The teaching of Aristotle and Plato.--The teaching of Malthus.--His assailants.--Their illogical position.--Bonar on Malthus and his work.--The increase of food supplies held by Nitti to refute Malthus.--The increase of food and the decrease of births.--Mr. Spencer's biological theory--Maximum birth-rate determined by female capacity to bear children.--The pessimism of Spencer's law.--Wider definition of moral restraint.--Where Malthus failed to anticipate the future.--Economic law operative only through biological law. CHAPTER III.--DECLINING BIRTH-RATE p. 26 Declining birth-rates rapid and persistent.--Food cost in New Zealand.--Relation of birth-rate to prosperity before and after 1877.--Neo-Malthusian propaganda.--Marriage rates and fecundity of marriage.--Statistics of Hearts of Oak Friendly Society.--Deliberate desire of parents to limit family increase. CHAPTER IV.--MEANS ADOPTED p. 32 Family responsibility--Natural fertility undiminished.--Voluntary prevention and physiological knowledge.--New Zealand experience.--Diminishing influence of delayed marriage.--Practice of abortion.--Popular sympathy in criminal cases.--Absence of complicating issues in New Zealand.--Colonial desire for comfort and happiness. CHAPTER V.--CAUSES OF DECLINING BIRTH-RATE p. 36 Influence of self-restraint without continence.--Desire to limit families in New Zealand not due to poverty.--Offspring cannot be limited without self-restraint.--New Zealand's economic condition.--High standard of general education.--Tendency to migrate within the colony.--Diffusion of ideas.--Free social migration between all classes.--Desire to migrate upwards.--Desire to raise the standard of ease and comfort.--Social status the measure of financial status.--Social attraction of one class to next below.--Each conscious of his limitation.--Large families confirm this limitation.--The cost of the family.--The cost of maternity.--The craving for ease and luxury. Parents' desire for their children's social success.--Humble homes bear distinguished sons.--Large number with University education in New Zealand.--No child labour except in hop and dairy districts.--Hopeless poverty a cause of high birth-rates.--High birth-rates a cause of poverty.--Fecundity depends on capacity of the female to bear children. CHAPTER VI.--ETHICS OF PREVENTION p. 31 Fertility the law of life.--Man interprets and controls this law.--Marriage law necessary to fix paternal responsibility.--Malthus's high ideal.--If prudence the motive, continence and celibacy violate no law.--Post-nuptial intermittent restraint.--Ethics of prevention judged by consequences.--When procreation is a good and when an evil.--Oligantrophy.--Artificial checks are physiological sins. CHAPTER VII.--WHO PREVENT p. 64