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 LIBRARY 
 
 THE SELIGMAN LIBRARY OF ECONOMICS 
 
 PURCHASED BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 I929 
 

 
 I 
 
r POPULATION FALLACIES: 
 
 A DEFENCE OF THE 
 
 ■-'/* r f rL-r'• ’■ ** ' * £ 
 
 MALTHUSIAN OR TRUE THEORY OF SOCIETY. 
 
 rx UETLY TO TIIH 
 
 cc Weekly Dispatch £< Times," and others. 
 
 BY 
 
 A GRADUATE OF MEDICINE. 
 
 ACTHOR OF “THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.’ 
 
 Che celebrated apophthegm that nations never profit by experience becomes 
 yearly more ami more untrue. Political Economy, at least, is found to have sound 
 principles, founded on the moral and physical nature of man, which, however lost sight 
 of in particular measures—however even temporarily controverted and borne down by 
 clamour— have yet a stronger testimony borne to them in each succeeding generation, 
 by which they must, sooner or later, prevail.”— Discourse on the Study of Natural 
 l'/,Uo.\ophy, by Bin John IIkkschel. 
 
 “Tin's great work (Mr. Mttltbus'a Essay), the principles of which have been grossly 
 misrepresented, is still the best which has been written on the important subject of 
 population."— history of Civilization in Knytund, by Mr. BUCKLE. 
 
 E. TEUELOVE, 25fi, HIGH IIOLBORN. 
 
 NEARLY OPPOSITE DAY AND MARTIX'S. 
 
 '.vX yfr' t • - •*'. . - ‘ if.- . V ‘ 
 
 XS67. ■ 
 
 - 
 
 TRICE ONE PENNY. 
 

 
 
 I Q<o1E 
 
 £> 3^3 
 
POPULATION FALLACIES 
 
 Is Hie Weekly* Di-patch (for Jan. 22, .Tan. 29, and Fob. 18(J'>), 
 .a writer has criticised my work, the “Elements of Social Science,” 
 condemning it in strong terms, and endeavouring to refute several 
 of its leading principles. As I think that his remarks should not 
 pass unanswered, I shall, in the following pages, briefly consider 
 them, ’and at the same time notice some other attacks recently 
 directed against the population doctrines. In a leading article on “Eng¬ 
 land and its Hopes,” in the Dispatch of Feb. 5, the following passages 
 occur:— 
 
 “ ‘Nothing is so fallacious,’ says Lord Melbourne, ‘as figures, except 
 facts.’ Does there not lie somo such delusion at the bottom of the 
 celebrated Malthusian doctrine of population? //'certain things would 
 bo, which never have happened, then, doubtless, there would not bo 
 standing room on God’s earth for its inhabitants. Wo know with 
 certainty that this earth of ours is millions of years old—it is not over¬ 
 populated even yet—it is not half peopled—it is not onc-lmndredth 
 part peopled—where then is there, can there bo, proof of a tendency in 
 population to exceed tho means of subsistence? Stato the proposition 
 broadly to one’s own reflectivo consciousness, that God has established 
 such a relation between the globe and tho human economy as that tho 
 natural increase of mankind cannot take place without certain misery — 
 nay, certain frustration of the very objects and purposes of his being; 
 and who will not pause before accepting even the most plausible 
 demonstration of so improbable a proposition ? In truth, it 1ms its 
 origin in one of those rulc-of-three conundrums which have proved so 
 many things to bo certain, which never happened. Arithmetical 
 abstractions applied to tho facts of actual life are entirely fallacious. 
 The laws of population are not regulated by the problems of geometry, 
 cr controlled by the axioms of mathematics. There lurk in the economy 
 of reproduction a thousand subtle agencies and hidden qualifications of 
 which we know little or nothing. Why in one country, or among tho 
 same people at different times, tho por-centagc of females falls short of 
 or exceeds the equality of numbers of the sexes—why, after a famine, a 
 war, or a devastating plague, there is a more rapid incroaso of the 
 population than in ordinary times—why the wealthiest countries show 
 the greatest fecundity, while yet tho number of children aro greatest 
 among the poorest—what law of physiology determines the relative pro¬ 
 portion of the sexes—these aro considerations about which wo know 
 nothing, and yet upon which tho whole question may turn. Is there 
 not reason to believe that there aro somo mutually-regulating compen¬ 
 satory elements in tho natural history of man, which without his own 
 active agency produce an infallible ebb and flow of population suited to 
 
4 
 
 the varying exigencies of human society ? What did Malthus, what do 
 the economists, practically know on the subject? What can they know 
 without the help of the ethnologist and physiologist? 
 
 “As a practical theory of any material significancy in political 
 economics, wo are persuaded that the Malthusian philosophy is utterly 
 unfounded. It reminds one of the periodical outcry against the export 
 of coal on the ground that the fields will be exhausted. . . . We 
 
 utterly deny that there is any tendency in population as a practical fact 
 to exceed the means of subsistence. Nay, wo deny that any check on 
 population will increase the relative proportion of the means of existence. 
 Where population is scanty', there the means aro uniformly narrow* 
 where numbers are dense, nations aro rich, and their resources great. 
 Babylon, Nineveh, Carthage, Homo—did these states decay from want, 
 from having more mouths than meat ? Savage nations, in tho nyidst of 
 the entire resources of North America, starved and dwindled to a mere 
 handful. The United States increase to tho effect of doubling their 
 numbers in twenty-five y r ears, and aro daily advancing in individual 
 comfort and wealth as their numbers swell. . . . 
 
 “ The researches of Liebig have, indeed, virtually refuted tho whole 
 of the Malthusian philosophy. Ho has demonstrated that each animal 
 returns to tho earth every year as much of the substances essential to 
 fertility, as will enable the soil to grow tho food necessary' for his sub¬ 
 sistence. It is a law of nature that refuse shall entirely' replaco con¬ 
 sumption ; so that there never can bo ono eater and drinker on tho 
 earth more than tho earth can feed, by tho very resources it derives 
 from his very' existence. When it is remembered that tho fruits of the 
 earth feed myriads of animals, which consume man's food and aro them¬ 
 selves adapted for his nourishment, it is really perfectly' idle to admit 
 tho 1 theory of population’ as an element in the calculation of economics. 
 
 “In 1805, when Parson Malthus was at his zenith, thoro was an 
 universal panic on the subject of redundant population. At this moment 
 tho very same territory contains just double *ho number it did then, 
 and yet employment and wages are nearly doubled, and the share of 
 food for each is greater than evor. Every necessary of life is half tho 
 price it was at the beginning of tho century, while the number of con¬ 
 sumers is twice as great. In half that time tho vory same results have 
 been effected in tho United States. In Turkey tho population has 
 receded and the supply of human food has diminished. There is an 
 absolute scarcity of laborers in this Great Britain, tho most densely 
 populated country of Europe. Twenty years ago, overy ninth English¬ 
 man was in receipt of parochial relief, and a third of the Irish' were 
 paupors. Wo are now adding a thousand souls to our population every 
 day, and wo cannot keep up tho waste of our small army, and employers 
 constantly complain of a want of hands. More striking still, in Paris, 
 the city of tho lower moral habits, tho per-centage of pauperism is 
 rather more than double that of London, in defianco of forced employ¬ 
 ment and immense outlays on Government and municipal works, while 
 out of 20,000 annual births, no fewer than 11,000 are illogitimato. 
 
 “ Man is by far tho most valuable of all working animals. Tho single 
 labor of one man could subsist at least ten human beings. A farmor 
 
 
o 
 
 allows two men and two horses for the cultivation of fifty acres. Ono 
 acre of wheat would give two persons threo pounds of broad per day, 
 and the fifty acres would feed a hundred pooplo, thus nourishing fifty 
 hy the work of ono Apply steam-ploughs, reaping-machines, artificial 
 manures, and to what roach may not our resources bo extended ? . . . 
 
 Man would not exert his faculties were ho not driven by fear of want, 
 smd stimulated by the hope of comfort and abundance. The moral check 
 of Jfalthus is the withdrawmeut of tlio strongest stimulus to exertion. 
 
 . . . It is our vices, our crimos, our selfishness, our imperfect 
 
 system of the distribution of our resources, our foolish wars, our neglect 
 of the real culture of our people—these are the real causes of our desti¬ 
 tution, which has been called pressure upon the means of subsistence. 
 Our working classes on tobacco, spirits, beer, alone, spare 73 millions a 
 year ont of their earnings. Had that sum been spent on their wives and 
 •children, the nation would have found largo families the greatest national 
 •Mossing, in place of being a burden and a calamity. Arc the childless, 
 tho old maids, the bachelors, on the whole more prosperous, better off than, 
 those who have children ? . . . 
 
 “ What! in the ago of telegraphs, steam-ships, railways, of tho dis¬ 
 covery of tho law of storms, and now laws of navigation, of extended 
 knowledge and universal intercom-se, are we to bo told of expedients of 
 sophisticated society for arresting the order of nature ? India with its 
 splendid prizes, Australia with its yearly twenty millions of gold and 
 Imports of a million a month, China with its boundless resources. 
 Canada, California, tlig United States, Now Zealand, South and Western 
 Africa, almost shut against our ancestors, are all opening to us. In a 
 month wo are in India against six weeks formerly. In a week wo are in 
 America against six weeks forty years ago. But our young men bocomo 
 selfish, coldly calculating, self-indulgent; and young women, badly 
 nurtured, are daily loss fitted to bocome heads of families, wives, and 
 mothers. Tho ono bocoipcs afraid of matrimony, and the oilier not very 
 lit for it. Of what are they afraid? Tho resources of tho country, of 
 tho father of a family, are an hundred fold greater than they were at tho 
 beginning of the century. Ho who sonds mouths also sonds meat. Let 
 ns hear no more of over-population and French morality. The Queen 
 wants volunteers and the country workers ; tho whole world is opened to 
 •our enterprise, and Franco is our firm ally; lot thoro be a tax on 
 bachelors; a bounty on families, and a baby-show in every pari.-h: 
 early marriages, healthy domestic life, British manliness, and hopeful 
 trust.” 
 
 Tho above remarks afford an additional illustration of tho general 
 fact, that those who scok to disprove tho Malthusian theory have 
 scarcely ever a correct idea of what it really is. Tho writer lias 
 thoroughly misunderstood tho doctrine ho wishes to refute, as may bo 
 seen iu tho following passages:—“//'certain things would be,” lie says, 
 “ which never have happened, then doubtless there would not bo stand¬ 
 ing room on God’s earth for its inhabitants. . . . Wo know with cer¬ 
 tainty that this earth of ours is millions of years old—it is uot over- 
 populated even yet—it is not half peopled—it is not one-hundredth part 
 peopled;—whero then is there, can thoro be, proof of a tendon y in 
 
0 
 
 population to exceed the means of subsistence ?’’ In the first of these i 
 sentences the writer speaks as if Mr. Malthus had asserted that popu- 1 
 lation always increases at a geometrical ratio; whereas his real assertion j 
 was, that although it is naturally capable of doing so. and does do so | 
 under favourable circumstances, as in the ease of a new colony, yet in I 
 old countries it cannot do so, but is always powerfully checked by the 1 
 difficulty of increasing the means of subsistence. From the second ] 
 sentence, it is evident that the writer supposes the “ over-population ” ] 
 referred to by economists to denote a state of tilings in which the world j 
 could not contain any more inhabitants—a state of things which doubt- ; 
 loss never did, nor ever will, take place. But this is to understand the j 
 word in a totally different sense from that in which it is employed by i 
 economists. As used in political economy, the word denotes an over- 1 
 population as compared with the existing capital in a country, tand not j 
 an over-population as compared with the ultimate productive capacity 5 
 of the earth; in other words, it denotes what may be called a relative , ' 
 not an absolute , over-population. An over-population of tho former kind 
 not only does exist at present, but has always existed in old countries, 1 
 far more peoplo being brought into tho world in each generation than ; 
 can be comfortably supported. Tho test of over-population, in tho 
 economical sense of the word, is the existence of a low general rate of 
 wages, and a high price of food; for wages depend on tho demand and 
 supply of labour, and therefore, whenever they are low, it is a certain 
 sign that tho labourers arc too numerous in comparison with tho capital; 
 and the average prico of food depends on its cost of production on tho 
 worst soils, and therefore, whenever tho average prico is high, it is a 
 certain sign that cultivation has been forced by tho numbers of the 
 peoplo to descend to very poor soils. Poverty , in short, is tho test, and 
 the result, of the over-population meant by economists. The constant 
 and necessary existence either of poverty, or of one or more of the other I 
 population-chocks, prostitution, celibacy, or preventive intercourse, in 
 old countries, is the “ proof of a tendency in population to exceed tho 
 moans of subsistence;” in other words, it is a proof that the powers of 
 human increase are so immeasurably superior to those of tho land in old 
 countries, that the former are always powerfully checked by the latter. 
 The ambiguity just noticed in the word “over-population” is, I am 
 convinced, by far the commonest source of tho errors currently enter¬ 
 tained on tho population doctrines. 
 
