the moral consciousness in this matter. Galton's eugenic certificates
would deal mainly with the natural virtues of superior hereditary
breed--"the public recognition of a natural nobility"--but they would
include the question of personal health and personal aptitude.[457]

To demand compulsory certificates of health at marriage is indeed to begin
at the wrong end. It would not only lead to evasions and antagonisms but
would probably call forth a reaction. It is first necessary to create an
enthusiasm for health, a moral conscience in matters of procreation,
together with, on the scientific side, a general habit of registering the
anthropological, psychological, and pathological data concerning the
individual, from birth onwards, altogether apart from marriage. The
earlier demands of Diday and Bertillon were thus not only on a sounder but
also a more practicable basis. If such records were kept from birth for
every child, there would be no need for special examination at marriage,
and many incidental ends would be gained. There is difficulty at present
in obtaining such records from the moment of birth, and, so far as I am
aware, no attempts have yet been made to establish their systematic
registration. But it is quite possible to begin at the beginning of school
life, and this is now done at many schools and colleges in England,
America, and elsewhere, more especially as regards anthropological,
physiological, and psychological data, each child being submitted to a
thorough and searching anthropometric examination, and thus furnished with
a systematic statement of his physical condition.[458] This examination
needs to be standardized and generalized, and repeated at fixed intervals.
"Every individual child," as is truly stated by Dr. Dukes, the Physician
to Rugby School, "on his entrance to a public school should be as
carefully and as thoroughly examined as if it were for life insurance." If
this procedure were general from an early age, there would be no hardship
in the production of the record at marriage, and no opportunity for fraud.
The _dossier_ of each person might well be registered by the State, as
wills already are, and, as in the case of wills, become freely open to
students when a century had elapsed. Until this has been done during
several centuries our knowledge of eugenics will remain rudimentary.

There can be little doubt that the eugenic attitude towards
marriage, and the responsibility of the individual for the future
of the race, is becoming more recognized. It is constantly
happening that persons, about to marry, approach the physician in
a state of serious anxiety on this point. Urquhart, indeed
(_Journal of Mental Science_, April, 1907, p. 277), believes that
marriages are seldom broken off on this ground; this seems,
however, too pessimistic a view, and even when the marriage is
not broken off the resolve is often made to avoid procreation.
Clouston, who emphasizes (_Hygiene of the Mind_, p. 74) the
importance of "inquiries by each of the parties to the
life-contract, by their parents and their doctors, as to
heredity, temperament, and health," is more hopeful of the
results than Urquhart. "I have been very much impressed, of late
years," he writes (_Journal of Mental Science_, Oct., 1907, p.
710), "with the way in which this subject is taking possession of
intelligent people, by the number of times one is consulted by
young men and young women, proposing to marry, or by their
fathers or mothers. I used to have the feeling in the back of my
mind, when I was consulted, that it did not matter what I said,
it would not make any difference. But it is making a difference;
and I, and others, could tell of scores of marriages which were
put off in consequence of psychiatric medical advice."

Ellen Key, also, refers to the growing tendency among both men
and women, to be influenced by eugenic consideration in forming
partnerships for life (_Century of the Child_, Ch. I). The
recognition of the eugenic attitude towards marriage, the
quickening of the social and individual conscience in matters of
heredity, as also the systematic introduction of certification
and registration, will be furthered by the growing tendency to
the socialization of medicine, and, indeed, in its absence would
be impossible. (See e.g., Havelock Ellis, _The Nationalization of
Health_.) The growth of the State Medical Organization of Health
is steady and continuous, and is constantly covering a larger
field. The day of the private practitioner of medicine--who was
treated, as Duclaux (_L'Hygiène Sociale_, p. 263) put it, "like a
grocer, whose shop the customer may enter and leave as he
pleases, and when he pleases"--will, doubtless, soon be over. It
is now beginning to be felt that health is far too serious a
matter, not only from the individual but also from the social
point of view, to be left to private caprice. There is, indeed, a
tendency, in some quarters, to fear that some day society may
rush to the opposite extreme, and bow before medicine with the
same unreasoning deference that it once bowed before theology.
That danger is still very remote, nor is it likely, indeed, that
medicine will ever claim any authority of this kind. The spirit
of medicine has, notoriously, been rather towards the assertion
of scepticism than of dogma, and the fanatics in this field will
always be in a hopelessly small minority.

