Birth Control Part 6

In 1837 Thomas Doubleday [51] maintained that the rising birth-rate of his own time was closely connected with the fall in the standard of living, and his argument implied that, in order to check the excessive birth-rate, it was necessary to improve the condition of the ma.s.s of the people. Four years later he published _The True Law of Population_, wherein he stated that when the existence of a species is endangered--

"A corresponding effort is invariably made by Nature for its preservation and continuance by an increase of fertility, and that this especially takes place whenever such danger arises from a diminution of proper nourishment or food, so that consequently the state of depletion or the deplethoric state is favourable to fertility, and that, on the other hand, the plethoric state, or state of repletion, is unfavourable to fertility in the ratio of the intensity of each state."

By a series of experiments on plants Doubleday discovered that "whatever might be the principle of manure, _an overdose_ of it invariably induced sterility in the plant." Although his formula is deficient in that food is selected as the one factor in environment which influences fertility, and although it may be an overstatement to claim that fertility varies in exact proportion to abundance or to scarcity, nevertheless his formula contains an important truth which literally knocks the bottom out of the whole Malthusian case.

It is a sad reflection that, while the falsehoods of Malthus have been blindly accepted for the greater part of a century, the work of Doubleday was almost lost in oblivion. His shade has now been recalled to the full centre of the stage, and for this the credit is due to Mr. C.E. Pell. His recent book [52] is a stimulating essay on the declining birth-rate, and contains much evidence that supports the main contention of Doubleday.

Although it is impossible to agree with all the deductions made by Mr.

Pell, he has nevertheless done a public service by restating the problem of the birth-rate in a new way, by effectively bursting the Malthusian bubble, and by tabulating fresh evidence against the birth-controllers.

Section 2. MR. PELL'S GENERALISATIONS CRITICISED

Mr. Pell defines the law of births and deaths in two generalisations. The first is: "We have seen that it is a necessary condition of the success of the evolutionary scheme that the variation of the inherited potential degree of fertility between species and species must bear an inverse proportion to their capacity for survival." [53] At first glance this statement appears hard to be understood; but it is obviously true--because it means that a species that is well adapted to its environment can survive with a low degree of fertility, whereas a species that is not well adapted to its environment requires a high degree of fertility in order to survive.

Mr. Pell considers that a "capacity for survival" is synonymous with "nervous energy"; but, as our total knowledge of nervous energy is limited to the fact that it is neither matter nor any known force, the change in words does not mark a real advance in knowledge.

The second generalisation is that "the variation of the degree of animal fertility in response to the direct action of the environment shall bear an inverse proportion to the variation of the survival capacity under that environment." [54] Here Mr. Pell and I part company. I have already (Chapter III) disputed the causal connection between birth-rate and death-rate which Mr. Pell here a.s.serts. His generalisation is made by a.s.suming that birth-rates and death-rates rise and fall together: that conditions which produce a high death-rate will also produce a high birth-rate and that conditions which cause a low death-rate will also cause a low birth-rate; that the increase or decline of a population is due to the direct action of the environment; and finally that "the _actual_ degree of fertility is decided by the direct action of the environment." [55] On that last rock Mr. Pell's barque sinks. The mistake here is a.n.a.logous to the old Darwinian fallacy, abandoned by Huxley and by Romanes, that natural selection is a creative cause of new species. Even if the hypothesis of evolution--and it is merely a hypothesis--be accepted, the only view warranted by reason is that variation of species and their actual degree of fertility may be produced, not by the direct action of environment, but by the _reaction_ of species to their environment--a very different story.

There is no statistical evidence to prove a uniform correspondence between birth-rates and death-rates, and it is improbable that there should be a physical law of nature whose operations cannot be demonstrated by mathematical proof. Moreover, we know that the same conditions which cause a high birth-rate may cause a low death-rate. In the case of the first settlers in a new country the death-rate is low because the diseases of civilisation are absent and the settlers are usually young, whereas the birth-rate is high. If fifty young married couples settle on the virgin soil of a new country it is probable that for many years an enormous birth-rate, of over 100, will coexist with a low death-rate.

In reality a high birth-rate may coexist with a low death-rate, or with a high death-rate. For example, there is a difference between natural and artificial poverty, the first being brought about by G.o.d, or, if any reader prefers to have it so, by Nature, and the second being made by man. Under conditions of natural poverty small groups of people in an open country are surrounded by land not yet cultivated: whereas artificial poverty means a population overcrowded and underfed, living in dark tenements or in back-to-back houses, breathing foul air in ill-ventilated rooms seldom lit by the sun, working long hours in gas-lit workshops for a sweated wage, buying the cheapest food in the dearest market, and drugged by bad liquor.

