that the procreation of the unfit shall cease, or at least, that it
shall be considerably curtailed and placed among the vanishing evils,
with a view to its final extinction.




CHAPTER X.

WHAT ANÆSTHETICS AND ANTISEPTICS HAVE MADE POSSIBLE.


_Education of defectives in prudence and self-restraint of little
avail.--Surgical suggestions discussed._


For the intelligent mind, which I assume has already been impressed with
the importance of such an inquiry, I think I have set forth the salient
truths with sufficient clearness, but holding that a recitation of
social faults, without a suggestion as to social reforms, is not only
useless but mischievous, I shall endeavour to show not only that the
situation is not hopeless, but that science and experience have, or will
reveal means to the accomplishment of all rationally desired ends, and
that it remains only for intelligence to enquire that sentiment may move
up to the line so as to harmonise with science, with justice, and with
the demands of a growing necessity.

These questions of population are not new. More than two thousand years
ago, many of the wisest philosophers of all the centuries meditated
deeply upon the tendencies of the population to crowd upon subsistence,