economic fallacies were borrowed from Malthus, their philosophy came from a
different source.

This philosophy is to be found, naked and unashamed, in a book entitled
_The Elements of Social Science_. I have already referred to this work
as the Bible of Neo-Malthusians, and its teaching has been endorsed as
recently as 1905 by the official journal of the Malthusian League, as
witness the following eulogy, whose last lines recall the happy days of
Bret Harte in the Far West, and the eloquent periods of our old and valued
friend Colonel Starbottle:

"This work should be read by all followers of J.S. Mill, Garnier, and
the Neo-Malthusian school of economists. We could give a long criticism
of the many important chapters in this book; but, as we might be
considered as prejudiced in its favour because of our agreement with
its aims, we prefer to cite the opinion given by the editor of that
widely circulated and most enlightened paper _The Weekly Times and
Echo_, which appears in its issue of October 8." [98]

Before quoting from the book an explanation is due to my readers. I do not
suggest that all of those who are to-day supporting the propaganda for
artificial birth control would agree with its foolish blasphemies and
drivelling imbecilities; but it is nevertheless necessary to quote these
things, because our birth controllers are too wise in their day and
generation to reveal to the public, still less to the Church of England,
_the philosophy on which Neo-Malthusianism was originally based, and from
which it has grown_. Moreover, the Malthusians claim that it was the author
of the _Elements of Social Science_ "who interested Mr. Charles Bradlaugh
and Mrs. Annie Besant in the question." [99] Four quotations from the last
edition of the book will suffice: