THE TASK OF SOCIAL HYGIENE

 * * * * *

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

 STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. SIX VOLS. 

 THE NEW SPIRIT

 AFFIRMATIONS

 MAN AND WOMAN

 THE CRIMINAL

 THE WORLD OF DREAMS

 THE SOUL OF SPAIN

 IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS

 ESSAYS IN WAR-TIME. ETC. 

 * * * * *

THE TASK OF SOCIAL HYGIENE

by

HAVELOCK ELLIS

Author of "The Soul of Spain"; "The World of Dreams"; etc. 

Boston and New YorkHoughton Mifflin Company1916

Printed in Great Britain. 

PREFACE

The study of social hygiene means the study of those things whichconcern the welfare of human beings living in societies. There can, therefore, be no study more widely important or more generallyinteresting. I fear, however, that by many persons social hygiene isvaguely regarded either as a mere extension of sanitary science, or elseas an effort to set up an intolerable bureaucracy to oversee everyaction of our lives, and perhaps even to breed us as cattle are bred. 

That is certainly not the point of view from which this book has beenwritten. Plato and Rabelais, Campanella and More, have been among thosewho announced the principles of social hygiene here set forth. Theremust be a social order, all these great pioneers recognized, but thehealth of society, like the health of the body, is marked by expansionas much as by restriction, and, the striving for order is only justifiedbecause without order there can be no freedom. If it were not themission of social hygiene to bring a new joy and a new freedom into lifeI should not have concerned myself with the writing of this book. 

When we thus contemplate the process of social hygiene, we are no longerin danger of looking upon it as an artificial interference with Nature. It is in the Book of Nature, as Campanella put it, that the laws oflife and of government are to be read. Or, as Quesnel said two centuriesago, more precisely for our present purpose, "Nature is universalhygiene. " All animals are scrupulous in hygiene; the elaboration ofhygiene moves _pari passu_ with the rank of a species in intelligence. Even the cockroach, which lives on what we call filth, spends thegreater part of its time in the cultivation of personal cleanliness. Andall social hygiene, in its fullest sense, is but an increasingly complexand extended method of purification--the purification of the conditionsof life by sound legislation, the purification of our own minds bybetter knowledge, the purification of our hearts by a growing sense ofresponsibility, the purification of the race itself by an enlightenedeugenics, consciously aiding Nature in her manifest effort to embody newideals of life. It was not Man, but Nature, who realized the daring andsplendid idea--risky as it was--of placing the higher anthropoids ontheir hind limbs and so liberating their fore-limbs in the service oftheir nimble and aspiring brains. We may humbly follow in the same path, liberating latent forces of life and suppressing those which no longerserve the present ends of life. For, as Shakespeare said, when in _TheWinter's Tale_ he set forth a luminous philosophy of social hygiene andapplied it to eugenics, "Nature is made better by no mean But Nature makes that mean . . . This is an art Which does mend Nature, change it rather, but The art itself is Nature. "

In whatever way it may be understood, however, social hygiene is now verymuch to the front of people's minds. The present volume, I wish to makeclear, has not been hastily written to meet any real or supposed demand. It has slowly grown during a period of nearly twenty-five years, and itexpresses an attitude which is implicit or explicit in the whole of mywork. By some readers, doubtless, it will be seen to constitute anextension in various directions of the arguments developed in the largerwork on "Sex in Relation to Society, " which is the final volume of my_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_. The book I now bring forward may, however, be more properly regarded as a presentation of the wider schemeof social reform out of which the more special sex studies havedeveloped. We are faced to-day by the need for vast and complex changesin social organization. In these changes the welfare of individuals andthe welfare of communities are alike concerned. Moreover, they arematters which are not confined to the affairs of this nation or of thatnation, but of the whole family of nations participating in thefraternity of modern progress. 

The word "progress, " indeed, which falls so easily from our lips is nota word which any serious writer should use without precaution. Theconception of "progress" is a useful conception in so far as it bindstogether those who are working for common ends, and stimulates thatperpetual slight movement in which life consists. But there is nogeneral progress in Nature, nor any unqualified progress; that is tosay, that there is no progress for all groups along the line, and thateven those groups which progress pay the price of their progress. It wasso even when our anthropoid ancestors rose to the erect position; thatwas "progress, " and it gained us the use of hands. But it lost us ourtails, and much else that is more regrettable than we are always able torealize. There is no general and ever-increasing evolution towardsperfection. "Existence is realized in its perfection under whateveraspect it is manifested, " says Jules de Gaultier. Or, as Whitman put it, "There will never be any more perfection than there is now. " We cannotexpect an increased power of growth and realization in existence, as awhole, leading to any general perfection; we can only expect to see thetriumph of individuals, or of groups of individuals, carrying out theirown conceptions along special lines, every perfection so attainedinvolving, on its reverse side, the acquirement of an imperfection. Itis in this sense, and in this sense only, that progress is possible. Weneed not fear that we shall ever achieve the stagnant immobility of ageneral perfection. 

The problems of progress we are here concerned with are such as thecivilized world, as represented by some of its foremost individuals orgroups of individuals, is just now waking up to grapple with. No doubtother problems might be added, and the addition give a greater semblanceof completion to this book. I have selected those which seem to me veryessential, very fundamental. The questions of social hygiene, as hereunderstood, go to the heart of life. It is the task of this hygiene notonly to make sewers, but to re-make love, and to do both in the samelarge spirit of human fellowship, to ensure finer individual developmentand a larger social organization. At the one end social hygiene may beregarded as simply the extension of an elementary sanitary code; at theother end it seems to some to have in it the glorious freedom of a newreligion. The majority of people, probably, will be content to admitthat we have here a scheme of serious social reform which every man andwoman will soon be called upon to take some share in. 

HAVELOCK ELLIS. 

CONTENTS

I. --INTRODUCTION PAGEThe aim of Social Hygiene--Social Reform--The Rise of Social Reform outof English Industrialism--The Four Stages of Social Reform--(1) TheStage of Sanitation--(2) Factory Legislation--(3) The Extension of theScope of Education--(4) Puericulture--The Scientific Evolutioncorresponding to these Stages--Social Reform only Touched the Conditionsof Life--Yet Social Reform Remains highly Necessary--The Question ofInfantile Mortality and the Quality of the Race--The Better Organizationof Life Involved by Social Hygiene--Its Insistence on the Quality ratherthan on the Conditions of Life--The Control of Reproduction--The Fall ofthe Birth-rate in Relation to the Quality of the Population--TheRejuvenation of a Society--The Influence of Culture and Refinement on aRace--Eugenics--The Regeneration of the Race--The Problem ofFeeble-mindedness--The Methods of Eugenics--Some of the Problems whichFace us 1

II. --THE CHANGING STATUS OF WOMEN

The Origin of the Woman Movement--Mary Wollstonecraft--GeorgeSand--Robert Owen--William Thompson--John Stuart Mill--The ModernGrowth of Social Cohesion--The Growth of Industrialism--Its Influence inWoman's Sphere of Work--The Education of Women--Co-education--The WomanQuestion and Sexual Selection--Significance of EconomicIndependence--The State Regulation of Marriage--The Future ofMarriage--Wilhelm von Humboldt--Social Equality of Women--TheReproduction of the Race as a Function of Society--Women and the Futureof Civilization 49

III. --THE NEW ASPECT OF THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT

Eighteenth-Century France--Pioneers of the Woman's Movement--The Growthof the Woman's Suffrage Movement--The Militant Activities of theSuffragettes--Their Services and Disservices to the Cause--Advantages ofWomen's Suffrage--Sex Questions in Germany--Bebel--The Woman's RightsMovement in Germany--The Development of Sexual Science in Germany--TheMovement for the Protection of Motherhood--Ellen Key--The Question ofIllegitimacy--Eugenics--Women as Law-makers in the Home 67

IV. --THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN IN RELATION TO ROMANTIC LOVE

The Absence of Romantic Love in Classic Civilization--Marriage as aDuty--The Rise of Romantic Love in the Roman Empire--The Influence ofChristianity--The Attitude of Chivalry--The Troubadours--The Courts ofLove--The Influence of the Renaissance--Conventional Chivalry and ModernCivilization--The Woman Movement--The Modern Woman's Equality of Rightsand Responsibilities excludes Chivalry--New Forms of Romantic Love stillremain possible--Love as the Inspiration of Social Hygiene 113

V. --THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A FALLING BIRTH-RATE

The Fall of the Birth-rate in Europe generally--In England--InGermany--In the United States--In Canada--In Australasia--"Crude"Birth-rate and "Corrected" Birth-rate--The Connection between HighBirth-rate and High Death-rate--"Natural Increase" measured by Excessof Births over Deaths--The Measure of National Well-being--TheExample of Russia--Japan--China--The Necessity of viewing theQuestion from a wide Standpoint--The Prevalence of Neo-MalthusianMethods--Influence of the Roman Catholic Church--Other Influenceslowering the Birth-rate--Influence of Postponement of Marriage--Relationof the Birth-rate to Commercial and Industrial Activity--Illustratedby Russia, Hungary, and Australia--The Relation of Prosperity toFertility--The Social Capillarity Theory--Divergence of the Birth-rateand the Marriage-rate--Marriage-rate and the Movement ofPrices--Prosperity and Civilization--Fertility among Savages--Thelesser fertility of Urban Populations--Effect of Urbanization onPhysical Development--Why Prosperity fails permanently to increaseFertility--Prosperity creates Restraints on Fertility--The processof Civilization involves Decreased Fertility--In this Respect it isa Continuation of Zoological Evolution--Large Families as a Stigmaof Degeneration--The Decreased Fertility of Civilization a GeneralHistorical Fact--The Ideals of Civilization to-day--The East andthe West 134

VI. --EUGENICS AND LOVE

Eugenics and the Decline of the Birth-rate--Quantity and Quality in theProduction of Children--Eugenic Sexual Selection--The Value ofPedigrees--Their Scientific Significance--The Systematic Record ofPersonal Data--The Proposal for Eugenic Certificates--St. Valentine'sDay and Sexual Selection--Love and Reason--Love Ruled by NaturalLaw--Eugenic Selection not opposed to Love--No Need for LegalCompulsion--Medicine in Relation to Marriage. 193

VII. --RELIGION AND THE CHILD

Religious Education in Relation to Social Hygiene and to Psychology--ThePsychology of the Child--The Contents of Children's Minds--TheImagination of Children--How far may Religion be assimilated byChildren?--Unfortunate Results of Early Religious Instruction--Pubertythe Age for Religious Education--Religion as an Initiation into aMystery--Initiation among Savages--The Christian Sacraments--The ModernTendency as regards Religious Instruction--Its Advantages--Children andFairy Tales--The Bible of Childhood--Moral Training 217

VIII. --THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL HYGIENE

The New Movement for giving Sexual Instruction to Children--The Need ofsuch a Movement--Contradictions involved by the Ancient Policy ofSilence--Errors of the New Policy--The Need of Teaching the Teacher--TheNeed of Training the Parents--And of Scientifically equipping thePhysician--Sexual Hygiene and Society--The far-reaching Effects ofSexual Hygiene 244

IX. --IMMORALITY AND THE LAW

Social Hygiene and Legal Compulsion--The Binding Force of Custom amongSavages--The Dissolving Influence of Civilization--The Distinctionbetween Immorality and Criminality--Adultery as a Crime--The Tests ofCriminality--National Differences in laying down the Boundary betweenCriminal and Immoral Acts--France--Germany--England--The UnitedStates--Police Administration--Police Methods in the UnitedStates--National Differences in the Regulation of the Trade inAlcohol--Prohibition in the United States--Origin of the American Methodof Dealing with Immorality--Russia--Historical Fluctuations in Methodsof Dealing with Immorality and Prostitution--Homosexuality--Holland--TheAge of Consent--Moral Legislation in England--In the United States--TheRaines Law--America Attempts to Suppress Prostitution--TheirFutility--German Methods of Regulating Prostitution--The Sound Method ofApproaching Immorality--Training in Sexual Hygiene--Education inPersonal and Social Responsibility 258

X. --THE WAR AGAINST WAR

Why the Problem of War is specially urgent To-day--The BeneficialEffects of War in Barbarous Ages--Civilization renders the UltimateDisappearance of War Inevitable--The Introduction of Law in disputesbetween Individuals involves the Introduction of Law in disputes betweenNations--But there must be Force behind Law--Henry IV's Attempt toConfederate Europe--Every International Tribunal of Arbitration must beable to Enforce its decisions--The Influences making for the Abolitionof Warfare--(1) Growth of International Opinion--(2) InternationalFinancial Development--(3) The Decreasing Pressure of Population--(4)The Natural Exhaustion of the Warlike Spirit--(5) The Spread ofAnti-military Doctrines--(6) The Over-growth of Armaments--(7) TheDominance of Social Reform--War Incompatible with an AdvancedCivilization--Nations as Trustees for Humanity--The Impossibility ofDisarmament--The Necessity of Force to ensure Peace--The Federated Stateof the Future--The Decay of War still leaves the Possibilities of Daringand Heroism 311

XI. --THE PROBLEM OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

Early Attempts to construct an International Language--The Urgent Needof an Auxiliary Language To-day--Volapük--The Claims ofSpanish--Latin--The Claims of English--Its Disadvantages--The Claims ofFrench--Its Disadvantages--The Modern Growth of National Feeling opposedto Selection of a Natural Language--Advantages of an ArtificialLanguage--Demands it must Fulfil--Esperanto--Its ThreatenedDisruption--The International Association for the Adoption of anAuxiliary International Language--The First Step to Take 349

XII. --INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIALISM

Social Hygiene in Relation to the Alleged Opposition between Socialismand Individualism--The Two Parties in Politics--The Relation ofConservatism and Radicalism to Socialism and Individualism--The Basis ofSocialism--The Basis of Individualism--The seeming Opposition betweenSocialism and Individualism merely a Division of Labour--Both Socialismand Individualism equally Necessary--Not only Necessary, butIndispensable to each other--The Conflict between the Advocates ofEnvironment and Heredity--A New Embodiment of the supposed Conflictbetween Socialism and Individualism--The place of Eugenics--SocialHygiene ultimately one with the Hygiene of the Soul--The Function ofUtopias 381

INDEX 407

THE TASK OF SOCIAL HYGIENE

I

INTRODUCTION

 The Aim of Social Hygiene--Social Reform--The Rise of Social Reform out of English Industrialism--The Four Stages of Social Reform--(1) The Stage of Sanitation--(2) Factory Legislation--(3) The Extension of the Scope of Education--(4) Puericulture--The Scientific Evolution corresponding to these Stages--Social Reform only Touched the Conditions of Life--Yet Social Reform Remains highly Necessary--The Question of Infantile Mortality and the Quality of the Race--The Better Organization of Life Involved by Social Hygiene--Its Insistence on the Quality rather than on the Conditions of Life--The Control of Reproduction--The Fall of the Birth-rate in Relation to the Quality of the Population--The Rejuvenation of a Society--The Influence of Culture and Refinement on a Race--Eugenics--The Regeneration of the Race--The Problem of Feeble-Mindedness--The Methods of Eugenics--Some of the Problems which Face us. 

Social Hygiene, as it will be here understood, may be said to be adevelopment, and even a transformation, of what was formerly known asSocial Reform. In that transformation it has undergone two fundamentalchanges. In the first place, it is no longer merely an attempt to dealwith the conditions under which life is lived, seeking to treat badconditions as they occur, without going to their source, but it aims atprevention. It ceases to be simply a reforming of forms, and approachesin a comprehensive manner not only the conditions of life, but lifeitself. In the second place, its method is no longer haphazard, butorganized and systematic, being based on a growing knowledge of thosebiological sciences which were scarcely in their infancy when the era ofsocial reform began. Thus social hygiene is at once more radical andmore scientific than the old conception of social reform. It is theinevitable method by which at a certain stage civilization is compelledto continue its own course, and to preserve, perhaps to elevate, therace. 

The era of social reform followed on the rise of modern industrialism, and, no doubt largely on this account, although an internationalmovement, it first became definite and self-conscious in England. Therewere perhaps other reasons why it should have been in the first placespecially prominent in England. When at the end of the seventeenthcentury, Muralt, a highly intelligent Swiss gentleman, visited England, and wrote his by no means unsympathetic _Lettres sur les Anglais_, hewas struck by a curious contradiction in the English character. They area good-natured people, he observed, very rich, so well-nourished thatsometimes they die of obesity, and they detest cruelty so much that byroyal proclamation it is ordained that the fish and the ducks of theponds should be duly and properly fed. Yet he found that thisgood-natured, rich, cruelty-hating nation systematically allowed theprisoners in their gaols to die of starvation. "The great cruelty ofthe English, " Muralt remarks, "lies in permitting evil rather than indoing it. "[1] The root of the apparent contradiction lay clearly in asomewhat excessive independence and devotion to liberty. We give a manfull liberty, they seem to have said, to work, to become rich, to growfat. But if he will not work, let him starve. In that point of viewthere were involved certain fallacies, which became clearer during thecourse of social evolution. 

It was obvious, indeed, that such an attitude, while highly favourableto individual vigour and independence, and not incompatible with fairlyhealthy social life under the conditions which prevailed at the time, became disastrous in the era of industrialism. The conditions ofindustrial life tore up the individual from the roots by which henormally received strength, and crowded the workers together in masses, thus generating a confusion which no individual activity could grapplewith. So it was that the very spirit which, under the earlierconditions, made for good now made for evil. To stand by and applaud theefforts of the individual who was perhaps slowly sinking deeper anddeeper into a miry slough of degradation began to seem an evendiabolical attitude. The maxim of _laissez-faire_, which had once stoodfor the whole unfettered action of natural activities in life, began tobe viewed with horror and contempt. It was realized that there must bean intelligent superintendence of social conditions, humane regulation, systematic organization. The very intensity of the evils which theEnglish spirit produced led to a reaction by which that spirit, whiledoubtless remaining the same at heart, took on a different form, andmanifested its energy in a new direction. 

The modern industrial era, replacing domestic industry by collectivework carried out by "hands" in factories, began in the eighteenthcentury. The era of social reform was delayed until the second quarterof the nineteenth century. It has proceeded by four successivelyprogressive stages, each stage supplementing, rather than supplanting, the stage that preceded it. In 1842 Sir Edwin Chadwick wrote an officialReport on the _Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of GreatBritain_, in which was clearly presented for the first time a vivid, comprehensive, and authoritative picture of the incredibly filthyconditions under which the English labouring classes lived. The timeswere ripe for this Report. It attracted public attention, and exerted animportant influence. Its appearance marks the first stage of socialreform, which was mainly a sanitary effort to clear away the gross filthfrom our cities, to look after the cleansing, lighting, and policing ofthe streets, to create a drainage system, to improve dwellings, and inthese ways to combat disease and to lower the very high death-rate. 

At an early stage, however, it began to be seen that this process ofsanitation, necessary as it had become, was far too crude and elementaryto achieve the ends sought. It was not enough to improve the streets, oreven to regulate the building of dwellings. It was clearly necessary toregulate also the conditions of work of the people who lived in thosestreets and dwellings. Thus it was that the scheme of factorylegislation was initiated. Rules were made as to the hours of labour, more especially as regards women and children, for whom, moreover, certain specially dangerous or unhealthy occupations were forbidden, andan increasingly large number of avocations were brought under Governmentinspection. This second stage of social reform encountered a much morestrenuous opposition than the first stage. The regulation of the orderand cleanliness of the streets was obviously necessary, and it hadindeed been more or less enforced even in medieval times;[2] but theregulation of the conditions of work in the interests of the worker wasa more novel proceeding, and it appeared to clash both with theinterests of the employers and the ancient principles of English freedomand independence, behind which the employers consequently shelteredthemselves. The early attempts to legislate on these lines were thusfruitless. It was not until a distinguished aristocratic philanthropistof great influence, the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, took up thequestion, that factory legislation began to be accepted. It continues todevelop even to-day, ever enlarging the sphere of its action, and nowmeeting with no opposition. But, in England, at all events, itsacceptance marks a memorable stage in the growth of the national spirit. It was no longer easy and natural for the Englishmen to look on atsuffering without interference. It began to be recognized that it wasperfectly legitimate, and even necessary, to put a curb on the freedomand independence which involved suffering to others. 

But as the era of factory legislation became established, a furtheradvance was seen to be necessary. Factory legislation had forbidden thechild to work. But the duty of the community towards the child, thecitizen of the future, was evidently by no means covered by this purelynegative step. The child must be prepared to take his future part inlife, in the first place by education. The nationalization of educationin England dates from 1870. But during the subsequent half century"education" has come to mean much more than mere instruction; it nowcovers a certain amount of provision for meals when necessary, theenforcement of cleanliness, the care of defective conditions, inborn oracquired, with special treatment for mentally defective children, anever-increasing amount of medical inspection and supervision, while itis beginning to include arrangements for placing the child in worksuited to his capacities when he leaves school. 

During the past ten years the movement of social reform has entered afourth stage. The care of the child during his school-days was seen tobe insufficient; it began too late, when probably the child's fate forlife was already decided. It was necessary to push the process furtherback, to birth and even to the stage before birth, by directing socialcare to the infant, and by taking thought of the mother. Thisconsideration has led to a whole series of highly important and fruitfulmeasures which are only beginning to develop, although they have alreadyproved very beneficial. The immediate notification to the authorities ofa child's birth, and the institution of Health Visitors to ascertainwhat is being done for the infant's well-being, and to aid the motherwith advice, have certainly been a large factor in the recent reductionin the infantile death-rate in England. [3]

The care of the infant has indeed now become a new applied science, thescience of puericulture. Professor Budin of Paris may fairly be regardedas the founder of puericulture by the establishment in Paris, in 1892, of Infant Consultations, to which mothers were encouraged to bring theirbabies to be weighed and examined, any necessary advice being givenregarding the care of the baby. The mothers are persuaded to suckletheir infants if possible, and if their own health permits. For thecases in which suckling is undesirable or impossible, Budin establishedMilk Depôts, where pure milk is supplied at a low price or freely. Infant Consultations and Milk Depôts are now becoming common everywhere. A little later than Budin, another distinguished French physician, Pinard, carried puericulture a step further back, but a very importantstep, by initiating a movement for the care of the pregnant woman. Pinard and his pupils have shown by a number of detailed investigationsthat the children born to working mothers who rest during the last threemonths of pregnancy, are to a marked extent larger and finer than thechildren of those mothers who enjoy no such period of rest, even thoughthe mothers themselves may be equally robust and healthy in both cases. Moreover, it is found that premature birth, one of the commonestaccidents of modern life, tends to be prevented by such rest. Thechildren of mothers who rest enjoy on the average three weeks longerdevelopment in the womb than the children of the mothers who do notrest, and this prolonged ante-natal development cannot fail to be abenefit for the whole of the child's subsequent life. The movementstarted by Pinard, though strictly a continuation of the great movementfor the improvement of the conditions of life, takes us as far back aswe are able to go on these lines, and has in it the promise of animmense benefit to human efficiency. 

In connection with the movement of puericulture initiated by Budin andPinard must be mentioned the institution of Schools for Mothers, for itis closely associated with the aims of puericulture. The School forMothers arose in Belgium, a little later than the activities of Budinand Pinard commenced. About 1900 a young Socialist doctor of Ghent, Dr. Miele, started the first school of this kind, with girls of from twelveto sixteen years of age as students and assistants. The Schooleventually included as many as twelve different services, among thesebeing dispensaries for mothers, a mothers' friendly society, milk depôtsboth for babies and nursing mothers, health talks to mothers withdemonstrations, courses on puericulture (including anatomy, physiology, preparation of foods, weighing, etc. ) to girls between fourteen andeighteen, who afterwards become eligible for appointment as paidassistants. [4] In 1907 Schools for Mothers were introduced into England, at first under the auspices of Dr. Sykes, Medical Officer of Health forSt. Pancras, London. Such Schools are now spreading everywhere. In theend they will probably be considered necessary centres for any nationalsystem of puericulture. Every girl at the end of her school life shouldbe expected to pass through a certain course of training at a School forMothers. It would be the technical school for the working-class mother, while such a course would be invaluable for any girl, whatever hersocial class, even if she is never called to be a mother herself or tohave the care of children. 

The great movement of social reform during the nineteenth century, wethus see, has moved in four stages, each of which has reinforced ratherthan replaced that which went before: (1) the effort to cleanse thegross filth of cities and to remedy obvious disorder by systematicattention to scavenging, drainage, the supply of water and of artificiallight, as well as by improved policing; (2) the great system of factorylegislation for regulating the conditions of work, and to some extentrestraining the work of women and of children; (3) the introduction ofnational systems of education, and the gradual extension of the idea ofeducation to cover far more than mere instruction; and (4), mostfundamental of all and last to appear, the effort to guard the childbefore the school age, even at birth, even before birth, by bestowingdue care on the future mother. [5]

It may be pointed out that this movement of practical social reform hasbeen accompanied, stimulated, and guided by a corresponding movement inthe sciences which in their application are indispensable to theprogress of civilized social reform. There has been a process of mutualaction and reaction between science and practice. The social movementhas stimulated the development of abstract science, and the new progressin science has enabled further advances to be made in social practice. The era of expansion in sanitation was the era of development inchemistry and physics, which alone enabled a sound system of sanitationto be developed. The fight against disease would have been impossiblebut for bacteriology. The new care for human life, and for theprotection of its source, is associated with fresh developments ofbiological science. Sociological observations and speculation, includingeconomics, are intimately connected with the efforts of social reform toattain a broad, sound, and truly democratic basis. [6]

When we survey this movement as a whole, we have to recognize that it isexclusively concerned with the improvement of the conditions of life. Itmakes no attempt to influence either the quantity or the quality oflife. [7] It may sometimes have been carried out with the assumption thatto improve the conditions of life is, in some way or other, to improvethe quality of life itself. But it accepted the stream of life as itfound it, and while working to cleanse the banks of the stream it madeno attempt to purify the stream itself. 

It must, however, be remembered that the arguments which, especiallynowadays, are brought against the social reform of the condition oflife, will not bear serious examination. It is said, for instance, or atall events implied, that we need bestow very little care on theconditions of life because such care can have no permanently beneficialeffect on the race, since acquired characters, for the most part, arenot transmitted to descendants. But to assume that social reform isunnecessary because it is not inherited is altogether absurd. The peoplewho make this assumption would certainly not argue that it is uselessfor them to satisfy their own hunger and thirst, because their childrenwill not thereby be safeguarded from experiencing hunger and thirst. Yetthe needs which the movement of organized social reform seeks to satisfyare precisely on a level with, and indeed to some extent identical with, the needs of hunger and thirst. The impulse and the duty which moveevery civilized community to elaborate and gratify its own social needsto the utmost are altogether independent of the race, and would notcease to exist even in a community vowed to celibacy or the mostabsolute Neo-Malthusianism. Nor, again, must it be said that socialreform destroys the beneficial results of natural selection. 

Here, indeed, we encounter a disputed point, and it may be admitted thatthe precise data for absolute demonstration in one direction or theother cannot yet be found. Whenever human beings breed in reckless andunrestrained profusion--as is the case under some conditions before afree and self-conscious civilization is attained--there is an immenseinfantile mortality. It is claimed, on the one hand, that this isbeneficial, and need not be interfered with. The weak are killed off, it is said, and the strong survive; there is a process of naturalsurvival of the fittest. That is true. But it is equally true, as hasalso been clearly seen on the other hand, that though the relativelystrongest survive, their relative strength has been impaired by the veryinfluences which have proved altogether fatal to their weaker brethren. There is an immense infantile mortality in Russia. Yet, notwithstandingany resulting "survival of the fittest, " Russia is far more ravaged bydisease than Norway, where infantile mortality is low. "A high infantilemortality, " as George Carpenter, a great authority on the diseases ofchildhood, remarks, "denotes a far higher infantile deterioration rate";or, as another doctor puts it, "the dead baby is next of kin to thediseased baby, " The protection of the weak, so frequently condemned bysome Neo-Darwinians, is thus in reality, as Goldscheid terms it, "theprotection of the strong from degeneration. "

There is, however, more to be said. Not only must an undue struggle withunfavourable conditions enfeeble the strong as well as kill the feeble;it also imposes an intolerable burden upon these enfeebled survivors. The process of destruction is not sudden, it is gradual. It is along-drawn-out process. It involves the multiplication of the diseased, the maimed, the feeble-minded, of paupers and lunatics and criminals. Even natural selection thus includes the need for protecting the feeble, and so renders urgent the task of social reform, while the morethoroughly this task is carried out with the growth of civilization, the more stupendous and overwhelming the task becomes. 

It is thus that civilization, at a certain point in its course, rendersinevitable the appearance of that wider and deeper organization of lifewhich in the present volume we are concerned with under the name ofSocial Hygiene. That movement is far from being an abrupt orrevolutionary manifestation in the ordinary progress of social growth. As we have seen, social reform during the past eighty years may be saidto have proceeded in four successive stages, each of which has involveda nearer approach to the sources of life. The fourth stage, which in itsbeginnings dates only from the last years of the nineteenth century, takes us to the period before birth, and is concerned with the care ofthe child in the mother's womb. The next stage cannot fail to take us tothe very source of life itself, lifting us beyond the task of purifyingthe conditions, and laying on us the further task of regulating thequantity and raising the quality of life at its very source. The duty ofpurifying, ordering, and consolidating the banks of the stream muststill remain. [8] But when we are able to control the stream at itssource we are able to some extent to prevent the contamination of thatstream by filth, and ensure that its muddy floods shall not sweep awaythe results of our laborious work on the banks. Our sense of socialresponsibility is developing into a sense of racial responsibility, andthat development is expressed in the nature of the tasks of SocialHygiene which now lie before us. 

It is the control of the reproduction of the race which renders possiblethe new conception of Social Hygiene. We have seen that the gradualprocess of social reform during the first three quarters of thenineteenth century, by successive stages of movement towards the sourcesof life, finally reached the moment of conception. The first result ofreform at this point was that procreation became a deliberate act. Uptill then the method of propagating the race was the same as that whichsavages have carried on during thousands of years, the chief differencebeing that whereas savages have frequently sought to compensate theirrecklessness by destroying their inferior offspring, we had accepted allthe offspring, good, bad, and indifferent, produced by ourindiscriminate recklessness, shielding ourselves by a false theology. Children "came, " and their parents disclaimed all responsibility fortheir coming. The children were "sent by God, " and if they all turnedout to be idiots, the responsibility was God's. But when it becamegenerally realized that it was possible to limit offspring withoutinterfering with conjugal life a step of immense importance wasachieved. It became clear to all that the Divine force works through us, and that we are not entitled to cast the burden of our evil actions onany Higher Power. Marriage no longer fatally involved an endlessprocession of children who, in so far as they survived at all, were in alarge number of cases doomed to disease, neglect, misery, and ignorance. The new Social Hygiene was for the first time rendered possible. 

It was in France during the first half of the nineteenth century thatthe control of reproduction first began to become a social habit. InSweden and in Denmark, the fall in the birth-rate, though it has beenirregular, may be said to have begun in 1860. It was not until about theyear 1876 that, in so far as we may judge by the arrest of thebirth-rate, the movement began to spread to Europe generally. In Englandit is usual to associate this change with a famous prosecution whichbrought a knowledge of the means of preventing conception to the wholepopulation of Great Britain. Undoubtedly this prosecution was animportant factor in the movement, but we cannot doubt that, even if theprosecution had not taken place, the course of social progress muststill have pursued the same course. It is noteworthy that it was aboutthis same period, in various European countries, that the tide turned, and the excessively high birth-rate began to fall. [9] Recklessness wasgiving place to foresight and self-control. Such foresight andself-control are of the essence of civilization. [10]

It cannot be disputed that the transformation by which the propagationof the race became deliberate and voluntary has not been established insocial custom without a certain amount of protestation from varioussides. No social change, however beneficial, ever is established withoutsuch protestation, which may, therefore, be regarded as an inevitableand probably a salutary part of social change. Even some would-bescientific persons, with a display of elaborate statistics, set forthvarious alarmistic doctrines. If, said these persons, this new movementgoes on at the present pace, and if all other conditions remainunchanged, then all sorts of terrible results will ensue. But thealarming conclusion failed to ensue, and for a very sufficient reason. The assumed premises of the argument were unsound. Nothing ever goes onat the same pace, nor do all other conditions ever remain unchanged. 

The world is a living fire, as Heraclitus long ago put it. All thingsare in perpetual flux. Life is a process of perpetual movement. It isidle to bid the world stand still, and then to argue about theconsequences. The world will not stand still, it is for ever revolving, for ever revealing some new facet that had not been allowed for in theneatly arranged mechanism of the statistician. 

It is perhaps unnecessary to dwell on a point which is now at last, onemay hope, becoming clear to most intelligent persons. But I may perhapsbe allowed to refer in passing to an argument that has been broughtforward with the wearisome iteration which always marks the progress ofthose who are feeble in argument. The good stocks of upper social classare decreasing in fertility, it is said; the bad stocks of lower socialclass are not decreasing; therefore the bad stocks are tending toreplace the good stocks. [11]

It must, however, be pointed out that, even assuming that the facts areas stated; it is a hazardous assumption that the best stocks arenecessarily the stocks of high social class. In the main no doubt thisis so, but good stocks are nevertheless so widely spread through allclasses--such good stocks in the lower social classes being probably themost resistent to adverse conditions--that we are not entitled to regardeven a slightly greater net increase of the lower social classes as anunmitigated evil. It may be that, as Mercier has expressed it, "we haveto regard a civilized community somewhat in the light of a lamp, whichburns at the top and is replenished from the bottom. "[12]

The soundness of a stock, and its aptitude for performing efficientlythe functions of its own social sphere, cannot, indeed, be accuratelymeasured by any tendency to rise into a higher social sphere. On thewhole, from generation to generation, the men of a good stock remainwithin their own social sphere, whether high or low, adequatelyperforming their functions in that sphere, from generation togeneration. They remain, we may say, in that social stratum of which thespecific gravity is best suited for their existence. [13]

Yet, undoubtedly, from time to time, there is a slight upward socialtendency, due in most cases to the exceptional energy and ability ofsome individual who succeeds in permanently lifting his family into aslightly higher social stratum. [14] Such a process has always takenplace, in the past even more conspicuously than in the present. TheNormans who came over to England with William the Conqueror andconstituted the proud English nobility were simply a miscellaneous setof adventurers, professional fighting men, of unknown, and no doubt forthe most part undistinguished, lineage. William the Conqueror himselfwas the son of a woman of the people. The Catholic Church founded nofamilies, but its democratic constitution opened a career to men of allclasses, and the most brilliant sons of the Church were often of thelowliest social rank. We should not, therefore, say that the bad stocksare replacing the good stocks. There is not the slightest evidence forany such theory. All that we are entitled to say is that when in theupward progression of a community the vanishing point of culture andrefinement is attained the bearers of that culture and refinement dieoff as naturally and inevitably as flowers in autumn, and from theirroots spring up new and more vigorous shoots to replace them and to passin their turn through the same stages, with that perpetual slightnovelty in which lies the secret of life, as well as of art. Anaristocracy which is merely an aristocracy because it is "old"--whetherit is an aristocracy of families, or of races, or of species--hasalready ceased to be an aristocracy in any sound meaning of the term. Weneed not regret its disappearance. 

Do not, therefore, let us waste our time in crying over the dead rosesof the summer that is past. There is something morbid in the perpetualgroaning over that inevitable decay which is itself a part of all life. Such a perpetual narrow insistence on one aspect of life is scarcelysane. One suspects that these people are themselves of those stocks overwhose fate they grieve. Let us, therefore, mercifully leave them tomanure their dead roses in peace. They will soon be forgotten. The worldis for ever dying. The world is also for ever bursting with life. Thespring song of _Sursum corda_ easily overwhelms the dying autumnal wailsof the _Dies Iræ_. 

It would thus appear that, even apart from any deliberate restraint fromprocreation, as a family attains the highest culture and refinementwhich civilization can yield, that family tends to die out, at allevents in the male line. [15] This is, for instance, the result whichFahlbeck has reached in his valuable demographic study of the Swedishnobility, _Der Adel Schwedens_. "Apparently, " says Fahlbeck, "thegreater demands on nervous and intellectual force which the culture andrefinement of the upper classes produce are chiefly responsible forthis. For these are the two personal factors by which those classes aredistinguished from the lower classes: high education and refinement intastes and habits. The first involves predominant activity of the brain, the last a heightened sensitiveness in all departments of nervous life. In both respects, therefore, there is increased work for the nervoussystem, and this is compensated in the other vital functions, especiallyreproduction. Man cannot achieve everything; what he gains on one sidehe loses on the other. " We should do well to hold these wise words inmind when we encounter those sciolists who in the presence of the finestand rarest manifestations of civilizations, can only talk of race"decay. " A female salmon, it is estimated, lays about nine hundred eggsfor every pound of her own weight, and she may weigh fifty pounds. Theprogeny of Shakespeare and Goethe, such as it was, disappeared in thevery centuries in which these great men themselves died. At the presentstage of civilization we are somewhat nearer to Shakespeare and Goethethan to the salmon. We must set our ideals towards a very differentdirection from that which commends itself to our Salmonidian sciolists. "Increase and multiply" was the legendary injunction uttered on thethreshold of an empty world. It is singularly out of place in an age inwhich the earth and the sea, if not indeed the very air, swarm withcountless myriads of undistinguished and indistinguishable humancreatures, until the beauty of the world is befouled and the glory ofthe Heavens bedimmed. To stem back that tide is the task now imposed onour heroism, to elevate and purify and refine the race, to introducethe ideal of quality in place of the ideal of quantity which has runriot so long, with the results we see. "As the Northern Saga tells thatOdin must sacrifice his eye to attain the higher wisdom, " concludesFahlbeck, "so Man also, in order to win the treasures of culture andrefinement, must give not only his eye but his life, if not his own lifethat of his posterity. "[16] The vulgar aim of reckless racial fertilityis no longer within our reach and no longer commends itself as worthy. It is not consonant with the stage of civilization we are at the momentpassing through. The higher task is now ours of the regeneration of therace, or, if we wish to express that betterment less questionably, theaggeneration of the race. [17]

The control of reproduction, we see, essential as it is, cannot byitself carry far the betterment of the race, because it involves nodirect selection of stocks. Yet we have to remember that though thiscontrol, with the limitation of offspring it involves, fails to answerall the demands which Social Hygiene to-day makes of us, it yet achievesmuch. It may not improve what we abstractly term the "race, " but itimmensely improves the individuals of which the race is made up. Thusthe limitation of the family renders it possible to avoid the productionof undesired children. That in itself is an immense social gain, becauseit tends to abolish excessive infantile mortality. [18] It means thatadequate care will be expended upon the children that are produced, andthat no children will be produced unless the parents are in a positionto provide for them. [19] Even the mere spacing out of the children in afamily, the larger interval between child-births, is a very greatadvantage. The mother is no longer exhausted by perpetually bearing, suckling, and tending babies, while the babies themselves are on theaverage of better quality. [20] Thus the limitation of offspring, far frombeing an egoistic measure, as some have foolishly supposed, isimperatively demanded in the altruistic interests of the individualscomposing the race. 

But the control of reproduction, enormously beneficial as it is even inits most elementary shapes, mainly concerns us here because it furnishesthe essential condition for the development of Social Hygiene. Thecontrol of reproduction renders possible, and leads on to, a wiseselection in reproduction. It is only by such selection of children tobe born that we can balance our indiscriminate care in the preservationof all children that are born, a care which otherwise would become anintolerable burden. It is only by such selection that we can worktowards the elimination of those stocks which fail to help us in thetasks of our civilization to-day. It is only by such selection that wecan hope to fortify the stocks that are fitted for these tasks. Morethan two centuries ago Steele playfully suggested that "one might wearany passion out of a family by culture, as skilful gardeners blot acolour out of a tulip that hurts its beauty. "[21] The progress ofcivilization, with the self-control it involves, has made it possible toaccept this suggestion seriously. [22] The difference is that whereas theflowers of our gardens are bettered only by the control of an arbitraryexternal will and intelligence, our human flowers may be bettered by anintelligence and will, a finer sense of responsibility, developed withinthemselves. Thus it is that human culture renders possible SocialHygiene. 

Three centuries ago an inspired monk set forth his ideal of an ennobledworld in _The City of the Sun_. Campanella wrote that prophetic book inprison. But his spirit was unfettered, and his conception of humansociety, though in daring it outruns all the visions we may compare itwith, is yet on the lines along which our civilization lies. In the Cityof the Sun not only was the nobility of work, even mechanicalwork, --which Plato rejected and More was scarcely conscious of, --for thefirst time recognized, but the supreme impulse of procreation wasregarded as a sacred function, to be exercised in the light ofscientific knowledge. It was a public rather than a private duty, because it concerned the interests of the race; only valorous andhigh-spirited men ought to procreate, and it was held that the fathershould bear the punishments inflicted on the son for faults due to hisfailure by defects in generation. [23] Moreover, while unions not for theend of procreation were in the City of the Sun left to the judgment ofthe individuals alone concerned, it was not so with unions for the endof procreation. These were arranged by the "great Master, " a physician, aided by the chief matrons, and the public exercises of the youths andmaidens, performed in a state of nakedness, were of assistance inenabling unions to be fittingly made. No eugenist under modernconditions of life proposes that unions should be arranged by a suprememedical public official, though he might possibly regard such anofficial, if divested of any compulsory powers, a kind of public trusteefor the race, as a useful institution. But it is easy to see that theluminous conception of racial betterment which, since Galton rendered itpracticable, is now inspiring social progress, was already burningbrightly three centuries ago in the brain of this imprisoned Italianmonk. Just as Thomas More has been called the father of modernSocialism, so Campanella may be said to be the prophet of modernEugenics. 

By "Eugenics" is meant the scientific study of all the agencies by whichthe human race may be improved, and the effort to give practical effectto those agencies by conscious and deliberate action in favour of betterbreeding. Even among savages eugenics may be said to exist, if only inthe crude and unscientific practice of destroying feeble, deformed, andabnormal infants at birth. In civilized ages elaborate and more or lessscientific attempts are made by breeders of animals to improve thestocks they breed, and their efforts have been crowned with muchsuccess. The study of the same methods in their bearing on man proceededout of the Darwinian school of biology, and is especially associatedwith the great name of Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Darwin. Galtonfirst proposed to call this study "Stirpiculture. " Under that name itinspired Noyes, the founder of the Oneida Community, with the impulse tocarry it into practice with a thoroughness and daring--indeed asimilarity of method--which caused Oneida almost to rival the City ofthe Sun. But the scheme of Noyes, excellent as in some respects it wasas an experiment, outran both scientific knowledge and the spirit of thetimes. It was not countenanced by Galton, who never had any wish tooffend general sentiment, but sought to win it over to his side, andbefore 1880 the Oneida Community was brought to an end in consequence ofthe antagonism it aroused. Galton continued to develop his conceptionsslowly and cautiously, and in 1883, in his _Inquiries into HumanFaculty_, he abandoned the term "Stirpiculture" and devised the term"Eugenics, " which is now generally adopted to signify Good Breeding. 

Galton was quite well aware that the improved breeding of men is a verydifferent matter from the improved breeding of animals, requiring adifferent knowledge and a different method, so that the ridicule whichhas sometimes been ignorantly flung at Eugenics failed to touch him. Itwould be clearly undesirable to breed men, as animals are bred, forsingle points at the sacrifice of other points, even if we were in aposition to breed men from outside. Human breeding must proceed fromimpulses that arise, voluntarily, in human brains and wills, and arecarried out with a human sense of personal responsibility. Galtonbelieved that the first need was the need of knowledge in these matters. He was not anxious to invoke legislation. [24] The compulsory presentationof certificates of health and good breeding as a preliminary to marriageforms no part of Eugenics, nor is compulsory sterilization a demand madeby any reasonable eugenist. Certainly the custom of securingcertificates of health and ability is excellent, not only as apreliminary to marriage, but as a general custom. Certainly, also, thereare cases in which sterilization is desirable, if voluntarilyaccepted. [25] But neither certification nor sterilization should becompulsory. They only have their value if they are intelligent anddeliberate, springing out of a widened and enlightened sense of personalresponsibility to society and to the race. 

Eugenics constitutes the link between the Social Reform of the past, painfully struggling to improve the conditions of life, and the SocialHygiene of the future, which is authorized to deal adequately with theconditions of life because it has its hands on the sources of life. Onthis plane we are able to concentrate our energies on the finer ends oflife, because we may reasonably expect to be no longer hampered by theever-increasing burdens which were placed upon us by the failure tocontrol life; while the more we succeed in our efforts to purify andstrengthen life, the more magnificent become the tasks we may reasonablyhope to attempt and compass. 

A problem which is often and justly cited as one to be settled byEugenics is that presented by the existence among us of the large classof the feeble-minded. No doubt there are some who would regret thedisappearance of the feeble-minded from our midst. The philosophies ofthe Bergsonian type, which to-day prevail so widely, place intuitionabove reason, and the "pure fool" has sometimes been enshrined andidolized. But we may remember that Eugenics can never prevent absolutelythe occurrence of feeble-minded persons, even in the extreme degree ofthe imbecile and the idiot. [26] They come within the range of variation, by the same right as genius so comes. We cannot, it may be, prevent theoccurrence of such persons, but we can prevent them from being thefounders of families tending to resemble themselves. And in so doing, itwill be agreed by most people, we shall be effecting a task of immensebenefit to society and the race. 

Feeble-mindedness is largely handed on by heredity. It was formerlysupposed that idiocy and feeble-mindedness are mainly due toenvironmental conditions, to the drink, depravity, general disease, orlack of nutrition of the parents, and there is no doubt an element oftruth in that view. But serious and frequent as are the results of badenvironment and acquired disease in the parentage of the feeble-minded, they do not form the fundamental factor in the production of thefeeble-minded. [27]

Feeble-mindedness is essentially a germinal variation, belonging to thesame large class as all other biological variations, occurring, for themost part, in the first place spontaneously, but strongly tending to beinherited. It thus resembles congenital cataract, deaf-mutism, thesusceptibility to tuberculous infection, etc. [28]

Exact investigation is now showing that feeble-mindedness is passed onfrom parent to child to an enormous extent. Some years ago Ashby, speaking from a large experience in the North of England, estimated thatat least seventy-five per cent of feeble-minded children are born withan inherited tendency to mental defect. More precise investigation hassince shown that this estimate was under the mark. Tredgold, who inEngland has most carefully studied the heredity of the feeble-minded, [29]found that in over eighty-two per cent cases there is a bad nervousinheritance. In a large number of cases the bad heredity was associatedwith alcoholism or consumption in the parentage, but only in a smallproportion of cases (about seven per cent) was it probable thatalcoholism and consumption alone, and usually combined, had sufficed toproduce the defective condition of the children, while environmentalconditions only produced mental defect in ten per cent cases. [30]Heredity is the chief cause of feeble-mindedness, and a normal child isnever born of two feeble-minded parents. The very thorough investigationof the heredity of the feeble-minded which is now being carried on atthe institution for their care at Vineland, New Jersey, shows even moredecisive results. By making careful pedigrees of the families to whichthe inmates at Vineland belong it is seen that in a large proportion ofcases feeble-mindedness is handed on from generation to generation, andis traceable through three generations, though it sometimes skips ageneration. In one family of three hundred and nineteen persons, onehundred and nineteen were known to be feeble-minded, and only forty-twoknown to be normal. The families tended to be large, sometimes verylarge, most of them in many cases dying in infancy or growing upweak-minded. [31]

Not only is feeble-mindedness inherited, and to a much greater degreethan has hitherto been suspected even by expert authorities, but thefeeble-minded thus tend (though, as Davenport and Weeks have found, notinvariably) to have a larger number of children than normal people. Thatindeed, we might expect, apart altogether from the question of anyinnate fertility. The feeble-minded have no forethought and noself-restraint. They are not adequately capable of resisting their ownimpulses or the solicitations of others, and they are unable tounderstand adequately the motives which guide the conduct of ordinarypeople. The average number of children of feeble-minded people seems tobe frequently about one-third more than in normal families, and issometimes much greater. Dr. Ettie Sayer, when investigating for theLondon County Council the family histories of one hundred normalfamilies and one hundred families in which mentally defective childrenhad been found, ascertained that the families of the latter averaged 7. 6children, while in the normal families they averaged 5. Tredgold, specially investigating 150 feeble-minded cases, found that theybelonged to families in which 1269 children had been born, that is tosay 7. 3 per family, or, counting still-born children, 8. 4. Nearlytwo-thirds of these abnormally large families were mentally defective, many showing a tendency to disease, pauperism, criminality, or else toearly death. [32]

Here, indeed, we have a counterbalancing influence, for, in the largefamilies of the feeble-minded, there is a correspondingly largeinfantile mortality. A considerable proportion of Tredgold's group ofchildren were born dead, and a very large number died early. Eichholz, again, found that, in one group of defective families, about sixty percent of the children died young. That is probably an unusually highproportion, and in Eichholz's cases it seems to have been associatedwith very unusually large families, but the infant mortality is alwaysvery high. 

This large early mortality of the offspring of the feeble-minded is, however, very far from settling the question of the disposal of thementally defective, or we should not find families of them propagatedfrom generation to generation. The large number who die early merelyserves, roughly speaking, to reduce the size of the abnormal family tothe size of a normal family, and some authorities consider that itscarcely suffices to do this, for we must remember that there is aconsiderable mortality even in the so-called normal family during earlylife. Even when there is no abnormal fertility in the defective familywe may still have to recognize that, as Davenport and Weeks argue, theirdefectiveness is intensified by heredity. Moreover, we have to considerthe social disorder and the heavy expense which accompany the largeinfantile mortality. Illegitimacy is frequently the result offeeble-mindedness, since feeble-minded women are peculiarly unable toresist temptation. A great number of such women are continually cominginto the workhouses and giving birth to illegitimate children whom theyare unable to support, and who often never become capable of supportingthemselves, but in their turn tend to produce a new feeble-mindedgeneration, more especially since the men who are attracted to thesefeeble-minded women are themselves--according to the generallyrecognized tendency of the abnormal to be attracted to theabnormal--feeble-minded or otherwise mentally defective. There is thusgenerated not only a heavy financial burden, but also a perpetual dangerto society, and, it may well be, a serious depreciation in the qualityof the community. [33]

It is not only in themselves that the feeble-minded are a burden on thepresent generation and a menace to future generations. In large measurethey form the reservoir from which the predatory classes are recruited. This is, for instance, the case as regards prostitutes. Feeble-mindedgirls, of fairly high grade, may often be said to be predestined toprostitution if left to themselves, not because they are vicious, butbecause they are weak and have little power of resistance. They cannotproperly weigh their actions against the results of their actions, andeven if they are intelligent enough to do that, they are still too weakto regulate their actions accordingly. Moreover, even when, as oftenhappens among the high-grade feeble-minded, they are quite able andwilling to work, after they have lost their "respectability" by having achild, the opportunities for work become more restricted, and they driftinto prostitution. It has been found that of nearly 15, 000 women whopassed through Magdalen Homes in England, over 2500, or more thansixteen per cent--and this is probably an under-estimate--weredefinitely feeble-minded. The women belonging to this feeble-mindedgroup were known to have added 1000 illegitimate children to thepopulation. In Germany Bonhoeffer found among 190 prostitutes who passedthrough a prison that 102 were hereditarily degenerate and 53feeble-minded. This would be an over-estimate as regards averageprostitutes, though the offences were no doubt usually trivial, but inany case the association between prostitution and feeble-mindedness isintimate. Everywhere, there can be no doubt, the ranks of prostitutioncontain a considerable proportion of women who were, at the very outset, in some slight degree feeble-minded, mentally and morally a littleblunted through some taint of inheritance. [34]

Criminality, again, is associated with feeble-mindedness in the mostintimate way. Not only do criminals tend to belong to large families, but the families that produce feeble-minded offspring also producecriminals, while a certain degree of feeble-mindedness is extremelycommon among criminals, and the most hopeless and typical, thoughfortunately rare, kind of criminal, frequently termed a "moralimbecile, " is nothing more than a feeble-minded person whose defect isshown not so much in his intelligence as in his feelings and hisconduct. Sir H. B. Donkin, who speaks with authority on this matter, estimates that, though it is difficult to obtain the early history ofthe criminals who enter English prisons, about twenty per cent of themare of primarily defective mental capacity. This would mean that everyyear some 35, 000 feeble-minded persons are sent to English prisons as"criminals. " The tendency of criminals to belong to the feeble-mindedclass is indeed every day becoming more clearly recognized. AtPentonville, putting aside prisoners who were too mentally affected tobe fit for prison discipline, eighteen per cent of the adult prisonersand forty per cent of the juvenile offenders were found to befeeble-minded. This includes only those whose defect is fairly obvious, and is not the result of methodical investigation. It is certain thatsuch methodical inquiry would reveal a very large proportion of cases ofless obvious mental defect. Thus the systematic examination of a numberof delinquent children in an Industrial School showed that inseventy-five per cent cases they were defective as compared to normalchildren, and that their defectiveness was probably inborn. Even thepossession of a considerable degree of cunning is no evidence againstmental defect, but may rather be said to be a sign of it, for it showsan intelligence unable to grasp the wider relations of life, andconcentrated on the gratification of petty and immediate desires. Thusit happens that the cunning of criminals is frequently associated withalmost inconceivable stupidity. [35]

Closely related to the great feeble-minded class, and from time to timefalling into crime, are the inmates of workhouses, tramps, and theunemployable. The so-called "able-bodied" inmates of the workhouses arefrequently found, on medical examination, to be, in more than fifty percent cases, mentally defective, equally so whether they are men orwomen. Tramps, by nature and profession, who overlap the workhousepopulation, and are estimated to number 20, 000 to 30, 000 in England andWales, when the genuine unemployed are eliminated, are everywhere foundto be a very degenerate class, among whom the most mischievous kinds offeeble-mindedness and mental perversion prevail. Inebriates, the peoplewho are chronically and helplessly given to drink, largely belong to thesame great family, and do not so much become feeble-minded because theydrink, but possess the tendency to drink because they have a strain offeeble-mindedness from birth. Branthwaite, the chief English authorityon this question, finds that of the inebriates who come to his notice, putting aside altogether the group of actually insane persons, aboutsixty-three per cent are mentally defective, and scarcely more than athird of the whole number of average mental capacity. It is evident thatthese people, even if restored to sobriety, would still retain theirmore or less inborn defectiveness, and would remain equally, unfit tobecome the parents of the coming generation. 

These are the kind of people--tramps, prostitutes, paupers, criminals, inebriates, all tending to be born a little defective--who largely makeup the great degenerate families whose histories are from time to timerecorded. Such a family was that of the Jukes in America, who, in thecourse of five generations, by constantly intermarrying with bad stocks, produced 709 known descendants who were on the whole unfit for society, and have been a constant danger and burden to society. [36] A still largerfamily of the same kind, more recently studied in Germany, consisted of834 known persons, all descended from a drunken vagabond woman, probablysomewhat feeble-minded but physically vigorous. The great majority ofthese descendants were prostitutes, tramps, paupers, and criminals (someof them murderers), and the direct cost in money to the Prussian Statefor the keep and care of this woman and her family has been a quarter ofa million pounds. Yet another such family is that of the "Zeros. " Threecenturies ago they were highly respectable people, living in a Swissvalley. But they intermarried with an insane stock, and subsequentlymarried other women of an unbalanced nature. In recent times 310 membersof this family have been studied, and it is found that vagrancy, feeble-mindedness, mental troubles, criminality, pauperism, immoralityare, as it may be termed, their patrimony. [37]

These classes, with their tendency to weak-mindedness, their inbornlaziness, lack of vitality, and unfitness for organized activity, contain the people who complain that they are starving for want of work, though they will never perform any work that is given them. Feeble-mindedness is an absolute dead-weight on the race. It is an evilthat is unmitigated. The heavy and complicated social burdens andinjuries it inflicts on the present generation are without compensation, while the unquestionable fact that in any degree it is highlyinheritable renders it a deteriorating poison to the race; itdepreciates the quality of a people. The task of Social Hygiene whichlies before us cannot be attempted by this feeble folk. Not only canthey not share it, but they impede it; their clumsy hands are for everbecoming entangled in the delicate mechanism of our modern civilization. Their very existence is itself an impediment. Apart altogether from thegross and obvious burden in money and social machinery which theprotection they need, and the protection we need against them, castsupon the community, [38] they dilute the spiritual quality of thecommunity to a degree which makes it an inapt medium for any highachievement. It matters little how small a city or a nation is, providedthe spirit of its people is great. It is the smallest communities thathave most powerfully and most immortally raised the level ofcivilization, and surrounded the human species (in its own eyes) with ahalo of glory which belongs to no other species. Only a handful ofpeople, hemmed in on every side, created the eternal radiance of Athens, and the fame of the little city of Florence may outlive that of thewhole kingdom of Italy. To realize this truth in the future ofcivilization is one of the first tasks of Social Hygiene. [39]

It is here that the ideals of Eugenics may be expected to workfruitfully. To insist upon the power of heredity was once considered toindicate a fatalistic pessimism. It wears a very different aspectnowadays, in the light of Eugenics. "To the eugenist, " as Davenportobserves, "heredity stands as the one great hope of the human race: itssaviour from imbecility, poverty, disease, immorality. "[40] We cannot, indeed, desire any compulsory elimination of the unfit or any centrallyregulated breeding of the fit. [41] Such notions are idle, and even themere fact that unbalanced brains may air them abroad tends to impair thelegitimate authority of eugenic ideals. The two measures which are nowcommonly put forward for the attainment of eugenic ends--healthcertificates as a legal preliminary to marriage and the sterilization ofthe unfit--are excellent when wisely applied, but they becomemischievous, if not ridiculous, in the hands of fanatics who wouldemploy them by force. Domestic animals may be highly bred from outside, compulsorily. Man can only be bred upwards from within through themedium of his intelligence and will, working together under the controlof a high sense of responsibility. The infinite cunning of men and womenis fully equal to the defeat of any attempt to touch life at thisintimate point against the wish of those to whom the creation of life isentrusted. The laws of marriage even among savages have often beencomplex and strenuous in the highest degree. But it has been easy tobear them, for they have been part of the sacred and inviolabletraditions of the race; religion lay behind them. And Galton, whorecognized the futility of mere legislation in the elevation of therace, believed that the hope of the future lies in rendering eugenics apart of religion. The only compulsion we can apply in eugenics is thecompulsion that comes from within. All those in whom any fine sense ofsocial and racial responsibility is developed will desire, beforemarriage, to give, and to receive, the fullest information on all thematters that concern ancestral inheritance, while the registration ofsuch information, it is probable, will become ever simpler and more amatter of course. [42] And if he finds that he is not justified in aidingto carry on the race, the eugenist will be content to make himself, inthe words of Jesus, "a eunuch for the kingdom of Heaven's sake, "whether, under modern conditions, that means abstention in marriage fromprocreation, or voluntary sterilization by operative methods. [43] For, asGiddings has put it, the goal of the race lies, not in the ruthlessexaltation of a super-man, but in the evolution of a super-mankind. Sucha goal can only be reached by resolute selection and elimination. [44]

The breeding of men lies largely in the hands of women. That is why thequestion of Eugenics is to a great extent one with the woman question. The realization of eugenics in our social life can only be attained withthe realization of the woman movement in its latest and completest phaseas an enlightened culture of motherhood, in all that motherhood involvesalike on the physical and the psychic sides. Motherhood on the eugenicbasis is a deliberate and selective process, calling for the highestintelligence as well as the finest emotional and moral aptitudes, sothat all the best energies of a long evolution of womanhood in the pathsof modern culture here find their final outlet. The breeding of childrenfurther involves the training of children, and since the expansion ofSocial Hygiene renders education a far larger and more delicate taskthan it has ever been before, the responsibilities laid upon women bythe evolution of civilization become correspondingly great. 

For the men who have been thus born and taught the tasks imposed bySocial Hygiene are in no degree lighter. They demand all the bestqualities of a selectively bred race from which the mentally andphysically weak have, so far as possible, been bred out. Thesubstitution of law for war alike in the relations of class to class, and of nation to nation, and the organization of international methodsof social intercourse between peoples of different tongues and unliketraditions, are but two typical examples of the tasks, difficult butimperative, which Social Hygiene presents and the course of moderncivilization renders insistent. Again, the adequate adjustment of theclaims of the individual and the claims of the community, each carriedto its farthest point, can but prove an exquisite test of the quality ofany well-bred and well-trained race. It is exactly in that balancing ofapparent opposites, the necessity of pushing to extremes both opposites, and the consequent need of cultivating that quality of temperance theGreeks estimated so highly, that the supreme difficulties of moderncivilization lie. We see these difficulties again in relation to theextension of law. It is desirable and inevitable that the sphere of lawshould be extended, and that the disputes which are still decided bybrutal and unreasoning force should be decided by humane and reasoningforce, that is to say, by law. But, side by side with this extension oflaw, it is necessary to wage a constant war with the law-makingtendency, to cherish an undying resolve to maintain unsullied thosesacred and intimate impulses, all the finest activities of the moralsphere, which the generalizing hand of law can only injure and stain. 

It is these fascinating and impassioning problems, every day becoming ofmore urgent practical importance, which it is the task of Social Hygieneto solve, having first created the men and women who are fit to solvethem. It is such problems as these that we are to-day called upon toilluminate, as far as we may--it may not yet be very far--by the drylight of science. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Muralt, _Lettres sur les Anglais_. Lettre V. 

[2] In the reign of Richard II (1388) an Act was passed for "thepunishment of those which cause corruption near a city or great town tocorrupt the air. " A century later (in Henry VII's time) an Act waspassed to prevent butchers killing beasts in walled towns, the preambleto this Act declaring that no noble town in Christendom should containslaughter-houses lest sickness be thus engendered. In Charles II's time, after the great fire of London, the law provided for the better pavingand cleansing of the streets and sewers. It was, however, in Italy, asWeyl points out (_Geschichte der Sozialen Hygiene im Mittelalter_, at ameeting of the Gesellschaft für Soziale Medizin, May 25, 1905), that themodern movement of organized sanitation began. In the thirteenth centurythe great Italian cities (like Florence and Pistoja) possessed _CodiciSanitarii_; but they were not carried out, and when the Black Deathreached Florence in 1348, it found the city altogether unprepared. Itwas Venice which, in the same year, first initiated vigorous Statesanitation. Disinfection was first ordained by Gian Visconti, in Milan, in 1399. The first quarantine station of which we hear was establishedin Venice in 1403. 

[3] The rate of infant mortality in England and Wales has decreased from149 per 1000 births in 1871-80 to 127 per 1000 births in 1910. Inreference to this remarkable fall which has taken place _pari passu_with the fall in the birth-rate, Newsholme, the medical officer to theLocal Government Board, writes: "There can be no reasonable doubt thatmuch of the reduction has been caused by that 'concentration' on themother and the child which has been a striking feature of the last fewyears. Had the experience of 1896-1900 held good there would have been45, 120 more deaths of infants in 1910 than actually occurred. " In someparts of the country, however, where the women go out to work infactories (as in Lancashire and parts of Staffordshire) the infantilemortality remains very high. 

[4] Mrs. Bertrand Russell, "The Ghent School for Mothers, " _NineteenthCentury_, December, 1906. 

[5] It is scarcely necessary to say that other classifications of socialreform on its more hygienic side may be put forward. Thus W. H. Allen, looking more narrowly at the sanitary side of the matter, but withoutconfining his consideration to the nineteenth century, finds that thereare always seven stages: (1) that of racial tutelage, when sanitationbecomes conscious and receives the sanction of law; (2) the introductionof sanitary comfort, well-paved streets, public sewers, extensivewaterworks; (3) the period of commercial sanitation, when the mercantileclasses insist upon such measures as quarantine and street-cleaning tocheck the immense ravages of epidemics; (4) the introduction oflegislation against nuisances and the tendency to extend the definitionof nuisance, which for Bracton, in the fourteenth century, meant anobstruction, and for Blackstone, in the eighteenth, included thingsotherwise obnoxious, such as offensive trades and foul watercourses; (5)the stage of precaution against the dangers incidental to the slums thatare fostered by modern conditions of industry; (6) the stage ofphilanthropy, erecting hospitals, model tenements, schools, etc. ; (7)the stage of socialistic sanitation, when the community as a wholeactively seeks its own sanitary welfare, and devotes public funds tothis end. (W. H. Allen, "Sanitation and Social Progress, " _AmericanJournal of Sociology_, March, 1903. )

[6] Dr. F. Bushee has pointed out ("Science and Social Progress, "_Popular Science Monthly_, September, 1911) that there is a kind ofrelated progression between science and practice in this matter: "Thenatural sciences developed first, because man was first interested inthe conquest of nature, and the simpler physical laws could be graspedat an early period. This period brought an increase of wealth, but itwas wasteful of human life. The desire to save life led the way to thestudy of biology. Knowledge of the physical environment and of life, however, did not prevent social disease from flourishing, and did notgreatly improve the social condition of a large part of society. Toovercome these defects the social sciences within recent years have beencultivated with great seriousness. Interest in the social sciences hashad to wait for the enlarged sympathies and the sense of solidaritywhich has appeared with the growing interdependence of densepopulations, and these conditions have been dependent upon the advanceof the other sciences. With the cultivation of the social sciences, thechain of knowledge will be complete, at least so far as the needs whichhave already appeared are concerned. For each group of sciences willsolve one or more of the great problems which man has encountered in theprocess of development. The physical sciences will solve the problems ofenvironment, the biological sciences the problems of life, and thesocial sciences the problems of society. "

[7] This exclusive pre-occupation with the improvement of theenvironment has been termed Euthenics by Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, who haswritten a book with this title, advocating euthenics in opposition toeugenics. 

[8] Not one of the four stages of social reform already summarized canbe neglected. On the contrary, they all need to be still furtherconsolidated in a completely national organization of health. I mayperhaps refer to the little book on _The Nationalization of Health_, inwhich, many years ago, I foreshadowed this movement, as well as to therecent work of Professor Benjamin Moore on the same subject. Thegigantic efforts of Germany, and later of England, to establish NationalInsurance systems, bear noble witness to the ardour with which these twocountries, at all events, are moving towards the desired goal. 

[9] In some countries, however, the decline, although traceable about1876, only began to be pronounced somewhat later, in Austria in 1883, inthe German Empire, Hungary and Italy in 1885, and in Prussia in 1886. Most of these countries, though late in following the modern movement ofcivilization initiated by France, are rapidly making their way in thesame direction. Thus the birth-rate in Berlin is already as low as thatof Paris ten years ago, although the French decline began at a veryearly period. In Norway, again, the decline was not marked until 1900, but the birth-rate has nevertheless already fallen as low as that ofSweden, where the fall began very much earlier. 

[10] "Foresight and self-control is, and always must be, the ground andmedium of all Moral Socialism, " says Bosanquet (_The Civilization ofChristendom_, p. 336), using the term "Socialism" in the wide and not inthe economic sense. We see the same civilized growth of foresight andself-control in the decrease of drunkenness. Thus in England the numberof convictions for drunkenness, while varying greatly in different partsof the country, is decreasing for the whole country at the rapid rate of5000 to 8000 a year, notwithstanding the constant growth of thepopulation. It is incorrect to suppose that this decrease has anyconnection with decreased opportunities for drinking; thus in LondonCounty and in Cardiff the proportion of premises licensed for drinkingis the same, yet while the convictions for drunkenness in 1910 were inLondon 83 per 10, 000 inhabitants, in Cardiff they were under 6 per10, 000. 

[11] Thus Heron finds that in London during the past fifty years therehas been 100 per cent increase in the intensity of the relation betweenlow social birth and high birth-rate, and that the high birth-rate ofthe lower social classes is not fully compensated by their highdeath-rate (D. Heron, "On the Relation of Fertility in Man to SocialStatus, " _Drapers' Company Research Memoirs_, No. I, 1906). As, however, Newsholme and Stevenson point out (_Journal Royal Statistical Society_, April, 1906, p. 74), the net addition to the population made by the bestsocial classes is at so very slightly lower a rate than that made by thepoorest class that, even if we consent to let the question rest on thisground, there is still no urgent need for the wailings of Cassandra. 

[12] _Sociological Papers_ of the Sociological Society, 1904, p. 35. 

[13] There is a certain profit in studying one's own ancestry. It hasbeen somewhat astonishing to me to find how very slight are the socialoscillations traceable in a middle-class family and the families itintermarries with through several centuries. A professional family tendsto form a caste marrying within that caste. An ambitious member of thefamily may marry a baronet's daughter, and another, less pretentious, avillage tradesman's daughter; but the general level is maintainedwithout rising or falling. Occasionally, it happens that the ambitiousand energetic son of a prosperous master-craftsman becomes aprofessional man, marries into the professional caste, and founds aprofessional family; such a family seems to flourish for some threegenerations, and then suddenly fails and dies out in the male line, while the vigour of the female line is not impaired. 

[14] The new social adjustment of a family, it is probable, is alwaysdifficult, and if the change is sudden or extreme, the new environmentmay rapidly prove fatal to the family. Lorenz (_Lehrbuch derGenealogie_, p. 135) has shown that when a peasant family reaches anupper social class it dies out in a few generations. 

[15] See, on this point, Reibmayr, _Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentesund Genies_, Vol. I, ch. VII. 

[16] Fahlbeck, _op. Cit. _, p. 168. 

[17] Regeneration implies that there has been degeneration, and it cannotbe positively affirmed that such degeneration has, on the whole, occurred in such a manner as to affect the race. Reibmayr (_DieEntwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genies_, Bd. I, p. 400) regardsdegeneration as a process setting in with urbanization and the tendencyto diminished population; if so, it is but another name forcivilization, and can only be condemned by condemning civilization, whether or not physical deterioration occurs. The Inter-departmentalCommission on Physical Deterioration held in 1904, in London, concludedthat there are no sufficient statistical or other data to prove that thephysique of the people in the present, as compared with the past, hasundergone any change; and this conclusion was confirmed by theDirector-General of the Army Medical Service. There is certainly goodreason to believe that urban populations (and especially industrialworkers in factories) are inferior in height and weight and generaldevelopment to rural populations, and less fit for military or similarservice. The stunted development of factory workers in the East End ofLondon was noted nearly a century ago, and German military experiencedistinctly shows the inferiority of the town-dweller to thecountry-dweller. (See e. G. Weyl, _Handbuch der Hygiene_, Supplement, Bd. IV, pp. 746 _et seq. _; _Politisch-Anthropologische Revue_, 1905, pp. 145_et seq. _) The proportion of German youths fit for military serviceslowly decreases every year; in 1909 it was 53. 6 per cent, in 1910 only53 per cent; of those born in the country and engaged in agricultural orforest work 58. 2 were found fit; of those born in the country andengaged in other industries, 55. 1 per cent; of those born in towns, butengaged in agricultural or forest work, 56. 2 per cent; of those born intowns and engaged in other industries 47. 9 per cent. It is fairly clearthat this deterioration under urban and industrial conditions cannotproperly be termed a racial degeneration. It is, moreover, greatlyimproved even by a few months' training, and there is an immensedifference between the undeveloped, feeble, half-starved recruit fromthe slums and the robust, broad-shouldered veteran when he leaves thearmy. The term "aggeneration"--not beyond criticism, though it is freefrom the objection to "regeneration"--was proposed by Prof. Christianvon Ehrenfels ("Die Aufsteigende Entwicklung des Menschen, "_Politisch-Anthropologische Revue_, April, 1903, p. 50). 

