity for birth control education without a complete comprehension of the dangers, the inadequacies, or the limitations of the present attempts at control, or the proposed programs for social reconstruction and racial regeneration. it is, therefore, necessary to interpret and criticize the three programs offered to meet our emergency. these may be briefly summarized as follows: (1) philanthropy and charity: this is the present and traditional method of meeting the problems of human defect and dependence, of poverty and delinquency. it is emotional, altruistic, at best ameliorative, aiming to meet the individual situation as it arises and presents itself. its effect in practise is seldom, if ever, truly preventive. concerned with symptoms, with the allaying of acute and catastrophic miseries, it cannot, if it would, strike at the radical causes of social misery. at its worst, it is sentimental and paternalistic. (2) marxian socialism: this may be considered typical of many widely varying schemes of more or less revolutionary social reconstruction, emphasizing the primary importance of environment, education, equal opportunity, and health, in the elimination of the conditions (i. e. capitalistic control of industry) which have resulted in biological chaos and human waste. i shall attempt to show that the marxian doctrine is both too limited, too superficial and too fragmentary in its basic analysis of human nature and in its program of revolutionary reconstruction. (3) eugenics: eugenics seems to me to be valuable in its critical and diagnostic aspects, in emphasizing the danger of irresponsible and uncontrolled fertility of the "unfit" and the feeble-minded establishing a progressive unbalance in human society and lowering the birth-rate among the "fit." but in its so-called "constructive" aspect, in seeking to reestablish the dominance of healthy strain over the unhealthy, by urging an increased birth-rate among the fit, the eugenists really offer nothing more farsighted than a "cradle competition" between the fit and the unfit. they suggest in very truth, that all intelligent and respectable parents should take as their example in this grave matter of child-bearing the most irresponsible elements in the community. (1) united states public health service: psychiatric studies of delinquents. reprint no. 598: pp. 64-65. (2) the problem of the feeble-minded: an abstract of the report of the royal commission on the cure and control of the feeble-minded, london: p. s. king & son. (3) cf. feeble-minded in ontario: fourteenth report for the year ending october 31st, 1919. (4) eugenics review, vol. xiii, p. 339 et seq. (5) dwellers in the vale of siddem: a true story of the social aspect of feeble-mindedness. by a. c. rogers and maud a. merrill; boston (1919). chapter v: the cruelty of charity "fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty. it is a deliberate storing up of miseries for future generations. there is no greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles." herbert spencer the last century has witnessed the rise and development of philanthropy and organized charity. coincident with the all-conquering power of machinery and capitalistic control, with the unprecedented growth of great cities and industrial centers, and the creation of great proletarian populations, modern civilization has been confronted, to a degree hitherto unknown in human history, with the complex problem of sustaining human life in surroundings and under conditions flagrantly dysgenic. the program, as i believe all competent authorities in contemporary philanthropy and organized charity would agree, has been altered in aim and purpose. it was first the outgrowth of humanitarian and altruistic idealism, perhaps not devoid of a strain of sentimentalism, of an idealism that was aroused by a desperate picture of human misery intensified by the industrial revolution. it has developed in later years into a program not so much aiming to succor the unfortunate victims of circumstances, as to effect what we may term social sanitation. primarily, it is a program of self-protection. contemporary philanthropy, i believe, recognizes that extreme poverty and overcrowded slums are veritable breeding-grounds of epidemics, disease, delinquency and dependency. its aim, therefore, is to prevent the individual family from sinking to that abject condition in which it will become a much heavier burden upon society. there is no need here to criticize the obvious limitations of organized charities in meeting the desperate problem of destitution. we are all familiar with these criticisms: the common indictment of "inefficiency" so often brought against public and privately endowed agencies. the charges include the high cost of administration; the pauperization of deserving poor, and the encouragement and fostering of the "undeserving"; the progressive destruction of self-respect and self-reliance by the paternalistic interference of social agencies; the impossibility of keeping pace with the ever-increasing multiplication of factors and influences responsible for the perpetuation of human misery; the misdirection and misappropriation of endowments; the absence of interorganization and coordination of the various agencies of church, state, and privately endowed institutions; the "crimes of charity" that are occasionally exposed in newspaper scandals. these and similar strictures we may ignore as irrelevant to our present purpose, as inevitable but not incurable faults that have been and are being eliminated in the slow but certain growth of a beneficent power in modern civilization. in reply to such criticisms, the protagonist of modern philanthropy might justly point to the honest and sincere workers and disinterested scientists it has mobilized, to the self-sacrificing and hard-working executives who have awakened public attention to the evils of poverty and the menace to the race engendered by misery and filth. even if we accept organized charity at its own valuation, and grant that it does the best it can, it is exposed to a more profound criticism. it reveals a fundamental and irremediable defect. its very success, its very efficiency, its very necessity to the social order, are themselves the most unanswerable indictment. organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease. those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents. my criticism, therefore, is not directed at the "failure" of philanthropy, but rather at its success. these dangers inherent in the very idea of humanitarianism and altruism, dangers which have to-day produced their full harvest of human waste, of inequality and inefficiency, were fully recognized in the last century at the moment when such ideas were first put into practice. readers of huxley's attack on the salvation army will recall his penetrating and stimulating condemnation of the debauch of sentimentalism which expressed itself in so uncontrolled a fashion in the victorian era. one of the most penetrating of american thinkers, henry james, sr., sixty or seventy years ago wrote: "i have been so long accustomed to see the most arrant deviltry transact itself in the name of benevolence, that the moment i hear a profession of good will from almost any quarter, i instinctively look around for a constable or place my hand within reach of a bell-rope. my ideal of human intercourse would be a state of things in which no man will ever stand in need of any other man's help, but will derive all his satisfaction from the great social tides which own no individual names. i am sure no man can be put in a position of dependence upon another, without the other's very soon becoming--if he accepts the duties of the relation--utterly degraded out of his just human proportions. no man can play the deity to his fellow man with impunity--i mean, spiritual impunity, of course. for see: if i am at all satisfied with that relation, if it contents me to be in a position of generosity towards others, i must be remarkably indifferent at bottom to the gross social inequality which permits that position, and, instead of resenting the enforced humiliation of my fellow man to myself in the interests of humanity, i acquiesce in it for the sake of the profit it yields to my own self-complacency. i do hope the reign of benevolence is over; until that event occurs, i am sure the reign of god will be impossible." to-day, we may measure the evil effects of "benevolence" of this type, not merely upon those who have indulged in it, but upon the community at large. these effects have been reduced to statistics and we cannot, if we would, escape their significance. look, for instance (since they are close at hand, and fairly representative of conditions elsewhere) at the total annual expenditures of public and private "charities and corrections" for the state of new york. for the year ending june 30, 1919, the expenditures of public institutions and agencies amounted to $33, 936,205.88. the expenditures of privately supported and endowed institutions for the same year, amount to $58,100,530.98. this makes a total, for public and private charities and corrections of $92,036,736.86. a conservative estimate of the increase for the year (1920-1921) brings this figure approximately to one-hundred and twenty-five millions. these figures take on an eloquent significance if we compare them to the comparatively small amounts spent upon education, conservation of health and other constructive efforts. thus, while the city of new york spent $7.35 per capita on public education in the year 1918, it spent on public charities no less than $2.66. add to this last figure an even larger amount dispensed by private agencies, and we may derive some definite sense of the heavy burden of dependency, pauperism and delinquency upon the normal and healthy sections of the community. statistics now available also inform us that more than a million dollars are spent annually to support the public and private institutions in the state of new york for the segregation of the feeble-minded and the epileptic. a million and a half is spent for the up-keep of state prisons, those homes of the "defective delinquent." insanity, which, we should remember, is to a great extent hereditary, annually drains from the state treasury no less than $11,985,695.55, and from private sources and endowments another twenty millions. when we learn further that the total number of inmates in public and private institutions in the state of new york--in alms-houses, reformatories, schools for the blind, deaf and mute, in insane asylums, in homes for the feeble-minded and epileptic--amounts practically to less than sixty-five thousand, an insignificant number compared to the total population, our eyes should be opened to the terrific cost to the community of this dead weight of human waste. the united states public health survey of the state of oregon, recently published, shows that even a young community, rich in natural resources, and unusually progressive in legislative measures, is no less subject to this burden. out of a total population of 783,000 it is estimated that more than 75,000 men, women and children are dependents, feeble-minded, or delinquents. thus about 10 per cent. of the population is a constant drain on the finances, health, and future of that community. these figures represent a more definite and precise survey than the rough one indicated by the statistics of charities and correction for the state of new york. the figures yielded by this oregon survey are also considerably lower than the average shown by the draft examination, a fact which indicates that they are not higher than might be obtained from other states. organized charity is thus confronted with the problem of feeble-mindedness and mental defect. but just as the state has so far neglected the problem of mental defect until this takes the form of criminal delinquency, so the tendency of our philanthropic and charitable agencies has been to pay no attention to the problem until it has expressed itself in terms of pauperism and delinquency. such "benevolence" is not merely ineffectual; it is positively injurious to the community and the future of the race. but there is a special type of philanthropy or benevolence, now widely advertised and advocated, both as a federal program and as worthy of private endowment, which strikes me as being more insidiously injurious than any other. this concerns itself directly with the function of maternity, and aims to supply gratis medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers. such women are to be visited by nurses and to receive instruction in the "hygiene of pregnancy"; to be guided in making arrangements for confinements; to be invited to come to the doctor's clinics for examination and supervision. they are, we are informed, to "receive adequate care during pregnancy, at confinement, and for one month afterward." thus are mothers and babies to be saved. "childbearing is to be made safe." the work of the maternity centers in the various american cities in which they have already been established and in which they are supported by private contributions and endowment, it is hardly necessary to point out, is carried on among the poor and more docile sections of the city, among mothers least able, through poverty and ignorance, to afford the care and attention necessary for successful maternity. now, as the findings of tredgold and karl pearson and the british eugenists so conclusively show, and as the infant mortality reports so thoroughly substantiate, a high rate of fecundity is always associated with the direst poverty, irresponsibility, mental defect, feeble-mindedness, and other transmissible taints. the effect of maternity endowments and maternity centers supported by private philanthropy would have, perhaps already have had, exactly the most dysgenic tendency. the new government program would facilitate the function of maternity among the very classes in which the absolute necessity is to discourage it. such "benevolence" is not merely superficial and near-sighted. it conceals a stupid cruelty, because it is not courageous enough to face unpleasant facts. aside from the question of the unfitness of many women to become mothers, aside from the very definite deterioration in the human stock that such programs would inevitably hasten, we may question its value even to the normal though unfortunate mother. for it is never the intention of such philanthropy to give the poor over-burdened and often undernourished mother of the slum the opportunity to make the choice herself, to decide whether she wishes time after to time to bring children into the world. it merely says "increase and multiply: we are prepared to help you do this." whereas the great majority of mothers realize the grave responsibility they face in keeping alive and rearing the children they have already brought into the world, the maternity center would teach them how to have more. the poor woman is taught how to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid bringing into the world her eighth. such philanthropy, as dean inge has so unanswerably pointed out, is kind only to be cruel, and unwittingly promotes precisely the results most deprecated. it encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as i think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant. on the other hand, the program is an indication of a suddenly awakened public recognition of the shocking conditions surrounding pregnancy, maternity, and infant welfare prevailing at the very heart of our boasted civilization. so terrible, so unbelievable, are these conditions of child-bearing, degraded far below the level of primitive and barbarian tribes, nay, even below the plane of brutes, that many high-minded people, confronted with such revolting and disgraceful facts, lost that calmness of vision and impartiality of judgment so necessary in any serious consideration of this vital problem. their "hearts" are touched; they become hysterical; they demand immediate action; and enthusiastically and generously they support the first superficial program that is advanced. immediate action may sometimes be worse than no action at all. the "warm heart" needs the balance of the cool head. much harm has been done in the world by those too-good-hearted folk who have always demanded that "something be done at once." they do not stop to consider that the very first thing to be done is to subject the whole situation to the deepest and most rigorous thinking. as the late walter bagehot wrote in a significant but too often forgotten passage: "the most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that on the whole it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does more good or harm. great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. it augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy they can do much by rapid action, and that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an evil is seen, `something' ought to be done to stay and prevent it. one may incline to hope that the balance of good over evil is in favor of benevolence; one can hardly bear to think that it is not so; but anyhow it is certain that there is a most heavy debt of evil, and that this burden might almost all have been spared us if philanthropists as well as others had not inherited from their barbarous forefathers a wild passion for instant action." it is customary, i believe, to defend philanthropy and charity upon the basis of the sanctity of human life. yet recent events in the world reveal a curious contradiction in this respect. human life is held sacred, as a general christian principle, until war is declared, when humanity indulges in a universal debauch of bloodshed and barbarism, inventing poison gases and every type of diabolic suggestion to facilitate killing and starvation. blockades are enforced to weaken and starve civilian populations--women and children. this accomplished, the pendulum of mob passion swings back to the opposite extreme, and the compensatory emotions express themselves in hysterical fashion. philanthropy and charity are then unleashed. we begin to hold human life sacred again. we try to save the lives of the people we formerly sought to weaken by devastation, disease and starvation. we indulge in "drives," in campaigns of relief, in a general orgy of international charity. we are thus witnessing to-day the inauguration of a vast system of international charity. as in our more limited communities and cities, where self-sustaining and self-reliant sections of the population are forced to shoulder the burden of the reckless and irresponsible, so in the great world community the more prosperous and incidentally less populous nations are asked to relieve and succor those countries which are either the victims of the wide-spread havoc of war, of militaristic statesmanship, or of the age-long tradition of reckless propagation and its consequent over-population. the people of the united states have recently been called upon to exercise their traditional generosity not merely to aid the european relief council in its efforts to keep alive three million, five hundred thousand starving children in central europe, but in addition to contribute to that enormous fund to save the thirty million chinese who find themselves at the verge of starvation, owing to one of those recurrent famines which strike often at that densely populated and inert country, where procreative recklessness is encouraged as a matter of duty. the results of this international charity have not justified the effort nor repaid the generosity to which it appealed. in the first place, no effort was made to prevent the recurrence of the disaster; in the second place, philanthropy of this type attempts to sweep back the tide of miseries created by unrestricted propagation, with the feeble broom of sentiment. as one of the most observant and impartial of authorities on the far east, j. o. p. bland, has pointed out: "so long as china maintains a birth-rate that is estimated at fifty-five per thousand or more, the only possible alternative to these visitations would be emigration and this would have to be on such a scale as would speedily overrun and overfill the habitable globe. neither humanitarian schemes, international charities nor philanthropies can prevent widespread disaster to a people which habitually breeds up to and beyond the maximum limits of its food supply." upon this point, it is interesting to add, mr. frank a. vanderlip has likewise pointed out the inefficacy and misdirection of this type of international charity.(1) mr. bland further points out: "the problem presented is one with which neither humanitarian nor religious zeal can ever cope, so long as we fail to recognize and attack the fundamental cause of these calamities. as a matter of sober fact, the benevolent activities of our missionary societies to reduce the deathrate by the prevention of infanticide and the checking of disease, actually serve in the end to aggravate the pressure of population upon its food-supply and to increase the severity of the inevitably resultant catastrophe. what is needed for the prevention, or, at least, the mitigation of these scourges, is an organized educational propaganda, directed first against polygamy and the marriage of minors and the unfit, and, next, toward such a limitation of the birth-rate as shall approximate the standard of civilized countries. but so long as bishops and well meaning philanthropists in england and america continue to praise and encourage `the glorious fertility of the east' there can be but little hope of minimizing the penalties of the ruthless struggle for existence in china, and nature's law will therefore continue to work out its own pitiless solution, weeding out every year millions of predestined weaklings." this rapid survey is enough, i hope, to indicate the manifold inadequacies inherent in present policies of philanthropy and charity. the most serious charge that can be brought against modern "benevolence" is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. these are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression. philanthropy is a gesture characteristic of modern business lavishing upon the unfit the profits extorted from the community at large. looked at impartially, this compensatory generosity is in its final effect probably more dangerous, more dysgenic, more blighting than the initial practice of profiteering and the social injustice which makes some too rich and others too poor. (1) birth control review. vol. v. no. 4. p. 7. chapter vi: neglected factors of the world problem war has thrust upon us a new internationalism. to-day the world is united by starvation, disease and misery. we are enjoying the ironic internationalism of hatred. the victors are forced to shoulder the burden of the vanquished. international philanthropies and charities are organized. the great flux of immigration and emigration has recommenced. prosperity is a myth; and the rich are called upon to support huge philanthropies, in the futile attempt to sweep back the tide of famine and misery. in the face of this new internationalism, this tangled unity of the world, all proposed political and economic programs reveal a woeful common bankruptcy. they are fragmentary and superficial. none of them go to the root of this unprecedented world problem. politicians offer political solutions,--like the league of nations or the limitation of navies. militarists offer new schemes of competitive armament. marxians offer the third internationale and industrial revolution. sentimentalists offer charity and philanthropy. coordination or correlation is lacking. and matters go steadily from bad to worse. the first essential in the solution of any problem is the recognition and statement of the factors involved. now in this complex problem which to-day confronts us, no attempt has been made to state the primary facts. the statesman believes they are all political. militarists believe they are all military and naval. economists, including under the term the various schools for socialists, believe they are industrial and financial. churchmen look upon them as religious and ethical. what is lacking is the recognition of that fundamental factor which reflects and coordinates these essential but incomplete phases of the problem,--the factor of reproduction. for in all problems affecting the welfare of a biological species, and particularly in all problems of human welfare, two fundamental forces work against each other. there is hunger as the driving force of all our economic, industrial and commercial organizations; and there is the reproductive impulse in continual conflict with our economic, political settlements, race adjustments and the like. official moralists, statesmen, politicians, philanthropists and economists display an astounding disregard of this second disorganizing factor. they treat the world of men as if it were purely a hunger world instead of a hunger-sex world. yet there is no phase of human society, no question of politics, economics, or industry that is not tied up in almost equal measure with the expression of both of these primordial impulses. you cannot sweep back overpowering dynamic instincts by catchwords. you can neglect and thwart sex only at your peril. you cannot solve the problem of hunger and ignore the problem of sex. they are bound up together. while the gravest attention is paid to the problem of hunger and food, that of sex is neglected. politicians and scientists are ready and willing to speak of such things as a "high birth rate," infant mortality, the dangers of immigration or over-population. but with few exceptions they cannot bring themselves to speak of birth control. until they shall have broken through the traditional inhibitions concerning the discussion of sexual matters, until they recognize the force of the sexual instinct, and until they recognize birth control as the pivotal factor in the problem confronting the world to-day, our statesmen must continue to work in the dark. political palliatives will be mocked by actuality. economic nostrums are blown willy-nilly in the unending battle of human instincts. a brief survey of the past three or four centuries of western civilization suggests the urgent need of a new science to help humanity in the struggle with the vast problem of to-day's disorder and danger. that problem, as we envisage it, is fundamentally a sexual problem. ethical, political, and economic avenues of approach are insufficient. we must create a new instrument, a new technique to make any adequate solution possible. the history of the industrial revolution and the dominance of all-conquering machinery in western civilization show the inadequacy of political and economic measures to meet the terrific rise in population. the advent of the factory system, due especially to the development of machinery at the beginning of the nineteenth century, upset all the grandiloquent theories of the previous era. to meet the new situation created by the industrial revolution arose the new science of "political economy," or economics. old political methods proved inadequate to keep pace with the problem presented by the rapid rise of the new machine and industrial power. the machine era very shortly and decisively exploded the simple belief that "all men are born free and equal." political power was superseded by economic and industrial power. to sustain their supremacy in the political field, governments and politicians allied themselves to the new industrial oligarchy. old political theories and practices were totally inadequate to control the new situation or to meet the complex problems that grew out of it. just as the eighteenth century saw the rise and proliferation of political theories, the nineteenth witnessed the creation and development of the science of economics, which aimed to perfect an instrument for the study and analysis of an industrial society, and to offer a technique for the solution of the multifold problems it presented. but at the present moment, as the outcome of the machine era and competitive populations, the world has been thrown into a new situation, the solution of which is impossible solely by political or economic weapons. the industrial revolution and the development of machinery in europe and america called into being a new type of working-class. machines were at first termed "labor-saving devices." in reality, as we now know, mechanical inventions and discoveries created unprecedented and increasingly enormous demand for "labor." the omnipresent and still existing scandal of child labor is ample evidence of this. machine production in its opening phases, demanded large, concentrated and exploitable populations. large production and the huge development of international trade through improved methods of transport, made possible the maintenance upon a low level of existence of these rapidly increasing proletarian populations. with the rise and spread throughout europe and america of machine production, it is now possible to correlate the expansion of the "proletariat." the working-classes bred almost automatically to meet the demand for machine-serving "hands." the rise in population, the multiplication of proletarian populations as a first result of mechanical industry, the appearance of great centers of population, the so-called urban drift, and the evils of overcrowding still remain insufficiently studied and stated. it is a significant though neglected fact that when, after long agitation in great britain, child labor was finally forbidden by law, the supply of children dropped appreciably. no longer of economic value in the factory, children were evidently a drug in the "home." yet it is doubly significant that from this moment british labor began the long unending task of self-organization.(1) nineteenth century economics had no method of studying the interrelation of the biological factors with the industrial. overcrowding, overwork, the progressive destruction of responsibility by the machine discipline, as is now perfectly obvious, had the most disastrous consequences upon human character and human habits.(2) paternalistic philanthropies and sentimental charities, which sprang up like mushrooms, only tended to increase the evils of indiscriminate breeding. from the physiological and psychological point of view, the factory system has been nothing less than catastrophic. dr. austin freeman has recently pointed out (3) some of the physiological, psychological, and racial effects of machinery upon the proletariat, the breeders of the world. speaking for great britain, dr. freeman suggests that the omnipresence of machinery tends toward the production of large but inferior populations. evidences of biological and racial degeneracy are apparent to this observer. "compared with the african negro," he writes, "the british sub-man is in several respects markedly inferior. he tends to be dull; he is usually quite helpless and unhandy; he has, as a rule, no skill or knowledge of handicraft, or indeed knowledge of any kind.... over-population is a phenomenon connected with the survival of the unfit, and it is mechanism which has created conditions favorable to the survival of the unfit and the elimination of the fit." the whole indictment against machinery is summarized by dr. freeman: "mechanism by its reactions on man and his environment is antagonistic to human welfare. it has destroyed industry and replaced it by mere labor; it has degraded and vulgarized the works of man; it has destroyed social unity and replaced it by social disintegration and class antagonism to an extent which directly threatens civilization; it has injuriously affected the structural type of society by developing its organization at the expense of the individual; it has endowed the inferior man with political power which he employs to the common disadvantage by creating political institutions of a socially destructive type; and finally by its reactions on the activities of war it constitutes an agent for the wholesale physical destruction of man and his works and the extinction of human culture." it is not necessary to be in absolute agreement with this diagnostician to realize the menace of machinery, which tends to emphasize quantity and mere number at the expense of quality and individuality. one thing is certain. if machinery is detrimental to biological fitness, the machine must be destroyed, as it was in samuel butler's "erewhon." but perhaps there is another way of mastering this problem. altruism, humanitarianism and philanthropy have aided and abetted machinery in the destruction of responsibility and self-reliance among the least desirable elements of the proletariat. in contrast with the previous epoch of discovery of the new world, of exploration and colonization, when a centrifugal influence was at work upon the populations of europe, the advent of machinery has brought with it a counteracting centripetal effect. the result has been the accumulation of large urban populations, the increase of irresponsibility, and ever-widening margin of biological waste. just as eighteenth century politics and political theories were unable to keep pace with the economic and capitalistic aggressions of the nineteenth century, so also we find, if we look closely enough, that nineteenth century economics is inadequate to lead the world out of the catastrophic situation into which it has been thrown by the debacle of the world war. economists are coming to recognize that the purely economic interpretation of contemporary events is insufficient. too long, as one of them has stated, orthodox economists have overlooked the important fact that "human life is dynamic, that change, movement, evolution, are its basic characteristics; that self-expression, and therefore freedom of choice and movement, are prerequisites to a satisfying human state".(4) economists themselves are breaking with the old "dismal science" of the manchester school, with its sterile study of "supply and demand," of prices and exchange, of wealth and labor. like the chicago vice commission, nineteenth-century economists (many of whom still survive into our own day) considered sex merely as something to be legislated out of existence. they had the right idea that wealth consisted solely of material things used to promote the welfare of certain human beings. their idea of capital was somewhat confused. they apparently decided that capital was merely that part of capital used to produce profit. prices, exchanges, commercial statistics, and financial operations comprised the subject matter of these older economists. it would have been considered "unscientific" to take into account the human factors involved. they might study the wear-and-tear and depreciation of machinery: but the depreciation or destruction of the human race did not concern them. under "wealth" they never included the vast, wasted treasury of human life and human expression. economists to-day are awake to the imperative duty of dealing with the whole of human nature, with the relation of men, women, and children to their environment--physical and psychic as well as social; of dealing with all those factors which contribute to human sustenance, happiness and welfare. the economist, at length, investigates human motives. economics outgrows the outworn metaphysical preconceptions of nineteenth century theory. to-day we witness the creation of a new "welfare" or social economics, based on a fuller and more complete knowledge of the human race, upon a recognition of sex as well as of hunger; in brief, of physiological instincts and psychological demands. the newer economists are beginning to recognize that their science heretofore failed to take into account the most vital factors in modern industry--it failed to foresee the inevitable consequences of compulsory motherhood; the catastrophic effects of child labor upon racial health; the overwhelming importance of national vitality and well-being; the international ramifications of the population problem; the relation of indiscriminate breeding to feeble-mindedness, and industrial inefficiency. it speculated too little or not at all on human motives. human nature riots through the traditional economic structure, as carlton parker pointed out, with ridicule and destruction; the old-fashioned economist looked on helpless and aghast. inevitably we are driven to the conclusion that the exhaustively economic interpretation of contemporary history is inadequate to meet the present situation. in his suggestive book, "the acquisitive society," r. h. tawney, arrives at the conclusion that "obsession by economic issues is as local and transitory as it is repulsive and disturbing. to future generations it will appear as pitiable as the obsession of the seventeenth century by religious quarrels appears to-day; indeed, it is less rational, since the object with which it is concerned is less important. and it is a poison which inflames every wound and turns each trivial scratch into a malignant ulcer. society will not solve the particular problems of industry until that poison is expelled, and it has learned to see industry in its proper perspective. if it is to do that it must rearrange the scale of values. it must regard economic interests as one element in life, not as the whole of life...."(5) in neglecting or minimizing the great factor of sex in human society, the marxian doctrine reveals itself as no stronger than orthodox economics in guiding our way to a sound civilization. it works within the same intellectual limitations. much as we are indebted to the marxians for pointing out the injustice of modern industrialism, we should never close our eyes to the obvious limitations of their own "economic interpretation of history." while we must recognize the great historical value of marx, it is now evident that his vision of the "class struggle," of the bitter irreconcilable warfare between the capitalist and working classes was based not upon historical analysis, but upon on unconscious dramatization of a superficial aspect of capitalistic regime. in emphasizing the conflict between the classes, marx failed to recognize the deeper unity of the proletariat and the capitalist. nineteenth century capitalism had in reality engendered and cultivated the very type of working class best suited to its own purpose--an inert, docile, irresponsible and submissive class, progressively incapable of effective and aggressive organization. like the economists of the manchester school, marx failed to recognize the interplay of human instincts in the world of industry. all the virtues were embodied in the beloved proletariat; all the villainies in the capitalists. the greatest asset of the capitalism of that age was, as a matter of fact, the uncontrolled breeding among the laboring classes. the intelligent and self-conscious section of the workers was forced to bear the burden of the unemployed and the poverty-stricken. marx was fully aware of the consequences of this condition of things, but shut his eyes tightly to the cause. he pointed out that capitalistic power was dependent upon "the reserve army of labor," surplus labor, and a wide margin of unemployment. he practically admitted that over-population was the inevitable soil of predatory capitalism. but he disregarded the most obvious consequence of that admission. it was all very dramatic and grandiloquent to tell the workingmen of the world to unite, that they had "nothing but their chains to lose and the world to gain." cohesion of any sort, united and voluntary organization, as events have proved, is impossible in populations bereft of intelligence, self-discipline and even the material necessities of life, and cheated by their desires and ignorance into unrestrained and uncontrolled fertility. in pointing out the limitations and fallacies of the orthodox marxian opinion, my purpose is not to depreciate the efforts of the socialists aiming to create a new society, but rather to emphasize what seems to me the greatest and most neglected truth of our day:--unless sexual science is incorporated as an integral part of world-statesmanship and the pivotal importance of birth control is recognized in any program of reconstruction, all efforts to create a new world and a new civilization are foredoomed to failure. we can hope for no advance until we attain a new conception of sex, not as a merely propagative act, not merely as a biological necessity for the perpetuation of the race, but as a psychic and spiritual avenue of expression. it is the limited, inhibited conception of sex that vitiates so much of the thought and ideation of the eugenists. like most of our social idealists, statesmen, politicians and economists, some of the eugenists suffer intellectually from a restricted and inhibited understanding of the function of sex. this limited understanding, this narrowness of vision, which gives rise to most of the misconceptions and condemnations of the doctrine of birth control, is responsible or the failure of politicians and legislators to enact practical statutes or to remove traditional obscenities from the law books. the most encouraging sign at present is the recognition by modern psychology of the central importance of the sexual instinct in human society, and the rapid spread of this new concept among the more enlightened sections of the civilized communities. the new conception of sex has been well stated by one to whom the debt of contemporary civilization is well-nigh immeasurable. "sexual activity," havelock ellis has written, "is not merely a baldly propagative act, nor, when propagation is put aside, is it merely the relief of distended vessels. it is something more even than the foundation of great social institutions. it is the function by which all the finer activities of the organism, physical and psychic, may be developed and satisfied."(6) no less than seventy years ago, a profound but neglected thinker, george drysdale, emphasized the necessity of a thorough understanding of man's sexual nature in approaching economic, political and social problems. "before we can undertake the calm and impartial investigation of any social problem, we must first of all free ourselves from all those sexual prejudices which are so vehement and violent and which so completely distort our vision of the external world. society as a whole has yet to fight its way through an almost impenetrable forest of sexual taboos." drysdale's words have lost none of their truth even to-day: "there are few things from which humanity has suffered more than the degraded and irreverent feelings of mystery and shame that have been attached to the genital and excretory organs. the former have been regarded, like their corresponding mental passions, as something of a lower and baser nature, tending to degrade and carnalize man by their physical appetites. but we cannot take a debasing view of any part of our humanity without becoming degraded in our whole being."(7) drysdale moreover clearly recognized the social crime of entrusting to sexual barbarians the duty of legislating and enforcing laws detrimental to the welfare of all future generations. "they trust blindly to authority for the rules they blindly lay down," he wrote, "perfectly unaware of the awful and complicated nature of the subject they are dealing with so confidently and of the horrible evils their unconsidered statements are attended with. they themselves break through the most fundamentally important laws daily in utter unconsciousness of the misery they are causing to their fellows...." psychologists to-day courageously emphasize the integral relationship of the expression of the sexual instinct with every phase of human activity. until we recognize this central fact, we cannot understand the implications and the sinister significance of superficial attempts to apply rosewater remedies to social evils,--by the enactment of restrictive and superficial legislation, by wholesale philanthropies and charities, by publicly burying our heads in the sands of sentimentality. self-appointed censors, grossly immoral "moralists," makeshift legislators, all face a heavy responsibility for the miseries, diseases, and social evils they perpetuate or intensify by enforcing the primitive taboos of aboriginal customs, traditions, and outworn laws, which at every step hinder the education of the people in the scientific knowledge of their sexual nature. puritanic and academic taboo of sex in education and religion is as disastrous to human welfare as prostitution or the venereal scourges. "we are compelled squarely to face the distorting influences of biologically aborted reformers as well as the wastefulness of seducers," dr. edward a. kempf recently declared. "man arose from the ape and inherited his passions, which he can only refine but dare not attempt to castrate unless he would destroy the fountains of energy that maintain civilization and make life worth living and the world worth beautifying.... we do not have a problem that is to be solved by making repressive laws and executing them. nothing will be more disastrous. society must make life worth the living and the refining for the individual by conditioning him to love and to seek the love-object in a manner that reflects a constructive effect upon his fellow-men and by giving him suitable opportunities. the virility of the automatic apparatus is destroyed by excessive gormandizing or hunger, by excessive wealth or poverty, by excessive work or idleness, by sexual abuse or intolerant prudishness. the noblest and most difficult art of all is the raising of human thoroughbreds."(8) (1) it may be well to note, in this connection, that the decline in the birth rate among the more intelligent classes of british labor followed upon the famous bradlaugh-besant trial of 1878, the outcome of the attempt of these two courageous birth control pioneers to circulate among the workers the work of an american physician, dr. knowlton's "the fruits of philosophy," advocating birth control, and the widespread publicity resulting from his trial. (2) cf. the creative impulse in industry, by helen marot. the instinct of workmanship, by thorstein veblen. (3) social decay and regeneration. by r. austin freeman. london 1921. (4) carlton h. parker: the casual laborer and other essays: p. 30. (5) r. h. tawney. the acquisitive society, p. 184. (6) medical review of reviews: vol. xxvi, p. 116. (7) the elements of social science: london, 1854. (8) proceedings of the international conference of women physicians. vol. iv, pp. 66-67. new york, 1920. chapter vii: is revolution the remedy? marxian socialism, which seeks to solve the complex problem of human misery by economic and proletarian revolution, has manifested a new vitality. every shade of socialistic thought and philosophy acknowledges its indebtedness to the vision of karl marx and his conception of the class struggle. yet the relation of marxian socialism to the philosophy of birth control, especially in the minds of most socialists, remains hazy and confused. no thorough understanding of birth control, its aims and purposes, is possible until this confusion has been cleared away, and we come to a realization that birth control is not merely independent of, but even antagonistic to the marxian dogma. in recent years many socialists have embraced the doctrine of birth control, and have generously promised us that "under socialism" voluntary motherhood will be adopted and popularized as part of a general educational system. we might more logically reply that no socialism will ever be possible until the problem of responsible parenthood has been solved. many socialists to-day remain ignorant of the inherent conflict between the idea of birth control and the philosophy of marx. the earlier marxians, including karl marx himself, expressed the bitterest antagonism to malthusian and neo-malthusian theories. a remarkable feature of early marxian propaganda has been the almost complete unanimity with which the implications of the malthusian doctrine have been derided, denounced and repudiated. any defense of the so-called "law of population" was enough to stamp one, in the eyes of the orthodox marxians, as a "tool of the capitalistic class," seeking to dampen the ardor of those who expressed the belief that men might create a better world for themselves. malthus, they claimed, was actuated by selfish class motives. he was not merely a hidebound aristocrat, but a pessimist who was trying to kill all hope of human progress. by marx, engels, bebel, karl kautsky, and all the celebrated leaders and interpreters of marx's great "bible of the working class," down to the martyred rosa luxemburg and karl liebknecht, birth control has been looked upon as a subtle, machiavellian sophistry created for the purpose of placing the blame for human misery elsewhere than at the door of the capitalist class. upon this point the orthodox marxian mind has been universally and sternly uncompromising. marxian vituperation of malthus and his followers is illuminating. it reveals not the weakness of the thinker attacked, but of the aggressor. this is nowhere more evident than in marx's "capital" itself. in that monumental effort, it is impossible to discover any adequate refutation or even calm discussion of the dangers of irresponsible parenthood and reckless breeding, any suspicion that this recklessness and irresponsibility is even remotely related to the miseries of the proletariat. poor malthus is there relegated to the humble level of a footnote. "if the reader reminds me of malthus, whose essay on population appeared in 1798," marx remarks somewhat tartly, "i remind him that this work in its first form is nothing more than a schoolboyish, superficial plagiary of de foe, sir james steuart, townsend, franklin, wallace, etc., and does not contain a single sentence thought out by himself. the great sensation this pamphlet caused was due solely to party interest. the french revolution had passionate defenders in the united kingdom.... `the principles of population' was quoted with jubilance by the english oligarchy as the great destroyer of all hankerings after human development."