......“This phenomenon of the falling birth-rate is of course
not confined to England; it is to be met with, you might say
generally, in all Christian countries. It would be far more
marked but for the tremendous decline in the death-rate,
especially among infants. We ourselves should be vitally
bankrupt but for this factor, and in France, as you know, the
population is slowly dropping. That is an old story, but it is
startling to learn, as President Roosevelt tells us, that the
native-born American population is actually declining.
“One of the main causes, no doubt, is the determined pursuit of
pleasure by all classes. The man will not take the burden of
providing for a family, or, at any rate, a large family, upon
himself, because that would mean a curtailment of his luxuries,
perhaps even his necessities, while the woman refuses to spend
all the prime of her life in child-bearing and child-rearing.
She also wants to enjoy herself, and the pure, simple joys of
maternity, which we used to think ought to be sufficient for a
woman, have in many cases become irksome.
“For my part I do not think that you will ever rouse England to
this question of home and children by an appeal to patriotism.
The Englishman has become too cosmopolitan for that, and I am
afraid the feeling is growing.
“The reason for the decline in America is said to be that women
are becoming neurotic, and will not face the dangers and
responsibilities of motherhood. No doubt that is true to a
certain extent here also, and it is quite certain that among
intellectual and highly-educated women, such as are trained at
our universities in increasing numbers, the maternal instinct,
the capacity for love, if you like to put it in that way, is
apt to be destroyed.
“Then, among the middle classes thousands of young women, who
not many years ago would have looked to marriage as their
natural career, are earning their own livings, and are less
eager to rush into matrimony.”
I have taken these extracts from the words of a few people crying in
the wilderness. All of the dicta are at least eighteen months old. I
am writing now, in November 1906, and three days ago the apparently
inevitable paragraph again made its appearance:--
“RECORD LOW BIRTH-RATE.
“The births registered in England and Wales during the three
months ended September 30--234,624, or 26·9 per 1,000 of the
population--was the lowest rate recorded in any third quarter
since civil registration was established.
“The average in the same quarters of the past ten years was
28·8.”
These opinions as to the reasons for the terrible decadence of England
are doubtless all true. They are all contributory causes, and I do not
think we can put a single one of them aside. Nothing could be more
dismal or more hopeless reading. As one goes on, one experiences a
sense as of a chill, deepening shadow.
Few people who read will be able to adopt the average man’s attitude
towards unpleasant and disturbing matters--to sidle by with a
deprecatory shrug of the shoulders.
Where then do we stand?
So far I have endeavoured to show (_a_) the entire indifference of the
ordinary man and woman to the fall in the birth-rate; (_b_) the only
light, in which, as I understand it, one can see the problem as a
whole--in the light of the Incarnation; (_c_) the fact that the
Christian Sociologist to-day is inclined to condemn the theory that
the limitation of population is necessary at all, even by legitimate
methods of abstinence and control; (_d_) the varied reasons which, in
the opinion of those who have studied the question deeply, contribute
to the one central and shocking fact--
_That incredible numbers of English men and women many of them
professing themselves Christians, are constantly using methods to
prevent the birth of children._
Every parish clergyman in England is perfectly aware of what is going
on. Every Nonconformist minister, and indeed every one whose work
brings him in touch with large masses of people in the capacities of
leader, adviser, or friend, knows it also. Just as the figures of the
Registrar General form a gauge by which to measure the generality of
the malignant influence, so the personal experience of any man of the
world will supply particular evidence of the state of things within
his immediate purview and surroundings.
Always remembering that the evil is progressive, is hourly increasing,
the observer of social phenomena at once asks himself if there is not
some definite and organized control and direction of it. The desire
to obtain the gratifications of passion while evading its
responsibilities is, perhaps, the strongest feeling implanted in the
fallen nature of mankind. This is sufficient to create a demand for
knowledge of how to obtain the desired end, and the demand has in its
turn created the supply.
There is a definite literature upon the subject, there is a large body
of highly-trained and cultured men and women ready and anxious to
disseminate the necessary information to produce these results.
I propose to deal briefly, in the first instance, with the literature
which urges and explains practices which the laws of God, the laws of
Nature, and the teachings of the Church utterly and emphatically
condemn.
