Produced by David Widger
FRUITS OF PHILOSOPHY
A TREATISE ON THE POPULATION QUESTION
By Charles Knowlton
Edited by Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
The pamphlet which we now present to the public is one which has been
lately prosecuted under Lord Gampbell's Act, and which we republish,
in order to test the right of publication. It was originally written
by Charles Knowlton, M. D., whose degree entitles him to be heard with
respect on a medical question. It was first published in England, about
forty years ago, by James Watson, the gallant radical, who came to
London and took up Richard Carlile's work, when Carlile was in jail. He
sold it, unchallenged, for many years, approved it, and recommended it.
It was printed and published by Messrs. Holyoake & Co., and found its
place, with other works of a similar character, in their "Freethought
Directory," of 1853, and was thus identified with freethought literature
at the then leading freethought _depot_ Mr. Austin Holyoake, working
in con-junction with Mr. Bradlaugh at the _National Reformer_ office,
Johnson's Court, printed and published it in his turn, and this
well-known freethought advocate, in his "Large or Small Families,"
selected this pamphlet, together with R. D. Owen's "Moral Physiology"
and the "Elements of Social Science," for special recommendation. Mr.
Charles Watts, succeeding to Mr. Austin Holyoake's business, continued
the sale, and, when Mr. Watson died, in 1875, he bought the plates of
the work (with others) from Mrs. Watson, and continued to advertise and
to sell it until December 23, 1876. For the last forty years the
book has thus been identified with freethought, advertised by leading
freethinkers, published under the sanction of their names, and sold in
the headquarters of freethought literature. If, during this long period,
the party has thus--without one word of protest--circulated an indecent
work, the less we talk about freethought morality the better; the
work has been largely sold, and, if leading freethinkers have sold
it--profiting by the sale--through mere carelessness, few words could be
strong enough to brand the indifference which thus scattered obscenity
broadcast over the land. The pamphlet has been withdrawn from
circulation in consequence of the prosecution instituted against Mr.
Charles Watts, but the question of its legality or illegality has not
been tried; a plea of "Guilty" was put in by the publisher, and the
book, therefore, was not examined, nor was any judgment passed upon it;
no jury registered a verdict, and the judge stated that he had not read
the work.
We republish this pamphlet, honestly believing that on all questions
affecting the happiness of the people, whether they be theological,
political or social, fullest right of free discussion ought to be
maintained at all hazards. We do not personally indorse all that
Dr. Knowles says: his "Philosophical Proem" seems to us full of
philosophical mistakes, and--as we are neither of us doctors--we are not
prepared to indorse his medical views; but since progress can only be
made through discussion, and no discussion is possible where differing
opinions are suppressed, we claim the right to publish all opinions, so
that the public, enabled to see all sides of a question, may have the
materials for forming a sound judgment.
The alterations made are very slight, the book was badly printed, and
errors of spelling and a few clumsy grammatical expressions have been
corrected; the subtitle has been changed, and in one case four lines
have been omitted, because they are repeated word for word further on.
We have, however, made some additions to the pamphlet, which are in all
cases kept distinct from the original text. Physiology has made great
strides during the past forty years, and not considering it right to
circulate erroneous physiology, we submitted the pamphlet to a doctor
in whose accurate knowledge we have the fullest confidence, and who is
widely known in all parts of the world as the author of the "Elements of
Social Science;" the notes signed "G. B." are written by this gentleman.
References to other works are given in foot-notes for the assistance of
the reader, if he desires to study up the subject further.
Old Radicals will remember that Richard Carlile published a work
entitled "Every Woman's Book," which deals with the same subject and
advocates the same object as Dr. Knowlton's pamphlet R. D. Owen objected
to the "style and tone" of Carlile's "Every Woman's Book," as not being
in "good taste," and he wrote his "Moral Physiology" to do in America
what Carlile's work was intended to do in England. This work of
Carlile's was stigmatized as "indecent" and "immoral," because it
advocated, as does Dr. Knowlton's, the use of preventive checks to
population. In striving to carry on Carlile's work, we cannot expect to
escape Carlile's reproach; but, whether applauded or condemned, we mean
to carry it on, socially as well as politically and theologically.
