A CHAPTER FOR MARRIED PEOPLE 527 



raised people. From this class of society the ranks of 

 thieves, drunkards, beggars, vagabonds, and prosti- 

 tutes are recruited, ^liy should it be considered an 

 improper or immoral thing to limit the number of 

 children according to the circumstances of the parents 1 

 Ought it not to be considered a crime against childhood 

 and against the race to do otherwise? It is seriously 

 maintained by a number of distinguished persons that 

 man ' ' is in duty bound to limit the number of his chil- 

 dren as well as the sheep on his farm, the number of 

 each to be according to the adequacy of his means for 

 their support." 



Transgression of nature's law by indulgence dur- 

 ing pregnancy is followed by the worst results of any 

 form of marital excess. The mother suffers doubly, 

 because laden with the burden of supporting two lives 

 instead of one. But the results upon the child are 

 especially disastrous. During the time when it is re- 

 ceiving its stock of vitality, while its plastic form is 

 being molded, and its various organs acquiring that 

 integrity of structure which makes up what is called 

 constitutional vigor,— during this most critical of all 

 periods in the life of the new being, its resources are 

 exhausted and its structure is depraved, and thus con- 

 stitutional tendencies to disease are produced, by the 

 unnatural demands made upon the mother. 



Effect upon the Character.— Still another ter- 

 rible consequence results from this practice so contrary 

 to nature. The delicate brain, which is being molded 

 with the other organs of the body, receives its cast 

 largely from those mental and nervous sensations and 

 actions of the mother which are the most intense. One 

 of the most certain effects of sexual indulgence at this 

 time is to develop abnormally the sexual instinct in the 



