Chapter CIV: Section CCXLII

COUNTER TENDENCIES TO THE INCREASE OF POPULATION.

The extension of economic production is always a labor; the surrender of one's ordinary means of subsistence to new comers, a sacrifice; but, on the other hand, the procreation of children is a pleasure. Hence it seems to be incontestably true that the powers of increase of population, considered from an entirely sensuous point of view, tend to go beyond the bounds of the field of food. Malthus gave expression to this fact by saying that population had a tendency to increase in a geometrical progression, but the means of subsistence, even under the most favorable conditions, only in an arithmetical progression.[242-1] If the word "tendency" be correctly understood in the sense in which Malthus employed it, so that the reality appears as the product of several and partly opposite tendencies,[242-2] the first half of his allegation can scarcely be contested.[242-3] If a father has three sons, and each of the three three in turn, the love of procreation and the power of procreation, all being in the normal condition of health, are precisely three times as great in the second generation as in the first, and nine times as great in the third, etc. The second half of Malthus's principle is more open to doubt. If it be true, as has been asserted, that man's means of subsistence consist solely of animals and plants, and these, as well as man, increase in a geometrical ratio, and usually even with a much larger multiplier, yet it is here, surprisingly enough, overlooked that their natural increase is interrupted by the consumption of them by man. On the other hand, it is true that even raw material, by means of more skillful technic processes (§ 134, 157), and the values by which man ennobles them, may always increase in a greater ratio than a merely arithmetical one. (§ 33).[242-4] But, that, in the long run, the means of subsistence should keep pace with the extreme of sensuous desire and of physiological power, is utterly incredible. Hence, the latter tendency is limited by others.

A. And indeed, firstly, by repressive counter-tendencies. As soon as there is a larger population in existence than can be supported, the surplus population must yield to a mournful necessity; in a favorable case, to that of emigration, but usually to hunger, disease and misery generally.

"The earth," says Sismondi, "again swallows the children she cannot support." It is the weakest especially who are elbowed off the bridge of life, over which we pass from birth to the normal death from old age, because there is not room enough on it for all. Hence the frightful mortality among the poorer classes and in childhood. Now it is the absence of a healthy habitation,[242-5] or of proper clothing, or, in the case of children, of rational superintendence[242-6] which sows the germs of a thousand diseases; and now the absence of proper care, rest etc., which intensifies these diseases. Every bad harvest is wont, when its consequences are not alleviated by a high and healthy civilization, to increase mortality. (§ 246, 9). Thus, in Sweden, during the second half of the 18th century, the average yearly mortality was = 1:39-40. On the other hand, in the bad year 1771 = 1:35.7; 1772 = 1:26.7, and in 1773, as an after consequence, 1:19.3. In this last, although it was a fertile year, there were only 48 births to every 100 deaths.[242-7] Among nations low down in civilization, the repressive counter tendency may assume a very violent character. How many cases of murder, human sacrifice, and even war, have been occasioned by over-population and famine.

B. Secondly, by preventive counter tendencies.[242-8] The person who believes himself unable to support children refrains from begetting them. This, we may call one of the most natural of duties. We might even say that the person who begets a child which he knows he is not in a condition to support, is guilty of a grievous sin against civil society, and of a still more grevious one against his poor child. Strange! To beget a child with countless wants, with an immortal soul! That is certainly an act the most pregnant with consequences which any ordinary man can perform in his life; and yet how thoughtlessly it is performed by the majority!

This counter-tendency is to be found only in the case of man. Plants and animals yield to the sexual instinct regardless of everything.[242-9] Where there is no question whatever of having food enough to support children, as is the case with the better-to-do classes, the dread of losing the decencies of life, or of "losing caste," acts as a preventive[242-10] [242-11] to the founding a family, or increasing the numbers of one. Unfortunately, abstinence from the procreation of children may be exercised not only in accordance with the moral law,[242-12] but also, in contravention of it.[242-13] There is a necessary connection between human reason and human freedom and the possibility of misusing them. And it is certainly the inevitable fate of man either to place a morally rational check on the sexual impulse, or to be forcibly held within the limits of the means of subsistence, since they cannot be over-stepped by him--through the agency of vice and misery.[242-14] [242-15]

[Footnote 242-1: Principle of Population, I, ch. I. Adam
Smith also implicitly held the view that the demand for the
means of subsistence is always in advance of them. Wealth of
Nat., I, ch. II, pref. and P. I.]

[Footnote 242-2: This may be represented by what physicists
call the "parallelogram of forces." Compare _Senior_,
Outlines, 47. _Malthus'_ own explanation of "tendency," in
his letter at the end of _Senior_, Two Lectures on
Population, 1829.]

[Footnote 242-3: On the inaccuracy of the expression,
"geometrical progression," in the present case, see _Moser_,
Gesetze des Lebensdauer, 1839, 132.]

[Footnote 242-4: _Weyland_, Principles of Population and
Production, 1816, 25 ff.]

[Footnote 242-5: In Paris the mortality is greater in the
_arrondissements_ in proportion to their poverty, of which
the relative numbers of untaxed dwellings afford a
criterion. According to this, between 1822 and 1826,

=========================================================
_The | _Had a yearly mortality | _Locations
Arrondissement_| of 1 in every_ | non imposées._
---------------+-------------------------+---------------
II, | 71 of population. | 0.07
III, | 67 " | 0.11
I, | 66 " | 0.11
IV, | 62 " | 0.15
XI, | 61 " | 0.19
VI, | 58 " | 0.21
V, | 64 " | 0.22
VII, | 59 " | 0.22
X, | 49 " | 0.23
IX, | 50 " | 0.31
VIII, | 46 " | 0.32
XII, | 44 " | 0.38
=========================================================

_Villermé_, in the Journal des Econ., Novbr. 1853. The
average house-rent in _arrondissement_ II, amounted to 605
francs per annum; in III, to 426; in I, to 498; in IX, to
172; in VIII, to 173; in XII, to 148 francs. Doctor Holland
divided all the streets in Manchester into three classes,
and each class, in turn, into three sub-classes, according
to the qualities of the dwellings. The yearly mortality in I
a was 1:51; in I b = 1:45; I c = 36; II a = 1:55; II b =
1:38; III c = 1:25. (Report of Inquiry into the State of
large Towns and Populous Districts, 1843.)]

[Footnote 242-6: In Prussia, the Jewish population, between
1822 and 1840, increased 34-1/2 per cent.; the Christians
only 28-1/2 per cent.; although among the Jews there was
only one marriage a year in every 139, and one birth in
every 28; among the Christians, in every 112 and 25. This is
accounted for, mainly by the favorable circumstances that
Jewish mothers leave their homes seldomer to work outside,
and thereby devote more attention, even in the lower
classes, to the care of their children.]

[Footnote 242-7: _Wappäus_, Allg. Bevölkerungsstatistik, I,
315. In Thurgau, in 1815, the mortality was = 2,143, in 1817
= 3,440; in Luzerne, in 1820 = 1,543, in 1817 = 3,511.
(_Bernouilli_, Populationistik, 219.) And so in London
between 1601 and 1800, when the five dearest and five
cheapest years of each decade are taken together, the
aggregate mortality in the dearest was 1,971,076, in the
cheapest, 1,830,835. (_Farr_, in the Statist. Journal, 1846,
163 ff.) The rule did not apply to the time 1801-1820; but
it did again to the time 1821-1840 (l. c., 174). Compare
_Messance_, Recherches sur la Population, 311; _Roscher_,
Kornhandel und Theuerungspolitik, 54 ff. When scarcity
continues a longer time, the mortality sometimes decreases
on account of the largely diminished number of small
children. In Lancashire, the number of deaths during the
commercial crisis, 1846-47, was 36 per cent. greater than
the average of the three last preceding years; in 1857-8 it
was 11.9 per cent. greater. (_Ausland_, 1862, No. 44.)]

[Footnote 242-8: _Malthus_ uses the word "preventive check,"
while he calls the repressive counter-tendencies "positive."
_R. Mohl_, Polizeiwissenschaft, I, 88, speaks of preventive
and destructive causes. Anteriorly and subsequently
operating causes. (_Knapp_).]

[Footnote 242-9: Hence the infinite productiveness of
irrational organisms is limited only by their mutual
struggle for the means of support. That which cannot live
there dies. "In this case there can be no artificial
increase of food, and no prudential restraint from
marriage." (_Darwin_, Origin of species, 4 ed. 1866, 73.)
Compare _B. Franklin_, Observations concerning the Increase
of Mankind, § 21. _Lamennais_, indeed, asserts that no plant
and no animal takes away food from any other; that the earth
has room for all!]

