e of the most wonderful love-story that
the world knows of," is specially notable; (Ellen Key has written of the
Brownings from this point of view in _Menschen_, and reference may be made
to an article on the Brownings' love-letters in the _Edinburgh Review_,
April, 1899). It is scarcely necessary to add that an erotic relationship
may mean very much to persons of high intellectual ability, even when its
issue is not happy; of Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the most intellectually
distinguished of women, it may be said that the letters which enshrine her
love to the worthless Imlay are among the most passionate and pathetic
love-letters in English.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SCIENCE OF PROCREATION.

The Relationship of the Science of Procreation to the Art of Love--Sexual
Desire and Sexual Pleasure as the Conditions of Conception--Reproduction
Formerly Left to Caprice and Lust--The Question of Procreation as a
Religious Question--The Creed of Eugenics--Ellen Key and Sir Francis
Galton--Our Debt to Posterity--The Problem of Replacing Natural
Selection--The Origin and Development of Eugenics--The General Acceptance
of Eugenical Principles To-day--The Two Channels by Which Eugenical
Principles are Becoming Embodied in Practice--The Sense of Sexual
Responsibility in Women--The Rejection of Compulsory Motherhood--The
Privilege of Voluntary Motherhood--Causes of the Degradation of
Motherhood--The Control of Conception--Now Practiced by the Majority of
the Population in Civilized Countries--The Fallacy of "Racial
Suicide"--Are Large Families a Stigma of Degeneration?--Procreative
Control the Outcome of Natural and Civilized Progress--The Growth of
Neo-Malthusian Beliefs and Practices--Facultative Sterility as Distinct
from Neo-Malthusianism--The Medical and Hygienic Necessity of Control of
Conception--Preventive Methods--Abortion--The New Doctrine of the Duty to
Practice Abortion--How Far is this Justifiable?--Castration as a Method of
Controlling Procreation--Negative Eugenics and Positive Eugenics--The
Question of Certificates for Marriage--The Inadequacy of Eugenics by Act
of Parliament--The Quickening of the Social Conscience in Regard to
Heredity--Limitations to the Endowment of Motherhood--The Conditions
Favorable to Procreation--Sterility--The Question of Artificial
Fecundation--The Best Age of Procreation--The Question of Early
Motherhood--The Best Time for Procreation--The Completion of the Divine
Cycle of Life.

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