On the other hand, some
extra-European countries compare less favourably with Europe; Japan,
with a rather high birth-rate, has the same high death-rate as Spain,
and Chile, with a still higher birth-rate, has a higher death-rate than
Russia. So it is that among human peoples we find the same laws
prevailing as among animals, and the higher nations of the world differ
from those which are less highly evolved precisely as the elephant
differs from the herring, though within a narrower range, that is to
say, by producing fewer offspring and taking better care of them.
The whole of this evolutionary process, we have to remember, is a
natural process. It has been going on from the beginning of the living
world. But at a certain stage in the higher development of man, without
ceasing to be natural, it becomes conscious and deliberate. It is then
that we have what may properly be termed _Birth Control_. That is to
say, that a process which had before been working slowly through the
ages, attaining every new forward step with waste and pain, is
henceforth carried out voluntarily, in the light of the high human
qualities of reason and 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. It is firmly established in all the
most progressive and enlightened countries of Europe, notably in France
and in England; in Germany, where formerly the birth-rate was very
high, birth control has developed with extraordinary rapidity during
the present century.
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