Chesterton blows up Huxley: on asceticism, Christianity and sterilization

Professor Huxley said that "the ascetical element in Christianity" was what led to the moral protest against Sterilisation…"Asceticism," whether it be good or bad, can only mean the rejection of some earthly joys and jollities, which it is the general human desire to enjoy… Professor Huxley thinks sterilising other people so ordinary a form of fun and festivity, that to refuse it is like forbidding the dance or dashing the wine-cup…If anyone is the ascetic, it is obviously the man who wants to prevent people from having babies to love in the normal way: in other words, it is the Steriliser…We need not notice the idiots who insist that we mean noninterference with common external growth; as if no Catholic could cut down a tree. The point is that these moderns have collided, not with our “ascetical element”, but with out ancient and universal element of belief in Creation and Nature and Life…We may be mistaken, but we cannot be morbid...