00000276.htm

THE POPULATION QUESTION 265

control and conjugal temperance and obviate or lessen
misery, they commend themselves, but the obvious
objections are, that their use is often not without its
physiological risks, and that by annulling the re-
sponsibility of consequences, while allowing the
gratification of sexual appetites to continue, they may
have the result of increasing an already sufficiently
intense sexuality, of facilitating unchastity, and of
exaggerating the tendency of marriage to' sink into
" monogamic prostitution." On the other hand, it
seems probable that the transition from impulsive
animalism to deliberate regulation — somewhat
mechanical though it be—would tend in some to
decrease not increase sexual intemperance. While
the ideal surely is that there should be a retention,
throughout married life, of a large measure of that
self-control which must always form the organic basis
of the enthusiasm and idealism of lovers, it remains a
fact that even exemplary temperance does not obviate
an unduly large family, and that some form of Neo-
Malthusian practice is in many cases the only practic-
able suggestion—pis oiler though it be.

(d) Spencers Contribution.—In his keen analysis of
the conditions of multiplication,¹ Spencer showed that
a species cannot be maintained unless self-preservative
and reproductive powers vary inversely, and gave a
physiological reason why these two powers cannot
do other than vary inversely. If we group under
the term individuation all those race-preservative
processes by which individual life is completed and

¹ A summary of his argument Is given in " The Evolution of
Sex," by P. Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. Walter Scott,
London. Revised edition, 1901.



	THE POPULATION QUESTION 265 control and conjugal temperance and obviate or lessen misery, they commend themselves, but the obvious objections are, that their use is often not without its physiological risks, and that by annulling the re- sponsibility of consequences, while allowing the gratification of sexual appetites to continue, they may have the result of increasing an already sufficiently intense sexuality, of facilitating unchastity, and of exaggerating the tendency of marriage to' sink into " monogamic prostitution." On the other hand, it seems probable that the transition from impulsive animalism to deliberate regulation — somewhat mechanical though it be—would tend in some to decrease not increase sexual intemperance. While the ideal surely is that there should be a retention, throughout married life, of a large measure of that self-control which must always form the organic basis of the enthusiasm and idealism of lovers, it remains a fact that even exemplary temperance does not obviate an unduly large family, and that some form of Neo- Malthusian practice is in many cases the only practic- able suggestion—pis oiler though it be. (d) Spencers Contribution.—In his keen analysis of the conditions of multiplication,¹ Spencer showed that a species cannot be maintained unless self-preservative and reproductive powers vary inversely, and gave a physiological reason why these two powers cannot do other than vary inversely. If we group under the term individuation all those race-preservative processes by which individual life is completed and ¹ A summary of his argument Is given in " The Evolution of Sex," by P. Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. Walter Scott, London. Revised edition, 1901.