of human society in all parts of the world, and ever more widely
leading to practical action, that the welfare of the individual, the
family, the community, and the race is bound up with the purposive and
deliberate practice of birth-control, whether we advocate that policy on
the ground that we are thereby furthering Nature, or on the opposite, and
no doubt equally excellent, ground that we are thereby correcting Nature.

Along this road, as along any other road, we shall not reach Utopia; and
since the Utopia of every person who possesses one is unique that perhaps
need not be regretted. We shall not even, within any measurable period of
time, reach a sanely free and human life fit to satisfy quite moderate
aspirations. The wise birth-controller will not (like the deliciously
absurd suffragette of old-time) imagine that birth-control for all means a
New Heaven and a New Earth, but will, rather, appreciate the delightful
irony of the Biblical legend which represented a world with only four
people in it, yet one of them a murderer. Still, it may be pointed out,
that was a state of things much better than we can show now. The world
would count itself happier if, during the Great War, only twenty-five per
cent of the population of belligerent lands had been murderers, virtually
or in fact. There is something to be gained, and that something is well
worth while.

Still, whether we like it or not, the task of speeding up the decrease of
the human population becomes increasingly urgent.[31] To many of our
Undesirables it may seem, mere sentiment to trouble about the ravishing of
the world's beauty or the ravaging of the world's humanity. But certain
hard facts, even to-day, have to be faced. The process of mechanical
invention continues every day on an ever increasing scale of magnitude.
Now that process, however necessary, however beneficial, involves some of
the chief evils of our present phase of what we call civilisation, partly
because it has deteriorated the quality of all human products and partly
because it has enslaved mankind, and in so doing deteriorated also his
quality.[32] Now we cannot abolish machinery, because machinery lies in
the very essence of life and we ourselves are machines. But, as the
largest part of history shows, there is no need whatever for man to become
the slave of machinery, or even for machinery to injure the quality of his
own work; rightly used it may improve it. The greatest task before