Instead of poor, let a case of consumptive parents be taken, or of parents one of whom has developed symptoms of insanity. Who could suppose that any jury would regard any means adopted by them to prevent the procreation of a number of children, diseased and rickety, or certain to inherit a taint of insanity, would be otherwise than natural and right, and the adoption of any means that medical science could suggest to prevent it not only not immoral but laudable in the highest degree? If it is not immoral to do what the pamphlet advocates, it seems to me impossible to argue that the mere advocacy itself is a penal offence. The question is, Where does the immorality come in? Wrongs can only be regarded as such in their relation to others, or as self-regarding. Is there in the adoption of preventive intercourse any invasion of the rights of others? Certainly none. The use of the preventive checks can only be viewed as a possible wrong in the light of a self-regarding one. How can it be argued with any show of sound reason that the use of preventive checks (adopted, perhaps, from the determination not to bring into the world children that cannot be even fed) can be morally injurious to persons animated by a sense of duty founded upon the noblest altruism? The world would have little need of penal statutes if a consideration of the rights of others actuated the conduct of all mankind. Active altruism--the distinctive feature of Christian teaching, inculcated in the precept, "Do unto others as you would men should do unto you"--can never in its application injuriously react upon the moral nature of those who seek to put it in force with regard to any conduct which may affect the happiness of others. The profound law of ethics, that in trying to do good to others we unconsciously benefit ourselves, is no less true here than in all other phases of human conduct. Every thought entertained, every effort made for the good of others, must elevate the thinker and the actor. Who will say that the low and vicious parents of East London's gutter children, brought up amidst all the moral horrors of over-crowding, half-starved, and stunted in growth, without elementary notions of decency or morality--who will say that such parents would not have been morally superior if they could have seen the wrong they were doing in bringing such offspring into the world, and had taken measures to prevent it? Who will say that the future of society would not have an infinitely better outlook if the breeding of such children were to be prevented by the conjugal prudence of parents in resorting to the use of such means as would prevent their procreation? It is idle to preach to the masse, the necessity of deferred marriage and of a celibate life during the heyday of passion.