CHAPTER XII.

[392]

Haller,Elementa Physiologiæ, 1778, vol. vii, p. 57.

[393]

Hammond,Sexual Impotence, p. 129.

[394]

Fürbringer, Senator and Kaminer,Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, vol. i, p. 221.

[395]

Forel,Die Sexuelle Frage, p. 80.

[396]

Guyot,Bréviaire de l'Amour Expérimental, p. 144.

[397]

Erb, Ziemssen'sHandbuch, Bd. xi, ii, p. 148. Guttceit also considered that the very wide variations found are congenital and natural. It may be added that some believe that there are racial variations. Thus it has been stated that the genital force of the Englishman is low, and that of the Frenchman (especially Provençal, Languedocian, and Gascon) high, while Löwenfeld believes that the Germanic race excels the French in aptitude to repeat the sex act frequently. It is probable that little weight attaches to these opinions, and that the chief differences are individual rather than racial.

[398]

Ribbing,L'Hygiène Sexualle, p. 75. Kisch, in hisSexual Life of Woman, expresses the same opinion.

[399]

Mohammed, who often displayed a consideration for women very rare in the founders of religions, is an exception. His prescription of once a week represented the right of the wife, quite independently of the number of wives a man might possess.

[400]

How fragile the claim of "conjugal rights" is, may be sufficiently proved by the fact that it is now considered by many that the very term "conjugal rights" arose merely by a mistake for "conjugal rites." Before 1733, when legal proceedings were in Latin, the term used wasobsequies, and "rights," instead of "rites," seems to have been merely a typesetter's error (seeNotes and Queries, May 16, 1891; May 6, 1899). This explanation, it should be added, only applies to the consecrated term, for there can be no doubt that the underlying idea has an existence quite independent of the term.

[401]

"In most marriages that are not happy," it is said in Rafford Pyke's thoughtful paper on "Husbands and Wives" (Cosmopolitan, 1902), "it is the wife rather than the husband who is oftenest disappointed."

[402]

See "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in vol. iii of theseStudies.

[403]

It is well recognized by erotic writers, however, that women may sometimes take a comparatively active part. Thus Vatsyayana says that sometimes the woman may take the man's position, and with flowers in her hair and smiles mixed with sighs and bent head, caressing him and pressing her breasts against him, say: "You have been my conqueror; it is my turn to make you cry for mercy."

[404]

Thus among the Swahili it is on the third day after marriage that the bridegroom is allowed, by custom, to complete defloration, according to Zache,Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1899, II-III, p. 84.

[405]

De l'Amour, vol. ii, p. 57.

[406]

Robert Michels, "Brautstandsmoral,"Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, Jahrgang I, Heft 12.

[407]

I may refer once more to the facts brought together in volume iii of theseStudies, "The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse."

[408]

This has been pointed out, for instance, by Rutgers, "Sexuelle Differenzierung,"Die Neue Generation, Dec., 1908.

[409]

Thus, among the Eskimo, who practice temporary wife-exchange, Rasmussen states that "a man generally discovers that his own wife is, in spite of all, the best."

[410]

"I have always held with the late Professor Laycock," remarks Clouston (Hygiene of Mind, p. 214), "who was a very subtle student of human nature, that a married couple need not be always together to be happy, and that in fact reasonable absences and partings tend towards ultimate and closer union." That the prolongation of passion is only compatible with absence scarcely needs pointing out; as Mary Wollstonecraft long since said (Rights of Woman, original ed., p. 61), it is only in absence or in misfortune that passion is durable. It may be added, however, that in her love-letters to Imlay she wrote: "I have ever declared that two people who mean to live together ought not to be long separated."

[411]

"Viewed broadly," says Arnold L. Gesell, in his interesting study of "Jealousy" (American Journal of Psychology, Oct., 1906), "jealousy seems such a necessary psychological accompaniment to biological behavior, amidst competitive struggle, that one is tempted to consider it genetically among the oldest of the emotions, synonymous almost with the will to live, and to make it scarcely less fundamental than fear or anger. In fact, jealousy readily passes into anger, and is itself a brand of fear.... In sociability and mutual aid we see the other side of the shield; but jealousy, however anti-social it may be, retains a function in zoölogical economy: viz., to conserve the individual as against the group. It is Nature's great corrective for the purely social emotions."

[412]

Many illustrations are brought together in Gesell's study of "Jealousy."

[413]

Jealousy among lower races may be disguised or modified by tribal customs. Thus Rasmussen (People of the Polar North, p. 65) says in reference to the Eskimo custom of wife-exchange: "A man once told me that he only beat his wife when she would not receive other men. She would have nothing to do with anyone but him—and that was her only failing!" Rasmussen elsewhere shows that the Eskimo are capable of extreme jealousy.

[414]

See,e.g., Moll,Sexualleben des Kindes, p. 158;cf., Gesell's "Study of Jealousy."

