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The problem with which Dr. Chapple deals in this book is one of extreme gravity. It is also one of pressing importance. The growth of the Criminal is one of the most ominous clouds on every national horizon. In spite of advances in criminology the rate of increase is so alarming that the "Unfit" threatens to be to the new Civilization what the Hun and Vandal were to the old. How to deal with this dangerous class is perhaps the most serious question that faces Sociologists at this hour. And somet

Biology is the Science of Life. It seeks to explain the phenomena of all life, whether animal or vegetable. Its methods are observation and experiment. It observes the tiny cell on the surface of an egg yolk, and watches it divide and multiply until it becomes a great mass of cells, which group off or differentiate, and rearrange and alter their shapes. It observes how little organs unfold themselves, or evolve out of these little cell groups—how gradual, but how unvarying the change; how one gr

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. Defect

The Teaching of Aristotle and Plato.—The teaching of Malthus.—His assailants.—Their illogical position.—Bonar on Malthus and his work.—The increase of food supplies held by Nitti to refute Malthus.—The increase of food and the decrease of births.—Mr. Spencer's biological theory.—Maximum birth-rate determined by female capacity to bear children.—The pessimism of Spencer's law.—Wider definition of moral restraint.—Where Malthus failed to anticipate the future.—Economic law operative only through B

Decline of birth-rates rapid and persistent.—Food cost in New Zealand.—Relation of birth-rate to prosperity before and after 1877.—Neo-Malthusian propaganda.—Marriage rates and fecundity of marriage.—Statistics of Hearts of Oak Friendly Society.—Deliberate desire of parents to limit family increase. It is not the purpose of this work to follow any further the population problem so far as it relates to deaths and emigration. Attention will be concentrated on births, and the influences which contr

Family Responsibility—Natural fertility undiminished.—Voluntary prevention and physiological knowledge.—New Zealand experience.—Diminishing influence of delayed marriage.—Practice of abortion.—Popular sympathy in criminal cases.—Absence of complicating issues in New Zealand.—Colonial desire for comfort and happiness. There is a gradually increasing consensus of opinion amongst statisticians, that the explanation of the decrease in the number of births is to be found in the desire of married pers

Influence of self-restraint without continence .— Desire to limit families in New Zealand not due to poverty .— Offspring cannot be limited without self-restraint .— New Zealand's economic condition .— High standard of general education .— Tendency to migrate within the colony .— Diffusion of ideas .— Free social migration between all classes .— Desire to migrate upwards .— Desire to raise the standard of ease and comfort .— Social status the measure of financial status .— Social attraction of o

Fertility the law of life.—Man interprets and controls this law.—Marriage law necessary to fix paternal responsibility.—Malthus's high ideal.—If prudence the motive, continence and celibacy violate no law.—Post-nuptial intermittent restraint.—Ethics of prevention judged by consequences.—When procreation is a good and when an evil.—Oligantrophy.—Artificial checks are physiological sins. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them, and

Desire for family limitation result of our social system. — Desire and practice not uniform through all classes. — The best limit, the worst do not. — Early marriages and large families. — N.Z. marriage rates. Those who delay, and those who abstain from marriage. — Good motives mostly actuate. — All limitation implies restraint. — Birth-rates vary inversely with prudence and self-control. — The limited family usually born in early married life when progeny is less likely to be well developed. —

The State's ideal in relation to the fertility of its subjects .— Keen competition means great effort and great waste of life .— If in the minds of the citizens space and food are ample multiplication works automatically .— To New Zealanders food now includes the luxuries as well as the necessities of life .— Men are driven to the alternative of supporting a family of their own or a degenerate family of defectives .— The State enforces the one but cannot enforce the other .— New Zealand taxation

Ancient methods of preventing the fertility of the unfit.—Christian sentiment suppressed inhuman practices—Christian care brings many defectives to the child-bearing period of life.—The association of mental and physical defects.—Who are the unfit.—The tendency of relatives to cast their degenerate kinsfolk on the State.—Our social conditions manufacture defectives and foster their fertility.—The only moral force that limits families is inhibition with prudence.—Defective self-control transmitte

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 a

The fertility of the criminal a greater danger to society than his depradations. — Artificial sterility of women. — The menopause artificially induced. — Untoward results. — The physiology of the Fallopian tubes. — Their ligature procures permanent sterility. — No other results immediate or remote. — Some instances due to disease. — Defective women and the wives of defective men would welcome protection from unhealthy offspring. There is a growing feeling that society must be protected, not so m

The State's humanitarian zeal protects the lives and fosters the fertility of the degenerate. — A confirmed or hereditary criminal defined. — Law on the subject of sterilization could at first be permissive. — It should apply, to begin with, to criminals and the insane. — Marriage certificates of health should be required. — Women's readiness to submit to surgical treatment for minor as well as major pelvic diseases. — Surgically induced sterility of healthy women a greater crime than abortion.

In conclusion let us briefly review the whole position taken up in this imperfect study of a great question. 1. The birth-rate is rapidly and persistently declining. 2. The food-rate is persistently increasing. 3. The declining fertility is not uniform through all classes. 4. The fertility of the best is rapidly declining. 5. The fertility of the worst is undisturbed. 6. The policy of the State is inimical to the fertility of its best, and fosters the fertility of its worst citizens. 7. The infe