me," wrote Lady Henry Somerset, some years ago ("The Welcome
Child," _Arena_, April, 1895), "that life will be dearer and
nobler the more we recognize that there is no indelicacy in the
climax and crown of creative power, but, rather, that it is the
highest glory of the race. But if voluntary motherhood is the
crown of the race, involuntary compulsory motherhood is the very
opposite.... Only when both man and woman have learned that the
most sacred of all functions given to women must be exercised by
the free will alone, can children be born into the world who have
in them the joyous desire to live, who claim that sweetest
privilege of childhood, the certainty that they can expand in the
sunshine of the love which is their due." Ellen Key, similarly,
while pointing out (_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, pp. 14, 265) that the
tyranny of the old Protestant religious spirit which enjoined on
women unlimited submission to joyless motherhood within "the
whited sepulchre of marriage" is now being broken, exalts the
privileges of voluntary motherhood, while admitting that there
may be a few exceptional cases in which women may withdraw
themselves from motherhood for the sake of the other demands of
their personality, though, "as a general rule, the woman who
refuses motherhood in order to serve humanity, is like a soldier
who prepares himself on the eve of battle for the forthcoming
struggle by opening his veins." Helene Stoecker, likewise, reckons
motherhood as one of the demands, one of the growing demands
indeed, which women now make. "If, to-day," she says (in the
Preface to _Liebe und die Frauen_, 1906), "all the good things of
life are claimed even for women--intellectual training, pecuniary
independence, a happy vocation in life, a respected social
position--and at the same time, as equally matter-of-course, and
equally necessary, marriage and child, that demand no longer
sounds, as it sounded a few years ago, the voice of a preacher in
the wilderness."

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

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

There cannot be any doubt that, so far as England is concerned,
the prevention of conception is practiced, from prudential or
other motives, by the vast majority of the educated classes. This
fact is well within the knowledge of all who are intimately
acquainted with the facts of English family life. Thus, Dr. A.W.
Thomas writes (_British Medical Journal_, Oct. 20, 1906, p.
1066): "From my experience as a general practitioner, I have no
hesitation in saying that ninety per cent. of young married
couples of the comfortably-off classes use preventives." As a
matter of fact, this rough estimate appears to be rather under
than over the mark. In the very able paper already quoted, in
which Sidney Webb shows that "the decline in the birthrate
appears to be much greater in those sections of the population
which give proofs of thrift and foresight," that this decline is
"principally, if not entirely, the result of deliberate
volition," and that "a volitional regulation of the marriage
state is now ubiquitous throughout England and Wales, among,
apparently, a large majority of the population," the results are
brought forward of a detailed inquiry carried out by the Fabian
Society. This inquiry covered 316 families, selected at random
from all parts of Great Britain, and belonging to all sections of
the middle class. The results are carefully analyzed, and it is
found that seventy-four families were unlimited, and two hundred
and forty-two voluntarily limited. When, however, the decade
1890-99 is taken by itself as the typical period, it is found
that of 120 marriages, 107 were limited, and only thirteen
unlimited, while of these thirteen, five were childless at the
date of the return. In this decade, therefore, only seven
unlimited fertile marriages are reported, out of a total of 120.

What is true of Great Britain is true of all other civilized
countries, in the highest degree true of the most civilized
countries, and it finds expression in the well-known phenomenon
of the decline of the birthrate. In modern times, this movement
of decline began in France, producing a slow but steady
diminution in the annual number of births, and in France the
movement seems now to be almost, or quite, arrested. But it has
since taken place in all other progressive countries, notably in
the United States, in Canada, in Australia, and in New Zealand,
as well as in Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland,
Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In England, it has
been continuous since 1877. Of the great countries, Russia is
the only one in which it has not yet taken place, and among the
masses of the Russian population we find less education, more
poverty, a higher deathrate, and a greater amount of disease,
than in any other great, or even small, civilized country.

It is sometimes said, indeed, that the decline of the birthrate
is not entirely due to the voluntary control of procreation. It
is undoubtedly true that certain other elements, common under
civilized conditions, such as the postponement of marriage in
women to a comparatively late age, tend to diminish the size of
the family. But when all such allowances have been made, the
decline is still found to be real and large. This has been shown,
for instance, by the statistical analyses made by Arthur
Newsholme and T.H.C. Stevenson, and by G. Yule, both published in
_Journal Royal Statistical Society_, April, 1906.

