"The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for July 1911 contains a valuable account, by a doctor resident in Gascony, of the state of things in that part of France (where, it will be remembered, the birth-rate is especially low). He expresses with the utmost emphasis the conviction that the Gascons are deteriorating, physically and mentally, and points out, at the same time, that the decline of population has had an injurious effect upon the economic condition of the country. 'L'hyponatalité est une cause précise et directe de la dégénérescence de la race,' he writes. And, dealing with the belief that a low birthrate will result in the development of a superior type of child, he says: 'C'est une illusion qui ne résiste pas à la lumière des faits tels que les montre l'étude démographique de nos villages gascons. Depuis que beaucoup de bancs restent vides à la petite école, les écoliers ne sont ni mieux doués, ni plus travailleurs, et ils sont certainement moins vigoureux.' And again, 'La quantité est en général la condition première et souveraine de la qualité.'" [97] Section 8. THE PLOT AGAINST CHRISTENDOM All purposive actions are ultimately based on philosophy of one sort or another. If, for example, we find a rich man founding hospitals for the poor, we may assume that he believes in the principle of Charity. It is, therefore, of prime importance to determine what kind of philosophy underlies Neo-Malthusian propaganda. The birth controllers profess to be actuated solely by feelings of compassion and of benevolence towards suffering humanity; and it is on these grounds that they are appealing to the Church of England to bless their work, or at least to lend to their propaganda a cloak of respectability. Now, the very fact that Neo-Malthusians are sincere in their mistaken and dangerous convictions makes it all the more necessary that we should discover the doctrines on which their propaganda was originally based; because, although their economic fallacies were borrowed from Malthus, their philosophy came from a different source. This philosophy is to be found, naked and unashamed, in a book entitled _The Elements of Social Science_. I have already referred to this work as the Bible of Neo-Malthusians, and its teaching has been endorsed as recently as 1905 by the official journal of the Malthusian League, as witness the following eulogy, whose last lines recall the happy days of Bret Harte in the Far West, and the eloquent periods of our old and valued friend Colonel Starbottle: