There cannot be any doubt that, so far as England is concerned,

the prevention of conception is practiced, from prudential or

other motives, by the vast majority of the educated classes. This

fact is well within the knowledge of all who are intimately

acquainted with the facts of English family life. Thus, Dr. A.W.

Thomas writes (_British Medical Journal_, Oct. 20, 1906, p.

1066): "From my experience as a general practitioner, I have no

hesitation in saying that ninety per cent. of young married

couples of the comfortably-off classes use preventives." As a

matter of fact, this rough estimate appears to be rather under

than over the mark. In the very able paper already quoted, in

which Sidney Webb shows that "the decline in the birthrate

appears to be much greater in those sections of the population

which give proofs of thrift and foresight," that this decline is

"principally, if not entirely, the result of deliberate

volition," and that "a volitional regulation of the marriage

state is now ubiquitous throughout England and Wales, among,

apparently, a large majority of the population," the results are

brought forward of a detailed inquiry carried out by the Fabian

Society. This inquiry covered 316 families, selected at random

from all parts of Great Britain, and belonging to all sections of

the middle class. The results are carefully analyzed, and it is

found that seventy-four families were unlimited, and two hundred

and forty-two voluntarily limited. When, however, the decade

1890-99 is taken by itself as the typical period, it is found

that of 120 marriages, 107 were limited, and only thirteen

unlimited, while of these thirteen, five were childless at the

date of the return. In this decade, therefore, only seven

unlimited fertile marriages are reported, out of a total of 120.

What is true of Great Britain is true of all other civilized

countries, in the highest degree true of the most civilized

countries, and it finds expression in the well-known phenomenon

of the decline of the birthrate. In modern times, this movement

of decline began in France, producing a slow but steady

diminution in the annual number of births, and in France the

movement seems now to be almost, or quite, arrested. But it has

since taken place in all other progressive countries, notably in

the United States, in Canada, in Australia, and in New Zealand,

as well as in Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland,

Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In England, it has

been continuous since 1877. Of the great countries, Russia is

the only one in which it has not yet taken place, and among the

masses of the Russian population we find less education, more

poverty, a higher deathrate, and a greater amount of disease,

than in any other great, or even small, civilized country.

It is sometimes said, indeed, that the decline of the birthrate

is not entirely due to the voluntary control of procreation. It

is undoubtedly true that certain other elements, common under

civilized conditions, such as the postponement of marriage in

women to a comparatively late age, tend to diminish the size of

the family. But when all such allowances have been made, the

decline is still found to be real and large. This has been shown,

for instance, by the statistical analyses made by Arthur

Newsholme and T.H.C. Stevenson, and by G. Yule, both published in

_Journal Royal Statistical Society_, April, 1906.

Some have supposed that, since the Catholic Church forbids

incomplete sexual intercourse, this movement for the control of

procreation will involve a relatively much greater increase among

Catholic than among non-Catholic populations. This, however, is

only correct under certain conditions. It is quite true that in

Ireland there has been no fall in the birthrate, and that the

fall is but little marked in those Lancashire towns which possess

a large Irish element. But in Belgium, Italy, Spain, and other

mainly Catholic countries, the decline in the birthrate is duly

taking place. What has happened is that the Church--always alive

to sexual questions--has realized the importance of the modern

movement, and has adapted herself to it, by proclaiming to her

more ignorant and uneducated children that incomplete intercourse

is a deadly sin, while at the same time refraining from making

inquiries into this matter among her more educated members. The

question was definitely brought up for Papal judgment, in 1842,

by Bishop Bouvier of Le Mans, who stated the matter very clearly,

representing to the Pope (Gregory XVI) that the prevention of

conception was becoming very common, and that to treat it as a

deadly sin merely resulted in driving the penitent away from

confession. After mature consideration, the Curia Sacra

Poenitentiaria replied by pointing out, as regards the common

method of withdrawal before emission, that since it was due to

the wrong act of the man, the woman who has been forced by her

husband to consent to it, has committed no sin. Further, the

Bishop was reminded of the wise dictum of Liguori, "the most

learned and experienced man in these matters," that the confessor

is not usually called upon to make inquiry upon so delicate a

matter as the _debitum conjugale_, and, if his opinion is not

asked, he should be silent (Bouvier, _Dissertatio in sextum

Decalogi præceptum; supplementum ad Tractatum de Matrimonio_.

1849, pp. 179-182; quoted by Hans Ferdy, _Sexual-Probleme_, Aug.,

1908, p. 498). We see, therefore, that, among Catholic as well as

among non-Catholic populations, the adoption of preventive

methods of conception follows progress and civilization, and

that the general practice of such methods by Catholics (with the

tacit consent of the Church) is merely a matter of time.

From time to time many energetic persons have noisily demanded that a stop

should be put to the decline of the birthrate, for, they argue, it means

"race suicide." It is now beginning to be realized, however, that this

outcry was a foolish and mischievous mistake. It is impossible to walk

through the streets of any great city, full of vast numbers of persons

who, obviously, ought never to have been born, without recognizing that

the birthrate is as yet very far above its normal and healthy limit. The

greatest States have often been the smallest so far as mere number of

citizens is concerned, for it is quality not quantity that counts. And

while it is true that the increase of the best types of citizens can only

enrich a State, it is now becoming intolerable that a nation should

increase by the mere dumping down of procreative refuse in its midst. It

is beginning to be realized that this process not only depreciates the

quality of a people but imposes on a State an inordinate financial burden.

It is now well recognized that large families are associated with

degeneracy, and, in the widest sense, with abnormality of every

kind. Thus, it is undoubtedly true that men of genius tend to

belong to very large families, though it may be pointed out to

those who fear an alarming decrease of genius from the tendency

to the limitation of the family, that the position in the family

most often occupied by the child of genius is the firstborn. (See

Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 115-120). The

insane, the idiotic, imbecile, and weak-minded, the criminal, the

epileptic, the hysterical, the neurasthenic, the tubercular, all,

it would appear, tend to belong to large families (see e.g.,

Havelock Ellis, op. cit., p. 110; Toulouse, _Les Causes de la

Folie_, p. 91; Harriet Alexander, "Malthusianism and Degeneracy,"

_Alienist and Neurologist_, Jan., 1901). It has, indeed, been

shown by Heron, Pearson, and Goring, that not only the

eldest-born, but also the second-born, are specially liable to

suffer from pathological defect (insanity, criminality,

tuberculosis). There is, however, it would seem, a fallacy in the

common interpretation of this fact. According to Van den Velden

(as quoted in _Sexual-Probleme_, May, 1909, p. 381), this

tendency is fully counterbalanced by the rising mortality of

children from the firstborn onward. The greater pathological

tendency of the earlier children is thus simply the result of a

less stringent selection by death. So far as they show any really

greater pathological tendency, apart from this fallacy, it is

perhaps due to premature marriage. There is another fallacy in

the frequent statement that the children in small families are

more feeble than those in large families. We have to distinguish

between a naturally small family, and an artificially small

family. A family which is small merely as the result of the

feeble procreative energy of the parents, is likely to be a

feeble family; a family which is small as the result of the

deliberate control of the parents, shows, of course, no such

tendency.

These considerations, it will be seen, do not modify the tendency

of the large family to be degenerate. We may connect this

phenomenon with the disposition, often shown by nervously unsound

and abnormal persons, to believe that they have a special

aptitude to procreate fine children. "I believe that everyone has

a special vocation," said a man to Marro (_La Pubertà_, p. 459);

"I find that it is my vocation to beget superior children." He

begat four,--an epileptic, a lunatic, a dipsomaniac, and a

valetudinarian,--and himself died insane. Most people have come

across somewhat similar, though perhaps less marked, cases of

this delusion. In a matter of such fateful gravity to other human

beings, no one can safely rely on his own unsupported

impressions.

The demand of national efficiency thus corresponds with the demand of

developing humanitarianism, which, having begun by attempting to

ameliorate the conditions of life, has gradually begun to realize that it

is necessary to go deeper and to ameliorate life itself. For while it is

undoubtedly true that much may be done by acting systematically on the

conditions of life, the more searching analysis of evil environmental

conditions only serves to show that in large parts they are based in the

human organism itself and were not only pre-natal, but pre-conceptional,

being involved in the quality of the parental or ancestral organisms.

Putting aside, however, all humanitarian considerations, the serious error

of attempting to stem the progress of civilization in the direction of

procreative control could never have occurred if the general tendencies of

zoölogical evolution had been understood, even in their elements. All

zoölogical progress is from the more prolific to the less prolific; the

higher the species the less fruitful are its individual members. The same

tendency is found within the limits of the human species, though not in an

invariable straight line; the growth of civilization involves a

diminution in fertility. This is by no means a new phenomenon; ancient

Rome and later Geneva, "the Protestant Rome," bear witness to it; no doubt

it has occurred in every high centre of moral and intellectual culture,

although the data for measuring the tendency no longer exist. When we take

a sufficiently wide and intelligent survey, we realize that the tendency

of a community to slacken its natural rate of increase is an essential

phenomenon of all advanced civilization. The more intelligent nations have

manifested the tendency first, and in each nation the more educated

classes have taken the lead, but it is only a matter of time to bring all

civilized nations, and all social classes in each nation, into line.[429]

This movement, we have to remember--in opposition to the ignorant outcry

of certain would-be moralists and politicians--is a beneficent movement.

It means a greater regard to the quality than to the quantity of the

increase; it involves the possibility of combating successfully the evils

of high mortality, disease, overcrowding, and all the manifold misfortunes

which inevitably accompany a too exuberant birthrate. For it is only in a

community which increases slowly that it is possible to secure the

adequate economic adjustment and environmental modifications necessary for

a sane and wholesome civic and personal life.[430] If those persons who

raise the cry of "race suicide" in face of the decline of the birthrate

really had the knowledge and intelligence to realize the manifold evils

which they are invoking they would deserve to be treated as criminals.

On the practical side a knowledge of the possibility of preventing

conception has, doubtless, never been quite extinct in civilization and

even in lower stages of culture, though it has mostly been utilized for

ends of personal convenience or practiced in obedience to conventional

social rules which demanded chastity, and has only of recent times been

made subservient to the larger interests of society and the elevation of

the race. The theoretical basis of the control of procreation, on its

social and economic, as distinct from its eugenic, aspects, may be said to

date from Malthus's famous _Essay on Population_, first published in 1798,

an epoch-marking book,--though its central thesis is not susceptible of

actual demonstration,--since it not only served as the starting-point of

the modern humanitarian movement for the control of procreation, but also

furnished to Darwin (and independently to Wallace also) the fruitful idea

which was finally developed into the great evolutionary theory of natural

selection.

Malthus, however, was very far from suggesting that the control of

procreation, which he advocated for the benefit of mankind, should be

exercised by the introduction of preventive methods into sexual

intercourse. He believed that civilization involved an increased power of

self-control, which would make it possible to refrain altogether from

sexual intercourse, when such self-restraint was demanded in the interests

of humanity. Later thinkers realized, however, that, while it is

undoubtedly true that civilization involves greater forethought and

greater self-control, we cannot anticipate that those qualities should be

developed to the extent demanded by Malthus, especially when the impulse

to be controlled is of so powerful and explosive a nature.

