Among men, Birth Control has now evolved from the unconscious and instinctive phase, and is now unfolding and manifesting on the plane of conscious and voluntary activity. The influence of deliberate intention and conscious design is now one of the important factors in the process. Here at this point we reach a totally new aspect of reproduction. In the past stages of evolution the original impetus toward reproduction has been checked and directed by Nature, working along instinctive and unconscious lines; and the result has been an extreme diminution of the number of off-spring; a prolongation of the time devoted to the breeding and care of each new member of the family, in harmony with its greatly prolonged life; a spacing out of the intervals between the offspring; and, as a result, a vastly greater development of each individual, and an ever better equipment for the task of living. All this was slowly attained automatically, without any conscious volition on the part of the individuals, even when they were human beings, who were the agents. Now, however, we are confronted with a change which we may regard as, in some respects, the most momentous sudden advance in the whole history of reproduction, namely, the process of reproductive progress now become conscious and deliberately volitional. Birth control, no longer automatic, is now being directed by human mind and will precisely to the attainment of ends which Nature has been struggling after for millions of years; and, being consciously and deliberately directed, it is now enabled to avoid many of the pitfalls into which the unconscious method fell. Havelock Ellis says: "The control and limitation of reproductive activity by conscious and volitional effort is an attempt by open-eyed intelligence and foresight to attain those ends which Nature through untold generations has been painfully yet tirelessly struggling for. The deliberate co-operation of Man in the natural task of Birth Control represents an identification of the human will with what we may, if we choose, regard as the divinely appointed law of the world. We can well believe that the great pioneers, who, a century ago, acted in the spirit of this faith may have echoed the thought of Kepler when, on discovering his great planetary law, he exclaimed in rapture: 'O God! I think Thy thoughts after Thee!'"