(1) the only attempt that marx makes here toward answering the theory of malthus is to declare that most of the population theory teachers were merely protestant parsons.--"parson wallace, parson townsend, parson malthus and his pupil the arch-parson thomas chalmers, to say nothing of the lesser reverend scribblers in this line." the great pioneer of "scientific" socialism then proceeds to berate parsons as philosophers and economists, using this method of escape from the very pertinent question of surplus population and surplus proletariat in its relation to labor organization and unemployment. it is true that elsewhere (2) he goes so far as to admit that "even malthus recognized over-population as a necessity of modern industry, though, after his narrow fashion, he explains it by the absolute over-growth of the laboring population, not by their becoming relatively supernumerary." a few pages later, however, marx comes back again to the question of over-population, failing to realize that it is to the capitalists' advantage that the working classes are unceasingly prolific. "the folly is now patent," writes the unsuspecting marx, "of the economic wisdom that preaches to the laborers the accommodation of their numbers to the requirements of capital. the mechanism of capitalist production and accumulation constantly affects this adjustment. the first work of this adaptation is the creation of a relatively surplus population or industrial reserve army. its last work is the misery of constantly extending strata of the army of labor, and the dead weight of pauperism." a little later he ventures again in the direction of malthusianism so far as to admit that "the accumulation of wealth at one pole is... at the same time the accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality and mental degradation at the opposite pole." nevertheless, there is no indication that marx permitted himself to see that the proletariat accommodates its numbers to the "requirements of capital" precisely by breeding a large, docile, submissive and easily exploitable population. had the purpose of marx been impartial and scientific, this trifling difference might easily have been overcome and the dangers of reckless breeding insisted upon. but beneath all this wordy pretension and economic jargon, we detect another aim. that is the unconscious dramatization of human society into the "class conflict." nothing was overlooked that might sharpen and accentuate this "conflict." marx depicted a great melodramatic conflict, in which all the virtues were embodied in the proletariat and all the villainies in the capitalist. in the end, as always in such dramas, virtue was to be rewarded and villainy punished. the working class was the temporary victim of a subtle but thorough conspiracy of tyranny and repression. capitalists, intellectuals and the bourgeoisie were all "in on" this diabolic conspiracy, all thoroughly familiar with the plot, which marx was so sure he had uncovered. in the last act was to occur that catastrophic revolution, with the final transformation scene of the socialist millennium. presented in "scientific" phraseology, with all the authority of economic terms, "capital" appeared at the psychological moment. the heaven of the traditional theology had been shattered by darwinian science, and here, dressed up in all the authority of the new science, appeared a new theology, the promise of a new heaven, an earthly paradise, with an impressive scale of rewards for the faithful and ignominious punishments for the capitalists. critics have often been puzzled by the tremendous vitality of this work. its predictions have never, despite the claims of the faithful, been fulfilled. instead of diminishing, the spirit of nationalism has been intensified tenfold. in nearly every respect marx's predictions concerning the evolution of historical and economic forces have been contradicted by events, culminating in the great war. most of his followers, the "revolutionary" socialists, were swept into the whirlpool of nationalistic militarism. nevertheless, this "bible of the working classes" still enjoys a tremendous authority as a scientific work. by some it is regarded as an economic treatise; by others as a philosophy of history; by others as a collection of sociological laws; and finally by others as a moral and political book of reference. criticized, refuted, repudiated and demolished by specialists, it nevertheless exerts its influences and retains its mysterious vitality. we must seek the explanation of this secret elsewhere. modern psychology has taught us that human nature has a tendency to place the cause of its own deficiencies and weaknesses outside of itself, to attribute to some external agency, to some enemy or group of enemies, the blame for its own misery. in his great work marx unconsciously strengthens and encourages this tendency. the immediate effect of his teaching, vulgarized and popularized in a hundred different forms, is to relieve the proletariat of all responsibility for the effects of its reckless breeding, and even to encourage it in the perpetuation of misery. the inherent truth in the marxian teachings was, moreover, immediately subordinated to their emotional and religious appeal. a book that could so influence european thought could not be without merit. but in the process of becoming the "bible of the working classes," "capital" suffered the fate of all such "bibles." the spirit of ecclesiastical dogmatism was transfused into the religion of revolutionary socialism. this dogmatic religious quality has been noted by many of the most observant critics of socialism. marx was too readily accepted as the father of the church, and "capital" as the sacred gospel of the social revolution. all questions of tactics, of propaganda, of class warfare, of political policy, were to be solved by apt quotations from the "good book." new thoughts, new schemes, new programs, based upon tested fact and experience, the outgrowth of newer discoveries concerning the nature of men, upon the recognition of the mistakes of the master, could only be approved or admitted according as they could or could not be tested by some bit of text quoted from marx. his followers assumed that karl marx had completed the philosophy of socialism, and that the duty of the proletariat thenceforth was not to think for itself, but merely to mobilize itself under competent marxian leaders for the realization of his ideas. from the day of this apotheosis of marx until our own, the "orthodox" socialist of any shade is of the belief that the first essential for social salvation lies in unquestioning belief in the dogmas of marx. the curious and persistent antagonism to birth control that began with marx and continues to our own day can be explained only as the utter refusal or inability to consider humanity in its physiological and psychological aspects--these aspects, apparently, having no place in the "economic interpretation of history." it has remained for george bernard shaw, a socialist with a keener spiritual insight than the ordinary marxist, to point out the disastrous consequences of rapid multiplication which are obvious to the small cultivator, the peasant proprietor, the lowest farmhand himself, but which seem to arouse the orthodox, intellectual marxian to inordinate fury. "but indeed the more you degrade the workers," shaw once wrote,(3) "robbing them of all artistic enjoyment, and all chance of respect and admiration from their fellows, the more you throw them back, reckless, upon the one pleasure and the one human tie left to them--the gratification of their instinct for producing fresh supplies of men. you will applaud this instinct as divine until at last the excessive supply becomes a nuisance: there comes a plague of men; and you suddenly discover that the instinct is diabolic, and set up a cry of `over-population.' but your slaves are beyond caring for your cries: they breed like rabbits: and their poverty breeds filth, ugliness, dishonesty, disease, obscenity, drunkenness." lack of insight into fundamental truths of human nature is evident throughout the writings of the marxians. the marxian socialists, according to kautsky, defended women in industry: it was right for woman to work in factories in order to preserve her equality with man! man must not support woman, declared the great french socialist guesde, because that would make her the proletaire of man! bebel, the great authority on woman, famous for his erudition, having critically studied the problem of population, suggested as a remedy for too excessive fecundity the consumption of a certain lard soup reputed to have an "anti-generative" effect upon the agricultural population of upper bavaria! such are the results of the literal and uncritical acceptance of marx's static and mechanical conception of human society, a society perfectly automatic; in which competition is always operating at maximum efficiency; one vast and unending conspiracy against the blameless proletariat. this lack of insight of the orthodox marxians, long represented by the german social-democrats, is nowhere better illustrated than in dr. robinson's account of a mass meeting of the social-democrat party to organize public opinion against the doctrine of birth control among the poor.(4) "another meeting had taken place the week before, at which several eminent socialist women, among them rosa luxemburg and clara zetkin, spoke very strongly against limitation of offspring among the poor--in fact the title of the discussion was gegen den geburtstreik! `against the birth strike!' the interest of the audience was intense. one could see that with them it was not merely a dialectic question, as it was with their leaders, but a matter of life and death. i came to attend a meeting against the limitation of offspring; it soon proved to be a meeting very decidedly for the limitation of offspring, for every speaker who spoke in favor of the artificial prevention of conception or undesired pregnancies, was greeted with vociferous, long-lasting applause; while those who tried to persuade the people that a limited number of children is not a proletarian weapon, and would not improve their lot, were so hissed that they had difficulty going on. the speakers who were against the... idea soon felt that their audience was against them.... why was there such small attendance at the regular socialistic meetings, while the meetings of this character were packed to suffocation? it did not apparently penetrate the leaders' heads that the reason was a simple one. those meetings were evidently of no interest to them, while those which dealt with the limitation of offspring were of personal, vital, present interest.... what particularly amused me--and pained me--in the anti-limitationists was the ease and equanimity with which they advised the poor women to keep on bearing children. the woman herself was not taken into consideration, as if she was not a human being, but a machine. what are her sufferings, her labor pains, her inability to read, to attend meetings, to have a taste of life? what does she amount to? the proletariat needs fighters. go on, females, and breed like animals. maybe of the thousands you bear a few will become party members...." the militant organization of the marxian socialists suggests that their campaign must assume the tactics of militarism of the familiar type. as represented by militaristic governments, militarism like socialism has always encouraged the proletariat to increase and multiply. imperial germany was the outstanding and awful example of this attitude. before the war the fall in the birth-rate was viewed by the junker party with the gravest misgivings. bernhardi and the protagonists of deutschland-uber-alles condemned it in the strongest terms. the marxians unconsciously repeat the words of the government representative, krohne, who, in a debate on the subject in the prussian diet, february 1916, asserted: "unfortunately this view has gained followers amongst the german women.... these women, in refusing to rear strong and able children to continue the race, drag into the dust that which is the highest end of women--motherhood. it is to be hoped that the willingness to bear sacrifices will lead to a change for the better.... we need an increase in human beings to guard against the attacks of envious neighbors as well as to fulfil our cultural mission. our whole economic development depends on increase of our people." today we are fully aware of how imperial germany fulfilled that cultural mission of hers; nor can we overlook the fact that the countries with a smaller birth-rate survived the ordeal. even from the traditional militaristic standpoint, strength does not reside in numbers, though the caesars, the napoleons and the kaisers of the world have always believed that large exploitable populations were necessary for their own individual power. if marxian dictatorship means the dictatorship of a small minority wielding power in the interest of the proletariat, a high-birth rate may be necessary, though we may here recall the answer of the lamented dr. alfred fried to the german imperialists: "it is madness, the apotheosis of unreason, to wish to breed and care for human beings in order that in the flower of their youth they may be sent in millions to be slaughtered wholesale by machinery. we need no wholesale production of men, have no need of the `fruitful fertility of women,' no need of wholesale wares, fattened and dressed for slaughter what we do need is careful maintenance of those already born. if the bearing of children is a moral and religious duty, then it is a much higher duty to secure the sacredness and security of human life, so that children born and bred with trouble and sacrifice may not be offered up in the bloom of youth to a political dogma at the bidding of secret diplomacy." marxism has developed a patriotism of its own, if indeed it has not yet been completely crystallized into a religion. like the "capitalistic" governments it so vehemently attacks, it demands self-sacrifice and even martyrdom from the faithful comrades. but since its strength depends to so great a degree upon "conversion," upon docile acceptance of the doctrines of the "master" as interpreted by the popes and bishops of this new church, it fails to arouse the irreligious proletariat. the marxian socialist boasts of his understanding of "working class psychology" and criticizes the lack of this understanding on the part of all dissenters. but, as the socialists' meetings against the "birth strike" indicate, the working class is not interested in such generalities as the marxian "theory of value," the "iron law" of wages, "the value of commodities" and the rest of the hazy articles of faith. marx inherited the rigid nationalistic psychology of the eighteenth century, and his followers, for the most part, have accepted his mechanical and superficial treatment of instinct.(5) discontented workers may rally to marxism because it places the blame for their misery outside of themselves and depicts their conditions as the result of a capitalistic conspiracy, thereby satisfying that innate tendency of every human being to shift the blame to some living person outside himself, and because it strengthens his belief that his sufferings and difficulties may be overcome by the immediate amelioration of his economic environment. in this manner, psychologists tell us, neuroses and inner compulsions are fostered. no true solution is possible, to continue this analogy, until the worker is awakened to the realization that the roots of his malady lie deep in his own nature, his own organism, his own habits. to blame everything upon the capitalist and the environment produced by capitalism is to focus attention upon merely one of the elements of the problem. the marxian too often forgets that before there was a capitalist there was exercised the unlimited reproductive activity of mankind, which produced the first overcrowding, the first want. this goaded humanity into its industrial frenzy, into warfare and theft and slavery. capitalism has not created the lamentable state of affairs in which the world now finds itself. it has grown out of them, armed with the inevitable power to take advantage of our swarming, spawning millions. as that valiant thinker monsieur g. hardy has pointed out (6) the proletariat may be looked upon, not as the antagonist of capitalism, but as its accomplice. labor surplus, or the "army of reserve" which as for decades and centuries furnished the industrial background of human misery, which so invariably defeats strikes and labor revolts, cannot honestly be blamed upon capitalism. it is, as m. hardy points out, of sexual and proletarian origin. in bringing too many children into the world, in adding to the total of misery, in intensifying the evils of overcrowding, the proletariat itself increases the burden of organized labor; even of the socialist and syndicalist organizations themselves with a surplus of the docilely inefficient, with those great uneducable and unorganizable masses. with surprisingly few exceptions, marxians of all countries have docilely followed their master in rejecting, with bitterness and vindictiveness that is difficult to explain, the principles and teachings of birth control. hunger alone is not responsible for the bitter struggle for existence we witness to-day in our over-advertised civilization. sex, uncontrolled, misdirected, over-stimulated and misunderstood, has run riot at the instigation of priest, militarist and exploiter. uncontrolled sex has rendered the proletariat prostrate, the capitalist powerful. in this continuous, unceasing alliance of sexual instinct and hunger we find the reason for the decline of all the finer sentiments. these instincts tear asunder the thin veils of culture and hypocrisy and expose to our gaze the dark sufferings of gaunt humanity. so have we become familiar with the everyday spectacle of distorted bodies, of harsh and frightful diseases stalking abroad in the light of day; of misshapen heads and visages of moron and imbecile; of starving children in city streets and schools. this is the true soil of unspeakable crimes. defect and delinquency join hands with disease, and accounts of inconceivable and revolting vices are dished up in the daily press. when the majority of men and women are driven by the grim lash of sex and hunger in the unending struggle to feed themselves and to carry the dead-weight of dead and dying progeny, when little children are forced into factories, streets, and shops, education--including even education in the marxian dogmas--is quite impossible; and civilization is more completely threatened than it ever could be by pestilence or war. but, it will be pointed out, the working class has advanced. power has been acquired by labor unions and syndicates. in the beginning power was won by the principle of the restriction of numbers. the device of refusing to admit more than a fixed number of new members to the unions of the various trades has been justified as necessary for the upholding of the standard of wages and of working conditions. this has been the practice in precisely those unions which have been able through years of growth and development to attain tangible strength and power. such a principle of restriction is necessary in the creation of a firmly and deeply rooted trunk or central organization furnishing a local center for more extended organization. it is upon this great principle of restricted number that the labor unions have generated and developed power. they have acquired this power without any religious emotionalism, without subscribing to metaphysical or economic theology. for the millenium and the earthly paradise to be enjoyed at some indefinitely future date, the union member substitutes the very real politics of organization with its resultant benefits. he increases his own independence and comfort and that of his family. he is immune to superstitious belief in and respect for the mysterious power of political or economic nostrums to reconstruct human society according to the marxian formula. in rejecting the marxian hypothesis as superficial and fragmentary, we do so not because of its so-called revolutionary character, its threat to the existing order of things, but rather because of its superficial, emotional and religious character and its deleterious effect upon the life of reason. like other schemes advanced by the alarmed and the indignant, it relies too much upon moral fervor and enthusiasm. to build any social program upon the shifting sands of sentiment and feeling, of indignation or enthusiasm, is a dangerous and foolish task. on the other hand, we should not minimize the importance of the socialist movement in so valiantly and so courageously battling against the stagnating complacency of our conservatives and reactionaries, under whose benign imbecility the defective and diseased elements of humanity are encouraged "full speed ahead" in their reckless and irresponsible swarming and spawning. nevertheless, as george drysdale pointed out nearly seventy years ago; "... if we ignore this and other sexual subjects, we may do whatever else we like: we may bully, we may bluster, we may rage, we may foam at the mouth; we may tear down heaven with our prayers, we may exhaust ourselves with weeping over the sorrows of the poor; we may narcotize ourselves and others with the opiate of christian resignation; we may dissolve the realities of human woe in a delusive mirage of poetry and ideal philosophy; we may lavish our substance in charity, and labor over possible or impossible poor laws; we may form wild dreams of socialism, industrial regiments, universal brotherhood, red republics, or unexampled revolutions; we may strangle and murder each other, we may persecute and despise those whose sexual necessities force them to break through our unnatural moral codes; we may burn alive if we please the prostitutes and the adulterers; we may break our own and our neighbor's hearts against the adamantine laws that surround us, but not one step, not one shall we advance, till we acknowledge these laws, and adopt the only possible mode in which they can be obeyed." these words were written in 1854. recent events have accentuated their stinging truth. (1) marx: "capital." vol. i, p. 675. (2) op. cit. pp, 695, 707, 709. (3) fabian essays in socialism. p. 21. (4) uncontrolled breeding, by adelyne more. p. 84. (5) for a sympathetic treatment of modern psychological research as bearing on communism, by two convinced communists see "creative revolution," by eden and cedar paul. (6) neo-malthusianisme et socialisme, p. 22. chapter viii: dangers of cradle competition eugenics has been defined as "the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either mentally or physically." while there is no inherent conflict between socialism and eugenics, the latter is, broadly, the antithesis of the former. in its propaganda, socialism emphasizes the evil effects of our industrial and economic system. it insists upon the necessity of satisfying material needs, upon sanitation, hygiene, and education to effect the transformation of society. the socialist insists that healthy humanity is impossible without a radical improvement of the social--and therefore of the economic and industrial--environment. the eugenist points out that heredity is the great determining factor in the lives of men and women. eugenics is the attempt to solve the problem from the biological and evolutionary point of view. you may bring all the changes possible on "nurture" or environment, the eugenist may say to the socialist, but comparatively little can be effected until you control biological and hereditary elements of the problem. eugenics thus aims to seek out the root of our trouble, to study humanity as a kinetic, dynamic, evolutionary organism, shifting and changing with the successive generations, rising and falling, cleansing itself of inherent defects, or under adverse and dysgenic influences, sinking into degeneration and deterioration. "eugenics" was first defined by sir francis galton in his "human faculty" in 1884, and was subsequently developed into a science and into an educational effort. galton's ideal was the rational breeding of human beings. the aim of eugenics, as defined by its founder, is to bring as many influences as can be reasonably employed, to cause the useful classes of the community to contribute more than their proportion to the next generation. eugenics thus concerns itself with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage. it is, in short, the attempt to bring reason and intelligence to bear upon heredity. but galton, in spite of the immense value of this approach and his great stimulation to criticism, was completely unable to formulate a definite and practical working program. he hoped at length to introduce eugenics "into the national conscience like a new religion.... i see no impossibility in eugenics becoming a religious dogma among mankind, but its details must first be worked out sedulously in the study. over-zeal leading to hasty action, would do harm by holding out expectations of a new golden age, which will certainly be falsified and cause the science to be discredited. the first and main point is to secure the general intellectual acceptance of eugenics as a hopeful and most important study. then, let its principles work into the heart of the nation, who will gradually give practical effect to them in ways that we may not wholly foresee."