Some have supposed that, since the Catholic Church forbids
incomplete sexual intercourse, this movement for the control of
procreation will involve a relatively much greater increase among
Catholic than among non-Catholic populations. This, however, is
only correct under certain conditions. It is quite true that in
Ireland there has been no fall in the birthrate, and that the
fall is but little marked in those Lancashire towns which possess
a large Irish element. But in Belgium, Italy, Spain, and other
mainly Catholic countries, the decline in the birthrate is duly
taking place. What has happened is that the Church--always alive
to sexual questions--has realized the importance of the modern
movement, and has adapted herself to it, by proclaiming to her
more ignorant and uneducated children that incomplete intercourse
is a deadly sin, while at the same time refraining from making
inquiries into this matter among her more educated members. The
question was definitely brought up for Papal judgment, in 1842,
by Bishop Bouvier of Le Mans, who stated the matter very clearly,
representing to the Pope (Gregory XVI) that the prevention of
conception was becoming very common, and that to treat it as a
deadly sin merely resulted in driving the penitent away from
confession. After mature consideration, the Curia Sacra
Poenitentiaria replied by pointing out, as regards the common
method of withdrawal before emission, that since it was due to
the wrong act of the man, the woman who has been forced by her
husband to consent to it, has committed no sin. Further, the
Bishop was reminded of the wise dictum of Liguori, "the most
learned and experienced man in these matters," that the confessor
is not usually called upon to make inquiry upon so delicate a
matter as the _debitum conjugale_, and, if his opinion is not
asked, he should be silent (Bouvier, _Dissertatio in sextum
Decalogi praeceptum; supplementum ad Tractatum de Matrimonio_.
1849, pp. 179-182; quoted by Hans Ferdy, _Sexual-Probleme_, Aug.,
1908, p. 498). We see, therefore, that, among Catholic as well as
among non-Catholic populations, the adoption of preventive
methods of conception follows progress and civilization, and
that the general practice of such methods by Catholics (with the
tacit consent of the Church) is merely a matter of time.

From time to time many energetic persons have noisily demanded that a stop
should be put to the decline of the birthrate, for, they argue, it means
"race suicide." It is now beginning to be realized, however, that this
outcry was a foolish and mischievous mistake. It is impossible to walk
through the streets of any great city, full of vast numbers of persons
who, obviously, ought never to have been born, without recognizing that
the birthrate is as yet very far above its normal and healthy limit. The
greatest States have often been the smallest so far as mere number of
citizens is concerned, for it is quality not quantity that counts. And
while it is true that the increase of the best types of citizens can only
enrich a State, it is now becoming intolerable that a nation should
increase by the mere dumping down of procreative refuse in its midst. It
is beginning to be realized that this process not only depreciates the
quality of a people but imposes on a State an inordinate financial burden.

It is now well recognized that large families are associated with
degeneracy, and, in the widest sense, with abnormality of every
kind. Thus, it is undoubtedly true that men of genius tend to
belong to very large families, though it may be pointed out to
those who fear an alarming decrease of genius from the tendency
to the limitation of the family, that the position in the family
most often occupied by the child of genius is the firstborn. (See
Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 115-120). The
insane, the idiotic, imbecile, and weak-minded, the criminal, the
epileptic, the hysterical, the neurasthenic, the tubercular, all,
it would appear, tend to belong to large families (see e.g.,
Havelock Ellis, op. cit., p. 110; Toulouse, _Les Causes de la
Folie_, p. 91; Harriet Alexander, "Malthusianism and Degeneracy,"
_Alienist and Neurologist_, Jan., 1901). It has, indeed, been
shown by Heron, Pearson, and Goring, that not only the
eldest-born, but also the second-born, are specially liable to
suffer from pathological defect (insanity, criminality,
tuberculosis). There is, however, it would seem, a fallacy in the
common interpretation of this fact. According to Van den Velden
(as quoted in _Sexual-Probleme_, May, 1909, p. 381), this
tendency is fully counterbalanced by the rising mortality of
children from the firstborn onward. The greater pathological
tendency of the earlier children is thus simply the result of a
less stringent selection by death. So far as they show any really
greater pathological tendency, apart from this fallacy, it is
perhaps due to premature marriage. There is another fallacy in
the frequent statement that the children in small families are
more feeble than those in large families. We have to distinguish
between a naturally small family, and an artificially small
family. A family which is small merely as the result of the
feeble procreative energy of the parents, is likely to be a
feeble family; a family which is small as the result of the
deliberate control of the parents, shows, of course, no such
tendency.

