is usually made to correct the crude birth-rate; still
more rarely is it pointed out that we cannot consider the significance
of a falling birth-rate apart from the question of the death-rate, and
that the net increase or decrease in a nation can only be judged by
taking both these factors into account. It is scarcely necessary to add,
in view of so superficial a way of looking at the problem, that we
hardly ever find any attempt to deal with the more fundamental question
of the meaning of a low birth-rate, and the problematical character of
the advantages of rapid multiplication. The whole question is usually
left to the ignorant preachers of the gospel of brute force, would-be
patriots who desire their own country to increase at the cost of all
other countries, not merely in ignorance of the fact that the crude
birth-rate is not the index of increase, but reckless of the effect
their desire, if fulfilled, would have upon all the higher and finer
ends of living.

When the question is thus narrowly and ignorantly considered, it is
usual to account for the decreased birth-rate, the smaller average
families, and the tendency to postpone the age of marriage, as due
mainly to a love of luxury and vice, combined with a newly acquired
acquaintance with Neo-Malthusian methods,[112] which must be combated, and
may successfully be combated, by inculcating, as a moral and patriotic
duty, the necessity of marrying early and procreating large families.[113]
In France, the campaign against the religious Orders in their
educational capacity, while doubtless largely directed against
educational inefficiency, was also supported by the feeling that such
education is not on the side of family life; and Arsene Dumont, one of
the most vigorous champions of a strenuously active policy for
increasing the birth-rate, openly protested against allowing any place
as teachers to priests, monks, and nuns, whose direct and indirect
influence must degrade the conception of sex and its duties while
exalting the place of celibacy. In the United States, also, Engelmann,
who, as a gynaecologist, was able to see this process from behind the
scenes, urged his fellow-countrymen "to stay the dangerous and criminal
practices which are the main determining factors of decreasing
fecundity, and which deprive women of health, the family of its highest
blessings, and the nation of its staunchest support."[114]

We must, however, look at these phenomena a little