The general introduction of authentic personal records covering all
essential data--hereditary, anthropometric and pathological--cannot fail
to be a force on the side of positive as well as of negative eugenics, for
it would tend to promote the procreation of the fit as well as restrict
that of the unfit, without any legislative compulsion. With the growth of
education a regard for such records as a preliminary to marriage would
become as much a matter of course as once was the regard to the
restrictions imposed by Canon law, and as still is a regard to money or to
caste. A woman can usually refrain from marrying a man with no money and
no prospects; a man may be passionately in love with a woman of lower
class than himself but he seldom marries her. It needs but a clear general
perception of all that is involved in heredity and health to make eugenic
considerations equally influential.

A discriminating regard to the quality of offspring will act beneficially
on the side of positive eugenics by substituting the pernicious tendency
to put a premium on excess of childbirth by the more rational method of
putting a premium on the quality of the child. It has been one of the most
unfortunate results of the mania for protesting against that decline of
the birthrate which is always and everywhere the result of civilization,
that there has been a tendency to offer special social or pecuniary
advantages to the parents of large families. Since large families tend to
be degenerate, and to become a tax on the community, since rapid
pregnancies in succession are not only a serious drain on the strength of
the mother but are now known to depreciate seriously the quality of the
offspring, and since, moreover, it is in large families that disease and
mortality chiefly prevail, all the interests of the community are against
the placing of any premium on large families, even in the case of parents
of good stock. The interests of the State are bound up not with the
quantity but with the quality of its citizens, and the premium should be
placed not on the families that reach a certain size but on the individual
children that reach a certain standard; the attainment of this standard
could well be based on observations made from birth to the fifth year. A
premium on this basis would be as beneficial to a State as that on the
merely numerical basis is pernicious.

This consideration applies with still greater force to the proposals for
the "systematic endowment of motherhood" of which we hear more and more.
So moderate and judicious a social reformer as Mr. Sidney Webb writes: "We
shall have to face the problem of the systematic endowment of motherhood,
and place this most indispensable of all professions upon an honorable
economic basis. At present it is ignored as an occupation, unremunerated,
and in no way honored by the State."[459] True as this statement is, it
must always be remembered that an indispensable preliminary to any
proposal for the endowment of motherhood by the State is a clear
conception of the kind of motherhood which the State requires. To endow
the reckless and indiscriminate motherhood which we see around us, to
encourage, that is, by State aid, the production of citizens a large
proportion of whom the State, if it dared, would like to destroy as unfit,
is too ridiculous a proposal to deserve discussion.[460] The only sound
reason, indeed, for the endowment of motherhood is that it would enable
the State, in its own interests, to further the natural selection of the
fit.

As to the positive qualities which the State is entitled to endow in its
encouragement of motherhood, it is still too early to speak with complete
assurance. Negative eugenics tends to be ahead of positive eugenics; it is
easier to detect bad stocks than to be quite sure of good stocks. Both on
the scientific side and on the social side, however, we are beginning to
attain a clearer realization of the end to be attained and a more precise
knowledge of the methods of attaining it.[461]

Even when we have gained a fairly clear conception of the stocks and the
individuals which we are justified in encouraging to undertake the task of
producing fit citizens for the State, the problems of procreation are by
no means at an end. Before we can so much as inquire what are the
conditions under which selected individuals may best procreate, there is
still the initial question to be decided whether those individuals are
both fertile and potent, for this is not guaranteed by the fact that they
belong to good stocks, nor is even the fact that a man and a woman are
fertile with other persons any positive proof that they will be fertile
with each other. Among the large masses of the population who do not seek
to make their unions legal until those unions have proved fertile, this
difficulty is settled in a simple and practical manner. The question is,
however, a serious and hazardous one, in the present state of the marriage
law in most countries, for those classes which are accustomed to bind
themselves in legal marriage without any knowledge of their potency and
fertility with each other. The matter is mostly left to chance, and as
legal marriage cannot usually be dissolved on the ground that there are no
offspring, even although procreation is commonly declared to be the chief
end of marriage, the question assumes much gravity. The ordinary range of
sterility is from seven to fifteen per cent. of all marriages, and in a
very large proportion of these it is a source of great concern. This could
be avoided, in some measure, by examination before marriage, and almost
altogether by ordaining that, as it is only through offspring that a
marriage has any concern for the State, a legal marriage could be
dissolved, after a certain period, at the will of either of the parties,
in the absence of such offspring.