[18] It is unnecessary to touch here on the question of infant mortality, which has already been referred to, and will again come in forconsideration in a later chapter. It need only be said that a highbirth-rate is inextricably combined with a high death-rate. The Europeancountries with the highest birth-rates are, in descending order: Russia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Servia, and Hungary. The European countries with thehighest death-rates are, in descending order, almost the same: Russia, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria, and Servia, It is the same outside Europe. Thus Chile, with a birth-rate which comes next after Roumania, has adeath-rate that is only second to Russia. 

[19] Nyström (_La Vie Sexuelle_, 1910, p. 248) believes that "the time iscoming when it will be considered the duty of municipal authorities, ifthey have found by experience or have reason to suspect that childrenwill be thrown upon the parish, to instruct parents in methods ofpreventive conception. "

[20] The directly unfavourable influences on the child of too short aninterval between its birth and that of the previous child has beenshown, for instance, by Dr. R. J. Ewart ("The Influence of Parental Ageon Offspring, " _Eugenics Review_, October, 1911). He has found atMiddlesbrough that children born at an interval of less than two yearsafter the birth of the previous child still show at the age of six anotable deficiency in height, weight, and intelligence, when comparedwith children born after a longer interval, or with first-born children. 

[21] _Tatler_, Vol. II, No. 175, 1709. 

[22] "Write Man for Primula, and the stage of the world for that of thegreenhouse, " says Professor Bateson (_Biological Fact and the Structureof Society_, 1912, p. 9), "and I believe that with a few generations ofexperimental breeding we should acquire the power similarly to determinehow the varieties of men should be represented in the generations thatsucceed. " But Bateson proceeds to point out that our knowledge is stillvery inadequate, and he is opposed to eugenics by Act of Parliament. 

[23] E. Solmi, _La Città del Sole di Campanella_, 1904, p. Xxxiv. 

[24] Only a year before his death Galton wrote (Preface to _Essays inEugenics_): "The power by which Eugenic reform must chiefly be effectedis that of Popular Opinion, which is amply strong enough for thatpurpose whenever it shall be roused. "

[25] It may perhaps be necessary to remark that by sterilization is heremeant, not castration, but, in the male vasectomy (and a correspondingoperation in the female), a simple and harmless operation which involvesno real mutilation and no loss of power beyond that of procreation. Seeon this and related points, Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychologyof Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society, " chap. XII. 

[26] The term "feeble-minded" may be used generally to cover all degreesof mental weakness. In speaking a little more precisely, however, wehave to recognize three main degrees of congenital mental weakness:_feeble-mindedness_, in which with care and supervision it is possibleto work and earn a livelihood; _imbecility_, in which the subject isbarely able to look after himself, and sometimes only has enoughintelligence to be mischievous (the moral imbecile); and _idiocy_, thelowest depth of all, in which the subject has no intelligence and noability to look after himself. More elaborate classifications aresometimes proposed. The method of Binet and Simon renders possible afairly exact measurement of feeble-mindedness. 

[27] Mott (_Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry_, Vol. V, 1911) acceptsthe view that in some cases feeble-mindedness is simply a form ofcongenital syphilis, but he points out that feeble-mindedness abounds inmany rural districts where syphilis, as well as alcoholism, is veryrare, and concludes by emphasizing the influence of heredity; theprevalence of feeble-mindedness in these rural districts is thus due tothe fact that the mentally and physically fit have emigrated to thegreat industrial centres, leaving the unfit to procreate the race. 

[28] "Whether germinal variations, " remarked Dr. R. J. Ryle at aConference on Feeble-mindedness (_British Medical Journal_, October 3, 1911), "be expressed by cleft palate, cataract, or cerebral deficiencyof the pyramidal cells in the brain cortex, they may be produced, and, when once produced, they are reproduced as readily as the perfectedstructure of the face or eye or brain, if the gametes which containthese potentialities unite to form the ovum. But Nature is not only theproducer. Given a fair field and no favour, natural selection wouldleave no problem of the unfit to perplex the mind of man who looksbefore and after. This we know cannot be, and we know, too, that we haveno longer the excuse of ignorance to cover the neglect of the new dutieswhich belong to the present epoch of civilization. We know now that wehave to deal with a growing group in our community who demand permanentcare and control as well for their own sakes as for the welfare of thecommunity. All are now agreed on the general principle of segregation, but it is true that something more than this should be forthcoming. Thedifficulties of theory are clearing up as our wider view obtains afirmer grasp of our material, but the difficulties of practice are stillbefore us. " These remarks correspond with the general results reached bythe Royal Commission on the Feeble-minded, which issued its voluminousfacts and conclusions in 1908. 

[29] See, for instance, A. F. Tredgold, _Mental Deficiency_, 1908. 

[30] The investigation of Bezzola showing that the maxima in theconception of idiots occur at carnival time, and especially at thevintage, has been held (especially by Forel) to indicate that alcoholismof the parents at conception causes idiocy in the offspring. It may beso. But it may also be that the licence of these periods enables thedefective members of the community to secure an amount of sexualactivity which they would be debarred from under normal conditions. Inthat case the alcoholism would merely liberate, and not create, theidiocy-producing mechanism. 

[31] Godden, _Eugenics Review_, April, 1911. 

[32] Feeble-mindedness and the other allied variations are not alwaysexactly repeated in inheritance. They may be transmuted in passing fromfather to son, an epileptic father, for instance, having a feeble-mindedchild. These relationships of feeble-mindedness have been clearlybrought out in an important investigation by Davenport and Weeks(_Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease_, November, 1911), who have forthe first time succeeded in obtaining a large number of really thoroughand precise pedigrees of such cases. 

[33] It may be as well to point out once more that the possibility ofsuch limited depreciation must not be construed into the statement thatthere has been any general "degeneration of the race. " It maybe addedthat the notion that the golden age lay in the past, and that our ownage is degenerate is not confined to a few biometricians of to-day; ithas commended itself to uncritical minds in all ages, even the greatest, as far back as we can go. Montesquieu referred to this common notion(and attempted to explain it) in his _Pensées Diverses_: "Men have sucha bad opinion of themselves, " he adds, "that they have believed not onlythat their minds and souls were degenerate, but even their bodies, andthat they were not so tall as the men of previous ages. " It is thusquite logically that we arrive at the belief that when mankind firstappeared, "there were giants on the earth in those days, " and that Adamlived to the age of nine hundred and thirty. Evidently no syndromes ofdegenerescence there!

[34] The Superintendent of a large State School for delinquent girls inAmerica (as quoted in the Chicago Vice Commission's Report on _TheSocial Evil in Chicago_, p. 229) says: "The girls who come to uspossessed of normal brain power, or not infected with venereal disease, we look upon as a prize indeed, and we seldom fail to make a woman worthwhile of a really normal girl, whatever her environment has been. But wehave failed in numberless cases where the environment has been allright, but the girl was born wrong. "

[35] See e. G. Havelock Ellis, _The Criminal_, 4th ed. , 1910, chap IV. 

[36] R. L. Dugdale, _The Jukes_, 4th ed. , 1910. It is noteworthy thatDugdale, who wrote nearly forty years ago, was concerned to prove theinfluence of bad environment rather than of bad heredity. At that timethe significance of heredity was scarcely yet conceived. It remainstrue, however, that bad heredity and bad environment constantly worktogether for evil. 

[37] Jörger, _Archiv für Rassen-und Gesellschafts-Biologie_, 1905, p. 294. Criminal families are also recorded by Aubry, _La Contagion duMeutre_. 

[38] Even during school life this burden is serious. Mr. Bodey, Inspectorof Schools, states that the defective school child costs three times asmuch as the ordinary school child. 

[39] I have set forth these considerations more fully in a popular formin _The Problem of the Regeneration of the Race_, the first of a seriesof "New Tracts for the Times, " issued under the auspices of the NationalCouncil of Public Morals. 

[40] C. B. Davenport, "Euthenics and Eugenics, " _Popular Science Monthly_, January, 1911. 

[41] The use of the terms "fit" and "unfit" in a eugenic sense has beencriticized. It is said, for instance, that in a bad environment it maybe precisely the defective classes who are most "fit" to survive. It isquite true that these terms are not well adapted to resisthyper-critical attack. The persistence with which they are employedseems, however, to indicate a certain "survival of the fittest. " Theterms "worthy" and "unworthy, " which some would prefer to substitute, are unsatisfactory, for they have moral associations which aremisleading. Galton spoke of "civic worth" in this connection, and veryoccasionally used the term "worthy" (with inverted commas), but he wascareful to point out (_Essays in Eugenics_, p. 35) that in eugenics "wemust leave morals as far as possible out of the discussion, notentangling ourselves with the almost hopeless difficulties they raise asto whether a character as a whole is good or bad. "

[42] Dr. Toulouse has devoted a whole volume to the results of a minutepersonal examination of Zola, the novelist, and another to Poincaré, themathematician. Such minute investigations are at present confined to menof genius, but some day, perhaps, we shall consider that from theeugenic standpoint all men are men of genius. 

[43] Sterilization for social ends was introduced in Switzerland a fewyears ago, in order to enable some persons with impaired self-control tobe set at liberty and resume work without the risk of adding to thepopulation defective members who would probably be a burden on thecommunity. It was performed with the consent of the subjects (in somecases at their urgent request) and their relations, so requiring nospecial legislation, and the results are said to be satisfactory. Insome American States sterilization for some classes of defective personshas been established by statute, but it is difficult to obtain reliableinformation as regards the working and the results of such legislation. 

[44] When Professor Giddings speaks of the "goal of mankind, " it must, ofcourse, be remembered, he is using a bold metaphor in order to make hismeaning clearer. Strictly speaking, mankind has no "goals, " nor arethere any ends in Nature which are not means to further ends. 

II

THE CHANGING STATUS OF WOMEN[45]

 The Origin of the Woman Movement--Mary Wollstonecraft--George Sand--Robert Owen--William Thompson--John Stuart Mill--The Modern Growth of Social Cohesion--The Growth of Industrialism--Its Influence in Woman's Sphere of Work--The Education of Women--Co-education--The Woman Question and Sexual Selection--Significance of Economic Independence--The State Regulation of Marriage--The Future of Marriage--Wilhelm von Humboldt--Social Equality of Women--The Reproduction of the Race as a Function of Society--Women and the Future of Civilization. 

I

It was in the eighteenth century, the seed-time of modern ideas, thatour great-grandfathers became conscious of a discordant break in thetraditional conceptions of women's status. The vague cries of Justice, Freedom, Equality, which were then hurled about the world, were here andthere energetically applied to women--notably in France byCondorcet--and a new movement began to grow self-conscious and coherent. Mary Wollstonecraft, after Aphra Behn the first really noteworthyEnglishwoman of letters, gave voice to this movement in England. 

The famous and little-read _Vindication of the Rights of Women_, careless and fragmentary as it is, and by no means so startling to us asto her contemporaries, shows Mary Wollstonecraft as a woman of genuineinsight, who saw the questions of woman's social condition in theiressential bearings. Her intuitions need little modification, even thougha century of progress has intervened. The modern advocates of woman'ssuffrage have little to add to her brief statement. She is far, indeed, from the monstrous notion of Miss Cobbe, that woman's suffrage is the"crown and completion" of all progress so far as women's movements areconcerned. She looks upon it rather as one of the reasonable conditionsof progress. It is pleasant to turn from the eccentric energy of so manyof the advocates of women's causes to-day, all engaged in crying uptheir own particular nostrum, to the genial many-sided wisdom of MaryWollstonecraft, touching all subjects with equal frankness and delicacy. 

The most brilliant and successful exponent of the new revolutionaryideas--making Corinne and her prototype seem dim and ineffectual--wasundoubtedly George Sand. The badly-dressed woman who earned her livingby scribbling novels, and said to M. Du Camp, as she sat before him insilence rolling her cigarette, "Je ne dis rien parceque je suis bête, "has exercised a profound influence throughout Europe, an influencewhich, in the Sclavonic countries especially, has helped to give impetusto the resolution we are now considering. And this not so much from anydefinite doctrines that underlie her work--for George Sand's views onsuch matters varied as much as her political views--as from her wholetemper and attitude. Her large and rich nature, as sometimes happens ingenius of a high order, was twofold; on the one hand, she possessed asolid serenity, a quiet sense of power, the qualities of a _bonnebourgeoise_, which found expression in her imperturbable calm, hergentle look and low voice. And with this was associated a massive, almost Rabelaisian temperament (one may catch glimpses of it in hercorrespondence), a sane exuberant earthliness which delighted in everymanifestation of the actual world. On the other hand, she bore withinher a volcanic element of revolt, an immense disgust of law and custom. Throughout her life George Sand developed her strong and splendidindividuality, not perhaps as harmoniously, but as courageously and assincerely as even Goethe. 

Robert Owen, who, like Saint-Simon in France, gave so extraordinary animpulse to all efforts at social reorganization, and who planted theseed of many modern movements, could not fail to extend his influence tothe region of sex. A disciple of his, William Thompson, who still holdsa distinguished position in the history of the economic doctrines ofSocialism, wrote, under the inspiration of a woman (a Mrs. Wheeler), and published in 1825, an _Appeal of One Half of the Human Race, Women, against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to retain them inPolitical, and thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery_. It is a thoroughand logical, almost eloquent, demand for the absolute social equality ofthe sexes. [46]

Forty years later, Mill, also inspired by a woman, published his_Subjection of Women_. However partial and inadequate it may seem to us, this was at that day a notable book. Mill's clear vision and femininesensibilities gave freshness to his observations regarding the conditionand capacity of women, while his reputation imparted gravity andresonance to his utterances. Since then the signs in literature of thebreaking up of the status of women have become far too numerous to bechronicled even in a volume. It is enough to have mentioned here sometypical initiatory names. Now, the movement may be seen at workanywhere, from Norway to Italy, from Russia to California. The statuswhich women are now entering places them, not, as in the old communism, in large measure practically above men, nor, as in the subsequentperiod, both practically and theoretically in subordination to men. Itplaces them side by side, with like rights and like duties in relationto society. 

II

Condorcet, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Sand, Owen, Mill--these werefeathers on the stream. They indicated the forces that had their sourceat the centre of social life. That historical movement which producedmother-law probably owed its rise, as well as its fall, to demands ofsubsistence and property--that is, to economic causes. The decay of thesubsequent family system, in which the whole power is concentrated inthe male head, is being produced by similar causes. The early communism, and the modes of action and sentiment which it had produced, stillpractically persisted long after the new system had arisen. In thepatriarchal family the woman still had a recognized sphere of work and arecognized right to subsistence. It was not, indeed, until the suddendevelopment of the industrial system, and the purely individualisticeconomics with which it was associated, at the beginning of thenineteenth century, that women in England were forced to realize thattheir household industries were gone, and that they must join in thatgame of competition in which the field and the rules had alike beenchosen with reference to men alone. The commercial and industrialsystem, and the general diffusion of education that has accompanied it, and which also has its roots in economic causes, has been the chiefmotive force in revolutionizing the status of women; and the epoch ofunrestricted competition on masculine lines has been a necessary periodof transition. [47]

At the present time two great tendencies are visible in our socialorganization. On the one hand, the threads of social life are growingcloser, and organization, as regards the simple and common means ofsubsistence, is increasing. On the other hand, as regards the thingsthat most closely concern the individual person, the sphere of freedomis being perpetually enlarged. Instead of every man digging a well forhis own use and at his own free pleasure, perhaps in a graveyard or acesspool, we consent to the distribution of water by a centralexecutive. We have carried social methods so far that, instead ofproducing our own bread and butter, we prefer to go to a common bakeryand dairy. The same centralizing methods are extending to all thosethings of which all have equal need. On the other hand, we exercise avery considerable freedom of individual thought. We claim a larger andlarger freedom of individual speech and criticism. We worship any god wechoose, after any fashion we choose. The same individual freedom isbeginning to invade the sexual relationships. It is extending to allthose things in regard to which civilized men have become so variouslydifferentiated that they have no equal common needs. These twotendencies, so far from being antagonistic, cannot even be carried outunder modern conditions of life except together. It is only by socialco-operation in regard to what is commonly called the physical side oflife that it becomes possible for the individual to develop his ownpeculiar nature. The society of the future is a reasonable anarchyfounded on a broad basis of Collectivism. 

It is not our object here to point out how widely these tendenciesaffect men, but it is worth while to indicate some of their bearings onthe condition of women. While genuine productive industries have beentaken out of the hands of women who work under the old conditions, anincreasingly burdensome weight of unnecessary duties has been laid uponthem. Under the old communistic system, when a large number of familieslived together in one great house, the women combined to perform theirhousehold duties, the cooking being done at a common fire. They hadgrown up together from childhood, and combination could be effectedwithout friction. It is the result of the later system that the womanhas to perform all the necessary household duties in the most wastefulmanner, with least division of labour; while she has, in addition, toperform a great amount of unnecessary work, in obedience to traditionalor conventional habits, which make it impossible even to perform thesimple act of dusting the rooms of a small house in less than perhaps anhour and a half. She has probably also to accomplish, if she happens tobelong to the middle or upper classes, an idle round of so-called"social duties. " She tries to escape, when she can afford it, byadopting the apparently simple expedient of paying other people toperform these necessary and unnecessary household duties, but thisexpedient fails; the "social duties" increase in the same ratio as theservants increase and the task of overseeing these latter itself provesformidable. It is quite impossible for any person under these conditionsto lead a reasonable and wholesome human life. A healthy life is moredifficult to attain for the woman of the ordinary household than for theworker in a mine, for he at least, when the work of his set is over, hastwo-thirds of the twenty-four hours to himself. The woman is bound by athousand Lilliputian threads from which there seems no escape. She oftenmakes frantic efforts to escape, but the combined strength of thethreads generally proves too strong. There can be no doubt that thepresent household system is doomed; the higher standard of intelligencedemanded from women, the growth of interest in the problems of domesticeconomy, the movement for association of labour, the revolt against thesurvivals of barbaric complication in living--all these, which aresymptoms of a great economic revolution, indicate, the approach of a newperiod. 

The education of women is an essential part of the great movement we areconsidering. Women will shortly be voters, and women, at all events inEngland, are in a majority. We have to educate our mistresses as we oncehad to educate our masters. And the word "education" is here used by nomeans in the narrow sense. A woman may be acquainted with Greek and thehigher mathematics, and be as uneducated in the wider relationships oflife as a man in the like case. How much women suffer from this lack ofeducation may be seen to-day even among those who are counted asleaders. 

There are extravagances in every period of transition. Undoubtedly apotent factor in bringing about a saner attitude will be the educationof boys and girls together. The lack of early fellowship fosters anunnatural divergence of aims and ideals, and a consequent lack ofsympathy. It makes possible those abundant foolish generalizations bymen concerning "women, " by women concerning "men. " St. Augustine, at anearly period of his ardent career, conceived with certain friends thenotion of forming a community having goods in common; the scheme wasalmost effected when it was discovered that "those little wives, whichsome already had, and others would shortly have, " objected, and so itfell through. Perhaps the _mulierculæ_ were right. It is simply a ratherremote instance of a fundamental divergence amply illustrated before oureyes. If men and women are to understand each other, to enter into eachother's natures with mutual sympathy, and to become capable of genuinecomradeship, the foundation must be laid in youth. Another wholesomereform, promoted by co-education, is the physical education of women. Inthe case of boys special attention has generally been given to physicaleducation, and the lack of it is one among several artificial causes ofthat chronic ill-health which so often handicaps women. Women must havethe same education as men, Miss Faithfull shrewdly observes, becausethat is sure to be the best. The present education of boys cannot, however, be counted a model, and the gradual introduction ofco-education will produce many wholesome reforms. If the intimateassociation of the sexes destroys what remnant may linger of theunhealthy ideal of chivalry--according to which a woman was treated as across between an angel and an idiot--that is matter for rejoicing. Wherever men and women stand in each other's presence the sexualinstinct will always ensure an adequate ideal halo. 

III

The chief question that we have to ask when we consider the changingstatus of women is: How will it affect the reproduction of the race?Hunger and love are the two great motor impulses, the ultimate source, probably, of all other impulses. Hunger--that is to say, what we call"economic causes"--has, because it is the more widespread and constant, though not necessarily the more imperious instinct, produced nearly allthe great zoological revolutions, including, as we have seen, the riseand fall of that phase of human evolution dominated by mother-law. Yetlove has, in the form of sexual selection, even before we reach thevertebrates, moulded races to the ideal of the female; and reproductionis always the chief end of nutrition which hunger waits on, the supremeaim of life everywhere. 

If we place on the one side man, as we know him during the historicalperiod, and on the other, nearly every highly organized member of theanimal family, there appears, speaking roughly and generally, a distinctdifference in the relation which these two motor impulses bear to eachother. Among animals generally, economics are comparatively so simplethat it is possible to satisfy the nutritive instinct without puttingany hard pressure on the spontaneous play of the reproductive instinct. And nearly everywhere it is the female who has the chief voice in theestablishment of sexual relationships. The males compete for the favourof the female by the fascination of their odour, or brilliant colour, orsong, or grace, or strength, as revealed in what are usuallymock-combats. The female is, in these respects, comparativelyunaccomplished and comparatively passive. With her rests the finaldecision, and only after long hesitation, influenced, it seems, by avaguely felt ideal resulting from her contemplation of the rivals, shecalls the male of her choice. [48] A dim instinct seems to warn her of thepains and cares of maternity, so that only the largest promises ofpleasure can induce her to undertake the function of reproduction. Incivilized man, on the other hand, as we know him, the situation is tosome extent reversed; it is the woman who, by the display of herattractions, competes for the favour of the man. The final invitationdoes not come, as among animals generally, from the female; the decisionrests with the man. It would be a mistake to suppose that this changereveals the evolution of a superior method; although it has developedthe beauty of women, it has clearly had its origin in economic causes. The demands of nutrition have overridden those of reproduction; sexualselection has, to a large extent, given place to natural selection, aprocess clearly not for the advantage of the race. The changing statusof women, in bestowing economic independence, will certainly tend torestore to sexual selection its due weight in human development. 

In so doing it will certainly tend also to destroy prostitution, whichis simply one of the forms in which the merging of sexual selection innatural selection has shown itself. Wherever sexual selection has freeplay, unhampered by economic considerations, prostitution isimpossible. The dominant type of marriage is, like prostitution, foundedon economic considerations; the woman often marries chiefly to earn herliving; here, too, we may certainly expect profound modifications. Wehave long sought to preserve our social balance by placing anunreasonable licence in the one scale, an equally unreasonableabstinence in the other; the economic independence of women, tending torender both extremes unnecessary, can alone place the sexualrelationships on a sound and free basis. 

The State regulation of marriage has undoubtedly played a large andimportant part in the evolution of society. At the present time theadvantages of this artificial control no longer appear so obvious(even when the evidence of the law courts is put aside); they willvanish altogether when women have attained complete economicindependence. With the disappearance of the artificial barriers in theway of friendship between the sexes and of the economic motive tosexual relationships--perhaps the two chief forces which now tend toproduce promiscuous sexual intercourse, whether dignified or not withthe name of marriage--men and women will be free to engage, unhampered, in the search, so complicated in a highly civilizedcondition of society, for a fitting mate. [49]

It is probable that this inevitable change will be brought about partlyby the voluntary action of individuals, and in greater measure by thegradual and awkward method of shifting and ever freer divorce laws. Theslow disintegration of State-regulated marriage from the latter causemay be observed now throughout the United States, where there is, on thewhole, a developing tendency to frequency and facility of divorce. Itis clear, however, that on this line marriage will not cease to be aconcern to the State, and it may be as well to point out at once theimportant distinction between State-_regulated_ and State-_registered_marriage. Sexual relationships, so long as they do not result in theproduction of children, are matters in which the community has, as acommunity, little or no concern, but as soon as a sexual relationshipresults in the pregnancy of the woman the community is at onceinterested. At this point it is clearly the duty of the State toregister the relationship. [50]

It is necessary to remember that the kind of equality of the sexestowards which this change of status is leading, is social equality--thatis, equality of freedom. It is not an intellectual equality, still lessis it likeness. Men and women can only be alike mentally when they arealike in physical configuration and physiological function. Evencomplete economic equality is not attainable. Among animals which livein herds under the guidance of a leader, this leader is nearly always amale; there are few exceptions. [51] In woman, the long period ofpregnancy and lactation, and the prolonged helplessness of her child, render her for a considerable period of her life economically dependent. On whom shall she be dependent? This is a question of considerablemoment. According to the old conception of the family, all the memberswere slaves producing for the benefit of the owner, and it was naturalthat the wife should be supported by the husband when she is producingslaves for his service. But this conception is, as we have seen, nolonger possible. It is clearly unfair also to compel the mother todepend on her own previous exertions. The reproduction of the race is asocial function, and we are compelled to conclude that it is the duty ofthe community, as a community, to provide for the child-bearer when inthe exercise of her social function she is unable to provide forherself. The woman engaged in producing a new member, who may be asource of incalculable profit or danger to the whole community, cannotfail to be a source of the liveliest solicitude to everyone in thecommunity, and it was a sane and beautiful instinct that foundexpression of old in the permission accorded to a pregnant woman toenter gardens and orchards, and freely help herself. Whether thisinstinct will ever again be embodied in a new form, and the reproductionof the race be recognized as truly a social function, is a questionwhich even yet lacks actuality. The care of the child-bearer and herchild will at present continue to be a matter for individualarrangement. That it will be arranged much better than at present wemay reasonably hope. On the one hand, the reckless multiplication ofchildren will probably be checked; on the other hand, a large body ofwomen will no longer be shut out from maternity. That the state shouldundertake the regulation of the birth-rate we can scarcely either desireor anticipate. Undoubtedly the community has an abstract right to limitthe number of its members. It may be pointed out, however, that underrational conditions of life the process would probably beself-regulating; in the human races, and also among animals generally, fertility diminishes as the organism becomes highly developed. And, without falling back on any natural law, it may be said that theextravagant procreation of children, leading to suffering both toparents and offspring, carried on under existing social conditions, islargely the result of ignorance, largely of religious or othersuperstition. A more developed social state would not be possible at allunless the social instincts were strong enough to check the recklessmultiplication of offspring. Richardson and others appear to advocatethe special cultivation of a class of non-childbearing women. Certainlyno woman who freely chose should be debarred from belonging to such aclass. But reproduction is the end and aim of all life everywhere, andin order to live a humanly complete life, every healthy woman shouldhave, not sexual relationships only, but the exercise at least once inher life of the supreme function of maternity, and the possession ofthose experiences which only maternity can give. That unquestionably isthe claim of natural and reasonable living in the social state towardswhich we are moving. 

To deal with the social organization of the future would be to passbeyond the limits that I have here set myself, and to touch on mattersof which it is impossible to speak with certainty. The new culture ofwomen, in the light and the open air, will doubtless solve many matterswhich now are dark to us. Morgan supposed that it was in some measurethe failure of the Greeks and Romans to develop their womanhood whichbrought the speedy downfall of classic civilization. The women of thefuture will help to renew art and science as well as life. They will domore even than this, for the destiny of the race rests with women. "Ihave sometimes thought, " Whitman wrote in his _Democratic Vistas_, "thatthe sole avenue and means to a reconstructed society depended primarilyon a new birth, elevation, expansion, invigoration of women. " Thatintuition is not without a sound basis, and if a great historicalmovement called for justification here would be enough. 

FOOTNOTES:

[45] This chapter was written so long ago as 1888, and published in the_Westminster Review_ in the following year. I have pleasure in hereincluding it exactly as it was originally written, not only because ithas its proper place in the present volume, but because it may beregarded as a programme which I have since elaborated in numerousvolumes. The original first section has, however, been omitted, as itembodied a statement of the matriarchal theory which, in view of thedifficulty of the subject and the wide differences of opinion about it, I now consider necessary to express more guardedly (see, for a morerecent statement, Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society, " chap. X). With this exception, and the deletion of two insignificant footnotes, no changes have beenmade. After the lapse of a quarter of a century I find nothing that Iseriously wish to withdraw and much that I now wish to emphasize. 

[46] The following passage summarizes this _Appeal_: "The simple andmodest request is, that they may be permitted equal enjoyments with men, _provided they can, by the free and equal development and exercise oftheir faculties, procure for themselves such enjoyments_. They ask thesame means that men possess of acquiring every species of knowledge, ofunfolding every one of their faculties of mind and body that can be madetributary to their happiness. They ask every facility of access to everyart, occupation, profession, from the highest to the lowest, without oneexception, to which their inclinations and talents may direct and mayfit them to occupy. They ask the removal of _all_ restraints andexclusions not applicable to men of equal capacities. They ask forperfectly equal political, civil, and domestic rights. They ask forequal obligations and equal punishments from the law with men in case ofinfraction of the same law by either party. They ask for an equal systemof morals, founded on utility instead of caprice and unreasoningdespotism, in which the same action, attended with the sameconsequences, whether done by man or woman, should be attended with thesame portion of approbation or disapprobation; in which every pleasure, accompanied or followed by no preponderant evil, should be equallypermitted to women and to men; in which every pleasure accompanied orfollowed by preponderant evil should be equally censured in women and inmen. "

[47] A period of transition not the less necessary although it iscertainly disastrous and tends to produce an unwholesome tension betweenthe sexes so long as men and women do not receive equal payment forequal work. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, " as a working man inBlackburn lately put it, "but when the thing of beauty takes to doingthe work for 16s. A week that you have been paid 22s. For, you do notfeel as if you cannot live without possessing that thing of beauty allto yourself, or that you are willing to lay your life and your fortune(when you have one) at its feet. " On the other hand, the working girl inthe same town often complains that a man will not look at a girl unlessshe is a "four-loom weaver, " earning, that is, perhaps, 20s. Or 25s. Aweek. 

[48] See the very interesting work of Alfred Espinas, _Des SociétésAnimales_, which contains many fruitful suggestions for the student ofhuman sociology. 

[49] The subtle and complex character of the sexual relationships in ahigh civilization, and the unhappy results of their State regulation, was well expressed by Wilhehm von Humboldt in his _Ideen zu einenVersuch, die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staates zu bestimmen_, so longago as 1792: "A union so closely allied with the very nature of therespective individuals must be attended with the most hurtfulconsequences when the State attempts to regulate it by law, or, throughthe force of its institutions, to make it repose on anything save simpleinclination. When we remember, moreover, that the State can onlycontemplate the final results of such regulations on the race, we shallbe still more ready to admit the justice of this conclusion. It mayreasonably be argued that a solicitude for the race only conducts to thesame results as the highest solicitude for the most beautifuldevelopment of the inner man. For after careful observation it has beenfound that the uninterrupted union of one man with one woman is mostbeneficial to the race, and it is likewise undeniable that no otherunion springs from true, natural, harmonious love. And further, it maybe observed that such love leads to the same results as those veryrelations which law and custom tend to establish. The radical errorseems to be that the law commands; whereas such a relation cannot moulditself according to external arrangements, but depends wholly oninclination; and wherever coercion or guidance comes into collision withinclination, they divert it still farther from the proper path. Wherefore it appears to me that the State should not only loosen thebonds in this instance, and leave ampler freedom to the citizen, butthat it should entirely withdraw its active solicitude from theinstitution of marriage, and both generally and in its particularmodifications, should rather leave it wholly to the free choice of theindividuals, and the various contracts they may enter into with respectto it. I should not be deterred from the adoption of this principle bythe fear that all family relations might be disturbed, for although sucha fear might be justified by considerations of particular circumstancesand localities, it could not fairly be entertained in an inquiry intothe nature of men and States in general. For experience frequentlyconvinces us that just where law has imposed no fetters, morality mostsurely binds; the idea of external coercion is one entirely foreign toan institution which, like marriage, reposes only on inclination and aninward sense of duty; and the results of such coercive institutions donot at all correspond to the intentions in which they originate. "

[50] Such register should, as Bertillon rightly insisted, be of the mostcomplete description--setting forth all the anthropological traits ofthe contracting parties--so that the characteristics of a human group atany time and place may be studied and compared. Registration of thiskind would, beside its more obvious convenience, form an almostindispensable guide to the higher evolution of the race. I may here addthat I have assumed, perhaps too rashly, that the natural tendency amongcivilized men and women is towards a monogamic and more or lesspermanent union; preceded, it may be in most individuals, by a morerestless period of experiment. Undoubtedly, many variations will arisein the future, leading to more complex relationships. Such variationscannot be foreseen, and when they arise they will still have to provetheir stability and their advantage to the race. 

[51] As among geese, and, occasionally, it is said, among elephants. 

III

THE NEW ASPECT OF THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT

 Eighteenth-Century France--Pioneers of the Woman's Movement--The Growth of the Woman's Suffrage Movement--The Militant Activities of the Suffragettes--Their Services and Disservices to the Cause--Advantages of Women's Suffrage--Sex Questions in Germany--Bebel--The Woman's Rights Movement in Germany--The Development of Sexual Science in Germany--the Movement for the Protection of Motherhood--Ellen Key--The Question of Illegitimacy--Eugenics--Women as Law-makers in the Home. 

I

The modern conception of the political equality of women with men, wehave seen, arose in France in the second half of the eighteenth century. Its way was prepared by the philosophic thinkers of the _Encyclopédie_, and the idea was definitely formulated by some of the finest minds ofthe age, notably by Condorcet, [52] as part of the great new programme ofsocial and political reform which was to some small degree realized inthe upheaval of the Revolution. The political emancipation of womenconstituted no part of the Revolution. It has indeed been maintained, and perhaps with reason, that the normal development of therevolutionary spirit would probably have ended in vanquishing the claimof masculine predominance if war had not diverted the movement ofrevolution by transforming it into the Terror. Even as it was, therights of women were not without their champions even at this period. Weought specially to remember Olympe de Gouges, whose name is sometimesdismissed too contemptuously. With all her defects of character andeducation and literary style, Olympe de Gouges, as is now becomingrecognized, was, in her biographer's words, "one of the loftiest andmost generous souls of the epoch, " in some respects superior to MadameRoland. She was the first woman to demand of the Revolution that itshould be logical by proclaiming the rights of woman side by side withthose of her equal, man, and in so doing she became the great pioneer ofthe feminist movement of to-day. [53] She owes the position moreespecially to her little pamphlet, issued in 1791, entitled _Déclarationdes Droits de la Femme_. It is this _Déclaration_ which contains theoft-quoted (or misquoted) saying: "Women have the right to ascend thescaffold; they must also have the right to ascend the tribune. " Twoyears later she had herself ascended the scaffold, but the other rightshe claimed is only now beginning to be granted to women. At that timethere were too many more pressing matters to be dealt with, and the onlywomen who had been taught to demand the rights of their sex wereprecisely those whom the Revolution was guillotining or exiling. Evenhad it been otherwise, we may be quite sure that Napoleon, the heir ofthe Revolution and the final arbiter of what was to be permanent in itsachievements, would have sternly repressed any political freedomaccorded to women. The only freedom he cared to grant to women was thefreedom to produce food for cannon, and so far as lay in his power hesought to crush the political activities of women even in literature, aswe see in his treatment of Mme de Staël. [54]

An Englishwoman of genius was in Paris at the time of the Revolution, with as broad a conception of the place of woman side by side with manas Olympe de Gouges, while for the most part she was Olympe's superior. In 1792, a year after the _Déclaration des Droits de la Femme_, MaryWollstonecraft--it is possible to some extent inspired by the brief_Déclaration_--published her _Vindication of the Rights of Women_. Itwas not a shrill outcry, nor an attack on men--in that indeedresembling the _Déclaration_--but just the book of a woman, a wise andsensible woman, who discusses many women's questions from a woman'spoint of view, and desires civil and political rights, not as a panaceafor all evils, but simply because, as she argues, humanity cannotprogress as a whole while one half of it is semi-educated and only halffree. There can be little doubt that if the later advocates of woman'ssuffrage could have preserved more of Mary Wollstonecraft's sanity, moderation, and breadth of outlook, they would have diminished thedifficulties that beset the task of convincing the community generally. Mary Wollstonecraft was, however, the inspired pioneer of a greatmovement which slowly gained force and volume. [55] During the longVictorian period the practical aims of this movement went chiefly intothe direction of improving the education of girls so as to make it, sofar as possible, like that of boys. In this matter an immense revolutionwas slowly accomplished, involving the entrance of women into variousprofessions and employments hitherto reserved to men. That was a verynecessary preliminary to the extension of the franchise to women. Thesuffrage propaganda could not, moreover, fail to benefit by the bettereducation of women and their increased activity in public life. It wastheir activity, indeed, far more than the skill of the women who foughtfor the franchise, which made the political emancipation of womeninevitable, and the noble and brilliant women who through the middle ofthe nineteenth century recreated the educational system for women, andso prepared them to play their proper part in life, were the best womenworkers the cause of women's enfranchisement ever had. There was, however, one distinguished friend of the emancipation of women whoseadvocacy of the cause at this period was of immense value. It is nownearly half a century since John Stuart Mill--inspired, like Thompson, by a woman--wrote his _Subjection of Women_, and it may undoubtedly besaid that since that date no book on this subject published in anycountry--with the single exception of Bebel's _Woman_--has been sowidely read or so influential. The support of this distinguished andauthoritative thinker gave to the woman's movement a stamp ofaristocratic intellectuality very valuable in a land where even thefinest minds are apt to be afflicted by the disease of timidity, and wasdoubtless a leading cause of the cordial reception which in England theidea of women's political emancipation has long received amongpoliticians. Bebel's book, speedily translated into English, furnishedthe plebeian complement to Mill's. 

The movement for the education of women and their introduction intocareers previously monopolized by men inevitably encouraged the movementfor extending the franchise to women. This political reform wasremarkably successful in winning over the politicians, and not those ofone party only. In England, since Mill published his _Subjection ofWomen_ in 1869, there have always been eminent statesmen convinced ofthe desirability of granting the franchise to women, and among the rankand file of Members of Parliament, irrespective of party, a very largeproportion have pledged themselves to the same cause. The difficulty, therefore, in introducing woman's suffrage into England has not beenprimarily in Parliament. The one point, at which political party feelinghas caused obstruction--and it is certainly a difficult and importantpoint--is the method by which woman's suffrage should be introduced. Each party--Conservative, Liberal, Labour--naturally enough desires thatthis great new voting force should first be applied at a point whichwould not be likely to injure its own party interests. It is probablethat in each party the majority of the leaders are of opinion that theadmission of female voters is inevitable and perhaps desirable; thedispute is as to the extent to which the floodgates should in the firstplace be opened. In accordance with English tradition, some kind ofcompromise, however illogical, suggests itself as the safest first step, but the dispute remains as to the exact class of women who should befirst admitted and the exact extent to which entrance should be grantedto them. 

The dispute of the gate-keepers would, however, be easily overcome ifthe pressure behind the gate were sufficiently strong. But it is not. However large a proportion of the voters in Great Britain may be infavour of women's franchise, it is certain that only a very minutepercentage regard this as a question having precedency over all otherquestions. And the reason why men have only taken a very temperateinterest in woman's suffrage is that women themselves, in the mass, havetaken an equally temperate interest in the matter when they have notbeen actually hostile to the movement. It may indeed be said, even atthe present time, that whenever an impartial poll is taken of a largemiscellaneous group of women, only a minority are found to be in favourof woman's suffrage. [56] No significant event has occurred to stimulategeneral interest in the matter, and no supremely eloquent or influentialvoice has artificially stirred it. There has been no woman of MaryWollstonecraft's genius and breadth of mind who has devoted herself tothe cause, and since Mill the men who have made up their minds on thisside have been content to leave the matter to the women's associationsformed for securing the success of the cause. These associations have, however, been led by women of a past generation, who, while ofunquestionable intellectual power and high moral character, have viewedthe woman question in a somewhat narrow, old-fashioned spirit, and havenot possessed the gift of inspiring enthusiasm. Thus the growth of themovement, however steady it may have been, has been slow. John StuartMill's remark, in a letter to Bain in 1869, remains true to-day: "Themost important thing women have to do is to stir up the zeal of womenthemselves. "

In the meanwhile in some other countries where, except in the UnitedStates, it was of much more recent growth, the woman's suffrage movementhas achieved success, with no great expenditure of energy. It has beenintroduced into several American States and Territories. It isestablished throughout Australasia. It is also established in Norway. InFinland women may not only vote, but also sit in Parliament. 

It was in these conditions that the Women's Social and Political Unionwas formed in London. It was not an offshoot from any existing woman'ssuffrage society, but represented a crystallization of new elements. Forthe most part, even its leaders had not previously taken any active partin the movement for woman's suffrage. The suffrage movement had need ofexactly such an infusion of fresh and ardent blood; so that the newsociety was warmly welcomed, and met with immediate success, findingrecruits alike among the rich and the poor. Its unconventional methods, its eager and militant spirit, were felt to supply a lacking element, and the first picturesque and dashing exploits of the Union were on thewhole well received. The obvious sincerity and earnestness of these veryfresh recruits covered the rashness of their new and rather ignorantenthusiasm. 

But a hasty excess of ardour only befits a first uncalculated outburstof youthfulness. It is quite another matter when it is deliberatelyhardened into a rigid routine, and becomes an organized method ofcreating disorder for the purpose of advertising a grievance in seasonand out of season. Since, moreover, the attack was directed chieflyagainst politicians, precisely that class of the community most inclinedto be favourable to woman's suffrage, the wrong-headedness of themovement becomes as striking as its offensiveness. 

The effect on the early friends of the new movement was inevitable. Some, who had hailed it with enthusiasm and proclaimed its pioneers asnew Joans of Arc, changed their tone to expostulation and protest, andfinally relapsed into silence. Other friends of the movement, even amongits former leaders, were less silent. They have revealed to the world, too unkindly, some of the influences which slowly corrupt such amovement from the inside when it hardens into sectarianism: thenarrowing of aim, the increase of conventionality, the jealousy ofrivals, the tendency to morbid emotionalism. 

It is easy to exaggerate the misdeeds and the weaknesses of thesuffragettes. It is undoubtedly true that they have alienated, in anincreasing degree, the sympathies of the women of highest character andbest abilities among the advocates of woman's suffrage. Nearly allEnglishwomen to-day who stand well above the average in mentaldistinction are in favour of woman's suffrage, though they may notalways be inclined to take an active part in securing it. Perhaps theonly prominent exception is Mrs. Humphry Ward. Yet they rarely associatethemselves with the methods of the suffragettes. They do not, indeed, protest, for they feel there would be a kind of disloyalty in fightingagainst the Extreme Left of a movement to which they themselves belong;but they stand aloof. The women who are chiefly attracted to the ranksof the suffragettes belong to three classes: (1) Those of the well-to-doclass with no outlet for their activities, who eagerly embrace anexciting occupation which has become, not only highly respectable, buteven, in a sense, fashionable; they have no natural tendency to excess, but are easily moved by their social environment; some of these arerich, and the great principle--once formulated in an unhappy momentconcerning a rich lady interested in social reform--"We must not killthe goose that lays the golden eggs, " has never been despised by thesuffragette leaders; (2) the rowdy element among women which is not somuch moved to adopt the methods for the sake of the cause as to adoptthe cause for the sake of the methods, so that in the case of theirspecial emotional temperament it may be said, reversing an ancientphrase, that the means justify the end; this element of noisyexplosiveness, always found in a certain proportion of women, thoughlatent under ordinary circumstances, is easily aroused by stimulation, and in every popular revolt the wildest excesses are the acts of women. (3) In this small but important group we find women of rare andbeautiful character who, hypnotized by the enthralling influence of anidea, and often having no great intellectual power of their own, areeven unconscious of the vulgarity that accompanies them, and gladlysacrifice themselves to a cause that seems to be sacred; these are thesaints and martyrs of every movement. 

When we thus analyse the suffragette outburst we see that it is reallycompounded out of quite varied elements: a conventionally respectableelement, a rowdy element, and an ennobling element. It is, therefore, equally unreasonable to denounce its vices or to idealize its virtues. It is more profitable to attempt to balance its services and itsdisservices to the cause of women's suffrage. 

Looked at dispassionately, the two main disadvantages of the suffragetteagitation--and they certainly seem at the first glance verycomprehensive objections--lie in its direction and in its methods. Thereare two vast bodies of people who require to be persuaded in order tosecure woman's suffrage: first women themselves, and secondly theirmen-folk, who at present monopolize the franchise. Until the majority ofboth men and women are educated to understand the justice andreasonableness of this step, and until men are persuaded that the timehas come for practical action, the most violent personal assaults oncabinet ministers--supposing such political methods to be otherwiseunobjectionable--are beside the mark. They are aimed in the wrongdirection. This is so even when we leave aside the fact thatpoliticians are sufficiently converted already. The primary task ofwomen suffragists is to convert their own sex. Indeed it may be saidthat that is their whole task. Whenever the majority of women arepersuaded that they ought to possess the vote, we may be quite sure thatthey will communicate that persuasion to their men-folk who are able togive them the vote. The conversion of the majority of women to a beliefin women's suffrage is essential to its attainment because it is only bythe influence of the women who belong to him, whom he knows and lovesand respects, that the average man is likely to realize that, as EllenKey puts it, "a ballot paper in itself no more injures the delicacy of awoman's hand than a cooking recipe. " The antics of women in the street, however earnest those women may be, only leave him indifferent, evenhostile, at most, amused. 

It may be added that in any case it would be undesirable, even ifpossible, to bestow the suffrage on women so long as only a minorityhave the wish to exercise it. It would be contrary to sound publicpolicy. It would not only discredit political rights, but it would tendto give the woman's vote too narrow and one-sided a character. To grantwomen the right to vote is a different matter from granting women theright to enter a profession. In order to give women the right to bedoctors or lawyers it is not necessary that women generally should beconvinced of the advantage of such a step. The matter chiefly concernsthe very small number of women who desire the privilege. But the womenwho vote will be in some measure legislating for women generally, and itis therefore necessary that women generally should participate. 

But even if it is admitted--although, as we have seen, there is atwofold reason for not making such an admission--that the suffragettesare justified in regarding politicians as the obstacles in the way oftheir demands, there still remains the question of the disadvantage oftheir method. This method is by some euphemistically described as theintroduction of "nagging" into politics; but even at this mild estimateof its character the question may still be asked whether the method iscalculated to attain the desired end. One hears women suffragettesdeclare that this is the only kind of argument men understand. There is, however, in the masculine mind--and by no means least when it isBritish--an element which strongly objects to be worried and bulliedeven into a good course of action. The suffragettes have done their bestto stimulate that element of obstinacy. Even among men who viewed thematter from an unprejudiced standpoint many felt that, necessary aswoman's suffrage is, the policy of the suffragettes rendered the momentunfavourable for its adoption. It is a significant fact that in thecountries which have so far granted women the franchise no methods inthe slightest degree resembling those of the suffragettes have ever beenpractised. It is not easy to imagine Australia tolerating such methods, and in Finland full Parliamentary rights were freely granted, as isgenerally recognized, precisely as a mark of gratitude for women'shelpfulness in standing side by side with their men in a great politicalstruggle. The policy of obstruction adopted by the English suffragettes, with its "tactics" of opposing at election times the candidates of thevery party whose leaders they are imploring to grant them the franchise, was so foolish that it is little wonder that many doubted whether womenat all understand the methods of politics, or are yet fitted to take aresponsible part in political life. 

The suffragette method of persuading public men seems to be, on thewhole, futile, even if it were directed at the proper quarter, and evenif it were in itself a justifiable method. But it would be possible togrant these "ifs" and still to feel that a serious injury is done to thecause of woman's suffrage when the method of violence is adopted bywomen. Some suffragettes have argued, in this matter, that in politicalcrises men also have acted just as badly or worse. But, even if weassume that this is the case, [57] it has been one of the chief argumentshitherto for the admission of women into political life that theyexercise an elevating and refining influence, so that their entranceinto this field will serve to purify politics. That, no doubt, is anargument mostly brought forward by men, and may be regarded as, in somemeasure, an amiable masculine delusion, since most of the refining andelevating elements in civilization probably owe their origin not towomen but to men. But it is not altogether a delusion. In the virtues offorce--however humbly those virtues are to be classed--women, as a sex, can never be the rivals of men, and when women attempt to gain theirends by the demonstration of brute force they can only place themselvesat a disadvantage. They are laying down the weapons they know best howto use, and adopting weapons so unsuitable that they only injure theusers. 

Many women, speaking on behalf of the suffragettes, protest against theidea that women must always be "charming. " And if "charm" is to beunderstood in so narrow and conventionalized a sense that it meanssomething which is incompatible with the developed natural activities, whether of the soul or of the body, then such a protest is amplyjustified. But in the larger sense, "charm"--which means the power toeffect work without employing brute force--is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm. And thejustification for women in this matter is that herein they represent theprogress of civilization. All civilization involves the substitution inthis respect of the woman's method for the man's. In the last resort asavage can only assert his rights by brute force. But with the growth ofcivilization the wronged man, instead of knocking down his opponent, employs "charm"; in other words he engages an advocate, who, by theexercise of sweet reasonableness, persuades twelve men in a box thathis wrongs must be righted, and the matter is then finally settled, notby man's weapon, the fist, but by woman's weapon, the tongue. Nowadaysthe same method of "charm" is being substituted for brute force ininternational wrongs, and with the complete substitution of arbitrationfor war the woman's method of charm will have replaced the man's methodof brute force along the whole line of legitimate human activity. If werealize this we can understand why it is that a group of women who, evenin the effort to support a good cause, revert to the crude method ofviolence are committing a double wrong. They are wronging their own sexby proving false to its best traditions, and they are wrongingcivilization by attempting to revive methods of savagery which it iscivilization's mission to repress. Therefore it may fairly be held thateven if the methods of the suffragettes were really adequate to securewomen's suffrage, the attainment of the franchise by those methods wouldbe a misfortune. The ultimate loss would be greater than the gain. 

If we hold the foregoing considerations in mind it is difficult to avoidthe conclusion that neither in their direction nor in their nature arethe methods of the suffragettes fitted to attain the end desired. Wehave still, however, to consider the other side of the question. 

Whenever an old movement receives a strong infusion of new blood, whatever excesses or mistakes may arise, it is very unlikely that allthe results will be on the same side. It is certainly not so in thiscase. Even the opposition to woman's suffrage which the suffragettesare responsible for, and the Anti-Suffrage societies which they havecalled into active existence, are not an unmitigated disadvantage. Everymovement of progress requires a vigorous movement of opposition tostimulate its progress, and the clash of discussion can only bebeneficial in the end to the progressive cause. 

But the immense advantage of the activity of the suffragettes has beenindirect. It has enabled the great mass of ordinary sensible women whoneither join Suffrage societies nor Anti-Suffrage societies to think forthemselves on this question. Until a few years ago, while most educatedwomen were vaguely aware of the existence of a movement for giving womenthe vote, they only knew of it as something rather unpractical andremote; its reality had never been brought home to them. When womenwitnessed the eruption into the streets of a band of women--most of themapparently women much like themselves--who were so convinced that thefranchise must be granted to women, here and now, that they wereprepared to face publicity, ridicule, and even imprisonment, then "votesfor women" became to them, for the first time, a real and living issue. In a great many cases, certainly, they realized that they intenselydisliked the people who behaved in this way and any cause that was sopreached. But in a great many other cases they realized, for the firsttime definitely, that the demand of votes for women was a reasonabledemand, and that they were themselves suffragists, though they had nowish to take an active part in the movement, and no real sympathy withits more "militant" methods. There can be no doubt that in this way thesuffragettes have performed an immense service for the cause of women'ssuffrage. It has been for the most part an indirect and undesignedservice, but in the end it will perhaps more than serve tocounterbalance the disadvantages attached to their more consciousmethods and their more deliberate aims. 

If, as we may trust, this service will be the main outcome of thesuffragette phase of the women's movement, it is an outcome to bethankful for; we may then remember with gratitude the ardent enthusiasmof the suffragettes and forget the foolish and futile ways in which itwas manifested. There has never been any doubt as to the ultimateadoption of women's suffrage; its gradual extension among the moreprogressive countries of the world sufficiently indicates that it willultimately reach even to the most backward countries. Its accomplishmentin England has been gradual, although it is here so long since the firststeps were taken, not because there has been some special and malignantopposition to it on the part of men in general and politicians inparticular, but simply because England is an old and conservativecountry, with a very ancient constitutional machinery which effectuallyguards against the hasty realization of any scheme of reform. Thisparticular reform, however, is not an isolated or independent scheme; itis an essential part of a great movement in the social equalization ofthe sexes which has been going on for centuries in our civilization, amovement such as may be correspondingly traced in the later stages ofthe civilizations of antiquity. Such a movement we may by our effortshelp forward, we may for a while retard, but it is a part ofcivilization, and it would be idle to imagine that we can affect theultimate issue. 

That the issue of women's suffrage may be reached in England within areasonable period is much to be desired for the sake of the woman'smovement in the larger sense, which has nothing to do with politics, andis now impeded by this struggle. The enfranchisement of women, MissFrances Cobbe declared thirty years ago, is "the crown and completion"of all progress in women's movement. "Votes for women, " exclaims, moreyouthfully but not less unreasonably, Miss Christabel Pankhurst, "meansa new Heaven and a new Earth. " But women's suffrage no more means a newHeaven or even a new Earth than it means, as other people fear, a newPurgatory and a new Hell. We may see this quite plainly in Australasia. Women's votes aid in furthering social legislation and contribute to thepassing of acts which have their good side, and, no doubt, likeeverything else, their bad side. As Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who devotedher life to the political enfranchisement of women, declared, the ballotis, at most, only the vestibule to women's emancipation. Man's suffragehas not introduced the millennium, and it is foolish to suppose thatwoman's suffrage can. It is merely an act of justice and a reasonablecondition of social hygiene. 

The attainment of the suffrage, if it is a beginning and not an end, will thus have a real and positive value in liberating the woman'smovement from a narrow and sterilizing phase of its course. In England, especially, the woman's movement has in the past largely confined itselfto imitating men and to obtaining the same work and the same rights asmen. Putting the matter more broadly, it may be said that it has beenthe aim of the woman's movement to secure woman's claims as a humanbeing rather than as woman. But that is only half the task of thewoman's movement, and perhaps not the most essential half. Women cannever be like men, any more than men can be like women. It is theirunlikeness which renders them indispensable to each other, and whichalso makes it imperative that each sex should have its due share inmoulding the conditions of life. Woman's function in life can never bethe same as man's, if only because women are the mothers of the race. That is the point, the only point, at which women have an uncontestedsupremacy over men. The most vital problem before our civilizationto-day is the problem of motherhood, the question of creating the humanbeings best fitted for modern life, the practical realization of a soundeugenics. Manouvrier, the distinguished anthropologist, who carriesfeminism to its extreme point in the scientific sphere, yet recognizesthe fundamental fact that "a woman's part is to make children. " But heclearly perceives also that "in all its extent and all its consequencesthat part is not surpassed in importance, in difficulty, or in dignity, by the man's part. " On the contrary it is a part which needs "an amountof intelligence incontestably superior, and by far, to that required bymost masculine occupations. "[58] We are here at the core of the woman'smovement. And the full fruition of that movement means that women, byvirtue of their supremacy in this matter, shall take their proper sharein legislation for life, not as mere sexless human beings, but as women, and in accordance with the essential laws of their own nature as women. 

II

There is a further question. Is it possible to discern the actualembodiment of this new phase of the woman movement? I think it is. 

To those who are accustomed to watch the emotional pulse of mankind, nothing has seemed so remarkable during recent years as the eruption ofsex questions in Germany. We had always been given to understand thatthe sphere of women and the laws of marriage had been definitelyprescribed and fixed in Germany for at least two thousand years, sincethe days of Tacitus, in fact, and with the best possible results. Germans assured the world in stentorian tones that only in Germany couldyoung womanhood be seen in all its purity, and that in the German_Hausfrau_ the supreme ideal had been reached, the woman whose greatmission is to keep alive the perennial fire of the ancient Germanhearth. Here and there, indeed, the quiet voice of science was heard inGermany; thus Schrader, the distinguished investigator of Teutonicorigins, in commenting on the oft-quoted testimony of Tacitus to thechastity of the German women, has appositely referred to the detailedevidences furnished by the Committee of pastors of the EvangelicalChurch as to the extreme prevalence of unchastity among the women ofrural Germany, and argued that these widespread customs must be veryancient and deep-rooted. [59] But Germans in general refused to admit thatTacitus had only used the idea of German virtue as a stick to beat hisown fellow-countrywomen with. 

The Social-Democratic movement, which has so largely overspreadindustrial and even intellectual Germany, prepared the way for a lesstraditional and idealistic way of feeling in regard to these questions. The publication by Bebel of a book, _Die Frau_, in which the leader ofthe German Social-Democratic party set forth the Socialist doctrine ofthe position of women in society, marked the first stage in the newmovement. This book exercised a wide influence, more especially onuncritical readers. It is, indeed, from a scientific point of view aworthless book--if a book in which genuine emotions are brought to thecause of human freedom and social righteousness may ever be sotermed--but it struck a rude blow at the traditions of Teutonicsentiment. With something of the rough tone and temper of the greatpeasant who initiated the German Reformation, a man who had himselfsprung from the people, and who knew of what he was speaking, here setdown in downright fashion the actual facts as to the position of womenin Germany, as well as what he conceived to be the claims of justice inregard to that position, slashing with equal vigour alike at theabsurdities of conventional marriage and of prostitution, the obverseand the reverse, he declared, of a false society. The emotionalrenaissance with which we are here concerned seems to have no specialand certainly no exclusive association with the Social-Democraticmovement, but it can scarcely be doubted that the permeation of a greatmass of the German people by the socialistic conceptions which in theirbearing on women have been rendered so familiar by Bebel's expositionhas furnished, as it were, a ready-made sounding-board which has givenresonance and effect to voices which might otherwise have been quicklylost in vacuity. 

There is another movement which counts for something in the renaissancewe are here concerned with, though for considerably less than one mightbe led to expect. What is specifically known as the "woman's rights'movement" is in no degree native to Germany, though Hippel is one of thepioneers of the woman's movement, and it is only within recent yearsthat it has reached Germany. It is alien to the Teutonic feminine mind, because in Germany the spheres of men and women are so far apart and sounlike that the ideal of imitating men fails to present itself to aGerman woman's mind. The delay, moreover, in the arrival of the woman'smovement in Germany had given time for a clearer view of that movementand a criticism of its defects to form even in the lands of its origin, so that the German woman can no longer be caught unawares by the cry forwoman's rights. Still, however qualified a view might be taken of itsbenefits, it had to be recognized, even in Germany, that it was aninevitable movement, and to some extent at all events indispensable fromthe woman's point of view. The same right to education as men, the samerights of public meeting and discussion, the same liberty to enter theliberal professions, these are claims which during recent years havebeen widely made by German women and to some extent secured, while--asis even more significant--they are for the most part no longer veryenergetically disputed. The International Congress of Women which met inBerlin in 1904 was a revelation to the citizens of Berlin of the skilland dignity with which women could organize a congress and conductbusiness meetings. It was notable, moreover, in that, though under theauspices of an International Council, it showed the large number ofGerman women who are already entitled to take a leading part in themovements for women's welfare. Both directly and indirectly, indeed, such a movement cannot be otherwise than specially beneficial inGermany. The Teutonic reverence for woman, the assertion of the "aliquiddivinum, " has sometimes been accompanied by the openly expressedconviction that she is a fool. Outside Germany it would not be easy tofind the representative philosophers of a nation putting forward socontemptuous a view of women as is set forth by Schopenhauer or byNietzsche, while even within recent years a German physician of someability, the late Dr. Möbius, published a book on the "physiologicalweak-mindedness of women. "

The new feminine movement in Germany has received highly importantsupport from the recent development of German science. The Germanintellect, exceedingly comprehensive in its outlook, ploddinglythorough, and imperturbably serious, has always taken the leading andpioneering part in the investigation of sexual problems, whether fromthe standpoint of history, biology, or pathology. Early in thenineteenth century, when even more courage and resolution were needed toface the scientific study of such questions than is now the case, Germanphysicians, unsupported by any co-operation in other countries, were thepioneers in exploring the paths of sexual pathology. [60] From theantiquarian side, Bachofen, more than half a century ago, put forth hisconception of the exalted position of the primitive mother which, although it has been considerably battered by subsequent research, hasbeen by no means without its value, and is of special significance fromthe present standpoint, because it sprang from precisely the same viewof life as that animating the German women who are to-day inauguratingthe movement we are here concerned with. From the medical side the lateProfessor Krafft-Ebing of Vienna and Dr. Albert Moll of Berlin arerecognized throughout the world as leading authorities on sexualpathology, and in recent times many other German physicians of the firstauthority can be named in this field; while in Austria Dr. F. S. Kraussand his coadjutors in the annual volumes of _Anthropophyteia_ arediligently exploring the rich and fruitful field of sexual folk-lore. The large volumes of the _Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, editedby Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld of Berlin, have presented discussions of thecommonest of sexual aberrations with a scientific and scholarlythoroughness, a practical competence, as well as admirable tone, whichwe may seek in vain in other countries. In Vienna, moreover, ProfessorFreud, with his bold and original views on the sexual causation of manyabnormal mental and nervous conditions, and his psycho-analytic methodof investigating and treating them, although his doctrines are by nomeans universally accepted, is yet exerting a revolutionary influenceall over the world. During the last ten years, indeed, the amount ofGerman scientific and semi-scientific literature, dealing with everyaspect of the sexual question, and from every point of view, isaltogether unparalleled. It need scarcely be said that much of thisliterature is superficial or worthless. But much of it is sound, and itwould seem that on the whole it is this portion of it which is mostpopular. Thus Dr. August Forel, formerly professor of psychiatry atZurich and a physician of world-wide reputation, published a few yearsago at Munich a book on the sexual question, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, inwhich all the questions of the sexual life, biological, medical, andsocial, are seriously discussed with no undue appeal to an ignorantpublic; it had an immediate success and a large sale. Dr. Forel had notentered this field before; he had merely come to the conclusion thatevery man at the end of his life ought to set forth his observations andconclusions regarding the most vital of questions. Again, at about thesame time, Dr. Iwan Bloch, of Berlin, published his many-sided work onthe sexual life of our time, _Das Sexualleben Unserer Zeit_, a work lessremarkable than Forel's for the weight of the personal authorityexpressed, but more remarkable by the range of its learning and thesympathetic attitude it displayed towards the best movements of the day;this book also met with great success. [61] Still more recently (1912) Dr. Albert Moll, with characteristic scientific thoroughness, has edited, and largely himself written, a truly encyclopædic _Handbuch derSexualwissenschaften_. The eminence of the writers of these books andthe mental calibre needed to read them suffice to show that we are notconcerned, as a careless observer might suppose, with a matter of supplyand demand in prurient literature, but with the serious and widespreadappreciation of serious investigations. This same appreciation is shownnot only by several bio-sociological periodicals of high scientificquality, but by the existence of a journal like _Sexual-Probleme_, edited by Dr. Max Marcuse, a journal with many distinguishedcontributors, and undoubtedly the best periodical in this field to befound in any language. 

At the same time the new movement of German women, however it may arisefrom or be supported by political or scientific movements, isfundamentally emotional in its character. If we think of it, every greatmovement of the Teutonic soul has been rooted in emotion. The Germanliterary renaissance of the eighteenth century was emotional in itsorigin and received its chief stimulus from the contagion of the newirruption of sentiment in France. Even German science is ofteninfluenced, and not always to its advantage, by German sentiment. TheReformation is an example on a huge scale of the emotional force whichunderlies German movements. Luther, for good and for evil, is the mosttypical of Germans, and the Luther who made his mark in the world--theshrewd, coarse, superstitious peasant who blossomed into genius--was anavalanche of emotion, a great mass of natural human instinctsirresistible in their impetuosity. When we bear in mind this generaltendency to emotional expansiveness in the manifestations of theTeutonic soul we need feel no surprise that the present movement amongGerman women should be, to a much greater extent than the correspondingmovements in other countries, an emotional renaissance. It is not, firstand last, a cry for political rights, but for emotional rights, and forthe reasonable regulation of all those social functions which arefounded on the emotions. [62]

This movement, although it may properly be said to be German, since itsmanifestations are mainly exhibited in the great German Empire, is yetessentially a Teutonic movement in the broader sense of the word. Germans of Austria, Germans of Switzerland, Dutch women, Scandinavians, have all been drawn into this movement. But it is in Germany proper thatthey all find the chief field of their activities. 

If we attempt to define in a single sentence the specific object of thisagitation we may best describe it as based on the demands of woman themother, and as directed to the end of securing for her the right tocontrol and regulate the personal and social relations which spring fromher nature as mother or possible mother. Therein we see at once both theintimately emotional and practical nature of this new claim and itsdecisive unlikeness to the earlier woman movement. That was definitely ademand for emancipation; political enfranchisement was its goal; itsperpetual assertion was that women must be allowed to do everythingthat men do. But the new Teutonic woman's movement, so far from makingas its ideal the imitation of men, bases itself on that which mostessentially marks the woman as unlike the man. 

The basis of the movement is significantly indicated by the title, _Mutterschutz_--the protection of the mother--originally borne by "aJournal for the reform of sexual morals, " established in 1905, edited byDr. Helene Stöcker, of Berlin, and now called _Die Neue Generation_. Allthe questions that radiate outwards from the maternal function are herediscussed: the ethics of love, prostitution ancient and modern, theposition of illegitimate mothers and illegitimate children, sexualhygiene, the sexual instruction of the young, etc. It must not besupposed that these matters are dealt with from the standpoint of avigilance society for combating vice. The demand throughout is for theregulation of life, for reform, but for reform quite as much in thedirection of expansion as of restraint. On many matters of detail, indeed, there is no agreement among these writers, some of whom approachthe problems from the social and practical side, some from thepsychological and philosophic side, others from the medical, legal, orhistorical sides. 

This journal was originally the organ of the association for theprotection of mothers, more especially unmarried mothers, called the_Bund für Mutterschutz_. There are many agencies for dealing withillegitimate children, but the founders of this association started fromthe conviction that it is only through the mother that the child can beadequately cared for. As nearly a tenth of the children born in Germanyare illegitimate, and the conditions of life into which such childrenare thrown are in the highest degree unfavourable, the question has itsactuality. [63] It is the aim of the _Bund für Mutterschutz_ torehabilitate the unmarried mother, to secure for her the conditions ofeconomic independence--whatever social class she may belong to--andultimately to effect a change in the legal status of illegitimatemothers and children alike. The Bund, which is directed by a committeein which social, medical, and legal interests are alike represented, already possesses numerous branches, in addition to its head-quarters inBerlin, and is beginning to initiate practical measures on the lines ofits programme, notably Homes for Mothers, of which it has establishednearly a dozen in different parts of Germany. 

In 1911 the first International Congress for the Protection of Mothersand for Sexual Reform was held at Dresden, in connection with the greatExhibition of Hygiene. As a result of this Congress, an InternationalUnion was constituted, representing Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, andHolland, which may probably be taken to be the countries which have sofar manifested greatest interest in the programme of sexual reform basedon recognition of the supreme importance of motherhood. This movementmay, therefore, be said to have overcome the initial difficulties, theantagonism, the misunderstanding, and the opprobrium, which everymovement in the field of sexual reform inevitably encounters, and oftensuccumbs to. 

It would be a mistake to regard this Association as a merelyphilanthropic movement. It claims to be "An Association for the Reformof Sexual Ethics, " and _Die Neue Generation_ deals with social andethical rather than with philanthropic questions. In these respects itreflects the present attitude of many thoughtful German women, thoughthe older school of women's rights advocates still holds aloof. We mayhere, for instance, find a statement of the recent discussionconcerning the right of the mother to destroy her offspring beforebirth. This has been boldly claimed for women by Countess Gisela vonStreitberg, who advocates a return to the older moral view whichprevailed not only in classic antiquity, but even, under certainconditions, in Christian practice, until Canon law, asserting that theembryo had from the first an independent life, pronounced abortion underall circumstances a crime. Countess von Streitberg takes the standpointthat as the chief risks and responsibilities must necessarily rest uponthe woman, it is for her to decide whether she will permit the embryoshe bears to develop. Dr. Marie Raschke, taking up the discussion fromthe legal side, is unable to agree that abortion should cease to be apunishable offence, though she advocates considerable modifications inthe law on this matter. Dr. Siegfried Weinberg, summarizing thisdiscussion, again from the legal standpoint, considers that there isconsiderable right on the Countess's side, because from the modernjuridical standpoint a criminal enactment is only justified because itprotects a right, and in law the embryo possesses no rights which can beinjured. From the moral standpoint, also, it is argued, its destructionoften becomes justifiable in the interests of the community. 

This debatable question, while instructive as an example of the radicalmanner in which German women are now beginning to face moral questions, deals only with an isolated point which has hardly yet reached thesphere of practical politics. [64] It is more interesting to consider thegeneral conceptions which underlie this movement, and we can hardly dothis better than by studying the writings of Ellen Key, who is not onlyone of its recognized leaders, but may be said to present its aims andideals in a broader and more convinced manner than any other writer. 

Ellen Key's views are mainly contained in three books, _Love andMarriage_, _The Century of the Child_, and _The Women's Movement_, inwhich form they enjoy a large circulation, and are now becoming wellknown, through translations, in England and America. She carefullydistinguishes her aims from what she regards as the American conceptionof progress in woman's movements, that is to say the tendency for womento seek to capture the activities which may be much more adequatelyfulfilled by the other sex, while at the same time neglecting the farweightier matters that concern their own sex. Man and woman are notnatural enemies who need to waste their energies in fighting over theirrespective rights and privileges; in spiritual as in physical life theyare only fruitful together. Women, indeed, need free scope for theiractivities--and the earlier aspirations of feminism are thusjustified--but they need it, not to wrest away any tasks that men may bebetter fitted to perform, but to play their part in that field ofcreative life which is peculiarly their own. Ellen Key would say thatthe highest human unit is triune: father, mother, and child. Marriage, therefore, instead of being, as it is to-day, the last thing to bethought of in education, becomes the central point of life. In EllenKey's conception, "those who love each other are man and wife, " and bylove she means not a temporary inclination, but "a synthesis of desireand friendship, " just as the air is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. Itmust be this for both sexes alike, and Ellen Key sees a real progress inwhat seems to her the modern tendency for men to realize that the soulhas its erotic side, and for women to realize that the senses have. Shehas no special sympathy with the cry for purity in masculine candidatesfor marriage put forward by some women of the present day. She observesthat many men who have painfully struggled to maintain this ideal meetwith disillusion, for it is not the masculine lamb, but much more thespotted leopard, who fascinates women. The notion that women have highermoral instincts than men Ellen Key regards as absurd. The majority ofFrenchwomen, she remarks, were against Dreyfus, and the majority ofEnglishwomen approved the South African war. The really fundamentaldifference between man and woman is that he can usually give his best asa creator, and she as a lover, that his value is according to his workand hers according to her love. And in love the demand for each sexalike must not be primarily for a mere anatomical purity, but forpassion and for sincerity. 

