The greatest task before civilisation at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men; and if civilisation fails at the task, then without doubt it and its makers will go down to a common destruction.

It is a task inextricably bound up with the task of moulding the human race for which birth-control is the elected instrument.

Indeed they are but two aspects of the same task.

We have to accept the rugged fact that every step to render more nearly perfect the mechanical side of life correspondingly abolishes the need for men.

Thus it is calculated to-day that whenever, in accordance with a growing tendency, coal is superseded by oil in industry two men are enabled to do the work of twelve.