It was formerly supposed that when a union proved infertile, it
was the wife who was at fault. That belief is long since
exploded, but, even yet, a man is generally far more concerned
about his potency, that is, his ability to perform the mechanical
act of coitus, than about his fertility, that is, his ability to
produce living spermatozoa, though the latter condition is a much
more common source of sterility. "Any man," says Arthur Cooper
(_British Medical Journal_, May 11, 1907), "who has any sexual
defect or malformation, or who has suffered from any disease or
injury of the genito-urinary organs, even though comparatively
trivial or one-sided, and although his copulative power may be
unimpaired, should be looked upon as possibly sterile, until some
sort of evidence to the contrary has been obtained." In case of a
sterile marriage, the possible cause should first be investigated
in the husband, for it is comparatively easy to examine the
semen, and to ascertain if it contains active spermatozoa.
Prinzing, in a comprehensive study of sterile marriages ("Die
Sterilen Ehen," _Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft_, 1904, Heft
1 and 2), states that in two-fifths of sterile marriages the man
is at fault; one-third of such marriages are the result of
venereal diseases in the husband himself, or transmitted to the
wife. Gonorrhoea is not now considered so important a cause of
sterility as it was a few years ago; Schenk makes it responsible
for only about thirteen per cent. sterile marriages (cf. Kisch,
_The Sexual Life of Woman_). Pinkus (_Archiv für Gynäkologie_,
1907) found that of nearly five hundred cases in which he
examined both partners, in 24.4 per cent. cases, the sterility
was directly due to the husband, and in 15.8 per cent. cases,
indirectly due, because caused by gonorrhoea with which he had
infected his wife.

When sterility is due to a defect in the husband's spermatozoa,
and is not discovered, as it usually might be, before marriage,
the question of impregnating the wife by other methods has
occasionally arisen. Divorce on the ground of sterility is not
possible, and, even if it were, the couple, although they wish to
have a child, have not usually any wish to separate. Under these
circumstances, in order to secure the desired end, without
departing from widely accepted rules of morality, the attempt is
occasionally made to effect artificial fecundation by injecting
the semen from a healthy male. Attempts have been made to effect
artificial fecundation by various distinguished men, from John
Hunter to Schwalbe, but it is nearly always very difficult to
effect, and often impossible. This is easy to account for, if we
recall what has already been pointed out (_ante_ p. 577)
concerning the influence of erotic excitement in the woman in
securing conception; it is obviously a serious task for even the
most susceptible woman to evoke erotic enthusiasm _à propos_ of a
medical syringe. Schwalbe, for instance, records a case
(_Deutsche Medizinisches Wochenschrift_, Aug., 1908, p. 510) in
which,--in consequence of the husband's sterility and the wife's
anxiety, with her husband's consent, to be impregnated by the
semen of another man,--he made repeated careful attempts to
effect artificial fecundation; these attempts were, however,
fruitless, and the three parties concerned finally resigned
themselves to the natural method of intercourse, which was
successful. In another case, recorded by Schwalbe, in which the
husband was impotent but not sterile, six attempts were made to
effect artificial fecundation, and further efforts abandoned on
account of the disgust of all concerned.

Opinion, on the whole, has been opposed to the practice of
artificial fecundation, even apart from the question of the
probabilities of success. Thus, in France, where there is a
considerable literature on the subject, the Paris Medical
Faculty, in 1885, after some hesitation, refused Gérard's thesis
on the history of artificial fecundation, afterwards published
independently. In 1883, the Bordeaux legal tribunal declared that
artificial fecundation was illegitimate, and a social danger. In
1897, the Holy See also pronounced that the practice is unlawful
("Artificial Fecundation before the Inquisition," _British
Medical Journal_, March 5, 1898). Apart, altogether, from this
attitude of medicine, law, and Church, it would certainly seem
that those who desire offspring would do well, as a rule, to
adopt the natural method, which is also the best, or else to
abandon to others the task of procreation, for which they are not
adequately equipped.

When we have ascertained that two individuals both belong to sound and
healthy stocks, and, further, that they are themselves both apt for
procreation, it still remains to consider the conditions under which they
may best effect procreation.[462] There arises, for instance, the
question, often asked, What is the best age for procreation?

