THE GREAT PROCREATION FETISH 175 



apparently only because detection is more easy, or, 

 perhaps it would be more correct to say, only 

 because her offence sometimes forces itself on the 

 attention of society in a manner not to be ignored. 

 Many women more than suspected of immorality 

 hold high positions in society unmolested. 



When Malthus enunciated the simple truth 

 that population tends to increase faster than the 

 food supply,^ a transparent fact known to every 

 student of nature, he was railed at as a criminal. 



When Sir James Simpson introduced chloroform 

 no serious objection was raised to its use for the alle- 

 viation of pain in ordinary surgical operations. But 

 when he proposed to alleviate the pain of mothers 

 in child-birth the pulpits of Scotland resounded 

 with denunciation. Had not God said to the 

 first mother, "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth 

 children?" How dared this impious being "de- 

 prive the Almighty of those earnest prayers, those 

 deep supplications," which arise from the tortured 

 woman in her hour of agony ? One is tempted to 



1 " Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, Nature has 

 scattered the seeds of life abroad, with the most profuse and liberal 

 hand ; but has been comparatively sparing in the room and nourish- 

 ment to rear them. The germs of existence contained in this earth, 

 if they could freely develop themselves, would fill millions of worlds 

 in the course of a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious 

 all-pervading law of Nature, restrains them within the prescribed 

 bounds. The races of plants and of animals shrink under this great 

 restrictive law ; and man cannot by any efforts of reason escape 

 from it." 



