Chapter 1

The spread of moral restraint as a check.--Predicted by Malthus.--The declining Birth-rate.--Its Universality.--Most conspicuous in New Zealand. Great increase in production of food.--With rising food rate falling birth-rate.--Malthus's checks.--His use of the term "moral restraint."--The growing desire to evade family obligations.--Spread of physiological knowledge.--All limitation involves self-restraint.--Motives for limitation.--Those who do and those who do not limit.--Poverty and the Birth-rate.--Defectives prolific and propagate their kind.--Moral restraint held to include all sexual interference designed to limit families.--Power of self-control an attribute of the best citizens.--Its absence an attribute of the worst.--Humanitarianism increases the number and protects the lives of defectives.--The ratio of the unfit to the fit.--Its dangers to the State.--Antiquity of the problem.--The teaching of the ancients.--Surgical methods already advocated.