Note 266 — Chapter XVIII · ETHICAL AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS—LOVE AND HATE ASPECTS

It is scarcely necessary to point out the Neo-Malthusian bearings of these considerations. They add one more argument to the many that already exist in favour of the practice of birth-control, which is now adopted by the more cultured classes of nearly all civilised communities—a practice the ethical justifications of which are becoming constantly more manifest.

On the other hand, the desirability of a limitation of the size of the family must not of course blind us to the fact that a very small family, especially one where there is an only child, will often have certain difficulties of its own, from which larger families may be relatively free. There can be very little doubt that, in the case of the only child, the emancipation of the individual from the family influences may frequently present more than the usual amount of difficulty: where this is so, the tendencies towards emancipation will need a correspondingly greater amount of assistance and encouragement.