We believe, with the Rev. Mr. Malthus, that population has a tendency to
increase faster than the means of existence, and that _some_ checks must
therefore exercise control over population. The checks now exercised are
semi-starvation and preventable disease; the enormous mortality among
the infants of the poor is one of the checks which now keep down the
population. The checks that ought to control population are scientific,
and it is these which we advocate. We think it more moral to prevent the
conception of children than, after they are born, to murder them by want
of food, air and clothing. We advocate scientific checks to population,
because, so long as poor men have large families, pauperism is a
necessity, and from pauperism grow crime and disease. The wages which
would support the parents and two or three children in comfort and
decency, is utterly insufficient to maintain a family of twelve or
fourteen, and we consider it a crime to bring into the world human
beings doomed to misery or to premature death. It is not only the
hard-working classes which are concerned in this question. The poor
preacher, the struggling man of business, the young professional man,
are often made wretched for life by their inordinately large families,
and their years are passed in one long battle to live; meanwhile, the
woman's health is sacrificed and her life embittered from the same
cause. To all of these we point the way of relief and happiness; for
the sake of these we publish what others fear to issue; and we do it
confident that if we fail the first time, we shall succeed at last,
and that the English public will not permit the authorities to stifle a
discussion of the most important social question which can influence a
nation's welfare.
Charles Bradlaugh.
Annie Besant.
PHILOSOPHICAL PROEM
Consciousness is not a "principle" or substance of any kind, nor is
it, strictly speaking, a property of any substance or being. It is a
peculiar action of the nervous system, and the system is said to be
sensible, or to possess the property of sensibility, because those
sentient actions which constitute our different consciousnesses may be
excited in it. The nervous system includes not only the brain and spinal
marrow, but numerous soft white cords, called nerves, which extend
from the brain and spinal marrow to every part of the body in which a
sensation can be excited.
A sensation is a sentient action of a nerve and the brain; a thought or
idea (both the same thing) is a sentient action of the brain alone. A
sensation or a thought is consciousness, and there is no consciousness
but that which consists either in a sensation or a thought.
Agreeable consciousness constitutes what we call happiness, and
disagreeable consciousness constitutes misery. As sensations are a
higher degree of consciousness than mere thought, it follows that
agreeable sensations constitute a more exquisite happiness than
agreeable thoughts. That portion of happiness which consists in
agreeable sensations is commonly called pleasure. No thoughts are
agreeable except those which were originally excited by or have been
associated with agreeable sensations. Hence, if a person never had
experienced any agreeable sensations, he could have no agreeable
thoughts, and would, of course, be an entire stranger to happiness.
There are five species of sensations--seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting
and feeling. There are many varieties of feeling--as the feelings of
hunger, thirst, cold, hardness, etc. Many of these feelings are
excited by agents that act upon the exterior of the body, such as solid
substances of every kind, heat, and various chemical irritants. These
latter feelings are called _passions_.
Those passions which owe their existence chiefly to the state of the
brain, or to causes acting directly upon the brain, are called the moral
passion. They are grief, anger, love, etc. They consist of sentient
actions, which commence in the brain and extend to the nerves in the
region of the stomach, etc. But when the cause of the internal feeling
of passion is seated in some organ remote from the brain, as in the
stomach, genital organs, etc., the sentient action which constitutes the
passion commences in the nerves of such organ and extends to the brain,
and the passion is called an _appetite, instinct, or desire_. Some
of these passions are natural, as hunger, thirst, the reproductive
instinct, the desire to urinate, etc. Others are gradually acquired by
habit A _hankering_ for stimulants, as spirits, opium and tobacco, is
one of these.
Such is the nature of things that our most vivid and agreeable
sensations cannot be excited under all circumstances, nor beyond a
certain extent under any circumstances, without giving rise in one
way or another to an amount of disagreeable consciousness or misery,
exceeding the amount of agreeable consciousness which attends such
ill-timed or excessive gratification. To excite agreeable sensations to
a degree not exceeding this certain extent is temperance; to excite
them beyond this extent is intemperance; not to excite them at all is
mortification or abstinence. This certain extent varies with different
individuals, according to their several circumstances, so that what
would be temperance in one person may be intemperance in another.