James Mill was the pioneer in advocating Neo-Malthusian methods, though he

spoke cautiously. In 1818, in the article "Colony" in the supplement to

the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, after remarking that the means of checking

the unrestricted increase of the population constitutes "the most

important practical problem to which the wisdom of the politician and

moralist can be applied," he continued: "If the superstitions of the

nursery were discarded, and the principle of utility kept steadily in

view, a solution might not be very difficult to be found." Four years

later, James Mill's friend, the Radical reformer, Francis Place, more

distinctly expressed the thought that was evidently in Mill's mind. After

enumerating the facts concerning the necessity of self-control in

procreation and the evils of early marriage, which he thinks ought to be

clearly taught, Place continues: "If a hundredth, perhaps a thousandth

part of the pains were taken to teach these truths, that are taken to

teach dogmas, a great change for the better might, in no considerable

space of time, be expected to take place in the appearance and the habits

of the people. If, above all, it were once clearly understood that it was

not disreputable for married persons to avail themselves of such

precautionary means as would, without being injurious to health, or

destructive of female delicacy, prevent conception, a sufficient check

might at once be given to the increase of population beyond the means of

subsistence; vice and misery, to a prodigious extent, might be removed

from society, and the object of Mr. Malthus, Mr. Godwin, and of every

philanthropic person, be promoted, by the increase of comfort, of

intelligence, and of moral conduct, in the mass of the population. The

course recommended will, I am fully persuaded, at some period be pursued

by the people even if left to themselves."[431]

It was not long before Place's prophetic words began to be realized, and

in another half century the movement was affecting the birthrate of all

civilized lands, though it can scarcely yet be said that justice has been

done to the pioneers who promoted it in the face of much persecution from

the ignorant and superstitious public whom they sought to benefit. In

1831, Robert Dale Owen, the son of Robert Owen, published his _Moral

Physiology_, setting forth the methods of preventing conception. A little

later the brothers George and Charles Drysdale (born 1825 and 1829), two

ardent and unwearying philanthropists, devoted much of their energy to the

propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles. George Drysdale, in 1854,

published his _Elements of Social Science_, which during many years had

an enormous circulation all over Europe in eight different languages. It

was by no means in every respect a scientific or sound work, but it

certainly had great influence, and it came into the hands of many who

never saw any other work on sexual topics. Although the Neo-Malthusian

propagandists of those days often met with much obloquy, their cause was

triumphantly vindicated in 1876, when Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant,

having been prosecuted for disseminating Neo-Malthusian pamphlets, the

charge was dismissed, the Lord Chief Justice declaring that so ill-advised

and injudicious a charge had probably never before been made in a court of

justice. This trial, even by its mere publicity and apart from its issue,

gave an enormous impetus to the Neo-Malthusian movement. It is well known

that the steady decline in the English birthrate begun in 1877, the year

following the trial. There could be no more brilliant illustration of the

fact, that what used to be called "the instruments of Providence" are

indeed unconscious instruments in bringing about great ends which they

themselves were far from either intending or desiring.

In 1877, Dr. C.R. Drysdale founded the Malthusian League, and

edited a periodical, _The Malthusian_, aided throughout by his

wife, Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery. He died in 1907. (The noble and

pioneering work of the Drysdales has not yet been adequately

recognized in their own country; an appreciative and

well-informed article by Dr. Hermann Rohleder, "Dr. C.R.

Drysdale, Der Hauptvortreter der Neumalthusianische Lehre,"

appeared in the _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, March,

1908). There are now societies and periodicals in all civilized

countries for the propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles, as

they are still commonly called, though it would be desirable to

avoid the use of Malthus's name in this connection. In the

medical profession, the advocacy of preventive methods of sexual

intercourse, not on social, but on medical and hygienic grounds,

began same thirty years ago, though in France, at an earlier

date, Raciborski advocated the method of avoiding the

neighborhood of menstruation. In Germany, Dr. Mensinga, the

gynæcologist, is the most prominent advocate, on medical and

hygienic grounds, of what he terms "facultative sterility," which

he first put forward about 1889. In Russia, about the same time,

artificial sterility was first openly advocated by the

distinguished gynæcologist, Professor Ott, at the St. Petersburg

Obstetric and Gynæcological Society. Such medical

recommendations, in particular cases, are now becoming common.

There are certain cases in which a person ought not to marry at

all; this is so, for instance, when there has been an attack of

insanity; it can never be said with certainty that a person who

has had one attack of insanity will not have another, and persons

who have had such attacks ought not, as Blandford says (Lumleian

Lectures on Insanity, _British Medical Journal_, April 20, 1895),

"to inflict on their partner for life, the anxiety, and even

danger, of another attack." There are other and numerous cases in

which marriage may be permitted, or may have already taken place,

under more favorable circumstances, but where it is, or has

become, highly desirable that there should be no children. This

is the case when a first attack of insanity occurs after

marriage, the more urgently if the affected party is the wife,

and especially if the disease takes the form of puerperal mania.

"What can be more lamentable," asks Blandford (loc. cit.), "than

to see a woman break down in childbed, recover, break down again

with the next child, and so on, for six, seven, or eight

children, the recovery between each being less and less, until

she is almost a chronic maniac?" It has been found, moreover, by

Tredgold (_Lancet_, May 17, 1902), that among children born to

insane mothers, the mortality is twice as great as the ordinary

infantile mortality, in even the poorest districts. In cases of

unions between persons with tuberculous antecedents, also, it is

held by many (e.g., by Massalongo, in discussing tuberculosis and

marriage at the Tuberculosis Congress, at Naples, in 1900) that

every precaution should be taken to make the marriage childless.

In a third class of cases, it is necessary to limit the children

to one or two; this happens in some forms of heart disease, in

which pregnancy has a progressively deteriorating effect on the

heart (Kisch, _Therapeutische Monatsheft_, Feb., 1898, and

_Sexual Life of Woman_; Vinay, _Lyon Medical_, Jan. 8, 1889); in

some cases of heart disease, however, it is possible that, though

there is no reason for prohibiting marriage, it is desirable for

a woman not to have any children (J.F. Blacker, "Heart Disease in

Relation to Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, May 25, 1907).

In all such cases, the recommendation of preventive methods of

intercourse is obviously an indispensable aid to the physician in

emphasizing the supremacy of hygienic precautions. In the absence

of such methods, he can never be sure that his warnings will be

heard, and even the observance of his advice would be attended

with various undesirable results. It sometimes happens that a

married couple agree, even before marriage, to live together

without sexual relations, but, for various reasons, it is seldom

found possible or convenient to maintain this resolution for a

long period.

It is the recognition of these and similar considerations which has

led--though only within recent years--on the one hand, as we have seen, to

the embodiment of the control of procreation into the practical morality

of all civilized nations, and, on the other hand, to the assertion, now

perhaps without exception, by all medical authorities on matters of sex

that the use of the methods of preventing conception is under certain

circumstances urgently necessary and quite harmless.[432] It arouses a

smile to-day when we find that less than a century ago it was possible for

an able and esteemed medical author to declare that the use of "various

abominable means" to prevent conception is "based upon a most presumptuous

doubt in the conservative power of the Creator."[433]

The adaptation of theory to practice is not yet complete, and we could not

expect that it should be so, for, as we have seen, there is always an

antagonism between practical morality and traditional morality. From time

to time flagrant illustrations of this antagonism occur.[434] Even in

England, which played a pioneering part in the control of procreation,

attempts are still made--sometimes in quarters where we have a right to

expect a better knowledge--to cast discredit on a movement which, since

it has conquered alike scientific approval and popular practice, it is now

idle to call in question.

It would be out of place to discuss here the various methods which are

used for the control of procreation, or their respective merits and

defects. It is sufficient to say that the condom or protective sheath,

which seems to be the most ancient of all methods of preventing

conception, after withdrawal, is now regarded by nearly all authorities

as, when properly used, the safest, the most convenient, and the most

harmless method.[435] This is the opinion of Krafft-Ebing, of Moll, of

Schrenck-Notzing, of Löwenfeld, of Forel, of Kisch, of Fürbringer, to

mention only a few of the most distinguished medical authorities.[436]

There is some interest in attempting to trace the origin and

history of the condom, though it seems impossible to do so with

any precision. It is probable that, in a rudimentary form, such

an appliance is of great antiquity. In China and Japan, it would

appear, rounds of oiled silk paper are used to cover the mouth of

the womb, at all events, by prostitutes. This seems the simplest

and most obvious mechanical method of preventing conception, and

may have suggested the application of a sheath to the penis as a

more effectual method. In Europe, it is in the middle of the

sixteenth century, in Italy, that we first seem to hear of such

appliances, in the shape of linen sheaths, adapted to the shape

of the penis; Fallopius recommended the use of such an appliance.

Improvements in the manufacture were gradually devised; the cæcum

of the lamb was employed, and afterwards, isinglass. It appears

that a considerable improvement in the manufacture took place in

the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and this improvement was

generally associated with England. The appliance thus became

known as the English cape or mantle, the "capote anglaise," or

the "redingote anglaise," and, under the latter name, is referred

to by Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth century

(Casanova, _Mémoires_, ed. Garnier, vol. iv, p. 464); Casanova

never seems, however, to have used these redingotes himself, not

caring, he said, "to shut myself up in a piece of dead skin in

order to prove that I am perfectly alive." These capotes--then

made of goldbeaters' skin--were, also, it appears, known at an

earlier period to Mme. de Sévigné, who did not regard them with

favor, for, in one of her letters, she refers to them as

"cuirasses contre la volupté et toiles d'arraignée contre le

mal." The name, "condom," dates from the eighteenth century,

first appearing in France, and is generally considered to be that

of an English physician, or surgeon, who invented, or, rather,

improved the appliance. Condom is not, however, an English name,

but there is an English name, Condon, of which "condom" may well

be a corruption. This supposition is strengthened by the fact

that the word sometimes actually was written "condon." Thus, in

lines quoted by Bachaumont, in his _Diary_ (Dec. 15, 1773), and

supposed to be addressed to a former ballet dancer who had become

a prostitute, I find:--

"Du _condon_ cependant, vous connaissez l'usage,

* * * * *

"Le _condon_, c'est la loi, ma fille, et les prophètes!"

The difficulty remains, however, of discovering any Englishman of

the name of Condon, who can plausibly be associated with the

condom; doubtless he took no care to put the matter on record,

never suspecting the fame that would accrue to his invention, or

the immortality that awaited his name. I find no mention of any

Condon in the records of the College of Physicians, and at the

College of Surgeons, also, where, indeed, the old lists are very

imperfect, Mr. Victor Plarr, the librarian, after kindly making a

search, has assured me that there is no record of the name. Other

varying explanations of the name have been offered, with more or

less assurance, though usually without any proofs. Thus, Hyrtl

(_Handbuch der Topographischen Anatomic_, 7th ed., vol. ii, p.

212) states that the condom was originally called gondom, from

the name of the English discoverer, a Cavalier of Charles II's

Court, who first prepared it from the amnion of the sheep; Gondom

is, however, no more an English name than Condom. There happens

to be a French town, in Gascony, called Condom, and Bloch

suggests, without any evidence, that this furnished the name; if

so, however, it is improbable that it would have been unknown in

France. Finally, Hans Ferdy considers that it is derived from

"condus"--that which preserves--and, in accordance with his

theory, he terms the condom a condus.

The early history of the condom is briefly discussed by various

writers, as by Proksch, _Die Vorbauung der Venerischen

Krankheiten_, p. 48; Bloch, _Sexual Life of Our Time_, Chs. XV

and XXVIII; Cabanès, _Indiscretions de l'Histoire_, p. 121, etc.

The control of procreation by the prevention of conception has, we have

seen, become a part of the morality of civilized peoples. There is another

method, not indeed for preventing conception, but for limiting offspring,

which is of much more ancient appearance in the world, though it has at

different times been very differently viewed and still arouses widely

opposing opinions. This is the method of abortion.

While the practice of abortion has by no means, like the practice of

preventing conception, become accepted in civilization, it scarcely

appears to excite profound repulsion in a large proportion of the

population of civilized countries. The majority of women, not excluding

educated and highly moral women, who become pregnant against their wish

contemplate the possibility of procuring abortion without the slightest

twinge of conscience, and often are not even aware of the usual

professional attitude of the Church, the law, and medicine regarding

abortion. Probably all doctors have encountered this fact, and even so

distinguished and correct a medico-legist as Brouardel stated[437] that he

had been not infrequently solicited to procure abortion, for themselves or

their wet-nurses, by ladies who looked on it as a perfectly natural thing,

and had not the least suspicion that the law regarded the deed as a crime.

