birthrate is still but little above the general average for England, where
prevention is widespread, and very considerably lower than the average
(now rapidly falling) in Germany. It is evident that even among the poor
class there is a process of leveling up to the higher classes in this
matter.

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

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

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

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

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

[435] It has been objected that the condom cannot be used by the very
poorest, on account of its cost, but Hans Ferdy, in a detailed paper
(_Sexual-Probleme_, Dec., 1908), shows that the use of the cond