268 HISTORICAL EACES 



' Abortion ', says Lecky, * was probably regarded by the average 

 Roman of the later days of Paganism much as an Englishman in 

 the last century regarded convivial excess, as certainly wrong, but 

 so venial as scarcely to deserve censure. The language of the 

 Christians from the very beginning was widely different. With 

 unswerving consistency and with the strongest emphasis, they 

 denounced the practice, not simply as inhuman, but as definitely 

 murder.' l The evidence goes to show that the Christian objection 

 to abortion was the chief factor in bringing this practice into dis- 

 credit. The Christian attitude was due to the belief that children 

 in the womb possessed souls. St. Clement of Alexandria, for in- 

 stance, was of opinion that such children had guardian angels. It 

 is probable that abortion was not stamped out altogether ; it may 

 have continued to some extent throughout the whole mediaeval 

 period ; it is known to be practised to a considerable extent 

 among the less educated classes in the more advanced countries 

 at the present day. 2 Figures have been given which show that 

 abortion is at the present day a considerable factor in France. 

 But it is clear that from being a factor of the first importance 

 it has come to be altogether a secondary factor and what is 

 more to be regarded definitely as criminal. 



The first protest against infanticide was made by Philo in the 

 first century A. D. 3 The Christians opposed infanticide as they 

 did abortion, but it does not appear that Christian influence 

 played as large a part in putting down this practice as it did in 

 the case of abortion. Speaking of the later days of the Empire, 

 Lecky says that ' the legislators then absolutely condemned it 

 and it was indirectly discouraged by laws which accorded special 

 privileges to the fathers of many children. . . . Pagan and Christian 

 authorities are united in speaking of infanticide as a crying vice 

 of the Empire and Tertullian observed that no laws were more 

 easily or constantly evaded than those which condemned it. 

 A broad distinction was popularly drawn between infanticide 

 and exposition. The latter, though probably condemned, was 

 certainly not punished by law ; it was practised on a gigantic 

 scale with absolute impunity, noticed by writers with most frigid 

 indifference, and, at least in the case of destitute parents, con- 



1 Lecky, European Morals, vol. ii, p. 21. 2 The Declining Birth-rate, p. 58. 



Leroy-Beaulieu gives a very high estimate of the number of abortions which 

 occur yearly in France (Question de la Population, p. 330). 3 Glotz, loc. cit., 



p. 223. 



