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diff --git a/9887-8.txt b/9887-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44bf136 --- /dev/null +++ b/9887-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6411 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays in War-Time, by Havelock Ellis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays in War-Time + Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene + +Author: Havelock Ellis + +Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9887] +Release Date: February, 2006 +First Posted: October 28, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN WAR-TIME *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Beth Trapaga and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + +ESSAYS IN WAR-TIME + +FURTHER STUDIES IN THE +TASK OF SOCIAL HYGIENE + + +BY HAVELOCK ELLIS + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. INTRODUCTION +II. EVOLUTION AND WAR +III. WAR AND EUGENICS +IV. MORALITY IN WARFARE +V. IS WAR DIMINISHING +VI. WAR AND THE BIRTH-RATE +VII. WAR AND DEMOCRACY +VIII. FEMINISM AND MASCULINISM +IX. THE MENTAL DIFFERENCES OF MEN AND WOMEN +X. THE WHITE SLAVE CRUSADE +XI. THE CONQUEST OF VENEREAL DISEASE +XII. THE NATIONALISATION OF HEALTH +XIII. EUGENICS AND GENIUS +XIV. THE PRODUCTION OF ABILITY +XV. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE +XVI. THE MEANING OF THE BIRTH-RATE +XVII. CIVILISATION AND THE BIRTH-RATE +XVIII. BIRTH CONTROL + INDEX + + + + +I + + +INTRODUCTION + +From the point of view of literature, the Great War of to-day has +brought us into a new and closer sympathy with the England of the past. +Dr. Woods and Mr. Baltzly in their recent careful study of European +Warfare, _Is War Diminishing?_ come to the conclusion that England +during the period of her great activity in the world has been "fighting +about half the time." We had begun to look on war as belonging to the +past and insensibly fallen into the view of Buckle that in England "a +love of war is, as a national taste, utterly extinct." Now we have +awakened to realise that we belong to a people who have been "fighting +about half the time." + +Thus it is, for instance, that we witness a revival of interest in +Wordsworth, not that Wordsworth, the high-priest of Nature among the +solitary Lakes, whom we have never forsaken, but the Wordsworth who +sang exultantly of Carnage as God's Daughter. To-day we turn to the +war-like Wordsworth, the stern patriot hurling defiance at the enemies +who threatened our island fortress, as the authentic voice of England. + +But this new sense of community with the past comes to us again and +again on every hand when to-day we look back to the records of the past. +I chance to take down the _Epistles_ of Erasmus, and turn to the letters +which the great Humanist of Rotterdam wrote from Cambridge and London +four hundred years ago when young Henry VIII had just suddenly (in 1514) +plunged into war. One reads them to-day with vivid interest, for here +in the supple and sensitive brain of the old scholar we see mirrored +precisely the same thoughts and the same problems which exercise the +more scholarly brains of to-day. Erasmus, as his Pan-German friends +liked to remind him, was a sort of German, but he was, nevertheless, +what we should now call a Pacifist. He can see nothing good in war and +he eloquently sets forth what he regards as its evils. It is interesting +to observe, how, even in its small details as well as in its great +calamities, war brought precisely the same experiences four centuries +ago as to-day. Prices are rising every day, Erasmus declares, taxation +has become so heavy that no one can afford to be liberal, imports are +hampered and wine is scarce, it is difficult even to get one's foreign +letters. In fact the preparations of war are rapidly changing "the +genius of the Island." Thereupon Erasmus launches into more general +considerations on war. Even animals, he points out, do not fight, save +rarely, and then with only those of other species, and, moreover, not, +like us, "with machines upon which we expend the ingenuity of devils." +In every war also it is the non-combatants who suffer most, the people +build cities and the folly of their rulers destroys them, the most +righteous, the most victorious war brings more evil than good, and even +when a real issue is in dispute, it could better have been settled by +arbitration. The moral contagion of a war, moreover, lasts long after +the war is over, and Erasmus proceeds to express himself freely on the +crimes of fighters and fighting. + +Erasmus was a cosmopolitan scholar who habitually dwelt in the world of +the spirit and in no wise expressed the general feelings either of his +own time or ours. It is interesting to turn to a very ordinary, it may +be typical, Englishman who lived a century later, again in a period of +war and also of quite ordinary and but moderately glorious war. John +Rous, a Cambridge graduate of old Suffolk family, was in 1623 appointed +incumbent of Santon Downham, then called a town, though now it has +dwindled away almost to nothing. Here, or rather at Weeting or at +Brandon where he lived, Rous began two years later, on the accession of +Charles I, a private diary which was printed by the Camden Society sixty +years ago, and has probably remained unread ever since, unless, as in +the present case, by some person of antiquarian tastes interested in +this remote corner of East Anglia. But to-day one detects a new streak +of interest in this ancient series of miscellaneous entries where we +find that war brought to the front the very same problems which confront +us to-day. + +Santon Downham lies in a remote and desolate and salubrious region, not +without its attractions to-day, nor, for all its isolation, devoid of +ancient and modern associations. For here in Weeting parish we have the +great prehistoric centre of the flint implement industry, still lingering +on at Brandon after untold ages, a shrine of the archaeologist. And here +also, or at all events near by, at Lackenheath, doubtless a shrine also +for all men in khaki, the villager proudly points out the unpretentious +little house which is the ancestral home of the Kitcheners, who lie in +orderly rank in the churchyard beside the old church notable for its +rarely quaint mediaeval carvings. + +Rous was an ordinary respectable type of country parson, a solid +Englishman, cautious and temperate in his opinions, even in the privacy +of his diary, something of a country gentleman as well as a scholar, and +interested in everything that went on, in the season's crops, in the +rising price of produce, in the execution of a youth for burglary or the +burning of a woman for murdering her husband. He frequently refers to +the outbreak of plague in various parts of the country, and notes, for +instance, that "Cambridge is wondrously reformed since the plague there; +scholars frequent not the streets and taverns as before; but," he adds +later on better information, "do worse." And at the same time he is full +of interest in the small incidents of Nature around him, and notes, for +instance, how a crow had built a nest and laid an egg in the poke of the +topsail of the windmill. + +But Rous's Diary is not concerned only with matters of local interest. +All the rumours of the world reached the Vicar of Downham and were by +him faithfully set down from day to day. Europe was seething with war; +these were the days of that famous Thirty Years' War of which we have so +often heard of late, and from time to time England was joining in the +general disturbance, whether in France, Spain, or the Netherlands. As +usual the English attack was mostly from the basis of the Fleet, and +never before, Rous notes, had England possessed so great and powerful a +fleet. Soon after the Diary begins the English Expedition to Rochelle +took place, and a version of its history is here embodied. Rous was kept +in touch with the outside world not only by the proclamations constantly +set up at Thetford on the corner post of the Bell Inn--still the centre +of that ancient town--but by as numerous and as varied a crop of reports +as we find floating among us to-day, often indeed of very similar +character. The vicar sets them down, not committing himself to belief +but with a patient confidence that "time may tell us what we may safely +think." In the meanwhile measures with which we are familiar to-day were +actively in progress: recruits or "voluntaries" were being "gathered up +by the drum," many soldiers, mostly Irish, were billeted, sometimes not +without friction, all over East Anglia, the coasts were being fortified, +the price of corn was rising, and even the problem of international +exchange is discussed with precise data by Rous. + +On one occasion, in 1627, Rous reports a discussion concerning the +Rochelle Expedition which exactly counterparts our experience to-day. He +was at Brandon with two gentlemen named Paine and Howlet, when the +former began to criticise the management of the expedition, disputing +the possibility of its success and then "fell in general to speak +distrustfully of the voyage, and then of our war with France, which he +would make our King the cause of"; and so went on to topics of old +popular discontent, of the great cost, the hazard to ships, etc. Rous, +like a good patriot, thought it "foul for any man to lay the blame upon +our own King and State. I told them I would always speak the best of +what our King and State did, and think the best too, till I had good +grounds." And then in his Diary he comments that he saw hereby, what he +had often seen before, that men be disposed to speak the worst of State +business, as though it were always being mismanaged, and so nourish a +discontent which is itself a worse mischief and can only give joy to +false hearts. That is a reflection which comes home to us to-day when we +find the descendants of Mr. Paine following so vigorously the example +which the parson of Downham reprobated. + +That little incident at Brandon, however, and indeed the whole picture +of the ordinary English life of his time which Rous sets forth, suggest +a wider reflection. We realise what has always been the English temper. +It is the temper of a vigorous, independent, opinionated, free-spoken +yet sometimes suspicious people among whom every individual feels in +himself the impulse to rule. It is also the temper of a people always +prepared in the face of danger to subordinate these native impulses. The +one tendency and the other opposing tendency are alike based on the +history and traditions of the race. Fifteen centuries ago, Sidonius +Apollinaris gazed inquisitively at the Saxon barbarians, most ferocious +of all foes, who came to Aquitania, with faces daubed with blue paint +and hair pushed back over their foreheads; shy and awkward among the +courtiers, free and turbulent when back again in their ships, they were +all teaching and learning at once, and counted even shipwreck as good +training. One would think, the Bishop remarks, that each oarsman was +himself the arch-pirate.[1] These were the men who so largely went to +the making of the "Anglo-Saxon," and Sidonius might doubtless still +utter the same comment could he observe their descendants in England +to-day. Every Englishman believes in his heart, however modestly he may +conceal the conviction, that he could himself organise as large an army as +Kitchener and organise it better. But there is not only the instinct to +order and to teach but also to learn and to obey. For every Englishman +is the descendant of sailors, and even this island of Britain seemed to +men of old like a great ship anchored in the sea. Nothing can overcome +the impulse of the sailor to stand by his post at the moment of danger, +and to play his sailorly part, whatever his individual convictions may +be concerning the expedition to Rochelle or the expedition to the +Dardanelles, or even concerning his right to play no part at all. That +has ever been the Englishman's impulse in the hour of peril of his island +Ship of State, as to-day we see illustrated in an almost miraculous +degree. It is the saving grace of an obstinately independent and +indisciplinable people. + +Yet let us not forget that this same English temper is shown not only in +warfare, not only in adventure in the physical world, but also in the +greater, and--may we not say?--equally arduous tasks of peace. For to +build up is even yet more difficult than to pull down, to create new +life a still more difficult and complex task than to destroy it. Our +English habits of restless adventure, of latent revolt subdued to the +ends of law and order, of uncontrollable freedom and independence, are +even more fruitful here, in the organisation of the progressive tasks of +life, than they are in the organisation of the tasks of war. + +That is the spirit in which these essays have been written by an +Englishman of English stock in the narrowest sense, whose national and +family instincts of independence and warfare have been transmuted into a +preoccupation with the more constructive tasks of life. It is a spirit +which may give to these little essays--mostly produced while war was in +progress--a certain unity which was not designed when I wrote them. + + +[1] O'Dalton, _Letters of Sidonius_, Vol. II., p. 149. + + + + +II + + +EVOLUTION AND WAR + +The Great War of to-day has rendered acute the question of the place of +warfare in Nature and the effect of war on the human race. These have +long been debated problems concerning which there is no complete +agreement. But until we make up our minds on these fundamental questions +we can gain no solid ground from which to face serenely, or at all +events firmly, the crisis through which mankind is now passing. + +It has been widely held that war has played an essential part in the +evolutionary struggle for survival among our animal ancestors, that war +has been a factor of the first importance in the social development of +primitive human races, and that war always will be an essential method +of preserving the human virtues even in the highest civilisation. It +must be observed that these are three separate and quite distinct +propositions. It is possible to accept one, or even two, of them without +affirming them all. If we wish to clear our minds of confusion on this +matter, so vital to our civilisation, we must face each of the questions +by itself. + +It has sometimes been maintained--never more energetically than to-day, +especially among the nations which most eagerly entered the present +conflict--that war is a biological necessity. War, we are told, is +a manifestation of the "Struggle for Life"; it is the inevitable +application to mankind of the Darwinian "law" of natural selection. +There are, however, two capital and final objections to this view. On +the one hand it is not supported by anything that Darwin himself said, +and on the other hand it is denied as a fact by those authorities on +natural history who speak with most knowledge. That Darwin regarded war +as an insignificant or even non-existent part of natural selection must +be clear to all who have read his books. He was careful to state that he +used the term "struggle for existence" in a "metaphorical sense," and +the dominant factors in the struggle for existence, as Darwin understood +it, were natural suitability to the organic and inorganic environment +and the capacity for adaptation to circumstances; one species flourishes +while a less efficient species living alongside it languishes, yet they +may never come in actual contact and there is nothing in the least +approaching human warfare. The conditions much more resemble what, among +ourselves, we may see in business, where the better equipped species, +that is to say, the big capitalist, flourishes, while the less well +equipped species, the small capitalist, succumbs. Mr. Chalmers Mitchell, +Secretary of the London Zoological Society and familiar with the habits +of animals, has lately emphasised the contention of Darwin and shown +that even the most widely current notions of the extermination of one +species by another have no foundation in fact.[1] Thus the thylacine or +Tasmanian wolf, the fiercest of the marsupials, has been entirely driven +out of Australia and its place taken by a later and higher animal, of +the dog family, the dingo. But there is not the slightest reason to +believe that the dingo ever made war on the thylacine. If there was any +struggle at all it was a common struggle against the environment, in +which the dingo, by superior intelligence in finding food and rearing +young, and by greater resisting power to climate and disease, was able +to succeed where the thylacine failed. Again, the supposed war of +extermination waged in Europe by the brown rat against the black rat is +(as Chalmers Mitchell points out) pure fiction. In England, where this +war is said to have been ferociously waged, both rats exist and +flourish, and under conditions which do not usually even bring them into +competition with each other. The black rat (_Mus rattus_) is smaller +than the other, but more active and a better climber; he is the rat of +the barn and the granary. The brown or Norway rat (_Mus decumanus_) is +larger but less active, a burrower rather than a climber, and though +both rats are omnivorous the brown rat is more especially a scavenger; +he is the rat of sewers and drains. The black rat came to Northern +Europe first--both of them probably being Asiatic animals--and has no +doubt been to some extent replaced by the brown rat, who has been +specially favoured by the modern extension of drains and sewers, which +exactly suit his peculiar tastes. But each flourishes in his own +environment; neither of them is adapted to the other's environment; +there is no war between them, nor any occasion for war, for they do not +really come into competition with each other. The cockroaches, or +"blackbeetles," furnish another example. These pests are comparatively +modern and their great migrations in recent times are largely due to +the activity of human commerce. There are three main species of +cockroach--the Oriental, the American, and the German (or Croton +bug)--and they flourish near together in many countries, though not with +equal success, for while in England the Oriental is most prosperous, in +America the German cockroach is most abundant. They are seldom found in +actual association, each is best adapted to a particular environment; +there is no reason to suppose that they fight. It is so throughout +Nature. Animals may utilise other species as food; but that is true of +even, the most peaceable and civilised human races. The struggle for +existence means that one species is more favoured by circumstances than +another species; there is not the remotest resemblance anywhere to human +warfare. + +We may pass on to the second claim for war: that it is an essential +factor in the social development of primitive human races. War has no +part, though competition has a very large part, in what we call +"Nature." But, when we come to primitive man the conditions are somewhat +changed; men, unlike the lower animals, are able to form large +communities--"tribes," as we call them--with common interests, and two +primitive tribes can come into a competition which is acute to the point +of warfare because being of the same, and not of two different, species, +the conditions of life which they both demand are identical; they are +impelled to fight for the possession of these conditions as animals of +different species are not impelled to fight. We are often told that +animals are more "moral" than human beings, and it is largely to the +fact that, except under the immediate stress of hunger, they are better +able to live in peace with each other, that the greater morality of +animals is due. Yet, we have to recognise, this mischievous tendency to +warfare, so often (though by no means always, and in the earliest stages +probably never) found in primitive man, was bound up with his superior +and progressive qualities. His intelligence, his quickness of sense, his +muscular skill, his courage and endurance, his aptitude for discipline +and for organisation--all of them qualities on which civilisation is +based--were fostered by warfare. With warfare in primitive life was +closely associated the still more fundamental art, older than humanity, +of dancing. The dance was the training school for all the activities +which man developed in a supreme degree--for love, for religion, for +art, for organised labour--and in primitive days dancing was the chief +military school, a perpetual exercise in mimic warfare during times of +peace, and in times of war the most powerful stimulus to military +prowess by the excitement it aroused. Not only was war a formative and +developmental social force of the first importance among early men, but +it was comparatively free from the disadvantages which warfare later on +developed; the hardness of their life and the obtuseness of their +sensibility reduced to a minimum the bad results of wounds and shocks, +while their warfare, being free from the awful devices due to the +devilry of modern man, was comparatively innocuous; even if very +destructive, its destruction was necessarily limited by the fact that +those accumulated treasures of the past which largely make civilisation +had not come into existence. We may admire the beautiful humanity, the +finely developed social organisation, and the skill in the arts attained +by such people as the Eskimo tribes, which know nothing of war, but we +must also recognise that warfare among primitive peoples has often been +a progressive and developmental force of the first importance, creating +virtues apt for use in quite other than military spheres.[2] + +The case is altered when we turn from savagery to civilisation. The new +and more complex social order while, on the one hand, it presents +substitutes for war in so far as war is a source of virtues, on the +other hand, renders war a much more dangerous performance both to the +individual and to the community, becoming indeed, progressively more +dangerous to both, until it reaches such a climax of world-wide injury +as we witness to-day. The claim made in primitive societies that warfare +is necessary to the maintenance of virility and courage, a claim so +fully admitted that only the youth furnished with trophies of heads or +scalps can hope to become an accepted lover, is out of date in +civilisation. For under civilised conditions there are hundreds of +avocations which furnish exactly the same conditions as warfare for the +cultivation of all the manly virtues of enterprise and courage and +endurance, physical or moral. Not only are these new avocations equally +potent for the cultivation of virility, but far more useful for the +social ends of civilisation. For these ends warfare is altogether less +adapted than it is for the social ends of savagery. It is much less +congenial to the tastes and aptitudes of the individual, while at the +same time it is incomparably more injurious to Society. In savagery +little is risked by war, for the precious heirlooms of humanity have not +yet been created, and war can destroy nothing which cannot easily be +remade by the people who first made it. But civilisation possesses--and +in that possession, indeed, civilisation largely consists--the precious +traditions of past ages that can never live again, embodied in part in +exquisite productions of varied beauty which are a continual joy and +inspiration to mankind, and in part in slowly evolved habits and laws of +social amenity, and reasonable freedom, and mutual independence, which +under civilised conditions war, whether between nations or between +classes, tends to destroy, and in so destroying to inflict a permanent +loss in the material heirlooms of Mankind and a serious injury to the +spiritual traditions of civilisation. + +It is possible to go further and to declare that warfare is in +contradiction with the whole of the influences which build up and +organise civilisation. A tribe is a small but very closely knit unity, +so closely knit that the individual is entirely subordinated to the +whole and has little independence of action or even of thought. The +tendency of civilisation is to create webs of social organisation which +grow ever larger, but at the same time looser, so that the individual +gains a continually growing freedom and independence. The tribe becomes +merged in the nation, and beyond even this great unit, bonds of +international relationship are progressively formed. War, which at first +favoured this movement, becomes an ever greater impediment to its +ultimate progress. This is recognised at the threshold of civilisation, +and the large community, or nation, abolishes warfare between the units +of which it is composed by the device of establishing law courts to +dispense impartial justice. As soon as civilised society realised that +it was necessary to forbid two persons to settle their disputes by +individual fighting, or by initiating blood-feuds, or by arming friends +and followers, setting up courts of justice for the peaceable settlement +of disputes, the death-blow of all war was struck. For all the arguments +that proved strong enough to condemn war between two individuals are +infinitely stronger to condemn war between the populations of two-thirds +of the earth. But, while it was a comparatively easy task for a State to +abolish war and impose peace within its own boundaries--and nearly all +over Europe the process was begun and for the most part ended centuries +ago--it is a vastly more difficult task to abolish war and impose peace +between powerful States. Yet at the point at which we stand to-day +civilisation can make no further progress until this is done. Solitary +thinkers, like the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, and even great practical +statesmen like Sully and Penn, have from time to time realised this +fact during the past four centuries, and attempted to convert it into +actuality. But it cannot be done until the great democracies are won +over to a conviction of its inevitable necessity. We need an +international organisation of law courts which shall dispense justice as +between nation and nation in the same way as the existing law courts of +all civilised countries now dispense justice as between man and man; and +we further need, behind this international organisation of justice, an +international organisation of police strong enough to carry out the +decisions of these courts, not to exercise tyranny but to ensure to +every nation, even the smallest, that measure of reasonable freedom and +security to go about its own business which every civilised nation now, +in some small degree at all events, already ensures to the humblest of +its individual citizens. The task may take centuries to complete, but +there is no more urgent task before mankind to-day.[3] + +These considerations are very elementary, and a year or two ago they +might have seemed to many--though not to all of us--merely academic, +chiefly suitable to put before schoolchildren. But now they have ceased +to be merely academic; they have indeed acquired a vital actuality +almost agonisingly intense. For one realises to-day that the +considerations here set forth, widely accepted as they are, yet are not +generally accepted by the rulers and leaders of the greatest and +foremost nations of the world. Thus Germany, in its present Prussianised +state, through the mouths as well as through the actions of those rulers +and leaders, denies most of the conclusions here set forth. In Germany +it is a commonplace to declare that war is the law of Nature, that the +"struggle for existence" means the arbitration of warfare, that it is by +war that all evolution proceeds, that not only in savagery but in the +highest civilisation the same rule holds good, that human war is the +source of all virtues, the divinely inspired method of regenerating and +purifying mankind, and every war may properly be regarded as a holy war. +These beliefs have been implicit in the Prussian spirit ever since the +Goths and Vandals issued from the forests of the Vistula in the dawn of +European history. But they have now become a sort of religious dogma, +preached from pulpits, taught in Universities, acted out by statesmen. +From this Prussian point of view, whether right or wrong, civilisation, +as it has hitherto been understood in the world, is of little +consequence compared to German militaristic Kultur. Therefore the German +quite logically regards the Russians as barbarians, and the French as +decadents, and the English as contemptibly negligible, although the +Russians, however yet dominated by a military bureaucracy (moulded by +Teutonic influences, as some maliciously point out), are the most humane +people of Europe, and the French the natural leaders of civilisation as +commonly understood, and the English, however much they may rely on +amateurish methods of organisation by emergency, have scattered the +seeds of progress over a large part of the earth's surface. It is +equally logical that the Germans should feel peculiar admiration and +sympathy for the Turks, and find in Turkey, a State founded on military +ideals, their own ally in the present war. That war, from our present +point of view, is a war of States which use military methods for special +ends (often indeed ends that have been thoroughly evil) against a State +which still cherishes the primitive ideal of warfare as an end in +itself. And while such a State must enjoy immense advantages in the +struggle, it is difficult, when we survey the whole course of human +development, to believe that there can be any doubt about the final +issue. + +For one who writes as an Englishman, it may be necessary to point out +clearly that that final issue by no means involves the destruction, or +even the subjugation, of Germany. It is indeed an almost pathetic fact +that Germany, which idealises warfare, stands to gain more than any +country by an assured rule of international peace which would save her +from warfare. Placed in a position which renders militaristic +organisation indispensable, the Germans are more highly endowed than +almost any people with the high qualities of intelligence, of +receptiveness, of adaptability, of thoroughness, of capacity for +organisation, which ensure success in the arts and sciences of peace, in +the whole work of civilisation. This is amply demonstrated by the +immense progress and the manifold achievements of Germany during forty +years of peace, which have enabled her to establish a prosperity and a +good name in the world which are now both in peril. Germany must be +built up again, and the interests of civilisation itself, which Germany +has trampled under foot, demand that Germany shall be built up again, +under conditions, let us hope, which will render her old ideals useless +and out of date. We shall then be able to assert as the mere truisms +they are, and not as a defiance flung in the face of one of the world's +greatest nations, the elementary propositions I have here set forth. War +is not a permanent factor of national evolution, but for the most part +has no place in Nature at all; it has played a part in the early +development of primitive human society, but, as savagery passes into +civilisation, its beneficial effects are lost, and, on the highest +stages of human progress, mankind once more tends to be enfolded, this +time consciously and deliberately, in the general harmony of Nature. + + +[1] P. Chalmers Mitchell, _Evolution and the War_, 1915. + +[2] On the advantages of war in primitive society, see W. MacDougal's +_Social Psychology_, Ch. XI. + +[3] It is doubtless a task beset by difficulties, some of which are set +forth, in no hostile spirit, by Lord Cromer, "Thinking Internationally," +_Nineteenth Century_, July, 1916; but the statement of most of these +difficulties is enough to suggest the solution. + + + + +III + + +WAR AND EUGENICS + +In dealing with war it is not enough to discuss the place of warfare in +Nature or its effects on primitive peoples. Even if we decide that the +general tendency of civilisation is unfavourable to war we have scarcely +settled matters. It is necessary to push the question further home. +Primitive warfare among savages, when it fails to kill, may be a +stimulating and invigorating exercise, simply a more dangerous form of +dancing. But civilised warfare is a different kind of thing, to a very +limited extent depending on, or encouraging, the prowess of the +individual fighting men, and to be judged by other standards. _What +precisely is the measurable effect of war, if any, on the civilised +human breed?_ If we want to know what to do about war in the future, +that is the question we have to answer. + +"Wars are not paid for in war-time," said Benjamin Franklin, "the bill +comes later." Franklin, who was a pioneer in many so fields, seems to +have been a pioneer in eugenics also by arguing that a standing army +diminishes the size and breed of the human species. He had, however, no +definite facts wherewith to demonstrate conclusively that proposition. +Even to-day, it cannot be said that there is complete agreement among +biologists as to the effect of war on the race. Thus we find a +distinguished American zoologist, Chancellor Starr Jordan, constantly +proclaiming that the effect of war in reversing selection is a great +overshadowing truth of history; warlike nations, he declares, become +effeminate, while peaceful nations generate a fiercely militant +spirit.[1] Another distinguished American scientist, Professor Ripley, +in his great work, _The Races of Europe_, likewise concludes that +"standing armies tend to overload succeeding generations with inferior +types of men." A cautious English biologist, Professor J. Arthur +Thomson, is equally decided in this opinion, and in his recent Galton +Lecture[2] sets forth the view that the influence of war on the race, +both directly and indirectly, is injurious; he admits that there may +be beneficial as well as deteriorative influences, but the former +merely affect the moral atmosphere, not the hereditary germ plasm; +biologically, war means wastage and a reversal of rational selection, +since it prunes off a disproportionally large number of those whom the +race can least afford to lose. On the other hand, another biologist, Dr. +Chalmers Mitchell, equally opposed to war, cannot feel certain that the +total effect of even a great modern war is to deteriorate the stock, +while in Germany, as we know, it is the generally current opinion, +scientific and unscientific, equally among philosophers, militarists, +and journalists, that not only is war "a biological necessity," but that +it is peace, and not war, which effeminates and degenerates a nation. In +Germany, indeed, this doctrine is so generally accepted that it is not +regarded as a scientific thesis to be proved, but as a religious dogma +to be preached. It is evident that we cannot decide this question, so +vital to human progress, except on a foundation of cold and hard fact. + +Whatever may be the result of war on the quality of the breed, there can +be little doubt of its temporary effect on the quantity. The reaction +after war may create a stimulating influence on the birth-rate, leading +to a more or less satisfactory recovery, but it seems clear that the +drafting away of a large proportion of the manhood of a nation +necessarily diminishes births. At the present time English Schools are +sending out an unusually small number of pupils into life, and this is +directly due to the South-African War fifteen years ago. Still more +obvious is the direct effect of war, apart from diminishing the number +of births, in actually pouring out the blood of the young manhood of +the race. In the very earliest stage of primitive humanity it seems +probable that man was as untouched by warfare as his animal ancestors, +and it is satisfactory to think that war had no part in the first birth +of man into the world. Even the long Early Stone Age has left no +distinguishable sign of the existence of warfare.[3] It was not until +the transition to the Late Stone Age, the age of polished flint +implements, that we discern evidences of the homicidal attacks of man +on man. Even then we are concerned more with quarrels than with +battles, for one of the earliest cases of wounding known in human +records, is that of a pregnant young woman found in the Cro-magnon Cave +whose skull had been cut open by a flint several weeks before death, an +indication that she had been cared for and nursed. But, again at the +beginning of the New Stone Age, in the caverns of the Beaumes-Chaudes +people, who still used implements of the Old Stone type, we find skulls +in which are weapons of the New Stone type. Evidently these people had +come in contact with a more "civilised" race which had discovered war. +Yet the old pacific race still lingered on, as in the Belgian people +of the Furfooz type who occupied themselves mainly with hunting and +fishing, and have their modern representatives, if not their actual +descendants, in the peaceful Lapps and Eskimo.[4] + +It was thus at a late stage of human history, though still so primitive +as to be prehistoric, that organised warfare developed. At the dawn of +history war abounded. The earliest literature of the Aryans--whether +Greeks, Germans, or Hindus--is nothing but a record of systematic +massacres, and the early history of the Hebrews, leaders in the world's +religion and morality, is complacently bloodthirsty. Lapouge considers +that in modern times, though wars are fewer in number, the total number +of victims is still about the same, so that the stream of bloodshed +throughout the ages remains unaffected. He attempted to estimate the +victims of war for each civilised country during half a century, and +found that the total amounted to nine and a half millions, while, by +including the Napoleonic and other wars of the beginning of the +nineteenth century, he considered that that total would be doubled. Put +in another form, Lapouge says, the wars of a century spill 120,000,000 +gallons of blood, enough to fill three million forty-gallon casks, or +to create a perpetual fountain sending up a jet of 150 gallons per hour, +a fountain which has been flowing unceasingly ever since the dawn of +history. It is to be noted, also, that those slain on the battlefield by +no means represent the total victims of a war, but only about half of +them; more than half of those who, from one cause or another, perished +in the Franco-Prussian war, it is said, were not belligerents. Lapouge +wrote some ten years ago and considered that the victims of war, though +remaining about absolutely the same in number through the ages, were +becoming relatively fewer. The Great War of to-day would perhaps have +disturbed his calculations, unless we may assume that it will be +followed by a tremendous reaction against war. For when the war had +lasted only nine months, it was estimated that if it should continue at +the present rate (and as a matter of fact its scale has been much +enlarged) for another twelve months, the total loss to Europe in lives +destroyed or maimed would be ten millions, about equal to five-sixths of +the whole young manhood of the German Empire, and nearly the same number +of victims as Lapouge reckoned as the normal war toll of a whole +half-century of European "civilisation." It is scarcely necessary to add +that all these bald estimates of the number of direct victims to war +give no clue to the moral and material damage--apart from all question +of injury to the race--done by the sudden or slow destruction of so +large a proportion of the young manhood of the world, the ever widening +circles of anguish and misery and destitution which every fatal bullet +imposes on humanity, for it is probable that for every ten million +soldiers who fall on the field, fifty million other persons at home are +plunged into grief or poverty, or some form of life-diminishing trouble. + +The foregoing considerations have not, however, brought us strictly +within the field of eugenics. They indicate the great extent to which +war affects the human breed, but they do not show that war affects the +quality of the breed, and until that is shown the eugenist remains +undisturbed. + +There are various circumstances which, at the outset, and even in the +absence of experimental verification, make it difficult, or impossible, +that even the bare mortality of war (for the eugenical bearings of +war are not confined to its mortality) should leave the eugenist +indifferent. For war never hits men at random. It only hits a carefully +selected percentage of "fit" men. It tends, in other words, to strike +out, temporarily, or in a fatal event, permanently, from the class of +fathers, precisely that percentage of the population which the eugenist +wishes to see in that class. This is equally the case in countries with +some form of compulsory service, and in countries which rely on a +voluntary military system. For, however an army is recruited, it is only +those men reaching a fairly high standard of fitness who are accepted, +and these, even in times of peace are hampered in the task of carrying +on the race, which the less fit and the unfit are free to do at their +own good pleasure. Nearly all the ways in which war and armies disturb +the normal course of affairs seem likely to interfere with eugenical +breeding, and none to favour it. Thus at one time, in the Napoleonic +wars, the French age of conscription fell to eighteen, while marriage +was a cause of exemption, with the result of a vast increase of hasty +and ill-advised marriages among boys, certainly injurious to the race. +Armies, again, are highly favourable to the spread of racial poisons, +especially of syphilis, the most dangerous of all, and this cannot fail +to be, in a marked manner, dysgenic rather than eugenic. + +The Napoleonic wars furnished the first opportunity of testing the truth +of Franklin's assertion concerning the disastrous effect of armies on +the race, by the collection of actual and precise data. But the +significance of the data proved unexpectedly difficult to unravel, and +most writers on the subject have been largely occupied in correcting the +mistakes of their predecessors. Villermé in 1829 remarked that the long +series of French wars up to 1815 must probably reduce the height of the +French people, though he was unable to prove that this was so. Dufau in +1840 was in a better position to judge, and he pointed out in his +_Traité de Statistique_ that, comparing 1816 and 1835, the number of +young men exempted from the army had doubled in the interval, even +though the regulation height had been lowered. This result, however, he +held, was not so alarming as it might appear, and probably only +temporary, for it was seemingly due to the fact that, in 1806 and the +following years, the male population was called to arms in masses, even +youths being accepted, so that a vast number of precocious marriages of +often defective men took place. The result would only be terrible, Dufau +believed, if prolonged; his results, however, were not altogether +reliable, for he failed to note the proportion of men exempted to those +examined. The question was investigated more thoroughly by Tschuriloff +in 1876.[5] He came to the conclusion that the Napoleonic wars had no +great influence on stature, since the regulation height was lowered in +1805, and abolished altogether for healthy men in 1811, and any defect +of height in the next generation is speedily repaired. Tschuriloff +agreed, however, that, though the influence of war in diminishing the +height of the race is unimportant, the influence of war in increasing +physical defects and infirmities in subsequent generations is a very +different matter. He found that the physical deterioration of war +manifested itself chiefly in the children born eight years afterwards, +and therefore in the recruits twenty-eight years after the war. He +regarded it as an undoubted fact that the French army of half a million +men in 1809 increased by 3 per cent. the proportion of hereditarily +infirm persons. He found, moreover, that the new-born of 1814, that is +to say the military class of 1834, showed that infirmities had risen +from 30 per cent. to 45.8 per cent., an increase of 50 per cent. Nor is +the _status quo_ entirely brought back later on, for the bad heredity of +the increased number of defectives tends to be still further propagated, +even though in an attenuated form. As a matter of fact, Tschuriloff +found that the proportion of exemptions from the army for infirmity +increased enormously from 26 per cent. in 1816-17, to 38 per cent. in +1826-27, declining later to 34 per cent. in 1860-64, though he is +careful to point out that this result must not be entirely ascribed to +the reversed selection of wars. There could, however, be no doubt that +most kinds of infirmities became more frequent as a result of military +selection. Lapouge's more recent investigation into the results of the +Franco-Prussian war of 1870 were of similar character; when examining +the recruits of 1892-93 he found that these "children of the war" were +inferior to those born earlier, and that there was probably an undue +proportion of defective individuals among their fathers. It cannot be +said that these investigations finally demonstrate the evil results of +war on the race. The subject is complicated, and some authorities, like +Collignon in France and Ammon in Germany,--both, it may be well to note, +army surgeons,--have sought to smooth down and explain away the dysgenic +effects of war. But, on the whole, the facts seem to support those +probabilities which the insight of Franklin first clearly set forth. + +It is interesting in the light of these considerations on the eugenic +bearings of warfare to turn for a moment to those who proclaim the high +moral virtues of war as a national regenerator. + +It is chiefly in Germany that, for more than a century past, this +doctrine has been preached.[6] "War invigorates humanity," said Hegel, +"as storms preserve the sea from putrescence." "War is an integral part +of God's Universe," said Moltke, "developing man's noblest attributes." +"The condemnation of war," said Treitschke, "is not only absurd, it is +immoral."