The aim of love, as understood by Ellen Key, is always marriage and thechild, and as soon as the child comes into question society and theState are concerned. Before fruition, love is a matter for the loversalone, and the espionage, ceremony, and routine now permitted orenjoined are both ridiculous and offensive. "The flower of love belongsto the lovers, and should remain their secret; it is the fruit of lovewhich brings them into relation to society. " The dominating importanceof the child, the parent of the race to be, alone makes the immensesocial importance of sexual union. It is not marriage which sanctifiesgeneration, but generation which sanctifies marriage. From the point ofview of "the sanctity of generation" and the welfare of the race, EllenKey looks forward to a time when it will be impossible for a man andwoman to become parents when they are unlikely to produce a healthychild, though she is opposed to Neo-Malthusian methods, partly onæsthetic grounds and partly on the more dubious grounds of doubt as totheir practical efficiency; it is from this point of view also that shefavours sexual equality in matters of divorce, the legal assimilation oflegitimate and illegitimate children, the recognition of unions outsidemarriage, --a recognition already legally established under certaincircumstances in Sweden, in such a way as to confer the rights oflegitimacy on the child, --and she is even prepared to advise women undersome conditions to become mothers outside marriage, though only whenthere are obstacles to legal marriage, and as the outcome of deliberatewill and resolution. In these and many similar proposals in detail, setforth in her earlier books, it is clear that Ellen Key has sometimesgone beyond the mandate of her central conviction, that love is thefirst condition for increasing the vitality alike of the race and of theindividuality, and that the question of love, properly considered, isthe question of creating the future man. As she herself has elsewherequite truly pointed out, practice must precede, and precede by a verylong time, the establishment of definite rules in matters of detail. 

It will be noticed that a point with which Ellen Key and the leaders ofthe new German woman's movement specially concern themselves is theaffectional needs of the "supernumerary" woman and the legitimation ofher children. There is an excess of women over men, in Germany as inmost other countries. That excess, it is said, is balanced by the largenumber of women who do not wish to marry. But that is too cheap asolution of the question. Many women may wish to remain unmarried, butno woman wishes to be forced to remain unmarried. Every woman, theseadvocates of the rights of women claim, has a right to motherhood, andin exercising the right under sound conditions she is benefitingsociety. But our marriage system, in the rigid form which it has longsince assumed, has not now the elasticity necessary to answer thesedemands. It presents a solution which is often impossible, alwaysdifficult, and perhaps in a large proportion of cases undesirable. Butfor a woman who is shut out from marriage to grasp at the vital facts oflove and motherhood which she perhaps regards, unreasonably or not, asthe supreme things in the world, must often be under such conditions adisastrous step, while it is always accompanied by certain risks. Therefore, it is asked, why should there not be, as of old there was, arelationship established which while of less dignity than marriage, andless exclusive in its demands, should yet permit a woman to enter intoan honourable, open, and legally recognized relationship with a man?Such a relationship a woman could proclaim to the whole world, ifnecessary, without reflecting any disesteem upon herself or her child, while it would give her a legal claim on her child's father. Such arelationship would be substantially the same as the ancient concubinate, which persisted even in Christendom up to the sixteenth century. Itsestablishment in Sweden has apparently been satisfactory, and it is nowsought to extend it to other countries. [65]

It is interesting to compare, or to contrast, the movement of whichEllen Key has been a conspicuous champion with the futile movementinitiated nearly a century ago by the school of Saint-Simon and ProsperEnfantin, in favour of "la femme libre. "[66] That earlier movement had nodoubt its bright and ideal side, but it was not supported by a sound andscientific view of life; it was rooted in sand and soon withered up. Thekind of freedom which Ellen Key advocates is not a freedom to dispensewith law and order, but rather a freedom to recognize and follow truelaw; it is the freedom which in morals as well as in politics isessential for the development of real responsibility. 

People talk, Ellen Key remarks, as though reform in sexual moralitymeant the breaking up of a beautiful idyll, while the idyll isimpossible as long as the only alternative offered to so many young menand women at the threshold of life is between becoming "the slave ofduty or the slave of lust. " In these matters we already possess licence, and the only sound reform lies in a kind of "freedom" which will correctthat licence by obedience to the most fundamental natural instinctsacting in harmony with the claims of the race, which claims, it must beadded, cannot be out of harmony with the best traditions of the race. Ellen Key would agree with a great German, Wilhelm von Humboldt, whowrote more than a century ago that "a solicitude for the race conductsto the same results as the highest solicitude for the most beautifuldevelopment of the inner man. " The modern revolt against fossilized lawsis inevitable; it is already in progress, and we have to see to it thatthe laws written upon tables of stone in their inevitable decay onlygive place to the mightier laws written upon tables of flesh and blood. Life is far too rich and manifold, Ellen Key says again, to be confinedin a single formula, even the best; if our ideal has its worth forourselves, if we are prepared to live for it and to die for it, that isenough; we are not entitled to impose it on others. The conception ofduty still remains, duty to love and duty to the race. "I believe in anew ethics, " Ellen Key declares at the end of _The Women's Movement_, "which will be a synthesis growing out of the nature of man and thenature of woman, out of the demands of the individual and the demandsof society, out of the pagan and the Christian points of view, out ofthe resolve to mould the future and out of piety towards the past. "

No reader of Ellen Key's books can fail to be impressed by theremarkable harmony between her sexual ethics and the conception thatunderlies Sir Francis Galton's scientific eugenics. In setting forth thelatest aspects of his view of eugenics before the Sociological Society, Galton asserted that the improvement of the race, in harmony withscientific knowledge, would come about by a new religious movement, andhe gave reasons to show why such an expectation is not unreasonable; inthe past men have obeyed the most difficult marriage rules in responseto what they believed to be supernatural commands, and there is noground for supposing that the real demands of the welfare of the race, founded on exact knowledge, will prove less effective in calling out aninspiring religious emotion. Writing probably at the same time, EllenKey, in her essay entitled _Love and Ethics_, set forth precisely thesame conception, though not from the scientific but from the emotionalstandpoint. From the outset she places the sexual question on a basiswhich brings it into line with Galton's eugenics. The problem used to beconcerned, she remarks, with the insistence of society on a rigidmarriage form, in conflict with the demand of the individual to gratifyhis desires in any manner that seemed good to him, while now it becomesa question of harmonizing the claims of the improvement of the race withthe claims of the individual to happiness in love. She points out thaton this aspect real harmony becomes more possible. Regard for theennoblement of the race serves as a bridge from a chaos of conflictingtendencies to a truer conception of love, and "love must become on ahigher plane what it was in primitive days--a religion. " She comparesthe growth of the conception of the vital value of love to the moderngrowth of the conception of the value of health as against the medievalindifference to hygiene. It is inevitable that Ellen Key, approachingthe question from the emotional side, should lay less stress than Galtonon the importance of scientific investigation in heredity, and insistmainly on the value of sound instincts, unfettered by false andartificial constraints, and taught to realize that the physical and thepsychic aspects of life are alike "divine. "

It would obviously be premature to express either approval ordisapproval of the conceptions of sexual morality which Ellen Key hasdeveloped with such fervour and insight. It scarcely seems probable thatthe methods of sexual union, put forward as an alternative to celibacyby some of the adherents of the new movement, are likely to becomewidely popular, even if legalized in an increasing number of countries. I have elsewhere given reasons to believe that the path of progress liesmainly in the direction of a reform of the present institution ofmarriage. [67] The need of such reform is pressing, and there are manysigns that it is being recognized. We can scarcely doubt that theadvocates of these alternative methods of sexual union will do good bystimulating the champions of marriage to increased activity in thereform of that institution. In such matters a certain amount ofcompetition sometimes has a remarkably vivifying effect. 

We may be sure that women, whose interests are so much at stake in thismatter, and who tend to look at it in a practical rather than in a legaland theological spirit, will exert a powerful influence when they haveacquired the ability to enforce that influence by the vote. This issignificantly indicated by an inquiry held in England during 1910 by theWomen's Co-operative Guild. A number of women who had held officialpositions in the Guild were asked (among other questions) whether or notthey were in favour of divorce by mutual consent. Of 94 representativewomen conversant with affairs who were thus consulted, as many as 82deliberately recorded their opinion in favour of divorce by mutualconsent, and only 12 were against that highly important marriage reform. 

It is probably unnecessary to discuss the opinions of other leaders inthis movement, though there are several, such as Frau Grete Meisel-Hess, whose views deserve study. It will be sufficiently clear in what waythis Teutonic movement differs from that Anglo-Saxon woman's rights'movement with which we have long been familiar. These German women fullyrecognize that women are entitled to the same human rights as men, andthat until such rights are attained "feminism" still has a proper taskto achieve. But women must use their strength in the sphere for whichtheir own nature fits them. Even though millions of women are enabled todo the work which men could do better the gain for mankind is nil. Toput women to do men's work is (Ellen Key has declared) as foolish as toset a Beethoven or a Wagner to do engine-driving. 

It has probably excited surprise in the minds of some who have beenimpressed by the magnitude and vitality of this movement that it shouldhave manifested itself in Germany rather than in England, which is theoriginal home of movements for women's emancipation, or in America, where they have reached their fullest developments. This, however, ceases to be surprising when we realize the special qualities of theAnglo-Saxon and Teutonic temperaments and the special conditions underwhich the two movements arose. The Anglo-Saxon movement was a specialapplication to women of the general French movement for the logicalassertion of abstract human rights. That special application was notardently taken up in France itself, though first proclaimed by Frenchpioneers, [68] partly perhaps because such one-sided applications makelittle appeal to the French mind, and mainly, no doubt, because womenthroughout the eighteenth century enjoyed such high socialconsideration and exerted so much influence that they were not impelledto rise in any rebellious protest. But when the seed was brought over toEngland, especially in the representative form of Mary Wollstonecraft's_Vindication of the Rights of Women_, it fell in virgin soil whichproved highly favourable to its development. This special applicationescaped the general condemnation which the Revolution had brought uponFrench ideas. Women in England were beginning to awaken to ideas, --aswomen in Germany are now, --and the more energetic and intelligent amongthem eagerly seized upon conceptions which furnished food for theiractivities. In large measure they have achieved their aims, and evenwoman's suffrage has been secured here and there, without producing anynotable revolution in human affairs. The Anglo-Saxon conception offeminine progress--beneficial as it has undoubtedly been in manyrespects--makes little impression in Germany, partly because it fails toappeal to the emotional Teutonic temperament, and partly because theestablished type of German life and civilization offers very small scopefor its development. When Miss Susan Anthony, the veteran pioneer ofwoman's movements in the United States, was presented to the GermanEmpress she expressed a hope that the Emperor would soon confer thesuffrage on German women; it is recorded that the Empress smiled, andprobably most German women smiled with her. At the present time, however, there is an extraordinary amount of intellectual activity inGermany, a widespread and massive activity. For the first time, moreover, it has reached women, who are taking it up with characteristicTeutonic thoroughness. But they are not imitating the methods of theirAnglo-Saxon sisters; they are going to work their own way. They arespending very little energy in waving the red flag before the fortressesof male monopoly. They are following an emotional influence which, strangely enough, it may seem to some, finds more support from thebiological and medical side than the Anglo-Saxon movement has alwaysbeen able to win. From the time of Aristophanes downwards, whenever theyhave demonstrated before the masculine citadels, women have always beenroughly bidden to go home. And now, here in Germany, where of allcountries that advice has been most freely and persistently given, womenare adopting new tactics: they have gone home. "Yes, it is true, " theysay in effect, "the home is our sphere. Love and marriage, the bearingand the training of children--that is our world. And we intend to laydown the laws of our world. "

FOOTNOTES:

[52] In 1787 Condorcet declared (_Lettres d'un Bourgeois de New Haven_, Lettre II) that women ought to have absolutely the same rights as men, and he repeated the same statement emphatically in 1790, in an article"Sur l'Admission des Femmes au Droit de Cité, " published in the _Journalde la Société de 1789_. It must be added that Condorcet was not ademocrat, and neither to men nor to women would he grant the vote unlessthey were proprietors. 

[53] Léopold Lacour has given a full and reliable account of Olympe deGouges (who was born at Montauban in 1755) in his _Trois Femmes de laRévolution_, 1900. 

[54] It is noteworthy that the Empire had even a depressing effect on thephysical activities of women. The eighteenth-century woman in France, although she was not athletic in the modern sense, enjoyed a free lifein the open air and was fond of physical exercises. During theDirectoire this tendency became very pronounced; women wore thescantiest of garments, were out of doors in all weathers, cultivatedhealthy appetites, and enjoyed the best of health. But with theestablishment of the Empire these wholesome fashions were discarded, andwomen cultivated new ideals of fragile refinement indoors. (Thisevolution has been traced by Dr. Lucien Nars, _L'Hygiène_, September, 1911. )

[55] Concerning the rise and progress of this movement in England muchinformation is sympathetically and vivaciously set forth in W. LyonBlease's _Emancipation of English Women_ (1910), a book, however, whichmakes no claim to be judicial or impartial; the author regards"unregulated male egoism" as the source of the difficulties in the wayof women's suffrage. 

[56] Thus, in 1911 the National League for Opposing Women's Suffrage tookan impartial poll of the women voters on the municipal register inseveral large constituencies, by sending a reply-paid postcard to askwhether or not they favoured the extension to women of the Parliamentaryfranchise. Only 5579 were in favour of it; 18, 850 were against; 12, 621did not take the trouble to answer, and it was claimed, probably withreason, that a majority of these were not in favour of the vote. 

[57] It must not be too hastily assumed. Unless we go back to ancientplots of the Guy Fawkes type (now only imitated by self-styledanarchists), the leaders of movements of political reform have rarely, if ever, organized outbursts of violence; such violence, when itoccurred, has been the spontaneous and unpremeditated act of a mob. 

[58] _Revue de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie_, February, 1909, p. 50. 

[59] O. Schrader, _Reallexicon_, Art. "Keuschheit. " He considers thatTacitus merely shows that German women were usually chaste aftermarriage. A few centuries later, Lea points out, Salvianus, whilepraising the barbarians generally for their chastity, makes an exceptionin the case of the Alemanni. (See also Havelock Ellis, _Studies in thePsychology of Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society, " pp. 382-4. )

[60] Thus Kaan, anticipating Krafft-Ebing, published a _PsychopathiaSexualis_, in 1844, and Casper, in 1852, was the first medical authorityto point out that sexual inversion is sometimes due to a congenitalpsychic condition. 

[61] Both Forel's and Bloch's books have become well known throughtranslations in England and America. Dr. Bloch is also the author of anextremely erudite and thorough history of syphilis, which has gone farto demonstrate that this disease was introduced into Europe from Americaon the first discovery of the New World at the end of the fifteenthcentury. 

[62] This attitude is plainly reflected even in many books written bymen; I may mention, for instance, Frenssen's well-known novel_Hilligenlei_ (_Holyland_). 

[63] In most countries illegitimacy is decreasing; in Germany it issteadily increasing, alike in rural and urban districts. Illegitimatebirths are, however, more numerous in the cities than in the country. Ofthe constituent states of the German Empire, the illegitimate birth-rateis lowest in Prussia, highest in Saxony and Bavaria. In Munich 27 percent of the births are illegitimate. (The facts are clearly brought outin an article by Dr. Arthur Grünspan in the _Berliner Tagblatt_ forJanuary 6, 1911, reproduced in _Die Neue Generation_, July, 1911. ) Thus, in Prussia, while the total births between 1903 and 1908, notwithstanding a great increase in the population, have only increased2. 6 per cent, the illegitimate births have increased as much as 11. 1 percent. The increase is marked in nearly all the German States. It isspecially marked in Saxony; here the proportion of illegitimate birthsto the total number of births was, in 1903, 12. 51 per cent, and in 1908it had already risen to 14. 40 per cent. In Berlin it is most marked;here it began in 1891, when there were nearly 47, 000 legitimate births;by 1909, however, the legitimate births had fallen to 38, 000, a decreaseof 19. 4 per cent. But illegitimate births rose during the same periodfrom nearly 7000 to over 9000, an increase of 35 per cent. Theproportion of illegitimate births to the total births is now over 20 percent, so that to every four legitimate children there is rather morethan one illegitimate child. It may be said that this is merely due toan increasing proportion of unmarried women. That, however, is not thecase. The marriage-rate is on the whole rising, and the average age ofwomen at marriage is becoming lower rather than higher. Grünspanconsiders that this increase in illegitimacy is likely to continue, andhe is inclined to attribute it less to economic than tosocial-psychological causes. 

[64] I have discussed this point in _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society, " chap. XII. 

[65] It is remarkable that in early times in Spain the laws recognizedconcubinage (_barragania_) as almost equal to marriage, and asconferring equal rights on the child, even on the sons of the clergy, who could thus inherit from their fathers by right of the privilegesaccorded to the concubine or _barragana_. _Barragania_, however, was notreal marriage, and in many regions it could be contracted by married men(R. Altamira, _Historia de España y de la Civilazacion Española_, Vol. I, pp. 644 et seq. ). 

[66] "La femme libre, " in quest of whom the young Saint-Simonianspreached a crusade, must be a woman of reflection and intellect who, having meditated on the fate of her "sisters, " knowing the wants ofwomen, and having sounded those feminine capacities which man has nevercompletely penetrated, shall give forth the confession of her sex, without restriction or reserve, in such a manner as to furnish theindispensable elements for formulating the rights and duties of woman. Saint Simon had asked Madame de Staël to undertake this rôle, but shefailed to respond. When George Sand published her first novels, oneGuéroult was commissioned to ascertain if the author of _Lélia_ wouldundertake this important service. He found a badly dressed woman who wasusing her talents to gain a living, but was by no means anxious tobecome the high priestess of a new religion. Even after hisdisappointment Enfantin looked eagerly forward to the publication ofGeorge Sand's _Histoire de ma Vie_, hoping that at last the greatrevelation was coming, and he was again disillusioned. But before thisEmile Barrault had arisen and declared that in the East, in the solitudeof the harem, "la femme libre" would be found in the person of someodalisque. The "mission of the mother" was formed, and with Barrault atthe head it set out for Constantinople. All were dressed in white as anindication of the vow of chastity they had taken before leaving Paris, and on the road they begged in the name of the Mother. They arrived atConstantinople and preached the faith of Saint-Simon to the Turks inFrench. But "la femme libre" seemed as far off as ever, and theyresolved to go to Rotourma in Oceana, there to establish the religion ofSaint-Simon and a perfect Government which might serve as a model to theStates of Europe. First, however, they felt it a duty to make certainthat the Mother was not hiding somewhere in Russia, and they wenttherefore to Odessa, but the Governor, who was wanting in sympathy, speedily turned them out, and having realized that Rotourma was somedistance off, the mission broke up, most of the members going to Egyptto rejoin Enfantin, whom the Arabs, struck by his beauty, had called_Abu-l-dhunieh_, the Father of the World. (This account of the movementis based on that given by Maxime du Camp, in his _SouvenirsLittéraires_)

[67] _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation toSociety, " chap. X. 

[68] It is worth noting that a Frenchwoman has been called "the mother ofmodern feminism. " Marie de Gournay, who died in 1645 at the age ofeighty, is best known as the adopted daughter of Montaigne, for whom shecherished an enthusiastic reverence, becoming the first editor of hisessays. Her short essay, _Egalité des Hommes et des Femmes_, was writtenin 1622. See e. G. M. Schiff, _La Fille d'Alliance de Montaigne_. 

IV

THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN IN RELATION TO ROMANTIC LOVE

 The Absence of Romantic Love in Classic Civilization--Marriage as a Duty--The Rise of Romantic Love in the Roman Empire--The Influence of Christianity--The Attitude of Chivalry--The Troubadours--The Courts of Love--The Influence of the Renaissance--Conventional Chivalry and Modern Civilization--The Woman Movement--The Modern Woman's Equality of Rights and Responsibilities excludes Chivalry--New Forms of Romantic Love still remain possible--Love as the Inspiration of Social Hygiene. 

What will be the ultimate effect of the woman's movement, now slowly butsurely taking place among us, upon romantic love? That is really aserious question, and it is much more complex than many of those who areprepared to answer it off-hand may be willing to admit. 

It must be remembered that romantic love has not been a constantaccompaniment of human relationships, even in civilization. It is truethat various peoples very low down in the scale possess romanticlove-songs, often, it appears, written by the women. But the classiccivilizations of Greece and Rome in their most robust and brilliantperiods knew little or nothing of romantic love in connection withnormal sexual relationships culminating in marriage. Classic antiquityreveals a high degree of conjugal devotion, and of domestic affection, at all events in Rome, but the right of the woman to follow theinspirations of her own heart, and the idealization and worship of thewoman by the man, were not only scarcely known but, so far as they wereknown, reprehended or condemned. Ovid, in the opinion of some, represents a new movement in Rome. We are apt to regard Ovid as, inerotic matters, the representative of a set of immoral Romanvoluptuaries. That view probably requires considerable modification. Ovid was not indeed a champion of morality, but there is no good reasonto suppose that, before he appeared, the rather stern Roman mind had yetconceived those refinements and courtesies which he set forth in suchcharming detail. If we take a wide survey of his work, we may perhapsregard Ovid as the pioneer of a chivalrous attitude towards women and ofa romantic conception of love not only new in Rome but of significancefor Europe generally. Ovid was a powerful factor in the Renaissancemovement, and not least in England, where his influence on Shakespeareand some others of the Elizabethans cannot easily be overrated. [69]

For the ordinary classic mind, Greek or Roman, marriage was intended forthe end of building up the family, and the family was consecrated to theState. The fulfilment of so exalted a function involved a certainaustere dignity which excluded wayward inclination or passionateemotion. These might indeed occur between a man and a woman outsidemarriage, but putting aside the very limited phenomena of Athenianhetairism, they were too shameful to be idealized. Some trace of thisclassic attitude may be said to persist even to-day among the so-calledLatin nations, notably in the French tradition (now dying out) oftreating marriage as a relationship to be arranged, not by the twoparties themselves, but by their parents and guardians; Montaigne, attached as he was to maxims of Roman antiquity, was not very alien fromthe ordinary French attitude of his time when he declared that, since wedo not marry so much for our own sakes as for the sake of posterity andthe race, marriage is too sacred a process to be mixed with amorousextravagance. [70] There is something to be said for that point of viewwhich is nowadays too often forgotten, but it certainly fails to coverthe whole of the ground. 

It is not only in the West that a contemptuous attitude towards theromantic and erotic side of life has prevailed at some of the mostvigorous moments of civilization. It is also found in the East. InJapan, for instance, even at the present day, romantic love, as areputable element of ordinary life, is unknown or disapproved; itsexistence is not recognized in the schools, and the European novels thatcelebrate it are scarcely understood. [71]

The development of modern romantic love in connection with marriageseems to be found in the late Greek world under the Roman Empire. [72]That is commonly called a period of decadence. In a certain limitedsense it was. Greece had become subjugated to Rome. Rome herself hadlost her military spirit and was losing her political power. But thefighting instinct, and even the ruling spirit, are not synonymous withcivilization. The "decline and fall" of empires by no means necessarilyinvolves the decay of civilization. It is now generally realized thatthe later Roman Empire was not, as was once thought, an age of socialand moral degeneration. [73] The State indeed was dissolving, but theindividual was evolving. The age which produced a Plutarch--for fifteenhundred years one of the great inspiring forces of the world--was thereverse of a corrupt age. The life of the home and the life of the soulwere alike developing. The home was becoming more complex, moreintimate, more elevated. The soul was being turned in on itself todiscover new and joyous secrets: the secret of the love of Nature, thesecret of mystic religion, and, not least, the secret of romantic love. When Christianity finally conquered the Roman world its task verylargely lay in taking over and developing those three secrets alreadydiscovered by Paganism. 

It was inevitable, however, that in developing these new forms of theemotional life, the ascetic bent of Christianity should make itselffelt. It was not possible for Christianity to cast its halo around thenatural sexual life, but it was possible to refine and exalt that life, to lift it into a spiritual sphere. Neither woman the sweetheart norwoman the mother were in ordinary life glorified by the Church; theywere only tolerated. But on a higher than natural plane they weresurrounded by a halo and raised to the highest pedestal of reverence andeven worship. The Virgin was exalted, Bride and Bridegroom became termsof mystical import, and the Holy Mother received the adoring love of allChristendom. Even in the actual relations of men and women, quite earlyin the history of Christianity, we sometimes find men and womencultivating relationships which excluded that earthly union the Churchlooked down on, but yet involved the most tender and intimate physicalaffection. Many charming stories of such relationships are found in thelives of the saints, and sometimes they existed even within themarriage bond. [74] Christianity led to the use of ideas and termsborrowed from earthly love in a different and symbolic sense. But theundesigned result was that a new force and beauty were added to thoseideas and terms, however applied, and also that many emotions were thuscultivated which became capable of re-inforcing earthly human love. Inthis way it happened that, though Christianity rejected the ideal ofromantic love in its natural associations, it indirectly prepared theway for a loftier and deeper realization of that love. 

There can be no doubt that the emotional training and refining of thefleshly instincts by Christianity was the chief cause of the rise ofthat conception of romantic love which we associate with the institutionof chivalry. Exalted and sanctified by contact with the central dogmasof religion, the emotion of love was brought down from this spiritualatmosphere by the knightly lover, with something of its ethereal halostill clinging to it, and directed towards an earthly mistress. The mostextravagant phase of romantic love which has ever been seen was thenbrought about, and in many cases, certainly, it was a real erotomaniawhich passed beyond the bounds of sanity. [75] In its extreme forms, however, this romantic love was a rare, localized, and short-livedmanifestation. The dominant attitude of the chivalrous age towardswomen, as Léon Gautier has shown in his monumental work on chivalry, wasone of indifference, or even contempt. The knight's thoughts were moreof war than of women, and he cherished his horse more than hismistress. [76]

But women, above all in France, reacted against this attitude, and withsplendid success. Their husbands treated them with indifference or leftthem at home while they sought adventure in the world. The neglectedwives proceeded to lay down the laws of society, and took uponthemselves the part of rulers in the domain of morals. In the eleventh, the twelfth, the thirteenth centuries, says Méray in a charming book onlife in the days of the Courts of Love, we find women "with infiniteskill and an adorable refinement seizing the moral direction of Frenchsociety. " They did so, he remarks, in a spirit so Utopian, so ideallypoetic, that historians have hesitated to take them seriously. The lawsof the Courts of Love[77] may sometimes seem to us immoral andlicentious, but in reality they served to restrain the worstimmoralities and licences of the time. They banished violence, theyallowed no venality, and they inculcated moderation in passion. The taskof the Courts of Love was facilitated by the relative degree of peacewhich then reigned, especially by the fact that the Normans, holdingboth coasts of the Channel, formed a link between France and England. When the murderous activities of French kings and English kingsdestroyed that link, the Courts of Love were swept away in the generaldisorder and the progress of civilization indefinitely retarded. [78] Yetin some degree the ideals which had been thus embodied still persisted. As the Goncourts pointed out in their invaluable book, _La Femme auDix-huitième Siècle_ (Chap. V), from the days of chivalry even on intothe eighteenth century, when on the surface at all events it apparentlydisappeared, an exalted ideal of love continued to be cherished inFrance. This conception remained associated, throughout, with the greatsocial influence and authority which had been enjoyed by women in Franceeven from medieval times. That influence had become pronounced duringthe seventeenth century, and at that time Sir Thomas Smith in his_Commonwealth of England_, writing of the high position of women inEngland, remarked that they possessed "almost as much liberty as inFrance. "

There were at least two forms of medieval romantic love. The first arosein Provence and northern Italy during the twelfth century, and spread toGermany as _Minnedienst_. In this form the young knights directed theirrespectful and adoring devotion to a high-born married woman who choseone of them as her own cavalier, to do her service and reverence, thetwo vowing devotion to each other until death. It was a part of thisamorous code that there could not be love between husband and wife, andit was counted a mark of low breeding for a husband to challenge hiswife's right to her young knight's services, though sometimes we aretold the husband risked this reproach, occasionally with tragic results. This mode of love, after being eloquently sung and practised by thetroubadours--usually, it appears, younger sons of noble houses--died outin the place of its origin, but it had been introduced into Spain, andthe Spaniards reintroduced it into Italy when they acquired the kingdomof Naples; in Italy it was conventionalized into the firmly rootedinstitution of the _cavaliere servente_. From the standpoint of a strictmorality, the institution was obviously open to question. But we canscarcely fail to see that at its origin it possessed, even ifunconsciously, a quasi-religious warrant in the worship of the HolyMother, and we have to recognize that, notwithstanding its questionableshape, it was really an effort to attain a purer and more idealrelationship than was possible in a rough and warlike age which placedthe wife in subordination to her husband. A tender devotion thatinspired poetry, an unalloyed respect that approached reverence, vowsthat were based on equal freedom and independence on both sides--thesewere possibilities which the men and women of that age felt to beincompatible with marriage as they knew it. 

The second form of medieval romantic love was more ethereal than thefirst, and much more definitely and consciously based on a religiousattitude. It was really the worship of the Virgin transferred to ayoung earthly maiden, yet retaining the purity and ideality ofreligious worship. To so high a degree is this the case that it issometimes difficult to be sure whether we are concerned with a realmaiden of flesh and blood or only a poetic symbol of womanhood. Thisdoubt has been raised, notably by Bartoli, concerning Dante's Beatrice, the supreme type of this ethereal love, which arose in the thirteenthcentury, and was chiefly cultivated in Florence. The poets of thismovement were themselves aware of the religious character of theirdevotion to the _donna angelicata_ to whom they even apply, as theywould to the Queen of Heaven, the appellation Stella Maris. That therewas an element of flesh and blood in these figures is believed by Remyde Gourmont, but when we gaze at them, he remarks, we see at first, "inplace of a body only two eyes with angel's wings behind them, on thebackground of an azure sky sown with golden stars"; the lover is on hisknees and his love has become a prayer. [79] This phase of romantic lovewas brief, and perhaps mostly the possession of the poets, but itrepresented a really important moment in the evolution of modernromantic love. It was a step towards the realization of the genuinelyhuman charm of young womanhood in real human relationships, of which wealready have a foretaste in the delicious early French story of Aucassinand Nicolette. 

The re-discovery of classic literature, the movements of Humanism andthe Renaissance, swept away what was left of the almost religiousidealization of the young virgin. The ethereal maiden, thin, pale, anæmic, disappeared alike from literature and from art, and was nolonger an ideal in actual life. She gave place to a new woman, consciousof her own fully developed womanhood and all its needs, radiantlybeautiful and finely shaped in every limb. She lacked the spiritualityof her predecessors, but she had gained in intellect. She appears firstin the pages of Boccaccio. After a long interval Titian immortalized herrich and mature beauty; she is Flora, she is Ariadne, she is alike theEarthly Love and the Heavenly Love. Every curve of her body wasadoringly and minutely described by Niphus and Firenzuola. [80] She was, moreover, the courtesan whose imperial charm and adroitness enabled herto trample under foot the medieval conception of lust as sin, even inthe courts of popes. At the great academic centre of Bologna, finally, she chastely taught learning and science. [81] The people of the ItalianRenaissance placed women on the same level as men, and to call a woman a_virago_ implied unalloyed praise. [82]

The very mixed conditions of what we have been accustomed to considerthe modern world then began for women. They were no longercloistered--whether in convents or the home--but neither were they anylonger worshipped. They began to be treated as human beings, and whenmen idealized them in figures of romantic charm or pathos--figures likeShakespeare's Rosalind or Marivaux's Sylvia or Richardson'sClarissa--this humanity was henceforth the common ground out of whichthe vision arose. But, one notes, in nearly all the great poets andnovelists up to the middle of the last century, it was usually in theweakness of humanity that the artist sought the charm and pathos of hisfeminine figures. From Shakespeare's Ophelia to Thackeray's Amelia thisis the rule, more emphatically expressed in the literature of Englandthan of any other country. There had been no actual emancipation ofwomen; though now they had entered the world of men, they were not yet, socially and legally, of that world. Even the medieval traditions stilllived on in subtly conventionalized forms. The "chivalrous" attitudetowards women was, as the word itself suggests, a medieval survival. Itbelonged to a period of barbarism when brutal force ruled and when theman who magnanimously placed his force at the disposition of a woman wasreally doing her a service and granting her a privilege. Butcivilization means the building up of an orderly society in whichindividual rights are respected, and force no longer dominates. So thatas civilization advances the occasions on which women require the aidof masculine force become ever fewer and more unimportant. Theconventionalized chivalry of men then tends to become an offer ofservices which it would be better for women to do for themselves and abestowal of privileges to which they are nowise entitled. [83] Moreover, this same chivalry is, under these conditions, apt to take on acharacter which is the reverse of its face value. It becomes theassertion of a power over women instead of a power on their behalf; andit carries with it a tinge of contempt in place of respect. Theoretically, a thousand chivalrous swords should leap from theirscabbards to succour the distressed woman. In practice this may onlymean that the thousand owners of these metaphorical weapons are on thealert to take advantage of the distressed woman. 

Thus the romantic emotions based on medieval ideals gradually lost theirworth. They were not in relation to the altered facts of life; they hadbecome an empty convention which could be turned to very unromanticuses. The movement for the emancipation of women was not consciously ordirectly a movement of revolt against an antiquated chivalry. It wasrather a part of the development of civilization which rendered chivalryantique. Medieval romantic love implied in women a weakness in the soilof which only a spiritual force could flourish. The betterment of socialconditions, the subordination of violence to order, the growing respectfor individual rights, took away the reasons for consecrating weaknessin women, and created an ever larger field in which women could freelyseek to rival men, because it is a field in which knowledge and skillare of far more importance than muscular strength. The emancipation ofwomen has simply been the later and more conscious phase of the processby which women have entered into this field and sought their share ofits rights and its responsibilities. 

The woman movement of modern times, properly understood, has thus beenthe effort of women to adapt themselves to the conditions of an orderlyand peaceful civilization. Education, under the changed conditions, caneffect what before needed force of arms; responsibility is now demandedwhere before only tutelage was possible. A civilized society in whichwomen are ignorant and irresponsible is an anachronism, and, howevergreat the wrench with the past might be, it was necessary that womenshould be adjusted to the changing times. The ideal of the weak, ignorant, inexperienced woman--the cross between an angel and an idiot, as I have elsewhere described her[84]--no longer fulfilled any usefulpurpose. Civilized society furnishes the conditions under which alladult persons are socially equal and all are free to give to society thebest they are capable of. 

It was inevitable, but unfortunate, that this movement should havesometimes tended to take the form of an attempt on the part of women tosecure, not merely equality with men, but actual imitation of men. Thesewomen said that since men had attained mastery in life, captured all thebest things, and adopted the most successful methods of living, it wasnecessary for women to copy them at every point. That was a speciousplea which even had in it a certain element of truth. But the factremained that women and men are different, that the difference is basedin fundamental natural functions, and that to place one sex in exactlythe same position as the other sex is to deform its outlines and tohamper its activities. 

From the present point of view we are only concerned with the influenceof the woman's movement on love. On the traditional conception ofromantic love inherited from medieval days there can be no doubt thatthis influence has been highly dissolvent. Medieval romantic love, inits original form, had been part of a conception of womanhood made up ofopposites, and all the opposites balanced each other. The medieval manlaid his homage at the feet of the great lady in the castle hall, but hehimself lorded it over the wife who drudged in his own home. On hisknees he gazed up in devotion at the ethereal virgin, but when sheceased to be a virgin, he asserted himself by cursing her as a demonsent from hell to seduce and torment him. All this was possible becausethe woman was outside the orbit of the man's life, never on the sameplane, necessarily higher or lower. It became difficult if woman wasman's equal, absurdly impossible if she was of identical nature withhim. 

The medieval romantic tradition has come down to us so laden with beautyand mystery that we are apt to think, as we see it melt away, that humanachievements are being permanently depreciated. That illusion occurs inevery age of transition. It was notably so in the eighteenth century, which represented a highly important stage in the emancipation of women. To some that century seems to have been given up to empty gallantry andfacile pleasure. Yet it was not only the age in which women for thefirst time succeeded in openly attaining their supreme socialinfluence, [85] it was an age of romantic love, and the noble or poignantlove-stories which have reached us from the records of that periodsurpass those of any other age. 

If we believe with Goethe that the religion of the future consists in atriple reverence--the reverence for what is above us, the reverence forwhat is below us, and the reverence for our equals[86]--we need notgrieve overmuch if one form of this reverence, the first, and that whichGoethe regarded as the earliest and crudest, has lost its exclusiveclaim. Reverence is essential to all romantic love. To bring down theMadonna and the Virgin from their pedestals to share with men the commonresponsibilities and duties of life is not to divest them of the claimto reverence. It is merely the sign of a change in the form of thatreverence, a change which heralds a new romantic love. 

It would be premature to attempt to define the exact outline of the newforms of romantic love, or the precise lineaments of the beings who willmost ardently evoke that love. In literature, indeed, the ideals of lifecast their shadow before, and we may surely trace a change in the eroticideals mirrored in literature. The woman whom Dickens idealized in_David Copperfield_ is unlike indeed to the series of women of a newtype introduced by George Meredith, and the modern heroine generallyexhibits more of the robust, open-eyed and spontaneous qualities of thatlater type than the blind and clinging nature of the amiable simpletonsof the older type. That the changed conditions of civilization shouldproduce new types of womanhood and of love is not surprising, if werealize that, even within the ancient chivalrous forms it was possibleto produce similar robust types when the qualities of a race werefavourable to them. Spain furnishes a notable illustration. Spanishliterature from Cervantes and Tirso to Valera and Blasco Ibañez reflectsa type of woman who stands on the same ground as man and is his equaland often his superior on that ground, alike in vigour of body and ofspirit, acquiring all that she cares to of virility, while losingnothing feminine that is of worth. [87] In more than one respect theideal woman of Spain is the ideal woman our civilization now rendersnecessary. The women of the future, Grete Meisel-Hess declares in herfemininely clever and frank discussion of present-day conditions, _DieSexuelle Krise_, will be full, strong, elementary natures, devoid alikeof the impulse to destroy or the aptitude to be destroyed. Sheconsiders, moreover, that so far from romantic love being a thing of thepast, "love as a form of worship is reserved for the future. "[88] In thepast it has only been found among a few rare souls; in the future world, fostered by the finer selection of a conscious eugenics, and a newreverence and care for motherhood, we may reasonably hope for a trulyefficient humanity, the bearers and conservers of the highest humanemotions. It is in this sense, indeed, that the voices of the greatestand most typical leaders of the woman's movement of emancipation to-dayare heard. Ellen Key, in her _Love and Marriage_, seeks to conciliatethe cultivation of a free and sacred sexual relationship with theworship of the child, as the embodiment of the future race, while OliveSchreiner proclaims in her _Woman and Labour_ that the woman of thefuture will walk side by side with man in a higher and deeperrelationship than has ever been possible before because it will involvea new community in activity and insight. 

Nor is it alone from the feminine side that these forecasts are made. Certainly for the most part love has been cultivated more by women thanby men. Primacy in the genius of intellect belongs incontestably to men, but in the genius of love it has doubtless oftener been achieved bywomen. They have usually understood better than men that in this matter, as Goethe insisted, it is the lover and not the beloved who reaps thechief fruits of love. "It is better to love, even violently, " wrote theforsaken Portuguese nun, in her immortal _Letters_, "than merely to beloved. " He who loses his life here saves it, for it is only in so far ashe becomes a crucified god that Love wins the sacrifice of human hearts. Of late years, by an inevitable reaction, women have sometimes forgottenthis eternal verity. The women of the twentieth century in their anxietyfor self-possession and their rightful eagerness to gain positions theyfeel they have been too long excluded from, have perhaps yet failed torealize that the women of the eighteenth century, who exerted a swayover life that the women of no age before or since have possessed, were, above all women, great and heroic lovers, and that those two fundamentalfacts cannot be cut asunder. But this failure, temporary as it isdoubtless destined to be, will work for good if it is the point ofdeparture for a revival among men of the art of love. 

Men indeed have here fallen behind women. The old saying, so tediouslyoften quoted, concerning love as a "thing apart" in the lives of menwould scarcely have occurred to a medieval poet of Provence or Florence. It is not enough for women to proclaim a new avatar of love if men arenot ready and eager to learn its art and to practise its discipline. Ina profoundly suggestive fragment on love, left incomplete at his deathby the distinguished sociologist Tarde, [89] he suggests that whenmasculine energy dies down in the fields of political ambition andcommercial gain, as it already has in the field of warfare, the energyliberated by greater social organization and cohesion may find scopeonce more in love. For too long a period love, like war and politics andcommerce, has been chiefly monopolized by the predatory type of man, inthis field symbolized by the figure of Don Juan. In the future, Tardesuggests, the Don Juan type of lover may fall into disrepute, givingplace to the Virgilian type, for whom love is not a thing apart but aform of life embodying its best and highest activities. 

When we come upon utterances of this kind we are tempted to think thatthey represent merely the poetic dreams of individuals, standing too farahead of their fellows to possess any significance for men and women ingeneral. But it is probable that Ovid, and certain that Dante, set fortherotic conceptions that were unintelligible to most of theircontemporaries, yet they have been immensely influential over the ideasand emotions of men in later ages. The poets and prophets of onegeneration are engaged in moulding ideals which will be realized in thelives of a subsequent generation; in expressing their own most intimateemotions, as it has been truly said, they become the leaders in a longfile of men and women. Whatever may yet be uncertain and undefined, wemay assuredly believe that the emotion of love is far too deeply rootedin the depth of man's organism and woman's organism ever to be torn outor ever to be thrust into a subordinate place. And we may also believethat there is no measurable limit to its power of putting forth ever newand miraculous flowers. It is recorded that once, in James Hinton'spresence, the conversation turned on music, and it was suggested that, owing to the limited number of musical combinations and the unlimitednumber of musical compositions, a time would come when all music wouldonly be a repetition of exhausted harmonies. Hinton remarked that thenwould come a man so inspired by a new spirit that his feeling would be, not that _all_ music has been written, but that no _music_ has yet beenwritten. It was a memorable saying. In every field that is the perpetualproclamation of genius: Behold! I create all things new. And in thisfield of love we can conceive of no age in which to the inspired seer itwill not be possible to feel: There has yet been no _love_!

FOOTNOTES:

[69] See especially Sidney Lee, "Ovid and Shakespeare's Sonnets, "_Quarterly Review_, April, 1909. 

[70] Montaigne, _Essais_, Book III, chap. V. 

[71] See e. G. Mrs. Fraser, _World's Work and Play_, December, 1906. 

[72] A more modern feeling for love and marriage begins to emerge, however, at a much earlier period, with Menander and the New Comedy. E. F. M. Benecke, in his interesting little book on _Antimachus ofColophon and the Position of Women in Greek Poetry_, believes that theromantic idea (that is to say, the idea that a woman is a worthy objectfor a man's love, and that such love may well be the chief, if not theonly, aim of a man's life) had originally been propounded by Antimachusat the end of the fifth century B. C. Antimachus, said to have been thefriend of Plato, had been united to a woman of Lydia (where women, weknow, occupied a very high position) and her death inspired him to writea long poem, _Lyde_, "the first love poem ever addressed by a Greek tohis wife after death. " Only a few lines of this poem survive. ButAntimachus seems to have greatly influenced Philetas (whom Croiset calls"the first of the Alexandrians") and Asclepiades of Samos, tender andexquisite poets whom also we only know by a few fragments. Benecke'sarguments, therefore, however probable, cannot be satisfactorilysubstantiated. 

[73] As I have elsewhere pointed out (_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society, " chap. IX), most modernauthorities--Friedländer, Dill, Donaldson, etc. --consider that there wasno real moral decline in the later Roman Empire; we must not accept thepictures presented by satirists, pagan or Christian, as of generalapplication. 

[74] I have discussed this phase of early Christianity in the sixthvolume of _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, "Sex in Relation toSociety, " chap. V. 

[75] Ulrich von Lichtenstein, in the thirteenth century, is the typicalexample of this chivalrous erotomania. His account of his own adventureshas been questioned, but Reinhold Becker (_Wahrheit und Dichtung inUlrich von Lichtenstein's Frauendienst_, 1888) considers that, thoughmuch exaggerated, it is in substance true. 

[76] Léon Gautier, _La Chevalerie_, pp. 236-8, 348-50. 

[77] The chief source of information on these Courts is André leChapelain's _De Arte Amatoria_. Boccaccio made use of this work, thoughwithout mentioning the author's name, in his own _Dialogo d' Amore_. 

[78] A. Méray, _La Vie au Temps des Cours d'Amour_, 1876. 

[79] Remy de Gourmont, _Dante, Béatrice et la Poésie Amoureuse_, 1907, p. 32. 

[80] Niphus (born about 1473), a physician and philosopher of the PapalCourt, wrote in his _De Pulchro_, sometimes considered the first moderntreatise on æsthetics, a minute description of Joan of Aragon, whoseportrait, traditionally ascribed to Raphael, is in the Louvre. Thefamous work of Firenzuola (born 1493) entitled _Dialogo delle Bellezzedelle Donne_, was published in 1548. It has been translated into Englishby Clara Bell under the title _On the Beauty of Women_. 

[81] See, for example, Edith Coulson James, _Bologna: Its History, Antiquities and Art_, 1911. 

[82] See, for an interesting account of the position of women in theItalian Renaissance, Burckhardt, _Die Kultur der Renaissance_, Part V, ch. VI. 

[83] I may quote the following remarks from a communication I havereceived from a University man: "I am prepared to show women, and toexpect from them, precisely the same amount of consideration as I showto or expect from other men, but I rather resent being expected to makea preferential difference. For example, in a crowded tram I see no moreadequate reason for giving up my seat to a young and healthy girl thanfor expecting her to give up hers to me; I would do so cheerfully for anold person of either sex on the ground that I am probably better fit tostand the fatigue of 'strap-hanging, ' and because I recognize that somerespect is due to age; but if persons get into over-full vehicles theyshould not expect first-comers to turn out of their seats merely becausethey happen to be men. " This writer acknowledges, indeed, that he is notvery sensitive to the erotic attraction of women, but it is probablethat the changing status of women will render the attitude he expressesmore and more common among men. 

[84] _Ante_, p. 58. 

[85] "Women then were queens, " as Taine writes (_L'Ancien Régime_, Vol. I, p. 219), and he gives references to illustrate the point. 

[86] Goethe, _Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre_, Book II, ch. I. 

[87] Havelock Ellis, _The Soul of Spain_, chap. III, "The Women ofSpain. "

[88] Grete Meisel-Hess, _Die Sexuelle Krise_, 1909, pp. 148, 168. 

[89] "La Morale Sexuelle, " _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, January, 1907. 

V

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A FALLING BIRTH-RATE

 The Fall of the Birth-rate in Europe generally--In England--In Germany--In the United States--In Canada--In Australasia--"Crude" Birth-rate and "Corrected" Birth-rate--The Connection between High Birth-rate and High Death-rate--"Natural Increase" measured by Excess of Births over Deaths--The Measure of National Well-being--The Example of Russia--Japan--China--The Necessity of viewing the Question from a wide Standpoint--The Prevalence of Neo-Malthusian Methods--Influence of the Roman Catholic Church--Other Influences lowering the Birth-rate--Influence of Postponement of Marriage--Relation of the Birth-rate to Commercial and Industrial Activity--Illustrated by Russia, Hungary, and Australia--The Relation of Prosperity to Fertility--The Social Capillarity Theory--Divergence of the Birth-rate and the Marriage-rate--Marriage-rate and the Movement of Prices--Prosperity and Civilization--Fertility among Savages--The lesser Fertility of Urban Populations--Effect of Urbanization on Physical Development--Why Prosperity fails permanently to increase Fertility--Prosperity creates Restraints on Fertility--The Process of Civilization involves Decreased Fertility--In this Respect it is a Continuation of Zoological Evolution--Large Families as a Stigma of Degeneration--The Decreased Fertility of Civilization a General Historical Fact--The Ideals of Civilization to-day--The East and the West. 

I

One of the most interesting phenomena of the early part of thenineteenth century was the immense expansion of the people of theso-called "Anglo-Saxon" race. [90] This expansion coincided with thatdevelopment of industrial and commercial activity which made theEnglish people, who had previously impressed foreigners as somewhat lazyand drunken, into "a nation of shopkeepers. " It also coincided with theend of the supremacy of France in Europe; France had succeeded to Spainas the leading power in Europe, and had on the whole maintained asupremacy which Napoleon brought to a climax, and, in doing so, crushed. The growing prosperity of England represented an entirely new wave ofinfluence, mainly economic in character, but not less forceful than thatof Spain and of France had been; and this prosperity was reflected inthe growth of the nation. The greater part of the Victorian period wasmarked by this expansion of population, which reached its highest pointin the early years of the second half of that period. While thepopulation of England was thus increasing with ever greater rapidity athome, at the same time the English-speaking peoples overspread the wholeof North America, and colonized the fertile fringe of Australia. It was, on a still larger scale, a phenomenon similar to that which had occurredthree hundred years earlier, when Spain covered the world and founded anempire upon which, as Spaniards proudly boasted, the sun never set. 

When now, a century later, we survey the situation, not only hasindustrial and commercial activity ceased to be a special attribute ofthe Anglo-Saxons--since the Germans have here shown themselves topossess qualities of the highest order, and other countries are rapidlyrivalling them--but within the limits of the English-speaking worlditself the English have found formidable rivals in the Americans. Underlying, however, even these great changes there is a still morefundamental fact to be considered, a fact which affects all branches ofthe race; and that is, that the Anglo-Saxons have passed their greatepoch of expansion and that their birth-rate is rapidly falling to anormal level, that is to say, to the average level of the world ingeneral. Disregarding the extremely important point of the death-rate inits bearing on the birth-rate, England is seen to possess a mediumbirth-rate among European countries, not among the countries with a highbirth-rate, like Russia, Roumania, or Bulgaria, nor among those with alow birth-rate, like Sweden, Belgium, and France. It was in this lastcountry that the movement of decline in the European birth-rate began, and though the rate of decline has in France now become very gradual thelong period through which it has extended has placed France in thelowest place, so far as Europe is concerned. In 1908 out of a total ofover 11, 000, 000 French families, in nearly 2, 000, 000 there were nochildren, and in nearly 3, 000, 000 there was only one child. [91] Thegeneral decline in the European birth-rate, during the years 1901-1905, was only slight in Switzerland, Ireland and Spain, while it was largenot only in France, but in Italy, Servia, England and Wales, andespecially in Hungary (while, outside Europe, it was largest of all inSouth Australia). Since 1905 there has been a further general declinethroughout Europe, only excepting Ireland, Bulgaria, and Roumania. InPrussia in 1881-1885 the birth-rate was 37. 4; in 1909 it was only 31. 8;while in the German Empire as a whole it is throughout lower than inPrussia, though somewhat higher than in England. In Austria and Spainalone of European countries during the twenty years between 1881 and1901 was there any tendency for the fertility of wives to increase. Inall other countries there was a decrease, greatest in Belgium, nextgreatest in France, then in England. [92]

If we consider the question, not on the basis of the crude birth-rate, but of the "corrected" birth-rate, with more exact reference to thechild-producing elements in the population, as is done by Newsholme andStevenson, [93] we find that the greatest decline has taken place in NewSouth Wales, then in Victoria, Belgium, and Saxony, followed by NewZealand. But France, the German Empire generally, England, and Denmarkall show a considerable fall; while Sweden and Norway show a fall, which, especially in Norway, is slight. Norway illustrates thedifference between the "crude" and the "corrected" birth-rate; the crudebirth-rate is lower than that of Saxony, but the corrected birth-rate ishigher. Ireland, again, has a very low crude birth-rate, but thepopulation of child-bearing age has a high birth-rate, considerablyhigher than that of England. 

Thus while forty years ago it was usual for both the English and theGermans to contemplate, perhaps with some complacency, the spectacle ofthe falling birth-rate in France as compared with the high birth-rate inEngland and Germany, we are now seen to be all marching along the sameroad. In 1876 the English birth-rate reached its maximum of 36. 3 perthousand; while in France the birth-rate now appears almost to havereached its lowest level. Germany, like England, now also has a fallingbirth-rate, though it will take some time to sink to the English level. The birth-rate for Germany generally is still much higher than forEngland generally, but urbanization in Germany seems to have a greaterinfluence than in England in lowering the birth-rate, and for many yearspast the birth-rate of Berlin has been lower than that of London. Thebirth-rate in Germany has long been steadily falling, and the increasein the population of Germany is due to a concomitant steady fall in thedeath-rate, a fall to which there are inevitable natural limits. [94]Moreover, as Flux has shown, [95] urbanization is going on at a greaterspeed in Germany than in England, and practically the entire naturalincrease of the German population for a quarter of a century has driftedinto the towns. But the death-rate of the young in German towns is farhigher than in English towns, and the first five years of life inGermany produce as much mortality as the first twenty-five years inEngland. [96] So that a thousand children born in England add far more tothe population than a thousand children born in Germany. The averagenumber of children per family in German towns is less than in Englishtowns of the same size. These results, reached by Flux, suggest that ina few years' time the rate of increase in the German population will belower than it is at present in England. In England, since 1876, thedecline has been so rapid as to be equal to 20 per cent within ageneration, and in some of the large towns to 40 per cent. Against thisthere has, indeed, to be set the general tendency during recent yearsfor the death-rate to fall also. But this saving of life has untillately been effected mainly at the higher ages; there has been butlittle saving of the lives of infants, upon whom the death-rate fallsmost heavily. Accompanying this falling off in the number of childrenproduced there has often been, as we might expect, a fall in themarriage-rate; but this has been less regular, and of late themarriage-rate has sometimes been high when the birth-rate was low. [97]There has, however, been a steady postponement of the average age atwhich marriage takes place. On the whole, the main fact that emerges is, that nowadays in England we marry less and have fewer children. 

This is now a familiar fact, and perhaps it should not excite very greatsurprise. England is an old and fairly stable country, and it may besaid that it would be unreasonable to expect its population to retainindefinitely a high degree of fertility. Whether this is so or not, there is the further consideration to be borne in mind that, duringnearly the whole of the Victorian period, emigration of the mostvigorous stocks took place to a very marked extent. It is not difficultto see the influence of such emigration in connection with the greatlydiminished population of Ireland, as compared with Scotland; and we mayreasonably infer that it has had its part in the decreased fertility ofthe United Kingdom generally. 

But we encounter the remarkable fact that this decreased fertility ofthe Anglo-Saxon populations is not confined to the United Kingdom. It iseven more pronounced in those very lands to which so many thousandshiploads of our best people have been taken. In the United States thequestion has attracted much attention, and there is little disagreementamong careful observers as to the main facts of the situation. Thequestion is, indeed, somewhat difficult for two reasons: theregistration of births is not generally compulsory in the United States, and, even when general facts are ascertained, it is still necessary todistinguish between the different classes of the population. Ourconclusions must therefore be based, not on the course of a generalbirth-rate, but on the most reliable calculations, based on the censusreturns and on the average size of the family at different periods, andamong different classes of the population. A bulletin of the CensusBureau of the United States since 1860 was prepared a few years ago byWalter F. Wilcox, of Cornell University. It determines from the data inthe census office the proportion of children to the number of women ofchild-bearing age in the country at different periods, and shows thatthere has been, on the whole, a fall from the beginning to the end ofthe last century. Children under ten years of age constituted one-thirdof the population at the beginning of the century, and at the end lessthan one-fourth of the total population. Between 1850 and 1860 theproportion of children to women between fifteen and forty-nine years ofage increased, but since 1860 it has constantly decreased. In 1860 thenumber of children under five years of age to one thousand women betweenfifteen and forty-nine years of age was 634; in 1900 it was only 474. The proportion of children to potential mothers in 1900 was onlythree-fourths as large as in 1860. In the north and west of the UnitedStates the decline has been regular, while in the south the change hasbeen less regular and the decline less marked. A comparison is madebetween the proportion of children in the foreign-born population and inthe American. The former was 710 to the latter's 462. In the colouredpopulation the proportion of children is greater than in thecorresponding white population. 

There can be no doubt whatever that, from the eighteenth century to thetwentieth, there has been a steady decrease in the size of the Americanfamily. Franklin, in the eighteenth century, estimated that the averagenumber of children to a married couple was eight; genealogical recordsshow that, while in the seventeenth century it was nearly seven, it wasover six at the end of the eighteenth century. Since then, as Engelmannand others have shown, there has been a steady decrease in the size ofthe family; in the earlier years of the nineteenth century there werebetween four and five children to each marriage, while by the end of thecentury the number of children had fallen to between four and but littleover one. Engelmann finds that there is but a very trifling differencein this respect between the upper and the lower social classes; theaverage for the labouring classes at St. Louis he finds to be about two, and for the higher classes a little less. It is among the foreign-bornpopulation, and among those of foreign parents, that the larger familiesare found; thus Kuczynski, by analysing the census, finds that inMassachusetts the average number of children to each married woman amongthe American-born of all social classes is 2. 7, while among theforeign-born of all social classes it is 4. 5. Moreover, sterility ismuch more frequent among American women than among foreign women inAmerica. Among various groups in Boston, St. Louis, and elsewhere itvaries between 20 and 23 per cent, and in some smaller groups is evenconsiderably higher, while among the foreign-born it is only 13 percent. The net result is that the general natality of the United Statesat the present day is about equal to that of France, but that, when weanalyse the facts, the fertility of the old native-born Americanpopulation of mainly Anglo-Saxon origin is found to be lower than thatof France. This element, therefore, is rapidly dwindling away in theUnited States. The general level of the birth-rate is maintained by theforeign immigrants, who in many States (as in New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota) constitute the majority of the population, andaltogether number considerably over ten millions. Among these immigrantsthe Anglo-Saxon element is now very small. Indeed, the whole NorthEuropean contingent among the American immigrants, which was formerlynearly 90 per cent of the whole, has since 1890 steadily sunk, and themajority of the immigrants now belong to the Central, Southern, andEastern European stocks. The racial, and, it is probable, thepsychological characteristics of the people of the United States arethus beginning to undergo, not merely modification, but, it may almostbe said, a revolution. If, as we may well believe, the influence of theoriginal North-European racial elements--Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, andFrench--still continues to persist in the United States, it can only bethe influence of a small aristocracy, maintained by intellect andcharacter. 

When we turn to Canada, a land that is imposing, less by the actual sizeof the population than by the vast tracts it possesses for itsdevelopment, the question has not yet been fully investigated; but suchfacts and official publications as I have been able to obtain allindicate that, in this matter, the English Canadians approximate to thenative Americans. In the United States it is the European immigrants whomaintain the general population at a productive level, and thusindirectly oust the Anglo-Saxon element. In Canada the chief dividingline is between the Anglo-Saxon element and the old French element inthe population; and here it is the French Canadians who are gainingground on the English elements in the population. Engelmann ascertainedthat an examination of one thousand families in the records of QuebecLife Assurance companies shows 9. 2 children on the average to the FrenchCanadian child-bearing woman. It is found also from the records of theFrench Canadian Society for Artisans that 500 families from towndistricts, taken at random, show 9. 06 children per family, and 500families from country districts show 9. 33 children per family. [98] Itmust be remembered that this average, which is even higher than thatfound in Russia, the most prolific of European countries, is not quitethe same as the number of children per marriage; but it indicates verygreat fertility, while it may be noted also that sterile marriages arecomparatively rare among French Canadians, although among EnglishCanadians the proportion of childless families is found to be almostexactly the same (nearly 20 per cent) as among the infertile Americansof Massachusetts. The annual Reports of the Registrar-General ofOntario, a province which is predominantly of Anglo-Saxon origin, showthat the average birth-rate during the decade 1899-1908 has been 22. 3per 1000; it must be noted, however, that there has been a gradual risefrom a rate of 19. 4 in 1899 to one of 25. 6 in 1908. The report of Mr. Prévost, the recorder of vital statistics for the predominantly Frenchprovince of Quebec, shows much higher rates. The general birth-rate forthe province for the year 1901 is high, being 35. 2, much higher thanthat of England, and nearly as high as that of Germany. If, however, weconsider the thirty-five counties of the province in which thepopulation is almost exclusively French Canadian, we find that 35represents almost the lowest average; as many as twenty-two of thesecounties show a rate of over forty, and one (Yamaska) reached 51. 52. Itis very evident that, in order to pull down these high birth-rates tothe general level of 35. 2, we have to assume a much lower birth-rateamong the counties in which the English element is considerable. It mustbe remembered, however, that infant mortality is high among the FrenchCanadians. The French Canadian Catholic, it has been said, would shrinkin horror from such an unnatural crime as limiting his family beforebirth, but he sees nothing repugnant to God or man in allowing thesurplus excess of children to die after birth. In this he is at one withthe Chinese. Dr. E. P. La Chapelle, the President of the ProvincialConseil d'Hygiène, wrote some years ago to Professor Davidson, inanswer to inquiries: "I do not believe it would be correct to ascribethe phenomenon to any single cause, and I am convinced it is the resultof several factors. For one, the first cause of the heavy infantmortality among the French Canadians is their very heavy natality, eachfamily being composed of an average of twelve children, and instances offamilies of fifteen, eighteen, and even twenty-four children being notuncommon. The super-abundance of children renders, I think, parents lesscareful about them. "[99]

The net result is a slight increase on the part of the French Canadians, as compared with the English element in the province, as becomes clearwhen we compare the proportion of the population of English, Scotch, Irish, and all other nationalities with the total population of theprovince, now and thirty years ago. In 1871 it was 21 per cent; in 1901it was only 19 per cent. The decrease of the Anglo-Saxons may hereappear to be small, though it must be remembered that thirty years isbut a short period in the history of a nation; but it is significantwhen we bear in mind that the English element has here been constantlyreinforced by immigrants (who, as the experience of the United Statesshows, are by no means an infertile class), and that such reinforcementcannot be expected to continue in the future. 

From Australia comes the same story of the decline of Anglo-Saxonfertility. In nearly all the Australian colonies the highest birth-ratewas reached some twenty or thirty years ago. Since then there has been amore or less steady fall, accompanied by a marked decrease in the numberof marriages, and a tendency to postpone the age of marriage. Onecolony, Western Australia, has a birth-rate which sometimes fluctuatesabove that of England; but it is the youngest of the colonies, and, atpresent, that with the smallest population, largely composed of recentimmigrants. We may be quite sure that its comparatively high birth-rateis merely a temporary phenomenon. A very notable fact about theAustralian birth-rate is the extreme rapidity with which the fall hastaken place; thus Queensland, in 1890, had a birth-rate of 37, but by1899 the rate had steadily fallen to 27, and the Victorian rate duringthe same period fell from 33 to 26 per thousand. In New South Wales, thestate of things has been carefully studied by Mr. Coghlan, formerlyGovernment statistician of New South Wales, who comes to the conclusionthat the proportion of fertile marriages is declining, and that (as inthe United States) it is the recent European immigrants only who show acomparatively high birth-rate. Until 1880, Coghlan states, theAustralasian birth-rate was about 38 per thousand, and the averagenumber of children to the family about 5. 4. In 1901 the birth-rate hadalready fallen to 27. 6 and the size of the family to 3. 6 children. [100] Itshould be added that in all the Australasian colonies the birth-ratereached its lowest point some years ago, and may now be regarded as in astate of normal equipoise with a slight tendency to rise. The case ofNew Zealand is specially interesting. New Zealand once had the highestbirth-rate of all the Australasian colonies; it is without doubt themost advanced of all in social and legislative matters; a variety ofsocial reforms, which other countries are struggling for, are, in NewZealand, firmly established. Its prosperity is shown by the fact that ithas the lowest death-rate of any country in the world, only 10. 2 perthousand, as against 24 in Austria and 22 in France; it cannot even besaid that the marriage-rate is very low, for it is scarcely lower thanthat of Austria, where the birth-rate is high. Yet the birth-rate in NewZealand fell as the social prosperity of the country rose, reaching itslowest point in 1899. 

We thus find that from the three great Anglo-Saxon centres of theworld--north, west, and south--the same story comes. We need notconsider the case of South Africa, for it is well recognized that therethe English constitute a comparatively infertile fringe, mostly confinedto the towns, while the earlier Dutch element is far more prolific andfirmly rooted in the soil. The position of the Dutch there is much thesame as that of the French in Canada. 

Thus we find that among highly civilized races generally, and not leastamong the English-speaking peoples who were once regarded as peculiarlyprolific, a great diminution of reproductive activity has taken placeduring the past forty years, and is in some countries still takingplace. But before we proceed to consider its significance it may be wellto look a little more closely at our facts. 

We have seen that the "crude" birth-rate is not an altogether reliableindex of the reproductive energy of a nation. Various circumstances maycause an excess or a defect of persons of reproductive age in acommunity, and unless we allow for these variations, we cannot estimatewhether that community is exercising its reproductive powers in a fairlynormal manner. But there is another and still more importantconsideration always to be borne in mind before we can attach anyfar-reaching significance even to the corrected birth-rate. We have, that is, to bear in mind that a high or a low birth-rate has no meaning, so far as the growth of a nation is concerned, unless it is consideredin relation to the death-rate. The natural increase of a nation is notthe result of its birth-rate, but of its birth-rate minus itsdeath-rate. A low birth-rate with a low death-rate (as in Australasia)produces a far greater natural increase than a low birth-rate with arather high death-rate (as in France), and may even produce as great anincrease as a very high birth-rate with a very high death-rate (as inRussia). Many worthy people might have been spared the utterance offoolish and mischievous jeremiads, if, instead of being content with ahasty glance at the crude birth-rate, they had paused to consider thisfairly obvious fact. 

There is an intimate connection between a high birth-rate and a highdeath-rate, between a low birth-rate and a low death-rate. It may not, indeed, be an absolutely necessary connection, and is not the outcome ofany mysterious "law. " But it usually exists, and the reasons are fairlyobvious. We have already encountered the statement from an officialCanadian source that the large infantile mortality of French Canadianfamilies is due to parental carelessness, consequent, no doubt, not onlyon the dimly felt consciousness that children are cheap, but much moreon inability to cope with the manifold cares involved by a large family. Among the English working class every doctor knows the thinly veiledindifference or even repulsion with which women view the seeminglyendless stream of babies they give birth to. Among the Berlin workingclass, also, Hamburger's important investigation has indicated howserious a cause of infantile mortality this may be. By taking 374working-class women, who had been married twenty years and conceived3183 times, he found that the net result in surviving children wasrelatively more than twice as great among the women who had only had onechild when compared to the women who had had fifteen children. The womenwith only one child brought 76. 47 per cent of these children tomaturity; the women who had produced fifteen children could only bring30. 66 of them to maturity; the intermediate groups showed a gradual fallto this low level, the only exception being that the mothers of threechildren were somewhat more successful than the mothers of two children. Among well-to-do mothers Hamburger found no such marked contrastbetween the net product of large families as compared to smallfamilies. [101]

It we look at the matter from a wider standpoint we can have nodifficulty in realizing that a community which is reproducing itselfrapidly must always be in an unstable state of disorganization highlyunfavourable to the welfare of its members, and especially of thenew-comers; a community which is reproducing itself slowly is in astable and organized condition which permits it to undertake adequatelythe guardianship of its new members. The high infantile mortality of thecommunity with a high birth-rate merely means that that community isunconsciously making a violent and murderous effort to attain to themore stable and organized level of the country with a low birth-rate. 

The English Registrar-General in 1907 estimated the natural increase byexcess of births over deaths as exceptionally high (higher than that ofEngland) in several Australian Colonies, in the Balkan States, inRussia, the Netherlands, the German Empire, Denmark, and Norway, thoughin the majority of these lands the birth-rate is very low. On the otherhand, the natural increase by excess of births over deaths is below theEnglish rate in Austria, in Hungary, in Japan, in Italy, in Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, and Ontario, though in the majority ofthese lands the birth-rate is high, and in some very high. [102] In mostcases it is the high death-rate in infancy and childhood which exercisesthe counterbalancing influence against a high birth-rate; the death-ratein adult life may be quite moderate. And with few exceptions we findthat a high infantile mortality accompanies a high birth-rate, while alow infantile mortality accompanies a low birth-rate. It is evident, however, that even an extremely high infantile mortality is noimpediment to a large natural increase provided the birth-rate isextremely high to a more than corresponding extent. But a naturalincrease thus achieved seems to be accompanied by far more disastroussocial conditions than when an equally large increase is achieved by alow infantile death-rate working in association with a low birth-rate. Thus in Norway on one side of the world and in Australasia on theopposite side we see a large natural increase effected not by a profuseexpenditure of mostly wasted births but by an economy in deaths, and theincrease thus effected is accompanied by highly favourable socialconditions, and great national vigour. Norway appears to have the lowestinfantile death-rate in Europe. [103]

Rubin has suggested that the fairest measure of a country's well-being, as regards its actual vitality--without direct regard, of course, to thecountry's economic prosperity--is the square of the death-rate dividedby the birth-rate. [104] Sir J. A. Baines, who accepts this test, statesthat Argentina with its high birth-rate and low death-rate stands evenabove Norway, and Australia still higher, while the climax for the worldis attained by New Zealand, which has attained "the nearest approach toimmortality yet on record. "[105] The order of descending well-being inEurope is thus represented (at the year 1900) by Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, England, Scotland, Finland, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Austria, France, and Spain. 

On the other hand, in all the countries, probably without exception, inwhich a large natural increase is effected by the efforts of an immensebirth-rate to overcome an enormous death-rate the end is only effectedwith much friction and misery, and the process is accompanied by ageneral retardation of civilization. 

"The greater the number of children, " as Hamburger puts it, "the greaterthe cost of each survivor to the family and to the State. "

Russia presents not only the most typical but the most stupendous andappalling example of this process. Thirty years ago the mortality ofinfants under one year was three times that of Norway, nearly doublethat of England. More recently (1896-1900) the infantile mortality inRussia has fallen from 313 to 261, but as that of the other countrieshas also fallen it still preserves nearly the same relative position, remaining the highest in Europe, while if we compare it with countriesoutside Europe we find it is considerably more than four times greaterthan that of South Australia. In one town in the government of Perm, some years ago if not still, the mortality of infants under one yearregularly reached 45 per cent, and the deaths of children under fiveyears constituted half the total mortality. This is abnormally high evenfor Russia, but for all Russia it was found that of the boys born in asingle year during the second half of the last century only 50 per centreached their twenty-first year, and even of these only 37. 6 per centwere fit for military service. It is estimated that there die in Russia15 per thousand more individuals than among the same number in England;this excess mortality represents a loss of 1, 650, 000 lives to the Stateevery year. [106]

Thus Russia has the highest birth-rate and at the same time the highestdeath-rate. The large countries which, after Russia, have the highestinfantile mortality are Austria, Hungary, Prussia, Spain, Italy, andJapan; all these, as we should expect, have a somewhat high birth-rate. 

