Fruits of philosophy, or, The private companion of young married people / by Charles Knowlton.

  • Charles Knowlton
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fruits of philosophy, or, The private companion of young married people / by Charles Knowlton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER 1. Shouring how desirable it is, both in a political and a social point of view, for mankind to be able to limit, at will, the number of their ojfspiing, without sacrificing the pleasure that attends the gratifi cation of the reproductive instinct. First.—In a political point of view.—If population be not restrained by some great physical calamity, such as we have reason to hope will not hereafter be visited upon the children of men, or by some moral restraint, the time will come, when the earth cannot support its inhabitants. Population, unrestrained, will double three times in a century. Hence, computing the present population of the earth at 1000 millions, there would be at the end of 100 years from the present time, 8000 millions. At the end of 200 ,, 64,000 ,, BOO ,, 512,000 ^ ,, And soon, multiplying by eight for every additional hundred years. So that in 500 years from the present time, there would be thirty two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight times as many inhabit ants as at present. If the natural increase should go on without check for 1500 years, one single pair would increase to more than thirty-five thousand one hundred and eighty-four times as many as the present population of the whole earth ! Some check, then, there must be, or the time will come when millions will be born but to suffer and to perish for the necessaries of life. To what an inconceivable amount of human misery would such a state of things give rise ! And must we say that vice, war, pestilence, and famine, are desirable to prevent it? Must the friends of temperance and domestic happiness stay their efforts? Must peace societies excite to war and bloodshed ? Must the phy¬ sician cease to investigate the nature of contagion, and to search for the means of destroying its baneful influence? Must he that becomes diseased, be marked as a victim to die for the public good, without the privilege of making an effort to restore him to health? And in case of a failure of crops in one part of the world, must, the other parts withhold the means of supporting life, that the far greater evil of excessive population throughout the globe may be prevented ? Can there be no effectual moral restraint, attended with far less human misery than such physical calamities as these? Most surely there can. But what is it? Malthus, an English writer on the subject of population, gives us none but celibacy to a late age. But how foolish it is to suppose that men and women will become as monks and nuns during the very holiday of their
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