the
lecture I naturally made inquiry as to the volume and its contents,
and I found that it had been written by a Doctor of Medicine some
years before, and sent to the _National Reformer_ for review, as to
other journals, in ordinary course of business. It consisted of three
parts--the first advocated, from the standpoint of medical science,
what is roughly known as "Free Love"; the second was entirely medical;
the third consisted of a clear and able exposition of the law of
population as laid down by the Rev. Mr. Malthus, and--following the
lines of John Stuart Mill--insisted that it was the duty of married
persons to voluntarily limit their families within their means of
subsistence. Mr. Bradlaugh, in reviewing the book, said that it was
written "with honest and pure intent and purpose," and recommended to
working men the exposition of the law of population. His enemies took
hold of this recommendation, declared that he shared the author's
views on the impermanence of the marriage tie, and, despite his
reiterated contradictions, they used extracts against marriage from
the book as containing his views. Anything more meanly vile it would
be difficult to conceive, but such were the weapons used against him
all his life, and used often by men whose own lives contrasted most
unfavourably with his own. Unable to find anything in his own writings
to serve their purpose, they used this book to damage him with those
who knew nothing at first-hand of his views. What his enemies feared
were not his views on marriage--which, as I have said, was
conservative--but his Radicalism and his Atheism. To discredit him as
politician they maligned him socially, and the idea that a man desires
"to abolish marriage and the home," is a most convenient poniard, and
the one most certain to wound. This was the origin of his worst
difficulties, to be intensified, ere long, by his defence of
Malthusianism. On me also fell the same lash, and I found myself held
up to hatred as upholder of views that I abhorred.

I may add that far warmer praise than that bestowed on this book by
Mr. Bradlaugh was given by other writers, who were never attacked in
the same way.

In the _Reasoner_, edited by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, I find warmer
praise of it than in the _National Reformer_; in the review the
following passage appears:--

"In some respects all books of this class are evils: but it would be
weakness and criminal prudery--a prudery as criminal