[7] These brave sayings scarcely bear calm and searching +examination at the best, but, putting aside all loftier appeals to +humanity or civilisation, a "national regenerator" which we have good +reason to suppose enfeebles and deteriorates the race, cannot plausibly +be put before us as a method of ennobling humanity or as a part of God's +Universe, only to be condemned on pain of seeing a company of German +professors pointing the finger to our appalling "Immorality," on their +drill-sergeant's word of command. + +At the same time, this glorification of the regenerating powers of war +quite overlooks the consideration that the fighting spirit tends to +destroy itself, so that the best way to breed good fighters is not to +preach war, but to cultivate peace, which is what the Germans have, in +actual practice, done for over forty years past. France, the most +military, and the most gloriously military, nation of the Napoleonic +era, is now the leader in anti-militarism, altogether indifferent to the +lure of military glory, though behind no nation in courage or skill. +Belgium has not fought for generations, and had only just introduced +compulsory military service, yet the Belgians, from their King and their +Cardinal-Archbishop downwards, threw themselves into the war with a high +spirit scarcely paralleled in the world's history, and Belgian +commercial travellers developed a rare military skill and audacity. All +the world admires the bravery with which the Germans face death and the +elaborate detail with which they organise battle, yet for all their +perpetual glorification of war there is no sign that they fight with any +more spirit than their enemies. Even if we were to feel ourselves bound +to accept war as "an integral part of God's Universe," we need not +trouble ourselves to glorify war, for, when once war presents itself as +a terrible necessity, even the most peaceable of men are equal to the +task. + +This consideration brings us to those "moral equivalents of war" which +William James was once concerned over, when he advocated, in place of +military conscription, "a conscription of the whole youthful population +to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted +against _Nature_."[8] Such a method of formally organising in the cause +of civilisation, instead of in the cause of savagery, the old military +traditions of hardihood and discipline may well have its value. But the +present war has shown us that in no case need we fear that these high +qualities will perish in any vitally progressive civilisation. For they +are qualities that lie in the heart of humanity itself. They are not +created by the drill-sergeant; he merely utilises them for his own, as +we may perhaps think, disastrous ends. This present war has shown us +that on every hand, even in the unlikeliest places, all the virtues of +war have been fostered by the cultivation of the arts and sciences of +peace, ready to be transformed to warlike ends by men who never dreamed +of war. In France we find many of the most promising young scientists, +poets, and novelists cheerfully going forth to meet their death. On the +other side, we find a Kreisler, created to be the joy of the world, +ready to be trampled to death beneath the hoofs of Cossack horses. The +friends of Gordon Mathison, the best student ever turned out from the +Medical Faculty of the Melbourne University and a distinguished young +physiologist who seemed to be destined to become one of the first +physicians of his time, viewed with foreboding his resolve to go to the +front, for "Wherever he was he had to be in the game," they said; and a +few weeks later he was killed at Gallipoli on the threshold of his +career. The qualities that count in peace are the qualities that count +in war, and the high-spirited man who throws himself bravely into the +dangerous adventures of peace is fully the equal of the hero of the +battlefield, and himself prepared to become that hero.[9] + +It would seem, therefore, on the whole, that when the eugenist takes a +wide survey of this question, he need not qualify his disapproval of war +by any regrets over the loss of such virtues as warfare fosters. In +every progressive civilisation the moral equivalents of war are already +in full play. Peace, as well as war, "develops the noblest attributes of +man"; peace, rather than war, preserves the human sea from putrescence; +it is the condemnation of peace, rather than the condemnation of war, +which is not only absurd but immoral. We are not called upon to choose +between the manly virtues of war and the effeminate degeneracy of peace. +The Great War of to-day may perhaps help us to realise that the choice +placed before us is of another sort. The virtues of daring and endurance +will never fail in any vitally progressive community of men, alike in +the causes of war and of peace.[10] But on the one hand we find those +virtues at work in the service of humanity, creating ever new marvels of +science and of art, adding to the store of the precious heirlooms of the +race which are a joy to all mankind. On the other hand, we see these +same virtues in the service of savagery, extinguishing those marvels, +killing their creators, and destroying every precious treasure of +mankind within reach. That--it seems to be one of the chief lessons of +this war--is the choice placed before us who are to-day called upon to +build the world of the future on a firmer foundation than our own world +has been set. + + +[1] D.S. Jordan, _War and the Breed_, 1915; also articles on "War and +Manhood" in the _Eugenics Review_, July, 1910, and on "The Eugenics of +War" in the same Review for Oct., 1913. + +[2] J. Arthur Thomson, "Eugenics and War," _Eugenics Review_, April, +1915. Major Leonard Darwin (_Journal Royal Statistical Society_, March, +1916) sets forth a similar view. + +[3] It is true that in the Gourdon cavern, in the Pyrenees, representing +a very late and highly developed stage of Magdalenian culture, there +are indications that human brains were eaten (Zaborowski, _L'Homme +Préhistorique_, p. 86). It is surmised that they were the brains of +enemies killed in battle, but this remains a surmise. + +[4] Zaborowski, _L'Homme Préhistorique_, pp. 121, 139; Lapouge, _Les +Sélections Sociales_, p. 209. + +[5] _Revue d'Anthropologie_, 1876, pp. 608 and 655. + +[6] In France it is almost unknown except as preached by the Syndicalist +philosopher, Georges Sorel, who insists, quite in the German manner, on +the purifying and invigorating effects of "a great foreign war," although, +very unlike the German professors, he holds that "a great extension of +proletarian violence" will do just as well as war. + +[7] The recent expressions of the same doctrine in Germany are far too +numerous to deal with. I may, however, refer to Professor Fritz +Wilke's _Ist der Krieg sittlich berechtigt?_ (1915) as being the work +of a theologian and Biblical scholar of Vienna who has written a book +on the politics of Isaiah and discussed the germs of historical +veridity in the history of Abraham. "A world-history without war," he +declares, "would be a history of materialism and degeneration"; and +again: "The solution is not 'Weapons down!' but 'Weapons up!' With +pure hands and calm conscience let us grasp the sword." He dwells, of +course, on the supposed purifying and ennobling effects of war and +insists that, in spite of its horrors, and when necessary, "War is a +divine institution and a work of love." The leaders of the world's +peace movement are, thank God! not Germans, but merely English and +Americans, and he sums up, with Moltke, that war is a part of the +moral order of the world. + +[8] William James, _Popular Science Monthly_, Oct., 1910. + +[9] We still often fall into the fallacy of over-estimating the +advantages of military training--with its fine air of set-up manliness +and restrained yet vitalised discipline--because we are mostly +compelled to compare such training with the lack of training fostered +by that tame, dull sedentary routine of which there is far too much in +our present phase of civilisation. The remedy lies in stimulating the +heroic and strenuous sides of civilisation rather than in letting +loose the ravages of war. As Nietzsche long since pointed out (_Human, +All-too-Human_, section 442), the vaunted national armies of modern +times are merely a method of squandering the most highly civilised +men, whose delicately organised brains have been slowly produced +through long generations; "in our day greater and higher tasks are +assigned to men than _patria_ and _honor_, and the rough old Roman +patriotism has become dishonourable, at the best behind the times." + +[10] The Border of Scotland and England was in ancient times, it has +been said, "a very Paradise for murderers and robbers." The war-like +spirit was there very keen and deeds of daring were not too scrupulously +effected, for the culprit knew that nothing was easier and safer than to +become an outlaw on the other side of the Border. Yet these were the +conditions that eventually made the Border one of the great British +centres of genius (the Welsh Border was another) and the home of a +peculiarly capable and vigorous race. + + + + +IV + + +MORALITY IN WARFARE + +There are some idealistic persons who believe that morality and war +are incompatible. War is bestial, they hold, war is devilish; in its +presence it is absurd, almost farcical, to talk about morality. That +would be so if morality meant the code, for ever unattained, of the +Sermon on the Mount. But there is not only the morality of Jesus, there +is the morality of Mumbo Jumbo. In other words, and limiting ourselves +to the narrower range of the civilised world, there is the morality of +Machiavelli and Bismarck, and the morality of St. Francis and Tolstoy. + +The fact is, as we so often forget, and sometimes do not even know, +morality is fundamentally custom, the _mores_, as it has been called, +of a people. It is a body of conduct which is in constant motion, with +an exalted advance-guard, which few can keep up with, and a debased +rearguard, once called the black-guard, a name that has since acquired +an appropriate significance. But in the substantial and central sense +morality means the conduct of the main body of the community. Thus +understood, it is clear that in our time war still comes into contact +with morality. The pioneers may be ahead; the main body is in the thick +of it. + +That there really is a morality of war, and that the majority of +civilised people have more or less in common a certain conventional +code concerning the things which may or may not be done in war, has +been very clearly seen during the present conflict. This moral code is +often said to be based on international regulations and understandings. +It certainly on the whole coincides with them. But it is the popular +moral code which is fundamental, and international law is merely an +attempt to enforce that morality. + +The use of expanding bullets and poison gases, the poisoning of wells, +the abuse of the Red Cross and the White Flag, the destruction of +churches and works of art, the infliction of cruel penalties on +civilians who have not taken up arms--all such methods of warfare as +these shock popular morality. They are on each side usually attributed +to the enemy, they are seldom avowed, and only adopted in imitation of +the enemy, with hesitation and some offence to the popular conscience, +as we see in the case of poison gas, which was only used by the English +after long delay, while the French still hesitated. The general feeling +about such methods, even when involving scientific skill, is that they +are "barbarous." + +As a matter of fact, this charge of "barbarism" against those methods +of warfare which shock our moral sense must not be taken too literally. +The methods of real barbarians in war are not especially "barbarous." +They have sometimes committed acts of cruelty which are revolting to us +to-day, but for the most part the excesses of barbarous warfare have +been looting and burning, together with more or less raping of women, +and these excesses have been so frequent within the last century, and +still to-day, that they may as well be called "civilised" as +"barbarous." The sack of Rome by the Goths at the beginning of the +fifth century made an immense impression on the ancient world, as an +unparalleled outrage. St. Augustine in his _City of God_, written +shortly afterwards, eloquently described the horrors of that time. Yet +to-day, in the new light of our own knowledge of what war may involve, +the ways of the ancient Goths seem very innocent. We are expressly told +that they spared the sacred Christian places, and the chief offences +brought against them seem to be looting and burning; yet the treasure +they left untouched was vast and incalculable and we should be thankful +indeed if any belligerent in the war of to-day inflicted as little +injury on a conquered city as the Goths on Rome. The vague rhetoric +which this invasion inspired scarcely seems to be supported by +definitely recorded facts, and there can be very little doubt that the +devastation wrought in many old wars exists chiefly in the writings of +rhetorical chroniclers whose imaginations were excited, as we may so +often see among the journalists of to-day, by the rumour of atrocities +which have never been committed. This is not to say that no devastation +and cruelty have been perpetrated in ancient wars. It seems to be +generally agreed that in the famous Thirty Years' War, which the +Germans fought against each other, atrocities were the order of the +day. We are constantly being told, in respect of some episode or other +of the war of to-day, that "nothing like it has been seen since the +Thirty Years' War." But the writers who make this statement, with an +off-hand air of familiar scholarship, never by any chance bring forward +the evidence for this greater atrociousness of the Thirty Years' +War,[1] and one is inclined to suspect that this oft-repeated allusion +to the Thirty Years' War as the acme of military atrocity is merely a +rhetorical flourish. + +In any case we know that, not so many years after the Thirty Years' +War, Frederick the Great, who combined supreme military gifts with +freedom from scruple in policy, and was at the same time a great +representative German, declared that the ordinary citizen ought never +to be aware that his country is at war.[2] Nothing could show more +clearly the military ideal, however imperfectly it may sometimes have +been attained, of the old European world. Atrocities, whether regarded +as permissible or as inevitable, certainly occurred. But for the most +part wars were the concern of the privileged upper class; they were +rendered necessary by the dynastic quarrels of monarchs and were +carried out by a professional class with aristocratic traditions and a +more or less scrupulous regard to ancient military etiquette. There are +many stories of the sufferings of the soldiery in old times, in the +midst of abundance, on account of military respect for civilian +property. Von der Goltz remarks that "there was a time when the troops +camped in the cornfields and yet starved," and states that in 1806 the +Prussian main army camped close to huge piles of wood and yet had no +fires to warm themselves or cook their food.[3] + +The legend, if legend it is, of the French officer who politely +requested the English officer opposite him to "fire first" shows how +something of the ancient spirit of chivalry was still regarded as the +accompaniment of warfare. It was an occupation which only incidentally +concerned the ordinary citizen. The English, especially, protected by +the sea and always living in open undefended cities, have usually been +able to preserve this indifference to the continental wars in which +their kings have constantly been engaged, and, as we see, even in the +most unprotected European countries, and the most profoundly warlike, +the Great Frederick set forth precisely the same ideal of war. + +The fact seems to be that while war is nowadays less chronic than of +old, less prolonged, and less easily provoked, it is a serious fallacy +to suppose that it is also less barbarous. We imagine that it must be +so simply because we believe, on more or less plausible grounds, that +our life generally is growing less barbarous and more civilised. But +war, by its very nature, always means a relapse from civilisation into +barbarism, if not savagery.[4] We may sympathise with the endeavour of +the European soldiers of old to civilise warfare, and we may admire the +remarkable extent to which they succeeded in doing so. But we cannot +help feeling that their romantic and chivalrous notions of warfare were +absurdly incongruous. + +The world in general might have been content with that incongruity. But +Germany, or more precisely Prussia, with its ancient genius for +warfare, has in the present war taken the decisive step in initiating +the abolition of that incongruity by placing warfare definitely on the +basis of scientific barbarism. To do this is, in a sense, we must +remember, not a step backwards, but a step forward. It involved the +recognition of the fact that War is not a game to be played for its own +sake, by a professional caste, in accordance with fixed rules which it +would be dishonourable to break, but a method, carried out by the whole +organised manhood of the nation, of effectively attaining an end +desired by the State, in accordance with the famous statement of +Clausewitz that war is State policy continued by a different method. If +by the chivalrous method of old, which was indeed in large part still +their own method in the previous Franco-German war, the Germans had +resisted the temptation to violate the neutrality of Luxemburg and +Belgium in order to rush behind the French defences, and had battered +instead at the Gap of Belfort, they would have won the sympathy of the +world, but they certainly would not have won the possession of the +greater part of Belgium and a third part of France. It has not alone +been military instinct which has impelled Germany on the new course +thus inaugurated. We see here the final outcome of a reaction against +ancient Teutonic sentimentality which the insight of Goldwin Smith +clearly discerned forty years ago.[5] Humane sentiments and civilised +traditions, under the moulding hand of Prussian leaders of Kultur, +have been slowly but firmly subordinated to a political realism which, +in the military sphere, means a masterly efficiency in the aim of +crushing the foe by overwhelming force combined with panic-striking +"frightfulness." In this conception, that only is moral which served +these ends. The horror which this "frightfulness" may be expected to +arouse, even among neutral nations, is from the German point of view a +tribute of homage. + +The military reputation of Germany is so great in the world, and likely +to remain so, whatever the issue of the present war, that we are here +faced by a grave critical issue which concerns the future of the whole +world. The conduct of wars has been transformed before our eyes. In any +future war the example of Germany will be held to consecrate the new +methods, and the belligerents who are not inclined to accept the +supreme authority of Germany may yet be forced in their own interests +to act in accordance with it. The mitigating influence of religion over +warfare has long ceased to be exercised, for the international Catholic +Church no longer possesses the power to exert such influence, while the +national Protestant churches are just as bellicose as their flacks. Now +we see the influence of morality over warfare similarly tending to +disappear. Henceforth, it seems, we have to reckon with a conception of +war which accounts it a function of the supreme State, standing above +morality and therefore able to wage war independently of morality. +Necessity--the necessity of scientific effectiveness--becomes the sole +criterion of right and wrong. + +When we look back from the standpoint of knowledge which we have +reached in the present war to the notions which prevailed in the past, +they seem to us hollow and even childish. Seventy years ago, Buckle, in +his _History of Civilisation_, stated complacently that only ignorant +and unintellectual nations any longer cherished ideals of war. His +statement was part of the truth. It is true, for instance, that France +is now the most anti-military of nations, though once the most military +of all. But, we see, it is only part of the truth. The very fact, which +Buckle himself pointed out, that efficiency has in modern times taken +the place of morality in the conduct of affairs, offers a new +foundation for war when war is urged on scientific principle for the +purpose of rendering effective the claims of State policy. To-day we +see that it is not sufficient for a nation to cultivate knowledge and +become intellectual, in the expectation that war will automatically go +out of fashion. It is quite possible to become very scientific, most +relentlessly intellectual, and on that foundation to build up ideals of +warfare much more barbarous than those of Assyria. + +The conclusion seems to be that we are to-day entering on an era in +which war will not only flourish as vigorously as in the past, although +not in so chronic a form, but with an altogether new ferocity and +ruthlessness, with a vastly increased power of destruction, and on a +scale of extent and intensity involving an injury to civilisation and +humanity which no wars of the past ever perpetrated. Moreover, this +state of things imposes on the nations which have hitherto, by their +temper, their position, or their small size, regarded themselves as +nationally neutral, a new burden of armament in order to ensure that +neutrality. It has been proclaimed on both sides that this war is a war +to destroy militarism. But the disappearance of a militarism that is +only destroyed by a greater militarism offers no guarantee at all for +any triumph of Civilisation or Humanity. + +What then are we to do? It seems clear that we have to recognise that +our intellectual leaders of old who declared that to ensure the +disappearance of war we have but to sit still and fold our hands while +we watch the beneficent growth of science and intellect were grievously +mistaken. War is still one of the active factors of modern life, though +by no means the only factor which it is in our power to grasp and +direct. By our energetic effort the world can be moulded. It is the +concern of all of us, and especially of those nations which are strong +enough and enlightened enough to take a leading part in human affairs, +to work towards the initiation and the organisation of this immense +effort. In so far as the Great War of to-day acts as a spur to such +effort it will not have been an unmixed calamity. + + +[1] In so far as it may have been so, that seems merely due to its +great length, to the fact that the absence of commissariat arrangements +involved a more thorough method of pillage, and to epidemics. + +[2] Treitschke, _History of Germany_ (English translation by E. and C. +Paul), Vol. I., p. 87. + +[3] Von der Goltz, _The Nation in Arms_, pp. 14 _et seq._ This attitude +was a final echo of the ancient Truce of God. That institution, which +was first definitely formulated in the early eleventh century in +Roussillon and was soon confirmed by the Pope in agreement with nobles +and barons, was extended to the whole of Christendom before the end of +the century. It ordained peace for several days a week and on many +festivals, and it guaranteed the rights and liberties of all those +following peaceful avocations, at the same time protecting crops, +live-stock, and farm implements. + +[4] It is interesting to observe how St. Augustine, who was as familiar +with classic as with Christian life and thought, perpetually dwells on +the boundless misery of war and the supreme desirability of peace as a +point at which pagan and Christian are at one; "Nihil gratius soleat +audiri, nihil desiderabilius concupisci, nihil postremo possit melius +inveniri ... Sicut nemo est qui gaudere nolit, ita nemo est qui pacem +habere nolit" (_City of God_, Bk. XIX., Chs. 11-12). + +[5] _Contemporary Review_, 1878. + + + + +V + + +IS WAR DIMINISHING? + +The cheerful optimism of those pacifists who looked for the speedy +extinction of war has lately aroused much scorn. There really seem to +have been people who believed that new virtues of loving-kindness are +springing up in the human breast to bring about the universal reign of +peace spontaneously, while we all still continued to cultivate our old +vices of international greed, suspicion, and jealousy. Dr. Frederick +Adams Woods, in the challenging and stimulating study of the prevalence +of war in Europe from 1450 to the present day which he has lately +written in conjunction with Mr. Alexander Baltzly, easily throws +contempt upon such pacifists. All their beautiful arguments, he tells +us in effect, count for nothing. War is to-day raging more furiously +than ever in the world, and it is even doubtful whether it is +diminishing. That is the subject of the book Dr. Woods and Mr. Baltzly +have written: _Is War Diminishing?_ + +The method adopted by these authors is to count up the years of war +since 1450 for each of the eleven chief nations of Europe possessing an +ancient history, and to represent the results by the aid of charts. +These charts show that certainly there has been a great falling off in +war during the period in question. Wars, as there presented to us, seem +to have risen to a climax in the century 1550-1650 and to have been +declining ever since. The authors, themselves, however, are not quite +in sympathy with their own conclusion. "There is only," Dr. Woods +declares, "a moderate amount of probability in favour of declining +war." He insists on the fact that the period under investigation +represents but a very small fraction of the life of man. He finds that +if we take England several centuries further back, and compare its +number of war-years during the last four centuries with those during +the preceding four centuries, the first period shows 212 years of war, +the second shows 207 years, a negligible difference, while for France +the corresponding number of war-years are 181 and 192, an actual and +rather considerable increase. There is the further consideration that +if we regard not frequency but intensity of war--if we could, for +instance, measure a war by its total number of casualties--we should +doubtless find that wars are showing a tendency to ever-increasing +gravity. On the whole, Dr. Woods is clearly rather discontented with +the tendency of his own and his collaborator's work to show a +diminution of war, and modestly casts doubt on all those who believe +that the tendency of the world's history is in the direction of such a +diminution. + +An honest and careful record of facts, however, is always valuable. Dr. +Woods' investigation will be found useful even by those who are by no +means anxious to throw cold water over the too facile optimism of some +pacifists, and this little book suggests lines of thought which may +prove fruitful in various directions, not always foreseen by the +authors. + +Dr. Woods emphasises the long period in the history of the human race +during which war has flourished. He seems to suggest that war, after +all, may be an essential and beneficial element in human affairs, +destined to endure to the end, just as it has been present from the +beginning. But has it been present from the beginning? Even though war +may have flourished for many thousands of years--and it was certainly +flourishing at the dawn of history--we are still very far indeed from +the dawn of human life or even of human civilisation, for the more our +knowledge of the past grows the more remote that dawn is seen to be. It +is not only seen to be very remote, it is seen to be very important. +Darwin said that it was during the first three years of life that a man +learnt most. That saying is equally true of humanity as a whole, though +here one must translate years into hundreds of thousands of years. But +neither infant man nor infant mankind could establish themselves firmly +on the path that leads so far if they had at the very outset, in +accordance with Dr. Woods' formula for more recent ages, "fought about +half the time." An activity of this kind which may be harmless, or even +in some degree beneficial at a later stage, would be fatally disastrous +at an early stage. War, as Mankind understands war, seems to have no +place among animals living in Nature. It seems equally to have had no +place, so far as investigation has yet been able to reveal, in the life +of early man. Men were far too busy in the great fight against Nature +to fight against each other, far too absorbed in the task of inventing +methods of self-preservation to have much energy left for inventing +methods of self-destruction. It was once supposed that the Homeric +stories of war presented a picture of life near the beginning of the +world. The Homeric picture in fact corresponds to a stage in human +barbarism, certainly in its European manifestation, a stage also passed +through in Northern Europe, where, nearly fifteen hundred years ago, +the Greek traveller, Posidonius, found the Celtic chieftains in Britain +living much like the people in Homer. But we now know that Homer, so +far from bringing before us a primitive age, really represents the end +of a long stage of human development, marked by a slow and steady +growth in civilisation and a vast accumulation of luxury. War is a +luxury, in other words a manifestation of superfluous energy, not +possible in those early stages when all the energies of men are taken +up in the primary business of preserving and maintaining life. So it +was that war had a beginning in human history. Is it unreasonable to +suppose that it will also have an end? + +There is another way, besides that of counting the world's war-years, +to determine the probability of the diminution and eventual +disappearance of war. We may consider the causes of war, and the extent +to which these causes are, or are not, ceasing to operate. Dr. Woods +passingly realises the importance of this test and even enumerates what +he considers to be the causes of war, without, however, following up +his clue. As he reckons them, they are four in number: racial, +economic, religious, and personal. There is frequently a considerable +amount of doubt concerning the cause of a particular war, and no doubt +the causes are usually mixed and slowly accumulative, just as in +disease a number of factors may have gradually combined to bring on the +sudden overthrow of health. There can be no doubt that the four causes +enumerated have been very influential in producing war. There can, +however, be equally little doubt that nearly all of them are +diminishing in their war-producing power. Religion, which after the +Reformation seemed to foment so many wars, is now practically almost +extinct as a cause of war in Europe. Economic causes which were once +regarded as good and sound motives for war have been discredited, +though they cannot be said to be abolished; in the Middle Ages fighting +was undoubtedly a most profitable business, not only by the booty which +might thus be obtained, but by the high ransoms which even down to the +seventeenth century might be legitimately demanded for prisoners. So +that war with France was regarded as an English gentleman's best method +of growing rich. Later it was believed that a country could capture the +"wealth" of another country by destroying that country's commerce, and +in the eighteenth century that doctrine was openly asserted even by +responsible statesmen; later, the growth of political economy made +clear that every nation flourishes by the prosperity of other nations, +and that by impoverishing the nation with which it traded a nation +impoverishes itself, for a tradesman cannot grow rich by killing his +customers. So it came about that, as Mill put it, the commercial +spirit, which during one period of European history was the principal +cause of war, became one of its strongest obstacles, though, since Mill +wrote, the old fallacy that it is a legitimate and advantageous method +to fight for markets, has frequently reappeared.[1] Again, the personal +causes of war, although in a large measure incalculable, have much +smaller scope under modern conditions than formerly. Under ancient +conditions, with power centred in despotic monarchs or autocratic +ministers, the personal causes of war counted for much. In more recent +times it has been said, truly or falsely, that the Crimean War was due +to the wounded feelings of a diplomatist. Under modern conditions, +however, the checks on individual initiative are so many that personal +causes must play an ever-diminishing part in war. + +The same can scarcely be said as regards Dr. Woods' remaining cause of +war. If by racialism we are to understand nationalism, this has of late +been a serious and ever-growing provocative of war. Internationalism of +feeling is much less marked now than it was four centuries ago. +Nationalities have developed a new self-consciousness, a new impulse to +regain their old territories or to acquire new territories. Not only +Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, and British Imperialism, like all other +imperialisms, but even the national ambitions of some smaller Powers +have acquired a new and dangerous energy. They are not the less +dangerous when, as is indeed most frequently the case, they merely +represent the ambition, not of the people as a whole, but merely of a +military or bureaucratic clique, of a small chauvinistic group, yet +noisy and energetic enough to win over unscrupulous politicians. A +German soldier, a young journalist of ability, recently wrote home from +the trenches: "I have often dreamed of a new Europe in which all the +nations would be fraternally united and live together as one people; it +was an end which democratic feeling seemed to be slowly preparing. Now +this terrible war has been unchained, fomented by a few men who are +sending their subjects, their slaves rather, to the battlefield, to +slay each other like wild beasts. I should like to go towards these men +they call our enemies and say, 'Brothers, let us fight together. The +enemy is behind us.' Yes, since I have been wearing this uniform I feel +no hatred for those who are in front, but my hatred has grown for those +in power who are behind." That is a sentiment which must grow mightily +with the growth of democracy, and as it grows the danger of nationalism +as a cause of war must necessarily decrease. + +There is, however, one group of causes of war, of the first importance, +which Dr. Woods has surprisingly omitted, and that is the group of +political causes. It is by overlooking the political aspects of war +that Dr. Woods' discussion is most defective. Supposed political +necessity has been in modern times perhaps the very chief cause of war. +That is to say that wars are largely waged for what has been supposed +to be the protection, or the furtherance, of the civilised organisation +which orders the temporal benefits of a nation. This is admirably +illustrated by all three of the great European wars in which England +has taken part during the past four centuries: the war against Spain, +the war against France, and the present war against Germany. The +fundamental motive of England's participation in all these wars has +been what was conceived to be the need of England's safety, it was +essentially political. A small island Power, dependent on its fleet, +and yet very closely adjoining the continental mainland, is vitally +concerned in the naval developments of possibly hostile Powers and in +the military movements which affect the opposite coast. Spain, France, +and Germany all successively threatened England by a formidable fleet, +and they all sought to gain possession of the coast opposite England. +To England, therefore, it seemed a measure of political self-defence to +strike a blow as each fresh menace arose. In every case Belgium has +been the battlefield on land. The neutrality of Belgium is felt to be +politically vital to England. Therefore, the invasion of Belgium by a +Great Power is to England an immediate signal of war. It is not only +England's wars that have been mainly political; the same is true of +Germany's wars ever since Prussia has had the leadership of Germany. +The political condition of a country without natural frontiers and +surrounded by powerful neighbours is a perpetual source of wars which, +in Germany's case, have been, by deliberate policy, offensively +defensive. + +When we realise the fundamental importance of the political causation +of warfare, the whole problem of the ultimate fate of war becomes at +once more hopeful. The orderly growth and stability of nations has in +the past seemed to demand war. But war is not the only method of +securing these ends, and to most people nowadays it scarcely seems the +best method. England and France have fought against each other for many +centuries. They are now convinced that they really have nothing to +fight about, and that the growth and stability of each country are +better ensured by friendship than by enmity. There cannot be a doubt of +it. But where is the limit to the extension of that same principle? +France and Germany, England and Germany, have just as much to lose by +enmity, just as much to gain by friendship, and alike on both sides. + +The history of Europe and the charts of Mr. Baltzly clearly show that +this consideration has really been influential. We find that there is a +progressive tendency for the nations of Europe to abandon warfare. +Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, all vigorous and warlike peoples, have +long ceased to fight. They have found their advantage in the +abandonment of war, but that abandonment has been greatly stimulated by +awe of their mightier neighbours. And therein, again, we have a clue to +the probable course of the future. + +For when we realise that the fundamental political need of +self-preservation and good order has been a main cause of warfare, and +when we further realise that the same ends may be more satisfactorily +attained without war under the influence of a sufficiently firm +external pressure working in harmony with the growth of internal +civilisation, we see that the problem of fighting among nations is the +same as that of fighting among individuals. Once upon a time good order +and social stability were maintained in a community by the method of +fighting among the individuals constituting the community. No doubt all +sorts of precious virtues were thus generated, and no doubt in the +general opinion no better method seemed possible or even conceivable. +But, as we know, with the development of a strong central Power, and +with the growth of enlightenment, it was realised that political +stability and good order were more satisfactorily maintained by a +tribunal, having a strong police force behind it, than by the method of +allowing the individuals concerned to fight out their quarrels between +themselves. + +Fighting between national groups of individuals stands on precisely the +same footing as fighting between individuals. The political stability +and good order of nations, it is beginning to be seen, can be more +satisfactorily maintained by a tribunal, having a strong police force +behind it, than by the method of allowing the individual nations +concerned to fight out quarrels between themselves. The stronger +nations have for a large part imposed this peace upon the smaller +nations of Europe to the great benefit of the latter. How can we impose +a similar peace upon the stronger nations, for their own benefit and +for the benefit of the whole world? To that task all our energies must +be directed. + +A long series of eminent thinkers and investigators, from Comte and +Buckle a century ago to Dr. Woods and Mr. Baltzly to-day, have assured +us that war is diminishing and even that the war-like spirit is +extinct. It is certainly not true that the war-like spirit is extinct, +even in the most civilised and peaceful peoples, and we need not desire +its extinction, for it is capable of transformation into shapes of the +finest use for humanity. But the vast conflagration of to-day must not +conceal from our eyes the great central fact that war is diminishing, +and will one day disappear as completely as the mediaeval scourge of +the Black Death. To reach this consummation all the best humanising and +civilising energies of mankind will be needed. + + +[1] It has been argued (as by Filippi Carli, _La Ricchezza e la Guerra_, +1916) that the Germans are especially unable to understand that the +prosperity of other countries is beneficial to them, whether or not +under German control, and that they differ from the English and French +in believing that economic conquests should involve political conquests. + + + + +VI + + +WAR AND THE BIRTH-RATE + +During recent years the faith had grown among progressive persons in +various countries, not excluding Germany, that civilisation was building +up almost impassable barriers against any great war. These barriers were +thought to be of various kinds, even apart from the merely sentimental +and humanitarian developments of pacific feeling. They were especially +of an economic kind, and that on a double basis, that of Capital and +that of Labour. It was believed, on the one hand, that the international +ramifications of Capital, and the complicated commercial and financial +webs which bind nations together, would cause so vivid a realisation of +the disasters of war as to erect a wholesomely steadying effect whenever +the danger of war loomed in sight. On the other hand, it was felt that +the international unity of interest among the workers, the growth of +Labour's favourite doctrine that there is no conflict between nations, +but only between classes, and even the actual international organisation +and bonds of the workers' associations, would interpose a serious menace +to the plans of war-makers. These influences were real and important. +But, as we know, when the decisive moment came, the diplomatists and the +militarists were found to be at the helm, to steer the ship of State in +each country concerned, and those on board had no voice in determining +the course. In England only can there be said to have been any show of +consulting Parliament, but at that moment the situation had already so +far developed that there was little left but to accept it. The Great War +of to-day has shown that such barriers against war as we at present +possess may crumble away in a moment at the shock of the war-making +machine. + +We are to-day forced to undertake a more searching inquiry into the +forces which, in civilisation, operate against war. I wish to call +attention here to one such influence of fundamental character, which has +not been unrecognised, but possesses an importance we are often apt to +overlook. + +"A French gentleman, well acquainted with the constitution of his +country," wrote Thicknesse in 1776,[1] "told me above eight years since +that France increased so rapidly in peace that they must necessarily +have a war every twelve or fourteen years to carry off the refuse of the +people." Recently a well-known German Socialist, Dr. Eduard David, +member of the Reichstag and a student of the population question, +setting forth the same great truth (in _Die Neue Generation_ for +November, 1914) states that it would have been impossible for Germany to +wage the present war if it had not been for the high German birth-rate +during the past half-century. And the impossibility of this war would, +for Dr. David, have been indeed tragic. + +A more distinguished social hygienist, Professor Max Gruber, of Munich, +who took a leading part in organising that marvellous Exposition of +Hygiene at Dresden which has been Germany's greatest service to real +civilisation in recent years, lately set forth an identical opinion. +The war, he declares, was inevitable and unavoidable, and Germany was +responsible for it, not, he hastens to add, in any moral sense, but in a +biological sense, because in forty-four years Germans have increased in +numbers from forty millions to eighty millions. The war was, therefore, +a "biological necessity." + +If we survey the belligerent nations in the war we may say that those +which took the initiative in drawing it on, or at all events were most +prepared to welcome it, were Russia, Austria, Germany, and Serbia. We +may also note that these include nearly all the nations in Europe with a +high birth-rate. We may further note that they are all nations +which--putting aside their cultural summits and taking them in the +mass--are among the most backward in Europe; the fall in the birth-rate +has not yet had time to permeate them. On the other hand, of the +belligerent peoples of to-day, all indications point to the French as +the people most intolerant, silently but deeply, of the war they are so +ably and heroically waging. Yet the France of the present, with the +lowest birth-rate and the highest civilisation, was a century ago the +France of a birth-rate higher than that of Germany to-day, the most +militarist and aggressive of nations, a perpetual menace to Europe. For +all those among us who have faith in civilisation and humanity, and are +unable to believe that war can ever be a civilising or humanising method +of progress, it must be a daily prayer that the fall of the birth-rate +may be hastened. + +It seems too elementary a point to insist on, yet the mists of ignorance +and prejudice are so dense, the cataract of false patriotism is so +thick, that for many even the most elementary truths cannot be +discerned. In most of the smaller nations, indeed, an intelligent view +prevails. Their smallness has, on the one hand, rendered them more open +to international culture, and, on the other hand, enabled them to +outgrow the illusions of militarism; there is a higher standard of +education among them; their birth-rates are low and they accept that +fact as a condition of progressive civilisation. That is the case in +Switzerland, as in Norway, and notably in Holland. It is not so in the +larger nations. Here we constantly find, even in those lands where the +bulk of the population are civilised and reasonably level-headed, a small +minority who publicly tear their hair and rage at the steady decline in +the birth-rate. It is, of course, only the declining