The Task of Social Hygiene | Page 8

may be
said to have proceeded in four successive stages, each of which has
involved a nearer approach to the sources of life. The fourth stage,
which in its beginnings dates only from the last years of the nineteenth
century, takes us to the period before birth, and is concerned with the
care of the child in the mother's womb. The next stage cannot fail to
take us to the very source of life itself, lifting us beyond the task of
purifying the conditions, and laying on us the further task of regulating
the quantity and raising the quality of life at its very source. The duty
of purifying, ordering, and consolidating the banks of the stream must
still remain.[8] But when we are able to control the stream at its source
we are able to some extent to prevent the contamination of that stream
by filth, and ensure that its muddy floods shall not sweep away the
results of our laborious work on the banks. Our sense of social
responsibility is developing into a sense of racial responsibility, and
that development is expressed in the nature of the tasks of Social
Hygiene which now lie before us.
It is the control of the reproduction of the race which renders possible
the new conception of Social Hygiene. We have seen that the gradual
process of social reform during the first three quarters of the nineteenth
century, by successive stages of movement towards the sources of life,
finally reached the moment of conception. The first result of reform at
this point was that procreation became a deliberate act. Up till then the
method of propagating the race was the same as that which savages
have carried on during thousands of years, the chief difference being
that whereas savages have frequently sought to compensate their
recklessness by destroying their inferior offspring, we had accepted all
the offspring, good, bad, and indifferent, produced by our
indiscriminate recklessness, shielding ourselves by a false theology.
Children "came," and their parents disclaimed all responsibility for
their coming. The children were "sent by God," and if they all turned
out to be idiots, the responsibility was God's. But when it became
generally realized that it was possible to limit offspring without
interfering with conjugal life a step of immense importance was
achieved. It became clear to all that the Divine force works through us,

and that we are not entitled to cast the burden of our evil actions on any
Higher Power. Marriage no longer fatally involved an endless
procession of children who, in so far as they survived at all, were in a
large number of cases doomed to disease, neglect, misery, and
ignorance. The new Social Hygiene was for the first time rendered
possible.
It was in France during the first half of the nineteenth century that the
control of reproduction first began to become a social habit. In Sweden
and in Denmark, the fall in the birth-rate, though it has been irregular,
may be said to have begun in 1860. It was not until about the year 1876
that, in so far as we may judge by the arrest of the birth-rate, the
movement began to spread to Europe generally. In England it is usual
to associate this change with a famous prosecution which brought a
knowledge of the means of preventing conception to the whole
population of Great Britain. Undoubtedly this prosecution was an
important factor in the movement, but we cannot doubt that, even if the
prosecution had not taken place, the course of social progress must still
have pursued the same course. It is noteworthy that it was about this
same period, in various European countries, that the tide turned, and the
excessively high birth-rate began to fall.[9] Recklessness was giving
place to foresight and self-control. Such foresight and self-control are
of the essence of civilization.[10]
It cannot be disputed that the transformation by which the propagation
of the race became deliberate and voluntary has not been established in
social custom without a certain amount of protestation from various
sides. No social change, however beneficial, ever is established without
such protestation, which may, therefore, be regarded as an inevitable
and probably a salutary part of social change. Even some would-be
scientific persons, with a display of elaborate statistics, set forth various
alarmistic doctrines. If, said these persons, this new movement goes on
at the present pace, and if all other conditions remain unchanged, then
all sorts of terrible results will ensue. But the alarming conclusion
failed to ensue, and for a very sufficient reason. The assumed premises
of the argument were unsound. Nothing ever goes on at the same pace,
nor do all other conditions ever remain unchanged.

The world is a living fire, as Heraclitus long ago put it. All things are