The considerations which weigh in answering this question are of two
different orders, physiological, and social or moral. That is to say, that
it is necessary, on the one hand, that physical maturity should have been
fully attained, and the sexual cells completely developed; while, on the
other hand, it is necessary that the man shall have become able to support
a family, and that both partners shall have received a training in life
adequate to undertake the responsibilities and anxieties involved in the
rearing of children. While there have been variations at different times,
it scarcely appears that, on the whole, the general opinion as to the best
age for procreation has greatly varied in Europe during many centuries.
Hesiod indeed said that a woman should marry about fifteen and a man about
thirty,[463] but obstetricians have usually concluded that, in the
interests alike of the parents and their offspring, the procreative life
should not begin in women before twenty and in men before
twenty-five.[464] After thirty in women and after thirty-five or forty in
men it seems probable that the best conditions for procreation begin to
decline.[465] At the present time, in England and several other civilized
countries, the tendency has been for the age of marriage to fall at an
increasingly late age, on the average some years later than that usually
fixed as the most favorable age for the commencement of the procreative
life. But, on the whole, the average seldom departs widely from the
accepted standard, and there seems no good reason why we should desire to
modify this general tendency.

At the same time, it by no means follows that wide variations,
under special circumstances, may not only be permissible, but
desirable. The male is capable of procreating, in some cases,
from about the age of thirteen until far beyond eighty, and at
this advanced age, the offspring, even if not notable for great
physical robustness, may possess high intellectual qualities.
(See e.g., Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 120
et seq.) The range of the procreative age in women begins earlier
(sometimes at eight), though it usually ceases by fifty, or
earlier, in only rare cases continuing to sixty or beyond. Cases
have been reported of pregnancy, or childbirth, at the age of
fifty-nine (e.g., _Lancet_, Aug. 5, 1905, p. 419). Lepage
(_Comptes-rendus Société d'Obstétrique de Paris_, Oct., 1903)
reports a case of a primipara of fifty-seven; the child was
stillborn. Kisch (_Sexual Life of Woman_, Part II) refers to
cases of pregnancy in elderly women, and various references are
given in _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 8, 1903, p. 325.

Of more importance is the question of early pregnancy. Several
investigators have devoted their attention to this question.
Thus, Spitta (in a Marburg Inaugural Dissertation, 1895) reviewed
the clinical history of 260 labors in primiparæ of 18 and under,
as observed at the Marburg Maternity. He found that the general
health during pregnancy was not below the average of pregnant
women, while the mortality of the child at birth and during the
following weeks was not high, and the mortality of the mother was
by no means high. Picard (in a Paris thesis, 1903) has studied
childbirth in thirty-eight mothers below the age of sixteen. He
found that, although the pelvis is certainly not yet fully
developed in very young girls, the joints and bones are much more
yielding than in the adult, so that parturition, far from being
more difficult, is usually rapid and easy. The process of labor
itself, is essentially normal in these cases, and, even when
abnormalities occur (low insertion of the placenta is a common
anomaly) it is remarkable that the patients do not suffer from
them in the way common among older women. The average weight of
the child was three kilogrammes, or about 6 pounds, 9 ounces; it
sometimes required special care during the first few days after
birth, perhaps because labor in these cases is sometimes slow.
The recovery of the mother was, in every case, absolutely normal,
and the fact that these young mothers become pregnant again more
readily than primiparæ of a more mature age, further contributes
to show that childbirth below the age of sixteen is in no way
injurious to the mother. Gache (_Annales de Gynécologie et
d'Obstétrique_, Dec., 1904) has attended ninety-one labors of
mothers under seventeen, in the Rawson Hospital, Buenos Ayres;
they were of so-called Latin race, mostly Spanish or Italian.
Gache found that these young mothers were by no means more
exposed than others to abortion or to other complications of
pregnancy. Except in four cases of slightly contracted pelvis,
delivery was normal, though rather longer than in older
primiparæ. Damage to the soft parts was, however, rare, and, when
it occurred, in every case rapidly healed. The average weight of
the child was 3,039 grammes, or nearly 6¾ pounds. It may be noted
that most observers find that very early pregnancies occur in
women who begin to menstruate at an unusually early age, that is,
some years before the early pregnancy occurs.