birth-rate of their +own country that they have in view; for they are "patriots," which means +that the fall of the birth-rate in all other countries but their own is +a source of much gratification. "Woe to us," they exclaim in effect, "if +we follow the example of these wicked and degenerate peoples! Our nation +needs men. We have to populate the earth and to carry the blessings of +our civilised culture all over the world. In executing that high mission +we cannot have too much cannon-fodder in defending ourselves against the +jealousy and aggression of other nations. Let us promote parentage by +law; let us repress by law every influence which may encourage a falling +birth-rate; otherwise there is nothing left to us but speedy national +disaster, complete and irremediable." This is not caricature,[2] though +these apostles of "race-suicide" may easily arouse a smile by the verbal +ardour of their procreative energy. But we have to recognise that in +Germany for years past it has been difficult to take up a serious +periodical without finding some anxiously statistical article about the +falling birth-rate and some wild recommendations for its arrest, for it +is the militaristic German who of all Europeans is most worried by this +fall; indeed Germans often even refuse to recognise it. Thus to-day we +find Professor Gruber declaring that if the population of the German +Empire continues to grow at the rate of the first five years of the +present century, at the end of the century it will have reached +250,000,000. By such a vast increase in population, the Professor +complacently concludes, "Germany will be rendered invulnerable." We know +what that means. The presence of an "invulnerable" nation among nations +that are "vulnerable" means inevitable aggression and war, a perpetual +menace to civilisation and humanity. It is not along that line that hope +can be found for the world's future, or even Germany's future, and +Gruber conveniently neglects to estimate what, on his basis, the +population of Russia will be at the end of the century. But Gruber's +estimate is altogether fallacious. German births have fallen, roughly +speaking, about one per thousand of the population, every year since the +beginning of the century, and it would be equally reasonable to estimate +that if they continue to fall at the present rate (which we cannot, of +course, anticipate) births will altogether have ceased in Germany long +before the end of the century. The German birth-rate reached its climax +forty years ago (1871-1880) with 40.7 per 1,000; in 1906 it was 34 per +1,000; in 1909, 31 per 1,000; in 1912, 28 per 1,000; in an almost +measurable period of time, in all probability long before the end of the +century, it will have reached the same low level as that of France, when +there will be little difference between the "invulnerability" of France +and of Germany, a consummation which, for the world's sake, is far more +devoutly to be wished than that anticipated by Gruber. + +We have to remember, moreover, that this tendency is by no means, as we +are sometimes tempted to suppose, a sign of degeneration or of decay; +but, on the contrary, a sign of progress. When we survey broadly that +course of zoological evolution of which we are pleased to regard Man as +the final outcome, we note that on the whole the mighty stream has +become the less productive as it has advanced. We note the same of the +various lines taken separately. We note, also, that intelligence and all +the qualities we admire have usually been most marked in the less +prolific species. Progress, roughly speaking, has proved incompatible +with high fertility. And the reason is not far to seek. If the creature +produced is more evolved, it is more complex and more highly organised, +and that means the need for much time and much energy. To attain this, +the offspring must be few and widely spaced; it cannot be attained at +all under conditions that are highly destructive. The humble herring, +which evokes the despairing envy of our human apostles of fertility, is +largely composed of spawn, and produces a vast number of offspring, of +which few reach maturity. The higher mammals spend their lives in the +production of a small number of offspring, most of whom survive. Thus, +even before Man began, we see a fundamental principle established, and +the relationship between the birth-rate and the death-rate in working +order. All progressive evolution may be regarded as a mechanism for +concentrating an ever greater amount of energy in the production of ever +fewer and ever more splendid individuals. Nature is perpetually striving +to replace the crude ideal of quantity by the higher ideal of quality. + +In human history these same tendencies have continually been +illustrated. The Greeks, our pioneers in all insight and knowledge, +grappled (as Professor Myres has lately set forth[3]), and realised that +they were grappling, with this same problem. Even in the Minoan Age +their population would appear to have been full to overflowing; "there +were too many people in the world," and to the old Greeks the Trojan War +was the earliest divinely-appointed remedy. Wars, famines, pestilences, +colonisation, wide-spread infanticide were the methods, voluntary and +involuntary, by which this excessive birth-rate was combated, while the +greatest of Greek philosophers, a Plato or an Aristotle, clearly saw +that a regulated and limited birth-rate, a eugenically improved race, is +the road to higher civilisation. We may even see in Greek antiquity how +a sudden rise in industrialism leads to a crowded and fertile urban +population, the extension of slavery, and all the resultant evils. It +was a foretaste of what was seen during the eighteenth and nineteenth +centuries, when a sudden industrial expansion led to an enormously high +birth-rate, a servile urban proletariat (that very word indicates, as +Roscher has pointed out, that a large family means inferiority), and a +consequent outburst of misery and degradation from which we are only now +emerging. + +As we are now able to realise, the sudden expansion of the population +accompanying the industrial revolution was an abnormal and, from the +point of view of society, a morbid phenomenon. All the evidence goes to +show that previously the population tended to increase very slowly, and +social evolution was thus able to take place equably and harmoniously. +It is only gradually that the birth-rate has begun to right itself +again. The movement, as is well known, began in France, always the most +advanced outpost of European civilisation. It has now spread to England, +to Germany, to all Europe, to the whole world indeed, in so far as the +world is in touch with European civilisation, and has long been well +marked in the United States. + +When we realise this we are also enabled to realise how futile, how +misplaced, and how mischievous it is to raise the cry of "Race-suicide." +It is futile because no outcry can affect a world-wide movement of +civilisation. It is misplaced because the rise and fall of the +population is not a matter of the birth-rate alone, but of the +birth-rate combined with the death-rate, and while we cannot expect to +touch the former we can influence the latter. It is mischievous because +by fighting against a tendency which is not only inevitable but +altogether beneficial, we blind ourselves to the advance of civilisation +and risk the misdirection of all our energies. How far this blindness +may be carried we see in the false patriotism of those who in the +decline of the birth-rate fancy they see the ruin of their own +particular country, oblivious of the fact that we are concerned with a +phenomenon of world-wide extension. + +The whole tendency of civilisation is to reduce the birth-rate, as +Leroy-Beaulieu concludes in his comprehensive work on the population +question. We may go further, and assert with the distinguished German +economist, Roscher, that the chief cause of the superiority of a highly +civilised State over lower stages of civilisation is precisely a greater +degree of forethought and self-control in marriage and child-bearing.[4] +Instead of talking about race-suicide, we should do well to observe at +what an appalling rate, even yet, the population is increasing, and we +should note that it is everywhere the poorest and most primitive +countries, and in every country (as in Germany) the poorest regions, +which show the highest birth-rate. On every hand, however, are hopeful +signs. Thus, in Russia, where a very high birth-rate is to some extent +compensated by a very high death-rate--the highest infantile death-rate +in Europe--the birth-rate is falling, and we may anticipate that it will +fall very rapidly with the extension of education and social +enlightenment among the masses. Driven out of Europe, the alarmist falls +back on the "Yellow Peril." But in Japan we find amid confused +variations of the birth-rate and the death-rate nothing to indicate any +alarming expansion of the population, while as to China we are in the +dark. We only know that in China there is a high birth-rate largely +compensated by a very high death-rate. We also know, however, that as +Lowes Dickinson has lately reminded us, "the fundamental attitude of the +Chinese towards life is that of the most modern West,"[5] and we shall +probably find that with the growth of enlightenment the Chinese will +deal with their high birth-rate in a far more radical and thorough +manner than we have ever ventured on. + +One last resort the would-be patriotic alarmist seeks when all others +fail. He is good enough to admit that a general decline in the +birth-rate might be beneficial. But, he points out, it affects social +classes unequally. It is initiated, not by the degenerate and the unfit, +whom we could well dispense with, but by the very best classes in the +community, the well-to-do and the educated. One is inclined to remark, +at once, that a social change initiated by its best social classes is +scarcely likely to be pernicious. Where, it may be asked, if not among +the most educated classes, is any process of amelioration to be +initiated? We cannot make the world topsy-turvy to suit the convenience +of topsy-turvy minds. All social movements tend to begin at the top and +to permeate downwards. This has been the case with the decline in the +birth-rate, but it is already well marked among the working classes, and +has only failed to touch the lowest social stratum of all, too +weak-minded and too reckless to be amenable to ordinary social motives. +The rational method of meeting this situation is not a propaganda in +favour of procreation--a truly imbecile propaganda, since it is only +carried out and only likely to be carried out, by the very class which +we wish to sterilise--but by a wise policy of regulative eugenics. We +have to create the motives, and it is not an impossible task, which will +act even upon the weak-minded and reckless lowest social stratum. + +These facts have a significance which many of us have failed to realise. +The Great War has brought home the gravity of that significance. It has +been the perpetual refrain of the Pan-Germanists for many years that the +vast and sudden expansion of the German peoples makes necessary a new +movement of the German nations into the world and a new enlargement of +frontiers, in other words, War. It is not only among the Germans, though +among them it may have been more conscious, that a similar cause has led +to the like result. It has ever been so. The expanding nation has always +been a menace to the world and to itself. The arrest of the falling +birth-rate, it cannot be too often repeated, would be the arrest of all +civilisation and of all humanity. + + +[1] Ralph Thicknesse, _A Year's Journey Through France and Spain_, 1777, +p. 298. + +[2] The last twelve words quoted are by Miss Ethel Elderton in an +otherwise sober memoir (_Report on the English Birth-rate_, 1914, p. +237) which shows that the birth control movement has begun, just where +we should expect it to begin, among the better instructed classes. + +[3] J.L. Myres, "The Causes of Rise and Fall in the Population of the +Ancient World," Eugenics Review, April, 1915. + +[4] Roscher, _Grundlagen der Nationalkonomie_, 23rd ed., 1900, Bk. VI. + +[5] G. Lowes Dickinson, _The Civilisation of India, China, and Japan_, +1914, p. 47. + + + + +VII + + +WAR AND DEMOCRACY + +When we read our newspapers to-day we are constantly met by ingenious +plans for bringing to an end the activities of Germany after the War. +German military activity, it is universally agreed, must be brought to an +end; Germany will have no further need of a military system save on the +most modest scale. Germany must also be deprived of any colonial empire +and shut out from eastward expansion. That being the case, Germany no +longer needs a fleet, and must be brought back to Bismarck's naval +attitude. Moreover, the industrial activities of Germany must also be +destroyed; the Allied opponents of Germany will henceforth manufacture +for themselves or for one another the goods they have hitherto been so +foolish as to obtain from Germany, and though this may mean cutting +themselves aloof from the country which has hitherto been their own best +customer, that is a sacrifice to be cheerfully borne for the sake of +principle. It is further argued that the world has no need of German +activities in science; they are, it appears, much less valuable than we +had been led to believe, and in any case no self-respecting people would +encourage a science tainted by Kultur. The puzzled reader of these +arguments, overlooking the fallacies they contain, may perhaps sometimes +be tempted to ask: But what are Germans to be allowed to do? The implied +answer is clear: Nothing. + +The writers who urge these arguments with such conviction may be +supposed to have an elementary knowledge of the history of the +Germans. We are concerned, that is to say, with a people which has +displayed an irrepressible energy, in one field or another, ever since +the time, more than fifteen hundred years ago, when it excited the +horror of the civilised world by sacking Rome. The same energy was +manifested, a thousand years later, when the Germans again knocked at +the door of Rome and drew away half the world from its allegiance to +the Church. Still more recently, in yet other fields of industry and +commerce and colonisation, these same Germans have displayed their +energy by entering into more or less successful competition with that +"Modern Rome," as some have termed it, which has its seat in the +British Islands. Here is a people,--still youthful as we count age in +our European world, for even the Celts had preceded them by nearly a +thousand years,--which has successfully displayed its explosive or +methodical force in the most diverse fields, military, religious, +economic. From henceforth it is invited, by an allied army of +terrified journalists, to expend these stupendous and irresistible +energies on just Nothing. + +We know, of course, what would happen were it possible to subject Germany +to any such process of attempted repression. Whenever an individual or a +mass of individuals is bidden to do nothing, it merely comes about that +the activities aimed at, far from being suppressed, are turned into +precisely the direction most unpleasant for the would-be suppressors. +When in 1870 the Germans tried to "crush" France, the result was the +reverse of that intended. The effects of "crushing" had been even more +startingly reverse, on the other side--and this may furnish us with a +precedent--when Napoleon trampled down Germany. Two centuries ago, after +the brilliant victories of Marlborough, it was proposed to crush +permanently the Militarism of France. But, as Swift wrote to Archbishop +King just before the Peace of Utrecht, "limiting France to a certain +number of ships and troops was, I doubt, not to be compassed." In spite +of the exhaustion of France it was not even attempted. In the present +case, when the war is over it is probable that Germany will still hold +sufficiently great pledges to bargain with in safeguarding her own vital +interests. If it were not so, if it were possible to inflict permanent +injury on Germany, that would be the greatest misfortune that could +happen to us; for it is clear that we should then be faced by a yet more +united and yet more aggressively military Germany than the world has +seen.[1] In Germany itself there is no doubt on this point. Germans are +well aware that German activities cannot be brought to a sudden full +stop, and they are also aware that even among Germany's present enemies +there are those who after the War will be glad to become her friends. Any +doubt or anxiety in the minds of thoughtful Germans is not concerning the +continued existence of German energy in the world, but concerning the +directions in which that energy will be exerted. + +What is Germany's greatest danger? That is the subject of a pamphlet by +Rudolf Goldscheid, of Vienna, now published in Switzerland, with a +preface by Professor Forel, as originally written a year earlier, +because it is believed that in the interval its conclusions have been +confirmed by events.[2] Goldscheid is an independent and penetrating +thinker in the economic field, and the author of a book on the +principles of Social Biology (_Höherentwicklung und Menschenökonomie_) +which has been described by an English critic as the ablest defence of +Socialism yet written. By the nature of his studies he is concerned +with problems of human rather than merely national development, but he +ardently desires the welfare of Germany, and is anxious that that +welfare shall be on the soundest and most democratic basis. After the +War, he says, there must necessarily be a tendency to approximate +between the Central Powers and one or other of their present foes. +It is clear (though this point is not discussed) that Italy, whose +presence in the Triple Alliance was artificial, will not return, while +French resentment at German devastation is far too great to be appeased +for a long period to come. There remain, therefore, Russia and England. +After the War German interests and German sympathies must gravitate +either eastwards towards Russia or westwards towards England. Which is +it to be? + +There are many reasons why Germany should gravitate towards Russia. +Such a movement was indeed already in active progress before the war, +notwithstanding Russia's alliance with France, and may easily become +yet more active after the war, when it is likely that the bonds between +Russia and France may grow weaker, and when it is possible that the +Germans, with their immense industry, economy and recuperative power, +may prove to be in the best position--unless America cuts in--to +finance Russia. Industrially Russia offers a vast field for German +enterprise which no other country can well snatch away, and German is +already to some extent the commercial language of Russia.[3] + +Politically, moreover, a close understanding between the two supreme +autocratic and anti-democratic powers of Europe is of the greatest mutual +benefit, for any democratic movement within the borders of either Power +is highly inconvenient to the other, so that it is to the advantage of +both to stimulate each other in the task of repression.[4] It is this +aspect of the approximation which arouses Goldscheid's alarm. It is +mainly on this ground that he advocates a counter-balancing approximation +between Germany and England which would lay Germany open to the West and +serve to develop her latent democratic tendencies. He admits that at some +points the interests of Germany and England run counter to each other, +but at yet a greater number of points their interests are common. It is +only by the development of these common interests, and the consequent +permeation of Germany by democratic English ideas, that Goldscheid sees +any salvation from Czarism, for that is "Germany's greatest danger," and +at the same time the greatest danger to Europe. + +That is Goldscheid's point of view. Our English point of view is +necessarily somewhat different. With our politically democratic +tendencies we see very little difference between Russia and Prussia. As +they are at present constituted, we have no wish to be in very close +political intimacy with either. It so happens, indeed, that, for the +moment, the chances of fellowship in War have brought us into a condition +of almost sentimental sympathy with the Russian people, such as has never +existed among us before. But this sympathy, amply justified, as all who +know Russia agree, is exclusively with the Russian people. It leaves the +Russian Government, the Russian bureaucracy, the Russian political +system, all that Goldscheid concentrates into the term "Czarism," +severely alone. Our hostility to these may be for the moment latent, but +it is as profound as it ever was. Czarism is even more remote from our +sympathies than Kaiserism. All that has happened is that we cherish the +pious hope that Russia is becoming converted to our own ideas on these +points, although there is not the smallest item of solid fact to support +that hope. Otherwise, Russian oppression of the Finns is just as odious +to us as Prussian oppression of the Poles, and Russian persecution of +Liberals as alien as German persecution of War-prisoners.[5] Our future +policy, in the opinion of many, should, however, be to isolate Germany as +completely as possible from English influence and to cultivate closer +relations with Russia.[6] Such a policy, Goldscheid argues, will defeat +its own ends. The more stringently England holds aloof from Germany the +more anxiously will Germany cultivate good relationships with Russia. +Such relationships, as we know, are easy to cultivate, because they are +much in the interests of both countries which possess so large an extent +of common frontier and so admirably supply each other's needs; it may be +added also that the Russian commercial world is showing no keen desire to +enter into close relations with England. Moreover, after the War, we may +expect a weakening of French influence in Russia, for that influence was +largely based on French gold, and a France no longer able or willing to +finance Russia would no longer possess a strong hold over Russia. A +Russo-German understanding, difficult to prevent in any case, is inimical +to the interests of England, but it would be rendered inevitable by an +attempt on the part of England to isolate Germany.[7] + +Such an attempt could not be carried out completely and would break down +on its weakest side, which is the East. So that the way lies open to a +League of the Three Kaisers, the Dreikaiserbündnis which would form a +great island fortress of militarism and reaction amid the surrounding sea +of democracy, able to repress those immense possibilities of progress +within its own walls which would have been liberated by contact with the +vital currents outside. + +So long as the War lasts it is the interest of England to strike Germany +and to strike hard. That is here assumed as certain. But when the War +is over, it will no longer be in the interests of England, it will +indeed be directly contrary to those interests, to continue cultivating +hostility, provided, that is, that no rankling wounds are left. The +fatal mistake of Bismarck in annexing Alsace-Lorraine introduced a +poison into the European organism which is working still. But the +Russo-Japanese War produced a more amicable understanding than had +existed before, and the Boer War led to still more intimate +relationships between the belligerents. It may be thought that the +impression in England of German "frightfulness," and in Germany of +English "treachery," may prove ineffaceable. But the Germans have been +considered atrocious and the English perfidious for a long time past, +yet that has not prevented English and Germans fighting side by side at +Waterloo and on many another field; nor has it stood in the way of +German worship of the quintessential Englishman, Shakespeare, nor +English homage to the quintessential German Goethe. + +The question of the future relations of England and Germany may, +indeed, be said to lie on a higher plane than that of interest and +policy, vitally urgent as their claims may be. It is the merit of +Goldscheid's little book that--with faith in a future United States of +Europe in which every country would develop its own peculiar aptitudes +freely and harmoniously--he is able to look at the War from that +European standpoint which is so rarely attained in England. He sees +that more is at stake than a mere question of national rivalries; that +democracy is at stake, and the whole future direction of civilisation. +He looks beyond the enmities of the moment, and he knows that, unless +we look beyond them, we not only condemn Europe to the prospect of +unending war, we do more: we ensure the triumph of Reaction and the +destruction of Democracy. "War and Reaction are brethren"; on that +point Goldscheid is very sure, and he foretells and laments the +temporary "demolition of Democracy" in England. We have only too much +reason to believe his prophetic words, for since he wrote we have had +a Coalition Government which is predominantly democratic, Liberal and +Labour, and yet has been fatally impelled towards reaction and +autocracy.[8] That the impulse is really fatal and inevitable we cannot +doubt, for we see exactly the same movement in France, and even in +Russia, where it might seem that reaction has so few triumphs to achieve. +"The blood of the battlefield is the stream that drives the mills of +Reaction." The elementary and fundamental fact that in Democracy the +officers obey the men, while in Militarism the men obey the officers, +is the key to the whole situation. We see at once why all reactionaries +are on the side of war and a military basis of society. The fate of +democracy in Europe hangs on this question of adequate pacification. +"Democratisation and Pacification march side by side."[9] Unless we +realise that fact we are not competent to decide on a sound European +policy. For there is an intimate connection between a country's external +policy and its internal policy. An internal reactionary policy means an +external aggressive policy. To shut out English influence from Germany, +to fortify German Junkerism and Militarism, to drive Germany into the +arms of a yet more reactionary Russia, is to create a perpetual menace, +alike to peace and to democracy, which involves the arrest of +civilisation. However magnanimous the task may seem to some, it is not +only the interest of England, but England's duty to Europe, to take the +initiative in preparing the ground for a clear and good understanding +with Germany. It is, moreover, only through England that France can be +brought into harmonious relations with Germany, and when Russia then +approaches her neighbour it will be in sympathy with her more progressive +Western Allies and not in reactionary response to a reactionary Germany. +It is along such lines as these that amid the confusion of the present we +may catch a glimpse of the Europe of the future. + +We have to remember that, as Goldscheid reminds us, this War is making +all of us into citizens of the world. A world-wide outlook can no longer +be reserved merely for philosophers. Some of the old bridges, it is true, +have been washed away, but on every side walls are falling, and the petty +fears and rivalries of European nations begin to look worse than trivial +in the face of greater dangers. As our eyes begin to be opened we see +Europe lying between the nether millstone of Asia and the upper millstone +of America. It is not by constituting themselves a Mutual Suicide Club +that the nations of Europe will avoid that peril.[10] A wise and +far-seeing world-policy can alone avail, and the enemies of to-day will +see themselves compelled, even by the mere logic of events, to join hands +to-morrow lest a worse fate befall them. In so doing they may not only +escape possible destruction, but they will be taking the greatest step +ever taken in the organisation of the world. Which nation is to assume +the initiative in such combined organisation? That remains the fateful +question for Democracy. + + +[1] Treitschke in his _History_ (Bk. I., Ch. III.) has well described +"the elemental hatred which foreign injury pours into the veins of our +good-natured people, for ever pursued by the question: 'Art thou yet on +thy feet, Germania? Is the day of thy revenge at hand!'" + +[2] Rudolf Goldscheid, _Deutschlands Grösste Gefahr_, Institut Orell +Füssli, Zürich, 1916. + +[3] One may remark that up to the outbreak of war fifty per cent. of +the import trade of Russia has been with Germany. To suppose that that +immense volume of trade can suddenly be transferred after the war from +a neighbouring country which has intelligently and systematically +adapted itself to its requirements to a remote country which has never +shown the slightest aptitude to meet those requirements argues a +simplicity of mind which in itself may be charming, but when translated +into practical affairs it is stupendous folly. + +[4] Sir Valentine Chirol remarks of Bismarck, in an Oxford Pamphlet on +"Germany and the Fear of Russia":--"Friendship with Russia was one of +the cardinal principles of his foreign policy, and one thing he always +relied upon to make Russia amenable to German influence was that she +should never succeed in healing the Polish sore." + +[5] In making these observations on the Russians and the Prussians, I +do not, of course, overlook the fact that all nations, like +individuals, + + "Compound for sins they are inclined to + By damning those they have no mind to," + +and the English treatment of the conscientious objector in the Great +War has been just as odious as Russian treatment of the Finns or +Prussian treatment of war prisoners, and even more foolish, since it +strikes at our own most cherished principles. + +[6] There is, indeed, another school which would like to shut off all +foreign countries by a tariff wall and make the British Empire mutually +self-supporting, on the economic basis adopted by those three old ladies +in decayed circumstances who subsisted by taking tea in one another's +houses. + +[7] Even if partially successful, as has lately been pointed out, the +greater the financial depression of Germany the greater would be the +advantage to Russia of doing business with Germany. + +[8] It may be proper to point out that I by no means wish to imply +that democracy is necessarily the ultimate and most desirable form of +political society, but merely that it is a necessary stage for those +peoples that have not yet reached it. Even Treitschke in his famous +_History_, while idealising the Prussian State, always assumes that +movement towards democracy is beneficial progress. For the larger +question of the comparative merits of the different forms of political +society, see an admirable little book by C. Delisle Burns, _Political +Ideals_ (1915). And see also the searching study, _Political Parties_ +(English translation, 1915), by Robert Michels, who, while accepting +democracy as the highest political form, argues that practically it +always works out as oligarchy. + +[9] Professor D.S. Jordan has quoted the letter of a German officer to +a friend in Roumania (published in the Bucharest _Adverul_, 21 Aug., +1915): "How difficult it was to convince our Emperor that the moment had +arrived for letting loose the war, otherwise Pacifism, Internationalism, +Anti-Militarism, and so many other noxious weeds would have infected our +stupid people. That would have been the end of our dazzling nobility. We +have everything to gain by the war, and all the chimeras and stupidities +of democracy will be chased from the world for an infinite time." + +[10] "Let us be patient," a Japanese is reported to have said lately, +"until Europe has completed her _hara-kiri_." + + + + +VIII + + +FEMINISM AND MASCULINISM + +During more than a century we have seen the slow but steady growth of the +great Women's movement, of the movement of Feminism in the wide sense of +that term. The conquests of this movement have sometimes been described +by rhetorical feminists as triumphs over "Man." That is scarcely true. +The champions of Feminism have nearly as often been men as women, and the +forces of Anti-feminism have been the vague massive inert forces of an +order which had indeed made the world in an undue degree "a man's world," +but unconsciously and involuntarily, and by an instrumentation which was +feminine as well as masculine. The advocates of Woman's Rights have +seldom been met by the charge that they were unjustly encroaching on the +Rights of Man. Feminism has never encountered an aggressive and +self-conscious Masculinism. + +Now, however, when the claims of Feminism are becoming practically +recognised in our social life, and some of its largest demands are being +granted, it is interesting to observe the appearance of a new attitude. +We are, for the first time, beginning to hear of "Masculinism." Just as +Feminism represents the affirmation of neglected rights and functions of +Womanhood, so Masculinism represents the assertion of the rights and +functions of Manhood which, it is supposed, the rising tide of Feminism +threatens to submerge. + +Those who proclaim the necessity of an assertion of the rights of +Masculinism usually hold up America as an awful example of the triumph of +Feminism. Thus Fritz Voechting in a book published in Germany, "On the +American Cult of Woman," is appalled by what he sees in the United +States. To him it is "the American danger," and he thinks it may be +traced partly to the influence of the matriarchal system of the American +Indians on the early European invaders and partly to the effects of +co-education in undermining the fundamental conceptions of feminine +subordination. This state of things is so terrible to the German mind, +which has a constitutional bias to masculinism, that to Herr Voechting +America seems a land where all the privileges have been captured by Woman +and nothing is left to Man, but, like a good little boy, to be seen and +not heard. That is a slight exaggeration, as other Germans, even since +the War, have pointed out in German periodicals. Even if it were true, +however, as a German Feminist has remarked, it would still be a pleasant +variation from a rule we are so familiar with in the Old World. That it +should be put forward at all indicates the growing perception of a +cleavage between the claims of Masculinism and the claims of Feminism. + +It is not altogether easy at present to ascertain whom we are to +recognise as the champions and representatives of Masculinism. Various +notable figures are mentioned, from Nietzsche to Mr. Theodore Dreiser. +Nietzsche, however, can scarcely be regarded as in all respects an +opponent to Feminism, and some prominent feminists even count themselves +his disciples. One may also feel doubtful whether Mr. Dreiser feels +himself called upon to put on the armour of masculinism and play the part +assigned to him. Another distinguished novelist, Mr. Robert Herrick, +whose name has been mentioned in this connection, is probably too +well-balanced, too comprehensive in his outlook, to be fairly claimed as +a banner-bearer of masculinism. The name of Strindberg is most often +mentioned, but surely very unfortunately. However great Strindberg's +genius, and however acute and virulent his analysis of woman, Strindberg +with his pronounced morbidity and sensitive fragility seems a very +unhappy figure to put forward as the ideal representative of the virtues +of masculinity. Much the same may be said of Weininger. The name of Mr. +Belfort Bax, once associated with William Morris in the Socialistic +campaign, may fairly be mentioned as a pioneer in this field. For many +years he has protested vigorously against the encroachment of Feminism, +and pointed out the various privileges, social and legal, which are +possessed by women to the disadvantage of men. But although he is a +distinguished student of philosophy, it can scarcely be said that Mr. Bax +has clearly presented in any wide philosophic manner the demands of the +masculinistic spirit or definitely grasped the contest between Feminism +and Masculinism. The name of William Morris would be an inspiring +battle-cry if it could be fairly raised on the side of Masculinism. +Unfortunately, however, the masculine figures scarcely seem eager to put +on the armour of Masculinism. They are far too sensitive to the charm of +Womanhood ever to rank themselves actively in any anti-feministic party. +At the most they remain neutral. + +Thus it is that the new movement cannot yet be regarded as organised. +There is, however, a temptation for those among us who have all their +lives been working in the cause of Feminism to belittle the future +possibilities of Masculinism. There can be no doubt that all civilisation +is now, and always has been to some extent, on the side of Feminism. +Wherever a great development of civilisation has occurred--whether in +ancient Egypt, or in later Rome, or in eighteenth-century France--there +the influence of woman has prevailed, while laws and social institutions +have taken on a character favourable to women. The whole current of +civilisation tends to deprive men of the privileges which belong to brute +force, and to confer on them the qualities which in ruder societies are +especially associated with women. Whenever, as in the present great +European War, brute force becomes temporarily predominant, the causes +associated with Feminism are roughly pushed into the background. It is, +indeed, the War which gives a new actuality to this question. War has +always been regarded as the special and peculiar province of Man, indeed, +the sacred refuge of the masculine spirit and the ultimate appeal in +human affairs. That is not the view of Feminism, nor yet the standpoint +of Eugenics. Yet, to-day, in spite of all our homage to Feminism and +Eugenics, we witness the greatest war of the world. It is an instructive +spectacle from our present point of view. We realise, for one thing, how +futile it is for Feminism to adopt the garb of masculine militancy. The +militancy of the Suffragettes, which looked so brave and imposing in +times of peace, disappeared like child's play at the first touch of real +militancy. That was patriotic of the Suffragettes, no doubt; but it was +also a necessary measure of self-preservation, for non-combatants who +carry bombs about in time of war, when armed sentries are swarming +everywhere, are not likely to have much time for hunger-striking. + +We witness another feature of war which has a bearing on Eugenics. It is +sometimes said that war is necessary for the preservation of heroic and +virile qualities which, without war and the cultivation of military +ideals, would be lost to the race, and that so the race would degenerate. +To-day France, which is the chief seat of anti-Militarism, and Belgium, a +land of peaceful industrialism which had no military service until a few +years ago, and England, which has always been content to possess a +contemptible little army, and Russia whose popular ideals are humane and +mystical, have sent to the front swarms of professional men and clerks +and artisans and peasants who had never occupied themselves with war at +all. Yet these men have proved as heroic and even as skilful in the game +of war as the men of Germany, where war is idolised and where the +practice of military virtues and military exercises is regarded as the +highest function alike of the individual and of the State. We see that we +need not any longer worry over the possible extinction of these heroic +qualities. What we may more profitably worry over is the question whether +there is not some higher and nobler way of employing them than in the +destruction of the finest fruits of civilisation and the slaughter of +those very stocks on which Eugenics mainly relies for its materials. + +We can also realise to-day that war is not only an opportunity for the +exercise of virtues. It is also an opportunity for the exercise of vices. +"War is Hell" said Sherman, and that is the opinion of most great +reflective soldiers. We see that there is nothing too brutal, too cruel, +too cowardly, too mean, and too filthy for some, at all events, of modern +civilised troops to commit, whether by, or against, the orders of their +officers. In France, a few months before the present War, I found myself +in a railway train at Laon with two or three soldiers; a young woman came +to the carriage door, but, seeing the soldiers, she passed on; they were +decent, well-behaved men, and one of them remarked, with a smile, on the +suspicion which the military costume arouses in women. Perhaps, however, +it is a suspicion that is firmly based on ancient traditions. There is +the fatally seamy side of be-praised Militarism, and there Feminism has a +triumphant argument. + +In this connection I may allude in passing to a little conflict between +Masculinism and Feminism which has lately taken place in Germany. +Germany, as we know, is the country where the claims of Masculinism are +most loudly asserted, and those of Feminism treated with most contempt. +It is the country where the ideals of men and of women are in sharpest +conflict. There has been a great outcry among men in Germany against the +"treachery" and "unworthiness" of German women in bestowing chocolates +and flowers on the prisoners, as well as doing other little services for +them. The attitude towards prisoners approved by the men--one trusts it +is not to be regarded as a characteristic outcome of Masculinism--is that +of petty insults, of spiteful cruelty, and mean deprivations. Dr. Helene +Stöcker, a prominent leader of the more advanced band of German +Feminists, has lately published a protest against this treatment of +enemies who are helpless, unarmed, and often wounded--based, not on +sentiment, but on the highest and most rational grounds--which is an +honour to German women and to their Feminist leaders.[1] + +Taken altogether, it seems probable that when this most stupendous of +wars is ended, it will be felt--not only from the side of Feminism, but +even of Masculinism,--that War is merely an eruption of ancient barbarism +which in its present virulent forms would not have been tolerated even by +savages. Such methods are hopelessly out of date in days when wars may be +engineered by a small clique of ambitious politicians and self-interested +capitalists, while whole nations fight, with or without enthusiasm, +merely because they have no choice in the matter. All the powers of +civilisation are working towards the elimination of wars. In the future, +it seems evident, militarism will not furnish the basis for the +masculinistic spirit. It must seek other supports. + +That is what will probably happen. We must expect that the increasing +power of women and of the feminine influence will be met by a more +emphatic and a more rational assertion of the qualities of men and the +masculine spirit in life. It was unjust and unreasonable to subject women +to conditions that were primarily made by men and for men. It would be +equally unjust and unreasonable to expect men to confine their activities +within limits which are more and more becoming adjusted to feminine +preferences and feminine capacities. We are now learning to realise that +the _tertiary_ physical, and psychic sexual differences--those +distinctions which are only found on the average, but on the average are +constant[2]--are very profound and very subtle. A man is a man +throughout, a woman is a woman throughout, and that difference is +manifest in all the energies of body and soul. The modern doctrine of the +internal secretions--the hormones which are the intimate stimulants to +physical and psychic activity in the organism--makes clear to us one of +the deepest and most all-pervading sources of this difference between men +and women. The hormonic balance in men and women is unlike; the +generative ferments of the ductless glands work to different ends.[3] +Masculine qualities and feminine qualities are fundamentally and +eternally distinct and incommensurate. Energy, struggle, daring, +initiative, originality, and independence, even though sometimes combined +with rashness, extravagance, and defect, seem likely to remain qualities +in which men--_on the average_, it must be remembered--will be more +conspicuous than women. Their manifestation will resist the efforts put +forth to constrain them by the feminising influences of life. + +Such considerations have a real bearing on the problem of Eugenics. As +I view that problem, it is first of all concerned, in part with the +acquisition of scientific knowledge concerning heredity and the +influences which affect heredity; in part with the establishment of sound +ideals of the types which the society of the future demands for its great +tasks; and in part--perhaps even in chief part--with the acquisition of a +sense of personal responsibility. Eugenic legislation is a secondary +matter which cannot come at the beginning. It cannot come before our +knowledge is firmly based and widely diffused; it cannot come until we +are clear as to the ideals which we wish to see embodied in human +character and human action; it cannot come until the sense of personal +responsibility towards the race is so widely spread throughout the +community that its absence is universally felt to be either a crime or a +disease. + +I fear that point of view is not always accepted in England and still +less in America. It is widely held throughout the world that America is +not only the land of Feminism, but the land in which laws are passed on +every possible subject, and with considerable indifference as to whether +they are carried out, or even whether they could be carried out. This +tendency is certainly well illustrated by eugenic legislation in the +United States. In the single point of sterilisation for eugenic ends--and +I select a point which is admirable in itself and for which legislation +is perhaps desirable--at least twelve States have passed laws. Yet most +of these laws are a dead letter; every one of them is by the best experts +considered at some point unwise; and the remarkable fact remains that the +total number of eugenical sterilising operations performed in the States +_without any law at all_ is greater than the total of those performed +under the laws. So that the laws really seem to have themselves a +sterilising effect on a most useful eugenic operation.[4] + +I refrain from mentioning the muddles and undesigned evils produced by +other legislation of a much less admirable nature.[5] But I may perhaps +be allowed to mention that it has seemed to some observers that there is +a connection between the Feminism of America and the American mania for +hasty laws which will not, and often cannot, be carried out in practice. +Certainly there is no reason to suppose that women are firmly +antagonistic to such legislation. Nice, pretty, virtuous little laws, +complete in every detail, seem to appeal irresistibly to the feminine +mind. (And, of course, many men have feminine minds.) It is true that +such laws are only meant for show. But then women are so accustomed to +things that are only meant for show, and are well aware that if one +attempted to use such things they would fall to pieces at once. + +However that may be, we shall probably find at last that we must fall +back on the ancient truth that no external regulation, however pretty and +plausible, will suffice to lead men and women to the goal of any higher +social end. We must realise that there can be no sure guide to fine +living save that which comes from within, and is supported by the firmly +cultivated sense of personal responsibility. Our prayer must still be the +simple, old-fashioned prayer of the Psalmist: "Create in me a clean +heart, O God"--and to Hell with your laws! + +In other words, our aim must be to evolve a social order in which the +sense of freedom and the sense of responsibility are both carried to the +highest point, and that is impossible by the aid of measures which are +only beneficial for the children of Perdition. That there are such +beings, incapable alike either of freedom or of responsibility, we have +to recognise. It is our business to care for them--until with the help of +eugenics we can in some degree extinguish their stocks--in such refuges +and reformatories as may be found desirable. But it is not our business +to treat the whole world as a refuge and a reformatory. That is fatal to +human freedom and fatal to human responsibility. By all means provide the +halt and the lame with crutches. But do not insist that the sound and the +robust shall never stir abroad without crutches. The result will only be +that we shall all become more or less halt and lame. + +It is only by such a method as this--by segregating the hopelessly feeble +members of society and by allowing the others to take all the risks of +their freedom and responsibility even though we strongly disapprove--that +we can look for the coming of a better world. It is only by such a method +as this that we can afford to give scope to all those varying and +ever-contradictory activities which go to the making of any world worth +living in. For Conflict, even the conflict of ideals, is a part of all +vital progress, and each party to the conflict needs free play if that +conflict is to yield us any profit. That is why Masculinists have no +right to impede the play of Feminism, and Feminists no right to impede +the play of Masculinism. The fundamental qualities of Man, equally with +the fundamental qualities of Woman, are for ever needed in any harmonious +civilisation. There is a place for Masculinism as well as a place for +Feminism. From the highest standpoint there is not really any conflict at +all. They alike serve the large cause of Humanity, which equally includes +them both. + + +[1] "Würdelose Weiber," _Die Neue Generation_, Aug.-Sept., 1914. + +[2] Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fifth ed., 1914, p. 21. + +[3] The conception of sexuality as dependent on the combined operation of +various internal ductless glands, and not on the sexual glands proper +alone, has been especially worked out by Professor W. Blair Bell, _The +Sex Complex_, 1916. + +[4] H.H. Laughlin, _The Legal, Legislative, and Administrative Aspects of +Sterilisation_, Eugenics Record Office Bulletin, No. 1, OB, 1914. + +[5] I have discussed these already in a chapter of my book, _The Task of +Social Hygiene_. + + + + +IX + + +THE MENTAL DIFFERENCES OF MEN AND WOMEN + +The Great War, which has changed so many things, has nowhere effected +a greater change than in the sphere of women's activities. In all the +belligerent countries women have been called upon to undertake work +which they had never been offered before. Europe has thus become a great +experimental laboratory for testing the aptitudes of women. The results +of these tests, as they are slowly realised, cannot fail to have +permanent effects on the sexual division of labour. It is still too early +to speak confidently as to what those effects will be. But we may be +certain that, whatever they are, they can only spring from deep-lying +natural distinctions. + +The differences between the minds of men and the minds of women are, +indeed, presented to all of us every day. It should, therefore, we +might imagine, be one of the easiest of tasks to ascertain what they +are. And yet there are few matters on which such contradictory and often +extravagant opinions are maintained. For many people the question has not +arisen; there are no mental differences, they seem to take for granted, +between men and women. For others the mental superiority of man at every +point is an unquestionable article of faith, though they may not always +go so far as to agree with the German doctor, Mobius, who boldly wrote a +book on "The Physiological Weak-mindedness of Women." For others, again, +the predominance of men is an accident, due to the influences of brute +force; let the intelligence of women have freer play and the world +generally will be straightened out. + +In these conflicting attitudes we may trace not only the confidence we +are all apt to feel in our intimate knowledge of a familiar subject we +have never studied, but also the inevitable influence of sexual bias. Of +such bias there is more than one kind. There is the egoistic bias by +which we are led to regard our own sex as naturally better than any other +could be, and there is the altruistic bias by which we are led to find a +charming and mysterious superiority in the opposite sex. These different +kinds of sexual bias act with varying force in particular cases; it is +usually necessary to allow for them. + +Notwithstanding the fantastic divergencies of opinion on this matter, it +seems not impossible to place the question on a fairly sound and rational +base. In so complex a question there must always be room for some +variations of individual opinion, for no two persons can approach the +consideration of it with quite the same prepossessions, or with quite the +same experience. + +At the outset there is one great fundamental fact always to be borne +in mind: the difference of the sexes in physical organisation. That we +may term the _biological_ factor in determining the sexual mental +differences. A strong body does not involve a strong brain nor a weak +body a weak brain; but there is still an intimate connection between the +organisation of the body generally and the organisation of the brain, +which may be regarded as an executive assemblage of delegates from all +parts of the body. Fundamental differences in the organisation of the +body cannot fail to involve differences in the nervous system generally, +and especially in that supreme collection of nervous ganglia which we +term the brain. In this way the special adaptation of woman's body to the +exercise of maternity, with the presence of special organs and glands +subservient to that object, and without any important equivalents in +man's body, cannot fail to affect the brain. We now know that the +organism is largely under the control of a number of internal secretions +or hormones, which work together harmoniously in normal persons, +influencing body and mind, but are liable to disturbance, and are +differently balanced and with a different action in the two sexes.[1] It +is not, we must remember, by any means altogether the exercise of the +maternal function which causes the difference; the organs and aptitudes +are equally present even if the function is not exercised, so that a +woman cannot make herself a man by refraining from childbearing. + +In another way this biological factor makes itself felt, and that is in +the differences in the muscular systems of men and women. These we must +also consider fundamental. Although the extreme muscular weakness of +average civilised women as compared to civilised men is certainly +artificial and easily possible to remove by training, yet even in +savages, among whom the women do most of the muscular work, they seldom +equal or exceed the men in strength; any superiority, when it exists, +being mainly shown in such passive forms of exertion as bearing burdens. +In civilisation, even under the influence of careful athletic training, +women are unable to compete muscularly with men; and it is a significant +fact that on the variety stage there are very few "strong women." It +would seem that the difficulty in developing great muscular strength in +women is connected with the special adaptation of woman's form and +organisation to the maternal function. But whatever the cause may be, the +resulting difference is one which has a very real bearing on the mental +distinctions of men and women. It is well ascertained that what we call +"mental" fatigue expresses itself physiologically in the same bodily +manifestation as muscular fatigue. The avocations which we commonly +consider mental are at the same time muscular; and even the sensory +organs, like the eye, are largely muscular. It is commonly found in +various great business departments where men and women may be said to +work more or less side by side that the work of women is less valuable, +largely because they are not able to bear additional strain; under +pressure of extra work they give in before men do. It is noteworthy that +the claims for sick benefit made by women under the National Insurance +System in England have proved much greater (even three times greater) +than the actuaries anticipated beforehand; while the Sick Insurance +Societies of Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland also report that +women are ill oftener and for longer periods than men. Largely, no doubt, +that is due to the special strain and the rigid monotony of our modern +industrial system, but not entirely. Nearly two hundred years ago (in +1729) Swift wrote of women to Bolingbroke: "I protest I never knew a very +deserving person of that sex who had not too much reason to complain of +ill-health." The regulations of the world have been mainly made by men on +the instinctive basis of their own needs, and until women have a large +part in making them on the basis of their needs, women are not likely to +be so healthy as men. + +This by no means necessarily implies any mental inferiority; it is much +more the result of muscular inferiority. Even in the arts muscular +qualities count for much and are often essential, since a solid muscular +system is needed even for very delicate actions; the arts of design +demand muscular qualities; to play the violin is a muscular strain, and +only a robust woman can become a famous singer. + +The greater precocity of girls is another aspect of the biological factor +in sexual mental differences. It is a psychic as well as a physical fact. +This has been shown conclusively by careful investigation in many parts +of the civilised world and notably in America, where the school system +renders such sexual comparison easy and reliable at all ages. There can +now be no doubt that a girl at, let us say, the age of fourteen is on the +average taller and heavier than a boy at the same age, though the degrees +of this difference and the precise age at which it occurs vary with the +individual and the race. Corresponding to this is a mental difference; in +many branches of study, though not all, the girl of fourteen is superior +to the boy, quicker, more intelligent, gifted with a better memory. +Precocity, however, is a quality of dubious virtue. It is frequently +found, indeed, in men of the highest genius; but, on the other hand, it +is found among animals and among savages, and is here of no good augury. +Many observers of the lower races have noted how the child is highly +intelligent and well disposed, but seems to degenerate as he grows older; +In the comparison of girls and boys, both as regards physical and mental +qualities, it is constantly found that while the girls hold their own, +and in many respects more than hold their own, with boys up to the age of +fifteen or sixteen, after that the girls remain almost or quite +stationary, while in the boys the curve of progress is continued without +interruption. Some people have argued, hypothetically, that the greater +precocity of girls is an artificial product of civilisation, due to the +confined life of girls, produced, as it were, by the artificial +overheating of the system in the hothouse of the home. This is a mistake. +The same precocity of girls appears to exist even among the uncivilised, +and independently of the special circumstances of life. It is even found +among animals also, and is said to be notably obvious in giraffes. It +will hardly be argued that the female giraffe leads a more confined and +domestic life than her brother. + +Yet another aspect of the biological factor is to be found in the bearing +of heredity on this question. To judge by the statements that one +sometimes sees, men and women might be two distinct species, separately +propagated. The conviction of some men that women are not fitted to +exercise various social and political duties, and the conviction of some +women that men are a morally inferior sex, are both alike absurd, for +they both rest on the assumption that women do not inherit from their +fathers, nor men from their mothers. Nothing is more certain than +that--when, of course, we put aside the sexual characters and the special +qualities associated with those characters--men and women, on the +average, inherit equally from both of their parents, allowing for the +fact that that heredity is controlled and modified by the special +organisation of each sex. There are, indeed, various laws of heredity +which qualify this statement, and notably the tendency whereby extremes +of variation are more common in the male sex--so that genius and idiocy +are alike more prevalent in men. But, on the whole, there can be no doubt +that the qualities of a man or of a woman are a more or less varied +mixture of those of both parents; and, even when there is no blending, +both parents are almost equally likely to be influential in heredity. The +good qualities of the one parent will therefore benefit the child of the +opposite sex, and the bad qualities will equally be transmitted to the +offspring of opposite sex. + +There is another element in the settlement of this question which may +also be fairly called objective, and that is the _historical_ factor. We +are prone to believe that the particular status of the sexes that +prevails among ourselves corresponds to a universal and unchangeable +order of things. In reality this is far from being the case. It may, +indeed, be truly said that there is no kind of social position, no sort +of avocation, public or domestic, among ourselves exclusively +appertaining to one sex, which has not at some time or in some part of +the world belonged to the opposite sex, and with the most excellent +results. We regard it as alone right and proper for a man to take the +initiative in courtship, yet among the Papuans of New Guinea a man would +think it indecorous and ridiculous to court a girl; it was the girl's +privilege to take the initiative in this matter, and she exercised it +with delicacy and skill and the best moral results, until the shocked +missionaries upset the native system and unintentionally introduced +looser ways. There is, again, no implement which we regard as so +peculiarly and exclusively feminine as the needle. Yet in some parts of +Africa a woman never touches a needle; that is man's work, and a wife who +can show a neglected rent in her petticoat is even considered to have a +fair claim for a divorce. Innumerable similar examples appear when we +consider the human species in time and space. The historical aspect of +this matter may thus be said in some degree to counterbalance the +biological aspect. If the fundamental constitution of the sexes renders +their mental characters necessarily different, the difference is still +not so pronounced as to prevent one sex sometimes playing effectively the +parts which are generally played by the other sex. + +It is not necessary to go outside the white European race to find +evidences of the reality of this historical factor of the question before +us. It would appear that at the dawn of European civilisation women were +taking a leading part in the evolution of human progress. Various +survivals which are enshrined in the myths and legends of classic +antiquity show us the most ancient deities as goddesses; and, moreover, +we encounter the significant fact that at the origin nearly all the arts +and industries were presided over by female, not by male, deities. In +Greece, as well as in Asia Minor, India, and Egypt, as Paul Lafargue has +pointed out, woman seems to have taken divine rank before men; all the +first inventions of the more useful arts and crafts, except in metals, +are ascribed to goddesses; the Muses presided over poetry and music long +before Apollo; Isis was "the lady of bread," and Demeter taught men to +sow barley and corn instead of eating each other. Thus even among our own +forefathers we may catch a glimpse of a state of things which, as various +anthropologists have shown (notably Otis Mason in his _Woman's Share in +Primitive Culture_), we may witness in the most widely separated parts of +the world. Thus among the Xosa Kaffirs, as well as other A-bantu stocks, +Fritsch states that "the man claims for himself war, hunting, occupation +with cattle; all household cares, even the building of the house, as well +as the cultivation of the ground, are woman's affair; hardly in the most +laborious work will a man lend a hand."[2] So that when to-day we see +women entering the most various avocations, that is not a dangerous +innovation, but perhaps merely a return to ancient and natural +conditions. + +It is not until specialisation becomes necessary and until men are +relieved from the constant burden of battle and the chase that the +frequent superiority of woman is lost. The modern industrial activities +are dangerous, when they are dangerous, not because the work is too +hard--for the work of primitive women is harder--but because it is an +unnaturally and artificially dreary and monotonous work which stifles the +mind, depresses the spirits, and injures the body, so that, it is said, +40 per cent. of married women who have been factory girls are treated for +pelvic disorders before they are thirty. It is the conditions of women's +work which need changing in order that they may become, like those of +primitive women, so various that they develop the mind and fortify the +body. This, however, is an evil which will be righted by the development +of the mechanical side of industry, for machines tend constantly to +become larger, heavier, speedier, more numerous and more automatic, +requiring fewer workers to tend them, and these more frequently men.[3] + +It may be added that the early predominance of woman in the work of +civilisation is altogether independent of that conception of a primitive +matriarchate, or government of women, which was set forth some fifty +years ago by Bachofen, and has since caused so much controversy. Descent +in the female line, not uncommonly found among primitive peoples, +undoubtedly tended to place women in a position of great influence; but +it by no means necessarily involved any gynecocracy, or rule of women, +and such rule is merely a hypothesis which by some enthusiasts has been +carried to absurd lengths. + +We see, therefore, that when we are approaching the question of the +mental differences of the sexes among ourselves to-day, it is not +impossible to find certain guiding clues which will save us from running +into extravagance in either direction. + +Without doubt the only way in which we can obtain a satisfactory answer +to the numerous problems which meet us when we approach the question is +by experiment. I have, indeed, insisted on the importance of these +preliminary biological and historical considerations mainly because they +indicate with what safety and freedom from risk we may trust to +experiment. The sexes are far too securely poised by organic constitution +and ancient tradition for any permanently injurious results to occur from +the attempt to attain a better social readjustment in this matter. When +the experiment fails, individuals may to some extent suffer, but social +equilibrium swiftly and automatically rights itself. Practically, +however, nearly every social experiment of this kind means that certain +restrictions limiting the duties or privileges of women are removed, and +when artificial coercions are thus taken away it can merely happen, as +Mary Wollstonecraft long ago put it, that by the common law of gravity +the sexes fall into their proper places. That, we may be sure, will be +the final result of the interesting experiments for which the laboratory +to-day is furnished by all the belligerent countries. + +Definitely formulated statistical data of these results are scarcely yet +available. But we may study the action of this natural process on one +great practical experiment in mental sexual differences which has been +going on for some time past. At one time in the various administrations +of the International Postal Union there was a sudden resolve to introduce +female labour to a very large extent; it was thought that this would be +cheaper than male labour and equally efficient. There was consequently a +great outcry at the ousting of male labour, the introduction of the thin +end of a wedge which would break up society. We can now see that that +outcry was foolish. Within recent years nearly all the countries which +previously introduced women freely into their postal and telegraph +services are now doing so only under certain conditions, and some are +ceasing to admit them at all. This great practical experiment, carried +out on an immense scale in thirty-five different countries, has, on the +whole, shown that while women are not inferior to men, at all events +within the ordinary range of work, the substitution of a female for a +male staff always means a considerable increase of numbers, that women +are less rapid than men, less able to undertake the higher grade work, +less able to exert authority over others, more lacking both in initiative +and in endurance, while they require more sick leave and lose interest +and energy on marriage. The advantages of female labour are thus to some +extent neutralised, and in the opinions of the administrations of some +countries more than neutralised, by certain disadvantages. The general +result is that men are found more fitted for some branches of work and +women more fitted for other branches; the result is compensation without +any tendency for one sex to oust the other. + +It may, indeed, be objected that in practical life no perfectly +satisfactory experiments exist as to the respective mental qualities of +men and women, since men and women are never found working under +conditions that are exactly the same for both sexes. If, however, we turn +to the psychological laboratory, where it is possible to carry on +experiments under precisely identical conditions, the results are still +the same. There are nearly always differences between men and women, but +these differences are complex and manifold; they do not always agree; +they never show any general piling up of the advantages on the side of +one sex or of the other. In reaction-time, in delicacy of sensory +perception, in accuracy of estimation and precision of movement, there +are nearly always sexual differences, a few that are fairly constant, +many that differ at different ages, in various countries, or even in +different groups of individuals. We cannot usually explain these +differences or attach any precise significance to them, any more than we +can say why it is that (at all events in America) blue is most often the +favourite colour of men and red of women. We may be sure that these +things have a meaning, and often a really fundamental significance, but +at present, for the most part, they remain mysterious to us. + +When we attempt to survey and sum up all the variegated facts which +science and practical life are slowly accumulating with reference to the +mental differences between men and women[4] we reach two main +conclusions. On the one hand there is a fundamental equality of the +sexes. It would certainly appear that women vary within a narrower range +than men--that is to say, that the two extremes of genius and of idiocy +are both more likely to show themselves in men. This implies that the +pioneers in progress are most likely to be men. That, indeed, may be said +to be a biological fact. "In all that concerns the evolution of +ornamental characters the male leads; in him we see the trend which +evolution is taking; the female and young afford us the measure of their +advance along the new line which has to be taken."[5] In the human sphere +of the arts and sciences, similarly, men, not women, take the lead. That +men were the first decorative artists, rather than women, is indicated by +the fact that the natural objects designed by early pre-historic artists +were mainly women and wild beasts, that is to say, they were the work of +masculine hunters, executed in idle intervals of the chase. But within +the range in which nearly all of us move, there are always many men who +in mental respects can do what most women can do, many women who can do +what most men can do. We are not justified in excluding a whole sex +absolutely from any field. In so doing we should certainly be depriving +the world of some portion of its executive ability. The sexes may always +safely be left to find their own levels. + +On the other hand, the mental diversity of men and women is equally +fundamental. It is rooted in organisation. The well-intentioned efforts +of many pioneers in women's movements to treat men and women as +identical, and, as it were, to force women into masculine moulds, were +both mischievous and useless. Women will always be different from men, +mentally as well as physically. It is well for both sexes that it should +be so. It is owing to these differences that each sex can bring to the +world's work various aptitudes that the other lacks. It is owing to these +differences also that men and women have their undying charm for each +other. We cannot change them, and we need not wish to. + + +[1] See, for instance, Blair Bell's _The Sex Complex_, 1916, though +the deductions drawn in this book must not always be accepted without +qualifications. + +[2] G. Fritsch, _Die Eingeborene Süd-Afrikas_, 1892, p. 79. + +[3] 1 D.R. Malcolm Keir, "Women in Industry," _Popular Science Monthly_, +October, 1913. + +[4] See, for many of the chief of these, Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, +5th Edition, 1914. + +[5] W.P. Pycraft, _The Courtship of Animal_, p. 9. + + + + +X + + +THE WHITE SLAVE CRUSADE + +During recent years we have witnessed a remarkable attempt--more popular +and more international in character than any before--to deal with that +ancient sexual evil which has for some time been picturesquely described +as the White Slave Traffic. Less than forty years ago Professor Sheldon +Amos wrote that this subject can scarcely be touched upon by journalists, +and "can never form a topic of common conversation." Nowadays Churches, +societies, journalists, legislators have all joined the ranks of the +agitators. Not only has there been no voice on the opposite side, which +was scarcely to be expected--for there has never been any anxiety to cry +aloud the defence of "White Slavery" from the house-tops--but there has +been a new and noteworthy conquest over indifference and over that sacred +silence which was supposed to encompass all sexual topics with suitable +darkness. The banishment of that silence in the cause of social hygiene +is, indeed, not the least significant feature of this agitation. + +It is inevitable, however, that these periodical fits of virtuous +indignation by which Society is overtaken should speedily be spent. The +victim of the moral fever finds himself exhausted by the struggle, +scarcely able to cope with the complications of the disease, and, at the +best, only too anxious to forget what he has passed through. He has an +uneasy feeling that in the course of his delirium he has said and done +many foolish things which it would now be unpleasant to recall too +precisely. + +There is no use in attempting to disguise the fact that this is what +happened in the White Slave Traffic agitation. It became clear that we +had been largely misled in regard to the evils to be combated, and that +we were seduced into sanctioning various remedies for these evils which +in cold blood it is impossible to approve of, even if we could believe +them to be effective. + +It is not even clear that all those who have talked about the "White +Slave Traffic" have been quite sure what they meant by the term. Some +people, indeed, have seemed to think that it meant prostitution in +general. That is, of course, an absurd misapprehension. We are +concerned with a trade which flourishes on prostitution, but that +trade is not itself the trade or (as some prefer to call it) the +profession of prostitutes. Indeed, the prostitute, under ordinary +conditions and unharassed by persecution, is in many respects anything +but a slave. She is much less a slave than the ordinary married woman. +She is not fettered in humble dependence on the will of a husband from +whom it is the most difficult thing in the world to escape; she is +bound to no man and free to make her own terms in life; while if she +should have a child, that child is absolutely her own, and she is not +liable to have it torn from her arms by the hands of the law. Apart +from arbitrary and accidental circumstances, due to the condition of +social feeling, the prostitute enjoys a position of independence which +the married woman is still struggling to obtain. + +The White Slave Traffic, therefore, is not prostitution; it is the +_commercialised exploitation of prostitutes_. The independent +prostitute, living alone, scarcely lends herself to the White Slave +trader. It is on houses of prostitution, where the less independent and +usually weaker-minded prostitutes are segregated, that the traffic is +based. Such houses cannot even exist without such traffic. There is +little inducement for a girl to enter such a house, in full knowledge +of what it involves, on her own initiative. The proprietors of such +houses must therefore give orders for the "goods" they desire, and it +is the business of procurers, by persuasion, misrepresentation, deceit, +intoxication, to supply them. "The White Slave Traffic," as Kneeland +states, "is thus not only a hideous reality, but a reality almost +wholly dependent on the existence of houses of prostitution," and as +the authors of _The Social Evil_ state, it is "the most shameful +species of business enterprise in modern times."[1] + +In this intimate dependence of the White Slave Traffic on houses of +prostitution, there lies, it may be pointed out, a hope for the future. +We are concerned, for the most part, with the more coarse-grained part +of the masculine population and with the more ignorant, degraded, and +weak-minded part of the army of prostitutes. Although much has been said +of the enormous extension of the White Slave Traffic during recent +years, it is important to remember that that extension is chiefly marked +in connection with the great new centres of population in the younger +countries. It is fostered by the conditions prevailing in crude, +youthful, prosperous, but incompletely blended, communities, which have +too swiftly attained luxury, but have not yet attained the more humane +and refined developments of civilisation, and among whom women are often +scarce.[2] Although there are not yet any very clear signs of the decay +of prostitution in civilisation, there can hardly be a doubt that +civilisation is unfavourable to houses of prostitution. They offer no +inducements to the more intelligent and independent prostitutes, and +their inmates usually present little attraction to any men save those +whose demands are of the humblest character. There is, therefore, a +tendency to the natural and spontaneous decay of organised houses of +prostitution under modern civilised conditions; the prostitute and her +clients alike shun such houses. Along this line we may foresee the +disappearance of the White Slave Traffic, apart altogether from any +social or legal attempts at its direct suppression.[3] + +It is sometimes said that the relation of the isolated prostitute to her +_souteneur_ constitutes a form of "white slavery." Undoubtedly that may +sometimes be the case. We are here in a confused field where the facts +are complicated by a number of considerations, and where circumstances +may very widely differ, for the "fancy boy"--selected from affection by +the prostitute herself--may easily become the _souteneur_, or "cadet" as +he is termed in New York, who seduces and trains to prostitution a large +number of girls. The prostitute is so often a little weak in character +and a little defective in intelligence; she is so often regarded as a +legitimate prey by the world in which she moves, and a legitimate object +of contempt and oppression by the social world above her and its legal +officers, that she easily becomes abjectly dependent on the man who in +some degree protects her from this extortion, contempt, and oppression, +even though he sometimes trains her to his own ends and exploits her +professional activities for his own advantage. These circumstances so +often occur that some investigators consider that they represent the +general rule. No doubt they are the most conspicuous cases. But they can +scarcely be regarded as representing the normal relations of the +prostitute to the man she is attracted to. She is earning her own +living, and if she possesses a little modicum of character and +intelligence, she knows that she can choose her own lover and dismiss +him when she so pleases. He may beat her occasionally, but all over the +world this is not always displeasing to the primitively feminine woman. +"It is indeed true," as Kneeland remarks, "that many prostitutes do not +believe their lovers care for them unless they 'beat them up' +occasionally." The woman in this position is not more of a "white slave" +than many wives, and some husbands, who submit to the whims and +tyrannies of their conjugal partners, with, indeed, the additional +hardship and misfortune that they are legally bound to them. And the +_souteneur_, although from the respectable point of view he has put +himself into a low-down moral position, is, after all, not so very +unlike those parasitic wives who, on a higher social level, live lazily +on their husbands' professional earnings, and sometimes give much less +than the _souteneur_ in return. + +When, however, we put aside the complicated question of the prostitute's +relationship to the man who is her lover, protector, and "bully," we +have to recognise that there really is a "White Slave Traffic," carried +on in a ruthlessly business-like manner and on an international scale, +with watchful agents, men and women, ever ready to detect and lure the +victims. But even this too amply demonstrated fact was not found +sufficiently highly spiced by the White Slave Traffic agitators. It was +necessary to excite the public mind by sensational incidents. Everyone +was told stories, as of incidents that had lately occurred in the next +street, of innocent, refined, and well-bred girls who were snatched away +by infamous brigands beneath the eyes of their friends, to be immured in +dungeons of vice and never more heard of. Such incidents, if they ever +occurred, would be too bizarre to be justifiably taken into account in +great social movements. But it is even doubtful whether they ever occur. +The White Slave traders are not heroes of romance, even of infamous +romance; less so, indeed, than many more ordinary criminals; they are +engaged in a very definite and very profitable business. They have no +need to run serious risks. The world is full of girls who are +over-worked, ill-paid, ignorant, weak, vain, greedy, lazy, or even only +afflicted with a little innocent love of adventure, and it is among +these that White Slave traders may easily find what their business +demands, while experience enables them to detect the most likely +subjects. + +Careful inquiry, even among those who have made it their special +business to collect all the evidence that can be brought together to +prove the infamous character of the White Slave Traffic, has apparently +failed to furnish any reliable evidence of these sensational stories. It +is easy to find prostitutes who are often dissatisfied with the life (in +what occupation is it not easy?), but it is not easy to find prostitutes +who cannot escape from that life when they sufficiently wish to do so, +and are willing to face the difficulty of finding some other occupation. +The very fact that the whole object of their exploitation is to bring +them in contact with men belonging to the outside world is itself a +guarantee that they are kept in touch with that world. Mrs. +Billington-Grieg, a well-known pioneer in social movements, has +carefully investigated the alleged cases of forcible abduction which +were so freely talked about when the White Slave Bill was passed into +law in England, but even the Vigilance Societies actively engaged in +advocating the bill could not enable her to discover a single case in +which a girl had been entrapped against her will.[4] No other result +could reasonably have been expected. When so many girls are willing, and +even eager, to be persuaded, there is little need for the risky +adventure of capturing the unwilling. The uneasy realisation of these +facts cannot fail to leave many honest Vice-Crusaders with unpleasant +memories of their past. + +It is not only in regard to alleged facts, but also in regard to +proposed remedies, that the White Slave Agitation may properly be +criticised. In England it distinguished itself by the ferocity with +which the lash was advocated, and finally legalised. Benevolent bishops +joined with genteel old maids in calling loudly for whips, and even in +desiring to lay them personally on the backs of the offenders, +notwithstanding that these Crusaders were nominally Christians, the +followers of a Master who conspicuously reserved His indignation, not +for sinners and law-breakers, but for self-satisfied saints and +scrupulous law-keepers--just the same kind of excellent people, in +fact, who are most prone to become Vice-Crusaders. Here again, it is +probable, many unpleasant memories have been stored up. + +It is well recognised by criminologists that the lash is both a +barbarous and an ineffective method of punishment. "The history of +flagellation," as Collas states in his great work on this subject, "is +the history of a moral bankruptcy."[5] The survival of barbarous +punishments from barbarous days, when ferocious punishments were a +matter of course and the death penalty was inflicted for horse-stealing +without in the least diminishing that offence, may be intelligible. But +the re-enactment of such measures in so-called civilised days is an +everlasting discredit to those who advocate it, and a disgrace to the +community which permits it. This was pointed out at the time by a large +body of social reformers, and will no doubt be realised at leisure by +the persons concerned in the agitation. + +Apart altogether from its barbarity, the lash is peculiarly unsuited +for use in the White Slave trade, because it will never descend on the +back of the real trader. The whip has no terrors for those engaged in +illegitimate financial transactions, for in such transactions the +principal can always afford to arrange that it shall fall on a +subordinate who finds it worth while to run the risks. This method has +long been practised by those who exploit prostitution for profit. To +increase the risks merely means that the subordinate must be more +heavily paid. That means that the whole business must be carried on +more actively to cover the increased risks and expenses. It is a very +ancient fact that moral legislation increases the evil it is designed +to combat.[6] + +It is necessary to point out some of the unhappy features of this +agitation, not in order to minimise the evils it was directed against, +nor to insinuate that they cannot be lessened, but as a warning against +the reaction which follows such ill-considered efforts. The fiery +zealot in a fury of blind rage strikes wildly at the evil he has just +discovered, and then flings down his weapon, glad to forget all about +his momentary rage and the errors it led him into. It is not so that +ancient evils are destroyed, evils, it must be remembered, that derive +their vitality in part from human nature and in part from the structure +of our society. By ensuring that our workers, and especially our women +workers, are decently paid, so that they can live comfortably on their +wages, we shall not indeed have abolished prostitution, which is more +than an economic phenomenon,[7] but we shall more effectually check the +White Slave trader than by the most draconic legislation the most +imaginative Vice-Crusader ever devised. And when we ensure that these +same workers have ample time and opportunity for free and joyous +recreation, we shall have done more to kill the fascination of the +White Slave Traffic than by endless police regulations for the moral +supervision of the young. + +No doubt the element of human nature in the manifestations we are +concerned with will still be at work, an obscure instinct often acting +differently in each sex, but tending to drive both into the same risks. +Here we need even more fundamental social changes. It is sheer +foolishness to suppose that when we raise our little dams in the path of +a great stream of human impulse that stream will forthwith flow calmly +back to its source. We must make our new channels concurrently with our +dams. If we wish to influence prostitution we must re-make our marriage +laws and modify our whole conception of the sexual relationships. In the +meanwhile, we can at least begin to-day a task of education which must +slowly though surely undermine the White Slave trader's stronghold. Such +an education needs to be not merely instruction in the facts of sex and +wise guidance concerning all the dangers and risks of the sexual life; +it must also involve a training of the will, a development of the sense +of responsibility, such as can never be secured by shutting our young +people up in a hot-house, sheltered from every fortifying breath of the +outside world. Certainly there are many among us--and precisely the most +hopeless persons from our present point of view--who can never grow into +really responsible persons.[8] Neither should they ever have been born. +It is our business to see that they are not born; and that, if they are, +they are at least placed under due social guardianship, so that we may +not be tempted to make laws for society in general which are only needed +by this feeble and infirm folk. Thus it is that when we seek to deal +with the White Slave Trader and his victims and his patrons we have to +realise that they are all very much, as we have made them, moulded by +their parents before birth, nourished on their mothers' knees. The task +of making them over again next time, and making them better, is a +revolutionary task, but it begins at home, and there is no home in which +some part of the task cannot be carried out. + +It is possible that at some period in the world's history, not only will +the White Slave Traffic disappear, but even prostitution itself, and it +is for us to work towards that day. But we may be quite sure that the +social state which sees the last of the "social evil" will be a social +state very unlike ours. + + +[1] The nature of prostitution and of the White Slave Traffic and their +relation to each other may clearly be studied in such valuable +first-hand investigations of the subject as _The Social Evil: With +Special Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York_, 2nd +edition, edited by E.R.A. Seligman, Putnam's, 1912; _Commercialised +Prostitution in New York City_, by G.J. Kneeland, New York Century Co., +1913; _Prostitution in Europe_, by Abraham Flexner, New York Century +Co., 1914; _The Social Evil in Chicago_, by the Vice-Commission of +Chicago, 1911. As regards prostitution in England and its causes I +should like to call attention to an admirable little book, _Downward +Paths_, published by Bell & Sons, 1916. The literature of the subject +is, however, extensive, and a useful bibliography will be found in the +first-named volume. + +[2] This is especially true of many regions in America, both North and +South, where a hideous mixture of disparate nationalities furnishes +conditions peculiarly favourable to the "White Slave Traffic," when +prosperity increases. See, for instance, the well-informed and temperately +written book by Miss Jane Addams, _A New Conscience and +an Ancient Evil_, 1912. + +[3] See Havelock Ellis: _Sex in Relation to Society (Studies in the +Psychology of Sex)_, Vol. VI., Ch. VII. + +[4] "The White Slave Traffic," _English Review_, June, 1913. It is just +just the same in America. Mr. Brand-Whitlock, when Mayor of Toledo, +thoroughly investigated a sensational story of this kind brought to him +in great detail by a social worker and found that it possessed not the +slightest basis of truth. "It was," he remarks in an able paper on "The +White Slave" (_Forum_, Feb., 1914), "simply another variant of the story +that had gone the rounds of the continents, a story which had been +somehow psychologically timed to meet the hysteria which the pulpit, +the Press, and the legislature had displayed." + +[5] G.F. Collas, _Geschichte des Flagellantismus_, 1913, Vol. I., p. 16. + +[6] I have brought together some of the evidence on this point in the +chapter on "Immorality and the Law" in my book, _The Task of Social +Hygiene_. + +[7] The idea is cherished by many, especially among socialists, that +prostitution is mainly an economic question, and that to raise wages is +to dry up the stream of prostitution. That is certainly a fallacy, +unsupported by careful investigators, though all are agreed that the +economic condition of the wage-earner is one factor in the problem. Thus +Commissioner Adelaide Cox, at the head of the Women's Social Wing of the +Salvation Army, speaking from a very long and extensive acquaintance +with prostitutes, while not denying that women are often "wickedly +underpaid," finds that the cause of prostitution is "essentially a +moral one, and cannot be successfully fought by other than moral +weapons."--(_Westminster Gazette_, Dec. 2nd, 1912). In a yet wider +sense, it may be said that the question of the causes of prostitution +is essentially social. + +[8] This is a very important clue indeed in dealing with the problem of +prostitution. "It is the weak-minded, unintelligent girl," Goddard +states in his valuable work on _Feeblemindedness_, "who makes the White +Slave Traffic possible." Dr. Hickson found that over 85 per cent. of +the women brought before the Morals Court in Chicago were distinctly +feeble-minded, and Dr. Olga Bridgeman states that among the girls +committed for sexual delinquency to the Training School of Geneva, +Illinois, 97 per cent. were feeble-minded by the Binet tests, and to be +regarded as "helpless victims." (Walter Clarke, _Social Hygiene_, June, +1915, and _Journal of Mental Science_, Jan., 1916, p. 222.) There are +fallacies in these figures, but it would appear that about half of the +prostitutes in institutions are to be regarded as mentally defective. + + + + +XI + + +THE CONQUEST OF VENEREAL DISEASE + +The final Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases has brought +to an end an important and laborious investigation at what many may +regard as an unfavourable moment. Perhaps, however, the moment is not so +unfavourable as it seems. There is no period when venereal diseases +flourish so exuberantly as in war time, and we shall have a sad harvest +to gather here when the War is over.[1] Moreover, the War is teaching us +to face the real facts of life more frankly and more courageously than +ever before, and there is no field, scarcely even a battlefield, where a +training in frankness and courage is so necessary as in this of Venereal +Disease. It is difficult even to say that there is any larger field, for +it has been found possible to doubt whether the great War of to-day, when +all is summed up, will have produced more death, disease, and misery than +is produced in the ordinary course of events, during a single generation, +by venereal disease. + +There are, as every man and woman ought to know, two main and quite +distinct diseases (any other being unimportant) poetically termed +"Venereal" because chiefly, though not by any means only, propagated in +the intercourse over which the Roman goddess Venus once presided. These +two diseases are syphilis and gonorrhoea. Both these diseases are very +serious, often terrible, in their effects on the individual attacked, +and both liable to be poisonous to the race. There has long been a +popular notion that, while syphilis is indeed an awful disease, +gonorrhoea may be accepted with a light heart. That, we now know, is a +grave mistake. Gonorrhoea may seem trivial at the outset, but its +results, especially for a woman and her children (when it allows her to +have any), are anything but trivial; while its greater frequency, and +the indifference with which it is regarded, still further increase its +dangers. + +About the serious nature of syphilis there is no doubt. It is a +comparatively modern disease, not clearly known in Europe before the +discovery of America at the end of the fifteenth century, and by some +authorities[2] to-day supposed to have been imported from America. But +it soon ravaged the whole of our world, and has continued to do so ever +since. During recent years it has perhaps shown a slight tendency to +decrease, though nothing to what could be achieved by systematic +methods; but its evils are still sufficiently alarming. Exactly how +common it is cannot be ascertained with certainty. At least 10 per +cent., probably more, of the population in our large cities have been +infected by syphilis, some before birth. In 1912 for an average strength +of 120,000 men in the English Navy, nearly 300,000 days were lost as a +result of venereal disease, while among 100,000 soldiers in the Home +Army for the same year, an average of nearly 600 men were constantly +sick from the same cause. We may estimate from this small example how +vast must be the total loss of working power due to venereal disease. +Moreover, in Sir William Osler's words, "of the killing diseases +syphilis comes third or fourth." Its prevalence varies in different +regions and different social classes. The mortality rate from syphilis +for males above fifteen is highest for unskilled labour, then for the +group intermediate between unskilled and skilled labour, then for the +upper and middle class, followed by the group intermediate between this +class and skilled labour, while skilled labour, textile workers, and +miners follow, and agricultural labourers come out most favourably of +all. These differences do not represent any ascending grade in virtue or +sexual abstinence, but are dependent upon differences in social +condition; thus syphilis is comparatively rare among agricultural +labourers because they associate only with women they know and are not +exposed to the temptation of strange women, while it is high among the +upper class because they are shut out from sexual intimacy with women of +their own class and so resort to prostitutes. On the whole, however, it +will be seen, the poison of syphilis is fairly diffused among all +classes. This poison may work through many years or even the whole of +life, and its early manifestations are the least important. It may begin +before birth: thus, one recent investigation shows that in 150 +syphilitic families there were only 390 seemingly healthy children to +401 infant deaths, stillbirths, and miscarriages (as against 172 in 180 +healthy families), the great majority of these failures being infant +deaths and thus representing a large amount of wasted energy and +expense.[3] Syphilis is, again, the most serious single cause of the +most severe forms of brain disease and insanity, this often coming on +many years after the infection, and when the early symptoms were but +slight. Blindness and deafness from the beginning of life are in a large +proportion of cases due to syphilis. There is, indeed, no organ of the +body which is not liable to break down, often with fatal results, +through syphilis, so that it has been well said that a doctor who knows +syphilis thoroughly is familiar with every branch of his profession. + +Gonorrhoea is a still commoner disease than syphilis; how common it is +very difficult to say. It is also an older disease, for the ancient +Egyptians knew it, and the Biblical King Esarhaddon of Assyria, as the +records of his court show, once caught it. It seems to some people no +more serious than a common cold, yet it is able to inflict much +prolonged misery on its victims, while on the race its influence in the +long run is even more deadly than that of syphilis, for gonorrhoea is +the chief cause of sterility in women, that is to say, in from 30 to 50 +per cent. of such cases, while of cases of sterility in men (which form +a quarter to a third of the whole) gonorrhoea is the cause in from 70 to +90 per cent. The inflammation of the eyes of the new-born leading to +blindness is also in 70 per cent. cases due to gonorrhoea in the mother, +and this occurs in over six per 1,000 births. + +Three years ago a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the best +methods of controlling venereal disease, as small-pox, typhus, and to a +large extent typhoid, have already been controlled. The Commission was +well composed, not merely of officials and doctors, but of experienced +men and women in various fields, and the final Report is signed by all +the members, any difference of opinion being confined to minor points +(which it is unnecessary to touch on here) and to two members only. The +recommendations are conceived in the most practical and broad-minded +spirit. They are neither faddy nor goody-goody. Some indeed may wish that +they had gone further. The Commission leave over for later consideration +the question of notifying venereal disease as other infectious diseases +are notified, and there is no recommendation for the provision of +preventive methods against infection for use before intercourse, such as +are officially favoured in Germany. But at both these points the +Commissioners have been wise, for they are points to which sections of +public opinion are still strongly hostile.[4] As they stand, the +recommendations should carry conviction to all serious and reasonable +persons. Already, indeed, the Government, without opposition, has +expressed its willingness to undertake the financial burden which the +Commission would impose on it. + +The main Recommendations made by the Commission, if we put aside the +suggestions for obtaining a more exact statistical knowledge, may be +placed under the heads of Treatment and Prevention. As regards the +first, it is insisted that measures should be taken to render the best +modern treatment, which should be free to all, readily available for +the whole community, in such a way that those affected will have no +hesitation in taking advantage of the facilities thus offered. The +means of treatment should be organised by County Councils and Boroughs, +under the Local Government Board, which should have power to make +independent arrangements when the local authorities fail in their +duties. Institutional treatment should be provided at all general +hospitals, special arrangements made for the treatment of out-patients +in the evenings, and no objection offered to patients seeking treatment +outside their own neighbourhoods. The expenditure should be assisted by +grants from Imperial Funds to the extent of 75 per cent. It may be +added that, however heavy such expenditure may be, an economy can +scarcely fail to be effected. The financial cost of venereal disease +to-day is so vast as to be beyond calculation. It enters into every +field of life. It is enough merely to consider the significant little +fact that the cost of educating a deaf child is ten times as great as +that of educating an ordinary child. + +Under the head of Prevention we may place such a suggestion as that the +existence of infective venereal disease should constitute legal +incapacity for marriage, even when unknown, and be a sufficient cause +for annulling the marriage at the discretion of the court. But by far +the chief importance under this head is assigned by the Commission to +education and instruction. We see here the vindication of those who for +years have been teaching that the first essential in dealing with +venereal disease is popular enlightenment. There must be more careful +instruction--"through all types and grades of education"--on the sexual +relations in regard to conduct, while further instruction should be +provided in evening continuation schools, as well as factories and +works, with the aid of properly constituted voluntary associations. + +These are sound and practical recommendations which, as the Government +has realised, can be put in action at once. A few years ago any attempt +to control venereal disease was considered by many to be almost impious. +Such disease was held to be the just visitation of God upon sin and to +interfere would be wicked. We know better now. A large proportion of +those who are most severely struck by venereal disease are new-born +children and trustful wives, while a simple kiss or the use of towels and +cups in common has constantly served to spread venereal disease in a +family. Even when we turn to the commonest method of infection, we have +still to remember that we are dealing largely with inexperienced youths, +with loving and trustful girls, who have yielded to the deepest and most +volcanic impulse of their natures, and have not yet learnt that that +impulse is a thing to be held sacred for their own sakes and the sake of +the race. In so far as there is sin, it is sin which must be shared by +those who have failed to train and enlighten the young. A Pharisaic +attitude is not only highly mischievous in its results, but is here +altogether out of place. Much harm has been done in the past by the +action of Benefit Societies in withholding recognition and treatment from +venereal disease. + +It is evident that this thought was at the back of the minds of those +who framed these wise recommendations. We cannot expect to do away all +at once with the feeling that venereal disease is "shameful." It may +not even be desirable. But we can at least make clear that, in so far +as there is any shame, it must be a question between the individual and +his own conscience. From the point of view of science, syphilis and +gonorrhoea are just diseases, like cancer and consumption, the only +diseases with which they can be compared in the magnitude and extent of +their results, and therefore it is best to speak of them by their +scientific names, instead of trying to invent vague and awkward +circumlocutions. From the point of view of society, any attitude of +shame is unfortunate, because it is absolutely essential that these +diseases should be met in the open and grappled with methodically and +thoroughly. Otherwise, as the Commission recognises, the sufferer is +apt to become the prey of ignorant quacks whose inefficient treatment +is largely responsible for the development of the latest and worst +afflictions these diseases produce when not effectually nipped in the +bud. That they can be thus cut short--far more easily than consumption, +to say nothing of cancer--is the fact which makes it possible to hope +for a conquest over venereal disease. It is a conquest that would make +the whole world more beautiful and deliver love from its ugliest +shadow. But the victory cannot be won by science alone, not even in +alliance with officialdom. It can only be won through the enlightened +co-operation of the whole nation. + + +[1] The increase of venereal disease during the Great War has been +noted alike in Germany, France, and England. Thus, as regards France, +Gaucher has stated at the Paris Academy of Medicine (_Journal de +Medicine_, May 10th, 1916) that since mobilisation syphilis had +increased by nearly one half, alike among soldiers and civilians; it +had much increased in quite young people and in elderly men. In +Germany, Neisser, a leading authority, states (_Deutsche Medizinische +Wochenschrift_, 14th Jan., 1915) that the prevalence of venereal +disease is much greater than in the war of 1870, and that "every day +many thousands, not to say tens of thousands, of otherwise able-bodied +men are withdrawn from the service on this account." + +[2] The chief is Iwan Bloch who, in his elaborate work, _Der Ursprung +der Syphilis_ (2 vols., 1901, 1911), has fully investigated the evidence. + +[3] N. Bishop Harman, "The Influence of Syphilis on the Chances of +Progeny," _British Medical Journal_, Feb. 5th, 1916. + +[4] It is true that in my book, _Sex in Relation to Society_ (Ch. VIII.) +I have stated my belief that notification, as in the case of other +serious infectious diseases, is the first step in the conquest of +venereal disease. I still think it ought to be so. But a yet more +preliminary step is popular enlightenment as to the need for such +notification. The recommendations seem to me to go as far as it is +possible to go at the moment in English-speaking countries without +producing friction and opposition. In so far as they are carried out +the recommendations will ensure the necessary popular enlightenment. + + + + +XII + + +THE NATIONALISATION OF HEALTH + +It was inevitable that we should some day have to face the problem of +medical reorganisation on a social basis. Along many lines social +progress has led to the initiation of movements for the improvement +of public health. But they are still incomplete and imperfectly +co-ordinated. We have never realised that the great questions of health +cannot safely be left to municipal tinkering and the patronage of +Bumbledom. The result is chaos and a terrible waste, not only of what +we call "hard cash," but also of sensitive flesh and blood. Health, +there cannot be the slightest doubt, is a vastly more fundamental and +important matter than education, to say nothing of such minor matters +as the post office or the telephone system. Yet we have nationalised +these before even giving a thought to the Nationalisation of Health. + +At the present day medicine is mainly in the hands, as it was two +thousand years ago, of the "private practitioner." His mental status +has, indeed, changed. To-day he is submitted to a long and arduous +training in magnificently equipped institutions; all the laboriously +acquired processes and results of modern medicine and hygiene are +brought within the student's reach. And when he leaves the hospital, +often with the largest and noblest conception of the physician's place +in life, what do we do with him? He becomes a "private practitioner," +which means, as Duclaux, the late distinguished Director of the Pasteur +Institute, put it, that we place him on the level of a retail grocer +who must patiently stand behind his counter (without the privilege of +advertising himself) until the public are pleased to come and buy +advice or drugs which are usually applied for too late to be of much +use, and may be thrown away at the buyer's good pleasure, without the +possibility of any protest by the seller. It is little wonder that in +many cases the doctor's work and aims suffer under such conditions; his +nature is subdued to what it works in; he clings convulsively to his +counter and its retail methods. + +The fact is--and it is a fact that is slowly becoming apparent to +all--that the private practice of medicine is out of date. It fails to +answer the needs of our time. There are various reasons why this should +be the case, but two are fundamental. In the first place, medicine has +outgrown the capacity of any individual doctor; the only adequate +private practitioner must have a sound general knowledge of medicine +with an expert knowledge of a dozen specialties; that is to say, he must +give place to a staff of doctors acting co-ordinately, for the present +system, or lack of system, by which a patient wanders at random from +private practitioner to specialist, from specialist to specialist +_ad infinitum_, is altogether mischievous. Moreover, not only is it +impossible for the private practitioner to possess the knowledge +required to treat his patients adequately: he cannot possess the +scientific mechanical equipment nowadays required alike for diagnosis +and treatment, and every day becoming more elaborate, more expensive, +more difficult to manipulate. It is installed in our great hospitals +for the benefit of the poorest patient; it could, perhaps, be set up +in a millionaire's palace, but it is hopelessly beyond the private +practitioner, though without it his work must remain unsatisfactory and +inadequate.[1] In the second place, the whole direction of modern +medicine is being changed and to an end away from private practice; our +thoughts are not now mainly bent on the cure of disease but on its +prevention. Medicine is becoming more and more transformed into hygiene, +and in this transformation, though the tasks presented are larger and +more systematic, they are also easier and more economical. These two +fundamental tendencies of modern medicine--greater complexity of its +methods and the predominantly preventive character of its aims--alone +suffice to render the position of the private practitioner untenable. He +cannot cope with the complexity of modern medicine; he has no authority +to enforce its hygiene. + +The medical system of the future must be a national system co-ordinating +all the conditions of health. At the centre we should expect to find a +Minister of Health, and every doctor of the State would give his whole +time to his work and be paid by salary which in the case of the higher +posts would be equal to that now fixed for the higher legal offices, for +the chief doctor in the State ought to be at least as important an +official as the Lord Chancellor. Hospitals and infirmaries would be alike +nationalised, and, in place of the present antagonism between hospitals +and the bulk of the medical profession, every doctor would be in touch +with a hospital, thus having behind him a fully equipped and staffed +institution for all purposes of diagnosis, consultation, treatment, and +research, also serving for a centre of notification, registration, +preventive and hygienic measures. In every district the citizen would +have a certain amount of choice as regards the medical man to whom he +may go for advice, but no one would be allowed to escape the medical +supervision and registration of his district, for it is essential that +the central Health Authority of every district should know the health +conditions of all the inhabitants of the district. Only by some such +organised and co-ordinated system as this can the primary conditions of +Health, and preventive measures against disease, be genuinely socialised. + +These views were put forward by the present writer twenty years ago in +a little book on _The Nationalisation of Health_, which, though it met +with wide approval, was probably regarded by most people as Utopian. +Since then the times have moved, a new generation has sprung up, and +ideas which, twenty years ago, were brooded over by isolated thinkers +are now seen to be in the direct line of progress; they have become the +property of parties and matters of active propaganda. Even before the +introduction of State Insurance Professor Benjamin Moore, in his able +book, _The Dawn of the Health Age_, anticipating the actual march of +events, formulated a State Insurance Scheme which would lead on, as he +pointed out, to a genuinely National Medical Service, and later, Dr. +Macilwaine, in a little book entitled _Medical Revolution_, again +advocated the same changes: the establishment of a Ministry of Health, +a medical service on a preventive basis, and the reform of the +hospitals which must constitute the nucleus of such a service. It may +be said that for medical men no longer engaged in private practice it +is easy to view the disappearance of private practice with serenity; +but it must be added that it is precisely that disinterested serenity +which makes possible also a clear insight into the problems and a wider +view of the new horizons of medicine. Thus it is that to-day the +dreamers of yesterday are justified. + +The great scheme of State Insurance was certainly an important step +towards the socialisation of medicine. It came short, indeed, of the +complete Nationalisation of Health as an affair of State. But that +could not possibly be introduced at one move. Apart even from the +difficulty of complete reorganisation, the two great vested interests +of private medical practice on the one hand and Friendly Societies on +the other would stand in the way. A complicated transitional period is +necessary, during which those two interests are conciliated and +gradually absorbed. It is this transitional period which State +Insurance has inaugurated. To compare small things to great--as we may, +for the same laws run all through Nature and Society--this scheme +corresponds to the ancient Ptolomaean system of astronomy, with its +painfully elaborate epicycles, which preceded and led on to the sublime +simplicity of the Copernican system. We need not anticipate that the +transitional stage of national insurance will endure as long as the +ancient astronomy. Professor Moore estimated that it would lead to a +completely national medical service in twenty-five years, and since the +introduction of that method he has, too optimistically, reduced the +period to ten years. We cannot reach simplicity at a bound; we must +first attempt to systematise the recognised and established activities +and adjust them harmoniously. + +The organised refusal of the medical profession at the outset to carry +on, under the conditions offered, the part assigned to it in the great +National Insurance scheme opened out prospects not clearly realised by +the organisers. No doubt its immediate aspects were unfortunate. It not +only threatened to impede the working of a very complex machine, but it +dismayed many who were not prepared to see doctors apparently taking up +the position of the syndicalists, and arguing that a profession which +is essential to the national welfare need not be carried out on +national lines, but can be run exclusively by itself in its own +interests. Such an attitude, however, usefully served to make clear how +necessary it is becoming that the extension of medicine and hygiene in +the national life should be accompanied by a corresponding extension in +the national government. If we had had a Council of National Health, as +well as of National Defence, or a Board of Health as well as a Board of +Trade, a Minister of Health with a seat in the Cabinet, any scheme of +Insurance would have been framed from the outset in close consultation +with the profession which would have the duty of carrying it out. No +subsequent friction would have been possible. + +Had the Insurance scheme been so framed, it is perhaps doubtful whether +it would have been so largely based on the old contract system. Club +medical practice has long been in discredit, alike from the point of +view of patient and doctor. It furnishes the least satisfactory form of +medical relief for the patient, less adequate than that he could obtain +either as a private patient or as a hospital patient. The doctor, on +his side, though he may find it a very welcome addition to his income, +regards Club practice as semi-charitable, and, moreover, a form of +charity in which he is often imposed on; he seldom views his club +patients with much satisfaction, and unless he is a self-sacrificing +enthusiast, it is not to them that his best attention, his best time, +his most expensive drugs, are devoted. To perpetuate and enlarge the +club system of practice and to glorify it by affixing to it a national +seal of approval, was, therefore, a somewhat risky experiment, not +wisely to be attempted without careful consultation with those most +concerned. + +Another point might then also have become clear: the whole tendency of +medicine is towards a recognition of the predominance of Hygiene. The +modern aim is to prevent disease. The whole national system of medicine +is being slowly though steadily built up in recognition of the great +fact that the interests of Health come before the interests of Disease. +It has been an unfortunate flaw in the magnificent scheme of Insurance +that this vital fact was not allowed for, that the old-fashioned notion +that treatment rather than prevention is the object of medicine was +still perpetuated, and that nothing was done to co-ordinate the +Insurance scheme with the existing Health Services. + +It seems probable that in a Service of State medical officers the +solution may ultimately be found. Such a solution would, indeed, +immensely increase the value of the Insurance scheme, and, in the end, +confer far greater benefits than at present on the millions of people who +would come under its operation. For there can be no doubt the Club system +is not only unscientific; it is also undemocratic. It perpetuates what +was originally a semi-charitable and second-rate method of treatment of +the poorer classes. A State medical officer, devoting his whole time and +attention to his State patients, has no occasion to make invidious +distinctions between public and private patients. + +A further advantage of a State Medical Service is that it will facilitate +the inevitable task of nationalising the hospitals, whether charitable or +Poor-law. The Insurance Act, as it stands, opens no definite path in this +direction. But nowadays, so vast and complicated has medicine become, +even the most skilful doctor cannot adequately treat his patient unless +he has a great hospital at his back, with a vast army of specialists and +research-workers, and a manifold instrumental instalment. + +A third, and even more fundamental, advantage of a State Medical Service +is that it would help to bring Treatment into touch with Prevention. The +private practitioner, as such, inside or outside the Insurance scheme, +cannot conveniently go behind his patient's illness. But the State doctor +would be entitled to ask: _Why_ has this man broken down? The State's +guardianship of the health of its citizens now begins at birth (is +tending to be carried back before birth) and covers the school life. If +a man falls ill, it is, nowadays, legitimate to inquire where the +responsibility lies. It is all very well to patch up the diseased man +with drugs or what not. But at best that is a makeshift method. The +Consumptive Sanatoriums have aroused enthusiasm, and they also are all +very well. But the Charity Organisation Society has shown that only about +50 per cent. of those who pass through such institutions become fit for +work. It is not more treatment of disease that we want, it is less need +for treatment. And a State Medical Service is the only method by which +Medicine can be brought into close touch with Hygiene. + +The present attitude of the medical profession sometimes strikes people +as narrow, unpatriotic, and merely self-interested. But the Insurance +Act has brought a powerful ferment of intellectual activity into the +medical profession which in the end will work to finer issues. A +significant sign of the times is the establishment of the State Medical +Service Association, having for its aim the organisation of the medical +profession as a State Service, the nationalisation of hospitals, and +the unification of preventive and curative medicine. To many in the +medical profession such schemes still seem "Utopian"; they are blind to +a process which has been in ever increasing action for more than half a +century and which they are themselves taking part in every day. + + +[1] The result sometimes is that the ambitious doctor seeks to become +a specialist in at least one subject, and instals a single expensive +method of treatment to which he enthusiastically subjects all his +patients. This would be comic if it were not sometimes rather tragic. + + + + +XIII + + +EUGENICS AND GENIUS + +The cry is often heard to-day from those who watch with disapproval the +efforts made to discourage the reckless procreation of the degenerate +and the unfit: You are stamping out the germs of genius! It is widely +held that genius is a kind of flower, unknown to the horticulturist, +which only springs from diseased roots; make the plant healthily sound +and your hope of blossoms is gone, you will see nothing but leaves. Or, +according to the happier metaphor of Lombroso, the work of genius is an +exquisite pearl, and pearls are the product of an obscure disease. To +the medical mind, especially, it has sometimes been, naturally and +properly no doubt, a source of satisfaction to imagine that the +loveliest creations of human intellect may perhaps be employed to shed +radiance on the shelves of the pathological museum. Thus we find eminent +physicians warning us against any effort to decrease the vigour of +pathological processes, and influential medical journals making solemn +statements in the same sense. "Already," I read in a recent able and +interesting editorial article in the _British Medical Journal_, +"eugenists in their kind enthusiasm are threatening to stamp out the +germs of possible genius." + +Now it is quite easy to maintain that the health, happiness, and sanity +of the whole community are more precious even than genius. It is so +easy, indeed, that if the question of eugenics were submitted to the +Referendum on this sole ground there can be little doubt what the result +would be. There are not many people, even in the most highly educated +communities, who value the possibility of a new poem, symphony, or +mathematical law so highly that they would sacrifice their own health, +happiness, and sanity to retain that possibility for their offspring. Of +course we may declare that a majority which made such a decision must be +composed of very low-minded uncultured people, altogether lacking in +appreciation of pathology, and reflecting no credit on the eugenic cause +they supported; but there can be little doubt that we should have to +admit their existence. + +We need not hasten, however, to place the question on this ground. It +is first necessary to ascertain what reason there is to suppose that a +regard for eugenic considerations in mating would tend to stamp out the +germs of genius. Is there any reason at all? That is the question I am +here concerned with. + +The anti-eugenic argument on this point, whenever any argument is +brought forward, consists in pointing to all sorts of men of genius and +of talent who, it is alleged, were poor citizens, physical degenerates +the prey of all manner of constitutional diseases, sometimes candidates +for the lunatic asylum which they occasionally reached. The miscellaneous +data which may thus be piled up are seldom critically sifted, and often +very questionable, for it is difficult enough to obtain any positive +biological knowledge concerning great men who died yesterday, and +practically impossible in most cases to reach an unquestionable +conclusion as regards those who died a century or more ago. Many of the +most positive statements commonly made concerning the diseases even of +modern genius are without any sure basis. The case of Nietzsche, who was +seen by some of the chief specialists of the day, is still really quite +obscure. So is that of Guy de Maupassant. Rousseau wrote the fullest and +frankest account of his ailments, and the doctors made a _post-mortem_ +examination. Yet nearly all the medical experts--and they are many--who +have investigated Rousseau's case reach different conclusions. It would +be easy to multiply indefinitely the instances of great men of the past +concerning whose condition of health or disease we are in hopeless +perplexity. + +This fact is, however, one that, as an argument, works both ways, and +the important point is to make clear that it cannot concern us. No +eugenic considerations can annihilate the man of genius when he is once +born and bred. If eugenics is to stamp out the man of genius it must do +so before he is born, by acting on his parents. + +Nor is it possible to assume that if the man of genius, apart from his +genius, is an unfit person to procreate the race, therefore his parents, +not possessing any genius, were likewise unfit to propagate. It is easy +to find persons of high ability who in other respects are unfit for +the ends of life, ill-balanced in mental or physical development, +neurasthenic, valetudinarian, the victims in varying degrees of all +sorts of diseases. Yet their parents, without any high ability, were, to +all appearance, robust, healthy, hard-working, commonplace people who +would easily pass any ordinary eugenic tests. We know nothing as to the +action of two seemingly ordinary persons on each other in constituting +heredity, how hypertrophied intellectual aptitude comes about, what +accidents, normal or pathological, may occur to the germ before birth, +nor even how strenuous intellectual activity may affect the organism +generally. We cannot argue that since these persons, apart from their +genius, were not seemingly the best people to carry on the race, +therefore a like judgment should be passed on their parents and the +germs of genius thus be stamped out. + +We only arrive at the crucial question when we ask: Have the characters +of the parents of men of genius been of such an obviously unfavourable +kind that eugenically they would nowadays be dissuaded from +propagation, or under a severe _régime_ of compulsory certificates (the +desirability of which I am far indeed from assuming) be forbidden to +marry? Have the parents of genius belonged to the "unfit"? That is a +question which must be answered in the affirmative if this objection to +eugenics has any weight. Yet so far as I know, none of those who have +brought forward the objection have supported it by any evidence of the +kind whatever. Thirty years ago Dr. Maudsley dogmatically wrote: "There +is hardly ever a man of genius who has not insanity or nervous disorder +of some form in his family." But he never brought forward any evidence +in support of that pronouncement. Nor has anyone else, if we put aside +the efforts of more or less competent writers--like Lombroso in his +_Man of Genius_ and Nisbet in his _Insanity of Genius_--to rake in +statements from all quarters regarding the morbidities of genius, often +without any attempt to authenticate, criticise, or sift them, and never +with any effort to place them in due perspective.[1] + +It so happens that, some years ago, with no relation to eugenic +considerations, I devoted a considerable amount of attention to the +biological characters of British men of genius, considered, so far as +possible, on an objective and impartial basis.[2] The selection, that +is to say, was made, so far as possible, without regard to personal +predilections, in accordance with certain rules, from the _Dictionary +of National Biography_. In this way one thousand and thirty names were +obtained of men and women who represent the flower of British genius +during historical times, only excluding those persons who were alive at +the end of the last century. What proportion of these were the +offspring of parents who were insane or mentally defective to a serious +extent? + +If the view of Maudsley--that there is "hardly ever" a man of genius +who is not the product of an insane or nervously-disordered stock--had +a basis of truth, we should expect that in one or other parents of the +man of genius actual insanity had occurred in a very large proportion +of cases; 25 per cent. would be a moderate estimate. But what do we +find? In not 1 per cent. can definite insanity be traced among the +parents of British men and women of genius. No doubt this result is +below the truth; the insanity of the parents must sometimes have +escaped the biographer's notice. But even if we double the percentage +to escape this source of error, the proportion still remains +insignificant. + +There is more to be said. If the insanity of the parent occurred early +in life, we should expect it to attract attention more easily than if +it occurred late in life. Those parents of men of genius falling into +insanity late in life, the critic may argue, escape notice. But it is +precisely to this group to which all the ascertainably insane parents +of British men of genius belong. There is not a single recorded +instance, so far as I have been able to ascertain, in which the parent +had been definitely and recognisably insane before the birth of the +distinguished child; so that any prohibition of the marriage of persons +who had previously been insane would have left British genius +untouched. In all cases the insanity came on late in life, and it was +usually, without doubt, of the kind known as senile dementia. This was +so in the case of the mother of Bacon, the most distinguished person in +the list of those with an insane parent. Charles Lamb's father, we are +told, eventually became "imbecile." Turner's mother became insane. The +same is recorded of Archbishop Tillotson's mother and of Archbishop +Leighton's father. This brief list includes all the parents of British +men of genius who are recorded (and not then always very definitely) as +having finally died insane. In the description given of others of the +parents of our men of genius it is not, however, difficult to detect +that, though they were not recognised as insane, their mental condition +was so highly abnormal as to be not far removed from insanity. This was +the case with Gray's father and with the mothers of Arthur Young and +Andrew Bell. Even when we allow for all the doubtful cases, the +proportion of persons of genius with an insane parent remains very low, +less than 2 per cent. + +Senile dementia, though it is one of the least important and +significant of the forms of insanity, and is entirely compatible with a +long and useful life, must not, however, be regarded, when present in a +marked degree, as the mere result of old age. Entirely normal people of +sound heredity do not tend to manifest signs of pronounced mental +weakness or abnormality even in extreme old age. We are justified in +suspecting a neurotic strain, though it may not be of severe degree. +This is, indeed, illustrated by our records of British genius. Some of +the eminent men of genius on my list (at least twelve) suffered before +death from insanity which may probably be described as senile dementia. +But several of these were somewhat abnormal during earlier life (like +Swift) or had a child who became insane (like Bishop Marsh). In these +and in other cases there has doubtless been some hereditary neurotic +strain. + +It is clearly, however, not due to any intensity of this strain that we +find the incidence of insanity in men of genius, as illustrated, for +example, by senile dementia, so much more marked than its incidence on +their parents. There is another factor to be invoked here: convergent +morbid heredity. If a man and a woman, each with a slight tendency to +nervous abnormality, marry each other, there is a much greater chance +of the offspring manifesting a severe degree of nervous abnormality +than if they had married entirely sound partners. Now both among normal +and abnormal people there is a tendency for like to mate with like. +The attraction of the unlike for each other, which was once supposed +to prevail, is not predominant, except within the sphere of the secondary +sexual characters, where it clearly prevails, so that the ultra-masculine +man is attracted to the ultra-feminine woman, and the feminine man to the +boyish or mannish woman. Apart from this, people tend to marry those who +are both psychically and physically of the same type as themselves. It +thus happens that nervously abnormal people become mated to the nervously +abnormal. This is well illustrated by the British men of genius +themselves. Although insanity is more prevalent among them than among +their parents, the same can scarcely be said of them in regard to their +wives. It is notable that the insane wives of these men of genius are +almost as numerous as the insane men of genius, though it rarely happens +(as in the case of Southey) that both husband and wife go out of their +minds. But in all these cases there has probably been a mutual attraction +of mentally abnormal people. + +It is to this tendency in the parents of men of genius, leading to a +convergent heredity, that we must probably attribute the undue tendency +of the men of genius themselves to manifest insanity. Each of the +parents separately may have displayed but a minor degree of neuropathic +abnormality, but the two strains were fortified by union and the +tendency to insanity became more manifest. This was, for instance, the +case as regards Charles Lamb. The nervous abnormality of the parents in +this case was less profound than that of the children, but it was +present in both. Under such circumstances what is called the law of +anticipation comes into play; the neurotic tendency of the parents, +increased by union, is also antedated, so that definite insanity occurs +earlier in the life of the child than, if it had appeared at all, it +occurred in the life of the parent. Lamb's father only became +weak-minded in old age, but since the mother also had a mentally +abnormal strain, Lamb himself had an attack of insanity early in life, +and his sister was liable to recurrent insanity during a great part of +her life. Notwithstanding, however, the influence of this convergent +heredity, it is found that the total insanity of British men and women +of genius is not more, so far as can be ascertained--even when slight +and dubious cases are included--than 4.2 per cent. That ascertainable +proportion must be somewhat below the real proportion, but in any case +it scarcely suggests that insanity is an essential factor of genius. + +Let us, however, go beyond the limits of British genius, and consider +the evidence more freely. There is, for instance, Tasso, who was +undoubtedly insane for a good part of his life, and has been much +studied by the pathologists. De-Gaudenzi, who has written one of the +best psychopathological studies of Tasso, shows clearly that his +father, Bernardo, was a man of high intelligence, of great emotional +sensibility, with a tendency to melancholy as well as a mystical +idealism, of somewhat weak character, and prone to invoke Divine aid in +the slightest difficulty. It was a temperament that might be considered +a little morbid, outside a monastery, but it was not insane, nor is +there any known insanity among his near relations. This man's wife, +Porzia, Tasso's mother, arouses the enthusiasm of all who ever mention +her, as a creature of angelic perfection. No insanity here either, but +something of the same undue sensitiveness and melancholy as in the +father, the same absence of the coarser and more robust virtues. +Moreover, she belonged to a family by no means so angelic as herself, +not insane, but abnormal--malevolent, cruel, avaricious, almost +criminal. The most scrupulous modern alienist would hesitate to deprive +either Bernardo or Porzia of the right to parenthood. Yet, as we know, +the son born of this union was not only a world-famous poet, but an +exceedingly unhappy, abnormal, and insane man. + +Let us take the case of another still greater and more famous man, +Rousseau. It cannot reasonably be doubted that, at some moments in his +life at all events, and perhaps during a considerable period, Rousseau +was definitely insane. We are intimately acquainted with the details +of the life and character of his relations and of his ancestry. We not +only possess the full account he set forth at the beginning of his +_Confessions_, but we know very much more than Rousseau knew. Geneva +was paternal--paternal in the most severe sense--in scrutinising every +unusual act of its children, and castigating every slightest deviation +from the straight path. The whole life of the citizens of old Geneva may +be read in Genevan archives, and not a scrap of information concerning +the conduct of Rousseau's ancestors and relatives as set down in these +archives but has been brought to the light of day. If there is any great +man of genius whom the activities of these fanatical eugenists would have +rendered impossible, it must surely have been Rousseau. Let us briefly +examine his parentage. Rousseau's father was the outcome of a fine stock +which for two generations had been losing something of its fine +qualities, though without sinking anywhere near insanity, criminality, or +pauperism. The Rousseaus still exercised their craft with success; they +were on the whole esteemed; Jean-Jacques's father was generally liked, +but he was somewhat unstable, romantic, with no strong sense of duty, +hot-tempered, easily taking offence. The mother, from a modern +standpoint, was an attractive, highly accomplished, and admirable woman. +In her neighbours' eyes she was not quite Puritanical enough, +high-spirited, independent, adventurous, fond of innocent gaiety, but a +devoted wife when, at last, at the age of thirty, she married. More than +once before marriage she was formally censured by the ecclesiastical +authorities for her little insubordinations, and these may be seen to +have a certain significance when we turn to her father; he was a thorough +_mauvais sujet_, with an incorrigible love of pleasure, and constantly +falling into well-deserved trouble for some escapade with the young women +of Geneva. Thus on both sides there was a certain nervous instability, an +uncontrollable wayward emotionality. But of actual insanity, of nervous +disorder, of any decided abnormality or downright unfitness in either +father or mother, not a sign. Isaac Rousseau and Susanne Bernard would +have been passed by the most ferocious eugenist. It is again a case in +which the chances of convergent heredity have produced a result which in +its magnitude, in its heights and in its depths, none could foresee. It +is one of the most famous and most accurately known examples of insane +genius in history, and we see what amount of support it offers to the +ponderous dictum concerning the insane heredity of genius. + +Let us turn from insanity to grave nervous disease. Epilepsy at once +comes before us, all the more significantly since it has been +considered, more especially by Lombroso, to be the special disease +through which genius peculiarly manifests itself. It is true that much +importance here is attached to those minor forms of epilepsy which +involve no gross and obvious convulsive fit. The existence of these +minor attacks is, in the case of men of genius, usually difficult to +disprove and equally difficult to prove. It certainly should not be so +as regards the major form of epilepsy. Yet among the thousand and +thirty persons of British genius I was only able to find epilepsy +mentioned twice, and in both cases incorrectly, for the National +Biographer had attributed it to Lord Herbert of Cherbury through +misreading a passage in Herbert's _Autobiography_, while the epileptic +fits of Sir W.R. Hamilton in old age were most certainly not true +epilepsy. Without doubt, no eugenist could recommend an epileptic to +become a parent. But if epilepsy has no existence in British men of +genius it is improbable that it has often occurred among their parents. +The loss to British genius through eugenic activity in this sphere +would probably, therefore, have been _nil_. + +Putting aside British genius, however, one finds that it has been +almost a commonplace of alienists and neurologists, even up to the +present day, to present glibly a formidable list of mighty men of +genius as victims of epilepsy. Thus I find a well-known American +alienist lately making the unqualified and positive statement that +"Mahomet, Napoleon, Moličre, Handel, Paganini, Mozart, Schiller, +Richelieu, Newton and Flaubert" were epileptics, while still more +recently a distinguished English neurologist, declaring that "the +world's history has been made by men who were either epileptics, +insane, or of neuropathic stock," brings forward a similar and still +larger list to illustrate that statement, with Alexander the Great, +Julius Caesar, the Apostle Paul, Luther, Frederick the Great and many +others thrown in, though unfortunately he fails to tell us which +members of the group he desires us to regard as epileptic. Julius +Caesar was certainly one of them, but the statement of Suetonius (not +an unimpeachable authority in any case) that Caesar had epileptic fits +towards the close of his life is disproof rather than proof of true +epilepsy. Of Mahomet, and St. Paul also, epilepsy is alleged. As +regards the first, the most competent authorities regard the convulsive +seizures attributed to the Prophet as perhaps merely a legendary +attempt to increase the awe he inspired by unmistakable evidence of +divine authority. The narrative of St. Paul's experience on the road to +Damascus is very unsatisfactory evidence on which to base a medical +diagnosis, and it may be mentioned that, in the course of a discussion +in the columns of the _British Medical Journal_ during 1910, as many as +six different views were put forward as to the nature of the Apostle's +"thorn in the flesh." The evidence on which Richelieu, who was +undoubtedly a man of very fragile constitution is declared to be +epileptic, is of the very slenderest character. For the statement that +Newton was epileptic there is absolutely no reliable evidence at all, +and I am quite ignorant of the grounds on which Mozart, Handel and +Schiller are declared epileptics. The evidence for epilepsy in Napoleon +may seem to carry slightly more weight, for there is that in the moral +character of Napoleon which we might very well associate with the +epileptic temperament. It seems clear that Napoleon really had at times +convulsive seizures which were at least epileptoid. Thus Talleyrand +describes how one day, just after dinner (it may be recalled that +Napoleon was a copious and exceedingly rapid eater), passing for a few +minutes into Josephine's room, the Emperor came out, took Talleyrand +into his own room, ordered the door to be closed, and then fell down in +a fit. Bourrienne, however, who was Napoleon's private secretary for +eleven years, knew nothing about any fits. It is not usual, in a true +epileptic fit, to be able to control the circumstances of the seizure +to this extent, and if Napoleon, who lived so public a life, furnished +so little evidence of epilepsy to his environment, it may be regarded +as very doubtful whether any true epilepsy existed, and on other +grounds it seems highly improbable.[3] + +Of all these distinguished persons in the list of alleged epileptics, +it is naturally most profitable to investigate the case of the latest, +Flaubert, for here it is easiest to get at the facts. Maxime du Camp, a +friend in early life, though later incompatibility of temperament led +to estrangement, announced to the world in his _Souvenirs_ that +Flaubert was an epileptic, and Goncourt mentions in his _Journal_ that +he was in the habit of taking much bromide. But the "fits" never began +until the age of twenty-eight, which alone should suggest to a +neurologist that they are not likely to have been epileptic; they never +occurred in public; he could feel the fit coming on and would go and +lie down; he never lost consciousness; his intellect and moral +character remained intact until death. It is quite clear that there was +no true epilepsy here, nor anything like it.[4] Flaubert was of fairly +sound nervous heredity on both sides, and his father, a distinguished +surgeon, was a man of keen intellect and high character. The novelist, +who was of robust physical and mental constitution, devoted himself +strenuously and exclusively to intellectual work; it is not surprising +that he was somewhat neurasthenic, if not hysterical, and Dumesnil, who +discusses this question in his book on Flaubert, concludes that the +"fits" may be called hysterical attacks of epileptoid form. + +It may well be that we have in Flaubert's case a clue to the "epilepsy" +of the other great men who in this matter are coupled with him. They +were nearly all persons of immense intellectual force, highly charged +with nervous energy; they passionately concentrated their energy on the +achievement of life tasks of enormous magnitude, involving the highest +tension of the organism. Under such conditions, even in the absence of +all bad heredity or of actual disease, convulsive discharges may occur. +We may see even in healthy and sound women that occasionally some +physiological and unrelieved overcharging of the organism with nervous +energy may result in what is closely like a hysterical fit, while even +a violent fit of crying is a minor manifestation of the same tendency. +The feminine element in genius has often been emphasised, and it may +well be that under the conditions of the genius-life when working at +high pressure we have somewhat similar states of nervous overcharging, +and that from time to time the tension is relieved, naturally and +spontaneously, by a convulsive discharge. This, at all events, seems a +possible explanation. + +It is rather strange that in these recklessly confident lists of +eminent "epileptics" we fail to find the one man of distinguished +genius whom perhaps we are justified in regarding as a true epileptic. +Dostoievsky appears to have been an epileptic from an early age; he +remained liable to epileptic fits throughout life, and they plunged him +into mental dejection and confusion. In many of his novels we find +pictures of the epileptic temperament, evidently based on personal +experience, showing the most exact knowledge and insight into all the +phases of the disease. Moreover, Dostoievsky in his own person appears +to have displayed the perversions and the tendency to mental +deterioration which we should expect to find in a true epileptic. So +far as our knowledge goes, he really seems to stand alone as a +manifestation of supreme genius combined with epilepsy. Yet, as Dr. +Loygue remarks in his medico-psychological study of the great Russian +novelist, epilepsy only accounts for half of the man, and leaves +unexplained his passion for work; "the dualism of epilepsy and genius +is irreducible." + +There is one other still more recent man of true genius, though not of +the highest rank, who may possibly be counted as epileptic: Vincent van +Gogh, the painter.[5] A brilliant and highly original artist, he was a +definitely abnormal man who cannot be said to have escaped mental +deterioration. Simple and humble and suffering, recklessly sacrificing +himself to help others, always in trouble, van Gogh had many points of +resemblance to Dostoievsky. He has, indeed, been compared to the +"Idiot" immortalised by Dostoievsky, in some aspects an imbecile, in +some aspects a saint. Yet epilepsy no more explains the genius of van +Gogh than it explains the genius of Dostoievsky. + +Thus the impression we gain when, laying aside prejudice, we take a +fairly wide and impartial survey of the facts, or even when we +investigate in detail the isolated facts to which significance is most +often attached, by no means supports the notion that genius springs +entirely, or even mainly, from insane and degenerate stocks. In some +cases, undoubtedly, it is found in such stocks, but the ability +displayed in these cases is rarely, perhaps never, of any degree near +the highest. It is quite easy to point to persons of a certain +significance, especially in literature and art, who, though themselves +sane, possess many near relatives who are highly neurotic and sometimes +insane. Such cases, however, are far from justifying any confident +generalisations concerning the intimate dependence of genius on +insanity. + +We see, moreover, that to conclude that men of genius are rarely or +never the offspring of a radically insane parentage is not to assume +that the parents of men of genius are usually of average normal +constitution. That would in any case be improbable. Apart from the +tendency to convergent heredity already emphasised, there is a wider +tendency to slight abnormality, a minor degree of inaptness for +ordinary life in the parentage of genius. I found that in 5 per cent. +cases (certainly much below the real mark) of the British people of +genius, one parent, generally the father, had shown abnormality from a +social or parental point of view. He had been idle, or extravagant, or +restless, or cruel, or intemperate, or unbusinesslike, in the great +majority of these cases "unsuccessful." The father of Dickens +(represented by his son in Micawber), who was always vainly expecting +something to turn up, is a good type of these fathers of genius. +Shakespeare's father may have been of much the same sort. George +Meredith's father, again, who was too superior a person for the +outfitting business he inherited, but never succeeded in being anything +else, is another example of this group of fathers of genius. The father +in these cases is a link of transition between the normal stock and its +brilliantly abnormal offshoot. In this transitional stage we see, as it +were, the stock _reculer pour mieux sauter_, but it is in the son that +the great leap is made manifest. + +This peculiarity will serve to indicate that in a large proportion of +cases the parentage of genius is not entirely sound and normal. We must +dismiss absolutely the notion that the parents of persons of genius +tend to exhibit traits of a grossly insane or nervously degenerate +character. The evidence for such a view is confined to a minute +proportion of cases, and even then is usually doubtful. But it is +another matter to assume that the parentage of genius is absolutely +normal, and still less can we assert that genius always springs from +entirely sound stocks. The statement is sometimes made that all +families contain an insane element. That statement cannot be accepted. +There are many people, including people of a high degree of ability, +who can trace no gross mental or nervous disease in their families, +unless remote branches are taken into account. Not many statistics +bearing on this point are yet available. But Jenny Roller, in a very +thorough investigation, found at Zurich in 1895 that "healthy" people +had in 28 per cent. cases directly, and in 59 per cent. cases +indirectly and altogether, a neuropathic heredity, while Otto Diem in +1905 found that the corresponding percentages were still higher--33 and +69. It should not, therefore, be matter for surprise if careful +investigation revealed a traceable neuropathic element at least as +frequent as this in the families which produce a man of genius. + +It may further, I believe, be argued that the presence of a neuropathic +element of this kind in the ancestry of genius is frequently not +without a real significance. Aristotle said in his _Poetics_ that +poetry demanded a man with "a touch of madness," though the ancients, +who frequently made a similar statement to this, had not our modern +ideas of neuropathic heredity in their minds, but merely meant that +inspiration simulated insanity. Yet "a touch of madness," a slight +morbid strain, usually neurotic or gouty, in a preponderantly robust +and energetic stock, seems to be often of some significance in the +evolution of genius; it appears to act, one is inclined to think, as a +kind of ferment, leading to a process out of all relation to its own +magnitude. In the sphere of literary genius, Milton, Flaubert, and +William Morris may help to illustrate this precious fermentative +influence of a minor morbid element in vitally powerful stocks. Without +some such ferment as this the energy of the stock, one may well +suppose, might have been confined within normal limits; the rare and +exquisite flower of genius, we know, required an abnormal stimulation; +only in this sense is there any truth at all in Lombroso's statement +that the pearl of genius develops around a germ of disease. But this is +the utmost length to which the facts allow us to go in assuming the +presence of a morbid element as a frequent constituent of genius. Even +then we only have one of the factors of genius, to which, moreover, +undue importance cannot be attached when we remember how often this +ferment is present without any resultant process of genius. And we are +in any case far removed from any of those gross nervous lesions which +all careful guardianship of the race must tend to eliminate. + +Thus we are brought back to the point from which we started. Would +eugenics stamp out genius? There is no need to minimise the fact that a +certain small proportion of men of genius have displayed highly morbid +characters, nor to deny that in a large proportion of cases a slightly +morbid strain may with care be detected in the ancestry of genius. But +the influence of eugenic considerations can properly be brought to bear +only in the case of grossly degenerate stocks. Here, so far as our +knowledge extends, the parentage of genius nearly always escapes. The +destruction of genius and its creation alike elude the eugenist. If +there is a tendency in modern civilisation towards a diminution in the +manifestations of genius--which may admit of question---it can scarcely +be due to any threatened elimination of corrupt stocks. It may perhaps +more reasonably be sought in the haste and superficiality which our +present phase of urbanisation fosters, and only the most robust genius +can adequately withstand. + + +[1] A Danish alienist, Lange, has, however, made an attempt on a +statistical basis to show a connection between mental ability and mental +degeneracy. (F. Lange, _Degeneration in Families_, translated from the +Danish, 1907). He deals with 44 families which have provided 428 insane +or neuropathic persons within a few generations, and during the same +period a large number also of highly distinguished members, Cabinet +ministers, bishops, artists, poets, etc. But Lange admits that the forms +of insanity found in these families are of a slight and not severe +character, while it is clear that the forms of ability are also in most +cases equally slight; they are mostly "old" families, such as naturally +produce highly-trained and highly placed individuals. Moreover, Lange's +methods and style of writing are not scientifically exact, and he fails +to define precisely what he means by a "family." His investigation +indicates that there is a frequent tendency for men of ability to belong +to families which are not entirely sound, and that is a conclusion which +is not seriously disputed. + +[2] Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, 1904. + +[3] Dr. Cabančs (_Indiscrétions de l'Histoire_, 3rd series) similarly +concludes that, while in temperament Napoleon may be said to belong to +the epileptic class, he was by no means an epileptic in the ordinary +sense. Kanngiesser (_Prager Medizinische Wochenschrift_, 1912, No. 27) +suggests that from his slow pulse (40 to 60) Napoleon's attacks may have +originated in the heart and vessels. + +[4] Genuine epilepsy usually comes on before the age of twenty-five; it +very rarely begins after twenty-five, and never after thirty. (L.W. +Weber, _Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, July 30th and Aug. 6th, +1912.) In genuine epilepsy, also, loss of consciousness accompanies the +fits; the exceptions to this rule are rare, though Audenino, a pupil of +Lombroso, who sought to extend the sphere of epilepsy, believes that +the exceptions are not so rare as is commonly supposed (_Archivio di +Psichiatria_, fasc. VI., 1906). Moreover, true epilepsy is accompanied +by a progressive mental deterioration which terminates in dementia; in +the Craig Colony for Epileptics of New York, among 3,000 epileptics +this progressive deterioration is very rarely absent (_Lancet_, March +1st, 1913); but it is not found in the distinguished men of genius who +are alleged to be epileptic. Epileptic deterioration has been +elaborately studied by MacCurdy, _Psychiatric Bulletin_, New York, +April, 1916. + +[5] See, _e.g._, Elizabeth du Quesne van Gogh, _Personal Recollections +of Vincent van Gogh_, p. 46. These epileptic attacks are, however, but +vaguely mentioned, and it would seem that they only appeared during the +last years of the artist's life. + + + + +XIV + + +THE PRODUCTION OF ABILITY + +The growing interest in eugenics, and the world-wide decline in the +birth-rate, have drawn attention to the study of the factors which +determine the production of genius in particular and high ability in +general. The interest in this question, thus freshly revived and made +more acute by the results of the Great War, is not indeed new. It is +nearly half a century since Galton wrote his famous book on the heredity +of genius, or, as he might better have described the object of his +investigation, the heredity of ability. At a later date my own _Study of +British Genius_ collectively summarised all the biological data available +concerning the parentage and birth of the most notable persons born in +England, while numerous other studies might also be named. + +Such investigations are to-day acquiring a fresh importance, because, +while it is becoming realised that we are gaining a new control over the +conditions of birth, the production of children has itself gained in +importance. The world is no longer bombarded by an exuberant stream of +babies, good, bad, and indifferent in quality, with Mankind to look on +calmly at the struggle for existence among them. Whether we like it or +not, the quantity is relatively diminishing, and the question of quality +is beginning to assume a supreme significance. What are the conditions +which assure the finest quality in our children? + +A German scientist, Dr. Vaerting, of Berlin, published on the eve of +the War a little book on the most favourable age in parents for the +production of children of ability (_Das günstigste elterliche +Zeugungsalter_).[1] He approaches the question entirely in this new +spirit, not as a merely academic topic of discussion, but as a practical +matter of vital importance to the welfare of society. He starts with the +assertion that "our century has been called the century of the child,"[2] +and for the child all manner of rights are now being claimed. But the +prime right of all, the right of the child to the best ability that his +parents are able to transmit to him, is never even so much as considered. +Yet this right is the root of all children's rights. And when the +mysteries of procreation have been so far revealed as to enable this +right to be won, we shall, at the same time, Dr. Vaerting adds, renew +the spiritual aspect of the nations. + +The most easily ascertainable and measurable factor in the production of +ability, and certainly a factor which cannot be without significance, is +the age of the parents at the child's birth. It is this factor with which +Vaerting is mainly concerned, as illustrated by over one hundred German +men of genius concerning whom he has been able to obtain the required +data. Later on, he proposes to extend the inquiry to other nations. + +Vaerting finds--and this is probably the most original, though, as we +shall see, not the most unquestionable of his findings--that the +fathers who are themselves of no notable intellectual distinction have +a decidedly more prolonged power of procreating distinguished children +than is possessed by distinguished fathers. The former, that is to say, +may become the fathers of eminent children from the period of sexual +maturity up to the age of forty-three or beyond. When, however, the +father is himself of high intellectual distinction, Vaerting finds that +he was nearly always under thirty, and usually under twenty-five years +of age at his distinguished son's birth, although the proportion of +youthful fathers in the general population is relatively small. The +eleven youngest fathers on Vaerting's list, from twenty-one to +twenty-five years of age, were (with one exception) themselves more or +less distinguished, while the fifteen oldest, from thirty-nine to sixty +years of age, were all without exception undistinguished. Among these +sons are to be found much greater names (Goethe, Bach, Kant, Bismarck, +Wagner, etc.) than are to be found among the sons of young and more +distinguished fathers, for here there is only one name (Frederick the +Great) of the same calibre. The elderly fathers belonged to large +cities and were mostly married to wives very much younger than +themselves. Vaerting notes that the most eminent geniuses have most +frequently been the sons of fathers who were not engaged in +intellectual avocations at all, but earned their livings as simple +craftsmen. He draws the conclusion from these data that strenuous +intellectual energy is much more unfavourable than hard physical labour +to the production of ability in the offspring. Intellectual workers, +therefore, he argues, must have their children when young, and we must +so modify our social ideals and economic conditions as to render this +possible. That the mother should be equally young is not, he holds, +necessary; he finds some superiority, indeed, provided the father is +young, in somewhat elderly mothers, and there were no mothers under +twenty-three. The rarity of genius among the offspring of distinguished +parents is attributed to the unfortunate tendency to marry too late, +and Vaerting finds that the distinguished men who marry late rarely +have any children at all. Speaking generally, and apart from the +production of genius, he holds that women have children too early, +before their psychic development is completed, while men have children +too late, when they have already "in the years of their highest psychic +generative fitness planted their most precious seed in the mud of the +street." + +The eldest child was found to have by far the best chance of turning +out distinguished, and in this fact Vaerting finds further proof of +his argument. The third son has the next best chance, and then the +second, the comparatively bad position of the second being attributed +to the too brief interval which often follows the birth of the first +child. He also notes that of all the professions the clergy come +beyond comparison first as the parents of distinguished sons (who are, +however, rarely of the highest degree of eminence), lawyers following, +while officers in the army and physicians scarcely figure at all. +Vaerting is inclined to see in this order, especially in the +predominance of the clergy, the favourable influence of an unexhausted +reserve of energy and a habit of chastity on intellectual +procreativeness. This is one of his main conclusions. + +It so happens that in my own _Study of British Genius_, with which Dr. +Vaerting was unacquainted when he made his first investigation, I dealt +on a larger scale, and perhaps with somewhat more precise method, with +many of these same questions as they are illustrated by English genius. +Vaerting's results have induced me to re-examine and to some extent to +manipulate afresh the English data. My results, like Dr. Vaerting's, +showed a special tendency for genius to appear in the eldest child, +though there was no indication of notably early marriage in the +parents.[3] I also found a similar predominance of the clergy among the +fathers and a similar deficiency of army officers and physicians. The +most frequent age of the father was thirty-two years, but the average +age of the father at the distinguished child's birth was 36.6 years, +and when the fathers were themselves distinguished their age was not, +as Vaerting found in Germany, notably low at the birth of their +distinguished sons, but higher than the general average, being 37.5 +years. There have been fifteen distinguished English sons of +distinguished fathers, but instead of being nearly always under thirty +and usually under twenty-five, as Vaerting found in Germany, the +English distinguished father has only five times been under thirty and +among these five only twice under twenty-five. Moreover, precisely the +most distinguished of the sons (Francis Bacon and William Pitt) had the +oldest fathers and the least distinguished sons the youngest fathers. + +I made some attempt to ascertain whether different kinds of genius +tend to be produced by fathers who were at different periods of life. +I refrained from publishing the results as I doubted whether the +numbers dealt with were sufficiently large to carry any weight. It +may, however, be worth while to record them, as possibly they are +significant. I made four classes of men of genius: (1) Men of +Religion, (2) Poets, (3) Practical Men, and (4) Scientific Men and +Sceptics. (It must not, of course, be supposed that in this last group +all the scientific men were sceptics, or all the sceptics scientific.) +The average age of the fathers at the distinguished son's birth was, +in the first group, 35 years, in the second and third groups 37 years, +and in the last group 40 years. (It may be noted, however, that the +youngest father of all in the history of British genius, aged sixteen, +produced Napier, who introduced logarithms.) It is difficult not to +believe that as regards, at all events, the two most discrepant +groups, the first and last, we here come on a significant indication. +It is not unreasonable to suppose that in the production of men of +religion, in whose activity emotion is so potent a factor, the +youthful age of the father should prove favourable, while for the +production of genius of a more coldly intellectual and analytic type +more elderly fathers are demanded. If that should prove to be so, it +would become a source of happiness to religious parents to have their +children early, while irreligious persons should be advised to delay +parentage. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the age of the +mothers is probably quite as influential as that of the fathers. +Concerning the mothers, however, we always have less precise +information. My records, so far as they go, agree with Vaerting's for +German genius, in indicating that an elderly mother is more likely to +produce a child of genius than a very youthful mother. There were only +fifteen mothers recorded under twenty-five years of age, while +thirteen were over thirty-nine years; the most frequent age of the +mothers was twenty-seven. On all these points we certainly need +controlling evidence from other countries. Thus, before we insist with +Vaerting that an elderly mother is a factor in the production of +genius, we may recall that even in Germany the mothers of Goethe and +Nietzsche were both eighteen at their distinguished sons' birth. A +rule which permits of such tremendous exceptions scarcely seems to +bear the strain of emphasis. + +It must always be remembered that while the study of genius is highly +interesting, and even, it is probable, not without significance for the +general laws of heredity, we must not too hastily draw conclusions from +it to bear on practical questions of eugenics. Genius is rare and +abnormal; laws meant to apply to the general population must be based +on a study of the general population. Vaerting, who is alive to the +practical character which such problems are to-day assuming, realises +how inadequate it is to confine our study to genius. Marro, in his +valuable book on puberty, some years ago brought forward interesting +data showing the result of the age of the parents on the moral and +intellectual characters of school-children in North Italy. He found +that children with fathers below twenty-six at their birth showed the +maximum of bad conduct and the minimum of good; they also yielded the +greatest proportion of children of irregular, troublesome, or lazy +character, but not of really perverse children who were equally +distributed among fathers of all ages. The largest number of cheerful +children belonged to young fathers, while the children tended to become +more melancholy with ascending age of the fathers. Young fathers +produced the largest proportion of intelligent, as well as of +troublesome children, but when the very exceptionally intelligent +children were considered separately they were found to be more usually +the offspring of elderly fathers. As regards the mothers, Marro found +that the children of young mothers (under twenty-one) are superior, +both as regards conduct and intelligence, though the more exceptionally +intelligent children tended to belong to more mature mothers. When the +parents were both in the same age-group the immature and the elderly +groups tended to produce more children who were unsatisfactory, both as +regards conduct and intelligence, than the intermediate group.[4] + +But we need to have such inquiries made on a more wholesale and +systematic scale. They are no longer of a merely speculative character. +We no longer regard children as the "gifts of God," flung into our +helpless hands; we are beginning to realise that the responsibility is +ours to see that they come into the world under the best conditions, +and at the moments when their parents are best fitted to produce them. +Vaerting proposes that it should be the business of all school +authorities to register the ages of the pupils' parents. This is +scarcely a provision to which even the most susceptible parent could +reasonably object, though there is no cause to make the declaration +compulsory where a "conscientious" objection existed, and in any case +the declaration would not be public. It would be an advantage--though +this might be more difficult to obtain--to have the date of the +parents' marriage, and of the birth of previous children, as well as +some record of the father's standing in his occupation. But even the +ages of the parents alone would teach us much when correlated with the +school position of the pupil in intelligence and in conduct. It is +quite true that there are unavoidable fallacies. We are not, as in the +case of genius, dealing with people whose life-work is complete and +open to the whole world's examination. The good and clever child is not +necessarily the forerunner of the first-class man or woman; and many +capable and successful men have been careless in attendance at lectures +and rebellious to discipline. Moreover, the prejudice and limitations +of the teachers have also to be recognised. Yet when we are dealing +with millions most of these fallacies would be smoothed out. We should +be, once for all, in a position to determine authoritatively the exact +bearing of one of the simplest and most vital factors of the betterment +of the race. We should be in possession of a new clue to guide us in +the creation of the man of the coming world. Why not begin to-day? + + +[1] He has further discussed the subject in _Die Neue Generation_, +Aug.-Nov., 1914, and in a more recent (1916) pamphlet which I have not +seen. + +[2] The reference is to _The Century of the Child_, by Ellen Key, who +writes (English translation, p. 2): "My conviction is that the +transformation of human nature will take place, not when the whole of +humanity becomes Christian, but when the whole of humanity awakens to +the consciousness of the 'holiness of generation.' This consciousness +will make the central work of Society the new race, its origin, its +management, and its education; about these all morals, all laws, all +social arrangements will be grouped." + +[3] It is not only ability, but idiocy, criminality and many other +abnormalities which specially tend to appear in the first-born. The +eldest-born represents the point of greatest variation in the family, +and the variation thus yielded may be in either direction, useful or +useless, good or bad. See, _e.g._, Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British +Genius_, pp. 117-120. Sören Hansen, "The Inferior Quality of the +First-born Children," _Eugenics Review_, Oct., 1913. + +[4] Marro, _La Pubertŕ_ (French translation _La Puberté_), Ch. XI. + + + + +XV + + +MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE + +We contemplate our marriage system with satisfaction. We remember the +many unquestionable evidences in favour of it, and we marvel that it so +often proves a failure. For while we remember the evidence in favour of +it, we forget the evidence against it, and we overlook the important +fact that our favourable evidence is largely based on the vision of an +abstract or idealised monogamy which fails to correspond to the +detailed and ever varying system which in practice we cherish. We point +to the fact that monogamic marriage has probably flourished throughout +the history of the world, that it exists among savages, even among +animals, but we fail to observe how far that monogamy differs from +ours, even assuming that our monogamy is a real monogamy and not a +disguised polygamy, especially in the fact that it is a free union and +only subject to the inherent penalties that follow its infraction, not +to external penalties. Ours is not free; our faith in its natural +virtues is not quite so firm as we assert; we are always meddling with +it and worrying over its health and anxiously trying to bolster it up. +We are not by any means willing to let it rest on the sanction of its +own natural or divine laws. Our feeling is, as James Hinton used +ironically to express it: "Poor God with no one to help Him!" + +The fact is that when we compare our civilised marriage system with +marriage as it exists in Nature, we fail to realise a fundamental +distinction. Our marriage system is made up of two absolutely different +elements which cannot blend. On the one hand, it is the manifestation +of our deepest and most volcanic impulses. On the other hand, it is an +elaborate web of regulations--legal, ecclesiastical, economic--which is +to-day quite out of relation to our impulses. On the one hand, it is a +force which springs from within; on the other hand, it is a force which +presses on us from without.[1] One says broadly that these two elements +of marriage, as we understand it, are out of relation to each other. +But there is an important saving qualification to be made. The inner +impulse is not without law, and the external pressure is not without an +ultimate basis of nature. That is to say, that under free and natural +conditions the inner impulse tends to develop itself, not licentiously +but with its own order and restraints, while, on the other hand, our +inherited regulations are largely the tradition of ancient attempts to +fix and register that natural order and restraint. The disharmony comes +in with the fact that our regulations are traditional and ancient, not +our own attempts to fix and register the natural order but inextricably +mixed up with elements that are entirely alien to our civilised habits +of life. Whatever our attitude towards mediaeval Canon Law may +be--whether reverence or indifference or disgust--it yet holds us and +is ingrained into our marriage system to-day. Canon Law was a good and +vital thing under the conditions which produced it. The survival of +Canon Law to-day, with the antiquated and ascetic conception of the +subordination of women associated with it, is the chief reason why we +in the twentieth century have not yet progressed so far towards a +reasonable system of marriage as the Romans had reached on the basis of +their law, nearly two thousand years ago.[2] Marriage is conditioned +both by inner impulse and outward pressure. But a healthy impulse +bears within it an order and restraint of its own, while a truly moral +outward pressure is based, not on the demands of mediaeval days, but on +the demands of our own day. + +How far this is from being the case yet we find well illustrated by our +divorce methods. All our modern culture favour a sense of the +sacredness of the sexual relations; we cherish a delicate reserve +concerning all the intimacies of personal relationship. But when the +magic word "Divorce" is uttered we fling all our civilisation to the +winds, and in the desecrated name of Law we proceed to an inquisition +which scarcely differs at all from those public tests of mediaeval +law-courts which now we dare not venture even to put into words. + +It is true that we are not bound to be consistent when it is an +advantage to be inconsistent. And if there were a method in our madness +it would be justified. But there is no method. From first to last the +history of divorce (read it, for instance, in Howard's _Matrimonial +Institutions_) is an ever shifting record of cruel blunders and +ridiculous absurdities. Divorce began in modern times in flagrant +injustice to one of the two partners, the wife, and it has ended--if we +may hope that the end is approaching--in imbecilities that to future +ages will be incredible. For no legal jargon has ever been invented +that will express the sympathies and the antipathies of human +relationship; they even escape the subtlest expression. Law-makers have +tortured their brains to devise formulas which will cover the +legitimate grounds for divorce. How vain their efforts are is +sufficiently shown by the fact that by no chance can they ever agree on +their formulas, and that they are changing them constantly with +feverish haste, dimly realising that they are but the antiquated +representatives of mediaevalism, and that soon their occupation will be +gone for ever. + +The reasons for the making or the breaking of human relationships can +never be formulated. The only result of such legal formulas is that +they bring law into contempt because they have to be ingeniously and +methodically cheated in order to adapt them in any degree to civilised +human needs. Thus such laws not only degrade the name of Law, but they +degrade the whole community which tolerates them. There is only one +ultimate reason for either marriage or divorce, and that is that the +two persons concerned consent to the marriage or consent to the +divorce. Why they consent is no concern of any third party, and, maybe, +they cannot even put it into words. + +At the same time, let us not forget, marriage and divorce are a very +real concern of the State, and law cannot ignore either. It is the +business of the State to see to it that no interests are injured. The +contract of marriage and the contract of divorce are private matters, +but it is necessary to guard that no injury is thereby done to either +of the contracting persons, or to third parties, or to the community as +a whole. The State may have a right to say what persons are unfit for +marriage, or at all events for procreation; the State must take care +that the weaker party is not injured; the State is especially bound to +watch over the interests of children, and this involves, in the best +issue, that each child shall have two effective parents, whether or not +those parents are living together. A large scope--we are beginning to +recognise--must be left alike to freedom of marriage and freedom of +divorce, but the State must mark out the limits within which that +freedom is exercised. + +The loosening hold of the State on marriage is by no means connected +with any growing sense of the value of divorce. At the best, it is +probable that divorce is merely a necessary evil. One of the chief +reasons why we should seek to promote education in relation to sexual +relationships and to inculcate the responsibilities of such +relationships, so making the approach to marriage more circumspect, is +in order to obviate the need for divorce. For divorce is always a +confession of failure. Very often, indeed, it involves not only a +confession of failure in one particular marriage but of failure for +marriage generally. One notes how often the people who fail in a first +marriage fail even more hopelessly in the second. They have chosen the +wrong partners; but one suspects that for them all partners will prove +the wrong partners. One sometimes hears nowadays that a succession of +marriage relationships is desirable in order to develop character. But +that depends on many things. It very much depends on what character +there is to develop. A man may have relationships with a hundred women +and develop much less character out of his experience, and even acquire +a much less intimate knowledge of women, than the man who has spent his +life in an endless series of adventures with one woman. It depends a +good deal on the man and not a little on the woman. + +Thus the work of marriage in the world must depend entirely on the +nature of that world. A fine marriage system can only be produced by a +fine civilisation of which it is the exquisite flower. Laws cannot +better marriage; even education, by itself, is powerless, necessary as +it is in conjunction with other influences. The love-relationships of +men and women must develop freely, and with due allowance for the +variations which the complexities of civilisation demand. But these +relationships touch the whole of life at so infinite a number of points +that they cannot even develop at all save in a society that is itself +developing graciously and harmoniously. Do not expect to pluck figs +from thistles. As a society is, so will its marriages be. + + +[1] It is this artificial and external pressure which often produces a +revolt against marriage. The author of a remarkable paper entitled, +"Our Incestuous Marriage," in the _Forum_ (Dec., 1915), advocates a +reform of social marriage customs "in conformance with the +freedom-loving modern nature," and the introduction of "a fresh +atmosphere for married life in which personality can be made to appear +so sacred and free that marriage will be undertaken and borne as +lightly and gracefully as a secret sin." + +[2] See Sir James Donaldson, _Woman: Her Position and Influence in +Ancient Greece and Rome, 1907_; also S.B. Kitchin's excellent _History +of Divorce_, 1912; this author believes that the tendency in modern +civilisation is to return to the simple principles of Roman law +involving divorce by consent. See also Havelock Ellis, _Sex in Relation +to Society_, Ch. X. + + + + +XVI + + +THE MEANING OF THE BIRTH-RATE + +The history of educated opinion concerning the birth-rate and its +interpretation during the past seventy years is full of interest. The +actual operative factors--natural, pathological, economic, social, and +educational--in raising or lowering the birth-rate, are numerous and +complicated, and it is difficult to determine exactly how large a part +each factor plays. But without determining that at all, it is still +very instructive to observe the evolution of popular intelligent +opinion concerning the significance of a high and a low birth-rate. + +Popular opinion on this matter may be said to have passed through three +stages. I am referring to Western Europe and more particularly to +England and Germany, for it must be remembered that, in this matter, +England and Germany are running a parallel course. England happens to +be, on the whole, a little ahead, having reached its period of full +expansion at a somewhat earlier period than Germany, but each people is +pursuing the same course. + +In the first stage--let us say about the middle of the last century and +the succeeding thirty years--the popular attitude was one of jubilant +satisfaction in a high and rising birth-rate. There had been an immense +expansion of industry. The whole world seemed nothing but a great field +for the energetic and industrial nations to exploit. Workers were +needed to keep up with the expansion and to keep down wages to a rate +which would make industrial expansion easy; soldiers and armaments were +needed to protect the movements of expansion. It seemed to the more +exuberant spirits that a vast British Empire, or a mighty Pan-Germany, +might be expected to cover the whole world. France, with its low and +falling birth-rate, was looked down at with contempt as a decadent +country inhabited by a degenerate population. No attempts to analyse +the birth-rate, to ascertain what are really the biological, social, +and economic accompaniments of a high birth-rate, made any impression +on the popular mind. They were drowned in the general shout of +exultation. + +That era of optimism was followed by a swift reaction. Towards 1880 the +upward movement of the birth-rate began to be arrested; it soon began +steadily to fall, as it is continuing to do to-day. In France it is +falling slowly, in Italy more rapidly, in England and Prussia still +more rapidly. As, however, the fall began earliest in France, the +birth-rate is lower there than in the other countries named; for the +same reason it is lower in England than in Prussia, although England +stands in this respect at almost exactly the same distance from Prussia +to-day as thirty years ago, the fall having occurred at the same rate +in both countries. It is quite possible that in the future it may +become more rapid in Prussia than in England, for the birth-rate of +Berlin is lower than the birth-rate of London, and urbanisation is +proceeding at a more rapid rate in Germany than in England. + +The realisation of such facts as these produced a period of pessimism +which marks the second stage in this evolution. The great movement of +expansion, which seemed to promise so much to ambitious nations anxious +for world-power, was being arrested. Moreover, it began to be realised +that the rapid growth of a community was accompanied by phenomena which +had not been foreseen by the enthusiasts of the first period of +optimism. They had argued--not indeed verbally but in effect--that the +higher the birth-rate the cheaper labour and lives would become, and +the cheaper labour and lives were, the easier it would be for a nation +with its industrial armies and its military armies to get ahead of +other rival nations. But they had not realised that, with the growth of +popular education in modern democratic states, cheap labour is no +longer willing to play without protest this humble and suffering part +in national progress. The workers of the nations began to declare, +clearly or obscurely, as they were able, that they no longer intended +to sell their labour and their lives so cheaply. The rising birth-rate +of the middle of the nineteenth century coincided with, and to a large +extent doubtless produced, the organisation of labour, trades unions, +the political activity of the working classes, Socialism, as well as +the extreme forms of Anarchism and Syndicalism. It was when these +movements began to attain a high degree of organisation and power that +the birth-rate began to decline. Thus the pessimists of the second +period were faced by horrors on both sides. On the one hand, they saw +that the ever-increasing rate of human production which seemed to them +the essential condition of national, social, even moral progress, had +not only stopped but was steadily diminishing. On the other hand, they +saw that, even in so far as it was maintained, it involved, under +modern conditions, nothing but social commotion and economic +disturbance. + +There are still many pessimists of this second period alive among us, +and actively proclaiming their gospel of despair, alike in England and +in Germany. But a new generation is growing up, and this question is +now entering a third period. The new generation rejects alike the +passive optimism of the first period and the passive pessimism of the +second period. Its attitude is hopeful but it realises that mere hope +is vain unless there is clear intellectual vision and unless there is +individual and social action in accordance with that vision. + +It is to-day beginning to be seen that the old notion of progress by +means of reckless multiplication is vain. It can only be effected at a +ruinous cost of death, disease, poverty, and misery. We see this in the +past history of Western Europe, as we still see it in the history of +Russia. Any progress effected along that line--if "progress" it can be +called--is now barred, for it is absolutely opposed to those democratic +conceptions which are ever gaining greater influence among us. + +Moreover, we are now better able to analyse demographic phenomena and +we are no longer satisfied with any crude statements regarding the +birth-rate. We realise that they need interpretation. They have to be +considered in relation to the sex-constitution and the age-constitution +of the population, and, above all, they must be viewed in relation to +the infant mortality-rate. The bad aspect of the French birth-rate is +not so much its lowness as that it is accompanied by a high infantile +mortality. The fact that the German birth-rate is higher than the +English ceases to be a matter of satisfaction when it is realised that +German infantile mortality is vastly greater than English. A high +birth-rate is no sign of a high civilisation. But we are beginning to +feel that a high infantile death-rate is a sign of a very inferior +civilisation. A low birth-rate with a low infant death-rate not only +produces the same increase in the population as a high birth-rate with +the high death-rate, which always accompanies it (for there are no +examples of, a high birth-rate with a low death-rate), but it produces +it in a way which is far more worthy of our admiration in this matter +than the way of Russia and China where opposite conditions prevail.[1] + +It used to be thought that small families were immoral. We now begin to +see that it was the large families of old which were immoral. The +excessive birth-rate of the early industrial period was directly +stimulated by selfishness. There were no laws against child-labour; +children were produced that they might be sent out, when little more +than babies, to the factories and the mines to increase their parents' +incomes. The diminished birth-rate has accompanied higher moral +transformation. It has introduced a finer economy into life, diminished +death, disease, and misery. It is indirectly, and even directly, +improving the quality of the race. The very fact that children are born +at longer intervals is not only beneficial to the mother's health, and +therefore to the children's general welfare, but it has been proved to +have a marked and prolonged influence on the physical development of +children. + +Social progress, and a higher civilisation, we thus see, involve a +reduced birth-rate and a reduced death-rate; the fewer the children +born, the fewer the risks of death, disease, and misery to the children +that are born. The fact that civilisation involves small families is +clearly shown by the tendency of the educated and upper social classes +to have small families. As the proletariat class becomes educated and +elevated, disciplined to refinement and to foresight--as it were +aristocratised--it also has small families. Civilisational progress is +here in a line with biological progress. The lower organisms spawn +their progeny in thousands, the higher mammals produce but one or two +at a time. The higher the race the fewer the offspring. + +Thus diminution in quantity is throughout associated with augmentation +in quality. Quality rather than quantity is the racial ideal now set +before us, and it is an ideal which, as we are beginning to learn, it +is possible to cultivate, both individually and socially. The day is +coming, as Engel remarks in his useful book on _The Elements of Child +Protection_, when fatherhood and motherhood will only be permitted to +the strong. That is why the new science of eugenics or racial hygiene +is acquiring so immense an importance. In the past racial selection has +been carried out crudely by the destructive, wasteful, and expensive +method of elimination, through death. In the future it will be carried +out far more effectively by conscious and deliberate selection, +exercised not merely before birth, but before conception and even +before mating. It is idle to suppose that such a change can be exerted +by mere legislation, for which, besides, our scientific knowledge is +still inadequate. We cannot, indeed, desire any compulsory elimination +of the unfit or any regulated breeding of the fit. Such notions are +idle. Man can only be bred from within, through the medium of his +intelligence and will, working together under the control of a high +sense of responsibility. Galton, who recognised the futility of mere +legislation to elevate the race, believed that the hope of the future +lay in eugenics becoming a part of religion. The good of the race lies, +not in the production of a super-man, but of a super-humanity. This can +only be attained through personal individual development, the increase +of knowledge, the sense of responsibility towards the race, enabling +men to act in accordance with responsibility. The leadership in +civilisation belongs not to the nation with the highest birth-rate but +to the nation which has thus learnt to produce the finest men and +women. + + +[1] For a more detailed discussion of these points see the author's +_Task of Social Hygiene_. + + + + +XVII + + +CIVILISATION AND THE BIRTH-RATE + +It was inevitable that the Great War of to-day should lead to an +outcry, in all the countries engaged, for more children and larger +families. In Germany and in Austria, in France and in England, +panic-stricken fanatics are found who preach to the people that the +birth-rate is falling and the nation is decaying. No scheme is too wild +for the supposed benefit of the country in a fierce coming fight for +commercial supremacy, as well as with due regard to the requirements in +cannon fodder of another Great War twenty years hence. + +It may be well, however, to pause before we listen to these Quixotic +plans.[1] We may then find reason to think, not only that any attempt +to arrest the falling birth-rate is scarcely likely to be effective in +view of the fact that it affects not one country only but all the +countries that count, but that even if it could be successful it would +be mischievous. Whatever the results of the War may be, one result +is fairly certain and that is that, under the most favourable +circumstances, every country will emerge laden with misery and debt; +whatever prosperity may follow, living will be expensive for a long +time to come and the incomes of all classes heavily burdened. A Bounty +on Babies would hardly make up for these difficulties. The happy +family, under the conditions that seem to be immediately ahead of us, +is likely to be the small family. The large family--as indeed has been +the case in the past--is likely to be visited by disease and death. + +But there is more to be said than this. We must dismiss altogether the +statement so often made that a falling birth-rate means "an old and +dying community." The Germans have for years been making this remark +contemptuously regarding the French. But to-day they have to recognise +a vitality in the French which they had not expected, while in recent +years, also, their own birth-rate has been falling more rapidly than +that of France. Nor is it true that a falling birth-rate means a +falling population; the French birth-rate has long been steadily +falling, yet the French population has been steadily increasing all the +time, though less rapidly than it would had not the death-rate been +abnormally high. It is not the number of babies born that counts, but +the net result in surviving children. An enormous number of babies are +born in China; but an enormous number die while still babies. So that +it is better to have a few babies of good quality than a large number +of indifferent quality, for the falling birth-rate is more than +compensated by the falling death-rate. That is what we are attaining in +England, and, as we know, our steadily falling birth-rate results in a +steadily growing population. + +There is still more to be said. Small families and a falling birth-rate +are not merely no evil, they are a positive good. They are a gain for +humanity. They represent an evolutionary rise in Nature and a higher +stage in civilisation. We are here in the presence of great fundamental +principles of progress which have been working through life from the +beginning. + +At the beginning of life on the earth reproduction ran riot. Of one +minute organism it is estimated that, if its reproduction were not +checked by death or destruction, in thirty days it would form a mass a +million times larger than the sun. The conger-eel lays fifteen million +eggs, and if they all grew up, and reproduced themselves on the same +scale, in two years the whole sea would become a wriggling mass of +fish. As we approach the higher forms of life reproduction gradually +dies down. The animals nearest to man produce few offspring, but they +surround them with parental care, until they are able to lead +independent lives with a fair chance of surviving. The whole process +may be regarded as a mechanism for slowly subordinating quantity to +quality, and so promoting the evolution of life to ever higher stages. + +This process, which is plain to see on the largest scale throughout +living nature, may be more minutely studied, as it acts within a +narrower range, in the human species. Here we statistically formulate +it in the terms of birth-rate and death-rate; by the mutual relationship +of the two courses of the birth-rate and the death-rate we are able to +estimate the evolutionary rank of a nation, and the degree in which it +has succeeded in subordinating the primitive standard of quantity to +the higher and later standard of quality. + +It is especially in Europe that we can investigate this relationship by +the help of statistics which in some cases extend for nearly a century +back. We can trace the various phases through which each nation passes, +the effects of prosperity, the influence of education and sanitary +improvement, the general complex development of civilisation, in each +case moving forward, though not regularly and steadily, to higher +stages by means of a falling birth-rate, which is to some extent +compensated by a falling death-rate, the two rates nearly always +running parallel, so that a temporary rise in the birth-rate is usually +accompanied by a rise in the death-rate, by a return, that is to say, +towards the conditions which we find at the beginning of animal life, +and a steady fall in the birth-rate is always accompanied by a fall in +the death-rate. + +The modern phase of this movement, soon after which our precise +knowledge begins, may be said to date from the industrial expansion, +due to the introduction of machinery, which Professor Marshall places +in England about the year 1760. That represents the beginning of an era +in which all civilised and semi-civilised countries are still living. +For the earlier centuries we lack precise data, but we are able to form +certain probable conclusions. The population of a country in those ages +seems to have grown very slowly and sometimes even to have retrograded. +At the end of the sixteenth century the population of England and Wales +is estimated at five millions and at the end of the seventeenth at six +millions--only 20 per cent. increase during the century--although +during the nineteenth century the population nearly quadrupled. This +very gradual increase of the population seems to have been by no means +due to a very low birth-rate, but to a very high death-rate. Throughout +the Middle Ages a succession of virulent plagues and pestilences +devastated Europe. Small-pox, which may be considered the latest of +these, used to sweep off large masses of the youthful population in the +eighteenth century. The result was a certain stability and a certain +well-being in the population as a whole, these conditions being, +however, maintained in a manner that was terribly wasteful and +distressing. + +The industrial revolution introduced a new era which began to show its +features clearly in the early nineteenth century. On the one hand, a +new motive had arisen to favour a more rapid increase of population. +Small children could tend machinery and thereby earn wages to increase +the family takings. This led to an immediate result in increased +population and increased prosperity. But, on the other hand, the rapid +increase of population always tended to outrun the rapid increase of +prosperity, and the more so since the rise of sanitary science began to +drive back the invasions of the grosser and more destructive infectious +diseases which had hitherto kept the population down. The result was +that new forms of disease, distress, and destitution arose; the old +stability was lost, and the new prosperity produced unrest in place of +well-being. The social consciousness was still too immature to deal +collectively with the difficulties and frictions which the industrial +era introduced, and the individualism which under former conditions had +operated wholesomely now acted perniciously to crush the souls and +bodies of the workers, whether men, women, or children. + +As we know, the increase of knowledge and the growth of the social +consciousness have slowly acted wholesomely during the past century to +remedy the first evil results of the industrial revolution. The +artificial and abnormal increase of the population has been checked +because it is no longer permissible in most countries to stunt the +minds and bodies of small children by placing them in factories. An +elaborate system of factory legislation was devised, and is still ever +drawing fresh groups of workers within its protective meshes. Sanitary +science began to develop and to exert an enormous influence on the +health of nations. At the same time the supreme importance of popular +education was realised. The total result was that the nature of +"prosperity" began to be transformed; instead of being, as it had been +at the beginning of the industrial era, a direct appeal to the +gratification of gross appetites and reckless lusts, it became an +indirect stimulus to higher gratifications and more remote aspirations. +Foresight became a dominating motive even in the general population, +and a man's anxiety for the welfare of his family was no longer +forgotten in the pleasure of the moment. The social state again became +more stable, and mere "prosperity" was transformed into civilisation. +This is the state of things now in progress in all industrial +countries, though it has reached varying levels of development among +different peoples. + +It is thus clear that the birth-rate combined with the death-rate +constitutes a delicate instrument for the measurement of civilisation, +and that the record of their combined curves registers the upward or +downward course of every nation. The curves, as we know, tend to be +parallel, and when they are not parallel we are in the presence of a +rare and abnormal state of things which is usually temporary or +transitional. + +It is instructive from this point of view to study the various nations +of Europe, for here we find a large number of small nations, each with +its own statistical system, confined within a small space and living +under fairly uniform conditions. Let us take the latest official +figures (which are usually for 1913) and attempt to measure the +civilisation of European countries on this basis. Beginning with the +lowest birth-rate, and therefore in gradually descending rank of +superiority, we find that the European countries stand in the following +order: France, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, +Switzerland, Norway, Scotland, Denmark, Holland, the German Empire, +Prussia, Finland, Spain, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, +Roumania, Russia. If we take the death-rate similarly, beginning with +the lowest rate and gradually proceeding to the highest, we find the +following order: Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the +United Kingdom, Belgium, Scotland, Prussia, the German Empire, Finland, +Ireland, France, Italy, Austria, Serbia, Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary, +Roumania, Russia. + +Now we cannot accept the birth-rates and death-rates of the various +countries exactly at their face value. Temporary conditions, as well as +the special composition of a population, not to mention peculiarities +of registration, exert a disturbing effect. Roughly and on the whole, +however, the figures are acceptable. It is instructive to find how +closely the two rates agree. The agreement is, indeed, greater at the +bottom than at the top; the eight countries which constitute the lowest +group as regards birth-rate are the identical eight countries which +furnish the heaviest death-rates. That was to be expected; a very high +birth-rate seems fatally to involve a very high death-rate. But a very +low birth-rate (as we see in the cases of France and Ireland) is not +invariably associated with a very low death-rate, though it is never +associated with a high death-rate. This seems to indicate that those +qualities in a highly civilised nation which restrain the production of +offspring do not always or at once produce the eugenic racial qualities +possessed by hardier peoples living under simpler conditions. But with +these reservations it is not difficult to combine the two lists in a +fairly concordant order of descending rank. Most readers will agree, +that taking the European populations in bulk, without regard to the +production of genius (for men of genius are always a very minute +fraction of a nation), the European populations which they are +accustomed to regard as standing at the head in the general diffusion +of character, intelligence, education, and well-being, are all included +in the first twelve or thirteen nations, which are the same in both +lists though they do not follow the same order. These peoples, as +peoples--that is, without regard to their size, their political +importance, or their production of genius--represent the highest level +of democratic civilisation in Europe. + +It is scarcely necessary to add that various countries outside Europe +equal or excel them; the death-rate of the United States, so far as +statistics show, is the same as that of Sweden; that of Ontario, still +better, is the same as Denmark; while the death-rate of the Australian +Commonwealth, with a medium birth-rate, is lower than that of any +European country, and New Zealand holds the world's championship in +this field with the lowest death-rate of all. On the other hand, some +extra-European countries compare less favourably with Europe; Japan, +with a rather high birth-rate, has the same high death-rate as Spain, +and Chile, with a still higher birth-rate, has a higher death-rate than +Russia. So it is that among human peoples we find the same laws +prevailing as among animals, and the higher nations of the world differ +from those which are less highly evolved precisely as the elephant +differs from the herring, though within a narrower range, that is to +say, by producing fewer offspring and taking better care of them. + +The whole of this evolutionary process, we have to remember, is a +natural process. It has been going on from the beginning of the living +world. But at a certain stage in the higher development of man, without +ceasing to be natural, it becomes conscious and deliberate. It is then +that we have what may properly be termed _Birth Control_. That is to +say, that a process which had before been working slowly through the +ages, attaining every new forward step with waste and pain, is +henceforth carried out voluntarily, in the light of the high human +qualities of reason and foresight and self-restraint. The rise of birth +control may be said to correspond with the rise of social and sanitary +science in the first half of the nineteenth century, and to be indeed +an essential part of that movement. It is firmly established in all the +most progressive and enlightened countries of Europe, notably in France +and in England; in Germany, where formerly the birth-rate was very +high, birth control has developed with extraordinary rapidity during +the present century. In Holland its principle and practice are freely +taught by physicians and nurses to the mothers of the people, with the +result that there is in Holland no longer any necessity for unwanted +babies, and this small country possesses the proud privilege of the +lowest death-rate in Europe. In the free and enlightened democratic +communities on the other side of the globe, in Australia and New +Zealand, the same principles and practice are generally accepted, with +the same beneficent results. On the other hand, in the more backward +and ignorant countries of Europe, birth control is still little known, +and death and disease flourish. This is the case in those eight +countries which come at the bottom of both our lists. + +Even in the more progressive countries, however, birth control has not +been established without a struggle, which has frequently ended in a +hypocritical compromise, its principles being publicly ignored or +denied and its practice privately accepted. For, at the great and +vitally important point in human progress which birth control +represents, we really see the conflict of two moralities. The morality +of the ancient world is here confronted by the morality of the new +world. The old morality, knowing nothing of science and the process of +Nature as worked out in the evolution of life, based itself on the +early chapters of Genesis, in which the children of Noah are +represented as entering an empty earth which it is their business to +populate diligently. So it came about that for this morality, still +innocent of eugenics, recklessness was almost a virtue. Children were +given by God; if they died or were afflicted by congenital disease, it +was the dispensation of God, and, whatever imprudence the parents might +commit, the pathetic faith still ruled that "God will provide." But in +the new morality it is realised that in these matters Divine action can +only be made manifest in human action, that is to say through the +operation of our own enlightened reason and resolved will. Prudence, +foresight, self-restraint--virtues which the old morality looked down +on with benevolent contempt--assume a position of the first importance. +In the eyes of the new morality the ideal woman is no longer the meek +drudge condemned to endless and often ineffectual child-bearing, but +the free and instructed woman, able to look before and after, trained +in a sense of responsibility alike to herself and to the race, and +determined to have no children but the best. Such were the two +moralities which came into conflict during the nineteenth century. They +were irreconcilable and each firmly rooted, one in ancient religion and +tradition, the other in progressive science and reason. Nothing was +possible in such a clash of opposing ideas but a feeble and confused +compromise such as we still find prevailing in various countries of Old +Europe. It was not a satisfactory solution, however inevitable, and +especially unsatisfactory by the consequent obscurantism which placed +difficulties in the way of spreading a knowledge of the methods of +birth control among the masses of the population. For the result has +been that while the more enlightened and educated have exercised a +control over the size of their families, the poorer and more +ignorant--who should have been offered every facility and encouragement +to follow in the same path--have been left, through a conspiracy of +secrecy, to carry on helplessly the bad customs of their forefathers. +This social neglect has had the result that the superior family stocks +have been hampered by the recklessness of the inferior stocks. + +We may see these two moralities in conflict to-day in America. Up till +recently America had meekly accepted at Old Europe's hands the +traditional prescription of our Mediterranean book of Genesis, with its +fascinating old-world fragrance of Mount Ararat. On the surface, the +ancient morality had been complacently, almost unquestionably, accepted +in America, even to the extent of permitting a vast extension of +abortion--a criminal practice which ever flourishes where birth-control +is neglected. But to-day we suddenly see a new movement in the United +States. In a flash, America has awakened to the true significance of +the issue. With that direct vision of hers, that swift practicality of +action, and, above all, that sense of the democratic nature of all +social progress, we see her resolutely beginning to face this great +problem. In her own vigorous native tongue we hear her demanding: "What +in the thunder is all the secrecy about, anyhow?" And we cannot doubt +that America's own answer to that demand will be of immense +significance to the whole world. + +Thus it is that as we get to the root of the matter the whole question +becomes clear. We see that there is really no standing ground in any +country for the panic-monger who bemoans the fall of the birth-rate and +storms against small families. The falling birth-rate is a world-wide +phenomenon in all countries that are striving toward a higher +civilisation along lines which Nature laid down from the beginning. We +cannot stop it if we would, and if we could we should merely be +impeding civilisation. It is a movement that rights itself and tends to +reach a just balance. It has not yet reached that balance with us in +this country. That may be seen by anyone who has read the letters from +mothers lately published under the title of _Maternity_ by the Women's +Co-operative Guild; there is still far more misery caused by having too +many babies than by having too few; a bonus on babies would be a +misfortune, alike for the parents and the State--whether bestowed at +birth as proposed in New Zealand, or at the age of twelve months as +proposed in France, or fourteen years as proposed in England--unless it +were confined to children who were not merely alive at the appointed +age, but able to pass examination as having reached a definitely high +standard. The falling birth-rate, which, it must be remembered, is +affecting all civilised countries, should be a matter for joy rather +than for grief. + +But we need not therefore fold our hands and do nothing. There is still +much to be effected for the protection of Motherhood and the better +care of children. We cannot, and should not, attempt to increase the +number of children. But we may well attempt to work for their better +quality. There we shall be on very safe ground. More knowledge is +necessary so that all would-be parents may know how they may best +become parents and how they may, if necessary, best avoid it. +Procreation by the unfit should be, if not prohibited by law, at all +events so discouraged by public opinion that to attempt it would be +counted disgraceful. Much greater public provision is necessary for the +care of mothers during the months before, as well as during the period +after, the child's birth. The system of Schools for Mothers needs to be +universalised and systematically carried out. Along such lines as these +we may hope to increase the happiness of the people and the strength of +the State. We need not worry over the falling birth-rate. + + +[1] Those who wish to study the latest restatements of opinions in +England may be recommended to read the Report of the Commission of +Inquiry into Great Britain's falling birth-rate, appointed in 1913 by +the National Council of Public Morals, under the title of _The +Declining Birth-rate: Its Causes and Effects_, 1916. + + + + +XVIII + + +BIRTH CONTROL + +I. + +REPRODUCTION AND THE BIRTH-RATE + +The study of the questions relating to sex, so actively carried on +during recent years, has become more and more concentrated on to the +practical problems of marriage and the family. That was inevitable. It +is only reasonable that, with our growing scientific knowledge of the +mysteries of sex, we should seek to apply that knowledge to those +questions of life which we must ever regard as central. How can we add +to the stability or to the flexibility of marriage? How can we most +judiciously regulate the size of our families? + +At the outset, however, we cannot too deeply impress upon our minds the +fact that these questions are not new in the world. If we try to find +an answer to them by confining our attention to the phenomena presented +by our own species, at our own particular moment of civilisation, it is +very likely indeed that we may fall into crude, superficial, even +mischievous conclusions. + +The fact is that these questions, which are agitating us to-day, have +agitated the world ever since it has been a world of life at all. The +difference is that whereas we seek to deal with them consciously, +voluntarily, and deliberately, throughout by far the greater part of +the world's life they have been dealt with unconsciously, by methods of +trial and error, of perpetual experiment, which has often proved +costly, but has all the more clearly brought out the real course of +natural progress. We cannot solve problems so ancient and deeply rooted +as those of sex by merely rational methods which are only of yesterday. +To be of value our rational methods must be the revelation in +deliberate consciousness of unconscious methods which go far back into +the remote past. Our conscious, deliberate, and purposive methods, +carried out on the plane of reason, will not be sound unless they are a +continuation of those methods which have already, in the slow evolution +of life, been found sound and progressive on the plane of instinct. +This must be borne in mind by those people--always to be found among +us, though not always on the side of social advance--who desire their +own line of conduct in matters of sex to be so closely in accord with +natural and Divine law that to question it would be impious. + +A medical friend of my own, when once in the dentist's chair under the +influence of nitrous oxide anaesthesia (a condition, as William James +showed, which frequently leads us to believe we are solving the +problems of the universe), imagined himself facing the Almighty and +insistently demanding the real object of the existence of the world. +And the Almighty's answer came in one word: "Reproduction." My friend +is a man of philosophic mind, and the solution of the mystery of the +world's purpose thus presented to him in vision may perhaps serve as a +simple and ultimate statement of the object of life. From the very +outset the great object of Nature to our human eyes seems to be +primarily reproduction, in the long run, indeed, an effort after +economy of method in the attainment of an ever greater perfection, but +primarily reproduction. This tendency to reproduction is indeed so +fundamental, it is impressed on vital organisation with so great a +violence of emphasis, that we may regard the course of evolution as +much more an effort to slow down reproduction than to furnish it with +any new facilities. + +We must remember that reproduction appears in the history of life before +sex appears. The lower forms of animal and plant life often reproduce +themselves without the aid of sex, and it has even been argued that +reproduction and sex are directly antagonistic, that active propagation +is always checked when sexual differentiation is established. "The +impression one gains of sexuality," remarks Professor Coulter, foremost +of American botanists, "is that it represents reproduction under +peculiar difficulties."[1] Bacteria among primitive plants and protozoa +among primitive animals are patterns of rapid and prolific reproduction, +though sex begins to appear in a rudimentary form in very lowly forms of +life, even among the protozoa, and is at first compatible with a high +degree of reproduction. A single infusorian becomes in a week the +ancestor of millions, that is to say, of far more individuals than could +proceed under the most favourable conditions from a pair of elephants in +five centuries, while Huxley calculated that the progeny of a single +parthenogenetic aphis, under favouring circumstances, would in a few +months outweigh the whole population of China.[2] That proviso--"under +favouring conditions"--is of great importance, for it reveals the weak +point in this early method of Nature's for conducting evolution by +enormously rapid multiplication. Creatures so easily produced could be, +and were, easily destroyed; no time had been spent on imparting to them +the qualities that would enable them to lead, what we should call in our +own case, long and useful lives. + +Yet the method of rapid multiplication was not readily or speedily +abandoned by Nature. Still speaking in our human way, we may say that +she tried to give it every chance. Among insects that have advanced so +far as the white ants, we find that the queen lays eggs at an enormous +rate during the whole of her active life, according to some estimates +at the rate of 80,000 a day. Even in the more primitive members of the +great vertebrate group, to which we ourselves belong, reproduction is +sometimes still on almost as vast a scale as among lower organisms. +Thus, among herrings, nearly 70,000 eggs have been found in a single +female; but the herring, nevertheless, does not tend to increase in the +seas, for it is everywhere preyed upon by whales and seals and sharks +and birds, and, not least, by man. Thus early we see the connection +between a high death-rate and a high birth-rate. + +The evidence against reckless reproduction at last, however, proved +overwhelming. With whatever hesitation, Nature finally decided, once +and for all, that it was better, from every point of view, to produce a +few superior beings than a vast number of inferior beings. For while +the primary end of Nature may be said to be reproduction, there is a +secondary end of scarcely less equal urgency, and that is evolution. In +other words, while Nature seems to our human eyes to be seeking after +quantity, she is also seeking, and with ever greater eagerness, after +quality. Now the method of rapid and easy reproduction, it had become +clear, not only failed of its own end, for the inferior creatures thus +produced were unable to maintain their position in life, but it was +distinctly unfavourable to any advance in quality. The method of sexual +reproduction, which had existed in a germinal form more or less from +the beginning, asserted itself ever more emphatically, and a method +like that of parthenogenesis, or reproduction by the female unaided by +the male (illustrated by the aphis), which had lingered on even beside +sexual reproduction, absolutely died out in higher evolution. Now the +fertilisation involved by the existence of two sexes is, as Weismann +insisted, simply an arrangement which renders possible the +intermingling of two different hereditary tendencies. The object of +sex, that is to say, is by no means to aid reproduction, but rather to +subordinate and check reproduction in order to evolve higher and more +complex beings. Here we come to the great principle, which Herbert +Spencer developed at length in his _Principles of Biology_, that, as he +put it, Individuation and Genesis vary inversely, whence it followed +that advancing evolution must be accompanied by declining fertility. +Individuation, which means complexity of structure, has advanced, as +Genesis, the unrestricted tendency to mere multiplication, has receded. +This involves a diminished number of offspring, but an increased amount +of time and care in the creation and breeding of each; it involves also +that the reproductive life of the organism is shortened and more or +less confined to special periods; it begins much later, it usually ends +earlier, and even in its period of activity it tends to fall into +cycles. Nature, we see, who, at the outset, had endowed her children so +lavishly with the aptitude for multiplication, grown wiser now, expends +her fertile imagination in devising preventive checks on reproduction +for her children's use. + +The result is that, though reproduction is greatly slackened, evolution +is greatly accelerated. The significance of sex, as Coulter puts it, +"lies in the fact that it makes organic evolution more rapid and far +more varied." It is scarcely necessary to emphasise that a highly +important, and, indeed, essential aspect of this greater individuation +is a higher survival value. The more complex and better equipped +creature can meet and subdue difficulties and dangers to which the more +lowly organised creature that came before--produced wholesale in a way +which Nature seems now to look back on as cheap and nasty--succumbed +helplessly without an effort. The idea of economy begins to assert +itself in the world. It became clear in the course of evolution that it +is better to produce really good and highly efficient organisms, at +whatever cost, than to be content with cheap production on a wholesale +scale. They allowed greater developmental progress to be made, and they +lasted better. Even before man began it was proved in the animal world +that the death-rate falls as the birth-rate falls. + +If we wish to realise the vast progress in method which has been made, +even within the limits of the vertebrates to which we ourselves belong, +we have but to compare with the lowly herring, already cited, the +highly evolved elephant. The herring multiplies with enormous rapidity +and on a vast scale, and it possesses a very small brain, and is almost +totally unequipped to grapple with the special difficulties of its +life, to which it succumbs on a wholesale scale. A single elephant is +carried for about two years in his mother's womb, and is carefully +guarded by her for many years after birth; he possesses a large brain; +his muscular system is as remarkable for its delicacy as for its power +and is guided by the most sensitive perceptions. He is fully equipped +for all the dangers of his life, save for those which have been +introduced by the subtle devilry of modern man, and though a single +pair of elephants produces so few offspring, yet their high cost is +justified, for each of them has a reasonable chance of surviving to old +age. The contrast from the point of view of reproduction of the herring +and the elephant, the low vertebrate and the high vertebrate, well +illustrates the tendency of evolution. It clearly brings before us the +difference between Nature's earlier and later methods, the ever growing +preference for quality of offspring over quantity. + +It has been necessary to touch on the wider aspects of reproduction in +Nature, even when our main concern is with particular aspects of +reproduction in man, for unless we understand the progressive tendency +of reproduction in Nature, we shall probably fail to understand it in +man. With these preliminary observations, we may now take up the +question as it affects man. + +It is not easy to ascertain the exact tendencies of reproduction in our +own historical past or among the lower races of to-day. On the whole, +it seems fairly clear that, under ordinary savage and barbarous +conditions, rather more children are produced and rather more children +die than among ourselves; there is, in other words, a higher birth-rate +and a higher infantile death-rate.[3] A high birth-rate with a low +death-rate seems to have been even more exceptional than among +ourselves, for under inelastic social conditions the community cannot +adjust itself to the rapid expansion that would thus be rendered +necessary. The community contracts, as it were, on this expanding +portion and largely crushes it out of life by the forces of neglect, +poverty, and disease.[4] The only part of Europe in which we can to-day +see how this works out on a large scale is Russia, for here we find in +an exaggerated form conditions, which once tended to rule all over +Europe, side by side with the beginnings of better things, with +scientific progress and statistical observation. Yet in Russia, up till +recently, if not even still, there has only been about one doctor to +every twelve thousand inhabitants, and the witch-doctor has flourished. +Small-pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid, and syphilis also +flourish, and not only flourish, but show an enormously higher +mortality than in other European countries. More significant still, +famine and typhus, the special disease of filth and overcrowding and +misery--both of them banished, save in the most abnormal times, from +the rest of Europe--have in modern times ravaged Russia on a vast +scale. Ignorance, superstition, insanitation, filth, bad food, impure +water, lead to a vast mortality among children which has sometimes +destroyed more than half of them before they reach the age of five; so +that, enormously high as the Russian birth-rate is, the death-rate has +sometimes exceeded it.[5] Nor is it found, as some would-be sagacious +persons confidently assert, that the high birth-rate is justified by +the better quality of the survivors. On the contrary, there is a very +large proportion of chronic and incurable diseases among the survivors; +blindness and other defects abound; and though there are many very +large and fine people in Russia, the average stature of the Russians is +lower than that of most European peoples.[6] + +Russia is in the era of expanding industrialism--a fateful period for +any people, as we shall see directly--and the results resemble those +which followed, and to some extent exist still, further west. The +workers, whose hours often extended to twelve or fourteen, frequently +had no homes but slept in the factory itself, in the midst of the +machinery, or in a sort of dormitory above it, with a minimum of space +and fresh air, men and women promiscuously, on wooden shelves, one +above the other, under the eye of Government inspectors whose protests +were powerless to effect any change. This is, always and everywhere, +even among so humane a people as the Russians, the natural and +inevitable result of a high birth-rate in an era of expanding +industrialism. Here is the goal of unrestricted reproduction, the same +among men as among herrings. This is the ideal of those persons, +whether they know it or not, who in their criminal rashness would dare +to arrest that fall in the birth-rate which is now beginning to spread +its beneficent influence in every civilised land. + +We have no means of ascertaining precisely the birth-rate in Western +Europe before the nineteenth century, but the estimates of the +population which have been made by the help of various data indicate +that the increase during a century was very moderate. In England, for +instance, families scarcely seem to have been very large, and, even +apart from wars, many plagues and pestilences, during the eighteenth +century more especially small-pox, constantly devastated the +population, so that, with these checks on the results of reproduction, +the population was able to adjust itself to its very gradual expansion. +The mortality fell heavily on young children, as we observe in old +family records, where we frequently find two or even three children of +the same Christian name, the first child having died and its name been +given to a successor. + +During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a new phase of +social life, profoundly affecting the reproductive habits of the +community, made its appearance in Western Europe, at first in England. +This was the new industrial era, due to the introduction of machinery. +All the social methods of gradual though awkward adaptation to a slow +expansion were dislocated. Easy expansion of population became a +possibility, for factories were constantly springing up, and "hands" +were always in demand. Moreover, these "hands" could be children for it +was possible to tend machinery at a very early age. The richest family +was the family with most children. The population began to expand +rapidly. + +It was an era of prosperity. But when it began to be realised what this +meant it was seen that such "prosperity" was far from an enviable +condition. A community cannot suddenly adjust itself to a sudden +expansion, still less can it adjust itself to a continuous rapid +expansion. Disease, misery, and poverty flourished in this prosperous +new industrial era. Filth and insanitation, immorality and crime, were +fostered by overcrowding in ill-built urban areas. Ignorance and +stupidity abounded, for the child, placed in the monotonous routine of +the factory when little more than an infant, was deprived alike of the +education of the school and of the world. Higher wages brought no +higher refinement and were squandered on food and drink, on the lowest +vulgar tastes. Such "prosperity" was merely a brutalising influence; it +meant nothing for the growth of civilisation and humanity. + +Then a wholesome movement of reaction set in. The betterment of the +environment--that was the great task that social pioneers and reformers +saw before them. They courageously set about the herculean task of +cleansing this Augean stable of "Prosperity." The era of sanitation +began. The endless and highly beneficent course of factory legislature +was inaugurated.[7] + +That is the era which, in every progressive country of the world, we +are living in still. The final tendency of it, however, was not +foreseen by its great pioneers, or even its humble day-labourers of the +present time. For they were not attacking reproduction; they were +fighting against bad conditions, and may even have thought that they +were enabling reproduction to expand more freely. They had not realised +that to improve the environment is to check reproduction, being indeed +the one and only way in which undue reproduction can be checked. That +may be said to be an aspect of the opposition between Genesis and +Individuation, on which Herbert Spencer insisted, for by improving the +environment we necessarily improve the individual who is rooted in that +environment. It is not, we must remember, a matter of conscious and +voluntary action. That is clearly manifest by the fact that it occurs +even among the most primitive micro-organisms; when placed under +unfavourable conditions as to food and environment they tend to pass +into a reproductive phase and by sporulation or otherwise begin to +produce new individuals rapidly. It is the same in Man. Improve the +environment and reproduction is checked.[8] That is, as Professor +Benjamin Moore has said, "the simple biological reply to good economic +conditions." It is only among the poor, the ignorant, and the wretched +that reproduction flourishes. "The tendency of civilisation," as +Leroy-Beaulieu concludes, "is to reduce the birth-rate." Those who +desire a high birth-rate are desiring, whether they know it or not, the +increase of poverty, ignorance, and wretchedness. + +So far we have been dealing with fundamental laws and tendencies, which +were established long before Man appeared on the earth, although Man +has often illustrated, and still illustrates, their inevitable +character. We have not been brought in contact with the influence of +conscious design and deliberate intention. At this point we reach a +totally new aspect of reproduction. + + +II. + +THE ORIGIN AND RESULTS OF BIRTH CONTROL + +In tracing the course of reproduction we have so far been concerned +with what are commonly considered the blind operations of Nature in the +absence of conscious and deliberate volition. We have seen that while +at the outset Nature seems to have impressed an immense reproductive +impetus on her creatures, all her energy since has been directed to the +imposition of preventive checks on that reproductive impetus. The end +attained by these checks has been an extreme diminution in the number +of offspring, a prolongation of the time devoted to the breeding and +care of each new member of the family, in harmony with its greatly +prolonged life, a spacing out of the intervals between the offspring, +and, as a result, a vastly greater development of each individual and +an ever better equipment for the task of living. All this was slowly +attained automatically, without any conscious volition on the part of +the individuals, even when they were human beings, who were the agents. +Now occurred a change which we may regard as, in some respects, the +most momentous sudden advance in the whole history of reproduction: the +process of reproductive progress became conscious and deliberately +volitional. + +We often fancy that when natural progress becomes manifested in the +mind and will of man it is somehow unnatural. It is one of the wisest +of Shakespeare's utterances in one of the most mature of his plays that + + "Nature is made better by no mean + But Nature makes that mean ... + This is an art + Which does mend Nature, change it rather, but + The art itself is Nature." + +Birth control, when it ceases to be automatic and becomes conscious, is +an art. But it is an art directed precisely to the attainment of ends +which Nature has been struggling after for millions of years, and, +being consciously and deliberately an art, it is enabled to avoid many +of the pitfalls which the unconscious method falls into. It is an art, +but + + "The art itself is Nature." + +It is always possible for the narrow-eyed fanatic to object to the +employment of birth control, precisely as he might object to the use of +clothes, as "unnatural." But, if we look more deeply into the matter, +we see that even clothes are not truly unnatural. A vast number of +creatures may be said to be born in clothes, clothes so naturally such +that, when stripped from the animals they belong to, we are proud to +wear them ourselves. Even our own ancestors were born in clothes, which +they lost by the combined or separate action of natural selection, +sexual selection, and the environment, which action, however, has not +sufficed to abolish the desirability of clothes.[9] So that the impulse +by which we make for ourselves clothes is merely a conscious and +volitional form of an impulse which, in the absence of consciousness +and will, had acted automatically. It is just the same with the control +and limitation of reproductive activity. It is an attempt by open-eyed +intelligence and foresight to attain those ends which Nature through +untold generations has been painfully yet tirelessly struggling for. +The deliberate co-operation of Man in the natural task of birth-control +represents an identification of the human will with what we may, if we +choose, regard as the divinely appointed law of the world. We can well +believe that the great pioneers who, a century ago, acted in the spirit +of this faith may have echoed the thought of Kepler when, on discovering +his great planetary law, he exclaimed in rapture: "O God! I think Thy +thoughts after Thee." + +As a matter of fact, however, it was in no such spirit of ecstasy that +the pioneers of the movement for birth control acted. The Divine +command is less likely to be heard in the whirlwind than in the still +small voice. These great pioneers were thoughtful, cautious, +hard-headed men, who spoke scarcely above a whisper, and were far too +modest to realise that a great forward movement in natural evolution +had in them begun to be manifested. Early man could not have taken this +step because it is even doubtful whether he knew that the conjunction +of the sexes had anything to do with the production of offspring, which +he was inclined to attribute to magical causes. Later, although +intelligence grew, the uncontrolled rule of the sexual impulse obtained +so firm a grip on men that they laughed at the idea that it was +possible to exercise forethought and prudence in this sphere; at the +same time religion and superstition came into action to preserve the +established tradition and to persuade people that it would be wicked +to do anything different from what they had always done. But a saner +feeling was awakening here and there, in various parts of the world. At +last, under the stress of the devastation and misery caused by the +reproductive relapse of the industrial era, this feeling, voiced by a +few distinguished men, began to take shape in action. + +The pioneers were English. Among them Malthus occupies the first place. +That distinguished man, in his great and influential work, _The +Principle of Population_, in 1798, emphasised the immense importance of +foresight and self-control in procreation, and the profound +significance of birth limitation for human welfare. Malthus relied, +however, on ascetic self-restraint, a method which could only appeal to +the few; he had nothing to say for the prevention of conception in +intercourse. That was suggested, twenty years later, very cautiously by +James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, in the _Encyclopedia +Britannica_. Four years afterwards, Mill's friend, the Radical +reformer, Francis Place, advocated this method more clearly. Finally, +in 1831, Robert Dale Owen, the son of the great Robert Owen, published +his _Moral Physiology_, in which he set forth the ways of preventing +conception; while a little later the Drysdale brothers, ardent and +unwearying philanthropists, devoted their energies to a propaganda +which has been spreading ever since and has now conquered the whole +civilised world. + +It was not, however, in England but in France, so often at the head of +an advance in civilisation, that birth control first became firmly +established, and that the extravagantly high birth-rate of earlier +times began to fall; this happened in the first half of the nineteenth +century, whether or not it was mainly due to voluntary control.[10] In +England the movement came later, and the steady decline in the English +birth-rate, which is still proceeding, began in 1877. In the previous +year there had been a famous prosecution of Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant +for disseminating pamphlets describing the methods of preventing +conception; the charge was described by the Lord Chief Justice, who +tried the case, as one of the most ill-advised and injudicious ever +made in a court of justice. But it served an undesigned end by giving +enormous publicity to the subject and advertising the methods it sought +to suppress. There can be no doubt, however, that even apart from this +trial the movement would have proceeded on the same lines. The times +were ripe, the great industrial expansion had passed its first feverish +phase, social conditions were improving, education was spreading. The +inevitable character of the movement is indicated by the fact that at +the very same time it began to be manifested all over Europe, indeed in +every civilised country of the world. At the present time the +birth-rate (as well as usually the death-rate) is falling in every +country of the world sufficiently civilised to possess statistics of +its own vital movement. The fall varies in rapidity. It has been +considerable in the more progressive countries; it has lingered in the +more backward countries. If we examine the latest statistics for Europe +(usually those for 1913) we find that every country, without exception, +with a progressive and educated population, and a fairly high state of +social well-being, presents a birth-rate below 30 per 1,000. We also +find that every country in Europe in which the mass of the people are +primitive, ignorant, or in a socially unsatisfactory condition (even +although the governing classes may be progressive or ambitious) shows a +birth-rate above 30 per 1,000. France, Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, +the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland are in the first group. +Russia, Austro-Hungary, Italy, Spain and the Balkan countries are in +the second group. The German Empire was formerly in this second group +but now comes within the first group, and has carried on the movement +so energetically that the birth-rate of Berlin is already below that of +London, and that at the present rate of decline the birth-rate of the +German Empire will before long sink to that of France. Outside Europe, +in the United States just as much as in Australia and New Zealand, the +same great progressive movement is proceeding with equal activity. + +The wide survey of the question of birth limitation here taken may seem +to some readers unnecessary. Why not get at once to matters of +practical detail? But, if we think of it, our wide survey has been of +the greatest practical help to us. It has, for instance, settled the +question of the desirability of the adoption of methods of preventing +conception and finally silenced those who would waste our time with +their fears lest it is not right to control conception. We know now on +whose side are the laws of God and Nature. We realise that in +exercising control over the entrance gate of life we are not only +performing, consciously and deliberately, a great human duty, but +carrying on rationally a beneficial process which has, more blindly and +wastefully, been carried on since the beginning of the world. There are +still a few persons ignorant enough or foolish enough to fight against +the advance of civilisation in this matter; we can well afford to leave +them severely alone, knowing that in a few years all of them will have +passed away. It is not our business to defend the control of birth, but +simply to discuss how we may most wisely exercise that control. + +Many ways of preventing conception have been devised since the method +which is still the commonest was first introduced, so far as our +certainly imperfect knowledge extends, by a clever Jew, Onan +(_Genesis_, Chap. XXXVIII), whose name has since been wrongly attached +to another practice with which the Mosaic record in no way associates +him. There are now many contraceptive methods, some dependent on +precautions adopted by the man, others dependent on the woman, others +again which take the form of an operation permanently preventing +conception, and, therefore, not to be adopted save by couples who +already have as many children as they desire, or else who ought never +to have children at all and thus wisely adopt a method of +sterilisation. It is unnecessary here, even if it were otherwise +desirable, to discuss these various methods in detail. It is even +useless to do so, for we must bear in mind that no method can be +absolutely approved or absolutely condemned. Each may be suitable under +certain conditions and for certain couples, and it is not easy to +recommend any method indiscriminately. We need to know the intimate +circumstances of individual cases. For the most part, experience is the +final test. Forel compared the use of contraceptive devices to the use +of eyeglasses, and it is obvious that, without expert advice, the +results in either case may sometimes be mischievous or at all events +ineffective. Personal advice and instruction are always desirable. In +Holland nurses are medically trained in a practical knowledge of +contraceptive methods, and are thus enabled to enlighten the women of +the community. This is an admirable plan. Considering that the use of +contraceptive measures is now almost universal, it is astonishing that +there are yet so many so-called "civilised" countries in which this +method of enlightenment is not everywhere adopted. Until it is adopted, +and a necessary knowledge of the most fundamental facts of the sexual +life brought into every home, the physician must be regarded as the +proper adviser. It is true that until recently he was generally in +these matters a blind leader of the blind. Nowadays it is beginning to +be recognised that the physician has no more serious and responsible +duty than that of giving help in the difficult path of the sexual life. +Very frequently, indeed, even yet, he has not risen to a sense of his +responsibilities in this matter. It is as well to remember, however, +that a physician who is unable or unwilling to give frank and sound +advice in this most important department of life, is unlikely to be +reliable in any other department. If he is not up to date here he is +probably not up to date anywhere. + +Whatever the method adopted, there are certain conditions which it must +fulfil, even apart from its effectiveness as a contraceptive, in order +to be satisfactory. Most of these conditions may be summed up in one: +the most satisfactory method is that which least interferes with the +normal process of the act of intercourse. Every sexual act is, or +should be, a miniature courtship, however long marriage may have +lasted.[11] No outside mental tension or nervous apprehension must be +allowed to intrude. Any contraceptive proceeding which hastily enters +the atmosphere of love immediately before or immediately after the +moment of union is unsatisfactory and may be injurious. It even risks +the total loss of the contraceptive result, for at such moments the +intended method may be ineffectively carried out, or neglected +altogether. No method can be regarded as desirable which interferes +with the sense of satisfaction and relief which should follow the +supreme act of loving union. No method which produces a nervous jar in +one of the parties, even though it may be satisfactory to the other, +should be tolerated. Such considerations must for some couples rule out +certain methods. We cannot, however, lay down absolute rules, because +methods which some couples may find satisfactory prove unsatisfactory +in other cases. Experience, aided by expert advice, is the only final +criterion. + +When a contraceptive method is adopted under satisfactory conditions, +with a due regard to the requirements of the individual couple, there +is little room to fear that any injurious results will be occasioned. +It is quite true that many physicians speak emphatically concerning the +injurious results to husband or to wife of contraceptive devices. +Although there has been exaggeration, and prejudice has often been +imported into this question, and although most of the injurious results +could have been avoided had trained medical help been at hand to advise +better methods, there can be no doubt that much that has been said +under this head is true. Considering how widespread is the use of these +methods, and how ignorantly they have often been carried out, it would +be surprising indeed if it were not true. But even supposing that the +nervously injurious effects which have been traced to contraceptive +practices were a thousandfold greater than they have been reported to +be--instead of, as we are justified in believing, considerably less +than they are reported--shall we therefore condemn contraceptive +methods? To do so would be to ignore all the vastly greater evils which +have followed in the past from unchecked reproduction. It would be a +condemnation which, if we exercised it consistently, would destroy the +whole of civilisation and place us back in savagery. For what device of +man, since man had any history at all, has not proved sometimes +injurious? + +Every one of even the most useful and beneficent of human inventions +has either exercised subtle injuries or produced appalling +catastrophes. This is not only true of man's devices, it is true of +Nature's in general. Let us take, for instance, the elevation of man's +ancestors from the quadrupedal to the bipedal position. The experiment +of making a series of four-footed animals walk on their hind-legs was +very revolutionary and risky; it was far, far more beset by dangers +than is the introduction of contraceptives; we are still suffering all +sorts of serious evils in consequence of Nature's action in placing our +remote ancestors in the erect position. Yet we feel that it was worth +while; even those physicians who most emphasise the evil results of the +erect position do not advise that we should go on all-fours. It is just +the same with a great human device, the introduction of clothes. They +have led to all sorts of new susceptibilities to disease and even +tendencies to direct injury of many kinds. Yet no one advocates the +complete disuse of all clothing on the ground that corsets have +sometimes proved harmful. It would be just as absurd to advocate the +complete abandonment of contraceptives on the ground that some of them +have sometimes been misused. If it were not, indeed, that we are +familiar with the lengths to which ignorance and prejudice may go we +should question the sanity of anyone who put forward so foolish a +proposition. Every great step which Nature and man have taken in the +path of progress has been beset by dangers which are gladly risked +because of the advantages involved. We have still to enumerate some of +the immense advantages which Man has gained in acquiring a conscious +and deliberate control of reproduction. + + +III. + +BIRTH CONTROL IN RELATION TO MORALITY AND EUGENICS + +Anyone who has followed this discussion so far will not easily believe +that a tendency so deeply rooted in Nature as Birth Control can ever be +in opposition to Morality. It can only seem to be so when we confuse +the eternal principles of Morality, whatever they may be, with their +temporary applications, which are always becoming modified in +adaptation to changing circumstances. + +We are often in danger of doing injustice to the morality of the past, +and it is important, even in order to understand the morality of the +present, that we should be able to put ourselves in the place of those +for whom birth control was immoral. To speak of birth control as having +been immoral in the past is, indeed, to underestimate the case; it was +not only immoral, it was unnatural, it was even irreligious, it was +almost criminal. We must remember that throughout the Christian world +the Divine Command, "Increase and Multiply," has seemed to echo down +the ages from the beginning of the world. It was the authoritative +command of a tribal God who was, according to the scriptural narrative, +addressing a world inhabited by eight people. From such a point of view +a world's population of several thousand persons would have seemed +inconceivably vast, though to-day by even the most austere advocate of +birth limitation it would be allowed with a smile. But the old +religious command has become a tradition which has survived amid +conditions totally unlike those under which it arose. In comparatively +modern times it has been reinforced from unexpected quarters, on the +one hand by all the forces that are opposed to democracy and on the +other by all the forces of would-be patriotic militarism, both alike +clamouring for plentiful and cheap men. + +Even science, under primitive conditions, was opposed to Birth Control. +Creation was regarded as a direct process in which man's will had no +part, and knowledge of nature was still too imperfect for the +recognition of the fact that the whole course of the world's natural +history has been an erection of barriers against wholesale and +indiscriminate reproduction. Thus it came about that under the old +dispensation, which is now for ever passing away, to have as many +children as possible and to have them as often as possible--provided +certain ritual prescriptions were fulfilled--seemed to be a religious, +moral, natural, scientific, and patriotic duty. + +To-day the conditions have altogether altered, and even our own +feelings have altered. We no longer feel with the ancient Hebrew who +has bequeathed his ideals though not his practices to Christendom, that +to have as many wives and concubines and as large a family as possible +is both natural and virtuous, as well as profitable. We realise, +moreover, that the Divine Commands, so far as we recognise any such +commands, are not external to us, but are manifested in our own +deliberate reason and will. We know that to primitive men, who lacked +foresight and lived mainly in the present, only that Divine Command +could be recognisable which sanctified the impulse of the moment, while +to us, who live largely in the future, and have learnt foresight, the +Divine Command involves restraint on the impulse of the moment. We no +longer believe that we are divinely ordered to be reckless or that God +commands us to have children who, as we ourselves know, are fatally +condemned to disease or premature death. Providence, which was once +regarded as the attribute of God, we regard as the attribute of men; +providence, prudence, self-restraint--these are to us the +characteristics of moral men, and those persons who lack these +characteristics are condemned by our social order to be reckoned among +the dregs of mankind. It is a social order which in the sphere of +procreation could not be reached or maintained except by the systematic +control of offspring. + +We may realise the difference between the morality of to-day and the +morality of the past when we come to details. We may consider, for +instance, the question of the chastity of women. According to the ideas +of the old morality, which placed the whole question of procreation +under the authority (after God) of men, women were in subjection to +men, and had no right to freedom, no right to responsibility, no right +to knowledge, for, it was believed, if entrusted with any of these they +would abuse them at once. That view prevails even to-day in some +civilised countries, and middle-class Italian parents, for instance, +will not allow their daughter to be conducted by a man even to Mass, +for they believe that as soon as she is out of their sight she will be +unchaste. That is their morality. Our morality to-day, however, is +inspired by different ideas, and aims at a different practice. We are +by no means disposed to rate highly the morality of a girl who is only +chaste so long as she is under her parents' eyes; for us, indeed, that +is much more like immorality than morality. We are to-day vigorously +pursuing a totally different line of action. We wish women to be +reasonably free, we wish them to be trained in the sense of +responsibility for their own actions, we wish them to possess +knowledge, more especially in that sphere of sex, once theoretically +closed to them, which we now recognise as peculiarly their own domain. +Nowadays, moreover, we are sufficiently well acquainted with human +nature to know, not only that at best the "chastity" merely due to +compulsion or to ignorance is a poor thing, but that at worst it is +really the most degraded and injurious form of unchastity. For there +are many ways of avoiding pregnancy besides the use of contraceptives, +and such ways can often only be called vicious, destructive to purity, +and harmful to health. Our ideal woman to-day is not she who is +deprived of freedom and knowledge in the cloister, even though only the +cloister of her home, but the woman who, being instructed from early +life in the facts of sexual physiology and sexual hygiene, is also +trained in the exercise of freedom and self-responsibility, and able to +be trusted to choose and to follow the path which seems to her right. +That is the only kind of morality which seems to us real and worth +while. And, in any case, we have now grown wise enough to know that no +degree of compulsion and no depth of ignorance will suffice to make a +girl good if she doesn't want to be good. So that, even as a matter of +policy, it is better to put her in a position to know what is good and +to act in accordance with that knowledge. + +The relation of birth control to morality is, however, by no means a +question which concerns women alone. It equally concerns men. Here we +have to recognise, not only that the exercise of control over +procreation enables a man to form a union of faithful devotion with the +woman of his choice at an earlier age than would otherwise be possible, +but it further enables him, throughout the whole of married life, to +continue such relationship under circumstances which might otherwise +render them injurious or else undesirable to his wife. That the +influence thus exerted by preventive methods would suffice to abolish +prostitution it would be foolish to maintain, for prostitution has +other grounds of support. But even within the sphere of merely +prostitutional relationships the use of contraceptives, and the +precautions and cleanliness they involve, have an influence of their +own in diminishing the risks of venereal disease, and while the +interests of those who engage in prostitution are by some persons +regarded as negligible, we must always remember that venereal disease +spreads far beyond the patrons of prostitution and is a perpetual +menace to others who may become altogether innocent victims. So that +any influence which tends to diminish venereal disease increases the +well-being of the whole community. + +Apart from the relationship to morality, although the two are +intimately combined, we are thus led to the relationship of birth +control to eugenics, or to the sound breeding of the race. Here we +touch the highest ground, and are concerned with our best hopes for the +future of the world. For there can be no doubt that birth control is +not only a precious but an indispensable instrument in moulding the +coming man to the measure of our developing ideals. Without it we are +powerless in the face of the awful evils which flow from random and +reckless reproduction. With it we possess a power so great that some +persons have professed to see in it a menace to the propagation of the +race, amusing themselves with the idea that if people possess the means +to prevent the conception of children they will never have children at +all. It is not necessary to discuss such a grotesque notion seriously. +The desire for children is far too deeply implanted in mankind and +womankind alike ever to be rooted out. If there are to-day many parents +whose lives are rendered wretched by large families and the miseries of +excessive child-bearing, there are an equal number whose lives are +wretched because they have no children at all, and who snatch eagerly +at any straw which offers the smallest promise of relief to this +craving. Certainly there are people who desire marriage, but--some for +very sound and estimable reasons and others for reasons which may less +well bear examination--do not desire any children at all. So far as +these are concerned, contraceptive methods, far from being a social +evil, are a social blessing. For nothing is so certain as that it is an +unmixed evil for a community to possess unwilling, undesirable, or +incompetent parents. Birth control would be an unmixed blessing if it +merely enabled us to exclude such persons from the ranks of parenthood. +We desire no parents who are not both competent and willing parents. +Only such parents are fit to father and to mother a future race worthy +to rule the world. + +It is sometimes said that the control of conception, since it is +frequently carried out immediately on marriage, will tend to delay +parenthood until an unduly late age. Birth control has, however, no +necessary result of this kind, and might even act in the reverse +direction. A chief cause of delay in marriage is the prospect of the +burden and expense of an unrestricted flow of children into the family, +and in Great Britain, since 1911, with the extension of the use of +contraceptives, there has been a slight but regular increase not only +in the general marriage rate but in the proportion of early marriages, +although the _general_ mean age at marriage has increased. The ability +to control the number of children not only enables marriage to take +place at an early age but also makes it possible for the couple to have +at least one child soon after marriage. The total number of children +are thus spaced out, instead of following in rapid succession. + +It is only of recent years that the eugenic importance of a +considerable interval between births has been fully recognised, as +regards not only the mother--this has long been realised--but also the +children. The very high mortality of large families has long been +known, and their association with degenerate conditions and with +criminality. The children of small families in Toronto, Canada, are +taller than those of larger families, as is also the case in Oakland, +California, where the average size of the family is smaller than in +Toronto.[12] Of recent years, moreover, evidence has been obtained that +families in which the children are separated from each other by +intervals of more than two years are both mentally and physically +superior to those in which the interval is shorter. Thus Ewart found in +a northern English manufacturing town that children born at an interval +of less than two years after the birth of the previous child remain +notably defective, even at the age of six, both as regards intelligence +and physical development. When compared with children born at a longer +interval and with first-born children, they are, on the average, three +inches shorter and three pounds lighter than first-born children.[13] +Such observations need to be repeated in various countries, but if +confirmed it is obvious that they represent a fact of the most vital +significance. + +Thus when we calmly survey, in however summary a manner, the great +field of life affected by the establishment of voluntary human control +over the production of the race, we can see no cause for anything but +hope. It is satisfactory that it should be so, for there can be no +doubt that we are here facing a great and permanent fact in civilised +life. With every rise in civilisation, indeed with all evolutionary +progress whatever, there is what seems to be an automatic fall in the +birth-rate. That fall is always normally accompanied by a fall in the +death-rate, so that a low birth-rate frequently means a high rate of +natural increase, since most of the children born survive.[14] Thus in +the civilised world of to-day, notwithstanding the low birth-rate which +prevails as compared with earlier times, the rate of increase in the +population is still, as Leroy-Beaulieu points out, appalling, nearly +half a million a year in Great Britain, over half a million in +Austro-Hungary, and three-quarters of a million in Germany. When we +examine this excess of births in detail we find among them a large +proportion of undesired and undesirable children. There are two opposed +alternative methods working to diminish this proportion: the method of +preventing conception, with which we have here been concerned, and the +method of preventing live birth by producing abortion. There can be no +doubt about the enormous extension of this latter practice in all +civilised countries, even although some of the estimates of its +frequency in the United States, where it seems especially to flourish, +may be extravagant. The burden of excessive children on the overworked +underfed mothers of the working classes becomes at last so intolerable +that anything seems better than another child. "I'd rather swallow the +druggist's shop and the man in it than have another kid," as, Miss +Elderton reports, a woman in Yorkshire said.[15] + +Now there has of late years arisen a movement, especially among German +women, for bringing abortion into honour and repute, so that it may be +carried out openly and with the aid of the best physicians. This +movement has been supported by lawyers and social reformers of high +position. It may be admitted that women have an abstract right to +abortion and that in exceptional cases that right should be exerted. +Yet there can be very little doubt to most people that abortion is a +wasteful, injurious, and almost degrading method of dealing with the +birth-rate, a feeble apology for recklessness and improvidence. A +society in which abortion flourishes cannot be regarded as a healthy +society. Therefore, a community which takes upon itself to encourage +abortion is incurring a heavy responsibility. I am referring more +especially to the United States, where this condition of things is most +marked. For, there cannot be any doubt about it, just as all those who +work for birth control are diminishing the frequency of abortion, so +_every attempt to discourage birth control promotes abortion_. We have +to approach this problem calmly, in the light of Nature and reason. We +have each of us to decide on which side we shall range ourselves. For +it is a vital social problem concerning which we cannot afford to be +indifferent. + +There is here no desire to exaggerate the importance of birth control. +It is not a royal road to the millennium, and, as I have already +pointed out, like all other measures which the course of progress +forces us to adopt, it has its disadvantages. Yet at the present moment +its real and vital significance is acutely brought home to us. + +Flinders Petrie, discussing those great migrations due to the +unrestricted expansion of barbarous races which have devastated Europe +from the dawn of history, remarks: "We deal lightly and coldly with the +abstract facts, but they represent the most terrible tragedies of all +humanity--the wreck of the whole system of civilisation, protracted +starvation, wholesale massacre. Can it be avoided? That is the +question, before all others, to the statesman who looks beyond the +present time."[16] Since Petrie wrote, only ten years ago, we have had +occasion to realise that the vast expansions which he described are not +confined to the remote past, but are at work and producing the same +awful results, even at the very present hour. The great and only +legitimate apology which has been put forward for the aggressive +attitude of Germany in the present war has been that it was the +inevitable expansive outcome of the abnormally high birth-rate of +Germany in recent times; as Dr. Dernburg, not long ago, put it: "The +expansion of the German nation has been so extraordinary during the +last twenty-five years that the conditions existing before the war had +become insupportable." In other words, there was no outlet but a +devastating war. So we are called upon to repeat, with fresh emphasis, +Petrie's question: _Can it be avoided_? All humanity, all civilisation, +call upon us to take up our stand on this vital question of birth +control. In so doing we shall each of us be contributing, however +humbly, to + + "one far-off divine event, + To which the whole creation moves." + + +[1] J.M. Coulter, _The Evolution of Sex in Plants_, 1915; Geoffrey +Smith, "The Biology of Sex," _Eugenics Review_, April, 1914. + +[2] See, _e.g._, Geddes and Thomson, _The Evolution of Sex_, Ch. XX.; +and T.H. Morgan, _Heredity and Sex_, Ch. I. + +[3] To quote one of the most careful investigators of this point, +Northcote Thomas, among the Edo-speaking people of Nigeria, found +that the average number of living children per husband was 2.7; +including all children, alive and dead, the average number was per +husband 4.5, and per wife 2.7. "Infant mortality is heavy" (Northcote +Thomas, _Anthropological Report of Edo-speaking People of Nigeria_, +1910, Part I., pp. 15, 63). + +[4] The same end has been rather more mercifully achieved in earlier +periods by infanticide (see Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the +Moral Ideas_, Vol. I., Ch. 17). It must not be supposed that infanticide +was opposed to tenderness to children. Thus the Australian Dieyerie, +who practised infanticide, were kind to children, and a mother found +beating her child was herself beaten by her husband. + +[5] See Havelock Ellis, _The Nationalisation of Health_. + +[6] Similar results appear to follow in China where also the birth-rate +is very high and the mortality very great. It is stated that physical +development is much inferior and pathological defects more numerous +among Chinese as compared with American students. (_New York Medical +Journal_, Nov. 14th, 1914, p. 978.) The bad conditions which produce +death in the weakest produce deterioration in the survivors. + +[7] The law is thus laid down by P. Leroy-Beaulieu (_La Question de la +Population_, 1913, p. 233): "The first degree of prosperity in a rude +population with few needs develops prolificness; a later degree of +prosperity, accompanied by all the feelings and ideas stimulated by +the development of education and a democratic environment, leads to +a gradual reduction of prolificness." + +[8] This is too often forgotten. Birth control is a natural process, +and though in civilised men, endowed with high intelligence, it +necessarily works in some measure voluntarily and deliberately, it is +probable that it still also works, as in the evolution of the lower +animals, to some extent automatically. Sir Shirley Murphy (_Lancet_, +Aug. 10th, 1912), while admitting that intentional restriction has +been operative, remarks: "It does not appear to me that there is any +more reason for ignoring the likelihood that Nature has been largely +concerned in the reduction of births than for ignoring the effects of +Nature in reducing the death-rate. The decline in both has points of +resemblance. Both have been widely manifest over Europe, both have in +the main declined in the period of 1871-1880, and indeed both appear +to be behaving in like manner." + +[9] I do not overlook the fact that the artificial clothing of primitive +man is in its origin mainly ornament, having myself insisted on that +fact in discussing this point in "The Evolution of Modesty" (_Studies +in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. I.). It is to be remembered that, in +animals--and very conspicuously, for instance, in birds--natural +clothing is also largely ornament of secondary sexual significance. + +[10] At the end of the eighteenth century there were in France four +children on the average to a family; a movement of rapid increase +in the population reached its climax in 1846; by 1860 the average +number of children to a family had slowly fallen to but little over +three. Broca, writing in 1867 ("Sur la Prétendue Dégénérescence de la +Population Francaise"), mentioned that the slow fall in the birth-rate +was only slightly due to prudent calculation and mainly to more general +causes such as delay in marriage. + +[11] Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI., "Sex +in Relation to Society," Ch. XI., The Art of Love. + +[12] The exact results are presented by F. Boas (abstract of Report on +_Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants_, Washington, 1911, +p. 57), who concludes that "the physical development of children, as +measured by stature, is the better the smaller the family." + +[13] R.J. Ewart, "The Influence of Parental Age on Offspring," _Eugenics +Review_, Oct., 1911. + +[14] In New Zealand the birth-rate is very low; but the death-rate of +children in the first year is only 58 per thousand as against 130 in +England. + +[15] E.M. Elderton, _Report on the English Birth-rate_, Part I., +1914. See also the collection of narratives of their experiences by +working-class mothers, published under the title of _Maternity_ +(Women's Co-operative Guild, 1915). + +[16] Flinders Petrie, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1906, p. 220. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays in War-Time, by Havelock Ellis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN WAR-TIME *** + +***** This file should be named 9887-8.txt or 9887-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/8/8/9887/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Beth Trapaga and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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