The case of Japan is interesting as that of a vigorous young Easternnation, which has assimilated Western ways and is encountering the evilswhich come of those ways. Japan is certainly worthy of all ouradmiration for the skill and vigour with which it has affirmed its youngnationality along Western lines. But when the vital statistics of Japanare vaguely referred to either as a model for our imitation or as athreatening peril to us, we may do well to look into the matter a littlemore closely. The infantile mortality of Japan (1908) is 157, a veryhigh figure, 50 per cent higher than that of England, much more thandouble that of New Zealand, or South Australia. Moreover, it has rapidlyrisen during the last ten years. The birth-rate of Japan in 1901-2 washigh (36), though it has since fallen to the level of ten years ago. Butthe death-rate has risen concomitantly (to over 24 per 1000), and hascontinued to rise notwithstanding the slight decline in the birth-rate. We see here a tendency to the sinister combination of a fallingbirth-rate with a rising death-rate. [107] It is obvious that such atendency, if continued, will furnish a serious problem to Japanesesocial reformers, and at the same time make it impossible for Westernalarmists to regard the rise of Japan as a menace to the world. 

It is behind China that these alarmists, when driven from every otherposition, finally entrench themselves. "The ultimate future of theseislands may be to the Chinese, " incautiously exclaims Mr. Sidney Webb, who on many subjects, unconnected with China, speaks with authority. Theknowledge of the vital statistics of China possessed by our alarmists isvague to the most extreme degree, but as the knowledge of all of us isscarcely less vague, they assume that their position is fairly safe. That, however, is an altogether questionable assumption. It seems to bequite true--though in the absence of exact statistics it may not becertain--that the birth-rate in China is very high. But it is quitecertain that the infantile death-rate is extremely high. "Out of tenchildren born among us, three, normally the weakest three, will fail togrow up: out of ten children born in China these weakest three will die, and probably five more besides, " writes Professor Ross, who isintimately acquainted with Chinese conditions, and has closelyquestioned thirty-three physicians practising in various parts ofChina. [108] Matignon, a French physician familiar with China, states thatit is the custom for a woman to suckle her child for at least threeyears; should pregnancy occur during this period, it is usual, and quitelegal, to procure abortion. Infants brought up by hand are fed onrice-flour and water, and consequently they nearly all die. [109]

Putting aside altogether the question of infanticide, such a state ofthings is far from incredible when we remember the extremely insanitarystate of China, the superstitions that flourish unchecked, and thefamines, floods, and pestilences that devastate the country. It wouldappear probable that when vital statistics are introduced into Chinathey will reveal a condition of things very similar to that we find inRussia, but in a more marked degree. No doubt it is a state of thingswhich will be remedied. It is a not unreasonable assumption, supportedby many indications, that China will follow Japan in the adoption ofWestern methods of civilization. [110] These methods, as we know, involvein the end a low birth-rate with a general tendency to a lowerdeath-rate. Neither in the near nor in the remote future, under presentconditions or under probable future conditions, is there any reason forimagining that the Chinese are likely to replace the Europeans inEurope. [111]

This preliminary survey of the ground may enable us to realize that notonly must we be cautious in attaching importance to the crude birth-rateuntil it is corrected, but that even as usually corrected the birth-ratecan give us no clue at all to natural increase because there is a markedtendency for the birth-rate and the infantile death-rate to rise or sinktogether. Moreover, it is evident that we have also to realize that fromthe point of view of society and civilization there is a vast differencebetween the natural increase which is achieved by the effort of anenormously high birth-rate to overcome an almost correspondingly highdeath-rate and the natural increase which is attained by the dominanceof a low birth-rate over a still lower death-rate. 

Having thus cleared the ground, we may proceed to attempt theinterpretation of the declining birth-rate which marks civilization, andto discuss its significance. 

II

It must be admitted that it is not usual to consider the question of thedeclining birth-rate from a broad or scientific standpoint. As we haveseen, no attempt is usually made to correct the crude birth-rate; stillmore rarely is it pointed out that we cannot consider the significanceof a falling birth-rate apart from the question of the death-rate, andthat the net increase or decrease in a nation can only be judged bytaking both these factors into account. It is scarcely necessary to add, in view of so superficial a way of looking at the problem, that wehardly ever find any attempt to deal with the more fundamental questionof the meaning of a low birth-rate, and the problematical character ofthe advantages of rapid multiplication. The whole question is usuallyleft to the ignorant preachers of the gospel of brute force, would-bepatriots who desire their own country to increase at the cost of allother countries, not merely in ignorance of the fact that the crudebirth-rate is not the index of increase, but reckless of the effecttheir desire, if fulfilled, would have upon all the higher and finerends of living. 

When the question is thus narrowly and ignorantly considered, it isusual to account for the decreased birth-rate, the smaller averagefamilies, and the tendency to postpone the age of marriage, as duemainly to a love of luxury and vice, combined with a newly acquiredacquaintance with Neo-Malthusian methods, [112] which must be combated, andmay successfully be combated, by inculcating, as a moral and patrioticduty, the necessity of marrying early and procreating large families. [113]In France, the campaign against the religious Orders in theireducational capacity, while doubtless largely directed againsteducational inefficiency, was also supported by the feeling that sucheducation is not on the side of family life; and Arsène Dumont, one ofthe most vigorous champions of a strenuously active policy forincreasing the birth-rate, openly protested against allowing any placeas teachers to priests, monks, and nuns, whose direct and indirectinfluence must degrade the conception of sex and its duties whileexalting the place of celibacy. In the United States, also, Engelmann, who, as a gynæcologist, was able to see this process from behind thescenes, urged his fellow-countrymen "to stay the dangerous and criminalpractices which are the main determining factors of decreasingfecundity, and which deprive women of health, the family of its highestblessings, and the nation of its staunchest support. "[114]

We must, however, look at these phenomena a little more broadly, andbring them into relation with other series of phenomena. It is almostbeyond dispute that a voluntary restriction of the number of offspringby Neo-Malthusian practices is at least one of the chief methods bywhich the birth-rate has been lowered. It may not indeed be--andprobably, as we shall see, is not--the only method. It has even beendenied that the prevalence of Neo-Malthusian practices counts at all. [115]Thus while Coghlan, the Government Statistician of New South Wales, concludes that the decline in the birth-rate in the AustralianCommonwealth was due to "the art of applying artificial checks toconception, " McLean, the Government Statistician of Victoria, concludesthat it was "due mainly to natural causes. " [116] He points out that whenthe birth-rate in Australia, half a century ago, was nearly 43 per 1000, the population consisted chiefly of men and women at the reproductiveperiod of life, and that since then the proportion of persons at theseages has declined, leading necessarily to a decline in the crudebirth-rate. If we compare the birth-rate of communities among women ofthe same age-periods, McLean argues, we may obtain results quitedifferent from the crude birth-rate. Thus the crude birth-rate ofBuda-Pesth is much higher than that of New South Wales, but if weascertain the birth-rate of married women at different age-periods (15to 20, 20 to 25, etc. ) the New South Wales birth-rate is higher forevery age-period than that of Buda-Pesth. McLean considers that in youngcommunities with many vigorous immigrants the population is normallymore prolific than in older and more settled communities, and thathardships and financial depression still more depress the birth-rate. Hefurther emphasizes the important relationship, which we must never losesight of in this connection, between a high birth-rate and a highdeath-rate, especially a high infantile death-rate, and he believes, indeed, that "the solution of the problem of the general decline in thebirth-rate throughout all civilized communities lies in the preservationof human life. " The mechanism of the connection would be, he maintains, that prolonged suckling in the case of living children increases theintervals between childbearing. As we have seen, there is a tendency, though not a rigid and invariable necessity, [117] for a high birth-rate tobe associated with a high infantile death-rate, and a low birth-ratewith a low infantile death-rate. Thus in Victoria, we have the strikingfact that while the birth-rate has declined 24 per cent the infantiledeath-rate has declined approximately to the still greater extent of 27per cent. 

No doubt the chief cause of the reduction of the birth-rate has been itsvoluntary restriction by preventive methods due to the growth ofintelligence, knowledge, and foresight. In all the countries where amarked decline in the birth-rate has occurred there is good reason tobelieve that Neo-Malthusian methods are generally known and practised. So far as England is concerned this is certainly the case. A few yearsago Mr. Sidney Webb made inquiries among middle-class people in allparts of the country, and found that in 316 marriages 242 were thuslimited and only 74 unlimited, while for the ten years 1890-9 out of 120marriages 107 were limited and only 13 unlimited, but as five of these13 were childless there were only 8 unlimited fertile marriages out of120. As to the causes assigned for limiting the number of children, in73 out of 128 cases in which particulars were given under this head thepoverty of the parents in relation to their standard of comfort was afactor; sexual ill-health--that is, generally, the disturbing effect ofchild-bearing--in 24; and other forms of ill-health of the parents in 38cases; in 24 cases the disinclination of the wife was a factor, and thedeath of a parent had in 8 cases terminated the marriage. [118] In theskilled artisan class there is also good reason to believe that thevoluntary limitation of families is constantly becoming more usual, andthe statistics of benefit societies show a marked decline in thefertility of superior working-class people during recent years; thus itis stated by Sidney Webb that the Hearts of Oak Friendly Society paidbenefits on child-birth to 2472 per 10, 000 members in 1880; by 1904 theproportion had fallen to 1165 per 10, 000, a much greater fall thanoccurred in England generally. 

The voluntary adoption of preventive precautions may not be, however, the only method by which the birth-rate has declined; we may have alsoto recognize a concomitant physiological sterility, induced by delayedmarriage and its various consequences; we have also to recognizepathological sterility due to the impaired vitality and greaterliability to venereal disease of an increasingly urban life; and we mayhave to recognize that stocks differ from one another in fertility. 

The delay in marriage, as studied in England, is so far apparentlyslight; the mean age of marriage for all husbands in England hasincreased from 28. 43 in 1896 to 28. 88 in 1909, and the mean age of allwives from 26. 21 in 1896 to 26. 69 in 1909. This seems a very triflingrate of progression. If, however, we look at the matter in another waywe find that there has been an extremely serious reduction in the numberof marriages between 15 to 20, normally the most fecund of allage-periods. Between 1876 and 1880 (according to the Registrar-General'sReport for 1909) the proportion of minors in 1000 marriages in Englandand Wales was 77. 8 husbands and 217. 0 wives. In 1909 it had fallen toonly 39. 8 husbands and 137. 7 wives. It has been held that this has notgreatly affected the decline in the birth-rate. Its tendency, however, must be in that direction. It is true that Engelmann argued that delayedmarriages had no effect at all on the birth-rate. But it has beenclearly shown that as the age of marriage increases fecundity distinctlydiminishes. [119] This is illustrated by the specially elaborate statisticsof Scotland for 1855;[120] the number of women having children, that is, the fecundity, was higher in the years 15 to 19, than at any subsequentage-period, except 20 to 24, and the fact that the earliest age-group isnot absolutely highest is due to the presence of a number of immaturewomen. In New South Wales, Coghlan has shown that if the average numberof children is 3. 6, then a woman marrying at 20 may expect to have fivechildren, a woman marrying at 28 three children, at 32 two children, andat 37 one child. Newsholme and Stevenson, again, conclude that thegeneral law of decline of fertility with advancing age of the mother isshown in various countries, and that in nearly all countries the mothersaged 15 to 20 have the largest number of children; the chief exceptionis in the case of some northern countries like Norway and Finland, wherewomen develop late, and there it is the mothers of 20 to 25 who have thelargest number of children. [121] The postponement in the age of marriageduring recent years is, however, so slight that it can only account fora small part of the decline in the birth-rate; Coghlan calculates thatof unborn possible children in New South Wales the loss of only aboutone-sixth is to be attributed to this cause. In London, however, Heronconsiders that the recognized connection between a low birth-rate and ahigh social standing might have been entirely accounted for sixty yearsago by postponement of marriage, and that such postponement may stillaccount for 50 per cent of it. [122]

It is not enough, however, to consider the mechanism by which thebirth-rate declines; to realize the significance of the decline we mustconsider the causes which set the mechanism in action. 

We begin to obtain a truer insight into the meaning of the curve of acountry's birth-rate when we realize that it is in relation with theindustrial and commercial activity of the country. [123] It is sometimesstated that a high birth-rate goes with a high degree of nationalprosperity. That, however, is scarcely the case; we have to look intothe matter a little more closely. And, when we do so, we find that, notonly is the statement of a supposed connection between a high birth-rateand a high degree of prosperity an imperfect statement; it is altogethermisleading. 

If, in the first place, we attempt to consider the state of things amongsavages, we find, indeed, great variations, and the birth-rate is notinfrequently low. But, on the whole, it would appear, the marriage-rate, the birth-rate, and, it may be added, the death-rate are all alike high. Karl Ranke has investigated the question with considerable care amongthe Trumai and Nahuqua Indians of Central Brazil. [124] These tribes areyet totally uncontaminated by contact with European influences;consumption and syphilis are alike unknown. In the two villages heinvestigated in detail, Ranke found that every man over twenty-fiveyears of age was married, and that the only unmarried woman hediscovered was feeble-minded. The average size of the families of thosewomen who were over forty years of age was between five and sixchildren, while, on the other hand, the mortality among children wasgreat, and a relatively small proportion of the population reached oldage. We see therefore that, among these fairly typical savages, livingunder simple natural conditions, the fertility of the women is as highas it is among all but the most prolific of European peoples; while, instriking contrast with European peoples, among whom a large percentageof the population never marry, and of those who do, many have nochildren, practically every man and woman both marries and produceschildren. 

If we leave savages out of the question and return to Europe, it isstill instructive to find that among those peoples who live under themost primitive conditions much the same state of things may be found asamong savages. This is notably the case as regards Russia. In no othergreat European country do the bulk of the women marry at so early anage, and in no other is the average size of the family so large. And, concomitantly with a very high marriage-rate and a very high birth-rate, we find in Russia, in an equally high degree, the prevalence among themasses of infantile and general mortality, disease (epidemical andother), starvation, misery. [125]

So far we scarcely see any marked connection between high fertility andprosperity. It is more nearly indicated in the high birth-rate ofHungary--only second to that of Russia, and also accompanied by a highmortality--which is associated with the rapid and notable development ofa young nationality. The case of Hungary is, indeed, typical. In so faras high fertility is associated with prosperity, it is with theprosperity of a young and unstable community, which has experienced asudden increase of wealth and a sudden expansion. The case of WesternAustralia illustrates the same point. Thirty years ago the marriage-rateand the birth-rate of this colony were on the same level as those of theother Australian colonies; but a sudden industrial expansion occurred, both rates rose, and in 1899 the fertility of Western Australia washigher than that of any other English-speaking community. [126]

If now we put together the facts observed in savage life and the factsobserved in civilized life, we shall begin to see the real nature of thefactors that operate to raise or lower the fertility of a community. Itis far, indeed, from being prosperity which produces a high fertility, for the most wretched communities are the most prolific, but, on theother hand, it is by no means the mere absence of prosperity whichproduces fertility, for we constantly observe that the on-coming of awave of prosperity elevates the birth-rate. In both cases alike it isthe absence of social-economic restraints which conduces to highfertility. In the simple, primitive community of savages, serfs, orslaves, there is no restraint on either nutritive or reproductiveenjoyments; there is no adequate motive for restraint; there are noclaims of future wants to inhibit the gratification of present wants;there are no high standards, no ideals. Supposing, again, that suchrestraints have been established by a certain amount of forethought asregards the future, or a certain calculation as to social advantages tobe gained by limiting the number of children, a check on naturalfertility is established. But a sudden accession of prosperity--a suddenexcess of work and wages and food--sweeps away this check by apparentlyrendering it unnecessary; the natural reproductive impulse is liberatedby this rising wave, and we here see whatever truth there is in thestatement that prosperity means a high birth-rate. In reality, however, prosperity in such a case merely increases fertility because its suddenaffluence reduces a community to the same careless indifference inregard to the future, the same hasty snatching at the pleasures of themoment, as we find among the most hopeless and least prosperouscommunities. It is a significant fact, as shown by Beveridge, that theyears when the people of Great Britain marry most are the years whenthey drink most. It is in the absence of social-economic restraints--theabsence of the perception of such restraints, or the absence of theability to act in accordance with such perception--that the birth-rateis high. 

Arsène Dumont seems to have been one of the first who observed thissignificance of the oscillation of the birth-rate, though he expressedit in a somewhat peculiar way, as the social capillarity theory. It isthe natural and universal tendency of mankind to ascend, he declared; ahigh birth-rate and a strong ascensional impulse are mutuallycontradictory. Large families are only possible when there is noprogress, and no expectation of it can be cherished; small familiesbecome possible when the way has been opened to progress. "One mightsay, " Dumont puts it, "that invisible valves, like those which directthe circulation of the blood, have been placed by Nature to direct thecurrent of human aspiration in the upward path it has prescribed. " Asthe proletariat is enabled to enjoy the prospect of rising it comesunder the action of this law of social capillarity, and the birth-ratefalls. It is the effort towards an indefinite perfection, Dumontdeclares, which justifies Nature and Man, consoles us for our griefs, and constitutes our sovereign safeguard against the philosophy ofdespair. [127]

When we thus interpret the crude facts of the falling birth-rate, viewing them widely and calmly in connection with the other social factswith which they are intimately related, we are able to see how foolishhas been the outcry against a falling birth-rate, and how false thesupposition that it is due to a new selfishness replacing an ancientaltruism. [128] On the contrary, the excessive birth-rate of the earlyindustrial period was directly stimulated by selfishness. There were nolaws against child-labour; children were produced that they might besent out, when little more than babies, to the factories and the minesto increase their parents' income. The fundamental instincts of men andwomen do not change, but their direction can be changed. In this fieldthe change is towards a higher transformation, introducing a finereconomy into life, diminishing death, disease, and misery, makingpossible the finer ends of living, and at the same time indirectly andeven directly improving the quality of the future race. [129] This is nowbecoming recognized by nearly all calm and sagacious inquirers. [130] Thewild outcry of many unbalanced persons to-day, that a falling birth-ratemeans degeneration and disaster, is so altogether removed from thesphere of reason that we ought perhaps to regard it as comparable tothose manias which, in former centuries, have assumed other forms moreattractive to the neurotic temperament of those days; fortunately, it isa mania which, in the nature of things, is powerless to realize itself, and we need not anticipate that the outcry against small families willhave the same results as the ancient outcry against witches. [131]

It may be proper at this stage to point out that while, in the foregoingstatement, a high birth-rate and a high marriage-rate have been regardedas practically the same thing, we need to make a distinction. The truerelation of the two rates may be realized when it is stated that, themore primitive a community is, the more closely the two rates varytogether. As a community becomes more civilized and more complex, thetwo rates tend to diverge; the restraints on child-production aredeeper and more complex than those on marriage, so that the removal ofthe restraint on marriage by no means removes the restraint onfertility. They tend to diverge in opposite directions. Farr consideredthe marriage-rate among civilized peoples as a barometer of nationalprosperity. In former years, when corn was a great national product, themarriage-rate in England rose regularly as the price of wheat fell. Ofrecent years it has become very difficult to estimate exactly whateconomic factors affect the marriage-rate. It is believed by some thatthe marriage-rate rises or falls with the value of exports. [132] UdnyYule, however, in an expertly statistical study of the matter, [133] finds(in agreement with Hooker) that neither exports nor imports tally withthe marriage-rate. He concludes that the movement of prices is apredominant--though by no means the sole--factor in the change ofmarriage-rates, a fall in prices producing a fall in the marriage-ratesand also in the birth-rates, though he also thinks that pressure on thelabour market has forced both rates lower than the course of priceswould lead one to expect. In so far as these causes are concerned, UdnyYule states, the fall is quite normal and pessimistic views aremisplaced. Udny Yule, however, appears to be by no means confident thathis explanation covers a large part of the causation, and he admits thathe cannot understand the rationale of the connection betweenmarriage-rates and prices. The curves of the marriage-rates in manycountries indicate a maximum about or shortly before, 1875, when thebirth-rate also tended to reach a maximum, and another rise towards1900, thus making the intermediate curve concave. There was, however, alarge rise in money wages between 1860 and 1875, and the rise in theconsuming power of the population has been continuous since 1850. Thusthe factors favourable to a high marriage-rate must have risen from 1850to a maximum about 1870-1875, and since then have fallen continuously. This statement, which Mr. Udny Yule emphasizes, certainly seems highlysignificant from our present point of view. It falls into line with theview here accepted, that the first result of a sudden access ofprosperity is to produce a general orgy, a reckless and improvidenthaste to take advantage of the new prosperity, but that, as the effectsof the orgy wear off, it necessarily gives place to new ideals, and tohigher standards of life which lead to caution and prudence. Mr. N. A. Hooker seems to have perceived this, and in the discussion whichfollowed the reading of Udny Yule's paper he set forth what (though itwas not accepted by Udny Yule) may perhaps fairly be regarded as thesound view of the matter. "During the great expansion of trade prior to1870, " he remarked, "the means of satisfying the desired standard ofcomfort were increasing much more rapidly than the rise in the standard;hence a decreasing age of marriage and a marriage-rate above the normal. After about 1873, however, the means of satisfying the standard ofcomfort no longer increased with the same rapidity, and then a newfactor, he thought, became important, viz. The increased intelligence ofthe people. "[134] This seems to be precisely the same view of the matteras I have here sought to set forth; prosperity is not civilization, itsfirst tendency is to produce a reckless abandonment to the satisfactionof the crudest impulses. But as prosperity develops it begins toengender more complex ideals and higher standards; the inevitable resultis a greater forethought and restraint. [135]

If we consider, not the marriage-rate, but the average age at marriage, and especially the age of the woman, which varies less than that of theman, the results, though harmonious, would not be quite the same. Thegeneral tendency as regards the age of girls at marriage is summed up byPloss and Bartels, in their monumental work on Woman, in the statement:"It may be said in general that the age of girls at marriage is lower, the lower the stage of civilization is in the community to which theybelong. "[136] We thus see one reason why it is that, in an advanced stageof civilization, a high marriage-rate is not necessarily associatedwith a high birth-rate. A large number of women who marry late may havefewer children than a smaller number who marry early. 

We may see the real character of the restraints on fertility very wellillustrated by the varying birth-rate of the upper and lower socialclasses belonging to the same community. If a high birth-rate were amark of prosperity or of advanced civilization, we should expect to findit among the better social class of a community. But the reverse is thecase; it is everywhere the least prosperous and the least culturedclasses of a community which show the highest birth-rate. As we go fromthe very poor to the very rich quarters of a great city--whether Paris, Berlin, or Vienna--the average number of children to the familydiminishes regularly. The difference is found in the country as well asin the towns. In Holland, for instance, whether in town or country, there are 5. 19 children per marriage among the poor, and only 4. 50 amongthe rich. In London it is notorious that the same difference appears;thus Charles Booth, the greatest authority on the social conditions ofLondon, in the concluding volume of his vast survey, sums up thecondition of things in the statement that "the lower the class theearlier the period of marriage and the greater the number of childrenborn to each marriage. " The same phenomenon is everywhere found, and itis one of great significance. 

The significance becomes clearer when we realize that an urbanpopulation must always be regarded as more "civilized" than a ruralpopulation, and that, in accordance with that fact, an urban populationtends to be less prolific than a rural population. The town birth-rateis nearly always lower than the country birth-rate. In Germany this isvery marked, and the rapidly growing urbanization of Germany isaccompanied by a great fall of the birth-rate in the large cities, butnot in the rural districts. In England the fall is more widespread, andthough the birth-rate is much higher in the country than in the townsthe decline in the rural birth-rate is now proceeding more rapidly thanthat in the urban birth-rate. England, which once contained a largelyrural population, now possesses a mainly urban population. Every year itbecomes more urban; while the town population grows, the ruralpopulation remains stationary; so that, at the present time, for everyinhabitant of the country in England, there are more than threetown-dwellers. As the country-dweller is more prolific than thetown-dweller, this means that the rural population is constantly beingpoured into the towns. The larger our great cities grow, the moreirresistible becomes the attraction which they exert on the children ofthe country, who are fascinated by them, as the birds are fascinated bythe lighthouse or the moths by the candle. And the results are notaltogether unlike those which this analogy suggests. At the presenttime, one-third of the population of London is made up of immigrantsfrom the country. Yet, notwithstanding this immense and constant streamof new and vigorous blood, it never suffices to raise the urbanpopulation to the same level of physical and nervous stability whichthe rural population possesses. More alert, more vivacious, moreintelligent, even more urbane in the finer sense, as the urbanpopulation becomes, --not perhaps at first, but in the end, --itinevitably loses its stamina, its reserves of vital energy. Dr. Cantlievery properly defines a Londoner as a person whose grandparents allbelonged to London--and he could not find any. Dr. Harry Campbell hasfound a few who could claim London grandparents; they were poorspecimens of humanity. [137] Even on the intellectual side there are nogreat Londoners. It is well known that a number of eminent men have beenborn in London; but, in the course of a somewhat elaborate study of theorigins of British men of genius, I have not been able to find that anywere genuinely Londoners by descent. [138] An urban life saps that calm andstolid strength which is necessary for all great effort and stress, physical or intellectual. The finest body of men in London, as a class, are the London police, and Charles Booth states that only 17 per cent ofthe London police are born in London, a smaller proportion than anyother class of the London population except the army and navy. As Mr. N. C. Macnamara has pointed out, it is found that London men do notpossess the necessary nervous stability and self-possession for policework; they are too excitable and nervous, lacking the equanimity, courage, and self-reliance of the rural men. Just in the same way, inSpain, the bull-fighters, a body of men admirable for their gracefulstrength, their modesty, courage, and skill, nearly always come fromcountry districts, although it is in the towns that the enthusiasm forbull-fighting is centred. Therefore, it would appear that until urbanconditions of life are greatly improved, the more largely urban apopulation becomes, the more is its standard of vital and physicalefficiency likely to be lowered. This became clearly visible during theSouth African War; it was found at Manchester (as stated by Dr. T. P. Smith and confirmed by Dr. Clayton) that among 11, 000 young men whovolunteered for enlistment, scarcely more than 10 per cent could passthe surgeon's examination, although the standard of physique demandedwas extremely low, while Major-General Sir F. Maurice has stated[139]that, even when all these rejections have been made, of those whoactually are enlisted, at the end of two years only two effectivesoldiers are found for every five who enlist. It is not difficult to seea bearing of these facts on the birth-rate. The civilized world isbecoming a world of towns, and, while the diminished birth-rate of townsis certainly not mainly the result of impaired vitality, these phenomenaare correlative facts of the first importance for every country whichis using up its rural population and becoming a land of cities. 

From our present point of view it is thus a very significant fact thatthe equipoise between country-dwellers and town-dwellers has been lost, that the towns are gaining at the expense of the country whose surpluspopulation they absorb and destroy. The town population is not onlydisinclined to propagate; it is probably in some measure unfit topropagate. 

At the same time, we must not too strongly emphasize this aspect of thematter; such over-emphasis of a single aspect of highly complexphenomena constantly distorts our vision of great social processes. Wehave already seen that it is inaccurate to assert any connection betweena high birth-rate and a high degree of national prosperity, except in sofar as at special periods in the history of a country a sudden wave ofprosperity may temporarily remove the restraints on natural fertility. Prosperity is only one of the causes that tend to remove the restrainton the birth-rate; and it is a cause that is never permanentlyeffective. 

III

To get to the bottom of the matter, we thus find it is necessary to lookinto it more closely than is usually attempted. When we ask ourselveswhy prosperity fails permanently to remove the restraints on fertilitythe answer is, that it speedily creates new restraints. Prosperity andcivilization are far from being synonymous terms. The savage who isable to glut himself with the whale that has just been stranded on hiscoast, is more prosperous than he was the day before, but he is not morecivilized, perhaps a trifle less so. The working community that issuddenly glutted by an afflux of work and wages is in exactly the sameposition as the savage who is suddenly enabled to fill himself with arich mass of decaying blubber. It is prosperity; it is notcivilization. [140] But, while prosperity leads at first to the recklessand unrestrained gratification of the simplest animal instincts ofnutrition and reproduction, it tends, when it is prolonged, to evolvemore complex instincts. Aspirations become less crude, the needs andappetites engendered by prosperity take on a more social character, andare sharpened by social rivalries. In place of the earlier easy andreckless gratification of animal impulses, a peaceful and organizedstruggle is established for securing in ever fuller degree thegratification of increasingly insistent and increasingly complexdesires. Such a struggle involves a deliberate calculation andforethought, which, sooner or later, cannot fail to be applied to thequestion of offspring. Thus it is that affluence, in the long run, itself imposes a check on reproduction. Prosperity, under the stress ofthe urban conditions with which it tends to be associated, has beentransformed into that calculated forethought, that deliberateself-restraint for the attainment of ever more manifold ends, which inits outcome we term "civilization. "

It is frequently assumed, as we have seen, that the process by whichcivilization is thus evolved is a selfish and immoral process. Toprocreate large families, it is said, is unselfish and moral, as well asa patriotic, even a religious duty. This assumption, we now find, is alittle too hasty and is even the reverse of the truth; it is necessaryto take into consideration the totality of the social phenomenaaccompanying a high birth-rate, more especially under the conditions oftown life. A community in which children are born rapidly is necessarilyin an unstable position; it is growing so quickly that there isinsufficient time for the conditions of life to be equalized. The stateof ill-adjustment is chronic; the pressure is lifted from off thenatural impulse of procreation, but is increased on all the conditionsunder which the impulse is exerted. There is increased overcrowding, increased filth, increased disease, increased death. It can neverhappen, in modern times, that the readjustment of the conditions of lifecan be made to keep pace with a high birth-rate. It is sufficient if weconsider the case of English towns, of London in particular, during theperiod when British prosperity was most rapidly increasing, and thebirth-rate nearing its maximum, in the middle of the great Victorianepoch, of which Englishmen are, for many reasons, so proud. It wascertainly not an age lacking in either energy or philanthropy; yet, whenwe read the memorable report which Chadwick wrote in 1842, on the_Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain_, orthe minute study of Bethnal Green which Gavin published in 1848 as atype of the conditions prevailing in English towns, we realize that themagnificence of this epoch was built up over circles of Hell to whichthe imagination of Dante never attained. 

As reproductive activity dies down, social conditions become morestable, a comparatively balanced state of adjustment tends to beestablished, insanitary surroundings can be bettered, diseasediminished, and the death-rate lowered. How much may thus beaccomplished we realize when we compare the admirably precise andbalanced pages in which Charles Booth, in the concluding volumes of hisgreat work, has summarized his survey of London, with the picturepresented by Chadwick and Gavin half a century earlier. Ugly and painfulas are many of the features of this modern London, the vision which is, on the whole, evoked is that of a community which has attainedself-consciousness, which is growing into some faint degree of harmonywith its environment, and is seeking to gain the full amount of thesatisfaction which an organized urban life can yield. Booth, whoappears to have realized the significance of a decreased fertility inthe attainment of this progress, hopes for a still greater fall in thebirth-rate; and those who seek to restore the birth-rate of half acentury ago are engaged on a task which would be criminal if it were notbased on ignorance, and which is, in any case, fatuous. 

The whole course of zoological evolution reveals a constantlydiminishing reproductive activity and a constantly increasingexpenditure of care on the offspring thus diminished in number. [141] Fishspawn their ova by the million, and it is a happy chance if they becomefertilized, a highly unlikely chance that more than a very smallproportion will ever attain maturity. Among the mammals, however, thefemale may produce but half a dozen or fewer offspring at a time, butshe lavishes so much care upon them that they have a very fair chanceof all reaching maturity. In man, in so far as he refrains fromreturning to the beast and is true to the impulse which in him becomes aconscious process of civilization, the same movement is carried forward. He even seeks to decrease still further the number of his offspring byvoluntary effort, and at the same time to increase their quality andmagnify their importance. [142]

When in human families, especially under civilized conditions, we seelarge families we are in the presence of a reversion to the tendenciesthat prevail among lower organisms. Such large families may probably beregarded, as Näcke suggests, as constituting a symptom of degeneration. It is noteworthy that they usually occur in the pathological andabnormal classes, among the insane, the feeble-minded, the criminal, theconsumptive, the alcoholic, etc. [143]

This tendency of the birth-rate to fall with the growth of socialstability is thus a tendency which is of the very essence ofcivilization. It represents an impulse which, however deliberate it maybe in the individual, may, in the community, be looked upon as aninstinctive effort to gain more complete control of the conditions oflife, and to grapple more efficiently with the problems of misery anddisease and death. It is not only, as is sometimes supposed, during thepast century that the phenomena may be studied. We have a remarkableexample some centuries earlier, an example which very clearlyillustrates the real nature of the phenomena. The city of Geneva, perhaps first of European cities, began to register its births, deaths, and marriages from the middle of the sixteenth century. This aloneindicates a high degree of civilization; and at that time, and for somesucceeding centuries, Geneva was undoubtedly a very highly civilizedcity. Its inhabitants really were the "elect, " morally andintellectually, of French Protestantism. In many respects it was a modelcity, as Gray noted when he reached it in the course of his travels inthe middle of the eighteenth century. These registers of Geneva show, ina most illuminating manner, how extreme fertility at the outset, gradually gave place, as civilization progressed, to a very lowfertility, with fewer and later marriages, a very low death-rate, and astate of general well-being in which the births barely replaced thedeaths. 

After Protestant Geneva had lost her pioneering place in civilization, it was in France, the land which above all others may in modern timesclaim to represent the social aspects of civilization, that the sametendency most conspicuously appeared. But all Europe, as well as all theEnglish-speaking lands outside Europe, is now following the lead ofFrance. In a paper read before the Paris Society of Anthropology a fewyears ago, Emile Macquart showed clearly, by a series of ingeniousdiagrams, that whereas, fifty years ago, the condition of the birth-ratein France diverged widely from that prevailing in the other chiefcountries of Europe, the other countries are now rapidly following inthe same road along which France has for a century been proceedingslowly, and are constantly coming closer to her, England closest of all. In the past, proposals have from time to time been made in France tointerfere with the progress of this downward movement of thebirth-rate--proposals that were sufficiently foolish, for neither inFrance nor elsewhere will the individual allow the statistician tointerfere officiously in a matter which he regards as purely intimateand private. But the real character of this tendency of the birth-rate, as an essential phenomenon of civilization, with which neither moralistnor politician can successfully hope to interfere, is beginning to berealized in France. Azoulay, in summing up the discussion afterMacquart's paper[144] had been read at the Society of Anthropology, pointed out that "nations must inevitably follow the same course associal classes, and the more the mass of these social classes becomescivilized, the more the nation's birth-rate falls; therefore there isnothing to be done legally and administratively. " And another memberadded: "Except to applaud. "

It is probably too much to hope that so sagacious a view will at once beuniversally adopted. The United States and the great English colonies, for instance, find it difficult to realize that they are not really newcountries, but branches of old countries, and already nearing maturitywhen they began their separate lives. They are not at the beginning oftwo thousand years of slow development, such as we have passed through, but at the end of it, with us, and sometimes even a little ahead of us. It is therefore natural and inevitable that, in a matter in which we aremoving rapidly, Massachusetts and Ontario and New South Wales and NewZealand should have moved still more rapidly, so rapidly indeed, thatthey have themselves failed to perceive that their real natural increaseand the manner in which it is attained place them in this matter at thevan of civilization. These things are, however, only learnt slowly. Wemay be sure that the fundamental and complex character of the phenomenawill never be obvious to our fussy little politicians, so apt toadvocate panaceas which have effects quite opposite to those theydesire. But, whatever politicians may wish to do or to leave undone, itis well to remember that, of the various ideals the world holds, thereare some that lie on the path of our social progress, and others that donot there lie. We may properly exercise such wisdom as we possess byutilizing the ideals which are before us, serenely neglecting manyothers which however precious they may once have seemed, no longer formpart of the stage of civilization we are now moving towards. 

IV

What are the ideals of the stage of civilization we of the Western worldare now moving towards? We have here pushed as far as need be theanalysis of that declining birth-rate which has caused so much anxietyto those amongst us who can only see narrowly and see superficially. Wehave found that, properly understood, there is nothing in it to evokeour pessimism. On the contrary, we have seen that, in the opinion of themost distinguished authorities, the energy with which we move in ourpresent direction, through the exercise of an ever finer economy inlife, may be regarded as a "measure of civilization" in the importantsphere of vital statistics. As we now leave the question, some may askthemselves whether this concomitant decline in birth-rates anddeath-rates may not possibly have a still wider and more fundamentalmeaning as a measure of civilization. 

We have long been accustomed to regard the East as a spiritual world inwhich the finer ends of living were counted supreme, and the merelymaterialistic aspects of life, dissociated from the aims of religion andof art, were trodden under foot. Our own Western world we have humblyregarded as mainly absorbed in a feverish race for the attainment, byindustry and war, of the satisfaction of the impulses of reproductionand nutrition, and the crudely material aggrandizement of which thoseimpulses are the symbol. A certain outward idleness, a semi-idleness, asNietzsche said, is the necessary condition for a real religious life, for a real æsthetic life, for any life on the spiritual plane. Thenoisy, laborious, pushing, "progressive" life we traditionally associatewith the West is essentially alien to the higher ends of living, as hasbeen intuitively recognized and acted on by all those among us who havesought to pursue the higher ends of living. It was so that thenineteenth-century philosophers of Europe, of whom Schopenhauer was inthis matter the extreme type, viewed the matter. But when we seek tomeasure the tendency of the chief countries of the West, led by France, England, and Germany, and the countries of the East led by Japan, in thelight of this strictly measurable test of vital statistics, may we not, perhaps, trace the approach of a revolutionary transposition? Japan, entering on the road we have nearly passed through, in which theperpetual clash of a high birth-rate and a high death-rate involvessocial disorder and misery, has flung to the winds the loftier ideals itonce pursued so successfully and has lost its fine æsthetic perceptions, its insight into the most delicate secrets of the soul. [145] And whileJapan, certainly to-day voicing the aspirations of the East, isconcerned to become a great military and industrial power, we in theWest are growing weary of war, and are coming to look upon commerce as anecessary routine no longer adequate to satisfy the best energies ofhuman beings. We are here moving towards the fine quiescence involved bya delicate equipoise of life and of death; and this economy sets free anenergy we are seeking to expend in a juster social organization, and inthe realization of ideals which until now have seemed but theimagination of idle dreamers. Asia, as an anonymous writer has recentlyput it, is growing crude, vulgar, and materialistic; Europe, on theother hand, is growing to loathe its own past grossness. "London may yetbe the spiritual capital of the world, while Asia--rich in all that goldcan buy and guns can give, lord of lands and bodies, builder of railwaysand promulgator of police regulations, glorious in all materialglories--postures, complacent and obtuse, before a Europe content in thepossession of all that matters, "[146] Certainly, we are not there yet, butthe old Earth has seen many stranger and more revolutionary changes thanthis. England, as this writer reminds us, was once a tropical forest. 

FOOTNOTES:

[90] It must be understood that, from the present point of view, the term"Anglo-Saxon" covers the peoples of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, aswell as of England. 

[91] The decline of the French birth-rate has been investigated in aLyons thesis by Salvat, _La Dépopulation de la France_, 1903. 

[92] The latest figures are given in the Annual Reports of theRegistrar-General for England and Wales. 

[93] Newsholme and Stevenson, "Decline of Human Fertility as shown bycorrected Birth-rates, " _Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, 1906. 

[94] Werner Sombart, _International Magazine_, December, 1907. 

[95] A. W. Flux, "Urban Vital Statistics in England and Germany, " _Journ. Statist. Soc. _, March, 1910. 

[96] German infantile mortality, Böhmert states ("DieSäuglingssterblichkeit in Deutschland und ihre Ursachen, " _Die NeueGeneration_, March, 1908), is greater than in any European country, except Russia and Hungary, about 50 per cent greater than in England, France, Belgium, or Holland. The infantile mortality has increased inGermany, as usually happens, with the increased employment of women, and, largely from this cause, has nearly doubled in Berlin in the courseof four years, states Lily Braun (_Mutterschutz_, 1906, Heft I, p. 21);but even on this basis it is only 22 per cent in the English textileindustries, as against 38 per cent in the German textile industries. 

[97] In England the marriage-rate fell rather sharply in 1875, and showeda slight tendency to rise about 1900 (G. Udny Yule, "On the Changes inthe Marriage-and Birth-rates in England and Wales, " _Journal of theStatistical Society_, March, 1906). On the whole there has been a realthough slight decline. The decline has been widespread, and is mostmarked in Australia, especially South Australia. There has, however, been a rise in the marriage-rate in Ireland, France, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and especially Belgium. The movement for decreasedchild-production would naturally in the first place involve decreasedmarriage, but it is easy to understand that when it is realized themarriage is not necessarily followed by conception this motive foravoiding marriage loses its force, and the marriage-rate rises. 

[98] _Medicine_, February, 1904. 

[99] Davidson, "The Growth of the French-Canadian Race, " _Annals of theAmerican Academy_, September, 1896. 

[100] T. A. Coghlan, _The Decline of the Birth-rate of New South Wales_, 1903. The New South Wales statistics are specially valuable as therecords contain many particulars (such as age of parents, period sincemarriage, and number of children) not given in English or most otherrecords. 

[101] C. Hamburger, "Kinderzahl und Kindersterblichkeit, " _Die NeueGeneration_, August, 1909. 

[102] Looked at in another way, it may be said that if a natural increase, as ascertained by subtracting the death-rate from the birth-rate, of 10to 15 per cent be regarded as normal, then, taking so far as possiblethe figures for 1909, the natural increase of England and Scotland, ofGermany, of Italy, of Austria and Hungary, of Belgium, is normal; thenatural increase of New South Wales, of Victoria, of South Australia, ofNew Zealand, is abnormally high (though in new countries such increasemay not be undesirable) while the natural increase of France, of Spain, and of Ireland is abnormally low. Such a method of estimation, ofcourse, entirely leaves out of account the question of the socialdesirability of the process by which the normal increase is secured. 

[103] Johannsen, _Janus_, 1905. 

[104] Rubin, "A Measure of Civilization, " _Journal of the RoyalStatistical Society_, March, 1897. "The lowest stage of civilization, "he points out, "is to go forward blindly, which in this connection meansto bring into the world a great number of children which must, in greatproportion, sink into the grave. The next stage of civilization is tosee the danger and to keep clear of it. The highest stage ofcivilization is to see the danger and overcome it. " Europe in the pastand various countries in the present illustrate the first stage; Franceillustrates the second stage; the third stage is that towards which weare striving to move to-day. 

[105] Baines, "The Recent Growth of Population in Western Europe, "_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, December, 1909. 

[106] Various facts and references are given by Havelock Ellis, _TheNationalization of Health_, chap. XIV. 

[107] These are the figures given by the chief Japanese authority, Professor Takano, _Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, July, 1910, p. 738. 

[108] E. A. Ross, "The Race Fibre of the Chinese, " _Popular ScienceMonthly_, October, 1911. According to another competent and fairlyconcordant estimate, the infantile death-rate of China is 90 per cent. Of the female infants, probably about 1 in 10 is intentionallydestroyed. 

[109] J. J. Matignon, "La Mère et l'Enfant en Chine, " _Archivesd'Anthropologie Criminelle_, October to November, 1909. 

[110] Arsène Dumont, for instance, points out (_Dépopulation etCivilization_, p. 116) that the very early marriages and the recklessfertility of the Chinese cannot fail to cease as soon as the peopleadopt European ways. 

[111] The confident estimates of the future population of the world whichare from time to time put forward on the basis of the present birth-rateare quite worthless. A brilliantly insubstantial fabric of this kind, byB. L. Putnam Weale (_The Conflict of Colour_, 1911), has been justlycriticized by Professor Weatherley (_Popular Science Monthly_, November, 1911). 

[112] It is sometimes convenient to use the term "Neo-Malthusianism" toindicate the voluntary limitation of the family, but it must always beremembered that Malthus would not have approved of Neo-Malthusianism, and that Neo-Malthusian practices have nothing to do with the theory ofMalthus. They would not be affected could that theory be conclusivelyproved or conclusively disproved. 

[113] We even find the demand that bachelors and spinsters shall be taxed. This proposal has been actually accepted (1911) by the Landtag of thelittle Principality of Reuss, which proposes to tax bachelors andspinsters over thirty years of age. Putting aside the arguable questionsas to whether a State is entitled to place such pressure on itscitizens, it must be pointed out that it is not marriage but the childwhich concerns the State. It is possible to have children withoutmarriage, and marriage does not ensure the procreation of children. Therefore it would be more to the point to tax the childless. In thatcase, it would be necessary to remit the tax in the case of unmarriedpeople with children, and to levy it in the case of married peoplewithout children. But it has further to be remembered that not allpersons are fitted to have sound children, and as unsound children are aburden and not a benefit to the State, the State ought to reward ratherthan to fine those conscientious persons who refrain from procreationwhen they are too poor, or with too defective a heredity, to be likelyto produce, or to bring up, sound children. Moreover, some persons aresterile, and thorough medical investigation would be required beforethey could fairly be taxed. As soon as we begin to analyse such aproposal we cannot fail to see that, even granting that the aim of suchlegislation is legitimate and desirable, the method of attaining it isthoroughly mischievous and unjustifiable. 

[114] J. G. Engelmann, "Decreasing Fecundity, " _Philadelphia MedicalJournal_, January 18, 1902. 

[115] It has, further, been frequently denied that Neo-Malthusianpractices can affect Roman Catholic countries, since the Church isprecluded from approving of them. That is true. But it is also truethat, as Lagneau long since pointed out, the Protestants of Europe haveincreased at more than double the annual rate of the Catholics, thoughthis relationship has now ceased to be exact. Dumont states(_Dépopulation et Civilisation_, chap. XVIII) that there is not theslightest reason to suppose that (apart from the question of poverty)the faithful have more children than the irreligious; moreover, indealing with its more educated members, it is not the policy of theChurch to make indiscreet inquiries (see Havelock Ellis, _Studies in thePsychology of Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society, " p. 590). ACatholic bishop is reported to have warned his clergy against referringin their Lent sermons to the voluntary restriction of conception, remarking that an excess of rigour in this matter would cause the Churchto lose half her flock. The fall in the birth-rate is as marked inCatholic as in Protestant countries; the Catholic communities in whichthis is not the case are few, and placed in exceptional circumstances. It must be remembered, moreover, that the Church enjoins celibacy on itsclergy, and that celibacy is practically a Malthusian method. It is noteasy while preaching practical Malthusianism to the clergy to spend muchfervour in preaching against practical Neo-Malthusianism to the laity. 

[116] McLean, "The Declining Birth-rate in Australia, " _InternationalMedical Journal of Australasia_, 1904. 

[117] Thus in France the low birth-rate is associated with a highinfantile death-rate, which has not yet been appreciably influenced bythe movement of puericulture in France. In England also, at the end ofthe last century, the declining birth-rate was accompanied by a risinginfantile death-rate, which is now, however, declining under theinfluence of greater care of child-life. 

[118] Sidney Webb, _Times_, October 11 and 16, 1906; also _Popular ScienceMonthly_, 1906, p. 526. 

[119] It is important to remember the distinction between "fecundity" and"fertility. " A woman who has one child has proved that she is fecund, but has not proved that she is fertile. A woman with six children hasproved that she is not only fecund but fertile. 

[120] They have been worked out by C. J. Lewis and J. Norman Lewis, _Natality and Fecundity_, 1905. 

[121] Newsholme and Stevenson, _op. Cit. _; Rubin and Westergaard, _Statistik der Ehen_, 1890, p. 95. 

[122] D. Heron, "On the Relation of Fertility in Man to Social Status, "_Drapers' Company Research Memoirs_, No. 1, 1906. 

[123] The recognition of this relationship must not be regarded as anattempt unduly to narrow down the causation of changes in thebirth-rate. The great complexity of the causes influencing thebirth-rate is now fairly well recognized, and has, for instance, beenpointed out by Goldscheid, _Höherentwicklung und Menschenökonomie_, Vol. I, 1911. 

[124] In a paper read at the Brunswick Meeting of the GermanAnthropological Society (_Correspondenzblatt_ of the Society, November, 1898); a great many facts concerning the fecundity of women amongsavages in various parts of the world are brought together by Ploss andBartels, _Das Weib_, Vol I, chap. XXIV. 

[125] The proportion of doctors to the population is very small, and thepeople still have great confidence in their quacks and witch-doctors. The elementary rules of sanitation are generally neglected, watersupplies are polluted, filth is piled up in the streets and thecourtyards, as it was in England and Western Europe generally until acentury ago, and the framing of regulations or the incursions of thepolice have little effect on the habits of the people. Neglect of theordinary precautions of cleanliness is responsible for the wideextension of syphilis by the use of drinking vessels, towels, etc. , incommon. Not only is typhoid prevalent in nearly every province ofRussia, but typhus, which is peculiarly the disease of filth, overcrowding, and starvation, and has long been practically extinct inEngland, still flourishes and causes an immense mortality. The workersoften have no homes and sleep in the factories amidst the machinery, menand women together; their food is insufficient, and the hours of labourmay vary from twelve to fourteen. When famine occurs these conditionsare exaggerated, and various epidemics ravage the population. 

[126] It must, however, be remembered that in small and unstablecommunities a considerable margin for error must be allowed, as thecrude birth-rate is unduly raised by an afflux of immigrants at thereproductive age. 

[127] Arsène Dumont, _Dépopulation et Civilisation_, 1890, chap. VI. Thenature of the restraint on fertility has been well set forth by Dr. Bushee ("The Declining Birth-rate and its Causes, " _Popular ScienceMonthly_, August, 1903), mainly in the terms of Dumont's "socialcapillarity" theory. 

[128] Even Dr. Newsholme, usually so cautious and reliable an investigatorin this field, has been betrayed into a reference in this connection(_The Declining Birth-rate_, 1911, p. 41) to the "increasing rarity ofaltruism, " though in almost the next paragraph he points out that thelarge families of the past were connected with the fact that the childwas a profitable asset, and could be sent to work when little more thanan infant. The "altruism" which results in crushing the minds and bodiesof others in order to increase one's own earnings is not an "altruism"which we need desire to perpetuate. The beneficial effect of legislationagainst child-labour in reducing an unduly high birth-rate has oftenbeen pointed out. 

[129] It may suffice to take a single point. Large families involve thebirth of children at very short intervals. It has been clearly shown byDr. R. J. Ewart ("The Influence of Parental Age on Offspring, " _EugenicsReview_, October, 1911) that children born at an interval of less thantwo years after the birth of the previous child, remain, even when theyhave reached their sixth year, three inches shorter and three poundslighter than first-born children. 

[130] For instance, Goldscheid, in _Höherentwicklung undMenschenökonomie_; it is also, on the whole, the conclusion ofNewsholme, though expressed in an exceedingly temperate manner, in his_Declining Birth-rate_. 

[131] If, however, our birth-rate fanatics should hear of the resultsobtained at the experimental farm at Roseville, California, by ProfessorSilas Wentworth, who has found that by placing ewes in a field under thepower wires of an electric wire company, the average production of lambsis more than doubled, we may anticipate trouble in many hitherto smallfamilies. Their predecessors insisted, in the cause of religion andmorals, on burning witches; we must not be surprised if our modernfanatics, in the same holy cause, clamour for a law compelling allchildless women to live under electric wires. 

[132] J. Holt Schooling, "The English Marriage Rate, " _FortnightlyReview_, June, 1901. 

[133] G. Udny Yule, "Changes in the Marriage-and Birth-rate in England, "_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, March, 1906. 

[134] At an earlier period Hooker had investigated the same subjectwithout coming to any very decisive conclusions ("Correlation of theMarriage-rate with Trade, " _Journ. Statistical Soc. _, September, 1901). Minor fluctuations in marriage and in trade per head, he found, tend tobe in close correspondence, but on the whole trade has risen and themarriage-rate has fallen, probably, Hooker believed, as the result ofthe gradual deferment of marriage. 

[135] The higher standard need not be, among the mass of the population, of a very exalted character, although it marks a real progress. Newsholme and Stevenson (_op. Cit. _) term it a higher "standard ofcomfort. " The decline of the birth-rate, they say, "is associated with ageneral raising of the standard of comfort, and is an expression of thedetermination of the people to secure this greater comfort. "

[136] Ploss, _Das Weib_, Vol. I, chap. XX. 

[137] It must not, however, be assumed that the rural immigrants are inthe mass better suited to urban life than the urban natives. It isprobable that, notwithstanding their energy and robustness, theimmigrants are less suited to urban conditions than the natives. Consequently a process of selection takes place among the immigrants, and the survivors become, as it were, immunized to the poisons of urbanlife. But this immunization is by no means necessarily associated withany high degree of nervous vigour or general physical development. 

[138] Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 22, 43. 

[139] "National Health: a Soldier's Study, " _Contemporary Review_, January, 1903. The Reports of the Inspector-General of Recruiting aresaid to show that the recruits are every year smaller, lighter, andnarrower-chested. 

[140] This has been well illustrated during the past forty years in theflourishing county of Glamorgan in Wales, as is shown by Dr. R. S. Stewart ("The Relationship of Wages, Lunacy, and Crime in South Wales, "_Journal of Mental Science_, January, 1904). The staple industry here iscoal, 17 per cent of the population being directly employed incoal-mining, and wages are determined by the sliding scale as it iscalled, according to which the selling price of coal regulates thewages. This leads to many fluctuations and sudden accesses ofprosperity. It is found that whenever wages rise there is a concomitantincrease of insanity and at the same time a diminished output of coaldue to slacking of work when earnings are greater; there is also anincrease of drunkenness and of crime. Stewart concludes that it isdoubtful whether increased material prosperity is conducive toimprovement in physical and mental status. It must, however, be pointedout that it is a sudden and unstable prosperity, not necessarily agradual and stable prosperity, which is hereby shown to be pernicious. 

[141] The relationship is sometimes expressed by saying that the morehighly differentiated the organism the fewer the offspring. According toPlate we ought to say that, the greater the capacity for parental carethe fewer the offspring. This, however, comes to the same thing, sinceit is the higher organisms which possess the increased capacity forparental care. Putting it in the most generalized zoological way, diminished offspring is the response to improved environment. Thus inMan the decline of the birth-rate, as Professor Benjamin Moore remarks(_British Medical Journal_, August 20, 1910, p. 454), is "the simplebiological reply to good economic conditions. It is a well-knownbiological law that even a micro-organism, when placed in unfavourableconditions as to food and environment, passes into a reproductive phase, and by sporulation or some special type produces new individuals veryrapidly. The same condition of affairs in the human race was shown evenby the fact that one-half of the births come from the least favourablysituated one-quarter of the population. Hence, over-rapid birth-rateindicates unfavourable conditions of life, so that (so long as thepopulation was on the increase) a lower birth-rate was a valuableindication of a better social condition of affairs, and a matter onwhich we should congratulate the country rather than proceed tocondolences. "

[142] "The accumulations of racial experience tend to show, " remarks WoodsHutchinson ("Animal Marriage, " _Contemporary Review_, October, 1904), "that by the production of a smaller and smaller number of offspring, and the expenditure upon those of a greater amount of parental care, better results can be obtained in efficiency and capacity for survival. "

[143] Toulouse, _Causes de la Folie_, p. 91; Magri, _Archivio diPsichiatria_, 1896, fasc. Vi-vii; Havelock Ellis, _A Study of BritishGenius_, pp. 106 et seq. 

[144] Emile Macquart, "Mortalité, Natalité, Dépopulation, " _Bulletin de laSociété d'Anthropologie_, 1902. 

[145] It is interesting to observe how Lafcadio Hearn, during the lastyears of his life, was compelled, however unwillingly, to recognize thischange. See e. G. His _Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation_, 1904, ch. XXI, on "Industrial Dangers. " The Japanese themselves have recognizedit, and it is the feeling of the decay of their ancient ideals which hasgiven so great an impetus to new ethical movements, such as that, described as a kind of elevated materialism, established by YukichiFukuzawa (see _Open Court_, June, 1907). 

[146] _Athenæum_, October 7, 1911. 

VI

EUGENICS AND LOVE

 Eugenics and the Decline of the Birth-rate--Quantity and Quality in the Production of Children--Eugenic Sexual Selection--The Value of Pedigrees--Their Scientific Significance--The Systematic Record of Personal Data--The Proposal for Eugenic Certificates--St. Valentine's Day and Sexual Selection--Love and Reason--Love Ruled by Natural Law--Eugenic Selection not opposed to Love--No Need for Legal Compulsion--Medicine in Relation to Marriage

I

During recent years the question of the future of the human race hasbeen brought before us in a way it has never been brought before. Thegreat expansive movement in civilized countries is over. Whereas, fiftyyears ago, France seemed to present a striking contrast to othercountries in her low and gradually falling birth-rate, to-day, thoughshe has herself now almost reached a stationary position, France is seenmerely to have been the leader in a movement which is common to all themore highly civilized nations. They are all now moving rapidly in thedirection in which she moved slowly. It was inevitable that thismovement, world-wide as it is, should call forth energetic protests, forthere is no condition of things so bad but it finds some to advocate itsperpetuation. There has, therefore, been much vigorous preaching against"race suicide" by people who were deaf to the small voice of reason, who failed to understand that this matter could not be settled by mereconsideration of the crude birth-rates, and that, even if it could, weshould have still to realize that, as an economist remarks, it is to thedecline of the birth-rate only that we probably owe it that the moderncivilized world has been saved from economic disaster. [147]

But whatever the causes of the declining birth-rate it is certain thateven when they are within our control they are of far too intimate acharacter for the public moralist to be permitted to touch them, eventhough we consider them to be in a disastrous state. It has to berecognized that we are here in the presence, not of a merely local ortemporary tendency which might be shaken off with an effort, but of agreat fundamental law of civilization; and the fact that we encounter itin our own race merely means that we are reaching a fairly high stage ofcivilization. It is far from the first time, in the history of theworld, that the same phenomenon has been witnessed. It was seen inImperial Rome; it was seen, again, in the "Protestant Rome, " Geneva. Wherever are gathered together an exceedingly fine race of people, theflower of the race, individuals of the highest mental and moraldistinction, there the birth-rate falls steadily. Vice or virtue alikeavails nothing in this field; with high civilization fertilityinevitably diminishes. 

II

Under these circumstances it was to be expected that a new ideal shouldbegin to flash before men's eyes. If the ideal of _quantity_ is lost tous, why not seek the ideal of _quality_? We know that the old rule:"Increase and multiply" meant a vast amount of infant mortality, ofstarvation, of chronic disease, of widespread misery. In abandoning thatrule, as we have been forced to do, are we not left free to seek thatour children, though few, should be at all events fit, the finest, alikein physical and psychical constitution, that the world has seen?

Thus has come about the recent expansion of that conception of_Eugenics_, or the science and art of Good Breeding in the human race, which a group of workers, pioneered by Francis Galton[148]--at first inEngland and later in America, Germany and elsewhere--have beendeveloping for some years past. Eugenics is beginning to be felt topossess a living actuality which it failed to possess before. Instead ofbeing a benevolent scientific fad it begins to present itself as thegoal to which we are inevitably moving. 

The cause of Eugenics has sometimes been prejudiced in the public mindby a comparison with the artificial breeding of domestic animals. Inreality the two things are altogether different. In breeding animals ahigher race of beings manipulates a lower race with the object ofsecuring definite points that are of no use whatever to the animalsthemselves, but of considerable value to the breeders. In our own race, on the other hand, the problem of breeding is presented in an entirelydifferent shape. There is as yet no race of super-men who are preparedto breed man for their own special ends. As things are, even if we hadthe ability and the power, we should surely hesitate before we bred menand women as we breed dogs or fowls. We may, therefore, quite put asideall discussion of eugenics as a sort of higher cattle-breeding. It wouldbe undesirable, even if it were not impracticable. 

But there is another aspect of Eugenics. Human eugenics need not be, andis not likely to be, a cold-blooded selection of partners by someoutside scientific authority. But it may be, and is very likely to be, aslowly growing conviction--first among the more intelligent members ofthe community and then by imitation and fashion among the lessintelligent members--that our children, the future race, thetorch-bearers of civilization for succeeding ages, are not the mereresult of chance or Providence, but that, in a very real sense, it iswithin our power to mould them, that the salvation or damnation of manyfuture generations lies in our hands since it depends on our wise andsane choice of a mate. The results of the breeding of those persons whoought never to be parents is well known; the notorious case of the Jukesfamily is but one among many instances. We could scarcely expect in anycommunity that individuals like the Jukes would take the initiative inmovements for the eugenic development of the race, but it makes muchdifference whether such families exist in an environment like our ownwhich is indifferent to the future of the race, or whether they aresurrounded by influences of a more wholesome character which canscarcely fail to some extent to affect, and even to control, thereckless and anti-social elements in the community. 

In considering this question, therefore, we are justified in puttingaside not only any kind of human breeding resembling the artificialbreeding of animals, but also, at all events for the present, everycompulsory prohibition on marriage or procreation. We must be content toconcern ourselves with ideals, and with the endeavour to exert ourpersonal influence in the realization of these ideals. 

III

Such ideals cannot, however, be left in the air; if they depend onindividual caprice nothing but fruitless confusion can come of them. They must be firmly grounded on a scientific basis of ascertained fact. This was always emphasized by Galton. He not only initiated schemes forobtaining, but actually to some extent obtained, a large amount ofscientific knowledge concerning the special characteristics andaptitudes of families, and his efforts in this direction have since beenlargely extended and elaborated. [149] The feverish activities of modernlife, and the constant vicissitudes and accidents that overtake familiesto-day, have led to an extraordinary indifference to family history andtradition. Our forefathers, from generation to generation, carefullyentered births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths in the fly-leaf of theFamily Bible. It is largely owing to these precious entries that manyare able to carry their family history several centuries further backthan they otherwise could. But nowadays the Family Bible has for themost part ceased to exist, and nothing else has taken its place. If aman wishes to know what sort of stocks he has come from, unless he ishimself an antiquarian, or in a position to employ an antiquarian toassist him, he can learn little, and in the most favourable position heis helpless without clues; though with such clues he might often learnmuch that would be of the greatest interest to him. The entries in theFamily Bible, however, whatever their value as clues and even as actualdata, do not furnish adequate information to serve as a guide to thedifferent qualities of stocks; we need far more detailed and variedinformation in order to realize the respective values of families fromthe point of view of eugenics. Here, again, Galton had already realizedthe need for supplying a great defect in our knowledge, and hisLife-history Albums showed how the necessary information may beconveniently registered. 

The accumulated histories of individual families, it is evident, will intime furnish a foundation on which to base scientific generalizations, and eventually, perhaps, to justify practical action. Moreover, a vastamount of valuable information on which it is possible to build up aknowledge of the correlated characteristics of families, already lies atpresent unused in the great insurance offices and elsewhere. When it ispossible to obtain a large collection of accurate pedigrees forscientific purposes, and to throw them into a properly tabulated form, we shall certainly be in a position to know more of the qualities ofstocks, of their good and bad characteristics, and of the degree inwhich they are correlated. [150]

In this way we shall, in time, be able to obtain a clear picture of theprobable results on the offspring of unions between any kind of people. From personal and ancestral data we shall be able to reckon the probablequality of the offspring of a married couple. Given a man and woman ofknown personal qualities and of known ancestors, what are likely to bethe personal qualities, physical, mental and moral, of the children?That is a question of immense importance both for the beings themselveswhom we bring into the world, for the community generally, and for thefuture race. 

Eventually, it seems evident, a general system, whether private orpublic, whereby all personal facts, biological and mental, normal andmorbid, are duly and systematically registered, must become inevitableif we are to have a real guide as to those persons who are most fit, ormost unfit, to carry on the race. [151] Unless they are full and frank suchrecords are useless. But it is obvious that for a long time to come sucha system of registration must be private. According to the belief whichis still deeply rooted in most of us, we regard as most private thosefacts of our lives which are most intimately connected with the life ofthe race, and most fateful for the future of humanity. The feeling is nodoubt inevitable; it has a certain rightness and justification. As, however, our knowledge increases we shall learn that we are, on the onehand, a little more responsible for future generations than we areaccustomed to think, and, on the other hand, a little less responsiblefor our own good or bad qualities. Our fiat makes the future man, but, in the same way, we are ourselves made by a choice and a will not ourown. A man may indeed, within limits, mould himself, but the materialshe can alone use were handed on to him by his parents, and whether hebecomes a man of genius, a criminal, a drunkard, an epileptic, or anordinarily healthy, well-conducted, and intelligent citizen, must dependat least as much on his parents as on his own effort or lack of effort, since even the aptitude for effective effort is largely inborn. As welearn to look on the facts from the only sound standpoint of heredity, our anger or contempt for a failing and erring individual has to giveway to the kindly but firm control of a weakling. If the children'steeth have been set on edge it is because the parents have eaten sourgrapes. 

If, however, we certainly cannot bring legal or even moral force tocompel everyone to maintain such detailed registers of himself, hisancestral stocks, and his offspring--to say nothing of inducing him tomake them public--there is something that we can do. We can make it tohis interest to keep such a record. [152] If it became an advantage inlife to a man to possess good ancestors, and to be himself a goodspecimen of humanity in mind, character, and physique, we may be surethat those who are above the average in these matters will be glad tomake use of that superiority. Insurance offices already make aninquisition into these matters, to which no one objects, because a manonly submits to it for his own advantage; while for military and someother services similar inquiries are compulsory. Eugenic certificates, according to Galton's proposal, would be issued by a suitablyconstituted authority to those candidates who chose to apply for themand were able to pass the necessary tests. Such certificates would implyan inquiry and examination into the ancestry of the candidate as well asinto his own constitution, health, intelligence and character; and thepossession of such a certificate would involve a superiority to theaverage in all these respects. No one would be compelled to offerhimself for such examination, just as no one is compelled to seek auniversity degree. But its possession would often be an advantage. Thereis nothing to prevent the establishment of a board of examiners of thiskind to-morrow, and we may be sure that, once established, manycandidates would hasten to present themselves. [153] There are obviouslymany positions in life wherein a certificate of this kind of superioritywould be helpful. But its chief distinction would be that its possessionwould be a kind of patent of natural nobility; the man or woman who heldit would be one of Nature's aristocrats, to whom the future of the racemight be safely left without further question. 

IV

By happy inspiration, or by chance, Galton made public his programme ofeugenic research, in a paper read before the Sociological Society, onFebruary 14, the festival of St. Valentine. Although the ancientobservances of that day have now died out, St. Valentine was for manycenturies the patron saint of sexual selection, more especially inEngland. It can scarcely be said that any credit in this matter belongsto the venerable saint himself; it was by an accident that he achievedhis conspicuous position in the world. He was simply a pious Christianwho was beheaded for his faith in Rome under Claudius. But it sohappened that his festival fell at that period in early spring whenbirds were believed to pair, and when youths and maidens were accustomedto select partners for themselves or for others. This custom--which hasbeen studied together with many allied primitive practices byMannhardt[154]--was not always carried out on February 14, sometimes ittook place a little later. In England, where it was strictly associatedwith St. Valentine's Day, the custom was referred to by Lydgate, and byCharles of Orleans in the rondeaus and ballades he wrote during his longimprisonment in England. The name Valentins or Valentines was alsointroduced into France (where the custom had long existed) to designatethe young couples thus constituted. This method of sexual selection, half playful, half serious, flourished especially in the region betweenEngland, the Moselle, and the Tyrol. The essential part of the customlay in the public choice of a fitting mate for marriageable girls. Sometimes the question of fitness resolved itself into one of goodlooks; occasionally the matter was settled by lot. There was nocompulsion about these unions; they were often little more than a game, though at times they involved a degree of immorality which caused theauthorities to oppose them. But very frequently the sexual selectionthus exerted led to weddings, and these playful Valentine unions wereheld to be a specially favourable prelude to a happy marriage. 

It is scarcely necessary to show how the ancient customs associated withSt. Valentine's Day are taken up again and placed on a higher plane bythe great movement which is now beginning to shape itself among us. Theold Valentine unions were made by a process of caprice tempered more orless by sound instincts and good sense. In the sexual selection of thefuture the same results will be attained by more or less deliberate andconscious recognition of the great laws and tendencies whichinvestigation is slowly bringing to light. The new St. Valentine will bea saint of science rather than of folk-lore. 

Whenever such statements as these are made it is always retorted thatlove laughs at science, and that the winds of passion blow where theylist. [155] That, however, is by no means altogether true, and in any caseit is far from covering the whole of the ground. It is hard to fightagainst human nature, but human nature itself is opposed toindiscriminate choice of mates. It is not true that any one tends tolove anybody, and that mutual attraction is entirely a matter of chance. The investigations which have lately been carried out show that thereare certain definite tendencies in this matter, that certain kinds ofpeople tend to be attracted to certain kinds, especially that like areattracted to like rather than unlike to unlike, and that, again, whilesome kinds of people tend to be married with special frequency otherkinds tend to be left unmarried. [156] Sexual selection, even when left torandom influences, is still not left to chance; it follows definite andascertainable laws. In that way the play of love, however free it mayappear, is really limited in a number of directions. People do not tendto fall in love with those who are in racial respects a contrast tothemselves; they do not tend to fall in love with foreigners; they donot tend to be attracted to the ugly, the diseased, the deformed. Allthese things may happen, but they are the exception and not the rule. These limitations to the roving impulses of love, while very real, tosome extent vary at different periods in accordance with the idealswhich happen to be fashionable. In more remote ages they have been stillmore profoundly modified by religious and social ideas; polygamy andpolyandry, the custom of marrying only inside one's own caste, or onlyoutside it, all these various and contradictory plans have been easilyaccepted at some place and some time, and have offered no more consciousobstacle to the free play of love than among ourselves is offered by theprohibition against marriage between near relations. 

Those simple-minded people who talk about the blind and irresistibleforce of passion are themselves blind to very ordinary psychologicalfacts. Passion--when it occurs--requires in normal persons cumulativeand prolonged forces to impart to it full momentum. [157] In its earlystages it is under the control of many influences, including influencesof reason. If it were not so there could be no sexual selection, nor anysocial organization. [158]

The eugenic ideal which is now developing is thus not an artificialproduct, but the reasoned manifestation of a natural instinct, which hasoften been far more severely strained by the arbitrary prohibitions ofthe past than it is ever likely to be by any eugenic ideals of thefuture. The new ideal will be absorbed into the conscience of thecommunity, whether or not like a kind of new religion, [159] and willinstinctively and unconsciously influence the impulses of men and women. It will do all this the more surely since, unlike the taboos of savagesocieties, the eugenic ideal will lead men and women to reject aspartners only the men and women who are naturally unfit--the diseased, the abnormal, the weaklings--and conscience will thus be on the side ofimpulse. 

It may indeed be pointed out that those who advocate a higher and morescientific conscience in matters of mating are by no means plottingagainst love, which is for the most part on their side, but ratheragainst the influences that do violence to love: on the one hand, thereckless and thoughtless yielding to mere momentary desire, and, on theother hand, the still more fatal influences of wealth and position andworldly convenience which give a factitious value to persons who wouldnever appear attractive partners in life were love and eugenic idealsleft to go hand in hand. It is such unions, and not those inspired bythe wholesome instincts of wholesome lovers, which lead, if not to theabstract "deterioration of the race, " at all events in numberless casesto the abiding unhappiness of persons who choose a mate withoutrealizing how that mate is likely to develop, nor what sort of childrenmay probably be expected from the union. The eugenic ideal will have tostruggle with the criminal and still more resolutely with the rich; itwill have few serious quarrels with normal and well constituted lovers. 