[415]

Jealousy is notoriously common among drunkards. As K. Birnbaum points out ("Das Sexualleben der Alkokolisten,"Sexual-Probleme, Jan., 1909), this jealousy is, in most cases, more or less well-founded, for the wife, disgusted with her husband, naturally seeks sympathy and companionship elsewhere. Alcoholic jealousy, however, goes far beyond its basis of support in fact, and is entangled with delusions and hallucinations. (Seee.g., G. Dumas, "La Logique d'un Dément,"Revue Philosophique, Feb., 1908; also Stefanowski, "Morbid Jealousy,"Alienist and Neurologist, July, 1893.)

[416]

Ellen Key,Ueber Liebe und Ehe, p. 335.

[417]

Schrempf points out ("Von Stella zu Klärchen,"Mutterschutz, 1906, Heft 7, p. 264) that Goethe strove to show inEgmontthat a woman is repelled by the love of a man who knows nothing beyond his love to her, and that it is easy for her to devote herself to the man whose aims lie in the larger world beyond herself. There is profound truth in this view.

[418]

A discussion on "Platonic friendship" of this kind by several writers, mostly women, whose opinions were nearly equally divided, may be found, for instance, in theLady's Realm, March, 1900.

[419]

There are no doubt important exceptions. Thus Mérimée's famous friendship with Mlle. Jenny Dacquin, enshrined in theLettres à une Inconnue, was perhaps Platonic throughout on Mérimée's side, Mlle. Dacquin adapting herself to his attitude.Cf.A. Lefebvre,La Célèbre Inconnue de Mérimée, 1908.

[420]

The love-letters of all these distinguished persons have been published. Rosa Mayreder (Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, pp. 229et seq.) discusses the question of the humble and absolute manner in which even men of the most masculine and impetuous genius abandon themselves to the inspiration of the beloved woman. The case of the Brownings, who have been termed "the hero and heroine of the most wonderful love-story that the world knows of," is specially notable; (Ellen Key has written of the Brownings from this point of view inMenschen, and reference may be made to an article on the Brownings' love-letters in theEdinburgh Review, April, 1899). It is scarcely necessary to add that an erotic relationship may mean very much to persons of high intellectual ability, even when its issue is not happy; of Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the most intellectually distinguished of women, it may be said that the letters which enshrine her love to the worthless Imlay are among the most passionate and pathetic love-letters in English.

The Relationship of the Science of Procreation to the Art of Love—Sexual Desire and Sexual Pleasure as the Conditions of Conception—Reproduction Formerly Left to Caprice and Lust—The Question of Procreation as a Religious Question—The Creed of Eugenics—Ellen Key and Sir Francis Galton—Our Debt to Posterity—The Problem of Replacing Natural Selection—The Origin and Development of Eugenics—The General Acceptance of Eugenical Principles To-day—The Two Channels by Which Eugenical Principles are Becoming Embodied in Practice—The Sense of Sexual Responsibility in Women—The Rejection of Compulsory Motherhood—The Privilege of Voluntary Motherhood—Causes of the Degradation of Motherhood—The Control of Conception—Now Practiced by the Majority of the Population in Civilized Countries—The Fallacy of "Racial Suicide"—Are Large Families a Stigma of Degeneration?—Procreative Control the Outcome of Natural and Civilized Progress—The Growth of Neo-Malthusian Beliefs and Practices—Facultative Sterility as Distinct from Neo-Malthusianism—The Medical and Hygienic Necessity of Control of Conception—Preventive Methods—Abortion—The New Doctrine of the Duty to Practice Abortion—How Far is this Justifiable?—Castration as a Method of Controlling Procreation—Negative Eugenics and Positive Eugenics—The Question of Certificates for Marriage—The Inadequacy of Eugenics by Act of Parliament—The Quickening of the Social Conscience in Regard to Heredity—Limitations to the Endowment of Motherhood—The Conditions Favorable to Procreation—Sterility—The Question of Artificial Fecundation—The Best Age of Procreation—The Question of Early Motherhood—The Best Time for Procreation—The Completion of the Divine Cycle of Life.

We have seen that the art of love has an independent and amply justifiable right to existence apart, altogether, from procreation. Even if we still believed—as all men must once have believed and some Central Australians yet believe[421]—that sexual intercourse has no essential connection with the propagation of the race it would have full right to existence. In its finer manifestations as an art it is required in civilization for the fulldevelopment of the individual, and it is equally required for that stability of relationships which is nearly everywhere regarded as a demand of social morality.

When we now turn to the second great constitutional factor of marriage, procreation, the first point we encounter is that the art of love here also has its place. In ancient times the sexual congruence of any man with any woman was supposed to be so much a matter of course that all questions of love and of the art of love could be left out of consideration. The propagative act might, it was thought, be performed as impersonally, as perfunctorily, as the early Christian Fathers imagined it had been performed in Paradise. That view is no longer acceptable. It fails to commend itself to men, and still less to women. We know that in civilization at all events—and it is often indeed the same among savages—erethism is not always easy between two persons selected at random, nor even when they are more specially selected. And we also know, on the authority of very distinguished gynæcologists, that it is not in very many cases sufficient even to effect coitus, it is also necessary to excite orgasm, if conception is to be achieved.