It is not, therefore, surprising that abortion is exceedingly common in

all civilized and progressive countries. It cannot, indeed, unfortunately,

be said that abortion has been conducted in accordance with eugenic

considerations, nor has it often been so much as advocated from the

eugenic standpoint. But in numerous classes of cases of undesired

pregnancy, occurring in women of character and energy, not accustomed to

submit tamely to conditions they may not have sought, and in any case

consider undesirable, abortion is frequently resorted to. It is usual to

regard the United States as a land in which the practice especially

flourishes, and certainly a land in which the ideal of chastity for

unmarried women, of freedom for married women, of independence for all, is

actively followed cannot fail to be favorable to the practice of abortion.

But the way in which the prevalence of abortion is proclaimed in the

United States is probably in large part due to the honesty of the

Americans in setting forth, and endeavoring to correct, what, rightly or

wrongly, they regard as social defects, and may not indicate any real

pre-eminence in the practice. Comparative statistics are difficult, and it

is certainly true that abortion is extremely common in England, in France,

and in Germany. It is probable that any national differences may be

accounted for by differences in general social habits and ideals. Thus in

Germany, where considerable sexual freedom is permitted to unmarried women

and married women are very domesticated, abortion may be less frequent

than in France where purity is stringently demanded from the young girl,

while the married woman demands freedom for work and for pleasure. But

such national differences, if they exist, are tending to be levelled down,

and charges of criminal abortion are constantly becoming more common in

Germany; though this increase, again, may be merely due to greater zeal in

pursuing the offence.

Brouardel (op. cit., p. 39) quotes the opinion that, in New York,

only one in every thousand abortions is discovered. Dr. J.F.

Scott (_The Sexual Instinct_, Ch. VIII), who is himself strongly

opposed to the practice, considers that in America, the custom of

procuring abortion has to-day reached "such vast proportions as

to be almost beyond belief," while "countless thousands" of cases

are never reported. "It has increased so rapidly in our day and

generation," Scott states, "that it has created surprise and

alarm in the minds of all conscientious persons who are informed

of the extent to which it is carried." (The assumption that those

who approve of abortion are necessarily not "conscientious

persons" is, as we shall see, mistaken.) The change has taken

place since 1840. The Michigan Special Committee on Criminal

Abortion reported in 1881 that, from correspondence with nearly

one hundred physicians, it appeared that there came to the

knowledge of the profession seventeen abortions to every one

hundred pregnancies; to these, the committee believe, may be

added as many more that never came to the physician's knowledge.

The committee further quoted, though without endorsement, the

opinion of a physician who believed that a change is now coming

over public feeling in regard to the abortionist, who is

beginning to be regarded in America as a useful member of

society, and even a benefactor.

In England, also, there appears to have been a marked increase of

abortion during recent years, perhaps specially marked among the

poor and hard-working classes. A writer in the _British Medical

Journal_ (April 9, 1904, p. 865) finds that abortion is

"wholesale and systematic," and gives four cases occurring in his

practice during four months, in which women either attempted to

produce abortion, or requested him to do so; they were married

women, usually with large families, and in delicate health, and

were willing to endure any suffering, if they might be saved from

further child-bearing. Abortion is frequently effected, or

attempted, by taking "Female Pills," which contain small portions

of lead, and are thus liable to produce very serious symptoms,

whether or not they induce abortion. Professor Arthur Hall, of

Sheffield, who has especially studied this use of lead ("The

Increasing Use of Lead as an Abortifacient," _British Medical

Journal_, March 18, 1905), finds that the practice has lately

become very common in the English Midlands, and is gradually, it

appears, widening its circle. It occurs chiefly among married

women with families, belonging to the working class, and it tends

to become specially prevalent during periods of trade depression

(cf. G. Newman, _Infant Mortality_, p. 81). Women of better

social class resort to professional abortionists, and sometimes

go over to Paris.

In France, also, and especially in Paris, there has been a great

increase during recent years in the practice of abortion. (See

e.g., a discussion at the Paris Société de Médecine Légale,

_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, May, 1907.) Doléris has

shown (_Bulletin de la Société d'Obstétrique_, Feb., 1905) that

in the Paris Maternités the percentage of abortions in

pregnancies doubled between 1898 and 1904, and Doléris estimates

that about half of these abortions were artificially induced. In

France, abortion is mainly carried on by professional

abortionists. One of these, Mme. Thomas, who was condemned to

penal servitude, in 1891, acknowledged performing 10,000

abortions during eight years; her charge for the operation was

two francs and upwards. She was a peasant's daughter, brought up

in the home of her uncle, a doctor, whose medical and obstetrical

books she had devoured (A. Hamon, _La France en 1891_, pp.

629-631). French public opinion is lenient to abortion,

especially to women who perform the operation on themselves; not

many cases are brought into court, and of these, forty per cent.

are acquitted (Eugène Bausset, _L'Avortement Criminel_, Thèse de

Paris, 1907). The professional abortionist is, however, usually

sent to prison.

In Germany, also, abortion appears to have greatly increased

during recent years, and the yearly number of cases of criminal

abortion brought into the courts was, in 1903, more than double

as many as in 1885. (See, also, Elisabeth Zanzinger, _Geschlecht

und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 5; and _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan.,

1908, p. 23.)

In view of these facts it is not surprising that the induction of abortion

has been permitted and even encouraged in many civilizations. Its

unqualified condemnation is only found in Christendom, and is due to

theoretical notions. In Turkey, under ordinary circumstances, there is no

punishment for abortion. In the classic civilization of Greece and Rome,

likewise, abortion was permitted though with certain qualifications and

conditions. Plato admitted the mother's right to decide on abortion but

said that the question should be settled as early as possible in

pregnancy. Aristotle, who approved of abortion, was of the same opinion.

Zeno and the Stoics regarded the foetus as the fruit of the womb, the soul

being acquired at birth; this was in accordance with Roman law which

decreed that the foetus only became a human being at birth.[438] Among the

Romans abortion became very common, but, in accordance with the

patriarchal basis of early Roman institutions, it was the father, not the

mother, who had the right to exercise it. Christianity introduced a new

circle of ideas based on the importance of the soul, on its immortality,

and the necessity of baptism as a method of salvation from the results of

inherited sin. We already see this new attitude in St. Augustine who,

discussing whether embryos that died in the womb will rise at the

resurrection, says "I make bold neither to affirm nor to deny, although I

fail to see why, if they are not excluded from the number of the dead,

they should not attain to the resurrection of the dead."[439] The

criminality of abortion was, however, speedily established, and the early

Christian Emperors, in agreement with the Church, edicted many fantastic

and extreme penalties against abortion. This tendency continued under

ecclesiastical influence, unrestrained, until the humanitarian movement of

the eighteenth century, when Beccaria, Voltaire, Rousseau and other great

reformers succeeded in turning the tide of public opinion against the

barbarity of the laws, and the penalty of death for abortion was finally

abolished.[440]

Medical science and practice at the present day--although it can scarcely

be said that it speaks with an absolutely unanimous voice--on the whole

occupies a position midway between that of the classic lawyers and that of

the later Christian ecclesiastics. It is, on the whole, in favor of

sacrificing the foetus whenever the interests of the mother demand such a

sacrifice. General medical opinion is not, however, prepared at present to

go further, and is distinctly disinclined to aid the parents in exerting

an unqualified control over the foetus in the womb, nor is it yet disposed

to practice abortion on eugenic grounds. It is obvious, indeed, that

medicine cannot in this matter take the initiative, for it is the primary

duty of medicine to save life. Society itself must assume the

responsibility of protecting the race.

Dr. S. Macvie ("Mother _versus_ Child," _Transactions Edinburgh

Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxiv, 1899) elaborately discusses the

respective values of the foetus and the adult on the basis of

life-expectancy, and concludes that the foetus is merely

"a parasite performing no function whatever," and that "unless

the life-expectancy of the child covers the years in which its

potentiality is converted into actuality, the relative values of

the maternal and foetal life will be that of actual as against

potential." This statement seems fairly sound. Ballantyne

(_Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Foetus_, p. 459)

endeavors to make the statement more precise by saying that "the

mother's life has a value, because she is what she is, while the

foetus only has a possible value, on account of what it may

become."

Durlacher, among others, has discussed, in careful and cautious

detail, the various conditions in which the physician should, or

should not, induce abortion in the interests of the mother ("Der

Künstliche Abort," _Wiener Klinik_, Aug. and Sept., 1906); so

also, Eugen Wilhelm ("Die Abtreibung und das Recht des Arztes zur

Vernichtung der Leibesfrucht," _Sexual-Probleme_, May and June,

1909). Wilhelm further discusses whether it is desirable to alter

the laws in order to give the physician greater freedom in

deciding on abortion. He concludes that this is not necessary,

and might even act injuriously, by unduly hampering medical

freedom. Any change in the law should merely be, he considers, in

the direction of asserting that the destruction of the foetus is

not abortion in the legal sense, provided it is indicated by the

rules of medical science. With reference to the timidity of some

medical men in inducing abortion, Wilhelm remarks that, even in

the present state of the law, the physician who conscientiously

effects abortion, in accordance with his best knowledge, even if

mistakenly, may consider himself safe from all legal penalties,

and that he is much more likely to come in conflict with the law

if it can be proved that death followed as a result of his

neglect to induce abortion.

Pinard, who has discussed the right to control the foetal

life (_Annales de Gynécologie_, vols. lii and liii, 1899 and

1900), inspired by his enthusiastic propaganda for the salvation

of infant life, is led to the unwarranted conclusion that no one

has the rights of life and death over the foetus; "the infant's

right to his life is an imprescriptible and sacred right, which

no power can take from him." There is a mistake here, unless

Pinard deliberately desires to place himself, like Tolstoy, in

opposition to current civilized morality. So far from the infant

having any "imprescriptible right to life," even the adult has,

in human societies, no such inalienable right, and very much less

the foetus, which is not strictly a human being at all. We assume

the right of terminating the lives of those individuals whose

anti-social conduct makes them dangerous, and, in war, we

deliberately terminate, amid general applause and enthusiasm, the

lives of men who have been specially selected for this purpose on

account of their physical and general efficiency. It would be

absurdly inconsistent to say that we have no rights over the

lives of creatures that have, as yet, no part in human society at

all, and are not so much as born. We are here in presence of a

vestige of ancient theological dogma, and there can be little

doubt that, on the theoretical side at all events, the

"imprescriptible right" of the embryo will go the same way as the

"imprescriptible right" of the spermatozöon. Both rights are

indeed "imprescriptible."

Of recent years a new, and, it must be admitted, somewhat unexpected,

aspect of this question of abortion has been revealed. Hitherto it has

been a question entirely in the hands of men, first, following the Roman

traditions, in the hands of Christian ecclesiastics, and later, in those

of the professional castes. Yet the question is in reality very largely,

and indeed mainly, a woman's question, and now, more especially in

Germany, it has been actively taken up by women. The Gräfin Gisela

Streitberg occupies the pioneering place in this movement with her book

_Das Recht zur Beiseitigung Keimenden Lebens_, and was speedily followed,

from 1897 onwards, by a number of distinguished women who occupy a

prominent place in the German woman's movement, among others Helene

Stöcker, Oda Olberg, Elisabeth Zanzinger, Camilla Jellinek. All these

writers insist that the foetus is not yet an independent human being, and

that every woman, by virtue of the right over her own body, is entitled to

decide whether it shall become an independent human being. At the Woman's

Congress held in the autumn of 1905, a resolution was passed demanding

that abortion should only be punishable when effected by another person

against the wish of the pregnant women herself.[441] The acceptance of

this resolution by a representative assembly is interesting proof of the

interest now taken by women in the question, and of the strenuous attitude

they are tending to assume.

