and other industries,
neither nourishes nor strengthens, but deteriorates the organism and
leads to degeneration of the race! If it were not so sad, it would be
ridiculous to observe the serious way in which high officials, or even
scientists, calculate the product of taxes on distilled and fermented
liquors, the laws for their import and export, the monopoly of their
manufacture, etc. It is remarkable how the budget is balanced by the
aid of the alcoholic intoxication of the people, and how people are
made to believe that a masterpiece of political economy is thereby
achieved. In reality, the health and strength of the nation are
sacrificed. This kind of political economy can only be qualified as
false and deceitful. We cannot too often nor too strongly stigmatize
its destructive influence on sexual matters and on the hereditary
energies of humanity.

=Density of Population.=--As regards the most desirable figures for
population, opinions are diametrically opposed. Some authors look for
the happiness of humanity in prolific reproduction, and imagine that
by utilizing all parts of the globe an unlimited number of people
could be supported by its produce.

We cannot regard with favor this singular Chinese-like ideal, which
would tend to transform the whole world into a huge cornfield for the
raising of men like rabbits. Moreover, it is greatly to be feared that
the real Chinese, when they have become sufficiently armed and
re-civilized, will transform the surface of the earth into a human
stable, if we do not take sufficient precautions.

=Neo-malthusianism.=--On the other hand, a certain group of idealists,
the neo-malthusianists, have declared a war of extermination against
all increase of the population. I have myself been accused by one of
them of committing a crime by procreating more than four children!
Neo-malthusianists of this kind only deal with quantity and do not
concern themselves with quality.

They recommend, as we do, the employment of anticonceptional
measures, but they do so without any discrimination. They address
themselves to the altruistic and intelligent portion of the public,
and induce the most useful members of society to procreate as little
as possible, without recognizing that with their system, not only the
Chinese and negroes, but, among European races, the most incapable and
amoral classes of the population are those who trouble the least about
their maximum number of children. Hence,