The people who call themselves “Malthusians” (and to avoid an
injustice to the memory of Malthus I shall here style them
Neo-Malthusians) have an organ of their own in the shape of a
periodical which is the official voice of a league into which they
have formed themselves. The periodical has, I believe, an extensive
circulation, and it is published at the lowest possible price.
Moreover, in each number of it which I have seen the following notice
appears:--
“The Secretary of the Malthusian League will be glad to send
copies of back numbers of this journal to friends willing to
distribute them for propagandist purposes.”
We see that an ordered press campaign is in progress. This periodical
is most ably written and edited. Signed articles appear in it by men
and women of standing and position. I find it impossible to doubt for
a moment that these economists and scientists are not absolutely
sincere, and actuated by a high and laudable desire to benefit the
world in which they live.
It is unnecessary to give the title of the periodical, but immediately
beneath it the following sentence is printed in large letters--
“A CRUSADE AGAINST POVERTY.”
Here is the _raison d’être_ of the journal plainly stated, and so far
it is no more than indicating the precise aim of Malthus--to find an
economic remedy for the sufferings of poverty.
I proceed to give some examples of the teaching inculcated in the
journal, and in the first place quote from a review of _L’Instinct
d’Amour_, by Dr. Joanny Roux, a very distinguished French physician:--
“Must all who refuse to procreate refrain from love? How easy
it is to clothe one’s self in the robes of social purity when
replying to this question! The social purists tell the world
that chastity is obligatory if procreation be not intended. It
is impossible to carry out this view. The philosopher contents
himself with studying sterile love and its consequences. He
rejoices to think that thousands of infants are left out of the
world who would have been doomed to suffer. The inconveniences
resulting from some selfish people who refrain from parentage
are as nothing in the balance when weighed against the horrors
of indigence.
“Should we not, by acting thus, lead to a progressive
diminution of the population? Certainly; but that would be a
good thing. As if, forsooth, human progress depended on
quantity, and not on quality! Take China as an example of
quantity without quality. Some writers seem to wish that the
earth should be filled up with miserable and suffering people.
Malthus, that gentle clergyman, in 1798, was the first to
protest against such a view. Over-reproduction, he showed, was
the cause of poverty. He, however, thought the only remedy for
this was chastity, and was quite opposed to _sterile love_.
“To accept sterile love, some say, is to run counter to Nature
and natural morality. ‘No,’ says Dr. Roux, ‘it is the
preserving of these laws. In all cases where we construct
houses or warm ourselves, we get one law of Nature to defend us
against the other which injures us. We must not forget that our
instincts are fixed customs of very ancient date; and there can
be no doubt that man has the right to intervene in questions of
that sexual instinct if morality (_i. e._ happiness) requires
it of him.’”
When one reads these passages a flood of light as to the real
influence and direction of such teachings comes to us at once. The
writer, no doubt sincerely enough, assumes as an axiom of his whole
position, that there is no law but “Nature,” no morality but what he
calls “Natural Morality.” We are, in fact, under no obligations to
anything but the promptings of animal instinct which are part of our
human nature.
We see immediately the inherent negation of Christianity implied in
this attitude, and apart from the definite teaching of the Faith upon
the question, which I shall enter into later, it is most important
that we should realize that the holders and preachers of
Neo-Malthusianism must always be opposed to Christianity. Even those
people who do not profess their hatred for, or disbelief in our Lord
in so many words, logically imply them. Christians who may not have
troubled themselves about this menace to the State and its morals must
be told in no uncertain voice that the movement is purely heathen in
its position and built upon a basis of heathenism. Let us call things
by their right names, and realize that the Neo-Malthusian worshipping
Nature and the Chinese Coolie worshipping his Joss are only two
manifestations of exactly the same thing.
Nor are the people who are attempting to turn marriage into a polite
and recognized form of prostitution always so reticent as to their
attitude towards the Christian Faith. In an article which professes
to sum up the work of the Malthusian League I read:--
......“The medical profession in England is still too much under
the sway of the Church and conventional opinion to be able to
discuss the population difficulty, except to censure those who
are wise enough to follow science instead of theological
traditions derived from the _juventus mundi_. Dr. Taylor, of
Birmingham, who is said to be an ardent Churchman, in a
presidential address to the Gynæcological Society, attacked the
views of the Neo-Malthusians.”