Under stable conditions of racial equilibrium there is a reasonable expectation that instincts and structures which have had survival value in the past will continue to have such value in the future. But during moments of crisis, at those turning points in the history of living things when new forms appear, such a presumption is quite unjustified. Thus if we picture to ourselves, allegorically, an event which probably took many thousands of years to accomplish, we might imagine the comments of a conservativepiscine critic upon the emergence of the first Dipnoid from some muddy river on to land.
The development of fore and hind limbs from fins, of lung from swim-bladder, and of instincts appropriate to the new medium, would strike all conservative fishes as highly immoral deviations from that biological tradition which had given stability to the glorious race of fishes. Nothing could seem more a-biological. Similarly with the development of fur and feathers and of the parental instinct, all of which were probably, in part at any rate, invested with survival value by the spell of cold which followed the Secondary period, and which perhaps conditioned the substitution of birds and mammals for the hitherto ubiquitous reptile as dominant vertebrates on the earth. From the point of view of the conservative reptile such changes would appear highly anti-biological. In moments of racial crisis, therefore, it is dangerous to generalize asto what is biologically good from past experience alone. In the past a high degree of fertility has been, for most species, a biologically valuable asset. It does not follow that it will continue to be so for the human race. In fact there are good reasons for supposing that it will not.
The human race is now passing through a biological crisis unprecedented in the history of life. It has achieved a mastery over nature such that mankind is now economically unified throughout the world by the astounding feats of intercommunication and transport. But as yet the human race has achieved little ethical unification. It is directly in the interests of the race that such unification should take place, and all things which promote it may therefore be considered biologically good. And of those things a restriction of human fertility is one of the most important.
What then is to be our biological criterion of racial fitness and our standardfor judging of a nation’s merit?
It is clear that our biological criterion must be racial rather than individual. Division of labour and differentiation of function are carried to such lengths in civilized societies that it does not seem possible to hold up any individual type as an ideal of biological fitness. Qualities which, to the solitary animal, would irrevocably spell extinction may for the gregarious animal have the highest survival value. Thus no attribute would be more irremediably fatal to a non-social animal than sterility. Yet the sterility of 999 out of 1000 female bees in the community of the hive has endowed the species with a vitality and a biological importance such that it has largely conditioned the appearance on the planet of many kinds of entomophilous flowers. Our biological criterion must therefore, with our standard of merit, be social rather than individual, and the following general outline is suggested.
The population of each countryshould be proportionate to its resources. The numerical adjustment should be such that there be no unemployment and that individual productivity be highest without idlers at either end of the social scale. The physical average of the race should be good with no congenital diseases of mind or body and with the minimum of other diseases, and of crime. There should be a high average standard of comfort, self-respect and happiness, and a high moral standard of honesty, tolerance, and kindliness. One would hope for a wide prevalence of that ‘joie de vivre’ and contentment which is doubtless largely temperamental in origin and which contributes more to an individual’s happiness than any number of worldly possessions can ever do. And the social cleavage between classes, and the now stupendous discrepancies between the very rich and the very poor should be reduced to a minimum. Such conditions all would wish generally distributed. It is a questionwhether a uniformly high degree of intelligence should be equally ubiquitous. In every community, primitive or civilized, an immense amount of crude physical labour has to be done. The soil has to be tilled, someone has to dig coal and iron out of the ground, and endless other kinds of manual work have to be performed. It is doubtful whether the possession of a very high degree of intelligence would make such workers happier or more efficient. But whatever we may individually feel about this point, we would all wish such workers to be healthy, happy, well housed, contented with their lot, fond of their children, and both appreciated by, and on good terms with, the rest of the community.
And obviously it is a condition of this sort which an enlightened Birth Control could help to achieve.
The above is intended both to be a criterion of biological fitness for the human race, and a more satisfactory standard of national evaluation than theone that is in vogue to-day. It will be noted that there is nothing in it about capacity for wars. If we could substitute some such standard in place of the armament standard by which to grade countries in an order of merit, we should be in a better position to avert the catastrophe of another world war than we are at present. According to such a standard the country most deserving of admiration, respect and imitation to-day would probably be Switzerland. Knowing that she cannot defend herself against her powerful neighbours, she does not aspire to large armies. When other countries can, by a simultaneous control of population, realize a similar security, it will be open to them to follow in her footsteps. The ideal may not appeal to the romantic, but much that passes for romance is frequently pernicious nonsense, like the sentiment by which war is glorified in the eyes of many women and elderly men who have never participated in it.
From an international equilibrium based upon a modification of religions as above suggested and upon an alteration in our standards of national evaluation, social harmony would follow fairly readily. It is unlikely that the antagonism between capital and labour will be much affected by a control of population beyond removing that source of social unrest which is furnished by a large body of unemployed. It remains doubtful, however, if the essential political issue will be much modified by a solution of the unemployment problem. The psychological forces which give the Labour party its driving power are not such as to produce the fullest economic prosperity in this country; but none the less they demand and must ultimately receive satisfaction. The best that can be hoped is that those forces will gradually be appeased, and will not lead to bloodshed, too great a dislocation of trade, or too drastic a loss of international status.
The gain to the individual following the general application of knowledge of Birth Control will be twofold. In the first place parents will be able to space their children in accordance with their physical and financial resources; in the second they will feel more confident of producing healthy well-balanced children, untainted by disease, than they can feel at present. Their children would further be welcomed by the community, and their future would be assured.
Such are the bearings of an enlightened Birth Control upon the future. It is obvious that such advantages could only be gained by slow and laborious degrees. The writer is far from the opinion that the application of his views will immediately transform the world into a Utopia. He is convinced however that if the existing form of civilization is to have any permanence, the necessity for controlling populationwill have to be realized and striven for by all educated people.
In practice, the ‘plea,’ referred to in the sub-title, is that the Ministry of Health should give the subject of contraception its sanction. In May of 1924 a petition supported by twenty-two Labour members of Parliament was presented to the Minister of Health by a deputation of eighteen persons, some of them well known, requesting that official permission be accorded to doctors in charge of Welfare Centres to give information on Birth Control to such working women as desired it and were considered fit for it. Though the existing technique is not wholly satisfactory it is avowedly worth something, having already proved of great help to many women.
This permission was refused in deference, it seems, to ecclesiastical opinion, to certain reactionary political forces which, in the House, were opposed to it, and to popular prejudice. It is possible that by the time this book ispublished the Ministry of Health may have changed its attitude. At present, however, information on contraception can only be obtained from a few private organizations such as those of the Malthusian League in Walworth and Kensington, of Dr Stopes in Holloway, and from another centre in the Edgware Road. The Malthusian League has worked quietly, unostentatiously, and, so far as its means allow, with the utmost effectiveness in one of the poorest quarters of London. For what it has done there can be nothing but praise.
But however valuable the work of these organizations, they cannot possibly meet the requirements of our large slums, where such information as exists is handed about by irresponsible midwives and gamps, often with the worst results. It also seems desirable to the writer to restrict the often vulgar publicity by which this subject is frequently attended, and to which attention was drawn when the objectionsto Birth Control were reviewed. After the first blast of criticism which it would evoke from the baser organs of the press, such a sanction from the Ministry of Health would render further newspaper advertisement of Birth Control superfluous. If it does not cease of its own accord steps should be taken to suppress it. How best can this sanction be obtained?
Clearly through an appeal from the medical profession. An expression of unanimity, or relative unanimity, from doctors in this country as to the desirability of this sanction would constitute an argument which the Ministry of Health could not easily ignore. If the sanction were thus obtained it would be open to those medical men who had approved the measure in this country to invite their colleagues in other countries to follow in our footsteps. It would seem best to begin with Germany and America, where there is reason to suppose that such an appeal would meet with response. If support wereforthcoming from these countries, others might be approached—such as Japan, Italy and perhaps India, in which last the suffering caused by an excessive birth rate and a high early death rate is immense and almost wholly avoidable.
In this way the medical profession in whose hands the health of each community lies would take the first step in the direction of an international control of population, and would thereby lay the basis for a genuine and permanent world-peace.
Transcriber’s Notes:Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.