In view of the foregoing facts, the following Malthusian statement,
although groundless, is nevertheless an amusing example of the errors that
arise from lack of a little knowledge:
"The difficulty of providing for a high birth-rate in a settled
community was appreciated by the ancient Greeks, notably by Plato and
Aristotle; but their conclusions were swept aside by the warlike spirit
of Rome, and the sentimentality of Christianity, so that only a few
isolated thinkers showed any appreciation of them.
although groundless, is nevertheless an amusing example of the errors that
arise from lack of a little knowledge:
"The difficulty of providing for a high birth-rate in a settled
community was appreciated by the ancient Greeks, notably by Plato and
Aristotle; but their conclusions were swept aside by the warlike spirit
of Rome, and the sentimentality of Christianity, so that only a few
isolated thinkers showed any appreciation of them.
Sutherland - Birth Control- A Statement of Christian Doctrine against the Neo-Malthusians
6
----
During the same period the general birth-rate amongst the whole population
of England and Wales was about 24 per 1,000. And figures that are even more
remarkable have been published by Mr. W. C. D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham. [47]
These writers, having investigated the number of children in the families
of the landed gentry, show that the birth-rate amongst the aristocracy has
declined.
"A hundred fertile marriages for each decade from 1831 to 1890 have
been taken consecutively from those families who have held their title
to nobility for at least two preceding generations, thus excluding the
more modern commercial middle-class element in the present Peerage,
which can be better dealt with elsewhere. We then get the full effect
of hereditary stability and a secure position, and do away with any
disturbing influence that might occur from a sudden rise to
prosperity. " [48]
The results were as follows: [Reference: Population]
Year. Number of children to each
fertile marriage.
1831-40 7. 1
1841-60 6. 1
1871-80 4. 36
1881-90 3. 13
The birth-rate amongst thirty families of the landed gentry, who were
known to be definitely Catholic, was also investigated, with the following
results:
Years. Number of children to each
fertile marriage.
1871-90 6. 6
(as compared with 3. 74 for the landed families as a whole during the
same period. )
The interpretation of these figures is not a matter of faith, but of
reason. I submit that the facts are _prima facie_ evidence that by
observance of the moral law, as taught by the Catholic Church, even
a highly cultured community is enabled to escape those dangers of
over-civilisation that lead to diminished fertility and consequently to
national decline.
The truth of this statement has been freely acknowledged by many Anglicans.
According to Canon Edward Lyttelton: "The discipline of the Roman Communion
prohibits the artificial prevention of conception, hence Ireland is the
only part of the United Kingdom in which the birth-rate has not declined,
and the decline is least in places like Liverpool and those districts where
Roman Catholics are most numerous. " As we have already seen, there are also
other reasons why Catholicism preserves the fertility of a nation.
Without wishing to hurt the feelings of the most sensitive materialist, it
is necessary to point out that, apart altogether from the question as to
whether the chief or immediate cause of a declining birth-rate is the
practice of artificial birth control, or, as seems to be possible, a
general lowering of fertility, birth-rates are more dependent on morals
and religion than on race and country. During the past century irreligion
spread throughout France, and the birth-rate fell from 32. 2, during the
first decade of the nineteenth century, to 20. 6, during the first ten years
of the twentieth century. In America, amongst the descendants of the New
England Puritans a decay of religion and morals has also been accompanied
by a dwindling birth-rate. The decline of the original New England stock in
America has been masked to some extent by the high birth-rate amongst the
immigrant population; but nevertheless it is apparent in the Census Returns
for 1890, when a population of 65,000,000 was expected and only 62,500,000
was returned. Moreover, there is ample evidence in history that, wherever
the Christian ideal of a family has been abandoned, a race is neither able
to return to the family life of healthy pagan civilisations nor to escape
decay. During the past fifty years in England family life has been
definitely weakened by increased facilities for divorce amongst the rich,
by the discouragement of parental authority amongst the poor, and by the
neglect of all religious teaching in the schools. And thus, in the words
of Charles Devas, "We have of late years, with perverse ingenuity, been
preparing the way for the low birth-rate of irreligion and the high
death-rate of civil disorder. " [49] The birth-rate in England and Wales
reached its highest point, 36. 3, in 1876, and has gradually fallen to 18. 5
in 1919. During the first two quarters of that year the rate was the lowest
yet recorded. During the pre-war year, 1913, the rate was 24. 1.
In conclusion, the following statements by a Protestant writer are of
interest:
"Judging from a number of figures which cannot be quoted here, owing to
considerations of space, it would seem that the English middle-class
birth-rate has fallen to the extent of _over 50 per cent_. during the
last forty years; and we have actual figures showing that the
well-to-do artisan birth-rate has declined, _in the last thirty years,
by 52 per cent. ! _ Seeing that the Protestant Churches draw their
members mainly from these very classes, we have not far to seek for an
explanation of the empty Sunday Schools. . . . "
"Under these circumstances it is not in the least necessary for
Protestant ministers and clergymen to cast about them for evidence of
Jesuit machinations wherewith to explain the decline of the Protestant
Churches in this country! Let them rather look at the empty cradles in
the homes of their own congregations! " [50]
The author of the above-quoted paragraphs thus attributes the decline both
of the birth-rate and of the Protestant Churches to the general adoption of
artificial birth control. With that explanation I disagree, because it
puts the horse behind the cart. When the Protestant faith was strong the
birth-rate of this country was as high as that of Catholic lands. The
Protestant Churches have now been overshadowed by a rebirth of Rationalism,
a growth for which they themselves prepared the soil: and diminished
fertility is the natural product of a civilisation tending towards
materialism. Although the practice of artificial birth control must
obviously contribute towards a falling birth-rate, it is neither the only
nor the ultimate cause of the decline. The ultimate causes of a falling
birth-rate are more complex, and the decline of a community is but the
physical expression of a moral change. That is my thesis.
[Footnote 35: _Evening Standard_, October 12, 1921. ]
[Footnote 36: "The Declining Birth-rate" in _The Month_, August 1916, p.
157, reprinted by C. T. S. Price 2_d_. ]
[Footnote 37: "Religious Belief as affecting the Growth of Population,"
_The Hibbert Journal_, October, 1914, p. 144. ]
[Footnote 38: The Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The Declining
Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 99. ]
[Footnote 39: _The Month_, August 1916, p. 157, C. T. S. : 2_d_. ]
[Footnote 40: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 147. ]
[Footnote 41: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 150. ]
[Footnote 42: "Race-suicide and Dr. Bell," _America_, October 29, 1921, p.
31. ]
[Footnote 43: _Daily Chronicle_, April 25, 1910. ]
[Footnote 44: _Eighty-second Annual Report of the Registrar-General of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales_, 1919, p. 89. ]
[Footnote 45: Ibid. , p. xxvi. ]
[Footnote 46: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 141. ]
[Footnote 47: _The Family and the Nation_, 1909, pp. 139, 142. ]
[Footnote 48: Quoted in _Universe_, October 22, 1921. ]
[Footnote 49: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 2nd edition, 1901, p.
193. ]
[Footnote 50: Meyrick Booth, B. Sc. , Ph. D. , _The Hibbert Journal_, October
1914, pp. 142 and 152. ]
CHAPTER V
IS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS?
Section 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED
In 1837 Thomas Doubleday [51] maintained that the rising birth-rate of his
own time was closely connected with the fall in the standard of living, and
his argument implied that, in order to check the excessive birth-rate, it
was necessary to improve the condition of the mass of the people. Four
years later he published _The True Law of Population_, wherein he stated
that when the existence of a species is endangered--
"A corresponding effort is invariably made by Nature for its
preservation and continuance by an increase of fertility, and that this
especially takes place whenever such danger arises from a diminution of
proper nourishment or food, so that consequently the state of depletion
or the deplethoric state is favourable to fertility, and that, on the
other hand, the plethoric state, or state of repletion, is unfavourable
to fertility in the ratio of the intensity of each state. "
By a series of experiments on plants Doubleday discovered that "whatever
might be the principle of manure, _an overdose_ of it invariably induced
sterility in the plant. " Although his formula is deficient in that food is
selected as the one factor in environment which influences fertility, and
although it may be an overstatement to claim that fertility varies in exact
proportion to abundance or to scarcity, nevertheless his formula contains
an important truth which literally knocks the bottom out of the whole
Malthusian case.
It is a sad reflection that, while the falsehoods of Malthus have been
blindly accepted for the greater part of a century, the work of Doubleday
was almost lost in oblivion. His shade has now been recalled to the full
centre of the stage, and for this the credit is due to Mr. C. E. Pell. His
recent book [52] is a stimulating essay on the declining birth-rate, and
contains much evidence that supports the main contention of Doubleday.
