Professor Germain Grisez of Georgetown has written his criticism of contraception from the viewpoint of a natural-law theorist. He goes about his task in a tidily business-like way, first setting forth some of his own credentials:

Husband and wife, to use some earlier imagery of the book were not ‘goaded on to wrong paths by enthusiasm over the greener pastures projected in an illusory light by the latest phantasms of secular thought.’ Being thus armored in these durable orthodoxies, Professor Grisez adds a kindly admonition for many of his readers, ‘Those not accustomed to subtle argument, as well as those who do not respect reason, will be little moved by what I have to say. Against the heart reason has little power, and it is just as impotent against sentimentalism which has become confused with charity as it is against plain ill will.’

The subtlety of the argument is immediately evident in Professor Grisez’s derivation of the fundamental and absolutely basic principles of morality from our knowledge of man’s intrinsic inclinations.