{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_68099/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_68099","id":"gutenberg_68099","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68099","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Economics","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert), 1766-1834","Malthusianism"],"text":"MALTHUS AND HIS WORK\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                          MALTHUS AND HIS WORK\n\n\n                                   BY\n                           JAMES BONAR, M.A.\n                        BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD\n\n\n                                =London=\n                           MACMILLAN AND CO.\n\n                                  1885\n\n        _The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                                LONDON:\n                         RICHARD CLAY AND SONS,\n                        BREAD STREET HILL, E.C.\n\n\n\n\n                                   TO\n\n                        =Professor Edward Caird=\n\n                               THIS BOOK,\n\n                        WHICH OWES MUCH TO HIM,\n\n                             IS DEDICATED.\n\n\n\n\n                             INTRODUCTION.\n\n\nOf the three English writers whose work has become a portion of all\nPolitical Economy, Malthus is the second in time and in honour. His\nservices to general theory are at least equal to Ricardo\u2019s; and his full\nillustration of one particular detail will rank with the best work of\nAdam Smith.\n\nIn the following pages the detail will be the main subject, and general\ntheory the episode. The _Political Economy_ and minor writings of\nMalthus (which are not few) will be noticed only in relation to the\n_Essay on Population_.\n\nAccordingly, the First of these Five Books will deal with the genesis,\nhistory, and contents of the Essay, plunging the reader _in medias res_\nand keeping him there, till the facts force him, in the Second Book, to\nrecur with the author to Economical theory. The Third will show the mind\nof Malthus more clearly by adding to his economics his Ethics and\nPolitical Philosophy; and the Fourth, with the case now fully stated,\nwill criticize the Critics of the Essay, and try to determine how much\nof its doctrine remains still valuable. The Fifth Book, with its\nBiography, may help the reader to associate the living personality of\nthe man with his writings.\n\n  _London, June 1885._\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                          PAGE\n         INTRODUCTION                                      vii\n\n              BOOK I. THE ESSAY.\n             CHAP. I. FIRST THOUGHTS, 1798                   1\n               \u201e  II. SECOND THOUGHTS, 1803                 45\n               \u201e III. THESES                                60\n               \u201e  IV. THE SAVAGE, BARBARIAN, AND ORIENTAL   85\n               \u201e   V. NORTH AND MID EUROPE                 119\n               \u201e  VI. FRANCE                               153\n               \u201e VII. ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND       170\n\n             BOOK II. ECONOMICS.\n             CHAP. I. THE LANDLORDS                        207\n               \u201e  II. THE WORKING MAN                      254\n               \u201e III. GENERAL GLUTS                        282\n               \u201e  IV. THE BEGGAR                           303\n\n            BOOK III. MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY       319\n\n               \u201e  IV. THE CRITICS                          355\n\n               \u201e   V. BIOGRAPHY                            399\n\n         INDEX                                             428\n\n\n\n\n                          MALTHUS AND HIS WORK\n\n\n\n\n                           BOOK I. THE ESSAY.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I.\n                         FIRST THOUGHTS, 1798.\n\n  The Common Caricature\u2014The Essay an Inquiry into the Poverty of\n    Nations\u2014Godwin\u2019s _Political Justice_ and _Enquirer_\u2014The Two\n    Postulates and Conclusions from them\u2014Condorcet\u2019s _Sketch of the\n    Progress of the Human Mind_\u2014Organic Perfectibility of Man and its\n    Obstacles\u2014Historical Context of the Essay\u2014_The Crisis_\u2014Pitt\u2019s Poor\n    Bill\u2014Malthus and his Teachers\u2014Success explained\u2014Theology and\n    Metaphysics\u2014Faults of the Essay\u2014Immediate aim secured.\n\n\nHe was the \u201cbest-abused man of the age.\u201d Bonaparte himself was not a\ngreater enemy of his species. Here was a man who defended small-pox,\nslavery, and child-murder; who denounced soup-kitchens, early marriage,\nand parish allowances; who \u201chad the impudence to marry after preaching\nagainst the evils of a family;\u201d who thought the world so badly governed\nthat the best actions do the most harm; who, in short, took all romance\nout of life and preached a dull sermon on the threadbare text\u2014\u201cVanity of\nvanities, all is vanity.\u201d Such was the character of Malthus as described\nby his opponents.\n\nIf an angry man is probably in the wrong, an abusive man is certainly\nso; and, when not one or two, but one or two thousand are engaged in the\nabuse, the certainty amounts to a demonstration. We may measure the\nsoundness of the victim\u2019s logic by the violence of the personal attacks\nmade upon him. For most worldly purposes, to be ignored and to be\nrefuted are the same thing.\n\nMalthus from the first was not ignored. For thirty years it rained\nrefutations. The question, as he stated it, was thoroughly threshed out.\nThe _Essay on Population_ passed in the author\u2019s lifetime through six\neditions (1798, 1803, 1806, 1807, 1817, and 1826); even between the\nfirst edition, in 1798, and the second, in 1803, there were more than a\nscore of \u2018Replies\u2019; and the discussion was carried on in private\ncorrespondence, as well as in public journals and parliamentary\nspeeches. The case was fully argued; and no one who fairly considers the\nextent of the discussion, and the ability of the disputants, can fail to\nbelieve that we have, in the records of this controversy, ample\nmaterials for forming our own judgment on the whole question in dispute.\n\nSuch a privilege is seldom used. The world has no time to consult\nauthorities, though it likes them to be within reach of consultation.\nWhen an author becomes an authority, he too often ceases to be read, and\nhis doctrines, like current coin, are worn by use till they lose the\nclear image and superscription of the issuer. In this way an author\u2019s\nname may come to suggest, not his own book, but the current version of\nhis doctrines. Malthus becomes Malthusianism,\u2014Darwin, Darwinism; and if\nAdam Smith\u2019s name were more flexible he too would become an epithet.[1]\nAs it is, Adam Smith has left a book which \u201cevery one praises and nobody\nreads,\u201d Malthus a book which no one reads and all abuse. The abuse is,\nfortunately, not quite unanimous; but it is certain that Malthus for a\nlong time had an experience worse than Cassandra\u2019s, for his warnings\nwere disbelieved without being heard or understood. Miss Martineau, in\nher girlhood, heard him denounced \u201cvery eloquently and forcibly by\npersons who never saw so much as the outside\u201d[2] of his book. This was\nin 1816; and when at a later time she inquired about him for herself,\nshe could never find any one who had read his book, but scores who could\n\u201cmake great argument about it and about,\u201d or write sentimental pamphlets\non supposed Malthusian subjects. This carelessness was not confined to\nthe general public; it infected the savants. Nothing more clearly shows\nhow political economy, or at least one question of it, had descended\ninto the streets and become a common recreation. Even Nassau William\nSenior, perhaps the most distinguished professor of political economy in\nhis day, confessed with penitence that he had trusted more to his ears\nthan to his eyes for a knowledge of Malthusian doctrine, and had written\na learned criticism, not of the opinion of Mr. Malthus, but of that\nwhich \u201cthe multitudes who have followed and the few who have endeavoured\nto oppose\u201d Mr. Malthus, have assumed to be his opinion.[3]\n\nThe \u201copinion\u201d so imagined by Senior and the multitude is still the\ncurrent Malthusianism. A Malthusian is supposed to forbid all marriage.\nMr. Malthus was supposed to believe that \u201cthe desire of marriage, which\ntends to increase population, is a stronger principle than the desire of\nbettering our condition, which tends to increase subsistence.\u201d[4] This\nmeant, as Southey said, that \u201cGod makes men and women faster than He can\nfeed them.\u201d The old adage was wrong then: Providence does not send meat\nwhere He sends mouths; on the contrary, He sends mouths wherever He\nsends meat, so that the poor can never cease out of the land, for,\nhowever abundant the food, marriage will soon make the people equally\nabundant. It is a question of simple division. A fortune that is wealth\nfor one will not give comfort to ten, or bare life to twenty. The moral\nis, for all about to marry, \u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d and for all statesmen, \u201cDon\u2019t\nencourage them.\u201d\n\nThis caricature had enough truth in it to save it from instant\ndetection, and its vitality is due to the superior ease in\nunderstanding, and therefore greater pleasure in hearing, a blank denial\nor a blank affirmation as compared with the necessary qualifications of\na scientific statement. The truth must be told, however, that Malthus\nand the rest of the learned world were by no means at utter discord. He\nalways treated a hostile economist as a possible ally. He was carrying\non the work of their common Founder. In the _Essay on Population_ he was\ninquiring into the nature and causes of poverty, as Adam Smith had\ninquired into the nature and causes of wealth. But Malthus himself did\nnot intend the one to be a mere supplement to the other. He did not\napproach the subject from a purely scientific side. He had not devoted\nlong years of travel and reflection to the preparation of an economical\ntreatise. Adam Smith had written his _Moral Sentiments_ seventeen years\nbefore his greater work. When he wrote the latter he had behind him an\nacademical and literary reputation; and he satisfied the just\nexpectations of the public by giving them, in the two quarto volumes of\nthe _Wealth of Nations_, his full-formed and completely digested\nconclusions and reasonings definitively expressed (1776). Malthus, on\nthe contrary, gained his reputation by a bold and sudden stroke, well\nfollowed up. His _Essay_ was an anonymous pamphlet in a political\ncontroversy, and was meant to turn the light of political economy upon\nthe political philosophy of the day. Whatever the essay contained over\nand above politics, and however far afield the author eventually\ntravelled in the later editions, there is no doubt about the first\norigin of the essay itself. It was not, as we are sometimes told, that,\nbeing a kind-hearted clergyman, he set himself to work to inquire\nwhether after all it was right to increase the numbers of the population\nwithout caring for the quality of it. In 1798 Malthus was no doubt in\nholy orders and held a curacy at Albury; but he seems never to have been\nmore than a curate. The Whigs offered him a living in his later years,\nbut he passed it to his son;[5] and we should be far astray if we\nsupposed his book no more than the \u201crecreations of a country parson.\u201d\n\u201cParson\u201d was in his case a title without a _r\u00f4le_ and Cobbett\u2019s immortal\nnickname is very unhappy.[6] He had hardly more of the parson than\nCondillac of the abb\u00e9. In 1798 Pitt\u2019s Bill for extending relief to large\nfamilies, and thereby encouraging population, was no doubt before the\ncountry; but we owe the essay not to William Pitt, but to William\nGodwin. The changed aspect of the book in its later editions need not\nblind us to the efficient cause of its first appearance.\n\nThomas Robert Malthus had graduated at Cambridge as ninth wrangler in\nthe year 1788, in the twenty-second year of his age. In 1797, after\ngaining a fellowship at Jesus College, he happened to spend some time at\nhis father\u2019s house at Albury in Surrey. Father and son discussed the\nquestions of the day, the younger man attacking Jacobinism, the elder\ndefending it. Daniel Malthus had been a friend and executor of Rousseau,\nand was an ardent believer in human progress. Robert had written a Whig\ntract, which he called _The Crisis_, in the year of Pitt\u2019s new loan and\nNapoleon\u2019s Italian campaign (1796); but he did not publish it, and his\nviews were yet in solution. We may be sure the two men did not spare\neach other in debate. In the words of the elder Malthus, Robert then, if\nat no other time, \u201cthrew little stones\u201d into his garden. An old man must\nhave the patience of Job if he can look with calmness on a young man\nbreaking his ideals. But in this case he at least recognized the\nstrength of the slinger, and he bore him no grudge, though he did not\nlive to be won by the concessions of the second essay (1803). That\nRobert, on his part, was not wanting in respect, is shown by an\nindignant letter, written in February, 1800, on his father\u2019s death, in\nreply to the supposed slight of a newspaper paragraph.[7]\n\nThe fireside debates had in that year (1797) received new matter.\nWilliam Godwin, quondam parson, journalist, politician, and novelist,\nwhose _Political Justice_ was avowedly a \u201cchild of the Revolution,\u201d[8]\nhad written a new book, the _Enquirer_, in which many of his old\npositions were set in a new light. The father made it a point of honour\nto defend the _Enquirer_; the son played devil\u2019s advocate, partly from\nconviction, partly for the sake of argument; and, as often happens in\nsuch a case, Robert found his case stronger than he had thought. Hard\npressed by an able opponent, he was led, on the spur of the moment, to\nuse arguments which had not occurred to him before, and of which _The\nCrisis_ knows nothing. In calmer moments he followed them up to their\nconclusions. \u201cThe discussion,\u201d he tells us,[9] \u201cstarted the general\nquestion of the future improvement of society, and the author at first\nsat down with an intention of merely stating his thoughts to his friend\nupon paper in a clearer manner than he thought he could do in\nconversation.\u201d But the subject opened upon him, and he determined to\npublish. This is the plain story of the publication of the _Essay on\nPopulation_, reduced to its simplest terms. At the very time when the\nbest men in both worlds were talking only of progress, Malthus saw rocks\nahead. French and English reformers were looking forward to a golden age\nof perfect equality and happiness; Malthus saw an irremovable difficulty\nin the way, and he refused to put the telescope to his blind eye.\n\nThere had been Cassandras before Malthus, and even in the same century.\nDr. John Bruckner of Norwich had written in the same strain in his\n_Th\u00e9orie du Syst\u00e8me Animal_, in 1767;[10] and a few years earlier (in\n1761) Dr. Robert Wallace, writing of the _Various Prospects of Mankind,\nNature, and Providence_, had talked of community of goods as a cure for\nthe ills of humanity, and then had found, very reluctantly, one fatal\nobjection\u2014the excessive population that would ensue. Men are always\ninclined to marry and multiply their numbers till the food is barely\nenough to support them all. This objection had since Wallace\u2019s time\nbecome a stock objection, to be answered by every maker of Utopias. It\nwas left for Malthus to show the near approach which this difficulty\nmakes to absolute hopelessness, and to throw the burden of proof on the\nother side. As the _Wealth of Nations_ altered the standing presumption\nin favour of interference to one in favour of liberty in matters of\ntrade, so the _Essay on Population_ altered the presumption in favour of\nthe advocates of progress to a presumption against them. This may not\ndescribe the final result of the essay, but it is a true account of its\nimmediate effect. People had heard of the objection before; it was only\nnow that they began to look on it as conclusive.\n\nHow had Godwin tried to meet it, when it was still in the hands of\nweaker men, and therefore not at all conclusive? He could not ignore it.\nIn his _Political Justice_ (1793) he had given the outlines of a \u201csimple\nform of society, without government,\u201d on the principle of Tom Paine,\nwhich was also a received Jacobin motto, \u201cSociety is produced by our\nwants, government by our wickedness.\u201d[11] He says, with the ruling\nphilosophy, that man is born a blank, and his outward circumstances make\nhim good or evil. Thanks to human institutions, especially lawyers,\nsovereigns, and statesmen, the outward circumstances, he says, are as\nbad as they can be. Everywhere there is inequality. There is great\npoverty alongside of great riches, and great tyranny with great slavery.\nIn the same way the best of his novels, _Caleb Williams_ (1794), tells\nus how \u201cthings as they are\u201d enable the rich sinner to persecute the poor\nrighteous man. But he is no pessimist. The _Political Justice_ does not\nend with a statement of evils. It goes on to show that in the end truth\nwill conquer; men will listen to reason, they will abandon their present\nlaws, and they will form a society without law or government or any kind\nof force; no such things will be needed when every man listens to\nreason, and contents himself with plain living and high thinking. There\nwill be no king in Israel; every man will do that which is right in his\nown eyes. In our present society, says Godwin, it is distribution and\nnot production that is at fault. There is more than enough of wealth for\nall, but it is not shared amongst all. One man has too much, another\nlittle or nothing. In the new society reason will change all that.\nReason tells us that, if we make an equal division, not only of the good\nthings of this life, but of the labour of making them, then we shall\nsecure a production quite sufficient for the needs of plain livers, at\nthe cost of perhaps half-an-hour\u2019s labour in a day from each of\nthem.[12] Each of them will, therefore, have leisure, which is the true\nriches, and he will use the time for his own moral and intellectual\nimprovement. In this way, by the omnipotence of truth and the power of\npersuasion, not by any violence or power of the sword, perfection and\nhappiness will in time be established on the earth.\n\nGodwin made no essential change in these views in the later editions of\nthe _Political Justice_ (1796 and 1798), or in the _Enquirer_ (1797).\n\u201cAmong the faithless, faithful only he,\u201d when the excesses of the Terror\nmade even Sir James Mackintosh (not to say Bishop Watson, Southey, and\nWordsworth) a lukewarm reformer. Nothing in Godwin\u2019s life is more\nadmirable than the perfect confidence with which he holds fast to his\nold faith in democratic principles and the perfectibility of man. If it\nis obstinacy, it is very like devotion; and perhaps the only author who\nshows an equal constancy is Condorcet, the Girondist, marked out for\ndeath, and writing in his hiding-place, almost under the eyes of the\nConvention, his eager book on the _Progress of the Species_. Nothing but\nintense sincerity and sheer depth of conviction could have enabled these\nmen to continue the defence of a dishonoured cause. They had not the\nmartyr\u2019s greatest trial, the doubt whether he is right. The great\nimpression made by their works was a sign that, as they felt strongly,\nthey wrote powerfully. Malthus, who refuted both of them, apologized for\ngiving serious criticism to Condorcet\u2019s palpable extravagances by saying\nthat Condorcet has many followers who will hold him unanswerable unless\nhe is specially answered.[13] Of Godwin, Mr. Sumner, writing in 1816,\nsays that though his book (the _Political Justice_) was becoming out of\ndate, it was still \u201cthe ablest and best known statement\u201d of the\ndoctrines of equality that had ever appeared in England.[14] It has been\njustly called the \u201cfirst text-book of the philosophical radicals.\u201d The\nactual effect of it cannot be measured by the number of copies sold on\nits first appearance. Godwin had placed it far beyond the reach of\nordinary democrats by fixing the price at three guineas. In 1793 many\nwho would have been his keenest readers could not have paid three\nshillings for it. But the event proved him wise in his generation. The\nPrivy Council decided they might safely tolerate so dear a book; and a\nsmall audience even of the rich was better to Godwin than prosecution,\nwhich might mean exile and no audience at all.[15] Few writers of our\nown day have so good an excuse for making themselves inaccessible to the\npoor. Godwin, however, like Ruskin, reached the poor in spite of his\narrangements for avoiding them. He filtered down among the masses; and\nhis writings became a political as well as a literary power in England,\nlong before he had a poetic son-in-law to give him reflected glory. If a\nspecies is to be judged by its best individual, then Godwin represents\nbetter than Paine the class of political writers to which they both\nbelong; and many fell down with Godwin when he fell down before Malthus.\n\nThe _Enquirer_ was less popular than the _Political Justice_. Part of\nthe charm of the latter undoubtedly lay in the elaborate completeness\nand systematic order of the whole discussion. The foundations were laid\nin the psychology of Locke; and then the building was raised, stone by\nstone, until the whole was finished. But in the _Enquirer_ Godwin\u2019s\ndislike of law had extended even to the form of composition. He had been\nwrong, he said, in trying to write a systematic treatise on society, and\nhe would now confine himself to detached essays, wholly experimental,\nand not necessarily in harmony with one another. \u201cHe (the author) has\ncarried this principle so far that he has not been severely anxious\nrelative to inconsistency that may be discovered between the\nspeculations of one essay and the speculations of another.\u201d[16] The\ncontrast between these two styles is the contrast between a whole\noratorio and a miscellaneous concert, or between a complete poem and a\nvolume of extracts.\n\nThe thoughts were the same, though they had lost their attractive\nexpression. The essay on _Avarice and Profusion_[17] tells us, among\nother things, that \u201ca state of cultivated equality is that state which,\nin speculation and theory, appears most consonant to the nature of man,\nand most conducive to the extensive diffusion of felicity.\u201d This was the\nessay which led Malthus and his father into their fruitful argument. The\nessay on _Riches and Poverty_, and the one on _Beggars_,[18] contain\nother applications of the same idea, with many moralizing digressions.\nGodwin has not lost his sweet Utopian vision; he has not yielded to the\nobjections that baffled Dr. Robert Wallace; he thinks he has removed all\nobjections.\n\nHe meets them[19] by saying first of all: \u201cThere is a principle in the\nnature of human society by means of which everything seems to tend to\nits level,\u201d when not interfered with; and the population of a country\nwhen left to itself does not seem to increase beyond the food. But in\nthe second place, supposing things not to find their level in this way,\nthe earth is wide and the evil day is far off. It may take myriads of\ncenturies to till the untilled acres and to replenish the empty earth\nwith people, and much may happen before then. In fact, he views the\nsubject as many of us view the question of our coal supply. Before it is\nexhausted we may be beyond the need of it.[20] The earth itself may have\ncollapsed with all its inhabitants. Don\u2019t let us refuse a present\nblessing from fear of a remote future danger. Besides, it is not very\nhard to imagine a safeguard. Franklin says that \u201cmind will one day\nbecome omnipotent over matter;\u201d[21] why not over the matter of our own\nbodies? Does not the bodily health depend largely on the mind?\n\n                    \u201cA merry heart goes all the day;\n                    Your sad tires in a mile, O!\u201d\n\nThe time may come when we shall be so full of liveliness that we shall\nnot sleep, and so full of life that we shall not die. The _need_ for\nmarriage will be superseded by earthly immortality, and the _desire_ for\nit by the development of intellect. On the renewed earth of the future\nthere will be neither marrying nor giving in marriage, but we shall be\nas the angels. \u201cThe whole will be a people of men, and not of children.\nGeneration will not succeed generation, nor truth have, in a certain\ndegree, to recommence her career every thirty years. Other improvements\nmay be expected to keep pace with those of health and longevity. There\nwill be no war, no crimes, no administration of justice as it is called,\nand no government. Besides this, there will be neither disease, anguish,\nmelancholy, nor resentment. Every man will seek with ineffable ardour\nthe good of all.\u201d[22]\n\nThis sweet strain had been enchanting the public for four or five years,\nwhen Malthus ventured to interrupt it with his modest anonymous _Essay\non the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of\nSociety_. The writer claims to be as hearty a philanthropist as Mr.\nGodwin, but he cannot allow the wish to be father to the thought, and\nbelieve in future perfection against evidence. To prove a theory true,\nhe says, it is not enough to show that you cannot prove its\ncontradiction, or that you can prove its usefulness. It would be very\nuseful to have eyes in both sides of our head; but that does not prove\nthat we are going to have them. If you told me that man was becoming a\nwinged creature like the ostrich, I should not doubt that he would find\nwings very useful, but I could hardly believe your prophecy without some\nkind of proof beyond the mere praises of flying. I should ask you to\nshow palpable signs in his body and habits that such a change was going\non, that his neck has been lengthening, his lips hardening, and his hair\nbecoming feathery. In the same way, when you tell me that man is\nbecoming a purely intellectual being, content with plain living and high\nthinking, I see there might be advantage in the change, but I ask for\nsigns that it is in progress. I see none; but, on the contrary, I see\nstrong reasons for believing in its impossibility. Grant me two\npostulates, and I disprove your millennium. The first is, that food is\nnecessary; the second, that the instinct for marriage is permanent. No\none denies the first, and Godwin\u2019s denial of the second is purely\ndogmatic. He has given us no proofs. Men have no doubt made progress in\nother respects; they have passed from barbarism to civilization. But in\nrespect of the second postulate they are the same now as they were 4000\nyears ago. Individual exceptions are individual exceptions still. I am\nbound, therefore, to believe in the truth of my postulates, and I infer\nfrom them the impossibility of your millennium.\n\nYou speak of a society, he continues, where the members are all equally\ncomfortable and at leisure. Suppose it established, it could not last;\nit would go to pieces through the principle of population alone. The\nseven years of plenty would be at once devoured by seven years of want.\nThe proof of this is short and decisive:\u2014Population, when unchecked,\nincreases in a geometrical ratio; subsistence only in an arithmetical.\n\u201cA slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first\npower in comparison with the second.\u201d[23] \u201cThe race of plants and\nanimals shrinks under this great restrictive law, and the race of man\ncannot by any efforts of reason escape from it. Among plants and animals\nits effects are waste of seed, sickness, and premature death, among men\nmisery and vice,\u201d the former necessary, the latter probable. Now, in the\nold countries of Europe, population never is unchecked. It is checked by\nwant of room and food. Vice and misery, and the fear of them, are always\n\u201cequalizing\u201d the numbers of the people with the food of the people. In\nthe New World, \u201cthe cynosure of neighbouring eyes,\u201d there are fewer\nhindrances to early marriage; there is more room and there is more food;\nhard work is the only condition of a happy life. But, even there,\npopulation is not entirely unchecked; the hard work will at least\ninterfere with the rearing of children; and the people, however\ncomfortable, are not at the very highest pitch of comfort, or at the\nhighest pitch of purity and simplicity of life; whereas, by assumption,\nGodwin\u2019s imaginary society is all these. If, therefore, the people of\nold Europe double their numbers once a century, and the people of new\nAmerica (at least in the United States) once in twenty-five years, we\nmay be sure that in the millennial society of Godwin,\n\n                \u201cWhere all are proper and well-behaved,\n                And all are free from sorrow and pain,\u201d\n\nthe increase would be much faster. The \u201cleisure\u201d he talks of would soon\ndisappear, and the old scramble for bread, the old inequality of rank\nand property, would again become the order of the day. We should have\nour own kind of society back again, with its masters and servants,\nlandlords and tenants, rich and poor.[24]\n\nTherefore (argues the writer of the essay) if Godwin\u2019s society were once\nmade it could not last. But we grant too much in supposing it could ever\nbe made. We cannot believe this and believe in the second postulate at\nthe same time; and the second postulate is so certain that we can\npredict by it. The same causes, then, that would have destroyed Godwin\u2019s\nnewly-formed society will prevent it from ever being formed at all. \u201cThe\npassion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the\nsame that it may always be considered, in algebraic language, as a given\nquantity.\u201d[25] In spite of the whimpering of old men and _rou\u00e9s_, \u201cthe\npleasures of pure love will bear the contemplation of the most improved\nreason and the most exalted virtue.\u201d[26] Godwin views the matter in a\ndry, intellectual light, and asks us to abstract from all accessories\nbefore we form an estimate of the passion in question. One man or one\nwoman will then be as good as another. But he might as well tell us to\nstrip off all the leaves before we estimate our liking for trees. We do\nnot admire the bare pole, but the whole tree, the tree with all the\n\u201cattendant circumstances\u201d of branches and foliage. As well deprive a\nmagnet of its chief powers of attraction, and then ask us to confess it\nas weak as other minerals.[27] The fact is, that man\u2019s large discourse,\nwhich marks him out from the brutes, makes him hide the marriage\ninstinct under a mass of \u201cattendant circumstances\u201d before he lets\nhimself be drawn by it. He will not obey the instinct simply _more\nfer\u00e6_, or in animal fashion, because he feels it. But it is not\ndestroyed, only disguised. The love is not purely intellectual. Reason,\nwith its calculation of consequences, can save a man from the abuse of a\npassion, but cannot destroy the passion itself;[28] and (he might have\nadded) its \u201clooking before and after\u201d includes fancy as well as thought.\nTake this passion then as it is, an adoration it may be of an assemblage\nof accessories; it can never die out of the world.\n\nFrom this cheerful premise, what conclusion follows? One not altogether\ncheerful: Wherever Providence sends meat He will send mouths. Wherever\nthe people have room and food, they will marry and multiply their\nnumbers, till they press against the limits of both, and begin a fierce\nstruggle for existence, in which death is the punishment of defeat.\nGodwin and the whole French school are sadly wrong in attributing all\ninequality to human institutions; human nature is to blame, and, without\nany artificial aid, this one passion of human nature will be the\nstanding cause of inequality, the most serious obstacle to the removal\nof it.[29] Dr. Robert Wallace had more wisdom than he wot of.\n\nExamine the meaning of this argument and its conclusion. It involves an\nanswer to Godwin\u2019s first defence against Wallace. Here is something very\nlike a law of nature, a truth past, present, and future, or, in other\nwords, a truth which, being scientific, ought not to be stated in terms\nof time at all: \u201cWhere goods increase, they are increased that eat\nthem.\u201d The \u201cstruggle for existence\u201d (Malthus uses the very phrase) is a\npresent fact, as it has been a past fact, and will be a future. No good\nis gained by rhetorical references to the wideness of the world and the\npossibilities of the ages.[30] In our own day and land we see people\nmultiplying up to the limit of the food, and a \u201cgreat restrictive law\u201d\npreventing them, as it prevents all other animals, from multiplying\nbeyond that limit.[31] In our own day and country, men marry when they\ncannot support a family; the children whom they cannot support die of\nhunger or sickness, if the charity of the public does not interfere;\u2014or\nelse the fear of misery makes men avoid a marriage for which they have\nnot the means, and their celibacy, whether pure or impure, keeps the\nnumbers of the people on a level with the food.[32] Godwin himself had\nwritten in so many words: \u201cThere is a principle in human society by\nwhich population is perpetually kept down to the level of the means of\nsubsistence.\u201d[33] Why did he not take one step more, and discover what\nthat principle is?[34]\n\nThe fact is that Godwin was at once intellectually sanguine and\nemotionally cold. His ideal would have been a man \u201cof large brain and no\naffections;\u201d and when he wrote the _Political Justice_ he was not aware\nof his own defect. At a later time he was not only aware of it, but\nanxious to remove it. In his Memoir of his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft\n(1798), and in the story of _St. Leon_ (1799), the man who found the\nphilosopher\u2019s stone, and became, to his own sorrow, immortal on earth,\nhe confesses that he has hitherto taken too little thought of feeling as\nan element in human action. If Mary had been too much of a Werther, her\nhusband had been too little. Like Condorcet (and like Buckle), he had\nbelieved civilization to be a purely intellectual movement. He had\ndogmatized on the omnipotence of truth and reason, and inferred the\ngrowth of a perfect society. He had dogmatized on the development of\nintellect, and inferred an earthly immortality. Moreover, in the\n_Memoir_, and in _St. Leon_, if he had added a little to his doctrines,\nhe had recanted little or nothing, even in regard to immortality.\n\nSt. Leon is miserable only because his gift is peculiar to himself; an\nimmortality that is common to all would be acceptable to all. A\nMethuselah would not be melancholy among antediluvians. Such was\nprobably Godwin\u2019s position. The mere belief in the possibility of\nearthly immortality was not uncommon; Godwin is careful to number Bacon\namong its supporters.[35] Malthus was probably right in tracing it to\nthe unconscious influence of Christianity,[36] though the progress in\nGodwin\u2019s days of the new science of chemistry had perhaps more to do\nwith it, and Godwin\u2019s religion was never more than a bare Theism.[37] It\nwas held by Holcroft, one of Godwin\u2019s most intimate friends,[38] and it\nwas an important part of Condorcet\u2019s _Sketch of the Progress of the\nHuman Spirit_.\n\nIn the days of the Terror (1794) Condorcet, from his hiding-place in\nthe Rue Servandoni, had written of the \u201corganic perfectibility of\nman.\u201d He looked to medicine, and to the arts and sciences in general,\nto banish disease and prolong human life \u201cindefinitely.\u201d[39] Godwin\ntrusted to the inward development of the mind, not to outward\nappliances.[40] But by different ways they arrive at the same\nterminus, and receive from their great critic very much the same\nreception there. Malthus points out to Godwin that there is no sign\nthat the body is becoming subjugated to the mind. Even philosophers,\nsaid he (and he wrote feelingly, as he had the malady at the time of\nwriting), cannot endure the toothache patiently,[41] and even a merry\nheart will not enable a weak man to walk as fast and as far as a\nstrong man. There is no change in the human body, and little or no\nchange in the relation of the mind to it. To Condorcet he simply\npoints out that, while the arts have made the lengthening of life\n\u201cindefinite,\u201d that does not mean \u201cinfinite.\u201d Gardeners can grow\ncarnations \u201cindefinitely\u201d large; no man can ever say that he has seen\nthe largest carnation that will ever be grown; but this he can say,\nthat a carnation will never be as large as a cabbage. The limit is\nthere, though it is undefined, and there is a limit also to the\nlengthening of human life, though no one can fix it to a year.\nCondorcet therefore has proved an earthly immortality only by a misuse\nof the word \u201cindefinite.\u201d He has shown no organic change in man which\nwould prove the possibility of perfection in this world. Neither has\nCondorcet repelled the objection which troubled Dr. Wallace. It is\ntrue that, like Godwin, he faces the difficulty and admits the\nimportance of it.[42] The growth of population will always, he says,\ncause inequality; there will always be a rich leisured class and a\npoor industrial class; and to lighten the hardships of the latter\nthere ought to be a State Insurance fund, which will make all the\npoorest citizens sure of support. But one cannot help thinking, if all\nare sure of support, all will marry, and if all marry, will not the\ndifficulty be increased?[43] Yes, Condorcet grants this; the numbers\nwill soon be too great, and so throughout the ages there will be an\n\u201coscillation\u201d between the blessings of progress and the evils of\novercrowding, now the one predominating, now the other. In despair he\nclutches at the old fallacy, \u201cthe day is distant,\u201d but he feels it\nfail him, and must needs add a new and startling solution of his own\nwhich Malthus freely denounces.[44] This is not the place to discuss\nthe questions associated in our own times with Neo-Malthusianism.[45]\nBut it is beyond all doubt that the Neo-Malthusians are the children\nnot of Robert Malthus, but of Robert Owen. Malthus was not Malthus\nbecause he said, \u201cThe people are too many; thin them down\u201d\u2014any more\nthan Darwin was Darwin because he said, \u201cSpecies are not made, but\ngrow.\u201d If Darwinians are to be judged by Darwin, Malthusians must be\njudged by Malthus; and the originality of neither Malthus nor Darwin\ncan be explained by a single phrase. We cannot understand the meaning\nof an author\u2019s words, far less of his work, till we know the context\nin which they are set. Once know the context and we understand the\ntext. The devil, citing Scripture for his purpose, only succeeds\nbecause he never quotes in full.\n\nIt follows that, to understand the full meaning of the essay, we must go\nbeyond its efficient cause, and take a view of its material cause, or\nthe whole circumstances in which it was written. If the text of the\nsermon was Godwin and Condorcet, the application was to the poor of\nEngland and the philanthropists who were trying to relieve them.\n\nThe early life of Malthus, coinciding, as it largely does, with the\nlatter half of the eighteenth century, coincides with England\u2019s greatest\nindustrial revolution. Malthus was born in 1766, three years after the\nPeace of Paris. There was an end, for the time, to foreign wars, and\ntrade was making a brave start. The discoveries of coal and iron in\nNorthern England, going hand in hand with the inventions of\ncotton-spinning and weaving, were beginning to convert the poorest\ncounties into the richest, upsetting the political balance. The new\nscience of chemistry had begun to prove its usefulness. Wedgwood was\nperfecting his earthenware, Brindley cutting his canals, Telford laying\nout his roads, Watt building his steam-engines. England in Roman days\nhad been a granary; in later ages she had been a pasture-ground; she was\nnow becoming the land of machinery and manufacture, as well as the\ncentre of foreign trade. In other words, she had begun an industrial\nchange, which was the greatest till then in her history, and rich in the\nmost magical improvements. But in the early stages of the change, the\nevils of it were nearly as much felt as the blessings. The sufferings of\ndisplaced workmen, and the anarchy of the new factory system,\nsupplanting home labour, and making the word \u201cmanufacturer\u201d forget its\netymology,[46] were real evils, however transient. Combined with the\ngeneral democratic influence of an expansive manufacturing industry,\nthey might easily have caused a social convulsion in these days of no\nextraordinary virtue; and the country owed its escape in some degree to\nthe evangelical movement under Whitefield and the Wesleys, which was\nfatal at once to religious torpor and to political excitement.[47] The\nannoyances of a meddlesome tariff and the futile attempts to exclude\nforeign food were to vanish away before a hundred years had passed; but\nin the boyhood of Malthus the voice of Adam Smith raised against them in\nthe _Wealth of Nations_ (1776) was a cry in the wilderness. There was a\ngeneral agreement that, whether the high prices prevailing after the\nPeace of Paris were caused by the growth of the population, or by the\nlessened value of silver, or by the troubles in Poland, the remedy was\nnot to lie in a free corn trade. The poor were not to have cheap corn,\nthey were to have large allowances. Legislation had gone backwards in\nthis matter. In 1723 a new law had introduced a wise workhouse test of\ndestitution, which might have prevented wilful poverty by reducing\noutdoor relief; but the clause was repealed by Gilbert\u2019s Act in 1782;\nthe poor were to be \u201cset on work\u201d at their own houses; and the new\nstringency gave place to the old laxity, with the usual results. The\nclose of the century saw the troubles of a European war added to the\nlist, and the tide of political reform ebbed for forty years\n(1792\u20131832). Because the French reform had gone too far, the English\nreform was not allowed to take its first steps.\n\nIt is a commonplace with historians that the French Revolution would\nhave been very different without Voltaire and Rousseau to prepare the\nway for it. Hunger and new ideas are two advocates of change which\nalways plead best in each other\u2019s company; hunger makes men willing to\nact, and the new ideas give them matter for enactment. In France, when\nthe crisis came in 1789, the new ideas were not far to seek. Writers of\nUtopias, from Plato to More, and from Rousseau to Ruskin, have always\nadopted one simple plan: they have struck out the salient enormities of\ntheir own time and inserted the opposite, as when men imagine heaven\nthey think of their dear native country with its discomforts left out.\nInequality at home had made Frenchmen ready to dote on a vision of\nequality when Rousseau presented it to them, and the state of Nature was\nthe state of France reversed. Philosophically, the theorists of the\nRevolution traced their descent to Locke, and their ideas were not long\nin recrossing the Channel to visit their birthplace.\n\nEven if Englishmen had not had in America a visible Utopia, or, at\nleast, Arcadia, there was hunger enough in England to recommend the new\nideas to every rank in society. This is the reason why, in 1793,\nGodwin\u2019s book was so successful. It was not only a good English\nstatement of the French doctrines of equality, and therefore a book for\nthe times, but it had a vigour of its own, and was no mere translation.\nRousseau and Raynal had thought it necessary to sacrifice universal\nimprovement to universal equality; they saw (or thought they saw) that\nthe two could not go together, and they counted equality so desirable\nthat they were willing to purchase it at the expense of barbarism. Now,\nthey were perhaps more logical than Godwin; equality may mean barbarism.\nBut Godwin\u2019s ideal was at least higher than theirs; he thought of\ncivilization and equality as quite compatible, for he thought that when\nall men were truly civilized they would of their own accord restore\nequality. As he left everything to reason and nothing to force, his book\nwas in theory quite harmless; but the tendency of it seemed dangerous,\nfor it criticized the British constitution in a free way to which the\nBritish nation was not accustomed. In England, moreover, the people have\nalways confounded ideas with persons. They were not in love with liberty\nwhen it took the form of an American \u201cWar of Independence\u201d against\nEngland, and, even if equality had pleased them in 1789, they would have\nnothing of it after the Terror. They forsook Fox for Burke, and went to\nwar for a sentiment. At the time when Malthus wrote, the bulk of the\nEnglish people had lost their enthusiasm for the new ideas. It needed\nsome fortitude to call oneself a Reformer, or even a Whig, when Napoleon\nhad overrun Italy and was facing us in Egypt. Pitt held all persons\nseditious who did not believe in the wisdom of the war.\n\nBut even Pitt, though he now ignored the need of reform, could not\noverlook the existence of distress. In 1795 there had been a serious\nscarcity; war prices had become famine prices. It was the year when \u201cthe\nlower orders\u201d were held down by special coercion acts;[48] it was the\nyear when the king\u2019s carriage was stopped by a mob crying \u201cBread,\nbread!\u201d Mr. Whitbread and the rest thought Parliament ought to \u201cdo\nsomething\u201d; and Pitt proposed (1796) to meet the difficulty by amending\nthe Poor Laws. His bill proposed \u201cto restore the original purity of the\nPoor Laws\u201d by modifying the law of settlement in the direction of\ngreater freedom, and by assisting the working man in other ways. One of\nthese other ways was an attempt of a harmless kind to found schools of\nindustry, another to attach every labourer to a friendly society. But\nanother less innocently proposed to encourage the growth of population\nby making the poor relief greater where the family was larger. \u201cLet us\nmake relief,\u201d in such cases, \u201ca matter of right and honour, instead of a\nground for opprobrium and contempt. This will make a large family a\nblessing and not a curse; and this will draw a proper line of\ndistinction between those who are to provide for themselves by their\nlabour, and those who, after enriching their country with a number of\nchildren, have a claim upon its assistance for their support.\u201d[49]\n\nMalthus in 1796 did not doubt the infallibility of Pitt in such a\nmatter; _The Crisis_ gives no hint of objection. But in 1798, with his\nnew light, he could no longer take the recruiting officer\u2019s view of\npopulation. If he had had a good case against Godwin and Condorcet, who\nhad simply failed to show how population could be kept from growing too\nfast, he had still a better case against Pitt, who proposed to make it\ngrow faster. Besides, their schemes were merely on paper; they had no\nchance of realizing them, whereas Pitt\u2019s majority would carry any\nmeasure on which he had set his heart. The danger from this third\nquarter was therefore the most imminent. But Malthus needed no new\nargument for it; he needed simply to shift round his old argument, and\npoint the muzzle of it at his new enemy. There is no need, he said, to\nencourage marriage; there is no need for Government to make population\ngrow faster. Wherever Providence has sent meat, He will soon send mouths\nto eat it; and, if by your artificial encouragements you increase the\nmouths without increasing the meat, you will only bring the people one\nstep nearer starvation, you will only multiply the nation without\nincreasing the joy. If stalwart numbers are strength, starving numbers\nare weakness.[50]\n\nThese commonplaces were then a paradox. Even at the end of the\neighteenth century there was no party in the English House of Commons\nidentified with enlightened views on the position of the British\nworkman. Whitbread had always some measure on hand for helping the\nlabourer out of the rates, or by some other State interference; it was\nin opposing one of Whitbread\u2019s bills that the Prime Minister promised to\nintroduce his own memorable measure. Fox was free to follow either, not\nprofessing to understand the new economical doctrines. Pitt, who admired\nAdam Smith,\u2014Fox, Condorcet, and Godwin, who owed Smith no\nallegiance,[51]\u2014all were equally purblind in this matter. All Pitt\u2019s\nstudy of the fourth book of the _Wealth of Nations_, chapter fifth, had\nnot shown him the fallacy of a bounty on children. Yet Malthus had got\nhis light from no obscure sources, but from \u201cHume, Wallace, Adam Smith,\nand Dr. Price,\u201d[52] who were all well-known and widely-read authors of\nthe day. \u201cThe populousness of ancient nations\u201d had been a happy\nhunting-ground for learned antiquarian essay writers over half a\ncentury. Montesquieu, Wallace, and Price[53] claimed the advantage for\nthe ancients. David Hume, with his usual acute divination, decides for\nthe moderns, though with his usual irony he professes to adopt a\nsceptical conclusion, and makes several concessions to Wallace.[54] This\ncontroversy itself might have been expected to bring men nearer to the\ntruth on the subject of population than it actually did. It was left to\nMalthus to convert Hume\u2019s probability into a certainty from a higher\nvantage-ground; but the sifting of the arguments by the various writers\nbefore him must have simplified his task.[55] Other aids and\nanticipations were not wanting. As early as 1786, Joseph Townsend, the\nWiltshire rector, had written a _Dissertation on the Poor Laws_, which\ngives an admirable statement of those wise views of charity and poor\nrelief that are only in these latter days becoming current among us.\nMalthus records his opinion of Townsend\u2019s work in the best of all\npossible ways. From his careful inquiry (in the second edition of the\n_Essay_) into the population of European countries, he omits Spain on\nthe ground that Mr. Townsend\u2019s _Travels in Spain_ has already done the\nwork for him.[56]\n\nThe _Essay on Population_ was therefore not original in the sense of\nbeing a creation out of nothing, but in the same way as the _Wealth of\nNations_. In both cases the author got most of his phrases, and even\nmany of his thoughts, from his predecessors; but he treated them as his\npredecessors were unable to do; he saw them in their connection,\nperspective, and wide bearings. We must not assume anticipation where\nthere is mere identity of language or partial identity of thought; the\nwords of an earlier writer are not unfrequently quoted by a later away\nfrom their logical context, and therefore not as part of an argument of\nwhich the writer sees the consecutive premises. This is true of Adam\nSmith when he is compared with Sir Dudley North, Abraham Tucker, or the\nother prophets of free trade[57] catalogued by MacCulloch or Blanqui.\nThey talked free trade almost as Mons. Jourdain talked prose, without\nknowing it. Precisely the same is true of Adam Smith himself in relation\nto Malthus. Of his own generalizations he is complete master. Having\nreasoned up to them, he can reason down from them. But, when he says,\n\u201cEvery species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the\nmeans of their subsistence,\u201d \u201cThe demand for men necessarily regulates\nthe production of men,\u201d[58] he has not anticipated Malthus. His phrases\nare touching a principle of which he does not see the most important\nbearings; and not having reasoned up to it, he makes hardly any attempt\nto reason down from it. Malthus, on the other hand, has taken fast hold\nof a general principle, and is able to solve a number of dependent\nquestions in the way of simple corollaries. Others may have given right\nanswers to the special questions about the Poor Law and the populousness\nof ancient nations. Malthus is the first to show one comprehensive\nreason why all these answers must be right.\n\nThis was the secret of his success. As Godwin\u2019s _Political Justice_ was\nsuccessful because systematic, the _Essay on Population_ was successful\nbecause it seemed to put chaos in order. The very sadness of his\nconclusion had a charm for some minds; but the bulk of his readers did\nnot love him for taking their hopes away, they loved him for giving them\nnew light. Pestilence and famine begin to lose their vague terrors when\nwe know whence they come and what they do for the world. Even if the\ndesire of marriage is itself an evil, it is well to know the truth about\nit. Ignorance can only be blissful where it is total; and wilful\nignorance, being of necessity partial, is a perpetual unrest, not even a\nfool\u2019s paradise.[59]\n\nThe truth in this case was not all sadness. In the last portion of the\nessay of 1798 Malthus expounds an argument which he afterwards\nreproduced in later editions with a more terrestrial application. He\nuses the style of Paley and the Apologists, and he tries to discover the\nfinal cause of the principle of population, on metaphysical lines that\nwere followed by Mr. Sumner nearly twenty years afterwards, when the\ndiscussion had taken a new turn.[60] The question is how to reconcile\nthe suffering produced by the principle of population with the goodness\nof God. Malthus answers that the difficulty is only one part of the\ngeneral problem of evil, the difference between this part and the rest\nbeing that in this case we see farther into the causes; and it is\ntherefore the easier for us to justify the ways of God to man. \u201cEvil\nexists not to create despair but activity.\u201d[61] We ought not to reason\nfrom God to nature, but from nature to God; to know how God works, let\nus observe how nature works. We shall then find that nature sends all\nsentient creatures through a long and painful process, by which they\ngain new qualities and powers, presumably fitting them for a better\nplace than they have in this world. This world and this life are\ntherefore in all probability \u201cthe mighty process of God,\u201d not indeed for\nthe mere \u201cprobation\u201d of man (for that would imply that his Maker was\nsuspicious of him, or ignorant of what was in him), but for the\n\u201ccreation and formation\u201d of the human mind out of the torpor and\ncorruption of dead matter,[62] \u201cto sublimate the dust of the earth into\nsoul, to elicit an ethereal spark from the clod of clay.\u201d The varied\ninfluences of life are the forming hand of the Creator, and they are\ninfinitely diverse, for (in spite of Solomon) there is nothing old under\nthe sun.[63] Difficulties generate talents.[64] \u201cThe first awakeners of\nthe mind are the wants of the body;\u201d it is these that rouse the\nintellect of the infant and sharpen the wits of the savage. Not leisure\nbut necessity is the mother of invention:\n\n              \u1f01 \u03c0\u03b5\u03bd\u03af\u03b1, \u0394\u03b9\u03cc\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5, \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03c4\u03ad\u03c7\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f10\u03b3\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2.\n\nLocke was right; the desire to avoid pain is even stronger than the\ndesire to find pleasure. In this way evil leads to good; for pain, which\nis a kind of evil, creates effort, and effort creates mind. This is the\ngeneral rule. A particular example of it is, that want of food, which is\none of the most serious of evils, leads to good. By contriving that the\nearth shall produce food only in small quantities, and in reward of\nlabour, God has provided a perpetual spur to human progress. This is the\nkey to the puzzle of population. By nature man is a lotos-eater till\nhunger makes him a Ulysses. Why should he toil, the roof and crown of\nthings? Mainly because, if he does not toil, neither can he live; the\nlotos country will soon be over-peopled, and he must push off his bark\nagain. \u201cThe first awakeners of the mind are the wants of the body,\u201d\nthough, once awakened, the mind soon finds out wants beyond the body,\nand the development of intellect and civilization goes on\nindefinitely.[65] The people \u201ctend to increase\u201d more quickly than their\nfood, not in order that men may suffer, but in order that they may be\nroused to save themselves from suffering. The partial ill of all such\ngeneral laws is swallowed up in the general good; and the general good\nis secured in two ways: humanity is developed; the resources of the\nworld are developed. In the first place, the intellect of individual men\nis developed, for the constancy of nature is the foundation of\nreasoning, and human reason would never be drawn out unless men were\nabsolutely unable to depend on miracles, and were obliged as well as\nable to make calculations on the basis of a constant law. To this\nconstancy of nature we owe the immortal mind of a Newton. In the second\nplace, the world must be peopled. If savages could have got all their\nfood from one central spot of fertile ground, the earth at large would\nhave remained a wilderness; but, as it is, no one settlement can support\nan indefinite increase of numbers; the numbers must spread out over the\nearth till they find room and food. If there were no law of increase, a\nfew such careers as Alexander\u2019s or Tamerlain\u2019s might unpeople the whole\nworld; but the law exists, and the gaps made by any conqueror, or by any\npestilence, are soon filled to overflowing, while the overflowing flood\npasses on to reclaim new countries.[66]\n\nThis is the cosmology of Malthus. \u201cLife is, generally speaking, a\nblessing independent of a future state.\u201d[67] \u201cThe impressions and\nexcitements of this world are the instruments with which the Supreme\nBeing forms matter into mind.\u201d The necessity of constant exertion, to\navoid evil and pursue good, is the principal spring of these\nimpressions, and is therefore a sufficient reason for the existence of\nnatural and moral evil, including the difficulties which arise from the\nprinciple of population. All these are present difficulties, but they\nare not beyond remedy. They do not serve their purpose unless human\nexertion succeeds in diminishing them. Absolute removal Malthus does not\npromise; but, while believing in science and reason as strongly as\nCondorcet or Godwin, declines to regard an earthly immortality as a\nreasonable hope, and points us instead to a future life and to another\nworld for perfection and happiness.[68]\n\nPerhaps the great economist went beyond his province in attacking the\nproblem of evil. In the controversy that followed the essay there are\nfew references to this part of it, and after the appearance of the\nsecond edition, where this part is omitted altogether, people forgot the\nexistence of the first edition. From the way in which Sumner speaks of\nthe difference between his point of view and that of Malthus, it might\nfairly be suspected that he knew nothing of the first edition; and yet\nthe second of his two learned volumes is simply an expansion of its\nideas.[69] The metaphysic itself might be deep or shallow; it would be\nimpossible to tell till we heard the sense in which the metaphysical\nphrases were used, and that we have hardly any means of doing. They\npoint at least to the \u201cmonistic\u201d view, that there is no gulf between\nmind and matter. We might believe them idealistic in a German sense; but\nwe cannot forget how closely the ethical views of Malthus are connected\nwith those of the English moralists of his century. He cannot be said to\nhave a place in the history of philosophy; and it is mainly of a curious\npersonal interest to discover that, although he is nominally a\nutilitarian, he separates himself from Paley by refusing to allow moral\nvalue to action done from either fear of punishment or hope of\nreward.[70] There is no indication that he was a metaphysical genius.\nHis researches in the heavier German literature did not perhaps extend\nmuch farther than to the quaint optimist Johann Peter S\u00fcssmilch,[71]\nfrom whose _G\u00f6ttliche Ordnung_ he freely drew his statistics.\n\nMalthus at one time intended to expound his metaphysical views at\ngreater length.[72] In other words, he meant to write a book in the\nmanner of Price\u2019s essays, half economical and half literary. We need not\ndeeply regret the \u201cparticular business,\u201d whatever it was, that nipped\nthis intention in the bud, besides delaying the publication of the essay\nas we now have it.[73] The metaphysical and theological passages, as\nthey stand, have the look of an episode, though the thought of them is\nlogically enough connected with the tenor of the book. The views of the\nauthor on the other world, the punishment of the wicked, and the use of\nmiracles, have, like the philosophy, mainly a personal interest. Adam\nSmith, in the later edition of his _Moral Sentiments_, had omitted at\nleast one very marked expression of theological opinion (on the\nAtonement) that had appeared in the first edition,[74] and perhaps his\ndisciple did well to follow suit. At the same time, omission is not\nrecantation, and we get light on an author\u2019s mind and character by\ndiscovering any views in which he once professed to believe. A writer\nwho reached absolute truth at a very early stage of study, has\npatronized Adam Smith[75] by editing his chief work, and honoured the\nother economists by tabulating their conclusions in an historical\nintroduction. He extends this favour to Malthus. The reasonings of\nMalthus he finds, though valuable, are not free from error; he has \u201call\nbut entirely overlooked\u201d the beneficial effects of the principle of\npopulation as a stimulus to invention and progress.[76] This charge is\nrefuted by the essay even in its later form; but, placed alongside of\nthe cosmology of the first edition, it seems merely grotesque. Malthus\nis accused of ignoring the very phenomena which Malthus glorifies as the\n\u201cfinal cause\u201d of the principle of population. He thought he had\nexplained not only one of the chief causes of poverty, but one of the\nchief effects; if Adam Smith had shown the power of labour as a cause of\nwealth, Malthus thought he had shown the power of poverty as a cause of\nlabour. No doubt the mistake was a common one; and (to say nothing of\nthe encyclop\u00e6dias and biographical dictionaries) there are few\neconomical text-books which do justice to Malthus in this matter.[77]\nBut one who speaks with authority should not be content with a borrowed\nknowledge. The same authority tells us that \u201cthe work of Mr. Malthus is\nvaluable rather for having awakened public attention to the subject than\nfor its giving anything like a complete view of the department of the\nscience of which it treats.\u201d[78] Malthus for his part lays no claim to\ninfallibility; like most pioneers, he is sure of little beyond his\nleading principles, and he is never ashamed to change his views.[79]\nBut, if his _Essay on Population_, gradually amended and expanded as it\nwas, to keep pace with the searching criticisms of thirty years, has not\nreached the heart of the matter, surely there is no profit in\ndiscussion.\n\nThe fact is, that though the anonymous small 8vo of 1798 was a mere\ndraught of the completed work of later years, its main fault was not\nincompleteness, but wrongness of emphasis. When a man is writing a\ncontroversial pamphlet, he does not try to bring all truths into the\nfront equally; he sets the neglected ones in the foreground, and allows\nthe familiar to fall behind, not as denied or ignored, but simply as not\nemphasized. It is always possible, in such cases, that the neglected\ntruths, though unworthy of the old neglect, did not deserve the new\npre-eminence, and must not be allowed to retain it. Science, seeking\nanswers to its own questions, and not to questions of the eighteenth\ncentury, has no toleration for the false emphasis of passing\ncontroversy. It puts the real beginning first, the middle next, and the\nend last, not the end in the middle, or the last first. Accordingly it\ntakes up the first essay of Malthus on population, and requires the\nauthor to amend it. He must be less critical and more creative, if he is\nto give a satisfactory answer to the general problem which he has chosen\nto take in hand. The times and the subject, both, demand a change of\nattitude,\u2014\u2014the times, because political theories have now become less\nimportant than social difficulties, and the subject, because he has\nhitherto, while clearly explaining the difficulties, done little more\nthan hint at the expedients for overcoming them. True, no critic or\niconoclast can ever fully vanquish an opponent except by a truth of his\nown which goes beyond the opponent\u2019s falsity; and it is to this he owes\nthe enthusiasm of his followers. But he does not always expound the\ntruth so fully as the error; and so, beyond the point of negation, his\nfriends often follow him rather by faith than by sight. This, then, was\nwhat Malthus had yet to do; to state what were the trustworthy as well\nas the delusive methods of raising modern society, and what were the\nright as well as the wrong ways of relieving the poor.\n\nThe success of the essay, so far, had been very remarkable. It had\nprovoked replies by the dozen, and an unwilling witness tells us it had\nconverted friends of progress by the hundred.[80] We find Godwin writing\nto the author in August 1798,[81] and we may conclude that the veil of\nanonymousness was not very thick, though Malthus used it again in 1800\nin the tract on High Prices. In a debate in the House of Commons on the\n11th February, 1800, Pitt took occasion to say that, though he still\nbelieved his new Poor Bill a good one, he had dropped it in deference to\nthe objections of \u201cthose whose opinions he was bound to respect.\u201d[82] He\nmeant Bentham and Malthus. We cannot tell which had the greater share of\nthe credit, but we know that Malthus regarded Pitt and Paley as his most\nbrilliant converts.[83] Pitt\u2019s declaration that he still believed his\nbill to be a good one could only mean that he still wished to believe it\nso. It must have been peculiarly galling to a statesman who affected the\npolitical economist to find that not only the solemn criticisms of\nMalthus, but the jocose \u201cObservations\u201d of Bentham,[84] which threshed\nthe chaff out of the bill clause by clause, had turned his favourite\nscience against himself.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n                         SECOND THOUGHTS, 1803.\n\n  Exaggerations of the First Essay\u2014Its two Postulates not\n    co-ordinate\u2014Distinctive feature of the Second Essay\u2014Its moderate\n    Optimism\u2014Rough Classification of Checks\u2014Moral Restraint and Mixed\n    Motives\u2014Freedom as understood by Godwin and by Malthus\u2014The two men\n    contrasted.\n\n\nWhile Malthus was making such converts as Pitt, Paley, and Parr, and\nwhen even Godwin acknowledged the \u201cwriter of the essay\u201d to have made a\n\u201cvaluable addition to political economy,\u201d[85] the essay was not beyond\ncriticism. There were some familiar facts of which the writer had taken\ntoo little account, and they were impressed on him by his critics from\nall sides. To use the language of philosophy, he had not been\nsufficiently concrete; he had gone far to commit Godwin\u2019s fault, and\nconsider one feature of human nature apart by itself, instead of seeing\nit in its place with the rest. The position and prospects of civilized\nsociety in our own day depend on a combination of political,\nintellectual, physical, and moral causes, of which the growth or\ndecrease of population may be only an effect. If we are part man, part\nlion, and part hog, it is not fair to assume the predominance of the hog\nany more than the predominance of the man. In a herd of animals, as\ndistinguished from a society of men, the units are simply the fittest\nwho have survived in the struggle for existence. The principle of\npopulation is in the foreground there; there is no check to it but\nfamine, disease, and death. We can therefore understand how the study of\nthe _Essay on Population_ led Charles Darwin to explain the origin of\nspecies by a generalization which Malthus had known and named, though he\ndid not pursue it beyond man.