It will now perhaps be clear how it is that the eugenic conception ofthe improvement of the race embodies a new ideal. We are familiar withlegislative projects for compulsory certificates as a condition ofmarriage. But even apart from all the other considerations which makesuch schemes both illusory and undesirable, these externally imposedregulations fail to go to the root of the matter. If they are voluntary, if they spring out of a fine eugenic aspiration, it is another matter. Under these conditions the method may be carried out at once. ProfessorGrasset has pointed out one way in which this may be effected. Wecannot, he remarks, follow the procedure of a military _conseil derevision_ and compulsorily reject the candidate for a definite defect. But it would be possible for the two families concerned to call aconference of their two family doctors, after examination of thewould-be bride and bridegroom, permitting the doctors to discuss freelythe medical aspects of the proposed union, and undertaking to accepttheir decision, without asking for the revelation of any secrets, thefamilies thus remaining ignorant of the defect which prevented thisunion but might not prevent another union, for the chief danger in manycases comes from the conjunction of convergent morbid tendencies. [160] InFrance, where much power remains with the respective families, thismethod might be operative, provided complete confidence was felt in thedoctors concerned. In some countries, such as England, the prospectivecouple might prefer to take the matter into their own hands, to discussit frankly, and to seek medical advice on their own account; this is nowmuch more frequently done than was formerly the case. But all compulsoryprojects of this kind, and indeed any mere legislation, cannot go to theroot of the matter. For in the first place, what we need is a great bodyof facts, and a careful attention to the record and registration andstatistical tabulation of personal and family histories. In the secondplace, we need that sound ideals and a high sense of responsibilityshould permeate the whole community, first its finer and moredistinguished members and then, by the usual contagion that rules insuch matters, the whole body of its members. [161] In time, no doubt, thiswould lead to concerted social action. We may reasonably expect that atime will come when if, for instance, an epileptic woman conceals hercondition from the man she is marrying it would generally be felt thatan offence has been committed serious enough to invalidate the marriage. We must not suppose that lovers would be either willing or competent toinvestigate each other's family and medical histories. But it would beat least as easy and as simple to choose a partner from those personswho had successfully passed the eugenic test--more especially since suchpersons would certainly be the most attractive group in thecommunity--as it is for an Australian aborigine to select a conjugalpartner from one social group rather than from any other. [162] It is amatter of accepting an ideal and of exerting our personal and socialinfluence in the direction of that ideal. If we really seek to raise thelevel of humanity we may in this way begin to do so to-day. 

NOTE ON THE LIFE-HISTORY RECORD

The extreme interest of a Life-History Record is obvious, even apartfrom its eventual scientific value. Most of us would have reason tocongratulate ourselves had such records been customary when we wereourselves children. It is probable that this is becoming more generallyrealized, though until recently only the pioneers have here been active. "I started a Life-History Album for each of my children, " writes Mr. F. H. Perrycoste in a private letter, "as soon as they were born; and bythe time they arrive at man's and woman's estate they will have valuablerecords of their own physical, mental, and moral development, whichshould be of great service to them when they come to have children oftheir own, whilst the physical--in which are included, of course, medical--records may at any time be of great value to their own medicaladvisers in later life. I have reason to regret that some such Albumswere not kept for my wife and myself, for they would have afforded thenecessary data by which to 'size up' the abilities and conduct of ourchildren. I know, for instance, pretty well what was my own Galtonianrank as a schoolboy, and I am constantly asking myself whether my boywill do as well, better, or worse. Now fortunately I do happen toremember roughly what stages I had reached at one or two transitionperiods of school-life; but if only such an Album had been kept for me, I could turn it up and check my boy against myself in each subject ateach yearly stage. You will gather from this that I consider it of greatimportance that ample details of school-work and intellectualdevelopment should be entered in the Album. I find the space at mydisposal for these entries insufficient, and consequently I summarize inthe Album and insert a reference to sheets of fuller details which Ikeep; but it might be well, when another edition of the Album comes tobe published, to agitate for the insertion of extra blank pages afterthe age of eight or nine, in order to allow of the transcription of fullschool-reports. However, the great thing is to induce people to keep anAlbum that will form the nucleus round which any number of fullerrecords can cluster. "

It is not necessary that the Galtonian type of Album should be rigidlypreserved, and I am indebted to "Henry Hamill, " the author of _The TruthWe Owe to Youth_, for the following suggestions as to the way in whichsuch a record may be carried out:

"The book should not be a mere dry rigmarole, but include a certainappeal to sentiment. The subject should begin to make the entrieshimself when old enough to do so properly, i. E. So that the book willnot be disfigured--though indeed the naivity of juvenile phrasing, etc. , may be of a particular interest. From a graphological point of view, theevolution of the handwriting will be of interest; and if for no otherreason, specimens of handwriting ought to appear in it from year toyear, while the parent is still writing the other entries. There may nowbe a certain sacramental character in the life-history. The subjectshould be led to regard the book as a witness, and to perceive in it anadditional reason for avoiding every act the mention of which would be adisfigurement of the history. At the same time, the nature of thewitness may be made to correct the wrong notions prevailing as to theworthiness of acts, and to sanctify certain of them that have beenfoolishly degraded. Thus there may be left several leaves blank beforethe pages of forms for filling in anthropometric and physiological data, and the headings may be made to suggest a worthier way of viewing thesethings. For instance, there may be the indication 'Place and time ofconception, ' and a specimen entry may be of service to lead commonplaceminds into a more reverent and poetical view than is now usual--such asthe one I culled from the life-history of an American child: 'Oursecond child M---- was conceived on Midsummer Day, under the shade of afriendly sycamore, beneath the cloudless blue of Southern California. 'Or, instead of restricting the reference to the particular episode, itmay refer to the whole chapter of Love which that episode adorned, moreespecially in the case of a first child, when a poetical history of themating of the parents may precede. The presence of the idea that thebook would some day be read by others than the intimate circle, wouldrestrain the tendency of some persons to inordinate self-revelation and'gush. ' Such books as these would form the dearest heirlooms of afamily, helping to knit its bonds firmer, and giving an insight intoindividual character which would supplement the more tangible data forthe pedigree in a most valuable way. The photographs taken every threemonths or so ought to be as largely as possible nude. The gradualtransition from childhood would help to prevent an abrupt feelingarising, and the practice would be a valuable aid to the rehabilitationof the nude, and of genuineness in our daily life, no matter in whatrespect. This leads to the difficult question of how far moral aspectsshould be entertained. 'To-day Johnnie told his first fib; we pretendedto disbelieve everything else he said, and he began to see that lyingwas bad policy. ' 'Chastised Johnnie for the first time for pulling thewings off a fly; he wanted to know why we might kill flies outright, butnot mutilate them, ' and so on. For in this way parents would trainthemselves in the psychology of education and character-building, thoughbooks by specially gifted parents would soon appear for their guidance. 

"Of course, whatever relevant circumstances were available about theante-natal period or the mother's condition would be noted (but whowould expect a mother to note that she laced tight up to such and such amonth? Perhaps the keeping of a log like this might act as a deterrent). Similarly, under diet and regimen, year by year, the assumption ofbreast-feeding--provision of columns for the various incidents ofit--weight before and after feeding, etc. , would have a great suggestivevalue. 

"The provision under diet and regimen of columns for 'drug habits, ifany'--tea, coffee, alcohol, nicotine, morphia, etc. --would have asuggestive value and operate in the direction of the simple life and areverence for the body. Some good aphorisms might be strewed in, suchas:

"'If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred' (Whitman). 

"As young people circulate their 'Books of Likes and Dislikes, ' etc. , and thus in an entertaining way provide each other with insight intomutual character, so the Life-History need not be an _arcanum_--at leastwhere people have nothing to be ashamed of. It would be a very tryingordeal, no doubt, to admit even intimate friends to this confidence. _But as eugenics spread, concealment of taint will become almostimpracticable_, and the facts may as well be confessed. But even thenthere will be limitations. There might be an esoteric book for theindividual's own account of himself. Such important items as theincidence of puberty (though notorious in some communities) could notwell be included in a book open even to the family circle, forgenerations to come. The quiescence of the genital sense, the sedativesnaturally occurring, important as these are, and occupying theconsciousness in so large a degree, would find no place; nevertheless, aprivate journal of the facts would help to steady the individual, andprove a check against disrespect to his body. 

"As the facts of individual evolution would be noted, so likewise wouldthose of dissolution. The first signs of decay--the teeth, theelasticity of body and mind--would provide a valuable sphere for all whoare disposed to the diary-habit. The journals of individuals with a giftfor introspection would furnish valuable material for psychologists inthe future. Life would be cleansed in many ways. Journals would not haveto be bowdlerized, like Marie Bashkirtseff's, for the morbidity thatgloats on the forbidden would have a lesser scope, much that is nowregarded as disgraceful being then accepted as natural and right. 

"The book might have several volumes, and that for the periods ofinfancy and childhood might need to be less private than the one forpuberty. More, in his _Utopia_, demands that lovers shall learn to knoweach other as they really are, i. E. Naked. That is now the most Utopianthing in More's _Utopia_. But the lovers might communicate theirlife-histories to each other as a preliminary. 

"The whole plan would, of course, finally have to be over-hauled by theso-called 'man of the world. '"

Not everyone may agree with this conception of the Life-History Albumand its uses. Some will prefer a severely dry and bald record ofmeasurements. At the present time, however, there is room for veryvarious types of such documents. The important point is to realize that, in some form or another, a record of this kind from birth or earlier ispracticable, and constitutes a record which is highly desirable alike onpersonal, social, and scientific grounds. 

FOOTNOTES:

[147] Dr. Scott Nearing, "Race Suicide _versus_ Over-Population, " _PopularScience Monthly_, January, 1911. And from the biological side ProfessorBateson concludes (_Biological Fact and the Structure of Society_, p. 23) that "it is in a decline in the birth-rate that the most promisingomen exists for the happiness of future generations. "

[148] Galton himself, the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, and the half-cousinof Charles Darwin, may be said to furnish a noble illustration of anunconscious process of eugenics. (He has set forth his ancestry in_Memories of My Life_. ) On his death, the editor of the _Popular ScienceMonthly_ wrote, referring to the fact that Galton was nominated tosucceed William James in the honorary membership of an Academy ofScience: "These two men are the greatest whom he has known. Jamespossessed the more complicated personality; but they had certain commontraits--a combination of perfect aristocracy with complete democracy, directness, kindliness, generosity, and nobility beyond all measure. Ithas been said that eugenics is futile because it cannot define its end. The answer is simple--we want men like William James and Francis Galton"(_Popular Science Monthly_, _March_, 1911. ) Probably most of those whowere brought, however slightly, in contact with these two finepersonalities will subscribe to this conclusion. 

[149] Galton chiefly studied the families to which men of intellectualability belong, especially in his _Hereditary Genius_ and _English Menof Science_; various kinds of pathological families have since beeninvestigated by Karl Pearson and his co-workers (see the series of_Biometrika_); the pedigrees of the defective classes (especially thefeeble-minded and epileptic) are now being accurately worked out, as byGodden, at Vineland, New Jersey, and Davenport, in New York (see e. G. _Eugenics Review_, April, 1911, and _Journal of Nervous and MentalDisease_, November, 1911). 

[150] "When once more the importance of good birth comes to be recognizedin a new sense, " wrote W. C. D. Whetham and Mrs. Whetham (in _The Familyand the Nation_, p. 222), "when the innate physical and mental qualitiesof different families are recorded in the central sociologicaldepartment or scientifically reformed College of Arms, the pedigrees ofall will be known to be of supreme interest. It would be understood tobe more important to marry into a family with a good hereditary recordof physical and mental and moral qualities than it ever has beenconsidered to be allied to one with sixteen quarterings. "

[151] The importance of such biographical records of aptitude andcharacter are so great that some, like Schallmayer (_Vererbung undAuslese_, 2nd ed. , 1910, p. 389) believe that they must be madeuniversally obligatory. This proposal, however, seems premature. 

[152] In many undesigned and unforeseen ways these registers may be ofimmense value. They may even prove the means of overthrowing ourpernicious and destructive system of so-called "education. " A step inthis direction has been suggested by Mr. R. T. Bodey, Inspector ofElementary Schools, at a meeting of the Liverpool branch of the EugenicsEducation Society: "Education facilities should be carefully distributedwith regard to the scientific likelihood of their utilization to themaximum of national advantage, and this not for economic reasons only, but because it was cruel to drag children from their own to a differentsphere of life, and cruel to the class they deserted. Since theactivities of the nation and the powers of the children were alikevaried in kind and degree, the most natural plan would be to sort themboth out, and then design a school system expressly in order to fit oneto the other. At present there was no fixed purpose, but a perpetualriot of changes, resulting in distraction of mind, discontinuity ofpurpose, and increase of cost, while happiness decayed because desiresgrew faster than possessions or the sense of achievement. The onlyreally scientific basis for a national system of education would be afull knowledge of the family history of each child. With more perfectclassification of family talent the need of scholarships oftransplantation would become less, for each of them was the confessionof an initial error in placing the child. Then there would be more moneyto be spared for industrial research, travelling and art studentships, and other aids to those who had the rare gift of original thought"(_British Medical Journal_, November 18, 1911). 

[153] I should add that there is one obstacle, viz. Expense. When thepresent chapter was first published in its preliminary form as anarticle in the _Nineteenth Century and After_ (May, 1906), Galton, always alive to everything bearing on the study of Eugenics, wrote to methat he had been impressed by the generally sympathetic reception mypaper had received, and that he felt encouraged to consider whether itwas possible to begin giving such certificates at once. He asked for myviews, among others, as to the ground which should be covered by suchcertificates. The programme I set forth was somewhat extensive, as Iconsidered that the applicant must not only bring evidence of a soundancestry, but also submit to anthropological, psychological, and medicalexamination. Galton eventually came to the conclusion that the expensesinvolved by the scheme rendered it for the present impracticable. Myopinion was, and is, that though the charge for such a certificate mightin the first place be prohibitive for most people, a few persons mightfind it desirable to seek, and advantageous to possess, suchcertificates, and that it is worth while at all events to make abeginning. 

[154] Mannhardt, _Wald-und Feldkulte_, 1875, Vol. I, pp. 422 _et seq. _ Ihave discussed seasonal erotic festivals in a study of "The Phenomena ofSexual Periodicity, " _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. I. 

[155] Thus we read in a small popular periodical: "I am prepared to backhuman nature against all the cranks in Christendom. Human nature willendure a faddist so long as he does not interfere with things it prizes. One of these things is the right to select its partner for life. If aman loves a girl he is not going to give her up because she happens tohave an aunt in a lunatic asylum or an uncle who has epileptic fits, "etc. In the same way it may be said that a man will allow nothing tointerfere with his right to eat such food as he chooses, and is notgoing to give up a dish he likes because it happens to be peppered witharsenic. It may be so, let us grant, among savages. The growth ofcivilization lies in ever-extended self-control guided by foresight. 

[156] I have summarized some of the evidence on these points, especiallythat showing that sexual attraction tends to be towards like persons andnot, as was formerly supposed, towards the unlike, in _Studies in thePsychology of Sex_, Vol. IV, "Sexual Selection in Man. "

[157] In other words, the process of tumescence is gradual and complex. See Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. III, "TheAnalysis of the Sexual Impulse. "

[158] As Roswell Johnson remarks ("The Evolution of Man and its Control, "_Popular Science Monthly_, January, 1910): "While it is undeniable thatlove when once established defies rational considerations, yet we mustremark that sexual selection proceeds usually through two stages, thefirst being one of mere mutual attraction and interest. It is in thisstage that the will and reason are operative, and here alone that anyconsiderable elevation of standard may be effective. "

[159] Galton looked upon eugenics as fitted to become a factor in religion(_Essays in Eugenics_, p. 68). It may, however, be questioned whetherthis consummation is either probable or desirable. The same religiousclaim has been made for socialism. But, as Dr. Eden Paul remarks in arecent pamphlet on _Socialism and Eugenics_, "Whereas both Socialism andEugenics are concerned solely with the application of the knowledgegained by experience to the amelioration of the human lot, it seemspreferable to dispense with religious terminology, and to regard the twodoctrines as complementary parts of the great modern movement known bythe name of Humanism. " Personally, I do not consider that eitherSocialism or Eugenics can be regarded as coming within the legitimatesphere of religion, which I have elsewhere attempted to define(Conclusion to _The New Spirit_). 

[160] J. Grasset, in Dr. A. Marie's _Traité International de PsychologiePathologique_, 1910, Vol. I, p. 25. Grasset proceeds to discuss theprinciples which must guide the physician in such consultations. 

[161] This has been clearly realized by the German Society of Eugenics or"Racial Hygiene, " as it is usually termed in Germany (InternationaleGesellschaft für Rassen-Hygiene), founded by Dr. Alfred Ploetz, with theco-operation of many distinguished physicians and men of science, "tofurther the theory and practice of racial hygiene. " It is a chief aim ofthis Society to encourage the registration by the members of thebiological and other physical and psychic characteristics of themselvesand their families, in order to obtain a body of data on whichconclusions may eventually be based; the members undertake not to enteron a marriage except they are assured by medical investigation of bothparties that the union is not likely to cause disaster to either partneror to the offspring. The Society also admits associates who only occupythemselves with the scientific aspects of its work and with propaganda. In England the Eugenics Education Society (with its organ the _EugenicsReview_) has done much to stimulate an intelligent interest ineugenics. 

[162] How influential public opinion may be in the selection of mates isindicated by the influence it already exerts--in less than a century--inthe limitation of offspring. This is well marked in some parts ofFrance. Thus, concerning a rural district near the Garonne, Dr. Belbèze, who knows it thoroughly, writes (_La Neurasthénie Rurale_, 1911):"Public opinion does not at present approve of multiple procreation. Large families, there can be no doubt, are treated with contempt. Couples who produce a numerous progeny are looked on, with a wink, as'maladroits, ' which in this region is perhaps the supreme term ofabuse. . . . Public opinion is all-powerful, and alone suffices to producerestraint, when foresight is not adequate for this purpose. "

VII

RELIGION AND THE CHILD

 Religious Education in Relation to Social Hygiene and to Psychology--The Psychology of the Child--The Contents of Children's Minds--The Imagination of Children--How far may Religion be assimilated by Children?--Unfortunate Results of Early Religious Instruction--Puberty the Age for Religious Education--Religion as an Initiation into a Mystery--Initiation among Savages--The Christian Sacraments--The Modern Tendency as regards Religious Instruction--Its Advantages--Children and Fairy Tales--The Bible of Childhood--Moral Training. 

It is a fact as strange as it is unfortunate that the much-debatedquestion of the religious education of children is almost exclusivelyconsidered from the points of view of the sectarian and the secularist. In a discussion of this question we are almost certain to be invited totake part in an unedifying wrangle between Church and Chapel, betweenreligion and secularism. That is the strange part of it, that it shouldseem impossible to get away from this sectarian dispute as to theabstract claims of varying religious bodies. The unfortunate part of itis that in this quarrel the interests of the community, the interests ofthe child, even the interests of religion are alike disregarded. 

If we really desire to reach a sound conclusion on a matter which isunquestionably of great moment, both for the child and for the communityof which he will one day become a citizen, we must resolutely put intothe background, as of secondary importance, the cries of contendingsects, religious or irreligious. The first place here belongs to thepsychologist, who is building up the already extensive edifice ofknowledge concerning the real nature of the child and the contents andgrowth of the youthful mind, and to the practical teacher who is intouch with that knowledge and can bring it to the test of actualexperience. Before considering what drugs are to be administered we mustconsider the nature of the organism they are to be thrust into. 

The mind of the child is at once logical and extravagant, matter-of-factand poetic or rather mytho-poeic. This combination of apparentopposites, though it often seems almost incomprehensible to the adult, is the inevitable outcome of the fact that the child's dawningintelligence is working, as it were, in a vacuum. In other words, thechild has not acquired the two endowments which chiefly give characterto the whole body of the adult's beliefs and feelings. He is without thepubertal expansion which fills out the mind with new personal andaltruistic impulses and transforms it with emotion that is oftendazzling and sometimes distorting; and he has not yet absorbed, or evengained the power of absorbing, all those beliefs, opinions, and mentalattitudes which the race has slowly acquired and transmitted as thetraditional outcome of its experiences. 

The intellectual processes of children, the attitude and contents of thechild's mind, have been explored during recent years with a care anddetail that have never been brought to that study before. This is not amatter of which the adult can be said to possess any instinctive ormatter-of-course knowledge. Adults usually have a strange aptitude toforget entirely the facts of their lives as children, and children areusually, like peoples of primitive race, very cautious in the deliberatecommunication of their mental operations, their emotions, and theirideas. That is to say that the child is equally without the internallyacquired complex emotional nature which has its kernel in the sexualimpulse, and without the externally acquired mental equipment which maybe summed up in the word tradition. But he possesses the vividactivities founded on the exercise of his senses and appetites, and heis able to reason with a relentless severity from which thetraditionalized and complexly emotional adult shrinks back with horror. The child creates the world for himself, and he creates it in his ownimage and the images of the persons he is familiar with. Nothing issacred to him, and he pushes to the most daring extremities--as it seemsto the adult--the arguments derived from his own personal experiences. He is unable to see any distinction between the natural and thesupernatural, and he is justified in this conviction because, as amatter of fact, he himself lives in what for most adults would be asupernatural atmosphere; most children see visions with closed andsometimes with open eyes;[163] they are not infrequently subject tocolour-hearing and other synæsthetic sensations; and they occasionallyhear hallucinatory voices. It is possible, indeed, that this is the casewith all children in some slight degree, although the faculty dies outearly and is easily forgotten because its extraordinary character wasnever recognized. 

Of 48 Boston children, says Stanley Hall, [164] 20 believed the sun, moon, and stars to live, 16 thought flowers could feel, and 15 that dollswould feel pain if burnt. The sky was found the chief field in which thechildren exercise their philosophic minds. About three-quarters of themthought the world a plain with the sky like a bowl turned over it, sometimes believing that it was of such thin texture that one couldeasily break through, though so large that much floor-sweeping wasnecessary in Heaven. The sun may enter the ground when it sets, but halfthe children thought that at night it rolls or flies away, or is blownor walks, or God pulls it higher up out of sight, taking it up intoHeaven, according to some putting it to bed, and even taking off itsclothes and putting them on again in the morning, or again, it isbelieved to lie under the trees at night and the angels mind it. God, ofwhom the children always hear so much, plays a very large part in theseconceptions, and is made directly responsible for all cosmic phenomena. Thus thunder to these American children was God groaning or kicking orrolling barrels about, or turning a big handle, or grinding snow, orbreaking something, or rattling a big hammer; while the lightning is dueto God putting his finger out, or turning the gas on quick, or strikingmatches, or setting paper on fire. According to Boston children, God isa big, perhaps a blue, man, to be seen in the sky, on the clouds, inchurch, or even in the streets. They declare that God comes to see themsometimes, and they have seen him enter the gate. He makes lamps, babies, dogs, trees, money, etc. , and the angels work for him. He lookslike a priest, or a teacher, or papa, and the children like to look athim; a few would themselves like to be God. His house in the sky may bemade of stone or brick; birds, children, and Santa Claus live with God. 

Birds and beasts, their food and their furniture, as Burnham points out, all talk to children; when the dew is on the grass "the grass iscrying, " the stars are candles or lamps, perhaps cinders from God'sstove, butterflies are flying pansies, icicles are Christmas candy. Children have imaginary play-brothers and sisters and friends, with whomthey talk. Sometimes God talks with them. Even the prosiest things arevivified; the tracks of dirty feet on the floor are flowers; a creakingchair talks; the shoemaker's nails are children whom he is driving toschool; a pedlar is Santa Claus. 

Miss Miriam Levy once investigated the opinions of 560 children, boysand girls, between the ages of 4 and 14, as to how the man in the moongot there. Only 5 were unable to offer a serious explanation; 48 thoughtthere was no man there at all; 50 offered a scientific explanation ofthe phenomena; but all the rest, the great majority, presentedimaginative solutions which could be grouped into seventeen differentclasses. 

Such facts as these--which can easily be multiplied and are indeedfamiliar to all, though their significance is not usuallyrealized--indicate the special tendencies of the child in the religioussphere. He is unable to follow the distinctions which the adult ispleased to make between "real, " "spiritual" and "imaginary" beings. Tohim such distinctions do not exist. He may, if he so pleases, adopt thenames or such characteristics as he chooses, of the beings he is toldabout, but he puts them into his own world, on a footing of more or lessequality, and he decides himself what their fate is to be. The adult'ssupreme beings by no means always survive in the struggle for existencewhich takes place in the child's imaginative world. It was found amongmany thousand children entering the city schools of Berlin that RedRiding Hood was better known than God, and Cinderella than Christ. Thatis the result of the child's freedom from the burden of tradition. 

Yet at the same time the opposite though allied peculiarity ofchildhood--the absence of the emotional developments of puberty whichdeepen and often cloud the mind a few years later--is also making itselffelt. Extravagant as his beliefs may appear, the child is anuncompromising rationalist and realist. His supposed imaginativeness isindeed merely the result of his logical insistence that all the newphenomena presented to him shall be thought of in terms of himself andhis own environment. His wildest notions are based on precise, concrete, and personal facts of his own experience. That is why he is so keen aquestioner of grown-up people's ideas, and a critic who may sometimes beas dangerous and destructive as Bishop Colenso's Zulus. Most childrenbefore the age of thirteen, as Earl Barnes states, are inquirers, if notsceptics. 

If we clearly realize these characteristics of the childish mind, wecannot fail to understand the impression made on it by religiousinstruction. The statements and stories that are repeated to him areeasily accepted by the child in so far, and in so far only, as theyanswer to his needs; and when accepted they are assimilated, which meansthat they are compelled to obey the laws of his own mental world. In sofar as the statements and stories presented to him are not acceptable orcannot be assimilated, it happens either that they pass by himunnoticed, or else that he subjects them to a cold and matter-of-factlogic which exerts a dissolving influence upon them. 

Now a few of the ideas of religion are assimilable by the child, andnotably the idea of a God as the direct agent in cosmic phenomena; someof the childish notions I have quoted illustrate the facility with whichthe child adopts this idea. He adopts, that is, what may be called thehard precise skeleton of the idea, and imagines a colossal magician, ofanthropomorphic (if not paidomorphic) nature, whose operations arecurious, though they altogether fail to arouse any mysterious reverenceor awe for the agent. Even this is not very satisfactory, and StanleyHall, in the spirit of Froebel, considers that the best result isattained when the child knows no God but his own mother. [165] But for themost part the ideas of religion cannot be accepted or assimilated bychildren at all; they were not made by children or for children, butrepresent the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of men, and sometimeseven of very exceptional and abnormal men. "The child, " it has beensaid, "no doubt has the psychical elements out of which the religiousexperience is evolved, just as the seed has the promise of the fruitwhich will come in the fullness of time. But to say, therefore, that theaverage child is religious, or capable of receiving the usual advancedreligious instruction, is equivalent to saying that the seed is thefruit or capable of being converted into fruit before the fullness oftime. "[166] The child who grows devout and becomes anxious about the stateof his soul is a morbid and unwholesome child; if he prefers praying forthe conversion of his play-fellows to joining them in their games he isnot so much an example of piety as a pathological case whose future mustbe viewed with anxiety; and to preach religious duties to children isexactly the same, it has been well said, as to exhort them to imaginethemselves married people and to inculcate on them the duties of thatrelation. Fortunately the normal child is usually able to resist theseinfluences. It is the healthy child's impulse either to let them fallwith indifference or to apply to them the instrument of his unmercifullogic. 

Naturally, the adult, in self-defence, is compelled to react againstthis indifferent or aggressive attitude of the child. He may be no matchfor the child in logic, and even unspeakably shocked by his daringinquiries, like an amiable old clergyman I knew when a Public Schoolteacher in Australia; he went to a school to give Bible lessons, and wasone day explaining how King David was a man after God's own heart, whena small voice was heard making inquiries about Uriah's wife; the smallboy was hushed down by the shocked clergyman, and the cause of religionwas not furthered in that school. But the adult knows that he has on hisside tradition which has not yet been acquired by the child, and theinner emotional expansion which still remains unliberated in the child. The adult, therefore, fortified by this superiority, feels justified infalling back on the weapon of authority: "You may not _want_ to believethis and to learn it, but you've _got_ to. "

It is in this way that the adult wins the battle of religious education. In the deeper and more far-seeing sense he has lost it. Religion hasbecome, not a charming privilege, but a lesson, a lesson aboutunbelievable things, a meaningless task to be learnt by heart, adrudgery. It may be said that even if that is so, religious lessonsmerely share the inevitable fate of all subjects which become schooltasks. But that is not the case. Every other subject which is likely tobecome a school task is apt to become intelligible and attractive tosome considerable section of the scholars because it is within the rangeof childish intelligence. But, for the two very definite reasons I havepointed out, this is only to an extremely limited degree true as regardsthe subject of religion, because the young organism is an instrument notas yet fitted with the notes which religion is most apt to strike. 

Of all the school subjects religion thus tends to be the leastattractive. Lobsien, at Kiel, found a few years since, in the course ofa psychological investigation, that when five hundred children (boys andgirls in equal numbers), between the ages of nine and fourteen, wereasked which was their favourite lesson hour, only twelve (ten girls andtwo boys) named the religious lesson. [167] In other words, nearly 98 percent children (and nearly all the boys) find that religion is either anindifferent or a repugnant subject. I have no reports at hand as regardsEnglish children, but there is little reason to suppose that the resultwould be widely different. [168] Here and there a specially skilfulteacher might bring about a result more favourable to religiousteaching, but that could only be done by depriving the subject of itsmost characteristic elements. 

This is, however, not by any means the whole of the mischief which, fromthe religious point of view, is thus perpetrated. It might, on _apriori_ grounds, be plausibly argued that even if there is among healthyyoung children a certain amount of indifference or even repugnance toreligious instruction, that is of very little consequence: they cannotbe too early grounded in the principles of the faith they will later becalled on to profess; and however incapable they may now be ofunderstanding the teaching that is being inculcated in the school, theywill realize its importance when their knowledge and experienceincrease. But however plausible this may seem, practically it is notwhat usually happens. The usual effect of constantly imparting tochildren an instruction they are not yet ready to receive is to deadentheir sensibilities to the whole subject of religion. [169] The prematurefamiliarity with religious influences--putting aside the rare caseswhere it leads to a morbid pre-occupation with religion--induces areaction of routine which becomes so habitual that it successfullywithstands the later influences which on more virgin soil would haveevoked vigorous and living response. So far from preparing the way for amore genuine development of religious impulse later on, this precociousscriptural instruction is just adequate to act as an inoculation againstdeeper and more serious religious interests. The commonplace child inlater life accepts the religion it has been inured to so early as partof the conventional routine of life. The more vigorous and originalchild for the same reason shakes it off, perhaps for ever. 

Luther, feeling the need to gain converts to Protestantism as early aspossible, was a strong advocate for the religious training of children, and has doubtless had much influence in this matter on the Protestantchurches. "The study of religion, of the Bible and the Catechism, " saysFiedler, "of course comes first and foremost in his scheme ofinstruction. " He was also quite prepared to adapt it to the childishmind. "Let children be taught, " he writes, "that our dear Lord sits inHeaven on a golden throne, that He has a long grey beard and a crown ofgold. " But Luther quite failed to realize the inevitable psychologicalreaction in later life against such fairy-tales. 

At a later date, Rousseau, who, like Luther, was on the side ofreligion, realized, as Luther failed to realize, the disastrous resultsof attempting to teach it to children. In _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, Saint-Preux writes that Julie had explained to him how she sought tosurround her children with good influences without forcing any religiousinstruction on them: "As to the Catechism, they don't so much as knowwhat it is. " "What! Julie, your children don't learn their Catechism?""No, my friend, my children don't learn their Catechism. " "So pious amother!" I exclaimed; "I can't understand. And why don't your childrenlearn their Catechism?" "In order that they may one day believe it. Iwish to make Christians of them. "[170]

Since Rousseau's day this may be said to be the general attitude ofnearly all thinkers who have given attention to the question, eventhough they may not have viewed it psychologically. It is an attitude byno means confined to those who are anxious that children should grow upto be genuine Christians, but is common to all who consider that themain point is that children should grow up to be, at all events, genuinemen and women. "I do not think, " writes John Stuart Mill, in 1868, "there should be any _authoritative_ teaching at all on such subjects. Ithink parents ought to point out to their children, when the childrenbegin to question them or to make observations of their own, the variousopinions on such subjects, and what the parents themselves think themost powerful reasons for and against. Then, if the parents show astrong feeling of the importance of truth, and also of the difficulty ofattaining it, it seems to me that young people's minds will besufficiently prepared to regard popular opinion or the opinion of thoseabout them with respectful tolerance, and may be safely left to formdefinite conclusions in the course of mature life. "[171]

There are few among us who have not suffered from too early familiaritywith the Bible and the conceptions of religion. Even for a man of reallystrong and independent intellect it may be many years before theprecociously dulled feelings become fresh again, before the fetters ofroutine fall off, and he is enabled at last to approach the Bible withfresh receptivity and to realize, for the first time in his life, thetreasures of art and beauty and divine wisdom it contains. But for mostthat moment never comes round. For the majority the religious educationof the school as effectually seals the Bible for life as the classicaleducation of the college seals the great authors of Greece and Rome forlife; no man opens his school books again when he has once left school. Those who read Greek and Latin for love have not usually come out ofuniversities, and there is surely a certain significance in the factthat the children of one's secularist friends are so often found tobecome devout church-goers, while, according to the frequentobservation, devout parents often have most irreligious offspring, justas the bad boys at school and college are frequently sons of the clergy. 

At puberty and during adolescence everything begins to be changed. Thechange, it is important to remember, is a natural change, and tends tocome about spontaneously; "where no set forms have been urged, thereligious emotion, " as Lancaster puts it, "comes forth as naturally asthe sun rises. "[172] That period, really and psychologically, marks a "newbirth. " Emotions which are of fundamental importance, not only for theindividual's personal life but for his social and even cosmicrelationships, are for the first time born. Not only is the child's bodyremoulded in the form of a man or a woman, but the child-soul becomes aman-soul or a woman-soul, and nothing can possibly be as it has beenbefore. The daringly sceptical logician has gone, and so has theimaginative dreamer for whom the world was the automatic magnifyingmirror of his own childish form and environment. It has been revealed tohim that there are independent personal and impersonal forces outsidehimself, forces with which he may come into a conscious andfascinatingly exciting relationship. It is a revelation of supremeimportance, and with it comes not only the complexly emotional andintellectual realization of personality, but the aptitude to enter intoand assimilate the traditions of the race. 

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that this is the moment, and theearliest moment, when it becomes desirable to initiate the boy or girlinto the mysteries of religion. That it is the best moment is indicatedby the well-recognized fact that the immediately post-pubertal period ofadolescence is the period during which, even spontaneously, the mostmarked religious phenomena tend to occur. [173] Stanley Hall seems to thinkthat twelve is the age at which the cultivation of the religiousconsciousness may begin; "the age, signalized by the ancient Greeks asthat at which the study of what was comprehensively called music shouldbegin, the age at which Roman guardianship ended, at which boys areconfirmed in the modern Greek, Catholic, Lutheran and EpiscopalChurches, and at which the Child Jesus entered the Temple, is as earlyas any child ought consciously to go about his Heavenly Father'sbusiness. "[174] But I doubt whether we can fix the age definitely byyears, nor is it indeed quite accurate to assert that so early an age astwelve is generally accepted as the age of initiation; the AnglicanChurch, for example, usually confirms at the age of fifteen. It is notage with which we ought to be concerned, but a biological epoch ofpsychic evolution. It is unwise to insist on any particular age, becausedevelopment takes place within a considerably wide limit of years. 

I have spoken of the introduction to religion at puberty as theinitiation into a mystery. The phrase was deliberately chosen, for itseems to me to be not a metaphor, but the expression of a truth whichhas always been understood whenever religion has been a reality and nota mere convention. Among savages in nearly all parts of the world theboy or girl at puberty is initiated into the mystery of manhood or ofwomanhood, into the duties and the privileges of the adult members ofthe tribe. The youth is taken into a solitary place, for a month ormore, he is made to suffer pain and hardship, to learn self-restraint, he is taught the lore of the tribe as well as the elementary rules ofmorality and justice; he is shown the secret things of the tribe andtheir meaning and significance, which no stranger may know. He is, inshort, enabled to find his soul, and he emerges from this discipline atrained and responsible member of his tribe. The girl receives acorresponding training, suited to her sex, also in solitude, at thehands of the older women. A clear and full description of a typicalsavage initiation into manhood at puberty is presented by Dr. Haddon inthe fifth volume of the _Reports of the Cambridge AnthropologicalExpedition to Torres Straits_, and Dr. Haddon makes the comment: "It isnot easy to conceive of more effectual means for a rapid training. "

The ideas of remote savages concerning the proper manner of initiatingyouth in the religious and other mysteries of life may seem of littlepersonal assistance to superiorly civilized people like ourselves. Butlet us turn, therefore, to the Greeks. They also had preserved the ideaand the practice of initiation into sacred mysteries, though in asomewhat modified form because religion had ceased to be so intimatelyblended with all the activities of life. The Eleusinian and othermysteries were initiations into sacred knowledge and insight which, asis now recognized, involved no revelation of obscure secrets, but weremysteries in the sense that all intimate experiences of the soul, theexperiences of love quite as much as those of religion, are mysteries, not to be lightly or publicly spoken of. In that feeling the Greek wasat one with the Papuan, and it is interesting to observe that theprocedure of initiation into the Greek mysteries, as described by Theonof Smyrna and other writers, followed the same course as the pubertalinitiations of savages; there was the same preliminary purification bywater, the same element of doctrinal teaching, the same ceremonial andsymbolic rubbing with sand or charcoal or clay, the same conclusion in ajoyous feast, even the same custom of wearing wreaths. 

In how far the Christian sacraments were consciously moulded after themodel of the Greek mysteries is still a disputed point;[175] but the firstChristians were seeking the same spiritual initiation, and theynecessarily adopted, consciously or unconsciously, methods of procedurewhich, in essentials, were fundamentally the same as those they werealready familiar with. The early Christian Church adopted the rite ofBaptism not merely as a symbol of initiation, but as an actual componentpart of a process of initiation; the purifying ceremony was preceded bylong preparation, and when at last completed the baptized were sometimescrowned with garlands. When at a later period in the history of theChurch the physical part of the initiation was divorced from thespiritual part, and baptism was performed in infancy and confirmation atpuberty, a fatal mistake was made, and each part of the rite largelylost its real significance. 

But it still remains true that Christianity embodied in its practicalsystem the ancient custom of initiating the young at puberty, and thatthe custom exists in an attenuated form in all the more ancientChristian Churches. The rite of Confirmation has, however, beendevitalized, and its immense significance has been almost wholly lost. Instead of being regarded as a real initiation into the privileges andthe responsibilities of a religious communion, of an active fellowshipfor the realization of a divine life on earth, it has become a meremechanical corollary of the precedent rite of baptism, a formalcondition of participation in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Thesplendid and many-sided discipline by which the child of the savage wasinitiated into the secrets of his own emotional nature and the sacredtradition of his people has been degraded into the learning of acatechism and a few hours' perfunctory instruction in the schoolroom orin the parlour of the curate's lodgings. The vital kernel of the rite isdecayed and only the dead shell is left, while some of the ChristianChurches have lost even the shell. 

It is extremely probable that in no remote future the State in Englandwill reject as insoluble the problem of imparting religious instructionto the young in its schools, in accordance with a movement of opinionwhich is taking place in all civilized countries. [176] The support whichthe Secular Education League has found in the most various quarters iswithout doubt a fact of impressive significance. [177] It is well knownalso that the working classes--the people chiefly concerned in thematter--are distinctly opposed to religious teaching in State schools. There can be little doubt that before many years have passed, in Englandas elsewhere, the Churches will have to face the question of the bestmethods of themselves undertaking that task of religious training whichthey have sought to foist upon the State. If they are to fulfil thisduty in a wise and effectual manner they must follow the guidance ofbiological psychology at the point where it is at one with the teachingof their own most ancient traditions, and develop the merely formal riteof confirmation into a true initiation of the new-born soul at pubertyinto the deepest secrets of life and the highest mysteries of religion. 

It must, of course, be remembered that, so far as England is concerned, we live in an empire in which there are 337 millions of people who arenot even nominally Christians, [178] and that even among the comparativelysmall proportion (about 14 per cent) who call themselves "Christians, " avery large proportion are practically Secularists, and a considerablenumber avowedly so. If, however, we assume the Secularist's position, the considerations here brought forward still retain their validity. Inthe first place, the undoubtedly frequent hostility of the Freethinkerto Christianity is not so much directed against vital religion asagainst a dead Church. The Freethinker is prepared to respect theChristian who by free choice and the exercise of thought has attainedthe position of a Christian, but he resents the so-called Christian whois merely in the Church because he finds himself there, without anyeffort of his will or his intelligence. The convinced secularist feelsrespect for the sincere Christian, even though it may only be in thesense that the real saint feels tenderness for the hopeless sinner. Andin the second place, as I have sought to point out, the facts we arehere concerned with are far too fundamental to concern the Christianalone. They equally concern the secularist, who also is called upon tosatisfy the spiritual hunger of the adolescent youth, to furnish himwith a discipline for his entry into life, and a satisfying vision ofthe universe. And if secularists have not always grasped this necessity, we may perhaps find therein one main reason why secularism has not metwith so enormous and enthusiastic a reception as the languor andformalism of the churches seemed to render possible. 

If the view here set forth is sound, --a view more and more widely heldby educationists and by psychologists trained in biology, --the firsttwelve years must be left untouched by all conceptions of life and theworld which transcend immediate experience, for the child whosespiritual virginity has been prematurely tainted will never be able toawake afresh to the full significance of those conceptions when the ageof religion at last arrives. But are we, it may be asked, to leave thechild's restless, inquisitive, imaginative brain without any food duringall those early years? By no means. Even admitting that, as it has beensaid, at the early stage religious training is the supreme art ofstanding out of Nature's way, it is still not hard to find what, in thismatter, the way of Nature is. The life of the individual recapitulatesthe life of the race, and there can be no better imaginative food forthe child than that which was found good in the childhood of the race. The child who is deprived of fairy tales invents them for himself, --forhe must have them for the needs of his psychic growth just as there isreason to believe he must have sugar for his metabolic growth, --but heusually invents them badly. [179] The savage sees the world almost exactlyas the civilized child sees it, as the magnified image of himself andhis own environment; but he sees it with an added poetic charm, adelightful and accomplished inventiveness which the child is incapableof. The myths and legends of primitive peoples--for instance, those ofthe British Columbian Indians, so carefully reproduced by Boas in Germanand Hill Tout in English--are one in their precision and theirextravagance with the stories of children, but with a finerinventiveness. It was, I believe, many years ago pointed out by Zillerthat fairy-tales ought to play a very important part in the education ofyoung children, and since then B. Hartmann, Stanley Hall and many othersof the most conspicuous educational authorities have emphasized the samepoint. Fairy tales are but the final and transformed versions ofprimitive myths, creative legends, stories of old gods. In purer andless transformed versions the myths and legends of primitive peoples areoften scarcely less adapted to the child's mind. Julia Gayley arguesthat the legends of early Greek civilization, the most perfect of alldreams, should above all be revealed to children; the early traditionsof the East and of America yield material that is scarcely less fittedfor the child's imaginative uses. Portions of the Bible, especially ofGenesis, are in the strict sense fairy tales, that is legends of earlygods and their deeds which have become stories. In the opinion of manythese portions of the Bible may suitably be given to children (though itis curious to observe that a Welsh Education Committee a few years agoprohibited the reading in schools of precisely the most legendary partof Genesis); but it must always be remembered, from the Christian pointof view, that nothing should be given at this early age which is to beregarded as essential at a later age, for the youth turns against thetales of his childhood as he turns against its milk-foods. Some day, perhaps, it may be thought worth while to compile a Bible for childhood, not a mere miscellaneous assortment of stories, but a collection ofbooks as various in origin and nature as are the books of theHebraic-Christian Bible, so that every kind of child in all his moodsand stages of growth might here find fit pasture. Children would notthen be left wholly to the mercy of the thin and frothy literature whichthe contemporary press pours upon them so copiously; they would possessat least one great and essential book which, however fantastic andextravagant it might often be, would yet have sprung from the deepestinstincts of the primitive soul, and furnish answers to the mostinsistent demands of primitive hearts. Such a book, even when finallydropped from the youth's or girl's hands, would still leave its vagueperfume behind. 

It may be pointed out, finally, that the fact that it is impossible toteach children even the elements of adult religion and philosophy, aswell as unwise to attempt it, by no means proves that all seriousteaching is impossible in childhood. On the imaginative and spiritualside, it is true, the child is re-born and transformed duringadolescence, but on the practical and concrete side his life and thoughtare for the most part but the regular and orderly development of thehabits he has already acquired. The elements of ethics on the one hand, as well as of natural science on the other, may alike be taught tochildren, and indeed they become a necessary part of early education, ifthe imaginative side of training is to be duly balanced andcomplemented. The child as much as the adult can be taught, and isindeed apt to learn, the meaning and value of truth and honesty, ofjustice and pity, of kindness and courtesy; we have wrangled and worriedfor so long concerning the teaching of religion in schools that we havefailed altogether to realize that these fundamental notions of moralityare a far more essential part of school training. It must, however, always be remembered that they cannot be adequately treated merely as anisolated subject of instruction, and possibly ought not to be so treatedat all. As Harriet Finlay-Johnson wisely says in her _Dramatic Method ofInstruction_: "It is impossible to shut away moral teaching into acompartment of the mind. It should be firmly and openly diffusedthroughout the thoughts, to 'leaven the whole of the lump. '" She addsthe fruitful suggestion: "There is real need for some lessons in whichthe emotions shall not be ignored. Nature study, properly treated, cantouch both senses and emotions. "[180]

The child is indeed quite apt to acquire a precise knowledge of thenatural objects around him, of flowers and plants and to some extent ofanimals, objects which to the savage also are of absorbing interest. Inthis way, under wise guidance, the caprices of his imagination may beindirectly restrained and the lessons of life taught, while at the sametime he is thus being directly prepared for the serious studies whichmust occupy so much of his later youth. 

The child, we thus have to realize, is, from the educational point ofview of social hygiene, a being of dual nature, who needs ministering toon both sides. On the one hand he demands the key to an imaginativeparadise which one day he must leave, bearing away with him, at thebest, only a dim and haunting memory of its beauty. On the other hand hepossesses eager aptitudes on which may be built up concrete knowledgeand the sense of human relationships, to serve as a firm foundation whenthe period of adolescent development and discipline at length arrives. 

FOOTNOTES:

[163] De Quincey in his _Confessions of an Opium Eater_ referred to thepower that many, perhaps most, children possess of seeing visions in thedark. The phenomenon has been carefully studied by G. L. Partridge(_Pedagogical Seminary_, April, 1898) in over 800 children. He foundthat 58. 5 of them aged between thirteen and sixteen could see visions orimages at night with closed eyes before falling asleep; of those agedsix the proportion was higher. There seemed to be a maximum at the ageof ten, and probably another maximum at a much earlier age. Among adultsthis tendency is rudimentary, and only found in a marked form inneurasthenic subjects or at moments of nervous exhaustion. See alsoHavelock Ellis, _The World of Dreams_, chap. II. 

[164] G. Stanley Hall, "The Contents of Children's Minds on EnteringSchool, " _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891. 

[165] "The mother's face and voice are the first conscious objects as theinfant soul unfolds, and she soon comes to stand in the very place ofGod to her child. All the religion of which the child is capable duringthis by no means brief stage of its development consists of thesesentiments--gratitude, trust, dependence, love, etc. --now felt only forher, which are later directed towards God. The less these are nowcultivated towards the mother, who is now their only fitting if nottheir only possible object, the more feebly they will later be felttowards God. This, too, adds greatly to the sacredness of theresponsibilities of motherhood. " (G. Stanley Hall, _PedagogicalSeminary_, June, 1891, p. 199). 

[166] J. Morse, _American Journal of Religious Psychology_, 1911, p. 247. 

[167] Lobsien, "Kinderideale, " _Zeitschrift für Päd. Psychologie_, 1903. 

[168] Mr. Edmond Holmes, formerly Chief Inspector of Elementary Educationin England, has an instructive remark bearing on this point in hissuggestive book, _What Is and What Might be_ (1911, p. 88): "The firstforty minutes of the morning session are given in almost everyelementary school to what is called _Religious Instruction_. This goeson, morning after morning, and week after week. The fact that theEnglish parent, who must himself have attended from 1500 to 2000Scripture lessons in his schooldays, is not under any circumstance to betrusted to give religious instruction to his own children, shows thatthose who control the religious education of the youthful 'masses' havebut little confidence in the effects of their system on the religiouslife and faith of the English people. " Miss Harriet Finlay-Johnson, ahighly original and successful elementary school teacher, speaks (_TheDramatic Method of Teaching_, 1911, p. 170) with equal disapproval ofthe notion that any moral value attaches to the ordinary schoolexaminations in "Scripture. "

[169] If it were not so, England, after sixty years of National Schools, ought to be a devout nation of good Church people. Most of the criminalsand outcasts have been taught in Church Schools. A clergyman, who pointsthis out to me, adds: "I am heartily thankful that religion was neverforced on me as a child. I do not think I had any religion, in theethical sense, until puberty, or any conscious realization of religion, indeed, until nineteen. " "The boy, " remarks Holmes (_op. Cit. _, p. 100), "who, having attended two thousand Scripture lessons, says to himselfwhen he leaves school: 'If this is religion I will have no more of it, 'is acting in obedience to a healthy instinct. He is to be honouredrather than blamed for having realized at last that the chaff on whichhe has so long been fed is not the life-giving grain which, unknown tohimself, his inmost soul demands. "

[170] _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, Part V, Letter 3. In more recent times EllenKey remarks in a suggestive chapter on "Religions Education" in her_Century of the Child_: "Nothing better shows how deeply rooted religionis in human nature than the fact that 'religious education' has not beenable to tear it out. "

[171] J. S. Mill, _Letters_, Vol. II, p. 135. 

[172] Lancaster found ("The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence, "_Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897) that among 598 individuals of bothsexes in the United States, as many as 518 experienced new religiousemotions between the ages of 12 and 20, only 80 having no such emotionsat this period, so that more than 5 out of 6 have this experience; it isreally even more frequent, for it has no necessary tendency to fall intoconventional religious moulds. 

[173] Professor Starbuck, in his _Psychology of Religion_, has wellbrought together and clearly presented much of the evidence showing thisintimate association between adolescence and religious manifestations. He finds (Chap. III) that in females there are two tidal waves ofreligious awakening, one at about 13, the other at 16, with a lesssignificant period at 18; for males, after a wavelet at 12, the greattidal wave is at 16, followed by another at 18 or 19. Ruediger's resultsare fairly concordant ("The Period of Mental Reconstruction, " _AmericanJournal of Psychology_, July, 1907); he finds that in women the averageage of conversion is 14, in men it is at 13 or 14, and again at 18. 

[174] G. Stanley Hall, "The Moral and Religious Training of Children andAdolescents, " _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891, p. 207. From the morenarrowly religious side the undesirability of attempting to teachreligion to children is well set forth by Florence Hayllar (_IndependentReview_, Oct. , 1906). She considers that thirteen is quite early enoughto begin teaching children the lessons of the Gospels, for a child whoacted in accordance with the Gospels would be "aggravating, " and wouldgenerally be regarded as "an insufferable prig. " Moreover, she pointsout, it is dangerous to teach young children the Christian virtues ofcharity, humility, and self-denial. It is far better that they shouldfirst be taught the virtues of justice and courage and self-mastery, andthe more Christian virtues later. She also believes that in the case ofthe clergy who are brought in contact with children a preliminary courseof child-study, with the necessary physiology and psychology, should becompulsory. 

[175] The varying opinions on this point have been fairly and clearlypresented by Cheetham in his Hulsean lectures on the _Mysteries Paganand Christian_. 

[176] Thus at the first Congress of Italian Women held at Rome in 1908--avery representative Congress, by no means made up of "feminists" oranti-clericals, and marked by great moderation and good sense--aresolution was passed against religious teaching in primary schools, though a subsequent resolution declared by a very large majority infavour of teaching the history of religions in secondary schools. Theseresolutions caused much surprise at the time to those persons who stillcherish the superstition that in matters of religion women are blindlyprejudiced and unable to think for themselves. 

[177] See e. G. An article by Halley Stewart, President of the SecularEducation League, on "The Policy of Secular Education, " _NineteenthCentury_, April, 1911. 

[178] So far as numbers go, the dominant religion of the British Empire, the religion of the majority, is Hinduism; Mohammedanism comes next. 

[179] "Not long ago, " says Dr. L. Guthrie (_Clinical Journal_, 7thJune, 1899), "I heard of a lady who, in her desire that her childrenshould learn nothing but what was true, banished fairy tales from hernursery. But the children evolved from their own imagination fictionswhich were so appalling that she was glad to divert them withJack-the-Giant-Killer. "

[180] In his interesting study of comparative education (_The Making ofCitizens_, 1902, p. 194), Mr. R. E. Hughes, a school inspector, afterdiscussing the methods of settling the difficulties of religiouseducation in England, America, Germany, and France, reasonablyconcludes: "The solution of the religious problem of the schools ofthese four peoples lies in the future, but we believe it will be foundnot to be beyond human ingenuity to devise a scheme of moral and ethicaltraining for little children which will be suitable. It is the moralprinciples underlying all conduct which the school should teach. Indeed, the school, to justify its existence, dare not neglect them. It willteach them, not dogmatically or by precept, but by example, and by thecreation of a noble atmosphere around the child. " Holmes also (_op. Cit. _, p. 276) insists that the teaching of patriotism and citizenshipmust be informal and indirect. 

VIII

THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL HYGIENE

 The New Movement for giving Sexual Instruction to Children--The Need of such a Movement--Contradictions involved by the Ancient Policy of Silence--Errors of the New Policy--The Need of Teaching the Teacher--The Need of Training the Parents--And of Scientifically equipping the Physician--Sexual Hygiene and Society--The far-reaching Effects of Sexual Hygiene. 

It is impossible to doubt the vitality and the vigour of the newmovement of sexual hygiene, especially that branch of it concerned withthe instruction of children in the essential facts of life. [181] In theeighteenth century the great educationist, Basedow, was almost alonewhen, by practice and by precept, he sought to establish this branch ofinstruction in schools. [182] A few years ago, when the German Dürer Bundoffered prizes for the best essays on the training of the young inmatters of sex, as many as five hundred papers were sent in. [183] We maysay that during the past ten years more has been done to influencepopular feeling on this question than during the whole of the precedingcentury. 

Whenever we witness a sudden impulse of zeal and enthusiasm to rush intoa new channel, however admirable the impulse may be, we must be preparedfor many risks and perhaps even a certain amount of damage. This is, indeed, especially the case when we are concerned with a new activity inthe sphere of sex. The sexual relationships of life are so ancient andso wide, their roots ramify so complexly and run so deep, that anysudden disturbance in this soil, however well-intentioned, is certain tohave many results which were not anticipated by those responsible forit. Any movement here runs the risk of defeating its own ends, or else, in gaining them, to render impossible other ends which are of not lessvalue. 

In this matter of sexual hygiene we are faced at the outset by the factthat the very recognition of any such branch of knowledge as "sexualhygiene" involves not merely a new departure, but the reversal of apolicy which has been accepted, almost without question, for centuries. Among many primitive peoples, indeed, we know that the boy and girl atpuberty are initiated with solemnity, and even a not unwholesomehardship, into the responsibilities of adult life, including those whichhave reference to the duties and privileges of sex. [184] But in our owntraditions scarcely even a relic of any such custom is preserved. On thecontrary, we tacitly maintain a custom, and even a policy, of silentobscurantism. Parents and teachers have considered it a duty to saynothing and have felt justified in telling lies, or "fairy tales, " inorder to maintain their attitude. The oncoming of puberty, with itsalarming manifestations, especially in the girl, has often left themunmoved and still silent. They have taken care that our elementarytextbooks of anatomy and physiology, even when written by so independentand fearless a pioneer as Huxley, should describe the human bodyabsolutely as though the organs and functions of reproduction had noexistence. The instinct was not thus suppressed; all the inevitablestimulations which life furnishes to the youthful sexual impulse havecontinued in operation. [185] Sexual activities were just as liable tobreak out. They were all the more liable to break out, indeed, becausefostered by ignorance, often unconscious of themselves, and not held incheck by the restraints which knowledge and teaching might havefurnished. This, however, has seemed a matter of no concern to theguardians of youth. They have congratulated themselves if they couldpilot the youths, and especially the maidens, under their guardianshipinto the haven of matrimony not only in apparent chastity, but inignorance of nearly everything that marriage signifies and involves, alike for the individual and the coming race. 

This policy has been so firmly established that the theory of it hasnever been clearly argued out. So far as it exists at all, it is atheory that walks on two feet pointing opposite ways: sex things mustnot be talked about because they are "dirty"; sex things must not betalked about because they are "sacred. " We must leave sex things alone, they say, because God will see to it that they manifest themselvesaright and work for good; we must leave sex things alone, they also say, because there is no department in life in which the activity of theDevil is so specially exhibited. The very same person may be guilty ofthis contradiction, when varying circumstances render it convenient. Such a confusion is, indeed, a fate liable to befall all ancient anddeeply rooted _tabus_; we see it in the _tabus_ against certain animalsas foods (as the Mosaic prohibition of pork); at first the animal wastoo sacred to eat, but in time people came to think that it is toodisgusting to eat. They begin the practice for one reason, they continueit for a totally opposed reason. Reasons are such a superficial part ofour lives!

Thus every movement of sexual hygiene necessarily clashes against anestablished convention which is itself an inharmonious clash ofcontradictory notions. This is especially the case if sexual hygiene isintroduced by way of the school. It is very widely held by many whoaccept the arguments so ably set forth by Frau Maria Lischnewska, thatthe school is not only the best way of introducing sexual hygiene, butthe only possible way, since through this channel alone is it possibleto employ an antidote to the evil influences of the home and theworld. [186] Yet to teach children what some of their parents consider astoo sacred to be taught, and others as too disgusting, and to begin thisteaching at an age when the children, having already imbibed theseparental notions, are old enough to be morbidly curious and prurient, isto open the way to a complicated series of social reactions which demandgreat skill to adjust. 

Largely, no doubt, from anxiety to counterbalance these dangers, therehas been a tendency to emphasize, or rather to over-emphasize, the moralaspects of sexual hygiene. Rightly considered, indeed, it is not easy toover-value its moral significance. But in the actual teaching of suchhygiene it is quite easy, and the error is often found, to makestatements and to affirm doctrines--all in the interests of good moralsand with the object of exhibiting to the utmost the beneficialtendencies of this teaching--which are dubious at the best and often atvariance with actual experience. In such cases we seem to see that thesexual hygienist has indeed broken with the conventional conspiracy ofsilence in these matters, but he has not broken with the conventionalmorality which grew out of that ignorant silence. With the bestintention in the world he sets forth, dogmatically and withoutqualification, ancient half-truths which to become truly moral need tobe squarely faced with their complementary half-truths. The inevitabledanger is that the pupil sooner or later grasps the one-sidedexaggeration of this teaching, and the credit of the sexual hygienist isgone. Life is an art, and love, which lies at the heart of life, is anart; they are not science; they cannot be converted into clear-cutformulæ and taught as the multiplication table is taught. Example herecounts for more than precept, and practice teaches more than either, provided it is carried on in the light of precept and example. The rashand unqualified statements concerning the immense benefits ofcontinence, or the awful results of self-abuse, etc. , frequently foundin books for young people will occur to every one. Stated with wisemoderation they would have been helpful. Pushed to harsh extravagancethey are not only useless to aid the young in their practicaldifficulties, but become mischievous by the injury they inflict onover-sensitive consciences, fearful of falling short of high-strungideals. This consideration brings us, indeed, to what is perhaps thechief danger in the introduction of any teaching of sexual hygiene: thefact that our teachers are themselves untaught. Sexual hygiene in thefull sense--in so far as it concerns individual action and not theregulative or legislative action of communities--is the art of impartingsuch knowledge as is needed at successive stages by the child, the youthand maiden, the young man and woman, in order to enable them to dealrightly, and so far as possible without injury either to themselves orto others, with all those sexual events to which every one is naturallyliable. To fulfil his functions adequately the master in the art ofteaching sexual hygiene must answer to three requirements: (1) he musthave a sufficing knowledge of the facts of sexual psychology, sexualphysiology, and sexual pathology, knowledge which, in many importantrespects, hardly existed at all until recently, and is only nowbeginning to become generally accessible; (2) he must have a wise andbroad moral outlook, with a sane idealism which refrains from demandingimpossibilities, and resolutely thrusts aside not only the vulgarplatitudes of worldliness, but the equally mischievous platitudes of anoutworn and insincere asceticism, for the wise sexual hygienist knows, with Pascal, that "he who tries to be an angel becomes a beast, " and isless anxious to make his pupils ineffective angels than effective menand women, content to say with Browning, "I may put forth angels'pinions, once unmanned, but not before"; (3) in addition to soundknowledge and a wise moral outlook, the sexual hygienist must possess, finally, a genuine sympathy with the young, an insight into theirsensitive shyness, a comprehension of their personal difficulties, andthe skill to speak to them simply, frankly, and humanly. If we askourselves how many of the apostles of sexual hygiene combine thesethree essential qualities, we shall probably not be able to name many, while we may suspect that some do not even possess one of the threequalifications. If we further consider that the work of sexual hygiene, to be carried out on a really national scale, demands the more or lessactive co-operation of parents, teachers, and doctors, and that parents, teachers, and doctors are in these matters at present all alikeuntrained, and usually prejudiced, we shall realize some of the dangersthrough which sexual hygiene must at first pass. 

It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to say that, in thus pointing out someof the difficulties and the risks which must assail every attempt tointroduce an element of effective sexual hygiene into life, I am farfrom wishing to argue that it is better to leave things as they are. That is impossible, not only because we are realizing that our system ofincomplete silence is mischievous, but because it is based on aconfusion which contains within itself the elements of disruption. Wehave to remember, however, that the creation of a new tradition cannotbe effected in a day. Before we begin to teach sexual hygiene theteachers must themselves be taught. 

There are many who have insisted, and not without reason, on the rightof the parent to control the education of the child. Sexual hygieneintroduces us to another right, the right of the child to control theeducation of the parents. For few parents to-day are fitted to exercisethe duty of training and guiding the child in the difficult field of sexwithout preliminary education, and such education, to be real andeffective, must begin at an early age in the parents' life. [187]

The school teacher, again, on whom so many rely for the initial stage insexual hygiene, is at present often in almost exactly the same stage ofignorance or prejudice in these matters as his or her pupils. Theteacher has seldom been trained to impart even the most elementaryscientific knowledge of the facts of sex, of reproduction, and of sexualhygiene, and is more often than not without that personal experience oflife in its various aspects which is required in order to teach wiselyin such a difficult field as that of sex, even if the principle isadmitted that the teacher in class, equally whether addressing one sexor both sexes, is not called upon to go beyond the scientific, abstract, and objective aspects of sex. 

This difficulty of the lack of suitable teachers is not, indeed, insuperable. It would be largely settled, no doubt, if a wise andthorough course of sexual hygiene and puericulture formed part of thetraining of all school teachers, as, in France, Pinard has proposed forthe Normal schools for young women. Dr. W. O. Henry, in a paper readbefore the Nebraska State Medical Association in May, 1911, put forwardthe proposal: "Let each State have one or more competent physicianswhose duty it shall be to teach these things to the children in all thepublic schools of the State from the time they are eight years of age. The boys and girls should be given the instruction separately by meansof charts, pictures, and stereopticon views, beginning with the lowerforms of life, flowers, plants, and then closing with the organs in man. These lectures and illustrations should be given every year to all theboys and girls separately, having those from eight to ten together atone time, and those from ten to twelve, and those from over twelve tosixteen. " Dr. Henry was evidently not aware that the principle of aspecial teacher appointed by Government to give special instruction inmatters of sex in all State schools had already been adopted in Canada, in the province of Ontario; the teacher thus appointed goes from schoolto school and teaches the elements of sexual physiology and anatomy, andthe duty of treating sexual matters with reverence, to classes of boysand of girls from the age of ten. The course is not compulsory, but anySchool Board may call upon the special teacher to deliver the lectures. This appointment has met with so much approval that it is proposed toappoint further teachers on the same lines, women as well as men. 

It is not necessary that the school teacher of sex should be aphysician. For personal and particular advice on the concretedifficulties of sex, however, as well as for the more special anddetailed hygiene of the sexual relationship and the precautions demandedby eugenics, we must call in the physician. Yet none of these things sofar enter the curriculum through which the physician passes to reachhis profession; he is often only a layman in relation to them. Even ifwe are assured that these subjects form part of his scientificequipment, that fact by no means guarantees his tact, sympathy, andinsight in addressing the young, whether by general lectures orindividual interviews, both these being forms of imparting sexualhygiene for which we may properly call upon the physician, especiallytowards the end of the school or college course, and at the outset ofany career in the world. [188]

Undoubtedly we have amongst us many mothers, teachers, and physicianswho are admirably equipped to fulfil their respective parts--elementary, secondary, and advanced--in the work of sexual hygiene. But so long asthey are few and far apart their influence is negatived, if it is noteven rendered harmful. 

It must often be useless for a mother to instil into her little boyrespect for his own body, reverence for the channel of motherhoodthrough which he entered the world, any sense of the purity of naturalfunctions or the beauty of natural organs, if outside his home thelittle boy finds that all other little boys and girls regard thesethings as only an occasion for sniggering. It is idle for the teacher todescribe plainly the scientific facts of sex as a marvellous culminationin the natural unfolding of the world if, outside the schoolroom, thepupil finds that, in the newspapers and in the general conversation ofadults, this sacred temple is treated as a common sewer, too filthy tobe spoken of, and that the books which contain even the most necessarydescriptions of it are liable to be condemned as "obscene" in the lawcourts. [189] It is vain for the physician to explain to young men andwomen the subtle and terrible nature of venereal poisons, to declare theright and the duty of both partners in marriage to know, authoritativelyand beforehand, the state of each other's health, or to warn them that aproper sense of responsibility towards the race must prevent someill-born persons from marrying, or at all events from procreating, ifthe young man and woman find, on leaving the physician, that theiracquaintances are prepared to accept all these risks, light-heartedly, in the dark, in a heedless dream from which they somehow hope there willbe no awful awakening. 

The moral to which these observations point is fairly clear. Sexpenetrates the whole of life. It is not a branch of mathematics, or aperiod of ancient history, which we can elect to teach, or not to teach, as may seem best to us, which if we teach we may teach as we choose, andif we neglect to teach it will never trouble us. Love and Hunger are thefoundations of life, and the impulse of sex is just as fundamental asthe impulse of nutrition. It will not remain absent because we refuse tocall for its presence, it will not depart because we find its presenceinconvenient. At the most it will only change its shape, and mock at usfrom beneath masks so degraded, and sometimes so exalted, that we are nolonger able to recognize it. 

"People are always writing about education, " said Chamfort more than acentury ago, "and their writings have led to some valuable methods. Butwhat is the use, unless side by side with the introduction of suchmethods, corresponding reforms are not introduced in legislation, inreligion, in public opinion? The only object of education is to conformthe child's reason to that of the community. But if there is nocorresponding reform in the community, by training the child to reasonyou are merely training him to see the absurdity of opinions and customsconsecrated by the seal of sacred authority, public or legislative, andyou are inspiring him with contempt of them. "[190] We cannot too oftenmeditate on these wise words. 

It is useless to attempt to introduce sexual hygiene as a subject apart, and in some respects it may be dangerous. When we touch sex we aretouching sensitive fibres which thrill through the whole of our socialorganism, just as the touch of love thrills through the whole of thebodily organism. Any vital reform here, any true introduction of sexualhygiene to replace our traditional policy of confused silence, affectsthe whole of life or it affects nothing. It will modify our socialconventions, enter our family life, transform our moral outlook, perhapsre-inspire our religion and our philosophy. 

That conclusion need by no means render us pessimistic concerning thefuture of sexual hygiene, nor unduly anxious to cling to the policy ofthe past. But it may induce us to be content to move slowly, to prepareour movements widely and firmly, and not to expect too much at theoutset. By introducing sexual hygiene we are breaking with the traditionof the past which professed to leave the process by which the race iscarried on to Nature, to God, especially to the devil. We are claimingthat it is a matter for individual personal responsibility, deliberatelyexercised in the light of precise knowledge which every young man andwoman has a right, or rather a duty, to possess. That conception ofpersonal responsibility thus extended to the sphere of sex in thereproduction of the race may well transform life and alter the course ofcivilization. It is not merely a reform in the class-room, it is areform in the home, in the church, in the law courts, in thelegislature. If sexual hygiene means that, it means something great, though something which can only come slowly, with difficulty, with muchsearching of hearts. If, on the other hand, sexual hygiene means nothingbut the introduction of a new formal catechism, and an occasionalgoody-goody perfunctory exhortation, it may be introduced at once, quiteeasily, without hurting anyone's feelings. But, really, it will not beworth worrying about, one way or the other. 

FOOTNOTES:

[181] For a full discussion of the movement, see Havelock Ellis, _Studiesin the Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society, " chaps. II and III. 

[182] Basedow (born at Hamburg 1723, died 1790) set forth his views onsexual education--which will seem to many somewhat radical and advancedeven to-day--in his great treatise Elementarwerk (1774). His practicaleducational work is dealt with by Pinloche, _La Réforme de l'Educationen Allemagne au Dix-huitième Siècle_. 

[183] The best of these papers have been printed in a volume entitled _AmLebensquell_. 

[184] The elaborate and admirable initiation of boys among the natives ofTorres Straits furnishes a good example of this education, and has beenfully described by Dr. A. C. Haddon, _Reports of the AnthropologicalExpedition to Torres Straits_, Vol. V, chaps. VII and XII. 

[185] Moll in his wise and comprehensive work, _The Sexual Life of theChild_ (German ed. , p. 225), lays it down emphatically that "_we mustclearly realize at the outset that the complete exclusion of sexualstimuli in the education of children is impossible_. " He adds that thedemands made by some "fanatics of hygiene" would be dangerous even ifthey were practicable. Games and physical exercises induce in many casesa considerable degree of sexual stimulation. But this need not cause usundue alarm, nor must we thereby be persuaded to change our policy ofrecommending such games and exercises. 