In either case their existence is threatened, although for very different reasons, and the birth-rate rises; but under conditions of natural poverty the death-rate is low, whereas in slums the death-rate is high.

Section 3. THE LAW OF DECLINE

It would appear, then, that under conditions of hards.h.i.+p the birth-rate tends to rise, and that in circ.u.mstances of ease the birth-rate tends to fall. If the existence of the inhabitants in a closed country is threatened by scarcity, the birth-rate tends to rise. For example, "In some of the remote parts of the country, Orkney and Shetland, the population remained practically stationary between the years 1801 and 1811, and in the next ten years, still years of great scarcity, it increased 15 per cent." [56]

The governing principle may be expressed in the following generalisation.

When the existence of a community is threatened by adversity the birth-rate tends to rise; but when the existence of a community is threatened by prosperity the birth-rate tends to fall. By adversity I mean war, famine, scarcity, poverty, oppression, an untilled soil, and disease: and by prosperity I mean wealth, luxury, idleness, a diet too rich--especially in flesh meat--and over-civilisation, whereby the physical laws of nature are defied. Now the danger of national decline owing to prosperity can be avoided by a nation that observes the moral law, and this is the most probable explanation of the fact that in Ireland, although the general prosperity of the people has rapidly increased since George Wyndham displaced landlordism over a large area by small owners.h.i.+p, the birth-rate has continued to rise. Moreover, the danger to national existence, as we have already indicated (Chapter I, Section. 10) is greater from moral than from physical catastrophes, and when both catastrophes are threatened the ultimate issue depends upon which of the two is the greater. Furthermore, it would appear that moral catastrophes inevitably lead to physical catastrophes. This is best ill.u.s.trated by the fate of ancient Greece.

Section 4. ILl.u.s.tRATED FROM GREEK HISTORY [Reference: Dangers]

The appositeness of this ill.u.s.tration arises from the fact that ancient Greece reached a very high level of material and intellectual civilisation, yet perished owing to moral and physical disasters.

(a) _Moral Catastrophe in Ancient Greece_

The evidence of the moral catastrophe is to be found in the change that occurred in the Greek character most definitely after the fourth century before Christ. Of this Mr. W.H.S. Jones has given the following account:

"Gradually the Greeks lost their brilliance, which had been as the bright freshness of early youth. This is painfully obvious in their literature, if not in other forms of art. Their initiative vanished; they ceased to create and began to comment. Patriotism, with rare exceptions, became an empty name, for few had the high spirit and energy to translate into action man's duty to the State. Vacillation, indecision, fitful outbursts of unhealthy activity followed by cowardly depression, selfish cruelty, and criminal weakness are characteristic of the public life of Greece from the struggle with Macedonia to the final conquest by the arms of Rome. No one can fail to be struck by the marked difference between the period from Marathon to the Peloponnesian War and the period from Alexander to Mummius. Philosophy also suffered, and became deeply pessimistic even in the hands of its best and n.o.blest exponents. 'Absence of feeling,' 'absence of care'--such were the highest goals of human endeavour.

"How far this change was due to other causes is a complicated question.

The population may have suffered from foreign admixture during the troubled times that followed the death of Alexander. There were, however, many reasons against the view that these disturbances produced any appreciable difference of race. The presence of vast numbers of slaves, not members of households, but the gangs of toilers whom the increase of commerce brought into the country, pandered to a foolish pride that looked upon many kinds of honourable labour as being shameful and unbecoming to a free man. The very inst.i.tution that made Greek civilisation possible encouraged idleness, luxury, and still worse vices. Unnatural vice, which in some States seems to have been positively encouraged, was prevalent among the Greeks to an almost incredible extent. It is hard not to believe that much physical harm was caused thereby; of the loss to moral strength and vigour there is no need to speak. The city-state, again, however favourable to the development of public spirit and a sense of responsibility, was doomed to fail in a struggle against the stronger Powers of Macedon and Rome.

The growth of the scientific spirit destroyed the old religion. The more intellectual tried to find principles of conduct in philosophy; the ignorant or half-educated, deprived of the strong moral support that always comes from sharing the convictions of those abler and wiser than oneself, fell back upon degrading superst.i.tions. In either case there was a serious loss of that spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion which a vigorous religious faith alone can bestow. Without such a spirit, as history proves conclusively, no nation or people can survive." [57]

(b) _The Physical Catastrophe induced by Selfishness_

One of the physical catastrophes that probably most accelerated the fall of Greek civilisation was malarial fever. The parasite of this disease is carried from man to man by Anopheline mosquitoes. These insects, during the stage of egg, larva, and nympha, live in water, and afterwards, as developed insects, in the air. The breeding-grounds, where the eggs are laid, are shallow pools of stagnant water. For that reason the disease is most common in marshy country, and tends to disappear when the land is properly drained. Of this we have an example in England, whence malaria disappeared as the marshes were drained.