Although it is impossible to agree with all the deductions made by Mr.
Pell, he has nevertheless done a public service by restating the problem of
the birth-rate in a new way, by effectively bursting the Malthusian bubble,
and by tabulating fresh evidence against the birth-controllers.
Section 2. MR. PELL'S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED
Mr. Pell defines the law of births and deaths in two generalisations. The
first is: "We have seen that it is a necessary condition of the success
of the evolutionary scheme that the variation of the inherited potential
degree of fertility between species and species must bear an inverse
proportion to their capacity for survival. " [53] At first glance this
statement appears hard to be understood; but it is obviously true--because
it means that a species that is well adapted to its environment can survive
with a low degree of fertility, whereas a species that is not well adapted
to its environment requires a high degree of fertility in order to survive.
Mr. Pell considers that a "capacity for survival" is synonymous with
"nervous energy"; but, as our total knowledge of nervous energy is limited
to the fact that it is neither matter nor any known force, the change in
words does not mark a real advance in knowledge.
The second generalisation is that "the variation of the degree of animal
fertility in response to the direct action of the environment shall bear
an inverse proportion to the variation of the survival capacity under
that environment. " [54] Here Mr. Pell and I part company. I have already
(Chapter III) disputed the causal connection between birth-rate and
death-rate which Mr. Pell here asserts. His generalisation is made by
assuming that birth-rates and death-rates rise and fall together: that
conditions which produce a high death-rate will also produce a high
birth-rate and that conditions which cause a low death-rate will also cause
a low birth-rate; that the increase or decline of a population is due to
the direct action of the environment; and finally that "the _actual_ degree
of fertility is decided by the direct action of the environment. " [55] On
that last rock Mr. Pell's barque sinks. The mistake here is analogous to
the old Darwinian fallacy, abandoned by Huxley and by Romanes, that natural
selection is a creative cause of new species. Even if the hypothesis of
evolution--and it is merely a hypothesis--be accepted, the only view
warranted by reason is that variation of species and their actual degree of
fertility may be produced, not by the direct action of environment, but by
the _reaction_ of species to their environment--a very different story.
There is no statistical evidence to prove a uniform correspondence between
birth-rates and death-rates, and it is improbable that there should be
a physical law of nature whose operations cannot be demonstrated by
mathematical proof. Moreover, we know that the same conditions which cause
a high birth-rate may cause a low death-rate. In the case of the first
settlers in a new country the death-rate is low because the diseases of
civilisation are absent and the settlers are usually young, whereas the
birth-rate is high. If fifty young married couples settle on the virgin
soil of a new country it is probable that for many years an enormous
birth-rate, of over 100, will coexist with a low death-rate.
In reality a high birth-rate may coexist with a low death-rate, or with a
high death-rate. For example, there is a difference between natural and
artificial poverty, the first being brought about by God, or, if any reader
prefers to have it so, by Nature, and the second being made by man. Under
conditions of natural poverty small groups of people in an open country are
surrounded by land not yet cultivated: whereas artificial poverty means
a population overcrowded and underfed, living in dark tenements or in
back-to-back houses, breathing foul air in ill-ventilated rooms seldom lit
by the sun, working long hours in gas-lit workshops for a sweated wage,
buying the cheapest food in the dearest market, and drugged by bad liquor.
In either case their existence is threatened, although for very different
reasons, and the birth-rate rises; but under conditions of natural poverty
the death-rate is low, whereas in slums the death-rate is high.
Section 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE
It would appear, then, that under conditions of hardship the birth-rate
tends to rise, and that in circumstances of ease the birth-rate tends to
fall. If the existence of the inhabitants in a closed country is threatened
by scarcity, the birth-rate tends to rise. For example, "In some of the
remote parts of the country, Orkney and Shetland, the population remained
practically stationary between the years 1801 and 1811, and in the next ten
years, still years of great scarcity, it increased 15 per cent. " [56]
The governing principle may be expressed in the following generalisation.
When the existence of a community is threatened by adversity the birth-rate
tends to rise; but when the existence of a community is threatened by
prosperity the birth-rate tends to fall. By adversity I mean war, famine,
scarcity, poverty, oppression, an untilled soil, and disease: and by
prosperity I mean wealth, luxury, idleness, a diet too rich--especially in
flesh meat--and over-civilisation, whereby the physical laws of nature
are defied. Now the danger of national decline owing to prosperity can
be avoided by a nation that observes the moral law, and this is the most
probable explanation of the fact that in Ireland, although the general
prosperity of the people has rapidly increased since George Wyndham
displaced landlordism over a large area by small ownership, the birth-rate
has continued to rise. Moreover, the danger to national existence, as we
have already indicated (Chapter I, Section. 10) is greater from moral than
from physical catastrophes, and when both catastrophes are threatened the
ultimate issue depends upon which of the two is the greater. Furthermore,
it would appear that moral catastrophes inevitably lead to physical
catastrophes. This is best illustrated by the fate of ancient Greece.
Section 4. ILLUSTRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY [Reference: Dangers]
The appositeness of this illustration arises from the fact that ancient
Greece reached a very high level of material and intellectual civilisation,
yet perished owing to moral and physical disasters.
(a) _Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece_
The evidence of the moral catastrophe is to be found in the change that
occurred in the Greek character most definitely after the fourth century
before Christ. Of this Mr. W. H. S. Jones has given the following account:
"Gradually the Greeks lost their brilliance, which had been as the
bright freshness of early youth. This is painfully obvious in their
literature, if not in other forms of art. Their initiative vanished;
they ceased to create and began to comment. Patriotism, with rare
exceptions, became an empty name, for few had the high spirit and
energy to translate into action man's duty to the State. Vacillation,
indecision, fitful outbursts of unhealthy activity followed by cowardly
depression, selfish cruelty, and criminal weakness are characteristic
of the public life of Greece from the struggle with Macedonia to the
final conquest by the arms of Rome. No one can fail to be struck by the
marked difference between the period from Marathon to the Peloponnesian
War and the period from Alexander to Mummius. Philosophy also suffered,
and became deeply pessimistic even in the hands of its best and noblest
exponents. 'Absence of feeling,' 'absence of care'--such were the
highest goals of human endeavour.
"How far this change was due to other causes is a complicated question.
The population may have suffered from foreign admixture during the
troubled times that followed the death of Alexander. There were,
however, many reasons against the view that these disturbances produced
any appreciable difference of race. The presence of vast numbers of
slaves, not members of households, but the gangs of toilers whom the
increase of commerce brought into the country, pandered to a foolish
pride that looked upon many kinds of honourable labour as being
shameful and unbecoming to a free man. The very institution that made
Greek civilisation possible encouraged idleness, luxury, and still
worse vices. Unnatural vice, which in some States seems to have been
positively encouraged, was prevalent among the Greeks to an almost
incredible extent. It is hard not to believe that much physical harm
was caused thereby; of the loss to moral strength and vigour there is
no need to speak. The city-state, again, however favourable to the
development of public spirit and a sense of responsibility, was doomed
to fail in a struggle against the stronger Powers of Macedon and Rome.
The growth of the scientific spirit destroyed the old religion. The
more intellectual tried to find principles of conduct in philosophy;
the ignorant or half-educated, deprived of the strong moral support
that always comes from sharing the convictions of those abler and wiser
than oneself, fell back upon degrading superstitions. In either case
there was a serious loss of that spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion
which a vigorous religious faith alone can bestow. Without such a
spirit, as history proves conclusively, no nation or people can
survive. " [57]
(b) _The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness_
One of the physical catastrophes that probably most accelerated the fall
of Greek civilisation was malarial fever. The parasite of this disease is
carried from man to man by Anopheline mosquitoes. These insects, during
the stage of egg, larva, and nympha, live in water, and afterwards, as
developed insects, in the air. The breeding-grounds, where the eggs are
laid, are shallow pools of stagnant water. For that reason the disease is
most common in marshy country, and tends to disappear when the land is
properly drained. Of this we have an example in England, whence malaria
disappeared as the marshes were drained.
In Homer there is a disputed reference to malaria, but it is not possible
to ascertain whether the disease was present during the rise of Greek
civilisation, and there are no references to this disease in the literature
from 700 B. C. to 550 B. C. [58] From this date references to malaria
gradually become more frequent, and Hippocrates stated that "those who live
in low, moist, hot districts, and drink the stagnant water, of necessity
suffer from enlarged spleen. They are stunted and ill-shaped, fleshy and
dark, bilious rather than phlegmatic. Their nature is to be cowardly and
adverse from hardship; but good discipline can improve their character in
this respect. " [59] After an exhaustive study of the literature, Mr. Jones
concludes "that malaria was endemic throughout the greater part of the
Greek world by 400 B. C. "
Concerning the causes of a malarial epidemic, Sir Ronald Ross writes: [60]
"Suppose that the Anophelines have been present from the first, but that
the number of infected immigrants has been few. Then, possibly, some of
these people have happened to take up their abode in places where the
mosquitoes are rare; others may have recovered quickly; others may not have
chanced to possess parasites in suitable stages when they have been bitten.
