Chapter XV: Saving

[86] Sir James Steuart of Coltness, whose ‹Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy› was published in 1767, nine years before the appearance of Adam Smith’s great work, takes the very same view of the principle of population which Malthus, thirty years afterwards, more formally enunciated. “The generative faculty,” says Sir James Steuart, “resembles a spring loaded with a weight, which always exerts itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance. When food has remained some time without augmentation or diminution, generation will carry numbers as high as possible; if, then, food come to be diminished, the spring is overpowered, the force of it becomes less than nothing, inhabitants will diminish, at least in proportion to the overcharge. If, on the other hand, food be increased, the spring will begin to exert itself in proportion as the resistance diminishes, people will begin to be better fed, they will multiply, and, in proportion as they increase in numbers, the food will become scarce again.”—«Translator.»

[87] “Threescore and ten ‹souls›.”—‹Gen.› xlvi. 27. “Seventy ‹souls›.”—‹Exodus› i. 5. “Threescore and ten ‹persons›.”—‹Deut.› x. 22.—«Translator.»

[88] 601,730 “from twenty years old and upwards.”—‹Numbers› xxvi. 2 and 51.—«Translator.»

[89] What follows was written in 1846.—«Editor.»

[90] It is fair to mention that J. B. Say represents the ‹means of existence› as a variable quantity.

[91] “There are few states in which there is not a constant effort in the population to increase beyond the means of subsistence. This constant effort as ‹constantly tends› to subject the lower classes of society to distress, ‹and to prevent any great permanent melioration of their condition›. . . . The constant effort towards population . . . increases the number of people ‹before› the means of subsistence are increased,” etc.—«Malthus» ‹on Population›, vol. i. pp. 17, 18, 6th edition.

[92] See chap. xi. ‹ante›.

[93] “Although we might describe ‹fermage›, in a general way, as the letting or leasing of land, in whatever form it is done, we must distinguish two forms of letting, equally common in various parts of Europe, and very different in their effects. In the one form, the land is let for a fixed rent, payable in money annually. In the other, it is let under the condition of the produce being divided between the proprietor and the cultivator. It is to the first of these two modes of leasing land that we give more particularly the name of ‹fermage›. The other is generally designated in France as ‹métayage›.” (‹Dictionnaire de l’Économie Politique›, tome i. p. 759.)—«Translator.»