It is clear, however, that young mothers do remarkably well,
while there is no doubt whatever that they bear unusually fine
infants. Kleinwächter, indeed, found that the younger the mother,
the bigger the child. It is not only physically that the children
of young mothers are superior. Marro has found (_Pubertà_, p.
257) that the children of mothers under 21 are superior to those
of older mothers both in conduct and intelligence, provided the
fathers are not too old or too young. The detailed records of
individual cases confirm these results, both as regards mother
and child. Thus, Milner (_Lancet_, June 7, 1902) records a case
of pregnancy in a girl of fourteen; the labor pains were very
mild, and delivery was easy. E.B. Wales, of New Jersey, has
recorded the history (reproduced in _Medical Reprints_, Sept. 15,
1890) of a colored girl who became pregnant at the age of eleven.
She was of medium size, rather tall and slender, but well
developed, and began to menstruate at the age of ten. She was in
good health and spirits during pregnancy, and able to work.
Delivery was easy and natural, not notably prolonged, and
apparently not unduly painful, for there were no moans or
agitation. The child was a fine, healthy boy, weighing not less
than eleven pounds. Mother and child both did well, and there was
a great flow of milk. Whiteside Robertson (_British Medical
Journal_, Jan. 18, 1902) has recorded a case of pregnancy at the
age of thirteen, in a Colonial girl of British origin in Cape
Colony, which is notable from other points of view. During
pregnancy, she was anæmic, and appeared to be of poor development
and doubtfully normal pelvic conformation. Yet delivery took
place naturally, at full term, without difficulty or injury, and
the lying-in period was in every way satisfactory. The baby was
well-proportioned, and weighed 7½ pounds. "I have rarely seen a
primipara enjoy easier labor," concluded Robertson, "and I have
never seen one look forward to the happy realization of
motherhood with greater satisfaction."

The facts brought forward by obstetricians concerning the good
results of early pregnancy, as regards both mother and child,
have not yet received the attention they deserve. They are,
however, confirmed by many general tendencies which are now
fairly well recognized. The significant fact is known, for
instance, that in mothers over thirty, the proportion of
abortions and miscarriages is twice as great as in mothers
between the ages of fifteen and twenty, who also are superior in
this respect to mothers between the ages of twenty and thirty
(_Statistischer Jahrbuch_, Budapest, 1905). It was, again, proved
by Matthews Duncan, in his Goulstonian lecture, that the chances
of sterility in a woman increase with increase of age. It has,
further, been shown (Kisch, _Sexual Life of Woman_, Part II) that
the older a woman at marriage, the greater the average interval
before the first delivery, a tendency which seems to indicate
that it is the very young woman who is in the condition most apt
for procreation; Kisch is not, indeed, inclined to think that
this applies to women below twenty, but the fact, observed by
other obstetricians, that mothers under eighteen tend to become
pregnant again at an unusually short interval, goes far to
neutralize the exception made by Kisch. It may also be pointed
out that, among children of very young mothers, the sexes are
more nearly equal in number than is the case with older mothers.
This would seem to indicate that we are here in presence of a
normal equilibrium which will decrease as the age of the mother
is progressively disturbed in an abnormal direction.

The facility of parturition at an early age, it may be noted,
corresponds to an equal facility in physical sexual intercourse,
a fact that is often overlooked. In Russia, where marriage still
takes place early, it was formerly common when the woman was only
twelve or thirteen, and Guttceit (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, vol.
i, p. 324) says that he was assured by women who married at this
age that the first coitus presented no especial difficulties.

There is undoubtedly, at the present time, a considerable amount
of prejudice against early motherhood. In part, this is due to a
failure to realize that women are sexually much more precocious
than men, physically as well as psychically (see _ante_ p. 35).
The difference is about five years. This difference has been
virtually recognized for thousands of years, in the ancient
belief that the age of election for procreation is about twenty,
or less, for women, but about twenty-five for men; and it has
more lately been affirmed by the discovery that, while the male
is never capable of generation before thirteen, the female may,
in occasional instances, become pregnant at eight. (Some of the
recorded examples are quoted by Kisch.) In part, also, there is
an objection to the assumption of responsibilities so serious as
those of motherhood by a young girl, and there is the very
reasonable feeling that the obligations of a permanent marriage
tie ought not to be undertaken at an early age. On the other
hand, apart from the physical advantages, as regards both mother
and infant, on the side of early pregnancies, it is an advantage
for the child to have a young mother, who can devote herself
sympathetically and unreservedly to its interests, instead of
presenting the pathetic spectacle we so often witness in the
middle-aged woman who turns to motherhood when her youth and
mental flexibility are gone, and her habits and tastes have
settled into other grooves; it has sometimes been a great
blessing even to the very greatest men, like Goethe, to have had
a youthful mother. It would also, in many cases, be a great
advantage for the woman herself if she could bring her
procreative life to an end well before the age of twenty-five, so
that she could then, unhampered by child-bearing and mature in
experience, be free to enter on such wider activities in the
world as she might be fitted for.