Thus, the probability of their spreading infection would be very small. Or,
supposing even that some few new infections have been caused, yet, by our
rough calculations in section 12, _unless the mosquitoes are sufficiently
numerous_ in the locality, the little epidemic may die out after a
while--for instance, during the cool season. " The italics are mine, because
some writers have suggested that the decline of Greece was _due_ to
malaria, whereas I submit, as the more logical interpretation of the facts,
that a moral catastrophe led to the neglect of agriculture, whereby the
area of marshy land became more extensive, mosquitoes more numerous, and
the fever more prevalent.
In view of the foregoing facts, the following Malthusian statement,
although groundless, is nevertheless an amusing example of the errors that
arise from lack of a little knowledge:
"The difficulty of providing for a high birth-rate in a settled
community was appreciated by the ancient Greeks, notably by Plato and
Aristotle; but their conclusions were swept aside by the warlike spirit
of Rome, and the sentimentality of Christianity, so that only a few
isolated thinkers showed any appreciation of them. " [61]
[Footnote 51: Quoted in _The Law of Births and Deaths_, by Charles Edward
Pell, 1921, chap. xii. ]
[Footnote 52: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921. ]
[Footnote 53: Ibid. , p. 40. ]
[Footnote 54: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921, p. 41. ]
[Footnote 55: Ibid. , p. 40. ]
[Footnote 56: Dr. John Brownlee, _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 156. ]
[Footnote 57: _Malaria and Greek History_, 1909, pp. 102 et seq. ]
[Footnote 58: Ibid. , p. 26. ]
[Footnote 59: Ibid. , p. 85. ]
[Footnote 60: _Report on the Prevention of Malaria in Mauritius_, p. 51. ]
[Footnote 61: C. V. Drysdale, O. B. E. , D. Sc. , _The Malthusian Doctrine and
its Modern Aspects_, p. 3. ]
CHAPTER VI
THE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES
Birth controllers claim that the fall in the English birth-rate, which
began to decline in 1876, is mostly due to the use of contraceptives: but
the very fact that this claim is made by these reckless propagandists makes
it imperative that we should scrutinise the evidence very carefully.
Section 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES
In support of the Malthusian contention, Dr. C. V. Drysdale, who is not a
doctor of medicine but a doctor of science, has published the following
statements:
". . . We might note that a recent investigation of the records of the
Quakers (the Society of Friends) reveals the fact that family
limitation has been adopted by them to a most astonishing extent. Their
birthrate [_sic_] stood at 20 per thousand in 1876, and has now
actually fallen to about 8 per thousand. The longevity of Quakers is
well known, and the returns of deaths given by their Society show that
the great majority live to between seventy and ninety years. Infantile
mortality is practically unknown among them, although none of the
special steps so dear to most social reformers have been taken for the
protection of infant life. The Quakers are well known to be very
earnest Christians, and to give the best example of religious morality.
Their probity in business and their self-sacrifice in humanitarian work
of all kinds are renowned. Yet it would seem that they have adopted
family restriction to a greater extent than any other body of people,
and, since the decline of their birth-rate only began in 1876, that it
is due to adoption of preventive methods. " [62]
Again, he translates the following quotation from a Swiss author:
"In France a national committee has been formed which has as its object
an agitation for the increase of the population. Upon this committee
these [? there] sit, besides President Poincaré, who, although married,
has no children, twenty-four senators and littérateurs. These
twenty-five persons, who preach to their fellow citizens by word and
pen, have between them nineteen children, or not one child on the
average per married couple. Similarly, a Paris journal
(_Intransigeant_, August and September, 1908) had the good idea of
publishing four hundred and forty-five names of the chief Parisian
personalities who are never tired of lending their names in support of
opposition to the artificial restriction of families. I give these
figures briefly without the names, which have no special interest for
us. Anyone interested in the names can consult the paper well known in
upper circles. Among them:
176 married couples had 0 children = 0 children
106 " " " 1 child = 106 "
88 " " " 2 children = 176 "
40 " " " 3 " = 120 "
19 " " " 4 " = 76 "
7 " " " 5 " = 35 "
4 " " " 6 " = 24 "
3 " " " 7 " = 21 "
1 " " " 9 " = 9 "
1 " " " 11 " = 11 "
Total 445 with 578
That is, an average one and a third children per couple, while each
single one of these families could much more easily have supported
twenty children than a working-class family a single child. "
"Comment on the above is superfluous," adds Dr. C. V. Drysdale, and with
that remark most people will cordially disagree. The obvious interpretation
of the foregoing figures is that there has been a decline in natural
fertility amongst highly educated and civilised people. But that
interpretation does not suit Dr. Drysdale's book, and hence we have the
disgraceful spectacle of a writer who, in order to bolster up an argument
which is rotten from beginning to end, does not hesitate to launch without
a particle of evidence a charge of gross hypocrisy against the Quakers of
England, a body of men and women who in peace and in war have proved the
sincerity of their faith, and against four hundred and seventy respected
citizens of Paris. Further comment on _that_ is superfluous. At the same
time it is obvious that, in so far as their pernicious propaganda spreads
and is adopted, Malthusians may claim to contribute to the fall of the
birth-rate, and towards the decline of the Empire.
Section 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW
In the course of an inquiry on the fertility of women who had received a
college education, the National Birth Rate Commission [63] attempted to
discover to what extent birth control was practised amongst the middle and
professional classes. Of those amongst whom the inquiry was made 477 gave
definite answers, from which it was ascertained that 289, or 60 per cent. ,
consciously limited their families, or attempted to do so; and that 188,
or 40 per cent. made no attempt to limit their families. Amongst those who
limited their families 183 stated the means employed, and of these, 105,
or 57 per cent. , practised continence, whilst 78, or 43 per cent. , used
artificial or unnatural methods.
Now comes a most extraordinary fact. Dr. Major Greenwood, [64] a
statistician whose methods are beyond question, discovered that there was
no real mathematical difference between the number of children in the
"limited" families and the number in the unlimited families. In both groups
of families the number of children was smaller than the average family in
the general population, and in both groups there were fewer children than
in the families of the preceding generation to which the parents belonged.
Dr. Greenwood states that this is _prima facie_ evidence that deliberate
birth control has produced little effect, and that the lowered fertility is
the expression of a natural change. Nevertheless, he holds that the latter
explanation cannot be accepted as wholly proved on the evidence, owing to
certain defects in the data on which his calculations were based.
"I am of opinion that we should hesitate before adopting that
interpretation in view of the cogent indirect evidence afforded by
other data that the fall of the birth-rate is differential, and that
the differentiation is largely economic. There are at least two
considerations which must be borne in mind in connection with these
schedules. The first is, that all the marriages described as unlimited
may not have been so. I do not suggest that the answers are
intentionally false, but it is possible that many may have considered
that limitation implied the use of mechanical means; that marriages in
which the parties merely abstained from, _or limited the occasions of_,
sexual intercourse may have frequently entered as of unrestricted
fertility. "
The above italics are mine, because, if that surmise be correct, it goes
to prove that the restriction of intercourse to certain periods, which
restriction the married may lawfully practise, is as efficacious in
limiting the size of a family as are those artificial methods of birth
control contrary both to natural and to Christian morality. Dr. Major
Greenwood continues as follows:
"In the second place, the schedules do not provide us with information
as to when limitation was introduced. We are told, for instance, that
the size of the family was five and that its number was limited. This
may mean _either_ that throughout the duration of the marriage
preventive measures were adopted from time to time, _or_ that _after_
five children had been born fertile intercourse was stopped. In the
absence of detailed information on this point it is plainly impossible
to form an accurate judgment as to the effect of limitation. "
There are, therefore, no accurate figures to indicate the extent to which
birth control has contributed to the decline in the birth-rate.
Section 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION
Moreover the claim of birth controllers, that the decline in the English
birth-rate is mainly due to the use of contraceptives, is rendered highly
improbable by the fact that the Registrar-General [65] has shown that in
1911 the birth-rate in different classes varied according to the occupation
of the fathers. The figures are these:
Births per 1,000 married
Social Class. males aged under 55, including
retired.
1. Unskilled workmen 213
2. Intermediate class 158
3. Skilled workmen 153
4. Intermediate 132
5. Upper and middle class 119
Thus, ascending the social scale, we find, in class upon class, that as the
annual income increases the number of children in the family diminishes,
until we come to the old English nobility of whom, according to Darwin, 19
per cent. are childless. These last have every reason to wish for heirs to
inherit their titles and what land and wealth they possess, and, as their
record in war proves them to be no cowards' breed, it would be a monstrous
indictment to maintain that their childlessness is mostly due to the use
of contraceptives. If _all_ these results arose from the practice of
birth control, it would imply a crescendo of general national selfishness
unparalleled in the history of humanity. No, it is not possible to give
Neo-Malthusians credit, even for all the evil they claim to have achieved.
Section 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM
Nevertheless, artificial birth control is an evil and too prevalent thing.
My contention is that the primary cause of our falling birth-rate is
over-civilisation; one of the most evil products of this over-civilisation,
whereby simple, natural, and unselfish ideals, based on the assumption that
national security depends on the moral and economic strength of family
life, have been replaced largely by a complicated, artificial, and
luxurious individualism; and that diminished fertility, apart from
the practice of artificial birth control, is a result of luxurious
individualism. Even if it be so, one of the most evil products of
over-civilisation is the use of contraceptives, because this practice, more
than any other factor in social life, hastens, directly and indirectly, the
fall of a declining birth-rate; and artificial birth control, to the extent
to which it is practised, therefore aggravates the consequences of a law of
decline already apparent in our midst. I have already said that restriction
of intercourse, as held lawful by the Catholic Church, is possibly as
efficacious in limiting the size of a family as are artificial methods.
If any man shall say that therefore there is no difference between these
methods, let him read the fuller explanation given in another connection on
p. 153. (See [Reference: Explanation]) The method which reason and morality
alike permit is devoid of all those evils, moral, psychological, and
physiological, that follow the use of contraceptives.
[Footnote 62: _The Small Family System_, pp. 195 and 160, New York, 1917. ]
[Footnote 63: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 323. ]
[Footnote 64: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 324. ]
[Footnote 65: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 9. ]
CHAPTER VII
THE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT
Birth control is alleged to be beneficial for men and women, and these
"benefits" are no less amazing than the fallacies on which this practice
is advocated. At the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine
in 1921 the leading physicians on diseases of women condemned the use of
contraceptives. [66]
_A Cause of Sterility_
Dr. R. A. Gibbons, Physician to the Grosvenor Hospital for Women, said
that nowadays it was common for a young married woman to ask her
medical man for advice as to the best method of preventing conception.
The test of relative sterility was the rapidity with which conception
takes place. He had made confidential inquiries in 120 marriages. In
100 cases preventive measures had been used at one time or another, and
the number of children was well under 2 per marriage. In Paris some
time ago the birth-rate was 104 per 1,000 in the poorer quarters and
only 34 in a rich quarter of the city; in London comparative figures
had been given as 195 and 63 in poor and in rich quarters. These and
similar figures showed that women living in comfort and luxury did not
want to be bothered with confinements. It had been said that the degree
of sterility could be regarded as an index to the morals of a race.
Congenital sterility was rare, but the number of children born in
England was decreasing. It had been estimated that one-third of the
pregnancies in several great cities abroad aborted. Dr. Gibbons then
quoted figures given by Douglas Wight and Amand Routh to show the high
percentage of abortions and stillbirths. In his opinion it was the duty
of medical men to point out to the public that physiological laws could
not be broken with impunity. It had been observed that if the doe were
withheld from the buck at oestral periods atrophy of the ovary took
place. In this connection Dr. Gibbons recalled a large number of
patients who had used contraceptives in early married life, and
subsequently had longed in vain for a child. This applied also to those
who had decided, after the first baby, to have no more children, and
had subsequently regretted their decision.
_Neuroses_
Professor McIlroy, of the London School of Medicine for Women, deplored
the amount of time spent on attempting to cure sterility when
contraceptives were so largely used. The fact that neuroses were
largely the result of the use of contraceptives should be made widely
known, and also that in women the maternal passion was even stronger,
though it might develop later, than sexual passion, and would
ultimately demand satisfaction.
_Fibroid Tumours_
Dr. Arthur E. Giles, Senior Surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women,
endorsed Dr. Gibbons's remarks as to the great unhappiness resulting
from deliberately childless marriages, and he added that he had always
warned patients of this. He believed that quinine had a permanently bad
effect. Those who waited for a convenient season to have a child often
laid up trouble for themselves. On the question of fibroid tumours he
had come to the conclusion that these were not a cause but in a sense a
consequence of sterility. Women who were subjected to sexual excitement
with no physiological outlet appear to have a tendency to develop
fibroids. He would like the opinion to go forth from the section that
the use of contraceptives was a bad thing.
All these authorities are agreed that the practice of artificial sterility
during early married life is the cause of many women remaining childless,
although later on these women wish in vain for children. To meet this
difficulty one of the advocates of birth control advises all young couples
to make sure of some children before adopting these practices; thus
demanding of young parents, at the very time when it is most irksome, that
very sacrifice of personal comfort and prosperity to prevent which is the
precise object of the vicious practice. Nor is sterility the only penalty.
The disease known as neurasthenia arises both in women _and in men_ in
consequence of these methods. Dr. Mary Sharlieb, [67] after forty years'
experience of diseases of women, writes as follows:
"Now, on the surface of things, it would seem as if a knowledge of how
to prevent the too rapid increase of a family would be a boon to
over-prolific and heavily burdened mothers. There are, however, certain
reasons which probably convert the supposed advantage into a very real
disadvantage. An experience of well over forty years convinces me that
the artificial limitation of the family causes damage to a woman's
nervous system. The damage done is likely to show itself in inability
to conceive when the restriction voluntarily used is abandoned because
the couple desire offspring.
"I have for many years asked women who came to me desiring children
whether they have ever practised prevention, and they very frequently
tell me that they did so during the early days of their married life
because they thought that their means were not adequate to the support
of a family. Subsequently they found that conception, thwarted at the
time that desire was present, fails to occur when it becomes
convenient. In such cases, even although examination of the pelvic
organ shows nothing abnormal, all one's endeavours to secure conception
frequently go unrewarded. Sometimes such a woman is not only sterile,
but nervous, and in generally poor health; but the more common
occurrence is that she remains fairly well until the time of the change
of life, when she frequently suffers more, on the nervous side, than
does the woman who has lived a natural married life. "
The late Dr. F. W. Taylor, President of the British Gynaecological Society,
wrote as follows in 1904:
"Artificial prevention is an evil and a disgrace. The immorality of it,
the degradation of succeeding generations by it, their domination or
subjection by strangers who are stronger because they have not given
way to it, the curses that must assuredly follow the parents of
decadence who started it,--all of this needs to be brought home to the
minds of those who have thoughtlessly or ignorantly accepted it, for it
is to this undoubtedly that we have to attribute not only the
diminishing birth-rate, but the diminishing value of our population.
"It would be strange indeed if so unnatural a practice, one so
destructive of the best life of the nation, should bring no danger or
disease in its wake, and I am convinced, after many years of
observation, that both sudden danger and chronic disease may be
produced by the methods of prevention very generally employed. . . . The
natural deduction is that the artificial production of modern times,
the relatively sterile marriage, is an evil thing, even to the
individuals primarily concerned, injurious not only to the race, but to
those who accept it. "
That was the opinion of a distinguished gynaecologist, who also happened
to be a Christian. The reader may protest that the latter fact is entirely
irrelevant to my argument, and that the value of a man's observations
concerning disease is to be judged by his skill and experience as a
physician, and not by his religious beliefs. A most reasonable statement.
Unhappily, the Neo-Malthusians think otherwise. They would have us believe
that because this man was a Christian his opinion, as a gynaecologist, is
worthless. C. V. Drysdale, O. B. E. , D. Sc. , after quoting Dr. Taylor's views,
adds the following foot-note:
"I have since learnt that Dr. Taylor was a very earnest Christian, and
the author of several sacred hymns and of a pious work, _The Coming of
the Saints_. " [68]
Furthermore, in 1905, the South-Western Branch of the British Medical
Association passed the following resolution:
"That this Branch is of opinion that the growing use of contraceptives
and ecbolics is fraught with great danger both to the individual and to
the race. That this Branch is of opinion that the advertisements and
sale of such appliances and substances, as well as the publication and
dissemination of literature relating thereto, should be made a penal
offence. " [69]
Section 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION
The foregoing opinions are very distasteful to Neo-Malthusians, and these
people, being unable apparently to give a reasoned answer, do not hesitate
to suggest that medical opposition, when not due to religious bias, is
certainly due to mercenary motives.