(1) galton formulated a general law of inheritance which declared that an individual receives one-half of his inheritance from his two parents, one-fourth from his four grandparents, one-eighth from his great-grandparents, one-sixteenth from his great-great grandparents, and so on by diminishing fractions to his primordial ancestors, the sum of all these fractions added together contributing to the whole of the inherited make-up. the trouble with this generalization, from the modern mendelian point of view, is that it fails to define what "characters" one would get in the one-half that came from one's parents, or the one-fourth from one's grandparents. the whole of our inheritance is not composed of these indefinitely made up fractional parts. we are interested rather in those more specific traits or characters, mental or physical, which, in the mendelian view, are structural and functional units, making up a mosaic rather than a blend. the laws of heredity are concerned with the precise behavior, during a series of generations, of these specific unit characters. this behavior, as the study of genetics shows, may be determined in lesser organisms by experiment. once determined, they are subject to prophecy. the problem of human heredity is now seen to be infinitely more complex than imagined by galton and his followers, and the optimistic hope of elevating eugenics to the level of a religion is a futile one. most of the eugenists, including professor karl pearson and his colleagues of the eugenics laboratory of the university of london and of the biometric laboratory in university college, have retained the age-old point of view of "nature vs. nurture" and have attempted to show the predominating influence of heredity as opposed to environment. this may be true; but demonstrated and repeated in investigation after investigation, it nevertheless remains fruitless and unprofitable from the practical point of view. we should not minimize the great outstanding service of eugenics for critical and diagnostic investigations. it demonstrates, not in terms of glittering generalization but in statistical studies of investigations reduced to measurement and number, that uncontrolled fertility is universally correlated with disease, poverty, overcrowding and the transmission of hereditable taints. professor pearson and his associates show us that "if fertility be correlated with anti-social hereditary characters, a population will inevitably degenerate." this degeneration has already begun. eugenists demonstrate that two-thirds of our manhood of military age are physically too unfit to shoulder a rifle; that the feeble-minded, the syphilitic, the irresponsible and the defective breed unhindered; that women are driven into factories and shops on day-shift and night-shift; that children, frail carriers of the torch of life, are put to work at an early age; that society at large is breeding an ever-increasing army of under-sized, stunted and dehumanized slaves; that the vicious circle of mental and physical defect, delinquency and beggary is encouraged, by the unseeing and unthinking sentimentality of our age, to populate asylum, hospital and prison. all these things the eugenists sees and points out with a courage entirely admirable. but as a positive program of redemption, orthodox eugenics can offer nothing more "constructive" than a renewed "cradle competition" between the "fit" and the "unfit." it sees that the most responsible and most intelligent members of society are the less fertile; that the feeble-minded are the more fertile. herein lies the unbalance, the great biological menace to the future of civilization. are we heading to biological destruction, toward the gradual but certain attack upon the stocks of intelligence and racial health by the sinister forces of the hordes of irresponsibility and imbecility? this is not such a remote danger as the optimistic eugenist might suppose. the mating of the moron with a person of sound stock may, as dr. tredgold points out, gradually disseminate this trait far and wide until it undermines the vigor and efficiency of an entire nation and an entire race. this is no idle fancy. we must take it into account if we wish to escape the fate that has befallen so many civilizations in the past. "it is, indeed, more than likely that the presence of this impairment in a mitigated form is responsible for no little of the defective character, the diminution of mental and moral fiber at the present day," states dr. tredgold.(2) such populations, this distinguished authority might have added, form the veritable "cultures" not only for contagious physical diseases but for mental instability and irresponsibility also. they are susceptible, exploitable, hysterical, non-resistant to external suggestion. devoid of stamina, such folk become mere units in a mob. "the habit of crowd-making is daily becoming a more serious menace to civilization," writes everett dean martin. "our society is becoming a veritable babel of gibbering crowds."(3) it would be only the incorrigible optimist who refused to see the integral relation between this phenomenon and the indiscriminate breeding by which we recruit our large populations. the danger of recruiting our numbers from the most "fertile stocks" is further emphasized when we recall that in a democracy like that of the united states every man and woman is permitted a vote in the government, and that it is the representatives of this grade of intelligence who may destroy our liberties, and who may thus be the most far-reaching peril to the future of civilization. "it is a pathological worship of mere number," writes alleyne ireland, "which has inspired all the efforts--the primary, the direct election of senators, the initiative, the recall and the referendum--to cure the evils of mob rule by increasing the size of the mob and extending its powers."(4) equality of political power has thus been bestowed upon the lowest elements of our population. we must not be surprised, therefore, at the spectacle of political scandal and graft, of the notorious and universally ridiculed low level of intelligence and flagrant stupidity exhibited by our legislative bodies. the congressional record mirrors our political imbecility. all of these dangers and menaces are acutely realized by the eugenists; it is to them that we are most indebted for the proof that reckless spawning carries with it the seeds of destruction. but whereas the galtonians reveal themselves as unflinching in their investigation and in their exhibition of fact and diagnoses of symptoms, they do not on the other hand show much power in suggesting practical and feasible remedies. on its scientific side, eugenics suggests the reestabilishment of the balance between the fertility of the "fit" and the "unfit." the birth-rate among the normal and healthier and finer stocks of humanity, is to be increased by awakening among the "fit" the realization of the dangers of a lessened birth-rate in proportion to the reckless breeding among the "unfit." by education, by persuasion, by appeals to racial ethics and religious motives, the ardent eugenist hopes to increase the fertility of the "fit." professor pearson thinks that it is especially necessary to awaken the hardiest stocks to this duty. these stocks, he says, are to be found chiefly among the skilled artisan class, the intelligent working class. here is a fine combination of health and hardy vigor, of sound body and sound mind. professor pearson and his school of biometrics here ignore or at least fail to record one of those significant "correlations" which form the basis of his method. the publications of the eugenics laboratory all tend to show that a high rate of fertility is correlated with extreme poverty, recklessness, deficiency and delinquency; similarly, that among the more intelligent, this rate of fertility decreases. but the scientific eugenists fail to recognize that this restraint of fecundity is due to a deliberate foresight and is a conscious effort to elevate standards of living for the family and the children of the responsible--and possibly more selfish--sections of the community. the appeal to enter again into competitive child-bearing, for the benefit of the nation or the race, or any other abstraction, will fall on deaf ears. pearson has done invaluable work in pointing out the fallacies and the false conclusions of the ordinary statisticians. but when he attempts to show by the methods of biometrics that not only the first child but also the second, are especially liable to suffer from transmissible pathological defects, such as insanity, criminality and tuberculosis, he fails to recognize that this tendency is counterbalanced by the high mortality rate among later children. if first and second children reveal a greater percentage of heritable defect, it is because the later born children are less liable to survive the conditions produced by a large family. in passing, we should here recognize the difficulties presented by the idea of "fit" and "unfit." who is to decide this question? the grosser, the more obvious, the undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind. but among the writings of the representative eugenists one cannot ignore the distinct middle-class bias that prevails. as that penetrating critic, f. w. stella browne, has said in another connection, "the eugenics education society has among its numbers many most open-minded and truly progressive individuals but the official policy it has pursued for years has been inspired by class-bias and sex bias. the society laments with increasing vehemence the multiplication of the less fortunate classes at a more rapid rate than the possessors of leisure and opportunity. (i do not think it relevant here to discuss whether the innate superiority of endowment in the governing class really is so overwhelming as to justify the eugenics education society's peculiar use of the terms `fit' and `unfit'!) yet it has persistently refused to give any help toward extending the knowledge of contraceptives to the exploited classes. similarly, though the eugenics review, the organ of the society, frequently laments the `selfishness' of the refusal of maternity by healthy and educated women of the professional classes, i have yet to learn that it has made any official pronouncement on the english illegitimacy laws or any organized effort toward defending the unmarried mother." this peculiarly victorian reticence may be inherited from the founder of eugenics. galton declared that the "bohemian" element in the anglo-saxon race is destined to perish, and "the sooner it goes, the happier for mankind." the trouble with any effort of trying to divide humanity into the "fit" and the "unfit," is that we do not want, as h. g. wells recently pointed out,(5) to breed for uniformity but for variety. "we want statesmen and poets and musicians and philosophers and strong men and delicate men and brave men. the qualities of one would be the weaknesses of the other." we want, most of all, genius. proscription on galtonian lines would tend to eliminate many of the great geniuses of the world who were not only "bohemian," but actually and pathologically abnormal--men like rousseau, dostoevsky, chopin, poe, schumann, nietzsche, comte, guy de maupassant,--and how many others? but such considerations should not lead us into error of concluding that such men were geniuses merely because they were pathological specimens, and that the only way to produce a genius is to breed disease and defect. it only emphasizes the dangers of external standards of "fit" and "unfit." these limitations are more strikingly shown in the types of so-called "eugenic" legislation passed or proposed by certain enthusiasts. regulation, compulsion and prohibitions affected and enacted by political bodies are the surest methods of driving the whole problem under-ground. as havelock ellis has pointed out, the absurdity and even hopelessness of effecting eugenic improvement by placing on the statute books prohibitions of legal matrimony to certain classes of people, reveal the weakness of those eugenists who minimize or undervalue the importance of environment as a determining factor. they affirm that heredity is everything and environment nothing, yet forget that it is precisely those who are most universally subject to bad environment who procreate most copiously, most recklessly and most disastrously. such marriage laws are based for the most part on the infantile assumption that procreation is absolutely dependent upon the marriage ceremony, an assumption usually coupled with the complementary one that the only purpose in marriage is procreation. yet it is a fact so obvious that it is hardly worth stating that the most fertile classes who indulge in the most dysgenic type of procreating--the feeble-minded--are almost totally unaffected by marriage laws and marriage-ceremonies. as for the sterilization of habitual criminals, not merely must we know more of heredity and genetics in general, but also acquire more certainty of the justice of our laws and the honesty of their administration before we can make rulings of fitness or unfitness merely upon the basis of a respect for law. on this point the eminent william bateson writes:(6) "criminals are often feeble-minded, but as regards those that are not, the fact that a man is for the purposes of society classified as a criminal, tells me little as to his value, still less as to the possible value of his offspring. it is a fault inherent in criminal jurisprudence, based on non-biological data, that the law must needs take the nature of the offenses rather than that of the offenders as the basis of classification. a change in the right direction has begun, but the problem is difficult and progress will be very slow.... we all know of persons convicted, perhaps even habitually, whom the world could ill spare. therefore i hesitate to proscribe the criminal. proscription... is a weapon with a very nasty recoil. might not some with equal cogency proscribe army contractors and their accomplices, the newspaper patriots? the crimes of the prison population are petty offenses by comparison, and the significance we attach to them is a survival of other days. felonies may be great events, locally, but they do not induce catastrophies. the proclivities of the war-makers are infinitely more dangerous than those of the aberrant beings whom from time to time the law may dub as criminal. consistent and portentous selfishness, combined with dullness of imagination is probably just as transmissible as want of self-control, though destitute of the amiable qualities not rarely associated with the genetic composition of persons of unstable mind." in this connection, we should note another type of "respectable" criminality noted by havelock ellis: "if those persons who raise the cry of `race-suicide' in face of the decline of the birth-rate really had the knowledge and the intelligence to realize the manifold evils which they are invoking, they would deserve to be treated as criminals." our debt to the science of eugenics is great in that it directs our attention to the biological nature of humanity. yet there is too great a tendency among the thinkers of this school, to restrict their ideas of sex to its expression as a purely procreative function. compulsory legislation which would make the inevitably futile attempt to prohibit one of the most beneficent and necessary of human expressions, or regulate it into the channels of preconceived philosophies, would reduce us to the unpleasant days predicted by william blake, when "priests in black gowns will be walking their rounds and binding with briars our joys and desires." eugenics is chiefly valuable in its negative aspects. it is "negative eugenics" that has studied the histories of such families as the jukeses and the kallikaks, that has pointed out the network of imbecility and feeble-mindedness that has been sedulously spread through all strata of society. on its so-called positive or constructive side, it fails to awaken any permanent interest. "constructive" eugenics aims to arouse the enthusiasm or the interest of the people in the welfare of the world fifteen or twenty generations in the future. on its negative side it shows us that we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all--that the wealth of individuals and of states is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization. while it is necessary to point out the importance of "heredity" as a determining factor in human life, it is fatal to elevate it to the position of an absolute. as with environment, the concept of heredity derives its value and its meaning only in so far as it is embodied and made concrete in generations of living organisms. environment and heredity are not antagonistic. our problem is not that of "nature vs. nurture," but rather of nature x nurture, of heredity multiplied by environment, if we may express it thus. the eugenist who overlooks the importance of environment as a determining factor in human life, is as short-sighted as the socialist who neglects the biological nature of man. we cannot disentangle these two forces, except in theory. to the child in the womb, said samuel butler, the mother is "environment." she is, of course, likewise "heredity." the age-old discussion of "nature vs. nurture" has been threshed out time after time, usually fruitlessly, because of a failure to recognize the indivisibility of these biological factors. the opposition or antagonism between them is an artificial and academic one, having no basis in the living organism. the great principle of birth control offers the means whereby the individual may adapt himself to and even control the forces of environment and heredity. entirely apart from its malthusian aspect or that of the population question, birth control must be recognized, as the neo-malthusians pointed out long ago, not "merely as the key of the social position," and the only possible and practical method of human generation, but as the very pivot of civilization. birth control which has been criticized as negative and destructive, is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method, and its adoption as part of the program of eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to that science. as a matter of fact, birth control has been accepted by the most clear thinking and far seeing of the eugenists themselves as the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial health.(7) (1) galton. essays in eugenics, p. 43. (2) eugenics review, vol. xiii, p. 349. (3) cf. martin, the behavior of crowds, p. 6. (4) cf. democracy and the human equation. e. p. dutton & co., 1921. (5) cf. the salvaging of civilization. (6) common sense in racial problems. by w. bateson, m. a. a., f. r. s. (7) among these are dean w. r. inge, professor j. arthur thomson, dr. havelock ellis, professor william bateson, major leonard darwin and miss norah march. chapter ix: a moral necessity i went to the garden of love, and saw what i never had seen; a chapel was built in the midst, where i used to play on the green. and the gates of this chapel were shut, and "thou shalt not" writ over the door; so i turned to the garden of love that so many sweet flowers bore. and i saw it was filled with graves, and tombstones where flowers should be; and priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, and binding with briars my joys and desires. --william blake orthodox opposition to birth control is formulated in the official protest of the national council of catholic women against the resolution passed by the new york state federation of women's clubs which favored the removal of all obstacles to the spread of information regarding practical methods of birth control. the catholic statement completely embodies traditional opposition to birth control. it affords a striking contrast by which we may clarify and justify the ethical necessity for this new instrument of civilization as the most effective basis for practical and scientific morality. "the authorities at rome have again and again declared that all positive methods of this nature are immoral and forbidden," states the national council of catholic women. "there is no question of the lawfulness of birth restriction through abstinence from the relations which result in conception. the immorality of birth control as it is practised and commonly understood, consists in the evils of the particular method employed. these are all contrary to the moral law because they are unnatural, being a perversion of a natural function. human faculties are used in such a way as to frustrate the natural end for which these faculties were created. this is always intrinsically wrong--as wrong as lying and blasphemy. no supposed beneficial consequence can make good a practice which is, in itself, immoral.... "the evil results of the practice of birth control are numerous. attention will be called here to only three. the first is the degradation of the marital relation itself, since the husband and wife who indulge in any form of this practice come to have a lower idea of married life. they cannot help coming to regard each other to a great extent as mutual instruments of sensual gratification, rather than as cooperators with the creating in bringing children into the world. this consideration may be subtle but it undoubtedly represents the facts. "in the second place, the deliberate restriction of the family through these immoral practices deliberately weakens self-control and the capacity for self-denial, and increases the love of ease and luxury. the best indication of this is that the small family is much more prevalent in the classes that are comfortable and well-to-do than among those whose material advantages are moderate or small. the theory of the advocates of birth control is that those parents who are comfortably situated should have a large number of children (sic!) while the poor should restrict their offspring to a much smaller number. this theory does not work, for the reason that each married couple have their own idea of what constitutes unreasonable hardship in the matter of bearing and rearing children. a large proportion of the parents who are addicted to birth control practices are sufficiently provided with worldly goods to be free from apprehension on the economic side; nevertheless, they have small families because they are disinclined to undertake the other burdens involved in bringing up a more numerous family. a practice which tends to produce such exaggerated notions of what constitutes hardship, which leads men and women to cherish such a degree of ease, makes inevitably for inefficiency, a decline in the capacity to endure and to achieve, and for a general social decadence. "finally, birth control leads sooner or later to a decline in population...." (the case of france is instanced.) but it is essentially the moral question that alarms the catholic women, for the statement concludes: "the further effect of such proposed legislation will inevitably be a lowering both of public and private morals. what the fathers of this country termed indecent and forbade the mails to carry, will, if such legislation is carried through, be legally decent. the purveyors of sexual license and immorality will have the opportunity to send almost anything they care to write through the mails on the plea that it is sex information. not only the married but also the unmarried will be thus affected; the ideals of the young contaminated and lowered. the morals of the entire nation will suffer. "the proper attitude of catholics... is clear. they should watch and oppose all attempts in state legislatures and in congress to repeal the laws which now prohibit the dissemination of information concerning birth control. such information will be spread only too rapidly despite existing laws. to repeal these would greatly accelerate this deplorable movement.