Such an arrangement of the procreative life of women would,
obviously, only be a variation, and would probably be unsuited
for the majority. Every case must be judged on its own merits.
The best age for procreation will probably continue to be
regarded as being, for most women, around the age of twenty. But
at a time like the present, when there is an unfortunate
tendency for motherhood to be unduly delayed, it becomes
necessary to insist on the advantages, in many cases, of early
motherhood.

There are other conditions favorable or unfavorable to procreation which
it is now unnecessary to discuss in detail, since they have already been
incidentally dealt with in previous volumes of these _Studies_. There is,
for instance, the question of the time of year and the time of the
menstrual cycle which may most properly be selected for procreation.[466]
The best period is probably that when sexual desire is strongest, which is
the period when conception would appear, as a matter of fact, most often
to occur. This would be in spring or early summer,[467] and immediately
after (or shortly before) the menstrual period. The Chinese have observed
that the last day of menstruation and the two following
days--corresponding to the period of oestrus--constitute the most
favorable time for fecundation, and Bossi, of Genoa, has found that the
great majority of successes in both natural and artificial fecundation
occur at this period.[468] Soranus, as well as the Talmud, assigned the
period about menstruation as the best for impregnation, and Susruta, the
Indian physician, said that at this time pregnancy most readily occurs
because then the mouth of the womb is open, like the flower of the
water-lily to the sunshine.

We have now at last reached the point from which we started, the moment of
conception, and the child again lies in its mother's womb. There remains
no more to be said. The divine cycle of life is completed.


FOOTNOTES:

[421] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 330.

[422] Academy of Medicine of Paris, March 31, 1908.

[423] _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, p. 405.

[424] _Population and Progress_, p. 41.

[425] Cf. Reibmayr, _Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genics_, Bd.
II, p. 31.

[426] "The debt that we owe to those who have gone before us," says
Haycraft (_Darwinism and Race Progress_, p. 160), "we can only repay to
those who come after us."

[427] Mardrus, _Les Mille Nuits_, vol. xvi, p. 158.

[428] Sidney Webb, _Popular Science Monthly_, 1906, p. 526 (previously
published in the _London Times_, Oct. 11, 16, 1906). In Ch. IX of the
present volume it has already been necessary to discuss the meaning of the
term, "morality."

[429] Thus, in Paris, in 1906, in the rich quarters, the birthrate per
1,000 inhabitants was 19.09; in well-to-do quarters, 22.51; and in poor
quarters, 29.70. Here we see that, while the birthrate falls and rises
with social class, even among the poor and least restrained class the
birthrate is still but little above the general average for England, where
prevention is widespread, and very considerably lower than the average
(now rapidly falling) in Germany. It is evident that even among the poor
class there is a process of leveling up to the higher classes in this
matter.

[430] I have developed these points more in detail in two articles in the
_Independent Review_, November, 1903, and April, 1904. See also, Bushee,
"The Declining Birthrate and Its Causes," _Popular Science Monthly_, Aug.,
1903.

[431] Francis Place, _Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of
Population_, 1822, p. 165.

[432] See, e.g., a weighty chapter in the _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_
of Löwenfeld, one of the most judicious authorities on sexual pathology.
Twenty-five years ago, as many will remember, the medical student was
usually taught that preventive methods of intercourse led to all sorts of
serious results. At that time, however, reckless and undesirable methods
of prevention seem to have been more prevalent than now.

[433] Michael Ryan, _Philosophy of Marriage_, p. 9. To enable "the
conservative power of the Creator" to exert itself on the myriads of
germinal human beings secreted during his life-time by even one man, would
require a world full of women, while the corresponding problem as regards
a woman is altogether too difficult to cope with. The process by which
life has been built up, far from being a process of universal
conservation, has been a process of stringent selection and vast
destruction; the progress effected by civilization merely lies in making
this blind process intelligent.

[434] Thus, in Belgium, in 1908 (_Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1909, p. 136), a
physician (Dr. Mascaux) who had been prominent in promoting a knowledge of
preventive methods of conception, was condemned to three months
imprisonment for "offense against morality!" In such a case, Dr. Helene
Stöcker comments (_Die Neue Generation_, Jan., 1909, p. 7), "morality" is
another name for ignorance, timidity, hypocrisy, prudery, coarseness, and
lack of conscience. It must be remembered, however, in explanation of this
iniquitous judgment, that for some years past the clerical party has been
politically predominant in Belgium.

[435] It has been objected that the condom cannot be used by the very
poorest, on account of its cost, but Hans Ferdy, in a detailed paper
(_Sexual-Probleme_, Dec., 1908), shows that the use of the condom can be
brought within the means of the very poorest, if care is taken to preserve
it under water when not in use. Nyström (_Sexual Probleme_, Nov., 1908, p.
736) has issued a leaflet for the benefit of his patients and others,
recommending the condom, and explaining its use.

