man. We cannot disentangle these two forces, except in theory. To the
child in the womb, said Samuel Butler, the mother is "environment." She
is, of course, likewise "heredity." The age-old discussion of "Nature
vs. Nurture" has been threshed out time after time, usually fruitlessly,
because of a failure to recognize the indivisibility of these biological
factors. The opposition or antagonism between them is an artificial and
academic one, having no basis in the living organism.

The great principle of Birth Control offers the means whereby the
individual may adapt himself to and even control the forces of
environment and heredity. Entirely apart from its Malthusian aspect or
that of the population question, Birth Control must be recognized, as
the Neo-Malthusians pointed out long ago, not "merely as the key of the
social position," and the only possible and practical method of human
generation, but as the very pivot of civilization. Birth Control which
has been criticized as negative and destructive, is really the greatest
and most truly eugenic method, and its adoption as part of the program
of Eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to
that science. As a matter of fact, Birth Control has been accepted by
the most clear thinking and far seeing of the Eugenists themselves as
the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial health.(7)

(1) Galton. Essays in Eugenics, p. 43.

(2) Eugenics Review, Vol. XIII, p. 349.

(3) Cf. Martin, The Behavior of Crowds, p. 6.

(4) Cf. Democracy and the Human Equation. E. P. Dutton &
Co., 1921.