To be free from disagreeable consciousness is to be in a state which,
compared with a state of misery, is a happy state; yet absolute
happiness does not exist in the absence of misery, if it does, rocks are
happy. It consists, as aforesaid, in agreeable consciousness. That which
enables a person to excite or maintain agreeable consciousness is
not happiness; but the _idea_ of having such in one's possession is
agreeable, and of course is a portion of happiness. Health and wealth go
far in enabling a person to excite and maintain agreeable consciousness.
That which gives rise to agreeable consciousness is _good_, and we
desire it. If we use it intemperately, such use is bad, but the thing
itself is still good. Those acts (and intentions are acts of that part
of man which intends) of human beings which tend to the promotion of
happiness are good, but they are also called _virtuous_, to distinguish
them from other things of the same tendency. There is nothing for the
word _virtue_ to signify, but virtuous actions. Sin signifies nothing
but sinful actions, and sinful, wicked, vicious, or bad actions are
those which are productive of more misery than happiness.
When an individual gratifies any of his instincts in a _temperate_
degree, he adds an item to the sum total of human happiness, and causes
the amount of human happiness to exceed the amount of misery farther
than if he had not enjoyed himself, therefore it is virtuous, or, to
say the least, it is not vicious or sinful for him to do so. But it must
ever be remembered that this temperate degree depends on circumstances;
that one person's health, pecuniary circumstances, or social relation
may be such that it would cause more misery than happiness for him to do
an act which being done by a person under different circumstances would
cause more happiness than misery. Therefore, it would be right for the
latter to perform such act, but not for the former.
Again: owing to his _ignorance_, a man may not be able to gratify a
desire without causing misery (wherefore it would be wrong for him to
do it), but with knowledge of means to prevent this misery, he may so
gratify it that more pleasure than pain will be the result of the act,
in which case the act, to say the least, is justifiable. Now, therefore,
it is virtuous, nay, it is the _duty_, for him who has a knowledge of
such means, to convey it to those who have it not, for by so doing he
furthers the cause of human happiness.
Man by nature is endowed with the talent of devising means to remedy
or prevent the evils that are liable to arise from gratifying our
appetites; and it is as much the duty of the physician to inform
mankind of the means to prevent the evils that are liable to arise from
gratifying the productive instinct as it is to inform them how to keep
clear of the gout or dyspepsia. Let not the old ascetic say we ought
not to gratify our appetites any further than is necessary to maintain
health and to perpetuate the species. Mankind will not so abstain,
and if any means to prevent the evils that may arise from a farther
gratification can be devised, they _need not_. Heaven has not only given
us the capacity of greater enjoyment, but the talent of devising means
to prevent the evils that are liable to arise therefrom, and it becomes
us, "with thanksgiving," to make the most of them.
FRUITS OF PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I. TO LIMIT AT WILL THE NUMBER OF THEIR OFFSPRING
Showing how desirable it is, both in a political and a social point
of view, for mankind to be able to limit at WILL THE NUMBER OF
THEIR OFFSPRING, WITHOUT SACRIFICING THE PLEASURE THAT ATTENDS THE
GRATIFICATION OF THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT.
First.---_In a political point of view_.--If population be not
restrained by some great physical calamity, such as we have reason to
hope will not hereafter be visited upon the children of men, or by some
_moral restraint_, the time will come when the earth cannot support
its inhabitants. Population unrestrained will double three times in a
century. Hence, computing the present population of the earth at 1,000
millions, there would be at the end of 100 years from the present time,
8,000 millions.
At the end of 200 years, 64,000 millions.
" " 300 " 512,000 "
And so on, multiplying by eight for every additional hundred years.
So that in 500 years from the present time there would be thirty-two
thousand seven hundred and sixty eight times as many inhabitants as at
present. If the natural increase should go on without check for 1,500
years, one single pair would increase to more than _thirty-five thousand
one hundred and eighty-four_ times as many as the present population of
the whole earth!
