Birth Control | Page 8

The facts were recorded by Polybius, [14] who expressly states that at
the time of which he is writing serious pestilences did not occur, and
that depopulation was caused by the selfishness of the Greeks, who,
being addicted to pleasure, either did not marry at all or refused to rear
more than one or two children, lest it should be impossible to bring
them up in extravagant luxury. This ancient historian also noted that the
death of a son in war or by pestilence is a serious matter when there are
only one or two sons in a family. Greece fell to the conquering Romans,
and they also in course of time were infected with this evil canker.
There came a day when over the battlements of Constantinople the
blood-red Crescent was unfurled. Later on all Christendom was
threatened, and the King of France appealed to the Pope for men and
arms to resist the challenge to Europe of the Mohammedan world. The
Empire of the Turk spread over the whole of South-Eastern Europe.
But once more the evil poison spread, this time into the homes in many
parts of Islam, and to-day the once triumphant foes of Christianity are

decaying nations whose dominions are the appanage of Europe. In face
of these facts it is sheer madness to assume that all the Great Powers
now existing will maintain their population and prove immune from
decay. Indeed, the very propaganda against which this Essay is directed
is in itself positive proof that the seeds of decay have already been
sown within the British Empire. Yet, in an age in which thought and
reason are suppressed by systematised confusion and spiritless
perplexity, the very simplicity of a truth will operate against its general
acceptance.
From the theological point of view, the myth of overpopulation is
definitely of anti-Christian growth, because it assumes that, owing to
the operation of natural instincts implanted in mankind by the Creator,
the only alternative offered to the race is a choice between misery and
vice, an alternative utterly incompatible with Divine goodness in the
government of the world.
[Footnote 1: The birth-rate is the number of births per 1,000 of the
whole population. In order to make a fair comparison between one
community and another, the birth-rate is often calculated as the number
of births per 1,000 married women between 15 and 45 years of age, as
these constitute the great majority of child-bearing mothers. This is
called the _corrected birth-rate_.]
[Footnote 2: _Economic Review_, January 1892.]
[Footnote 3: So says the Secretary of the Malthusian League. Vide
_The Declining Birth-rate_, 1916, p. 88.]
[Footnote 4: Bagehot, _Economic Studies_, p. 193.]
[Footnote 5: To assign a personality to "Nature" is, of course, a mere
_façon de parler_; the believer holds that the "course of Nature" is an
expression of the Mind and Will of the Creator.]
[Footnote 6: _Problems of Population_, p. 382.]
[Footnote 7: _The Malthusian_, July 15, 1921.]

[Footnote 8: _Lancet_, 1915, vol. ii, p. 862.]
[Footnote 9: The New Sydenham Society, vol. clvi, section viii, p. 12.]
[Footnote 10: Charles S. Devas, _Political Economy_, 1901, p. 191.]
[Footnote 11: _Revue Pratique d'Apologétique_, September 15, 1914.]
[Footnote 12: _Man and Superman_, p. 195.]
[Footnote 13: By rationalism we mean a denial of God and of
responsibility for conduct to a Higher Being.]
[Footnote 14: Quoted by W.H.S. Jones, Malaria and Greek History
1909, p95.]


CHAPTER II
THE FALSE DEDUCTIONS CONCERNING POVERTY
From the original root-fallacy Malthus argued that poverty, prostitution,
war, disease, and a high death-rate are necessary in order to keep down
the population: and from the same false premises birth controllers are
now arguing that a high birth-rate causes (1) poverty, and (2) a high
death-rate. The steps in the argument whereby these amazing
conclusions are reached are as follows. Before the death-rate can be
lowered the social conditions of the people must be improved; if social
conditions are improved there will be an enormous increase of
population in geometrical progression; the food supply of the country
and even of the world cannot be increased at the same rate; and
therefore there will be greater poverty and a higher death-rate unless
the birth-rate is lowered. Thus Malthusians argue. In view of the false
premises on which their argument is based, it is not surprising to find
that their deductions are erroneous and contain many economic and
statistical fallacies, to the consideration of which we may now devote

our attention.
Section 1. BIRTH-RATE AND POVERTY
The first false deduction of birth controllers is that a high birth-rate, by
intensifying the struggle for existence, increases poverty. In order to
bolster up this contention, Malthusians quote three arguments
concerning (a) famines, (b) abundance, and (c) wages, and each of
these arguments is fallacious.
(a) Famines The