conjugal life a step of immense importance was
achieved. It became clear to all that the Divine force works through us,
and that we are not entitled to cast the burden of our evil actions on
any Higher Power. Marriage no longer fatally involved an endless
procession of children who, in so far as they survived at all, were in a
large number of cases doomed to disease, neglect, misery, and ignorance.
The new Social Hygiene was for the first time rendered possible.

It was in France during the first half of the nineteenth century that
the control of reproduction first began to become a social habit. In
Sweden and in Denmark, the fall in the birth-rate, though it has been
irregular, may be said to have begun in 1860. It was not until about the
year 1876 that, in so far as we may judge by the arrest of the
birth-rate, the movement began to spread to Europe generally. In England
it is usual to associate this change with a famous prosecution which
brought a knowledge of the means of preventing conception to the whole
population of Great Britain. Undoubtedly this prosecution was an
important factor in the movement, but we cannot doubt that, even if the
prosecution had not taken place, the course of social progress must
still have pursued the same course. It is noteworthy that it was about
this same period, in various European countries, that the tide turned,
and the excessively high birth-rate began to fall.[9] Recklessness was
giving place to foresight and self-control. Such foresight and
self-control are of the essence of civilization.[10]

It cannot be disputed that the transformation by which the propagation
of the race became deliberate and voluntary has not been established in
social custom without a certain amount of protestation from various
sides. No social change, however beneficial, ever is established without
such protestation, which may, therefore, be regarded as an inevitable
and probably a salutary part of social change. Even some would-be
scientific persons, with a display of elaborate statistics, set forth
various alarmistic doctrines. If, said these persons, this new movement
goes on at the present pace, and if all other conditions remain
unchanged, then all sorts of terrible results will ensue. But the
alarming conclusion failed to ensue, and for a very sufficient reason.
The assumed premises of the argument were unsound. Nothing ever goes on
at the same pace, nor do all other conditions ever remain unchanged