[86] The \u201cgeneral struggle\u201d among animals\n\u201cfor room and food\u201d means among civilized men something very like free\ntrade, the old orthodox economical panacea for economic evils; and the\nessayist agrees with Adam Smith in a general resistance to legislative\ninterference. Bad as are the effects of the irremovable causes of\npoverty, interference makes them still worse. But at least, when we come\nto man, the struggle is not so cruel. \u201cPlague take the hindmost\u201d is not\nthe only or the supreme rule. If the fear of starvation, the most\nearthly and least intellectual of all motives, is needed to force us to\nwork at first, it need not therefore be necessary ever afterwards. The\nbaser considerations are by their definition the lowest layers of our\npile; we rise by means of them, but we tread them down, and the higher\nthe pile the less their importance. Within civilized countries, in\nproportion to their civilization, the struggle in the lowest stages is\nabolished; the weakest are often saved, and the lowest raised, in spite\nof unfitness.[87] View man not as an animal, but as a citizen; view the\nprinciple of population as checked not only by vice, misery, and the\nfear of them, but by all the mixed motives of human society, and we\nrecognize that Malthus, with the best intentions, had treated the matter\ntoo abstractly. Godwin had over-rated the power of reason, Malthus the\npower of passion. \u201cIt is probable,\u201d he wrote at a later time, \u201cthat,\nhaving found the bow bent too much one way, I was induced to bend it too\nmuch the other, in order to make it straight.\u201d[88] The abstract\nprinciple of increase getting more, and concrete humanity less, than\njustice, the next step was, naturally, to deny the possibility of\npermanent improvement in this world, and to regard every partial\nimprovement as a labour of Sisyphus.[89]\n\nIt could hardly be otherwise, if we began, like Malthus, by setting down\nthe desire of food and the desire of marriage as two co-ordinate\nprinciples.[90] They are not really co-ordinate. It is true not merely\nof most men, but of all men without a single exception, that they cannot\nlive without food. Even if a man survive an abstinence from solid food\nfor forty days, he cannot deny himself water, and he is for all useful\npurposes dead to the world during his fast. The second postulate of the\nfirst essay is, on the contrary, true only of most men, and even then\nunder qualifications. It is not true of any till manhood, and it is not\ntrue of all men equally. Some are beyond its scope by an accident of\nbirth, and a still larger number, whether priests or laymen, put\nthemselves beyond its scope for moral reasons.[91] Coleridge puts the\ncase pertinently enough: \u201cThe whole case is this: Are they both alike\npassions of physical necessity, and the one equally with the other\nindependent of the reason and the will? Shame upon our race that there\nlives the individual who dares even ask the question.\u201d[92]\n\nMalthus saw that he had been hasty, and he did not republish the essay\ntill he had given it five years of revision, and added to it the results\nof foreign travel and wider reading. In 1799 he went abroad with some\ncollege friends, Otter, Clarke the antiquarian and naturalist, and\nClarke\u2019s pupil Cripps,[93] and visited Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland,\nand part of Russia, these being the only countries at that time open to\nEnglish travellers. After his return he published his tract on the _High\nPrice of Provisions_ (1800),[94] and at the conclusion of it he promised\na new edition of the _Essay on Population_. Some people, he says, have\nthought the essay \u201ca specious argument inapplicable to the present state\nof society,\u201d because it contradicts preconceived opinions; but two years\nof reflection have strengthened his conviction that he has discovered\n\u201cthe real cause of the continued depression and poverty of the lower\nclasses;\u201d and he will not recant his essay: \u201cI have deferred giving\nanother edition of it in the hope of being able to make it more worthy\nof the public attention, by applying the principle directly and\nexclusively to the existing state of society, and endeavouring to\nillustrate the power and universality of its operation from the best\nauthenticated accounts that we have of the state of other countries.\u201d\nBut he was not satisfied with the accounts of other people. When the\nPeace of Amiens let loose thousands of pleasure-seekers on the\nContinent, Malthus went to France and Switzerland on no errand of mere\npleasure; and he was luckily at home again, and passing his proof-sheets\nthrough the press, before Napoleon\u2019s unpleasant interference with\nEnglish travellers.\n\nIt was a happy coincidence that in the dark fighting days of 1798,\nMalthus should write only of vice and misery, while in the short gleam\nof peace in 1802 and 1803, when the tramp of armed men had ceased for\nthe moment, he should recollect himself, and write of a less ghastly\nrestraint on population, a restraint which might perhaps, like the truce\nof Amiens, hold out some faint hope for the future. For the sake of the\nworld let us hope that the parallel goes no further. The wonder is not\nthat he forgot there was such a thing as civilization, but that amidst\nwars and rumours of wars he should ever have remembered it.\n\nIn the preface to the new edition (June 1803), he says he has \u201cso far\ndiffered in principle\u201d from the old edition \u201cas to suppose the action of\nanother check to population which does not come under the head either of\nvice or misery,\u201d and he has \u201ctried to soften some of the harshest\nconclusions of the first essay.\u201d There was really more change than this.\nThe first essay contained much of the imperfection of the sudden\nmagazine-article; and if the writer had lived half a century later he\nwould probably, instead of writing a small book, have contributed a long\narticle to a monthly or quarterly magazine, giving a review of Godwin\u2019s\npolitical writings, with incidental remarks on the Poor Bill of Mr.\nPitt. This was evidently the light in which he himself regarded his\nfirst work, or he would not have handled it so freely in republication.\nThe new edition had new facts, new arrangement, and new emphasis. He had\nnot written a book once for all, leaving the world to fight over it\nafter his death. He took the public into partnership with him, and made\nevery discussion a means of improving his book. This gives the _Essay on\nPopulation_ a unique character among economical writings. It leads the\nauthor to interpret his thoughts to us from many various points of view,\nleaving us, unhappily, often in doubt whether an alteration of language\nis or is not an alteration of thought. Malthus adds to the difficulty by\nomitting and inserting instead of rewriting in full. His chapters cease\nto be old without becoming new.\n\nThe very face of the book revealed a change. In 1798 it was _An Essay on\nthe Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of\nSociety_; in 1803, _An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a View\nof its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness_. The dreams of the\nfuture are now in the background, and the facts of the present in the\nforeground. In 1798 Malthus had given Godwin the lie:\u2014\n\n     \u201cColouring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in picture,\n     He to a matter of fact still softening, paring, abating,\n     He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sublime and ideal,\n     He to the merest it\u2014was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing.\u201d\n\nHe must do more now, or his political economy is a dismal science. He\nmust show how we can cling to the matter of fact without losing our\nideal. It is not enough to refer us to the other world. How far may we\nhave hope in this world? Let Malthus answer.\n\nThe second essay is his answer; and if second thoughts are the best,\nthen we may rejoice over the second essay, for it lifts the cloud from\nthe first. It tells us that on the whole the power of civilization is\ngreater than the power of population; the pressure of the people on the\nfood is therefore less in modern than it was in ancient times or the\nmiddle ages; there are now less disorder, more knowledge, and more\ntemperance.[95] The merely physical checks are falling into a\nsubordinate position. There are two kinds of checks on population. A\ncheck is (_a_) positive, when it cuts down an existing population, (_b_)\npreventive, when it keeps a new population from growing up. Among\nanimals the check is only misery, among savage men vice as well as\nmisery, and, in civilized society, moral restraint as well as, till now,\nboth vice and misery. Even in civilized society there are strata which\nmoral restraint hardly reaches, for there are strata which are not\ncivilized. On the whole, however, it is true that among animals there is\nno sign of any other check than the positive, while among men the\npositive is gradually subordinated to the preventive. Among men misery\nmay act both positively and preventively. In the form of war or disease\nit may slay its tens of thousands, and cut down an existing population.\nBy the fear of its own coming it may prevent many a marriage, and keep a\nnew population from growing up. Vice may also act in both ways:\npositively as in child-murder, preventively as in the scheme of\nCondorcet. But in civilized society the forces of both order and\nprogress are arrayed against their two common enemies; and, if we\nrecognized no third check, surely the argument that was used against\nGodwin\u2019s society holds against all society; its very purification will\nruin it, by forbidding vice and misery to check the growth of\npopulation, and by thereby permitting the people to increase to excess.\nThere is, however, a third check, which Malthus knows under the title of\nmoral restraint.\n\nMoral restraint is a distinct form of preventive check. It is not to be\nconfused with an impure celibacy, which falls under the head of vice;\nand yet the adjective \u201cmoral\u201d does not imply that the motives are the\nhighest possible.[96] The adjective is applied not so much to the motive\nof the action as to the action itself, from whatever motives proceeding;\nand in the mouth of a Utilitarian this language is not unphilosophical.\nMoral restraint, in the pages of Malthus, means simply continence; it is\nan abstinence from marriage followed by no irregularities.[97] He speaks\nof the \u201cmoral stimulus\u201d of the bounty on corn, meaning the expectations\nit produced in the minds of men, as distinguished from the variations it\nproduced in the prices of grain;[98] and the word \u201cmoral\u201d is often, like\n\u201cmorale,\u201d used in military matters to denote mental disposition, as\ndistinguished from material resources. The vagueness of the word is\nperhaps not accidental, for nothing is vaguer than the mixed motives\nwhich it denotes; but continence, which is unambiguous, would seem the\nbetter word.\n\nWith the enunciation of the third check the theory of Malthus entered\ndefinitively on a new phase; and in sketching the outlines of his work\nwe shall no longer need to treat it as paradoxical and overstrained, but\nas a sober argument from the ground of accepted facts. The author\u2019s\nanalysis of human nature has been brought into harmony with common\nsense. He confesses that it had hitherto been too abstract, and had\nseparated the inseparable.\n\nThe mind of man cannot be sawed into quantities; and, even if it is\npossible to distinguish the mixed motives that guide human action, the\nfact remains that they only operate when together. It is probable that\nno good man\u2019s motives were ever absolutely noble, and no bad man\u2019s ever\nabsolutely bestial. Even the good man is strongest when he can make his\nvery circumstances war against his power to do evil. Mixed from the\nfirst of time, human motives will, in this world, remain mixed unto the\nlast, whether in saint, sage, or savage. But civilization, involving, as\nit does, a progressive change in the dominant ideas of society, will\nalter the character of the mixture and the proportion of the elements.\nThe laws of Malthus will be obeyed, though the name of Malthus be not\nmentioned, and the checks, physical or moral, be never brought to mind.\nSociety, moving all together, if it move at all, cannot cure its evils\nby one single heroic remedy; but as little can it be content with\nself-denying ordinances, prohibitions, or refutations. It needs a\npositive truth, and an ideal, that is to say, a religion, to give new\nlife to the bodily members by giving new hope to the heart. \u201cThe fear of\nthe Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the end of wisdom is the love\nof the Lord and the admiration of moral good.\u201d[99] It follows that an\neconomist, if he knows nothing but his economy, does not know even that.\n\nNo economists are more reproached with their want of idealism than\nMalthus and his brethren. As the French Revolutionists were said to\nbelieve that the death of their old rulers would of itself bring\nhappiness and good government, so these writers were said to teach that\nthe mere removal of hindrances would lead to the best possible\nproduction and distribution of the good things of this life. The ideal\nstate then, as far as wealth was concerned, would be anarchy _plus_ the\npolice constable. Godwin would have dispensed with the constable. \u201cGive\na state liberty enough,\u201d he says, \u201cand vice cannot exist in it.\u201d[100]\nBut neither he nor the economists desired a merely negative change or\nremoval of hindrances. Their political reformation was to be, like the\nProtestant, only successful as it went beyond image-breaking. Malthus,\nit will be seen,[101] is far from being an unqualified advocate of\n_laissez faire_; and, in all cases where he did desire it, he wished to\nmake the state small only to make public opinion great. Godwin was not\nfar away from him here. If he was wrong in attributing too much evil to\ninstitutions, and too little to human nature, he has furnished his own\ncorrection. The _Political Justice_ disclaimed all sympathy with\nviolence; it taught that a political reform was worthless unless\neffected peacefully by reason; and Malthus[102] has the same cure for\nsocial evils\u2014argument and instruction. The difference between them is,\nthat Malthus takes more into account the unreasonableness as well as the\nreasonableness of men. In essentials they are agreed. The thorough\nenlightenment of the people, which includes their moral purification as\nwell as their intellectual instruction, is to complete the work of\nmending all, in which men are to be fellow-workers with God\u2014so runs the\nteaching of Malthus and all the greatest economists of the last hundred\nyears. Whether the evils of competition are many or few, serious or\ntrifling, depends largely on the character of the competitors; and the\nmore free we make the competition, the more thoroughly we must educate\nthe competitors. Adam Smith was well aware of this; he recommended\nschool-boards a hundred years before the Acts of 1870 and 1872;[103] and\nMalthus was not behind him.[104] They are aware that the more completely\nwe exclude the interference of Government, the more actively we must\nemploy every other moral and social agency. Whether Malthus was prepared\nto exclude the interference of Government entirely, even under this\ncondition, we shall see by-and-by.\n\nThe characters of the two men, Malthus and Godwin, are a striking\ncontrast. Malthus was the student, of quiet settled life, sharing his\nlittle wealth with his friends in unobtrusive hospitality, and\nconstantly using his pen for the good, as he believed, of the English\npoor, that in these wretched times they might have domestic happiness\nlike his own. There never was a more singular delusion than the common\nbelief in the hard-heartedness of Malthus. Besides the unanimous voice\nof private friends, he has left testimony enough in his own books to\nabsolve him. While Adam Smith and others owe their errors to\nintellectual fallibility, Malthus owes many of his to his tender heart.\nHis motive for studying political economy was no doubt a mixed motive;\nit was partly the interest of an intelligent man in abstract questions;\nbut it was chiefly the desire to advance the greatest happiness of the\ngreatest number. In his eyes the elevation of human life was much more\nimportant than the solution of a scientific problem. Even when in 1820\nhe wrote a book on the \u201c_Principles of Political Economy_,\u201d he took care\nto add on the title-page, \u201c_considered with a view to their practical\napplication_,\u201d refusing to consider in abstractness what always exists\nin the concrete. His keen sympathy for the sufferings of displaced\nworkmen led him to fight a losing battle with Say and Ricardo in favour\nof something like an embargo on inventions, and in protest against a\nfancied over-production.[105] His private life showed the power of\ngentleness; Miss Martineau could hear his mild, sonorous vowels without\nher eartrumpet, and his few sentences were as welcome at her\ndinner-table as the endless babble of cleverer tongues. He felt the pain\nof a thousand slanders \u201conly just at first,\u201d and never let them trouble\nhis dreams after the first fortnight, saying, with a higher than stoical\ncalmness, that they passed by him like the idle wind which he respected\nnot.[106] He outlived obloquy, and saw the fruit of his labours in a\nwiser legislation and improved public feeling.\n\nWith Godwin all was otherwise. There were fightings within and fears\nwithout. With an immovable devotion to ideas he combined a fickleness of\naffection towards human beings. He heeded emotion too little in his\nbooks and too much in his own life, yielding to the fancy of the moment,\nquarrelling with his best friends twice a week, and quickly knitting up\nthe broken ties again. He loved his wife well, but hardly allowed her to\nshare the same house with him, lest they should weary of one\nanother.[107] He was the sworn enemy of superstition, and himself the\narch-dreamer of dreams.\n\nYet when we contrast the haphazard literary life of the one, ending his\ndays ingloriously[108] in a Government sinecure, unsuccessful and almost\nforgotten, with the academical ease of the other, centred in the sphere\nof common duties, and passing from the world with a fair consciousness\nof success, we feel a sympathy for Godwin that is of a better sort than\nthe mere liking for a loser. It is a sympathy not sad enough for pity.\nIt is not wholly sad to find Godwin in his old age a lonely man, his\nfriends dropping off one by one into the darkness and leaving him\nsolitary in a world that does not know him. The world that had begun to\nrealize the ideas of Malthus had begun to realize the ideas of Godwin\nalso. It was a world far more in harmony with political justice than\nthat into which Godwin had sent his book forty years before. It was good\nthat Malthus had lived to see the new Poor Law, but still better that\nboth had lived to see the Reform of \u201932.\n\nThey passed away within two years of each other, Malthus in the winter\nof 1834, Godwin in the spring of 1836, the year of the first league of\nthe people against the Corn Laws. In their death they were still\ndivided, but, \u201csi quis piorum manibus locus,\u201d they are divided no\nlonger, and they think no hard thoughts of each other any more.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III.\n                                THESES.\n\n  Position stated in the Essay\u2014Tendency of Life to increase beyond\n    Food\u2014Problem not the same for Humanity as for the lower forms of\n    Life\u2014Man\u2019s Dilemma\u2014Tendency to increase not predicable of Food in\n    same sense as of Life\u2014The Geometrical and Arithmetical\n    Ratios\u2014Position stated in _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_\u2014Milne\u2019s\n    Confirmation of the Geometrical Ratio\u2014Arithmetical Ratio proved\n    differently\u2014Private Property a condition of great Production\u2014Fallacy\n    of confusing possible with actual Production\u2014Laws of Man as well as\n    of Nature responsible for necessity of Checks\u2014Position stated in\n    \u201cSummary View\u201d\u2014The Checks on Population classified (_a_) objectively\n    and (_b_) subjectively\u2014Relation to previous Classification\u2014Cycle in\n    the movement of Population.\n\n\nThe second essay applies the theory of the first to new facts and with a\nnew purpose. The author, having gained his case against Godwin, ceases\nto be the critic and becomes the social reformer. Despairing to master\nall the forms of evil, he confines his study to one of them in\nparticular, the tendency of living beings to increase beyond their means\nof nourishment. This phenomenon is important both from its cause and\nfrom its effects. Its cause is not the action of Governments, but the\nconstitution of man; and its effects are not of to-day or yesterday, but\nconstant and perpetual;[109] it frequently hinders the moral goodness\nand general happiness of a nation as well as the equal distribution of\nits wealth.\n\nThis is the general position, which the several chapters of the essay\nare to expound in detail. It is not by itself quite simple. \u201cThe\nconstant tendency in all animated life [_sic_][110] to increase beyond\nthe nourishment prepared for it\u201d is in one sense common to humanity with\nplants and animals, but in another sense is not common to any two of the\nthree. It is certainly true of all of them that the seeds of their life,\nwhencesoever at first derived, are now infinitely numerous on our\nplanet, while the means of rearing them are strictly limited. In the\ncase of plants and animals the strong instinct of reproduction is\n\u201cinterrupted by no reasoning or doubts about providing for\noffspring,\u201d[111] and they crowd fresh lives into the world only to have\nthem at once shorn away by starvation. With the exception of certain\nplants which ape their superiors, like the drosera, and certain men who\nape their inferiors, like the cannibals, the lines of difference between\nthe three classes of living things are tolerably distinct. The first\nclass, in the struggle for room and food, can only forestall each other\nand leave each other to die; the second deliberately prey on the first\nand on each other; while the third prey on both the rest. But with man\nthis \u201ctendency to increase beyond the food\u201d differs from the same\ninstinct in the other two cases by more than the fact that man has\nlarger resources and is longer in reaching his limit. The instinct is\nequally strong in him, but he does not unquestioningly follow it.\n\u201cReason interrupts his career,\u201d and asks him whether he may not be\nbringing into the world beings for whom he cannot provide the means of\nsupport.[112] If he brushes reason aside, then he shares the fate of\nplants and animals; he tends to multiply his numbers beyond the room and\nfood accessible to them, and the result is that his numbers are cut down\nto these limits by suffering and starvation. There is nothing in this\neither more or less contrary to the notion of a benevolent Providence\nthan in the general power given to man of acting rationally or\nirrationally according to his own choice in any other instance. On the\nother hand, if he listens to reason, he can no doubt defeat the\ntendency, but too often he does it at the expense of moral purity. The\ndilemma makes the desire for marriage almost an \u201corigin of evil.\u201d If man\nobeys his instincts he falls into misery, and, if he resists them, into\nvice. Though the dilemma is not perfect, its plausibility demands that\nwe should test it by details, and to this test Malthus may be said to\nhave given his whole life. His other economical works are subordinate to\nthe essay, and may be said to grow out of it. Though we cannot omit them\nif we would fully understand and illustrate the central work, still the\nlatter must come first; and its matured form requires more than the\nbrief summary which has been given in the two preceding chapters.\n\nThe body of the book consists of historical details, and particular\nexamples showing the checks to population in uncivilized and in\ncivilized places, in present and in past times. The writer means to\nbring his conclusions home to his readers by the \u201clonger way\u201d of\ninduction. As this, however, was not the way in which he himself reached\nthem, or even stated them at first, he will ask us first of all to look\nat the terms of the dilemma in the light of his two original\npostulates[113]\u2014(_a_) food is necessary, (_b_) the desire of marriage is\npermanent. What is the quickest possible increase of numbers in\nobedience to the second, and of food in obedience to the first? In the\nmost crucial of the known instances, the actual rapidity of the increase\nof population seems to be in direct proportion to the easy possession of\nfood; and we can infer that the ideally rapid increase would take place\nwhere all obstacles (whether material or moral) to the getting of food\nand rearing of a family were removed, so that nature never needed to\nremonstrate with instinct. \u201cIn no state that we have yet known has the\npower of population been left to exert itself with perfect\nfreedom.\u201d[114] We can guess what it would be from the animal and\nvegetable world, where reason does not as a matter of fact interfere\nwith instinct in any circumstances, so far as we can judge. Benjamin\nFranklin, in a passage quoted by Malthus in this connection,[115]\nsupposes that if the earth were bared of other plants it might be\nreplenished in a few years with fennel alone. Even as things are now,\nfennel would fill the whole earth if the other plants would only allow\nit; and the same is true of each of the others. Townsend\u2019s goats and\ngreyhounds on Juan Fernandez are a better instance, because not\nhypothetical.[116] Juan Fernando, the first discoverer, had covered the\nisland with goats from one pair.[117] The Spaniards resolved to clear it\nof goats, in order to make it useless to the English for provisioning.\nThey put on shore a couple of greyhounds, whose offspring soon caused\nthe goats to disappear. But without some few goats to eat all the dogs\nmust have died; and the few were saved to them by their inaccessible\nrefuges in the rocks, from which they descended at risk of their lives.\nIn this way only the strongest and fleetest dogs and the hardiest and\nfleetest goats survived; and a balance was kept up between goat food and\nhound population. Townsend thereupon remarks that human populations are\nkept down by want of food precisely in the same way.\n\nThere is nothing to prevent the increase of human numbers if we suppose\nreason to have no need (as in the lower creatures it has no opportunity)\nto interfere. To understand the situation, however, it is best not to\nassume the truth of this parallelism, but to take the actually recorded\ninstances of human increase under the nearest known approaches to\nabsolute plenty combined with moral goodness, that is to say, with a\nstate of society in which vice is at a minimum. \u201cIn the northern states\nof America, where the means of subsistence have been more ample, the\nmanners of the people more pure, and the checks to early marriages fewer\nthan in any of the modern states of Europe, the population was found to\ndouble itself for some successive periods every twenty-five years.\u201d[118]\nFrom this near approach to an unchecked increase, we infer that the\nunchecked would mean a doubling in less than twenty-five years (say\ntwenty, or perhaps fifteen), and that all population, in proportion as\nit is unchecked, tends towards that rate of increase.\n\nIf it is difficult to find an unchecked increase of population, it is\nstill harder to find an unchecked increase of food; for what is meant is\nnot that a people should find their food in one fertile country with as\nmuch ease as in another, but that, for a new people, new supplies should\nalways be found with the same ease as the old ones. Now it is not\nnecessary to suppose that the most fertile land is always used\nfirst;[119] very often it might only be used late after the rest,\nthrough political insecurity, imperfect agriculture, incomplete\nexplorations, or the want of capital; but, when it is once occupied, the\nquestion is, will it supply new food to new-comers without any limit at\nall? This would be an ideally fertile land corresponding to the ideally\nexpanding population. And on some such inexhaustible increase of food an\nunchecked increase of population would depend, unless men became able to\nlive without food altogether.\n\nMalthus afterwards pointed out, in the course of controversy,[120] that\nthere is strictly speaking no question here of the comparison of two\ntendencies, for we cannot speak of a tendency to increase food in the\nsame sense as a tendency to increase population. Population is increased\nby itself; food is increased not by food itself, but by an agency\nexternal to it, the human beings that want it; and, while the former\nincrease is due to an instinct, the latter is (in a sense) acquired.\nEating is instinctive, but not the getting of the food. We have,\ntherefore, to compare an increase due to an instinctive desire with an\nincrease due to labour, and \u201ca slight comparison will show the immensity\nof the first power over the second.\u201d Malthus allows that it is difficult\nto determine this relation with exactness;[121] but, with the natural\nliking of a Cambridge man for a mathematical simile,[122] he says that\nthe one is to the other as an arithmetical to a geometrical ratio,\u2014that\nis to say, in any given time (say a century) the one will have increased\nby multiplication, the other only by addition. If we represent both the\npopulation and the food at the beginning of that century by ten, then\nthe population will double itself in twenty-five years; the ten will\nbecome twenty in the first twenty-five years, forty in the second,\neighty in the third, one hundred and sixty in the last, while the food\nwill only become twenty in the first, thirty in the second, forty in the\nthird, fifty in the fourth. If this is true, it shows the tendency of\npopulation to outrun subsistence. But of course it needs to be shown\nfrom experience that, while the strength of the desire remains the same\nin the later stages of the growth of population as in the earlier, the\nlaboriousness of the labour is greater in the later stages of the\nincrease of food than in the earlier. It is the plain truth, says\nMalthus, that nature is niggardly in her gifts to man, and by no means\nkeeps pace with his desires. If men would satisfy their desire of food\nat the old rate of speed, they must exert their mind or their body much\nmore than at first.[123] An obvious objection presents itself. Since\nman\u2019s food consists after all of the lower forms of life, animal and\nvegetable, and since these admittedly tend to increase, unchecked by\nthemselves, in a geometrical ratio, it might be thought that the\nincrease of human population and the increase of its food could proceed\ntogether, with equal ease. But the answer is that this unchecked\ngeometrical increase of the first could go on only so long as there was\nroom for it. It could only be true, for example, of wheat in the\ncorn-field at the time when the seed of it was sown, and the field was\nall before it. The equality of the two ratios would only be true of the\nfirst crop.[124] At first there might be five or sixfold the seed; but\nin after years, though the geometrical increase from the seed would tend\nto be the same, there could be no geometrical increase of the total crop\nby unassisted nature. The earth has no tendency to increase its surface.\nThere is a tendency of animals and vegetables to increase geometrically,\nin their quality of living things, but not in their quality of being\nfood for man. The same amount of produce might no doubt be gained on a\nfresh field, from the seed yielded by the first, and at the same\ngeometrical rate; but this assumes that there is a fresh field, and we\nshould not then be at the proper stage to contrast the two ratios. The\ncontrast begins to show itself as soon as the given quantity of land has\ngrown its crop, and its animal and human population have used all its\nfood. The question is then how any increase of the said population, if\nthey are confined to their own supplies, is at all to be made possible;\nthe answer is, only by greater ingenuity and greater labour in the\ngetting of food; and, however possible this may be, it can hardly be so\neasy as the increase of living beings by their own act.\n\nThe degree of disparity between the two will of course depend on the\ndegree of rapidity with which an unchecked population is supposed to\ndouble itself. Sir William Petty,[125] with few trustworthy statistics,\nhad supposed ten years; Euler, with somewhat better, twelve and\nfour-fifths; but Malthus prefers to go by the safe figures of the\nAmerican colonies, which he always regarded as a crucial proof that the\nperiod was not more than twenty-five. He admits the risk of his own\nmathematical simile when he grants that it is more easy to determine the\nrate of the natural increase of population than the rate of the increase\nof food which is in a much less degree natural (or spontaneous); and he\nargues from what had been done in England in his own time that the\nincrease would not even be in an arithmetical ratio, though agricultural\nimprovement (thanks to Arthur Young and the Board of Agriculture, and\nthe long reign of high prices) was raising the average produce very\nsensibly. If the Napoleonic times were the times of a forced population\nin England, they were also the times of a forced agricultural\nproduction. Yet we ourselves, long after this stimulus, and after much\nhigh farming unknown to our fathers, have reached only an average\nproduce of twenty-eight bushels per acre of arable land as compared with\ntwenty-three in 1770,[126] while the population has risen from about six\nmillions to thirty-five. It may be said that applies only to wheat. But\nuntil lately wheat-growing was the chief object of all our scientific\nagriculture; and this is the result of a century\u2019s improvements. It is\nfar from an arithmetical increase; and, even had the produce been\nmultiplied sevenfold, along with the population, this would not\noverthrow the contention of Malthus, for he is not speaking of any and\nevery increase of food, but of such an increase made by the same methods\nand by the same kind of labour as raised the old supplies.[127] Once it\nis acknowledged that to raise new food requires greater labour and new\ninventions, while to bring new men into the world requires nothing more\nthan in all times past, the disparity of the two is already admitted.\nThe fact that the two processes are both dependent on the action of man,\nand both practically illimitable, does not prevent them from being\nessentially unlike.[128] Objectors often suppose that the tendency of\npopulation to outrun subsistence is contradicted by the existence of\nunpeopled or thinly-peopled countries, just as if the tendency of bodies\nto attract each other were contradicted by the incompressibility of\nmatter. The important point to notice is that the one power is greater\nthan the other. The one is to the other as the hare is to the tortoise\nin the fable. To make the slow tortoise win the race, we must send the\nhare to sleep.[129]\n\nCarey (_Social Science_, vol. i. ch. iii. \u00a7 5) represents the view of\nMalthus by the following propositions:\u20141. \u201cMatter tends to take upon\nitself higher forms,\u201d passing from inorganic to vegetable and animal\nlife, and from these to man. 2. Matter tends to take on itself the\nvegetable and animal forms in an arithmetic ratio only. 3. It tends to\ntake its highest form, man, in a geometrical ratio, so that the highest\noutstrips the lowest. In short he believes that Malthus holds the\ngeometrical increase to be true of man alone, and only the arithmetical\nto be true of animals and vegetables. But Malthus really attributed the\ntendency to geometrical increase to all life whatsoever, and\narithmetical to all food, as such.\n\nIn Macvey Napier\u2019s Supplement to the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_ (1824)\nMalthus has left his mature statement of his cardinal principles, and,\nat the risk of repetition, that account may be added here. The main\ndifference from the essay is in arrangement of the leading ideas; and we\nmay learn at least what he conceived to be their relative importance\ntowards the end of his life.\n\nHe begins by observing (1) that _all living things_, of whatever kind,\nwhen furnished with their proper nourishment tend to increase in a\ngeometrical ratio, whether (as wheat) by multiplying sixfold in one\nyear, or (as sheep) by doubling their numbers in two years, tending to\nfill the earth, the one in fourteen, the other in seventy-six years. But\n(2) as a matter of fact they do not so increase, and the reason is\neither man\u2019s want of will or man\u2019s want of power to provide them their\nproper soil or pasture. The actual rate of increase is extremely slow,\nwhile the power of increase is prodigious. (3) Physically man is as the\nrest; and if we ask what is the factor of his geometrical increase, we\ncan only tell it, as in the case of wheat and sheep, by experience. (4)\nIn the case of other living beings, where there are most room and food\nthere is greatest increase. These conditions are best fulfilled for man\nin the United States, where the distribution of wealth is better than in\nother equally fertile places, and the greater number share the\nadvantages. The American census shows for the three decades between 1790\nand 1820 a rate of increase that would double the numbers in 22\u2153, 22\u00bd,\nand 23\u2077\u2044\u2081\u2082 years respectively, after we deduct as immigrants ten\nthousand on an average every year.\n\nA striking indirect confirmation of this view of the American increase\nwas supplied to Malthus[130] by Joshua Milne, the author of the\n_Treatise on Annuities_. His calculations were founded on the new\nSwedish table of mortality. This table had been drawn up from the\nregisters of the first five years of the century, years of unusual\nhealthiness; and might therefore be presumed to represent the normal\ncondition of a new and healthy country like the United States better\nthan the old table drawn up from the years before sanitary reform and\nvaccination. Milne took the Swedish table as his guide, and one million\nof people as his unit of measurement; he calculated in what proportions\nthe component individuals of the million must belong to childhood,\nyouth, mature life, and old age, in order that by the principles of the\nSwedish table the million might double itself by natural increase in\ntwenty-five years; and he arrived at a distribution so like that given\nby the American census, that he was bound to conclude the American rate\nof increase to be at the least very like one that doubles a population\nin twenty-five years. But the Swedish law of mortality could not be\nexactly true of the United States, which are healthier as a whole than\nSweden even in Sweden\u2019s best years.[131] The United States themselves\nare not the very healthiest and wealthiest and happiest country\nconceivable; and their increase is therefore not the fastest\nconceivable. If the observed fact of increase is the best proof of the\ncapacity for increase, the observed presence of checks leads to an _a\nfortiori_ reasoning, whereby we infer the capacity for a greater\nincrease than any actually observed. To sum up the whole of this first\nbranch of the argument,\u2014\u201ctaking into consideration the actual rate of\nincrease which appears from the best documents to have taken place over\na very large extent of country in the United States of America, very\nvariously circumstanced as to healthiness and rapidity of\nprogress,\u2014considering further the rate of increase which has taken place\nin New Spain and also in many countries of Europe, where the means of\nsupporting a family, and other circumstances favourable to increase,\nbear no comparison with those of the United States,\u2014and adverting\nparticularly to the actual increase of population which has taken place\nin this country during the last twenty years[132] under the formidable\nobstacles which must press themselves upon the attention of the most\ncareless observer, it must appear that the assumption of a rate of\nincrease such as would double the population in twenty-five years, as\nrepresenting the natural progress of population when not checked by the\ndifficulty of procuring the means of subsistence or other peculiar\ncauses of premature mortality, must be decidedly within the truth. It\nmay be safely asserted, therefore, that population when unchecked\nincreases in a geometrical ratio of such a nature as to double itself\nevery twenty-five years.\u201d[133]\n\nThe problem is only half stated; it is still to be shown what is the\nrate of the increase of Food. The case does not admit the same kind of\nproof. We can suppose an unchecked increase of men going on without any\nchange in human nature; we have only to suppose for the future the same\nencouragement to marriage and the same habits of life, together with the\nsame law of mortality. But with the increase of food the causes do not\nremain the same. If good land could be got in abundance, the increase of\nfood from it would be in a geometrical ratio far greater than that of\nthe men; that of wheat, for example, would be sixfold, as we have seen.\nBut good lands are comparatively few; they will in the nature of things\nsoon be occupied; and then the increase of the food will be a laborious\nprocess at a rate rather resembling a decreasing than an increasing\ngeometrical ratio. \u201cThe yearly increment of food, at least, would have a\nconstant tendency to diminish;\u201d and the amount of the increase in each\nsuccessive ten years would probably be less and less. In practice, the\ninequalities of distribution may check the increase of food with\nprecisely the same efficacy as an actual arrival at the physical limits\nto the getting of the food. \u201cA man who is locked up in a room may fairly\nbe said to be confined by the walls of it, though he may never touch\nthem.\u201d[134] But the main point is, that, inequalities or no\ninequalities, there is a tendency to diminished productiveness. Under\neither condition the quantity yielded this year will not be doubled or\ntrebled for an indefinite period with the same ease as it was yielded\nthis year. In a tolerably well-peopled country such as England or\nGermany the utmost might be an increase every twenty-five years equal to\nthe present produce. But the continuance of this would mean that in the\nnext two hundred years every farm should produce eight times what it\ndoes now, or, in five hundred years, twenty times as much; and even this\nis incredible, though it would be only an arithmetical progression. No\ndoubt almost all parts of the earth are now more thinly peopled than\ntheir capacities might allow; but the difficulty is to use the\ncapacities. That this view of Malthus need not imply any ignorance or\nany disregard of the resources of high farming may be judged from the\nfact that our highest agricultural authority, who recognizes the power\nof English farming to provide on emergency even for our entire annual\nwants, admits at the same time that, \u201cwhere full employment and the\nmeans of subsistence are abundant, population increases in geometrical\nprogression, and therefore in a far more rapid proportion than the\nincreased productiveness of the soil, which after a certain point is\nstationary.\u201d[135] \u201cIt follows necessarily\u201d (sums up Malthus) \u201cthat the\naverage rate of the actual increase of population over the greatest part\nof the globe, obeying the same law as the increase of food, must be\ntotally of a different character from the rate at which it would\nincrease if unchecked.\u201d On no single farm could the produce be so\nincreased as to keep pace with the geometrical increase of population;\nand what is true of a single farm is true in this case of the whole\nearth. Machinery and invention can do less in agriculture than in\nmanufacture, and they can never do so much as to make preventive checks\nunnecessary.[136]\n\nThis is the argument of the _Encyclop\u00e6dia_ so far as it relates to the\ntheses of the essay. Malthus follows it up by a remark on the\ninstitution of property. The alternatives to his mind are always private\nproperty as we now have it, and common property as desired by Godwin. He\nupholds the first because, \u201caccording to all past experience and the\nbest observation which can be made on the motives which operate upon the\nhuman mind,\u201d the largest produce from the soil is got by that system,\nand because (what is socially much more important), by making a man feel\nhis responsibility and his dependence on his own efforts, it tends to\ncause prudence in marriage as well as industry in work. Common property\nhas not been successful, historically; and the widest extension of\npopular education would not make men the fitter for it. There is indeed\na sense in which common property might tend to carry production farther\nthan private property; cultivation, not being for profit but for mere\nliving, would not, like the present, stop at the point where production\nceased to be a good investment. But this would mean[137] that the whole\nenergies of the society were directed to the mere getting of food;\nneither the whole society nor any part of it would have leisure, for\nintellectual labour or enjoyment. Whereas private property not only\nsecures the leisure, but, by stopping at the point of profitableness, it\nkeeps an unused reserve, on which society may fall back in case of need.\nMalthus therefore would stand by private property, though he thinks that\nprivate proprietors may damage the national wealth by game-preserving,\nand injure the poorer classes by not spending enough on what they\nmake.[138]\n\nThe actual increase of population (he goes on) and the necessity of\nchecks to it depend on the difficulty of getting food, from whatever\ncause, whether the exhaustion of the earth or the bad structure of\nsociety; and the difficulty is not for the remote future but for the\npresent.\n\nIt is chiefly the contrast between the actual and the possible supplies\nthat makes men incredulous about the necessity of checks; and we may\ngrant that under an ideal government, a perfect people, and faultless\nsocial system the produce would at first be so great that the necessity\nfor checks on population would be very much reduced; but, as the earth\u2019s\nproductiveness does not expand with population, it would be a very short\ntime before the pressure of the checks would reassert itself\u2014this time\nfrom no fault of man, but from the mere nature of the soil.[139] The bad\ngovernment of our ancestors left much produce unused, and in consequence\nwe have for the present a large margin to draw on. But, \u201cif merely since\nthe time of William the Conqueror all the nations of the earth had been\nwell governed, and if the distribution of property and the habits both\nof the rich and the poor had been the most favourable to the demand for\nproduce and labour, though the amount of food and population would have\nbeen prodigiously greater than at present, the means of diminishing the\nchecks to population would unquestionably be less.\u201d\n\nBut, though the laws of nature are responsible for the necessity of\nchecks to population,[140] \u201ca vast mass of responsibility remains\nbehind, on man and the institutions of society.\u201d To them in the first\nplace is due the scantiness of the present population of the earth,\nthere being few parts of it that would not with better government and\nbetter morals support twice, ten times, or even one hundred times as\nmany inhabitants as now. In the second place, though man cannot remove\nthe necessity of checks, or even make them press much more lightly in\nany given place,[141] he is responsible for their precise character and\nparticular mode of operation. A good government and good institutions\ncan so direct them that they shall be least hurtful to the general\nvirtue and happiness, vice and misery disappearing before moral\nrestraint, though after all the influence of government and institutions\nis indirect, and everything depends on the conduct of the individual\ncitizens.\n\nThe rest of the article contains little that is not in the _Essay on\nPopulation_ (5th ed., 1817) and the treatise on _Political Economy_ (1st\ned., 1820). It gives the historical sketches of the former, some small\npart of the economical discussions (_e. g._ on wages) of the latter, and\na short answer to current objections, together with some tables of\nmortality and other figures, of more special interest to the\nprofessional actuary than to the general reader. The article is an\nauthoritative summary of the author\u2019s doctrines in their final form. It\nwas not his last work. From the fact that he undertook the paper in\nSept. 1821,[142] we may perhaps infer that he placed it in Macvey\nNapier\u2019s hands in the year 1822.[143] But it was his last attempt to\nrestate the subject of the essay in an independent form with anything\napproaching to fulness of detail, and it shows he had made no change in\nhis position. The _Summary View of the Principle of Population_ (1830)\nwas avowedly an abridgment of the article in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia_, and is\nin fact that article with a few paragraphs omitted and a few pronouns\naltered.\n\nThe clear statement of the two tendencies was, in his own eyes, the\nleast original part of his work. It had been often perceived distinctly\nby other writers that population must always be kept down to the level\nof the means of subsistence. \u201cYet few inquiries have been made into the\nvarious modes by which this level is effected, and the principle has\nnever been sufficiently pursued to its consequences, nor those practical\ninferences drawn from it which a strict examination of its effects on\nsociety appears to suggest.\u201d[144] What some people would count the more\ninteresting question remained to be considered\u2014\u2014the question that\ntouches individuals and familiar circumstances more nearly, and is not\nto be answered by a generality, from which we easily in thought except\nour own individual selves. Since, at any given time, in any given place,\namong any given people, there is (1) a tendency of population to outrun\nsubsistence, and there is (2) no such excess as a matter of fact, in\nwhat way or ways is the tendency prevented from carrying itself out? As\nwas said above,[145] this is effected in two kinds of ways\u2014(1) by the\nway of a positive, (2) by the way of a preventive check, the former\ncutting down an actual population to the level of its food, the second\nforbidding a population to need to be cut down, and being, so far as it\nis voluntary, peculiar to man among living creatures. Of the positive,\nall those that come from the laws of nature may be called misery pure\nand simple; and all those that men bring on themselves by wars,\nexcesses, and avoidable troubles of all kinds are of a mixed character,\ntheir causes being vice and their consequences misery. Of the\npreventive, that restraint from marriage which is not accompanied by any\nimmoral conduct on the part of the person restraining himself or herself\nis called moral restraint. Any restraint which is prudential and\npreventive, but immoral, comes under the head of vice, for every action\nmay be so called which has \u201ca general tendency to produce misery,\u201d\nhowever innocuous its immediate effects.[146] We find, therefore, that\nthe positive and the preventive checks are all resolvable into vice,\nmisery, and moral restraint, or sin, pain, and self-control, a threefold\ndivision that makes the second essay \u201cdiffer in principle\u201d from the\nfirst.[147]\n\nWe have here a twofold alongside of a threefold division of the checks\nto population. The one is made from an objective, the other from a\nsubjective point of view. The division of checks (1) into positive and\npreventive has regard simply to the outward facts; a population is in\nthose two ways kept down to the food. The division of them (2) into\nvice, misery, and moral restraint has regard to the human agent and his\ninward condition, the state of his feelings and of his will. For\nexample, the positive check viewed subjectively, or from the human\nbeing\u2019s point of view, is the feeling of pain; the will is not directly\nconcerned with it. The preventive, from the same point of view, is of a\nless simple character. First of all, moral restraint involves a\ntemporary misery or pain in the thwarting of a desire; \u201cconsidered as a\nrestraint upon an inclination otherwise innocent and always natural, it\nmust be allowed to produce a certain degree of temporary unhappiness,\nbut evidently slight compared with the evils which result from any of\nthe other checks to population,\u201d[148] and \u201cmerely[149] of the same\nnature as many other sacrifices of temporary to permanent gratification\nwhich it is the business of a moral agent continually to make.\u201d The\nreverse is true of vicious excesses and passions; in their immediate\ngratification they are pleasant, but their permanent effects are misery.\nFrom the point of view of the will the case is clear, for the state of\nthe will would be described by Malthus, if he ever used such terms, as\nin the one case good, and in the other case evil, pure and simple. Of\ncourse in treating the matter historically we may neglect the subjective\npoint of view, not because it is not necessary for proper knowledge of\nthe facts, but because it leads to a psychological inquiry, the results\nof which are independent of dates.\n\nMalthus goes on to say that, in all cases where there is the need for\nchecks at all, it is the sum total of all the preventive and positive\nchecks that forms the check to population in any given country at any\ngiven time,[150] and his endeavour will be to show in what relative\nproportions and in what degree they prevail in various countries known\nto us. He assumes further that the preventive and the positive checks\nwill \u201cvary inversely as each other.\u201d In countries where the mortality is\ngreat the influence of the preventive check will be small; and, where\nthe preventive check prevails much, the positive check, or in brief the\nmortality, will be small.[151]\n\nIn society, as it was in the first years of the nineteenth century,\nMalthus thinks he can trace out even by his own observation an\n\u201coscillation,\u201d or what it is the fashion to call a \u201ccycle,\u201d in the\nmovement of population. History does not show it well, simply because\n\u201cthe histories of mankind which we possess are in general only of the\nhigher classes,\u201d[152] and it is the labouring classes to which the\nobservation applies. Their painful experience of the ruder checks has\nnot prevented a \u201cconstant effort\u201d in the labouring population to have\nlarger families than they can well support. The consequence is that\ntheir numbers are increased; they must divide amongst eleven and a half\nmillions the food that was formerly divided among eleven millions; they\nmust have lower wages and dearer provisions. But this state of distress\nwill so check population that in process of time the numbers will be\nalmost at a standstill, while at the same time, since the demand for\nfood has been greater and labour has been cheaper, the application of\ncapital to agriculture will have increased the available food. The\nresult will be the same tolerable degree of comfort as at the beginning\nof the cycle, and the same relapse from it as at the second stage. He\nconceives the two stages to follow each other as naturally as sunshine\nrain and rain sunshine. The existence of such a cycle may remain\nconcealed from the ordinary historian, if he looks merely to the money\nwages of the labourer, for it frequently happens that the labourer gets\nthe same sums of money for his wages during a long series of years when\nthe real value of the sums has not remained the same,\u2014the price of bread\nin what we have called the second stage of the cycle being much dearer\nthan it was in the first, and than it will be in the third.[153] Though\nMalthus expressly qualifies his statements by showing that civilization\ntends to counteract these fluctuations, it certainly seemed to be his\nbelief in 1803 that on the whole the working classes of Europe, and\nespecially of England, were powerless to escape from them. How far this\nview is justified will be seen presently.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n                  THE SAVAGE, BARBARIAN, AND ORIENTAL.\n\n  Simile supplanted by Fact\u2014Savage Life\u2014Population dependent not on\n    possible but on actual Food\u2014Indirect Action of Positive\n    Checks\u2014Hunger not a Principle of Progress\u2014Otaheite a Crux for Common\n    Sense\u2014Cycle in the Movement of Population\u2014Pitcairn Island\u2014Barbarian\n    and Oriental\u2014Nomad Shepherds\u2014Abram and Lot\u2014Cimbri and\n    Teutones\u2014Gibbon _versus_ Montesquieu\u2014\u201cAt bay on the limits of the\n    Universe\u201d\u2014Misgovernment an indirect Check on Population\u2014Ancient\n    Europe less populous than Modern\u2014Civilization the gradual Victory of\n    the third Check.\n\n\nThe main position of the essay was so incontrovertible, that when the\ncritics despaired to convict Malthus of a paradox, they charged him with\na truism. To the friendly Hallam[154] the mathematical basis of the\nargument appeared as certain as the multiplication table, and the\nunfriendly Hazlitt \u201cdid not see what there was to discover after reading\nthe tables of Noah\u2019s descendants, and knowing that the world is\nround.\u201d[155] If the essayist had done nothing more than put half-truths\ntogether into a whole, he would have \u201centrenched himself in an\nimpregnable fortress\u201d and given his work a great \u201cair of mastery.\u201d[156]\nBut he would have convinced the understanding without convincing the\nimagination. Adam Smith himself would have done no more than half his\nwork, if he had been content to prove the reasonableness of free trade\nwithout showing, in detail, the effect of it and its opposites. Even the\nmost competent reader has seldom all the relevant facts marshalled in\nhis memory, ready to command; and he will always be thankful for\nillustrations. The _Essay on Population_ in its second form certainly\nexcelled all economical works, save one, in its pertinent examples from\nlife and history.\n\nImagination in the narrower sense of the word is to be out of court.\nMalthus, like Adam Smith, not only leaves little to his reader\u2019s fancy,\nbut makes little use of his own. His own had misled his readers in the\nfirst essay, though it had certainly given that little book much of its\npiquancy; and he resolves for the sake of truth to chain it up, as\nColeridge chained up his understanding. The self-denying ordinance is\nonly too fully executed. The style of his essay is truly described by\nhimself[157] as having gradually \u201clost all pretensions to merit.\u201d\nEdition follows edition, each with its footnotes, supplements,\nrearrangements, and corrections, till the reader feels that this writer\n\u201cwould be clearer if he were not so clear.\u201d\n\nBut the title-page supplies a guiding thread. From the second edition\nonwards to the last, \u201cPast\u201d and \u201cPresent\u201d appear in large letters,\n\u201cFuture\u201d in small. The entire work may therefore be divided according to\nthe three tenses, with the emphasis on the two former. The first book is\ndevoted to the past, the second to the present, and the third and fourth\nto the future.\n\nThe First deals with the less civilized parts of the world as it now is,\nand the uncivilized past times; the Second with the different states of\nmodern Europe; the Third criticizes popular schemes of future\nimprovement; while the Fourth gives the author\u2019s own views of the\npossible progress of humanity.\n\nAfter explaining his principles, Malthus takes a survey of human\nprogress, if not from brute to savage, at least from savage to citizen.\nHe shows us how the rude and simple positive checks become complicated\nwith the preventive; and he leads us up from barbarism to civilization\ntill we find ourselves in a society where the citizens think less of\ncheck than of chief end, and less of self-sacrifice than of\nself-devotion, to some cause or person, and even the inferior members\nact, at worst, from mixed motives, containing good as well as evil.\nThese are the two extreme ends of his line. It would be useless to deny\nthat he lingers longest over the less pleasing, and gives Godwin some\nexcuse for questioning his logical right to believe in the more pleasing\nat all.[158] At the same time it would have been (even logically)\nimpossible for him to have attacked Godwin for taking abstract views of\nhuman nature, and then to have persisted in an abstraction of his own,\nafter all his own European travel and historical studies. His fault had\nlain in defective premises, not in false reasoning; and he remedies the\nfault.\n\nLet us take his account in his own order. Beginning with present\nsavagery, which with some qualifications is a picture of our own past,\nhe sifts out the descriptions of Cook, Vancouver, and other travellers,\nto see what checks to population operate in different grades of savage\nhumanity. At the very bottom of the scale comes Tierra del Fuego, by\ngeneral consent the abode of pure misery, and therefore naturally the\nhome of a sparse population. Next come the natives of the Andaman\nIslands and of Van Diemen\u2019s Land. \u201cTheir whole time is spent in search\nof food,\u201d which consists of the raw products of the soil and sea; the\nwhole time of every individual is devoted to this one labour, and there\nis neither room nor inducement for any other industries. Vice is hardly\nneeded; misery in the shape of perpetual scarcity and famine keeps down\nthe people to the food. Third in the scale of human beings are the New\nHollanders, the original inhabitants of North-West Australia, among whom\ncan be traced not only the check of misery, but the check of vice. The\nwomen are so cruelly treated at all times, and the children have so\nharsh an upbringing, that there is no difficulty in understanding how\npopulation does not even reach the full limit of the scanty food. War\nand pestilence make the assurance doubly sure. As savages are entirely\ninnocent of sanitary science, the dirt of their persons and their houses\ndeprives them of \u201cthe advantage which usually attends a thinly-peopled\ncountry,\u201d comparative exemption from pestilence.[159] Even the North\nAmerican Indians, who are one step higher than the New Hollanders, come\nunder the same condemnation for overcrowding, and for much else besides.\nThe account which Malthus gives of them may be compared with that of De\nTocqueville half a century later. Romance has clung to them only because\nthey were the nearest and best known savages of their kind, and their\nnecessary labours were in Europe rich men\u2019s pleasures. But hunting and\nriver-fishing cannot yield much food unless pursued over a wide area. A\nhunter is so far like the beast of prey which he pursues, that he must\ngo long distances for his food, and must either fly from or overcome\nevery rival. The North American Indian must therefore either go West\nafter his old food, or else he must stay where he is, to beat off the\nEuropeans, or to adopt their food and their habits. \u201cThe Indians have\nonly two ways of saving themselves, war and civilization. They must\neither destroy the Europeans or become their equals.\u201d[160] As the\ncivilization of a nation of hunters is almost impossible, their\nextinction seems inevitable. The question remains, How is this\npopulation cut down to the level of its food?\n\nIn Malthus\u2019 answer to the question occur three remarks of great general\nimportance. First, what limits the numbers of a people is not the\npossible but the actual food.[161] Second, want destroys a population\nless often directly by starvation than indirectly through the medium of\nmanners and customs.[162] Third, the mere pressure of impending\nstarvation does not lead to progress.[163]\n\nMalthus is never tired of insisting on the first of these remarks; and a\nproper understanding of it is essential to a fair judgment on his\ndoctrine. He never says that it is the tendency of a population to\nincrease up to the limits of the greatest possible amount of food that\ncan be produced in a given country. The valley of the Mississippi when\nhighly cultivated may possibly support a hundred millions; but the\nquestion is not what it would do when highly cultivated, but what it can\ndo when cultivated as it now is and as men now are. \u201cIn a general view\nof the American continent as described by historians, the population\nseems to have been spread over the surface very nearly in proportion to\nthe quantity of food which the inhabitants of the different parts in the\nactual state of their industry and improvements could as a matter of\nfact obtain; and that with few exceptions it pressed hard against this\nlimit, rather than fell short of it, appears from the frequent\nrecurrence of distress for want of food in all parts of America.\u201d[164]\nWhat is said here of the Indians a hundred years ago applies to the\nColonists now. \u201cThe actual state of industry\u201d is of course a much more\nimproved one; but the population the land will bear is still in\nproportion to it, and the amount could not have been increased till the\nactual state of the industry had first been bettered. One cause of the\ndecay of the numbers of the Indians was that their method of industry,\nso far from becoming better, became worse by their contact with\nEuropeans, and therefore the limit of population was actually contracted\ninstead of being extended.[165] This explains how it is that their\ndiminishing numbers do not bring them greater comfort. Whether the\nnumbers in any given case are too great or too small depends always on\nthe quantity of the food that is divided among them; and, where the food\ndecreases faster than the population, a population that has become\nsmaller numerically becomes actually larger in proportion to the food.\nThe statement that England or any other country could bear millions more\nthan it does now is a mere reference to unexplored possibilities,\nlanding us in the infinite. It may be answered in the same way as the\nEleatic puzzles about motion; land infinitely improvable does not mean\nland infinitely improved, as matter infinitely divisible does not mean\nmatter infinitely divided. The position of Malthus is therefore as\nfollows: given a people\u2019s skill, and given its standard of living at any\ntime, its numbers are always tending to be the utmost that can be\nfurnished by that skill with a living up to that standard,\u2014that is to\nsay, with what, according to that standard, are the necessaries of human\nlife. Either a diminution of that skill or an increase in that standard\nwould cause over-population. The question is always a relative one.\n\nThe human as distinguished from the animal character of the problem\nappears not only in that relativity (which affects mainly the preventive\nchecks), but in the indirect way in which the positive checks, if we may\nsay so, prefer to act. It is as if they were always desirous of\nresolving themselves as far as might be into preventive. The ultimate\ncheck, Malthus says, is starvation; but, he adds, it is seldom the\nimmediate one. The higher up we go in the scale, the more it is hidden\naway out of sight. Starvation is interpreted, by all grades of society\nabove the lowest, to mean the loss of what they conceive to be the\nnecessaries not of a bare living but of endurable life; and even the\nlowest, instead of apprehending some pain, apprehend some bringer of it.\nThey do not allow famine to kill them; they create manners and customs\nthat do the work for it, keeping the famine itself afar off. \u201cBoth\ntheory and experience uniformly instruct us that a less abundant supply\nof food operates with a gradually increasing pressure for a very long\ntime before its progress is stopped. It is difficult indeed to conceive\na more tremendous shock to society than the event of its coming at once\nto the limits of the means of subsistence, with all the habits of\nabundance and early marriages, which accompany a largely increasing\npopulation. But, happily for mankind, this never is nor ever can be the\ncase. The event is provided for by the concurrent interests and feelings\nof individuals long before it arrives; and the gradual diminution of the\nreal wages of the labouring classes of society slowly and almost\ninsensibly generates the habits necessary for an order of things in\nwhich the funds for the maintenance of labour are stationary.... The\ncauses [of the retardation of population] will be generally felt and\n[will] generate a change of habits long before the period arrives.\u201d[166]\n\u201cAn insufficient supply of food to any people does not show itself\nmerely in the shape of famine, but in other more permanent forms of\ndistress, and in generating certain customs which operate sometimes with\ngreater force in the prevention of a rising population\u201d than in the\ndestruction of the risen.[167] Robertson the historian truly says, that\nwhether civilization has improved the lot of men may be doubtful, but it\nhas certainly improved the condition of women. Among the Indians and\nalmost all savages, \u201cservitude is a name too mild to describe their\nwretched state.\u201d The hard life of the men kills their instinctive\nfondness for the women; the latter are therefore less likely to become\nmothers, while, if they do, their own hardships and heavy tasks are a\ngreat hindrance to nursing. It is not surprising that the surviving\nchildren are of good physique; none but the exceptionally strong could\nweather the cruel discipline of childhood.[168] In South America the\ndifficulty of upbringing actually led to an enforced monogamy, as well\nas to late marriages and their not unfrequent accompaniment,\nirregularities before marriage. Such customs diminish numbers. But even\nthe adult savages do not find life easy. They are not the men to think\nof providing for a rainy day; in the short moments of plenty they do not\nthink of the long days of want. Intemperate living as well as the rigour\nand the accidents of a hunting life cut off numbers in their prime. They\nare subject to diseases and invent no remedies. Their acquiescence in\ndirt leads to pestilences, but they invent no sanitary reforms; and\ntheir thinly-peopled country loses its natural exemption from epidemics.\nTheir wars are internecine, for they are largely prompted by sheer\nself-preservation, and the thought that if the one combatant lives the\nother cannot. Cannibalism itself was at first due to extreme want,\nthough what occasional hunger had begun, hate perpetuated in a custom.\nThis and the low cunning and mean strategy, due to a resolve to survive\nat all costs, are the prime inventions of the struggle for existence on\nthese low levels.\n\nSuch are the causes by which the numbers of the North American Indians\nare kept down to a very low figure; but, low as it is, the figure is\nhigh enough for the food. Apart from a difference in the standard of\nliving, the proportion of population to food is similar over the\ninhabited world; and in the same neighbourhood or among cognate races it\nwill be almost identical. A diminution in one Indian tribe, not being\nvoluntary, will not be the cause of plenty to the survivors; it has been\nthe effect of want, and it will simply weaken the collective force of\nthe tribe in the struggle against others.[169]\n\nThe supremacy of want as the ultimate check on population is illustrated\nby the instant expansion of population which is produced in these grades\nof humanity by an accession of plenty. When a tribe falls upon fertile\nland, its numbers swell, and its collective might, depending on numbers,\nbecomes greater. The increase of food, however, seems in this case to\nlead to nothing else than increase of numbers. There is a melancholy\nequality of suffering between tribe and tribe, as well as between\nmembers of the same tribe. There is no distinction of rank, but only of\nsex and bodily strength, as regards endurance of hardships.\n\nIt is in this connection that Malthus throws some light on the question\nhow progress could ever take place at all. His answer is not unlike Adam\nSmith\u2019s remark about the connection of high wages with good work. He\nsays, that beyond a certain limit, hard fare and great want depress men\nbelow the very capacity of improvement; comfort must reach a certain\nheight before the desires of civilized life can come into being at all.\nIf the American tribes, he says, have remained hunters, it is not simply\nbecause they have not increased in numbers sufficiently to render the\npastoral or agricultural state necessary to them. Reasons which Malthus\ndoes not pretend to particularize,[170] and which he allows to be\nunconnected with mere increase or decrease of numbers, have prevented\nthese tribes from ever trying to raise cattle or grow corn at all. \u201cIf\nhunger alone could have prompted the savage tribes of America to such a\nchange in their habits, I do not conceive that there would have been a\nsingle nation of hunters and fishers remaining; but it is evident that\nsome fortunate train of circumstances, in addition to this stimulus, is\nnecessary for this purpose; and it is undoubtedly probable that these\narts of obtaining food will be first invented and improved in those\nspots which are best suited to them, and where the natural fertility of\nthe situation, by allowing a greater number of people to subsist\ntogether, would give the fairest chance to the inventive powers of the\nhuman mind.\u201d \u201cA certain degree of [political] security is perhaps still\nmore necessary than richness of soil to encourage the change from the\npastoral to the agricultural state.\u201d[171] These passages are remarkable\nbecause they seem to contradict the general tenor of the author\u2019s\nwritings. We were told with great emphasis in the first edition of the\nessay that difficulties generate talents,[172] and even the second and\nlater are full of approving commentaries on the proverb, \u201cNecessity is\nthe mother of invention.\u201d[173] The contradiction is soon solved. Malthus\nhas no faith in the civilizing power of competition when it means a\nstruggle among starved men for bare life, but much faith in it when it\nmeans the struggle for greater comfort among those who already have the\nanimal necessaries.[174] The significance of his admissions will be\nnoticed later. Meanwhile it must be observed that the passage just\nquoted is not perfectly precise. The larger the society, the greater\nmight be the division of labour and consequent stimulus to invention;\nbut a tribe might be large and yet have little in it of a society, and\nstill less of a division of labour. Without such favouring circumstances\nas Malthus mentions the progress cannot take place; but even with them\nit need not; they are therefore not the real motive power.\n\nThe account of the state of population among the South Sea\nIslanders,[175] which comes next in order to the chapter on the American\nIndians, is an illustration of these remarks. These savages live in a\nfertile country and yet they make no progress. As this is not the only\npoint illustrated, it is worth while to look at the chapter in detail.\n\nMalthus begins by observing that population must not be thought more\nsubject to checks on an island than on a continent. The Abb\u00e9 Raynal, in\nhis book on the Indies, had tried to explain a number of modern customs\nthat retarded population[176] by referring them to an insular origin. He\nthought that they were caused at first by the over-population of Britain\nand other islands, and were imported therefrom into the continents, to\nthe perplexity of later ages. But as a matter of fact population on the\nmainlands is subject to the same laws as on the islands, though the\nlimits are not so obvious to common observation, and the case is not put\nso neatly in a nutshell. A nation on the continent may be as completely\nsurrounded by its enemies or its rivals, savage or civilized, as any\nislanders by the sea; and emigration may be as difficult in the one case\nas in the other. Both continent and island are peopled up to their\nactual produce. \u201cThere is probably no island yet known, the produce of\nwhich could not be further increased. This is all that can be said of\nthe whole earth. Both are peopled up to their actual produce. And the\nwhole earth is in this respect like an island.\u201d[177] The earth is indeed\nmore isolated than any island of the sea, for no emigration from it is\npossible. The question, therefore, to be asked about the whole earth as\nabout any part of it, is, \u201cBy what means the inhabitants are reduced to\nsuch numbers as it can support?\u201d\n\nThis was the question which forced itself on Captain Cook when he\nvisited the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Some of his\nexperiences there, especially in New Zealand, show that the native\npopulation was kept down in nearly the same way as the American. Their\nchief peculiarity is the extreme violence of their local feuds. The\npeople of every village he visited petitioned him to destroy the people\nof the next, and \u201cif I had listened to them I should have extirpated the\nwhole race.\u201d A sense of human kinship is impossible at so low a level of\nbeing; and the internecine wars of the New Zealanders were the chief\ncheck to their numbers, which, from the distressing effects of\noccasional scarcities, would seem always at the best to have been close\nto the limits of the food.\n\nThe first impression of common sense is that distress is natural where\nfood is scanty, and unnatural where it is plentiful. But \u201cif we turn our\neyes from the thinly-scattered inhabitants of New Zealand to the crowded\nshores of Otaheite and the Society Islands\u201d we find no such phenomenon.\n\u201cAll apprehension of death seems at first sight to be banished from a\ncountry that is described to be fruitful as the garden of the\nHesperides.\u201d But reflection tells us that happiness and plenty are the\nmost powerful causes of increase. We might, therefore, expect a large\npopulation in Otaheite; at its first start it might double itself not in\ntwenty-five but in fifteen years. Captain Cook estimated it (on his\nsecond voyage in 1773) as 204,000. How could a country about one hundred\nand twenty miles in circuit support an increase that doubled these\nnumbers in twenty-five years? Emigration is impossible, for the other\nislands are in the same situation. Further cultivation is inadequate,\nfor scientific invention is quite wanting. The answer is that the\nincrease does not take place, and yet there is no miracle.\nLicentiousness among the higher classes, and infanticide amongst all\nclasses, are freely practised. The free permission of infanticide no\ndoubt, as Hume remarks,[178] tends as a rule rather to increase than to\ndiminish population, for \u201cby removing the terrors of too numerous a\nfamily it would engage many people in marriage,\u201d and such is the force\nof natural affection, that comparatively few parents would carry out\ntheir first intentions. But in Otaheite in its old state custom had made\ninfanticide easy, and it was a real check. War against other islands was\na third check, frequently destroying the food as well as the people,\nthus striking down two generations at once. All these checks\nnotwithstanding, the population was up to the level of the food, and\nthere was as much scarcity and keen distress as on any barren island.\n\nSuch at least was the state of things discovered by Captain Cook in his\nthree voyages (the last in 1778) and Captain Vancouver (in 1791). On the\nother hand, the author of _A Missionary Voyage to the South Pacific\nOcean in 1796\u20138_ (London, 1799) found a people very scanty as compared\nwith the food. The accuracy of both accounts is borne out by the\ndescription of the habits of the people at these two periods. Captain\nCook says they were careful to save up every scrap of food, and yet\nsuffered often from famine. The missionaries observe the frequency of\nfamine in the Friendly Islands and the Marquesas, but say of the\nOtaheitans that they are extremely wasteful, and yet never seem to be in\nwant. Even in the intervals between one of Cook\u2019s voyages and another\nthe state of the island had altered. Malthus sees here an illustration\nof two facts. The one is that, apart from changes in the standard of\nliving, population fluctuates between great excess and great defect,\ngreat numbers with great mortality, and great comfort with rapid\nmultiplication of numbers. The other, which explains the first, is that\nany cause affecting population, either towards increase or towards\ndecrease, continues to act for some time after the disappearance of the\ncircumstances that first occasioned it. For example, over-populousness\nwould lead to wars,[179] and the enmities of these wars would long\nsurvive their first occasion. Again, over-populousness would lead to\ngreater infanticide and vice, which would become habitual. New\ncircumstances would, no doubt, after a time bring new habits, and, to\nuse the author\u2019s words, would \u201crestore the population, which could not\nlong be kept below its natural level without the most extreme violence.\nHow far European contact may operate in Otaheite with this extreme\nviolence and prevent it from recovering its former population is a point\nwhich experience only can determine. But, should this be the case, I\nhave no doubt that on tracing the causes of it, we should find them to\nbe aggravated vice and misery.\u201d[180] As a matter of fact either European\ncontact has caused a diminution, or exacter inquiry has made a lower\nestimate of the population of all Polynesia. The people of the whole\nSociety Islands is reckoned at between 15,000 and 18,000,[181] which is\na long way from Cook\u2019s estimate of 204,000 for Otaheite alone. We can\nhardly believe, however, that the vice and misery of Otaheite are more\nthan ten times as great as they were in 1773; and perhaps we may suppose\nMalthus to mean that, if the European influences were of the same\ncharacter at the end as they were at the beginning, and were as\npernicious to the Polynesian as to the Red Indian, the language of\npessimism would be justified. The passage at least shows how unfair it\nis to suppose Malthus to desire at all costs a small population; he is\ncareful to say that, while vice in Otaheite by reducing the numbers\ncaused a transient plenty among the survivors, still \u201ca cause which may\nprevent any particular evil may be beyond comparison worse than the evil\nitself.\u201d[182] Life itself may be bought too dear.\n\nNo good is done, however, by denying that excessive numbers are an evil,\nor by optimistic assertion that if men are only good they will be happy.\nThere is at least one Polynesian island whose past history gives a\npicturesque proof of the contrary. Pitcairn, \u201cthe lonely isle of the\nMutineers,\u201d was a moral contrast to Otaheite. The inhabitants owed\nnothing good to their parents, who were the mutineers of H.M.S.\n\u2018Bounty,\u2019 and the women of Otaheite that came with them in 1790, when\nthey first took refuge in Pitcairn Island. They owed all to the\nreligious teaching of John Adams, which made them so good, that there\nwere few like them on the earth.[183] But in latitudes just touching the\ntropics, with a single square mile of poor soil, surrounded by wide\nocean, they had no outlet for trade and modern arts. Like the\ninhabitants of Godwin\u2019s Utopia,[184] they soon peopled the little\ncountry to the full extent of the food that could be got by the old\nmethods, and, unlike the Utopians, they had not skill to invent new. If\nthey had not drawn the line for themselves, misery would have done it\nfor them. Their little colony at its first founding consisted of fifteen\nmen and twelve women. Fourteen men and many women died off in the course\nof the ten years which passed before the time of moral regeneration. But\nthey left many children; and, when the patriarch John Adams was visited\nby a passing ship in 1814, he was surrounded by a happy circle of devout\nfamilies. Rapidly outgrowing the resources of the place, these simple\nfolk removed in 1831 to Tahiti, eighty-seven strong. Some remained\nthere; others had no pleasure in their new abode, and came back to\nsuffer affliction with the people of God, believing with Malthus that \u201ca\ncause which may prevent any particular evil may be beyond all comparison\nworse than the evil itself.\u201d The evil was real, however, and, in default\nof celibacy or new ways of bread winning, their only cure seemed\nemigration. So in 1855, Tahiti seeming ineligible, they journeyed\nfurther west to Norfolk Island. Though there are more than four hundred\nand forty to the square mile in England and Wales, two hundred people of\nthis primitive sort had been certainly too many for the single square\nmile of Pitcairn Island; and they did not leave a moment too soon. Home\nsickness brought back two entire families (of seventeen persons) in\n1859. One or two stray travellers joined them five years afterwards;\nbut, with allowance for these, we find that the increase of population\non Pitcairn Island reaches the highest estimate of Malthus. When the\nEnglish Admiral D\u2019Horsey visited the place in 1878, the quarter of a\nhundred had grown in nineteen years, at the moderate cost of twelve\ndeaths, to a population of ninety[185] persons. The primeval virtues\nwill avail little without the modern arts.\n\nReturning to Malthus, we find him following an order of his own, in\nrough conformity with the orthodox progress from deer to sheep, and from\nsheep to corn. He takes us from Polynesian savages to the nomad pastoral\nnations of ancient Europe.[186] The vast migrations and their momentous\nhistorical effects he ascribes to the \u201cconstant tendency in the human\nrace to increase\u201d beyond its food, and thinks that when history has been\nrewritten it will contain more of this.[187] \u201cThe misfortune of history\nis, that while the particular motives of a few princes and leaders are\nsometimes detailed with accuracy, the general causes which crowd their\nstandards with willing followers are totally overlooked.\u201d[188] At first\nsight the phenomenon of civilized agricultural nations unable to repel\nthe invasion of shepherds seems incredible; a country in pasture cannot\npossibly support so many inhabitants as a country in tillage. A\nshepherd, it is true, is nearer to the skilled labourer than a hunter;\nhe does not simply take what nature gives him, where nature puts it; he\nkeeps the desired objects of consumption under his own control, and his\nlife is stronger because more social. Early African colonization, as\nAdam Smith pointed out, was less successful than early American, because\nthe natives, being shepherds and even farmers rather than fishermen,\nwere stronger in their resources and more united than the American\naborigines, so that the European intruders were not able to displace\nthem.[189] We should have expected the Scythian, Cimbrian, and Gothic\ninvaders of ancient times to have had a similar rebuff. \u201cBut what\nrenders nations of shepherds so formidable is the power which they\npossess of moving altogether, and the necessity they frequently feel of\nexerting this power in search of fresh pasture for their herds.\u201d[190]\nThey have always in their breeding stock a reserve of food for an\nemergency. The mere consciousness that their mode of life does not bind\nthem to one place gives them less anxiety about providing for a family.\nTherefore, when they exhaust one region and begin to feel the pinch of\nwant, they make an armed emigration on the scale of whole tribes at\nonce, for the occupation of more fruitful regions, and, as a rule, the\nconquest of them by force. The law of their life is a series of\nperiodical \u201cstruggles for existence\u201d[191] between one nation and\nanother, in which the fittest survive at the cost of a prodigious waste\nof human life.\n\nThe milder initial stage of this process is illustrated by the\nseparation of Abram and Lot in the book of Genesis.[192] Abram \u201cwas very\nrich in cattle.\u201d \u201cLot also had flocks and herds and tents. And the land\nwas not able to bear them that they might dwell together, for their\nsubstance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there\nwas a strife between the herdmen of Abram\u2019s cattle and the herdmen of\nLot\u2019s cattle.\u201d They agreed, therefore, to separate, Lot choosing the\nfertile valley of the Jordan, Abram going to the left into the land of\nCanaan. Migrations of the same sort, more or less peaceable, are\ndescribed by modern writers as extending the Russian people from time to\ntime farther and farther to the south and east.[193] In the instances\nbest known to history the migrations were far from peaceable, and the\npuzzle has been to account for their recurrence. The slaughter of the\nGerman barbarians by Marius, C\u00e6sar, Drusus, Tiberius, Germanicus did not\nprevent the reappearance of similar hordes of invaders a generation\nlater. Claudius destroyed a quarter of a million of Goths; Aurelian and\nProbus had the same work to do again. Under Diocletian the barbarians,\nfinding the conquest of Rome too much for them, slaughtered one another\nin frontier wars. No losses seemed to exhaust the permanent\npossibilities of population in those quarters. At last in the fourth\ncentury \u201cclouds of barbarians seemed to collect from all parts of the\nnorthern hemisphere. Gathering fresh darkness and terror as they rolled\non, the congregated bodies at length obscured the sun of Italy and sunk\nthe Western world in night.\u201d[194]\n\nWhy were the resources of the North so inexhaustible? Simply because the\npower of increase is inexhaustible. The North was not, it is true, more\ndensely peopled then than now. \u201cThe climate of ancient Germany has been\nmollified and the soil fertilized by the labour of ten centuries from\nthe time of Charlemagne. The same extent of ground which at present\nmaintains in ease and plenty a million of husbandmen and artificers, was\nunable to supply a hundred thousand lazy warriors with the simple\nnecessaries of life. The Germans abandoned their immense forests to the\nexercise of hunting, employed in pasturage the most considerable part of\ntheir lands, bestowed on the small remainder a rude and careless\ncultivation, and then accused the scantiness and sterility of a country\nthat refused to maintain the multitude of its inhabitants. When the\nreturn of famine severely admonished them of the importance of the arts,\nthe national distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration of a\nthird, perhaps, or a fourth part of their youth.\u201d[195] In short, the\ncountries were more than fully peopled up to their actual produce; and,\nthough by agriculture the actual produce would have been made greater,\nyet agriculture was not extended. The passion of the Germans for wine\ndid not lead them to plant vineyards by the Rhine and Danube, but to rob\nthe vintage of Italy. \u201cPigrum quin immo et iners videtur sudore\nacquirere quod possis sanguine parare.\u201d[196] Malthus supposes that even\nthe Mark system of land-holding, with its absence of cities and its\nperiodical redistributions of land, may have sprung from a political\nmotive, the fear of accustoming the people to a settled agricultural\nlife, and the desire to make emigration less irksome to them.[197] So\nlong as there were weaker peoples to be plundered, the northern nations\nmight freely double their numbers every twenty-five years, or oftener,\nand descend again on Italy and the South. Only when the whole was\noccupied by their own people who were not likely to be less stout for\ndefence than for conquest, were the hordes forced back. Not perhaps till\ngunpowder was invented was Europe finally safe against them. Long after\ntheir last inland invasions, the Norsemen found their way by sea to the\nshores of England and France.\n\nGibbon\u2019s account of the matter is, according to Malthus, substantially\ntrue. The only flaw is that he thinks it necessary, in denying the\ngreater populousness of North Europe in ancient times, to deny the\npossibility of a rapid increase of population.[198] The German people\nwere on the whole virtuous and healthy in their manners of living, and,\nthe checks to increase being mainly the positive ones of war and famine,\nthe increase itself was prodigious. But Gibbon is greatly in advance of\nMontesquieu, who believes with Sir William Temple, Mariana, and\nMachiavelli, that the northern countries were, as a matter of fact, more\ndensely peopled then than they are now, and that, further, when the\nRomans repelled them, a huge multitude was driven far north and remained\nthere biding its time. The same (says Montesquieu) happened under\nCharlemagne, and would happen again if a modern prince were to make the\nsame ravages in Europe; \u201cthe nations repulsed to the north, backed\nagainst the limits of the universe, would there make a firm stand, till\nthe moment when they would inundate and conquer Europe a third\ntime.\u201d[199] We are to suppose these immense multitudes living \u201cat the\nlimits of the universe\u201d on ice and air for some hundreds of years. If\nthis is to answer to the question-begging question, why the North is\nless fully peopled than it once was, it involves a miracle. But nothing\nmore supernatural than ordinary laws is really needed to explain the\nmovements of pastoral nations a thousand years ago. They are the same\nthat govern the Tartars and Bedouins now.[200]\n\nIn the modern nomads,[201] it is true, the comparative simplicity of the\ncircumstances and the comparative thoroughness of our knowledge about\nthem, enable us to see plainly that the local distribution of the people\nis in strict accordance with the local distribution of the food, in\nother words, with \u201cthe quantity of food the people can obtain in the\nactual state of their industry and habits.\u201d We should see the same thing\nof the rest of the world\u2019s inhabitants, if the complicated commerce of\ncivilized nations did not make it less gross and palpable. The power of\nthe earth to support life may be compared with the power of a horse to\ncarry burdens. He is strong in proportion to the strength of his weakest\npart, as a chain to the strength of its weakest link; and the earth\u2019s\npowers of nourishment are great in proportion to their greatness in the\nworst seasons of the year.[202] Again, owing to imperfect facilities for\ndistribution, one part of a society may suffer want when another is in\nplenty.[203] Among the Tartars and the Arabs this is plainly seen; and\nit is clear, too, how the waste of life from war not only acts as a\ndirect check on population, but checks it indirectly by repressing\nproductive industry. Its fruits would have no chance of preservation.\n\u201cEven the construction of a well requires some funds or labour in\nadvance, and war may destroy in one day the work of many months and the\nresources of a whole year.\u201d[204] When once warlike habits have become\nfixed, the two evils, war and scarcity, reproduce and perpetuate one\nanother. The encouragements held out to large families by the Mohammedan\nreligion have a like effect. \u201cThe promise of Paradise to every man who\nhad ten children would but little increase their numbers, though it\nmight greatly increase their misery.\u201d[205] It could only increase their\nnumbers if it increased their food, and it could not increase their food\nwithout changing their warlike habits into habits of industry. Failing\nthis, it simply creates a constant uneasiness (through want and poverty)\nthat multiplies occasions of war. Fortunately for himself, the Arab\noften proportions his religious obedience to the extent of his\nresources,[206] and in hard times, \u201cwhen there is a pig at hand and no\nKoran,\u201d he thinks best to eat what God has given him.\n\nNothing but increase of food will permanently increase population, and\nwhere there is food the increase will reach up to it. In those parts of\nAfrica that have furnished the Western slave supplies, there has been no\ndiscernible gap from the \u201chundred years\u2019 exportation of negroes which\nhas blackened half America.\u201d[207] Even in Egypt, where there is a\nstriking contrast between natural fertility and human lethargy, the\ncause is not any deficiency in the principle of increase. It is that\nproperty is insecure, the government being despotic and its exactions\nindefinite. It is not the want of population that has checked industry,\nbut the want of industry that has checked population; and it is bad\ngovernment that has occasioned the want of industry. \u201cIgnorance and\ndespotism seem to have no tendency to destroy the passion which prompts\nto increase, but they effectually destroy the checks to it from reason\nand forethought.... Industry cannot exist without foresight and\nsecurity; the indolence of the savage is well known, and the poor\nEgyptian or Abyssinian farmer without capital, who rents land which is\nlet out yearly to the highest bidder, and who is constantly subject to\nthe demands of his tyrannical masters, to the casual plunder of an\nenemy, and not unfrequently to the violation of his miserable contract,\ncan have no heart to be industrious, and, if he had, could not exercise\nthat industry with success. Even poverty itself, which appears to be the\ngreat spur to industry, when it has once passed certain limits almost\nceases to operate. The indigence which is hopeless destroys all vigorous\nexertion, and confines the efforts to what is sufficient for bare\nexistence.[208] It is the hope of bettering our condition, and the fear\nof want rather than want itself, that is the best stimulus to industry;\nand its most constant and best directed efforts will almost invariably\nbe found among a class of people above the class of the wretchedly\npoor.\u201d[209] This passage repeats an idea expressed in every book of the\nessay.[210] Government can retard the increase of population both\ndirectly and indirectly, but can only advance it indirectly, namely, by\nencouraging industry, more especially agriculture. For example,\nindustrious agriculture has made China capable of bearing a great\npopulation, though other causes of a more equivocal character have made\nit exceed its great capacities, and its excessive numbers are cut down\nby famine and child murder.[211] The Roman emperors found it impossible\nby legislation to promote the increase of the old Roman stock, because\nthey found it impossible to restore the old Roman habits of industry,\nthough believers in the superior populousness of ancient nations used to\nmistake their intentions for accomplished facts.\n\nIn the eighteenth-century dispute about the populousness of ancient\nnations (one particular skirmish in the general battle of the books) we\nhave seen that Malthus declares for the moderns. He gives his opinion in\ndetached passages; but, putting together the different parts wherever we\ncan find them, we discover his proof to depend on two principles, which\nare corollaries of the primary doctrine of the essay. The first is, that\nwithout the extension of agriculture or the better distribution of its\nfruits there can be no increase of population;[212] the second is, that\nwhatever is unfavourable to industry is to that extent unfavourable to\npopulation.[213]\n\nNow in the early days of Greece and Rome[214] the population ought on\nthese principles to have been a large one, for not only was agriculture\nactively prosecuted, but property and wealth were more equally divided\namong the people than in later times. On the other hand, the numbers\nwere always up to the level of the resources; and the smallness of the\npolitical divisions made law-givers like Solon, and theorists like Plato\nand Aristotle, conscious of the risk of over-population and full of\nplans to provide against it. It is one of Aristotle\u2019s criticisms of\nPlato\u2019s Republic that Plato has not sufficiently met this difficulty, or\nrealized that a community of goods or an equal distribution of property\nis impossible without a limitation of families. If every one may have as\nmany children as he pleases, the result will soon be poverty and\nsedition. Of the preventive checks actually recommended by the highest\nwisdom of the Greek world, the mildest is late marriages; the rest\ninclude exposure and abortion. Colonization was rather adopted in\npractice than recommended in theory. Frequent wars and occasional\nplagues were the chief positive checks.\n\nIn Rome even more evidently than in Greece[215] the causes that produced\ninequality of property led also to thinness of population. In our own\ndays the absorption of small proprietors by large would have this effect\nin a less degree, because the large would need to employ the labour of\nthe small. In Rome the labour was done by slaves; and the wonder was not\nthat the number of free citizens should decrease, but that any should\nexist at all, except the proprietors.[216]\n\nYet the legislation of Augustus in favour of marriage, and the universal\nlamentation of the later Roman writers over the extinction of the old\nRoman stock, are no more than a presumption that the population was\ndecreasing, not a proof of its actual smallness, while the prevalence of\nwar and infanticide, so often used to prove the same point, tend really\nto do the opposite. They are for the time positive encouragements to\nmarriage, for people will not hesitate to bring children into the world,\nif they are either free to kill off the superfluous or certain to find\nsad vacancies ready for them.[217] In the former case, as we noticed,\nparental feeling will often interfere with the infanticide, and save\nrather too many than too few.[218] Wars, on the other hand, may injure\nthe quality of the population by removing the most stalwart and even the\nmost intelligent men; but there is as much food as before, there is more\nroom, and there are therefore more marriages, till all the gaps are\nfilled, even to overflowing.[219] Livy need not have wondered that in\nthe Volscian wars the more were killed the more seemed to come on. The\nlike is true of plague and famine; epidemics, like the small-pox, have\nnever permanently lessened the population, though they have increased\nthe mortality of the infected countries.[220] To take only one instance\n(from S\u00fcssmilch)\u2014a third of the people in Prussia and Lithuania were\ndestroyed by the plague in 1710, and in 1711 the number of marriages was\nvery nearly double the average.[221] Emigration in like manner may drain\noff the best blood of a nation, but cannot reduce its numbers for any\nlength of time, unless the nation is learning a new standard of comfort.\nGreece and Rome were not less populous because they were great\ncolonizers.[222] The known existence of a number of very active checks\nto population, instead of proving that the population was absolutely\nsmall, might more naturally, other things being equal, prove it to have\nbeen absolutely large. It might be argued that, if the population had\nnot been great, fewer and less potent checks would have done the\nwork.[223]\n\nBut other things were not equal. We know that the gratuitous\ndistribution of foreign corn had ruined Roman husbandry.[224] We know\nthat even the labour of the slaves who had supplanted the free labourers\nof Italy had not been sufficiently (or sufficiently well) directed to\nagriculture. Moreover, the increase by marriage in the number of slaves\ndid not even balance the decrease in the number of the free men; else\nwhy should the Romans need to import fresh cargoes of slaves every year\nfrom all parts of the world?[225]\n\nIn short, the Roman habits had become \u201cunfavourable to industry, and\ntherefore to population.\u201d The very necessity for such a law as the Papia\nPopp\u00e6a would indicate a moral depravity inconsistent with habits of\nindustry. This strong argument had escaped even Hume, who thought that\nthe people would increase very fast under the Peace of Trajan and the\nAntonines, forgetting that the people could not unlearn their habits in\nso short a time; unlearning is harder than learning, especially for a\nwhole people; and, \u201cif wars do not depopulate much when industry is in\nvigour, peace does not increase population much when industry is\nlanguishing.\u201d[226] Contrariwise, it might be argued that the prevention\nof child-murder in India will not cause over-population, when it is part\nof a general policy accustoming the people to European habits.\n\nAllow, then, that general viciousness is inconsistent with general\nindustry, and it follows that those ancient nations in which the first\nprevailed were less populous than the modern. This seems to be the\nargument of Malthus brought to a focus. From the absence of\ncensuses,[227] it is strictly deductive; there _could_ not have been so\nmany people as now, and therefore there _were_ not.[228]\n\nExpressed in more technical language, the meaning is, that where there\nis nothing present but the positive check and the lower kind of\npreventive, the habits of the people are necessarily such as to hinder\nan increase of food and thereby of population. When Europe was less\ncivilized, it was not more, but less thickly peopled.[229]\n\nThis argument seems to be weakened by one consideration\u2014that the poor in\nour day put more into their idea of necessaries; they have a higher\nstandard of living than the poor 2000 years ago. It might therefore be\nsaid with justice that over-population (a peopling beyond the food)\nbegins much sooner with us than with them, for it begins at a point much\nfarther removed from starvation, and that therefore with the ancients a\ngiven amount of food would go farther and feed more. But, if we look\nonly to the poor in each case, the difference between the ancient\nstandard of comfort and the modern is unhappily much smaller than the\ndifference between their meagre industrial resources and our ample ones,\nfor our powers of production have grown far more rapidly than the\ncomfort of our labouring population. Such difference as there is in the\nstandards is only made possible by moral restraint, which has a closer\naffinity with modern civilization than with ancient or medi\u00e6val.[230]\nThe history of modern civilization is largely the history of the gradual\nvictory of the third check over the two others; and, as one of the chief\nallies of the third has been commercial ambition, the victory of moral\nrestraint, by causing a larger industry, has caused in the end not a\nsmaller, but a larger population.[231] The increase by being deferred\nhas been made only the more certain and permanent.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V.\n                         NORTH AND MID EUROPE.\n\n  Different Effects of Commercial Ambition in different Countries\u2014No\n    single safe Criterion of National Prosperity\u2014S\u00fcssmilch\u2019s \u201cDivine\n    Plan\u201d\u2014Malthus in the Region of Statistics\u2014His Northern Tour\u2014In\n    Norway the truth brought home by the very nature of Place and\n    Industries\u2014In Sweden less obvious\u2014In Russia quite ignored\u2014Foundling\n    Hospitals indefensible\u2014Tendency of People to multiply beyond, up to,\n    or simply with the Food\u2014Author tripping\u2014Facts the Interpreters and\n    the Interpreted\u2014Holland\u2014The best _pater patri\u00e6_\u2014Emigration in\n    various Aspects\u2014Evidence of the Author before Emigration\n    Committee\u2014Switzerland, St. Cergues and Leysin\u2014The _pons asinorum_ of\n    the subject.\n\n\nThe broad difference between a savage and a civilized population is,\nthat the positive checks prevail in the one, the preventive in the\nother,\u2014and between ancient and modern civilizations, that vice and\nmisery prevail in the one, moral restraint in the other.[232] Yet every\ncivilized nation in modern times has not only passed through these three\nstages in the course of its past history, but contains them all within\nit now as a matter of observation. Its early history was an endeavour\nafter independence or bare life, its later history an endeavour after\nfull development; but there are strata in it to which civilization has\nnot descended, and in which the struggle for bare existence prevails,\nalongside of strata in which the struggle is towards ideals of\ncommercial ambition and social perfection.\n\nThe view which Malthus takes of commercial ambition is substantially\nthat of Adam Smith. As soon as commerce is separated from slavery, as\nsoon as wealth is a man\u2019s own acquisition, got by the sweat of his own\nbrow, then the desire of wealth has a new social aspect. It becomes what\nAdam Smith calls \u201cthe natural desire of every man to better his own\ncondition;\u201d and as such it creates modern commercial society, as opposed\nboth to the ancient society built upon slavery, and to the feudal built\nupon war.\n\nThis _vis mediatrix reipublic\u00e6_, the desire of rising in the world, so\nglorified in the _Wealth of Nations_[233] and in the _Essay on\nPopulation_,[234] is really not easy to define. It is a very composite\nmotive; and the same differences of race (whatever their origin), which\nlead to differences of intellect and language also affect a nation\u2019s\nstandard of comfort, as soon as it can be said to have one. By the\ninfluence of good climate and much intercourse with foreigners, along\nwith advantages of upbringing, and perhaps of race, a nation of Southern\nEurope comes to put into its notion of happiness a great many more\nelements than a northern nation, which has to hew its model out of much\npoorer materials. The Norwegian standard will be simpler than the\nParisian. But there is more behind. The question is not simply one of\nlike and unlike elements, or of many and few elements, but of the\ntreatment of them by the human subject. The English notion of comfort\ndiffers from the French in its elements, which are probably more in\nnumber as well as other in quality, and have a third peculiarity quite\ndistinct from the other two, their effect on the habits of the persons\nconcerned.\n\nFrench writers have noticed that the English farmer works hard for such\nan income as will give him the innumerable little luxuries of toilet,\ndinner-table, and drawing-room, that make up the English idea of\ncomfort, while the French farmer works hard that he may be able to buy\nanother farm.[235] The one lives up to his income; and in his efforts to\npreserve it he is enterprising and persevering; he is always striving to\nrise to the class above him. The other, on the contrary, is more content\nwith his position in society; and simply wishes to make it stronger, by\ngaining more property. His willing privations in time of plenty are\nrewarded by his secure provision in time of want; he has always his land\nto sell.\n\nBoth are moved by the civilizing \u201cdesire to better one\u2019s own condition\u201d;\nbut it leads in the one case to simple saving, the old stocking, the\npiece of land, or the _rentes_, in the other to active using, the\nsteam-plough first, that the piano and pony-carriage may follow\nafterwards. There is some truth in M. Taine\u2019s paradox, \u201cThe Englishman\nprovides for the future not by his savings but by his expenses.\u201d[236] If\ncapitalizing means using as well as saving, there is a sense in which\nthe French and English divide the two functions between them.\n\nThis is what prevents the economist from making any exact predictions\nabout the effect of the _vis mediatrix reipublic\u00e6_. He may, like Adam\nSmith, find it doing good work in the undermining of feudalism,[237] and\nhe may point out that at any rate it would make a better guide to the\nworld than military glory, which means unhappiness to one-half the\nworld, and a very mingled happiness to the other half. But he cannot\npredict its effect on men whose characters are unknown to him. He cannot\neven tell whether a man is wealthy or not, till he knows what his wants\nare, for wealth exists to satisfy wants, wants change with human\nprogress, the notion of wealth expands with civilization, and the\nluxuries of one age and one man are the necessaries of another. It is\nimpossible to treat this relative question as if its conditions were\nabsolute, and to deal with men as we would with figures on a slate. Two\nand two do not always make four in such a case, but sometimes five, and\nfrequently only three. A new vista of comfort spread before different\nmen may stimulate one, spoil another, and leave a third unmoved.\n\nIt is not surprising then that the question, \u201cBy what various modes is\npopulation kept to the level of the food in the states of modern\nEurope?\u201d is not a simple one. On some grounds it would seem\ncomparatively easy to get the answer. There are figures to be had, and\nin many cases a census; there is a general similarity of circumstances\nwhich produces a general similarity of habits, and, therewith, of the\nmovements of population. But there is no invariable order of mortality\nand generation. The rates of births and deaths are not the same for all\nnations; they depend on the conduct of human beings, and may differ not\nonly in different countries, but in different parts of the same country.\nIn the same way, we have no single statistical criterion of the healthy\nstate of a population, just as it might be said we have no single\ncriterion of the commercial prosperity of a country, still less of its\nhappiness. The two former stand to the last as the parts to the whole. A\nhealthy population and a prosperous trade are parts of the happiness of\na nation, though they do not constitute the whole of it. To ascertain\nwhether a nation is happy or not, we have to take into account these two\nparts of happiness along with many others. The parts in their turn\nconsist of many parts. We measure the state of trade not only by imports\nand exports, railway, banking and Clearing House returns, and the gains\nof the public revenue, but by subscriptions to churches, charities, and\nschools, by savings banks and benefit societies, sales of books,\npictures, and luxuries of all kinds, by the state of workmen\u2019s wages, by\nthe poor-law returns, by the number of marriages, emigrants, and\nrecruits for the army; and we could make little use of most of these\nfigures without the census returns and the reports of the Registrar\nGeneral. In the same way, to measure the healthiness of a population and\nascertain whether it is safely under the level of its food, tending to\npass beyond it, or simply rising up to it, and to ascertain by what ways\nand means the process is going on, we need instead of one single general\ncriterion a whole array of particular tests. It is in the infancy of\nstatistical science that men yield to appearances and \u201csuppose a greater\nuniformity in things than is actually found there.\u201d[238]\n\nThis was, for example, the failing of Johann Peter S\u00fcssmilch, one of the\nearliest inquirers into the movements of population. A book like\nS\u00fcssmilch\u2019s had the same relation to the _Essay on Population_ as\nastrology to astronomy, or alchemy to chemistry; it prepared the way for\nthe more accurate study. S\u00fcssmilch first published his researches in\n1761, while the Seven Years\u2019 War was still in progress. He dedicated it\nto Frederick the Great, as became a patriot and Church dignitary; and\nentitled it, _The Divine Plan in the Changes through which the Human\nRace passes in Birth, Death, and Marriage_. The Divine plan is the one\nset forth in the exhortation to Noah in Genesis\u2014the peopling of the\nearth;[239] and the book tries to show the particular arrangements by\nwhich the plan is carried out. One condition is, he says, that fertility\nbe greater than mortality; the births must exceed the deaths. On an\naverage at present each marriage produces four children; and \u201cthe\npresent law of death\u201d is on an average, taking town and country\ntogether, 1 in 36; out of 36 men now living, 1 must die every year. In\nthe country it is from 1 in 40 to 1 in 45; in the town, from 1 in 38 to\n1 in 32. There is a yearly excess of births represented by 1 in 10 and 5\nin 10. The increase must have been faster at first than it is now; and\nthe means God took to effect His end in each case was the lengthening\nand shortening of human life. In the times of Methuselah there must have\nbeen a very different law of mortality, perhaps one death in a hundred;\nthe length of life was greater; and probably the power of parentage\nlasted longer. The average number of children might be about twenty in a\nfamily instead of four; and the doubling of population would take place\nin ten or twenty years, instead of as now in seventy or eighty.\nAntediluvians were long-lived because their long lives were needed for\nthe replenishment of the earth; and the extreme length was shortened so\nsoon as the time came when the same end could be reached in other ways.\nWhen we observe the remarkable adaptiveness of man which enables him\nalone among the creatures[240] to live in any latitude, and when we\nobserve how he has been preserved while many animals have become\nextinct, we need have no doubt that the replenishment of the earth was\nreally the Divine purpose. It is remarkable too that, though more sons\nare born than daughters, death equalizes their numbers before mature\nlife. The \u201csystem\u201d which prevails in the increase of man is like the\nmarch of a military regiment, in which all the men have their places,\nactions, and accoutrements determined for them. The proportion of sons\nto daughters, and deaths to births, S\u00fcssmilch regards as a tolerably\nfixed one; the discovery of unexpected uniformities overjoys him\ngreatly, and he regards the man who first used the London bill of\nmortality to detect these uniformities as a sort of statistical\nColumbus. In short, his book is an economical Th\u00e9odic\u00e9e, a long piece of\npious deductive reasoning; and it is curious to find Germany producing\ntwo such optimistic books at a time when it was even further from the\nmillennium than its neighbours.\n\nThe facts of S\u00fcssmilch, ill-sifted as they were, gave Malthus a much\nfirmer ground of reasoning than the scanty patches of evidence about the\npopulation of ancient and barbarous nations. He is at last in the region\nof statistics as opposed to conjecture, and in the region of the\npersonal observation and travel of men who were at least asking his own\nquestions. But the fate of the bills of mortality and other records, in\nthe hands of Price and Wallace, to say nothing of Petty and S\u00fcssmilch,\nshows how important was Malthus\u2019 work as an interpreter of statistics.\nStatistics were a novelty in his day. As Adam Smith wrote on the _Wealth\nof Nations_ without any full statistics of the wealth, and none at all\nof the population, of his own country, Malthus wrote his first essay\nwhen there was no census; and, for some time afterwards, so\ncomparatively isolated were the nations of Europe, that to be at all\ncertain of his facts, an author needed to verify and collect them by\njourneying in person, and seeing the scenes with his own eyes. This\nessential work of an investigator Malthus did not leave undone; and his\nchapters on the state of population in modern European nations are to a\nlarge extent a record of his own observations. He went for a summer trip\nin 1799 with three college friends, Dr. Edward Clarke, Mr. Cripps, and\nMr. Otter, afterwards Bishop of Chichester. They went by Hamburg to\nSweden, and there the party broke up into two, Clarke and his pupil\nCripps going farther north, Otter and Malthus going on through Norway to\nvisit Finland and St. Petersburg.[241] These were the only European\ncountries where English travellers could easily make their way in those\nyears.[242] In 1802 he saw France and Switzerland,[243] but seems not to\nhave left the kingdom again till 1825, when the journey was taken for\nthe sake of his wife\u2019s health, on the death of one of his children, and\nhe was little in the mood for investigations. The tours of 1799 and 1802\nare the only ones that have left substantial traces on his economical\nwork.[244]\n\nIn all his travels he found the foreigner as ignorant as the Englishman\non the subject of population. Only twice did he hear the truth expounded\nto him; in Norway during his first tour, and in Switzerland during his\nsecond. In the latter case the enlightenment was confined to one\nindividual; but in the former the whole nation was wise. While the\nSwedish Government was continually crying for more people, and trying to\n\u201cencourage population,\u201d the Norwegian Government and people seemed to\nhave understood that the first question must be, \u201cAre there means to\nfeed more people?\u201d If not, then we multiply the nation without\nincreasing the joy. Of course there are cases where we might thin down\nthe nation and still less increase the joy. Mere scantiness of numbers\nis no advantage to a nation, any more than fewness of wants to an\nindividual; it may mean a low state of civilization, in both cases. It\nis not by any means so good for a country to be wasted by a pestilence\nas to be opened up by a new trade. The denser the population, the\nbetter;\u2014so says Malthus himself;\u2014but, he adds, let it be a population of\nstrong, comfortable citizens, or let us stand by the small numbers and\nthe slow increase.\n\nLook now at Norway.[245] If we were dealing with uncivilized times under\nthe reign of positive checks, we should expect an overflowing\npopulation, a large body of poor, and in times of scarcity a great deal\nof distress. There had been no wars for half a century, the cold climate\nkept away epidemics, and what else was left but famine to keep down the\npopulation to the limits of the food? Vice was not taken into the\nservice, and emigration was seldom practised then in these regions. But\nMalthus visited the country in one of the hardest years ever known in\nEurope, 1799, and found the Norwegians \u201cwearing a face of plenty and\ncontent, while their neighbours the Swedes appeared to be\nstarving.\u201d[246] He found the death-rate lower in Norway than in any\ncountry in Europe.[247] The population, however, was hardly increasing\nat all; and the proportion of marriages to the whole numbers of the\npeople was smaller than in any country except Switzerland.[248] The\npositive check was largely superseded by the preventive. The virtue of\nforesight, he says, is elsewhere forced upon the upper classes by the\nsmallness of their circle and the fewness of openings in business or\nprofessions; in Norway it is forced upon all classes alike by the\nevident smallness of the country\u2019s resources, and by the peculiarities\nof the national industry. There is almost no variety of occupation or\ndivision of labour. The humbler classes are almost all \u201chousemen\u201d\n(_husm\u00e4nd_), labourers, who receive from a farmer in quasi-feudal\nfashion a small house and a little piece of land in return for\noccasional labour on his fields. In other countries men may easily fall\ninto the fallacy of crediting the whole of the land with a greater power\nof supporting people than the power possessed by the sum of its parts.\nIn the great towns of Central Europe a man has perhaps some excuse for\ntrusting to the chapter of accidents; in the great variety of\noccupations he may have some excuse for thinking there will surely be a\nvacancy for him, and he may \u201ce\u2019en take Peggie.\u201d Norway, however, is to\nmanufacturing countries what the country districts elsewhere are to the\ntowns elsewhere. In the country districts an excess of population cannot\nbe hidden, and the superfluities must go to the towns. Those who marry,\ntherefore, when there is no vacancy for them, do so with the\nalternatives of poverty or migration clearly before their eyes. In\nNorway every peasant, not to say every farmer, knows quite certainly\nwhether there is an opening for him or not, and, if there is not, he\ncannot marry.[249]\n\nThe conditions of the problem were in this way simplified, and the\nproblem itself was satisfactorily answered. The only districts where\nMalthus saw signs of poverty were on the coast, where the people live by\nfishing; the openings for a fisherman are not so distinctly limited in\ntheir numbers as the openings for a farmer.\n\nTime has united Norway and Sweden under one king (1814), and Sweden now\npresents no unfavourable contrast with Norway. Even in 1825 Malthus\nwrote[250] that the progress of agriculture and industry, and the\npractice of vaccination, had caused a steady and healthful increase of\npopulation since 1805. He would be pleased to find too by the census\nthat the population of Norway had increased very greatly in proportion\nto its poor. The improvement continues. The paupers were about one per\ncent. of the population in 1869 (when they were nearly five per cent. in\nEngland), which seems to have meant a decrease from previous years;[251]\nbut between 1865 and 1875 the population had increased fourteen per\ncent. in spite of considerable emigration.[252] Malthus would have\nrecognized with satisfaction that the nation had been \u201ceither increasing\nthe quantity or facilitating the distribution\u201d of its food,[253] that is\nto say, improving either its agriculture or its manufactures. It has\nreally done both. Though the growth of the population has been greater\nin the centres of manufacture, there has been progress also in the\ncountry districts. Many of the old customs and laws that hampered\nagriculture have ceased to exist.[254] Malthus himself says that, if\nGovernment would remove hindrances to agriculture, and spread sound\nknowledge about it, it would do more for the population of the country\nthan by establishing five hundred foundling hospitals.[255] He need not\nhave confined his recommendation to agriculture; and elsewhere he states\nthe truth in broader terms: \u201cThe true encouragement to marriage is the\nhigh price of labour, and an increase of employments which require to be\nsupplied with proper hands.\u201d[256] Remove hindrances to trade and spread\nsound knowledge of it\u2014that (in his view) is the way to increase the\nquantity and facilitate the distribution of the products of agriculture;\nand, to judge by results, the Norwegian Government has followed it.\n\nSweden,[257] as it then was, furnished a striking contrast to Norway.\nMalthus had the advantage there of the earliest and most regular of\nEuropean censuses, beginning with the year 1748, and continued at\nintervals first of three and then of five years. He found that there was\na large mortality, though the conditions of life were superficially the\nsame as in Norway. The only explanation he could see was that the size\nand shape of the country, as well as its mode of government, did not so\nforcibly bring home to the people the need of restraint as in Norway,\nwhile at the same time the hindrances to good farming were even more\nserious than in the smaller country. From the very contiguity and\ngeneral similarity of the two countries, they proved Malthus\u2019 point, by\nthe Method of Difference, almost as well as a deliberate experiment\ncould have done. It was not that Norway had an absolutely small and\nSweden an absolutely large population; considerations of absolute\ngreatness or smallness never enter into this, if into any, economical\nquestion. But Norway had a moderately large population in proportion to\nher food, while Sweden had in the same regard an excessive population, a\npopulation which was sparely fed even in average years, and decimated by\nfamine and disease in years below the average.\n\nRussia,[258] which was the third scene of Malthus\u2019 travels, had this in\ncommon with Norway and Sweden, that the movement of its population was\nunlike that of Central Europe, and that the eccentricity was due to a\nclearly definable cause. In Norway the shape and climate of the country\nand the fewness of the available occupations forced the Government and\nthe people to restrain rather than to encourage the increase of numbers;\nin Sweden, under conditions less simple, the habits of the people\nconspired with a false policy of the Government to produce an excessive\nincrease. In both cases we have something different from the typical\nmodern society of Central Europe, with its full division of labour, its\nsystem of large factories, and its extensive substitution of machinery\nfor hand labour. Russia was as old-fashioned as Norway and Sweden in\nthis respect; and her physical vastness made her a difficult country to\nknow, in these days of slow communication. It is not surprising that the\nstatistics available in the days of Malthus were open to grave\nsuspicion. The death-rate was given as 1 in 60, while in Norway itself\nit had not been lower than 1 in 48, and it is about 1 in 53 in England\nnow, yet the number of marriages and of births and the size of families\nwere no smaller than elsewhere.[259] These facts by themselves would\nsimply suggest a great rate of increase going on in the country\nconcerned; and Malthus allows that there is great scope for such in\nRussia. But there was one other fact that strengthened his doubts about\nthe vital statistics of that country; contrary to the experience of all\nother countries, it was said that in Russia more women were born than\nmen. In others, more men are born than women, and the numbers are only\nequalized gradually, by the greater risks of masculine life, as the\nyears go on. In Sweden, with a climate not milder than Russia, this had\nlong been observed.[260] It turned out on inquiry that the Russian\nmethod of registration allowed loopholes for more omissions in the\ndeaths than in the births. Public institutions, including hospitals and\nprisons, had been left out of account; and the deaths in the foundling\nhospitals were alone quite sufficient to alter the average very\nsignificantly for the worse. Malthus\u2019 hatred of Foundling hospitals is\nonly equalled by his dislike of Poor laws. The idea of such institutions\nwas, like that of Pitt\u2019s Poor Bill, purely philanthropic. They were \u201cto\nenrich the country from year to year with an increasing number of\nhealthy, active, and industrious burghers,\u201d[261] that would otherwise be\ndoomed to death soon after birth. It used to be said of the bounty,\ngranted by the Government of India, on slaughtered snakes, that it\nreally kept up the supply, for the natives bred them to catch the\nbounty. The foundling hospitals had an opposite effect. They were meant\nto multiply and they tended to destroy. They encouraged a mother to\ndesert her child at the precise time it needed the minute and careful\nattention that only a mother can give. \u201cIt is not to be doubted that, if\nthe children received into these hospitals had been left to the\nmanagement of their parents, taking the chance of all the difficulties\nin which they might be involved, a much greater proportion of them would\nhave reached the age of manhood and have become useful members of the\nstate.\u201d[262] But, besides increasing the mortality of children, they\ninjure the very \u201cmainspring of population\u201d[263] by discouraging marriage\nand encouraging irregularities. In his talks with his father, Malthus\nhad no doubt discussed the propriety of Rousseau\u2019s conduct in sending\nhis children to the Paris Foundling Hospital. He would certainly have\ndeclared against Rousseau. To those who argue that the foundling basket\nmay prevent child-murder, he answers that an occasional murder from\n\u201cfalse [?] shame\u201d is saved at a very dear price by the violation of \u201cthe\nbest and most useful feelings of the human heart,\u201d which the existence\nof such an institution teaches to the poor. To relieve parents of the\ncare of their children is bad for the parents,[264] because it takes\naway from them a responsibility essential to full citizenship and\ncivilizing in its effects on human character;\u2014and it is unjust to their\nfellow-citizens, because, like the Poor Laws, it relieves one portion of\nsociety (in this case rather the worst than the poorest) at the expense\nof all the rest, and finds a career for pauper apprentices to the\nprejudice of independent workmen and their children.[265] In the third\nplace, like the Poor Laws, it promises an impossibility\u2014to relieve all\nthat come. If children are to be received without limit, the resources\nfor maintaining them should be without limit; otherwise an excessive\nmortality is quite unavoidable.[266] The second reason is no doubt an\neconomical commonplace; it is the first and third that are most\ncharacteristic of Malthus. He never forgets that human wants and human\nwills are an element in every economical phenomenon, and therefore\nconsiders that the effects of character on actions and of actions on\ncharacter are of great economical importance. He will not allow that it\ncan be right, even for a Government, to make promises that cannot be\nperformed. These two plain principles give the tone to the later\nchapters, where he interprets for us the comparatively full statistics\nof Central Europe and our own England.[267]\n\nThe law of population may be described (though not in the exact words of\nMalthus) as among savage peoples the tendency to increase beyond the\nfood, and among civilized to increase up to it. So Professor Rogers\nfounds his estimate of the numbers of the English people in the\nthirteenth and fourteenth centuries on the principle that \u201cthere were\ngenerally as many people existing in this country as there have been, on\nan average, quarters of wheat to feed them with.\u201d[268]\n\nIn the case of highly progressive modern nations such statements would\nbe beyond the truth; and we must either say that they tend to increase\nnot beyond but along with the food, or else we must define food itself\nvery widely. In the first case \u201ctendency\u201d will mean the abstract\npossibility depending on the one physiological condition; in the others\nit is the concrete nett possibility depending on all the various\nconditions together. In a general preface to his chapters on Central\nEurope, Malthus quite recognizes these distinctions and warns us against\nexact statements. \u201cIt seldom happens,\u201d he says, \u201cthat the increase of\nfood and of population is uniform; and when the circumstances of a\ncountry are varying either from this cause or from any change in the\nnational habits with respect to prudence and cleanliness, it is evident\nthat a proportion which is true at one period will not be at another.\nNothing is more difficult than to lay down rules on this subject that do\nnot admit of exceptions.\u201d[269]\n\nAfter this it is hard to believe what he tells us elsewhere, that \u201cthe\nonly criterion of a real and permanent increase in the population of any\ncountry is the increase of the means of subsistence.\u201d[270] It would be\nat best a negative criterion and _sine qu\u00e2 non_,\u2014there can be no\nincrease of numbers without increase of food,\u2014though even then it is not\ntrue of a \u201cforced population,\u201d living down to a lower food.[271] But\nthere clearly may be an increase of food without an increase of numbers,\nunless the character of the people is such that they do nothing with the\nfood except increase by it. Therefore, though, within certain wide\nlimits fixed for us by invariable qualities of human nature, predictions\nare justifiable on the ground of the law of population[272] or any other\neconomical laws, none that specify a particular course of action as a\nresult of a particular event are trustworthy, till we know the character\nof the people concerned.[273] Malthus always tries to bear this in mind;\nand, when he tells us that the lists of births, marriages, and deaths in\nMid Europe give more information about its internal economy than the\nobservations of the wisest travellers,[274] he is at once interpreting\nthose figures in the light of a principle, and interpreting the\nprinciple by means of the figures. This appears when we look at the four\nchief conclusions of the general chapter in question. The first is the\nproposition that in the present state of our industrial civilization the\nmarriages depend very closely on the deaths, and the births on the\nmarriages.[275] Montesquieu says that wherever there is room for two\npersons to live comfortably a marriage will certainly take place.