in
reproductive power, it "restricts each man, whatever may be his
potency and his value, to the amount of production of which one
woman, chosen blindly, may be capable." Moreover, he continues,
"practically it discriminates against the best, and in favor of
the worst; for, while the good man will be limited by his
conscience to what the law allows, the bad man, free from moral
check, will distribute his seed beyond the legal limits, as
widely as he dares." "We are safe every way in saying that there
is no possibility of carrying the two precepts of scientific
propagation into an institution which pretends to no
discrimination, allows no suppression, gives no more liberty to
the best than to the worst, and which, in fact, must inevitably
discriminate the wrong way, so long as the inferior classes are
most prolific and least amenable to the admonitions of science
and morality." In modifying our sexual institutions, Noyes
insists there are two essential points to remember: the
preservation of liberty, and the preservation of the home. There
must be no compulsion about human scientific propagation; it must
be autonomous, directed by self-government, "by the free choice
of those who love science well enough to 'make themselves eunuchs
for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake.'" The home, also, must be
preserved, since "marriage is the best thing for man as he is;"
but it is necessary to enlarge the home, for, "if all could learn
to love other children than their own, there would be nothing to
hinder scientific propagation in the midst of homes far better
than any that now exist."

This memorable pamphlet contains no exposition of the precise
measures adopted by the Oneida Community to carry out these
principles. The two essential points were, as we know, "male
continence" (see _ante_ p. 553), and the enlarged family, in
which all the men were the actual or potential mates of all the
women, but no union for propagation took place, except as the
result of reason and deliberate resolve. "The community," says
H.J. Seymour, one of the original members (_The Oneida
Community_, 1894, p. 5), "was a _family_, as distinctly separated
from surrounding society as ordinary households. The tie that
bound it together was as permanent, and at least as sacred, as
that of marriage. Every man's care