Birth control and the state

by C. P. Blacker

The development of fore and hind limbs from fins, of lung from swim-bladder, and of instincts appropriate to the new medium, would strike all conservative fishes as highly immoral deviations from that biological tradition which had given stability to the glorious race of fishes. Nothing could seem more a-biological. Similarly with the development of fur and feathers and of the parental instinct, all of which were probably, in part at any rate, invested with survival value by the spell of cold which followed the Secondary period, and which perhaps conditioned the substitution of birds and mammals for the hitherto ubiquitous reptile as dominant vertebrates on the earth. From the point of view of the conservative reptile such changes would appear highly anti-biological. In moments of racial crisis, therefore, it is dangerous to generalize as to what is biologically good from past experience alone. In the past a high degree of fertility has been, for most species, a biologically valuable asset. It does not follow that it will continue to be so for the human race. In fact there are good reasons for supposing that it will not.

The human race is now passing through a biological crisis unprecedented in the history of life. It has achieved a mastery over nature such that mankind is now economically unified throughout the world by the astounding feats of intercommunication and transport. But as yet the human race has achieved little ethical unification. It is directly in the interests of the race that such unification should take place, and all things which promote it may therefore be considered biologically good. And of those things a restriction of human fertility is one of the most important.

What then is to be our biological criterion of racial fitness and our standard for judging of a nation’s merit?

It is clear that our biological criterion must be racial rather than individual. Division of labour and differentiation of function are carried to such lengths in civilized societies that it does not seem possible to hold up any individual type as an ideal of biological fitness. Qualities which, to the solitary animal, would irrevocably spell extinction may for the gregarious animal have the highest survival value. Thus no attribute would be more irremediably fatal to a non-social animal than sterility. Yet the sterility of 999 out of 1000 female bees in the community of the hive has endowed the species with a vitality and a biological importance such that it has largely conditioned the appearance on the planet of many kinds of entomophilous flowers. Our biological criterion must therefore, with our standard of merit, be social rather than individual, and the following general outline is suggested.

The population of each country should be proportionate to its resources. The numerical adjustment should be such that there be no unemployment and that individual productivity be highest without idlers at either end of the social scale. The physical average of the race should be good with no congenital diseases of mind or body and with the minimum of other diseases, and of crime. There should be a high average standard of comfort, self-respect and happiness, and a high moral standard of honesty, tolerance, and kindliness. One would hope for a wide prevalence of that ‘joie de vivre’ and contentment which is doubtless largely temperamental in origin and which contributes more to an individual’s happiness than any number of worldly possessions can ever do. And the social cleavage between classes, and the now stupendous discrepancies between the very rich and the very poor should be reduced to a minimum. Such conditions all would wish generally distributed. It is a question whether a uniformly high degree of intelligence should be equally ubiquitous. In every community, primitive or civilized, an immense amount of crude physical labour has to be done. The soil has to be tilled, someone has to dig coal and iron out of the ground, and endless other kinds of manual work have to be performed. It is doubtful whether the possession of a very high degree of intelligence would make such workers happier or more efficient. But whatever we may individually feel about this point, we would all wish such workers to be healthy, happy, well housed, contented with their lot, fond of their children, and both appreciated by, and on good terms with, the rest of the community.

And obviously it is a condition of this sort which an enlightened Birth Control could help to achieve.

The above is intended both to be a criterion of biological fitness for the human race, and a more satisfactory standard of national evaluation than the one that is in vogue to-day. It will be noted that there is nothing in it about capacity for wars. If we could substitute some such standard in place of the armament standard by which to grade countries in an order of merit, we should be in a better position to avert the catastrophe of another world war than we are at present. According to such a standard the country most deserving of admiration, respect and imitation to-day would probably be Switzerland. Knowing that she cannot defend herself against her powerful neighbours, she does not aspire to large armies. When other countries can, by a simultaneous control of population, realize a similar security, it will be open to them to follow in her footsteps. The ideal may not appeal to the romantic, but much that passes for romance is frequently pernicious nonsense, like the sentiment by which war is glorified in the eyes of many women and elderly men who have never participated in it.

From an international equilibrium based upon a modification of religions as above suggested and upon an alteration in our standards of national evaluation, social harmony would follow fairly readily. It is unlikely that the antagonism between capital and labour will be much affected by a control of population beyond removing that source of social unrest which is furnished by a large body of unemployed. It remains doubtful, however, if the essential political issue will be much modified by a solution of the unemployment problem. The psychological forces which give the Labour party its driving power are not such as to produce the fullest economic prosperity in this country; but none the less they demand and must ultimately receive satisfaction. The best that can be hoped is that those forces will gradually be appeased, and will not lead to bloodshed, too great a dislocation of trade, or too drastic a loss of international status.