[276]\nIn old countries experience is usually against any sure expectation of\nthe means of supporting a family; the place for a new marriage is only\nmade by the dissolution of an old. As a rule therefore the number of\nannual marriages is regulated by the number of annual deaths. \u201cDeath is\nthe most powerful of all the encouragements to marriage,\u201d[277] while on\nthe other hand the marriages are a frequent cause of the deaths. In\nalmost every country there is too great a frequency of marriages, which\ncauses as it were a forced mortality. Which of these two mutual\ninfluences is the more powerful depends on circumstances. In last\ncentury the proportion of annual marriages to inhabitants was in Holland\ngenerally as 1 in 107 or 108. But in twenty-two Dutch villages it was as\n1 in 64. S\u00fcssmilch explained this anomaly by the number of new trades in\nHolland and the new openings for workmen. Malthus would not have denied\nthis possibility, his startling paradox about death being only a\nparticular case of the general principle that \u201cthe high price of labour\nis the real encouragement to marriage.\u201d[278] But in this case the\nexplanation ought to have applied to all Holland if to any part of it.\nThe real reason came out when Malthus observed that the mortality, which\nwas as 1 in 36 in Holland generally, was as 1 in 22 in those villages.\nThe additional marriages did not really increase the population. They\nwere caused by the high number of deaths which provided openings for the\nliving; and the high number of deaths was caused by the unhealthiness of\nthe region and of its prevailing industries, which were manufacturing\nrather than agricultural. The choice in every large population is\nbetween having many lives which end soon, and few which last long.\nGreater healthiness in the conditions of life will result in the latter.\nWe find as a matter of fact that, where there has been the sanitary\nimprovement as well as simply the \u201creplenishment\u201d of an old country, the\nmarriage rate goes down at the expense of the death-rate, and there is\nan economy of human life and suffering.\n\nPutting the parts of his exposition together, we get something like a\ndeductive scheme of the growth of population in old countries under an\nindustrial revolution like that of the eighteenth century. The first\neffect of the discovery of new minerals, and even (with some\nqualifications) of the invention of new machines, is to provide new\nemployment for working men, and many new opportunities for marriage; the\nproportion of marriages therefore becomes at once greater without any\nalteration (from this cause at least) in the death-rate. But, when the\nfirst burst of progress has passed, and the succeeding improvement is\nnot by leaps and bounds, but at a uniform rate, then the proportion of\nmarriages will decrease, as the new situations are filled up and there\nis no more room for an increasing population. Once the country is really\n\u201cold\u201d in the sense of fully peopled and unprovided with new sources of\nemployment, then the marriages will be regulated principally by the\ndeaths, and (the habits of the people remaining the same) will bear much\nthe same proportion to each other at one time as at another. It is not,\nhowever, exactly the same proportion for all old countries, simply\nbecause the habits and standards of living are different, to say nothing\nof healthiness or unhealthiness of climate and occupation. For similar\nreasons it is not the same for towns as for country districts.[279] \u201cA\ngeneral measure of mortality for all countries taken together\u201d would be\nuseless if procurable; but it cannot be procured.[280]\n\nHabits, however, are sufficiently fixed to make us certain that \u201cany\n_direct_ encouragements to marriage must be accompanied by an increased\nmortality.\u201d[281] They spur a willing horse. Montesquieu and S\u00fcssmilch,\nalthough they both enlarge on the evils of over-population, still think\nit a statesman\u2019s duty to be, like Augustus and Trajan, the father of his\npeople by encouraging their marriages. But, if many marriages mean many\ndeaths, the princes or statesmen who should really succeed in this\npatriotic policy might more justly be called the destroyers than the\nfathers of their people.[282]\n\nIf Malthus had been asked how a prince could best become a real _pater\npatri\u00e6_, he would have named two or three ways. The prince might direct\nhis mind to the improvement of industry, especially of agriculture.[283]\nHe might circulate news and knowledge on these subjects;[284] or, as we\nshould say now, he might institute agricultural exhibitions, and regular\nagricultural statistics of home and foreign production. He would in this\nway increase the population by helping to increase the food.\n\nIn the second place, he might benefit trade everywhere by giving it the\nsecurity of good government and impartial justice, a peaceful foreign\npolicy and light taxation.\n\nIn the third place, he might, together with all these, encourage\nEmigration. Malthus devotes a special chapter of the essay to this\nsubject; and, though the chapter is in a later part of his work (Bk.\nIII. ch. iv.[285]), this seems the best place to touch on the subject.\nEmigration, he says, is, apart from political distinctions, the same\nthing as migration; and, if it is economically good for a man to go from\na poor land at his door to a rich in the next county, it cannot be\neconomically bad for him to go from a poor district of his own country\nto a rich across the sea. The mere length of the journey or the\ndifference of latitude does not affect the economical nature of the\nchange.\n\nEconomical motives, however, have come very late in all the great\nEuropean emigrations. It was not the desire of finding room for the\nover-crowded families at home, but desire of the metal gold, or else it\nwas the simple love of adventure, or ambition of conquest, that first\nsent the Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Dutch to the far East and far\nWest.[286] \u201cThese passions enabled the first adventurers to triumph\u201d\nover obstacles that would have deterred quiet industrial emigrants, \u201cbut\nin many instances in a way to make humanity shudder, and to defeat the\nvery end of emigration. Whatever may be the character of the Spanish\ninhabitants of Mexico and Peru at the present moment, we cannot read the\naccounts of the first conquests of these countries without feeling\nstrongly that the race destroyed was, in moral worth as well as numbers,\nsuperior to the race of their destroyers.\u201d The settlers that followed on\nthe heels of these pioneers, though they were more like real emigrants,\nwent unskilfully to work. They seemed to expect that \u201cthe moral and\nmechanical habits\u201d which suited the old country would suit the new,[287]\nand everything would go on as it did at home. At first therefore there\nwould be a redundant population[288] in the new country rather than in\nthe old, for, however great the possible produce of the colony, the\nactual produce would be less than the wants of the new-comers on their\nfirst arrival. To all this must be added the fact that, though\neconomically a far and a near place are alike, they are very different\nto the sentiments of men. Patriotism is no fault, and the breaking of\nhome ties is a real evil to the individuals, however beneficial the\nemigration may be to the nation. Men are slow to move, not only from the\nuncertain prospects of success, but from that _vis inerti\u00e6_ in man which\nis always counteracting the _vis mediatri\u00e6_ of commercial ambition. In\naddition, therefore, to the mere uneasiness of poverty and the desire of\ngetting a living, there is need of some spirit of enterprise, to make\nmen willing and successful emigrants.[289] Those who felt distress most\nwould often have been the most helpless in a new country; they needed\nleaders who were \u201curged by the spirit of avarice or enterprise, or of\nreligious or political discontent, or were furnished with means and\nsupport by Government;\u201d otherwise, \u201cwhatever degree of misery they might\nsuffer in their own country from the scarcity of subsistence, they would\nbe absolutely unable to take possession of any of those uncultivated\nregions of which there is such an extent on the earth.\u201d Emigration then\n(according to Malthus) is not likely to happen unless political\ndiscontent and extreme poverty have brought the emigrants to such a\nplight that it is better for their country as well as for themselves\nthat they should go. \u201cThere are no fears so totally ill-grounded as the\nfears of depopulation from emigration.\u201d[290] Emigration is not even a\ncure for an over-population; and is much recommended only because little\nadopted. Gaps made in the population of old countries are soon filled\nup; room found in the new is soon occupied. If emigration is proposed as\na means of securing an absolutely unrestricted increase of population by\nplacing old countries in the position of new colonies, the hope will be\nsoon and for ever cut off.[291]\n\nTowards the end of his life, Malthus had an opportunity of explaining\nhis views on this subject to an audience of statesmen. He appeared as a\nwitness before the Select Committee[292] of the House of Commons \u201cto\ninquire into the expediency of encouraging emigration from the United\nKingdom,\u201d and his influence is traceable in their Reports. They\nreported[293] that there had been in the United Kingdom a \u201credundant\npopulation,\u201d in Ireland agricultural, in Scotland and England\nmanufacturing; that one cause of it had been the unavoidable\ndisplacement of hand labour by machinery;[294] that meanwhile the\nBritish colonies in America, Africa, and Australia had few men and\nplenty of land, and that it would benefit the whole empire if parishes\ncould convert their probable or actual paupers into emigrants, always\nprovided that the remaining population could be induced not to grow so\nfast as to fill the whole gap thus created.[295] \u201cThe testimony\u201d (said\nthe Committee in their third Report[296]) \u201cwhich was uniformly given by\nthe practical witnesses has been confirmed in the most absolute manner\nby that of Mr. Malthus, and your Committee cannot but express their\nsatisfaction at finding that the experience of facts is thus\nstrengthened throughout by general reasoning and scientific principles.\u201d\nThey were more disposed than their witness himself to _a priori_\nreasoning, and in many of their leading questions he declined to follow\nthem.[297] But he agreed with their main conclusions, allowing that\nunder certain conditions it would be even a financial advantage to\nremove unemployed workmen to the colonies rather than suffer them to\nbecome paupers at home, and adding, that, if he was against the\nadmission of any legal claim to relief in ordinary cases of pauperism,\nstill more would he be against it when the pauper had before him the\nalternative of assisted emigration.[298] His own view of emigration had\nnot changed since he wrote in 1803. It was to him a partial remedy; and\nit is more useful when spontaneously adopted by the people[299] than\nwhen pressed on them by their Government. Under the torture of the\nquestion he conceded no more.[300]\n\nAs a temporary expedient, the essay tells us,[301] \u201cwith a view to the\nmore general cultivation of the earth and the wider extension of\ncivilization, it seems to be both useful and proper,\u201d and is to be\nencouraged, or at least not prevented, by Governments. All depends on\nthe rate of wages. If wages were high enough to enable people to live\nwith what they counted reasonable comfort at home, we may be sure their\ndomestic and patriotic ties would be strong enough to keep them there.\nThe complaint that emigration raises wages is most unreasonable. At the\nutmost it prevents wages from falling too low, and helps to heal the\nmischief caused by fluctuations in trade.\n\nWe shall find at a later stage that Malthus is keenly aware of the\nunhappiness caused in modern industrial societies by changes in the\ndemand for goods, occurring even in the natural (or uninterrupted)\ncourse of trade. A movement in favour of emigration in 1806 and 1807 led\nhim to insert a paragraph in the fourth edition of his essay which\nexplains the relation of emigration to these changes. He accepts the\nstatement of Adam Smith, that \u201cthe demand for men, like that for any\nother commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men;\u201d[302] but\nhe adds (as Cairnes added later) that it takes some little time to bring\nmore labour into the market when there is demand for it, and some little\ntime to check the supply when once it has begun to flow.[303] A family\nmay be reared to catch high wages, and the high wages may have gone\nbefore the family has arrived at maturity. Malthus distinguishes between\na normal or slight \u201coscillation\u201d of this kind, and an excessive\nredundancy caused by an unusual stimulus to production\u2014the stimulus, for\nexample, of the foreign wars and the foreign trade of the years before\nWaterloo. In the normal case we must submit to the inevitable; in the\nexceptional we may find an outlet in emigration. No doubt, even if there\nbe no emigration, in the long run the labour market will right itself;\nbut the process will be a very painful one to the workmen concerned.\nEmigration is the humane and politic remedy.\n\nIn some cases, such as Norway and the uplands of Switzerland,[304] there\nwould seem to be no need for Government to teach the people to emigrate.\nCircumstances should do it for them; but human beings are influenced by\nhabit and \u201cchance\u201d as much as by any deliberate motive, commercial or\notherwise. In the Swiss uplands, as Malthus knew them, \u201ca habit of\nemigration depended not only on situation but often on accident.\u201d Three\nor four successful emigrations \u201chave frequently given a spirit of\nenterprise to a whole village, and three or four unsuccessful ones a\ncontrary spirit.\u201d[305] This is illustrated by the contrast of two\nparishes, both in the Canton de Vaud, St. Cergues in the Jura, and\nLeysin[306] in the Bernese Alps near Aigle. The movements of population\nin Leysin puzzled M. Muret, the Swiss economist, who drew up a paper on\nthe depopulation of Switzerland for the Economical Society of Berne in\nthe year 1766. He found that in this parish of four hundred people there\nwere born every year on an average only eight children, whereas,\nelsewhere in Canton de Vaud, to the same number of people eleven (in\nLyonnais sixteen) children were a common proportion. The difference, he\nobserved, disappeared by the age of twenty, when, if we may say so, the\ndifference died off, the eight in Leysin being healthier than the eleven\n(or sixteen) elsewhere. Muret infers from this, that \u201cin order to\nmaintain in all places the proper equilibrium of population, God has\nwisely ordered things in such a manner as that the force of life in each\ncountry should be in the inverse ratio of its fecundity.\u201d[307] There is,\nhowever, no need to suppose a miracle. The fact was simply that the\nplace and the employments were healthy, that the people had not formed\nhabits of emigration, that their resources were stationary, that,\ntherefore, they married late, had few children, and were\nlong-lived.[308] The subsisting marriages were to the annual births as\n12 to 1; the births were to the living population as 1 to 49; and the\nnumber of persons above sixteen were to those below as 3 to 1.[309] This\nwould show that mere number of births is no criterion of the size of a\npopulation, for it took only about half of the ordinary number of births\nto keep up a population of four hundred in the parish of Leysin. In St.\nCergues the subsisting marriages were to the annual births as 4 to 1\n(instead of 12 to 1 as at Leysin), the births were to the living\npopulation as 1 to 26, and the number of persons above and below sixteen\njust equal. That is to say, St. Cergues had nearly twice as many births\na year in proportion to the population, and more than twice as many\nmarriages; but, instead of three-fourths of its living population being\nabove sixteen (as at Leysin), those above and those below were equal in\nnumber, and St. Cergues had a smaller proportion of adults than Leysin.\nOn the other hand, the death-rate was nearly the same; the healthiness\nwas nearly as great. How came it then that the population of St. Cergues\nwas only one hundred and seventy-one, as against the four hundred and\nfive of Leysin? What became of the children born? Seeing that they did\nnot die, and did not appear on the registers of the living, we infer\nthat they left their native village; that is all. The situation of the\nparish of St. Cergues, on the high road from Paris to Geneva, suggested\nemigration; and, as a matter of fact, the place had become, like most\nhighland hamlets, a breeding-place for the lowlands and the\nmanufacturing towns. The annual drain of adults made room for the\nfavoured remnant to marry and have large families. Even Leysin, though\nit lay on no high road, might conceivably (says Malthus) have exchanged\nits stay-at-home character for a habit of emigration, and might then\nhave doubled its birth-rate without raising the death-rate. It is one of\nthe fallacies of old statisticians to infer a large population from a\nhigh birth-rate; in an old country, if the rate of births is high in\ncomparison with the number of living inhabitants, it means either many\ndeaths or much emigration.\n\nThe people of an old country, if they cannot or will not emigrate, must,\naccording to Malthus, either look for a high death-rate or accustom\nthemselves to late marriages. M. Muret\u2019s figures showed that many\ncantons of Switzerland had adopted this last course in the eighteenth\ncentury. In the Canton de Vaud, for example, the proportion of marriages\nto living inhabitants (1 to 140) was lower than in Norway itself. In a\npastoral country the limits of human resources are so obvious that the\npeople cannot fail to be impressed with the need of limiting their\nnumbers. Pastoral industry, again, feeds more than it employs,[310] and\nthe unemployed must look for employment elsewhere. This was one reason\nwhy there were so many Swiss in foreign service. \u201cWhen a father has more\nthan one son, those who are not wanted on the farm are powerfully\ntempted to enrol themselves as soldiers, or emigrate in some other way,\nas the only chance to enable them to marry.\u201d[311] Malthus was a little\ndisappointed with the condition of the Swiss peasantry when he saw them\nin 1803. Perhaps, he says, they were still suffering from the wars in\nwhich the \u201cHelvetic Republic\u201d had been involved by its French allies;\nbut more probably they were suffering from the unwise attempts of their\nGovernment in the previous century to \u201cencourage\u201d what they then thought\nwas a declining population.[312] The peasant who guided Malthus to the\nsources of the Orbe[313] talked freely to him on the poverty of the\ndistrict, which he ascribed to early and imprudent marriages, \u201cle vice\ndu pays\u201d; he would have a law passed to prevent a man marrying till he\nwas forty, and a woman till she was elderly. He said that at one time\nthe introduction of stone polishing had given the people high wages and\nled them to expect constant employment; changes of fashion[314] had\nhelped to drive the industry away, but the habits taught by it had\nremained so fast rooted in the people that emigration itself brought no\nrelief to their overflowing numbers. But this self-taught Malthusian had\nnot learned his lesson perfectly. He fancied that the fertile lands of\nthe low countries, with their abundance of corn and employments, could\nnever experience the evil of over-population. This was true only in the\nunhappy sense that they had greater unhealthiness and a greater\nmortality, providing room for early marriages and many births.\n\nIt is easy to see that Malthus over-valued his prize. The _pons\nasinorum_ of the subject is the doctrine that over-population is not a\nquestion of absolute numbers or absolute quantity of food and fertility\nof soil, but of the numbers in relation to the food, in whatever place\nor time; and the young peasant had not crossed it.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI.\n                                FRANCE.\n\n  French Numbers a Problem to Europe in 1802, because Law of Increase\n    not understood\u2014Effects of War\u2014Lament for the unborn millions eighty\n    years ago\u2014More fitting now\u2014Good Distribution and Production\n    sometimes inseparable\u2014The Stationary State\u2014Malthus and the French\n    Revolution.\n\n\nIn the order of his writing Malthus follows the order of his travels,\nand takes France[315] after Switzerland. France presents us with facts\nof an almost unique kind. But before the Revolution it had no\ntrustworthy parish registers to show to the English inquirer; and\nMalthus would not have lingered over it, if in 1802 the public mind had\nnot been perplexed by a riddle, about French population and its increase\nduring war, of which he had the key.[316]\n\nThe essay is not meant for a mere history, and its author is not careful\nto be full in his historical details if he has a body of facts\nsufficient for his purpose. He even says, about some conjectures of his\nown based on French figures, that he had only adopted the figures for\nthe sake of illustration, and had not supposed them to be strictly true.\n\u201cIt will be but of little consequence if any of the facts or\ncalculations which have been assumed in the course of this chapter\nshould turn out to be false. The reader will see that the reasonings are\nof a general nature, and may be true though the facts taken to\nillustrate them may be inapplicable.\u201d[317] This is not a wary admission.\nNevertheless, the chapter on France is one of the most telling in the\nessay. The substance of it may be stated very shortly.\n\n\u201cIt has been seen,\u201d he says, \u201cin many of the preceding chapters, that\nthe proportions of births, deaths, and marriages are extremely different\nin different countries, and there is the strongest reason for believing\nthat they are very different in the same country at different periods\nand under different circumstances.\u201d[318] The truth of this remark is\nborne out not only by the contrast between the France and the\nSwitzerland of that time, but, as we shall find, by the contrast between\nthe France of 1803 and the France of to-day. It is not singular that\nMalthus should (wrongly) expect the Swiss to become his pupils more\neasily than the French, for in his day both the mortality and the number\nof marriages were greater in France than in Switzerland.[319]\n\nHe spends most pains in illustrating the contrast between the France\nbefore the Revolution and the France at the Peace of Amiens. In many\nways it was fortunate that he confined himself to the Republican period.\nIt was the time when the moral position of France was highest, and she\nwas warring not for conquest but for defence. Switzerland had\nexemplified the fact that Emigration does not permanently check\npopulation, but, on the whole, encourages it. France, at the time\nchosen, exemplified the fact that even the most destructive Wars have a\nsimilar effect on the growth of numbers. What Malthus had proved more or\nless deductively in regard to ancient nations he was able to show more\ninductively by statistics in regard to modern. Great surprise was\nexpressed in the early days of this century that, in spite of her\nenormous losses, France had not diminished in population. Malthus says\nshe had rather increased than diminished. According to the estimate of\nthe Constituent Assembly, which was confirmed by the calculations of\nNecker, the population in 1792, before the war, was 26,000,000. In 1801\nit seems, from the returns of the Prefects, to have been about\n28,000,000.[320] In ten years the increase had been 2,000,000, or\n200,000 a year. Yet at a medium calculation France, in addition to the\nordinary deaths, had lost by the war about 1,000,000 of men up to that\ntime,[321] or 100,000 a year. How, on the principles of Malthus, were\nthe two facts to be reconciled?\n\nTo reconcile them he shows, first, how, according to the figures given\nby Frenchmen themselves, the numbers of the unmarried survivors at home\nwere more than enough to have kept up in case of necessity the old\nnumber of marriages and the old rate of increase; second, how from\ngeneral principles there was a presumption in favour of a rapid increase\nat such a time; and third, how the social and industrial conditions of\nthe French people since the Revolution were favourable to an increase of\npopulation. First, then, he shows that the entire body of unmarried\npersons was large enough in spite of the war to fill the vacancies and\nkeep up the old rate of increase. The body of the unmarried is formed by\nthe \u201caccumulation\u201d year by year of the numbers of persons, rising to\nmarriageable age, who are not married (or say briefly of the\nmarriageable unmarried, including widows and widowers). This\naccumulation will only stop when the yearly accessions thereto are no\nmore than equal to the yearly mortality therein. The size of this body\nwill therefore vary with the character of the particular nation\nconsidered. In the Canton de Vaud it was equal to the whole number of\nthe married; but in France both the mortality and the marriage rate were\nhigher than in Switzerland, and the unmarried were therefore a smaller\nfraction of the total numbers. Assuming from the French authorities[322]\na certain birth and death-rate, and assuming from the same authorities\nthat the unmarried men for the period before the Revolution were one and\na half millions out of five millions that were marriageable, it would\nappear that every year there were 600,000 persons arriving at the\nmarriageable age, of whom (since about 220,000 is the annual number of\nmarriages) 440,000 marry. The surplus of unmarried is therefore 160,000\npersons, or about 80,000 men. It follows that for war purposes (if mere\nnumbers be considered) the reserve fund of men would be nearly one and a\nhalf millions, and every new annual surplus of 80,000 youths above\neighteen might be taken for military service without any diminution in\nthe number of marriages.[323] As a matter of fact, it is putting the\ncase somewhat strongly to suppose as many as 600,000 to be taken for\nservice in the first instance, and 150,000 additional troops to keep up\nthe supply every year. But this would still leave in the first instance\nnearly 900,000 for the reserve fund, which with the annual 80,000 could\nbear a drain on it of 150,000 for ten years, and leave a balance of\n200,000 altogether, or 20,000 a year. In other words, there would be\nroom for an increase in the number of marriages of nearly 20,000. It\nwould not be miraculous then if the French population should continue to\nincrease in the face of great losses in war, for the increase before the\nwar had been very much less than the greatest possible.\n\nIn the second place, the circumstances of the civilian population made\nan increase very likely. Many out of the reserve fund of unmarried men\nwill in the course of ten years be past the military age, but not past\nthe age of marriage. The 150,000 recruits would probably be taken from\nthe 300,000 who every year rose to marriageable age, and the marriages\nwould be kept up from the older unmarried men, in the scarcity of\nyounger husbands. It may be remembered, too, that in the early years of\nthe war so many youths married prematurely to avoid service,[324] that\nthe Directory were obliged (in 1798) to extend the conscription to the\nmarried men. But even when the husbands were removed to the war the\nmarriages were not necessarily childless, and would thus, at the least,\nbe a means of adding to the people\u2019s numbers that did not exist before\nthe Revolution. The facility of divorce, too, though bad both in morals\nand in politics, would at least, in the existing scarcity of men, act\nsomewhat like polygamy, and make the number of children greater in\nproportion to the number of husbands. It is said, too, that there were\nmore natural children born in France after the Revolution than before\nit; and, since the peasants were better off after it than before it,\nthere was a better chance that more of the children than formerly should\nsurvive.\n\nIn the third place, there is no doubt, says Malthus, that the division\nof the domain lands and the creation (or at least the multiplication) of\npeasant properties have had a great influence both on wealth and on\npopulation. They add to population more than to wealth, for they\nincrease the gross produce of food at the expense of the nett surplus.\n\u201cIf all the land of England were divided into farms of \u00a320 a year, we\nshould probably be more populous than we are at present, but as a nation\nwe should be extremely poor. We should be almost without disposable\nrevenue, and should be under a total inability of maintaining the same\nnumber of manufactures or collecting the same taxes as at present.\u201d[325]\nBut the division of lands was at least in favour of the gross produce,\nand even the passing traveller was inclined to think, from the\nappearance of the fields and the style of the field labour, that,\nhowever severely the manufacturing industry of France might have\nsuffered during the war, her agriculture had rather gained than\nlost.[326] The absence of so many strong men with the armies would not\nonly raise wages at home and make the labourers better off, but by _pro\ntanto_ lessening the demand for food and taking from those at home the\nburden of supporting so many men, would not raise the price of food with\nthe wages, but would allow real wages to rise. This would co-operate\nwith political causes in making the people desert the towns for the\ncountry, and thereby it would reduce the death-rate, which is always\nhigher in towns than in the country. It is attested by Arthur Young (no\nfriend to the _Essay on Population_) that the high mortality of France\nbefore the Revolution (according to Necker 1 in 30) was caused by an\nover-population which the changes at the Revolution tended to remove.\nThe probability is, therefore, that the births increased and the deaths\ndecreased during the ten years after the Revolution; and there could be\nno difficulty in understanding the increase of population in spite of\nthe war. In the later editions of the essay[327] Malthus confesses that\nhis French figures need revision; the returns of the Prefects for 1801\u20132\nand other Government papers had given a smaller proportion of births\nthan he had thought probable, for the period before the Revolution. But\n(he remarks) the Prefects\u2019 returns do not embrace the earlier years of\nthe Revolution, precisely the time when the encouragement to marriage\nwould be greatest and the proportion of births highest. In any case they\nshow that the population of France is not less but greater since the\nRevolution. If in the latter part of this period the increase was\naffected by the decrease of deaths rather than by increase of births,\nthey not only leave his position untouched, but give him a result that\nwould highly please him. Certainly in England and in Switzerland, and\nprobably in every European country, the rate of mortality has decreased\nin the last two hundred years, through the greater healthiness of the\nconditions of life; and it is not at all surprising that a population\nshould be kept up or even made to increase with a smaller proportion of\nbirths, deaths, and marriages than before.[328]\n\nThe French labouring classes at the beginning of the Revolution were\nseventy-six per cent. worse fed, clothed, and supported than their\nfellows in England.[329] Their wages were 10_d._ a day (as compared with\n1_s._ 5_d._), while the price of corn was about the same; but their\ncondition and their remuneration had been decidedly improved by the\nRevolution and the division of the national domains. Wages in money\n(since Young wrote) had risen to 1_s._ 3_d._ a day; and, according to\nsome authorities, the real wages had become even higher than in\nEngland.[330] The new distribution of wealth had been followed by an\nimmense increase in the production of it, shared by the producers\nthemselves, and making France immensely stronger as a nation either for\noffence or defence.[331] Such an improvement in the condition of the\npeople would naturally be followed by diminution in the deaths; and a\ndiminution in the deaths must lead either to an increase of population\nor to a decrease in the marriages and births. The latter (which is\npresumably an increase of moral restraint) has followed. In the ten\nyears after the Peace of Amiens the population seems to have increased\nonly at a very slow rate. \u201cThere is perhaps no proposition more\nincontrovertible than this, that in two countries, in which the rate of\nincrease, the natural healthiness of climate, and the state of towns and\nmanufactures are supposed to be nearly the same, the one in which the\npressure of poverty is the greatest will have the greatest proportion of\nbirths, deaths, and marriages,\u201d and _vice vers\u00e2_.[332]\n\nMalthus\u2019 survey of population in France applies only to his own\nlifetime, and indeed only to the earlier part of that. To do him full\njustice we must place his picture of the real losses of war alongside of\nhis description of the compensations.\n\nThe constant tendency of population to increase up to the limits of the\nfood may be interpreted (in the case of war) as the tendency of the\nbirths in a country to supply the vacancies made by death. The breaches\nare not permanent; they are among the reparable as distinguished from\nthe irreparable mischiefs of war. But this does not, from a moral or\npolitical aspect, afford the slightest excuse for the misery caused\nthereby to the existing inhabitants.\n\n               \u201cCan you by filling cradles empty graves?\u201d\n\nThere is an exchange of mature beings in the \u201cfull vigour of their\nenjoyments\u201d[333] for an equal number of helpless infants. Not only is\nthis a waste of the men who died, but it is a deterioration, for the\ntime being, of the quality of the whole people; they will consist of\nmore than the normal proportion of women and children; and the married\nwill be men and women who in ordinary times would have remained single.\nWhen the drain of men for military service begins to exhaust the reserve\nof unmarried persons, and the annual demands are in excess of the number\nannually rising to marriageable age, then of course war will actually\ndiminish population.