These considerations, it will be seen, do not modify the tendency
of the large family to be degenerate. We may connect this
phenomenon with the disposition, often shown by nervously unsound
and abnormal persons, to believe that they have a special
aptitude to procreate fine children. "I believe that everyone has
a special vocation," said a man to Marro (_La Puberta_, p. 459);
"I find that it is my vocation to beget superior children." He
begat four,--an epileptic, a lunatic, a dipsomaniac, and a
valetudinarian,--and himself died insane. Most people have come
across somewhat similar, though perhaps less marked, cases of
this delusion. In a matter of such fateful gravity to other human
beings, no one can safely rely on his own unsupported
impressions.

The demand of national efficiency thus corresponds with the demand of
developing humanitarianism, which, having begun by attempting to
ameliorate the conditions of life, has gradually begun to realize that it
is necessary to go deeper and to ameliorate life itself. For while it is
undoubtedly true that much may be done by acting systematically on the
conditions of life, the more searching analysis of evil environmental
conditions only serves to show that in large parts they are based in the
human organism itself and were not only pre-natal, but pre-conceptional,
being involved in the quality of the parental or ancestral organisms.

Putting aside, however, all humanitarian considerations, the serious error
of attempting to stem the progress of civilization in the direction of
procreative control could never have occurred if the general tendencies of
zooelogical evolution had been understood, even in their elements. All
zooelogical progress is from the more prolific to the less prolific; the
higher the species the less fruitful are its individual members. The same
tendency is found within the limits of the human species, though not in an
invariable straight line; the growth of civilization involves a
diminution in fertility. This is by no means a new phenomenon; ancient
Rome and later Geneva, "the Protestant Rome," bear witness to it; no doubt
it has occurred in every high centre of moral and intellectual culture,
although the data for measuring the tendency no longer exist. When we take
a sufficiently wide and intelligent survey, we realize that the tendency
of a community to slacken its natural rate of increase is an essential
phenomenon of all advanced civilization. The more intelligent nations have
manifested the tendency first, and in each nation the more educated
classes have taken the lead, but it is only a matter of time to bring all
civilized nations, and all social classes in each nation, into line.[429]
This movement, we have to remember--in opposition to the ignorant outcry
of certain would-be moralists and politicians--is a beneficent movement.
It means a greater regard to the quality than to the quantity of the
increase; it involves the possibility of combating successfully the evils
of high mortality, disease, overcrowding, and all the manifold misfortunes
which inevitably accompany a too exuberant birthrate. For it is only in a
community which increases slowly that it is possible to secure the
adequate economic adjustment and environmental modifications necessary for
a sane and wholesome civic and personal life.[430] If those persons who
raise the cry of "race suicide" in face of the decline of the birthrate
really had the knowledge and intelligence to realize the manifold evils
which they are invoking they would deserve to be treated as criminals.

On the practical side a knowledge of the possibility of preventing
conception has, doubtless, never been quite extinct in civilization and
even in lower stages of culture, though it has mostly been utilized for
ends of personal convenience or practiced in obedience to conventional
social rules which demanded chastity, and has only of recent times been
made subservient to the larger interests of society and the elevation of
the race. The theoretical basis of the control of procreation, on its
social and economic, as distinct from its eugenic, aspects, may be said to
date from Malthus's famous _Essay on Population_, first published in 1798,
an epoch-marking book,--though its central thesis is not susceptible of
actual demonstration,--since it not only served as the starting-point of
the modern humanitarian movement for the control of procreation, but also
furnished to Darwin (and independently to Wallace also) the fruitful idea
which was finally developed into the great evolutionary theory of natural
selection.

Malthus, however, was very far from suggesting that the control of
procreation, which he advocated for the benefit of mankind, should be
exercised by the introduction of preventive methods into sexual
intercourse. He believed that civilization involved an increased power of
self-control, which would make it possible to refrain altogether from
sexual intercourse, when such self-restraint was demanded in the interests
of humanity. Later thinkers realized, however, that, while it is
undoubtedly true that civilization involves greater forethought and
greater self-control, we cannot anticipate that those qualities should be
developed to the extent demanded by Malthus, especially when the impulse
to be controlled is of so powerful and explosive a nature.