Elisabeth Zanzinger ("Verbrechen gegen die Leibesfrucht,"

_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 5, 1907) ably and

energetically condemns the law which makes abortion a crime. "A

woman herself is the only legitimate possessor of her own body

and her own health.... Just as it is a woman's private right, and

most intimate concern, to present her virginity as her best gift

to the chosen of her heart, so it is certainly a pregnant woman's

own private concern if, for reasons which seem good to her, she

decides to destroy the results of her action." A woman who

destroys the embryo which might become a burden to the community,

or is likely to be an inferior member of society, this writer

urges, is doing a service to the community, which ought to reward

her, perhaps by granting her special privileges as regards the

upbringing of her other children. Oda Olberg, in a thoughtful

paper ("Ueber den Juristischen Schutz des Keimenden Lebens," _Die

Neue Generation_, June, 1908), endeavors to make clear all that

is involved in the effort to protect the developing embryo

against the organism that carries it, to protect a creature, that

is, against itself and its own instincts. She considers that most

of the women who terminate their pregnancies artificially would

only have produced undesirables, for the normal, healthy, robust

woman has no desire to effect abortion. "There are women who are

psychically sterile, without being physically so, and who possess

nothing of motherhood but the ability to bring forth. These, when

they abort, are simply correcting a failure of Nature." Some of

them, she remarks, by going on to term, become guilty of the far

worse offence of infanticide. As for the women who desire

abortion merely from motives of vanity, or convenience, Oda

Olberg points out that the circles in which these motives rule

are quite able to limit their children without having to resort

to abortion. She concludes that society must protect the young

life in every way, by social hygiene, by laws for the protection

of the workers, by spreading a new morality on the basis of the

laws of heredity. But we need no law to protect the young

creature against its own mother, for a thousand natural forces

are urging the mother to protect her own child, and we may be

sure that she will not disobey these forces without very good

reasons. Camilla Jellinek, again (_Die Strafrechtsreform_, etc.,

Heidelberg, 1909), in a powerful and well-informed address before

the Associated German Frauenvereine, at Breslau, argues in the

same sense.

The lawyers very speedily came to the assistance of the women in

this matter, the more readily, no doubt, since the traditions of

the greatest and most influential body of law already pointed, on

one side at all events, in the same direction. It may, indeed, be

claimed that it was from the side of law--and in Italy, the

classic land of legal reform--that this new movement first begun.

In 1888, Balestrini published, at Turin, his _Aborto,

Infanticidio ed Esposizione d'Infante_, in which he argued that

the penalty should be removed from abortion. It was a very able

and learned book, inspired by large ideas and a humanitarian

spirit, but though its importance is now recognized, it cannot be

said that it attracted much attention on publication.

It is especially in Germany that, during recent years, lawyers

have followed women reformers, by advocating, more or less

completely, the abolition of the punishment for abortion. So

distinguished an authority as Von Liszt, in a private letter to

Camilla Jellinek (op. cit.), states that he regards the

punishment of abortion as "very doubtful," though he considers

its complete abolition impracticable; he thinks abortion might be

permitted during the early months of pregnancy, thus bringing

about a return of the old view. Hans Gross states his opinion

(_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, Bd. XII, p. 345) that the

time is not far distant when abortion will no longer be punished.

Radbruch and Von Lilienthal speak in the same sense. Weinberg has

advocated a change in the law (_Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 8),

and Kurt Hiller (_Die Neue Generation_, April, 1909), also from

the legal side, argues that abortion should only be punishable

when effected by a married woman, without the knowledge and

consent of her husband.

The medical profession, which took the first step in modern times in the

authorization of abortion, has not at present taken any further step. It

has been content to lay down the principle that when the interests of the

mother are opposed to those of the foetus, it is the latter which must be

sacrificed. It has hesitated to take the further step of placing abortion

on the eugenic basis, and of claiming the right to insist on abortion

whenever the medical and hygienic interests of society demand such a step.

This attitude is perfectly intelligible. Medicine has in the past been

chiefly identified with the saving of lives, even of worthless and worse

than worthless lives; "Keep everything alive! Keep everything alive!"

nervously cried Sir James Paget. Medicine has confined itself to the

humble task of attempting to cure evils, and is only to-day beginning to

undertake the larger and nobler task of preventing them.

"The step from killing the child in the womb to murdering a

person when out of the womb, is a dangerously narrow one," sagely

remarks a recent medical author, probably speaking for many

others, who somehow succeed in blinding themselves to the fact

that this "dangerously narrow step" has been taken by mankind,

only too freely, for thousands of years past, long before

abortion was known in the world.

Here and there, however, medical authors of repute have advocated

the further extension of abortion, with precautions, and under

proper supervision, as an aid to eugenic progress. Thus,

Professor Max Flesch (_Die Neue Generation_, April, 1909) is in

favor of a change in the law permitting abortion (provided it is

carried out by the physician) in special cases, as when the

mother's pregnancy has been due to force, when she has been

abandoned, or when, in the interests of the community, it is

desirable to prevent the propagation of insane, criminal,

alcoholic, or tuberculous persons.

In France, a medical man, Dr. Jean Darricarrère, has written a

remarkable novel, _Le Droit d'Avortement_ (1906), which advocates

the thesis that a woman always possesses a complete right to

abortion, and is the supreme judge as to whether she will or not

undergo the pain and risks of childbirth. The question is, here,

however, obviously placed not on medical, but on humanitarian and

feminist grounds.

We have seen that, alike on the side of practice and of theory, a great

change has taken place during recent years in the attitude towards

abortion. It must, however, clearly be recognized that, unlike the control

of procreation by methods for preventing conception, facultative abortion

has not yet been embodied in our current social morality. If it is

permissible to interpolate a personal opinion, I may say that to me it

seems that our morality is here fairly reasonable.[442] I am decidedly of

opinion that an unrestricted permission for women to practice abortion in

their own interests, or even for communities to practice it in the

interests of the race, would be to reach beyond the stage of civilization

we have at present attained. As Ellen Key very forcibly argues, a

civilization which permits, without protest, the barbarous slaughter of

its carefully selected adults in war has not yet won the right to destroy

deliberately even its most inferior vital products in the womb. A

civilization guilty of so reckless a waste of life cannot safely be

entrusted with this judicial function. The blind and aimless anxiety to

cherish the most hopeless and degraded forms of life, even of unborn life,

may well be a weakness, and since it often leads to incalculable

suffering, even a crime. But as yet there is an impenetrable barrier

against progress in this direction. Before we are entitled to take life

deliberately for the sake of purifying life, we must learn how to preserve

it by abolishing such destructive influences--war, disease, bad industrial

conditions--as are easily within our social power as civilized

nations.[443]

There is, further, another consideration which seems to me to carry

weight. The progress of civilization is in the direction of greater

foresight, of greater prevention, of a diminished need for struggling with

the reckless lack of prevision. The necessity for abortion is precisely

one of those results of reckless action which civilization tends to

diminish. While we may admit that in a sounder state of civilization a few

cases might still occur when the induction of abortion would be desirable,

it seems probable that the number of such cases will decrease rather than

increase. In order to do away with the need for abortion, and to

counteract the propaganda in its favor, our main reliance must be placed,

on the one hand, on increased foresight in the determination of conception

and increased knowledge of the means for preventing conception,[444] and

on the other hand, on a better provision by the State for the care of

pregnant women, married and unmarried alike, and a practical recognition

of the qualified mother's claim on society.[445] There can be little doubt

that, in many a charge of criminal abortion, the real offence lies at the

door of those who have failed to exercise their social and professional

duty of making known the more natural and harmless methods for preventing

conception, or else by their social attitude have made the pregnant

woman's position intolerable. By active social reform in these two

directions, the new movement in favor of abortion may be kept in check,

and it may even be found that by stimulating such reform that movement has

been beneficial.

We have seen that the deliberate restraint of conception has become a part

of our civilized morality, and that the practice and theory of facultative

abortion has gained a footing among us. There remains a third and yet more

radical method of controlling procreation, the method of preventing the

possibility of procreation altogether by the performance of castration or

other slighter operation having a like inhibitory effect on reproduction.

The other two methods only effect a single act of union or its results,

but castration affects all subsequent acts of sexual union and usually

destroys the procreative power permanently.

Castration for various social and other purposes is an ancient and

widespread practice, carried out on men and on animals. There has,

however, been on the whole a certain prejudice against it when applied to

men. Many peoples have attached a very sacred value to the integrity of

the sexual organs. Among some primitive peoples the removal of these

organs has been regarded as a peculiarly ferocious insult, only to be

carried out in moments of great excitement, as after a battle. Medicine

has been opposed to any interference with the sexual organs. The oath

taken by the Greek physicians appears to prohibit castration: "I will not

cut."[446] In modern times a great change has taken place, the castration

of both men and women is commonly performed in diseased conditions; the

same operation is sometimes advocated and occasionally performed in the

hope that it may remove strong and abnormal sexual impulses. And during

recent years castration has been invoked in the cause of negative

eugenics, to a greater extent, indeed, on account of its more radical

character, than either the prevention of conception or abortion.

The movement in favor of castration appears to have begun in the United

States, where various experiments have been made in embodying it in law.

It was first advocated merely as a punishment for criminals, and

especially sexual offenders, by Hammond, Everts, Lydston and others. From

this point of view, however, it seems to be unsatisfactory and perhaps

illegitimate. In many cases castration is no punishment at all, and indeed

a positive benefit. In other cases, when inflicted against the subject's

will, it may produce very disturbing mental effects, leading in already

degenerate or unbalanced persons to insanity, criminality, and anti-social

tendencies generally, much more dangerous than the original state.

Eugenic considerations, which were later brought forward, constitute a

much sounder argument for castration; in this case the castration is

carried out, by no means in order to inflict a barbarous and degrading

punishment, but, with the subject's consent, in order to protect the

community from the risk of useless or mischievous members.

The fact that castration can no longer be properly considered a

punishment, is shown by the possibility of deliberately seeking

the operation simply for the sake of convenience, as a preferable

and most effective substitute for the adoption of preventive

methods in sexual intercourse. I am only at present acquainted

with one case in which this course has been adopted. This subject

is a medical man (of Puritan New England ancestry) with whose

sexual history, which is quite normal, I have been acquainted for

a long time past. His present age is thirty-nine. A few years

since, having a sufficiently large family, he adopted preventive

methods of intercourse. The subsequent events I narrate in his

own words: "The trouble, forethought, etc., rendered necessary by

preventive measures, grew more and more irksome to me as the

years passed by, and finally, I laid the matter before another

physician, and on his assurances, and after mature deliberation

with my wife, was operated on some time since, and rendered

sterile by having the vas deferens on each side exposed through a

slit in the scrotum, then tied in two places with silk and

severed between the ligatures. This was done under cocaine

infiltrative anæsthesia, and was not so extremely painful, though

what pain there was (dragging the cord out through the slit,

etc.) seemed very hard to endure. I was not out of my office a

single day, nor seriously disturbed in any way. In six days all

stitches in the scrotum were removed, and in three weeks I

abandoned the suspensory bandage that had been rendered necessary

by the extreme sensitiveness of the testicles and cord.

"The operation has proved a most complete success in every way.

Sexual functions are _absolutely unaffected in any way

whatsoever_. There is no sense of discomfort or uneasiness in the

sexual tract, and what seems strangest of all to me, is the fact

that the semen, so far as one can judge by ordinary means of

observation, is undiminished in quantity and unchanged in

character. (Of course, the microscope would reveal its fatal

lack.)

"My wife is delighted at having fear banished from our love, and,

taken all in all, it certainly seems as if life would mean more

to us both. Incidentally, the health of both of us seems better

than usual, particularly so in my wife's case, and this she

attributes to a soothing influence that is attained by allowing

the seminal fluid to be deposited in a perfectly normal manner,

and remain in contact with the vaginal secretions until it

naturally passes off.

"This operation being comparatively new, and, as yet, not often

done on others than the insane, criminal, etc., I thought it

might be of interest to you. If I shed even the faintest ray of

light on this greatest of all human problems ... I shall be glad

indeed."