[436] Thus, Kisch, in his _Sexual Life of Woman_, after discussing fully
the various methods of prevention, decides in favor of the condom.
Fürbringer similarly (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation
to Marriage_, vol. i, pp. 232 et seq.) concludes that the condom is
"relatively the most perfect anti-conceptual remedy." Forel (_Die Sexuelle
Frage_, pp. 457 et seq.) also discusses the question at length; any
æsthetic objection to the condom, Forel adds (p. 544), is due to the fact
that we are not accustomed to it; "eye-glasses are not specially æsthetic,
but the poetry of life does not suffer excessively from their use, which,
in many cases, cannot be dispensed with."

[437] _L'Avortement_, p. 43.

[438] There are some disputed points in Roman law and practice concerning
abortion; they are discussed in Balestrini's valuable book, _Aborto_, pp.
30 et seq.

[439] Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, Bk. XXII, Ch. XIII.

[440] The development of opinion and law concerning abortion has been
traced by Eugène Bausset, _L'Avortement Criminel_, Thèse de Paris, 1907.
For a summary of the practices of different peoples regarding abortion,
see W.G. Sumner, _Folkways_, Ch. VIII.

[441] _Die Neue Generation_, May, 1908, p. 192. It may be added that in
England the attachment of any penalty at all to abortion, practiced in the
early months of pregnancy (before "quickening" has taken place), is merely
a modern innovation.

[442] Even Balestrini, who is opposed to the punishment of abortion, is no
advocate of it. "Whenever abortion becomes a social custom," he remarks
(op. cit., p. 191), "it is the external manifestation of a people's
decadence, and far too deeply rooted to be cured by the mere attempt to
suppress the external manifestation."

[443] Cf. Ellen Key, _Century of the Child_, Ch. I. Hirth (_Wege zur
Heimat_, p. 526) is likewise opposed to the encouragement of abortion,
though he would not actually punish the pregnant woman who induces
abortion. I would especially call attention to an able and cogent article
by Anna Pappritz ("Die Vernichtung des Keimenden Lebens,"
_Sexual-Probleme_, July, 1909) who argues that the woman is not the sole
guardian of the embryo she bears, and that it is not in the interests of
society, nor even in her own interests, that she should be free to destroy
it at will. Anna Pappritz admits that the present barbarous laws in regard
to abortion must be modified, but maintains that they should not be
abolished. She proposes (1) a greatly reduced punishment for abortion; (2)
this punishment to be extended to the father, whether married or unmarried
(a provision already carried out in Norway, both for abortion and
infanticide); (3) permission to the physician to effect abortion when
there is good reason to suspect hereditary degeneration, as well as when
the woman has been impregnated by force.

[444] Cf. Dr. Max Hirsch, _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1908, p. 23.

[445] Bausset (op. cit.) sets forth various social measures for the care
of pregnant and child-bearing women, which would tend to lessen criminal
abortion.

[446] Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, vol. i, p. 564.

[447] F.E. Daniel, President of the State Medical Association of Texas,
"Should Insane Criminals or Sexual Perverts be Allowed to Procreate?"
_Medico-legal Journal_, Dec., 1893; id., "The Cause and Prevention of
Rape," _Texas Medical Journal_, May, 1904.

[448] P. Näcke, "Die Kastration bei gewissen Klassen von Degenerirten als
ein Wirksamer Socialer Schutz," _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, Bd.
III, 1899, p. 58; id. "Kastration in Gewissen Fällen von
Geisteskrankheit," _Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift_, 1905, No.
29.

[449] Angelo Zuccarelli, "Asessualizzazione o sterilizzazione dei
Degenerati," _L'Anomalo_, 1898-99, No. 6; id., "Sur la nécessité et sur
les Moyens d'empêcher la Réproduction des Hommes les plus Dégénérés,"
International Congress Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, 1901.

[450] Näcke, _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, March 1, 1909. The
original account of these operations is reproduced in the
_Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift_, No. 2, 1909, with an
approving comment by the editor, Dr. Bresler. As regards castration in
America, see Flood, "Castration of Idiot Children," _American Journal
Psychology_, Jan., 1899; also, _Alienist and Neurologist_, Aug., 1909, p.
348.