"As the Church has a vested interest in souls, so the medical
profession has a vested interest in bodies. Birth is a source of
revenue, direct and indirect. It means maternity fees first; it
generally presupposes preliminary medical treatment of the expectant
mother; and it provides a new human being to be a patient to some
member of the profession, humanly certain to have its share of
infantile diseases, and likely, if it survives them, to produce
children of its own before the final death-bed attendance is
reached. " [70]
That scandalous suggestion has recently been repeated by the President of
the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress under the
following circumstances.
----
During the same period the general birth-rate amongst the whole population
of England and Wales was about 24 per 1,000. And figures that are even more
remarkable have been published by Mr. W. C. D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham. [47]
These writers, having investigated the number of children in the families
of the landed gentry, show that the birth-rate amongst the aristocracy has
declined.
"A hundred fertile marriages for each decade from 1831 to 1890 have
been taken consecutively from those families who have held their title
to nobility for at least two preceding generations, thus excluding the
more modern commercial middle-class element in the present Peerage,
which can be better dealt with elsewhere. We then get the full effect
of hereditary stability and a secure position, and do away with any
disturbing influence that might occur from a sudden rise to
prosperity. " [48]
The results were as follows: [Reference: Population]
Year. Number of children to each
fertile marriage.
1831-40 7. 1
1841-60 6. 1
1871-80 4. 36
1881-90 3. 13
The birth-rate amongst thirty families of the landed gentry, who were
known to be definitely Catholic, was also investigated, with the following
results:
Years. Number of children to each
fertile marriage.
1871-90 6. 6
(as compared with 3. 74 for the landed families as a whole during the
same period. )
The interpretation of these figures is not a matter of faith, but of
reason. I submit that the facts are _prima facie_ evidence that by
observance of the moral law, as taught by the Catholic Church, even
a highly cultured community is enabled to escape those dangers of
over-civilisation that lead to diminished fertility and consequently to
national decline.
The truth of this statement has been freely acknowledged by many Anglicans.
According to Canon Edward Lyttelton: "The discipline of the Roman Communion
prohibits the artificial prevention of conception, hence Ireland is the
only part of the United Kingdom in which the birth-rate has not declined,
and the decline is least in places like Liverpool and those districts where
Roman Catholics are most numerous. " As we have already seen, there are also
other reasons why Catholicism preserves the fertility of a nation.
Without wishing to hurt the feelings of the most sensitive materialist, it
is necessary to point out that, apart altogether from the question as to
whether the chief or immediate cause of a declining birth-rate is the
practice of artificial birth control, or, as seems to be possible, a
general lowering of fertility, birth-rates are more dependent on morals
and religion than on race and country. During the past century irreligion
spread throughout France, and the birth-rate fell from 32. 2, during the
first decade of the nineteenth century, to 20. 6, during the first ten years
of the twentieth century. In America, amongst the descendants of the New
England Puritans a decay of religion and morals has also been accompanied
by a dwindling birth-rate. The decline of the original New England stock in
America has been masked to some extent by the high birth-rate amongst the
immigrant population; but nevertheless it is apparent in the Census Returns
for 1890, when a population of 65,000,000 was expected and only 62,500,000
was returned. Moreover, there is ample evidence in history that, wherever
the Christian ideal of a family has been abandoned, a race is neither able
to return to the family life of healthy pagan civilisations nor to escape
decay. During the past fifty years in England family life has been
definitely weakened by increased facilities for divorce amongst the rich,
by the discouragement of parental authority amongst the poor, and by the
neglect of all religious teaching in the schools. And thus, in the words
of Charles Devas, "We have of late years, with perverse ingenuity, been
preparing the way for the low birth-rate of irreligion and the high
death-rate of civil disorder. " [49] The birth-rate in England and Wales
reached its highest point, 36. 3, in 1876, and has gradually fallen to 18. 5
in 1919. During the first two quarters of that year the rate was the lowest
yet recorded. During the pre-war year, 1913, the rate was 24. 1.
In conclusion, the following statements by a Protestant writer are of
interest:
"Judging from a number of figures which cannot be quoted here, owing to
considerations of space, it would seem that the English middle-class
birth-rate has fallen to the extent of _over 50 per cent_. during the
last forty years; and we have actual figures showing that the
well-to-do artisan birth-rate has declined, _in the last thirty years,
by 52 per cent. ! _ Seeing that the Protestant Churches draw their
members mainly from these very classes, we have not far to seek for an
explanation of the empty Sunday Schools. . . . "
"Under these circumstances it is not in the least necessary for
Protestant ministers and clergymen to cast about them for evidence of
Jesuit machinations wherewith to explain the decline of the Protestant
Churches in this country! Let them rather look at the empty cradles in
the homes of their own congregations! " [50]
The author of the above-quoted paragraphs thus attributes the decline both
of the birth-rate and of the Protestant Churches to the general adoption of
artificial birth control. With that explanation I disagree, because it
puts the horse behind the cart. When the Protestant faith was strong the
birth-rate of this country was as high as that of Catholic lands. The
Protestant Churches have now been overshadowed by a rebirth of Rationalism,
a growth for which they themselves prepared the soil: and diminished
fertility is the natural product of a civilisation tending towards
materialism. Although the practice of artificial birth control must
obviously contribute towards a falling birth-rate, it is neither the only
nor the ultimate cause of the decline. The ultimate causes of a falling
birth-rate are more complex, and the decline of a community is but the
physical expression of a moral change. That is my thesis.
[Footnote 35: _Evening Standard_, October 12, 1921. ]
[Footnote 36: "The Declining Birth-rate" in _The Month_, August 1916, p.
157, reprinted by C. T. S. Price 2_d_. ]
[Footnote 37: "Religious Belief as affecting the Growth of Population,"
_The Hibbert Journal_, October, 1914, p. 144. ]
[Footnote 38: The Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide _The Declining
Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 99. ]
[Footnote 39: _The Month_, August 1916, p. 157, C. T. S. : 2_d_. ]
[Footnote 40: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 147. ]
[Footnote 41: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 150. ]
[Footnote 42: "Race-suicide and Dr. Bell," _America_, October 29, 1921, p.
31. ]
[Footnote 43: _Daily Chronicle_, April 25, 1910. ]
[Footnote 44: _Eighty-second Annual Report of the Registrar-General of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales_, 1919, p. 89. ]
[Footnote 45: Ibid. , p. xxvi. ]
[Footnote 46: _The Hibbert Journal_, October 1914, p. 141. ]
[Footnote 47: _The Family and the Nation_, 1909, pp. 139, 142. ]
[Footnote 48: Quoted in _Universe_, October 22, 1921. ]
[Footnote 49: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 2nd edition, 1901, p.
193. ]
[Footnote 50: Meyrick Booth, B. Sc. , Ph. D. , _The Hibbert Journal_, October
1914, pp. 142 and 152. ]
CHAPTER V
IS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS?
Section 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED
In 1837 Thomas Doubleday [51] maintained that the rising birth-rate of his
own time was closely connected with the fall in the standard of living, and
his argument implied that, in order to check the excessive birth-rate, it
was necessary to improve the condition of the mass of the people. Four
years later he published _The True Law of Population_, wherein he stated
that when the existence of a species is endangered--
"A corresponding effort is invariably made by Nature for its
preservation and continuance by an increase of fertility, and that this
especially takes place whenever such danger arises from a diminution of
proper nourishment or food, so that consequently the state of depletion
or the deplethoric state is favourable to fertility, and that, on the
other hand, the plethoric state, or state of repletion, is unfavourable
to fertility in the ratio of the intensity of each state. "
By a series of experiments on plants Doubleday discovered that "whatever
might be the principle of manure, _an overdose_ of it invariably induced
sterility in the plant. " Although his formula is deficient in that food is
selected as the one factor in environment which influences fertility, and
although it may be an overstatement to claim that fertility varies in exact
proportion to abundance or to scarcity, nevertheless his formula contains
an important truth which literally knocks the bottom out of the whole
Malthusian case.
It is a sad reflection that, while the falsehoods of Malthus have been
blindly accepted for the greater part of a century, the work of Doubleday
was almost lost in oblivion. His shade has now been recalled to the full
centre of the stage, and for this the credit is due to Mr. C. E. Pell. His
recent book [52] is a stimulating essay on the declining birth-rate, and
contains much evidence that supports the main contention of Doubleday.
Although it is impossible to agree with all the deductions made by Mr.
Pell, he has nevertheless done a public service by restating the problem of
the birth-rate in a new way, by effectively bursting the Malthusian bubble,
and by tabulating fresh evidence against the birth-controllers.