James Mill was the pioneer in advocating Neo-Malthusian methods, though he
spoke cautiously. In 1818, in the article "Colony" in the supplement to
the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, after remarking that the means of checking
the unrestricted increase of the population constitutes "the most
important practical problem to which the wisdom of the politician and
moralist can be applied," he continued: "If the superstitions of the
nursery were discarded, and the principle of utility kept steadily in
view, a solution might not be very difficult to be found." Four years
later, James Mill's friend, the Radical reformer, Francis Place, more
distinctly expressed the thought that was evidently in Mill's mind. After
enumerating the facts concerning the necessity of self-control in
procreation and the evils of early marriage, which he thinks ought to be
clearly taught, Place continues: "If a hundredth, perhaps a thousandth
part of the pains were taken to teach these truths, that are taken to
teach dogmas, a great change for the better might, in no considerable
space of time, be expected to take place in the appearance and the habits
of the people. If, above all, it were once clearly understood that it was
not disreputable for married persons to avail themselves of such
precautionary means as would, without being injurious to health, or
destructive of female delicacy, prevent conception, a sufficient check
might at once be given to the increase of population beyond the means of
subsistence; vice and misery, to a prodigious extent, might be removed
from society, and the object of Mr. Malthus, Mr. Godwin, and of every
philanthropic person, be promoted, by the increase of comfort, of
intelligence, and of moral conduct, in the mass of the population. The
course recommended will, I am fully persuaded, at some period be pursued
by the people even if left to themselves."[431]

It was not long before Place's prophetic words began to be realized, and
in another half century the movement was affecting the birthrate of all
civilized lands, though it can scarcely yet be said that justice has been
done to the pioneers who promoted it in the face of much persecution from
the ignorant and superstitious public whom they sought to benefit. In
1831, Robert Dale Owen, the son of Robert Owen, published his _Moral
Physiology_, setting forth the methods of preventing conception. A little
later the brothers George and Charles Drysdale (born 1825 and 1829), two
ardent and unwearying philanthropists, devoted much of their energy to the
propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles. George Drysdale, in 1854,
published his _Elements of Social Science_, which during many years had
an enormous circulation all over Europe in eight different languages. It
was by no means in every respect a scientific or sound work, but it
certainly had great influence, and it came into the hands of many who
never saw any other work on sexual topics. Although the Neo-Malthusian
propagandists of those days often met with much obloquy, their cause was
triumphantly vindicated in 1876, when Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant,
having been prosecuted for disseminating Neo-Malthusian pamphlets, the
charge was dismissed, the Lord Chief Justice declaring that so ill-advised
and injudicious a charge had probably never before been made in a court of
justice. This trial, even by its mere publicity and apart from its issue,
gave an enormous impetus to the Neo-Malthusian movement. It is well known
that the steady decline in the English birthrate begun in 1877, the year
following the trial. There could be no more brilliant illustration of the
fact, that what used to be called "the instruments of Providence" are
indeed unconscious instruments in bringing about great ends which they
themselves were far from either intending or desiring.

In 1877, Dr. C.R. Drysdale founded the Malthusian League, and
edited a periodical, _The Malthusian_, aided throughout by his
wife, Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery. He died in 1907. (The noble and
pioneering work of the Drysdales has not yet been adequately
recognized in their own country; an appreciative and
well-informed article by Dr. Hermann Rohleder, "Dr. C.R.
Drysdale, Der Hauptvortreter der Neumalthusianische Lehre,"
appeared in the _Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft_, March,
1908). There are now societies and periodicals in all civilized
countries for the propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles, as
they are still commonly called, though it would be desirable to
avoid the use of Malthus's name in this connection. In the
medical profession, the advocacy of preventive methods of sexual
intercourse, not on social, but on medical and hygienic grounds,
began same thirty years ago, though in France, at an earlier
date, Raciborski advocated the method of avoiding the
neighborhood of menstruation. In Germany, Dr. Mensinga, the
gynaecologist, is the most prominent advocate, on medical and
hygienic grounds, of what he terms "facultative sterility," which
he first put forward about 1889. In Russia, about the same time,
artificial sterility was first openly advocated by the
distinguished gynaecologist, Professor Ott, at the St. Petersburg
Obstetric and Gynaecological Society. Such medical
recommendations, in particular cases, are now becoming common.