In Homer there is a disputed reference to malaria, but it is not possible to ascertain whether the disease was present during the rise of Greek civilisation, and there are no references to this disease in the literature from 700 B.C. to 550 B.C. [58] From this date references to malaria gradually become more frequent, and Hippocrates stated that "those who live in low, moist, hot districts, and drink the stagnant water, of necessity suffer from enlarged spleen. They are stunted and ill-shaped, fleshy and dark, bilious rather than phlegmatic. Their nature is to be cowardly and adverse from hards.h.i.+p; but good discipline can improve their character in this respect." [59] After an exhaustive study of the literature, Mr. Jones concludes "that malaria was endemic throughout the greater part of the Greek world by 400 B.C."

Concerning the causes of a malarial epidemic, Sir Ronald Ross writes: [60]

"Suppose that the Anophelines have been present from the first, but that the number of infected immigrants has been few. Then, possibly, some of these people have happened to take up their abode in places where the mosquitoes are rare; others may have recovered quickly; others may not have chanced to possess parasites in suitable stages when they have been bitten.

Thus, the probability of their spreading infection would be very small. Or, supposing even that some few new infections have been caused, yet, by our rough calculations in section 12, _unless the mosquitoes are sufficiently numerous_ in the locality, the little epidemic may die out after a while--for instance, during the cool season." The italics are mine, because some writers have suggested that the decline of Greece was _due_ to malaria, whereas I submit, as the more logical interpretation of the facts, that a moral catastrophe led to the neglect of agriculture, whereby the area of marshy land became more extensive, mosquitoes more numerous, and the fever more prevalent.

In view of the foregoing facts, the following Malthusian statement, although groundless, is nevertheless an amusing example of the errors that arise from lack of a little knowledge:

"The difficulty of providing for a high birth-rate in a settled community was appreciated by the ancient Greeks, notably by Plato and Aristotle; but their conclusions were swept aside by the warlike spirit of Rome, and the sentimentality of Christianity, so that only a few isolated thinkers showed any appreciation of them." [61]

[Footnote 51: Quoted in _The Law of Births and Deaths_, by Charles Edward Pell, 1921, chap. xii.]

[Footnote 52: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921.]

[Footnote 53: Ibid., p. 40.]

[Footnote 54: _The Law of Births and Deaths_, 1921, p. 41.]

[Footnote 55: Ibid., p. 40.]

[Footnote 56: Dr. John Brownlee, _The Declining Birth-rate_, p. 156.]

[Footnote 57: _Malaria and Greek History_, 1909, pp. 102 et seq.]

[Footnote 58: Ibid., p. 26.]

[Footnote 59: Ibid., p. 85.]

[Footnote 60: _Report on the Prevention of Malaria in Mauritius_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 61: C.V. Drysdale, O.B.E., D. Sc., _The Malthusian Doctrine and its Modern Aspects_, p. 3.]

CHAPTER VI

THE FALLING BIRTH-RATE IN ENGLAND: ITS CAUSES

Birth controllers claim that the fall in the English birth-rate, which began to decline in 1876, is mostly due to the use of contraceptives: but the very fact that this claim is made by these reckless propagandists makes it imperative that we should scrutinise the evidence very carefully.

Section 1. NOT, AS MALTHUSIANS a.s.sERT, DUE MAINLY TO CONTRACEPTIVES

In support of the Malthusian contention, Dr. C.V. Drysdale, who is not a doctor of medicine but a doctor of science, has published the following statements:

"... We might note that a recent investigation of the records of the Quakers (the Society of Friends) reveals the fact that family limitation has been adopted by them to a most astonis.h.i.+ng extent. Their birthrate [_sic_] stood at 20 per thousand in 1876, and has now actually fallen to about 8 per thousand. The longevity of Quakers is well known, and the returns of deaths given by their Society show that the great majority live to between seventy and ninety years. Infantile mortality is practically unknown among them, although none of the special steps so dear to most social reformers have been taken for the protection of infant life. The Quakers are well known to be very earnest Christians, and to give the best example of religious morality.

Their probity in business and their self-sacrifice in humanitarian work of all kinds are renowned. Yet it would seem that they have adopted family restriction to a greater extent than any other body of people, and, since the decline of their birth-rate only began in 1876, that it is due to adoption of preventive methods." [62]