the methods of propagating the race continued to be the same as those of savages thousands of years ago. Children “came” and their parents disclaimed all responsibility for their coming; the children were sent by God, and if they all turned out to be idiots, the responsibility was God’s. That is all changed now. It is we who are more immediately the creators of men. We generate the race; we alone can regenerate the race. We have learned that in this, as in other matters, the Divine Force works through us and that we are not entitled to cast the burden of our evil actions on to any higher Power. The voluntary control of the number of offspring which is now becoming the rule in all civilized countries in every part of the world has been a matter of concern to some people, who have realized that however desirable under the conditions, it may be abused. But there are two points about it which they should do well always to bear in mind. In the first place, it is the inevitable result of the advance in civilization. Reckless abandonment to the impulse of the moment, and careless indifference to the morrow, the selfish gratification of individual desire at the expense of probable suffering to lives that will come after, this may seem beautiful to some people, but it is not civilization. All civilization involves an ever-increasing forethought for others, even for others who are yet unborn. In the second place, it is not only inevitable, but it furnishes us with the one available lever for raising the level of our race. In classic days, as in the East, it was possible to consider infanticide as a permissible method for attaining this end. That is no longer possible to us. We must go further back. We must control the beginnings of life. And that is a better method, even a more civilized method, for it involves greater forethought, and a finer sense of the value of life. To-day, all classes in the community, save the lowest and most unfit, exercise some degree of forethought and control in regulating the size of their families. That it should be precisely the unfit who procreate in the most reckless manner is a lamentable fact, but it is not a hopeless fact, and there is no need for the desperate remedy of urging the fit to reduce themselves in this matter to the level of the unfit. That would merely be a backward movement of civilization. It is education, sobriety, and some degree of well-being which lead to the control of the size of families, and as it is social amelioration which brings this result about, it is a result that we may view with equanimity. It used to be feared that a falling birth rate was a national danger. We now know that this is not the case, for not only does a falling birth rate lead to a falling death rate, but in this matter no nation moves by itself. Civilization is international, though one nation may be a little before or behind another. Hitherto France has been ahead, but all other nations have followed.