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CONTRACEPTION

or about ten times as great a number as the earth could probably support. That, it seems to me, is the fundamental fact we have to recognize, and one which makes a drastic limitation of the birth-rate an absolute necessity."[1]

But the Dean is rather an exception among Churchmen, and the subject of contraception has been particularly misunderstood by the Churches as a whole, because they have held an ascetic ideal and therefore the mentality of those dominating the Churches has seldom been sufficiently normal even to apprehend the problems involved, or to place consideration of the Race before their individualistic and ascetic ideals.

A discussion of the causes and reactions of this abnormal mentality in high places would lead us too far, but reference should be made to my Evidence before the Birth Rate Commission[2] and I may quote a couple of paragraphs from a valuable little

  1. ↑ Dean Inge in Evidence before the National Birth Rate Commission. "The Declining Birthrate, its Causes and Effects." Second edition. Pp. xiv, 450. London, 1917. See p. 293.
  2. ↑ M. C. Stopes (1920): Evidence before the Birth Rate Commission: "Problems of Population and Parenthood." Pp. clxvi, 423. London, 1920. See pp. 242-255.

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