 Tho writer holds it to bo highly “ improbable ” that “ God has csta 
 Wished such a relation between the globe and the human economy as 
 that the natural increase of mankind cannot take place without certain 
 misery but in a question as to a matter of fact, or law of nature, such 
 a priori theological objections are quite inadmissible. As Mr. Mill 
 shows in his Logic, our knowledge of tho laws of nature is derived 
 wholly from crjierience , and from no other source; even in tho case of 
 those simple generalizations, such as tho axioms of mathematics, which 
 have ofton been called necessary truths, and have boon supposed to bo 
 derived, independently of experience, from the constitution of the mind 
 itself. Thus, in speaking of tho attempts of geometers to provo the 
 laws of motion by <1 priori arguments, Mr. ill says, “All these fancies 
 
of tho possibility of knowing what is natural or not natural by any 
 other means than experience, arc, in truth, entirely futile. The real 
 and only proof of tho laws of motion, or of any other law of tho universe, 
 is experience; it is simply that no other suppositions explain or are con¬ 
 sistent with tho facts of universal nature.” Besides, tho writer himself 
 admits that tho globe is so constituted that tho “ natural increaso of 
 mankind” cannot tako place at all in old countries ; or in other words, 
 that population cannot increaso so fast in them as in now colonies; for 
 he grants that “ tho United States increase to tho etl'oct of doubling 
 their population in twenty-five years,” while, on tho other hand, “ our 
 population has doubled in fifty-three years.” lie doos not percoivo tho 
 awful significance of tho fact which ho passes over so lightly. It is 
 from this very fact—that population cannot increase so fast in old coun¬ 
 tries as? in new colonics- that tho population checks necessarily arise. 
 How does the writer explain to himself tho slow progress of population 
 in Great Britain and other old countries as compared with tho United 
 States? Doos ho not sco that tHis groat fact must proceed from somo 
 powerful cause, aud must bo utteudod with tho most momentous conse¬ 
 quences? It is by analysing this aggregate check to population, by 
 decomposing it into its various constituent checks, by thoroughly inves¬ 
 tigating its causos and consequences, that tho economists have shown it 
 to he the real source of tho great social evils of old countries, and, indeed, 
 tho most powerful influence which operates on human society. 
 
 With regard to tho “ considerations about which wo know nothing, 
 and yet on which tho whole qnostion may turn,” some of thorn are of no 
 importance to tho question, while others are proofs of tho very doctrine 
 tho writer is trying to refute. To enable us to decide on tho truth of 
 the Malthusian law, wo do not requiro to understand such obscure phy¬ 
 siological questions as “ why in one countiy or among the same people 
 at different times, tho percentage of females falls short or oxcoods tho 
 equality of numbers of th$ sexes,” or “ what law of physiology determines 
 the relative proportions of the sexesall that wo need to know is, that, 
 be those obscure laws what they may, the powers of human iucroaso are 
 so incomparably greater than thoso of tho land in old countries, t. at 
 population is always powerfully checked by celibacy, prostitution, pre¬ 
 ventive intercourse, or poverty; and this wo know with absoluto 
 certainty. The population principlo affords tho real explanation of tho 
 fact, that “ aftor a famine, a war, or a desolating plague, there is a more 
 rapid incx - ease of tho population than at ordinary times,” as was pointed 
 out by Mr. Malt bus himself; for, at such times, tho country is placed 
 somewhat iu tho position of a now colony, tho prossuro of population on 
 the soil being lightened, aud tho skill and industrial habits of tho people- 
 remaining the same. That population does, as a general rule, increaso 
 more rapidly under such circumstances, is a verification of tho Malthusian 
 principlo. What is meant by tho statement, that “tho wealthiest 
 countries show tho greatest fecundity, while yet tho numbers of childrcu 
 aro greatest among tho poorest,” I do not clearly understand —probably 
 by “ fecundity ” tho writer means “ actual increasebut 1 will merely 
 mention that in tho United States tho number of children is so groat 
 that, as mentioned in our last census report only one in six of tho popu- 
 
8 
 
 lillon is forty years of ago and upwards; that in Great Britain, a 
 wealthy country so far as the richer classes aro concerned, the increase 
 of population is not half so great as in the United States; and that the 
 increase of the French population is far below that of the Irish, although 
 the circumstances of the j>eoplo aro much superior. The assertion that 
 “ there aro somo mutually-regulating compensatory elements in the 
 natural history of man, which, without his own active agency, produce 
 an infallible ebb and flow of population suited to the varying exigencies 
 of human society,” is a repetition, in vague terms, of the sterility fallacy, 
 of Mr. Doubleday, Mr. Herbert S}>oncer, Mr. Sadler, and others, who 
 havo supposed that there is some self-adjusting principle in nature, by 
 which the vast powers of fecundity are, at certain times, and under* 
 certain circumstances, affected by sterility in old countries, so as to 
 keep population down to the level of the food. But, from tho observation 
 of nature, wo can see that there is no such principle, and that the real 
 causes, patent to every ;.tto;.tivo and impartial eye, which retard human 
 increase in old countries, aro celibacy, prostitution, preventive intor- 
 courso, or poverty. 
 
 “ As a practical theory of any material significancy in political 
 economics,” says the writer, “ wo are persuaded that the Malthusian 
 philosophy is utterly unfounded. It reminds one of tho periodical out¬ 
 cry against tho oxport of coal on the ground that tho fields will bo 
 exhausted.” Hero wo have the same misconception of the population 
 theory which I have elsewhere alluded to as tho futurity fallacy, and 
 which has been produced again and again by the -limes newspaper; tho 
 supposition, namely, that Mr. Malthus meant to express a fear that 
 population would at some future, time press much more heavily on tho 
 means of subsistence than at present; a fear which he not only did not 
 entertain, but which has boon vaguely ontortaiued by many writers, 
 including M. Condorcet and M. Auguste Comte, and whoso visionary 
 character Mr. Malthus was himself the first clearly to demonstrate. 
 “ To suppose,” ho says, iu his Essay on Population, “ that in speaking of 
 those effects of tho principle of population, I look to certain periods in 
 future , when population will exceed the moans of subsistence in a much 
 greater degree thau at present, is, I must again repeat, a tot til miscon¬ 
 ception of the argument. Poverty , and nob absolute famine, is tho 
 specific etYoct of the principle of population, as I havo endeavoured to 
 show. Many countries aro vow suffering all tho evils which can over bo 
 expected to llow from this principle; and oven if we wore arrived at the 
 absolute limit to all further increase of produce, a point which wo shall 
 assuredly novel* reach, I should by no moans expect that thoso ovils 
 would bo iu any marked maimer aggravated.” “Tho doctrine,” saya 
 Mr. Mill, “ that, to however distant a time incessant struggling may put 
 off our doom, tho progress of society must ‘end in shallows and iu 
 miseries,’ far from being, as many pooplo still believe, a wicked inven¬ 
 tion of Mr. Malthus, was either expressly or tacitly affirmed by liis most 
 distinguished predecessors, and can only bo successfully combated on 
 his principles.” 
 
 Tho probable source of the “ futurity” fallacy, a? wa3 pointed out ty 
 Mr. Senior, and as I have elsewhere noticed, is an ambigu'ty iu tho woid 
 
9 
 
 tendency , which is sometimes used to express “a probability that au 
 event will happen in n certain given case,” and at other times “a cer¬ 
 tainty that a given oflect will follow a given cause, unless it he counter¬ 
 acted which two meanings may perhaps be expressed by the terms 
 concrete and abstract , or actual and potential tendency. 
 
 The writer denies “that any check upon population will increase tho 
 relative proportion of the means of subsistence.” But this is contrary 
 both to common experience and common sense. Does the writer mean 
 to deny that, other things being equal, a family is better oil when it 
 consists of three or four, than when it consists of a dozen, members; or 
 that tho average wages of the laborers will rise if their numbers increase 
 in a less proportion than the capital ? Even if it were the case that 
 “ where population is scanty, thero tho means of subsistence are uni¬ 
 formly narrow; where numbers are dense, nations are rich, and their 
 resources great,” it would be no argument whatever against the Malthu¬ 
 sian doctrines, for, according to these doctrines, tho condition of a people 
 is not dependent on the absolute amount of population and wealth in a 
 country, but only on the relative amount of these two elements as com¬ 
 pared with one another; but the statements aro quite incorrect. In 
 Australia and many parts of the United States, population is very scanty, 
 and yet tho means of subsistence aro abundant; in China and Hindustan, 
 tho numbers aro very dense, and yet tho people aro miserably poor; and 
 in densely populated England and Ireland, although some classes aro 
 extravagantly rich, immense multitudes aro over hovering on the briuk 
 of starvation. Tho economists do not assert that tho law of diminishing 
 productiveness is the only cause which retards or diminishes population 
 and production; but that in civilized and industrious nations, such as 
 those of modem Europe, it is the main cause. In savage tribes, and in 
 such states as Babylon, Romo, and others mentioned by the writer, other 
 causos have doubtless operated, such as tho want of skill, industry.- and 
 providence, as woll as devastation by hostile races. Frpm tho accounts 
 lately received of tho state of pauperism in Now York, I believo that the 
 eastern portions of tho United States aro by no means “advancing in 
 individual comfort and wealth as their numbers swell,” but are becoming 
 gradually over-peopled ; a state of things which has always been pre¬ 
 dicted by economists, and is indeed absolutely certain to occur sooner or 
 later, unless the Americans profit by tho fatal experience of tho old 
 world. In America and Australia, after tho lapse of a few more genera¬ 
 tions, tho people will inevitably have to choose, like ourselves at present, 
 between the four true population-checks. 
 
 With the exception of the sterility fallacy, tho writer's arguments, thus 
 far, have been directed, not against tho real Malthusian theory, but 
 against one or othor misconception of it. Ho now, however, denies that 
 •over-population ever can take place, and on the following grounds. 
 “The researches of Liebig, - ’ he says, “have virtually refuted the whole 
 of tho Malthusian philosophy. lie lias demonstrated that each animal 
 returns to tho earth every year as much of tho substances essential to 
 fertility as will enable tho soil to grow the food necessary for his sub¬ 
 sistence. It is a law of nature that refuse shall entirely roplaoe con- 
 •sumption ; so that thero never can be one oater and drinker on tho earth 
 
10 
 
 n-.ore than ti c earth can feet!, by the very resources it derives from his 
 very existence.” To this it is almost a sufficient answer to say, that 
 over-population does exist in this and other old countries, as is shown by 
 the small returns yielded by the worst lands under cultivation, as weil 
 as by the largo proportion which tho laborers bear to tlio capital, and 
 the consequent low rate of wages ; but it is hotter to examina the subject 
 more closely. Tho fallacy, it appears to me, lies in not attending to the 
 unequal fertility of the land. Although refuse may “ replace consump¬ 
 tion” on soils of a certain degree of fertility, it will not do so on poorer 
 soils; indeed, many soils aro so barren as to bo quito unable to repay 
 the cost of reclaiming them, and there aro wido differences in tho fertility 
 of those already brought under cultivation. “It was slated by several 
 witnesses examined by a committee of the House of Commons on the 
 state of agriculture in 1831,” says Mr. McCulloch, “that the produce 
 obtained from tho lands under cultivation in England and Wales, esti¬ 
 mated in wheat, varied from thirty-six and forty, to eight and nine 
 bushels an acre. The required supplies of food could not bo obtained 
 without cultivating those inferior lands; and it is this necessity of re¬ 
 sorting to soils of a diminished degree of fertility that is tho real cause 
 of tho comparatively high price of corn and other raw products, in highly 
 populous countries.” It is therefore quite incorrect to say, as a general 
 proposition and irrespective cf tho fertility of the soil, that “refuse can 
 replace consumption.” All arguments of this kind cau indeed bo readily 
 refuted by a reductio ad absurdum. Does tho pvriter not seo, that if 
 refuse could always replace consumption, it would follow that population 
 could increase as rapidly in this country as in tho United States; in 
 other words, that in 2~> years Great Britain might have 50 millions of 
 inhabitants, in 50 years 100 millions, in a century 400 millions, &c.'l 
 The absurdity of such a conclusion shows the error of the promises from 
 which it is derived. 
 
 Similar observations may be made with resect to tho statements that 
 “ tho single labor of one man could subsist at least ten human beings. 
 A farmer allows two mon and two horses for the culture of fifty” acres. 
 One acre of wheat would givo two persons three pounds of bread per day, 
 and tho fifty acres feed a hundred people, thus nourishing fifty by tho 
 work of one.” Here, too, tho the unequal fertility of soils is quito over¬ 
 looked. Whatever may bo the fertility of tho better soils, wo know that 
 upon the worst soils under cultivation (on which the remuneration of tho 
 laborer and the farmer really depends, sinco tho whole produce of tho 
 worst lands is divided between these two sharers, while tho excess of pro¬ 
 duce yielded by better lands goes, in tho shape of rent, to tho landlord) 
 tho returns are just sufficient to give a miserable living to tho laborer, 
 and a profit of eight or ten per cent, to tho fanner. It must bo remem¬ 
 bered also that, whilo in former times a workman produced various com¬ 
 modities for his own consumption, under tho modern system of tho 
 separation of employments and division of labor, every workman produces 
 only one or at most a few commodities, and therefore must necessarily 
 produce much more of those commodities than he needs for his own 
 consumption; sinco ho lives by exchanging tho superfluity for other 
 articles which he requires. But tho general productiveness of labor is 
 
11 
 
 not greater at present than in former times, as is shown by the fact that 
 the rate of wages and profits is not higher now than formerly. The 
 principal exception to this statement—that the general productiveness of 
 labor is not greater now than formorly —is in the case of those laborers 
 who aro employed on tho better lands, and whose labor is undoubtedly 
 much more productive; hut this has no offect on their wages, nor on tho 
 profits of the farmer, since tho wholo excess of produce goes to tho land¬ 
 lord. Tho productiveness of labor on the bolter lands is an exception 
 to its genoral productiveness in the country; whilo upon tho worst lands, 
 and in manufactures generally (in both of which eases no rent, excepting 
 tho ground-rout of tho factory, is paid, but tho whole produce is shared 
 betwcou the laborers and the capitalists) the -productiveness of labor, as 
 a gcnertvl rule, is only such as to give a miserably low wage to the 
 laborer, and a low rate of profit to tiro capitalist. It is true that tho 
 factory operative produces a much grea'or <jnmit'ti / of commodities now 
 than formerly, but their value is proportionally diminished, so that upon 
 tho whole his wages are not raised. 
 
 I am awaro that tho writer, as well as many others (including tho 
 Times newspaper, which is constantly dwelling upon “ the increasing 
 prosperity of the nation ”) deny this, and assort that tho condition of tho 
 English laborers is much superior at presont to what it was in tho earlier 
 periods of our history. I am of a very different opinion; but, before 
 considering the question, I would remark, that whether their condition 
 he better or worse, is equally consistent with the Malthusian principles. 
 Many writers soem to imagine that a diminution of pauperism, or riso of 
 wages, is opposed to these principles, and, indeed, this is tho stereotyped 
 argument which tho Times has again and again brought forward. But, 
 as any one who has a correct knowledge of the Malthusian law is aware, 
 it is perfectly consistent with that law, not meroly that wages should 
 rise, and pauperism decrease, to a slight extent, but that poverty and 
 pauperism should bo ichollij removed; indeed no general rise of wages cun 
 take place except as a consequenco of the proportion between tho 
 laborers and tho wage-fun 1 having bccomo more favorable, and tho 
 removal of poverty cannot possibly bo oiYocted except by a great incroaso 
 of one or more of the preventive checks. 
 
 Lot us howover briefly cousidor whethor it is a fact, as tho writer 
 asserts, that tho working classos aro better off now than formerly. “ In 
 1805,” he says, “when Parson Maltluis was in his zenith, there was an 
 universal panic outlie subject of redundant population. At this moment 
 tho very sumo territory contains just double tho number it'did then, and 
 yet employment ancl wages are nearly doubled, and tho share of food for 
 each is greater than ever. Every necessary of lifo is half the price it 
 was at the boginning of tho century, whilo tho number of consumers is 
 twice as great .... Just as our numbors increase, our moans of sub¬ 
 sistence multiply." As alroady mentioned, those statements, oven if 
 correct, aro no arguments whatever against tho Malthusian doctrino, and 
 to suppose otherwise, shows a radical misconception of tho doctrine. But 
 they are, I believe, in tho main quito incorrect. It may indeed be tho 
 case (although I doubt it), that tho condition of tho people has improved 
 a little since tho begiimingof the century, at which time it was depressed 
 
12 
 
 Tdv the French war and by a succession of bad harvests from 1795 to- 
 and it is true that the price of necessaries was higher at that 
 Sop".lT ol tho Zr portly of tit. dop^ciotod .tot. of 
 th“ currency owing to tho suspension of cash payments. But the writer 
 seems to believe that tho laborers are better off now than.m tlio oailiei 
 periods of our history, for ho says generally, " Just as our numbers in¬ 
 crease our means of subsistence multiply.” This opinion, however, is quite 
 opposed to that of the l>est authorities. Mr. 1 horaton, w ho, in his admir- 
 Xwork on Over-population and its Remedy, examines in the most 
 careful and elaborate manner the present and past condition of tho work¬ 
 ing classes, giving numerous wage-tables and other statistical detail* 
 collected from tho most varied sources, arrives at the conclusion that tho 
 condition of the English laborers during the centuries which immediately 
 succeeded tho formation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, was far superior 
 to what it is at present. “ When tho Anglo-Saxons first became a dis¬ 
 tinct people,” ho says, “ the lowest class were placed in circumstances in 
 which they wore abundantly supplied with everything which was then 
 considered a necessary of life; and the condition of their descendants 
 several centuries later, not only had not deteriorated, but had improved 
 with the progress of freedom and civilization so that tho English laborer, 
 duly estimating all his advantages, might look down with pity on his 
 
 fellows in almost every othor land.At length exti aneous 
 
 influences which the laborers could not control, precipitated them 
 from tliei'r high social position : and other circumstances, at a later- 
 period by offering them temporary protection from the consequences 
 of improvidence, prevented them from again recovering the station 
 
 thev had lost.The present degradation o tho English. 
 
 laborer has not been effected within a recent period ; the golden age 
 of the workinq class was followed without any interval by the iron age 
 which Mill subsists." Mr. Thornton gives many convincing facts m 
 support of these assertions, and, among others, adduces the'laws which, 
 were passed, on several occasions, during the 14th and 15th centuries 
 for tho purpose of keeping down wages and checking tho expenditure of 
 the laboring classes. Those laws, many of whose curious provisions he 
 quotes “ exhibit,” ho says, “ the English peasantry m a condition which 
 was probably never attained by the same class in any other age or 
 country, unless perhaps by tho emancipated negroes of the British M ost 
 Indies and which thev could scarcely bo believed to have really occupied, 
 upon slighter evidence than has beon brought forward.” “ In tho face- 
 of testimony like this,” ho continues, “it has been gravely argued 
 that the English peasantry of the middlo ages were less comfortably 
 situated than their living descendants, because they used barley instead 
 of wheaton bread, ato off wooden platters, never knew the luxury of a 
 cotton shirt or of a cup of tea, aijd slopt on straw pallets within walls of 
 wattled plaster. All tho details of this picture are not perhaps perfectly 
 accurate; at least there are grounds for believing that in very early 
 times wheaten bread was commonly used by people of tho lowest class in 
 many parts of England; but even if the representation bo quito faithful, 
 it onlv shows that certain modern refinements and conveniences wero 
 formerly unknown and uncoveted. But although rudor means were. 
 
13 
 
 employed to supply the wants of nature, every want was abundantly 
 satisfied, which is far indeed from being the ease at present.” A similar 
 view is taken by Mr. Mill, and also by Mr. llallam, the historian of tho 
 middle ages, as is mentioned by M. Comte, in his Positive Philosophy. 
 “There is considerable evidence.” says Mr. Mill, “that the circum¬ 
 stances of the agricultural laborers have more than once in our history 
 sustained great permanent deterioration, from causes which oporated by 
 diminishing tho demand for labor, and which, if population had oxercisod 
 its power of self-adjustment in obedience to the previous standard of 
 comfort, could only have had a temporary olTect; but unhappily tho 
 povorty in which the class was plunged during a long series of years 
 brought that previous standard into disuse; and tho next generation, 
 growing up without having possessed theso pristine comforts, multiplied 
 in turn without any attempt to rotriovo them.” “ Mr. llallam has 
 proved,” says M. Comte, “ that tho wages of labor aro sensibly inferior, 
 in comparison with tho prices of necessaries, to what they were in tho 
 14th and 15th centuries.Whilo the poorest laborers obtain con¬ 
 
 veniences unknown to their ancestors, tho ancestors probably obtained, 
 in tho early phases of the period, a more complete satisfaction of their 
 main physical wants.” Tho sarno view is taken by Professor Thorold 
 Rogers in his lately published “ History of Agriculture and Prices in 
 England," a work which is tho fruit of fivo years’ labor, and has been 
 carefully compiled from original records. In a review of this work in 
 the Athenaeum , of Juqo ‘23rd, 1800, tho writer says, “ In so far as Mr. 
 Rogers demonstrates that tho working men of the fourteenth century 
 were, upon tho whole, far bettor paid and fed than tho laborers of modem 
 England, he morcly supports a view which, in theso latter years, has 
 been generally accepted by historical students.” 
 
 Pauperism , as Mr. Thornton shows, is an evil of modern growth, which 
 was comparatively unknown in tho middle ages, and which, though it 
 may bo somewhat less at present than in tho years immediately preced¬ 
 ing, has increased enormously since tho middle of last contury, and is 
 still of a most appalling magnitude. There have, indeed, probably beon 
 at all times persons who have preferred to live by begging rather than 
 by work, although by tho latter they could have earned a comfortable 
 subsistence. Beggars of this description are alluded to in one of tho 
 Acts passed in the 14th contury, for keeping down wages. “Those, 
 however, and their successors for more than a century,” says Mr. 
 Thornton, “were beggars from choice, but they were at length replaced 
 by a race of beggars from necessity. Repoated statutes, commencing 
 with ono passed in 1494, attest the rapid spread of destitution.” Many 
 barbarous laws were passed at that time for tho purposo of checking 
 mendicancy, and during tho latter part of tho 16th century tho system 
 of legal reliof for the poor was introduced, which however was not carriod 
 into active operation till 1062. Towards tho end of tho 17th century tho 
 annual amount of tho poor's rates was about i 600,000; in 1776 it had 
 risen to £1,521,000; in 1785 to £1,912,000; in 1801 to £4,017,871 ; in 
 1818 to between 7 and 8 millions ; and in 1835, tho year subsequent to 
 the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act, tho amount was upwards 
 of live millions; tho diminution having beon owing partly to tho opora- 
 
14 
 
 tn:i of tho Act, and partly to the abundant harvests of 1S35 and 1£.‘S'> ( . 
 »ni an unu3Uftlly active demand for labor, the amount has however I 
 believe jigtin increased sinco that time: tnus, while in 18.>< it was. 
 
 in 1818 it was *8,341,000. Tho number of paupers, both 
 in- loor and out-of-door, on 1st January, 1831, was 882,827: in tho last 
 week of December, 1837, it was 1)38,813 ; and in tho samo period of lfcoS), 
 
 tho number was 826,773. . 
 
 Tim writer iu the Dispatch holds that “there is an absolute scarcity of 
 laborers in this Great Britain, tho most densely-populated country of 
 Karov*}. . . Wo are now adding a thousand souls to our population 
 
 every (lav, and we cannot keep up tho waste of our small army, and 
 employers constantly complain of a want of hands.” These statements 
 show how little real attention the writer has paid to tho state of tho 
 la!>or-maiket in tho country, or to the law which governs wages. To 
 sav that labor is scarce as compared with tho wage-fund is equivalent to 
 sayiim that tho general rate of wages is very high, and that all laborers, 
 can easily find employment: which is a mere mockery of tho struggles 
 and privations of tho working classes. Tho real truth, as tho laborers 
 are bitterly aware, is that every trade in tho country is enormously 
 over-stocked with labor, and not only are wages in consequence miserably 
 low but immense numbers are very frequently and for long periods out. 
 of employment. “It vs calculated by thoso who have tho best moans of 
 knowing,” says Mr. Mayhew iu bis work on Low Wages, “that out of 
 
 000,001) operatives in this country, one-third onjy are fully employed. 
 
 . r occupied their whole time ; on -third partially employed, or occupied 
 b*t half their time; and the remaining third unemployed, or obtaining 
 a day’s work or job occasionally, through the illness or absonco of the 
 others.” Wages may possibly he higher, and employment more general 
 for the moment, and it is very possible that in somo trades employers may 
 “complain of tho want of hands.” But tho \ ecuniary interests of em¬ 
 ployer and employed are, in several respects, opposed to each other, like 
 thoso of buyer and seller, and therefore any slight rise < f wages from a 
 diminished proportion of tho laborers to the wage-fund, or from some 
 unusual demand for labor at a particular season of tho year, or in a 
 particular trade, may bo complained of by employers as a scarcity of 
 Jalwr. To the laborers themselves an adequate scarcity of labor is the 
 greatest of all advantages, and therefore it is the object most of all to bo 
 uosired and promoted by tho friends of human progress. 
 
 I am not awaro on what authority the writer states that “in Paris, 
 tho city of tho lower moral habits, tho per-centage of pauperism is 
 rather more than double-that of London, in defiance of forced employ¬ 
 ment and immense outlays on Government and municipal works, whilo 
 out of 23,000 annual births no fewer than 11,000 are illegitimate;” nor 
 do I see how a comparison of tho amount of pauperism could easily ho 
 made, since tho French system of relief for tho poor is totally different 
 from the English. In Franco thore are no Poor Laws, and the poor 
 bavo no leyal claim to relief, but cases of destitution are relieved, at the 
 option of tho authorities, by the bureaux de b'en/uisauce. Doubtless- 
 there is very great misery in’Paris, as iu other largo towns throughout 
 the old world, and tho misory has probably been augmented by tho 
 
remarkable deficiency in the crops which has taken place for several suc¬ 
 cessive seasons,previously to I860, in Franco. But in ordinary years there 
 is, I believe, much less of extreme poverty in Paris than in Loudon. 
 This is the opinion of Sir Francis Head, who examined many of tho 
 poorest quarters in Paris along with Lord Shaftesbury (the ; Lord 
 Ashley), and it will, I think, bo shared by all who have visited Paris, 
 and attentively observed tho appearance of tho poorer classes. The 
 condition of the agricultural population in France, most of whom are 
 peasant proprietors, is held by the best authorities to bo far superior to 
 that of tho agricultural laborers in England. “ A mighty change for 
 tho better in tho condition of tho lower orders of tho French people," 
 says Mr. Thornton, “was wrought by tho revolution of 1780. Not only 
 did all arbitrary exactions and all feudal privileges cease, but tho 
 division of extensive tracts of common land, and tho confiscation and 
 sale, at a very low price, of tho vast estates of tho nobility and clergy, 
 enabled almost every cultivator to become a proprietor. At this moment 
 one-sovonth of tho whole nation are landholders, a much larger propor¬ 
 tion probably than in any other part of tho world. Most of the proper¬ 
 ties are of courso very small: but, cultivated as thoy aro with tho 
 minute and assiduous attention which are never bestowed but by small 
 occupiers, they aro sufficient to furnish their owners in general with a 
 comfortable maintenance, or at loast to contribute very materially 
 towards it. Thai the French people in general are at present very ictll off] 
 is remarked by:every one who passes through the country; and it is 
 of importance to observe, that their happiness is partly tho effect of mg 
 recent improvements. In order to perceive that great progress lias been 
 mado, it is not necessary to go back to the last century; so lately as 
 twenty or thirty years ago, tho Due de la Rochcfoucault, M. Latitte, 
 and others, could descant on tho misery endured by multitudes of ihcir 
 countrymen, whom they described as clothed in rags, and subsisting 
 entirely on coarse roots. Whether faithful or not at the time it was 
 drawn, this picture is ccrtaiuly exceedingly inaccurate now. The 
 French peasantry enjoy great abundance and variety of vegetable feed, 
 of which, with tho aid of plentiful supplies of milk, eggs, Ac., they 
 composo savory dishes, such as it never occurred to an English plough¬ 
 man to imagine; and tho increased and increasing cheapness of all 
 articles of clothing also enables them to dress much better than formerly. 
 Their habitations likewise arc very good, and aro well provided with all 
 needful furniture, particularly bedding, and with utensils of earthenware, 
 ■pewter, coppor, and iron. It is only in somo manufacturing districts, 
 particularly in and about the towns of Lyons. Rouen, Lille, Valencienne s 
 and Cambrai, that destitution is at all prevalent; and there it has been 
 produced by causes not unlike those from which it has sprung in similar 
 situations in Great Britain, viz., tho decay of branches of industry, 
 which, after collecting large masses of people on one spot, are now 
 unablo to afford them adequate employment." 
 
 That there is much real licentiousness iu Paris, as in London, is 
 unhappily too true, but the fact which the writer mentions, namely, that 
 about one-third of the births in tho former city are illegitimate, is in 
 itself no proof of real licentiousness. It is only a proof that tho iustitu- 
 
1G 
 
 tion of indissoluble marriage is held in far less estimation in France than 
 in this country, which is undoubtedly the case. In an article on the 
 “Realities of Paris,” in the Westminster Review (January, I860), 
 the writer speaks of this subject, and gives quotations from Sir Francis 
 Head and irom Mr. Goodrich, an American author, illustrating the 
 manner in which marriage is regarded in France. “In Paris,” says 
 Sir Francis Head, “a very largo number of poor people associate together 
 as man and wife; and, what is particularly demoralizing for the com¬ 
 munity, the generality of them live together very happily. Mr. Goodrich 
 says- “In Paris and in all large French cities, great numbers of men 
 and women live together, to all intents and purposes married, always 
 considering themselves so, without tho accomplishment of any ceremony 
 at all, not even beforo tho mayor. And this ceremony has not been 
 performed, in nine eases out of ten, because the parties have not the 
 money to defray the expenses, nor tho time to throw away upon 
 formalities they regard as useless , or at least not essential. I hey live 
 together nevertheless, and those connections are quite as exemplary as 
 those ratified beforo the altar. The absence of tho wedding-ring in 
 after years from the wife’s hand is never noticed, bccauso oven had she 
 been married by tho mayor, no wedding-ring would havo been placed on 
 her finger. The ring is a witness to the solemnization of tlio religious 
 compact, and not of the civil. Tho children are duly recognized, and 
 the stain upon tho birth is never known, and if it were, it would make 
 no difference in a country where one-tenth of tho whole population are 
 born out of wedlock.” In London, also, Mr. Mayhcw says that not more 
 than one in twenty of the street folk, who live together as man and wife, 
 arc really married. Theso connections are in Paris by no means con¬ 
 fined to tho poorer classes, as is mentioned by tho writer in tho II esl- 
 minster Review. “Although in the highest society of Paris,” he says, 
 t. t p 0 avowed or reputed good character of the woman is as indispensable 
 as elsewhere, there exists a largo class of the Parisian world amongst 
 whom unmarried couples, and even couples cohabiting temporarily, aro 
 ns well received as if they had submitted to both tho ceremonies. This 
 is especially tho case in tho theatrical world, and in tho world closely 
 connected with it—that of light literature.” Tho writer in tho Dispatch 
 characterises Paris as “the city of the lower moral habits,” because 
 marriage is thero less regarded, in the samo manner as many of our 
 newspaper writers are accustomed to accuse the French of ignorance or 
 disregard of the principles of political economy, because they havo not, 
 or had not till recently, adopted free trade. But by far the most impor¬ 
 tant precept, whether of political economy or of a true sexual morality, 
 is the limitation of the number of offspring; and this cardinal duty is 
 much more generally attended to in France than in our own country. 
 
 On this point, and also in reference to the subject of preventive inter¬ 
 course, the writer makes tho following remarks in an article on 
 “ Tho New Philosophy of Population,” in tho Dispatch of January 
 29th, in which, as well as in an article on “French Principles 
 and English Quacks,” in tho Dispatch of January 22nd, ho has 
 criticised and sovorely condemned my work. “Artificial expedients to 
 frustrate fecundity,” he says, “are described in tho treatise on ‘Sexual 
 
17 
 
 Religion’ with elaborate minuteness, and defended by quotations from 
 authors whom we are, we own, surprised to meet in such company. 
 Lengthened and varied professional experience is cited in support of the 
 aafe^y and healthiness of the practice, and indeed it is openly asserted 
 that in Franco its adoption is universal As a matter of fact, it is quite 
 true that while a British population of 28,000,000 increases 365,000 
 souis a year, 30,000,000 of French do not add more than about 45,000 to 
 their numbers annually. M. Leonce dc Lavergne, however, asserts that 
 there is a rapid deterioration of the physique of the nation, and that the 
 array standard has had to be materially lowered. It has also to be observed 
 that tho practico which efl'ects this result induces necessarily such 
 universal suspicion, that tho unmarried girls of France aro almost 
 literally locked up—confined to a social zenana—that the frank inter¬ 
 course of ‘ young people ’ is utterly prohibited, and that tho only security 
 taken for chastity is that of rendering incontinence impossible, mar¬ 
 riages being arranged by parents, and engaged couples never being left 
 alone. This is tho necessary consequence of a system which exempts 
 unchastity from detection, and relieves seduction of its responsibilities. 
 Are tho passions more naturally regulated in Franco than in England? 
 —are sophisticated vices fewer—is tho expectation of life higher—is tho 
 physique of the race more healthy and robust—is tho social condition of 
 tho people bettor? The true answer to these queries is a flat contra¬ 
 diction to tho whole theory. Divorce in France (?), Germany, Russia, 
 is so easy, that nvuriago itself is reduced to a mere temporary arrange¬ 
 ment. Is 1 Homo ’ the*same thing there that it is here? Do tho rela¬ 
 tions of husband, wife, mother, child, convey the samo meaning, and 
 inspire the same feelings they do here?” 
 
 The writer assumes that the lowering of the army standard is a proof 
 of the deterioration of the physique of tho French nation, and, moreover, 
 that it duo to tho uso of preventive measures. But even if tho average 
 stature of the people have diminished (of which this fact is no sufficient 
 proof), the diminution may have arisen from many different causes ; as, 
 for example, from tho great increase in tho town, as compared with tho 
 agricultural population, which has recently taken placo in France, as 
 well as in this country and in Germany. It is evidently extremely 
 difficult to assign the cause of so complex an effect, and it is a more 
 assumption to ascribe it to tho uso of preventive measures. As for the 
 alleged deterioration of the French physique, it should ho remembered 
 that, as stated by M. de Lavergne, the average of lifo has risen from 28 
 to 39 years in the interval between 1790 and 1816, so that it does not 
 now differ much from tho English average, which the Census of 1851 
 givos at 40 years. Whether, and how far, preventive intercourse is 
 compatible with perfect health, is tho most important of all questions; 
 but a very different kind of evidence from tho above is needed for its 
 satisfactory solution. On this point, I may quote the following passage 
 from Mr. Robort Dale Owen’s work on Moral-Physiology. “I have 
 taken great pains,” ho says, “ to ascertain tho opinion of the most 
 enlightened physicians of Great Britain and France on this subject 
 (opinions which popular prejudice will not permit them to offer publicly 
 in their works); and they all concur in admitting, what tho experience 
 
IS 
 
 of the French nation positively proves, that man may have control over 
 this instinct • and that men and women may, without injury to lnalth 
 or violence to tho moral feelings, and with very little diminution of the 
 pleasure which accompanies the gratification of the instinct, icfraih at 
 will from becoming parents. It has chanced to mo, also, to obtain the 
 confidence of several individuals, who have communicated to me, without 
 reserve their own experience: and all this has been corroborative of tho 
 same opinion ” With regard to tho assertion, that unmarried girls have 
 vc-V little liberty in France, it applies only to tho richer classes, and, 
 among them, such illiberal and unjust restrictions are, I liehove, a 
 remnant of tho old Roman Catholic views on the education of women. 
 It may be doubted also whether these restrictions arc materially greater, 
 in the most important points, than those which anect unmanned ladies 
 i„ this country. Upon tho whole,-both as regards the number of 
 occupations open to them, and tho amount of personal freedom which 
 thev enjoy, I believo that the female sex are in a more favorable position 
 in France than among ourselves, whpre the moral code is so very harsh 
 to women ; although in no country are their privileges at all equal to 
 those of man, or to what they should be, in any just state of social 
 
 arrangements. ...... ...... 
 
 On the subject of preventive measures, it is in vain to argue with the 
 writer, since he does not recognise the great law of nature which renders 
 them necessary. A true theory must precedb all -rational practice; 
 before considering what ought to be, wo must bo well acquainted with 
 what is; and no one, who does not clearly understand and admit, as a mat¬ 
 ter of fact, that mankind in old countries have to chooso between celibacy, 
 prostitution, preventive intercourse, or poverty, 1 is in a fit position to 
 discuss the question of preventive measures with any profit. Tho 
 writer docs not see that ono or more of these four chocks is inevitable, 
 •and he would probably recommend that measures ho taken to removo or 
 diminish all of them/ Indeed, he does give this advice in tho passages 
 before us. After rejecting preventive, intercourse , deploring tho existence 
 of prostitution , expressing his belief that poverty (and, in another passage, 
 premature death ) is already diminished, and will bo so to a still greater 
 extent, he recommends that tho following measures bo taken to diminish 
 celibacy likewise. “ Our young men,” he says, “ become selfish, coldly 
 •calculating, self-indulgent; and young women, badly nurtured, are daily 
 less fitted to become heads of families, wives, and mothers. The one 
 
 becomes afraid of matrimony, and the other not very tit for it. 
 
 Lot there bo a tax on bachelors ; a bounty on families, and a baby-show 
 in every parish; early marriages, healthy domestic life, British manli¬ 
 ness, and hopeful trust.”* In such recommendations tho writer by no 
 means stands alone; indeed, I believe that a very largo proportion of 
 
 * Those romarks are akin to the current opinion that tho great social 
 •evil of celibacy is mainly caused by the conventional arrangements and 
 requirements of society; a view which is thus expressed by Mr. 
 Thackeray in ono of his well-known Snob papers. “ With love and 
 simplicity and natural kindness,” ho says. “Snobbishness is ever at war. 
 People dare not bo happy for fear of snobs. People pine away 
 
•those who at the present day are so laudably endeavouring to 
 remove the social evils, without being acquainted with tho law 
 of population, their true source, would give a similar advice. 
 Tiuts, for example, in a loading article in tho Daily Telegraph of 
 February 17th, I860, on tho midnight meetings of women of the town in 
 St. James’s Hall, the writer says, •“ Tho opinions of the illustrious Sir 
 Beujamiu Brodie on tho influence for good which tho extension of early 
 marriages would exert on tho morals of society aro too well known t<> 
 require repetition, and the laborious researches of tho eminent surgeon, 
 Mr. Acton, have dissipated many falso notions, and inculcated manv 
 most wholesome truths, with respect to our stock of kuowlodgo on the 
 prostitution of London. 1 ' The writer boro seeks to diminish or remove 
 celibacy and prostitution; of course he would also seek to diminish or 
 remove poverty and promaturo death; and I have no doubt, from tho 
 general tone of his remarks, that he would repudiate preventive inter¬ 
 course. But tho attempt to romovo all tho population checks in old 
 societies is quite as chimerical as the search for tho philosopher’s stone 
 or tho elixir vine. Ono or more of these checks always has existed, and 
 always must exist to an onormous extent in old countries; maukind 
 have only a choice between them, not independently of them. All that 
 we can do is to select tho check which involves tho least human suffer¬ 
 ing, and it is on this ground that preventive intercourse is advocated by 
 such distinguished men ns Mr. Jnmos Mill, Mr. Francis Placo, M. Joseph 
 Garnior, and mafly others. Indeed, the ehoico of mankind practically 
 lies, not between the four chocks separately, but betweon preventive 
 intercourse on tho one, hand, and celibacy, prostitution, and poverty 
 combined on the other"; for tho three last-named chocks aro closely 
 connected with ono anothor, as cause and effect, and in modern times 
 are always found togother. In tho earlier periods of history all four 
 - - *-• - 
 
 lonely undor tho tyranny of snobs. Honest kindly hearts dry up 
 aud die. Gallant generous lads, blooming with hearty youth, swell 
 into bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst aud tumble over. Tender girls 
 wither into shrunken decay, aud perish solitary, from whom snobbish¬ 
 ness has cut off tho common claim to happiness and affection with 
 which nature endowod us all . . . Whou Punch is king, I declare there 
 shall bo no such thing as old maids and old bachelors. Tho Rev. Mr. 
 Maltlius shall bo burned annually, instead of Guy Fawkes. Thoso who 
 don’t marry shall go to the workhouso. It shall be a sin for tho poorest 
 not to have a pretty girl to love him.” Notwithstanding tho amount of 
 observation and benovoleueo displayed by those remarks, they show an 
 ignorance of the fundamental cause of celibacy iu our society. As Mr. 
 Mill observes, in reference to the action of the law of diminishing pro¬ 
 ductiveness in causing poverty, “ The most fundamental errors which 
 still prevail on our subject, result from not perceiving this law at work 
 underneath the more superjicial agencies on which attention fixes itself : 
 but mistaking thoso agencies for the ultimate causes of effects, of which 
 they may influence the form and mode, but uf which it alone determines, 
 tho essence.” 
 
20 
 
 checks may have been to a greater or loss extent superseded, at different 
 times and places, by premature death , especially in tho form of infant 
 mortality—as is tho case, generally, among the lower animals. 
 
 It is not necessary to enter further into these objections, nor into¬ 
 others which the writer has brought forward in tho article on “ French 
 Principles and English Quacks,” in which he speaks more fully of my 
 work, and endeavours to refute the law of exercise. What is true in 
 his remarks appears to me to apply only to tho excessive use or abuse of 
 tho sexual functions, and not to their normal and temperate use ; but it is- 
 the latter only which I havo advocated as a duty, and which I regard as 
 so indispensable to tho health, happiness, and true morality of mankind. 
 Preventive measures are by no means peculiarly “ French principles 
 although more universally practised in France, I am convinced from 
 several facts which have come to my knowledge, as well as from genoral 
 considerations, that they are already very common in this country also, 
 especially among married people. There are unfortunately, other means, 
 of a most lamentable and dangerous character, which are frequently 
 employed, in order to escape from the burden of too numerous a family, 
 narnoly, tho artificial procuring of abortion. Some timo ago I rocoived 
 a lotter from a working man in one of tho largo manufacturing towns in 
 Lancashire, in which ho says, “ I wish to call your attention to a few 
 deplorablo facts. Moving in an humblo life, I of coupso can tell you a 
 few methods that are used to procure an expulsion of the embryo and 
 foetus. Ergot of rye is used by thousands m order to prevent an 
 addition to an already numerous family, and likewise tho following 
 method. A knitting-needle, or a long poil-holdar is ponotrated into tho 
 mouth of tho womb in order to break the membrano which contains the 
 liquor that supports the foetus. I have talked to parties- myself on tho 
 limitation of offspring, and they havo told me they practised the above 
 operations, much to my regret. Tho working class are now becoming 
 very clever with tho knitting-needle, and I haVo no doubt but what it 
 will bo used till some east/ method is known to check fecundation." In tho 
 same lotter, tho writer, a married man, says that in his own case tho 
 spongo has failod as a preventive, and that ho considers no method 
 certain excopt that of withdrawal previous to emission. Ho adds, 1 
 am connected with a socioty that embraces natural religion,* and wo 
 havo discussed the population doctrinos repeatedly. Wo havo all read 
 your book on ‘ Physical Roligion,’ and I havo told them of the failure 
 
 * It is not generally known to what an extent Christian and theological 
 beliefs havo been abandoned in this country, and still more on tho Con¬ 
 tinent. Tho Rov. Thomas Pearson in his work on “ Infidelity” gives 
 abundant evidence of this. Ono of tho most striking facts which ho 
 montions is, that in Germany, Holland, Switzerland, France, and other 
 parts of tho continent, even tho clergy , tho divinity students, and tho 
 professors of divinity in tho universities, are, in tho majority of cases, 
 not Christians, but Rationalists. Largo numbers of them havo given up 
 all belief in the inspiration of tho Bible, the supernatural character of 
 Christ, tho possibility of miracles, and oven, in many cases (as in that of 
 tho eminent clergyman Strauss and his followers) tho immortality of 
 
21 
 
 mentioned in this letter. We approach the population doctrines without- 
 delicacy.” I quite agree in the opinion that the only effectual remedy 
 {or abortion and infanticide, as well as for poverty, prostitution, and. 
 celibacy, is tho universal diffusion of tho knowledge of “ Somo oasy 
 method to chock fecundation.” 
 
 However unfavourably tho writer in the Dispatch may regard my 
 work, I cannot but admire the courage and true manliness with which 
 
 the soul, and tho separate individual existence of a God. “ It was stated, 
 a vory few years ago,” says Mr. Pearson, “ that at Dresden, in tho chapol 
 of whoso castle tho great reformer preached tho doctrines of salvation, 
 only one of tho many Lutheran pulpits sounded forth the gospel of grace. 
 In such parts as Baden, Rhenish Bavaria, and Hesse Darmstadt, tho 
 rationalistic ministers were said to preponderate over tho evangelical in. 
 tho proportion of ton to one. The adage, like priest liko people, is in 
 such places strongly exemplified. Their religious principles have long, 
 been undermined by a systematic course of rationalistic preaching from 
 the pulpit. Infidelity and indifferentism, especially in large towns, 
 characterize to a fearful extent all classes from tho highest to tho lowest. 
 Dr. Krummachor stated vory lately that in Berlin, which contains more 
 than 400,000 persons, not more than one twentieth visit tho liouso of 
 God; the remainder to all appearance being the disciples of a vulgar 
 rationalism.” (In a most excellent article on “ Christian Revivals” in tho 
 Westminster Review, for Januaiy 1860, the number of people in several 
 of tho largest towns of England, who attend no placo of worship, is given, 
 from tho evidonco taken before tho Lords Select Committeo on Church- 
 rates in 1850. “Of tho aggregate population of tho sixteon places 
 named,” says the writer, “ tho average proportion who never enter a. 
 place of worship is 53 per cent., and of the remaining •! 7 per cont., how 
 few are real Christians!” Lord Shaftesbury lately stated in tho Iluuso. 
 of Lords that “not two por cont. of tho working men of tho metropolis 
 attend any place of worship.”) “ <\fter reckoning up all that can bo 
 claimed for the pure Gospel," continues Mr. Pearson, “a vast prepon¬ 
 derance of disciploship and pulpit agency in tho German fatherland is on 
 tho side that is advorso to Scripture Christianity. 1 In short, (says Dr. 
 Krummachor, in his work on tho Religious Condition of Christendom,, 
 published in 1852) a popular philosophic inundation of the most shallow- 
 kind, which bears nothing of true Christianity but tho assumed name, 
 covers up to this day an immeasurable extent of tho ground of tho 
 German church.’ ” In many other parts of the continent, tho case is 
 nearly tho same. “Look, for example,” says Mr. Pearson, “at Switzer¬ 
 land. In Geneva, not to mention other parts, where socininuism and 
 neologianism havo extensively prevailed, a rationalistic unitarianism, for 
 
 nearly a century, has had possession of the national pulpits. 
 
 If we cast our eye upon Holland, we see that rationalism, as in tho 
 Protestant churches of Germany, there weilds, in a groat moasurc, the- 
 pulpit agency of the Reformed Church. Those doctrines which form 
 the very marrow of tho Christian creed, such as the Trinity, the true- 
 and proper divinity of Christ, and his atonement for human salvation,. 
 
he has approached these most important and difficult questions. By far 
 the wo ret of all fallacies on the population questions is to ignore them 
 altogether , as is done by ninety-nine out of every hundred of our writers 
 and speakers on social subjects; and from this fallacy the writer is most 
 honorably free. “It is in vain,” ho says, “to attempt to hide these 
 subjects out of sight. It is of no use to ignore the topic as either delicate 
 or disgusting. It is of univerval interest. It concerns intimately every 
 human being. The views of tho author of this volume are largely 
 adopted by economists and physicians: tho ideas of which they treat 
 occupy a prominent place in tho thoughts, more or less distinctly de¬ 
 veloped, of every adult mind. Erroneous opinions on tho questions here 
 involved are daily misleading thousands—dangerous doctrines are only 
 too prevalent, both in the systems of economists and the practice of 
 medical advisers." Even although tho economical doctrines be regarded 
 as both false and dangerous, is it consistent with tho courage, straight¬ 
 forwardness, and love of truth, naturally inherent in tho English 
 character, to ignore and evade them ? 
 
 I may now proceed briefly to notice somo other attacks on the Mal¬ 
 thusian principles, which have latoly appeared in our newspapers, and 
 in the pages of somo well-known and justly admired writers. It will be 
 sufficient merely to indicate the fallacies in each, sinco they are tho very 
 
 * T .. * 
 
 are very generally repudiated by tho teachers ref tho people. The 
 infidelity of tho schools is boldly enunciated from the pulpit. The laity 
 are even said to contrast favorably with the clergy : tho departure from 
 tho doctrines of tho reformation being much more general among tho 
 latter than tho formor.” In Belgium , the pulpit agoncy “ is on tho side 
 of superstition and materialism, and adverse to spiritual Christianity. 
 There are good grounds for believing that not .a few of the priests, dis¬ 
 gusted witli tho ltomish system, have becomo deists or infidels, but cling 
 
 to tho priests’ oflico for the sake of bread.If we turn to France, 
 
 we see that, with a few brilliant exceptions, all the existing pulpit 
 agency is on tho side of materialism, or rationalism, or a grossly cor¬ 
 rupted Christianity.” Tho manner in which Christian beliefs are re¬ 
 garded in tho schools and universities may bo gathered from the following 
 statements. “The rationalistic maxims of Dintcr and Diestcrweg,”says 
 Dr. Krummacher, “continuo to prevail in most of tho elementary 
 
 schools.The teachers of the higher schools, particularly of 
 
 the grammar schools, are, for the most part, either addicted to pantheistic 
 philosophy, or altogether indifferent to religion.” “ Dr. Robinson,” says 
 Mr. Pearson, “ who attended Gesenins’ lectures in tho winter of 1829-30, 
 says: 1 Hallo is the favorite resort of almost all the followers of rational¬ 
 ism. who, at tho present day, constitute a very large class among tho 
 
 theological students.Rationalism, through tho exertions of 
 
 'VVegseheidor, tho countenance of Gesenius, and tho indifference of 
 Niemeyer, had obtained firm footing, and seduced the understandings of 
 the great body of tho students.’ As an instance of tho influence of 
 Gesenius, it is stated that when he began his courso on Genesis, which 
 he treated as a more collection of myths or fables, ho had only fourteen 
 
same as taoso brought forward by tho Dispatch. They consist for tho 
 most part (as is almost always the case, wherever writers have attempted 
 to refute tho theory by arguments, and have not contented themselves 
 with simply rejecting it) of misconceptions of tho meaning of the 
 economists ; arising generally either from tho ambiguity already noticed 
 in tho word “over-population,” or from tho ambiguity in tho word 
 “ tendency,” which has led to tho supposition that the economists, in 
 speaking of the evils of over-population, refer to some future period. 
 The latter misconception, in its most extravagant form, has boon brought 
 forward again and again by tho Times, which has always been a zealous 
 opponent of tho Malthusian doctrines. It is contained in the following 
 passages, from a leading article in tho Times of November 21st, 1859; 
 in which, as well as in subsequent quotations, I shall mark in italics 
 those words which most cloarly indicate tho nature of tho fallacy. 
 
 “ The late Mr. Malthus,” says the writer in the Times, “ has been 
 for many years tho oracle of a sect which tho laws of human nature 
 have prevented from having many disciples, but which has yet talked its 
 doctrines somewhat into vogue. Tho dismal philosopher recommended 
 bis countrymen to abstain from marriage, as the only means of averting 
 tho fate which impends over all communities. According to him, tho 
 production of food can never increase in tho same ratio as tho birth of 
 children, and a time must come in every country in which population will 
 
 hearers, but at tho ported referred to ho was addressing five hundred.” 
 Mr. Poarsou adds, that ouo o£ the. Halle professors, the only ono at the 
 timo who was a Christian, “ in a letter to a friend, inquiring about tho 
 state of vital Christianity among tho largo number of nearly 1,000 
 divinity students, replied that ho had oidv known ono student whom ho 
 considered to be a real Christian, and that ho came from tho Moravians. 
 It is c.hoeriug to hoar from Tholuck, who twenty-four years before had 
 to tell nothing but sad tidings in England, that a glorious change has 
 taken place in tho German universities, and chiolly in Halle.” M. Best, 
 a Swiss clergyman, gave in 1825 tho following account of tho divinity 
 course at tho College of Geneva. “ For more than thirty years, the 
 ministers who have gone out of our schools of theology to servo either 
 the churches of our own land, or those of Franco and other foreign 
 countries, havo not received one simple lecture on tho truths which 
 exclusively belong to revelation, such as tho redemption of mankind by 
 the death of Christ, the justification of tho sinner by faith, tho corrup¬ 
 tion of our nature, tho divinity of our Saviour, &c. In theology we wero 
 taught nothing but what are called the dogmas of natural religion. Tho 
 extent to which this practical incredulity was carried, is clear from tho 
 fact—elsewhere unheard of, I suspect, in the annals of tho Protestant 
 churches—that excepting for a lecture in the Hebrew language, when 
 the Bible was used simply as a Hebrew book, and not for anything which 
 it contained, the word of God was never used throughout our course ; in 
 particular, tho Now Testament never appeared either as a language 
 book, or for any other purpose ; there was no need of the New Testament 
 whatever, in order to complete our four years’ course iu theology.” 
 
24 
 
 outgrow subsistence, and the people become a race of degenerate 
 because lialf-famisbod, savages. England, which in his time was the 
 land of Nelson and Wellington, Scott and Byron, was in a generation or 
 two to become the home of vast herds of ignorant and squalid pauper dwarfs. 
 However, the world went on much in the old way ; people were married 
 .ar.d given in marriage, and the inhabitants of England, since the 
 publication of this essay, must have nearly doubled. It remains to be 
 seen how far the theories we have alluded to have been realized. If 
 they were true, there ought to be some prog'.-esS towards their fulfil¬ 
 ment. Those who ate beef iu George the 3rd’s time, ought now to bo 
 deeding on bacon, rye and oats should be staple articles of food, and a 
 glass of beer a luxury confined to the comparatively affluent. Those 
 who know anything of the present condition of this country will 
 recognize how little of truth there is in such a picture. The comfort, 
 the luxuries of the people, have increased wonderfully in the last 
 .generation. While the population is greater, the wealth is greater in a 
 Jar higher degree, while food, clothing, and most other necessaries, havo 
 improved in quantity and fallen in price. . . . The people through¬ 
 
 out the country are well-fed and well-contented.” On another occasion 
 (to which I havo alluded in the “Political Economist”) the same mis¬ 
 conception was brought forward by the Times in the following still more 
 extravagant form: —“The disciples of Malthus arrived at the conclusion 
 that a day must shortly come when the last' two'representatives of 
 Adam’s race would be found growling and fi"htin^' for the one last 
 cabbage.” I need not say that such absurd caricatures do not bear even 
 the remotest resemblance to the truths developed in the Essay on 
 Population. It is not difficult to refute propositions which no sane 
 human being ever thought of uttering. As already mentioned, the 
 opinion that the earth will, at some future time, become more over¬ 
 peopled than at present, was not only not entortained by Mr. Malthus, 
 •but expressly refuted by him. Tho over-population spoken of by him 
 and other economists is an evil, not of the future, but of the present and 
 tho past; an evil which has always hitherto existed in old countries, 
 and need not exist at all in future, if population bo sufficiently restrained. 
 Mr. Mill observes, that if two conditions were fulfilled, namely, first, 
 •universal education, and secondly, a due limitation of tho numbers of 
 the community, “ there could be no poverty , even under tho present 
 social institutions.” Even if there wore any truth in tho reckless 
 .•statement, that “ the people throughout tho country aro well-fed and 
 well-contented,” it would bo no argument whatever against tho Mal¬ 
 thusian principles ; on tho contrary, so blessed a state of things cannot 
 possibly bo attained except by acting in accordance with these principles. 
 As to tho “ sect which tho laws of human nature have prevented from 
 having many disciples,” it includes almost tho whole body of tho 
 -economists (the men who have mado tho production and distribution 
 of weidth the subject of a special scientific inquiry, and who are, 
 therefore, the best fitted to give an opinion on such questions), besides a 
 very large numbor of tho most distinguished writors and thinkers in 
 ■other departments. 
 
 As an example of a writer who really entertained tho fear of future 
 
25 
 
 over-population, together with a disbelief in its present or past existence, 
 may bo mentioned M. Auguste Comte, tho sociological part of whose- 
 great work on Positive Philosophy is radically vitiated by this grand 
 orror. “ The condensation of population,” ho says, “ if carried too far 
 would render tho support of human life too diflicult; and tho rapidity 
 of increase, if extreme, would so affect tho stability of social enterprises, 
 as to bo equivalent to a considerable shortening of our life. As yet , 
 however, the increase of population has never nearly reached tho natural 
 limits at which such inconveniences will begin; and we have roally no 
 experience of them, unless in a few exceptional cases of disturbances 
 caused by migrations, ill-managed as to their extent of numbers and of 
 time. In an extremely distant future, our posterity will have to consider 
 the question, and with much anxiety; because from tho smallness of 
 the globe, and the necossary limitation of human resources, tho tendency 
 to increase will bocomo extremely important, when the human race will 
 be ten times as numerous as at present, and as much condensed every¬ 
 where as it now is in tho west of Europe. Whenever that time comes, 
 the more complete development of human nature, and tho moro exact 
 knowledge of the laws of human evolution, will no doubt supply now 
 means of resistance to tho danger; means of which we can form no clear 
 conception, and about which it is not for us to decide whether they 
 will, on the whole, afford a sufficient compensation.” 
 
 The “futurity ” fallacy of tho Dispatch and Times in also the leading 
 error in the following passages from Professor F. W. Newman’s Lectures 
 on Political Economy, although it is thero stated in a somewhat confusod 
 and contradictory manner. “ JThe doctrine,” says Mr. Newman, “which 
 has obtained great currency through Maitlius, Chalmers, the two Mills, 
 and McCulloch, is that population tonds to double itself in every 25 
 yoara or thereabout, but that on a given area of soil, no such tondoncy 
 to constant increase of capital exists or can permanently exist unim¬ 
 paired iu energy; nay, in every country which has beon long settled, 
 every increase of population makes it increasingly difficult to raiso food ; 
 honco the numbers aro constanly pressing against the limits of subsis¬ 
 tence (as the phrase is) and starvation will ensue , unless prudential 
 reasons are called in to ropress marriage. . . . Tho controversy 
 
 moved by this celebrated question would fill a volumo, and I can only 
 touch its outline. My opinion is, that tho Malthusian doctrine, when 
 stated as an abstract theory, is undeniably truo, but that every practical 
 application which either Malthus or his followers liavo given it, is 
 deplorably and perniciously false. First; it is certain in tho abstract, 
 that if we go on multiplying without restraint, tho earth must in a very 
 moderate time be over-peopled. Tho opponents of Malthus cannot deny 
 that if tho increase of population is not (somehow) chocked, it will at 
 last be smothered by its own numbers; and that in a period of timo 
 which is but one-third, or one-fifth, of tho past oxistenco of historical 
 civilization. But the question recurs—What is this to us ? Would not 
 any ono bo thought mad, who rofrained from promoting his own moral 
 happiness by marrying, merely bocauso ho feared lest the earth should be 
 overpeopled a thousand years hence ? Clearly. A legislator therefore 
 acts tyrannically who to servo this distant object impedes marriage. 
 
20 
 
 ..lalthus himself liad no such visionary thoughts. Ho held population 
 to bo already too numerous—that our poor are already suffering from 
 it, and Ukety to suffer more. ... It does not appear that Maltlm* 
 or any of his followers have given us any test by which wo may ascertain 
 that we aro actually suffering under redundancy of population. Thev 
 point to wide-sproad distress, sometimes in one class, sometimes ia 
 another; but this may evidently arise out of moral, political, commercial 
 causes, which havo nothiug to do with total over-population. Our 
 economic distress does not consist in too much population, but" arise • 
 from various clogs and stoppages in the channels of distribution ” 
 From these remarks, it is evident that Mr. Newmau supposes the 
 Malthusian doctrino to bo that thoro are future dangers of excessive 
 over-population—that “starvation will ensue” unless people refrain 
 from marriage, and that the poor “ are likely to suffer more” from this 
 cause in future. He says, “ My opinion is that the .Malthusian doctrino 
 when stated as an abstract theory, is undeniably true,” but the statement 
 which ho proceeds to give, has no resemblance whatever to tbo real 
 Malthusian theory. “It is certain,” ho says, “in the abstract, that if 
 wo go on multiplying without restraint, the earth must in’a very 
 moderate time bo over-peopled.” But the true Malthusian theory is 
 that we cannot, in old countries “ go on multiplying without restraint ” 
 but are always powerfully checked by moral restraint, vice, or misery; 
 and that such countries are already and always ihuvei been, to a greater 
 or less extent, over-peopled. It is immaterial whetluq; “ tbo opponents 
 of Malthus” can or cannot deny a proposition which ho never thought 
 of making. It is true that Mr. Newman afterwards grants that Mr. 
 Malllnis “held population to be already too numerous;” but the other- 
 passages quoted show how vaguely and incorrectly ho has apprehended 
 the doctrines in question. With, regard to tho “ test ” of over-population, 
 the test which has been given by economists from Mr. Malthus down¬ 
 wards, is tho existence of a low general l-ato of wages, and a high price 
 of food ; the first indicating that the laborers are too numerous as com¬ 
 pared with tho wage-fund, and the second, that cultivation has been 
 forced by tho numbers of the people to descend to very poor soils. The 
 most important reasonings iu tho works of tho ablest ecouomists, are 
 directed to show that this over-population, and not “ various clogs and 
 stoppages in tho channels of distribution,” is tho true cause of poverty 
 in industrious and civilized communities. “Tho quostion,” says Mr. 
 Mill, in spoaking of the law of diminishing productiveness, “is more 
 important and fundamental than any other; it involves the whole subject 
 of tho causes of poverty in a rich and industrious community; and 
 unless this ono matter bo thoroughly understood, it is to no piupose 
 proceeding any further in our inquiry.” 
 
 The Malthusian law has also been denied by tho Bov. F. D. Maurico 
 in his Lectures on Education, and by tbo Rev. Charles Kingsley iu his 
 Preface to the Fool of Quality, a work by Henry Brooke, which he has 
 lately re-issued. In speaking of the author’s marriage with a girl of 
 fourteen, Mr. Kingsley says, “What if tho imprudcnco of his early 
 marriage did cause the child-wife to have a few more children? Use 
 may boldly answer, firstly, ‘What matter?’ and secondly, ‘I do not 
 
believe the f.ict, any more than I do certain Malthusian statements 
 audit such matters, which require a complete rc-examination, and that 
 hy men who know at least a little both of physiology and of human 
 nature.’ Bo that as it may, the beautiful little ehild-wifo brought him 
 three children before sho was eighteen.” As Mr. Kingsley has not 
 stated on what grounds ho rejects the Malthusian principles, there is 
 nothing in this case to contend against, except tho idea that scientific 
 doctrines are to be doalt with in so summary a manner. Does Mr. 
 Kingsloy supposo that such thinkers as Mr. James Mill, Mi-. J. 8. Mill, 
 mid Mr. Alexander Bain, not to mention many others, do not know “ at 
 least a little both of physiology and of human nature ?” Mr. Kingsloy 
 seems to bo unaware that tho population doctrines have been, and arc, 
 held by a large number of distinguished men in all departments of 
 science; by all, it might nearly bo said, who have given any adoquato 
 nttention to the subject. Mathematicians, natural philosophers, chemists, 
 physiologists, statists, have been among the number of Malthusiaus; 
 indeed those who are well acquainted with any one scionce, and who know 
 tho immense amount of labor that has boon expended in tho proof of its 
 propositions, are generally tho most ready to listou with attention to tho 
 views of eminent men in other departments than their own. As ex¬ 
 amples of physiologists and medical men who have hold thos'o principles, 
 I have elsewhero quoted tho opinious of Dr. Traill, editor of the Encyclo- 
 pa'diq, Britannica, M. YiHerme, member of the Fronch Institute, and Dr. 
 Thomas Cooperi > M. Ecequcrol, Professor of Hygiene in Paris, and 
 author of one of “die standard works on that subject, also admits their 
 truth, and doubtless so do many other physiologists and physicians. I 
 am myself personally acquainted with several medical men who are 
 thorough Malthusians; and if tho population principle is not moro pro¬ 
 minently brought forward in works on medicine and sanitary science, it 
 is chielly, I believo, because medical men, in general, have as yet paid 
 very little attention to tho subject. 
 
 It may be added that the principle of increase has lately been mr.de 
 the basis of ono of tho most remarkable and important theories over 
 given to the world—namely tho theory of tho dovclopomont of the animal 
 and vegetable series, brought forward by Mr. Charlos Darwin in bis 
 groat work on the Origin of Species. Mr. Darwin’s Theory may be 
 briefly stated as follows The geometrical powers of increase with which 
 every vegetable and animal is endowed, give rise to a constant Struggle 
 for Existence throughout tho whole organic world ; in this struggle im¬ 
 mense multitudes of tho individuals of overy species are in each genera¬ 
 tion destroyed, and many species undergo Extinction, while those indi¬ 
 viduals and species which possess any advantages over their neighbours, 
 such as suporior sti-ength or activity, acuter senses, higher instincts or 
 other mental faculties, &c., tend to be preserved—to which principle Mr. 
 Darwin gives tho name of Natural Selection ; individuals, differing from 
 their follows and possessing some slight advantages, are produced from 
 tim 3 to time, according to certain obscure and ill-understood Laws of 
 Variation (as is well known to tho breeder and horticulturist, who pre¬ 
 serve such individuals, iu the case of our domestic species, for tho pur¬ 
 pose of forming now variotios); these favored individuals, preserved by 
 
2S 
 
 natural selection in the struggle for life, tend by the Laws of Inheritance 
 to transmit their advantages to their offspring, and it is by the accumu¬ 
 lation of such slight advantages, during the lapse of countless ages, that 
 the wholo vegetable and animal series, including tho highly perfected 
 being, man, himself, has been developed. Tho different species tend to 
 diverge more and more from each other, in consequence of a principle to 
 which Mr. Darwin gives tho name of the Divergence of Character; the 
 principle, namely, that those animals and vegetables which differ widely 
 from others, aro enabled to seize upon unoccupied places in tho strugglo 
 for life, and hence possess an advantage, which, like all other advantages, 
 is preserved by natural selection, and accumulated through the laws of 
 inheritance. Tho manner in which different varieties, species, and 
 genera have been formed by nature, is therefore, according to Mr. Darwin, 
 just the same as that in which varieties are formed by the breeder and 
 horticulturist, namely, by the selection of some particular quality, and 
 by constantly breeding from those individuals which, in each successive 
 generation, present that quality in the most marked degree; the chief 
 difference being, that while man selects such qualities as aro useful or 
 agreeable to him, nature invariably selects those which aro useful to tho 
 plants or animals themselves. Mr. Darwin’s description of tho universal 
 struggle for existence produced by tho geometrical powors of increase, is 
 so admirable, that I shall here quoto it at some length, underlining those 
 passages to which I particularly wish to draw attention. It will bo 
 observed that bis remarks apply, in the main, to maq as Well as to all 
 other organic beings ; with this chief difference^ that the chocks to tho 
 increase of the lower animals are solely of a positive character, while in 
 the case of a man they are preventive as well as positive, and the latter 
 check is capable of being entirely superseded by the former. 
 
 “We will now,” says Mr. Darwin, “discuss in a little more detail the 
 struggle for existence. In my future work this subject shall bo treated, 
 as it well deserves, at much greater length, Tho older Do Candollo 
 and Lycll have largely and philosophically shown that all organic beings 
 are exposed to severe competition. In regard to plants, no ono has treated 
 this subjoct with more spirit and ability than W. Herbert, Dean of 
 Manchester, evidently the result of his great horticultural knowledge. 
 Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the unii'ersul 
 struggle for life, or more difficult — at least I havo found it so—than 
 constantly to keep this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly 
 ingrained in the mind, I am convinced that the ichole economy of nature, 
 with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, and 
 variation, trill be dimly seen or quite misunderstood. We behold the faco 
 of naturo bright with gladness, wo often see superabundance of food; 
 wo do not see, or wo forget, that tho birds which are idly singing around 
 us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying 
 life; or wo forget how largely these songsters, or their eggs, or their 
 nostlings, are destroyed by birds and boasts of prey; we do not always 
 bear in mind that though food may now bo superabundant, it is not so 
 at all seasons of each recurring year. 
 
 “A strugglo for existence inevitably follows from tho high rate at 
 which all organic beings tend to increase. Every being which during 
 its natural lifetimo produces several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction 
 
29 
 
 during some period of its life, and during some season or occasional year, 
 otherwise, on the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers would 
 become so inordinately great that no country could support the product. 
 Hence, as more individuals are produced than c;in possibly survive, 
 there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one indi¬ 
 vidual with another of the samo species, or with tho individuals of dis¬ 
 tinct Bpecies, or with tho physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine 
 of Mai thus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vege¬ 
 table kingdoms: for in this case there can be no artificial increase of 
 food, and no prudential restraint from marriage. Although some species 
 may bo now increasing, more or less rapidly, in numbers, all cannot do 
 go, for the world would not hold them. 
 
