Chapter VIII 

 Birth Control 



WE have seen that persons either endowed with bad 

 hereditary qualities, or having many defective 

 relatives, may be advised either to have no children, or that 

 their famiUes should be very small. But by what means 

 ought these results to be brought about ? The final decision 

 on this question ought always to rest with the couple con- 

 cerned. What is here said is only with the object of 

 faciUtating such decisions. 



Some methods of preventing a too rapid increase of popu- 

 lation must have been in operation in all ages. Animals 

 in a state of nature always produce so many offspring that, 

 if aU of their young were to survive, the numbers of their 

 kind would increase with enormous rapidity. The same 

 would be true of man if he were to take nature as his guide 

 in these matters. The number of the people has, however, 

 of necessity always been kept down in one harmful way or 

 another. The checks which have been most commonly 

 operative in the past have been war, famine, disease, 

 especially amongst the young, the deliberate destruction of 

 little children, and the practice of abortion. 



We all condemn war, at all events with our mouths. 

 Happily it is no longer necessary to argue against the 

 murder of infants or in favour of paying attention to their 

 health. The cure of disease amongst persons of all ages, 

 and its prevention by means of precautions taken in 

 advance, meet with miiversal approval. Thus we see that 

 we are now striving and are bound to strive against all those 

 methods of keeping down numbers which have been most 

 effective in past ages. Looking to the future, the increase 

 in supplies of all kinds could not keep pace with such an 



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