(a) Malthus
(b) The Neo-Malthusians
Section 2. TEACHING BASED ON FALSE PREMISES.
(a) That Population progresses geometrically
(b) That Food Supply progresses arithmetically
(c) That Overpopulation is the cause of Poverty and Disease
Section 3. THE ROOT FALLACY
Section 4. WHAT OVERPOPULATION MEANS
Section 5. NO EVIDENCE OF OVERPOPULATION
(a) In the Suez Canal Zone
(b) In "Closed Countries" like Japan
Section 6. A NATURAL LAW CHECKING FERTILITY
Section 7. OVERPOPULATION IN THE FUTURE
Section 8. HOW NATIONS HAVE PERISHED
Section 9. PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES
(a) Disease
(b) War
Section 10. MORAL CATASTROPHES
CHAPTER II
THE FALSE DEDUCTIONS CONCERNING POVERTY
Section 1. BIRTH-RATE AND POVERTY
(a) Famines
(b) Abundance
(c) Wages
Section 2. POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN DUE TO OTHER CAUSES
(a) Under-development
(b) Severance of the Inhabitants from the Soil
Section 3. CAUSES OF POVERTY IN INDIA
Section 4. POVERTY IN FACT CAUSES A HIGH BIRTHRATE
(a) Malthusianism is an attack on the Poor
(b) A Hindrance to Reform
(c) A Quack Remedy for Poverty
Section 5. POVERTY AND CIVILISATION
CHAPTER III
HIGH BIRTH-RATES NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATES
Section 1. POVERTY AS NOW EXISTING
Section 2. HIGH BIRTH-RATE NOT THE CAUSE OF HIGH DEATH-RATE:
PROVED FROM STATISTICS
(a) Canada
(b) Connaught
Section 3. A LOW BIRTH-RATE NO GUARANTEE OF A LOW DEATH-RATE
Section 4. VITAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE
Section 5. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION
CHAPTER IV
HOW RELIGION AFFECTS THE BIRTHRATE
Section 1. FRENCH STATISTICS MISINTERPRETED BY MALTHUSIANS
Section 2. EVIDENCE FROM HOLLAND
Section 3. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Section 4. THE SAME RESULTS IN ENGLAND
CHAPTER V
IS THERE A NATURAL LAW REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS?
Section 1. THE THEORY OF THOMAS DOUBLEDAY REVIVED
Section 2. MR. PELL'S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED
Section 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE
Section 4. ILLUSTRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY
(a) Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece
(b) The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness
CHAPTER VI
THE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES
Section 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS ASSERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES
Section 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW
Section 3. AND TO CHARACTER OF OCCUPATION.
Section 4. AGGRAVATED DOUBTLESS BY MALTHUSIANISM
CHAPTER VII
THE EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. NOT A PHYSICAL BENEFIT
(a) A Cause of Sterility
(b) Neuroses
(c) Fibroid Tumours
Section 2. A SCANDALOUS SUGGESTION
Section 3. A CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE
Section 4. AN INSULT TO TRUE WOMANHOOD
Section 5. A DEGRADATION OF THE FEMALE SEX
Section 6. SPECIALLY HURTFUL TO THE POOR
(a) Affecting the Young
(b) Exposing the Poor to Experiment
(c) Tending towards the Servile State
Section 7. A MENACE TO THE NATION
(a) There is a Limit to lowering the Death-rate
(b) Birth Control tends to extinguish the Birth-rate
(c) A Danger to the Empire
(d) The Dangers of Small Families
Section 8. THE PLOT AGAINST CHRISTENDOM
CHAPTER VIII
THE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT AGAINST BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. AN OFFENCE AGAINST THE LAW OF NATURE
Section 2. REFLECTED IN THE NORMAL CONSCIENCE
Section 3. EXPRESSED IN THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS
Section 4. BIRTH CONTROL CONDEMNED BY PROTESTANT CHURCHES
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII
A NEO-MALTHUSIAN ATTACK ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
CHAPTER IX
THE TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON BIRTH CONTROL
Section 1. A FALSE VIEW OF HER DOCTRINE
Section 2. THE ESSENCE AND PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE
Section 3. ARTIFICIAL STERILITY WHOLLY CONDEMNED
Section 4. THE ONLY LAWFUL METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL
Section 5. CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIRTH CONTROL
CHAPTER I
THE ESSENTIAL FALLACIES OF MALTHUSIAN TEACHING
Section 1. MALTHUS AND THE NEO-MALTHUSIANS
Birth control, in the sense of the prevention of pregnancy by chemical,
mechanical, or other artificial means, is being widely advocated as a sure
method of lessening poverty and of increasing the physical and mental
health of the nation. It is, therefore, advisable to examine these claims
and the grounds on which they are based. The following investigation will
prove that the propaganda throughout Western Europe and America in favour
of artificial birth control is based on a mere assumption, bolstered up by
economic and statistical fallacies; that Malthusian teaching is contrary to
reason and to fact; that Neo-Malthusian practices are disastrous alike to
nations and to individuals; and that those practices are in themselves an
offence against the Law of Nature, whereby the Divine Will is expressed in
creation.
(a) _Malthus_
The Rev. Thomas Malthus, M.A., in 1798 published his _Essay on the
Principle of Population_. His pamphlet was an answer to Condorcet
and Godwin, who held that vice and poverty were the result of human
institutions and could be remedied by an even distribution of property.
Malthus, on the other hand, believed that population increased more rapidly
than the means of subsistence, and consequently that vice and poverty were
always due to overpopulation and not to any particular form of society or
of government. He stated that owing to the relatively slow rate at
which the food supply of countries was increased, a high birth-rate [1]
inevitably led to all the evils of poverty, war, and high death-rates.
In an infamous passage he wrote that there was no vacant place for the
superfluous child at Nature's mighty feast; that Nature told the child to
be gone; and that she quickly executed her own order. This passage was
modified in the second, and deleted from the third edition of the Essay. In
later editions he maintained that vice and misery had checked population,
that the progress of society might have diminished rather than increased
the "evils resulting from the principle of population," and that by "moral
restraint" overpopulation could be prevented. As Cannan has pointed out,
[2] this last suggestion destroyed the force of the argument against
Godwin, who could have replied that in order to make "moral restraint"
universal a socialist State was necessary. In order to avoid the evils of
overpopulation, Malthus advised people not to marry, or, if they did,
to marry late in life and to limit the number of their children by the
exercise of self-restraint. He reprobated all artificial and unnatural
methods of birth control as immoral, and as removing the necessary stimulus
to industry; but he failed to grasp the whole truth that an increase of
population is necessary as a stimulus not only to industry, but also as
essential to man's moral and intellectual progress.
(b) _The Neo-Malthusians_
The Malthusian League accept the theory of their revered teacher, but,
curiously enough, they reject his advice "as being impracticable and
productive of the greatest possible evils to health and morality." [3]
On the contrary, they advise universal early marriage, combined with
artificial birth control. Although their policy is thus in flat
contradiction to the policy of Malthus, there are two things common to
both. Each is based on the same fallacy, and the aim of both is wide of the
mark. Indeed, the Neo-Malthusian, like Malthus, has "a mist of speculation
over his facts, and a vapour of fact over his ideas." [4] Moreover, as will
be shown here, the path of the Malthusian League, although at first glance
an easy way out of many human difficulties, is in reality the broad road
along which a man or a nation travels to destruction; and as guides the
Neo-Malthusians are utterly unsafe, since they argue from (a) false
premises to (b) false deductions. We shall deal with the former in this
chapter.