tate was secured against invasion by numerous defenders.

If we can find no stronger justification for a teeming population than
this to-day, we will be forced to agree with Dr. Billings, that neither
to this nor the next generation, is a great increase especially
beneficial.

But the moral effect of judicial limitation is very great. If men and
women can marry young, one great incentive to vice is removed. If
married people can bear their children when they can best support them,
they will marry when their bodies are matured, and bear their families
when their finances are matured.

For children well provided for, and educated, and born after full
physical and mental maturity in their parents, turn out the best men and
women.

If the conditions of life are made easy, if ease and comfort are
tolerably secured to all, if the strain and stress of life are reduced,
if hardship, poverty, and want are reduced to a minimum, the sexual
instinct and parental love in human nature, so far unimpaired by any
known force, are powerful enough to keep the race alive, and insure a
progressive development.

The greater the proportion and the fertility of the defective, the less
hope for the future. If the fertility of the unfit be reduced to a
minimum, not only will many dreadful hereditary diseases be eradicated,
but the fertility of the fit will receive a powerful stimulus, because
of the great diminution there will necessarily be in the burdens they
will have to bear.

The advantages of sterility to the unfit themselves will, on the whole,
be incalculable. They are self-evident, and need not be dwelt on here.

The whole sum of human happiness would in this way be most assuredly
increased, and the aim and object of all social reform be to some extent
at least, realized.

* * * * *

_Printed by Whitcombe and Tombs Limited_--G11227

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by William Allan Chapple

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