Some check then there must be, or the time will come when millions will
be born but to suffer and to perish for the necessaries of life. To what
an inconceivable amount of human misery would such a state of things
give rise! And must we say that vice, war, pestilence and famine are
desirable to prevent it? Must the friends of temperance and domestic
happiness stay their efforts? Must peace societies excite to war
and bloodshed? Must the physician cease to investigate the nature
of contagion, and to search for the means of destroying its baneful
influence? Must he that becomes diseased be marked as a victim to die
for public good, without the privilege of making an effort to restore
him to health? And in case of a failure of crops in one part of the
world, must the other parts withhold the means of supporting life that
the far greater evil of excessive population throughout the world may be
prevented? Can there be no effectual moral restraint, attended with far
less human misery than such physical calamities as these? Most surely
there can. But what is it? Malthus, an English writer on the subject of
population, gives us none but celibacy to a late age. But how foolish
it is to suppose that men and women will become as monks and nuns during
the very holiday of their existence, and abjure during the fairest
years of life the nearest and dearest of social relations, to avert
a catastrophe which they and perhaps their children will not live to
witness. But, besides being ineffectual, or if effectual, requiring a
great sacrifice of enjoyment, this restraint is highly objectionable
on the score of its demoralizing tendency. It would give rise to a
frightful increase of prostitution, of intemperance and onanism, and
prove destructive to health and moral feelings. In spite of preaching,
human nature will ever remain the same; and that restraint which forbids
the gratification of the reproductive instinct will avail but little
with the mass of mankind. The checks to be hereafter mentioned are
the only moral restraints to population known to the writer that are
unattended with serious objections.
Besides starvation, with all its accompanying evils, overpopulation is
attended with other public evils, of which may be mentioned, ignorance
and slavery. Where the mass of the people must toil incessantly to
obtain support, they must remain ignorant; and where ignorance prevails,
tyranny reigns.*
* The scientific part of Malthus' Doctrine of Population is
not very clearly or correctly given in the above passages.
His great theory, now or generally held by the most eminent
political economists, is that the increase of population is
always powerfully checked in old countries by the difficulty
in increasing the supply of food; that the existing evils of
poverty and low wages are really at bottom caused by this
check, and are brought about by the pressure of population
on the soil, and the continual overstocking of the labor
markets with laborers; and hence that the only way in which
society can escape from poverty, with all its miseries, is
by putting a strong restraint on their natural powers of
multiplication. "It is not in the nature of things," he
says, "that any permanent and general improvement in the
condition of the poor can be effected without an increase in
the preventive checks to population."--G. R.
Second--_In a social point of view_.--"Is it not notorious that the
families of the married often increase beyond which a regard for the
young beings coming into the world, and the happiness of those who give
them birth, would dictate. In how many instances does the hard-working
father, and more especially the mother, of a poor family remain slave
throughout their lives, tugging at the oar of incessant labor, toiling
to live, and living to toil; when, if their offspring had been limited
to two or three only, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative
affluence? How often is the health of the mother, giving birth every
year to an infant--happy if it be not twins--and compelled to toil on,
even at those times when nature imperiously calls for some relief from
daily drudgery,--how often is the mother's comfort, health, nay, even
her life, thus sacrificed? Or if care and toil have weighed down the
spirit, and at length broken the health of the father; how often is
the widow left unable, with the most virtuous intentions, to save her
fatherless offspring from becoming degraded objects of charity, or
profligate votaries of vice!
"Nor is this all. Many women are so constituted that they cannot give
birth to healthy, sometimes not to living children. Is it desirable,
is it moral, that such women should become pregnant? Yet this is
continually the case. Others there are who ought never to become
parents; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to their offspring
grievous hereditary diseases, which render such offspring mere subjects
of misery throughout their sickly existence. Yet such women will not
lead a life of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, and the sum of
human misery is increased by their doing so. But it is folly to expect
that we can induce such persons to live the lives of Shakers. Nor is it
necessary; all that duty requires of them is to refrain from becoming
parents. Who can estimate the beneficial effect which a rational
moral restraint may thus have on the health and beauty and physical
improvement of our race throughout future generations?"
Let us now turn our attention to the case of unmarried youth.
"Almost all young persons, on reaching the age of maturity, desire to
marry. That heart must be very cold, or very isolated, that does not
find some object on which to bestow its affections. Thus, early marriage
would be almost universal did not prudential consideration interfere.
The young man thinks, 'I cannot marry yet; I cannot support a family.
I must make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement
afterwards.'
