38 WHAT IS EUGENICS? 



unemployment, poverty, misery, disease, and the death of 

 little children. On the other hand, those who are striving 

 to promote birth control without reference to its effects 

 on the inborn qualities of future generations should con- 

 sider what would be the result of their endeavours if 

 successful. It certainly would be that birth control would 

 be most practised by the more thoughtful and superior 

 individuals. They would have fewer children in con- 

 sequence ; whilst the inferior stocks, taking less thought for 

 the morrow, would continue to have more children, thus 

 making their bad qualities tend relatively to increase in the 

 future. As we shall see in Chapters XIII and XV, the 

 wrongful use of birth control is now doing an injury to the 

 race which may have disastrous consequences. This is, 

 however, no argument against its rightful use. 



Our aim must, therefore, be to facilitate the practice of 

 birth control when it is desirable on all grounds, whilst 

 unsparingly condemning its use for merely selfish motives. 

 A dual campaign, both for and against birth control — or, in 

 other words, for its use only on suitable occasions — is 

 needed in order to maintain the quality of our nation in 

 the future. 



There are many human beings, however, who could under 

 no circumstances be trusted to practise the self-restraint 

 needed for the voluntary abandonment of parenthood, 

 whether by continence or birth control. Persuasion will 

 not do all that is needed to preserve the nation from 

 deterioration, and in future chapters it will be necessary 

 to consider the cases in which pressure ought to be applied. 



