should seem quite desirable, and then, to their grief, no children are given to them. It is very unfair to teach people that they may safely postpone the natural tendency to bear children in youth and rely upon having them later in life. Probably gynæcologists are consulted more often by women who desire children but do not have them, than by those who wish to avoid having them—the truth being that the tendency among people in comfortable surroundings is towards relative sterility rather than towards excessive fertility.

Those who are interested in this aspect of the question will find the facts admirably set forth in Mr. Pell's book on The Law of Births and Deaths, being a study of the variation in the degree of animal fertility under the influence of environment.

He finds that the all-important factor which determines fertility is the amount of nervous energy of the organism, and that nervous energy is produced or modified by three specially influential factors, viz., Food, both quantity and quality; Climate, hot or cold—moist or dry; and, lastly, all those varied conditions which make for greater or lesser mental and physical activity.

Fertility, broadly speaking, varies in inverse proportion to the degree of nervous energy or what we may call vitality.

Conditions, therefore, which lower the general vitality below the normal produce abnormal fertility. This excessive child-bearing under present conditions still further lowers the standard of life and the health of the mother, hence a vicious circle is set up, the only escape from which will come by such consideration of the laws of health relating to work, housing, food and recreation as shall ensure the maximum of vitality to the workers. This is the true method of conception control.

There comes a point in the development of nervous energy which is productive of sterility. It is true that principles based on so many varying factors will necessarily appear to fail in individual cases. Environment with its influence on the nervous energy of the individual will be modified by the inherited tendency of that individual towards fertility or the reverse. We find, therefore, isolated cases of large families among the well-to-do and small families among those whose vitality is below the normal, but if the general principle is true we should expect to find a larger number of sterile marriages among the well-to-do than among those whose lives are more full of hardship, and this undoubtedly is the case.

This aspect of the problem is deserving of careful study. The desire for children in so many homes where every advantage could be given, may be gratified when more knowledge of how wisely to modify the environment of the rich is within our grasp.

It may be that the more simple life among those who have much will give to them the prize of children which they covet more than things which wealth can buy.

But let us return for a moment to the false expectation that children will come to all unless prevented.

The results of this assumption are really serious. They involve the training of large numbers of people in unnatural practices, which in many cases are unnecessary, even if they were desirable. They rob many families of the children who would have been the delight of their parents through middle and later life.

Moreover, it is obvious that advice which may be quite necessary in cases of ill-health or special conditions, may be fundamentally wrong to give broadcast to all individuals, for apart from the fact that when given to all it is largely unnecessary, there are other serious objections, as follows:—

1. A public opinion at the present time is being gradually produced which takes it for granted that as a matter of good form young people should not have children for a few years after marriage, and it is becoming a common practice to start married life with sordid and unnatural preparations for a natural act; yet many of these young people, men and women alike, are most anxious to have children, and only seek to know how to prevent them because they believe it to be "the thing to do."

One or two illustrations which have come to my personal knowledge will perhaps show the kind of idea which is conveyed to the mind of young people by books and speeches on this subject, though such results may not have been desired by the authors or speakers.

A young bride came to her mother on returning from her honeymoon and said, "Mother, how long must we wait before having children—is it really necessary to prevent them for a year or two? We are both dying to have babies."

A young couple on the eve of marriage consulted a gynæcologist regarding the question of using the cap pessary to prevent the possibility of having children for a few years.

The bride, who was greatly distressed, produced the pessary which she had purchased, and said she could not possibly use it; her fiancé, however, had been advised that she could, and ought to do so, hence the first serious dispute had arisen between them, clouding the future.

She was told by her doctor that it was quite impossible for her, and this fully satisfied the future husband.

The next point was if this method were impossible what should be used.

They were a splendid young couple, with ample means to support a family, and the doctor naturally asked—"But for what purpose do you need any methods to prevent children at all?" They hesitated and looked at each other, and then said—"I don't know, but we thought it was the thing to do."

They left with the whole nightmare put aside, determined not to spoil the perfect consummation of their happiness.

Many similar cases might be quoted where young people, without any considered motive, are acting in accordance with the vogue of the moment.

2. The use of contraceptives does not encourage self-control, yet the cultivation of self-control is a far higher gain to the individual and the nation than any apparent advantages obtained by its abandonment.

By no means unimportant is the influence that wide diffusion of the knowledge of how to prevent conception would have in causing more irregular unions and greater promiscuity in sex relations. The effect of this would not only loosen, rather than strengthen, the marriage tie, but would inevitably lead to an extension of venereal disease. Many people seem to think that contraceptives prevent venereal disease at the same time that they prevent conception. But this is not so. The use of methods of prevention by women is no protection to them from infection.

3. We have, moreover, to take a wider view, and consider who will receive and act upon the advice given, and hence what the result will be on the differential birth-rate of the community.

It is quite obvious that the educated classes can most easily follow instructions which result in protection from conception, and since such knowledge most easily circulates among the more highly endowed classes, it has been claimed that it is important to make efforts to let the knowledge be so widespread that it may reach all. The result, however, could only be that the practice of conception control would spread throughout the upper, middle and more intelligent of the working classes, and this would involve a very serious reduction in the births of those who furnish the leaders and efficient workers in all branches of life, and in those only.

For the birth-rate amongst the least intelligent, least efficient and the mentally deficient will be unaffected. It must be apparent that after a very few generations of such weeding out of the best, with the