There are certain cases in which a person ought not to marry at
all; this is so, for instance, when there has been an attack of
insanity; it can never be said with certainty that a person who
has had one attack of insanity will not have another, and persons
who have had such attacks ought not, as Blandford says (Lumleian
Lectures on Insanity, _British Medical Journal_, April 20, 1895),
"to inflict on their partner for life, the anxiety, and even
danger, of another attack." There are other and numerous cases in
which marriage may be permitted, or may have already taken place,
under more favorable circumstances, but where it is, or has
become, highly desirable that there should be no children. This
is the case when a first attack of insanity occurs after
marriage, the more urgently if the affected party is the wife,
and especially if the disease takes the form of puerperal mania.
"What can be more lamentable," asks Blandford (loc. cit.), "than
to see a woman break down in childbed, recover, break down again
with the next child, and so on, for six, seven, or eight
children, the recovery between each being less and less, until
she is almost a chronic maniac?" It has been found, moreover, by
Tredgold (_Lancet_, May 17, 1902), that among children born to
insane mothers, the mortality is twice as great as the ordinary
infantile mortality, in even the poorest districts. In cases of
unions between persons with tuberculous antecedents, also, it is
held by many (e.g., by Massalongo, in discussing tuberculosis and
marriage at the Tuberculosis Congress, at Naples, in 1900) that
every precaution should be taken to make the marriage childless.
In a third class of cases, it is necessary to limit the children
to one or two; this happens in some forms of heart disease, in
which pregnancy has a progressively deteriorating effect on the
heart (Kisch, _Therapeutische Monatsheft_, Feb., 1898, and
_Sexual Life of Woman_; Vinay, _Lyon Medical_, Jan. 8, 1889); in
some cases of heart disease, however, it is possible that, though
there is no reason for prohibiting marriage, it is desirable for
a woman not to have any children (J.F. Blacker, "Heart Disease in
Relation to Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, May 25, 1907).

In all such cases, the recommendation of preventive methods of
intercourse is obviously an indispensable aid to the physician in
emphasizing the supremacy of hygienic precautions. In the absence
of such methods, he can never be sure that his warnings will be
heard, and even the observance of his advice would be attended
with various undesirable results. It sometimes happens that a
married couple agree, even before marriage, to live together
without sexual relations, but, for various reasons, it is seldom
found possible or convenient to maintain this resolution for a
long period.

It is the recognition of these and similar considerations which has
led--though only within recent years--on the one hand, as we have seen, to
the embodiment of the control of procreation into the practical morality
of all civilized nations, and, on the other hand, to the assertion, now
perhaps without exception, by all medical authorities on matters of sex
that the use of the methods of preventing conception is under certain
circumstances urgently necessary and quite harmless.[432] It arouses a
smile to-day when we find that less than a century ago it was possible for
an able and esteemed medical author to declare that the use of "various
abominable means" to prevent conception is "based upon a most presumptuous
doubt in the conservative power of the Creator."[433]

The adaptation of theory to practice is not yet complete, and we could not
expect that it should be so, for, as we have seen, there is always an
antagonism between practical morality and traditional morality. From time
to time flagrant illustrations of this antagonism occur.[434] Even in
England, which played a pioneering part in the control of procreation,
attempts are still made--sometimes in quarters where we have a right to
expect a better knowledge--to cast discredit on a movement which, since
it has conquered alike scientific approval and popular practice, it is now
idle to call in question.

It would be out of place to discuss here the various methods which are
used for the control of procreation, or their respective merits and
defects. It is sufficient to say that the condom or protective sheath,
which seems to be the most ancient of all methods of preventing
conception, after withdrawal, is now regarded by nearly all authorities
as, when properly used, the safest, the most convenient, and the most
harmless method.[435] This is the opinion of Krafft-Ebing, of Moll, of
Schrenck-Notzing, of Loewenfeld, of Forel, of Kisch, of Fuerbringer, to
mention only a few of the most distinguished medical authorities.[436]

There is some interest in attempting to trace the origin and
history of the condom, though it seems impossible to do so with
any precision. It is probable that, in a rudimentary form, such
an appliance is of great antiquity. In China and Japan, it would
appear, rounds of oiled silk paper are used to cover the mouth of
the womb, at all events, by prostitutes. This seems the simplest
and most obvious mechanical method of preventing conception, and
may have suggested the application of a sheath to the penis as a
more effectual method. In Europe, it is in the middle of the
sixteenth century, in Italy, that we first seem to hear of such
appliances, in the shape of linen sheaths, adapted to the shape
of the penis; Fallopius recommended the use of such an appliance.
Improvements in the manufacture were gradually devised; the caecum
of the lamb was employed, and afterwards, isinglass. It appears
that a considerable improvement in the manufacture took place in
the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and this improvement was
generally associated with England. The appliance thus became
known as the English cape or mantle, the "capote anglaise," or
the "redingote anglaise," and, under the latter name, is referred
to by Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth century
(Casanova, _Memoires_, ed. Garnier, vol. iv, p. 464); Casanova
never seems, however, to have used these redingotes himself, not
caring, he said, "to shut myself up in a piece of dead skin in
order to prove that I am perfectly alive." These capotes--then
made of goldbeaters' skin--were, also, it appears, known at an
earlier period to Mme. de Sevigne, who did not regard them with
favor, for, in one of her letters, she refers to them as
"cuirasses contre la volupte et toiles d'arraignee contre le
mal." The name, "condom," dates from the eighteenth century,
first appearing in France, and is generally considered to be that
of an English physician, or surgeon, who invented, or, rather,
improved the appliance. Condom is not, however, an English name,
but there is an English name, Condon, of which "condom" may well
be a corruption. This supposition is strengthened by the fact
that the word sometimes actually was written "condon." Thus, in
lines quoted by Bachaumont, in his _Diary_ (Dec. 15, 1773), and
supposed to be addressed to a former ballet dancer who had become
a prostitute, I  find:--

