294 THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. 



the details of the various methods, we must refer to the 

 Malthusian hterature ; but a brief outhne is imperative, even 

 for an approximate understanding of the problem. 



(a.) Thus we have the suggestion that intercourse should be 

 limited to the relatively infertile period most remote from 

 menstruation, when conception may indeed occur, but with 

 less probabihty than at other periods. Although gynsecologists 

 are disagreed as to the degree of this probability, there can be 

 little doubt that such limitation would have a useful influence, 

 although in itself confessedly incomplete. The so-called 

 artificiality of control is here reduced to a minimum, and the 

 suggestion is obviously in harmony with that increased 

 temperance which all must allow to be desirable. 



(/?.) In the second place, there are methods employed by 

 the males, such as that of w^ithdrawal before the emission 

 of the seminal fluid, a habit common enough both in savage 

 and civilised communities. Fertilisation is in this way ab- 

 solutely prevented, but apart from a more general objection to 

 be afterwards emphasised, such a practice is maintained by 

 some to be injurious to the male, and yet more to the female. 

 Moreover, although the risks of over-population and female 

 exhaustion by child-bearing are here minimised, there is still 

 risk of male exhaustion. 



(c.) Thirdly, although again under the severe criticism of 

 some of the medical experts, there are means employed by the 

 females, for securing by means of pessaries that the spermatozoa 

 do not come into contact with the ovum, or by means of w^ashes 

 that the male elements are rendered ineffectual. In reply to 

 the medical objections to both these methods of artificial check, 

 it is answered (a) that it may in many cases be necessary to 

 choose between two evils, of which the risk involved in the 

 artificial check may be much less than that involved in con- 

 tinued child-bearing ; (^) that it is hardly a fair argument as 

 yet to urge that the proposed checks of neo-Malthusianism 

 are fraught with danger. As to the popularly supposed pre- 

 ventive check of prolonged nursing one baby in the hope of 

 thereby preventing a new conception, it is necessary to em- 

 phasise that nursing does not effect this, and that the prolonga- 

 tion of the lacteal function and diet beyond their natural limits 

 is seriously injurious alike to mother and offspring. 



Even recognising some of these objections, the neo-Malthu- 

 sians urge the number of distinct advantages, — the reduction 