Many primitive peoples, as well as the theologians of the Middle Ages, have believed that sexual excitement on the woman's part is necessary to conception, though they have sometimes mixed up that belief with false science and mere superstition. The belief itself is supported by some of the most cautious and experienced modern gynæcologists. Thus, Matthews Duncan (in his lectures onSterility in Women) argued that the absence of sexual desire in women, and the absence of pleasure in the sexual act, are powerful influences making for sterility. He brought forward a table based on his case-books, showing that of nearly four hundred sterile women, only about one-fourth experienced sexual desire, while less than half experienced pleasure in the sexual act. In the absence, however, of a corresponding table concerning fertile women, nothing is hereby absolutely proved, and, at most, only a probability established.Kisch, more recently (in hisSexual Life of Woman), has dealt fully with this question, and reaches the conclusion that it is "extremely probable" that the active erotic participation of the woman in coitus is an important link in the chain of conditions producing conception. It acts, he remarks, in either or both of two ways, by causing reflexchanges in the cervical secretions, and so facilitating the passage of the spermatozoa, and by causing reflex erectile changes in the cervix itself, with slight descent of the uterus, so rendering the entrance of the semen easier. Kisch refers to the analogous fact that the first occurrence of menstruation is favored by sexual excitement.Some authorities go so far as to assert that, until voluptuous excitement occurs in women, no impregnation is possible. This statement seems too extreme. It is true that the occurrence of impregnation during sleep, or in anæsthesia, cannot be opposed to it, for we know that the unconsciousness of these states by no means prevents the occurrence of complete sexual excitement. We cannot fail, however, to connect the fact that impregnation frequently fails to occur for months and even years after marriage, with the fact that sexual pleasure in coitus on the wife's part also frequently fails to occur for a similar period.

Kisch, more recently (in hisSexual Life of Woman), has dealt fully with this question, and reaches the conclusion that it is "extremely probable" that the active erotic participation of the woman in coitus is an important link in the chain of conditions producing conception. It acts, he remarks, in either or both of two ways, by causing reflexchanges in the cervical secretions, and so facilitating the passage of the spermatozoa, and by causing reflex erectile changes in the cervix itself, with slight descent of the uterus, so rendering the entrance of the semen easier. Kisch refers to the analogous fact that the first occurrence of menstruation is favored by sexual excitement.

Some authorities go so far as to assert that, until voluptuous excitement occurs in women, no impregnation is possible. This statement seems too extreme. It is true that the occurrence of impregnation during sleep, or in anæsthesia, cannot be opposed to it, for we know that the unconsciousness of these states by no means prevents the occurrence of complete sexual excitement. We cannot fail, however, to connect the fact that impregnation frequently fails to occur for months and even years after marriage, with the fact that sexual pleasure in coitus on the wife's part also frequently fails to occur for a similar period.

"Of all human instincts," Pinard has said,[422]"that of reproduction is the only one which remains in the primitive condition and has received no education. We procreate to-day as they procreated in the Stone Age. The most important act in the life of man, the sublimest of all acts since it is that of his reproduction, man accomplishes to-day with as much carelessness as in the age of the cave-man." And though Pinard himself, as the founder of puericulture, has greatly contributed to call attention to the vast destinies that hang on the act of procreation, there still remains a lamentable amount of truth in this statement. "Future generations," writes Westermarck in his great history of moral ideas,[423]"will probably with a kind of horror look back at a period when the most important, and in its consequences the most far-reaching, function which has fallen to the lot of man was entirely left to individual caprice and lust."

We are told in hisTable Talk, that the great Luther was accustomed to say that God's way of making man was very foolish ("sehr närrisch"), and that if God had deigned to take him into His counsel he would have strongly advised Him to make the whole human race, as He made Adam, "out of earth." And certainly if applied to the careless and reckless manner in which procreation in Luther's day, as still for the most part in ourown, was usually carried out there was sound common sense in the Reformer's remarks. If that is the way procreation is to be carried on, it would be better to create and mould every human being afresh out of the earth; in that way we could at all events eliminate evil heredity. It was, however, unjust to place the responsibility on God. It is men and women who breed the people that make the world good or bad. They seek to put the evils of society on to something outside themselves. They see how large a proportion of human beings are defective, ill-conditioned, anti-social, incapable of leading a whole and beautiful human life. In old theological language it was often said that such were "children of the Devil," and Luther himself was often ready enough to attribute the evil of the world to the direct interposition of the Devil. Yet these ill-conditioned people who clog the wheels of society are, after all, in reality the children of Man. The only Devil whom we can justly invoke in this matter is Man.