Such a case, with its so far satisfactory issue, certainly

deserves to be placed on record, though it may well be that at

present it will not be widely imitated.

The earliest advocacy of castration, which I have met with as a part of

negative eugenics, for the specific "purpose of prophylaxis as applied to

race improvement and the protection of society," is by Dr. F.E. Daniel, of

Texas, and dates from 1893.[447] Daniel mixed up, however, somewhat

inextricably, castration as a method of purifying the race, a method which

can be carried out with the concurrence of the individual operated on,

with castration as a punishment, to be inflicted for rape, sodomy,

bestiality, pederasty and even habitual masturbation, the method of its

performance, moreover, to be the extremely barbarous and primitive method

of total ablation of the sexual organs. In more recent years somewhat more

equitable, practical, and scientific methods of castration have been

advocated, not involving the removal of the sexual glands or organs, and

not as a punishment, but simply for the sake of protecting the community

and the race from the burden of probably unproductive and possibly

dangerous members. Näcke has, from 1899 onwards, repeatedly urged the

social advantages of this measure.[448] The propagation of the inferior

elements of society, Näcke insists, brings unhappiness into the family and

is a source of great expense to the State. He regards castration as the

only effective method of prevention, and concludes that it is, therefore,

our duty to adopt it, just as we have adopted vaccination, taking care to

secure the consent of the subject himself or his guardian, of the civil

authorities, and, if necessary, of a committee of experts. Professor

Angelo Zuccarelli of Naples has also, from 1899 onwards, emphasized the

importance of castration in the sterilization of the epileptic, the insane

of various classes, the alcoholic, the tuberculous, and instinctive

criminals, the choice of cases for operation to be made by a commission of

experts who would examine school-children, candidates for public

employments, or persons about to marry.[449] This movement rapidly gained

ground, and in 1905 at the annual meeting of Swiss alienists it was

unanimously agreed that the sterilization of the insane is desirable, and

that it is necessary that the question should be legally regulated. It is

in Switzerland, indeed, that the first steps have been taken in Europe to

carry out castration as a measure of social prophylaxis. The sixteenth

yearly report (1907) of the Cantonal asylum at Wil describes four cases of

castration, two in men and two in women, performed--with the permission of

the patients and the civil authorities--for social reasons; both women had

previously had illegitimate children who were a burden on the community,

and all four patients were sexually abnormal; the operation enabled the

patients to be liberated and to work, and the results were considered in

every respect satisfactory to all concerned.[450]

The introduction of castration as a method of negative eugenics

has been facilitated by the use of new methods of performing it

without risk, and without actual removal of the testes or

ovaries. For men, there is the simple method of vasectomy, as

recommended by Näcke and many others. For women, there is the

corresponding, and almost equally simple and harmless method of

Kehrer, by section and ligation of the Fallopian tubes through

the vagina, as recommended by Kisch, or Rose's very similar

procedure, easily carried out in a few minutes by an experienced

hand, as recommended by Zuccarelli.

It has been found that repeated exposure to the X-rays produces

sterility in both sexes, alike in animals and men, and X-ray

workers have to adopt various precautions to avoid suffering from

this effect. It has been suggested that the application of the

X-rays would be a good substitute for castration; it appears that

the effects of the application are only likely to last a few

years, which, in some doubtful cases, might be an advantage. (See

_British Medical Journal_, Aug. 13, 1904; ib., March 11, 1905;

ib., July 6, 1907.)

It is scarcely possible, it seems to me, to view castration as a method of

negative eugenics with great enthusiasm. The recklessness, moreover, with

which it is sometimes proposed to apply it by law--owing no doubt to the

fact that it is not so obviously repulsive as the less radical procedure

of abortion--ought to render us very cautious. We must, too, dismiss the

idea of castration as a punishment; as such it is not merely barbarous but

degrading and is unlikely to have a beneficial effect. As a method of

negative eugenics it should never be carried out except with the subject's

consent. The fact that in some cases it might be necessary to enforce

seclusion in the absence of castration would doubtless be a fact exerting

influence in favor of such consent; but the consent is essential if the

subject of the operation is to be safeguarded from degradation. A man who

has been degraded and embittered by an enforced castration might not be

dangerous to posterity, but might very easily become a dangerous member of

the society in which he actually lived. With due precautions and

safeguards, castration may doubtless play a certain part in the elevation

and improvement of the race.[451]

The methods we have been considering, in so far as they limit the

procreative powers of the less healthy and efficient stocks in a

community, are methods of eugenics. It must not, however, be supposed that

they are the whole of eugenics, or indeed that they are in any way

essential to a eugenic scheme. Eugenics is concerned with the whole of the

agencies which elevate and improve the human breed; abortion and

castration are methods which may be used to this end, but they are not

methods of which everyone approves, nor is it always clear that the ends

they effect would not better be attained by other methods; in any case

they are methods of negative eugenics. There remains the field of positive

eugenics, which is concerned, not with the elimination of the inferior

stocks but with ascertaining which are the superior stocks and with

furthering their procreative power.

While the necessity of refraining from procreation is no longer a bar to

marriage, the question of whether two persons ought to marry each other

still remains in the majority of cases a serious question from the

standpoint of positive as well as of negative eugenics, for the normal

marriage cannot fail to involve children, as, indeed, its chief and most

desirable end. We have to consider not merely what are the stocks or the

individuals that are unfit to breed, but also what are these stocks or

individuals that are most fit to breed, and under what conditions

procreation may best be effected. The present imperfection of our

knowledge on these questions emphasizes the need for care and caution in

approaching their consideration.

It may be fitting, at this point, to refer to the experiment of

the Oneida Community in establishing a system of scientific

propagation, under the guidance of a man whose ability and

distinction as a pioneer are only to-day beginning to be

adequately recognized. John Humphrey Noyes was too far ahead of

his own day to be recognized at his true worth; at the most, he

was regarded as the sagacious and successful founder of a sect,

and his attempts to apply eugenics to life only aroused ridicule

and persecution, so that he was, unfortunately, compelled by

outside pressure to bring a most instructive experiment to a

premature end. His aim and principle are set forth in an _Essay

on Scientific Propagation_, printed some forty years ago, which

discusses problems that are only now beginning to attract the

attention of the practical man, as within the range of social

politics. When Noyes turned his vigorous and practical mind to

the question of eugenics, that question was exclusively in the

hands of scientific men, who felt all the natural timidity of the

scientific man towards the realization of his proposals, and who

were not prepared to depart a hair's breadth from the

conventional customs of their time. The experiment of Noyes, at

Oneida, marked a new stage in the history of eugenics; whatever

might be the value of the experiment--and a first experiment

cannot well be final--with Noyes the questions of eugenics passed

beyond the purely academic stage in which, from the time of

Plato, they had peacefully reposed. "It is becoming clear," Noyes

states at the outset, "that the foundations of scientific society

are to be laid in the scientific propagation of human beings." In

doing this, we must attend to two things: blood (or heredity) and

training; and he puts blood first. In that, he was at one with

the most recent biometrical eugenists of to-day ("the nation has

for years been putting its money on 'Environment,' when

'Heredity' wins in a canter," as Karl Pearson prefers to put it),

and at the same time revealed the breadth of his vision in

comparison with the ordinary social reformer, who, in that day,

was usually a fanatical believer in the influence of training and

surroundings. Noyes sets forth the position of Darwin on the

principles of breeding, and the step beyond Darwin, which had

been taken by Galton. He then remarks that, when Galton comes to

the point where it is necessary to advance from theory to the

duties the theory suggests, he "subsides into the meekest

conservatism." (It must be remembered that this was written at an

early stage in Galton's work.) This conclusion was entirely

opposed to Noyes' practical and religious temperament. "Duty is

plain; we say we ought to do it--we want to do it; but we cannot.

The law of God urges us on; but the law of society holds us back.

The boldest course is the safest. Let us take an honest and

steady look at the law. It is only in the timidity of ignorance

that the duty seems impracticable." Noyes anticipated Galton in

regarding eugenics as a matter of religion.

Noyes proposed to term the work of modern science in propagation

"Stirpiculture," in which he has sometimes been followed by

others. He considered that it is the business of the

stirpiculturist to keep in view both quantity and quality of

stocks, and he held that, without diminishing quantity, it was

possible to raise the quality by exercising a very stringent

discrimination in selecting males. At this point, Noyes has been

supported in recent years by Karl Pearson and others, who have

shown that only a relatively small portion of a population is

needed to produce the next generation, and that, in fact, twelve

per cent. of one generation in man produces fifty per cent. of

the next generation. What we need to ensure is that this small

reproducing section of the population shall be the best adapted

for the purpose. "The _quantity_ of production will be in direct

proportion to the number of fertile females," as Noyes saw the

question, "and the _value_ produced, so far as it depends on

selection, will be nearly in inverse proportion to the number of

fertilizing males." In this matter, Noyes anticipated Ehrenfels.

The two principles to be held in mind were, "Breed from the

best," and "Breed in-and-in," with a cautious and occasional

introduction of new strains. (It may be noted that Reibmayr, in

his recent _Entwicklungsgeschichte des Genics und Talentes_,

argues that the superior races, and superior individuals, in the

human species, have been produced by an unconscious adherence to

exactly these principles.) "By segregating superior families, and

by breeding these in-and-in, superior varieties of human beings

might be produced, which would be comparable to the thoroughbreds

in all the domestic races." He illustrates this by the early

history of the Jews.

Noyes finally criticises the present method, or lack of method,

in matters of propagation. Our marriage system, he states,

"leaves mating to be determined by a general scramble." By

ignoring, also, the great difference between the sexes in

reproductive power, it "restricts each man, whatever may be his

potency and his value, to the amount of production of which one

woman, chosen blindly, may be capable." Moreover, he continues,

"practically it discriminates against the best, and in favor of

the worst; for, while the good man will be limited by his

conscience to what the law allows, the bad man, free from moral

check, will distribute his seed beyond the legal limits, as

widely as he dares." "We are safe every way in saying that there

is no possibility of carrying the two precepts of scientific

propagation into an institution which pretends to no

discrimination, allows no suppression, gives no more liberty to

the best than to the worst, and which, in fact, must inevitably

discriminate the wrong way, so long as the inferior classes are

most prolific and least amenable to the admonitions of science

and morality." In modifying our sexual institutions, Noyes

insists there are two essential points to remember: the

preservation of liberty, and the preservation of the home. There

must be no compulsion about human scientific propagation; it must

be autonomous, directed by self-government, "by the free choice

of those who love science well enough to 'make themselves eunuchs

for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake.'" The home, also, must be

preserved, since "marriage is the best thing for man as he is;"

but it is necessary to enlarge the home, for, "if all could learn

to love other children than their own, there would be nothing to

hinder scientific propagation in the midst of homes far better

than any that now exist."

This memorable pamphlet contains no exposition of the precise

measures adopted by the Oneida Community to carry out these

principles. The two essential points were, as we know, "male

continence" (see _ante_ p. 553), and the enlarged family, in

which all the men were the actual or potential mates of all the

women, but no union for propagation took place, except as the

result of reason and deliberate resolve. "The community," says

H.J. Seymour, one of the original members (_The Oneida

Community_, 1894, p. 5), "was a _family_, as distinctly separated

from surrounding society as ordinary households. The tie that

bound it together was as permanent, and at least as sacred, as

that of marriage. Every man's care, and the whole of the common

property, was pledged for the maintenance and protection of the

women, and the support and education of the children." It is not

probable that the Oneida Community presented in detail the model

to which human society generally will conform. But even at the

lowest estimate, its success showed, as Lord Morely has pointed

out (_Diderot_, vol. ii, p. 19), "how modifiable are some of

these facts of existing human character which are vulgarly deemed

to be ultimate and ineradicable," and that "the discipline of the

appetites and affections of sex," on which the future of

civilization largely rests, is very far from an impossibility.