[451] It is probable that castration may prove especially advantageous in
the case of the feeble-minded. "In Somersetshire," says Tredgold ("The
Feeble-Mind as a Social Danger," _Eugenics Review_, July, 1909), "I found
that out of a total number of 167 feeble-minded women, nearly two-fifths
(61) had given birth to children, for the most part illegitimate.
Moreover, it is not uncommon, but, rather the rule, for these poor girls
to be admitted into the workhouse maternity wards again and again, and the
average number of offspring to each one of them is probably three or four,
although even six is not uncommon." In his work on _Mental Deficiency_
(pp. 288-292) the same author shows that propagation by the mentally
deficient is, in England, "both a terrible and extensive evil."

[452] This example is brought forward by Ledermann, "Skin Diseases and
Marriage," in Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to
Marriage_.

[453] I may here again refer to Lea's instructive _History of Sacerdotal
Celibacy_.

[454] In England, 35,000 applicants for admission to the navy are annually
rejected, and although the physical requirements for enlistment in the
army are nowadays extremely moderate, it is estimated by General Maurice
that at least sixty per cent. of recruits and would-be recruits are
dismissed as unfit. (See e.g., William Coates, "The Duty of the Medical
Profession in the Prevention of National Deterioration," _British Medical
Journal_, May 1, 1909.) It can scarcely be claimed that men who are not
good enough for the army are good enough for the great task of creating
the future race.

[455] The recognition of epilepsy as a bar to procreation is not recent.
There is said to be a record in the archives of the town of Luçon in which
epilepsy was adjudged to be a valid reason for the cancellation of a
betrothal (_British Medical Journal_, Feb. 14, 1903, p. 383).

[456] _British Medical Journal_, April 14, 1906. In California and some
other States, it appears that deceit regarding health is a ground for the
annulment of marriage.

[457] Sir F. Galton, _Inquiries Into Human Faculty_, Everyman's Library
edition, pp. 211 et seq.; cf. Galton's collected _Essays in Eugenics_,
recently published by the Eugenics Education Society.

[458] For some account of the methods and results of the work in schools,
see Bertram C.A. Windle, "Anthropometric Work in Schools," _Medical
Magazine_, Feb., 1894.

[459] The most notable steps in this direction have been taken in Germany.
For an account of the experiment at Karlsruhe, see _Die Neue Generation_,
Dec., 1908.

[460] Wiethknudsen (as quoted in _Sexual-Probleme_, Dec., 1908, p. 837)
speaks strongly, but not too strongly, concerning the folly of any
indiscriminate endowment of procreation.

[461] On the scientific side, in addition to the fruitful methods of
statistical biometrics, which have already been mentioned, much promise
attaches to work along the lines initiated by Mendel; see W. Bateson,
_Mendel's Principles of Heredity_, 1909; also, W.H. Lock, _Recent Progress
in the Study of Variation, Heredity, and Evolution_, and R.C. Punnett,
_Mendelism_, 1907 (American edition, with interesting preface by Gaylord
Wilshire, from the Socialistic point of view, 1909).

[462] The study of the right conditions for procreation is very ancient.
In modern times we find that even the very first French medical book in
the vulgar tongue, the _Régime du Corps_, written by Alebrand of Florence
(who was physician to the King of France), in 1256, is largely devoted to
this matter, concerning which it gives much sound advice. See J.B.
Soalhat, _Les Idées de Maistre Alebrand de Florence sur la Puériculture_,
Thèse de Paris, 1908.

[463] Hesiod, _Works and Days_, II, 690-700.

[464] This has long been the accepted opinion of medical authorities, as
may be judged by the statements brought together two centuries ago by
Schurig, _Parthenologia_, pp. 22-25.

[465] The statement that, on the average, the best age for procreation in
men is before, rather than after, forty, by no means assumes the existence
of any "critical" age in men analogous to the menopause in women. This is
sometimes asserted, but there is no agreement in regard to it. Restif de
la Bretonne (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. x, p. 176) said that at the age of
forty delicacy of sentiment begins to go. Fürbringer believes (Senator and
Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 222)
that there is a decisive turn in a man's life in the sixth decade, or the
middle of the fifth, when desire and potency diminish. J.F. Sutherland
also states (_Comptes-rendus Congrès International de Médecine_, 1900,
Section de Psychiatrie, p. 471) that there is, in men, about the
fifty-fifth year, a change analogous to the menopause in women, but only
in a certain proportion of men. It would appear that in most men the
decline of sexual feeling and potency is very gradual, and at first
manifests itself in increased power of control.

[466] See, in vol. i, the study of "The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity."