[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, — Unless someone more fitted
should have done so, perhaps you will allow me to suggest a few necessary qualifications of the arguments put forward with such assurance by your correspondent, " Homo Sapiens"?
" Homo Sapiens " commences the second paragraph of his letter with the sentence, " Sexual intercourse acquires the special significance it possesses as the most sublime of human acts owing to its momentous consequences." ' The sentence which follows shows that by momentous consequences is meant children. Now, in spite of the apparent adequacy of that statement, there are at least two facts which must be faced before it can be accepted. The first is that immoral marriages are just as productive of " momentous conse- quences " as are marriages formed with the noblest ideals. Must one therefore believe that an immoral marriage can at any time reach sublimity ? In the second place, surely it is inadmissible to base the sublimity of any act on a Consequence, however momentous, which may not result from it ! But perhaps " Homo Sapiens " is in the habit, in other matters, of ignoring ninety-nine cases while basing a sweeping gener- alization on the hundredth ; in other words, he finds prejudice a more comfortable couch then reasoned argument.
With regard to the remainder of the letter in question, I would merely suggest as a belief, not necessarily unassailable, but at least as conformable with the facts as that apparently held by " Homo Sapiens," that if Nature, or the Will of God, had intended offspring to be the only spiritual value of the sex act, the " momentous consequence " would have been made inevitable.
The moral and racial importance of the problems underlying the idea of birth control is such that the world's best thought is not too much to bring to their consideration, and men of lesser gifts must acknowledge an immense indebtedness to thinkers like Dean Inge and recent writers in, for instance, the Ilibbert .lcurnal. But confusion only can result from such statements as those indulged in by " Homo Sapiens," however good the motive that prompts them.—I am, Sir, &c.,
H. P. T.
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