Section 2. DECLINE IN FERTILITY DUE TO SOME NATURAL LAW

In the course of an inquiry on the fertility of women who had received a
college education, the National Birth Rate Commission [63] attempted to
discover to what extent birth control was practised amongst the middle and
professional classes. Of those amongst whom the inquiry was made 477 gave
definite answers, from which it was ascertained that 289, or 60 per cent.,
consciously limited their families, or attempted to do so; and that 188,
or 40 per cent. made no attempt to limit their families. Amongst those who
limited their families 183 stated the means employed, and of these, 105,
or 57 per cent., practised continence, whilst 78, or 43 per cent., used
artificial or unnatural methods.

Now comes a most extraordinary fact. Dr. Major Greenwood, [64] a
statistician whose methods are beyond question, discovered that there was
no real mathematical difference between the number of children in the
"limited" families and the number in the unlimited families. In both groups
of families the number of children was smaller than the average family in
the general population, and in both groups there were fewer children than
in the families of the preceding generation to which the parents belonged.
Dr. Greenwood states that this is _prima facie_ evidence that deliberate
birth control has produced little effect, and that the lowered fertility is
the expression of a natural change. Nevertheless, he holds that the latter
explanation cannot be accepted as wholly proved on the evidence, owing to
certain defects in the data on which his calculations were based.

"I am of opinion that we should hesitate before adopting that
interpretation in view of the cogent indirect evidence afforded by