Section 2. MR. PELL'S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED
Mr. Pell defines the law of births and deaths in two generalisations. The
first is: "We have seen that it is a necessary condition of the success
of the evolutionary scheme that the variation of the inherited potential
degree of fertility between species and species must bear an inverse
proportion to their capacity for survival. " [53] At first glance this
statement appears hard to be understood; but it is obviously true--because
it means that a species that is well adapted to its environment can survive
with a low degree of fertility, whereas a species that is not well adapted
to its environment requires a high degree of fertility in order to survive.
Mr. Pell considers that a "capacity for survival" is synonymous with
"nervous energy"; but, as our total knowledge of nervous energy is limited
to the fact that it is neither matter nor any known force, the change in
words does not mark a real advance in knowledge.
The second generalisation is that "the variation of the degree of animal
fertility in response to the direct action of the environment shall bear
an inverse proportion to the variation of the survival capacity under
that environment. " [54] Here Mr. Pell and I part company. I have already
(Chapter III) disputed the causal connection between birth-rate and
death-rate which Mr. Pell here asserts. His generalisation is made by
assuming that birth-rates and death-rates rise and fall together: that
conditions which produce a high death-rate will also produce a high
birth-rate and that conditions which cause a low death-rate will also cause
a low birth-rate; that the increase or decline of a population is due to
the direct action of the environment; and finally that "the _actual_ degree
of fertility is decided by the direct action of the environment. " [55] On
that last rock Mr. Pell's barque sinks. The mistake here is analogous to
the old Darwinian fallacy, abandoned by Huxley and by Romanes, that natural
selection is a creative cause of new species. Even if the hypothesis of
evolution--and it is merely a hypothesis--be accepted, the only view
warranted by reason is that variation of species and their actual degree of
fertility may be produced, not by the direct action of environment, but by
the _reaction_ of species to their environment--a very different story.
There is no statistical evidence to prove a uniform correspondence between
birth-rates and death-rates, and it is improbable that there should be
a physical law of nature whose operations cannot be demonstrated by
mathematical proof. Moreover, we know that the same conditions which cause
a high birth-rate may cause a low death-rate. In the case of the first
settlers in a new country the death-rate is low because the diseases of
civilisation are absent and the settlers are usually young, whereas the
birth-rate is high. If fifty young married couples settle on the virgin
soil of a new country it is probable that for many years an enormous
birth-rate, of over 100, will coexist with a low death-rate.
In reality a high birth-rate may coexist with a low death-rate, or with a
high death-rate. For example, there is a difference between natural and
artificial poverty, the first being brought about by God, or, if any reader
prefers to have it so, by Nature, and the second being made by man. Under
conditions of natural poverty small groups of people in an open country are
surrounded by land not yet cultivated: whereas artificial poverty means
a population overcrowded and underfed, living in dark tenements or in
back-to-back houses, breathing foul air in ill-ventilated rooms seldom lit
by the sun, working long hours in gas-lit workshops for a sweated wage,
buying the cheapest food in the dearest market, and drugged by bad liquor.
In either case their existence is threatened, although for very different
reasons, and the birth-rate rises; but under conditions of natural poverty
the death-rate is low, whereas in slums the death-rate is high.
Section 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE
It would appear, then, that under conditions of hardship the birth-rate
tends to rise, and that in circumstances of ease the birth-rate tends to
fall. If the existence of the inhabitants in a closed country is threatened
by scarcity, the birth-rate tends to rise. For example, "In some of the
remote parts of the country, Orkney and Shetland, the population remained
practically stationary between the years 1801 and 1811, and in the next ten
years, still years of great scarcity, it increased 15 per cent. " [56]
The governing principle may be expressed in the following generalisation.
When the existence of a community is threatened by adversity the birth-rate
tends to rise; but when the existence of a community is threatened by
prosperity the birth-rate tends to fall. By adversity I mean war, famine,
scarcity, poverty, oppression, an untilled soil, and disease: and by
prosperity I mean wealth, luxury, idleness, a diet too rich--especially in
flesh meat--and over-civilisation, whereby the physical laws of nature
are defied. Now the danger of national decline owing to prosperity can
be avoided by a nation that observes the moral law, and this is the most
probable explanation of the fact that in Ireland, although the general
prosperity of the people has rapidly increased since George Wyndham
displaced landlordism over a large area by small ownership, the birth-rate
has continued to rise. Moreover, the danger to national existence, as we
have already indicated (Chapter I, Section. 10) is greater from moral than
from physical catastrophes, and when both catastrophes are threatened the
ultimate issue depends upon which of the two is the greater. Furthermore,
it would appear that moral catastrophes inevitably lead to physical
catastrophes. This is best illustrated by the fate of ancient Greece.
Section 4. ILLUSTRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY [Reference: Dangers]
The appositeness of this illustration arises from the fact that ancient
Greece reached a very high level of material and intellectual civilisation,
yet perished owing to moral and physical disasters.
(a) _Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece_
The evidence of the moral catastrophe is to be found in the change that
occurred in the Greek character most definitely after the fourth century
before Christ. Of this Mr. W. H. S. Jones has given the following account:
"Gradually the Greeks lost their brilliance, which had been as the
bright freshness of early youth. This is painfully obvious in their
literature, if not in other forms of art. Their initiative vanished;
they ceased to create and began to comment. Patriotism, with rare
exceptions, became an empty name, for few had the high spirit and
energy to translate into action man's duty to the State. Vacillation,
indecision, fitful outbursts of unhealthy activity followed by cowardly
depression, selfish cruelty, and criminal weakness are characteristic
of the public life of Greece from the struggle with Macedonia to the
final conquest by the arms of Rome. No one can fail to be struck by the
marked difference between the period from Marathon to the Peloponnesian
War and the period from Alexander to Mummius. Philosophy also suffered,
and became deeply pessimistic even in the hands of its best and noblest
exponents. 'Absence of feeling,' 'absence of care'--such were the
highest goals of human endeavour.
"How far this change was due to other causes is a complicated question.
The population may have suffered from foreign admixture during the
troubled times that followed the death of Alexander. There were,
however, many reasons against the view that these disturbances produced
any appreciable difference of race. The presence of vast numbers of
slaves, not members of households, but the gangs of toilers whom the
increase of commerce brought into the country, pandered to a foolish
pride that looked upon many kinds of honourable labour as being
shameful and unbecoming to a free man. The very institution that made
Greek civilisation possible encouraged idleness, luxury, and still
worse vices. Unnatural vice, which in some States seems to have been
positively encouraged, was prevalent among the Greeks to an almost
incredible extent. It is hard not to believe that much physical harm
was caused thereby; of the loss to moral strength and vigour there is
no need to speak. The city-state, again, however favourable to the
development of public spirit and a sense of responsibility, was doomed
to fail in a struggle against the stronger Powers of Macedon and Rome.
The growth of the scientific spirit destroyed the old religion. The
more intellectual tried to find principles of conduct in philosophy;
the ignorant or half-educated, deprived of the strong moral support
that always comes from sharing the convictions of those abler and wiser
than oneself, fell back upon degrading superstitions. In either case
there was a serious loss of that spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion
which a vigorous religious faith alone can bestow. Without such a
spirit, as history proves conclusively, no nation or people can
survive. " [57]
(b) _The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness_
One of the physical catastrophes that probably most accelerated the fall
of Greek civilisation was malarial fever. The parasite of this disease is
carried from man to man by Anopheline mosquitoes. These insects, during
the stage of egg, larva, and nympha, live in water, and afterwards, as
developed insects, in the air. The breeding-grounds, where the eggs are
laid, are shallow pools of stagnant water. For that reason the disease is
most common in marshy country, and tends to disappear when the land is
properly drained. Of this we have an example in England, whence malaria
disappeared as the marshes were drained.
In Homer there is a disputed reference to malaria, but it is not possible
to ascertain whether the disease was present during the rise of Greek
civilisation, and there are no references to this disease in the literature
from 700 B. C. to 550 B. C. [58] From this date references to malaria
gradually become more frequent, and Hippocrates stated that "those who live
in low, moist, hot districts, and drink the stagnant water, of necessity
suffer from enlarged spleen. They are stunted and ill-shaped, fleshy and
dark, bilious rather than phlegmatic. Their nature is to be cowardly and
adverse from hardship; but good discipline can improve their character in
this respect. " [59] After an exhaustive study of the literature, Mr. Jones
concludes "that malaria was endemic throughout the greater part of the
Greek world by 400 B. C. "
Concerning the causes of a malarial epidemic, Sir Ronald Ross writes: [60]
"Suppose that the Anophelines have been present from the first, but that
the number of infected immigrants has been few. Then, possibly, some of
these people have happened to take up their abode in places where the
mosquitoes are rare; others may have recovered quickly; others may not have
chanced to possess parasites in suitable stages when they have been bitten.
Thus, the probability of their spreading infection would be very small. Or,
supposing even that some few new infections have been caused, yet, by our
rough calculations in section 12, _unless the mosquitoes are sufficiently
numerous_ in the locality, the little epidemic may die out after a
while--for instance, during the cool season. " The italics are mine, because
some writers have suggested that the decline of Greece was _due_ to
malaria, whereas I submit, as the more logical interpretation of the facts,
that a moral catastrophe led to the neglect of agriculture, whereby the
area of marshy land became more extensive, mosquitoes more numerous, and
the fever more prevalent.
In view of the foregoing facts, the following Malthusian statement,
although groundless, is nevertheless an amusing example of the errors that
arise from lack of a little knowledge:
"The difficulty of providing for a high birth-rate in a settled
community was appreciated by the ancient Greeks, notably by Plato and
Aristotle; but their conclusions were swept aside by the warlike spirit
of Rome, and the sentimentality of Christianity, so that only a few
isolated thinkers showed any appreciation of them. " [61]
[Footnote 51: Quoted in _The Law of Births and Deaths_, by Charles Edward
Pell, 1921, chap. xii. ]
[Footnote 52: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921. ]
[Footnote 53: Ibid. , p. 40. ]
[Footnote 54: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921, p. 41. ]
[Footnote 55: Ibid. , p. 40. ]
[Footnote 56: Dr. John Brownlee, _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 156. ]
[Footnote 57: _Malaria and Greek History_, 1909, pp. 102 et seq. ]
[Footnote 58: Ibid. , p. 26. ]
[Footnote 59: Ibid. , p. 85. ]
[Footnote 60: _Report on the Prevention of Malaria in Mauritius_, p. 51. ]
[Footnote 61: C. V. Drysdale, O. B. E. , D. Sc. , _The Malthusian Doctrine and
its Modern Aspects_, p. 3. ]
CHAPTER VI
THE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES
Birth controllers claim that the fall in the English birth-rate, which
began to decline in 1876, is mostly due to the use of contraceptives: but
the very fact that this claim is made by these reckless propagandists makes
it imperative that we should scrutinise the evidence very carefully.
Section 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES
In support of the Malthusian contention, Dr. C. V. Drysdale, who is not a
doctor of medicine but a doctor of science, has published the following
statements:
". . . We might note that a recent investigation of the records of the
Quakers (the Society of Friends) reveals the fact that family
limitation has been adopted by them to a most astonishing extent. Their
birthrate [_sic_] stood at 20 per thousand in 1876, and has now
actually fallen to about 8 per thousand. The longevity of Quakers is
well known, and the returns of deaths given by their Society show that
the great majority live to between seventy and ninety years. Infantile
mortality is practically unknown among them, although none of the
special steps so dear to most social reformers have been taken for the
protection of infant life. The Quakers are well known to be very
earnest Christians, and to give the best example of religious morality.
Their probity in business and their self-sacrifice in humanitarian work
of all kinds are renowned. Yet it would seem that they have adopted
family restriction to a greater extent than any other body of people,
and, since the decline of their birth-rate only began in 1876, that it
is due to adoption of preventive methods. " [62]
Again, he translates the following quotation from a Swiss author:
"In France a national committee has been formed which has as its object
an agitation for the increase of the population. Upon this committee
these [? there] sit, besides President Poincaré, who, although married,
has no children, twenty-four senators and littérateurs. These
twenty-five persons, who preach to their fellow citizens by word and
pen, have between them nineteen children, or not one child on the
average per married couple. Similarly, a Paris journal
(_Intransigeant_, August and September, 1908) had the good idea of
publishing four hundred and forty-five names of the chief Parisian
personalities who are never tired of lending their names in support of
opposition to the artificial restriction of families. I give these
figures briefly without the names, which have no special interest for
us. Anyone interested in the names can consult the paper well known in
upper circles. Among them:
176 married couples had 0 children = 0 children
106 " " " 1 child = 106 "
88 " " " 2 children = 176 "
40 " " " 3 " = 120 "
19 " " " 4 " = 76 "
7 " " " 5 " = 35 "
4 " " " 6 " = 24 "
3 " " " 7 " = 21 "
1 " " " 9 " = 9 "
1 " " " 11 " = 11 "
Total 445 with 578
That is, an average one and a third children per couple, while each
single one of these families could much more easily have supported
twenty children than a working-class family a single child. "
"Comment on the above is superfluous," adds Dr. C. V. Drysdale, and with
that remark most people will cordially disagree. The obvious interpretation
of the foregoing figures is that there has been a decline in natural
fertility amongst highly educated and civilised people. But that
interpretation does not suit Dr. Drysdale's book, and hence we have the
disgraceful spectacle of a writer who, in order to bolster up an argument
which is rotten from beginning to end, does not hesitate to launch without
a particle of evidence a charge of gross hypocrisy against the Quakers of
England, a body of men and women who in peace and in war have proved the
sincerity of their faith, and against four hundred and seventy respected
citizens of Paris. Further comment on _that_ is superfluous. At the same
time it is obvious that, in so far as their pernicious propaganda spreads
and is adopted, Malthusians may claim to contribute to the fall of the
birth-rate, and towards the decline of the Empire.
Section 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW
In the course of an inquiry on the fertility of women who had received a
college education, the National Birth Rate Commission [63] attempted to
discover to what extent birth control was practised amongst the middle and
professional classes. Of those amongst whom the inquiry was made 477 gave
definite answers, from which it was ascertained that 289, or 60 per cent. ,
consciously limited their families, or attempted to do so; and that 188,
or 40 per cent. made no attempt to limit their families. Amongst those who
limited their families 183 stated the means employed, and of these, 105,
or 57 per cent. , practised continence, whilst 78, or 43 per cent. , used
artificial or unnatural methods.
Now comes a most extraordinary fact. Dr. Major Greenwood, [64] a
statistician whose methods are beyond question, discovered that there was
no real mathematical difference between the number of children in the
"limited" families and the number in the unlimited families. In both groups
of families the number of children was smaller than the average family in
the general population, and in both groups there were fewer children than
in the families of the preceding generation to which the parents belonged.
Dr. Greenwood states that this is _prima facie_ evidence that deliberate
birth control has produced little effect, and that the lowered fertility is
the expression of a natural change. Nevertheless, he holds that the latter
explanation cannot be accepted as wholly proved on the evidence, owing to
certain defects in the data on which his calculations were based.
"I am of opinion that we should hesitate before adopting that
interpretation in view of the cogent indirect evidence afforded by
other data that the fall of the birth-rate is differential, and that
the differentiation is largely economic. There are at least two
considerations which must be borne in mind in connection with these
schedules. The first is, that all the marriages described as unlimited
may not have been so. I do not suggest that the answers are
intentionally false, but it is possible that many may have considered
that limitation implied the use of mechanical means; that marriages in
which the parties merely abstained from, _or limited the occasions of_,
sexual intercourse may have frequently entered as of unrestricted
fertility. "
The above italics are mine, because, if that surmise be correct, it goes
to prove that the restriction of intercourse to certain periods, which
restriction the married may lawfully practise, is as efficacious in
limiting the size of a family as are those artificial methods of birth
control contrary both to natural and to Christian morality. Dr. Major
Greenwood continues as follows:
"In the second place, the schedules do not provide us with information
as to when limitation was introduced. We are told, for instance, that
the size of the family was five and that its number was limited. This
may mean _either_ that throughout the duration of the marriage
preventive measures were adopted from time to time, _or_ that _after_
five children had been born fertile intercourse was stopped. In the
absence of detailed information on this point it is plainly impossible
to form an accurate judgment as to the effect of limitation. "
There are, therefore, no accurate figures to indicate the extent to which
birth control has contributed to the decline in the birth-rate.
Section 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION
Moreover the claim of birth controllers, that the decline in the English
birth-rate is mainly due to the use of contraceptives, is rendered highly
improbable by the fact that the Registrar-General [65] has shown that in
1911 the birth-rate in different classes varied according to the occupation
of the fathers. The figures are these:
Births per 1,000 married
Social Class. males aged under 55, including
retired.
1. Unskilled workmen 213
2. Intermediate class 158
3. Skilled workmen 153
4. Intermediate 132
5. Upper and middle class 119
Thus, ascending the social scale, we find, in class upon class, that as the
annual income increases the number of children in the family diminishes,
until we come to the old English nobility of whom, according to Darwin, 19
per cent. are childless. These last have every reason to wish for heirs to
inherit their titles and what land and wealth they possess, and, as their
record in war proves them to be no cowards' breed, it would be a monstrous
indictment to maintain that their childlessness is mostly due to the use
of contraceptives. If _all_ these results arose from the practice of
birth control, it would imply a crescendo of general national selfishness
unparalleled in the history of humanity. No, it is not possible to give
Neo-Malthusians credit, even for all the evil they claim to have achieved.