 “ There is no exception to tho rule that every organic being naturally 
 increases at so high a rate, that if not destroyed tho earth would soon 
 be covered by the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man 
 has doubled in twenty-five years, and at this rate, in a few thousand 
 years, there would literally not be standing room for his progeny. 
 Linnasus has calculated that if an annual plant produced only two seeds 
 .—and there is no plant so unproductive as this—and their seedlings 
 next year produced two, and so on, then in twenty years there would bo 
 a million plants. 
 
 “But we have bettor evidence on this subject than mere theoretical 
 calculations, namely, the. numerous recorded cases of the aslonis/iim/ly rapid 
 increase of various animals in a state of nature, when circumstances 
 have boon favourable to them during two or three following seasons. 
 Still more striking is tho evidence from our domestic animals of many 
 kinds winch have run wild in several parts of the world; if tho state¬ 
 ments of the rate of increase o t slow-breeding cattle and horses in South 
 America, and latterly in Australia, had not been well authenticated, 
 they would have boon quite incredible. So it is with plants; cases 
 could be given of introduced plauts which have become common 
 throughout whole islands in a period of less than ten years. Several 
 of the plants now most numerous over the wide plains of La Plata, 
 clothing square leagues of surface almost to the exclusion of all other 
 plants, havo been introduced from Europe; and there aro plants which 
 now range in India, as I hear from Dr. Falconer, from Capo Comorin to 
 the Himalaya, which havo been imported from America siuco its dis¬ 
 covery. ... In such cases the geometrical ratio of increase, tho result 
 of which never fails to bo surprising, simply oxplains the extraordinarily 
 rapid increase and wide diffusion of naturalised productions in their 
 new homes. 
 
 “ In a stato of nature almost every plant produces seed, and amongst 
 animals there are very few which do not annually pair. Hence we may 
 confidently assert, that all animals and plants aro tending to increase at 
 a geometrical ratio, that all would most rapidly stock any station in 
 which they could anyhow exist, and that the geometrical tendency to 
 increase must bo checked by destruction at some period of lifo. . . In 
 
 looking at Nature, it is most nocessary to keep tho foregoing considera¬ 
 tions always in mind—never to«forget that every siuglo organic being 
 around us may bo said to be striving to tho utmost to increase in num¬ 
 bers ; that each lives by a strugglo at soiuo period of its lifo; that heavy 
 
30 
 
 destruction inevitably falls either on the ohl or young, during each 
 generation or at recurrent intervals. Lighten any chock, mitigate the 
 destruction ever so little, and the number of the species will almost 
 instantaneously increase to any amount. The face of Nature may be 
 compared to a yielding surface, with ten thousand sharp wedges packed 
 close together, and driven inwards by incessant blows, sometimes one 
 wedge being struck, and then another with greater force. 
 
 “ What duels the natural tendency of each species to increase in 
 number is most obscure. . . We know not exactly what the checks 
 
 are in even ono singlo instance. Nor will this surprise any ono who 
 reflects how ignorant wo are on this head, oven in regard to mankind, 
 so incomparably better known than any other animal. This subject has 
 been ably treated by several authors, and I shall, in my future work, 
 discuss some of the checks at considerable length, moro especially in 
 regard to the feral animals of South America. . . In the caso of 
 
 every species, many different checks, acting at different periods of life, 
 and .during different seasons or years, probably come into play; some one 
 check or some few being generally tlio most potent, but all concurring in 
 determining the average number or even the existence of the species. . . . 
 The struggle almost invariably will bo most severe between the individual 
 of the same species, for they frequent the same districts, require the 
 same food, and are exposed to tlio same dangers. In the caso of varieties 
 of the same species, tlio strugglo will generally bo almost equally severe, 
 and wo sometimes soo the contest soon decided .' .' .. AH that wo 
 can do, is to keep steadily in mind that each organic *bcing is striving to 
 increase at a geometrical ratio; that each at somo period of its life, 
 during somo scasori of the year, during each• generation or at intervals, 
 has to strugglo for life, and to suffer great destruction. When wo 
 reilect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, 
 that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is 
 generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and tho happy 
 survive and multiply." Such consolations unhappily do not exist in tlio 
 caso of human society, whore tho destruction caused by tho high ratio 
 of increase is generally brought about in tho most miserable ways; 
 namely, by poverty, prostitution, celibacy, and over-work, with a host of 
 cares, anxieties, and chronic diseases in their train. 
 
 In the conclusion of his work, Mr. Darwin sums up its leading 
 principles in tho following terms. “It is interesting” ho says, “to con¬ 
 template an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, 
 with birds singing on tho bushes, with various insects flitting about, and 
 with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that theso 
 elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other and dependont 
 on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laus 
 acting around us. Theso laws, taken in tho largest senso, being Growth 
 with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduc¬ 
 tion; Variability from the indirect and direct action of tho external 
 conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high 
 as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, 
 entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved 
 forms. Thus, from the tear of nature, from famine and death, tho most 
 exalted object which we aro capablo of conceiving, namely, the production. 
 
 •*s: 
 
31 
 
 t o f the hii/her animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view cf 
 * life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few 
 E forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gono cycling on 
 ; according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless 
 j forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and aro beimy 
 evolved.” 
 
 From these passages, it will be seen that Mr. Darwin’s whole theory 
 i (like political economy, and the general social science itself) is based 
 upon the principle of population. His work is indeed as thoroughly 
 Malthusian as Mr. Mill's Principles of Political Economy. The popula¬ 
 tion principle, according to Mr. Darwin, is the main-spring that has set 
 in motion the train of forces by which the whole animal and vegetable 
 series has boon developed. The elevation of the animal series to higher 
 and higher grades of perfection has been effected, through the laws of 
 variation and inheritance, by “a ratio of increase so high as to load to a 
 struggle for life, and as a consequence to natural selection, entailing 
 divergence of character, and the extinction of less improved forms.” If 
 this theory—on which Mr. Darwin has been working for the last twenty 
 years, and which he has supported in the most admirable manner—bo 
 correct, the great principle which is tho source of man’s chief miseries 
 and difficulties, is also the cause of his ever having come into existence 
 at all. Mr. Darwin’s profound observation, with regard to tho universal 
 struggle for life, produced by tho population principle—namely, that 
 “ unless it-bo thoroughly ingrained in the mind, tho whole economy of 
 nature will be dirmy seep or quite misunderstood”—is just as applicable 
 to human society as to tho rest of tho organic world. Without a clear 
 apprehension of this great trtith, none of the most important social 
 phenomena taking place around us, can be understood or explained. 
 Tho law of population, and the laws of exorcise, fecundity, and agricul¬ 
 tural industry, from which it is derived, give a simpio and consistent 
 explanation of tho comparatively slow increase of population in old 
 countries, and its rapid increase in new' colonies; of tho vast swarms of 
 emigrants repeatedly sont forth by many of the former countries ; of tho 
 wide-spread and inveterate social evils of poverty, prostitution, celibacy, 
 and their consequences, which (unless obviated by preventive inter¬ 
 course) are invariably found even in tho most civilized and industrious 
 communities of tho old world ; of tho comparative absence of theso evils 
 in new colonies; of the low rate of wages and profits, tho high rate of 
 rent, tho high price of agricultural and other raw produce as compared 
 with manufactured articles—of which facts no othor explanation can be, 
 indeed is scarcely even attempted to be, given. In the same manner as 
 it may bo said, that a man who understands the laws of gravitation and 
 motion and their principal effects, has a true view of the general theory 
 of tho solar system—so it may, I believe, be said, that ho wh<> is 
 acquainted with the law of population and its principal effects, has a true 
 conception of tho general theory of society, and of tho causey which have 
 produced itg most remarkable phenomena; while, on tho other hand, if a 
 man bc'ignorant of this law, no amount of special knowledge jfll prevent 
 him from having, on tho whole, a radically erroneous viojffof human 
 affairs. Jr 
 
 t THE ESD. W 
 
 * * X. 
 
Just publish ciLAe 7th edition, Ninth Thousand of the 
 ELEMENTS OF 8 OCTAL SCIENCEor, Physical, Sexual, and Natural 
 Religion. With the Solution of the Stocial Problem. Containing an Exposition 
 of the true Cause and only Cure of the thref primary social evils— Poverty, Prosti¬ 
 tution, and Celibacy. By a Graduate of Medicine. Price 2s. Gd.; or in cloth, 3s, 
 post free. Upwards of GOO pages. 
 
 Opinions op the Press. 
 
 “In some respects all books of this class are evils; but it would be weakness and 
 criminal prudery—a prudery as criminal as vice itself— not to say that such a book a* 
 the one in question is not only a far lesser evil than the one that it combats, but in one 
 sense a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage to publish.”— Ileasoner . 
 
 “ We have never risen from the perusal a limy work with a greater satisfaction than 
 this. ”— Investigator. 
 
 “That book must be £ad, that subject must he understood, before the population 
 can be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and immoral state. We 
 really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this extraordinary >vork; wc can 
 only say, conscientiously and ejnph already, it is a blessing to the human race.” — 
 People's Paper. 
 
 “Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from stating that 
 this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many respects, we have ever 
 met with. Though we differ tolo cocJo from the author in his views of religion and 
 morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a dissolution than a recon¬ 
 struction of society, yet we urtf hound to admit the benevolence and philanthrophy of his 
 motives. The scope of the work is nothing loss than the whole field of political economy.” 
 —The British Journal of Homoeopathy , January. 1860 (Published Quarterly, price 5s.) 
 
 “It is because, after an impartial consideration of this book, wc feel satisfied that the 
 author has no meretricious professional ol ject to subserve, that wc are induced to use 
 its publication ns a text for the discussion of a vital and pressing subject; and because 
 it bears evidences of research, thorough, although misapplied, professional education, 
 some pretentions to philosophy, and a certain earnestness of misguided conviction of the 
 truth of peculiar prevalent economical theories, which seem to huv^Jed himofFhis feet, 
 and to hgve induced him to venture up a iny extravagance in their svpport It is in 
 vaiqjto attempt to hide these subjects out of .sight. This one boolbof 600 closely printed 
 pages is in its third large edition. It is of no use to ignore the topic as either delicate 
 or disgusting. It is of universal interest. It copcernsjntimately every human being.” 
 •—Prom an adverse review, occupying sir columns 'in The ..Weekly Dispatch, January 
 and February *1$G0. 
 
 “POPULATION FALLACIES: a Dcience of the Malthusian or True Theory of 
 •Society, in reply to “The Weekly Pisuatch,” “Times,” and others. By a 
 Gradnate-of Medicine. Second Edition.—Priced., by post 2d., 32 pages. 
 
 T OGIC AND UTILITY; the Tests of Trjfch .and Falsehood and of Right and Wrong. 
 -* J Being an Outline of Logic, the Seieqa* of Rcftfoning, and of the Utilitarian or 
 Happiness Theory of Morals. By G. R.—Just ’published, price Gd. f by post 7d., 136 pages, 
 -------—_ 
 
 rPHE LAND QUESTION ; containing remark#on the right of property in Land, on 
 -*■ Land tenures, large and small farms, peasant proprietors, cotiers, the Laws of 
 Primogeniture and Entail, tlie Land Transfer A'ct, and other matters relating to Banded 
 Properly. By G. 1C—Price 2d, by post 3d,ffijp:>}iges, <» 
 
 'T'lIE IRI81I LAND QUESTION By O'. R. “ An excellently written pamphlet on 
 a subject of tnc greatest hnportai)cc.' f ?-CowpnonweaWi.-~-Vriec Id., 32 pages. 
 
 POVERTY ; ITS CAUSE AND CURE: pointing out a means by wlfioh the Working 
 ■*- .Classes may raise themselves from their present state of low wages and ceaseless 
 toll, to one of Comfort , Dignity, and Independence, and whlqn is also capable of entirely 
 removing in course of time the other principal social evil* By M. G. IT.—16 pages, 
 price One Penny;- by post fbr two stamps .^tyhis tract is recommended by the author o? 
 “The Elemexis.*' ^ 
 
 Orders for the preceding, enclosing the requ! 
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