[186] See Frau Maria Lischnewska's excellent pamphlet, _GeschlechtlicheBelehrung der Kinder_, first published in _Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 4and 5. This is perhaps the ablest statement of the argument in favour ofgiving the chief place in sexual hygiene to the teacher. FrauLischnewska recognizes three factors in the movement for freeing thesexual activities from degradation: (1) medical, (2) economic, and (3)rational. But it is the last--in the broadest sense as a comprehensiveprocess of enlightenment--which she regards as the chief. "The views andsentiments of people must be changed, " she says. "The civilized man mustlearn to gaze at this piece of Nature with pure eyes; reverence towardsit must early sink into his soul. In the absence of this fundamentalrenovation, medical and social measures will merely produce refinedanimals. "

[187] "We parents of to-day, " as Henriette Fürth truly says ("Erotik undElternpflicht, " _Am Lebensquell_, p. 11), "have not yet attained thatbeautiful naturalness out of which in these matters simplicity andfreedom grow. And however willing we may be to learn afresh, most of ushave so far lost our inward freedom from prejudice--the standpoint ofthe pure to whom all things are pure--that we cannot acquire it again. We parents of to-day have been altogether wrongly brought up. Theinoculated feeling of shame still remains even after we have recognizedthat shame in this connection is false. "

[188] The method of imparting a knowledge of sexual hygiene (especially inrelation to venereal diseases) at the outset of adult life has mostactively been carried out in Germany and the United States. In Germanylectures by doctors to students and others on these matters arefrequently given. In the United States information and advice are spreadabroad chiefly by the aid of societies. The American Society of Sanitaryand Moral Prophylaxis, with which the name of Dr. Morrow is speciallyconnected, was organized in 1905. The Chicago Society of Social Hygienewas established in 1906. Since then many other similar societies havesprung up under medical auspices in various American cities and states. 

[189] Many flagrant cases in point are set forth from the legal point ofview by Theodore Schroeder, _"Obscene" Literature and ConstitutionalLaw_, New York, 1911, chap. IV. 

[190] Chamfort, _OEuvres Choisies_, ed. By Lescure, Vol. I, p. 33. 

IX

IMMORALITY AND THE LAW

 Social Hygiene and Legal Compulsion--The Binding Force of Custom among Savages--The Dissolving Influence of Civilization--The Distinction between Immorality and Criminality--Adultery as a Crime--The Tests of Criminality--National Differences in laying down the Boundary between Criminal and Immoral Acts--France--Germany--England--The United States--Police Administration--Police Methods in the United States--National Differences in the Regulation of the Trade in Alcohol--Prohibition in the United States--Origin of the American Method of Dealing with Immorality--Russia--Historical Fluctuations in Methods of dealing with Immorality and Prostitution--Homosexuality--Holland--The Age of Consent--Moral Legislation in England--In the United States--The Raines Law--American Attempts to Suppress Prostitution--Their Futility--German Methods of Regulating Prostitution--The Sound Method of Approaching Immorality--Training in Sexual Hygiene--Education in Personal and Social Responsibility. 

The modern development of Social Hygiene in matters of Eugenics hasalready sufficed to show that there are certain people in the community, anxious to take quick cuts to the millennium, who think that Eugenicscan be promoted by hasty legislation. That method of attempting tofurther social progress is not new. It has been practised with signallack of success for several thousand years. Therefore, if Social Hygieneis really to progress among us on sane and fundamental lines, it isnecessary for us to realize clearly the mistakes of the past. Again andagain the blind haste of over-zealous reformers has led not toprogress, but to retrogression. The excellent intentions of such socialreformers have been defeated, not so much by the evils they have soughtto overcome, as by their own excesses of ignorant zeal. As our knowledgeof history and of psychology increases, we learn that, in dealing withhuman nature, what seems the longest way round is sometimes the shortestway home. 

Among savages, and no doubt in primitive societies generally, the socialreaction against injurious or even unusual acts on the part ofindividuals is regulated by the binding force of custom. The rulingopinion is the opinion of all, the ruling custom is the duty for all. The dictates of custom, even of ritual and etiquette, are stringentdictates of morality binding upon all, and the breach of any isequivalent to what we should consider a crime. The savage man is held inthe path of duty by a much more united force of public opinion than isthe civilized man. But, as Westermarck points out, in a suggestivechapter on customs and laws as the expression of moral ideas, "customnever covers the whole field of morality, and the uncovered space growslarger in proportion as the moral consciousness develops. . . . The rule ofcustom is the rule of duty at early stages of development. Only progressin culture lessens its sway. "[191] As a community increases in size and incultivation, growing more heterogeneous, it adheres rigidly tofundamental conceptions of right and wrong, but in less fundamentalmatters its moral ideas become both more subjective and more various. Ifa man kills another man out of love to that man's wife, all civilizedsociety is of opinion that the homicide is a "crime" to be severelypunished; but if the man should make love to the wife without killingthe husband, then, although in some savage societies the act would stillhave been a "crime, " in a civilized society it would usually be regardedas more properly a case for civil action, not for criminal action; whileshould it come to be known that the wife had from the first been in lovewith the man, and was married by compulsion to a husband who hadbrutally ill-used her, then a very considerable section of the civilizedcommunity would actually transfer their sympathies to the offendingcouple and look upon the husband as the real offender. 

This is why the vestigial relics of the ancient ecclesiastical view ofadultery as a "crime" are no longer supported by public opinion;[192] theyare no longer enforced, or else the penalty is reduced to ridiculousdimensions (as in France, where a fine of a few francs may be imposed), and there is a general inclination to abolish them altogether. Penaltiesfor adultery are not nowadays enacted afresh, except in the UnitedStates, where medieval regulations are enabled to survive through thestrength of the Puritan tradition. Thus in the State of New York a lawwas passed in 1907 rendering any person guilty of adultery punishable bysix months' imprisonment, or a heavy fine, or both. The law was largelydue to agitation by the National Christian League for the Promotion ofPurity; it was supposed the law would act to prevent adultery. Less thanthree months after the Act became law, lawyers reached the conclusionthat it was a dead letter. During the two years after its enactment, notwithstanding the large number of divorces, only three persons weresent to prison, for a few days, under this Act, and only four fined asmall sum. The Committee of Fourteen state that it is "of practically noeffect, " and add: "The preventive values of this statute cannot bedetermined, but, judging from the prosecutions, it has proved anineffective weapon against immorality, and has practically no effectupon commercialized vice. "[193] When such laws remain on the Statute Bookas relics of practically medieval days they deserve a certain respect, even if it is impossible to enforce them; to re-enact them in moderntimes is a gratuitous method of bringing law into contempt. 

It is clear that all such cases affecting morals are not only altered bycircumstances, and by consideration of the psychic state of theindividual, but that in regard to them different sections of thecommunity hold widely different views. The sanctions of the criminal lawto be firm and unshakeable must be capable of literal interpretationand of unfailing execution, and in that interpretation and execution beaccepted as just by the whole community. But as soon as law enters thesphere of morals this becomes impossible; law loses all its certaintyand all the reverence that rightly belongs to it. It no longer voicesthe conscience of the whole community; it tends to be merely anexpression of the feelings of a small upper-class social circle; thefeelings and the habits and the necessities of the mass of thepopulation are altogether ignored. [194] Nor are such legislativeincursions into the sphere of morals any more satisfactory from thepoint of view of the class which is responsible for them. It very soonbegins to be felt that, as Hagen puts it, "the formulas of penal law arestiff and clumsy instruments which can only in the rarest instance serveto disentangle the delicate and manifoldly interwoven threads of thehuman soul, and decide what is just and what unjust. Formulas areadopted for simple, uncomplicated, rough everyday cases. Only in suchcases do they achieve the conquest of justice over injustice. "

It is true that no sharp line divides criminal acts from merely immoralacts, and the latter tend to be indirectly, even when not directly, anti-social. It would be highly convenient if we could draw a sharpdistinction between major anti-social acts, which may properly bedescribed as "crime, " and justly be pursued with the full rigour of thelaw, and minor anti-social acts, which may be left to the varyingreaction of the social environments since they cannot properly bevisited by the criminal law. [195] Such a distinction exists, but it cannotbe made sharply because there are a large number of intermediateanti-social acts which some sections of the community regard as major, while others regard them as minor, or even, in some cases, as notanti-social at all. The only convenient test we can apply is thestrength of the social reaction--provided we are dealing with an actwhich is definitely anti-social, injuring recognized rights, and notmerely an unusual or disgusting act. [196] When an anti-social act meetswith a reaction of social indignation which is fairly universal andpermanent, it may be regarded as a crime coming under the jurisdictionof the law. If opinion varies, if a considerable section of thecommunity revolt against the punishment of the alleged anti-social act, then we are not entitled to dignify it with the appellation of "crime. "This is not an altogether sure or satisfactory criterion because thereare frequently times and places, especially under the stimulation ofsome particular occurrence evoking an outburst of increased publicemotion, when a section of the community succeeds by its noisy vigour increating the impression that it voices the universal will. But, on thewhole, it works out justly. Ethical standards differ in different placesat different times. They are, indeed, always changing. Therefore, inregard to all matters which belong to the sphere of what we commonlycall morals, there are in every community some who approve of a givenact, others who disapprove of it, yet others who regard it withindifference. In such a shifting sphere we cannot legislate with thecertainty of carrying the whole community with us, nor can we properlyintroduce the word "crime, " which ought to indicate only an action of sogravely anti-social nature that there can be no possibility of doubtabout it. 

It is, however, important to understand the marked national differencesin the reaction to these slightly or dubiously anti-social acts, forsuch differences rest on ancient tradition, and are to some extent theexpression of the genius of a people, though they are not the absolutelyimmutable product of racial constitution, and, within limits, theyundergo transformation. It thus happens that acts which in somecountries are pursued by the law and punished as crime, are in othercountries untouched by the law, and left to the social reaction of thecommunity. It becomes, therefore, of some importance to compare nationaldifferences in the attitude towards immorality, to find out whether theattempt to repress it directly, by law, is more effective, or lesseffective, than the method of leaving it to social reaction. 

In many respects France and Germany present a remarkable contrast intheir respective methods of dealing with immorality. The contrast hasonly existed since the sweeping legal reforms which followed theRevolution in France. In old France the laws against sexual andreligious offences were extremely severe, involving in some cases deathat the stake, and even during the eighteenth century this extremepenalty of the law was sometimes carried out. The police were active, their methods of investigation elaborate and thorough, yet the rigour ofthe law and the energy of the police signally failed to suppressirreligion and immorality in eighteenth-century France. The Revolution, by popularizing the opinions of the more enlightened men of the time, and by giving to the popular voice an authority it had never possessedbefore, remoulded the antiquated ecclesiastical laws in accordance withthe ideas of the average modern man. In 1791 nearly all the ancient lawsagainst immorality, which had proved so ineffectual, were flung away, and when in 1810 Napoleon established the great penal code which bearshis name, he was careful to limit to a minimum the moral offences ofwhich the law was empowered to take cognisances, and--acting certainlyin accordance with deeply rooted instincts of the French people--heavoided any useless or dangerous interference with private life and thefreedom of the individual. The penal code in France remainssubstantially the same to-day, while the other countries which haveconstructed their codes on the French model have shown similartendencies. 

In Germany, and more especially in Prussia, which now dominates Germanopinion, a very different tendency prevails. The German feels nothing ofthat sensitive jealousy with which the French seek to guard private lifeand the rights of the individual. He tolerates a police system which, asFuld has pointed out, is the most military police system in the world, and he makes little complaint of the indiscriminating thoroughness, evenharshness, with which it exercises its functions. "The North German, " asa German lawyer puts it, "gazes with sacred respect on every Stateauthority, and on every official, especially on executive and policefunctionaries; he complacently accepts police inquisition into hisprivate life, and the regulation of his behaviour by law and policeaffects his impulse of freedom in a relatively slight manner. Hence thelaw-maker's interference with his private life seems to him a customaryand not too injurious encroachment on his individuality. "[197] It thuscomes about that a great many acts, of for the most part unquestionedimmoral character--such as incest, the procuring of women for immoralpurposes, and acts of a homosexual character--which, when adults arealone concerned, the French leave to be dealt with by the socialreaction, are in Germany directly dealt with by the law. These thingsand the like are viewed in France with fully as much detestation as inGermany, but while the German considers that that detestation is itselfa reason for inflicting a legal penalty on the detested act, theFrenchman considers that to inflict a punishment upon such acts by lawis an inadmissible interference of the State in private affairs, and anunnecessary interference since the social reaction is quite adequate. InGermany, Dr. Wilhelm points out, a man who allows his daughter's_fiancé_ to stay overnight in his house with her is liable to be draggedbefore the police court and sent to prison for procuring immorality;[198]to a Frenchman this is a shocking and inconceivable insult to privaterights. [199] So also with the German legal attitude towards sexualinversion. The German method of dragging private scandals into theglare of day and investigating them at interminable length in the lawcourts is a perpetual source of astonishment to Frenchmen. They pointout that not only does this method defeat its own end by concentratingattention on the abnormal practices it attacks, but it adds dignity tothem; a certain small section of the community justifies and upholdsthese practices, but while in France this section has no reason to comeprominently before the public since it has no grievances demandingredress, in Germany the existence of a cause to advocate in the name ofjustice has produced a serious and imposing body of literature which hasno parallel in France. [200] Thus, as Wilhelm points out, we find exactlyopposite methods adopted in Germany and France to obtain the same ends:"In Germany, punishment on account of alleged injury to generalinterests; in France absence of punishment in order to avoid injury togeneral interests; in Germany the police baton is called for in order toward off threatened injury, while in France it is feared that the use ofthe police baton will itself cause the injury. "

The question naturally arises: Which method is the more effective?Wilhelm finds that these differences in national attitude towardsimmorality have not by any means rendered immorality more prevalent inFrance than in Germany; on the contrary, though extra-conjugalintercourse is in Germany almost a crime, sexual offences againstchildren are far more prevalent than in France, while family life is atleast as stable in France as in Germany, and more intimate. "The freerway of regarding sexual matters and its results in legislation have, ascompared to Germany, in no respect led to more immoral conditions, while, on the other hand, it has been the reason why the vigorousagitation which we find in Germany for certain legal reforms in respectto sexuality are quite unknown. "

It is forgotten, in Germany and in some other countries, sometimes evenin France, that to bring immorality within reach of the arm of the lawis not necessarily by any means to make the actual penalty, in thelargest sense of the term, more severe. So long as he retains the goodopinion of his fellows, imprisonment is no injury to a man; it hashappened to some of our most distinguished and respected public men. Thebad opinion of his fellows, even when the law is powerless to touch him, is often an irretrievable injury to a man. We do not fortify the socialreaction, in most matters, when we attempt to give it a legal sanction;we do not even need to fortify it, for it is sometimes harsher and moresevere than the law, overlooking or not knowing all the extenuatingcircumstances. In France, as in England, the force of social opinion, independently of the law, is exceedingly and perhaps excessivelystrong. 

In England, however, we see an attitude towards immorality which differsalike from the French attitude and the German attitude, though it haspoints of contact with both. The distinctive feature of the Englishman'sattitude is his spirit of extreme individualism (which distinguishes himfrom the German) combined with the religious nature of his moral fervour(which distinguishes him from the Frenchman), both being veiled by a shyprudery (which distinguishes him alike from the Frenchman and theGerman). The Englishman's reverence for the individual's rights goesbeyond the Frenchman's, for in France there is a tendency to subordinatethe individual to the family, and in England the interests of theindividual predominate. But while in France the laws have beenre-moulded to the national temperament, this has not been the case toanything like the same extent in England, where in modern times no greatrevolution has occurred to shake off laws which still by theirantiquity, rather than by their reasonableness, retain the reverence ofthe people. Thus it comes about that, on the legal side the Englishattitude towards immorality in many respects resembles the Germanattitude. Yet undoubtedly the most fundamental element in the Englishattitude is the instinct for personal freedom, and even the religiousfervour of the moral impulse has strengthened the individualisticelement. [201] We see this clearly in the fact that England has even gonebeyond France in rejecting the control of prostitutes. The French arestriving to abolish such control, but in England where it was neverextensively established it has long been abolished, leaving only a fewfaint traces behind. It is abhorrent to the English mind that even themost degraded specimens of humanity should be compulsorily deprived ofrights over their own persons, even when it is claimed that thedeprivation of such rights might be for the benefit of the community. Inno country, perhaps, is the prostitute so free to parade the streets inthe exercise of her profession as in England, and in no country ispublic opinion so intolerant of even the suspicion of a mistake by thepolice in the exercise of that very limited control over prostituteswhich they possess. The freedom of the prostitute in England is furtherguaranteed by the very fervour of English religious feeling; for activeinterference with prostitutes involves regulation of prostitution, andthat implies a national recognition of prostitution which to a verylarge section of the English people would be altogether repellant. ThusEnglish love of freedom and English love of God combine to protect theprostitute. It has to be added that this result is by no means, as somehave imagined, hostile to morality. It is the opinion of many foreignobservers that in this matter London, for all its freedom, comparesfavourably with many other large cities where prostitution is severelyregulated by the police and so far as possible concealed. For the policecan never become the agents of any morality of the heart, and all therepression in the world can only touch the surface of life. 

The English attitude, again, is characteristically seen in the method ofdealing with homosexual practices and other similar sexual aberrations. Here, legally, England is closer to Germany than to modern France. Nocountry in the world, it is often said, has preserved by tradition andeven maintained by recent accretion such severe penalties againsthomosexual offences as England. Yet, unlike the Germans, the English donot actively prosecute in these cases and are usually content to leavethe law in abeyance, so long as public order and decency are reasonablymaintained. English people, like the French people, are by no meansimpressed by the advantages of the German system by which purely privatescandals are made public scandals, to be set forth day after day in alltheir details before the court, and discussed excitedly by the wholepopulation. Yet the English law in this matter is still very widelyupheld. There are very many English people who think that the fact thathomosexuality is disgusting to most people is a reason for punishing itwith extreme severity. Yet disgust is a matter of taste, we cannotproperly impart it into our laws; a disgusting person is not necessarilya criminal person, or we shall have to enact that many inmates of ourhospitals and lunatic asylums be hanged. There is thus a fundamentalinconsistency in the English method of dealing with immorality; it ismade up of opposite views, some of them extreme in contrary directions. But by virtue of the national tendency to compromise, these conflictingtendencies work in a fairly harmonious manner. The result is that thegeneral state of English morality--notwithstanding, and perhaps partlyby reason of, its prudish anxiety to leave unpleasant matters alone--isat least as satisfactory as that of countries where much more logicaland thorough methods are in favour. 

In the United States we see yet another attitude towards immorality. Itis, indeed, related to the English attitude, necessarily so, since themost ancient and fundamental element of it was carried over to Americaby the English Puritans, who cherished in the extreme form alike theEnglish passion for individualism and the English fervour of religiousidealism. These germs have been too potent for destruction even underall the new influences of American life. But they are not altogether inharmony with those influences, and the result has been that the Americanattitude towards immorality has sometimes looked rather like acaricature of the English method. The influx of a vast and raciallyconfused population with the over-rapid development of urbanizationwhich has necessarily followed, opens an immense field for idealisticindividualism to attempt reforms. But this individualism has not beenheld in check by the English spirit of compromise, which is not a partof Puritanism, and it has thus tended alike to excess and to impotence. This result is brought about partly by facilities for individualisticlegislation not voicing the tendencies of the whole population, andtherefore fatally condemned to sterility, and partly by the fact that ina new and rapidly developed civilization it is impossible to secure anarmy of functionaries who may be trusted to deal with the regulation ofdelicate and complex moral questions in regard to which the communityis not really agreed. The American police are generally admitted to beopen with special frequency to the charge of ineffectiveness andvenality. It is not so often realized that these defects are fostered bythe impossible nature of the tasks which are imposed on the Americanpolice. 

This aspect of the matter has been very clearly set forth by Dr. Fuld, of Columbia University, in his able and thorough book on policeadministration. [202] He shows that, though the American police system as asystem has defects which need to be remedied, it is not true that theindividual members of the American police forces are inferior to thoseof other countries; on the contrary, they are, in some respects, superior; it is not a large proportion which sells the right to breakthe law. [203] Their most serious defects are due to the impracticable lawsand regulations made by inexperienced legislators. These laws andordinances in many cases cannot possibly be enforced, and the weakpolice officers accept money from the citizen for not enforcing ruleswhich in any case they could not enforce. "The American police forces, "says Fuld, "have been corrupted almost solely by the statutes. . . . Thereal blame attaches not to the policeman who accepts a bribe temptinglyoffered him, nor to the bribe-giver who seeks by giving a bribe to makethe best possible business arrangement, but rather to the law, which bygiving the police a large and uncontrolled discretion in the enforcementof the law places a premium upon bribe-giving and bribe-taking. " Thisstate of things is rendered possible by the fact that the duties of thepolice are not confined to matters affecting crime and publicorder--matters which the whole community consider essential, and inregard to which any police negligence is counted a serious charge--butare extended to unessential matters which a considerable section of thecommunity, including many of the police themselves, view with completeindifference. It is impossible to regard seriously a conspiracy todefeat laws which a large proportion of citizens regard as unnecessaryor even foolish. It thus unfortunately comes about that the chargebrought against the American police that "it sells the right to breakthe law" has not the same grave significance which it would have in mostcountries, for the rights purchased in America may in most countries beobtained without purchase. "An act ought to be made criminal, " as Fuldrightly lays down, "only when it is socially expedient to punish itscriminality. . . . The American people, or at least the Americanlegislators, do not make this clear distinction between vice and crime. There seems to be a feeling in America that unless a vice is made acrime, the State countenances the vice and becomes a party to itscommission. There are unfortunately a large number of men in thecommunity who believe that they have satisfied the demands made uponthem to lead a virtuous life by incorporating into some statute thecondemnation of a particular vicious act as a crime. "[204] This specialcharacteristic of American laws, with its failure to distinguish betweenvice and crime, is clearly a legacy of the early Puritans. The Puritanscarried over to New England independent autonomous laws of morality, andwere contemptuous of external law. The sturdy pioneers of the firstgeneration were faithful to that attitude, and were not even guilty ofpunishing witches. But, when the opportunity came, their descendantscould not resist the temptation to erect an external law of morals, and, like the Calvinists of Geneva, they set up an inquisition backed by thesecular arm. It was not until the days of Emerson that AmericanPuritanism regained autonomous freedom and moved in the same air asMilton. But in the meantime the mischief had been done. Even to-day aninquisition of the mails has been established in the United States. Itis said to be unconstitutional, and one can well believe that that isso, but none the less it flourishes under the protection of what afamous American has called "the never-ending audacity of electedpersons. " But to allow subordinate officials to masquerade in the PostalDepartment as familiars of the inquisition, in the supposed interests ofpublic morals, is a dangerous policy. [205] Its deadening influence onnational life cannot fail sooner or later to be realized by Americans. To moralize by statute is idle and unsatisfactory enough; but it isworse to attempt to moralize by the arbitrary dicta of minor governmentofficials. 

It is interesting to observe the methods which find favour in some partsof the United States for dealing with the trade in alcoholic liquors. Alcohol is, on the one hand, a poison; on the other hand, it is thebasis of the national drinks of every civilized country. Every state hasfelt called upon to regulate its sale to more or less extent, in such away that (1) in the interests of public health alcohol may not be tooeasily or too cheaply obtainable, that (2) the restraints on its salemay be a source of revenue to the State, and that (3) at the same timethis regulation of the sale may not be a vexatious and useless attemptto interfere unduly with national customs. States have sought to attainthese ends in various ways. The sale of alcohol may be made a Statemonopoly, as in Russia, or, again, it may be carried on underdisinterested municipal or other control, as by the Gothenburg system ofSweden or the Samlag system of Norway. [206] In England the easier and moreusual plan is adopted of heavily taxing the sale, with, in addition, various minor methods for restraining the sale of alcoholic drinks andattempting to improve the conditions under which they are sold. 

In France an ingenious method of influencing the sale of alcohol haslately been adopted, in the interests of public health, which has provedcompletely successful. The French national drink is light wine, whichmay be procured in abundance, of excellent and wholesome quality andvery cheaply, provided it is not heavily taxed. But of recent yearsthere has been a tendency in France to consume in large quantity theheavy alcoholic spirits, often of a specially deleterious kind. The planhas been adopted of placing a very high duty on distilled beverages andreducing the duty on the light wines, as well as beer, so that awholesome and genuine wine can be supplied to the consumer at as low aprice as beer. As a result the French consumer has shown a preferencefor the cheap and wholesome wine which is really his national drink, andthere is an enormous fall in the consumption of spirits. Whereasformerly the consumption of brandy in French towns amounted to seven oreight litres of absolute alcohol per head, it has now fallen in thelarge towns to 4. 23 litres. [207]

In America, however, there is a tendency to deal with the sale ofalcohol totally opposed to that which nearly everywhere prevails inEurope. When in Europe a man abandons the use of alcohol he makes nodemand on his fellow men to follow his example, or, if he does, he isusually content to employ moral suasion to gain this end. But in theUnited States, where there is no single national drink, a large numberof people have abandoned the use of alcohol, and have persuadedthemselves that its use by other people is a vice, for it is notuniversally recognized that--"Selfishness is not living as one wishes tolive, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. " Moreover, asin the United States the medieval confusion between vice and crime stillsubsists among a section of the population, being a part of the nationaltradition, it became easy to regard the drinking of alcohol as a crimeand to make it punishable. Hence we have "Prohibition, " which hasprevailed in various States of the Union and is especially associatedwith Maine, where it was established in a crude form so long ago as 1846and (except for a brief interval between 1856 and 1858) has prevaileduntil to-day. The law has never been effective. It has been made moreand more stringent; the wildest excuses of arbitrary administration havebeen committed; scandals have constantly occurred; officials of ironwill and determination have perished in the faith that if only they putenough energy into the task the law might, after all, be at lastenforced. It was all in vain. It has always been easy in the cities ofMaine for those to obtain alcohol who wished to obtain it. Finally, in1911, by a direct Referendum, the majority by which the people of Maineare maintaining Prohibition has been brought down to 700 in a total pollof 120, 000, while all the large towns have voted for the repeal ofProhibition by enormous majorities. The people of Maine are evidentlybecoming dimly conscious that it is worse than useless to make lawswhich no human power can enforce. "The result of the vote, " writes Mr. Arthur Sherwell, an English social Reformer, not himself opposed totemperance legislation, "from every point of view, and not least fromthe point of view of temperance, is eminently unsatisfactory, and itunquestionably creates a position of great difficulty and embarrassmentfor the authorities. A majority of 700 in a total poll of 120, 000 isclearly not a sufficient mandate for a drastic law which previousexperience has conclusively shown cannot be enforced successfully in theurban districts of the State. " Successful enforcement of prohibition ona State basis would appear to be hopeless. The history of Prohibition inMaine will for ever form an eloquent proof of the mischief which comeswhen the ancient ecclesiastical failure to distinguish between thesphere of morals and the sphere of law is perpetuated under theconditions of modern life. The attempt to force men to render unto Cæsarthe things which are God's must always end thus. 

In these matters we witness in America the survival of an ancienttradition. The early Puritans were individualists, it is true, but theirindividualism took a theocratic form, and, in the name of God, theylooked upon crimes and vices equally and indistinguishably as sins. Wesee exactly the same point of view in the Penitentials of the ninthcentury, which were ecclesiastical codes dealing, exactly in the samespirit and in the same way, with crime and with vice, recognizingnothing but a certain difference in degree between murder andmasturbation. In the ninth century, and even much later, in Calvin'sGeneva and Cotton Mather's New England, it was possible to carry intopractice this theocratic conception of the unity of vices and crimes andthe punishment as sins of both alike, for the community generallyaccepted that point of view. But that is very far from being the case inthe United States of to-day. The result is that in America in thisrespect we find a condition of things analogous to that which existed inFrance, before the Revolution remoulded the laws in accordance with thetemperament of the nation. Laws and regulations of the medieval kind, for the moral ordering of the smallest details of life, are stillenacted in America, but they are regarded with growing contempt by thecommunity and even by the administrators of the laws. It is realizedthat such minute inquisition into the citizen's private life can only beeffectively carried out where the citizen himself recognizes the divineright of the inquisitor. But the theocratic conception of life no longercorresponds to American ideas or American customs; this minute morallegislation rests on a basis which in the course of centuries has becomerotten. Thus it has come about that nowhere in the world is there sogreat an anxiety to place the moral regulation of social affairs in thehands of the police; nowhere are the police more incapable of carryingout such regulation. 

When we thus bear in mind the historical aspect of the matter we canunderstand how it has come about that the individualistic idealist inAmerica has been much more resolute than in England to effect reforms, much more determined that they shall be very thorough and extremereforms, and, especially, much more eager to embody his moralaspirations in legal statutes. But his tasks are bigger than in England, because of the vast, unstable, heterogeneous and crude population he hasto deal with, and because, at the same time, he has no firmlyestablished centralized and reliable police instrument whereby to effecthis reforms. The fiery American moral idealist is determined to set outfor the Kingdom of Heaven at once, but every steed he mounts provesbroken-winded, and speedily drops down by the wayside. Don Quixote setsthe lance at rest and digs his spurs into Rosinante's flanks, but hefails to realize that, in our modern world, he will never bear himanywhere near the foe. 

If we wish to see a totally different national method of regardingimmorality we may turn to Russia. Here also we find idealism at work, but it is not the same kind of idealism, since, far from desiring toexpress itself by force, its essential basis is an absolute disbelief inforce. Russia, like France, has inherited from an ancient ecclesiasticaldomination an extremely severe code of regulations against immoralityand all sexual aberrations, but, unlike France, it has not cast them offin order to mould the laws in accordance with national temperament. Theessence of the Russian attitude in these matters is a sympathy with theindividual which is stronger than any antipathy aroused by his immoralacts; his act is a misfortune rather than a sin or a crime. We mayobserve this attitude in the kindly and helpful fashion in which theRussian assists along the streets his fellow-man who has drunk too muchvodka, and, on a higher plane, we see the same spirit of forgiving humantenderness in the Russian novelists, most clearly in the greatest andmost typically national, in Dostoieffsky and in Tolstoy. The harshrigidity of the old Russian laws had not the slightest influence, eitherin changing this national attitude or in diminishing the prevalence, atthe very least as great as elsewhere, of sexual laxity or sexualaberration. Nowadays, as Russia attains national self-consciousness, these laws against immorality are being slowly remoulded in accordancewith the national temperament, and in some respects--as in its attitudetowards homosexuality and the introduction in 1907 of what ispractically divorce by mutual consent--they allow a freedom and latitudescarcely equalled in any other country. [208]

Undoubtedly there is, within certain limits, mutual action and reactionin these matters among nations. Thus the influence of France has led tothe abolition of the penalty against homosexual practices in manycountries, notably Holland, Spain, Portugal, and, more recently, Italy, while even in Germany there is a strong and influential party, amonglegal as well as medical authorities, in favour of taking the same step. On the other hand, France has in some matters of detail departed fromher general principle in these matters, and has, for instance--withoutdoubt in an altogether justifiable manner--taken part in theinternational movement against what is called the white slave trade. This mutual reaction of nations is well recognized by the more alert andprogressive minds in every country, jealous of any undue interferencewith liberty. When, for instance, a Bill is introduced in the EnglishParliament for promoting inquisitorial and vexatious interference withmatters that are not within the sphere of legislation it is eagerlydiscussed in Germany before even its existence is known to most peoplein England, not so much out of interest in English Affairs as from asensitive dread that English example may affect German legislation. [209]

Not only, indeed, have we to recognize the existence of these clearlymarked and profound differences in legislative reaction to immorality. We have also to realize that at different periods there are generalmovements, to some extent overpassing national bounds, of rise and offall in this reaction. 

A sudden impulse seizes on a community, and spreads to othercommunities, to attempt to suppress some form of immorality by law. Suchattempts, as we know, have always ended in failure or worse thanfailure, for laws against immorality are either not carried out, or, ifthey are carried out, it is at once realized that new evils are createdworse than the original evils, and the laws speedily fall into abeyanceor are repealed. That has been repeatedly seen, and is well illustratedby the history of prostitution, a sexual manifestation which for twothousand years all sorts of persons in authority have sought to suppressoff-hand by law or by administrative fiat. From the time whenChristianity gained full political power, prostitution has again andagain been prohibited, under the severest penalties, but always in vain. The mightiest emperors--Theodosius, Valentinian, Justinian, Karl theGreat, St. Louis, Frederick Barbarossa--all had occasion to discoverthat might was here in vain, and worse than in vain, that they could notalways obey their own moral ordinances, still less coerce their subjectsinto doing so, and that even so far as, on the surface, they weresuccessful they produced results more pernicious than the evils theysought to suppress. The best known and one of the most vigorous of theseattempts was that of the Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna; but all thecruelty and injustice of that energetic effort, and all the stringent, ridiculous, and brutal regulations it involved--its prohibition of shortdresses, its inspection of billiard-rooms, its handcuffing ofwaitresses, its whippings and its tortures--proved useless and worsethan useless, and were soon quietly dropped. [210] No more fortunate weremore recent municipal attempts in England and America (Portsmouth, Pittsburgh, New York, etc. ) to suppress prostitution off-hand; for themost part they collapsed even in a few days. 

The history of the legal attempts to suppress homosexuality shows thesame results. It may even be said to show more, for when the lawsagainst homosexuality are relaxed or abolished, homosexuality becomes, not perhaps less prevalent (in so far as it is a congenital anomaly wecannot expect its prevalence to be influenced by law), but certainlyless conspicuous and ostentatious. In France, under the Bourbons, thesexual invert was a sacrilegious criminal who could legally be burnt atthe stake, but homosexuality flourished openly in the highest circles, and some of the kings were themselves notoriously inverted. Since theCode Napoléon was introduced homosexual acts, _per se_, have never beenan offence, yet instead of flourishing more vigorously, homosexualityhas so far receded into the background that some observers regard it asvery rare in France. In Germany and England, on the other hand, wherethe antiquated laws against this perversion still prevail, homosexualityis extremely prominent, and its right to exist is vigorously championed. The law cannot suppress these impulses and passions; it can only stingthem into active rebellion. [211]

But although it has invariably been seen that all attempts to make menmoral by law are doomed to disappointment, spasmodic attempts to do soare continually being made afresh. No doubt those who make theseattempts are but a small minority, people whose good intentions are notaccompanied by knowledge either of history or of the world. But though aminority they can often gain a free field for their activities. Thereason is plain. No public man likes to take up a position which hisenemies may interpret as favourable to vice and probably due to ananxiety to secure legal opportunities for his own enjoyment of vice. This consideration especially applies to professional politicians. AMember of Parliament, who must cultivate an immaculately purereputation, feels that he is also bound to record by his vote howanxious he is to suppress other people's immorality. Thus the philistineand the hypocrite join hands with the simple-minded idealist. Very feware left to point out that, however desirable it is to preventimmorality, that end can never be attained by law. 

During the past ten years one of these waves of enthusiasm for themoralization of the public by law has been sweeping across Europe andAmerica. Its energy is scarcely yet exhausted, and it may therefore beworthwhile to call attention to it. The movement has shown specialactivity in Germany, in Holland, in England, in the United States, andis traceable in a minor degree in many other countries. In Germany theLex Heintze in 1900 was an indication of the appearance of thismovement, while various scandals have had the result of attracting anexaggerated amount of attention to questions of immorality and oftightening the rigour of the law, though as Germany already holds moralmatters in a very complex web of regulations it can scarcely be saidthat the new movement has here found any large field of activity. InHolland it is different. Holland is one of the traditional lands offreedom; it was the home of independent intellect, of free religion, ofautonomous morals, when every other country in Europe was closed tothese manifestations of the spirit, and something of the same traditionhas always inspired its habits of thought, even when they have beenlargely Puritanic. So that there was here a clear field for the movementto work in, and it has found expression, of a very thorough characterindeed, in the new so-called "Morals Law" which was passed in 1911 afterseveral weeks' discussion. Undoubtedly this law contains excellentfeatures; thus the agents of the "white slave trade, " who have hithertobeen especially active in Holland, are now threatened with five years'imprisonment. Here we are concerned with what may fairly be regarded ascrime and rightly punishable as such. But excellent provisions likethese are lost to sight in a great number of other paragraphs which areat best useless and ridiculous, and at worst vexatious and mischievousin their attempts to limit the free play of civilization. Thus we findthat a year's imprisonment, or a heavy fine, threatens any one whoexposes any object or writing which "offends decency, " a provision whichenabled a policeman to enter an art-pottery shop in Amsterdam and removea piece of porcelain on which he detected an insufficiently clothedhuman figure. Yet this paragraph of the law had been passed withscarcely any opposition. Another provision of this law deals extensivelywith the difficult and complicated question of the "age of consent" forgirls, which it raises to the age of twenty-one, making intercourse witha girl under twenty-one an offence punishable by four years'imprisonment. It is generally regarded as desirable that chastity shouldbe preserved until adult age is well established. But as soon as sexualmaturity is attained--which is long before what we conventionally regardas the adult age, and earlier in girls than in boys--it is impossible todismiss the question of personal responsibility. A girl over sixteen, and still more when she is over twenty, is a developed human being onthe sexual side; she is capable of seducing as well as of being seduced;she is often more mature than the youth of corresponding age; toinstruct her in sexual hygiene, to train her to responsibility, is theproper task of morals. But to treat her as an irresponsible child, andto regard the act of interfering with her chastity when her consent hasbeen given, as on a level with an assault on an innocent child merelyintroduces confusion. It must often be unjust to the male partner in theact; it is always demoralizing and degrading to the girl whom it aims at"protecting"; above all, it reduces what ought to be an extremelyserious crime to the level of a merely nominal offence when it punishesone of two practically mature persons for engaging with full knowledgeand deliberation in an act which, however undesirable, is altogetheraccording to Nature. There is here a fatal confusion between a crime andan action which is at the worst morally reprehensible and only properlycombated by moral methods. 

These objections are not of a purely abstract or theoretical character. They are based on the practical outcome of such enactments. Thus in theState of New York the "age of consent" was in former days thirteenyears. It was advanced to fourteen and afterwards to sixteen. This isthe extreme limit to which it may prudently be raised, and the New YorkSociety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which had taken thechief part in obtaining these changes in the law, was content to stop atthis point. But without seeking the approval of this Society, anotherbody, the White Cross and Social Purity League, took the matter in hand, and succeeded in passing an amendment to the law which raised the age ofconsent to eighteen. What has been the result? The Committee ofFourteen, who are not witnesses hostile to moral legislation, state that"since the amendment went into effect making the age of consent eighteenyears there have been few successful prosecutions. The laws arepractically inoperative so far as the age clause is concerned. " Juriesnaturally require clear evidence that a rape has been committed when thecase concerns a grown-up girl in the full possession of her faculties, possibly even a clandestine prostitute. Moreover, as rape in the firstdegree involves the punishment of imprisonment for twenty years, thereis a disinclination to convict a man unless the case is a very bad one. One judge, indeed, has asserted that he will not give any man the fullpenalty under the present law, so long as he is on the bench. Thenatural result of stretching the law to undue limits is to weaken it. Instead of being, as it should be, an extremely serious crime, rapeloses in a large proportion of cases the opprobrium which rightlybelongs to it. It is, therefore, a matter for regret that in someEnglish dominions there is a tendency to raise the "age of consent" toan unduly high limit. In New South Wales the Girls' Protection Act hasplaced the age of consent at sixteen, and in the case of offences byguardians, schoolmasters, or employers at seventeen years, notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of a distinguished medicalmember of the Legislative Council (the Hon. J. M. Creed), who presentedthe arguments against so high an age. Not a single prosecution has sofar occurred under this Act. 

In England the force of the moral legislation wave has been felt, but ithas been largely broken against the conservative traditions of thecountry, which make all legislation, good or bad, very difficult. Alengthy, elaborate and high-strung Prevention of Immorality Bill wasintroduced in the House of Commons by a group of Nonconformists mainlyon the Liberal side. This Bill was very largely on the lines of theDutch law already mentioned; it proposed to raise the age of consent tonineteen; making intercourse with a girl under that age felony, punishable by five years' penal servitude, and any attempt at suchintercourse by two years' imprisonment. Such a measure would be, it maybe noted, peculiarly illogical and inconsistent in England and Scotland, in both of which countries (though their laws in these matters areindependent) even a girl of twelve is legally regarded as sufficientlymature and responsible to take to herself a husband. At one moment theBill seemed to have a chance of becoming law, but a group of enlightenedand independent Liberals, realizing that such a measure would introduceintolerable social conditions, organized resistance and prevented theacceptance of the Bill. 

The chief organization in England at the present time for the promotionof public morality is the National Council of Public Morals, which is avery influential body, with many able and distinguished supporters. Law-enforced morality, however, constitutes but a very small part of thereforms advocated by this organization, which is far more concerned withthe home, the school, the Church, and the influences which operate inthose spheres. It has lately to a considerable extent joined hands withthe workers in the eugenic movement, advocating sexual hygiene andracial betterment, thus allying itself with one of the most hopefulmovements of our day. Certainly there may be some amount of zeal notaccording to knowledge in the activities of the National Council ofPublic Morals, but there is also very much that is genuinelyenlightened, and the very fact that the Council includes representativesfrom so many fields of action and so many schools of thought largelysaves it from running into practical excesses. Its influence on thewhole is beneficial, because, although it may not be altogether averseto moral legislation, it recognizes that the policeman is a very feebleguide in these matters, and that the fundamental and essential way ofbettering the public morality is by enlightening the private conscience. 

In the United States conditions have been very favourable, as we haveseen, for the attempt to achieve social reform by moral legislation, andnowhere else in the world has it been so clearly demonstrated that suchattempts not only fail to cure the evils they are aimed at, but tend tofurther evils far worse than those aimed at. A famous example isfurnished by the so-called "Raines Law" of New York. This Act was passedin 1896, and was intended to regulate the sale of alcoholic liquor inall its phases throughout the State. The grounds for bringing it forwardwere that the number of drinking saloons was excessive, that there wasno fixed licensing fee, that too much discretionary power was allowed tothe local commissioner; while, above all, the would-be Puritaniclegislators wished so far as possible to suppress the drinking ofalcoholic liquors on Sunday. To achieve these objects the licensing feewas raised to four times its usual amount previously to this enactment;heavy penalties, including the forfeiture of a large surety-bond, wereestablished, and more surely to prevent Sunday drinking only hotels, notordinary drinking bars, were allowed, with many stringent restrictions, to sell drink on that day. In order that there should be no mistake, itwas set forth in the Act that the hotel must be a real hotel with atleast ten properly furnished bedrooms. The legislators clearly thoughtthat they had done a fine piece of work. "Seldom, " wrote the Committeeof Fourteen, who are by no means out of sympathy with the aims of thislegislation, "has a law intended to regulate one evil resulted in soaggravated a phase of another evil directly traceable to itsprovisions. "[212]

In the first place, the passing of this law alarmed the saloon keepers;they realized that it had them in a very tight grip, and they suspectedthat it might be strictly enforced. They came to the conclusion, therefore, that their best policy would be to accept the law and toconform themselves to its provisions by converting their drinking barsinto real hotels, with ten properly furnished bedrooms, kitchen, anddining-room. The immediate result was the preparation of ten thousandbedrooms, for which there was of course no real demand, and by 1905there were 1407 certificated hotels in Manhattan and the Bronx alone, about 1150 of these hotels having probably been created by the RainesLaw. 

But something had to be done with all these bedrooms, properly furnishedaccording to law, for it was necessary to meet the heavy expensesincurred under the new conditions created by the law. The remedy wasfairly obvious. These bedrooms were excellently adapted to serve asplaces of assignation and houses of prostitution. Many hotel proprietorsbecame practically brothel keepers, the women in some cases becomingboarders in the hotels; and saloons and hotels have entered into a kindof alliance for their mutual benefit, and are sometimes indeed under thesame management. When a hotel is thus run in the interests ofprostitution it has what may be regarded as a staff of women in theneighbouring streets. In some districts of New York it is found thatpractically all the prostitutes on the street are connected with someRaines Law hotel. These wise moral legislators of New York thought theywere placing a penalty on Sunday drinking; what they have really doneis to place a premium on prostitution[213]. 

An attempt of a different kind to strike a blow at once at alcohol andat prostitution has been made in Chicago, with equally unsatisfactoryresults. Drink and prostitution are connected, so intimately connected, indeed, that no attempt to separate them can ever be more thansuperficially successful even with the most minute inquisition by thepolice, least of all by police officers, who, in Chicago, we areofficially told, are themselves sometimes found, when in uniform and onduty, drinking among prostitutes in "saloons. " On May 1, 1910, theChicago General Superintendent of Police made a rule prohibiting thesale of liquor in houses of prostitution. On the surface this rule hasin most cases been observed (though only on the surface, as thefield-workers of the Chicago Vice Commission easily discovered), and ablow was thus dealt to those houses which derive a large profit from thesale of drinks on account of the high price at which they retail them. Yet even so far as the rule has been obeyed, and not evaded, has iteffected any good? On this point we may trust the evidence of the ViceCommissioners of Chicago, a municipal body appointed by the Mayor andCity Council, and not anxious to discredit the actions of their PoliceSuperintendent. "As to the benefits derived from this order, either tothe inmates or the public, opinions differ, " they write. "It isundoubtedly true that the result of the order has been to scatter theprostitutes over a wide territory and to transfer the sale of liquorcarried on heretofore in houses to the near-by saloon-keepers, and toflats and residential sections, but it is an open question whether ithas resulted in the lessening of either of the two evils of prostitutionand drink. "[214] That is a mild statement of the results. It may be notedthat there are over seven thousand drinking saloons in Chicago, so thatthe transfer is not difficult, while the migration to flats--of which anenormous number have been taken for purposes of prostitution (fivehundred in one district alone) since this rule came into force--mayindeed enable the prostitute to live a freer and more humanizing life, but in no faintest degree diminishes the prevalence of prostitution. From the narrow police standpoint, indeed, the change is a disadvantage, for it shelters the prostitute from observation, and involves anentirely new readjustment to new conditions. 

It cannot be said that either the State of New York or the city ofChicago has been in any degree more fortunate in its attempts at morallegislation against prostitution than against drinking. As we shouldexpect, the laws of New York regard prostitution and the prostitute withan eye of extreme severity. Every prostitute in New York, by virtue ofthe mere fact that she is a prostitute, is technically termed a"vagrant. " As such she is liable to be committed to the workhouse for aterm not exceeding six months; the owner of houses where she lives maybe heavily fined, as she herself may be for living in them, and thekeeper of a disorderly house may be imprisoned and the disorderly housesuppressed. It is not clear that the large number of prostitutes in NewYork have been diminished by so much as a single unit, but from time totime attempts are made in some district or another by an unusuallyenergetic official to put the laws into execution, and it is thenpossible to study the results. When disorderly houses are suppressed ona large scale, there are naturally a great number of prostitutes whohave to find homes elsewhere in order to carry on their business. On oneoccasion, under the auspices of District-Attorney Jerome, it is statedby the Committee of Fourteen that eight hundred women were reported tobe turned out into the street in a single night. For many there are theRaines Law hotels. A great many others take refuge in tenement houses. Such houses in congested districts are crowded with families, and withthese the prostitute is necessarily brought into close contact. Consequently the seeds of physical and mental disorder which she maybear about her are disseminated in a much more fruitful soil than theywere before. Moreover, she is compelled by the laws to exert very greatenergy in the pursuit of her profession. As it is an offence to harbourher she has to pay twice as high a rent as other people would have topay for the same rooms. She may have to pay the police to refrain frommolesting her, as well as others to protect her from molestation. She issurrounded by people whom the law encourages to prey upon her. She iscompelled to exert her energies at highest tension to earn the verylarge sums which are necessary, not to gain profits for herself, but tofeed all the sharks who are eager to grab what is given to her. Theblind or perverse zeal of the moral legislators not only intensifies theevils it aims at curing, but it introduces a whole crop of new evils. 

How large these sums are we may estimate by the investigation made bythe Vice Commissioners of Chicago. They conclude after careful inquirythat the annual profits of prostitution in the city of Chicago aloneamount to between fifteen to sixteen million dollars, and they regardthis as "an ultra-conservative estimate. " It is true that not all thisactually passes through the women's hands and it includes the sales ofdrinks. If we confine ourselves strictly to the earnings of the girlsthemselves it is found to work out at an average for each girl ofthirteen hundred dollars per annum. This is more than four times as muchas the ordinary shop-girl can earn in Chicago by her brains, virtue, andother good qualities. But it is not too much for the prostitute's needs;she is compelled to earn so large an income because the active hostilityof society, the law, and the police facilitates the task of all thosepersons--and they are many--who desire to prey upon her. Thus society, the law, and the police gain nothing for morals by their hostility tothe prostitute. On the contrary, they give strength and stability tothe very vice they nominally profess to fight against. This is shown inthe vital matter of the high rents which it is possible to obtain whereprostitution is concerned. These high rents are the direct result oflegal and police enactments against the prostitute. Remove theseenactments and the rents would automatically fall. The enactmentsmaintain the high rents and so ensure that the mighty protection ofcapital is on the side of prostitution; the property brings in anexorbitant rate of interest on the capital invested, and all the forcesof sound business are concerned in maintaining rents. So gross is theignorance of the would-be moral legislators--or, some may think, soskilful their duplicity--that the methods by which they profess to fightagainst immorality are the surest methods for enabling immorality notmerely to exist--which it would in any case--but to flourish. A vigorouscampaign is initiated against immorality. On the surface it issuccessful. Morality triumphs. But, it may be, in the end we arereminded of the saying of M. Desmaisons in one of Remy de Gourmont'switty and profound _Dialogues des Amateurs_: "Quand la morale triompheil se passe des choses très vilaines. "

The reason why the "triumphs" of legislative and administrative moralityare really such ignominious failures must now be clear, but may again berepeated. It is because on matters of morals there is no unanimity ofopinion as there is in regard to crime. There is always a large sectionof the community which feels tolerant towards, and even practises, actswhich another section, it may be quite reasonably, stigmatizes as"immoral. " Such conditions are highly favourable for the exercise ofmoral influence; they are quite unsuitable for legislative action, whichcannot possibly be brought to bear against a large minority, perhapseven majority, of otherwise law-abiding citizens. In the matter ofprostitution, for instance, the Vice Commissioners of Chicago stateemphatically the need for "constant and persistent repression" leadingon to "absolute annihilation of prostitution. " They recommend theappointment of a "Morals Commission" to suppress disorderly houses, andto prosecute their keepers, their inmates, and their patrons; theyfurther recommend the establishment of a "Morals Court" of vaguely largescope. Among the other recommendations of the Commissioners--and thereare ninety-seven such recommendations--we find the establishment of amunicipal farm, to which prostitutes can be "committed on anindeterminate sentence"; a "special morals police squad"; instructionsto the police to send home all unattended boys and girls under sixteenat 9 p. M. ; no seats in the parks to be in shade; searchlights to be setup at night to enable the police to see what the public are doing, andso on. The scheme, it will be seen, combines the methods of Calvin inGeneva with those of Maria Theresa in Vienna. [215]

The reason why any such high-handed repression of immorality by force isas impracticable in Chicago as elsewhere is revealed in the excellentpicture of the conditions furnished by the Vice Commissionersthemselves. They estimate that the prostitutes in disorderly housesknown to the police--leaving out of account all prostitutes in flats, rooms, hotels and houses of assignation, and also taking no note ofclandestine prostitutes--receive 15, 180 visits from men daily, or5, 540, 700 per annum. They consider further that the men in question maybe one-fourth of the adult male population (800, 000 in the city itself, leaving the surrounding district out of the reckoning), and they rightlyinsist that this estimate cannot possibly cover all the facts. Yet itnever occurs to the Vice Commissioners that in thus proposing to brandone-third or even only one quarter of the adult male population ascriminals, and as such to prosecute them actively, is to propose anabsurd impossibility. 

It is not by any means only in the United States that an object lessonin the foolishness of attempting to make people moral by force is set upbefore the world. It has often been set up before, and at the presentday it is illustrated in exactly the same way in Germany. Unlike as arethe police systems and the national temperaments of Germany and theUnited States, in this matter social reformers tell exactly the samestory. They report that the German laws and ordinances againstimmorality increase and support the very evil they profess to attack. Thus by making it criminal to shelter, even though not for purposes ofgain, unmarried lovers, even when they intend to marry, the respectablegirl is forced into the position of the prostitute, and as such shebecomes subject to an endless amount of police regulation and policecontrol. Landlords are encouraged to live on her activities, chargingvery high rates to indemnify themselves for the risks they run byharbouring her. She, in her turn, to meet the exorbitant demands whichthe law and the police encourage the whole environment to make upon her, is forced to exercise her profession with the greatest activity, and toacquire the maximum of profit. Law and the police have forged the samevicious circle. [216]

The illustrations thus furnished by Germany, Holland, England, and theUnited States, will probably suffice to show that there really is at thepresent time a wave of feeling in favour of the notion that it ispossible to promote public morals by force of law. It only remains toobserve that the recognition of the futility of such attempts by nomeans necessarily involves a pessimistic conservatism. To point out thatprostitution never has been, and never can be, abolished by law, is byno means to affirm that it is an evil which must endure for ever andthat no influence can affect it. But we have to realize, in the firstplace, that prostitution belongs to that sphere of human impulses inwhich mere external police ordinances count for comparatively little, and that, in the second place, even in the more potent field of truemorals, which has nothing to do with moral legislation, prostitution isso subtly and deeply rooted that it can only be affected by influenceswhich bear on all our methods of thought and feeling and all our socialcustom. It is far from being an isolated manifestation; it is, forinstance, closely related to marriage; any reforms in prostitution, therefore, can only follow a reform in our marriage system. Butprostitution is also related to economics, and when it is realized howmuch has to be altogether changed in our whole social system to secureeven an approximate abolition of prostitution it becomes doubtfulwhether many people are willing to pay the price of removing the "socialevil" they find it so easy to deplore. They are prepared to appointCommissions; they have no objection to offer up a prayer; they arewilling to pass laws and issue police regulations which are known to beuseless. At that point their ardour ends. 

If it is impossible to guard the community by statute against thecentral evil of prostitution, still more hopeless is it to attempt thelegal suppression of all the multitudinous minor provocations of thesexual impulse offered by civilization. Let it be assumed that only bysuch suppression, and not by frankly meeting and fighting temptations, can character be formed, yet it would be absolutely impossible tosuppress more than a fraction of the things that would need to besuppressed. "There is almost no feature, article of dress, attitude, act, " Dr. Stanley Hall has truly remarked, "or even animal, or perhapsobject in nature, that may not have to some morbid soul specializederogenic and erethic power. " If, therefore, we wish to suppress thesexually suggestive and the possibly obscene we are bound to suppressthe whole world, beginning with the human race, for if we once enter onthat path there is no definite point at which we can logically stop. Thetruth is, as Mr. Theodore Schroeder has so repeatedly insisted, [217] that"obscenity" is subjective; it cannot reside in an object, but only inthe impure mind which is influenced by the object. In this matter Mr. Schroeder is simply the follower, at an interval, of St. Paul. We mustwork not on the object, but on the impure mind affected by the object. If the impure heart is not suppressed it is useless to suppress theimpure object, while if the heart is renewed the whole task is achieved. Certainly there are books, pictures, and other things in life so uncleanthat they can never be pure even to the purest, but these things bytheir loathsomeness are harmless to all healthy minds; they can onlycorrupt minds which are corrupt already. Unfortunately, when ignorantpolice officials and custom-house officers are entrusted with the taskof searching for the obscene, it is not to these things that theirattention is exclusively directed. Such persons, it seems, cannotdistinguish between these things and the noblest productions of humanart and intellect, and the law has proved powerless to set them right;in all civilized countries the list is indeed formidable of the splendidand inspiring productions, from the Bible downwards, which officials orthe law courts have been pleased to declare "obscene. " So that while thetask of moralizing the community by force must absolutely fail of itsobject, it may at the same time suffice to effect much mischief. 

It is one of the ironies of history that the passion for extinguishingimmorality by law and administration should have arisen in what used tobe called Christendom. For Christianity is precisely the most brilliantproof the world has ever seen of the truth that immorality cannot so besuppressed. From the standpoint of classic Rome Christianity was anaggressive attack on Roman morality from every side. It was not so onlyin appearance, but in reality, as modern historians fully recognize. [218]Merely as a new religion Christianity would have been received with calmindifference, even with a certain welcome, as other new religions werereceived. But Christianity denied the supremacy of the State, carried onan anti-military propaganda in the army, openly flouted establishedsocial conventions, loosened family life, preached and practisedasceticism to an age that was already painfully aware that, above allthings, it needed men. The fatal though doubtless inevitable step wastaken of attempting to suppress the potent poison of this manifoldimmorality by force. The triumph of Christianity was largely due to thefine qualities which were brought out by that annealing process, and thesplendid prestige which the process itself assured. Yet the method ofwarfare which it had so brilliantly proved to be worthless was speedilyadopted by Christianity itself, and is even yet, at intervals, spasmodically applied. 

That these attempts should have such results as we see is not surprisingwhen we remember that even movements, at the outset, mainly inspired bymoral energy, rather than by faith in moral legislation, when thatenergy becomes reckless, violent and intolerant, lead in the end toresults altogether opposed to the aims of those who initiated them. Itwas thus that Luther has permanently fortified the position of the Popeswhom he assailed, and that the Reformation produced theCounter-Reformation, a movement as formidable and as enduring as thatwhich it countered. When Luther appeared all that was rigid and inhumanin the Church was slowly dissolving, certainly not without an inevitablesediment of immorality, yet the solution was in the highest degreefavourable to the development of the freer and larger conceptions oflife, the expansion of science and art and philosophy, which at thatmoment was pre-eminently necessary for the progress of civilisation, and, indirectly, therefore, for the progress of morals. [219] The violenceof the Reformation not only resulted in a new tyranny for its ownadherents--calling in turn for fresh reformations by Puritans, Quakers, Deists, and Freethinkers--but it re-established, and even to-daycontinues to support, that very tyranny of the old Church against whichit was a protest. 

When we try to regulate the morals of men on the same uniform pattern wehave to remember that we are touching the most subtle, intimate, andincalculable springs of action. It is useless to apply the crude methodsof "suppression" and "annihilation" to these complex and indestructibleforces. When Charles V retired in weariness from the greatest throne inthe world to the solitude of the monastery at Yuste, he occupied hisleisure for some weeks in trying to regulate two clocks. It proved verydifficult. One day, it is recorded, he turned to his assistant and said:"To think that I attempted to force the reason and conscience ofthousands of men into one mould, and I cannot make two clocks agree!"Wisdom comes to the rulers of men, sometimes, usually when they haveceased to be rulers. It comes to the moral legislators not otherwisethan it comes to the immoral persons they legislate against. "I actfirst, " the French thief said; "then I think. "

It seems to some people almost a paradox to assert that immoralityshould not be encountered by physical force. The same people wouldwillingly admit that it is hopeless to rout a modern army with bows andarrows, even with the support of a fanfare of trumpets. Yet thatmetaphor, as we have seen, altogether fails to represent the inadequacyof law in the face of immorality. We are concerned with a method offighting which is not merely inadequate, but, as has been demonstratedmany times during the last two thousand years, actually fortifies andeven dignifies the foe it professes to attack. But the failure ofphysical force to suppress the spiritual evil of immorality by no meansindicates that a like failure would attend the more rational tactics ofopposing a spiritual force by spiritual force. The virility of ourmorals is not proved by any weak attempt to call in the aid of thesecular arm of law or the ecclesiastical arm of theology. If a moralitycannot by its own proper virtue hold its opposing immorality in checkthen there is something wrong with that morality. It runs the risk ofencountering a fresh and more vigorous movement of morality. Men beginto think that, if not the whole truth, there is yet a real element oftruth in the assertion of Nietzsche: "We believe that severity, violence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind, everything wicked, tyrannical, predatory and serpentine in man, serves as well for theelevation of the human species as its opposite. "[220] To ignore altogetherthe affirmation of that opposing morality, it may be, would be to breeda race of weaklings, fatally doomed to succumb helplessly to the firstbreath of temptation. 

Although we are passing through a wave of moral legislation, there areyet indications that a sounder movement is coming into action. Thedemand for the teaching of sexual hygiene which parents, teachers, andphysicians in Germany, the United States and elsewhere, are now strivingto formulate and to supply will, if it is wisely carried out, effect farmore for public morals than all the legislation in the world. Inconsistently enough, some of those who clamour for moral legislationalso advocate the teaching of sexual hygiene. But there is no room forcompromise or combination here. A training in sexual hygiene has nomeaning if it is not a training, for men and women alike, in personaland social responsibility, in the right to know and to discriminate, and in so doing to attain self-conquest. A generation thus trained toself-respect and to respect for others has no use for a web of officialregulations to protect its feeble and cloistered virtues from possiblevisions of evil, and an army of police to conduct it homewards at 9 p. M. Nor, on the other hand, can any reliable sense of social responsibilityever be developed in such an unwholesome atmosphere of petty moralofficialdom. The two methods of moralization are radically antagonistic. There can be no doubt which of them we ought to pursue if we reallydesire to breed a firmly-fibred, clean-minded, and self-reliant race ofmanly men and womanly women. 

FOOTNOTES:

[191] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, Vol. I, p. 160; see also chapter on sexual morality in Havelock Ellis, _Studies inthe Psychology of Sex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society, " chap. IX. 

[192] It must be remembered that in medieval days not only adultery butthe smallest infraction of what the Church regarded as morality could bepunished in the Archdeacon's court; this continued to be the case inEngland even after the Reformation. See Archdeacon W. W. Hales'interesting work, _Precedents and Proceedings in Criminal Causes_(1847), which is, as the author states, "a History of the Moral Policeof the Church. "

[193] _The Social Evil in New York City_, p. 100. 

[194] This has been emphasized in an able and lucid discussion of thisquestion by Dr. Hans Hagen, "Sittliche Werturteile, " _Mutterschutz_, Heft I and II, 1906. Such recognition of popular morals, he justlyremarks, is needed not only for the sake of the people, but for the sakeof law itself. 

[195] Grabowsky, in criticizing Hiller's book, _Das Recht über sich Selbst_(_Archiv für Kriminalanthropologie und Kriminalistik_, Bd. 36, 1809), argues that in some cases immorality injures rights which need legalprotection, but he admits it is difficult to decide when this is thecase. He does not think that the law should interfere with homosexualityin adults, but he does consider it should interfere with incest, on theground that in-breeding is not good for the race. But it is the view ofmost authorities nowadays that in-breeding is only injurious to the racein the case of an unsound stock, when the defect being in both partnersof the same kind would probably be intensified by heredity. 

[196] The occurrence of, for instance, incestuous, bestial, and homosexualacts--which are generally abhorrent, but not necessarilyanti-social--makes it necessary to exercise some caution here. 

[197] I quote from a valuable and interesting study by Dr. Eugen Wilhelm, "Die Volkspsychologischen Unterschiede in der französischen unddeustchen Sittlichkeits-Gesetzgebung und Rechtsprechung, "_Sexual-Probleme_, October, 1911. It may be added that in Switzerland, also, the tyranny of the police is carried to an extreme. Edith Sellersgives some extraordinary examples, _Cornhill_, August, 1910. 

[198] The absurdities and injustice of the German law, and itsinterference with purely private interests in these matters, have oftenbeen pointed out, as by Dr. Kurt Hiller ("Ist Kuppelei Strafwürdig?"_Die Neue Generation_, November, 1910). As to what is possible underGerman law by judicial decision since 1882, Hagen takes the case of awidow who has living with her a daughter, aged twenty-five or thirty, engaged to marry an artisan now living at a distance for the sake of hiswork; he comes to see her when he can; she is already pregnant; theywill marry soon; one evening, with the consent of the widow, who lookson the couple as practically married, he stays over-night, sharing hisbetrothed's room, the only room available. Result: the old woman becomesliable to four years' penal servitude, a fine of six thousand marks, loss of civil rights, and police supervision. 

[199] In another respect the French code carries private rights to anexcess by forbidding the unmarried mother to make any claim on thefather of her child. In most countries such a prohibition is regarded asunreasonable and unjust. There is even a tendency (as by a recent Dutchlaw) to compel the father to provide for his illegitimate child not onthe scale of the mother's social position but on the scale of his ownsocial position. This is, possibly, an undue assertion of thesuperiority of man. 

[200] The same point has lately been illustrated in Holland, where arecent modification in the law is held to press harshly on homosexualpersons. At once a vigorous propaganda on behalf of the homosexual hassprung into existence. We see here the difference between moralenactments and criminal enactments. Supposing that a change in the lawhad placed, for instance, increased difficulties in the way of burglary. We should not witness any outburst of literary activity on behalf ofburglars, because the community, as a whole, is thoroughly convincedthat burglary ought to be penalized. 

[201] Apart from the attitude towards immorality, we have an illustrationof the peculiarly English tendency to unite religious fervour withindividualism in Quakerism. In no other European country has any similarmovement--that is, a popular movement of individualistic mysticism--everappeared on the same scale. 

[202] E. F. Fuld, Ph. D. , _Police Administration_, 1909. 

[203] Ex-Police Commissioner Bingham, of New York, estimated (_Hampton'sMagazine_, September, 1909) that "fifteen per cent. Or from 1500 to 2000members of the police force are unscrupulous 'grafters' whose hands arealways out for easy money. " See also Report of the Committee of Fourteenon _The Social Evil in New York City_, p. 34. 

[204] Fuld, _op. Cit. _, pp. 373 _et seq. _ This last opinion by no meansstands alone. Thus it is asserted by the Committee of Fourteen in theirReport on The _Social Evil in New York City_ (1910, p. Xxxiv) that "somelaws exist to-day because an unintelligent, cowardly public putsunenforceable statutes on the book, being content with registering theirhypocrisy. "

[205] It is also a blundering policy. Its blind anathema is as likely asnot to fall on its own allies. Thus the Report of the municipallyappointed and municipally financed Vice Commission of Chicago is notonly an official but a highly moral document, advocating increasedsuppression of immoral literature, and erring, if it errs, on the sideof over-severity. It has been suppressed by the United States PostOffice!

[206] This system applies only to spirits, not to beer and wine, but ithas proved very effective in diminishing drunkenness, as is admitted bythose who are opposed to the system. A somewhat similar system exists inEngland under the name of the Trust system, but its extension appearsunfortunately to be much impeded by English laws and customs. 

[207] Jacques Bertillon, in a paper read to the Académie des SciencesMorales et Politiques, 30th September, 1911. 

[208] During the present century a great wave of immorality and sexualcrime has been passing over Russia. This is not attributable to thelaws, old or new, but is due in part to the Russo-Japanese War, and inpart to the relaxed tension consequent on the collapse of the movementfor political reform. (See an article by Professor Asnurof, "La CriseSexuelle en Russie, " _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, April, 1911. )

[209] It was by this indirect influence that I was induced to write thepresent chapter. The editor of a prominent German review wrote to me formy opinion regarding a Bill dealing with the prevention of immoralitywhich had been introduced into the English Parliament and had arousedmuch interest and anxiety in Germany, where it had been discussed in allits details. But I had never so much as heard of the Bill, nor could Ifind any one else who had heard of it, until I consulted a Member ofParliament who happened to have been instrumental in causing itsrejection. 

[210] J. Schrank, _Die Prostitution in Wien_, Bd. I, pp. 152-206. 

[211] The history of this movement in Germany may be followed in the_Vierteljahrsberichte des Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees_, editedby Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a great authority on the matter. 

[212] Report on _The Social Evil in New York City_, p. 38; see also RevDr. J. P. Peters, "Suppression of the 'Raines Law Hotels, '" _AmericanAcademy of Political and Social Science_, November, 1908. 

[213] It is probably needless to add that the specific object of theAct--the Puritanic observance of Sunday--was by no means attained. OnSunday, the 8th December, 1907, the police made a desperate attempt toenforce the law; every place of amusement was shut up; lectures, religious concerts, even the social meetings of the Young Men'sChristian Association, were rigorously put a stop to. There was, ofcourse, great popular indignation and uproar, and the impromptuperformances got up in the streets, while the police looked onsympathetically, are said to have been far more outrageous than anyentertainment indoors could possibly have been. 

[214] _The Social Evil in Chicago_, p. 112. 

[215] The methods of Maria Theresa never had any success; the methods ofCalvin at Geneva had, however, a certain superficial success, becausethe right conditions existed for their exercise. That is to say, that atheocratic basis of society was generally accepted, and that thesuppression of immorality was regarded by the great mass of thepopulation, including in most cases, no doubt, even the offendersthemselves, as a religious duty. It is, however, interesting to notethat, even at Geneva, these "triumphs of morality" have met the usualfate. At the present day, it appears (Edith Sellers, _Cornhill_, August, 1910), there are more disorderly houses in Geneva, in proportion to thepopulation, than in any other town in Europe. 

[216] See e. G. P. Hausmeister, "Zur Analyse der Prostitution, " _Geschlectund Gesellschaft_, 1907, p. 294. 

[217] Theodore Schroeder, _"Obscene" Literature and Constitutional Law_, New York, 1911. 

[218] Thus Sir Samuel Dill (_Roman Society_, p. 11) calls attention to theletter of St. Paulinus who, when the Empire was threatened bybarbarians, wrote to a Roman soldier that Christianity is incompatiblewith family life, with citizenship, with patriotism, and that soldiersare doomed to eternal torment. Christians frequently showed no respectfor law or its representatives. "Many Christian confessors, " says SirW. M. Ramsay (_The Church in the Roman Empire_, chap. Xv), "went toextremes in showing their contempt and hatred for their judges. Theiranswers to plain questions were evasive and indirect; they lecturedRoman dignitaries as if the latter were the criminals and theythemselves the judges; and they even used violent reproaches and coarse, insulting gestures. " Bouché-Leclercq (_L'Intolérance Religieuse et lePolitique_, 1911, especially chap. X) shows how the early Christiansinsisted on being persecuted. We see much the same attitude to-day amonganarchists of the lower class (and also, it may be added, sometimesamong suffragettes), who may be regarded as the modern analogues of theearly Christians. 

[219] It may well be, indeed, that in all ages the actual sum ofimmorality, broadly considered--in public and in private, in thought andin act--undergoes but slight oscillations. But in the nature of itsmanifestations and in the nature of the manifestations that accompanyit, there may be immense fluctuations. Tarde, the distinguished thinker, referring to the "delicious Catholicism" of the days before Luther, asks: "If that amiable Christian evolution had peacefully continued toour days, should we be still more immoral than we are? It is doubtful, but in all probability we should be enjoying the most æsthetic and theleast vexatious religion in the world, in which all our science, all ourcivilization, would have been free to progress" (Tarde, _La LogiqueSociale_, p. 198). As has often been pointed out, it was along the linesindicated by Erasmus, rather than along the lines pursued by Luther, that the progress of civilization lay. 

[220] Nietzsche, _Beyond Good and Evil_, chap. II. A century earlierGodwin had written in his _Political Justice_ (Book VII, chap. VIII):"Men are weak at present because they have always been told they areweak and must not be trusted with themselves. Take them out of theirshackles, bid them enquire, reason, and judge, and you will soon findthem very different beings. Tell them that they have passions, areoccasionally hasty, intemperate, and injurious, but that they must betrusted with themselves. Tell them that the mountains of parchment inwhich they have been hitherto entrenched, are fit only to impose uponages of superstition and ignorance, that henceforth we will have nodependence but upon their spontaneous justice; that, if their passionsbe gigantic, they must rise with gigantic energy to subdue them; that iftheir decrees be iniquitous, the iniquity shall be all their own. "

X

THE WAR AGAINST WAR

 Why the Problem of War is specially urgent To-day--The Beneficial Effects of War in Barbarous Ages--Civilization renders the Ultimate Disappearance of War Inevitable--The Introduction of Law in disputes between Individuals involves the Introduction of Law in disputes between Nations--But there must be Force behind Law--Henry IV's Attempt to Confederate Europe--Every International Tribunal of Arbitration must be able to enforce its Decisions--The Influences making for the Abolition of Warfare--(1) Growth of International Opinion--(2) International Financial Development--(3) The Decreasing Pressure of Population--(4) The Natural Exhaustion of the Warlike Spirit--(5) The Spread of Anti-military Doctrines--(6) The overgrowth of Armaments--(7) The Dominance of Social Reform--War Incompatible with an Advanced Civilization--Nations as Trustees for Humanity--The Impossibility of Disarmament--The Necessity of Force to ensure Peace--The Federated State of the Future--The Decay of War still leaves the Possibilities of Daring and Heroism. 

There are, no doubt, special reasons why at the present time war and thearmaments of war should appear an intolerable burden which must bethrown off as soon as possible if the task of social hygiene is not tobe seriously impeded. But the abolition of the ancient method ofsettling international disputes by warfare is not a problem whichdepends for its solution on the conditions of the moment. It is implicitin the natural development of the process of civilization. At one stage, no doubt, warfare plays an important part in constituting states and so, indirectly, in promoting civilization. But civilization tends slowlybut surely to substitute for war in the later stages of this process themethods of law, or, in any case, methods which, while not alwaysunobjectionable, avoid the necessity for any breach of the peace. [221] Assoon, indeed, as in primitive society two individuals engage in adispute which they are compelled to settle not by physical force but bya resort to an impartial tribunal, the thin end of the wedge isintroduced, and the ultimate destruction of war becomes merely a matterof time. If it is unreasonable for two individuals to fight it isunreasonable for two groups of individuals to fight. [222]

The difficulty has been that while it is quite easy for an orderedsociety to compel two individuals to settle their differences before atribunal, in accordance with abstractly determined principles of law andreason, it is a vastly more difficult matter to compel two groups ofindividuals so to settle their differences. A large part of the historyof all the great European countries has consisted in the progressiveconquest and pacification of small but often bellicose states outside, and even inside, their own borders. [223] This is the case even within acommunity. Hobbes, writing in the midst of a civil war, went so far asto lay down that the "final cause" of a commonwealth is nothing else butthe abolition of "that miserable condition of war which is necessarilyconsequent to the natural passions of men when there is no visible powerto keep them in awe. " Yet we see to-day that even within our highlycivilized communities there is not always any adequately awful power toprevent employers and employed from engaging in what is little betterthan a civil war, nor even to bind them to accept the decision of animpartial tribunal they may have been persuaded to appeal to. Thesmallest state can compel its individual citizens to keep the peace; alarge state can compel a small state to do so; but hitherto there hasbeen no guarantee possible that large states, or even large compactgroups within the state, should themselves keep the peace. They commitwhat injustice they please, for there is no visible power to keep themin awe. We have attained a condition in which a state is able to enforcea legal and peaceful attitude in its own individual citizens towardseach other. The state is the guardian of its citizens' peace, but theold problem recurs: _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_

It is obvious that this difficulty increases as the size of statesincreases. To compel a small state to keep the peace by absorbing it ifit fails to do so is always an easy and even tempting process to aneighbouring larger state. This process was once carried out on acomplete scale, when practically the whole known world was brought underthe sway of Rome. "War has ceased, " Plutarch was able to declare in thedays of the Roman Empire, and, though himself an enthusiastic Greek, hewas unbounded in his admiration of the beneficence of the majestic _PaxRomana_, and never tempted by any narrow spirit of patriotism to desirethe restoration of his own country's glories. But the Roman organizationbroke up, and no single state will ever be strong enough to restore it. 

Any attempt to establish orderly legal relationships between statesmust, therefore, be carried out by the harmonious co-operation of thosestates. At the end of the sixteenth century a great French statesman, Sully, inspired Henry IV with a scheme of a Council of ConfederatedEuropean Christian States; each of these states, fifteen in number, wasto send four representatives to the Council, which was to sit at Metz orCologne and regulate the differences between the constituent states ofthe Confederation. The army of the Confederation was to be maintained incommon, and used chiefly to keep the peace, to prevent one sovereignfrom interfering with any other, and also, if necessary, to repelinvasion of barbarians from without. The scheme was arranged in concertwith Queen Elizabeth, and twelve of the fifteen Powers had alreadypromised their active co-operation when the assassination of Henrydestroyed the whole plan. Such a Confederation was easier to arrangethen than it is now, but probably it was more difficult to maintain, andit can scarcely be said that at that date the times were ripe for soadvanced a scheme. [224]

To-day the interests of small states are so closely identified withpeace that it is seldom difficult to exert pressure on them to maintainit. It is quite another matter with the large states. The fact thatduring the past half century so much has been done by the larger statesto aid the cause of international arbitration, and to submit disputes tointernational tribunals, shows how powerful the motives for avoiding warare nowadays becoming. But the fact, also, that no country hitherto hasabandoned its liberty of withdrawing from peaceful arbitration anyquestion involving "national honour" shows that there is no constitutedpower strong enough to control large states. For the reservation ofquestions of national honour from the sphere of law is as absurd aswould be any corresponding limitation by individuals of their liabilityfor their acts before the law; it is as though a man were to say: "If Icommit a theft I am willing to appear before the court, and willprobably pay the penalty demanded; but if it is a question of murder, then my vital interests are at stake, and I deny altogether the right ofthe court to intervene. " It is a reservation fatal to peace, and couldnot be accepted if pleaded at the bar of any international tribunal withthe power to enforce its decisions. "Imagine, " says Edward Jenks, in his_History of Politics_, "a modern judge 'persuading' Mr. William Sikes to'make it up' with the relatives of his victim, and, on his remainingobdurate, leaving the two families to fight the matter out. " Yet that iswhat was in some degree done in England until medieval times as regardsindividual crimes, and it is what is still done as regards nationalcrimes, in so far as the appeal to arbitration is limited and voluntary. The proposals, therefore--though not yet accepted by anyGovernment--lately mooted in the United States, in England, and inFrance, to submit international disputes, without reservation, to animpartial tribunal represent an advance of peculiar significance. 

The abolition of collective fighting is so desirable an extension of theabolition of individual fighting, and its introduction has waited solong the establishment of some high compelling power--for the influenceof the Religion of Peace has in this matter been less than nil--that itis evident that only the coincidence of very powerful and peculiarfactors could have brought the question into the region of practicalpolitics in our own time. There are several such factors, most of whichhave been developing during a long period, but none have been clearlyrecognized until recent years. It may be worth while to indicate thegreat forces now warring against war. 

(1) _Growth of International Opinion. _ There can be no doubt whateverthat during recent years, and especially in the more democraticcountries, an international consensus of public opinion has graduallygrown up, making itself the voice, like a Greek chorus, of an abstractjustice. It is quite true that of this justice, as of justice generally, it may be said that it has wide limits. Renan declared once, in a famousallocution, that "what is called indulgence is, most often, onlyjustice, " and, at the other extreme, Remy de Gourmont has said that"injustice is sometimes a part of justice;" in other words, there arevarying circumstances in which justice may properly be tempered eitherwith mercy or with severity. In any case, and however it may bequalified; a popular international voice generously pronouncing itselfin favour of justice, and resonantly condemning any Government whichclashes against justice, is now a factor of the international situation. It is, moreover, tending to become a factor having a certain influenceon affairs. This was the case during the South African War, whenEngland, by offending this international sense of justice, fell into adiscredit which had many actual unpleasant results and narrowly escaped, there is some reason to believe, proving still more serious. The samevoice was heard with dramatically sudden and startling effect whenFerrer was shot at Barcelona. Ferrer was a person absolutely unknown tothe man in the street; he was indeed little more than a name even tothose who knew Spain; few could be sure, except by a kind of intuition, that he was the innocent victim of a judicial murder, for it is only nowthat the fact is being slowly placed beyond dispute. Yet immediatelyafter Ferrer was shot within the walls of Monjuich a great shout ofindignation was raised, with almost magical suddenness and harmony, throughout the civilized world, from Italy to Belgium, from England toArgentina. Moreover, this voice was so decisive and so loud that itacted like those legendary trumpet-blasts which shattered the walls ofJericho; in a few days the Spanish Government, with a powerful ministerat its head, had fallen. The significance of this event we cannot easilyoverestimate. For the first time in history, the voice of internationalpublic opinion, unsupported by pressure, political, social, ordiplomatic, proved potent enough to avenge an act of injustice bydestroying a Government. A new force has appeared in the world, and ittends to operate against those countries which are guilty of injustice, whether that injustice is exerted against a State or even only against asingle obscure individual. The modern developments of telegraphy and thePress--unfavourable as the Press is in many respects to the cause ofinternational harmony--have placed in the hands of peace this new weaponagainst war. 

(2) _International Financial Development. _ There is anotherinternational force which expresses itself in the same sense. The voiceof abstract justice raised against war is fortified by the voice ofconcrete self-interest. The interests of the propertied classes, andtherefore of the masses dependent upon them, are to-day so widelydistributed throughout the world that whenever any country is plungedinto a disastrous war there arises in every other country, especially inrich and prosperous lands with most at stake, a voice of self-interestin harmony with the voice of justice. It is sometimes said that wars arein the interest of capital, and of capital alone, and that they areengineered by capitalists masquerading under imposing humanitariandisguises. That is doubtless true to the extent that every war cannotfail to benefit some section of the capitalistic world, which willtherefore favour it, but it is true to that extent only. The old notionthat war and the acquisition of territories encouraged trade by openingup new markets has proved fallacious. The extension of trade is a matterof tariffs rather than of war, and in any case the trade of a countrywith its own acquisitions by conquest is a comparatively insignificantportion of its total trade. But even if the financial advantages of warwere much greater than they are, they would be more than compensated bythe disadvantages which nowadays attend war. International financialrelationships have come to constitute a network of interests so vast, socomplicated, so sensitive, that the whole thrills responsively to anydisturbing touch, and no one can say beforehand what widespread damagemay not be done by shock even at a single point. When a country is atwar its commerce is at once disorganized, that is to say that itsshipping, and the shipping of all the countries that carry its freights, is thrown out of gear to a degree that often cannot fail to beinternationally disastrous. Foreign countries cannot send in the importsthat lie on their wharves for the belligerent country, nor can they getout of it the exports they need for their own maintenance or luxury. Moreover, all the foreign money invested in the belligerent country isdepreciated and imperilled. The international voice of trade and financeis, therefore, to-day mainly on the side of peace. 

It must be added that this voice is not, as it might seem, a selfishvoice only. It is justifiable not only in immediate internationalinterests, but even in the ultimate interests of the belligerentcountry, and not less so if that country should prove victorious. So faras business and money are concerned, a country gains nothing by asuccessful war, even though that war involves the acquisition of immensenew provinces; after a great war a conquered country may possess morefinancial stability than its conqueror, and both may stand lower in thisrespect than some other country which is internationally guaranteedagainst war. Such points as these have of late been ably argued byNorman Angell in his remarkable book, _The Great Illusion_, and for themost part convincingly illustrated. [225] As was long since said, theancients cried, _Væ victis_! We have learnt to cry, _Væ victoribus_!

It may, indeed, be added that the general tendency of war--putting asidepeoples altogether lacking in stamina--is to moralize the conquered andto demoralise the conquerors. This effect is seen alike on the materialand the spiritual sides. Conquest brings self-conceit and intolerance, the reckless inflation and dissipation of energies. Defeat bringsprudence and concentration; it ennobles and fortifies. All the gloriousvictories of the first Napoleon achieved less for France than thecrushing defeat of the third Napoleon. The triumphs left enfeeblement;the defeat acted as a strong tonic which is still working beneficentlyto-day. The corresponding reverse process has been at work in Germany:the German soil that Napoleon ploughed yielded a Moltke and aBismarck, [226] while to-day, however mistakenly, the German Press iscrying out that only another war--it ought in honesty to say anunsuccessful war--can restore the nation's flaccid muscle. It is yettoo early to see the results of the Russo-Japanese War, but alreadythere are signs that by industrial overstrain and the repression ofindividual thought Japan is threatening to enfeeble the physique and todestroy the high spirit of the indomitable men to whom she owed hertriumph. 

(3) _The Decreasing Pressure of Population. _ It was at one time commonlysaid, and is still sometimes repeated, that the pressure ofover-population is the chief cause of wars. That is a statement whichrequires a very great deal of qualification. It is, indeed, possiblethat the great hordes of warlike barbarians from the North and the Eastwhich invaded Europe in early times, sometimes more or less overwhelmingthe civilized world, were the result of a rise in the birth-rate and anexcess of population beyond the means of subsistence. But this is farfrom certain, for we know absolutely nothing concerning the birth-rateof these invading peoples either before or during the period of theirincursions. Again, it is certain that, in modern times, a high andrising birth-rate presents a favourable condition for war. A wardistracts attention from the domestic disturbances and economicwretchedness which a too rapid growth of population necessarilyproduces, while at the same time tending to draw away and destroy thesurplus population which causes this disturbance and wretchedness. Yetthere are other ways of meeting this over-population beside the crudemethod of war. Social reform and emigration furnish equally effectiveand much more humane methods of counteracting such pressure. No doubtthe over-population resulting from an excessively high birth-rate, whennot met, as it tends to be, by a correspondingly high death-rate fromdisease, may be regarded as a predisposing cause of war, but to assertthat it is the pre-eminent cause is to go far beyond the evidence atpresent available. 

To whatever degree, however, it may have been potent in causing war inthe past, it is certain that the pressure of population as a cause ofwar will be eliminated in the future. The only nations nowadays that canafford to make war on the grand scale are the wealthy and civilizednations. But civilization excludes a high birth-rate: there has neverbeen any exception to that law, nor can we conceive any exceptions, forit is more than a social law; it is a biological law. Russia, a stillimperfectly civilized country, stands apart in having a very highbirth-rate, but it also has a very high death-rate, and even should ithappen that in Russia improved social conditions lower the death-ratebefore affecting the birth-rate, there is still ample room withinRussian territory for the consequent increase of population. Among allthe other nations which are considered to threaten the world's peace, the birth-rate is rapidly falling. This is so, for instance, as regardsEngland and Germany. Germany, especially, it was once thought--though inactual fact Germany has not fought for over forty years--had an interestin going to war in order to find an outlet for her surplus population, compelled, in the absence of suitable German colonies, to sacrifice itspatriotism and lose its nationality by emigrating to foreign countries. But the German birth-rate is falling, German emigration is decreasing, and the immense growth of German industry is easily able to absorb thenew generation. Thus the declining birth-rate of civilized lands willalone largely serve in the end to eliminate warfare, partly by removingone of its causes, partly because the increased value of human life willmake war too costly. 

(4) _The Natural Exhaustion of the Warlike Spirit. _ It is a remarkabletendency of the warlike spirit--frequently emphasized in recent years bythe distinguished zoologist, President D. S. Jordan, who here followsNovikov[227]--that it tends to exterminate itself. Fighting stocks, andpeoples largely made up of fighting stocks, are naturally killed out, and the field is left to the unwarlike. It is only the prudent, thosewho fight and run away, who live to fight another day; and they transmittheir prudence to their offspring. Great Britain is a conspicuousexample of a land which, being an island, was necessarily peopled bypredatory and piratical invaders. A long series of warlike andadventurous peoples--Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans--builtup England and imparted to it their spirit. The English were, it wassaid, "a people for whom pain and death are nothing, and who only fearhunger and boredom. " But for over eight hundred years they have neverbeen reinforced by new invaders, and the inevitable consequences havefollowed. There has been a gradual killing out of the warlike stocks, aprocess immensely accelerated during the nineteenth century by a vastemigration of the more adventurous elements in the population, pressedout of the overcrowded country by the reckless and unchecked increase ofthe population which occurred during the first three-quarters of thatcentury. The result is that the English (except sometimes when theyhappen to be journalists) cannot now be described as a warlike people. Old legends tell of British heroes who, when their legs were hackedaway, still fought upon the stumps. Modern poets feel that to picture aBritish warrior of to-day in this attitude would be somewhatfar-fetched. The historian of the South African War points out, againand again, that the British leaders showed a singular lack of thefighting spirit. During that war English generals seldom cared to engagethe enemy's forces except when their own forces greatly outnumberedthem, and on many occasions they surrendered immediately they realizedthat they were themselves outnumbered. Those reckless Englishmen whoboldly sailed out from their little island to face the Spanish Armadawere long ago exterminated; an admirably prudent and cautious race hasbeen left alive. 

It is the same story elsewhere. The French long cherished the traditionof military glory, and no country has fought so much. We see the resultto-day. In no country is the attitude of the intellectual classes socalm and so reasonable on the subject of war, and nowhere is the popularhostility to war so strongly marked. [228] Spain furnishes another instancewhich is even still more decisive. The Spanish were of old apre-eminently warlike people, capable of enduring all hardships, neverfearing to face death. Their aggressively warlike and adventurous spiritsent them to death all over the world. It cannot be said, even to-day, that the Spaniards have lost their old tenacity and hardness of fibre, but their passion for war and adventure was killed out three centuriesago. 

In all these and the like cases there has been a process of selectivebreeding, eliminating the soldierly stocks and leaving the others tobreed the race. The men who so loved fighting that they fought till theydied had few chances of propagating their own warlike impulses. The menwho fought and ran away, the men who never fought at all, were the menwho created the new generation and transmitted to it their owntraditions. 

This selective process, moreover, has not merely acted automatically; ithas been furthered by social opinion and social pressure, sometimes verydrastically expressed. Thus in the England of the Plantagenets theregrew up a class called "gentlemen"--not, as has sometimes beensupposed, a definitely defined class, though they were originally ofgood birth--whose chief characteristic was that they were good fightingmen, and sought fortune by fighting. The "premier gentleman" of England, according to Sir George Sitwell, and an entirely typical representativeof his class, was a certain glorious hero who fought with Talbot atAgincourt, and also, as the unearthing of obscure documents shows, atother times indulged in housebreaking, and in wounding with intent tokill, and in "procuring the murder of one Thomas Page, who was cut topieces while on his knees begging for his life. " There, evidently, was astate of society highly favourable to the warlike man, highlyunfavourable to the unwarlike man whom he slew in his wrath. Nowadays, however, there has been a revaluation of these old values. The cowardlyand no doubt plebeian Thomas Page, multiplied by the million, hassucceeded in hoisting himself into the saddle, and he revenges himselfby discrediting, hunting into the slums, and finally hanging, everydescendant he can find of the premier gentleman of Agincourt. 

It must be added that the advocates of the advantages of war are notentitled to claim this process of selective breeding as one of theadvantages of war. It is quite true that war is incompatible with a highcivilization, and must in the end be superseded. But this method ofsuppressing it is too thorough. It involves not merely the exterminationof the fighting spirit, but of many excellent qualities, physical andmoral, which are associated with the fighting spirit. Benjamin Franklinseems to have been the first to point out that "a standing armydiminishes the size and breed of the human species. " Almost inFranklin's lifetime that was demonstrated on a wholesale scale, forthere seems little reason to doubt that the size and stature of theFrench nation have been permanently diminished by the constant levies ofyoung recruits, the flower of the population, whom Napoleon sent out todeath in their first manhood and still childless. Fine physical breedinvolves also fine qualities of virility and daring which are needed forother purposes than fighting. In so far as the selective breeding of warkills these out, its results are imperfect, and could be better attainedby less radical methods. 

(5) _The Growth of the Anti-Military Spirit. _ The decay of the warlikespirit by the breeding out of fighting stocks has in recent years beenreinforced by a more acute influence of which in the near future weshall certainly hear more. This is the spirit of anti-militarism. Thisspirit is an inevitable result of the decay of the fighting spirit. In acertain sense it is also complementary to it. The survival ofnon-fighting stocks by the destruction of the fighting stocks works mosteffectually in countries having a professional army. The anti-militaryspirit, on the contrary, works effectually in countries having anational army in which it is compulsory for all young citizens to serve, for it is only in such countries that the anti-militarist can, byrefusing to serve, take an influential position as a martyr in the causeof peace. 

Among the leading nations, it is in France that the spirit ofanti-militarism has taken the deepest hold of the people, though insome smaller lands, notably among the obstinately peaceable inhabitantsof Holland, the same spirit also flourishes. Hervé, who is a leader ofthe insurrectional socialists, as they are commonly called in oppositionto the purely parliamentary socialists led by Jaurès, --though theinsurrectional socialists also use parliamentary methods, --may beregarded as the most conspicuous champion of anti-militarism, and manyof his followers have suffered imprisonment as the penalty of theirconvictions. In France the peasant proprietors in the country and theorganized workers in the town are alike sympathetic to anti-militarism. The syndicalists, or labour unionists with the Confédération Générale duTravail as their central organization, are not usually anxious toimitate what they consider the unduly timid methods of English tradeunionists;[229] they tend to be revolutionary and anti-military. TheCongress of delegates of French Trade Unions, held at Toulouse in 1910, passed the significant resolution that "a declaration of war should befollowed by the declaration of a general revolutionary strike. " The sametendency, though in a less radical form, is becoming international, andthe great International Socialist Congress at Copenhagen has passed aresolution instructing the International Bureau to "take the opinion ofthe organized workers of the world on the utility of a general strikein preventing war. "[230] Even the English working classes are slowlycoming into line. At a Conference of Labour Delegates, held at Leicesterin 1911, to consider the Copenhagen resolution, the policy of theanti-military general strike was defeated by only a narrow majority, onthe ground that it required further consideration, and might bedetrimental to political action; but as most of the leaders are infavour of the strike policy there can be no doubt that this method ofcombating war will shortly be the accepted policy of the English Labourmovement. In carrying out such a policy the Labour Party expects muchhelp from the growing social and political power of women. The mostinfluential literary advocate of the Peace movement, and one of theearliest, has been a woman, the Baroness Bertha von Suttner, and it isheld to be incredible that the wives and mothers of the people will usetheir power to support an institution which represents the most brutalmethod of destroying their husbands and sons. "The cause of woman, " saysNovikov, "is the cause of peace. " "We pay the first cost on all humanlife, " says Olive Schreiner. [231]

The anti-militarist, as things are at present, exposes himself not onlyto the penalty of imprisonment, but also to obloquy. He has virtuallyrefused to take up arms in defence of his country; he has sinned againstpatriotism. This accusation has led to a counter-accusation directedagainst the very idea of patriotism. Here the writings of Tolstoy, withtheir poignant and searching appeals for the cause of humanity asagainst the cause of patriotism, have undoubtedly served theanti-militarists well, and wherever the war against war is being urged, even so far as Japan, Tolstoy has furnished some of its keenest weapons. Moreover, in so far as anti-militarism is advocated by the workers, theyclaim that international interests have already effaced and supersededthe narrower interests of patriotism. In refusing to fight, the workersof a country are simply declaring their loyalty to fellow-workers on theother side of the frontier, a loyalty which has stronger claims on them, they hold, than any patriotism which simply means loyalty tocapitalists; geographical frontiers are giving place to economicfrontiers, which now alone serve to separate enemies. And if, as seemsprobable, when the next attempt is made at a great European war, theorder for mobilization is immediately followed in both countries by thedeclaration of a general strike, there will be nothing to say againstsuch a declaration even from the standpoint of the narrowest patriotism, although there may be much to say on other grounds against the policy ofthe general strike. [232]

If we realize what is going on around us, it is easy to see that theanti-militarist movement is rapidly reaching a stage when it will beeasily able, even unaided, to paralyse any war immediately andautomatically. The pioneers in the movement have played the same part aswas played in the seventeenth century by the Quakers. In the name of theBible and their own consciences, the Quakers refused to recognize theright of any secular authority to compel them to worship or to fight;they gained what they struggled for, and now all men honour theirmemories. In the name of justice and human fraternity, theanti-militarists are to-day taking the like course and suffering thelike penalties. To-morrow, they also will be revered as heroes andmartyrs. 

(6) _The Over-growth of Armaments. _ The hostile forces so far enumeratedhave converged slowly on to war from such various directions that theymay be said to have surrounded and isolated it; its ultimate surrendercan only be a matter of time. Of late, however, a new factor hasappeared, of so urgent a character that it is fast rendering thequestion of the abolition of war acute: the over-growth of armaments. This is, practically, a modern factor in the situation, and while it is, on the surface, a luxury due to the large surplus of wealth in greatmodern states, it is also, if we look a little deeper, intimatelyconnected with that decay of the warlike spirit due to selectivebreeding. It is the weak and timid woman who looks nervously under thebed for the burglar who is the last person she really desires to meet, and it is old, rich, and unwarlike nations which take the lead inlaboriously protecting themselves against enemies of whom there is nosign in any quarter. Within the last half-century only have the nationsof the world begun to compete with each other in this timorous andcostly rivalry. In the warlike days of old, armaments in time of peaceconsisted in little more than solid walls for defence, a supply ofweapons stored away here and there, sometimes in a room attached to theparish church, and occasional martial exercises with the sword or thebow, which were little more than an amusement. The true fighting mantrusted to his own strong right arm rather than to armaments, andconsidered that he was himself a match for any half-dozen of the enemy. Even in actual time of war it was often difficult to find either zeal ormoney to supply the munitions of war. The _Diary_ of the industriousPepys, who achieved so much for the English navy, shows that the care ofthe country's ships mainly depended on a few unimportant officials whohad the greatest trouble in the world to secure attention to the mosturgent and immediate needs. 

A very difficult state of things prevails to-day. The existence of aparty having for its watchword the cry for retrenchment and economy isscarcely possible in a modern state. All the leading political partiesin every great state--if we leave aside the party of Labour--are equallyeager to pile up the expenditure on armaments. It is the boast of eachparty, not that it spends less, but more, than its rivals on this sourceof expenditure, now the chief in every large state. Moreover, every newstep in expenditure involves a still further step; each new improvementin attack or defence must immediately be answered by corresponding orbetter improvements on the part of rival powers, if they are not to beoutclassed. Every year these moves and counter-moves necessarily becomemore extensive, more complex, more costly; while each counter-moveinvolves the obsolescence of the improvements achieved by the previousmove, so that the waste of energy and money keeps pace with theexpenditure. It is well recognized that there is absolutely no possiblelimit to this process and its constantly increasing acceleration. 

There is no need to illustrate this point, for it is familiar to all. Any newspaper will furnish facts and figures vividly exemplifying someaspect of the matter. For while only a handful of persons in any countryare sincerely anxious under present conditions to reduce the colossalsums every year wasted on the unproductive work of armament; anincreasing interest in the matter testifies to a vague alarm and anxietyconcerning the ultimate issue. For it is felt that an inevitable crisislies at the end of the path down which the nations are now moving. 

Thus, from this point of view, the end of war is being attained by aprocess radically opposite to that by which in the social as well as inthe physical organism ancient structures and functions are outgrown. Theusual process is a gradual recession to a merely vestigial state. Buthere what may perhaps be the same ultimate result is being reached bythe more alarming method of over-inflation and threatening collapse. Itis an alarming process because those huge and heavily armed monsters ofprimeval days who furnish the zoological types corresponding to ourmodern over-armed states, themselves died out from the world when theirunwieldy armament had reached its final point of expansion. Will our ownmodern states, one wonders, more fortunately succeed in escaping fromthe tough hides that ever more closely constrict them, and finally savetheir souls alive?

(7) _The Dominance of Social Reform. _ The final factor in the situationis the growing dominance of the process of social reform. On the onehand, the increasing complexity of social organisation renders necessarya correspondingly increasing expenditure of money in diminishing itsfriction and aiding its elaboration; on the other hand, the still morerapidly increasing demands of armament render it ever more difficult todevote money to such social purposes. Everywhere even the mostelementary provision for the finer breeding and higher well-being of acountry's citizens is postponed to the clamour for ever new armaments. The situation thus created is rapidly becoming intolerable. 

It is not alone the future of civilization which is for ever menaced bythe possibility of war; the past of civilization, with all the preciousembodiments of its traditions, is even more fatally imperilled. As theworld grows older and the ages recede, the richer, the more precious, the more fragile, become the ancient heirlooms of humanity. Theyconstitute the final symbols of human glory; they cannot be toocarefully guarded, too highly valued. But all the other dangers thatthreaten their integrity and safety, if put together, do not equal war. No land that has ever been a cradle of civilization but bears witness tothis sad truth. All the sacred citadels, the glories ofhumanity, --Jerusalem and Athens, Rome and Constantinople, --have beenravaged by war, and, in every case, their ruin has been a disaster thatcan never be repaired. If we turn to the minor glories of more modernages, the special treasure of England has been its parish churches, atreasure of unique charm in the world and the embodiment of thepeople's spirit: to-day in their battered and irreparable condition theyare the monuments of a Civil War waged all over the country withruthless religious ferocity. Spain, again, was a land which had storedup, during long centuries, nearly the whole of its accumulatedpossessions in every art, sacred and secular, of fabulous value, withinthe walls of its great fortress-like cathedrals; Napoleon's soldiersover-ran the land, and brought with them rapine and destruction; so thatin many a shrine, as at Montserrat, we still can see how in a few daysthey turned a Paradise into a desert. It is not only the West that hassuffered. In China the rarest and loveliest wares and fabrics that thehand of man has wrought were stored in the Imperial Palace of Pekin; thesavage military hordes of the West broke in less than a century ago andrecklessly trampled down and fired all that they could not loot. Inevery such case the loss is final; the exquisite incarnation of somestage in the soul of man that is for ever gone is permanentlydiminished, deformed, or annihilated. 

At the present time all civilized countries are becoming keenly aware ofthe value of their embodied artistic possessions. This is shown, in themost decisive manner possible, by the enormous prices placed upon them. Their pecuniary value enables even the stupidest and most unimaginativeto realize the crime that is committed when they are ruthlessly andwantonly destroyed. Nor is it only the products of ancient art whichhave to-day become so peculiarly valuable. The products of modernscience are only less valuable. So highly complex and elaborate is themechanism now required to ensure progress in some of the sciences thatenormous sums of money, the most delicate skill, long periods of time, are necessary to produce it. Galileo could replace his telescope withbut little trouble; the destruction of a single modern observatory wouldbe almost a calamity to the human race. 

Such considerations as these are, indeed, at last recognized in allcivilized countries. The engines of destruction now placed at theservice of war are vastly more potent than any used in the wars of thepast. On the other hand, the value of the products they can destroy israised in a correspondingly high degree. But a third factor is nowintervening. And if the museums of Paris or the laboratories of Berlinwere threatened by a hostile army it would certainly be felt that aninternational power, if it existed, should be empowered to intervene, atwhatever cost to national susceptibilities, in order to keep the peace. Civilization, we now realize, is wrought out of inspirations anddiscoveries which are for ever passed and repassed from land to land; itcannot be claimed by any individual land. A nation's art-products andits scientific activities are not mere national property; they areinternational possessions, for the joy and service of the whole world. The nations hold them in trust for humanity. The international forcewhich will inspire respect for that truth it is our business to create. 

The only question that remains--and it is a question the future alonewill solve--is the particular point at which this ancient and overgrownstronghold of war, now being invested so vigorously from so many sides, will finally be overthrown, whether from within or from without, whetherby its own inherent weakness, by the persuasive reasonableness ofdeveloping civilization, by the self-interest of the commercial andfinancial classes, or by the ruthless indignation of the proletariat. That is a problem still insoluble, but it is not impossible that somealready living may witness its solution. 

Two centuries ago the Abbé de Saint-Pierre set forth his scheme for afederation of the States of Europe, which meant, at that time, afederation of all the civilised states of the world. It was the age ofgreat ideas, scattered abroad to germinate in more practical ages tocome. The amiable Abbé enjoyed all the credit of his large andphilanthropic conceptions. But no one dreamed of realizing them, and theforces which alone could realize them had not yet appeared above thehorizon. [233] In this matter, at all events, the world has progressed, and a federation of the States of the world is no longer the mereconception of a philosophic dreamer. The first step will be taken whentwo of the leading countries of the world--and it would be mostreasonable for the states having the closest community of origin andlanguage to take the initiative--resolve to submit all their differenceswithout reserve to arbitration. As soon as a third power of magnitudejoined this federation the nucleus would be constituted of a worldstate. Such a state would be able to impose peace on even the mostrecalcitrant outside states, for it would furnish that "visible power tokeep them in awe, " which Hobbes rightly declared to be indispensable; itcould even, in the last resort, if necessary, enforce peace by war. Thusthere might still be war in the world. But there would be no wars thatwere not Holy Wars. There are other methods than war of enforcing peace, and these such a federation of great states would be easily able tobring to bear on even the most warlike of states, but the necessity of amighty armed international force would remain for a long time to come. To suppose, as some seem to suppose, that the establishment ofarbitration in place of war means immediate disarmament is an idledream. At Conferences of the English Labour Party on this question, themost active opposition to the proposed strike method for rendering warimpossible comes from the delegates representing the workers in arsenalsand dockyards. But there is no likelihood of arsenals and dockyardsclosing in the lifetime of the present workers, and though theestablishment of peaceful methods of settling international disputescannot fail to diminish the number of the workers who live by armament, it will be long before they can be dispensed with altogether. 

[1] The Abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658-1743), a churchman without vocation, was a Norman of noble family, and first published his _Mémoires pourrendre la Paix Perpetuelle à l'Europe_ in 1722. As Siégler-Pascal wellshows (_Les Projets de l'Abbé dé Saint-Pierre_, 1900) he was not a merevisionary Utopian, but an acute and far-seeing thinker, practical in hismethods, a close observer, an experimentalist, and one of the first toattempt the employment of statistics. He was secretary to the Frenchplenipotentiaries who negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht, and was thusprobably put on the track of his scheme. He proposed that the variousEuropean states should name plenipotentiaries to form a permanenttribunal of compulsory arbitration for the settlement of alldifferences. If any state took up arms against one of the allies, thewhole confederation would conjointly enter the field, at their conjointexpense, against the offending state. He was opposed to absolutedisarmament, an army being necessary to ensure peace, but it must be ajoint army composed of contingents from each Power in the confederation. Saint-Pierre, it will be seen, had clearly grasped the essential factsof the situation as we see them to-day. "The author of _The Project ofPerpetual Peace_" concludes Prof. Pierre Robert in a sympathetic summaryof his career (Petit de Julleville, _Histoire de la Langue et de laLittérature Française_, Vol. VI), "is the precursor of the twentiethcentury. " His statue, we cannot doubt, will be a conspicuous object, beside Sully's, on the future Palace of any international tribunal. 

It is, indeed, so common to regard the person who points out theinevitable bankruptcy of war under highly civilized conditions as a mereUtopian dreamer, that it becomes necessary to repeat, with all theemphasis necessary, that the settlement of international disputes by lawcannot be achieved by disarmament, or by any method not involving force. All law, even the law that settles the disputes of individuals, hasforce behind it, and the law that is to settle the disputes betweennations cannot possibly be effective unless it has behind it a mightyforce. I have assumed this from the outset in quoting the dictum ofHobbes, but the point seems to be so easily overlooked by the loosethinker that it is necessary to reiterate it. The necessity of forcebehind the law ordering international relations has, indeed, never beendisputed by any sagacious person who has occupied himself with thematter. Even William Penn, who, though a Quaker, was a practical man ofaffairs, when in 1693 he put forward his _Essay Towards the Present andFuture Peace of Europe by the Establishment of a European Diet, Parliament or Estate_, proposed that if any imperial state refused tosubmit its pretensions to the sovereign assembly and to abide by itsdecisions, or took up arms on its own behalf, "all the othersovereignties, united as one strength, shall compel the submission andperformance of the sentence, with damages to the suffering party, andcharges to the sovereignties that obliged their submission. " Inrepudiating some injudicious and hazardous pacificist considerations putforth by Novikov, the distinguished French philosopher, Jules deGaultier, points out that law has no rights against war save in force, on which war itself bases its rights. "Force _in abstracto_ createsright. It is quite unimaginable that a right should exist which has notbeen affirmed at some moment as a reality, that is to say a force. . . . What we glorify under the name of right is only a more intense andhabitual state of force which we oppose to a less frequent form offorce. "[234] The old Quaker and the modern philosopher are thus at onewith the practical man in rejecting any form of pacification which restson a mere appeal to reason and justice. 

[1] Jules de Gaultier, "Comment Naissent les Dogmes, " _Mercure deFrance_, 1st Sept. , 1911. Jules de Gaultier also observes that "conflictis the law and condition of all existence. " That may be admitted, but itceases to be true if we assume, as the same thinker assumes, that"conflict" necessarily involves "war. " The establishment of law toregulate the disputes between individuals by no means suppressesconflict, but it suppresses fighting, and it ensures that if anyfighting occur the aggressor shall not profit by his aggression. In thesame way the existence of a tribunal to regulate the disputes betweennational communities of individuals can by no means suppress conflict;but unless it suppresses fighting, and unless it ensures that iffighting occurs the aggressor shall not profit by his aggression, itwill have effected nothing. 

It cannot be said that the progress of civilization has so far had anytendency to render unnecessary the point of view adopted by Penn andJules de Gaultier. The acts of states to-day are apt to be just aswantonly aggressive as they ever were, as reckless of reason and ofjustice. There is no country, however high it may stand in the comity ofnations, which is not sometimes carried away by the blind fever of war. France, the land of reason, echoed, only forty years ago, with the madcry, "À Berlin!" England, the friend of the small nationalities, jubilantly, with even an air of heroism, crushed under foot the littleSouth African Republics, and hounded down every Englishman who withstoodthe madness of the crowd. The great, free intelligent people of theUnited States went to war against Spain with a childlike faith in thepreposterous legend of the blowing up of the _Maine_. There is nocountry which has not some such shameful page in its history, the recordof some moment when its moral and intellectual prestige was besmirchedin the eyes of the whole world. It pays for its momentary madness, itmay valiantly strive to atone for its injustice, but the damaging recordremains. The supersession of war is needed not merely in the interestsof the victims of aggression; it is needed fully as much in theinterests of the aggressors, driven by their own momentary passions, orby the ambitious follies of their rulers, towards crimes for which aterrible penalty is exacted. There has never been any country at everymoment so virtuous and so wise that it has not sometimes needed to besaved from itself. For every country has sometimes gone mad, whileevery other country has looked on its madness with the mocking calm ofclear-sighted intelligence, and perhaps with a pharisaical air ofvirtuous indignation. 

During the single year of 1911 the process was unrolled in its mostcomplete form. The first bad move--though it was a relatively small andinoffensive move--was made by France. The Powers, after muchdeliberation, had come to certain conclusions concerning Morocco, andwhile giving France a predominant influence in that country, hadcarefully limited her power of action. But France, anxious to increaseher hold on the land, sent out, with the usual pretexts, an unnecessaryexpedition to Fez. Had an international tribunal with an adequate forcebehind it been in existence, France would have been called upon tojustify her action, and whether she succeeded or failed in suchjustification, no further evils would have occurred. But there was noforce able or willing to call France to account, and the other Powersfound it a simpler plan to follow her example than to check it. Inpursuance of this policy, Germany sent a warship to the Moroccan port ofAgadir, using the same pretext as the French, with even lessjustification. When the supreme military power of the world wags even afinger the whole world is thrown into a state of consternation. Thathappened on the present occasion, though, as a matter of fact, giantsare not given to reckless violence, and Germany, far from intending tobreak the world's peace, merely used her power to take advantage ofFrance's bad move. She agreed to condone France's mistake, and to resignto her the Moroccan rights to which neither country had the slightestlegitimate claim, in return for an enormous tract of land in anotherpart of Africa. Now, so far, the game had been played in accordance withrules which, though by no means those of abstract justice, were fairlyin accordance with the recognized practices of nations. But now anotherPower was moved to far more openly unscrupulous action. It has long beenrecognized that if there must be a partition of North Africa, Italy'sshare is certainly Tripoli. The action of France and of Germany stirredup in Italy the feeling that now or never was the moment for action, andwith brutal recklessness, and the usual pretexts, now flimsier thanever, Italy made war on Turkey, without offer of mediation, in flagrantviolation of her own undertakings at the Hague Peace Convention of 1899. There was now only one Mohammedan country left to attack, and it wasRussia's turn to make the attack. Northern Persia--the most civilizedand fruitful half of Persia--had been placed under the protection ofRussia, and Russia, after cynically doing her best to make goodgovernment in Persia impossible, seized on the pretext of the badgovernment to invade the country. If the Powers of Europe had wished todemonstrate the necessity for a great international tribunal, with amighty force behind it to ensure the observance of its decisions, theycould not have devised a more effective demonstration. 

Thus it is that there can be no question of disarmament at present, andthat there can be no effective international tribunal unless it hasbehind it an effective army. A great army must continue to exist apartaltogether from the question as to whether the army in itself is aschool of virtue or of vice. Both these views of its influence have beenheld in extreme forms, and both seem to be without any greatjustification. On this point we may perhaps accept the conclusion ofProfessor Guérard, who can view the matter from a fairly impartialstandpoint, having served in the French army, closely studied the lifeof the people in London, and occupied a professorial chair inCalifornia. He denies that an army is a school of all the vices, but heis also unable to see that it exercises an elevating influence on anybut the lowest: "A regiment is not much worse than a big factory. Factory life in Europe is bad enough; military service extends its evilsto agricultural labourers, and also to men who would otherwise haveescaped these lowering influences. As for traces of moral uplift in thearmy, I have totally failed to notice any. War may be a stern school ofvirtue; barrack life is not. Honour, duty, patriotism, are feelingsinstilled at school; they do not develop, but often deteriorate, duringthe term of compulsory service. "[235]

But, as we have seen, and as Guérard admits, it is probable that warswill be abolished generations before armies are suppressed. The questionarises what we are to do with our armies. There seem to be at least twoways in which armies may be utilized, as we may already see in France, and perhaps to some slight extent in England. In the first place, thearmy may be made a great educational agency, an academy of arts andsciences, a school of citizenship. In the second place, armies aretending to become, as William James pointed out, the reserve force ofpeace, great organized unemployed bodies of men which can be broughtinto use during sudden emergencies and national disasters. Thus theFrench army performed admirable service during the great Seine floods afew years ago, and both in France and in England the army has beencalled upon to help to carry on public duties indispensable to thewelfare of the nation during great strikes, though here it would beunfortunate if the army came to be regarded as a mere strike-breakingcorps. Along these main lines, however, there are, as Guérard haspointed out, signs of a transformation which, while preserving armiesfor international use, yet point to a compromise between the army andmodern democracy. 

It is feared by some that the reign of universal peace will deprive themof the opportunity of exhibiting daring and heroism. Without inquiringtoo carefully what use has been made of their present opportunities bythose who express this fear, it must be said that such a fear isaltogether groundless. There are an infinite number of positions in lifein which courage is needed, as much as on a battlefield, though, for themost part, with less risk of that total annihilation which in the pasthas done so much to breed out the courageous stocks. Moreover, thecertain establishment of peace will immensely enlarge the scope fordaring and adventure in the social sphere. There are departments in thehigher breeding and social evolution of the race--some perhaps eveninvolving questions of life and death--where the highest courage isneeded. It would be premature to discuss them, for they can scarcelyenter the field of practical politics until war has been abolished. Butthose persons who are burning to display heroism may rest assured thatthe course of social evolution will offer them every opportunity. 

FOOTNOTES:

[221] The respective parts of war and law in the constitution of statesare clearly and concisely set forth by Edward Jenks in his littleprimer, _A History of Politics_. Steinmetz, who argues in favour of thepreservation of the method of war, in his book _Die Philosophie desKrieges_ (p. 303) states that "not a single element of the warlikespirit, not one of the psychic conditions of war, is lacking to thecivilized European peoples of to-day. " That may well be, although thereis much reason to believe that they have all very considerablydiminished. Such warlike spirit as exists to-day must be considerablydiscounted by the fact that those who manifest it are not usually thepeople who would actually have to do the fighting. It is more importantto point out (as is done in a historical sketch of warfare by A. Sutherland, _Nineteenth Century_, April, 1899) that, as a matter offact, war is becoming both less frequent and less ferocious. In England, for instance, where at one period the population spent a great part oftheir time in fighting, there has practically been no war for two and ahalf centuries. When the ancient Germans swept through Spain (asProcopius, who was an eye-witness, tells) they slew every human beingthey met, including women and children, until millions had perished. Thelaws of war, though not always observed, are constantly growing morehumane, and Sutherland estimates that warfare is now less thanone-hundredth part as destructive as it was in the early Middle Ages. 

[222] This inevitable extension of the sphere of law from the settlementof disputes between individuals to disputes between individual stateshas been pointed out before, and is fairly obvious. ThusMougins-Roquefort, a French lawyer, in his book _De la SolutionJuridique des Conflits Internationaux_ (1889), observes that in thedays of the Roman Empire, when there was only one civilized state, anysystem of international relationships was impossible, but that as soonas we have a number of states forming units of international societythere at once arises the necessity for a system of internationalrelationships, just as some system of social order is necessary toregulate the relations of any community of individuals. 

[223] In England, a small and compact country, this process was completedat a comparatively early date. In France it was not until the days ofLouis XV (in 1756) that the "last feudal brigand, " as Taine calls theMarquis de Pleumartin in Poitou, was captured and beheaded. 

[224] France, notwithstanding her military aptitude, has always taken thepioneering part in the pacific movement of civilization. Even at thebeginning of the fourteenth century France produced an advocate ofinternational arbitration, Pierre Dubois (Petrus de Bosco), the Normanlawyer, a pupil of Thomas Aquinas. In the seventeenth century EmericCrucé proposed, for the first time, to admit all peoples, withoutdistinction of colour or religion, to be represented at some centralcity where every state would have its perpetual ambassador, theserepresentatives forming an assembly to adjudicate on internationaldifferences (Dubois and Crucé have lately been studied by Prof. Vesnitch, _Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique_, January, 1911). The historyof the various peace projects generally has been summarily related byLagorgette in _Le Rôle de la Guerre_, 1906, Part IV, chap. VI. 

[225] The same points had previously been brought forward by others, although not so vigorously enforced. Thus the well-known Belgianeconomist and publicist, Emile de Laveleye, pointed out (_Pall MallGazette_, 4th August, 1888) that "the happiest countries areincontestably the smallest: Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, and stillmore the Republics of San Marino and Val d'Andorre"; and that "countriesin general, even when victorious, do not profit by their conquests. "

[226] Bismarck himself declared that without the deep shame of the Germandefeat at Jena in 1806 the revival of German national feeling would havebeen impossible. 

[227] D. Starr Jordan, The Human Harvest, 1907; J. Novikov, La Guerre etses Prétendus Bienfaits, 1894, chap. IV; Novikov here argued that theselection of war eliminates not the feeble but the strong, and tends toproduce, therefore, a survival of the unfittest. 

[228] "The most demoralizing features in French military life, " saysProfessor Guérard, a highly intelligent observer, "are due to anincontestable progress in the French mind--its gradual loss of faith andinterest in military glory. Henceforth the army is considered asuseless, dangerous, a burden without a compensation. Authors of schoolbooks may be censured for daring to print such opinions, but the greatmajority of the French hold them in their hearts. Nay, there is aprevailing suspicion among working men that the military establishmentis kept up for the sole benefit of the capitalists, and the reckless useof troops in case of labour conflicts gives colour to the contention. "It has often happened that what the French think to-day the worldgenerally thinks to-morrow. There is probably a world-wide significancein the fact that French experience is held to show that progress inintelligence means the demoralization of the army. 

[229] The influence of Syndicalism has, however, already reached theEnglish Labour Movement, and an ill-advised prosecution by the EnglishGovernment must have immensely aided in extending and fortifying thatinfluence. 

[230] Some small beginnings have already been made. "The greatest gainever yet won for the cause of peace, " writes Mr. H. W. Nevinson, thewell-known war correspondent (_Peace and War in the Balance_, p. 47), "was the refusal of the Catalonian reservists to serve in the waragainst the Riff mountaineers of Morocco in July, 1909. . . . So Barcelonaflared to heaven, and for nearly a week the people held the vast city. Ihave seen many noble, as well as many terrible, events, but none morenoble or of finer promise than the sudden uprising of the Catalanworking people against a dastardly and inglorious war, waged for thebenefit of a few speculators in Paris and Madrid. "

[231] J. Novikov, _Le Fédération de l'Europe_, chap. Iv. Olive Schreiner, _Woman and Labour_, chap. IV. While this is the fundamental fact, wemust remember that we cannot generalize about the ideas or the feelingsof a whole sex, and that the biological traditions of women have beenassociated with a primitive period when they were the delightedspectators of combats. "Woman, " thought Nietzsche, "is essentiallyunpeaceable, like the cat, however well she may have assumed thepeaceable demeanour. " Steinmetz (_Philosophie des Krieges_, p. 314), remarking that women are opposed to war in the abstract, adds: "Inpractice, however, it happens that women regard a particular war--andall wars are particular wars--with special favour"; he remarks that themajority of Englishwomen fully shared the war fever against the Boers, and that, on the other side, he knew Dutch ladies in Holland, veryopposed to war, who would yet have danced with joy at that time on thenews of a declaration of war against England. 

[232] The general strike, which has been especially developed by thesyndicalist Labour movement, and is now tending to spread to variouscountries, is a highly powerful weapon, so powerful that its results arenot less serious than those of war. To use it against war seems to be tocast out Beelzebub by Beelzebub. Even in Labour disputes the modernstrike threatens to become as serious and, indeed, almost as sanguinaryas the civil wars of ancient times. The tendency is, therefore, inprogressive countries, as we see in Australia, to supersede strikes byconciliation and arbitration, just as war is tending to be superseded byinternational tribunals. These two aims are, however, absolutelydistinct, and the introduction of law into the disputes between nationscan have no direct effect on the disputes between social classes. It isquite possible, however, that it may have an indirect effect, and thatwhen disputes between nations are settled in an orderly manner, socialfeeling will forbid disputes between classes to be settled in adisorderly manner. 

[233] The Abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658-1743), a churchman without vocation, was a Norman of noble family, and first published his Mémoires pourrendre la Paix Perpetuelle à l'Europe in 1722. As Siégler-Pascal wellshows (Les Projets de l'Abbé dé Saint-Pierre, 1900) he was not a merevisionary Utopian, but an acute and far-seeing thinker, practical in hismethods, a close observer, an experimentalist, and one of the first toattempt the employment of statistics. He was secretary to the Frenchplenipotentiaries who negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht, and was thusprobably put on the track of his scheme. He proposed that the variousEuropean states should name plenipotentiaries to form a permanenttribunal of compulsory arbitration for the settlement of alldifferences. If any state took up arms against one of the allies, thewhole confederation would conjointly enter the field, at their conjointexpense, against the offending state. He was opposed to absolutedisarmament, an army being necessary to ensure peace, but it must be ajoint army composed of contingents from each Power in the confederation. Saint-Pierre, it will be seen, had clearly grasped the essential factsof the situation as we see them to-day. "The author of The Project ofPerpetual Peace" concludes Prof. Pierre Robert in a sympathetic summaryof his career (Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la Langue et de laLittérature Française, Vol. VI), "is the precursor of the twentiethcentury. " His statue, we cannot doubt, will be a conspicuous object, beside Sully's, on the future Palace of any international tribunal. 

[234] Jules de Gaultier, "Comment Naissent les Dogmes, " Mercure deFrance, 1st Sept. , 1911. Jules de Gaultier also observes that "conflictis the law and condition of all existence. " That may be admitted, but itceases to be true if we assume, as the same thinker assumes, that"conflict" necessarily involves "war. " The establishment of law toregulate the disputes between individuals by no means suppressesconflict, but it suppresses fighting, and it ensures that if anyfighting occur the aggressor shall not profit by his aggression. In thesame way the existence of a tribunal to regulate the disputes betweennational communities of individuals can by no means suppress conflict;but unless it suppresses fighting, and unless it ensures that iffighting occurs the aggressor shall not profit by his aggression, itwill have effected nothing. 

[235] A. L. Guérard, "Impressions of Military Life in France, " _PopularScience Monthly_, April, 1911. 

XI

THE PROBLEM OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

 Early Attempts to Construct an International Language--The Urgent Need of an Auxiliary Language To-day--Volapük--The Claims of Spanish--Latin--The Claims of English--Its Disadvantages--The Claims of French--Its Disadvantages--The Modern Growth of National Feeling opposed to Selection of a Natural Language--Advantages of an Artificial Language--Demands it must fulfil--Esperanto--Its Threatened Disruption--The International Association for the adoption of an Auxiliary International Language--The First Step to Take. 

Ever since the decay of Latin as the universal language of educatedpeople, there have been attempts to replace it by some other medium ofinternational communication. That decay was inevitable; it was theoutward manifestation of a movement of individualism which developednational languages and national literatures, and burst through therestraining envelope of an authoritarian system expounded in an officiallanguage. This individualism has had the freest play, and we are notlikely to lose all that it has given us. Yet as soon as it was achievedthe more distinguished spirits in every country began to feel the needof counterbalancing it. The history of the movement may be said to beginwith Descartes, who in 1629 wrote to his friend Mersenne that it wouldbe possible to construct an artificial language which could be used asan international medium of communication. Leibnitz, though he had solvedthe question for himself, writing some of his works in Latin and othersin French, was yet all his life more or less occupied with the questionof a universal language. Other men of the highest distinction--Pascal, Condillac, Voltaire, Diderot, Ampère, Jacob Grimm--have sought ordesired a solution to this problem. [236] None of these great men, however, succeeded even in beginning an attempt to solve the problem they wereconcerned with. 

Some forty years ago, however, the difficulty began again to be felt, this time much more keenly and more widely than before. The spread ofcommerce, the facility of travel, the ramifications of the postalservice, the development of new nationalities and new literatures, havelaid upon civilized peoples a sense of burden and restriction whichcould never have been felt by their forefathers in the previous century. Added to this, a new sense of solidarity had been growing up in theworld; the financial and commercial solidarity, by which any disaster ordisturbance in one country causes a wave of disaster or disturbance topass over the whole civilized globe, was being supplemented by a senseof spiritual solidarity. Men began to realize that the tasks ofcivilization cannot be carried out except by mutual understanding andmutual sympathy among the more civilized nations, that every nation hassomething to learn from other nations, and that the bonds ofinternational intercourse must thus be drawn closer. This feeling of theneed of an international language led in America to several seriousattempts to obtain a consensus of opinion among scientific men regardingan international language. Thus in 1888 the Philosophical Society ofPhiladelphia, the oldest of American learned societies, unanimouslyresolved, on the initiative of Brinton, to address a letter to learnedsocieties throughout the world, asking for their co-operation inperfecting a language for commercial and learned purposes, based on theAryan vocabulary and grammar in their simplest forms, and to that endproposing an international congress, the first meeting of which shouldbe held in Paris or London. In the same year Horatio Hale read a paperon the same subject before the American Association for the Advancementof Science. A little later, in 1890, it was again proposed at a meetingof the same Association that, in order to consider the question of theconstruction and adoption of a symmetrical and scientific language, acongress should be held, delegates being in proportion to the number ofpersons speaking each language. 

These excellent proposals seem, however, to have borne little fruit. Itis always an exceedingly difficult matter to produce combined actionamong scientific societies even of the same nation. Thus the way hasbeen left open for individuals to adopt the easier but far less decisiveor satisfactory method of inventing a new language by their own unaidedexertions. Certainly over a hundred such languages have been proposedduring the past century. The most famous of these was undoubtedlyVolapük, which was invented in 1880 by Schleyer, a German-Swiss priestwho knew many languages and had long pondered over this problem, but whowas not a scientific philologist; the actual inception of the languageoccurred in a dream. Volapük was almost the first real attempt at anorganic language capable of being used for the oral transmission ofthought. On this account, no doubt, it met with great and widespreadsuccess; it was actively taken up by a professor at Paris, societieswere formed for its propagation, journals and hundreds of books werepublished in it; its adherents were estimated at a million. But itssuccess, though brilliant, was short-lived. In 1889, when the thirdVolapük Congress was held, it was at the height of its success, butthereafter dissension arose, and its reputation suddenly collapsed. Noone now speaks Volapük; it is regarded as a hideous monstrosity, even bythose who have the most lively faith in artificial languages. Itsinventor has outlived his language, and, like it, has been forgotten bythe world, though his achievement was a real step towards the solutionof the problem. 

The collapse of Volapük discouraged thoughtful persons from expectingany solution of the problem in an artificial language. It seemedextremely improbable that any invented language, least of all theunaided product of a single mind, could ever be generally accepted, orbe worthy of general acceptance, as an international mode ofcommunication. Such a language failed to carry the prestige necessary toovercome the immense inertia which any attempt to adopt it would meetwith. Invented languages, the visionary schemes of idealists, apparentlyreceived no support from practical men of affairs. It seemed to be amongactual languages, living or dead, that we might most reasonably expectto find a medium of communication likely to receive wide support. Thedifficulty then lay in deciding which language should be selected. 

Russian had sometimes been advocated as the universal language forinternational purposes, and it is possible to point to the enormousterritory of Russia, its growing power and the fact that Russian is thereal or official language of a larger number of people than any otherlanguage except English. But Russian is so unlike the Latin and Teutonictongues, used by the majority of European peoples; it is so complicated, so difficult to acquire, and, moreover, so lacking in concision that ithas never had many enthusiastic advocates. 

The virtues and defects of Spanish, which has found many enthusiasticsupporters, are of an opposite character. It is an admirably vigorousand euphonious language, on a sound phonetic basis, every letter alwaysstanding for a definite sound; the grammar is simple and exceptionallyfree from irregularities, and it is the key to a great literature. Billroth, the distinguished Austrian surgeon, advocated the adoption ofSpanish; he regarded English as really more suitable, but, he pointedout, it is so difficult for the Latin races to speak non-Latin tonguesthat a Romance language is essential, and Spanish is the simplest andmost logical of the Romance tongues. [237] It is, moreover, spoken by avast number of people in South America and elsewhere. 

A few enthusiasts have advocated Greek, and have supported their claimwith the argument that it is still a living language. But although Greekis the key to a small but precious literature, and is one of the sourcesof latter-day speech and scientific terminology, it is difficult, it iswithout special adaptation to modern uses, and there are no adequatereasons why it should be made an international language. 

Latin cannot be dismissed quite so hastily. It has in its favour thepowerful argument that it has once already been found adequate to serveas the universal language. There is a widespread opinion to-day amongthe medical profession--the profession most actively interested in theestablishment of a universal language--that Latin should be adopted, andbefore the International Medical Congress at Rome in 1894, a petition tothis effect was presented by some eight hundred doctors in India. [238] Itis undoubtedly an admirable language, expressive, concentrated, precise. But the objections are serious. The relative importance of Latin to-dayis very far from what it was a thousand years ago, for conditions havewholly changed. There is now no great influence, such as the CatholicChurch was of old, to enforce Latin, even if it possessed greateradvantages. And the advantages are very mixed. Latin is a wholly deadtongue, and except in a degenerate form not by any means an easy one tolearn, for its genius is wholly opposed to the genius even of thosemodern languages which are most closely allied to it. The world neverreturns on its own path. Although the prestige of Latin is stillenormous, a language could only be brought from death to life by somewidespread motor force; such a force no longer exists behind Latin. 

There remain English and French, and these are undoubtedly the twonatural languages most often put forward--even outside England andFrance--as possessing the best claims for adoption as auxiliaryinternational mediums of communication. 

English, especially, was claimed by many, some twenty years ago, to benot merely the auxiliary language of the future, but the universallanguage which must spread all over the world and supersede and driveout all others by a kind of survival of the fittest. This notion of auniversal language is now everywhere regarded as a delusion, but at thattime there was still thought by many to be a kind of special procreativeactivity in the communities of Anglo-Saxon origin which would naturallytend to replace all other peoples, both the people and the languagebeing regarded as the fittest to survive. [239] English was, however, rightly felt to be a language with very great force behind it, beingspoken by vast communities possessing a peculiarly energetic andprogressive temperament, and with much power of peaceful penetration inother lands. It is generally acknowledged also that English fullydeserves to be ranked as one of the first of languages by its fineaptitude for powerful expression, while at the same time it is equallyfitted for routine commercial purposes. The wide extension of Englishand its fine qualities have often been emphasized, and it is unnecessaryto dwell on them here. The decision of the scientific societies of theworld to use English for bibliographical purposes is not entirely atribute to English energy in organization, but to the quality of thelanguage. One finds, indeed, that these facts are widely recognizedabroad, in France and elsewhere, though I have noted that those whoforetell the conquest of English, even when they are men of intellectualdistinction and able to read English, are often quite unable to speak itor to understand it when spoken. 

That brings us to a point which is overlooked by those who triumphantlypointed to the natural settlement of this question by the swamping ofother tongues in the overflowing tide of English speech. English is themost concise and laconic of the great languages. Greek, French andGerman are all more expansive, more syllabically copious. Latin alonemay be said to equal, or surpass English in concentration, because, although Latin words are longer on the average, by their greaterinflection they cover a larger number of English words. This power ofEnglish to attain expression with a minimum expenditure of energy inwritten speech is one of its chief claims to succeed Latin as theauxiliary international language. But it furnishes no claim topreference for actual speaking, in which this economy of energy ceasesto be a supreme virtue, since here we have also to admit the virtues ofeasy intelligibility and of persuasiveness. Greek largely owed itsadmirable fitness for speech to the natural richness and prolongation ofits euphonious words, which allowed the speaker to attain the legitimateutterance of his thought without pauses or superfluous repetition. French, again, while by no means inapt for concentration, as the_pensée_ writers show, most easily lends itself to effects that aremeant for speech, as in Bossuet, or that recall speech, as in Mme deSevigné in one order of literature, or Renan in another. But at Rome, wefeel, the spoken tongue had a difficulty to overcome, and themellifluously prolonged rhetoric of Cicero, delightful as it may be, scarcely seems to reveal to us the genius of the Latin tongue. Theinaptitude of English for the purposes of speech is even moreconspicuous, and is again well illustrated in our oratory. Gladstone wasan orator of acknowledged eloquence, but the extreme looseness andredundancy into which his language was apt to fall in the effort toattain the verbose richness required for the ends of spoken speech, reveals too clearly the poverty of English from this point of view. Thesame tendency is also illustrated by the vain re-iterations of ordinaryspeakers. The English intellect, with all its fine qualities, is notsufficiently nimble for either speaker or hearer to keep up with theswift brevity of the English tongue. It is a curious fact that GreatBritain takes the lead in Europe in the prevalence of stuttering; thelanguage is probably a factor in this evil pre-eminence, for it appearsthat the Chinese, whose language is powerfully rhythmic, never stutter. One authority has declared that "no nation in the civilized world speaksits language so abominably as the English. " We can scarcely admit thatthis English difficulty of speech is the result of some organic defectin English nervous systems; the language itself must be a factor in thematter. I have found, when discussing the point with scientific men andothers abroad, that the opinion prevails that it is usually difficult tofollow a speaker in English. This experience may, indeed, be consideredgeneral. While an admirably strong and concise language, English is byno means so adequate in actual speech; it is not one of the languageswhich can be heard at a long distance, and, moreover, it lends itself inspeaking to so many contractions that are not used in writing--so many"can'ts" and "won'ts" and "don'ts, " which suit English taciturnity, butslur and ruin English speech--that English, as spoken, is almost adifferent language from that which excites admiration when written. Sothat the exclusive use of English for international purposes would notbe the survival of the fittest so far as a language for speakingpurposes is concerned. 

Moreover, it must be remembered that English is not a democraticlanguage. It is not, like the chief Romance languages and the chiefTeutonic languages, practically homogeneous, made out of one block. Itis formed by the mixture of two utterly unlike elements, onearistocratic, the other plebeian. Ever since the Norman lord came overto England a profound social inequality has become rooted in the verylanguage. In French, _boeuf_ and _mouton_ and _veau_ and _porc_ havealways been the same for master and for man, in the field and on thetable; the animal has never changed its plebeian name for anaristocratic name as it passed through the cook's hands. That example istypical of the curious mark which the Norman Conquest left on ourspeech, rendering it so much more difficult for us than for the Frenchto attain equality of social intercourse. Inequality is stampedindelibly into our language as into no other great language. Of course, from the literary point of view, that is all gain, and has been ofincomparable aid to our poets in helping them to reach their mostmagnificent effects, as we may see conspicuously in Shakespeare'senormous vocabulary. But from the point of view of equal socialintercourse, this wealth of language is worse than lost, it isdisastrous. The old feudal distinctions are still perpetuated; the "man"still speaks his "plain Anglo-Saxon, " and the "gentleman" still speakshis refined Latinized speech. In every language, it is true, there aresocial distinctions in speech, and every language has its slang. But inEnglish these distinctions are perpetuated in the very structure of thelanguage. Elsewhere the working-class speak--with a little difference inthe quality--a language needing no substantial transformation to becomethe language of society, which differs from it in quality rather than inkind. But the English working man feels the need to translate his commonAnglo-Saxon speech into foreign words of Latin origin. It is difficultfor the educated person in England to understand the struggle which theuneducated person goes through to speak the language of the educated, although the unsatisfactory result is sufficiently conspicuous. But wecan trace the operation of a similar cause in the hesitancy of theeducated man himself when he attempts to speak in public and isembarrassed by the search for the set of words most suited for dignifiedpurposes. 

Most of those who regarded English as the coming world-language admittedthat it would require improvement for general use. The extensive andfundamental character of the necessary changes is not, however, realized. The difficulties of English are of four kinds: (1) its specialsounds, very troublesome for foreigners to learn to pronounce, and theuncertainty of its accentuation; (2) its illogical and chaotic spelling, inevitably leading to confusions in pronunciation; (3) the grammaticalirregularities in its verbs and plural nouns; and (4) the great numberof widely different words which are almost or quite similar inpronunciation. A vast number of absurd pitfalls are thus prepared forthe unwary user of English. He must remember that the plural of "mouse"is "mice, " but that the plural of "house" is not "hice, " that he mayspeak of his two "sons, " but not of his two "childs"; he willindistinguishably refer to "sheeps" and "ships"; and like the preacher alittle unfamiliar with English who had chosen a well-known text topreach on, he will not remember whether "plough" is pronounced "pluff"or "plo, "[240] and even a phonetic spelling system would render still moreconfusing the confusion between such a series of words as "hair, ""hare, " "heir, " "are, " "ere" and "eyre. " Many of these irregularitiesare deeply rooted in the structure of the language; it would be anextremely difficult as well as extensive task to remove them, and whenthe task was achieved the language would have lost much of its characterand savour; it would clash painfully with literary English. 

Thus even if we admitted that English ought to be the internationallanguage of the future, the result is not so satisfactory from a Britishpoint of view as is usually taken for granted. All other civilizednations would be bilingual; they would possess the key not only to theirown literature, but to a great foreign literature with all the newhorizons that a foreign literature opens out. The English-speakingcountries alone would be furnished with only one language, and wouldhave no stimulus to acquire any other language, for no other languagewould be of any practical use to them. All foreigners would be in aposition to bring to the English-speaking man whatever information theyconsidered good for him. At first sight this seems a gain for theEnglish-speaking peoples, because they would thus be spared a certainexpenditure of energy; but a very little reflection shows that such asaving of energy is like that effected by the intestinal parasitic wormwho has digested food brought ready to his mouth. It leads todegeneracy. Not the people whose language is learnt, but the people wholearn a language reap the benefit, spiritual and material. It is nowadmitted in the commercial world that the ardour of the Germans inlearning English has brought more advantage to the Germans than to theEnglish. Moreover, the high intellectual level of small nations at thepresent time is due largely to the fact that all their educated membersmust be familiar with one or two languages besides their own. The greatdefect of the English mind is insularity; the virtue of its boisterousenergy is accompanied by lack of insight into the differing virtues ofother peoples. If the natural course of events led to the exclusive useof English for international communication, this defect would be stillmore accentuated. The immense value of becoming acquainted with aforeign language is that we are thereby led into a new world oftradition and thought and feeling. Before we know a new language truly, we have to realize that the words which at first seem equivalent towords in our own language often have a totally different atmosphere, adifferent rank or dignity from that which they occupy in our ownlanguage. It is in learning this difference in the moral connotation ofa language and its expression in literature that we reap the realbenefit of knowing a foreign tongue. There is no other way--not evenresidence in a foreign land if we are ignorant of the language--to takeus out of the customary circle of our own traditions. It imparts amental flexibility and emotional sympathy which no other discipline canyield. To ordain that all non-English-speaking peoples should learnEnglish in addition to their mother tongue, and to render it practicallyunnecessary for English-speakers (except the small class of students) tolearn any other language, would be to confer an immense boon on thefirst group of peoples, doubling their mental and emotional capacity; itis to render the second group hidebound. 

When we take a broad and impartial survey of the question we thus seethat there is reason to believe that, while English is an admirableliterary language (this is the ground that its eulogists always take), and sufficiently concise for commercial purposes, it is by no means anadequate international tongue, especially for purposes of oral speech, and, moreover, its exclusive use for this purpose would be a misfortunefor the nations already using it, since they would be deprived of thatmental flexibility and emotional sympathy which no discipline can giveso well as knowledge of a living foreign tongue. 

Many who realized these difficulties put forward French as the auxiliaryinternational language. It is quite true that the power behind French isnow relatively less than it was two centuries ago. [241] At that timeFrance by its relatively large population, the tradition of its militarygreatness, and its influential political position, was able to exert animmense influence; French was the language of intellect and society inGermany, in England, in Russia, everywhere in fact. During theeighteenth century internal maladministration, the cataclysm of theRevolution, and finally the fatal influence of Napoleon alienatedforeign sympathy, and France lost her commanding position. Yet it wasreasonably felt that, if a natural language is to be used forinternational purposes, after English there is no practicablealternative to French. 

French is the language not indeed in any special sense of science or ofcommerce, but of the finest human culture. It is a well-organizedtongue, capable of the finest shades of expression, and it is the key toa great literature. In most respects it is the best favoured child ofLatin; it commends itself to all who speak Romance languages, and, asAlphonse de Candolle has remarked, a Spaniard and an Italian knowthree-quarters of French beforehand, and every one who has learnt Latinknows half of French already. It is more admirably adapted for speakingpurposes than perhaps any other language which has any claim to be usedfor international purposes, as we should expect of the tongue spoken bya people who have excelled in oratory, who possess such widely diffuseddramatic ability, and who have carried the arts of social intercourse tothe highest point. 

Paris remains for most people the intellectual capital of Europe; Frenchis still very generally used for purposes of intercommunicationthroughout Europe, while the difficulty experienced by all but Germansand Russians in learning English is well known. Li Hung Chang isreported to have said that, while for commercial reasons English is farmore widely used in China than French, the Chinese find French a mucheasier language to learn to speak, and the preferences of the Chinesemay one day count for a good deal--in one direction or another--in theworld's progress. One frequently hears that the use of French forinternational purposes is decaying; this is a delusion probably due tothe relatively slow growth of the French-speaking races and to varioustemporary political causes. It is only necessary to look at the largeInternational Medical Congresses. Thus at one such Congress at Rome, atwhich I was present, over six thousand members came from forty-twocountries of the globe, and over two thousand of them took part in theproceedings. Four languages (Italian, French, German and English) wereused at this Congress. Going over the seven large volumes ofTransactions, I find that fifty-nine communications were presented inEnglish, one hundred and seventy-one in German, three hundred and onein French, the rest in Italian. The proportion of English communicationsto German is thus a little more than one to three, and the proportion ofEnglish to French less than one to six. Moreover, the English-speakingmembers invariably (I believe) used their own language, so that thesefifty-nine communications represent the whole contribution of theEnglish-speaking world. And they represent nothing more than that;notwithstanding the enormous spread of English, of which we hear somuch, not a single non-English speaker seems to have used English. Itmight be supposed that this preponderance of French was due to apreponderance of the French element, but this was by no means the case;the members of English-speaking race greatly exceeded those ofFrench-speaking race. But, while the English communications representedthe English-speaking countries only, and the German communications werechiefly by German speakers, French was spoken not only by membersbelonging to the smaller nations of Europe, from the north and from thesouth, by the Russians, by most of the Turkish and Asiatic members, butalso by all the Mexicans and South Americans. These figures may not beabsolutely free from fallacy, due to temporary causes of fluctuation. But that they are fairly exact is shown by the results of the followingCongress, held at Moscow. If I take up the programme for the departmentof psychiatry and nervous disease, in which I was myself chieflyinterested, I find that of 131 communications, 80 were in French, 37 inGerman and 14 in English. This shows that French, German and Englishbear almost exactly the same relation to one another as at Rome. Inother words, 61 per cent of the speakers used French, 28 per centGerman, and only 11 per cent English. 