[Footnote 242-10: The rule that population tends to extend
everywhere as far as the means of subsistence will permit,
_Sismondi_, N. Principes, VII, ch. 3, has taken occasion to
ridicule, basing himself on the example of the Montmorency
family. This family has, notoriously, always lived in
superabundance, and is, notwithstanding, on the verge of
extinction. _Sismondi_ here forgets the relativity of the
idea "means of subsistence." Persons occupying an exalted
social position not only think that they want more in this
respect, but they are wont in forming marriage contracts to
use the greatest and frequently exaggerated caution. Hence
it is that families of this rank become, relatively
speaking, frequently extinct; and, moreover, such a fact is
here most frequently taken notice of. _Sadler_, Law of
Population, 1830, infers from the frequent extinction of
English noble families, that wealth leads to sterility; and,
on the other hand, poverty (but not famine!) to prolificacy;
and _Doubleday's_ (True Law of Population, 12 ff.)
suggestion, in explanation hereof, that over-fed animals and
over-manured plants are sterile, as ably refuted in the
Edinburg Rev., LI. It is there shown that the marriages of
the English peers are fruitful above the average; that their
extinction is partly due to the fact that the younger sons
seldom married, and that hence there is a lack of collateral
relations. But, in great part, such extinction is only
apparent; since such a family is said to be extinct when
only the male stem is extinct. The French nobility, from the
9th to the 11th century, continually increased in number.
After this, the succession of females and cases of
extinction became more frequent, because the nobility, in
order to keep their estates together, began to not desire
many sons. _Sismondi_, Hist. des Français, V, 182. Compare
_Benoiston de Châteauneuf_, De la Durée des Familles nobles
en France, in the proceedings of the Académie des Sciences
morales et politiques, II, 792 ff. Besides, between 1611 and
1819, 763 English baronet families became actually extinct,
653 continued to exist, and 139 had been raised to the
peerage; an average of from 3 to 4 peer families became
extinct yearly. (Statist. Journal, 1869, 224.) There were,
about 1569 2,219 Venetian _nobili_; in 1581, 1,843 (_Daru_,
VI, 240 ff.); in Addison's time (1705), only 1,500. On the
decrease of the Roman patricians, see _Dionys._, Hal., I,
85; _Tacit._, Ann., XI, 25; on that of the Spartan knights:
_Clinton_, Fasti Hellenici, II, 407 ff.; of the _ehrbaren
Geschlechter_, at Nürnberg: _Hegel_, N. Stadtchroniken,
1862, 214. Compare, also, Westminster Rev., Oct., 1849.]

[Footnote 242-11: How, in England, not only many
distinguished persons, but also their servants, are kept
from marriage in this way, because they are sure of not
being able to satisfy the wants of their bachelorhood as
fathers of families, see in _Malthus_, P. of P., II, ch. 8.
A description of the general misery which would result if
all men consumed only that which was physically
indispensable, in _Senior_, Outlines, 39.]

[Footnote 242-12: See _Bastiat's_ beautiful words, in which
he characterizes the holy ignorance of children, the modesty
of young maidens, the severity of public opinion, etc., as a
law of limitation: (Harmonies, 437 seq.)]

[Footnote 242-13: Compare _Proudhon_, Contradictions, ch.
13.]

[Footnote 242-14: That want of employment or of business has
rather a preventive tendency, see _Malthus_, Principle of
Population, VII, ch. 14.]

[Footnote 242-15: _Malthus_, P. of P., II, ch. 13. I
formerly called this natural law by the name of the
investigator who earned the largest share of scientific
merit in connection therewith. It cannot, indeed, be said,
that he was the first to observe it. Compare even
_Machiavelli_, Discorsi (between 1515 and 1518), II, 5. And
so _Giovanni Botero_ taught that the number of the
population depended not so much on the number of
_congiungimenti_ so much as on the rearing of children.
(Ragion di Stato, 1592, VII, 93 ff.) The _virtù generativa
degli uomini_, which is always the same, is found face to
face with the _virtù nutritiva delle citta_. The former
would continue to operate _ad infinitum_, if the latter did
not limit it. The larger a city is, the more difficult it is
to provide it with the means of subsistence. In the last
instance, the slave-sales of Guinea, the cannibalism of the
Indians, the robber-system of the Arabians and the Tartars,
the migration of nations, crimes, litigation, etc., are
traced back to the narrowness of the means of subsistence.
(Delle Cause della Grandezza delle Città, 1598, Libr. III.)
Sir Walter Raleigh (ob. 1618), was of opinion that the earth
would not only be full but overflowing with human beings
were it not that hunger, pestilence, crime, war, abstinence
welcome sterility, etc. did away with the surplus
population. (History of the World, I, ch. 8, 4. Discourse of
war: Works, VII, 257 ff.) According to _Child_, Discourse of
Trade, 371 ff., 149, the population is always in proportion
to the amount of employment.

If England could employ only 100 men while 150 were reared,
50 would have to emigrate or perish; and so, too,
conversely, occasional vacancies would soon be filled.
Similarly _Davenaut_, Works II, 233, 185; who, however, in
the practical application of this law of nature, adopts the
error of his contemporary, G. King, the statistician,
according to whom the population of England would increase
to 11,000,000 (II, 176) only after 600 years. _Benjamin
Franklin's_ Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,
Peopling of new Countries, etc., 1751, are very good.
Franklin here shows that the same tables of mortality do not
apply to town and country, nor to old nations and new ones.
The nation increases more rapidly in proportion as it is
easy to contract marriage. Hence the increase is smallest in
luxurious cities and thickly populated countries. Other
circumstances, being equal, hunting nations require the
largest quantity of land for the purpose of subsistence, and
industrial nations least. In Europe, there was a marriage in
every 100 of the population per annum; in America, on every
50; 4 children to a marriage in the former, and 8 in the
latter.

