The poorer classes who, a few years ago were ignorant of this
propaganda, are now being instructed in it by the men from whom they
buy their medicines. Doctors, in the majority of cases, are perfectly
willing to explain to married people how they may avoid having
children by means other than those of self-control. As a rule the
medical man seems to have no conscience at all in this regard. His
point of view is too often merely materialistic and concerned with
nothing but physical function, and he has become in many cases, the
active agent of the malignant forces which are sapping our national
honour and prosperity. In discussing the question, more than one
person has expressed his amazement at the readiness of doctors to
explain and advocate the limitation of families. The doctors of
England form one of the finest classes in the community. I will
venture to say that very few men and women arrive at middle life
without experiencing a lively feeling of gratitude, friendship, or
even affection for some medical man. The devotion to his high calling,
of even the average English doctor, is a fact in the lives of nearly
all of us. It is the more surprising, and alarming also, when we
realize, as inquirers are forced to realize, how wrong and mistaken
the general attitude of the physician is towards this aspect of the
sexual relations of men and women. It is said that infidelity is rife
among those who are educated to cure our bodily ailments, that the
agnostic habit of mind is frequent in this profession. I am not
competent to judge of this, or to pronounce an opinion upon such a
statement, though my own experience is directly opposed to it. But it
is certain that until the last fifteen years the scientific
temperament was disinclined to believe in anything it could not weigh,
measure, analyze, touch, or see. Huxley, for example, was a striking
instance of this position. But science has been revolutionized within
the experience of one generation, and the “cock-sureness” has
disappeared. We are all realizing that “unseen” simply means that
which does not appeal to our sense of sight, or perhaps that which
does not appeal to any of our senses. One of the most famous and
honoured scientific men of to-day, Sir Oliver Lodge, says in regard to
miracles, “I think we should hesitate very much before saying that
they are impossible, because we do not know what may be the power of a
great personality over natural forces.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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