Only thus may we create our bodies a fitting temple for the soul, which is nothing but a vague unreality except insofar as it is able to manifest itself in the beauty of the concrete.The only attempt that Marx makes here toward answering the theory of Malthus is to declare that most of the population theory teachers were merely Protestant parsons.—"Parson Wallace, Parson Townsend, Parson Malthus and his pupil the Arch-Parson Thomas Chalmers, to say nothing of the lesser reverend scribblers in this line." In reply to such criticisms, the protagonist of modern philanthropy might justly point to the honest and sincere workers and disinterested scientists it has mobilized, to the self-sacrificing and hard-working executives who have awakened public attention to the evils of poverty and the menace to the race engendered by misery and filth.Nor could I then have realized the number and the power of the enemies who were to be aroused into activity by this idea.
Advocates of Birth Control offer and accept no such superficial solution. She was forced into night work to meet the expenses of the family. In the interest of medical science this practice may be justified.
In Public School 106, the rate ranged from 43 to 94 per cent.! Environment and heredity are not antagonistic.
Nevertheless, even in the contemporary teaching of sex hygiene and social prophylaxis, nothing constructive is offered to young men and young women who seek aid through the trying period of adolescence.The statistics which show that the greatest number of children are born to parents whose earnings are the lowest,(3) that the direst poverty is associated with uncontrolled fecundity emphasize the character of the parenthood we are depending upon to create the race of the future.Conditions are worse to-day than before. She was not accustomed to a midwife, she confessed. Feeble-mindedness in one generation becomes pauperism or insanity in the next. They dominate all the vital functions of man during the three cycles of life.
A large proportion of the parents who are addicted to Birth Control practices are sufficiently provided with worldly goods to be free from apprehension on the economic side; nevertheless, they have small families because they are disinclined to undertake the other burdens involved in bringing up a more numerous family.
There have been several able books published recently upon the question of Birth Control, from the point of view of a woman's personal life, and from the point of view of married happiness, but I do not think there has been any book as yet, popularly accessible, which presents this matter from the point of view of the public good, and as a necessary step to the further improvement of human life as a whole. The tenth, a boy, was involved in several delinquencies when young and was sent to the detention-house but did not remain there long. Perhaps Hunger and Sex are merely opposite poles of a single great life force. "Upon his advice," to quote the government report, "she gave up her twenty boarders immediately after the child's birth, and devoted all her time to it. Would knowledge of Birth Control change the moral attitude of men and women toward the marriage bond, or lower the moral standards of the youth of the country?2.
For instance, work of the Public Health Service in connection with juvenile courts shows that a marked proportion of juvenile delinquency is traceable to some degree of mental deficiency in the offender. Such "benevolence" is not merely ineffectual; it is positively injurious to the community and the future of the race.Much as the atomic theory, with its revelations of the vast treasure house of radiant energy that lies all about us, offers new hope in the material world, so the new psychology throws a new light upon human energies and possibilities of individual expression.
Of the four childless married women, one had lost two children, and another was recovering from a recent miscarriage. "It is not only through the lowered power, the stunting and the moral degeneration of its individual members, but in actual expense, through the necessary provision for the human junk, created by premature employment, in poor-houses, hospitals, police and courts, jails and by charitable organizations. But, as the Socialists' meetings against the "birth strike" indicate, the working class is not interested in such generalities as the Marxian "theory of value," the "iron law" of wages, "the value of commodities" and the rest of the hazy articles of faith.
It must regard economic interests as one element in life, not as the whole of life...."(5)Let us first of all consider merely from the viewpoint of business and "efficiency" the biological or racial problems which confront us.
The Marxian too often forgets that before there was a capitalist there was exercised the unlimited reproductive activity of mankind, which produced the first overcrowding, the first want. From these charming pictures they derive their complacent views of the beauty of motherhood and their confidence for the future of the race. He increases his own independence and comfort and that of his family. It redirects our attention to the great source and fountainhead of human life.