"Du _condon_ cependant, vous connaissez l'usage,
*       *       *       *       *
"Le _condon_, c'est la loi, ma fille, et les prophetes!"

The difficulty remains, however, of discovering any Englishman of
the name of Condon, who can plausibly be associated with the
condom; doubtless he took no care to put the matter on record,
never suspecting the fame that would accrue to his invention, or
the immortality that awaited his name. I find no mention of any
Condon in the records of the College of Physicians, and at the
College of Surgeons, also, where, indeed, the old lists are very
imperfect, Mr. Victor Plarr, the librarian, after kindly making a
search, has assured me that there is no record of the name. Other
varying explanations of the name have been offered, with more or
less assurance, though usually without any proofs. Thus, Hyrtl
(_Handbuch der Topographischen Anatomic_, 7th ed., vol. ii, p.
212) states that the condom was originally called gondom, from
the name of the English discoverer, a Cavalier of Charles II's
Court, who first prepared it from the amnion of the sheep; Gondom
is, however, no more an English name than Condom. There happens
to be a French town, in Gascony, called Condom, and Bloch
suggests, without any evidence, that this furnished the name; if
so, however, it is improbable that it would have been unknown in
France. Finally, Hans Ferdy considers that it is derived from
"condus"--that which preserves--and, in accordance with his
theory, he terms the condom a condus.

The early history of the condom is briefly discussed by various
writers, as by Proksch, _Die Vorbauung der Venerischen
Krankheiten_, p. 48; Bloch, _Sexual Life of Our Time_, Chs. XV
and XXVIII; Cabanes, _Indiscretions de l'Histoire_, p. 121, etc.

The control of procreation by the prevention of conception has, we have
seen, become a part of the morality of civilized peoples. There is another
method, not indeed for preventing conception, but for limiting offspring,
which is of much more ancient appearance in the world, though it has at
different times been very differently viewed and still arouses widely
opposing opinions. This is the method of abortion.

While the practice of abortion has by no means, like the practice of
preventing conception, become accepted in civilization, it scarcely
appears to excite profound repulsion in a large proportion of the
population of civilized countries. The majority of women, not excluding
educated and highly moral women, who become pregnant against their wish
contemplate the possibility of procuring abortion without the slightest
twinge of conscience, and often are not even aware of the usual
professional attitude of the Church, the law, and medicine regarding
abortion. Probably all doctors have encountered this fact, and even so
distinguished and correct a medico-legist as Brouardel stated[437] that he
had been not infrequently solicited to procure abortion, for themselves or
their wet-nurses, by ladies who looked on it as a perfectly natural thing,
and had not the least suspicion that the law regarded the deed as a crime.

It is not, therefore, surprising that abortion is exceedingly common in
all civilized and progressive countries. It cannot, indeed, unfortunately,
be said that abortion has been conducted in accordance with eugenic
considerations, nor has it often been so much as advocated from the
eugenic standpoint. But in numerous classes of cases of undesired
pregnancy, occurring in women of character and energy, not accustomed to
submit tamely to conditions they may not have sought, and in any case
consider undesirable, abortion is frequently resorted to. It is usual to
regard the United States as a land in which the practice especially
flourishes, and certainly a land in which the ideal of chastity for
unmarried women, of freedom for married women, of independence for all, is
actively followed cannot fail to be favorable to the practice of abortion.
But the way in which the prevalence of abortion is proclaimed in the
United States is probably in large part due to the honesty of the
Americans in setting forth, and endeavoring to correct, what, rightly or
wrongly, they regard as social defects, and may not indicate any real
pre-eminence in the practice. Comparative statistics are difficult, and it
is certainly true that abortion is extremely common in England, in France,
and in Germany. It is probable that any national differences may be
accounted for by differences in general social habits and ideals. Thus in
Germany, where considerable sexual freedom is permitted to unmarried women
and married women are very domesticated, abortion may be less frequent
than in France where purity is stringently demanded from the young girl,
while the married woman demands freedom for work and for pleasure. But
such national differences, if they exist, are tending to be levelled down,
and charges of criminal abortion are constantly becoming more common in
Germany; though this increase, again, may be merely due to greater zeal in
pursuing the offence.