The command "Be fruitful and multiply," which the ancient Hebrews put into the mouth of their tribal God, was, as Crackanthorpe points out,[424]a command supposed to have been uttered when there were only eight persons in the world. If the time should ever again occur when the inhabitants of the world could be counted on one's fingers, such an injunction, as Crackanthorpe truly observes, would again be reasonable. But we have to remember that to-day humanity has spawned itself over the world in hundreds and even thousands of millions of creatures, a large proportion of whom, as is but too obvious, ought never to have been born at all, and the voice of Jehovah is now making itself heard through the leaders of mankind in a very different sense.

It is not surprising that as this fact tends to become generally recognized, the question of the procreation of the race should gain a new significance, and even tend to take on the character of a new religious movement. Mere morality can never lead us to concern ourselves with the future of the race, and inthe days of old, men used to protest against the tendency to subordinate the interests of religion to the claims of "mere morality." There was a sound natural instinct underlying that protest, so often and so vigorously made by Christianity, and again revived to-day in a more intelligent form. The claim of the race is the claim of religion. We have to beware lest we subordinate that claim to our moralities. Moralities are, indeed, an inevitable part of our social order from which we cannot escape; every community must have itsmores. But we are not entitled to make a fetich of our morality, sacrificing to it the highest interests entrusted to us. The nations which have done so have already signed their own death-warrant.[425]From this point of view, the whole of Christianity, rightly considered, with its profound conviction of the necessity for forethought and preparation for the life hereafter, has been a preparation for eugenics, a schoolmaster to discipline within us a higher ideal than itself taught, and we cannot therefore be surprised at the solidity of the basis on which eugenical conceptions of life are developing.

The most distinguished pioneers of the new movement of devotion to the creation of the race seem independently to have realized its religious character. This attitude is equally marked in Ellen Key and Francis Galton. In herCentury of the Child(English translation, 1909), Ellen Key entirely identifies herself with the eugenic movement. "It is only a question of time," she elsewhere writes (Ueber Liebe und Ehe, p. 445), "when the attitude of society towards a sexual union will depend not on the form of the union, but on the value of the children created. Men and women will then devote the same religious earnestness to the psychic and physical perfectioning of this sexual task as Christians have devoted to the salvation of their souls."Sir Francis Galton, writing a few years later, but without doubt independently, in 1905, on "Restrictions in Marriage," and "Eugenics as a Factor in Religion" (Sociological Papersof the Sociological Society, vol. ii, pp. 13, 53), remarks: "Religious precepts, founded on the ethics and practice of older days, require to be reinterpreted, to make them conform to the needs of progressive nations. Ours are already so far behind modern requirements that much of our practice and our profession cannot be reconciled without illegitimate casuistry. It seemsto me that few things are more needed by us in England than a revision of our religion, to adapt it to the intelligence and needs of this present time.... Evolution is a grand phantasmagoria, but it assumes an infinitely more interesting aspect under the knowledge that the intelligent action of the human will is, in some small measure, capable of guiding its course. Man has the power of doing this largely, so far as the evolution of humanity is concerned; he has already affected the quality and distribution of organic life so widely that the changes on the surface of the earth, merely through his disforestings and agriculture, would be recognizable from a distance as great as that of the moon. Eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature."As will always happen in every great movement, a few fanatics have carried into absurdity the belief in the supreme religious importance of procreation. Love, apart from procreation, writes one of these fanatics, Vacher de Lapouge, in the spirit of some of the early Christian Fathers (seeantep. 509), is an aberration comparable to sadism and sodomy. Procreation is the only thing that matters, and it must become "a legally prescribed social duty" only to be exercised by carefully selected persons, and forbidden to others, who must, by necessity, be deprived of the power of procreation, while abortion and infanticide must, under some circumstances, become compulsory. Romantic love will disappear by a process of selection, as also will all religion except a new form of phallic worship (G. Vacher de Lapouge, "Die Crisis der Sexuellen Moral,"Politisch Anthropologische Revue, No. 8, 1908). It is sufficient to point out that love is, and always must be, the natural portal to generation. Such excesses of procreative fanaticism cannot fail to occur, and they render the more necessary the emphasis which has here been placed on the art of love.

Sir Francis Galton, writing a few years later, but without doubt independently, in 1905, on "Restrictions in Marriage," and "Eugenics as a Factor in Religion" (Sociological Papersof the Sociological Society, vol. ii, pp. 13, 53), remarks: "Religious precepts, founded on the ethics and practice of older days, require to be reinterpreted, to make them conform to the needs of progressive nations. Ours are already so far behind modern requirements that much of our practice and our profession cannot be reconciled without illegitimate casuistry. It seemsto me that few things are more needed by us in England than a revision of our religion, to adapt it to the intelligence and needs of this present time.... Evolution is a grand phantasmagoria, but it assumes an infinitely more interesting aspect under the knowledge that the intelligent action of the human will is, in some small measure, capable of guiding its course. Man has the power of doing this largely, so far as the evolution of humanity is concerned; he has already affected the quality and distribution of organic life so widely that the changes on the surface of the earth, merely through his disforestings and agriculture, would be recognizable from a distance as great as that of the moon. Eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature."

