The example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the
feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken, should
not be held up for emulation to the mentally and physically fit, and
therefore less fertile, parents of the educated and well-to-do classes.
On the contrary, the most urgent problem to-day is how to limit and
discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.
Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon American
society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic
breeding that has resulted from our stupid, cruel sentimentalism.
To effect the salvation of the generations of the future--nay, of the
generations of to-day--our greatest need, first of all, is the ability
to face the situation without flinching; to cooperate in the formation
of a code of sexual ethics based upon a thorough biological and
psychological understanding of human nature; and then to answer the
questions and the needs of the people with all the intelligence and
honesty at our command. If we can summon the bravery to do this, we
shall best be serving the pivotal interests of civilization.
To conclude this introduction: my initiation, as I have confessed, was
primarily an emotional one. My interest in Birth Control was awakened
by experience. Research and investigation have followed. Our effort has
been to raise our program from the plane of the emotional to the plane
of the scientific. Any social progress, it is my belief, must purge
itself of sentimentalism and pass through the crucible of science.
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