In many respects, the Oneida Community was ahead of its

time,--and even of ours,--but it is interesting to note that, in

the matter of the control of conception, our marriage system has

come into line with the theory and practice of Oneida; it cannot,

indeed, be said that we always control conception in accordance

with eugenic principles, but the fact that such control has now

become a generally accepted habit of civilization, to some extent

deprives Noyes' criticism of our marriage system of the force it

possessed half a century ago. Another change in our customs--the

advocacy, and even the practice, of abortion and

castration--would not have met with his approval; he was strongly

opposed to both, and with the high moral level that ruled his

community, neither was necessary to the maintenance of the

stirpiculture that prevailed.

The Oneida Community endured for the space of one generation, and

came to an end in 1879, by no means through a recognition of

failure, but by a wise deference to external pressure. Its

members, many of them highly educated, continued to cherish the

memory of the practices and ideals of the Community. Noyes Miller

(the author of _The Strike of a Sex_, and _Zugassant's

Discovery_) to the last, looked with quiet confidence to the time

when, as he anticipated, the great discovery of Noyes would be

accepted and adopted by the world at large. Another member of the

Community (Henry J. Seymour) wrote of the Community long

afterwards that "It was an anticipation and imperfect miniature

of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth."

Perhaps the commonest type of proposal or attempt to improve the

biological level of the race is by the exclusion of certain classes of

degenerates from marriage, or by the encouragement of better classes of

the community to marry. This seems to be, at present, the most popular

form of eugenics, and in so far as it is not effected by compulsion but is

the outcome of a voluntary resolve to treat the question of the creation

of the race with the jealous care and guardianship which so tremendously

serious, so godlike, a task involves, it has much to be said in its favor

and nothing against it.

But it is quite another matter when the attempt is made to regulate such

an institution as marriage by law. In the first place we do not yet know

enough about the principles of heredity and the transmissibility of

pathological states to enable us to formulate sound legislative proposals

on this basis. Even so comparatively simple a matter as the relationship

of tuberculosis to heredity can scarcely be said to be a matter of common

agreement, even if it can yet be claimed that we possess adequate material

on which to attain a common agreement. Supposing, moreover, that our

knowledge on all these questions were far more advanced than it is, we

still should not have attained a position in which we could lay down

general propositions regarding the desirability or the undesirability of

certain classes of persons procreating. The question is necessarily an

individual question, and it can only be decided when all the circumstances

of the individual case have been fairly passed in review.

The objection to any legislative and compulsory regulation of the right to

marry is, however, much more fundamental than the consideration that our

knowledge is at present inadequate. It lies in the extraordinary

confusion, in the minds of those who advocate such legislation, between

legal marriage and procreation. The persons who fall into such confusion

have not yet learnt the alphabet of the subject they presume to dictate

about, and are no more competent to legislate than a child who cannot tell

A from B is competent to read.

Marriage, in so far as it is the partnership for mutual help and

consolation of two people who in such partnership are free, if they

please, to exercise sexual union, is an elementary right of every person

who is able to reason, who is guilty of no fraud or concealment, and who

is not likely to injure the partner selected, for in that case society is

entitled to interfere by virtue of its duty to protect its members. But

the right to marry, thus understood, in no way involves the right to

procreate. For while marriage _per se_ only affects the two individuals

concerned, and in no way affects the State, procreation, on the other

hand, primarily affects the community which is ultimately made up of

procreated persons, and only secondarily affects the two individuals who

are the instruments of procreation. So that just as the individual couple

has the first right in the question of marriage, the State has the first

right in the question of procreation. The State is just as incompetent to

lay down the law about marriage as the individual is to lay down the law

about procreation.

That, however, is only one-half of the folly committed by those who would

select the candidates for matrimony by statute. Let us suppose--as is not

indeed easy to suppose--that a community will meekly accept the abstract

prohibitions of the statute book and quietly go home again when the

registrar of marriages informs them that they are shut out from legal

matrimony by the new table of prohibited degrees. An explicit prohibition

to procreate within marriage is an implicit permission to procreate

outside marriage. Thus the undesirable procreation, instead of being

carried out under the least dangerous conditions, is carried out under the

most dangerous conditions, and the net result to the community is not a

gain but a loss.

What seems usually to happen, in the presence of a formal legislative

prohibition against the marriage of a particular class, is a combination

of various evils. In part the law becomes a dead letter, in part it is

evaded by skill and fraud, in part it is obeyed to give rise to worse

evils. This happened, for instance, in the Terek district of the Caucasus

where, on the demand of a medical committee, priests were prohibited from

marrying persons among whose relatives or ancestry any cases of leprosy

had occurred. So much and such various mischief was caused by this order

that it was speedily withdrawn.[452]

If we remember that the Catholic Church was occupied for more than a

thousand years in the attempt to impose the prohibition of marriage on its

priesthood,--an educated and trained body of men, who had every spiritual

and worldly motive to accept the prohibition, and were, moreover, brought

up to regard asceticism as the best ideal in life,[453]--we may realize

how absurd it is to attempt to gain the same end by mere casual

prohibitions issued to untrained people with no motives to obey such

prohibitions, and no ideals of celibacy.

The hopelessness and even absurdity of effecting the eugenic improvement

of the race by merely placing on the statute book prohibitions to certain

classes of people to enter the legal bonds of matrimony as at present

constituted, reveals the weakness of those who undervalue the eugenic

importance of environment. Those who affirm that heredity is everything

and environment nothing seem strangely to forget that it is precisely the

lower classes--those who are most subjected to the influence of bad

environment--who procreate most copiously, most recklessly, and most

disastrously. The restraint of procreation, and a concomitant regard for

heredity, increase _pari passu_ with improvement of the environment and

rise in social well-being. If even already it can be said that probably

fifty per cent. of sexual intercourse--perhaps the most procreatively

productive moiety--takes place outside legal marriage, it becomes obvious

that statutory prohibition to the unfit classes to refrain from legal

marriage merely involves their joining the procreating classes outside

legal matrimony. It is also clear that if we are to neglect the factor of

environment, and leave the lower social classes to the ignorance and

recklessness which are the result of such environment, the only practical

method of eugenics left open is that by castration and abortion. But this

method--if applied on a wholesale scale as it would need to be[454] and

without reference to the consent of the individual--is entirely opposed

to modern democratic feeling. Thus those short-sighted eugenists who

overlook the importance of environment are overlooking the only practical

channel through which their aims can be realized. Attention to procreation

and attention to environment are not, as some have supposed, antagonistic,

but they play harmoniously into each other's hands. The care for

environment leads to a restraint on reckless procreation, and the

restraint of procreation leads to improved environment.

Legislation on marriage, to be effectual, must be enacted in the home, in

the school, in the doctor's consulting room. Force is helpless here; it is

education that is needed, not merely instruction, but the education of the

conscience and will, and the training of the emotions.

Legal action may come in to further this process of education, though it

cannot replace it. Thus it is very desirable that when there has been a

concealment of serious disease by a party to a marriage such concealment

should be a ground for divorce. Epilepsy may be taken as typical of the

diseases which should be a bar to procreation, and their concealment

equivalent to an annulment of marriage.[455] In the United States the

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut laid it down in 1906 that the

Superior Court has the power to pass a decree of divorce when one of the

parties has concealed the existence of epilepsy. This weighty deliverence,

it has been well said,[456] marks a forward step in human progress. There

are many other seriously pathological conditions in which divorce should

be pronounced, or indeed, occur automatically, except when procreation has

been renounced, for in that case the State is no longer concerned in the

relationship, except to punish any fraud committed by concealment.

The demand that a medical certificate of health should be

compulsory on marriage, has been especially made in France. In

1858, Diday, of Lyons, proposed, indeed, that all persons,

without exception, should be compelled to possess a certificate

of health and disease, a kind of sanitary passport. In 1872,

Bertillon (Art. "Demographic," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des

Sciences Médicales_) advocated the registration, at marriage, of

the chief anthropological and pathological traits of the

contracting parties (height, weight, color of hair and eyes,

muscular force, size of head, condition of vision, hearing, etc.,

deformities and defects, etc.), not so much, however, for the end

of preventing undesirable marriages, as to facilitate the study

and comparison of human groups at particular periods. Subsequent

demands, of a more limited and partial character, for legal

medical certificates as a condition of marriage, have been made

by Fournier (_Syphilis et Mariage_, 1890), Cazalis (_Le Science

et le Mariage_, 1890), and Jullien (_Blenorrhagie et Mariage_,

1898). In Austria, Haskovec, of Prague ("Contrat Matrimonial et

L'Hygiène Publique," _Comptes-rendus Congrès International de

Médecine_, Lisbon, 1906, Section VII, p. 600), argues that, on

marriage, a medical certificate should be presented, showing that

the subject is exempt from tuberculosis, alcoholism, syphilis,

gonorrhoea, severe mental, or nervous, or other degenerative

state, likely to be injurious to the other partner, or to the

offspring. In America, Rosenberg and Aronstam argue that every

candidate for marriage, male or female, should undergo a strict

examination by a competent board of medical examiners, concerning

(1) Family and Past History (syphilis, consumption, alcoholism,

nervous, and mental diseases), and (2) Status Presens (thorough

examination of all the organs); if satisfactory, a certificate of

matrimonial eligibility would then be granted. It is pointed out

that a measure of this kind would render unnecessary the acts

passed by some States for the punishment by fine, or

imprisonment, of the concealment of disease. Ellen Key also

considers (_Liebe und Ehe_, p. 436) that each party at marriage

should produce a certificate of health. "It seems to me just as

necessary," she remarks, elsewhere (_Century of the Child_, Ch.

I), "to demand medical testimony concerning capacity for

marriage, as concerning capacity for military service. In the one

case, it is a matter of giving life; in the other, of taking it,

although certainly the latter occasion has hitherto been

considered as much the more serious."

The certificate, as usually advocated, would be a private but

necessary legitimation of the marriage in the eyes of the civil

and religious authorities. Such a step, being required for the

protection alike of the conjugal partner and of posterity, would

involve a new legal organization of the matrimonial contract.

That such demands are so frequently made, is a significant sign

of the growth of moral consciousness in the community, and it is

good that the public should be made acquainted with the urgent

need for them. But it is highly undesirable that they should, at

present, or, perhaps, ever, be embodied in legal codes. What is

needed is the cultivation of the feeling of individual

responsibility, and the development of social antagonism towards

those individuals who fail to recognize their responsibility. It

is the reality of marriage, and not its mere legal forms, that it

is necessary to act upon.

The voluntary method is the only sound way of approach in this matter.

Duclaux considered that the candidate for marriage should possess a

certificate of health in much the same way as the candidate for life

assurance, the question of professional secrecy, as well as that of

compulsion, no more coming into one question than into the other. There is

no reason why such certificates, of an entirely voluntary character,

should not become customary among those persons who are sufficiently

enlightened to realize all the grave personal, family, and social issues

involved in marriage. The system of eugenic certification, as originated

and developed by Galton, will constitute a valuable instrument for raising

the moral consciousness in this matter. Galton's eugenic certificates

would deal mainly with the natural virtues of superior hereditary

breed--"the public recognition of a natural nobility"--but they would

include the question of personal health and personal aptitude.[457]

To demand compulsory certificates of health at marriage is indeed to begin

at the wrong end. It would not only lead to evasions and antagonisms but

would probably call forth a reaction. It is first necessary to create an

enthusiasm for health, a moral conscience in matters of procreation,

together with, on the scientific side, a general habit of registering the

anthropological, psychological, and pathological data concerning the

individual, from birth onwards, altogether apart from marriage. The

earlier demands of Diday and Bertillon were thus not only on a sounder but

also a more practicable basis. If such records were kept from birth for

every child, there would be no need for special examination at marriage,

and many incidental ends would be gained. There is difficulty at present

in obtaining such records from the moment of birth, and, so far as I am

aware, no attempts have yet been made to establish their systematic

registration. But it is quite possible to begin at the beginning of school

life, and this is now done at many schools and colleges in England,

America, and elsewhere, more especially as regards anthropological,

physiological, and psychological data, each child being submitted to a

thorough and searching anthropometric examination, and thus furnished with

a systematic statement of his physical condition.[458] This examination

needs to be standardized and generalized, and repeated at fixed intervals.