Brouardel (op. cit., p. 39) quotes the opinion that, in New York,
only one in every thousand abortions is discovered. Dr. J.F.
Scott (_The Sexual Instinct_, Ch. VIII), who is himself strongly
opposed to the practice, considers that in America, the custom of
procuring abortion has to-day reached "such vast proportions as
to be almost beyond belief," while "countless thousands" of cases
are never reported. "It has increased so rapidly in our day and
generation," Scott states, "that it has created surprise and
alarm in the minds of all conscientious persons who are informed
of the extent to which it is carried." (The assumption that those
who approve of abortion are necessarily not "conscientious
persons" is, as we shall see, mistaken.) The change has taken
place since 1840. The Michigan Special Committee on Criminal
Abortion reported in 1881 that, from correspondence with nearly
one hundred physicians, it appeared that there came to the
knowledge of the profession seventeen abortions to every one
hundred pregnancies; to these, the committee believe, may be
added as many more that never came to the physician's knowledge.
The committee further quoted, though without endorsement, the
opinion of a physician who believed that a change is now coming
over public feeling in regard to the abortionist, who is
beginning to be regarded in America as a useful member of
society, and even a benefactor.

In England, also, there appears to have been a marked increase of
abortion during recent years, perhaps specially marked among the
poor and hard-working classes. A writer in the _British Medical
Journal_ (April 9, 1904, p. 865) finds that abortion is
"wholesale and systematic," and gives four cases occurring in his
practice during four months, in which women either attempted to
produce abortion, or requested him to do so; they were married
women, usually with large families, and in delicate health, and
were willing to endure any suffering, if they might be saved from
further child-bearing. Abortion is frequently effected, or
attempted, by taking "Female Pills," which contain small portions
of lead, and are thus liable to produce very serious symptoms,
whether or not they induce abortion. Professor Arthur Hall, of
Sheffield, who has especially studied this use of lead ("The
Increasing Use of Lead as an Abortifacient," _British Medical
Journal_, March 18, 1905), finds that the practice has lately
become very common in the English Midlands, and is gradually, it
appears, widening its circle. It occurs chiefly among married
women with families, belonging to the working class, and it tends
to become specially prevalent during periods of trade depression
(cf. G. Newman, _Infant Mortality_, p. 81). Women of better
social class resort to professional abortionists, and sometimes
go over to Paris.

In France, also, and especially in Paris, there has been a great
increase during recent years in the practice of abortion. (See
e.g., a discussion at the Paris Societe de Medecine Legale,
_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, May, 1907.) Doleris has
shown (_Bulletin de la Societe d'Obstetrique_, Feb., 1905) that
in the Paris Maternites the percentage of abortions in
pregnancies doubled between 1898 and 1904, and Doleris estimates
that about half of these abortions were artificially induced. In
France, abortion is mainly carried on by professional
abortionists. One of these, Mme. Thomas, who was condemned to
penal servitude, in 1891, acknowledged performing 10,000
abortions during eight years; her charge for the operation was
two francs and upwards. She was a peasant's daughter, brought up
in the home of her uncle, a doctor, whose medical and obstetrical
books she had devoured (A. Hamon, _La France en 1891_, pp.
629-631). French public opinion is lenient to abortion,
especially to women who perform the operation on themselves; not
many cases are brought into court, and of these, forty per cent.
are acquitted (Eugene Bausset, _L'Avortement Criminel_, These de
Paris, 1907). The professional abortionist is, however, usually
sent to prison.

In Germany, also, abortion appears to have greatly increased
during recent years, and the yearly number of cases of criminal
abortion brought into the courts was, in 1903, more than double
as many as in 1885. (See, also, Elisabeth Zanzinger, _Geschlecht
und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 5; and _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan.,
1908, p. 23.)

