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Introductory Note by Sir James Barr, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P., &c.

Ex-President, British Medical Association.

Knowing well the splendid work which Dr. Marie Stopes has long carried on in trying to raise humanity out of the slough of despond, I have much pleasure in complying with her request for a foreword to her book on Contraceptives.

Personally I have always approached the subject from the racial view-point; how is birth control likely to affect the future of the race? Would not Nature's method of the elimination of the unfit, and the survival of the fittest, which in the past produced some splendid examples of humanity, not surpassed in the present day notwithstanding our boasted progress, be as good as any process of artificial selection? Man is a rebel against nature's laws and refuses to be weeded out merely for the benefit of futurity. Moreover Nature's methods are cruel and have no regard for the individual, her chief concern is with the preservation of the race.

xiv.

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