It is a truth of history that when a nation begins to refuse the responsibility of providing for posterity it begins to decline. The doctrines of Malthus in his great _Essay on the Principles of Population_, are no longer believed in by the Christian philosopher. Malthus was perfectly sound upon the ethical problem, and the “Neo-Malthusians,” of whom I shall presently speak, have no right whatever to use his name upon their banners. Malthus, so the modern socialistic thinker, such as Mr. H. G. Wells avers, “demonstrated for all time that a State whose population continues to increase in obedience to unchecked instinct can progress only from bad to worse. From the point of view of human comfort and happiness the increase of population that occurs at each advance in human security is the greatest evil of life.” Malthus, however, never once suggested or advocated the limitation of population by mechanical means. He believed that it was a patriotic duty of men and women to _abstain from producing more children_ than the State could bear, and it is as well to remove at once a popular misconception which stains the name of a good man and a powerful though mistaken thinker. Otter says of him in a memoir, “His life was more than any other we have ever witnessed, a perpetual flow of enlightened benevolence, contentment and peace; it was the best and purest philosophy, brightened by Christian views and softened by Christian charity.” It is economically and from the sociological point of view that the modern student condemns the theories of Malthus and those who follow him. Socialist thinkers disregard the entity of nations, and treat of the world and its population as a whole. The Christian Patriot loves his own country, believes in its destiny no less than he reveres its past, and knows that if our English nation is going to live, it must go on reproducing itself. The “no room to live” theory is preposterous upon the face of it. In 1879, Lord Derby asked a somewhat obvious question. “Surely,” he said, “it is better to have thirty-five millions of human beings leading useful and intelligent lives, rather than forty millions struggling painfully for a bare subsistence.” This has been made into a watchword by those who advocate the limitation of population. It can be answered by a simple statement of fact--in our colonies there are places for a hundred million wives. While I have not lost sight of the main object of this paper--to summarize the weight of Catholic Christian feeling upon the _mechanical_ limitation of population, and to tell how this is being accomplished--I find that there is yet some ground to be cleared before coming to the main issue. I have said that there is only one material cause of our decadence, but there are many reasons. More than a year ago in one or two newspapers, particularly the _Daily Chronicle_, various sociologists gave the results of their thought upon the matter. I print a few extracts here.