If we come down to one of the most recent International MedicalCongresses, that of Lisbon in 1906, we find that the supremacy ofFrench, far from weakening, is more emphatically affirmed. The languageof the country in which the Congress was held was ruled out, and I findthat of 666 contributions to the proceedings of the Congress, over 84per cent were in French, scarcely more than 8 per cent in English, andless than 7 per cent in German. At the subsequent Congress at Budapesthin 1909, the French contributions were to the English as three to one. Similar results are shown by other International Congresses. Thus at thethird International Congress of Psychology, held at Munich, there werefour official languages, and on grounds of locality the majority ofcommunications were in German; French followed with 29, Italian with 12, and English brought up the rear with 11. Dr. Westermarck, who is thestock example of the spread of English for international purposes, spokein German. It is clearly futile to point to figures showing the prolificqualities of English races; the moral quality of a race and its languagecounts, as well as mere physical capacity for breeding, and the moralinfluence of French to-day is immensely greater than that of English. That is, indeed, scarcely a fair statement of the matter in view of thetypical cases just quoted; one should rather say that, as a means ofspoken international communication for other than commercial purposes, English is nowhere. 

There is one other point which serves to give prestige to French: itsliterary supremacy in the modern world. While some would claim for theEnglish the supreme poetic literature, there can be no doubt that theFrench own the supreme prose literature of modern Europe. It was felt bythose who advocated the adoption of English or French that it wouldsurely be a gain for human progress if the auxiliary internationallanguages of the future should be one, if not both, of two that possessgreat literatures, and which embody cultures in some respects allied, but in most respects admirably supplementing each other. [242]

The collapse of Volapük stimulated the energy of those who believed thatthe solution of the question lay in the adoption of a natural language. To-day, however, there are few persons who, after carefully consideringthe matter, regard this solution as probable or practicable. [243]

Considerations of two orders seem now to be decisive in rejecting theclaims of English and French, or, indeed, any other natural language, tobe accepted as an international language: (1) The vast number ofpeculiarities, difficulties, and irregularities, rendering necessary sorevolutionary a change for international purposes that the languagewould be almost transformed into an artificial language, and perhaps noteven then an entirely satisfactory one. (2) The extraordinarydevelopment during recent years of the minor national languages, and thejealousy of foreign languages which this revival has caused. This latterfactor is probably alone fatal to the adoption of any living language. It can scarcely be disputed that neither English nor French occupiesto-day so relatively influential a position as it once occupied. Themovement against the use of French in Roumania, as detrimental to thenational language, is significant of a widespread feeling, while, asregards English, the introduction by the Germans into commerce of themethod of approaching customers in their own tongue, has renderedimpossible the previous English custom of treating English as thegeneral language of commerce. 

The natural languages, it became realized, fail to answer to therequirements which must be made of an auxiliary international language. The conditions which have to be fulfilled are thus formulated by AnnaRoberts:[244]

"_First_, a vocabulary having a maximum of internationality in itsroot-words for at least the Indo-European races, living or bordering onthe confines of the old Roman Empire, whose vocabularies are alreadysaturated with Greek and Latin roots, absorbed during the long centuriesof contact with Greek and Roman civilization. As the centre of gravityof the world's civilization now stands, this seems the most rationalbeginning. Such a language shall then have:

"_Second_, a grammatical structure stripped of all the irregularitiesfound in every existing tongue, and that shall be simpler than any ofthem. It shall have:

"_Third_, a single, unalterable sound for each letter, no silentletters, no difficult, complex, shaded sounds, but simple primarysounds, capable of being combined into harmonious words, which lattershall have but a single stress accent that never shifts. 

"_Fourth_, mobility of structure, aptness for the expression of complexideas, but in ways that are grammatically simple, and by means of wordsthat can easily be analysed without a dictionary. 

"_Fifth_, it must be capable of being, not merely a literarylanguage, [245] but a spoken tongue, having a pronunciation that can beperfectly mastered by adults through the use of manuals, and in theabsence of oral teachers. 

"_Finally_, and as a necessary corollary and complement to all of theabove, this international auxiliary language must, to be of generalutility, be exceedingly easy of acquisition by persons of but moderateeducation, and hitherto conversant with no language but their own. "

Thus the way was prepared for the favourable reception of a newartificial language, which had in the meanwhile been elaborated. Dr. Zamenhof, a Russian physician living at Warsaw, had been from youthoccupied with the project of an international language, and in 1887 heput forth in French his scheme for a new language to be calledEsperanto. The scheme attracted little notice; Volapük was then at thezenith of its career, and when it fell, its fall discredited allattempts at an artificial language. But, like Volapük, Esperanto foundits great apostle in France. M. Louis de Beaufront brought his highability and immense enthusiasm to the work of propaganda, and thesuccess of Esperanto in the world is attributed in large measure to him. The extension of Esperanto is now threatening to rival that of Volapük. Many years ago Max Müller, and subsequently Skeat, notwithstanding thephilologist's prejudice in favour of natural languages, expressed theirapproval of Esperanto, and many persons of distinction, moving in suchwidely remote spheres as Tolstoy and Sir William Ramsay, have sincesignified their acceptance and their sympathy. Esperanto Congresses areregularly held, Esperanto Societies and Esperanto Consulates areestablished in many parts of the world, a great number of books andjournals are published in Esperanto, and some of the world's classicshave been translated into it. 

It is generally recognized that Esperanto represents a great advance onVolapük. Yet there are already signs that Esperanto is approaching theclimax of its reputation, and that possibly its inventor may share thefate of the inventor of Volapük and outlive his own language. The mostserious attack on Esperanto has come from within. The most intelligentEsperantists have realized the weakness and defects of their language(in some measure due to the inevitable Slavonic prepossessions of itsinventor) and demand radical reforms, which the conservative partyresist. Even M. De Beaufront, to whom its success was largely due, hasabandoned primitive Esperanto, and various scientific men of highdistinction in several countries now advocate the supersession ofEsperanto by an improved language based upon it and called Ido. Professor Lorenz, who is among the advocates of Ido, admits thatEsperanto has shown the possibility of a synthetic language, but statesdefinitely that "according to the concordant testimony of all unbiasedopinions" Esperanto in no wise represents the final solution of theproblem. This new movement is embodied in the Délégation pour l'Adoptiond'une Langue Auxiliaire Internationale, founded in Paris during theInternational Exhibition in 1900 by various eminent literary andscientific men, and having its head-quarters in Paris. The Délégationconsider that the problem demands a purely scientific and technicalsolution, and it is claimed that 40 per cent of the stems of Ido arecommon to six languages: German, English, French, Italian, Russian andSpanish. The Délégation appear to have approached the question with afairly open mind, and it was only after study of the subject that theyfinally reached the conclusion that Esperanto contained a sufficientnumber of good qualities to furnish a basis on which to work. [246]

The general programme of the Délégation is that (1) an auxiliaryinternational language is required, adapted to written and oral languagebetween persons of different mother tongues; (2) such language must becapable of serving the needs of science, daily life, commerce, andgeneral intercourse, and must be of such a character that it may easilybe learnt by persons of average elementary education, especially thoseof civilized European nationality; (3) the decision to rest with theInternational Association of Academies, and, in case of their refusal, with the Committee of the Délégation. [247]

The Délégation is seeking to bring about an official internationalCongress which would either itself or through properly appointed expertsestablish an internationally and officially recognized auxiliarylanguage. The chief step made in this direction has been the formationat Berne in 1911 of an international association whose object is to takeimmediate steps towards bringing the question before the Governments ofEurope. The Association is pledged to observe a strict neutrality inregard to the language to be chosen. 

The whole question seems thus to have been placed on a sounder basisthan hitherto. The international language of the future cannot be, andought not to be, settled by a single individual seeking to impose hisown invention on the world. This is not a matter for zealous propagandaof an almost religious character. The hasty and premature adoption ofsome privately invented language merely retards progress. No individualcan settle the question by himself. What we need is calm study anddeliberation between the nations and the classes chiefly concerned, acting through the accredited representatives of their Governments andother professional bodies. Nothing effective can be done until thepressure of popular opinion has awakened Governments and scientificsocieties to the need for action. The question of internationalarbitration has become practical; the question of the internationallanguage ought to go hand in hand with that of internationalarbitration. They are closely allied and both equally necessary. 

While the educational, commercial, and official advantages of anauxiliary international language are obvious, it seems to me that fromthe standpoint of social hygiene there are at least three interestswhich are especially and deeply concerned in the settlement of thisquestion. 

The first and chief is that of international democracy in its efforts toattain an understanding on labour questions. There can be no solution ofthis question until a simpler mode of personal communication has becomewidely prevalent. This matter has from time to time already been broughtbefore international labour congresses, and those who attend suchcongresses have doubtless had occasion to realize how essential it is. Perhaps it is a chief factor in the comparative failure of suchcongresses hitherto. 

Science represents the second great interest which has shown an activeconcern in the settlement of this question. To follow up any line ofscientific research is already a sufficiently gigantic work, on accountof the absence of proper bibliographical organization; it becomes almostoverwhelming now that the search has to extend over at least half adozen languages, and still leaves the searcher a stranger to theimportant investigations which are appearing in Russian and in Japanese, and will before long appear in other languages. Sir Michael Foster oncedrew a humorous picture of the woes of the physiologist owing to thesecauses. In other fields--especially in the numerous branches ofanthropological research, as I can myself bear witness--the worker iseven worse off than the physiologist. Just now science is concentratingits energies on the organization of bibliography, but much attention hasbeen given to this question of an international language from time totime, and it is likely before long to come pressingly to the front. 

The medical profession is also practically concerned in this question;hitherto it has, indeed, taken a more lively interest in the effort tosecure an international language than has pure science. It is of thefirst importance that new discoveries and methods in medicine andhygiene should be rendered immediately accessible; while the nowenormously extended domain of medicine is full of great questions whichcan only be solved by international co-operation on an internationalbasis. The responsibility of advocating a number of measures affectingthe well-being of communities lies, in the first place, with the medicalprofession; but no general agreement is possible without full facilitiesfor discussion in international session. This has been generallyrecognized; hence the numerous attempts to urge a single language on theorganizers of the international medical congresses. I have alreadyobserved how large and active these congresses were. Yet it cannot besaid that any results are achieved commensurate with the world-widecharacter of such congresses. Partly this is due to the fact that theorganizers of international congresses have not yet learnt what shouldbe the scope of such conferences, and what they may legitimately hope toperform; but very largely because there is no international method ofcommunication; and, except for a few seasoned cosmopolitans, no trulyinternational exchange of opinions takes place. This can only bepossible when we have a really common and familiar method ofintercommunication. 

These three interests--democratic, scientific, medical--seem at presentthose chiefly concerned in the task of putting this matter on a definitebasis, and it is much to be desired that they should come to some commonagreement. They represent three immensely important modes of social andintellectual activity, and the progress of every nation is bound up withan international progress of which they are now the natural pioneers. Itcannot be too often repeated that the day has gone by when any progressworthy of the name can be purely national. All the most vital questionsof national progress tend to merge themselves into internationalquestions. But before any question of international progress can resultin anything but noisy confusion, we need a recognized mode ofinternational intelligence and communication. That is why the questionof the auxiliary international language is of actual and vital interestto all who are concerned with the tasks of social hygiene. 

THE QUESTION ON INTERNATIONAL COINAGE

It must be remembered that the international auxiliary language is anorganic part of a larger internationalization which must inevitably beeffected, and is indeed already coming into being. Two related measuresof intercommunication are an international system of postage stamps, andan international coinage, to which may be added an international systemof weights and measures, which seems to be already in course ofsettlement by the increasingly general adoption of the metric system. The introduction of the exchangeable international stamp couponrepresents the beginning of a truly international postal system; but itis only a beginning. If a completely developed international postalsystem were incidentally to deliver some nations, and especially theEnglish, from the depressingly ugly postage stamps they are nowcondemned to use, this reform would possess a further advantage almostas great as its practical utility. An international coinage is, again, aprime necessity, which would possess immense commercial advantages inaddition to the great saving of trouble it would effect. The progress ofcivilization is already working towards an international coinage. In aninteresting paper on this subject ("International Coinage, " _PopularScience Monthly_, March, 1910) T. F. Van Wagenen writes; "Each in itsway, the great commercial nations of the day are unconsciously engagedin the task. The English shilling is working northwards from the Capeof Good Hope, has already come in touch with the German mark and thePortuguese peseta which have been introduced on both the east and westsides of the Continent, and will in due time meet the French franc andItalian lira coming south from the shores of the Mediterranean. In Asia, the Indian rupee, the Russian rouble, the Japanese yen, and theAmerican-Philippine coins are already competing for the patronage of theMalay and the Chinaman. In South America neither American nor Europeancoins have any foot-hold, the Latin-American nations being well suppliedby systems of their own, all related more or less closely to the coinageof Mexico or Portugal. Thus the plainly evolutionary task of pushingcivilization into the uneducated parts of the world through commerce isas badly hampered by the different coins offered to the barbarian as arethe efforts of the evangelists to introduce Christianity by theexistence of the various denominations and creeds. The Church isbeginning to appreciate the wastage in its efforts, and is trying tominimize it by combinations among the denominations having for theirobject to standardize Christianity, so to speak, by reducing tenet anddogma to the lowest possible terms. Commerce must do the same. The whiteman's coins must be standardized and simplified. . . . The internationalcoin will come in a comparatively short time, just as will arrive theinternational postage stamp, which, by the way, is very badly needed. For the upper classes of all countries, the people who travel, and haveto stand the nuisance and loss of changing their money at everyfrontier, the bankers and international merchants who have to cumbertheir accounts with the fluctuating item of exchange between commercialcentres will insist upon it. All the European nations, with theexception of Russia and Turkey, are ready for the change, and when thesereach the stage of real constitutionalism in their progress upward, they will be compelled to follow, being already deeply in debt to theFrench, English, and Germans. Japan may be counted upon to acquiesceinstantly in any unit agreed upon by the rest of the civilized world. "

This writer points out that the opening out of the uncivilized parts ofthe world to commerce will alone serve to make an international coinageabsolutely indispensable. 

Without, however, introducing a really new system, an auxiliaryinternational money system (corresponding to an auxiliary internationallanguage) could be introduced as a medium of exchange withoutinterfering with the existing coinages of the various nations. Réné deSaussure (writing in the _Journal de Genève_, in 1907) has insisted onthe immense benefit such a system of "monnaie de compte" would be inremoving the burden imposed upon all international financial relationsby the diversity of money values. He argues that the best point of unionwould be a gold piece of eight grammes--almost exactly equivalent to onepound, twenty marks, five dollars, and twenty-five francs--being, infact, but one-third of a penny different from the value of a poundsterling. For the subdivisions the point of union must be decimallydivided, and M. De Saussure would give the name of speso to aten-thousandth part of the gold coin. 

FOOTNOTES:

[236] The history of the efforts to attain a universal language has beenwritten by Couturat and Leau, _Histoire de la Langue Universelle_, 1903. 

[237] The distinguished French physician, Dr. Sollier, also, in an addressto the Lisbon International Medical Congress, on "La Question de laLangue Auxiliaire Internationale, " in 1906, advocating the adoption ofone of the existing Romance tongues, said: "Spanish is the simplest ofall and the easiest, and if it were chosen for this purpose I should bethe first to accept it. "

[238] It has even been stated by a distinguished English man of sciencethat Latin is sometimes easier for the English to use than is their ownlanguage. "I have known Englishmen who could be trusted to write a moreintelligible treatise, possibly even to make a more lucid speech, inLatin than in English, " says Dr. Miers, the Principal of LondonUniversity (_Lancet_, 7th October, 1911), and he adds: "Quite seriously, I think some part of the cause is to be sought in the difficulty of ourlanguage, and many educated persons get lost in its intricacies, just asthey get lost in its spelling. " Without questioning the fact, however, Iwould venture to question this explanation of it. 

[239] Thus in one article on the growing extension of the English languagethroughout the world (_Macmillan's Magazine_, March, 1892) we read:"English is practically certain to become the language of the world. . . . The speech of Shakespeare and Milton, of Dryden and Swift, of Byron andWordsworth, will be, in a sense in which no other language has been, thespeech of the whole world. " We do not nowadays meet with these wildstatements. 

[240] The stumbling-stones for the foreigner presented by English words in"ough" have often been referred to, and are clearly set forth in theverses in which Mr. C. B. Loomis has sought to represent a Frenchlearner's experiences--and the same time to show the criminal impulseswhich these irregularities arouse in the pupil. 

 "I'm taught p-l-o-u-g-h Shall be pronouncèd 'plow, ' 'Zat's easy when you know, ' I say, 'Mon Anglais I'll get through. '

 "My teacher say zat in zat case O-u-g-h is 'oo, ' And zen I laugh and say to him 'Zees Anglais make me cough. '

 "He say, 'Not coo, but in zat word O-u-g-h is "off, "' Oh, _sacre bleu_! such varied sounds Of words make me hiccough!

 "He say, 'Again, mon friend ees wrong! O-u-g-h is "up, " In hiccough, ' Zen I cry, 'No more, You make my throat feel rough, '

 "'Non! non!' he cry, 'you are not right-- O-u-g-h is "uff. "' I say, 'I try to speak your words, I can't prononz zem though, '

 "'In time you'll learn, but now you're wrong, O-u-g-h is "owe. "' 'I'll try no more. I sall go mad, I'll drown me in ze lough!'

 "'But ere you drown yourself, ' said he, 'O-u-g-h is "ock. "' He taught no more! I held him fast, And killed him wiz a rough!"

[241] It is interesting to remember that at one period in Europeanhistory, French seemed likely to absorb English, and thus to acquire, inaddition to its own motor force, all the motor force which now liesbehind English. When the Normans--a vigorous people of Scandinavianorigin, speaking a Romance tongue, and therefore well fitted toaccomplish a harmonizing task of this kind--occupied both sides of theEnglish Channel, it seemed probable that they would dominate the speechof England as well as of France. "At that time, " says Méray (_La Vie auxTemps des Cours d'Amour_, p. 367), who puts forward this view, "thepeople of the two coasts of the Channel were closer in customs and inspeech than were for a long time the French on the opposite banks of theLoire. . . . The influential part of the English nation and all the peopleof its southern regions spoke the _Romance_ of the north of France. Inthe Crusades the Knights of the two peoples often mixed, and weregreeted as Franks wherever their adventurous spirit led them. If EdwardIII, with the object of envenoming an antagonism which served his ownends, had not broken this link of language, the two peoples wouldperhaps have been united to-day in the same efforts of progress and ofliberty. . . . Of what a fine instrument of culture and of progress has notthat fatal decree of Edward III deprived civilization!"

[242] I was at one time (_Progressive Review_, April, 1897) inclined tothink that the adoption of both English and French, as joint auxiliaryinternational languages--the first for writing and the second forspeaking--might solve the problem. I have since recognized that such asolution, however advantageous it might be for human culture, wouldpresent many difficulties, and is quite impracticable. 

[243] I may refer to three able papers which have appeared in recent yearsin the _Popular Science Monthly_: Anna Monsch Roberts, "The Problem ofInternational Speech" (February, 1908); Ivy Kellerman, "The Necessityfor an International Language, " (September, 1909); Albert Léon Guérard, "English as an International Language" (October, 1911). All thesewriters reject as impracticable the adoption of either English or Frenchas the auxiliary international language, and view with more favour theadoption of an artificial language such as Esperanto. 

[244] A. M. Roberts, _op. Cit. _

[245] It should be added, however, that the auxiliary language need notbe used as a medium for literary art, and it is a mistake, as Pfaundlerpoints out, to translate poems into such a language. 

[246] See _International Language and Science_, 1910, by Couturat, Jespersen, Lorenz, Ostwald, Pfaundler, and Donnan, five professorsliving in five different countries. 

[247] The progress of the movement is recorded in its official journal, _Progreso_, edited by Couturat, and in De Beaufront's journal, _LaLangue Auxiliaire_. 

XII

INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIALISM

 Social Hygiene in Relation to the Alleged Opposition between Socialism and Individualism--The Two Parties in Politics--The Relation of Conservatism and Radicalism to Socialism and Individualism--The Basis of Socialism--The Basis of Individualism--The seeming Opposition between Socialism and Individualism merely a Division of Labour--Both Socialism and Individualism equally Necessary--Not only Necessary but Indispensable to each other--The Conflict between the Advocates of Environment and Heredity--A New Embodiment of the supposed Conflict between Socialism and Individualism--The Place of Eugenics--Social Hygiene ultimately one with the Hygiene of the Soul--The Function of Utopias. 

The controversy between Individualism and Socialism, the claim of thepersonal unit as against the claim of the collective community, is ofancient date. Yet it is ever new and constantly presented afresh. Iteven seems to become more acute as civilization progresses. Every schemeof social reform, every powerful manifestation of individual energy, raise anew a problem that is never out of date. 

It is inevitable, indeed, that with the development of social hygieneduring the past hundred years there should also develop a radicalopposition of opinion as to the methods by which such hygiene ought tobe accomplished. There has always been this opposition in the politicalsphere; it is natural to find it also in the social sphere. The veryfact that old-fashioned politics are becoming more and more transformedinto questions of social hygiene itself ensures the continuance of suchan opposition. 

In politics, and especially in the politics of constitutional countriesof which England is the type, there are normally two parties. There isthe party that holds by tradition, by established order and solidarity, the maintenance of the ancient hierarchical constitution of society, andin general distinguishes itself by a preference for the old over thenew. There is, on the other side, the party that insists on progress, onfreedom, on the reasonable demands of the individual, on the adaptationof the accepted order to changing conditions, and in generaldistinguishes itself by a preference for the new over the old. The firstmay be called the party of structure, and the second the party offunction. In England we know the adherents of one party as Conservativesand those of the other party as Liberals or Radicals. 

In time, it is true, these normal distinctions between the party ofstructure and the party of function tend to become somewhat confused;and it is precisely the transition of politics into the social spherewhich tends to introduce confusion. With a political system whichproceeds ultimately out of a society with a feudalistic basis, thenormal attitude of political parties is long maintained. The party ofstructure, the Conservative party, holds by the ancient feudalisticideals which are really, in the large sense, socialistic, though asocialism based on a foundation of established inequality, and soaltogether unlike the democratic socialism promulgated to-day. Theparty of function, the Liberal party, insists on the break-up of thisstructural socialism to meet the new needs of progressive civilization. But when feudalism has been left far behind, and many of the changesintroduced by Liberalism have become part of the social structure, theyfall under the protection of Conservatives who are fighting against newLiberal innovations. Thus the lines of delimitation tend to becomeindistinct. 

In the politics of social hygiene there are the same two factors: theparty of structure and the party of function. In their nature and intheir opposition to each other they correspond to the two parties in theold political field. But they have changed their character and theirnames: the party of structure is here Socialism or Collectivism, [248] theparty of function is Individualism. [249] And while the Tory, theConservative of early days, was allied to Collectivism, and the Whig, the Liberal of early days, to Individualism, that correspondence hasceased to be invariable owing to the confused manner in which the oldpolitical parties have nowadays shifted their ground. We may thus see aLiberal who is a Collectivist when a Collectivist measure may involvethat innovation to secure adjustment to new needs which is of theessence of Liberalism, and we may see a Conservative who is anIndividualist when Individualism involves that maintenance of theexisting order which is of the essence of Conservatism. Whether a man isa Conservative or a Liberal, he may incline either to Socialism or toIndividualism without breaking with his political tradition. It is, therefore, impossible to import any political animus into thefundamental antagonism between Individualism and Socialism, whichprevails in the sphere of social hygiene. 

We cannot hope to see clearly the grave problems involved by thefundamental antagonism between Socialism and Individualism unless weunderstand what each is founded on and what it is aiming at. 

When we seek to inquire how it is that the Socialist ideal exerts sopowerful an attraction on the human mind, and why it is ever seeking newmodes of practical realization, we cannot fail to perceive that itultimately proceeds from the primitive need of mutual help, a need whichwas felt long before the appearance of humanity. [250] If, however, we keepstrictly to our immediate mammalian traditions it may be said that theearliest socialist community is the family, with its trinity of father, mother, and child. The primitive family constitutes a group which isconditioned by the needs of each member. Each individual is subordinatedto the whole. The infant needs the mother and the mother needs theinfant; they both need the father and the father needs both for thecomplete satisfaction of his own activities. Socially and economicallythis primitive group is a unit, and if broken up into its individualparts these would be liable to perish. 

However we may multiply our social unit, however we may enlarge andelaborate it, however we may juggle with the results, we cannot disguisethe essential fact. At the centre of every social agglomeration, howevervast, however small, lies the social unit of the family of which eachindividual is by himself either unable to live or unable to reproduce, unable, that is to say, to gratify the two fundamental needs of hungerand love. 

There are many people who, while willing to admit that the family is, ina sense, a composite social unit to which each part has need of theother parts, so that all are mutually bound together, seek to draw afirm line of distinction between the family and society. Family life, they declare, is not irreconcilable with individualism; it is merely _unégoïsme à trois_. It is, however, difficult to see how such adistinction can be maintained, whether we look at the mattertheoretically or practically. In a small country like Great Britain, forinstance, every Englishman (excluding new immigrants) is related byblood to every other Englishman, as would become clearer if every manpossessed his pedigree for a thousand years back. When we remember, further, also, that every nation has been overlaid by invasions, warlikeor peaceful, from neighbouring lands, and has, indeed, been originallyformed in this way since no people has sprung up out of the soil of itsown land, we must further admit that the nations themselves form onefamily related by blood. 

Our genealogical relation to our fellows is too remote and extensive toconcern us much practically and sentimentally, though it is well that weshould realize it. If we put it aside, we have still to remember thatour actual need of our fellows is not definitely to be distinguishedfrom the mutual needs of the members of the smallest social unit, thefamily. 

In practice the individual is helpless. Of all animals, indeed, man isthe most helpless when left to himself. He must be cared for by othersat every moment during his long infancy. He is dependent on theexertions of others for shelter and clothes, while others are occupiedin preparing his food and conveying it from the ends of the world. Evenif we confine ourselves to the most elementary needs of a moderatelycivilized existence, or even if our requirements are only those of anidiot in an asylum, yet, for every one of us, there are literallymillions of people spending the best of their lives from morning tonight and perhaps receiving but little in return. The very elementaryneed of the individual in an urban civilization for pure water to drinkcan only be attained by organized social effort. The gigantic aqueductsconstructed by the Romans are early monuments of social activity typicalof all the rest. The primary needs of the individual can only besupplied by an immense and highly organized social effort. The morecomplex civilization becomes, and the more numerous individual needsbecome, so much the more elaborate and highly organized becomes thesocial response to those needs. The individual is so dependent onsociety that he needs not only the active work of others, but even theirmere passive good opinion, and if he loses that he is a failure, bankrupt, a pauper, a lunatic, a criminal, and the social reactionagainst him may suffice to isolate him, even to put him out of lifealtogether. So dependent indeed on society is the individual that therehas always been a certain plausibility in the old idea of the Stoics, countenanced by St. Paul, and so often revived in later days (as bySchäffle, Lilienfeld, and René Worms), that society is an organism inwhich the individuals are merely cells depending for their significanceon the whole to which they belong. Just as the animal is, as Hegel, themetaphysician, called it, a "nation, " and Dareste, the physiologist, a"city, " made up of cells which are individuals having a common ancestor, so the actual nation, the real city, is an animal made up of individualswhich are cells having a common ancestor, or, as Oken long ago put it, individuals are the organs of the whole. [251] Man is a social animal inconstant action and reaction with all his fellows of the same group--agroup which becomes ever greater as civilization advances--and socialismis merely the formal statement of this ultimate social fact. [252]

There is a divinity that hedges certain words. A sacred terror warns theprofane off them as off something that might blast the beholder's sight. In fact it is so, and even a clear-sighted person may be blinded by sucha word. Of these words none is more typical than the word "socialism. "Not so very long ago a prominent public man, of high intelligence, butevidently susceptible to the terror-striking influence of words, went toGlasgow to deliver an address on Social Reform. He warned his hearersagainst Socialism, and told them that, though so much talked about, ithad not made one inch of progress; of practical Socialism orCollectivism there were no signs at all. Yet, as some of his hearerspointed out, he gave his address in a municipally owned hall, illuminated by municipal lights, to an audience which had largelyarrived in municipal tramcars travelling through streets owned, maintained, and guarded by the municipality. This audience was largelyeducated in State schools, in which their children nowadays can receivenot only free education and free books, but, if necessary, free food andfree medical inspection and treatment. Moreover, the members of thissame audience thus assured of the non-existence of Socialism, areentitled to free treatment in the municipal hospital, should aninfective disease overtake them; the municipality provides them freelywith concerts and picture galleries, golf courses and swimming ponds;and in old age, finally, if duly qualified, they receive a Statepension. Now all these measures are socialistic, and Socialism isnothing more or less than a complicated web of such measures; thesocialistic State, as some have put it, is simply a great nationalco-operative association of which the Government is the board ofmanagers. 

It is said by some who disclaim any tendency to Socialism, that whatthey desire is not the State-ownership of the means of production, butState-regulation. Let the State, in the interests of the community, keepa firm control over the individualistic exploitation of capital, let ittax capital as far as may be desirable in the interests of thecommunity. But beyond this, capital, as well as land, is sacred. Thedistinction thus assumed is not, however, valid. The very people whomake this distinction are often enthusiastic advocates of an enlargednavy and a more powerful army. Yet these can only be provided bytaxation, and every tax in a democratic State is a socialistic measure, and involves collective ownership of the proceeds, whether they areapplied to making guns or swimming-baths. Every step in the regulationof industry assumes the rights of society over individualisticproduction, and is therefore socialistic. It is a question of less ormore, but except along those two lines, there is no socialism at all tobe reckoned with in the practical affairs of the world. Thatrevolutionary socialism of the dogmatically systematic school of KarlMarx which desired to transfer society at a single stroke by taking overand centralizing all the means of production may now be regarded as adream. It never at any time took root in the English-speaking lands, though it was advocated with unwearying patience by men of such force ofintellect and of character as Mr. Hyndman and William Morris. Even inGermany, the land of its origin, nearly all its old irreconcilableleaders are dead, and it is now slowly but steadily losing influence, togive place to a more modern and practical socialism. 

As we are concerned with it to-day and in the future, Socialism is not arigid economic theory, nor is it the creed of a narrow sect. In its widesense it is a name that covers all the activities--first instinctive, then organized--which arise out of the fundamental fact that man is asocial animal. In its more precise sense it indicates the variousorderly measures that are taken by groups of individuals--whether Statesor municipalities--to provide collectively for the definite needs of theindividuals composing the group. So much for Socialism. 

The individualist has a very different story to tell. From the point ofview of Individualism, however elaborate the structure of the societyyou erect, it can only, after all, be built up of individuals, and itswhole worth must depend on the quality of those individuals. If they arenot fully developed and finely tempered by high responsibilities andperpetual struggles, all social effort is fruitless, it will merelydegrade the individual to the helpless position of a parasite. Theindividual is born alone; he must die alone; his deepest passions, hismost exquisite tastes, are personal; in this world, or in any otherworld, all the activities of society cannot suffice to save his soul. Thus it is that the individual must bear his own burdens, for it isonly in so doing that the muscles of his body grow strong and that theenergies of his spirit become keen. It is by the qualities of theindividual alone that work is sound and that initiative is possible. Alltrade and commerce, every practical affair of life, depend for successon the personal ability of individuals. [253] It is not only so in theeveryday affairs of life, it is even more so on the highest planes ofintellectual and spiritual life. The supreme great men of the race weretermed by Carlyle its "heroes, " by Emerson its "representative men, "but, equally by the less and by the more democratic term, they arealways individuals standing apart from society, often in violentopposition to it, though they have always conquered in the end. When anygreat person has stood alone against the world it has always been theworld that lost. The strongest man, as Ibsen argued in his _Enemy of thePeople_, is the man who stands most alone. "He will be the greatest, "says Nietzsche in _Beyond Good and Evil_, "who can be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent. " Every great and vitallyorganized person is hostile to the rigid and narrow routine of socialconventions, whether established by law or by opinion; they must ever bebroken to suit his vital needs. Therefore the more we multiply thesesocial routines, the more strands we weave into the social web, the moreclosely we draw them, by so much the more we are discouraging theproduction of great and vitally organized persons, and by so much themore we are exposing society to destruction at the hands of suchpersons. 

Beneath Socialism lies the assertion that society came first and thatindividuals are indefinitely apt for education into their place insociety. Socialism has inherited the maxim, which Rousseau, theuncompromising Individualist, placed at the front of his _SocialContract_: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. " There isnothing to be done but to strike off the chains and organize society ona social basis. Men are not this or that; they are what they have beenmade. Make the social conditions right, says the thorough-goingSocialist, and individuals will be all that we could desire them to be. Not poverty alone, but disease, lunacy, prostitution, criminality areall the results of bad social and economic conditions. Create the rightenvironment and you have done all that is necessary. To some extent thatis clearly true. But the individualist insists that there are definitelimits to its truth. Even in the most favourable environment nearlyevery ill that the Socialist seeks to remove is found. Inevitably, theIndividualist declares, because we do not spring out of our environment, but out of our ancestral stocks. Against the stress on environment, theIndividualist lays the stress on the ascertained facts of heredity. Itis the individual that counts, and for good or for ill the individualbrought his fate with him at birth. Ensure the production of soundindividuals, and you may set at naught the environment. You will, indeed, secure results incomparably better than even the most anxiouscare expended on environment alone can ever hope to secure. 

Such are the respective attitudes of Socialism and Individualism. So faras I can see, they are both absolutely right. Nor is it even clear thatthey are really opposed; for, as happens in every field, while theaffirmations of each are sound, their denials are unsound. Certainly, along each line we may be carried to absurdity. The Individualism of MaxStirner is not far from the ultimate frontier of sanity, and possiblyeven on the other side of it;[254] while the Socialism of the OneidaCommunity involved a self-subordination which it would be idle to expectfrom the majority of men and women. But there is a perfect division oflabour between Socialism and Individualism. We cannot have too much ofeither of them. We have only to remember that the field of each isdistinct. No one needs Individualism in his water supply, and no oneneeds Socialism in his religion. All human affairs sort themselves outas coming within the province of Socialism or of Individualism, and eachmay be pushed to its furthest extreme. [255]

It so happens, however, that the capacity of the human brain is limited, and a single brain is not made to hold together the idea of Socialismand the idea of Individualism. Ordinary people have, it is true, nopractical difficulty whatever in acting concurrently in accordance withthe ideas of Socialism and of Individualism. But it is different withthe men of ideas; they must either be Socialists or Individualists; theycannot be both. The tendency in one or the other direction is probablyinborn in these men of ideas. 

We need not regret this inevitable division of labour. On the contrary, it is difficult to see how the right result could otherwise be broughtabout. People without ideas experience no difficulty in harmonizing thetwo tendencies. But if the ideas of Socialism and Individualism tendedto appear in the same brain they would neutralize each other or leadaction into an unprofitable _via media_. The separate initiative andpromulgation of the two tendencies encourages a much more effectiveaction, and best promotes that final harmony of the two extremes whichthe finest human development needs. 

There is more to be said. Not only are both alike indispensable, andboth too profoundly rooted in human nature to be abolished or abridged, but each is indispensable to the other. There can be no Socialismwithout Individualism; there can be no Individualism without Socialism. Only a very fine development of personal character and individualresponsibility can bear up any highly elaborated social organization, which is why small Socialist communities have only attained success byenlisting finely selected persons; only a highly organized socialstructure can afford scope for the play of individuality. Theenlightened Socialist nowadays often realizes something of therelationship of Socialism to Individualism, and the Individualist--if hewere not in recent times, for all his excellent qualities, sometimeslacking in mental flexibility and alertness--would be prepared to admithis own relationship to Socialism. "The organization of the whole isdominated by the necessities of cellular life, " as Dareste says. Thattruth is well recognized by the physiologists since the days of ClaudeBernard. It is absolutely true of the physiology of society. Socialorganization is not for the purpose of subordinating the individual tosociety; it is as much for the purpose of subordinating society to theindividual. 

Between individuals, even the greatest, and society there is perpetualaction and reaction. While the individual powerfully acts on society, hecan only so act in so far as he is himself the instrument and organ ofsociety. The individual leads society, but only in that directionwhither society wishes to go. Every man of science merely carriesknowledge or invention one further step, a needed and desired step, beyond the stage reached by his immediate predecessors. Every poet andartist is only giving expression to the secret feelings and impulses ofhis fellows. He has the courage to utter for the first time the intimateemotion and aspiration which he finds in the depth of his own soul, andhe has the skill to express them in forms of radiant beauty. But allthese secret feelings and desires are in the hearts of other men, whohave not the boldness to tell them nor the ability to embody themexquisitely. In the life of man, as in nature generally, there is aperpetual process of exfoliation, as Edward Carpenter calls it, wherebya latent but striving desire is revealed, and the man of genius is thestimulus and the incarnation of this exfoliating movement. That is whyevery great poet and artist when once his message becomes intelligible, is acclaimed and adored by the crowd for whom he would only have been anobject of idle wonderment if he had not expressed and glorifiedthemselves. When the man of genius is too far ahead of his time, he isrejected, however great his genius may be, because he represents theindividual out of vital relation to his time. A Roger Bacon, for all hisstupendous intellect, is deprived of pen and paper and shut up in amonastery, because he is undertaking to answer questions which will notbe asked until five centuries after his death. Perhaps the supreme manof genius is he who, like Virgil, Leonardo, or Shakespeare, has amessage for his own time and a message for all times, a message which isfor ever renewed for every new generation. 

The need for insisting on the intimate relations between Socialism andIndividualism has become the more urgent to-day because we are reachinga stage of civilization in which each tendency is inevitably so pushedto its full development that a clash is only prevented by therealization that here we have truly a harmony. Sometimes a matter thatbelongs to one sphere is so closely intertwined with a matter thatbelongs to the other that it is a very difficult problem how to holdthem separate and allow each its due value. [256]

At times, indeed, it is really very difficult to determine to whichsphere a particular kind of human activity belongs. This is notably thecase as regards education. "Render unto Cæsar the things that beCæsar's, and unto God the things that be God's. " But is education amongthe things that belong to Cæsar, to social organization, or among thethings that belong to God, to the province of the individual's soul?There is much to be said on both sides. Of late the Socialist tendencyprevails here, and there is a disposition to standardize rigidly aneducation so superficial, so platitudinous, so uniform, sounprofitable--so fatally oblivious of what even the word _education_means[257]--that some day, perhaps, the revolted Individualist spirit willarise in irresistible might to sweep away the whole worthless structurefrom top to bottom, with even such possibilities of good as it mayconceal. The educationalists of to-day may do well to remember that itis wise to be generous to your enemies even in the interests of your ownpreservation. 

In every age the question of Individualism and Socialism takes on adifferent form. In our own age it has become acute under the form of aconflict between the advocates of good heredity and the advocates ofgood environment. On the one hand there is the desire to breed theindividual to a high degree of efficiency by eugenic selection, favouring good stocks and making the procreation of bad stocks moredifficult. On the other hand there is the effort so to organize theenvironment by collectivist methods that life for all may become easyand wholesome. As usual, those who insist on the importance of goodenvironment are inclined to consider that the question of heredity maybe left to itself, and those who insist on the importance of goodheredity are indifferent to environment. As usual, also, there is a realunderlying harmony of those two demands. There is, however, here morethan this. In this most modern of their embodiments, Socialism andIndividualism are not merely harmonious, each is the key to the other, which remains unattainable without it. However carefully we improve ourbreed, however anxiously we guard the entrance to life, our labour willbe in vain if we neglect to adapt the environment to the fine race weare breeding. The best individuals are not the toughest, any more thanthe highest species are the toughest, but rather, indeed, the reverse, and no creature needs so much and so prolonged an environing care asman, to ensure his survival. On the other hand, an elaborate attentionto the environment, combined with a reckless inattention to the qualityof the individuals born to live in that environment can only lead to anoverburdened social organization which will speedily fall by its ownweight. 

During the past century the Socialists of the school for bettering theenvironment have for the most part had the game in their own hands. Theyfounded themselves on the very reasonable basis of sympathy, a basiswhich the eighteenth-century moralists had prepared, which Schopenhauerhad formulated, which George Eliot had passionately preached, which hadaround its operations the immense prestige of the gospel of Jesus. Theenvironmental Socialists--always quite reasonably--set themselves toimprove the conditions of labour; they provided local relief for thepoor; they built hospitals for the free treatment of the sick. They areproceeding to feed school children, to segregate and protect thefeeble-minded, to insure the unemployed, to give State pensions to theaged, and they are even asked to guarantee work for all. Now thesethings, and the likes of them, are not only in accordance with naturalhuman impulses, but for the most part they are reasonable, and inprotecting the weak the strong are, in a certain sense, protectingthemselves. No one nowadays wants the hungry to hunger or the sufferingto suffer. Indeed, in that sense, there never has been any_laissez-faire_ school. [258]

But as the movement of environmental Socialism realizes itself, itbecomes increasingly clear that it is itself multiplying the work whichit sets itself to do. In enabling the weak, the incompetent, and thedefective to live and to live comfortably, it makes it easier for thoseon the borderland of these classes to fall into them, and it furnishesthe conditions which enable them to propagate their like, and to dothis, moreover, without that prudent limitation which is now becominguniversal in all classes above those of the weak, the incompetent, andthe defective. Thus unchecked environmental Socialism, obeying naturalimpulses and seeking legitimate ends, would be drawn into courses at theend of which only social enfeeblement, perhaps even dissolution, couldbe seen. 

The key to the situation, it is now beginning to be more and more widelyfelt, is to be found in the counterbalancing tendency of Individualism, and the eugenic guardianship of the race. Not, rightly understood, as amethod of arresting environmental Socialism, nor even as a counterblastto its gospel of sympathy. Nietzsche, indeed, has made a famous assaulton sympathy, as he has on conventional morality generally, but his"immoralism" in general and his "hardness" in particular are but new andfiner manifestations of those faded virtues he was really seeking torevive. The superficially sympathetic man flings a coin to the beggar;the more deeply sympathetic man builds an almshouse for him so that heneed no longer beg; but perhaps the most radically sympathetic of all isthe man who arranges that the beggar shall not be born. 

So it is that the question of breed, the production of fine individuals, the elevation of the ideal of quality in human production over that ofmere quantity, begins to be seen, not merely as a noble ideal in itself, but as the only method by which Socialism can be enabled to continue onits present path. If the entry into life is conceded more freely to theweak, the incompetent, and the defective than to the strong, theefficient, and the sane, then a Sisyphean task is imposed on society;for every burden lifted two more burdens appear. But as individualresponsibility becomes developed, as we approach the time to whichGalton looked forward, when the eugenic care for the race may become areligion, then social control over the facts of life becomes possible. Through the slow growth of knowledge concerning hereditary conditions, by voluntary self-restraint, by the final disappearance of the lingeringprejudice against the control of procreation, by sterilization inspecial cases, by methods of pressure which need not amount to actualcompulsion, [259] it will be possible to attain an increasingly firm gripon the evil elements of heredity. Not until such measures as these, under the controlling influence of a sense of personal responsibilityextending to every member of the community, have long been put intopractice, can we hope to see man on the earth risen to his full stature, healthy in body, noble in spirit, beautiful in both alike, movingspaciously and harmoniously among his fellows in the great world ofNature, to which he is so subtly adapted because he has himself sprungout of it and is its most exquisite flower. At this final point socialhygiene becomes one with the hygiene of the soul. [260]

Poets and prophets, from Jesus and Paul to Novalis and Whitman, haveseen the divine possibilities of Man. There is no temple in the world, they seem to say, so great as the human body; he comes in contact withHeaven, they declare, who touches a human person. But these humanthings, made to be gods, have spawned like frogs over all the earth. Everywhere they have beslimed its purity and befouled its beauty, darkening the very sunshine. Heaped upon one another in evil masses, preying upon one another as no other creature has ever preyed upon itskind, they have become a festering heap which all the oceans in vainlave with their antiseptic waters, and all the winds of heaven cannotpurify. It is only in the unextinguished spark of reason within him thatsalvation for man may ever be found, in the realization that he is hisown star, and carries in his hands his own fate. The impulses ofIndividualism and of Socialism alike prompt us to gain self-control andto learn the vast extent of our responsibility. The whole of humanity isworking for each of us; each of us must live worthy of that greatresponsibility to humanity. By how fine a flash of insight Jesusdeclared that few could enter the Kingdom of Heaven! Not until the earthis purified of untold millions of its population will it ever become theHeaven of old dreamers, in which the elect walk spaciously and nobly, loving one another. Only in such spacious and pure air is it possiblefor the individual to perfect himself, as a rose becomes perfect, according to Dante's beautiful simile, [261] in order that he may spreadabroad for others the fragrance that has been generated within him. Ifone thinks of it, that seems a truism, yet, even in this twentiethcentury, how few, how very few, there are who know it!

This is why we cannot have too much Individualism, we cannot have toomuch Socialism. They play into each other's hands. To strengthen one isto give force to the other. The greater the vigour of both, the morevitally a society is progressing. "I can no more call myself anIndividualist or a Socialist, " said Henry George, "than one whoconsiders the forces by which the planets are held to their orbits couldcall himself a centrifugalist or a centripetalist. " To attain a societyin which Individualism and Socialism are each carried to its extremepoint would be to attain to the society that lived in the Abbey ofThelema, in the City of the Sun, in Utopia, in the land of Zarathustra, in the Garden of Eden, in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a kingdom, nodoubt, that is, as Diderot expressed it, "diablement idéal. " But to-daywe hold in our hands more certainly than ever before the clues that wereimperfectly foreshadowed by Plato, and what our fathers soughtignorantly we may attempt by methods according to knowledge. No Utopiawas ever realized; and the ideal is a mirage that must ever elude us orit would cease to be ideal. Yet all our progress, if progress there be, can only lie in setting our faces towards that goal to which Utopias andideals point. 

FOOTNOTES:

[248] In the narrow sense Socialism is identical with the definiteeconomic doctrine of the Collectivistic organization of the productiveand distributive work of society. It also possesses, as Bosanquetremarks (in an essay on "Individualism and Socialism, " in _TheCivilization of Christendom_), "a deeper meaning as a name for a humantendency that is operative throughout history. " Every Collectivist is aSocialist, but not every Socialist would admit that he is aCollectivist. "Moral Socialism, " however, though not identical with"Economic Socialism, " tends to involve it. 

[249] The term "Individualism, " like the term "Socialism, " is used invarying senses, and is not, therefore, satisfactory to everyone. ThusE. F. B. Fell (_The Foundations of Liberty_, 1908), regarding"Individualism, " as a merely negative term, prefers the term"Personalism, " to denote a more positive ideal. There is, however, by nomeans as any necessity to consider "Individualism, " a more negative termthan "Socialism. "

[250] The inspiring appeal of Socialism to ardent minds is no doubtethical. "The ethics of Socialism, " says Kirkup, "are closely akin tothe ethics of Christianity, if not identical with them. " That, perhaps, is why Socialism is so attractive to some minds, so repugnant to others. 

[251] This idea was elaborated by Eimer in an appendix to his _OrganicEvolution_ on the idea of the individual in the animal kingdom. 

[252] The term "socialism" is said to date from about the year 1835. Leroux claimed that he invented it, in opposition to the term"individualism, " but at that period it had become so necessary and soobvious a term that it is difficult to say positively by whom it wasfirst used. 

[253] An important point which the Individualist may fairly bring forwardin this connection is the tendency of Socialism to repress the energy ofthe best worker among its officials at the expense of the public. Alikein government offices at Whitehall and in municipal offices in the townhalls there is a certain proportion of workers who find pleasure inputting forth their best energies at high pressure. But the majoritytake care that work shall be carried on at low pressure, and that theoutput shall not exceed a certain understood minimum. They ensure thisby making things uncomfortable for the workers who exceed that minimum. The gravity of this evil is scarcely yet realized. It could probably becounteracted by so organizing promotion that the higher posts reallywent to the officials distinguished by the quantity and the quality oftheir work. Pensions should also be affected by the same consideration. In any case, the evil is serious, and is becoming more so since thenumber of public officials is constantly increasing. The Council of theLaw Society found some years ago that the cost of civil administrationin England had increased between the years 1894 and 1904 from 19millions to 25 millions, and, excluding the Revenue Departments, it isnow said to have gone up to 42 millions. It is an evil that will have tobe dealt with sooner or later. 

[254] Max Stirner wrote his work, _Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum_ (_TheEgo and His Own_, in the English translation of Byington), in 1845. Hislife has been written by John Henry Mackay (_Max Stirner: Sein Leben undSein Werk_), and an interesting study of Max Stirner (whose real namewas Schmidt) will be found in James Huneker's _Egoists_. 

[255] In the introduction to my earliest book, _The New Spirit_ (1889), Iset forth this position, from which I have never departed: "While we aresocializing all those things of which all have equal common need, we aremore and more tending to leave to the individual the control of thosethings which in our complex civilization constitute individuality. Wesocialize what we call our physical life in order that we may attaingreater freedom for what we call our spiritual life. " No doubt such apoint of view was implicit in Ruskin and other previous writers, just asit has subsequently been set forth by Ellen Key and others, while fromthe economic side it has been well formulated by Mr. J. A. Hobson in his_Evolution of Capital_: "The _very raison d'être_ of increased socialcohesiveness is to economize and enrich the individual life, and toenable the play of individual energy to assume higher forms out of whichmore individual satisfaction may accrue. " "Socialism will be of value, "thought Oscar Wilde in his _Soul of Man_, "simply because it will leadto Individualism. " "Socialism denies economic Individualism for any, "says Karl Nötzel ("Zur Ethischen Begrundung des Sozialismus, "_Sozialistische Monatshefte_, 1910, Heft 23), "in order to make moralintellectual Individualism possible for all. " And as it has been seenthat Socialism leads to Individualism, so it has also been seen thatIndividualism, even on the ethical plane, leads to Socialism. "You mustlet the individual make his will a reality in the conduct of his life, "Bosanquet remarks in an essay already quoted, "in order that it may bepossible for him consciously to entertain the social purpose as aconstituent of his will. Without these conditions there is no socialorganism and no moral Socialism. . . . Each unit of the social organism hasto embody his relations with the whole in his own particular work andwill; and in order to do this the individual must have a strength anddepth in himself proportional to and consisting of the relations whichhe has to embody. " Grant Allen long since clearly set forth the harmonybetween Individualism and Socialism in an article published in the_Contemporary Review_ in 1879. 

[256] An instructive illustration is furnished by the question of therelation of the sexes, and elsewhere (_Studies in the Psychology ofSex_, Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society") I have sought to show thatwe must distinguish between marriage, which is directly the affair ofthe individuals primarily concerned, and procreation, which is mainlythe concern of society. 

[257] See, for instance, the opinion of the former Chief Inspector ofElementary Schools in England, Mr. Edmond Holmes, _What Is and WhatMight Be_ (1911). He points out that true education must be"self-realization, " and that the present system of "education" isentirely opposed to self-realization. Sir John Gorst, again, hasrepeatedly attacked the errors of the English State system ofeducation. 

[258] The phrase _Laissez faire_ is sometimes used as though it were thewatchword of a party which graciously accorded a free hand to the Devilto do his worst. As a matter of fact, it was simply a phrase adopted bythe French economists of the eighteenth century to summarize theconclusion of their arguments against the antiquated restrictions whichwere then stifling the trade and commerce of France (see G. Weuleresse, _Le Mouvement Physiocratique en France_, 1910, Vol. II, p. 17). Properlyunderstood, it is not a maxim which any party need be ashamed to own. 

[259] I would again repeat that I do not regard legislation as a channelof true eugenic reform. As Bateson well says (_op. Cit. _ p. 15); "It isnot the tyrannical and capricious interference of a half-informedmajority which can safely mould or purify a population, but rather thatsimplification of instinct for which we ever hope, which fullerknowledge alone can make possible. " Even the subsidising ofunexceptionable parents, as the same writer remarks, cannot be viewedwith enthusiasm. "If we picture to ourselves the kind of persons whowould infallibly be chosen as examples of 'civic worth' the prospect isnot very attractive. "

[260] "Aristotle, herein the organ and exponent of the Greek nationalmind, " remarks Gomperz, "understood by the hygiene of the soul theavoidance of all extremes, the equilibrium of the powers, the harmoniousdevelopment of aptitudes, none of which is allowed to starve or paralysethe others. " Gomperz points out that this individual moralitycorresponded to the characteristics of the Greek national religion--itsinclusiveness and spaciousness, its freedom and serenity, itsennoblement alike of energetic action and passive enjoyment (Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, Eng. Trans. , Vol. III, p. 13). 

[261] _Convito_, IV, 27. 

THE END

INDEX

(_Names of Authors quoted are italicized. _)

Abortion, facultative, 99

Age of consent, 288 _et seq. _

Aggeneration, 24

Alcohol, legislative control of, 277 _et seq. _, 295 _et seq. _

Alcoholism, 33, 41

_Allen, Grant_, 394

_Allen, W. H. _, 11

Ancestry, the study of, 2

_Angell, Norman_, 321

_Anthony, Susan_, 111

Antimachus of Colophon, 117

Anti-militarism, 328

_Aristotle_, 403

_Ashby_, 33

_Asnurof_, 283

_Aubry_, 42

_Augustine_, St. , 5

Australia, birth-rate in, 146 _et seq. _, 162; moral legislation in, 291

_Azoulay_, 188

Bachofen, 91

_Baines, Sir J. A. _, 153

_Barnes, Earl_, 223

_Basedow_, 244

_Bateson_, 27, 194, 402

Beatrice, Dante's, 122

Beaufront, L. De, 372, 373

Bebel, 71, 88

_Becker, R. _, 118

_Belbèze_, 211

_Benecke, E. F. M. _, 117

Bergsonian philosophy, 31

_Bertillon, G. _, 63

_Bertillon, J. _, 278

_Beveridge_, 171

Bible in religious education, 230, 240

_Billroth_, 353

_Bingham_, 274

Birth-rate, in France, 17, 136, 188; in England, 17, 137; in Germany, 17, 138; in Russia, 25; in United States, 141; in Canada, 144; in Australasia, 146, 162; in Japan, 155; in China, 156; among savages, 167; significance of a falling, 134 _et seq. _; in relation to death-rate, 7, 150

_Blease, W. Lyon_, 70

_Bloch, Iwan_, 93

_Boccaccio_, 119, 123

_Bodey_, 43, 201

_Böhmert_, 138

_Bonhoeffer_, 38

_Booth, C. _, 177, 184

_Bosanquet_, 18, 383, 394

_Bouché-Leclercq_, 306

_Branthwaite_, 41

_Braun, Lily_, 139

_Brinton_, 351

Budin, 8

Bund für Mutterschutz, 96

_Burckhardt_, 123

_Burnham_, 221

_Bushee, F. _, 11, 171

_Byington_, 393

Camp, Maxime du, 50

Campanella, 27

Campbell, Harry, 179

Canada, birth-rate in, 144 _et seq. _; sexual hygiene in, 253

_Cantlie_, 179

_Carpenter, Edward_, 397

_Casper_, 91

Certificates, eugenic, 30, 44, 202

_Chadwick, Sir E. _, 4, 184

_Chamfort_, 256

Chastity of German women, 88

_Cheetham_, 235

Chicago Vice Commission, 277, 295, 300

Child, psychology of, 218

Children, religious education of, 217

China, birth-rate in, 156

Christianity in relation to romantic love, 117

Chivalrous attitude towards women, 124

Civilization, what it consists in, 18

_Clayton_, 180

_Cobbe, F. P. _, 50

Co-education, 58

_Coghlan, T. A. _, 147, 161, 165, 166

Coinage, international, 378

Concubinage, legalized, 104

_Condorcet_, 50, 67

Confirmation, rite of, 236

Consent, age of, 288 _et seq. _

Courts of Love, 119

_Couturat_, 350, 374

_Creed, J. M. _, 291

Criminality and feeble-mindedness, 38

Crucé, Emeric, 315

_Dante_, 122, 132

_Dareste_, 387, 396

_Davenport_, 35, 36, 44, 198

Death-rate in relation to birth-rate, 7, 150

Degenerate families, 41 _et seq. _

Degeneration of race, alleged, 19 _et seq. _, 37

_De Quincey_, 219

Descartes, 349

_Dickens_, 129

_Dill, Sir S. _, 305

Disinfection, origin of, 5

Divorce, 62, 109

_Donkin, Sir H. B. _, 39

_Donnan_, 374

Drunkenness, decrease of, 18

Dubois, P. , 315

_Dugdale_, 42

_Dumont, Arsène_, 157, 160, 171

Economic aspect of woman's movement, 52, 63 _et seq. _

Education, 6, 47, 57, 71, 201, 217 _et seq. _, 398

_Ehrenfels_, 25

_Eichholz_, 36

_Eimer_, 387

_Ellis, Havelock_, 15, 31, 40, 44, 49, 88, 100, 108, 118, 130, 154, 161, 179, 186, 204, 206, 207, 220, 244, 259, 369, 394

Enfantin, Prosper, 104

_Engelmann_, 142, 160, 165

English, characteristics of the, 2; attitude towards immorality, 270; language for international purposes, 355 _et seq. _

Esperanto, 372

_Espinas_, 60

Eugenics, 12, 26 _et seq. _, 107, 195 _et seq. _, 399 _et seq. _

Euthenics, 12

_Ewart, R. J. _, 26, 172

Factory legislation, 5

_Fahlbeck_, 22

Fairy tales in education, 239

Family, limitation of, 16, 26

Family in relation to degeneracy, 41; size of, 35

Feeble-minded, problem of the, 31 _et seq. _

_Fell, E. F. B. _, 383

Ferrer, 318

Fertility in relation to prosperity, 169 _et seq. _

_Fiedler_, 229

_Finlay-Johnson, H. _, 227, 242

_Firenzuola_, 123

"Fit, " the term, 44

_Flux_, 138

_Forel_, 93

France, birth-rate in, 17, 136, 188; women and love in, 119; legal attitude towards immorality in, 265; regulation of alcohol in, 278

_Franklin, B. _, 142, 327

_Fraser, Mrs. _, 115

French language for international purposes, 364 _et seq. _

Frenssen, 95

_Freud_, S. , 92

_Fuld, E. F. _, 274, 276

_Fürch, Henriette_, 252

_Galton, Sir F. _, 28, 29, 44, 45, 107, 195, 197, 198, 200, 203, 208, 402

_Gaultier, J. De_, 342

_Gautier, Léon_, 119

_Gavin, H. _, 184

_Gayley, Julia_, 420

Germany, sex questions in, 87 _et seq. _; illegitimacy in, 97; sexual hygiene in, 94; legal attitude towards immorality in, 265, 301

_Giddings_, 46

_Godden_, 35, 198

_Godwin, W. _, 309

_Goethe_, 128, 131

_Goldscheid_, 167, 173

_Gomperz_, 403

_Goncourt_, 120

Gouges, Olympe de, 68

_Gourmont, Remy de_, 122, 299, 317

_Gournay, Marie de_, 110

_Grabowsky_, 263

_Grasset_, 209

_Grünspan_, 97

_Guérard_, 325, 346, 369

_Guthrie, L. _, 239

_Haddon, A. C. _, 234, 245

_Hagen_, 262

_Hale, Horatio_, 351

_Hales, W. W. _, 260

_Hall, G. Stanley_, 220, 224, 232, 233, 303

_Hamburger, C. _, 151

_Hamill, Henry_, 213

_Hausmeister, P. _, 302

_Hayllar, F. _, 233

Health, nationalization of, 15

Health visitors, 7

_Hearn, Lafcadio_, 191

_Henry, W. O. _, 252

Heredity of feeble-mindedness, 34; as the hope of the race, 44; study of, 198

_Heron_, 19, 166

_Hervé_, 329

_Hiller_, 263, 267

_Hinton, James_, 133

_Hirschfeld, Magnus_, 92, 286

_Hobbes_, 313

Holland, moral legislation in, 291

_Holmes, Edmond_, 227, 228

Homosexuality and the law, 283, 286

_Hookey, N. A. _, 174

_Hughes, R. E. _, 242

_Humboldt, W. Von_, 61, 106

_Huneker_, 393

Hungary, birth-rate and death-rate in, 169

_Hutchinson, Woods_, 186

Hygiene, in medieval and modern times, 5; of sex, 244 _et seq. _

Idiocy, 32 _et seq. _

Ido, 373

Illegitimacy, and feeble-mindedness, 37; in Germany, 97

Imbecility, 32 _et seq. _

Individualism, 3, 381 _et seq. _

Industrialism, modern, 2

Inebriety and feeble-mindedness, 41

Infant consultations, 8

Infantile mortality, 7, 13, 25, 138, 150 _et seq. _

Initiation of youth, 234

Insurance, national, 15

International language of the future, 349 _et seq. _

_James, E. C. _, 123

James, William, 195

Japan, romantic love in, 115; birth-rate and death-rate in, 155; changed conditions in, 191, 322

_Jenks, E. _, 312, 316

_Johannsen_, 152

_Johnson, Roswell_, 207

_Jordan, D. S. _, 324

_Jörger_, 42

Jukes family, 41

_Kaan_, 91

_Kellerman, Ivy_, 369

_Key, Ellen_, 100 _et seq. _, 130, 229, 394

_Kirkup_, 384

_Krafft-Ebing_, 92

_Krauss, F. S. _, 92

_Kuczynski_, 142

Labour movement and war, 329

_La Chapelle, E. P. _, 145

_Lacour, L. _, 68

_Lagorgette_, 315

Laissez-faire, the maxim of, 3, 400

_Lancaster_, 231

Language, international, 349 _et seq. _

Latin as an international language, 354

_Lavelege, E. De_, 321

Law, in relation to eugenics, 30, 45; to morals, 48; the sphere of, 312

_Lea_, 88

_Leau_, 350

_Leibnitz_, 350

_Levy, Miriam_, 221

_Lewis, C. J. And J. N. _, 165

Lichtenstein, Ulrich von, 118

Life-history albums, 199, 212 _et seq. _

_Lischnewska, Maria_, 248

_Lobsien_, 226

_Loomis, C. B. _, 361

_Lorenz_, 21, 373

Love, and the woman's question, 59, 101, 113 _et seq. _; and eugenics, 203 _et seq. _

Luther, 94, 228, 306

Mackay, J. H. , 393

_Macnamara, N. C. _, 179

_Macquart_, 188

Maine, prohibition in, 279

_Mannhardt_, 204

_Manouvrier_, 86

_Marcuse, Max_, 94

Marriage, certificates for, 30, 44, 45, 209; economics and, 61; natural selection and, 204; State regulation of, 61 _et seq. _; the ideal of, 101; in classic times, 114

Marriage-rate, 139, 164, 173

_Matignon_, 156

Matriarchal theory, 49

_Maurice, Sir F. _, 180

_McLean_, 161

_Meisel-Hess, Grete_, 109, 130

_Méray_, 119, 365

_Mercier_, C. , 20

Meredith, George, 129

Miele, 9

_Miers_, 354

Milk Depôts, 8

_Mill_, J. S. , 52, 71

_Moll_, 92, 93, 246

_Montaigne_, 115

_Montesquieu_, 37

_Moore, B. _, 15, 185

Morals in relation to law, 48, 258 _et seq. _

More, Sir T. , 29

_Morgan, L. _, 66

_Morse, J. _, 224

Mortality of infants, 7, 13, 25, 138, 150 _et seq. _

Motherhood in relation to eugenics, 46

Mothers, schools for, 9

_Mougins-Roquefort_, 312

Municipal authorities to instruct in limitation of offspring, duty of, 26

_Muralt_, 2

Mysteries, Pagan and Christian, 235

_Näcke_, 186

Napoleon, 69, 265

_Nars, L. _, 69

National Insurance, 15

Nationalization of health, 15

Natural selection and social reform, 13

_Nearing, Scott_, 194

Neo-Malthusianism, 16, 26, 102, 159 _et seq. _

_Nevinson, H. W. _, 330

_Newsholme_, 7, 19, 137, 166, 172

New Zealand, birth-rate in, 148

_Nietzsche_, 190, 309, 334, 392

_Niphus_, 123

Norway, infantile mortality in, 14

_Nötzel_, R. , 394

_Novikov_, 324, 330, 342

Noys, H. , 29

_Nyström_, 26

Obscenity, 255, 304

Oneida, 29

Ovid, 114, 132

Owen, Robert, 51

Pankhurst, Mrs. , 85

_Partridge, G. L. _, 219

_Paul, Eden_, 208

_Pearson, Karl_, 198

_Penn, W. _, 341

_Perrycoste, F. H. _, 212

_Peters, J. P. _, 293

_Pfaundler_, 371

Pinard, J. , 252

_Pinloche_, 244

_Plate_, 185

_Ploetz_, 210

_Ploss_, 167, 176

Police systems, 274

Post Office, inquisition at the, 276

Prohibition of alcohol in Maine, 279

Prosperity in relation to fertility, 169 _et seq. _

Prostitution, and feeble-mindedness, 38; and sexual selection, 60; varying legal attitude towards, 285, 296

Puberty, psychic influence of, 231 _et seq. _

Puericulture, 7

Quakers, 270

Quarantine, origin of, 5

Race, alleged degeneration of, 19 _et seq. _, 37

Raines Law hotels, 293 _et seq. _

_Ramsay, Sir W. M. _, 305

_Ranke, Karl_, 169

_Raschke, Marie_, 99

Reform, Social hygiene as distinct from sexual, 1; four stages of social, 4 _et seq. _

_Reibmayr_, 22

Religion, and eugenics, 208; and the child, 217 _et seq. _

Reproduction, control of, 17

_Richards, Ellen_, 12

_Richardson, Sir B. W. _, 65

_Robert, P. _, 340

_Roberts, A. M. _, 369, 370

Roman Catholics and Neo-Malthusianism, 161

Roseville, 173

_Ross, E. A. _, 156

_Rousseau_, 229

_Rubin_, 153, 166

_Ruediger_, 232

Rural life, influence of, 177 _et seq. _

_Russell, Mrs. B. _, 9

Russia, infantile mortality in, 14, 154, 168; moral legislation in, 282

_Ryle, R. J. _, 33

Sacraments, origin of Christian, 235

Saint-Pierre, Abbé de, 339

Saint-Simon, 51, 104

St. Valentine and eugenics, 203

Sand, George, 50, 105

Sanitation as an element of social reform, 4

_Saussure, R. De_, 380

_Sayer, E. _, 35

_Schallmayer_, 200

_Schiff, M. _, 110

Schleyer, 352

_Schooling, J. H. _, 174

Schools for mothers, 9

_Schrader, O. _, 88

_Schreiner, Olive_, 130, 330

_Schroeder, T. _, 255, 304

Science and social reform, 11

_Sellers, E. _, 266, 301

Sex questions in Germany, 87 _et seq. _

Sexual hygiene, 244 _et seq. _, 309

Sexual selection, 59, 203 _et seq. _

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 6

_Sherwell, A. _, 280

_Shrank, J. _, 285

_Siégler-Pascal_, 339

_Sitwell, Sir G. _, 327

_Smith, Sir T. _, 120

_Smith, T. P. _, 180

Social reform as distinct from social hygiene, 1; its four stages, 4 _et seq. _

Socialism, 18, 208, 381 _et seq. _

Society of the future, 55

_Sollier_, 354

_Solmi_, 28

_Sombart_, 138

Spain, legalized concubinage in, 104; women in, 129

Spanish as an international language, 353

_Stanton, E. C. _, 85

_Starbuck_, 232

_Steinmetz_, 312, 331

_Steele_, 27

Sterilization, 30, 44, 46

Sterility and the birth-rate, 164

_Stevenson_, 19

_Stewart, A. _, 237

_Stewart, R. S. _, 182

_Stirner, Max_, 393

Stirpiculture, 29

_Stöcker, H. _, 96

_Streitberg, Countess von_, 99

Suffrage, woman's, 50, 57, 71 _et seq. _

Sully, 315, 340

Sun, City of the, 27

_Sutherland, A. _, 312

_Sykes_, 9

Syndicalism, 329

Syphilis, 32

_Taine_, 128, 313

_Takano_, 155

_Tarde_, 132, 307

_Thompson, W. _, 51

_Toulouse_, 45, 186

Tramps and feeble-mindedness, 41

_Tredgold_, 34

United States, birth-rate in, 140 _et seq. _; sexual hygiene in, 254; attitude towards immorality in, 273 _et seq. _

Urban life, influence of, 177 _et seq. _

Vasectomy, 31

Venereal disease and sexual hygiene, 254

_Vesnitch_, 315

Vineland, 34

Volapük, 352

_Wagenen, W. F. Van_, 378

War against war, 311 _et seq. _

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 76

_Weale, B. L. Putnam_, 157

_Weatherby_, 157

_Webb, Sidney_, 156, 163

_Weeks_, 35, 36

_Weinberg, S. _, 99

_Wentworth, S. _, 173

_Westergaard_, 166

_Westermarck_, 559

_Weuleresse_, 400

Wheeler, Mrs. , 52

White slave trade, 288

_Whetham, W. C. D. And Mrs. _, 199

_Whitman, Walt_, 66, 403

_Wilcox, W. F. _, 141

_Wilde, O. _, 394

_Wilhelm, C. _, 266

_Wollstonecraft, Mary_, 50, 69, 70, 111

Woman, and eugenics, 46; movement, 49 _et seq. _; economics, 63 _et seq. _; eighteenth century, 69, 128; and the suffrage, 50, 57, 71 _et seq. _; of the Italian Renaissance, 123; in Spanish literature, 129; and war, 330

_Yule, G. Udny_, 139, 174

Zamenhof, 372

Zero family, 42

_Ziller_, 240

 WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

 * * * * *

Transcriber's notes:

 With the following exceptions spelling and punctuation of the original text have been maintained:

 1. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation inconsistencies. 2. Chapter V, Par 16 "high death-rate" has been changed to "high birth-rate". 3. Chapter VII Par 16 "precocious sexual" has been changed to "precocious scriptural". 4. Ligatured words "mytho-poeic", "OEuvres", and "boef" have been left unligatured. 5. Italicized words have been surrounded with underline "_".