As will always happen in every great movement, a few fanatics have carried into absurdity the belief in the supreme religious importance of procreation. Love, apart from procreation, writes one of these fanatics, Vacher de Lapouge, in the spirit of some of the early Christian Fathers (seeantep. 509), is an aberration comparable to sadism and sodomy. Procreation is the only thing that matters, and it must become "a legally prescribed social duty" only to be exercised by carefully selected persons, and forbidden to others, who must, by necessity, be deprived of the power of procreation, while abortion and infanticide must, under some circumstances, become compulsory. Romantic love will disappear by a process of selection, as also will all religion except a new form of phallic worship (G. Vacher de Lapouge, "Die Crisis der Sexuellen Moral,"Politisch Anthropologische Revue, No. 8, 1908). It is sufficient to point out that love is, and always must be, the natural portal to generation. Such excesses of procreative fanaticism cannot fail to occur, and they render the more necessary the emphasis which has here been placed on the art of love.

"What has posterity done for me that I should do anything for posterity?" a cynic is said to have asked. The answer is very simple. The human race has done everything for him. All that he is, and can be, is its creation; all that he can do is the result of its laboriously accumulated traditions. It is only by working towards the creation of a still better posterity, that he can repay the good gifts which the human race has brought him.[426]Just as, within the limits of this present life, many who have received benefits and kindnesses they can never repay to theactual givers, find a pleasure in vicariously repaying the like to others, so the heritage we have received from our ascendents we can never repay, save by handing it on in a better form to our descendants.

It is undoubtedly true that the growth of eugenical ideals has not been, for the most part, due to religious feeling. It has been chiefly the outcome of a very gradual, but very comprehensive, movement towards social amelioration, which has been going on for more than a century, and which has involved a progressive effort towards the betterment of all the conditions of life. The ideals of this movement were proclaimed in the eighteenth century, they began to find expression early in the nineteenth century, in the initiation of the modern system of sanitation, in the growth of factory legislation, in all the movements which have been borne onwards by socialism hand in hand with individualism. The inevitable tendency has been slowly towards the root of the matter; it began to be seen that comparatively little can be effected by improving the conditions of life of adults; attention began to be concentrated on the child, on the infant, on the embryo in its mother's womb, and this resulted in the fruitful movement of puericulture inspired by Pinard, and finally the problem is brought to its source at the point of procreation, and the regulation of sexual selection between stocks and between individuals as the prime condition of life. Here we have the science of eugenics which Sir Francis Galton has done so much to make a definite, vital, and practical study, and which in its wider bearings he defines as "the science which deals with those social eugenics that influence, mentally or physically, the racial qualities of future generations." In its largest aspect, eugenics is, as Galton has elsewhere said, man's attempt "to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective."

In the last chapter of hisMemories of My Life(1908), on "Race Improvement," Sir Francis Galton sets forth the origin and development of his conception of the science of eugenics. The term, "eugenics," he first used in 1884, in hisHuman Faculty, but the conception dates from 1865, and even earlier. Galton has more recently discussed theproblems of eugenics in papers read before the Sociological Society (Sociological Papers, vols. i and ii, 1905), in the Herbert Spencer Lecture on "Probability the Foundation of Eugenics," (1907), and elsewhere. Galton's numerous memoirs on this subject have now been published in a collected form by the Eugenics Education Society, which was established in 1907, to further and to popularize the eugenical attitude towards social questions;The Eugenics Reviewis published by this Society. On the more strictly scientific side, eugenic studies are carried on in the Eugenics Laboratory of the University of London, established by Sir Francis Galton, and now working in connection with Professor Karl Pearson's biometric laboratory, in University College. Much of Professor Pearson's statistical work in this and allied directions, is the elaboration of ideas and suggestions thrown out by Galton. See,e.g., Karl Pearson's Robert Boyle Lecture, "The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics" (1907).Biometrika, edited by Karl Pearson in association with other workers, contains numerous statistical memoirs on eugenics. In Germany, theArchiv für Rassen und Gesellschafts-biologie, and thePolitisch-Anthropologische Revue, are largely occupied with various aspects of such subjects, and in America,The Popular Science Monthlyfrom time to time, publishes articles which have a bearing on eugenics.

At one time there was a tendency to scoff, or to laugh, at the eugenic movement. It was regarded as an attempt to breed men as men breed animals, and it was thought a sufficiently easy task to sweep away this new movement with the remark that love laughs at bolts and bars. It is now beginning to be better understood. None but fanatics dream of abolishing love in order to effect pairing by rule. It is merely a question of limiting the possible number of mates from whom each may select a partner, and that, we must remember, has always been done even by savages, for, as it has been said, "eugenics is the oldest of the sciences." The question has merely been transformed. Instead of being limited mechanically by caste, we begin to see that the choice of sexual mates must be limited intelligently by actual fitness. Promiscuous marriages have never been the rule; the possibility of choice has always been narrow, and the most primitive peoples have exerted the most marked self-restraint. It is not so merely among remote races but among our own European ancestors. Throughout the whole period of Catholic supremacythe Canon law multiplied the impediments to matrimony, as by ordaining that consanguinity to the fourth degree (third cousins), as well as spiritual relationship, is an impediment, and by such arbitrary prohibitions limited the range of possible mates at least as much as it would be limited by the more reasonable dictates of eugenic considerations.

At the present day it may be said that the principle of the voluntary control of procreation, not for the selfish ends of the individual, but in order to extinguish disease, to limit human misery, and to raise the general level of humanity by substituting the ideal of quality for the vulgar ideal of mere quantity, is now generally accepted, alike by medical pathologists, embryologists and neurologists, and by sociologists and moralists.

It would be easy to multiply quotations from distinguished authorities on this point. Thus, Metchnikoff points out (Essais Optimistes, p. 419) that orthobiosis seems to involve the limitation of offspring in the fight against disease. Ballantyne concludes his great treatise onAntenanal Pathologywith the statement that "Eugenics" or well-begetting, is one of the world's most pressing problems. Dr. Louise Robinovitch, the editor of theJournal of Mental Pathology, in a brilliant and thoughtful paper, read before the Rome Congress of Psychology in 1905, well spoke in the same sense: "Nations have not yet elevated the energy of genesic function to the dignity of an energy. Other energies known to us, even of the meanest grade, have long since been wisely utilized, and their activities based on the principle of the strictest possible economy. This economic utilization has been brought about, not through any enforcement of legislative restrictions, but through steadily progressive human intelligence. Economic handling of genesic function will, like the economic function of other energies, come about through a steady and progressive intellectual development of nations." "There are circumstances," says C. H. Hughes, ("Restricted Procreation,"Alienist and Neurologist, May, 1908), "under which the propagation of a human life may be as gravely criminal as the taking of a life already begun."From the general biological, as well as from the sociological side, the acceptance of the same standpoint is constantly becoming more general, for it is recognized as the inevitable outcome of movements which have long been in progress."Already," wrote Haycraft (Darwinism and Race Progress, p. 160), referring to the law for the prevention of cruelty to children, "publicopinion has expressed itself in the public rule that a man and woman, in begetting a child, must take upon themselves the obligation and responsibility of seeing that that child is not subjected to cruelty and hardship. It is but one step more to say that a man and a woman shall be under obligation not to produce children, when it is certain that, from their want of physique, they will have to undergo suffering, and will keep up but an unequal struggle with their fellows." Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in his volume onHeredity(1908), vigorously and temperately pleads (p. 528) for rational methods of eugenics, as specially demanded in an age like our own, when the unfit have been given a better chance of reproduction than they have ever been given in any other age. Bateson, again, referring to the growing knowledge of heredity, remarks (Mendel's Principles of Heredity, 1909, p. 305): "Genetic knowledge must certainly lead to new conceptions of justice, and it is by no means impossible that, in the light of such knowledge, public opinion will welcome measures likely to do more for the extinction of the criminal and the degenerate than has been accomplished by ages of penal enactment." Adolescent youths and girls, said Anton von Menger, in his last book, the pregnantNeue Sittenlehre(1905), must be taught that the production of children, under certain circumstances, is a crime; they must also be taught the voluntary restraint of conception, even in health; such teaching, Menger rightly added, is a necessary preliminary to any legislation in this direction.Of recent years, many books and articles have been devoted to the advocacy of eugenic methods. Mention may be made, for instance, ofPopulation and Progress(1907), by Montague Crackanthorpe, President of the Eugenics Education Society. See also, Havelock Ellis, "Eugenics and St. Valentine,"Nineteenth Century and After, May, 1906. It may be mentioned that nearly thirty years ago, Miss J. H. Clapperton, in herScientific Meliorism(1885, Ch. XVII), pointed out that the voluntary restraint of procreation by Neo-Malthusian methods, apart from merely prudential motives, there clearly recognized, is "a new key to the social position," and a necessary condition for "national regeneration." Professor Karl Pearson'sGroundwork of Eugenics, (1909) is, perhaps, the best brief introduction to the subject. Mention may also be made of Dr. Saleeby'sParenthood and Race Culture(1909), written in a popular and enthusiastic manner.How widely the general principles of eugenics are now accepted as the sound method of raising the level of the human race, was well shown at a meeting of the Sociological Society, in 1905, when, after Sir Francis Galton had read papers on the question, the meeting heard the opinions of numerous sociologists, economists, biologists, and well-known thinkers in various lands, who were present, or who had sent communications. Some twenty-one expressed more or less unqualifiedapproval, and only three or four had objections to offer, mostly on matters of detail (Sociological Papers, published by the Sociological Society, vol. ii, 1905).

From the general biological, as well as from the sociological side, the acceptance of the same standpoint is constantly becoming more general, for it is recognized as the inevitable outcome of movements which have long been in progress.

"Already," wrote Haycraft (Darwinism and Race Progress, p. 160), referring to the law for the prevention of cruelty to children, "publicopinion has expressed itself in the public rule that a man and woman, in begetting a child, must take upon themselves the obligation and responsibility of seeing that that child is not subjected to cruelty and hardship. It is but one step more to say that a man and a woman shall be under obligation not to produce children, when it is certain that, from their want of physique, they will have to undergo suffering, and will keep up but an unequal struggle with their fellows." Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in his volume onHeredity(1908), vigorously and temperately pleads (p. 528) for rational methods of eugenics, as specially demanded in an age like our own, when the unfit have been given a better chance of reproduction than they have ever been given in any other age. Bateson, again, referring to the growing knowledge of heredity, remarks (Mendel's Principles of Heredity, 1909, p. 305): "Genetic knowledge must certainly lead to new conceptions of justice, and it is by no means impossible that, in the light of such knowledge, public opinion will welcome measures likely to do more for the extinction of the criminal and the degenerate than has been accomplished by ages of penal enactment." Adolescent youths and girls, said Anton von Menger, in his last book, the pregnantNeue Sittenlehre(1905), must be taught that the production of children, under certain circumstances, is a crime; they must also be taught the voluntary restraint of conception, even in health; such teaching, Menger rightly added, is a necessary preliminary to any legislation in this direction.

Of recent years, many books and articles have been devoted to the advocacy of eugenic methods. Mention may be made, for instance, ofPopulation and Progress(1907), by Montague Crackanthorpe, President of the Eugenics Education Society. See also, Havelock Ellis, "Eugenics and St. Valentine,"Nineteenth Century and After, May, 1906. It may be mentioned that nearly thirty years ago, Miss J. H. Clapperton, in herScientific Meliorism(1885, Ch. XVII), pointed out that the voluntary restraint of procreation by Neo-Malthusian methods, apart from merely prudential motives, there clearly recognized, is "a new key to the social position," and a necessary condition for "national regeneration." Professor Karl Pearson'sGroundwork of Eugenics, (1909) is, perhaps, the best brief introduction to the subject. Mention may also be made of Dr. Saleeby'sParenthood and Race Culture(1909), written in a popular and enthusiastic manner.

How widely the general principles of eugenics are now accepted as the sound method of raising the level of the human race, was well shown at a meeting of the Sociological Society, in 1905, when, after Sir Francis Galton had read papers on the question, the meeting heard the opinions of numerous sociologists, economists, biologists, and well-known thinkers in various lands, who were present, or who had sent communications. Some twenty-one expressed more or less unqualifiedapproval, and only three or four had objections to offer, mostly on matters of detail (Sociological Papers, published by the Sociological Society, vol. ii, 1905).

If we ask by what channels this impulse towards the control of procreation for the elevation of the race is expressing itself in practical life, we shall scarcely fail to find that there are at least two such channels: (1) the growing sense of sexual responsibility among women as well as men, and (2) the conquest of procreative control which has been achieved in recent years, by the general adoption of methods for the prevention of conception.

It has already been necessary in a previous chapter to discuss the far-reaching significance of woman's personal responsibility as an element in the modification of the sexual life of modern communities. Here it need only be pointed out that the autonomous authority of a woman over her own person, in the sexual sphere, involves on her part a consent to the act of procreation which must be deliberate. We are apt to think that this is a new and almost revolutionary demand; it is, however, undoubtedly a natural, ancient, and recognized privilege of women that they should not be mothers without their own consent. Even in the Islamic world of theArabian Nights, we find that high praise is accorded to the "virtue and courage" of the woman who, having been ravished in her sleep, exposed, and abandoned on the highway, the infant that was the fruit of this involuntary union, "not wishing," she said, "to take the responsibility before Allah of a child that had been born without my consent."[427]The approval with which this story is narrated clearly shows that to the public of Islam it seemed entirely just and humane that a woman should not have a child, except by her own deliberate will. We have been accustomed to say in later days that the State needs children, and that it is the business and the duty of women to supply them. But the State has no more right than the individual to ravish a woman against her will. We are beginning to realize that if the State wants children itmust make it agreeable to women to produce them, as under natural and equitable conditions it cannot fail to be. "The women will solve the question of mankind," said Ibsen in one of his rare and pregnant private utterances, "and they will do it as mothers." But it is unthinkable that any question should ever be solved by a helpless, unwilling, and involuntary act which has not even attained to the dignity of animal joy.

It is sometimes supposed, and even assumed, that the demand of women that motherhood must never be compulsory, means that they are unwilling to be mothers on any terms. In a few cases that may be so, but it is certainly not the case as regards the majority of sane and healthy women in any country. On the contrary, this demand is usually associated with the desire to glorify motherhood, if not, indeed, even with the thought of extending motherhood to many who are to-day shut out from it. "It seems to me," wrote Lady Henry Somerset, some years ago ("The Welcome Child,"Arena, April, 1895), "that life will be dearer and nobler the more we recognize that there is no indelicacy in the climax and crown of creative power, but, rather, that it is the highest glory of the race. But if voluntary motherhood is the crown of the race, involuntary compulsory motherhood is the very opposite.... Only when both man and woman have learned that the most sacred of all functions given to women must be exercised by the free will alone, can children be born into the world who have in them the joyous desire to live, who claim that sweetest privilege of childhood, the certainty that they can expand in the sunshine of the love which is their due." Ellen Key, similarly, while pointing out (Ueber Liebe und Ehe, pp. 14, 265) that the tyranny of the old Protestant religious spirit which enjoined on women unlimited submission to joyless motherhood within "the whited sepulchre of marriage" is now being broken, exalts the privileges of voluntary motherhood, while admitting that there may be a few exceptional cases in which women may withdraw themselves from motherhood for the sake of the other demands of their personality, though, "as a general rule, the woman who refuses motherhood in order to serve humanity, is like a soldier who prepares himself on the eve of battle for the forthcoming struggle by opening his veins." Helene Stöcker, likewise, reckons motherhood as one of the demands, one of the growing demands indeed, which women now make. "If, to-day," she says (in the Preface toLiebe und die Frauen, 1906), "all the good things of life are claimed even for women—intellectual training, pecuniary independence, a happy vocation in life, a respected social position—and at the same time, as equally matter-of-course,and equally necessary, marriage and child, that demand no longer sounds, as it sounded a few years ago, the voice of a preacher in the wilderness."The degradation to which motherhood has, in the eyes of many, fallen, is due partly to the tendency to deprive women of any voice in the question, and partly to what H. G. Wells calls (Socialism and the Family, 1906) "the monstrous absurdity of women discharging their supreme social function, bearing and rearing children, in their spare time, as it were, while they 'earn their living' by contributing some half mechanical element to some trivial industrial product." It would be impracticable, and even undesirable, to insist that married women should not be allowed to work, for a work in the world is good for all. It is estimated that over thirty per cent. of the women workers in England are married or widows (James Haslam,Englishwoman, June, 1909), and in Lancashire factories alone, in 1901, there were 120,000 married women employed. But it would be easily possible for the State to arrange, in its own interests, that a woman's work at a trade should always give way to her work as a mother. It is the more undesirable that married women should be prohibited from working at a profession, since there are some professions for which a married woman, or, rather, a mother, is better equipped than an unmarried woman. This is notably the case as regards teaching, and it would be a good policy to allow married women teachers special privileges in the shape of increased free time and leave of absence. While in many fields of knowledge an unmarried woman may be a most excellent teacher, it is highly undesirable that children, and especially girls, should be brought exclusively under the educational influence of unmarried teachers.

The degradation to which motherhood has, in the eyes of many, fallen, is due partly to the tendency to deprive women of any voice in the question, and partly to what H. G. Wells calls (Socialism and the Family, 1906) "the monstrous absurdity of women discharging their supreme social function, bearing and rearing children, in their spare time, as it were, while they 'earn their living' by contributing some half mechanical element to some trivial industrial product." It would be impracticable, and even undesirable, to insist that married women should not be allowed to work, for a work in the world is good for all. It is estimated that over thirty per cent. of the women workers in England are married or widows (James Haslam,Englishwoman, June, 1909), and in Lancashire factories alone, in 1901, there were 120,000 married women employed. But it would be easily possible for the State to arrange, in its own interests, that a woman's work at a trade should always give way to her work as a mother. It is the more undesirable that married women should be prohibited from working at a profession, since there are some professions for which a married woman, or, rather, a mother, is better equipped than an unmarried woman. This is notably the case as regards teaching, and it would be a good policy to allow married women teachers special privileges in the shape of increased free time and leave of absence. While in many fields of knowledge an unmarried woman may be a most excellent teacher, it is highly undesirable that children, and especially girls, should be brought exclusively under the educational influence of unmarried teachers.

The second great channel through which the impulse towards the control of procreation for the elevation of the race is entering into practical life is by the general adoption, by the educated classes of all countries—and it must be remembered that, in this matter at all events, all classes are gradually beginning to become educated—of methods for the prevention of conception except when conception is deliberately desired. It is no longer permissible to discuss the validity of this control, for it is an accomplished fact and has become a part of our modern morality. "If a course of conduct is habitually and deliberately pursued by vast multitudes of otherwise well-conducted people, forming probably a majority of the whole educated class of the nation,"as Sidney Webb rightly puts it, "we must assume that it does not conflict with their actual code of morality."[428]

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