Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, December 1955 — page 128: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

126 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION tears for the horrible, inhuman enemy, especially if our stomachs are empty. No, Kingsbury must choose between a triple-A, top-priority, no-exceptions “Replenish the Earth’ and an equally absolute “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” I prefer the latter, with overtones of “Be Moderate in All Things.” But, of course, there can be no argument against one’s Faith, for Faith is the Ulti- mate Reason and logic is the Devil’s tool. Is that not right, Mr. Kingsbury? And the easiest way to solve any problem is to deny that there is a problem and to do nothing at all about it. To sum up my own weak argument, I wish to venture the opinion that the 1.2% increase in population per year is probably affected by present birth- control practices and is subject to change over a period of years. Also, the proposed natural control of population will not work smoothly to maintain an even saturation of population. Plagues and famine follow war, and the trend will be toward global wars when population achieves its highest density. It is possible that an advanced technology might support a dense world population through one last period of relative prosperity, only to break down entirely under the impact of a final global war. The idea is trite as a S-F theme, but, even with today’s weapons, we are capable of depopula- ting the world. Worse, man may manage to survive, while his religions, passed down by word of mouth, gradually become entirely unrecognizable and pagan. You may say that this is impossible, but there are many prece- dents and we haven’t passed the final test. God could abandon us if He wished. In the meantime, let us hope that we don’t propagate ourselves to death.—Charles W. Schmidt, Hotel Fort Barbee, St. Mary’s, Ohio. Mr. Schmidt is among those who named the essential error—the lack of moderation. Dear Mr. Campbell: . Re “The Right to Breed,’’ September, 1955, ASF. A few amendments are in order. Among them are: “Superficially it seems we are above the grim ecology,”’ should read: “‘We are the grim ecology.”’ ““Science has let us down,’ should read: ‘‘We have let science down.’ The deduction that “it does appear that there will be war” is nothing short of brilliant. In fact, just as many types of bacteria cultures multiply so extensively in an agar dish that they literally kill themselves in their own toxins, so might we humans, on our agar ball, destroy ourselves in our own toxins. In brief, the article is the worst I have ever seen in ASF. It is particularly obnoxious with hypocrisy, a subjectively anthropomorphic philosophy (?) garbed in the cloak of deism.—Ben Krie, 230 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado. That last paragraph accurately describes the appearance of any fanaticism. Vw f. hes ~ mom Commicoooks. conn