In view of these facts it is not surprising that the induction of abortion
has been permitted and even encouraged in many civilizations. Its
unqualified condemnation is only found in Christendom, and is due to
theoretical notions. In Turkey, under ordinary circumstances, there is no
punishment for abortion. In the classic civilization of Greece and Rome,
likewise, abortion was permitted though with certain qualifications and
conditions. Plato admitted the mother's right to decide on abortion but
said that the question should be settled as early as possible in
pregnancy. Aristotle, who approved of abortion, was of the same opinion.
Zeno and the Stoics regarded the foetus as the fruit of the womb, the soul
being acquired at birth; this was in accordance with Roman law which
decreed that the foetus only became a human being at birth.[438] Among the
Romans abortion became very common, but, in accordance with the
patriarchal basis of early Roman institutions, it was the father, not the
mother, who had the right to exercise it. Christianity introduced a new
circle of ideas based on the importance of the soul, on its immortality,
and the necessity of baptism as a method of salvation from the results of
inherited sin. We already see this new attitude in St. Augustine who,
discussing whether embryos that died in the womb will rise at the
resurrection, says "I make bold neither to affirm nor to deny, although I
fail to see why, if they are not excluded from the number of the dead,
they should not attain to the resurrection of the dead."[439] The
criminality of abortion was, however, speedily established, and the early
Christian Emperors, in agreement with the Church, edicted many fantastic
and extreme penalties against abortion. This tendency continued under
ecclesiastical influence, unrestrained, until the humanitarian movement of
the eighteenth century, when Beccaria, Voltaire, Rousseau and other great
reformers succeeded in turning the tide of public opinion against the
barbarity of the laws, and the penalty of death for abortion was finally
abolished.[440]

Medical science and practice at the present day--although it can scarcely
be said that it speaks with an absolutely unanimous voice--on the whole
occupies a position midway between that of the classic lawyers and that of
the later Christian ecclesiastics. It is, on the whole, in favor of
sacrificing the foetus whenever the interests of the mother demand such a
sacrifice. General medical opinion is not, however, prepared at present to
go further, and is distinctly disinclined to aid the parents in exerting
an unqualified control over the foetus in the womb, nor is it yet disposed
to practice abortion on eugenic grounds. It is obvious, indeed, that
medicine cannot in this matter take the initiative, for it is the primary
duty of medicine to save life. Society itself must assume the
responsibility of protecting the race.

Dr. S. Macvie ("Mother _versus_ Child," _Transactions Edinburgh
Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxiv, 1899) elaborately discusses the
respective values of the foetus and the adult on the basis of
life-expectancy, and concludes that the foetus is merely
"a parasite performing no function whatever," and that "unless
the life-expectancy of the child covers the years in which its
potentiality is converted into actuality, the relative values of
the maternal and foetal life will be that of actual as against
potential." This statement seems fairly sound. Ballantyne
(_Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Foetus_, p. 459)
endeavors to make the statement more precise by saying that "the
mother's life has a value, because she is what she is, while the
foetus only has a possible value, on account of what it may
become."

Durlacher, among others, has discussed, in careful and cautious
detail, the various conditions in which the physician should, or
should not, induce abortion in the interests of the mother ("Der
Kuenstliche Abort," _Wiener Klinik_, Aug. and Sept., 1906); so
also, Eugen Wilhelm ("Die Abtreibung und das Recht des Arztes zur
Vernichtung der Leibesfrucht," _Sexual-Probleme_, May and June,
1909). Wilhelm further discusses whether it is desirable to alter
the laws in order to give the physician greater freedom in
deciding on abortion. He concludes that this is not necessary,
and might even act injuriously, by unduly hampering medical
freedom. Any change in the law should merely be, he considers, in
the direction of asserting that the destruction of the foetus is
not abortion in the legal sense, provided it is indicated by the
rules of medical science. With reference to the timidity of some
medical men in inducing abortion, Wilhelm remarks that, even in
the present state of the law, the physician who conscientiously
effects abortion, in accordance with his best knowledge, even if
mistakenly, may consider himself safe from all legal penalties,
and that he is much more likely to come in conflict with the law
if it can be proved that death followed as a result of his
neglect to induce abortion.

Pinard, who has discussed the right to control the foetal
life (_Annales de Gynecologie_, vols. lii and liii, 1899 and
1900), inspired by his enthusiastic propaganda for the salvation
of infant life, is led to the unwarranted conclusion that no one
has the rights of life and death over the foetus; "the infant's
right to his life is an imprescriptible and sacred right, which
no power can take from him." There is a mistake here, unless
Pinard deliberately desires to place himself, like Tolstoy, in
opposition to current civilized morality. So far from the infant
having any "imprescriptible right to life," even the adult has,
in human societies, no such inalienable right, and very much less
the foetus, which is not strictly a human being at all. We assume
the right of terminating the lives of those individuals whose
anti-social conduct makes them dangerous, and, in war, we
deliberately terminate, amid general applause and enthusiasm, the
lives of men who have been specially selected for this purpose on
account of their physical and general efficiency. It would be
absurdly inconsistent to say that we have no rights over the
lives of creatures that have, as yet, no part in human society at
all, and are not so much as born. We are here in presence of a