The writer above quoted from says of this developing period: "It is today beginning to be seen that the old notion of progress by means of reckless multiplication is vain. It can only be effected at a ruinous cost of death, disease, poverty, and misery. We see this in the past history of Western Europe, as we still see it in the history of Russia. Any progress effected along that line--if 'progress' it can be called--is now barred, for it is utterly opposed to those democratic conceptions which are ever gaining greater influence among us. Moreover, we are now better able to analyze demographic phenomena, and are no longer satisfied with any crude statements regarding the birth-rate. We realize that they need interpretation. They have to be considered in relation to the sex-constitution and the age-constitution of the population, and ABOVE ALL, THEY MUST BE VIEWED IN RELATION TO THE INFANT MORTALITY RATE. "The bad aspect of the French birth-rate is not so much its lowness as that it is accompanied by a high infantile mortality. The fact that the German birth-rate is higher than the English ceases to be a matter of satisfaction when it is realized that German infantile mortality is vastly greater than English. A HIGH BIRTH-RATE IS NO SIGN OF A HIGH CIVILIZATION. BUT WE ARE BEGINNING TO FEEL THAT A HIGH INFANTILE DEATH-RATE IS A SIGN OF A VERY INFERIOR CIVILIZATION. A LOW BIRTH-RATE WITH A LOW INFANT DEATH-RATE NOT ONLY PRODUCES THE SAME INCREASE IN POPULATION AS A HIGH BIRTH-RATE WITH A HIGH DEATH-RATE, WHICH ALWAYS ACCOMPANIES IT (FOR THERE ARE NO EXAMPLES OF A HIGH BIRTH-RATE WITH A LOW DEATH-RATE), BUT IT PRODUCES IT IN A WAY WHICH IS FAR MORE WORTHY OF OUR ADMIRATION IN THIS MATTER THAN THE WAY OF RUSSIA AND CHINA WHERE OPPOSITE CONDITIONS PREVAIL." The evolutionary process which all students of sociology clearly perceive to have been underway in the matter of the attitude of public opinion toward the birth-rate, and which is now underway with increased impetus, is perceived to be a natural process. It is a natural process which has been underway from the beginning of the living world. For a long time it operated and manifested along unconscious and instinctive lines of activity, but now it has emerged into the light of human consciousness and manifests along the lines of conscious, voluntary, and deliberate human action. In its present state of evolutionary progress human thought along these lines has found expression in what is generally known as "Birth Control." The process which has been working slowly through the ages, attaining every new forward step with waste and pain, is henceforth destined to be carried out voluntarily, in the light of human reason, foresight, and self-restraint. The rise of Birth Control may be said to correspond with the rise of social and sanitary science in the first half of the nineteenth century, and to be indeed an essential part of that movement.