"Timid—yes of course they are timid!" the teacher was saying, in reply to some remark of the pupil—"all our English democrats are so. They see what ought to be, they even hint vaguely at it, but they never dare speak out.
"No one doubts that over-population is the great curse of the world—they all allow it. Look at the horrors, the misery it produces in this very city. And what are the remedies suggested?
"How silly, how weak they are! Read Mill; he saw clearly what we were coming to, and all he has to recommend as a remedy is prudence in marriage, and such restrictions. This is nonsense, cheese-paring; besides, if feasible, it would only lead to ten times the vice there is now.
"No, the passion of the beast man is a constant factor in the problem that cannot be disregarded. Bradlaugh had a little more pluck—spoke out; and how were his words received!
"There is only one way of getting out of the difficulty, but that is one that our virtuous politicians of to-day would never entertain: make it an offence for anyone to have more than one child; let it be lawful to kill a new-born infant, and to employ those other measures for preventing a woman from becoming a mother which are now felonies in the eyes of the law."
Mary half understood and shuddered. She said, thoughtfully, "I suppose that is the only remedy; but it can never be carried out—it is, after all, too horrible."
"Horrible!" exclaimed the teacher. "Not at all; that is, if you look fairly at the question. You are biased by old prejudices. Your reason will gradually shake them off, as mine has long ago. We are Utilitarians, we look to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Now by the method we propose of checking population, we inflict no pain. We prevent a multitude of creatures coming into the world only to be miserable, so there is left a less crowded, a happier race, not slaving as now to keep starvation off, and often failing even to do that, while a few fatten on the product of their labour."
She paused a moment to watch the effects of her words on Mary's face, then continued: "Man will then know what leisure is, will become a nobler being; not a slave running a race for bread with machinery. Ah, Mary! and they call the measures that alone can bring about this happy consummation cruel, immoral, criminal. It is the religion—the accursed morality—that tyrannizes over the people, and forces a man and woman to keep alive their wretched offspring, that is cruel."
With such conversation did the woman prepare Mary's mind, until, after they had been two years together, the girl was familiarized with all the perilous fallacies of the Nihilists, and accepted the theory that murder is no sin when necessary for the enfranchisement of mankind, whether it be the secret execution of the tyrants by poison, knife, and dynamite, or the practical exposition of the Malthusian doctrine by the destruction of babies.