There can be no doubt about the enormous extension of the practice of abortion in all civilized countries, even although some of the extravagant estimates of its frequency in countries, the United States for example, be discarded as unwarranted. The burden of bearing excessive children on the overworked and underfed mothers of the working classes becomes at last so intolerable that almost anything seems better than another child. As a woman in Yorkshire once said to an English investigator of this evil: "I'd rather swallow the druggist's shop and the man in it, than have another kid." A community which takes upon itself the responsibility of encouraging abortion lays itself open to severe criticism. And it must be admitted that just as all those who work for Birth Control are really diminishing the frequency of abortion, so every attempt to discourage Birth Control promotes abortion. We have to approach this problem calmly, in the light of Nature and reason. We have each of us to decide on which side to range ourselves. For it is a vital problem concerning which we cannot afford to be indifferent. There is no desire here to exaggerate the importance of Birth Control. It is not a royal road to the millennium of the race; and like all other measures which the course of progress forces us to adopt, it has its disadvantages. But fairness and honest thought should admit freely that so far as is concerned the question of its being a factor toward Race Suicide, we must pronounce a verdict of "Not Guilty" upon Birth Control. On the contrary, the contrary course of teaching and practice, if carried to their full logical conclusion, would inevitably bring the race to such a stage of degeneracy, and retrogression to primitive type, that a fate far worse than suicide would befall the human race. For the race, as well as the individual, may commit "suicide" and an end to its career, not only by a will-not-to-live but also by a will-to-degenerate. The face of Birth Control is set toward the rising sun of Race Betterment, not toward the setting sun of Racial Decline. Its ideas are those of Race Life, not of Race Death. It bids the race not to perish, but rather to live on in greater strength, happiness, and efficiency. Birth Control is in full accord with the Racial Will-to-Live, and not opposed to it. All humanity, all civilization, all human progress, call upon us to take our stand upon this vital question of Birth Control. And, as a writer has well said, in doing so we shall each of us be contributing, however humbly, to that "one far-off event, to which the whole creation moves." LESSON XV BIRTH CONTROL METHODS The general subject of Birth Control necessarily includes the special subject of Birth Control Methods, viz., of the methods of association between husband and wife under which offspring is conceived only at such times as desired, and consequently only in the number desired.