(1)" the catholic position has been stated in an even more extreme form by archbishop patrick j. hayes of the archdiocese of new york. in a "christmas pastoral" this dignitary even went to the extent of declaring that "even though some little angels in the flesh, through the physical or mental deformities of their parents, may appear to human eyes hideous, misshapen, a blot on civilized society, we must not lose sight of this christian thought that under and within such visible malformation, lives an immortal soul to be saved and glorified for all eternity among the blessed in heaven."(2) with the type of moral philosophy expressed in this utterance, we need not argue. it is based upon traditional ideas that have had the practical effect of making this world a vale of tears. fortunately such words carry no weight with those who can bring free and keen as well as noble minds to the consideration of the matter. to them the idealism of such an utterance appears crude and cruel. the menace to civilization of such orthodoxy, if it be orthodoxy, lies in the fact that its powerful exponents may be for a time successful not merely in influencing the conduct of their adherents but in checking freedom of thought and discussion. to this, with all the vehemence of emphasis at our command, we object. from what archbishop hayes believes concerning the future blessedness in heaven of the souls of those who are born into this world as hideous and misshapen beings he has a right to seek such consolation as may be obtained; but we who are trying to better the conditions of this world believe that a healthy, happy human race is more in keeping with the laws of god, than disease, misery and poverty perpetuating itself generation after generation. furthermore, while conceding to catholic or other churchmen full freedom to preach their own doctrines, whether of theology or morals, nevertheless when they attempt to carry these ideas into legislative acts and force their opinions and codes upon the non-catholics, we consider such action an interference with the principles of democracy and we have a right to protest. religious propaganda against birth control is crammed with contradiction and fallacy. it refutes itself. yet it brings the opposing views into vivid contrast. in stating these differences we should make clear that advocates of birth control are not seeking to attack the catholic church. we quarrel with that church, however, when it seeks to assume authority over non-catholics and to dub their behavior immoral because they do not conform to the dictatorship of rome. the question of bearing and rearing children we hold is the concern of the mother and the potential mother. if she delegates the responsibility, the ethical education, to an external authority, that is her affair. we object, however, to the state or the church which appoints itself as arbiter and dictator in this sphere and attempts to force unwilling women into compulsory maternity. when catholics declare that "the authorities at rome have again and again declared that all positive methods of this nature are immoral and forbidden," they do so upon the assumption that morality consists in conforming to laws laid down and enforced by external authority, in submission to decrees and dicta imposed from without. in this case, they decide in a wholesale manner the conduct of millions, demanding of them not the intelligent exercise of their own individual judgment and discrimination, but unquestioning submission and conformity to dogma. the church thus takes the place of all-powerful parents, and demands of its children merely that they should obey. in my belief such a philosophy hampers the development of individual intelligence. morality then becomes a more or less successful attempt to conform to a code, instead of an attempt to bring reason and intelligence to bear upon the solution of each individual human problem. but, we read on, birth control methods are not merely contrary to "moral law," but forbidden because they are "unnatural," being "the perversion of a natural function." this, of course, is the weakest link in the whole chain. yet "there is no question of the lawfulness of birth restriction through abstinence"--as though abstinence itself were not unnatural! for more than a thousand years the church was occupied with the problem of imposing abstinence on its priesthood, its most educated and trained body of men, educated to look upon asceticism as the finest ideal; it took one thousand years to convince the catholic priesthood that abstinence was "natural" or practicable.(3) nevertheless, there is still this talk of abstinence, self-control, and self-denial, almost in the same breath with the condemnation of birth control as "unnatural." if it is our duty to act as "cooperators with the creator" to bring children into the world, it is difficult to say at what point our behavior is "unnatural." if it is immoral and "unnatural" to prevent an unwanted life from coming into existence, is it not immoral and "unnatural" to remain unmarried from the age of puberty? such casuistry is unconvincing and feeble. we need only point out that rational intelligence is also a "natural" function, and that it is as imperative for us to use the faculties of judgment, criticism, discrimination of choice, selection and control, all the faculties of the intelligence, as it is to use those of reproduction. it is certainly dangerous "to frustrate the natural ends for which these faculties were created." this also, is always intrinsically wrong--as wrong as lying and blasphemy--and infinitely more devastating. intelligence is as natural to us as any other faculty, and it is fatal to moral development and growth to refuse to use it and to delegate to others the solution of our individual problems. the evil will not be that one's conduct is divergent from current and conventional moral codes. there may be every outward evidence of conformity, but this agreement may be arrived at, by the restriction and suppression of subjective desires, and the more or less successful attempt at mere conformity. such "morality" would conceal an inner conflict. the fruits of this conflict would be neurosis and hysteria on the one hand; or concealed gratification of suppressed desires on the other, with a resultant hypocrisy and cant. true morality cannot be based on conformity. there must be no conflict between subjective desire and outward behavior. to object to these traditional and churchly ideas does not by any means imply that the doctrine of birth control is anti-christian. on the contrary, it may be profoundly in accordance with the sermon on the mount. one of the greatest living theologians and most penetrating students of the problems of civilization is of this opinion. in an address delivered before the eugenics education society of london,(4) william ralph inge, the very reverend dean of st. paul's cathedral, london, pointed out that the doctrine of birth control was to be interpreted as of the very essence of christianity. "we should be ready to give up all our theories," he asserted, "if science proved that we were on the wrong lines. and we can understand, though we profoundly disagree with, those who oppose us on the grounds of authority.... we know where we are with a man who says, `birth control is forbidden by god; we prefer poverty, unemployment, war, the physical, intellectual and moral degeneration of the people, and a high death rate, to any interference with the universal command to be fruitful and multiply'; but we have no patience with those who say that we can have unrestricted and unregulated propagation without those consequences. it is a great part of our work to press home to the public mind the alternative that lies before us. either rational selection must take the place of the natural selection which the modern state will not allow to act, or we must go on deteriorating. when we can convince the public of this, the opposition of organized religion will soon collapse or become ineffective." dean inge effectively answers those who have objected to the methods of birth control as "immoral" and in contradiction and inimical to the teachings of christ. incidentally he claims that those who are not blinded by prejudices recognize that "christianity aims at saving the soul--the personality, the nature, of man, not his body or his environment. according to christianity, a man is saved, not by what he has, or knows, or does, but by what he is. it treats all the apparatus of life with a disdain as great as that of the biologist; so long as a man is inwardly healthy, it cares very little whether he is rich or poor, learned or simple, and even whether he is happy, or unhappy. it attaches no importance to quantitative measurements of any kind. the christian does not gloat over favorable trade-statistics, nor congratulate himself on the disparity between the number of births and deaths. for him... the test of the welfare of a country is the quality of human beings whom it produces. quality is everything, quantity is nothing. and besides this, the christian conception of a kingdom of god upon the earth teaches us to turn our eyes to the future, and to think of the welfare of posterity as a thing which concerns us as much as that of our own generation. this welfare, as conceived by christianity, is of course something different from external prosperity; it is to be the victory of intrinsic worth and healthiness over all the false ideals and deep-seated diseases which at present spoil civilization." "it is not political religion with which i am concerned," dean inge explained, "but the convictions of really religious persons; and i do not think that we need despair of converting them to our views." dean inge believes birth control is an essential part of eugenics, and an essential part of christian morality. on this point he asserts: "we do wish to remind our orthodox and conservative friends that the sermon on the mount contains some admirably clear and unmistakable eugenic precepts. `do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit, neither can a good tree bring forth evil fruit. every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.' we wish to apply these words not only to the actions of individuals, which spring from their characters, but to the character of individuals, which spring from their inherited qualities. this extension of the scope of the maxim seems to me quite legitimate. men do not gather grapes of thorns. as our proverb says, you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. if we believe this, and do not act upon it by trying to move public opinion towards giving social reform, education and religion a better material to work upon, we are sinning against the light, and not doing our best to bring in the kingdom of god upon earth." as long as sexual activity is regarded in a dualistic and contradictory light,--in which it is revealed either as the instrument by which men and women "cooperate with the creator" to bring children into the world, on the one hand; and on the other, as the sinful instrument of self-gratification, lust and sensuality, there is bound to be an endless conflict in human conduct, producing ever increasing misery, pain and injustice. in crystallizing and codifying this contradiction, the church not only solidified its own power over men but reduced women to the most abject and prostrate slavery. it was essentially a morality that would not "work." the sex instinct in the human race is too strong to be bound by the dictates of any church. the church's failure, its century after century of failure, is now evident on every side: for, having convinced men and women that only in its baldly propagative phase is sexual expression legitimate, the teachings of the church have driven sex under-ground, into secret channels, strengthened the conspiracy of silence, concentrated men's thoughts upon the "lusts of the body," have sown, cultivated and reaped a crop of bodily and mental diseases, and developed a society congenitally and almost hopelessly unbalanced. how is any progress to be made, how is any human expression or education possible when women and men are taught to combat and resist their natural impulses and to despise their bodily functions? humanity, we are glad to realize, is rapidly freeing itself from this "morality" imposed upon it by its self-appointed and self-perpetuating masters. from a hundred different points the imposing edifice of this "morality" has been and is being attacked. sincere and thoughtful defenders and exponents of the teachings of christ now acknowledge the falsity of the traditional codes and their malignant influence upon the moral and physical well-being of humanity. ecclesiastical opposition to birth control on the part of certain representatives of the protestant churches, based usually on quotations from the bible, is equally invalid, and for the same reason. the attitude of the more intelligent and enlightened clergy has been well and succinctly expressed by dean inge, who, referring to the ethics of birth control, writes: "this is emphatically a matter in which every man and woman must judge for themselves, and must refrain from judging others." we must not neglect the important fact that it is not merely in the practical results of such a decision, not in the small number of children, not even in the healthier and better cared for children, not in the possibility of elevating the living conditions of the individual family, that the ethical value of birth control alone lies. precisely because the practice of birth control does demand the exercise of decision, the making of choice, the use of the reasoning powers, is it an instrument of moral education as well as of hygienic and racial advance. it awakens the attention of parents to their potential children. it forces upon the individual consciousness the question of the standards of living. in a profound manner it protects and reasserts the inalienable rights of the child-to-be. psychology and the outlook of modern life are stressing the growth of independent responsibility and discrimination as the true basis of ethics. the old traditional morality, with its train of vice, disease, promiscuity and prostitution, is in reality dying out, killing itself off because it is too irresponsible and too dangerous to individual and social well-being. the transition from the old to the new, like all fundamental changes, is fraught with many dangers. but it is a revolution that cannot be stopped. the smaller family, with its lower infant mortality rate, is, in more definite and concrete manner than many actions outwardly deemed "moral," the expression of moral judgment and responsibility. it is the assertion of a standard of living, inspired by the wish to obtain a fuller and more expressive life for the children than the parents have enjoyed. if the morality or immorality of any course of conduct is to be determined by the motives which inspire it, there is evidently at the present day no higher morality than the intelligent practice of birth control. the immorality of many who practise birth control lies in not daring to preach what they practise. what is the secret of the hypocrisy of the well-to-do, who are willing to contribute generously to charities and philanthropies, who spend thousands annually in the upkeep and sustenance of the delinquent, the defective and the dependent; and yet join the conspiracy of silence that prevents the poorer classes from learning how to improve their conditions, and elevate their standards of living? it is as though they were to cry: "we'll give you anything except the thing you ask for--the means whereby you may become responsible and self-reliant in your own lives." the brunt of this injustice falls on women, because the old traditional morality is the invention of men. "no religion, no physical or moral code," wrote the clear-sighted george drysdale, "proposed by one sex for the other, can be really suitable. each must work out its laws for itself in every department of life." in the moral code developed by the church, women have been so degraded that they have been habituated to look upon themselves through the eyes of men. very imperfectly have women developed their own self-consciousness, the realization of their tremendous and supreme position in civilization. women can develop this power only in one way; by the exercise of responsibility, by the exercise of judgment, reason or discrimination. they need ask for no "rights." they need only assert power. only by the exercise of self-guidance and intelligent self-direction can that inalienable, supreme, pivotal power be expressed. more than ever in history women need to realize that nothing can ever come to us from another. everything we attain we must owe to ourselves. our own spirit must vitalize it. our own heart must feel it. for we are not passive machines. we are not to be lectured, guided and molded this way or that. we are alive and intelligent, we women, no less than men, and we must awaken to the essential realization that we are living beings, endowed with will, choice, comprehension, and that every step in life must be taken at our own initiative. moral and sexual balance in civilization will only be established by the assertion and expression of power on the part of women. this power will not be found in any futile seeking for economic independence or in the aping of men in industrial and business pursuits, nor by joining battle for the so-called "single standard." woman's power can only be expressed and make itself felt when she refuses the task of bringing unwanted children into the world to be exploited in industry and slaughtered in wars. when we refuse to produce battalions of babies to be exploited; when we declare to the nation; "show us that the best possible chance in life is given to every child now brought into the world, before you cry for more! at present our children are a glut on the market. you hold infant life cheap. help us to make the world a fit place for children. when you have done this, we will bear you children,--then we shall be true women." the new morality will express this power and responsibility on the part of women. "with the realization of the moral responsibility of women," writes havelock ellis, "the natural relations of life spring back to their due biological adjustment. motherhood is restored to its natural sacredness. it becomes the concern of the woman herself, and not of society nor any individual, to determine the conditions under which the child shall be conceived...." moreover, woman shall further assert her power by refusing to remain the passive instrument of sensual self-gratification on the part of men. birth control, in philosophy and practice, is the destroyer of that dualism of the old sexual code. it denies that the sole purpose of sexual activity is procreation; it also denies that sex should be reduced to the level of sensual lust, or that woman should permit herself to be the instrument of its satisfaction. in increasing and differentiating her love demands, woman must elevate sex into another sphere, whereby it may subserve and enhance the possibility of individual and human expression. man will gain in this no less than woman; for in the age-old enslavement of woman he has enslaved himself; and in the liberation of womankind, all of humanity will experience the joys of a new and fuller freedom. on this great fundamental and pivotal point new light has been thrown by lord bertrand dawson, the physician of the king of england. in the remarkable and epoch-making address at the birmingham church congress (referred to in my introduction), he spoke of the supreme morality of the mutual and reciprocal joy in the most intimate relation between man and woman. without this reciprocity there can be no civilization worthy of the name. lord dawson suggested that there should be added to the clauses of marriage in the prayer book "the complete realization of the love of this man and this woman one for another," and in support of his contention declared that sex love between husband and wife--apart from parenthood--was something to prize and cherish for its own sake. the lambeth conference, he remarked, "envisaged a love invertebrate and joyless," whereas, in his view, natural passion in wedlock was not a thing to be ashamed of or unduly repressed. the pronouncement of the church of england, as set forth in resolution 68 of the lambeth conference seems to imply condemnation of sex love as such, and to imply sanction of sex love only as a means to an end,--namely, procreation. the lambeth resolution stated: "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 considerations 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." in answer to this point of view lord dawson asserted: "sex love has, apart from parenthood, a purport of its own. it is something to prize and to cherish for its own sake. it is an essential part of health and happiness in marriage. and now, if you will allow me, i will carry this argument a step further. if sexual union is a gift of god it is worth learning how to use it. within its own sphere it should be cultivated so as to bring physical satisfaction to both, not merely to one.... the real problems before us are those of sex love and child love; and by sex love i mean that love which involves intercourse or the desire for such. it is necessary to my argument to emphasize that sex love is one of the dominating forces of the world. not only does history show the destinies of nations and dynasties determined by its sway--but here in our every-day life we see its influence, direct or indirect, forceful and ubiquitous beyond aught else. any statesmanlike view, therefore, will recognize that here we have an instinct so fundamental, so imperious, that its influence is a fact which has to be accepted; suppress it you cannot. you may guide it into healthy channels, but an outlet it will have, and if that outlet is inadequate and unduly obstructed irregular channels will be forced.... "the attainment of mutual and reciprocal joy in their relations constitutes a firm bond between two people, and makes for durability of the marriage tie. reciprocity in sex love is the physical counterpart