"Every individual child," as is truly stated by Dr. Dukes, the Physician

to Rugby School, "on his entrance to a public school should be as

carefully and as thoroughly examined as if it were for life insurance." If

this procedure were general from an early age, there would be no hardship

in the production of the record at marriage, and no opportunity for fraud.

The _dossier_ of each person might well be registered by the State, as

wills already are, and, as in the case of wills, become freely open to

students when a century had elapsed. Until this has been done during

several centuries our knowledge of eugenics will remain rudimentary.

There can be little doubt that the eugenic attitude towards

marriage, and the responsibility of the individual for the future

of the race, is becoming more recognized. It is constantly

happening that persons, about to marry, approach the physician in

a state of serious anxiety on this point. Urquhart, indeed

(_Journal of Mental Science_, April, 1907, p. 277), believes that

marriages are seldom broken off on this ground; this seems,

however, too pessimistic a view, and even when the marriage is

not broken off the resolve is often made to avoid procreation.

Clouston, who emphasizes (_Hygiene of the Mind_, p. 74) the

importance of "inquiries by each of the parties to the

life-contract, by their parents and their doctors, as to

heredity, temperament, and health," is more hopeful of the

results than Urquhart. "I have been very much impressed, of late

years," he writes (_Journal of Mental Science_, Oct., 1907, p.

710), "with the way in which this subject is taking possession of

intelligent people, by the number of times one is consulted by

young men and young women, proposing to marry, or by their

fathers or mothers. I used to have the feeling in the back of my

mind, when I was consulted, that it did not matter what I said,

it would not make any difference. But it is making a difference;

and I, and others, could tell of scores of marriages which were

put off in consequence of psychiatric medical advice."

Ellen Key, also, refers to the growing tendency among both men

and women, to be influenced by eugenic consideration in forming

partnerships for life (_Century of the Child_, Ch. I). The

recognition of the eugenic attitude towards marriage, the

quickening of the social and individual conscience in matters of

heredity, as also the systematic introduction of certification

and registration, will be furthered by the growing tendency to

the socialization of medicine, and, indeed, in its absence would

be impossible. (See e.g., Havelock Ellis, _The Nationalization of

Health_.) The growth of the State Medical Organization of Health

is steady and continuous, and is constantly covering a larger

field. The day of the private practitioner of medicine--who was

treated, as Duclaux (_L'Hygiène Sociale_, p. 263) put it, "like a

grocer, whose shop the customer may enter and leave as he

pleases, and when he pleases"--will, doubtless, soon be over. It

is now beginning to be felt that health is far too serious a

matter, not only from the individual but also from the social

point of view, to be left to private caprice. There is, indeed, a

tendency, in some quarters, to fear that some day society may

rush to the opposite extreme, and bow before medicine with the

same unreasoning deference that it once bowed before theology.

That danger is still very remote, nor is it likely, indeed, that

medicine will ever claim any authority of this kind. The spirit

of medicine has, notoriously, been rather towards the assertion

of scepticism than of dogma, and the fanatics in this field will

always be in a hopelessly small minority.

The general introduction of authentic personal records covering all

essential data--hereditary, anthropometric and pathological--cannot fail

to be a force on the side of positive as well as of negative eugenics, for

it would tend to promote the procreation of the fit as well as restrict

that of the unfit, without any legislative compulsion. With the growth of

education a regard for such records as a preliminary to marriage would

become as much a matter of course as once was the regard to the

restrictions imposed by Canon law, and as still is a regard to money or to

caste. A woman can usually refrain from marrying a man with no money and

no prospects; a man may be passionately in love with a woman of lower

class than himself but he seldom marries her. It needs but a clear general

perception of all that is involved in heredity and health to make eugenic

considerations equally influential.

A discriminating regard to the quality of offspring will act beneficially

on the side of positive eugenics by substituting the pernicious tendency

to put a premium on excess of childbirth by the more rational method of

putting a premium on the quality of the child. It has been one of the most

unfortunate results of the mania for protesting against that decline of

the birthrate which is always and everywhere the result of civilization,

that there has been a tendency to offer special social or pecuniary

advantages to the parents of large families. Since large families tend to

be degenerate, and to become a tax on the community, since rapid

pregnancies in succession are not only a serious drain on the strength of

the mother but are now known to depreciate seriously the quality of the

offspring, and since, moreover, it is in large families that disease and

mortality chiefly prevail, all the interests of the community are against

the placing of any premium on large families, even in the case of parents

of good stock. The interests of the State are bound up not with the

quantity but with the quality of its citizens, and the premium should be

placed not on the families that reach a certain size but on the individual

children that reach a certain standard; the attainment of this standard

could well be based on observations made from birth to the fifth year. A

premium on this basis would be as beneficial to a State as that on the

merely numerical basis is pernicious.

This consideration applies with still greater force to the proposals for

the "systematic endowment of motherhood" of which we hear more and more.

So moderate and judicious a social reformer as Mr. Sidney Webb writes: "We

shall have to face the problem of the systematic endowment of motherhood,

and place this most indispensable of all professions upon an honorable

economic basis. At present it is ignored as an occupation, unremunerated,

and in no way honored by the State."[459] True as this statement is, it

must always be remembered that an indispensable preliminary to any

proposal for the endowment of motherhood by the State is a clear

conception of the kind of motherhood which the State requires. To endow

the reckless and indiscriminate motherhood which we see around us, to

encourage, that is, by State aid, the production of citizens a large

proportion of whom the State, if it dared, would like to destroy as unfit,

is too ridiculous a proposal to deserve discussion.[460] The only sound

reason, indeed, for the endowment of motherhood is that it would enable

the State, in its own interests, to further the natural selection of the

fit.

As to the positive qualities which the State is entitled to endow in its

encouragement of motherhood, it is still too early to speak with complete

assurance. Negative eugenics tends to be ahead of positive eugenics; it is

easier to detect bad stocks than to be quite sure of good stocks. Both on

the scientific side and on the social side, however, we are beginning to

attain a clearer realization of the end to be attained and a more precise

knowledge of the methods of attaining it.[461]

Even when we have gained a fairly clear conception of the stocks and the

individuals which we are justified in encouraging to undertake the task of

producing fit citizens for the State, the problems of procreation are by

no means at an end. Before we can so much as inquire what are the

conditions under which selected individuals may best procreate, there is

still the initial question to be decided whether those individuals are

both fertile and potent, for this is not guaranteed by the fact that they

belong to good stocks, nor is even the fact that a man and a woman are

fertile with other persons any positive proof that they will be fertile

with each other. Among the large masses of the population who do not seek

to make their unions legal until those unions have proved fertile, this

difficulty is settled in a simple and practical manner. The question is,

however, a serious and hazardous one, in the present state of the marriage

law in most countries, for those classes which are accustomed to bind

themselves in legal marriage without any knowledge of their potency and

fertility with each other. The matter is mostly left to chance, and as

legal marriage cannot usually be dissolved on the ground that there are no

offspring, even although procreation is commonly declared to be the chief

end of marriage, the question assumes much gravity. The ordinary range of

sterility is from seven to fifteen per cent. of all marriages, and in a

very large proportion of these it is a source of great concern. This could

be avoided, in some measure, by examination before marriage, and almost

altogether by ordaining that, as it is only through offspring that a

marriage has any concern for the State, a legal marriage could be

dissolved, after a certain period, at the will of either of the parties,

in the absence of such offspring.

It was formerly supposed that when a union proved infertile, it

was the wife who was at fault. That belief is long since

exploded, but, even yet, a man is generally far more concerned

about his potency, that is, his ability to perform the mechanical

act of coitus, than about his fertility, that is, his ability to

produce living spermatozoa, though the latter condition is a much

more common source of sterility. "Any man," says Arthur Cooper

(_British Medical Journal_, May 11, 1907), "who has any sexual

defect or malformation, or who has suffered from any disease or

injury of the genito-urinary organs, even though comparatively

trivial or one-sided, and although his copulative power may be

unimpaired, should be looked upon as possibly sterile, until some

sort of evidence to the contrary has been obtained." In case of a

sterile marriage, the possible cause should first be investigated

in the husband, for it is comparatively easy to examine the

semen, and to ascertain if it contains active spermatozoa.

Prinzing, in a comprehensive study of sterile marriages ("Die

Sterilen Ehen," _Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft_, 1904, Heft

1 and 2), states that in two-fifths of sterile marriages the man

is at fault; one-third of such marriages are the result of

venereal diseases in the husband himself, or transmitted to the

wife. Gonorrhoea is not now considered so important a cause of

sterility as it was a few years ago; Schenk makes it responsible

for only about thirteen per cent. sterile marriages (cf. Kisch,

_The Sexual Life of Woman_). Pinkus (_Archiv für Gynäkologie_,

1907) found that of nearly five hundred cases in which he

examined both partners, in 24.4 per cent. cases, the sterility

was directly due to the husband, and in 15.8 per cent. cases,

indirectly due, because caused by gonorrhoea with which he had

infected his wife.

When sterility is due to a defect in the husband's spermatozoa,

and is not discovered, as it usually might be, before marriage,

the question of impregnating the wife by other methods has

occasionally arisen. Divorce on the ground of sterility is not

possible, and, even if it were, the couple, although they wish to

have a child, have not usually any wish to separate. Under these

circumstances, in order to secure the desired end, without

departing from widely accepted rules of morality, the attempt is

occasionally made to effect artificial fecundation by injecting

the semen from a healthy male. Attempts have been made to effect

artificial fecundation by various distinguished men, from John

Hunter to Schwalbe, but it is nearly always very difficult to

effect, and often impossible. This is easy to account for, if we

recall what has already been pointed out (_ante_ p. 577)

concerning the influence of erotic excitement in the woman in

securing conception; it is obviously a serious task for even the

most susceptible woman to evoke erotic enthusiasm _à propos_ of a

medical syringe. Schwalbe, for instance, records a case

(_Deutsche Medizinisches Wochenschrift_, Aug., 1908, p. 510) in

which,--in consequence of the husband's sterility and the wife's

anxiety, with her husband's consent, to be impregnated by the

semen of another man,--he made repeated careful attempts to

effect artificial fecundation; these attempts were, however,

fruitless, and the three parties concerned finally resigned

themselves to the natural method of intercourse, which was

successful. In another case, recorded by Schwalbe, in which the

husband was impotent but not sterile, six attempts were made to

effect artificial fecundation, and further efforts abandoned on

account of the disgust of all concerned.

Opinion, on the whole, has been opposed to the practice of

artificial fecundation, even apart from the question of the

probabilities of success. Thus, in France, where there is a

considerable literature on the subject, the Paris Medical

Faculty, in 1885, after some hesitation, refused Gérard's thesis

on the history of artificial fecundation, afterwards published

independently. In 1883, the Bordeaux legal tribunal declared that

artificial fecundation was illegitimate, and a social danger. In

1897, the Holy See also pronounced that the practice is unlawful

("Artificial Fecundation before the Inquisition," _British

Medical Journal_, March 5, 1898). Apart, altogether, from this

attitude of medicine, law, and Church, it would certainly seem

that those who desire offspring would do well, as a rule, to

adopt the natural method, which is also the best, or else to

abandon to others the task of procreation, for which they are not

adequately equipped.

When we have ascertained that two individuals both belong to sound and

healthy stocks, and, further, that they are themselves both apt for

procreation, it still remains to consider the conditions under which they

may best effect procreation.[462] There arises, for instance, the

question, often asked, What is the best age for procreation?