Population diminishes as a consequence of subjugation, bad
government, the introduction of slavery, loss of territory,
loss of trade and food. He who promotes the opposite
advantages may well be called the "father of his country."
Further, _D. Hume_, Of the Populousness of the Ancient
Nations: Discourses No. 10. _Per contra, Wallace_, On the
Numbers of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times, in which the
superior populousness of antiquity is maintained, 1753.
_Wallace_ relied chiefly on the more equable distribution of
land, and the smaller luxury of the ancient nations.
_Herbert_, Essai sur le Police des Grains (1755), 319 ff.
Les Intérêts de la France mal entendus, par un Citoyen
(Amsterd., 1757), I, 197.

_Steuart_ threw light especially on the connection between
mortality and the number of marriages (Principles, I, 13);
and he claims, with the utmost confidence, that only the
want of the means of subsistence, using the expression in
its broadest sense (I, 15), can put a limit to the increase
of population (I, 14). He calls wrongful procreation
(_falsche Zeugung_) the chief cause of pauperism (II, 1),
and his views on public charity have a strong Malthusian
complexion (I, 14). Compare further _A. Young_, Political
Arithmetics (1774), I, ch. 7. _Townsend_, Dissertation on
the Poor Laws (1786), makes a happy use of the example of
the Island of Juan Fernandez, in which a colony of goats was
developed, first alone, and afterwards in a struggle with a
colony of dogs, to illustrate the laws of the development of
population as limited by the supply of food. Compare the
same author's Journey through Spain, II, 8 seq.; 358 ff.,
III, 107. _G. M. Ortes_, Riflessioni sulla Popolazione,
delle Nazione per rapporto all'Economia nazionale, 1790,
ascribes geometrical progression to the increase of
population (cap. I) precisely as in the case of other
animals; only, in the case of the latter, a limit is put to
their increase by _forza_, and in the case of man, by
_ragione_. When the population of a country has attained its
proper development, celibacy is as necessary in order to
keep it so as marriage. Otherwise the door would be opened
to extreme pauperism, to the debauchery of the "venus vaga,"
to eunuchism and polygamy (4). Strangely enough, _Ortes_
asserts that no people are richer per capita than any other.
The distribution of wealth among the apparently richer,
operates to make individuals heap wealth together in greater
quantities (8).

_Malthus_ himself wrote his classical work under the
influence of a very intelligible reaction (1st ed., 1798; 2d
ed., 1803). For a whole generation, the European public had
had no other view broached but that the tree of human kind
might keep on growing even until it reached the heavens, if
care were only taken to manure the ground, to water the
roots and prune the branches according to the latest
world-improving recipes. _Malthus_, in opposition thereto,
called attention to the limits placed by nature to the
number of mankind. He demonstrated that it was not merely
arbitrary laws which opposed the Utopian happiness of all,
but in part the niggardliness of nature; and in greater part
the passions and sins of men themselves. If he sometimes
described the limits as narrower than they really are, and
if an occasional coarse expression escaped him, we need not
wonder. His polemic was well founded, and he was at the time
still a young man (born 1766, ob. 1834). He modified much in
the later editions of his work. For instance, he stopped the
unsavory sentence in which he says that a man born into the
world already occupied, whose family cannot support him, and
whose labor society does not need, has not the smallest
right to demand the smallest particle of food, and is really
superfluous in the world; that there is no place for him at
the great banquet of nature; that nature bids him go hence
and does not hesitate herself to execute the command. _P.
Leroux_ in a small pamphlet in answer to _Malthus_, quotes
this sentence at least forty times. Moreover, _Möser_, who
certainly is not considered a misanthrope, was not only
acquainted with the Malthusian law, but develops it in
words, and with consequences which strongly recall the very
words which raised such a storm against _Malthus_. Compare
Patr. Phant. I, 42; II, 1; IV, 15 (against vaccination); V,
26.

The opinions of political economists in our own day are, as
might be expected, divided on some of Malthus' expressions
and on his practical counsels. He has indeed but few such
one-sided followers as _Th. Chalmers_, On Political Economy
in Connexion with the moral State and moral Prospects of
Society, 1832. Malthus' fundamental views, however, are
truly scientific. (Ktêma es aei!) Compare _Baudrillart_,
Manuel, 424 seq., and _A Walker_, Science of Wealth, who
strangely enough (452) opposes Malthus, and yet is (458)
virtually of the same opinion. Even the better class of
socialists base themselves on the same view, without,
however, thanking Malthus for it. Thus for instance, _K.
Marlo_, System der Weltökonomie (1848, 52), passim. For an
excellent history of the theory of population, see _R.
Mohl_, Gesch. und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften, III,
409 ff. (1858).]