of sympathy. more marriages fail from inadequate and clumsy sex love than from too much sex love. the lack of proper understanding is in no small measure responsible for the unfulfillment of connubial happiness, and every degree of discontent and unhappiness may, from this cause, occur, leading to rupture of the marriage bond itself. how often do medical men have to deal with these difficulties, and how fortunate if such difficulties are disclosed early enough in married life to be rectified. otherwise how tragic may be their consequences, and many a case in the divorce court has thus had its origin. to the foregoing contentions, it might be objected, you are encouraging passion. my reply would be, passion is a worthy possession--most men, who are any good, are capable of passion. you all enjoy ardent and passionate love in art and literature. why not give it a place in real life? why some people look askance at passion is because they are confusing it with sensuality. sex love without passion is a poor, lifeless thing. sensuality, on the other hand, is on a level with gluttony--a physical excess--detached from sentiment, chivalry, or tenderness. it is just as important to give sex love its place as to avoid its over-emphasis. its real and effective restraints are those imposed by a loving and sympathetic companionship, by the privileges of parenthood, the exacting claims of career and that civic sense which prompts men to do social service. now that the revision of the prayer book is receiving consideration, i should like to suggest with great respect an addition made to the objects of marriage in the marriage service, in these terms, 'the complete realization of the love of this man and this woman, the one for the other.'" turning to the specific problem of birth control, lord dawson declared, "that birth control is here to stay. it is an established fact, and for good or evil has to be accepted. although the extent of its application can be and is being modified, no denunciations will abolish it. despite the influence and condemnations of the church, it has been practised in france for well over half a century, and in belgium and other roman catholic countries is extending. and if the roman catholic church, with its compact organization, its power of authority, and its disciplines, cannot check this procedure, it is not 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. the reasons which lead parents to limit their offspring are sometimes selfish, but more often honorable and cogent." a report of the fabian society (5) on the morality of birth control, based upon a census conducted under the chairmanship of sidney webb, concludes: "these facts--which we are bound to face whether we like them or not--will appear in different lights to different people. in some quarters it seems to be sufficient to dismiss them with moral indignation, real or simulated. such a judgment appears both irrelevant and futile.... if a course of conduct is habitually and deliberately pursued by vast multitudes of otherwise well-conducted people, forming probably a majority of the whole educated class of the nation, we must assume that it does not conflict with their actual code of morality. they may be intellectually mistaken, but they are not doing what they feel to be wrong." the moral justification and ethical necessity of birth control need not be empirically based upon the mere approval of experience and custom. its morality is more profound. birth control is an ethical necessity for humanity to-day because it places in our hands a new instrument of self-expression and self-realization. it gives us control over one of the primordial forces of nature, to which in the past the majority of mankind have been enslaved, and by which it has been cheapened and debased. it arouses us to the possibility of newer and greater freedom. it develops the power, the responsibility and intelligence to use this freedom in living a liberated and abundant life. it permits us to enjoy this liberty without danger of infringing upon the similar liberty of our fellow men, or of injuring and curtailing the freedom of the next generation. it shows us that we need not seek in the amassing of worldly wealth, not in the illusion of some extra-terrestrial heaven or earthly utopia of a remote future the road to human development. the kingdom of heaven is in a very definite sense within us. not by leaving our body and our fundamental humanity behind us, not by aiming to be anything but what we are, shall we become ennobled or immortal. by knowing ourselves, by expressing ourselves, by realizing ourselves more completely than has ever before been possible, not only shall we attain the kingdom ourselves but we shall hand on the torch of life undimmed to our children and the children of our children. (1) quoted in the national catholic welfare council bulletin: vol. ii, no. 5, p. 21 (january, 1921). (2) quoted in daily press, december 19, 1921. (3) h. c. lea: history of sacerdotal celibacy (philadelphia, 1967). (4) eugenics review, january 1921. (5) fabian tract no. 131. chapter x: science the ally "there is but one hope. ignorance, poverty, and vice must stop populating the world. this cannot be done by moral suasion. this cannot be done by talk or example. this cannot be done by religion or by law, by priest or by hangman. this cannot be done by force, physical or moral. to accomplish this there is but one way. science must make woman the owner, the mistress of herself. science, the only possible savior of mankind, must put it in the power of woman to decide for herself whether she will or will not become a mother." robert g. ingersoll "science is the great instrument of social change," wrote a. j. balfour in 1908; "all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of religious and political strife, is the most vital of all revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilization." the birth control movement has allied itself with science, and no small part of its present propaganda is to awaken the interest of scientists to the pivotal importance to civilization of this instrument. only with the aid of science is it possible to perfect a practical method that may be universally taught. as dean inge recently admitted: "we should be ready to give up all our theories if science proved that we were on the wrong lines." one of the principal aims of the american birth control league has been to awaken the interest of scientific investigators and to point out the rich field for original research opened up by this problem. the correlation of reckless breeding with defective and delinquent strains, has not, strangely enough, been subjected to close scientific scrutiny, nor has the present biological unbalance been traced to its root. this is a crying necessity of our day, and it cannot be accomplished without the aid of science. secondary only to the response of women themselves is the awakened interest of scientists, statisticians, and research workers in every field. if the clergy and the defenders of traditional morality have opposed the movement for birth control, the response of enlightened scientists and physicians has been one of the most encouraging aids in our battle. recent developments in the realm of science,--in psychology, in physiology, in chemistry and physics--all tend to emphasize the immediate necessity for human control over the great forces of nature. the new ideas published by contemporary science are of the utmost fascination and illumination even to the layman. they perform the invaluable task of making us look at life in a new light, of searching close at hand for the solution to heretofore closed mysteries of life. in this brief chapter, i can touch these ideas only as they have proved valuable to me. professor soddy's "science and life" is one of the most inspiring of recent publications in this field; for this great authority shows us how closely bound up is science with the whole of society, how science must help to solve the great and disastrous unbalance in human society. as an example: a whole literature has sprung into being around the glands, the most striking being "the sex complex" by blair bell. this author advances the idea of the glandular system as an integral whole, the glands forming a unity which might be termed the generative system. thus is reasserted the radical importance of sexual health to every individual. the whole tendency of modern physiology and psychology, in a word, seems gradually coming to the truth that seemed intuitively to be revealed to that great woman, olive schreiner, who, in "woman and labor" wrote: "... noble is the function of physical reproduction of humanity by the union of man and woman. rightly viewed, that union has in it latent, other and even higher forms of creative energy and life-dispensing power, and... its history on earth has only begun; as the first wild rose when it hung from its stem with its center of stamens and pistils and its single whorl of pale petals had only begun its course, and was destined, as the ages passed, to develop stamen upon stamen and petal upon petal, till it assumed a hundred forms of joy and beauty. "and it would indeed almost seem, that, on the path toward the higher development of sexual life on earth, as man has so often had to lead in other paths, that here it is perhaps woman, by reason of those very sexual conditions which in the past have crushed and trammeled her, who is bound to lead the way and man to follow. so that it may be at last that sexual love--that tired angel who through the ages has presided over the march of humanity, with distraught eyes, and feather-shafts broken and wings drabbled in the mires of lust and greed, and golden locks caked over with the dust of injustice and oppression--till those looking at him have sometimes cried in terror, `he is the evil and not the good of life': and have sought if it were not possible, to exterminate him--shall yet, at last, bathed from the mire and dust of ages in the streams of friendship and freedom, leap upwards, with white wings spread, resplendent in the sunshine of a distant future--the essentially good and beautiful of human existence." to-day science is verifying the truth of this inspiring vision. certain fundamental truths concerning the basic facts of nature and humanity especially impress us. a rapid survey may indicate the main features of this mysterious identity and antagonism. mankind has gone forward by the capture and control of the forces of nature. this upward struggle began with the kindling of the first fire. the domestication of animal life marked another great step in the long ascent. the capture of the great physical forces, the discovery of coal and mineral oil, of gas, steam and electricity, and their adaptation to the everyday uses of mankind, wrought the greatest changes in the course of civilization. with the discovery of radium and radioactivity, with the recognition of the vast stores of physical energy concealed in the atom, humanity is now on the eve of a new conquest. but, on the other side, humanity has been compelled to combat continuously those great forces of nature which have opposed it at every moment of this long indomitable march out of barbarism. humanity has had to wage war against insects, germs, bacteria, which have spread disease and epidemics and devastation. humanity has had to adapt itself to those natural forces it could not conquer but could only adroitly turn to its own ends. nevertheless, all along the line, in colonization, in agriculture, in medicine and in industry, mankind has triumphed over nature. but lest the recognition of this victory lead us to self-satisfaction and complacency, we should never forget that this mastery consists to a great extent in a recognition of the power of those blind forces, and our adroit control over them. it has been truly said that we attain no power over nature until we learn natural laws and conform and adapt ourselves to them. the strength of the human race has been its ability not merely to subjugate the forces of nature, but to adapt itself to those it could not conquer. and even this subjugation, science tells us, has not resulted from any attempt to suppress, prohibit, or eradicate these forces, but rather to transform blind and undirected energies to our own purposes. these great natural forces, science now asserts, are not all external. they are surely concealed within the complex organism of the human being no less than outside of it. these inner forces are no less imperative, no less driving and compelling than the external forces of nature. as the old conception of the antagonism between body and soul is broken down, as psychology becomes an ally of physiology and biology, and biology joins hands with physics and chemistry, we are taught to see that there is a mysterious unity between these inner and outer forces. they express themselves in accordance with the same structural, physical and chemical laws. the development of civilization in the subjective world, in the sphere of behavior, conduct and morality, has been precisely the gradual accumulation and popularization of methods which teach people how to direct, transform and transmute the driving power of the great natural forces. psychology is now recognizing the forces concealed in the human organism. in the long process of adaptation to social life, men have had to harness the wishes and desires born of these inner energies, the greatest and most imperative of which are sex and hunger. from the beginning of time, men have been driven by hunger into a thousand activities. it is hunger that has created "the struggle for existence." hunger has spurred men to the discovery and invention of methods and ways of avoiding starvation, of storing and exchanging foods. it has developed primitive barter into our contemporary wall streets. it has developed thrift and economy,--expedients whereby humanity avoids the lash of king hunger. the true "economic interpretation of history" might be termed the history of hunger. but no less fundamental, no less imperative, no less ceaseless in its dynamic energy, has been the great force of sex. we do not yet know the intricate but certainly organic relationship between these two forces. it is obvious that they oppose yet reinforce each other,--driving, lashing, spurring mankind on to new conquests or to certain ruin. perhaps hunger and sex are merely opposite poles of a single great life force. in the past we have made the mistake of separating them and attempting to study one of them without the other. birth control emphasizes the need of re-investigation and of knowledge of their integral relationship, and aims at the solution of the great problem of hunger and sex at one and the same time. in the more recent past the effort has been made to control, civilize, and sublimate the great primordial natural force of sex, mainly by futile efforts at prohibition, suppression, restraint, and extirpation. its revenge, as the psychoanalysts are showing us every day, has been great. insanity, hysteria, neuroses, morbid fears and compulsions, weaken and render useless and unhappy thousands of humans who are unconscious victims of the attempt to pit individual powers against this great natural force. in the solution of the problem of sex, we should bear in mind what the successful method of humanity has been in its conquest, or rather its control of the great physical and chemical forces of the external world. like all other energy, that of sex is indestructible. by adaptation, control and conscious direction, we may transmute and sublimate it. without irreparable injury to ourselves we cannot attempt to eradicate it or extirpate it. the study of atomic energy, the discovery of radioactivity, and the recognition of potential and latent energies stored in inanimate matter, throw a brilliant illumination upon the whole problem of sex and the inner energies of mankind. speaking of the discovery of radium, professor soddy writes: "tracked to earth the clew to a great secret for which a thousand telescopes might have swept the sky forever and in vain, lay in a scrap of matter, dowered with something of the same inexhaustible radiance that hitherto has been the sole prerogative of the distant stars and sun." radium, this distinguished authority tells us, has clothed with its own dignity the whole empire of common matter. much as the atomic theory, with its revelations of the vast treasure house of radiant energy that lies all about us, offers new hope in the material world, so the new psychology throws a new light upon human energies and possibilities of individual expression. social reformers, like those scientists of a bygone era who were sweeping the skies with their telescopes, have likewise been seeking far and wide for the solution of our social problems in remote and wholesale panaceas, whereas the true solution is close at hand,--in the human individual. buried within each human being lies concealed a vast store of energy, which awaits release, expression and sublimation. the individual may profitably be considered as the "atom" of society. and the solution of the problems of society and of civilization will be brought about when we release the energies now latent and undeveloped in the individual. professor edwin grant conklin expresses the problem in another form; though his analogy, it seems to me, is open to serious criticism. "the freedom of the individual man," he writes,(1) "is to that of society as the freedom of the single cell is to that of the human being. it is this large freedom of society, rather than the freedom of the individual, which democracy offers to the world, free societies, free states, free nations rather than absolutely free individuals. in all organisms and in all social organizations, the freedom of the minor units must be limited in order that the larger unit may achieve a new and greater freedom, and in social evolution the freedom of individuals must be merged more and more into the larger freedom of society." this analogy does not bear analysis. restraint and constraint of individual expression, suppression of individual freedom "for the good of society" has been practised from time immemorial; and its failure is all too evident. there is no antagonism between the good of the individual and the good of society. the moment civilization is wise enough to remove the constraints and prohibitions which now hinder the release of inner energies, most of the larger evils of society will perish of inanition and malnutrition. remove the moral taboos that now bind the human body and spirit, free the individual from the slavery of tradition, remove the chains of fear from men and women, above all answer their unceasing cries for knowledge that would make possible their self-direction and salvation, and in so doing, you best serve the interests of society at large. free, rational and self-ruling personality would then take the place of self-made slaves, who are the victims both of external constraints and the playthings of the uncontrolled forces of their own instincts. science likewise illuminates the whole problem of genius. hidden in the common stuff of humanity lies buried this power of self-expression. modern science is teaching us that genius is not some mysterious gift of the gods, some treasure conferred upon individuals chosen by chance. nor is it, as lombroso believed, the result of a pathological and degenerate condition, allied to criminality and madness. rather is it due to the removal of physiological and psychological inhibitions and constraints which makes possible the release and the channeling of the primordial inner energies of man into full and divine expression. the removal of these inhibitions, so scientists assure us, makes possible more rapid and profound perceptions,--so rapid indeed that they seem to the ordinary human being, practically instantaneous, or intuitive. the qualities of genius are not, therefore, qualities lacking in the common reservoir of humanity, but rather the unimpeded release and direction of powers latent in all of us. this process of course is not necessarily conscious. this view is substantiated by the opposite problem of feeble-mindedness. recent researches throw a new light on this problem and the contrasting one of human genius. mental defect and feeble-mindedness are conceived essentially as retardation, arrest of development, differing in degree so that the victim is either an idiot, an imbecile, feeble-minded or a moron, according to the relative period at which mental development ceases. scientific research into the functioning of the ductless glands and their secretions throws a new light on this problem. not long ago these glands were a complete enigma, owing to the fact that they are not provided with excretory ducts. it has just recently been shown that these organs, such as the thyroid, the pituitary, the suprarenal, the parathyroid and the reproductive glands, exercise an all-powerful influence upon the course of individual development or deficiency. gley, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of glandular action, has asserted that "the genesis and exercise of the higher faculties of men are conditioned by the purely chemical action of the product of these secretions. let psychologists consider these facts." these internal secretions or endocrines pass directly into the blood stream, and exercise a dominating power over health and personality. deficiency in the thyroid secretion, especially during the years of infancy and early childhood, creates disorders of nutrition and inactivity of the nervous system. the particular form of idiocy known as cretinism is the result of this deficiency, which produces an arrest of the development of the brain cells. the other glands and their secretions likewise exercise the most profound influence upon development, growth and assimilation. most of these glands are of very small size, none of them larger than a walnut, and some--the parathyroids--almost microscopic. nevertheless, they are essential to the proper maintenance of life in the body, and no less organically related to mental and psychic development as well. the reproductive glands, it should not be forgotten, belong to this group, and besides their ordinary products, the germ and sperm cells (ova and spermatozoa) form hormones which circulate in the blood and effect changes in the cells of distant parts of the body. through these hormones the secondary sexual characters are produced, including the many differences in the form and structure of the body which are the characteristics of the sexes. only in recent years has science discovered that these secondary sexual characters are brought about by the agency of these internal secretions or hormones, passed from the reproductive glands into the circulating blood. these so-called secondary characters which are the sign of full and healthy development, are dependent, science tells us, upon the state of development of the reproductive organs. for a clear and illuminating account of the creative and dynamic power of the endocrine glands, the layman is referred to a recently published book by dr. louis berman.(2) this authority reveals anew how body and soul are bound up together in a complex unity. our spiritual and psychic difficulties cannot be solved until we have mastered the knowledge of the wellsprings of our being. "the chemistry of the soul! magnificent phrase!" exclaims dr. berman. "it's a long, long way to that goal. the exact formula is as yet far beyond our reach. but we have started upon the long journey, and we shall get there. "the internal secretions constitute and determine much of the inherited powers of the individual and their development. they control physical and mental growth, and all the metabolic processes of fundamental importance. they dominate all the vital functions of man during the three cycles of life. they cooperate in an intimate relationship which may be compared to an interlocking directorate. a derangement of their functions, causing an insufficiency of them, an excess, or an abnormality, upsets the entire equilibrium of the body, with transforming effects upon the mind and the organs. in short, they control human nature, and whoever controls them, controls human nature.... "blood chemistry of our time is a marvel, undreamed of a generation ago. also, these achievements are a perfect example of the accomplished fact contradicting a prior prediction and criticism. for it was one of the accepted dogmas of the nineteenth century that the phenomena of living could never be subjected to accurate quantitative analysis." but the ethical dogmas of the past, no less than the scientific, may block the way to true civilization. physiologically as well as psychologically the development of the human being, the sane mind in the sound body, is absolutely dependent upon the functioning and exercise of all the organs in the body. the "moralists" who preach abstinence, self-denial, and suppression are relegated by these findings of impartial and disinterested science to the class of those educators of the past who taught that it was improper for young ladies to indulge in sports and athletics and who produced generations of feeble, undeveloped invalids, bound up by stays and addicted to swooning and hysterics. one need only go out on the street of any american city to-day to be confronted with the victims of the cruel morality of self-denial and "sin." this fiendish "morality" is stamped upon those emaciated bodies, indelibly written in those emasculated, underdeveloped, undernourished figures of men and women, in the nervous tension and unrelaxed muscles denoting the ceaseless vigilance in restraining and suppressing the expression of natural impulses. birth control is no negative philosophy concerned solely with the number of children brought into this world. it is not merely a question of population. primarily it is the instrument of liberation and of human development. it points the way to a morality in which sexual expression and human development will not be in conflict with the interest and well-being of the race nor of contemporary society at large. not only is it the most effective, in fact the only lever by which the value of the child can be raised to a civilized point; but it is likewise the only method by which the life of the individual can be deepened and strengthened, by which an inner peace and security and beauty may be substituted for the inner conflict that is at present so fatal to self-expression and self-realization. sublimation of the sexual instinct cannot take place by denying it expression, nor by reducing it to the plane of the purely physiological. sexual experience, to be of contributory value, must be integrated and assimilated. asceticism defeats its own purpose because it develops the obsession of licentious and obscene thoughts, the victim alternating between temporary victory over "sin" and the remorse of defeat. but the seeker of purely physical pleasure, the libertine or the average sensualist, is no less a pathological case, living as one-sided and unbalanced a life as the ascetic, for his conduct is likewise based on ignorance and lack of understanding. in seeking pleasure without the exercise of responsibility, in trying to get something for nothing, he is not merely cheating others but himself as well. in still another field science and scientific method now emphasize the pivotal importance of birth control. the binet-simon intelligence tests which have been developed, expanded, and applied to large groups of children and adults present positive statistical data concerning the mental equipment of the type of children brought into the world under the influence of indiscriminate fecundity and of those fortunate children who have been brought into the world because they are wanted, the children of conscious, voluntary procreation, well nourished, properly clothed, the recipients of all that proper care and love can accomplish. in considering the data furnished by these intelligence tests we should remember several factors that should be taken into consideration. irrespective of other considerations, children who are underfed, undernourished, crowded into badly ventilated and unsanitary homes and chronically hungry cannot be expected to attain the mental development of children upon whom every advantage of intelligent and scientific care is bestowed. furthermore, public school methods of dealing with children, the course of studies prescribed, may quite completely fail to awaken and develop the intelligence. the statistics indicate at any rate a surprisingly low rate of intelligence among the classes in which large families and uncontrolled procreation predominate. those of the lowest grade in intelligence are born of unskilled laborers (with the highest birth rate in the community); the next high among the skilled laborers, and so on to the families of professional people, among whom it is now admitted that the birth rate is voluntarily controlled.(3) but scientific investigations of this type cannot be complete until statistics are accurately obtained concerning the relation of unrestrained fecundity and the quality, mental and physical, of the children produced. the philosophy of birth control therefore seeks and asks the cooperation of science and scientists, not to strengthen its own "case," but because this sexual factor in the determination of human history has so long been ignored by historians and scientists. if science in recent years has contributed enormously to strengthen the conviction of all intelligent people of the necessity and wisdom of birth control, this philosophy in its turn opens to science in its various fields a suggestive avenue of approach to many of those problems of humanity and society which at present seem to enigmatical and insoluble. (1) conklin, the direction of human evolution, pp. 125, 126. (2) the glands regulating personality: a study of the glands of internal secretion in relation to the types of human nature. by louis berman, m. d., associate in biological chemistry, columbia university; physician to the special health clinic. lenox hill hospital. new york: 1921. (3) cf terman: intelligence of school children. new york 1919. p. 56. also, "is america safe for democracy?" six lectures given at the lowell institute of boston, by william mcdougall, professor of psychology in harvard college. new york, 1921. chapter xi: education and expression "civilization is bound up with the success of that movement. the man who rejoices in it and strives to further it is alive; the man who shudders and raises impotent hands against it is merely dead, even though the grave yet yawns for him in vain. he may make dead laws and preach dead sermons and his sermons may be great and his laws may be rigid. but as the wisest of men saw twenty-five centuries ago, the things that are great and strong and rigid are the things that stay below in the grave. it is the things that are delicate and tender and supple that stay above. at no point is life so tender and delicate and supple as at the point of sex. there is the triumph of life." havelock ellis our approach opens to us a fresh scale of values, a new and effective method of testing the merits and demerits of current policies and programs. it redirects our attention to the great source and fountainhead of human life. it offers us the most strategic point of view from which to observe and study the unending drama of humanity,--how the past, the present and the future of the human race are all organically bound up together. it coordinates heredity and environment. most important of all, it frees the mind of sexual prejudice and taboo, by demanding the frankest and most unflinching reexamination of sex in its relation to human nature and the bases of human society. in aiding to establish this mental liberation, quite apart from any of the tangible results that might please the statistically-minded, the study of birth control is performing an invaluable task. without complete mental freedom, it is impossible to approach any fundamental human problem. failure to face the great central facts of sex in an impartial and scientific spirit lies at the root of the blind opposition to birth control. our bitterest opponents must agree that the problem of birth control is one of the most important that humanity to-day has to face. the interests of the entire world, of humanity, of the future of mankind itself are more at stake in this than wars, political institutions, or industrial reorganization. all other projects of reform, of revolution or reconstruction, are of secondary importance, even trivial, when we compare them to the wholesale regeneration--or disintegration--that is bound up with the control, the direction and the release of one of the greatest forces in nature. the great danger at present does not lie with the bitter opponents of the idea of birth control, nor with those who are attempting to suppress our program of enlightenment and education. such opposition is always stimulating. it wins new adherents. it reveals its own weakness and lack of insight. the greater danger is to be found in the flaccid, undiscriminating interest of "sympathizers" who are "for it"--as an accessory to their own particular panacea. "it even seems, sometimes," wrote the late william graham sumner, "as if the primitive people were working along better lines of effort in this direction than we are... when our public organs of instruction taboo all that pertains to reproduction as improper; and when public authority, ready enough to interfere with personal liberty everywhere else, feels bound to act as if there were no societal interest at stake in the begetting of the next generation."(1) slowly but surely we are breaking down the taboos that surround sex; but we are breaking them down out of sheer necessity. the codes that have surrounded sexual behavior in the so-called christian communities, the teachings of the churches concerning chastity and sexual purity, the prohibitions of the laws, and the hypocritical conventions of society, have all demonstrated their failure as safeguards against the chaos produced and the havoc wrought by the failure to recognize sex as a driving force in human nature,--as great as, if indeed not greater than, hunger. its dynamic energy is indestructible. it may be transmuted, refined, directed, even sublimated, but to ignore, to neglect, to refuse to recognize this great elemental force is nothing less than foolhardy. out of the unchallenged policies of continence, abstinence, "chastity" and "purity," we have reaped the harvests of prostitution, venereal scourges and innumerable other evils. traditional moralists have failed to recognize that chastity and purity must be the outward symptoms of awakened intelligence, of satisfied desires, and fulfilled love. they cannot be taught by "sex education." they cannot be imposed from without by a denial of the might and the right of sexual expression. nevertheless, even in the contemporary teaching of sex hygiene and social prophylaxis, nothing constructive is offered to young men and young women who seek aid through the trying period of adolescence. at the lambeth conference of 1920, the bishops of the church of england stated in their report on their considerations of sexual morality: "men should regard all women as they do their mothers, sisters, and daughters; and women should dress only in such a manner as to command respect from every man. all right-minded persons should unite in the suppression of pernicious literature, plays and films...." could lack of psychological insight and understanding be more completely indicated? yet, like these bishops, most of those who are undertaking the education of the young are as ignorant themselves of psychology and physiology. indeed, those who are speaking belatedly of the need of "sexual hygiene" seem to be unaware that they themselves are most in need of it. "we must give up the futile attempt to keep young people in the dark," cries rev. james marchant in "birth-rate and empire," "and the assumption that they are ignorant of notorious facts. we cannot, if we would, stop the spread of sexual knowledge; and if we could do so, we would only make matters infinitely worse. this is the second decade of the twentieth century, not the early victorian period.... it is no longer a question of knowing or not knowing. we have to disabuse our middle-aged minds of that fond delusion. our young people know more than we did when we began our married lives, and sometimes as much as we know, ourselves, even now. so that we need not continue to shake our few remaining hairs in simulating feelings of surprise or horror. it might have been better for us if we had been more enlightened. and if our discussion of this problem is to be of any real use, we must at the outset reconcile ourselves to the fact that the birth-rate is voluntarily controlled.... certain persons who instruct us in these matters hold up their pious hands and whiten their frightened faces as they cry out in the public squares against `this vice,' but they can only make themselves ridiculous." taught upon the basis of conventional and traditional morality and middle-class respectability, based on current dogma, and handed down to the populace with benign condescension, sex education is a waste of time and effort. such education cannot in any true sense set up as a standard the ideal morality and behavior of the respectable middle-class and then make the effort to induce all other members of society, especially the working classes, to conform to their taboos. such a method is not only confusing, but, in the creation of strain and hysteria and an unhealthy concentration upon moral conduct, results in positive injury. to preach a negative and colorless ideal of chastity to young men and women is to neglect the primary duty of awakening their intelligence, their responsibility, their self-reliance and independence. once this is accomplished, the matter of chastity will take care of itself. the teaching of "etiquette" must be superseded by the teaching of hygiene. hygienic habits are built up upon a sound knowledge of bodily needs and functions. it is only in the sphere of sex that there remains an unfounded fear of presenting without the gratuitous introduction of non-essential taboos and prejudice, unbiased and unvarnished facts. as an instrument of education, the doctrine of birth control approaches the whole problem in another manner. instead of laying down hard and fast laws of sexual conduct, instead of attempting to inculcate rules and regulations, of pointing out the rewards of virtue and the penalties of "sin" (as is usually attempted in relation to the venereal diseases), the teacher of birth control seeks to meet the needs of the people. upon the basis of their interests, their demands, their problems, birth control education attempts to develop their intelligence and show them how they may help themselves; how to guide and control this deep-rooted instinct. the objection has been raised that birth control only reaches the already enlightened, the men and women who have already attained a degree of self-respect and self-reliance. such an objection could not be based on fact. even in the most unenlightened sections of the community, among mothers crushed by poverty and economic enslavement, there is the realization of the evils of the too-large family, of the rapid succession of pregnancy after pregnancy, of the hopelessness of bringing too many children into the world. not merely in the evidence presented in an earlier chapter but in other ways, is this crying need expressed. the investigators of the children's bureau who collected the data of the infant mortality reports, noted the willingness and the eagerness with which these down-trodden mothers told the truth about themselves. so great is their hope of relief from that meaningless and deadening submission to unproductive reproduction, that only a society pruriently devoted to hypocrisy could refuse to listen to the voices of these mothers. respectfully we lend our ears to dithyrambs about the sacredness of motherhood and the value of "better babies"--but we shut our eyes and our ears to the unpleasant reality and the cries of pain that come from women who are to-day dying by the thousands because this power is withheld from them. this situation is rendered more bitterly ironic because the self-righteous opponents of birth control practise themselves the doctrine they condemn. the birth-rate among conservative opponents indicates that they restrict the numbers of their own children by the methods of birth control, or are of such feeble procreative energy as to be thereby unfitted to dictate moral laws for other people. they prefer that we should think their small number of children is accidental, rather than publicly admit the successful practice of intelligent foresight. or else they hold themselves up as paragons of virtue and self-control, and would have us believe that they have brought their children into the world solely from a high, stern sense of public duty--an attitude which is about as convincing as it would be to declare that they found them under gooseberry bushes. how else can we explain the widespread tolerance and smug approval of the clerical idea of sex, now reenforced by floods of crude and vulgar sentiment, which is promulgated by the press, motion-pictures and popular plays? like all other education, that of sex can be rendered effective and valuable only as it meets and satisfies the interests and demands of the pupil himself. it cannot be imposed from without, handed down from above, superimposed upon the intelligence of the person taught. it must find a response within him, give him the power and the instrument wherewith he may exercise his own growing intelligence, bring into action his own judgment and discrimination and thus contribute to the growth of his intelligence. the civilized world is coming to see that education cannot consist merely in the assimilation of external information and knowledge, but rather in the awakening and development of innate powers of discrimination and judgment. the great disaster of "sex education" lies in the fact that it fails to direct the awakened interests of the pupils into the proper channels of exercise and development. instead, it blunts them, restricts them, hinders them, and even attempts to eradicate them. this has been the great defect of sex education as it has been practised in recent years. based on a superficial and shameful view of the sexual instinct, it has sought the inculcation of negative virtues by pointing out the sinister penalties of promiscuity, and by advocating strict adherence to virtue and morality, not on the basis of intelligence or the outcome of experience, not even for the attainment of rewards, but merely to avoid punishment in the form of painful and malignant disease. education so conceived carries with it its own refutation. true education cannot tolerate the inculcation of fear. fear is the soil in which are implanted inhibitions and morbid compulsions. fear restrains, restricts, hinders human expression. it strikes at the very roots of joy and happiness. it should therefore be the aim of sex education to avoid above all the implanting of fear in the mind of the pupil. restriction means placing in the hands of external authority the power over behavior. birth control, on the contrary, implies voluntary action, the decision for one's self how many children one shall or shall not bring into the world. birth control is educational in the real sense of the word, in that it asserts this power of decision, reinstates this power in the people themselves. we are not seeking to introduce new restrictions but greater freedom. as far as sex is concerned, the impulse has been more thoroughly subject to restriction than any other human instinct. "thou shalt not!" meets us at every turn. some of these restrictions are justified; some of them are not. we may have but one wife or one husband at a time; we must attain a certain age before we may marry. children born out of wedlock are deemed "illegitimate"--even healthy children. the newspapers every day are filled with the scandals of those who have leaped over the restrictions or limitations society has written in her sexual code. yet the voluntary control of the procreative powers, the rational regulation of the number of children we bring into the world--this is the one type of restriction frowned upon and prohibited by law! in a more definite, a much more realistic and concrete manner, birth control reveals itself as the most effective weapon in the spread of hygienic and prophylactic knowledge among women of the less fortunate classes. it carries with it a thorough training in bodily cleanliness and physiology, a definite knowledge of the physiology and function of sex. in refusing to teach both sides of the subject, in failing to respond to the universal demand among women for such instruction and information, maternity centers limit their own efforts and fail to fulfil what should be their true mission. they are concerned merely with pregnancy, maternity, child-bearing, the problem of keeping the baby alive. but any effective work in this field must go further back. we have gradually come to see, as havelock ellis has pointed out, that comparatively little can be done by improving merely the living conditions of adults; that improving conditions for children and babies is not enough. to combat the evils of infant mortality, natal and pre-natal care is not sufficient. even to improve the conditions for the pregnant woman, is insufficient. necessarily and inevitably, we are led further and further back, to the point of procreation; beyond that, into the regulation of sexual selection. the problem becomes a circle. we cannot solve one part of it without a consideration of the entirety. but it is especially at the point of creation where all the various forces are concentrated. conception must be controlled by reason, by intelligence, by science, or we lose control of all its consequences. birth control is essentially an education for women. it is women who, directly and by their very nature, bear the burden of that blindness, ignorance and lack of foresight concerning sex which is now enforced by law and custom. birth control places in the hands of women the only effective instrument whereby they may reestablish the balance in society, and assert, not only theoretically but practically as well, the primary importance of the woman and the child in civilization. birth control is thus the stimulus to education. its exercise awakens and develops the sense of self-reliance and responsibility, and illuminates the relation of the individual to society and to the race in a manner that otherwise remains vague and academic. it reveals sex not merely as an untamed and insatiable natural force to which men and women must submit hopelessly and inertly, as it sweeps through them, and then accept with abject humility the hopeless and heavy consequences. instead, it places in their hands the power to control this great force; to use it, to direct it into channels in which it becomes the energy enhancing their lives and increasing self-expression and self-development. it awakens in women the consciousness of new glories and new possibilities in motherhood. no longer the prostrate victim of the blind play of instinct but the self-reliant mistress of her body and her own will, the new mother finds in her child the fulfilment of her own desires. in free instead of compulsory motherhood she finds the avenue of her own development and expression. no longer bound by an unending series of pregnancies, at liberty to safeguard the development of her own children, she may now extend her beneficent influence beyond her own home. in becoming thus intensified, motherhood may also broaden and become more extensive as well. the mother sees that the welfare of her own children is bound up with the welfare of all others. not upon the basis of sentimental charity or gratuitous "welfare-work" but upon that of enlightened self-interest, such a mother may exert her influence among the less fortunate and less enlightened. unless based upon this central knowledge of and power over her own body and her own instincts, education for woman is valueless. as long as she remains the plaything of strong, uncontrolled natural forces, as long as she must docilely and humbly submit to the decisions of others, how can woman ever lay the foundations of self-respect, self-reliance and independence? how can she make her own choice, exercise her own discrimination, her own foresight? in the exercise of these powers, in