God
directing the course of events; nor in a blind power that controls them
independently and in despite of human will. We know that what we do or
fail to do matters. We know that we have will; that will may be
directed by reason; and that the end to which reason points is the
progress of the race. This much we hold to be established; more than
this we do not need. And it is the acceptance of just this that cuts
us off from the past, that makes its literature, its ethics, its
politics, meaningless and unintelligible to us, that makes us, in a
word, what we are, the first of the new generation.

"Well, now, assuming this standpoint let us go on to see how some of
the questions look which have been touched upon to-night. Those
questions have been connected mainly with government and property. And
upon these two factors, it would seem, in the opinion of previous
speakers, all the interests of society turn. But from the point where
we now stand we see clearly that there is a third factor to which these
are altogether subordinate--I mean the family. For the family is the
immediate agent in the production and rearing of children; and this, as
we have seen, is the end of society. With the family therefore social
reconstruction should start. And we may lay down as the fundamental
ethical and social axiom that everybody not physically disqualified
ought to marry, and to produce at least four children. The only
question here is whether the state should intervene and endeavour so to
regulate marriages as to bring together those whose union is most
likely to result in good offspring. This is a point on which the
ancients, I am aware, in their light-hearted sciolism laid great
stress. Only, characteristically enough, they ignored the fundamental
difficulty, that nothing is known--nothing even now, and how much less
then!--of the conditions necessary to produce the desired result. If
ever the conditions should come to be understood--and the problem is
pre-eminently one for science; and if ever--what is even more
difficult--we should come to know clearly and exactly for what points
we ought to breed; then, no doubt, it may be desirable for government
to undertake the complete regulation of marriage. Meantime, we must
confine our efforts to the simpler and more manageable task of securing
for the children when they are born the best possible environment,
physical, intellectual and moral. But this may be done, even witho