ties of
our social life and to give counsel to the anxious or the penitent or
the perturbed will thank you for these clear and cogent chapters. To
arguments based on moral and religious principle you add the weight of
ripe experience and of technical scientific knowledge. Your words will
gain access to the commonsense of many who would perhaps regard the
opinions of clergy as likely to be prejudiced or uninformed. I am of
course not qualified to express an independent judgment upon the
medical or physiological aspects of this delicate problem, but I
desire on moral and religious as well as on social and national
grounds to support your general conclusions, and to express the hope
that your paper may have wide circulation among those who are giving
attention to what is becoming an urgent question in thousands of
English homes.

I am,
Yours very truly,
RANDALL CANTUAR.

LAMBETH PALACE, S.E.
3rd August, 1922.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM OF TO-DAY

CHAPTER II
THE DEMAND FOR KNOWLEDGE AND FROM WHOM TO OBTAIN IT

CHAPTER III
METHODS

CHAPTER IV
THE EFFECT OF WIDESPREAD CONCEPTION CONTROL ON NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM OF TO-DAY

In the late seventies of last century a pamphlet entitled _The Fruits
of Philosophy_ was republished by Mrs. Annie Besant and Mr. Charles
Bradlaugh, in their desire to mitigate the suffering of poor women who
were overburdened by work and further weakened by frequent
child-bearing. They resolved to face public obloquy and even legal
prosecution in order to bring to these women knowledge of how to
prevent conception, which, in their opinion, would give the relief
they so sorely needed. As is well known, the later pamphlet on the
same subject written by themselves was withdrawn from publication by
Mrs. Besant in 1886 on religious grounds.

During the last few years the idea of the need for conception control
has again become prominent, partly as a revolt against the bondage of
women in child-bearing, partly accentuated by the difficulties and
uncertainties of an adequate livelihood, and the desire to have a few
children well educated and cared for rather than many who shift more
or less for themselves.

But also the claim is made that marriage exists at least as much for
the fulfilment of happiness in union with the beloved as for the
procreation of