[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,=–In reference to birth
control, advocated by Dean Inge and other eminent men, " Father of Four " raises a pertinent question in your issue of February 28rd, when he calls attention to the stigma attaching to the means by which birth control is obtained, for, in this matter, the moral issue is by far the most important. He says that the removal of the stigma is " difficult." I suggest that it is impossible so long as the prevailing sense of morality has its basis in the teachings of the Christian religion and is sustained by scientific observation and by ages-long human experience.
Sexual intercourse acquires the special significance it possesses as the most sublime of human acts owing to its momentous consequences. The sexual act itself is merely one phase in the whole natural phenomenon of procreation. It is merely a means to an end. Isolated from the other phases of procreation, it has no natural existence. To isolate it thus and to call it " gratification of a natural instinct is to degrade the most momentous act of life to the status of a mere pleasure, similar in kind, though doubtless not in degree, to other forms of " pleasure " which, so far as I am aware, no birth control advocate has every attempted to justify or condone. This form of " pleasure " is a purely human invention, and I think it open to doubt whether indulg- ence in it is " in accordance with the Will of God " l Do birth control advocates realize what ugly realities of mater- ialism are waiting to develop under cover of the sophistical circumlocution of their glib euphemisms ? The old fathers of the Church studied this matter in a practical manner and reached the only possible solution. They may have expressed themselves in a manner which does not carry conviction to the present generation ; but they saw the truth clearly, though they sometimes expressed it in somewhat obscurantist language.
The economic aspect of the question is secondary. This is essentially a moral question. Besides, in general terms, there is no excess of population ; there is only surplus popu- lation temporarily in certain areas; on the surface of the planet there is plenty of room for many millions more. The dis- tribution of population is the real problem. Anyhow, if and when birth control is necessary, abstinence is the only method which public morality will ever be able to authorize. I Ionian beings must remember that if they enjoy the privilege of possessing souls they must pay the price.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Homo SAPIENS.
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