The considerations which weigh in answering this question are of two

different orders, physiological, and social or moral. That is to say, that

it is necessary, on the one hand, that physical maturity should have been

fully attained, and the sexual cells completely developed; while, on the

other hand, it is necessary that the man shall have become able to support

a family, and that both partners shall have received a training in life

adequate to undertake the responsibilities and anxieties involved in the

rearing of children. While there have been variations at different times,

it scarcely appears that, on the whole, the general opinion as to the best

age for procreation has greatly varied in Europe during many centuries.

Hesiod indeed said that a woman should marry about fifteen and a man about

thirty,[463] but obstetricians have usually concluded that, in the

interests alike of the parents and their offspring, the procreative life

should not begin in women before twenty and in men before

twenty-five.[464] After thirty in women and after thirty-five or forty in

men it seems probable that the best conditions for procreation begin to

decline.[465] At the present time, in England and several other civilized

countries, the tendency has been for the age of marriage to fall at an

increasingly late age, on the average some years later than that usually

fixed as the most favorable age for the commencement of the procreative

life. But, on the whole, the average seldom departs widely from the

accepted standard, and there seems no good reason why we should desire to

modify this general tendency.

At the same time, it by no means follows that wide variations,

under special circumstances, may not only be permissible, but

desirable. The male is capable of procreating, in some cases,

from about the age of thirteen until far beyond eighty, and at

this advanced age, the offspring, even if not notable for great

physical robustness, may possess high intellectual qualities.

(See e.g., Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 120

et seq.) The range of the procreative age in women begins earlier

(sometimes at eight), though it usually ceases by fifty, or

earlier, in only rare cases continuing to sixty or beyond. Cases

have been reported of pregnancy, or childbirth, at the age of

fifty-nine (e.g., _Lancet_, Aug. 5, 1905, p. 419). Lepage

(_Comptes-rendus Société d'Obstétrique de Paris_, Oct., 1903)

reports a case of a primipara of fifty-seven; the child was

stillborn. Kisch (_Sexual Life of Woman_, Part II) refers to

cases of pregnancy in elderly women, and various references are

given in _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 8, 1903, p. 325.

Of more importance is the question of early pregnancy. Several

investigators have devoted their attention to this question.

Thus, Spitta (in a Marburg Inaugural Dissertation, 1895) reviewed

the clinical history of 260 labors in primiparæ of 18 and under,

as observed at the Marburg Maternity. He found that the general

health during pregnancy was not below the average of pregnant

women, while the mortality of the child at birth and during the

following weeks was not high, and the mortality of the mother was

by no means high. Picard (in a Paris thesis, 1903) has studied

childbirth in thirty-eight mothers below the age of sixteen. He

found that, although the pelvis is certainly not yet fully

developed in very young girls, the joints and bones are much more

yielding than in the adult, so that parturition, far from being

more difficult, is usually rapid and easy. The process of labor

itself, is essentially normal in these cases, and, even when

abnormalities occur (low insertion of the placenta is a common

anomaly) it is remarkable that the patients do not suffer from

them in the way common among older women. The average weight of

the child was three kilogrammes, or about 6 pounds, 9 ounces; it

sometimes required special care during the first few days after

birth, perhaps because labor in these cases is sometimes slow.

The recovery of the mother was, in every case, absolutely normal,

and the fact that these young mothers become pregnant again more

readily than primiparæ of a more mature age, further contributes

to show that childbirth below the age of sixteen is in no way

injurious to the mother. Gache (_Annales de Gynécologie et

d'Obstétrique_, Dec., 1904) has attended ninety-one labors of

mothers under seventeen, in the Rawson Hospital, Buenos Ayres;

they were of so-called Latin race, mostly Spanish or Italian.

Gache found that these young mothers were by no means more

exposed than others to abortion or to other complications of

pregnancy. Except in four cases of slightly contracted pelvis,

delivery was normal, though rather longer than in older

primiparæ. Damage to the soft parts was, however, rare, and, when

it occurred, in every case rapidly healed. The average weight of

the child was 3,039 grammes, or nearly 6¾ pounds. It may be noted

that most observers find that very early pregnancies occur in

women who begin to menstruate at an unusually early age, that is,

some years before the early pregnancy occurs.

It is clear, however, that young mothers do remarkably well,

while there is no doubt whatever that they bear unusually fine

infants. Kleinwächter, indeed, found that the younger the mother,

the bigger the child. It is not only physically that the children

of young mothers are superior. Marro has found (_Pubertà_, p.

257) that the children of mothers under 21 are superior to those

of older mothers both in conduct and intelligence, provided the

fathers are not too old or too young. The detailed records of

individual cases confirm these results, both as regards mother

and child. Thus, Milner (_Lancet_, June 7, 1902) records a case

of pregnancy in a girl of fourteen; the labor pains were very

mild, and delivery was easy. E.B. Wales, of New Jersey, has

recorded the history (reproduced in _Medical Reprints_, Sept. 15,

1890) of a colored girl who became pregnant at the age of eleven.

She was of medium size, rather tall and slender, but well

developed, and began to menstruate at the age of ten. She was in

good health and spirits during pregnancy, and able to work.

Delivery was easy and natural, not notably prolonged, and

apparently not unduly painful, for there were no moans or

agitation. The child was a fine, healthy boy, weighing not less

than eleven pounds. Mother and child both did well, and there was

a great flow of milk. Whiteside Robertson (_British Medical

Journal_, Jan. 18, 1902) has recorded a case of pregnancy at the

age of thirteen, in a Colonial girl of British origin in Cape

Colony, which is notable from other points of view. During

pregnancy, she was anæmic, and appeared to be of poor development

and doubtfully normal pelvic conformation. Yet delivery took

place naturally, at full term, without difficulty or injury, and

the lying-in period was in every way satisfactory. The baby was

well-proportioned, and weighed 7½ pounds. "I have rarely seen a

primipara enjoy easier labor," concluded Robertson, "and I have

never seen one look forward to the happy realization of

motherhood with greater satisfaction."

The facts brought forward by obstetricians concerning the good

results of early pregnancy, as regards both mother and child,

have not yet received the attention they deserve. They are,

however, confirmed by many general tendencies which are now

fairly well recognized. The significant fact is known, for

instance, that in mothers over thirty, the proportion of

abortions and miscarriages is twice as great as in mothers

between the ages of fifteen and twenty, who also are superior in

this respect to mothers between the ages of twenty and thirty

(_Statistischer Jahrbuch_, Budapest, 1905). It was, again, proved

by Matthews Duncan, in his Goulstonian lecture, that the chances

of sterility in a woman increase with increase of age. It has,

further, been shown (Kisch, _Sexual Life of Woman_, Part II) that

the older a woman at marriage, the greater the average interval

before the first delivery, a tendency which seems to indicate

that it is the very young woman who is in the condition most apt

for procreation; Kisch is not, indeed, inclined to think that

this applies to women below twenty, but the fact, observed by

other obstetricians, that mothers under eighteen tend to become

pregnant again at an unusually short interval, goes far to

neutralize the exception made by Kisch. It may also be pointed

out that, among children of very young mothers, the sexes are

more nearly equal in number than is the case with older mothers.

This would seem to indicate that we are here in presence of a

normal equilibrium which will decrease as the age of the mother

is progressively disturbed in an abnormal direction.

The facility of parturition at an early age, it may be noted,

corresponds to an equal facility in physical sexual intercourse,

a fact that is often overlooked. In Russia, where marriage still

takes place early, it was formerly common when the woman was only

twelve or thirteen, and Guttceit (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, vol.

i, p. 324) says that he was assured by women who married at this

age that the first coitus presented no especial difficulties.

There is undoubtedly, at the present time, a considerable amount

of prejudice against early motherhood. In part, this is due to a

failure to realize that women are sexually much more precocious

than men, physically as well as psychically (see _ante_ p. 35).

The difference is about five years. This difference has been

virtually recognized for thousands of years, in the ancient

belief that the age of election for procreation is about twenty,

or less, for women, but about twenty-five for men; and it has

more lately been affirmed by the discovery that, while the male

is never capable of generation before thirteen, the female may,

in occasional instances, become pregnant at eight. (Some of the

recorded examples are quoted by Kisch.) In part, also, there is

an objection to the assumption of responsibilities so serious as

those of motherhood by a young girl, and there is the very

reasonable feeling that the obligations of a permanent marriage

tie ought not to be undertaken at an early age. On the other

hand, apart from the physical advantages, as regards both mother

and infant, on the side of early pregnancies, it is an advantage

for the child to have a young mother, who can devote herself

sympathetically and unreservedly to its interests, instead of

presenting the pathetic spectacle we so often witness in the

middle-aged woman who turns to motherhood when her youth and

mental flexibility are gone, and her habits and tastes have

settled into other grooves; it has sometimes been a great

blessing even to the very greatest men, like Goethe, to have had

a youthful mother. It would also, in many cases, be a great

advantage for the woman herself if she could bring her

procreative life to an end well before the age of twenty-five, so

that she could then, unhampered by child-bearing and mature in

experience, be free to enter on such wider activities in the

world as she might be fitted for.

Such an arrangement of the procreative life of women would,

obviously, only be a variation, and would probably be unsuited

for the majority. Every case must be judged on its own merits.

The best age for procreation will probably continue to be

regarded as being, for most women, around the age of twenty. But

at a time like the present, when there is an unfortunate

tendency for motherhood to be unduly delayed, it becomes

necessary to insist on the advantages, in many cases, of early

motherhood.

There are other conditions favorable or unfavorable to procreation which

it is now unnecessary to discuss in detail, since they have already been

incidentally dealt with in previous volumes of these _Studies_. There is,

for instance, the question of the time of year and the time of the

menstrual cycle which may most properly be selected for procreation.[466]

The best period is probably that when sexual desire is strongest, which is

the period when conception would appear, as a matter of fact, most often

to occur. This would be in spring or early summer,[467] and immediately

after (or shortly before) the menstrual period. The Chinese have observed

that the last day of menstruation and the two following

days--corresponding to the period of oestrus--constitute the most

favorable time for fecundation, and Bossi, of Genoa, has found that the

great majority of successes in both natural and artificial fecundation

occur at this period.[468] Soranus, as well as the Talmud, assigned the

period about menstruation as the best for impregnation, and Susruta, the

Indian physician, said that at this time pregnancy most readily occurs

because then the mouth of the womb is open, like the flower of the

water-lily to the sunshine.

We have now at last reached the point from which we started, the moment of

conception, and the child again lies in its mother's womb. There remains

no more to be said. The divine cycle of life is completed.

FOOTNOTES:

[421] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 330.

[422] Academy of Medicine of Paris, March 31, 1908.

[423] _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, p. 405.

[424] _Population and Progress_, p. 41.

[425] Cf. Reibmayr, _Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genics_, Bd.

II, p. 31.

[426] "The debt that we owe to those who have gone before us," says

Haycraft (_Darwinism and Race Progress_, p. 160), "we can only repay to

those who come after us."

[427] Mardrus, _Les Mille Nuits_, vol. xvi, p. 158.

[428] Sidney Webb, _Popular Science Monthly_, 1906, p. 526 (previously

published in the _London Times_, Oct. 11, 16, 1906). In Ch. IX of the

present volume it has already been necessary to discuss the meaning of the

term, "morality."

[429] Thus, in Paris, in 1906, in the rich quarters, the birthrate per

1,000 inhabitants was 19.09; in well-to-do quarters, 22.51; and in poor

quarters, 29.70. Here we see that, while the birthrate falls and rises

with social class, even among the poor and least restrained class the

birthrate is still but little above the general average for England, where

prevention is widespread, and very considerably lower than the average

(now rapidly falling) in Germany. It is evident that even among the poor

class there is a process of leveling up to the higher classes in this

matter.

[430] I have developed these points more in detail in two articles in the

_Independent Review_, November, 1903, and April, 1904. See also, Bushee,

"The Declining Birthrate and Its Causes," _Popular Science Monthly_, Aug.,

1903.

[431] Francis Place, _Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of

Population_, 1822, p. 165.