"And so he goes to making money, fully and sincerely resolved in a few
years to share it with her whom he now loves. But passions are strong
and temptations great. Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the
company of those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a
dependence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then curses
for being what she has made them. There his health and moral feelings
are alike made shipwreck. The affections he had thought to treasure up
for their first object are chilled by dissipation and blunted by excess.
He scarcely retains a passion but avarice. Years pass on--years of
profligacy and speculation--and his wish is accomplished, his fortune is
made. Where now are the feelings and resolve of his youth?
'Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubbles on the fountain,
They are gone--and forever.'
"He is a man of pleasure, a man of the world. He laughs at the romance
of his youth, and marries a fortune. If gaudy equipage and gay parties
confer happiness, he is happy. But if these be only the sunshine on
the stormy sea below, he is a victim to that system of morality which
forbids a reputable connection until the period when provision has been
made for a large expected family. Had he married the first object of his
choice, and simply delayed becoming a father until his prospects seemed
to warrant it, how different might have been his lot. Until men and
women are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except when they
themselves desire it, they will ever form mercenary and demoralizing
connections, and seek in dissipation the happiness they might have found
in domestic life.
"I know that this, however common, is not a universal case. Sometimes
the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred at all risks; and
who shall say how often a life of unremitting toil and poverty is the
consequence. Sometimes, if even rarely, the young mind does hold its
first resolves. The youth plods through years of cold celibacy and
solitary anxiety, happy if, before the best hours of his life are gone
and its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the reward of
his forbearance and his industry. But even in this comparatively happy
case, shall we count for nothing the years of ascetic sacrifice at which
after happiness is purchased? The days of youth are not too many, nor
its affections too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require
it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this, in itself,
desirable? Does not wisdom tell us that such a sacrifice is a dead
loss--to the warm-hearted often a grievous one? Does not wisdom bid us
temperately enjoy the springtimes of life, 'while the evil day come not,
nor the years draw nigh, when we shall say we have no pleasure in them?'
"Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacrifices the
present for the future, chooses wisely between the two evils, profligacy
and asceticism. This is true. But let us not imagine the lesser evil
to be good. It is _not_ good for man to be alone. It is for no man or
woman's happiness or benefit that they should be condemned to Shakerism.
It is a violence done to the feelings and an injury to the character.
A life of rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a life of
dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness, restlessness,
vague longings and instability of character, are amongst the least of
these. The mind is unsettled, and the judgment warped. Even the very
instinct which is thus mortified assumes an undue importance, and
occupies a portion of the thoughts which does not of right or nature
belong to it, and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would
not obtain."
In many instances, the genital organs are rendered so irritable by the
repletion to which unnatural continency gives rise, and by the much
thinking caused by such repletion, as to induce a disease known to
medical men by the name of _Gonorrhoea Dormientium_. It consists in
an emission or discharge of the semen during sleep. This discharge is
immediately excited in most instances by a lascivious dream, but such
dream is caused by the repletion and irritability of the genital organs.
It is truly astonishing to what a degree of mental anguish the disease
gives rise in young men. They do not understand the nature, or rather,
the cause of it. They think it depends on a weakness--indeed, the
disease is often called a "seminal weakness"--and that the least
gratification in a natural way would but serve to increase it.
Their anxiety about it weakens the whole system. This weakness they
erroneously attribute to the discharges; they think themselves totally
disqualified for entering into or enjoying the married state. Finally,
the genital and mental organs act and react upon each other so
perniciously as to cause a degree of nervousness, debility, emaciation
and melancholy--in a word, wretchedness that sets description at
defiance. Nothing is so effectual in curing this diseased state of
a body and mind in young men as marriage. All restraint, fear and
solicitude should be removed.
"Inasmuch, then, as the scruples of incurring heavy responsibilities
deter from forming moral connections and encourage intemperance and
prostitution, the knowledge which enables man to limit the number of his
offspring would, in the present state of things, save much unhappi-ness
and prevent many crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other,
and who might wish to marry, should marry early, merely resolving not
to become parents until prudence permitted it. The young man, instead
of solitary toil and vulgar dissipation, would enjoy the society and the
assistance of her he has chosen as his companion; and the best years of
life, whose pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot, nor
lost through mortification."*
* The passages quoted are from Robert Dale Owen's "Moral
Physiology."