the building up and integration of her own experience, in mastering her own environment the true education of woman must be sought. and in the sphere of sex, the great source and root of all human experience, it is upon the basis of birth control--the voluntary direction of her own sexual expression--that woman must take her first step in the assertion of freedom and self-respect. (1) folkways, p. 492. chapter xii: woman and the future i saw a woman sleeping. in her sleep she dreamed life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift--in the one love, in the other freedom. and she said to the woman, "choose!" and the woman waited long: and she said, "freedom!" and life said, "thou has well chosen. if thou hadst said, `love,' i would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and i would have gone from thee, and returned to thee no more. now, the day will come when i shall return. in that day i shall bear both gifts in one hand." i heard the woman laugh in her sleep. olive schreiner by no means is it necessary to look forward to some vague and distant date of the future to test the benefits which the human race derives from the program i have suggested in the preceding pages. the results to the individual woman, to the family, and to the state, particularly in the case of holland, have already been investigated and recorded. our philosophy is no doctrine of escape from the immediate and pressing realities of life, on the contrary, we say to men and women, and particularly to the latter: face the realities of your own soul and body; know thyself! and in this last admonition, we mean that this knowledge should not consist of some vague shopworn generalities about the nature of woman--woman as created in the minds of men, nor woman putting herself on a romantic pedestal above the harsh facts of this workaday world. women can attain freedom only by concrete, definite knowledge of themselves, a knowledge based on biology, physiology and psychology. nevertheless it would be wrong to shut our eyes to the vision of a world of free men and women, a world which would more closely resemble a garden than the present jungle of chaotic conflicts and fears. one of the greatest dangers of social idealists, to all of us who hope to make a better world, is to seek refuge in highly colored fantasies of the future rather than to face and combat the bitter and evil realities which to-day on all sides confront us. i believe that the reader of my preceding chapters will not accuse me of shirking these realities; indeed, he may think that i have overemphasized the great biological problems of defect, delinquency and bad breeding. it is in the hope that others too may glimpse my vision of a world regenerated that i submit the following suggestions. they are based on the belief that we must seek individual and racial health not by great political or social reconstruction, but, turning to a recognition of our own inherent powers and development, by the release of our inner energies. it is thus that all of us can best aid in making of this world, instead of a vale of tears, a garden. let us first of all consider merely from the viewpoint of business and "efficiency" the biological or racial problems which confront us. as americans, we have of late made much of "efficiency" and business organization. yet would any corporation for one moment conduct its affairs as we conduct the infinitely more important affairs of our civilization? would any modern stockbreeder permit the deterioration of his livestock as we not only permit but positively encourage the destruction and deterioration of the most precious, the most essential elements in our world community--the mothers and children. with the mothers and children thus cheapened, the next generation of men and women is inevitably below par. the tendency of the human elements, under present conditions, is constantly downward. turn to robert m. yerkes's "psychological examining in the united states army"(1) in which we are informed that the psychological examination of the drafted men indicated that nearly half--47.3 per cent.--of the population had the mentality of twelve-year-old children or less--in other words that they are morons. professor conklin, in his recently published volume "the direction of human evolution"(2) is led, on the findings of mr. yerkes's report, to assert: "assuming that these drafted men are a fair sample of the entire population of approximately 100,000,000, this means that 45,000,000 or nearly one-half the entire population, will never develop mental capacity beyond the stage represented by a normal twelve-year-old child, and that only 13,500,000 will ever show superior intelligence." making all due allowances for the errors and discrepancies of the psychological examination, we are nevertheless face to face with a serious and destructive practice. our "overhead" expense in segregating the delinquent, the defective and the dependent, in prisons, asylums and permanent homes, our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying--i have sufficiently indicated, though in truth i have merely scratched the surface of this international menace--demonstrate our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism. no industrial corporation could maintain its existence upon such a foundation. yet hardheaded "captains of industry," financiers who pride themselves upon their cool-headed and keen-sighted business ability are dropping millions into rosewater philanthropies and charities that are silly at best and vicious at worst. in our dealings with such elements there is a bland maladministration and misuse of huge sums that should in all righteousness be used for the development and education of the healthy elements of the community. at the present time, civilized nations are penalizing talent and genius, the bearers of the torch of civilization, to coddle and perpetuate the choking human undergrowth, which, as all authorities tell us, is escaping control and threatens to overrun the whole garden of humanity. yet men continue to drug themselves with the opiate of optimism, or sink back upon the cushions of christian resignation, their intellectual powers anaesthetized by cheerful platitudes. or else, even those, who are fully cognizant of the chaos and conflict, seek an escape in those pretentious but fundamentally fallacious social philosophies which place the blame for contemporary world misery upon anybody or anything except the indomitable but uncontrolled instincts of living organisms. these men fight with shadows and forget the realities of existence. too many centuries have we sought to hide from the inevitable, which confronts us at every step throughout life. let us conceive for the moment at least, a world not burdened by the weight of dependent and delinquent classes, a total population of mature, intelligent, critical and expressive men and women. instead of the inert, exploitable, mentally passive class which now forms the barren substratum of our civilization, try to imagine a population active, resistant, passing individual and social lives of the most contented and healthy sort. would such men and women, liberated from our endless, unceasing struggle against mass prejudice and inertia, be deprived in any way of the stimulating zest of life? would they sink into a slough of complacency and fatuity? no! life for them would be enriched, intensified and ennobled in a fashion it is difficult for us in our spiritual and physical squalor even to imagine. there would be a new renaissance of the arts and sciences. awakened at last to the proximity of the treasures of life lying all about them, the children of that age would be inspired by a spirit of adventure and romance that would indeed produce a terrestrial paradise. let us look forward to this great release of creative and constructive energy, not as an idle, vacuous mirage, but as a promise which we, as the whole human race, have it in our power, in the very conduct of our lives from day to day, to transmute into a glorious reality. let us look forward to that era, perhaps not so distant as we believe, when the great adventures in the enchanted realm of the arts and sciences may no longer be the privilege of a gifted few, but the rightful heritage of a race of genius. in such a world men and women would no longer seek escape from themselves by the fantastic and the faraway. they would be awakened to the realization that the source of life, of happiness, is to be found not outside themselves, but within, in the healthful exercise of their god-given functions. the treasures of life are not hidden; they are close at hand, so close that we overlook them. we cheat ourselves with a pitiful fear of ourselves. men and women of the future will not seek happiness; they will have gone beyond it. mere happiness would produce monotony. and their lives shall be lives of change and variety with the thrills produced by experiment and research. fear will have been abolished: first of all, the fear of outside things and other people; finally the fear of oneself. and with these fears must disappear forever all those poisons of hatreds, individual and international. for the realization would come that there would be no reason for, no value in encroaching upon, the freedom of one another. to-day we are living in a world which is like a forest of trees too thickly planted. hence the ferocious, unending struggle for existence. like innumerable ages past, the present age is one of mutual destruction. our aim is to substitute cooperation, equity, and amity for antagonism and conflict. if the aim of our country or our civilization is to attain a hollow, meaningless superiority over others in aggregate wealth and population, it may be sound policy to shut our eyes to the sacrifice of human life,--unregarded life and suffering--and to stimulate rapid procreation. but even so, such a policy is bound in the long run to defeat itself, as the decline and fall of great civilizations of the past emphatically indicate. even the bitterest opponent of our ideals would refuse to subscribe to a philosophy of mere quantity, of wealth and population lacking in spiritual direction or significance. all of us hope for and look forward to the fine flowering of human genius--of genius not expending and dissipating its energy in the bitter struggle for mere existence, but developing to a fine maturity, sustained and nourished by the soil of active appreciation, criticism, and recognition. not by denying the central and basic biological facts of our nature, not by subscribing to the glittering but false values of any philosophy or program of escape, not by wild utopian dreams of the brotherhood of men, not by any sanctimonious debauch of sentimentality or religiosity, may we accomplish the first feeble step toward liberation. on the contrary, only by firmly planting our feet on the solid ground of scientific fact may we even stand erect--may we even rise from the servile stooping posture of the slave, borne down by the weight of age-old oppression. in looking forward to this radiant release of the inner energies of a regenerated humanity, i am not thinking merely of inventions and discoveries and the application of these to the perfecting of the external and mechanical details of social life. this external and scientific perfecting of the mechanism of external life is a phenomenon we are to a great extent witnessing today. but in a deeper sense this tendency can be of no true or lasting value if it cannot be made to subserve the biological and spiritual development of the human organism, individual and collective. our great problem is not merely to perfect machinery, to produce superb ships, motor cars or great buildings, but to remodel the race so that it may equal the amazing progress we see now making in the externals of life. we must first free our bodies from disease and predisposition to disease. we must perfect these bodies and make them fine instruments of the mind and the spirit. only thus, when the body becomes an aid instead of a hindrance to human expression may we attain any civilization worthy of the name. only thus may we create our bodies a fitting temple for the soul, which is nothing but a vague unreality except insofar as it is able to manifest itself in the beauty of the concrete. once we have accomplished the first tentative steps toward the creation of a real civilization, the task of freeing the spirit of mankind from the bondage of ignorance, prejudice and mental passivity which is more fettering now than ever in the history of humanity, will be facilitated a thousand-fold. the great central problem, and one which must be taken first is the abolition of the shame and fear of sex. we must teach men the overwhelming power of this radiant force. we must make them understand that uncontrolled, it is a cruel tyrant, but that controlled and directed, it may be used to transmute and sublimate the everyday world into a realm of beauty and joy. through sex, mankind may attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world, which will light up the only path to an earthly paradise. so must we necessarily and inevitably conceive of sex-expression. the instinct is here. none of us can avoid it. it is in our power to make it a thing of beauty and a joy forever: or to deny it, as have the ascetics of the past, to revile this expression and then to pay the penalty, the bitter penalty that society to-day is paying in innumerable ways. if i am criticized for the seeming "selfishness" of this conception it will be through a misunderstanding. the individual is fulfiling his duty to society as a whole by not self-sacrifice but by self-development. he does his best for the world not by dying for it, not by increasing the sum total of misery, disease and unhappiness, but by increasing his own stature, by releasing a greater energy, by being active instead of passive, creative instead of destructive. this is fundamentally the greatest truth to be discovered by womankind at large. and until women are awakened to their pivotal function in the creation of a new civilization, that new era will remain an impossible and fantastic dream. the new civilization can become a glorious reality only with the awakening of woman's now dormant qualities of strength, courage, and vigor. as a great thinker of the last century pointed out, not only to her own health and happiness is the physical degeneracy of woman destructive, but to our whole race. the physical and psychic power of woman is more indispensable to the well-being and power of the human race than that even of man, for the strength and happiness of the child is more organically united with that of the mother. parallel with the awakening of woman's interest in her own fundamental nature, in her realization that her greatest duty to society lies in self-realization, will come a greater and deeper love for all of humanity. for in attaining a true individuality of her own she will understand that we are all individuals, that each human being is essentially implicated in every question or problem which involves the well-being of the humblest of us. so to-day we are not to meet the great problems of defect and delinquency in any merely sentimental or superficial manner, but with the firmest and most unflinching attitude toward the true interest of our fellow beings. it is from no mere feeling of brotherly love or sentimental philanthropy that we women must insist upon enhancing the value of child life. it is because we know that, if our children are to develop to their full capabilities, all children must be assured a similar opportunity. every single case of inherited defect, every malformed child, every congenitally tainted human being brought into this world is of infinite importance to that poor individual; but it is of scarcely less importance to the rest of us and to all of our children who must pay in one way or another for these biological and racial mistakes. we look forward in our vision of the future to children brought into the world because they are desired, called from the unknown by a fearless and conscious passion, because women and men need children to complete the symmetry of their own development, no less than to perpetuate the race. they shall be called into a world enhanced and made beautiful by the spirit of freedom and romance--into a world wherein the creatures of our new day, unhampered and unbound by the sinister forces of prejudice and immovable habit, may work out their own destinies. perhaps we may catch fragmentary glimpses of this new life in certain societies of the past, in greece perhaps; but in all of these past civilizations these happy groups formed but a small exclusive section of the population. to-day our task is greater; for we realize that no section of humanity can be reclaimed without the regeneration of the whole. i look, therefore, into a future when men and women will not dissipate their energy in the vain and fruitless search for content outside of themselves, in far-away places or people. perfect masters of their own inherent powers, controlled with a fine understanding of the art of life and of love, adapting themselves with pliancy and intelligence to the milieu in which they find themselves, they will unafraid enjoy life to the utmost. women will for the first time in the unhappy history of this globe establish a true equilibrium and "balance of power" in the relation of the sexes. the old antagonism will have disappeared, the old ill-concealed warfare between men and women. for the men themselves will comprehend that in this cultivation of the human garden they will be rewarded a thousand times. interest in the vague sentimental fantasies of extra-mundane existence, in pathological or hysterical flights from the realities of our earthliness, will have through atrophy disappeared, for in that dawn men and women will have come to the realization, already suggested, that here close at hand is our paradise, our everlasting abode, our heaven and our eternity. not by leaving it and our essential humanity behind us, nor by sighing to be anything but what we are, shall we ever become ennobled or immortal. not for woman only, but for all of humanity is this the field where we must seek the secret of eternal life. (1) memoirs of the national academy of sciences. volume xv. (2) conklin, the direction of human evolution. "when it is remembered that mental capacity is inherited, that parents of low intelligence generally produce children of low intelligence, and that on the average they have more children than persons of high intelligence, and furthermore, when we consider that the intellectual capacity or `mental age' can be changed very little by education, we are in a position to appreciate the very serious condition which confronts us as a nation." p. 108. appendix principles and aims of the american birth control league principles: the complex problems now confronting america as the result of the practice of reckless procreation are fast threatening to grow beyond human control. everywhere we see poverty and large families going hand in hand. those least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly. people who cannot support their own offspring are encouraged by church and state to produce large families. many of the children thus begotten are diseased or feeble-minded; many become criminals. the burden of supporting these unwanted types has to be bourne by the healthy elements of the nation. funds that should be used to raise the standard of our civilization are diverted to the maintenance of those who should never have been born. in addition to this grave evil we witness the appalling waste of women's health and women's lives by too frequent pregnancies. these unwanted pregnancies often provoke the crime of abortion, or alternatively multiply the number of child-workers and lower the standard of living. to create a race of well born children it is essential that the function of motherhood should be elevated to a position of dignity, and this is impossible as long as conception remains a matter of chance. we hold that children should be 1. conceived in love; 2. born of the mother's conscious desire; 3. and only begotten under conditions which render possible the heritage of health. therefore we hold that every woman must possess the power and freedom to prevent conception except when these conditions can be satisfied. every mother must realize her basic position in human society. she must be conscious of her responsibility to the race in bringing children into the world. instead of being a blind and haphazard consequence of uncontrolled instinct, motherhood must be made the responsible and self-directed means of human expression and regeneration. these purposes, which are of fundamental importance to the whole of our nation and to the future of mankind, can only be attained if women first receive practical scientific education in the means of birth control. that, therefore, is the first object to which the efforts of this league will be directed. aims: the american birth control league aims to enlighten and educate all sections of the american public in the various aspects of the dangers of uncontrolled procreation and the imperative necessity of a world program of birth control. the league aims to correlate the findings of scientists, statisticians, investigators, and social agencies in all fields. to make this possible, it is necessary to organize various departments: research: to collect the findings of scientists, concerning the relation of reckless breeding to the evils of delinquency, defect and dependence. investigation: to derive from these scientifically ascertained facts and figures, conclusions which may aid all public health and social agencies in the study of problems of maternal and infant mortality, child-labor, mental and physical defects and delinquence in relation to the practice of reckless parentage. hygienic and physiological instruction by the medical profession to mothers and potential mothers in harmless and reliable methods of birth control in answer to their requests for such knowledge. sterilization of the insane and feebleminded and the encouragement of this operation upon those afflicted with inherited or transmissible diseases, with the understanding that sterilization does not deprive the individual of his or her sex expression, but merely renders him incapable of producing children. educational: the program of education includes: the enlightenment of the public at large, mainly through the education of leaders of thought and opinion--teachers, ministers, editors and writers--to the moral and scientific soundness of the principles of birth control and the imperative necessity of its adoption as the basis of national and racial progress. political and legislative: to enlist the support and cooperation of legal advisers, statesmen and legislators in effecting the removal of state and federal statutes which encourage dysgenic breeding, increase the sum total of disease, misery and poverty and prevent the establishment of a policy of national health and strength. organization: to send into the various states of the union field workers to enlist the support and arouse the interest of the masses, to the importance of birth control so that laws may be changed and the establishment of clinics made possible in every state. international: this department aims to cooperate with similar organizations in other countries to study birth control in its relations to the world population problem, food supplies, national and racial conflicts, and to urge upon all international bodies organized to promote world peace, the consideration of these aspects of international amity. the american birth control league proposes to publish in its official organ "the birth control review," reports and studies on the relationship of controlled and uncontrolled populations to national and world problems. the american birth control league also proposes to hold an annual conference to bring together the workers of the various departments so that each worker may realize the inter-relationship of all the various phases of the problem to the end that national education will tend to encourage and develop the powers of self-direction, self-reliance, and independence in the individuals of the community instead of dependence for relief upon public or private charities. 