Section 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM
Nevertheless, artificial birth control is an evil and too prevalent thing.
My contention is that the primary cause of our falling birth-rate is
over-civilisation; one of the most evil products of this over-civilisation,
whereby simple, natural, and unselfish ideals, based on the assumption that
national security depends on the moral and economic strength of family
life, have been replaced largely by a complicated, artificial, and
luxurious individualism; and that diminished fertility, apart from
the practice of artificial birth control, is a result of luxurious
individualism. Even if it be so, one of the most evil products of
over-civilisation is the use of contraceptives, because this practice, more
than any other factor in social life, hastens, directly and indirectly, the
fall of a declining birth-rate; and artificial birth control, to the extent
to which it is practised, therefore aggravates the consequences of a law of
decline already apparent in our midst. I have already said that restriction
of intercourse, as held lawful by the Catholic Church, is possibly as
efficacious in limiting the size of a family as are artificial methods.
If any man shall say that therefore there is no difference between these
methods, let him read the fuller explanation given in another connection on
p. 153. (See [Reference: Explanation]) The method which reason and morality
alike permit is devoid of all those evils, moral, psychological, and
physiological, that follow the use of contraceptives.
[Footnote 62: _The Small Family System_, pp. 195 and 160, New York, 1917. ]
[Footnote 63: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 323. ]
[Footnote 64: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 324. ]
[Footnote 65: _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 9. ]
CHAPTER VII
THE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT
Birth control is alleged to be beneficial for men and women, and these
"benefits" are no less amazing than the fallacies on which this practice
is advocated. At the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine
in 1921 the leading physicians on diseases of women condemned the use of
contraceptives. [66]
_A Cause of Sterility_
Dr. R. A. Gibbons, Physician to the Grosvenor Hospital for Women, said
that nowadays it was common for a young married woman to ask her
medical man for advice as to the best method of preventing conception.
The test of relative sterility was the rapidity with which conception
takes place. He had made confidential inquiries in 120 marriages. In
100 cases preventive measures had been used at one time or another, and
the number of children was well under 2 per marriage. In Paris some
time ago the birth-rate was 104 per 1,000 in the poorer quarters and
only 34 in a rich quarter of the city; in London comparative figures
had been given as 195 and 63 in poor and in rich quarters. These and
similar figures showed that women living in comfort and luxury did not
want to be bothered with confinements. It had been said that the degree
of sterility could be regarded as an index to the morals of a race.
Congenital sterility was rare, but the number of children born in
England was decreasing. It had been estimated that one-third of the
pregnancies in several great cities abroad aborted. Dr. Gibbons then
quoted figures given by Douglas Wight and Amand Routh to show the high
percentage of abortions and stillbirths. In his opinion it was the duty
of medical men to point out to the public that physiological laws could
not be broken with impunity. It had been observed that if the doe were
withheld from the buck at oestral periods atrophy of the ovary took
place. In this connection Dr. Gibbons recalled a large number of
patients who had used contraceptives in early married life, and
subsequently had longed in vain for a child. This applied also to those
who had decided, after the first baby, to have no more children, and
had subsequently regretted their decision.
_Neuroses_
Professor McIlroy, of the London School of Medicine for Women, deplored
the amount of time spent on attempting to cure sterility when
contraceptives were so largely used. The fact that neuroses were
largely the result of the use of contraceptives should be made widely
known, and also that in women the maternal passion was even stronger,
though it might develop later, than sexual passion, and would
ultimately demand satisfaction.
_Fibroid Tumours_
Dr. Arthur E. Giles, Senior Surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women,
endorsed Dr. Gibbons's remarks as to the great unhappiness resulting
from deliberately childless marriages, and he added that he had always
warned patients of this. He believed that quinine had a permanently bad
effect. Those who waited for a convenient season to have a child often
laid up trouble for themselves. On the question of fibroid tumours he
had come to the conclusion that these were not a cause but in a sense a
consequence of sterility. Women who were subjected to sexual excitement
with no physiological outlet appear to have a tendency to develop
fibroids. He would like the opinion to go forth from the section that
the use of contraceptives was a bad thing.
All these authorities are agreed that the practice of artificial sterility
during early married life is the cause of many women remaining childless,
although later on these women wish in vain for children. To meet this
difficulty one of the advocates of birth control advises all young couples
to make sure of some children before adopting these practices; thus
demanding of young parents, at the very time when it is most irksome, that
very sacrifice of personal comfort and prosperity to prevent which is the
precise object of the vicious practice. Nor is sterility the only penalty.
The disease known as neurasthenia arises both in women _and in men_ in
consequence of these methods. Dr. Mary Sharlieb, [67] after forty years'
experience of diseases of women, writes as follows:
"Now, on the surface of things, it would seem as if a knowledge of how
to prevent the too rapid increase of a family would be a boon to
over-prolific and heavily burdened mothers. There are, however, certain
reasons which probably convert the supposed advantage into a very real
disadvantage. An experience of well over forty years convinces me that
the artificial limitation of the family causes damage to a woman's
nervous system. The damage done is likely to show itself in inability
to conceive when the restriction voluntarily used is abandoned because
the couple desire offspring.
"I have for many years asked women who came to me desiring children
whether they have ever practised prevention, and they very frequently
tell me that they did so during the early days of their married life
because they thought that their means were not adequate to the support
of a family. Subsequently they found that conception, thwarted at the
time that desire was present, fails to occur when it becomes
convenient. In such cases, even although examination of the pelvic
organ shows nothing abnormal, all one's endeavours to secure conception
frequently go unrewarded. Sometimes such a woman is not only sterile,
but nervous, and in generally poor health; but the more common
occurrence is that she remains fairly well until the time of the change
of life, when she frequently suffers more, on the nervous side, than
does the woman who has lived a natural married life. "
The late Dr. F. W. Taylor, President of the British Gynaecological Society,
wrote as follows in 1904:
"Artificial prevention is an evil and a disgrace. The immorality of it,
the degradation of succeeding generations by it, their domination or
subjection by strangers who are stronger because they have not given
way to it, the curses that must assuredly follow the parents of
decadence who started it,--all of this needs to be brought home to the
minds of those who have thoughtlessly or ignorantly accepted it, for it
is to this undoubtedly that we have to attribute not only the
diminishing birth-rate, but the diminishing value of our population.
"It would be strange indeed if so unnatural a practice, one so
destructive of the best life of the nation, should bring no danger or
disease in its wake, and I am convinced, after many years of
observation, that both sudden danger and chronic disease may be
produced by the methods of prevention very generally employed. . . . The
natural deduction is that the artificial production of modern times,
the relatively sterile marriage, is an evil thing, even to the
individuals primarily concerned, injurious not only to the race, but to
those who accept it. "
That was the opinion of a distinguished gynaecologist, who also happened
to be a Christian. The reader may protest that the latter fact is entirely
irrelevant to my argument, and that the value of a man's observations
concerning disease is to be judged by his skill and experience as a
physician, and not by his religious beliefs. A most reasonable statement.
Unhappily, the Neo-Malthusians think otherwise. They would have us believe
that because this man was a Christian his opinion, as a gynaecologist, is
worthless. C. V. Drysdale, O. B. E. , D. Sc. , after quoting Dr. Taylor's views,
adds the following foot-note:
"I have since learnt that Dr. Taylor was a very earnest Christian, and
the author of several sacred hymns and of a pious work, _The Coming of
the Saints_. " [68]
Furthermore, in 1905, the South-Western Branch of the British Medical
Association passed the following resolution:
"That this Branch is of opinion that the growing use of contraceptives
and ecbolics is fraught with great danger both to the individual and to
the race. That this Branch is of opinion that the advertisements and
sale of such appliances and substances, as well as the publication and
dissemination of literature relating thereto, should be made a penal
offence. " [69]
Section 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION
The foregoing opinions are very distasteful to Neo-Malthusians, and these
people, being unable apparently to give a reasoned answer, do not hesitate
to suggest that medical opposition, when not due to religious bias, is
certainly due to mercenary motives.
"As the Church has a vested interest in souls, so the medical
profession has a vested interest in bodies. Birth is a source of
revenue, direct and indirect. It means maternity fees first; it
generally presupposes preliminary medical treatment of the expectant
mother; and it provides a new human being to be a patient to some
member of the profession, humanly certain to have its share of
infantile diseases, and likely, if it survives them, to produce
children of its own before the final death-bed attendance is
reached. " [70]
That scandalous suggestion has recently been repeated by the President of
the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress under the
following circumstances.