[334] Till that point is reached, war may alter the\nunits and spoil the quality of the population, but will not lessen its\ntotal volume. Sir Francis Ivernois, from whom Malthus took some of his\nfigures, went too far in the other direction when he told us we must not\nlook so much at the deaths in battle or in hospital, when we are\ncounting up the destructive effects of war or revolution, as at the\nremoter results; \u201cthe number of men war has killed is of much less\nimportance than the number of children whom it has prevented and will\nstill prevent from coming into the world.\u201d He supposes one million of\nmen to have been lost in the Revolution itself, and one and a half\nmillions in its wars; and he says that, if only two millions of these\nhad been married, they would have needed to have had six children each\nin order that a number of children equal to the number of their parents\n(_i. e._ four millions) should be alive thirty-nine years afterwards. We\nought, he thinks, to mourn not only for the two and a half millions of\nmen killed, but for the twelve millions whom their death prevented from\nbeing born. To which Malthus wisely answers that the slain, being\nfull-grown men, reared at no little cost to themselves and their\ncountry, may be fitly mourned, but not the unborn twelve millions, whose\nappearance in the world would only have sent or kept a corresponding\nnumber out of it,\u2014and \u201cif in the best-governed country in Europe we were\nto mourn the posterity which is prevented from coming into being, we\nshould always wear the habit of grief.\u201d[335]\n\nIf Sir Francis Ivernois could have foreseen the history of French\npopulation for seventy years after the time when he wrote, he would have\nhad more reason to utter his curious lament.\n\n\u201cThe effect of the Revolution,\u201d wrote Malthus in 1817, \u201chas been to make\nevery person depend more upon himself and less upon others. The\nlabouring classes have therefore become more industrious, more saving,\nand more prudent in marriage than formerly; and it is quite certain that\nwithout these effects the Revolution would have done nothing for\nthem.\u201d[336] The country districts which took the least active part in\nthe Revolution have been the most resolute in conserving the results of\nit. Over-population in France is known only in the towns. At the\nbeginning of the eighteenth century\u2014say one hundred and fifty years ago\n(1732)\u2014under Louis XV. the population of France was estimated at twenty\nmillions of people.[337] There is good reason to believe that the habits\nof the people were entirely different from what they are now; they were\neven said to be famous for their large families.[338] In 1776 their\nnumbers were about twenty-four millions,[339] at the Revolution of 1789\nabout twenty-six millions,[340] in 1831 thirty-two and a half, and in\n1866 thirty-eight. At the present time, from loss of territory and from\ndecrease of numbers in certain parts of the country, they are little\nmore than thirty-seven and a half millions\u2014not much more than the\npopulation of Great Britain, a country neither so large nor so fertile.\nEven in 1815 Malthus spoke of France as having a more stationary and\nless crowded population than Britain, though it was richer in corn.[341]\nThe population of 1881 showed an increase of 766,260 over that of 1876,\nand was in all 37,672,048.[342] It increases not by augmentation in the\nnumber of births, for that has been actually lessening, but by\ndiminution in the deaths. The population of Britain has trebled itself\nwithin the present century; that of France has not even doubled itself\nin a century and a half, with every allowance for a varying frontier.\nThe fears which Malthus expressed,[343] that the law of inheritance and\ncompulsory division of property would lead to an excessive and\nimpoverished country population, have not been realized. The industrial\nprogress of the country has been very great. Fifty years ago the\nproduction of wheat was only the half of what it is to-day, of meat less\nthan the half. In almost every crop and every kind of food France is\nricher now than then in the proportion of more than 2 to 1. In all the\nconveniences of life (if food be the necessaries) the increased supply\nis as 4 to 1, while foreign trade has become as 6 to 1. Since property\nis more widely distributed in France than elsewhere, an increase of\nproduction is much more certain to mean a benefit to the whole people.\nBut there are certain classes of goods, chiefly necessaries, of which\n(even in a land like England, where the great wealth is in a few hands)\nit is impossible profitably to extend the production without _pari\npassu_ extending the distribution. When articles of food are imported in\nvast quantities, they cannot, from the nature of things, go entirely to\nthe rich; the rich can easily eat and drink beyond the normal value, but\nnot much (without Gargantua\u2019s mouth) beyond the normal quantity; and, at\nleast in the case of our own country, very little is exported again.\nGenerally speaking, it is a true saying that, the more the food, the\nmore are fed. But what is true of necessaries in England is true even of\nother goods in France.[344] The \u201caverage wealth of each person\u201d is not\nthere, as often elsewhere, a mere arithmetical entity, but a very near\napproach to the ordinary state of the great majority of the people; and\nthis average wealth is thought by good authorities[345] to have more\nthan doubled since the beginning of the century. The population, on the\nother hand, has only increased by one-half; and the average duration of\nlife has lengthened from twenty-eight to thirty-seven years. In a paper\nof Chateauneuf\u2019s (1826) quoted by MacCulloch,[346] it was said that the\nFrench people were improving their condition by diminishing their\nmarriages. The statistician Levasseur, on the contrary, with the facts\nof another half-century before him, tells us that married people in\nFrance are the _majority_ of the population,[347] the average age of\nmarriage being twenty-six for the women, and rather more than thirty for\nthe men. The birth-rate, however, is the lowest in Europe,[348] being 1\nin 37, as opposed to 1 in 27 for England. It is by refusing to fill the\ncradles that they leave the graves empty. Yet France is less healthy\nthan England. Its death-rate in 1882 was 22.2 per thousand, while in\nEngland it was 19.6.[349]\n\nThere are other features which make the case unique. There are few\nforeigners in France; the numbers of the French people are neither\nswelled by immigration nor reduced by emigration. Since the expulsion of\nthe Huguenots and the colonization of Canada, few nations have been so\nrooted in their own country; even Algerian and Tunisian conquests are\ndue to no popular passion for colonizing. The peasant properties have\nmade the people averse to movement.\n\nAt present most Frenchmen remain during life in the same Department in\nwhich they were born;[350] and recent observers tell us[351] that a\nmilitary career is becoming distasteful to all classes. Taking the\nabsence of immigration as balanced by the absence of emigration, we are\nbrought to the conclusion that the population of France is stationary by\nits own deliberate act.\n\nHow far this is in accordance with the views of Malthus it is impossible\nto say in one word. It is at least the result of the prudence which he\nwas always preaching. But his prudence lay in the deferring of marriage;\nand this is not the form which prevails in France. Moreover, he thought\nwith Adam Smith that the progressive state and not the stationary was\nthe normal one for humanity; if the whole world became contented with\nwhat it had got, there would, in his opinion, be no progress, and the\nresources and capacities of human beings and of the world would not be\ndeveloped. In fact, he retained the aspirations of the Revolution, which\nthe country-folk in France seem in danger of losing; he wished men to\nhave hopes for the future as well as a comfortable life in the present;\nhe saw no virtue in mere smallness any more than in mere bigness of\nnumbers; he desired as great as possible a population of stalwart,\nwell-instructed, wise, and enterprising men; he thought that, without\ncompetition, ambition, and emulation, and without the element of\ndifficulty and hardship, human beings would never fully exert their best\npowers, though he also thought that a time might come when the lower\nclasses would be as the middle classes, or, in his own words, when the\nlower would be diminished and the middle increased, and when, mainly\nthrough the action of the labourers themselves, inventions would become\na real benefit, because accompanied by lighter labour and shorter hours\nfor the labourers.[352] As for that love of humanity, that was so much\npresent in the words and thoughts if not in the deeds of the men of the\nRevolution, he had a full share of it. He desired a longer life for the\nliving, and fewer births for the sake of fewer deaths. His work was like\nthat of the lighthouse, to give light and to save life.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII.\n                    ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND.\n\n  Prevailing Checks\u2014Proposed Census of 1753\u2014Brown\u2019s\n    Estimate\u2014Depopulation of England in Eighteenth Century\u2014Opposing\n    Arguments\u2014Census of 1801\u2014Interpretation of Returns\u2014Relative Nature\n    of the Question of Populousness\u2014Scotland to England as Country to\n    Town\u2014Industrial changes since the Union\u2014Ireland under English rule\n    in Eighteenth Century and after\u2014The Wall of Brass\u2014Virtue without\n    Wisdom\u2014The Potato Standard\u2014The Emigration Committee\u2014The New\n    Departure.\n\n\nIn dealing with the question of population in his own country,[353]\nMalthus tries to answer at least three distinct questions:\u2014What were the\nchecks actually at work in those days? Had the numbers of the people\nincreased, or not, in the eighteenth century? What conclusions on either\npoint may be drawn from the English census?\n\nThe first question was answered with comparative fulness in the essay of\n1798. It is remarked there that in England the middle and upper classes\nincrease at a slow rate, because they are always anxious to keep their\nstation, and afraid of the expense of marriage.[354] No man, as a rule,\nwould like his wife\u2019s social condition to be out of keeping with her\nhabits and inclinations. Two or three steps of descent will be\nconsidered by most people as a real evil. \u201cIf society be held desirable,\nit surely must be free, equal, and reciprocal society, where benefits\nare conferred as well as received, and not such as the dependant finds\nwith his patron or the poor with the rich.\u201d So it happens that many men,\nof liberal education and limited income, do not give effect to an early\nattachment by an early marriage. When their passion is too strong or\ntheir judgment too weak for this restraint, no doubt they have blessings\nthat counterbalance the obvious evils; \u201cbut I fear it must be owned that\nthe more general consequences of such marriages are rather calculated to\njustify than to repress the forebodings of the prudent.\u201d[355] What\nMalthus desires, as we infer from the general tenor of his book, is that\nall classes without exception should show reluctance to impair their\nstandard of living; and his hatred of the Poor Laws is due to his\nconviction that they hinder this end. The subject will be more fully\ndiscussed by-and-by.[356] In the chapters on England it is little more\nthan mentioned, the author devoting himself chiefly to the statistical\ndata of the census and registers.\n\nIn this connection it was impossible for him to avoid the question that\nhad long agitated the minds of politicians. Had the numbers of the\nEnglish people been decreasing or increasing since the Revolution of\n1688, and especially in the course of the eighteenth century? Economists\nof the present day are overloaded with statistics; but, when Adam Smith\nwrote the _Wealth of Nations_, he was unaware of the numbers of his own\nnation. To estimate population without a census is to study language\nwithout a dictionary; there had been no census since the coming of the\nArmada,[357] and it was not till one hundred years after that event that\nstatistical studies came much into favour. An annual enumeration of the\npeople was proposed in the House of Commons in 1753, as a means of\nknowing the numbers of our poor.[358] But the proposal was resisted as\nanti-Scriptural and un-English, exposing our weakness to the foreigner\nand spending public money to settle the wagers of the learned. There was\nprobably a fear[359] that the tax-gatherer would follow on the heels of\nthe enumerator, as he had done in France. The House of Lords beat off\nthe bill, and left England in darkness about the numbers of its people\nfor another half-century, though something like a census of Scotland was\nmade for Government in 1755.[360] As without the Irish Famine we might\nnot have had the total Repeal of the Corn Laws, so without the worst of\nall possible harvests in 1799 we might have had no census in 1801, for\nParliament, when they passed Mr. Abbot\u2019s Enumeration Bill in 1800,\nlooked to an enumeration of the people to guide them in opening and\nclosing the ports to foreign grain. The practical question about the\nincrease or decline of English numbers was connected, in logic as well\nas in time, with the controversy about the comparative populousness of\nancient and modern nations. The same year (1753) which saw the attempt\nto settle by census the question of England\u2019s depopulation, saw also the\npublication of Dr. Robert Wallace\u2019s reply to Hume\u2019s _Essay on the\nPopulousness of Ancient Nations_, in his _Dissertations on the Numbers\nof Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times_. One of Henry Fox\u2019s objections\nto Hardwicke\u2019s Marriage Act (of 1753) was that it would check\npopulation.[361] We are told[362] that the academical discussion roused\nattention on the Continent, and a French savant, Deslandes, published an\nestimate of the numbers of modern nations, in which England was made\nmuch inferior to France, having only eight millions against twenty. This\nwas too much for English patriotism. Even in our own day a great war and\na few reverses usually fill England for a year or two with forebodings\nof decay. Written in 1757 (at the beginning of the Seven Years\u2019 War),\nDr. John Brown\u2019s _Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times_\nwas only the most popular of a host of gloomy pamphlets too prejudiced\nto be of much use for statistics.[363] Dr. Adam Anderson[364] sides with\nthe moderns and the optimists. The contributions of Dr. Brackenridge and\nRichard Forster to the discussion survive by the mention of them in\nPrice\u2019s _Observations_ (pp. 182\u20133) and in George Chalmers\u2019 _Estimate_\n(ch. xi. 193), this last giving on the whole perhaps the most lucid\nhistory of the whole depopulation controversy. We know from Goldsmith\u2019s\n_Traveller_ (1764) and _Deserted Village_ (1770), with its charming\nillogical preface, that even in peace the subject was not out of men\u2019s\nthoughts. A similar panic in Switzerland, which owed its beginning to\nEngland,[365] seems afterwards to have reacted on England itself. The\nAmerican War of Independence revived the languishing interest in the\ncontroversy. This time it was the English and not the antiquarian topic\nthat fell into powerful hands. Dr. Richard Price, the Radical dissenter,\nthe friend of Dr. Franklin, and the inventor of Pitt\u2019s Sinking Fund, did\nbattle, in his _Observations on Reversionary Payments_ (1769), on behalf\nof the pessimistic view; Arthur Young, the agriculturist, the traveller\nand the talker, led the opposition to him,[366] and was supported by Sir\nFrederick Eden, William Wales, John Howlett, and last but not least by\nGeorge Chalmers.[367]\n\nGregory King[368] and Justice Hale[369] in the seventeenth century, Dr.\nCampbell[370] in the eighteenth, had agreed that the numbers of Norman\nEngland must needs have been small, for the government was bad; Dr.\nPrice, on the contrary, had maintained the paradox that, though the\nRevolution of 1688 brought a \u201chappier government,\u201d the numbers of the\npeople had ever since declined.[371] He reasoned from the decreased\nnumber of dwelling-houses assessed to window tax and house duty, as\ncompared with those assessed to hearth (or chimney) money before the\nRevolution.[372] Opponents denied the accuracy of his data, and thought\nhis estimate of four and a half or five inhabitants to a house too low.\nHe pointed to the evil influence of a \u201cdevouring metropolis,\u201d a head too\nlarge for the body, and of great cities that were the \u201cgraves of\nmankind.\u201d[373] Here, too, both the data and the inference were doubtful.\nHe argued from the decreasing produce of the Excise duties. Opponents\nanswered that, even if the figures were right, a changed public taste\nhad lessened the consumption of many taxable articles, and many taxed\nones were supplied free by smuggling.[374] He laid stress on the\ndifficulty the Government found in raising troops in the middle of the\neighteenth century as compared with the end of the seventeenth, though\nhe took this as a symptom, not a cause, and complained at the same time\nquite consistently that the increase of the army and navy and of\nmilitary expenditure in three great wars had been a potent cause of\ndiminished population. Opponents answered that the first was really a\nsymptom not of decline but of prosperity; the abundance of other\nemployments kept men from the need of enlisting in the army; and they\nanswered too often, that the second (the war expenditure) was good for\ntrade. They were safer in urging that for the first part of the century\nthe long peace (1727\u201340) and the good harvests (1731\u201350) made the\npresumption of increase very strong.[375] Price made much of the\nemigrations to America and to the East and West Indies. It was answered\nthat the known possibility of emigration would give men at home the\ngreater courage to have a family. Even the engrossing and consolidation\nof farms and the enclosure of commons, which he considered to be against\npopulation, would, said his opponents, increase the food, and therefore\nthe people, though perhaps not the people on the spot;[376] and the\nincrease of paupers was thought to be a sign of overflowing numbers. He\nsaw a cause of depopulation in the increased luxury and extravagance of\nthe people of England. At the beginning of the century gin-drinking was\ncredited with an evil effect on population.[377] When the opponents of\nPrice did not meet this with Mandeville\u2019s sophism, luxury benefits\ntrade, they answered that what had become greater was not the national\nvices but the national standard of comfort, the expansion of which\nimplied an increase of general wealth and presumably of population.[378]\nBeyond doubt too (it was argued) the general health was better, and\nmedical science had won some triumphs.[379] Malthus, however, warns us\nagainst this argument; great unhealthiness is no proof of a small\npopulation nor healthiness of a large.[380] In the ten years after the\nAmerican War of Independence (1783\u201393) the prosperity of the country\nseems to have advanced by leaps and bounds, only to make the subsequent\ndepression the more observable. Dr. Price, who did not live to see the\nrelapse, seems to have confessed his error. \u201cIn allusion to a\ndiminishing population, on which subject it appears that he has so\nwidely erred, he says very candidly that perhaps he may have been\ninsensibly influenced to maintain an opinion once advanced.\u201d[381] Yet\npublic opinion was not fully convinced till 1801, when \u201cthe answers to\nthe Population Act at length happily rescued the question of the\npopulation of this country from the obscurity in which it had been so\nlong involved.\u201d[382]\n\nThere is no good reason to believe that at the end of last century the\nfear of depopulation had given place to a fear of over-population.[383]\nMalthus and Arthur Young stood almost alone in their opinion.[384] Alarm\nwas felt by the agricultural interest, not lest there should be an\nexcessive population, but lest the population should get its food from\nabroad. The population it was feared had grown beyond the English\nsupplies of food; but of over-population, in the wider sense of an\nexcess beyond any existing food, the general public and the squires had\nlearned little or nothing in these years; and we have no reason to\nattribute to Malthus any share in the merit of passing the Enumeration\nBill. It was brought forward in an autumn session of Parliament (Nov.\n1800) specially convened because of the scarcity. It was moved by Mr.\nAbbot,[385] who had made his name more as a financier than as an\neconomist, and was chiefly remarkable afterwards as a vigorous opponent\nof Catholic Emancipation. The motion was seconded by Mr. Wilberforce;\nand the combination of finance and philanthropy was irresistible.\nMalthus, though he is the true interpreter of the census, neither caused\nit in the first instance nor found it of immediate service in spreading\nhis doctrines.\n\nThe first census would hardly have justified him in treating as obsolete\nthe old quarrel about depopulation; it had decided only the absolute\nnumbers in the first year of the nineteenth century, not the progress or\nrelapse during the eighteenth. Besides giving the actual numbers of the\npeople in 1801, the census no doubt gave \u201ca table of the population of\nEngland and Wales throughout the last century calculated from the\nbirths.\u201d But the births, though a favourite, were an unsafe criterion;\nand, for the population at the Revolution of 1688, Malthus would depend\nmore on \u201cthe old calculations from the number of houses.\u201d[386] He finds\nno difficulty of principle in admitting with Mr. Rickman, the editor of\nthe census returns and observations thereon, that the rapid increase of\nthe English people since 1780 was due to the decrease of deaths rather\nthan to the increase of births.[387] Such a phenomenon was not only\npossible but common, for the rate of births out of relation to the rate\nof deaths could give no sure means of judging the numbers. After a\nfamine[388] or pestilence, for example, the rate of births might be\ntwice as high as usual, and by the standard of births the numbers of the\npeople would be at their maximum, when a comparison with the rate of\ndeaths or an actual enumeration would show them to be at the\nminimum,[389] whereas a low rate of births, if lives were prolonged by\ngreat healthiness, might certainly mean an increase, perhaps a high\nincrease, of numbers. But at the particular time in question the factory\nsystem was coming into being, and manufacturing towns were growing great\nat the expense of the country districts. The conditions of life in towns\nare at the best inferior to those in the country; new openings for trade\nwould add not only to the marriages but to the deaths and the\nbirths.[390] The presumption was not all in favour of healthiness; and\nthe registers at that particular time could not tell the whole\ntruth;\u2014the drain of recruits for foreign service would keep down the\nlists of burials at home, while allowing an increase of births and\nmarriages.[391] For these and other reasons, Malthus, while he agrees\nwith Rickman that the general health has improved, trusts little to his\ncalculations from registers; and concludes that even the census gives us\nno clear light on the movement of population in the eighteenth century.\nWe can be certain that population increased during the last twenty years\nof it, and almost certain that the movement was not downwards but\nupwards since the Peace of Paris; and we have good ground for believing\nthat it was rather upwards than downwards even in the earliest years of\nthe century, during the good harvests and the long peace of\nWalpole,[392] and that over the whole country the movement of population\nwas less fluctuating in England than on the Continent.[393] The author\u2019s\nadmission, that the proportions of the births, deaths, and marriages\nwere very different in our country in his time from what they used to\nbe,[394] seems to put the census of 1801 out of court altogether in the\nquestion of depopulation, especially as there were no previous\nenumerations with which to compare it. The figures from the parish\nregisters for the whole of the century, that were included in the\n\u201creturns pursuant to the Population Act,\u201d in addition to the\nenumeration, turned out on examination to be unsatisfactory.[395]\n\nMalthus, however, was able to prove some solid conclusions from the\ncensus of 1801. It had shown, for example, as regards marriages, that\nthe proportion of them to the whole numbers of the people was, in 1801,\nas 1 to 123\u2155, a smaller proportion than anywhere except in Norway and\nSwitzerland,[396] and the more likely to be true, because Hardwicke\u2019s\nMarriage Act had made registration of marriages more careful than of\nburials and baptisms. In the early part of the eighteenth century, the\npessimist, Dr. Short, had estimated the proportion (with much\nprobability) as 1 to 115; and it would appear, therefore, that at\nneither end of the century were the marriages in a high proportion to\nthe numbers, or had population increased at its highest rate. Again,\nMalthus thinks it proved by the census that, since population has as a\nmatter of fact increased in England in spite of a diminished rate of\nmarriages, the increase has been at cost of the mortality, the fewer\nmarriages being partly a cause, partly a consequence, of the fewer\ndeaths of the later years.[397] Those that married late might have\nconsoled themselves with the reflection that they were lessening not the\nnumbers but the mortality of the nation. It was no doubt difficult to\nestimate the extent to which such causes operated, or the degree in\nwhich the national health had been improved. In any case the census\nguides us better than the registers,[398] for it carries us beyond the\ninferred numbers to numbers actually counted out at a given time.\nNeither the census nor the registers can be rightly interpreted without\na knowledge of the social condition, government, and history of the\npeople concerned. In undeveloped countries, like America and Russia, or\nin any old countries after special mortality, a large proportion of\nbirths may be a good sign; \u201cbut in the average state of a well-peopled\nterritory there cannot well be a worse sign than a large proportion of\nbirths, nor can there well be a better sign than a small proportion.\u201d\nSir Francis d\u2019Ivernois had very justly observed that, if the various\nstates of Europe published annually an exact account of their\npopulation, noting carefully in a second column the exact age at which\nthe children die, this second column would show the comparative goodness\nof the governments, and the comparative happiness of their subjects;\u2014a\nsimple arithmetical statement might then be more conclusive than the\ncleverest argument. Malthus assents, but adds that \u201cwe should need to\nattend less to the column giving the number of children born, than to\nthe one giving the number which reached manhood, and this number will\nalmost invariably be the greatest where the proportion of the births to\nthe whole population is the least.\u201d[399] Tried by this standard, which\nis much more truly the central doctrine of Malthus than the ratios, our\nown country was even then better than all, save two, European countries.\nTried by it to-day, we have still a good place. Though no great European\ncountries, except Austro-Hungary and Germany, have had more _marriages_,\nin the twenty years from 1861 to 1880, not only these, but Holland,\nSpain, and Italy, have had more _births_, and all of them except\nDenmark, Norway, and Sweden have had more _deaths_, in proportion to\ntheir numbers.[400]\n\nOne great advantage of the census is, that it enables the registrars to\ncalculate from their own data, with certain sure limits of told-out\nnumbers behind and before them. \u201cWhen the registers contain all the\nbirths and deaths, and there are the means [given by the census] of\nsetting out from a known population, it is obviously the same as an\nactual enumeration.\u201d[401] Malthus suggested in 1803 that the experiment\nof 1801 should be repeated every ten years, and that registrars\u2019 reports\nshould be made every year.[402] This has been done; and, if both have\nbeen accurate, then the registers of the intervening years, on the basis\nof the decennial enumeration, ought to make us able to calculate the\nnumbers for any intervening year. Accordingly, the population of England\nin 1881, as calculated from the births and deaths, was little more than\none-sixth of a million different from the numbers as actually counted\nover on the night of the 4th of April in that year.[403] The growth in\nthe last decade, 1871 to 1881, was higher than in any since\n1831\u201341;[404] the births were more and the deaths fewer than usual.\nAnother London has been added to our numbers in ten years.[405]\n\nThis gives no sure ground, however, for prediction. To suppose a\ncountry\u2019s rate of increase permanent is hardly less fallacious than to\nsuppose an invariable order of births and deaths over the world\ngenerally. Even if we are beyond the time when we need to make any\nallowance for increasing accuracy and fulness, and if we may assume that\nno given census has any units to sweep into its net that through their\nfear or an official\u2019s carelessness escaped its predecessor, still we\ncannot take the rate of increase from one census to another as a sure\nindication of the future. With some qualifications the words of Malthus\napply to us in 1881 quite as accurately as to our fathers in 1811: \u201cThis\nis a rate of increase which in the nature of things cannot be permanent.\nIt has been occasioned by the stimulus of a greatly increased demand for\nlabour, combined with a greatly increased power of production, both in\nagriculture and manufactures. These are the two elements which form the\nmost effective encouragement to a rapid increase of population. What has\ntaken place is a striking illustration of the principle of population,\nand a proof that, in spite of great towns, manufacturing occupations,\nand the gradually acquired habits of an opulent and luxuriant people, if\nthe resources of a country will admit of a rapid increase, and if these\nresources are so advantageously distributed as to occasion a constantly\nincreasing demand for labour, the population will not fail to keep pace\nwith them.\u201d[406] It was a rate of increase which he saw would double the\npopulation in less than fifty-five years; and this doubling has really\nhappened. The numbers for England in 1801 were 8,892,536; and in 1851\nthey were 17,927,609. Malthus had not anticipated any greater changes in\nmanufacture and trade than those of his own day; and he clearly expected\nthat the rate of increase would not continue and the numbers would not\nbe doubled. The one thing certain was the impossibility of safe\nprediction on the strength of any existing rate. A writer at the\nbeginning of this century prophesied the extinction of the Turkish\npeople in one hundred years; Sir William Petty at the end of the\nseventeenth century predicted that in 1800 London would have 5,359,000\ninhabitants. But the Turks are not yet extinct; London in 1800 had less\nthan a million of people, and has taken eighty years more to raise them\nto the number in the prophecy.[407]\n\nIf prediction was difficult in the case of England, it was not less so\nin the case of the other parts of the United Kingdom. The conditions of\nsociety and industry were quite different in the three countries; and to\njudge of the actual or probable growth of population in Scotland or\nIreland, we must first, as with England, clearly understand these\nconditions. In the early part of this century even more than now,\nScotland[408] stood to England as the country districts of England now\nstand to its great towns. Continual migration from country to town may\nbe said to have been its normal state; and the largest towns were in\nEngland. The change from a militant and feudal to an industrial society\nwas nowhere so marked as in Scotland after the Union, and especially\nafter the rebellion of 1745. The hereditary judgeships of highland\nchiefs were swept away; the relation between chief and clansmen became\nthe unromantic relation of landlord and tenant. The displacement of\nhousehold work by the factory system, and of hand labour by machinery,\ncrowded the great towns of Scotland at the expense of the country\ndistricts; and crowded the great towns and manufacturing districts of\nEngland at the expense of Scotland. The flood of North Britons into\nEngland was not of Bute\u2019s making; and it was greatest after and not\nbefore the Peace of Paris, although under that peace and a stable\ngovernment the farming, the manufacturing, the banking, and the foreign\ntrading of Scotland itself had grown great enough (it might have seemed)\nto employ the whole population at home. Cotton manufacture, which on the\nwhole is the typical industry of these latter days, was peculiarly\nEnglish.[409] Sheep-farming at home and cotton-spinning in England\ncombined to depopulate the Scotch highlands and much of the lowlands.\nThe highlands, with their strongly-marked physical features and strictly\nlimited industrial possibilities, were somewhat in the position of\nNorway. In the highlands proper there were no mineral riches; there were\nmoorlands, mountains, streams, lochs, heather, bracken, peat, and bog;\nthe patches of cultivable soil would bear a scanty crop of oats, and\nperhaps clover, barley, or potatoes.[410] This description applied to a\nlarge half of entire Scotland; and we must bear it in mind to understand\nthe saying of Malthus in 1803: \u201cScotland is certainly over-peopled, but\nnot so much as it was a century or half a century ago, when it contained\nfewer inhabitants.\u201d[411] The highlands are over their whole extent what\nthe lowlands are as regards their hills, fit only for sheep. Sutherland\nhas about thirteen inhabitants to the square mile now, and Midlothian\nseven hundred and forty-six; but Sutherland and not Midlothian may be\nover-peopled. Sutherland as compared with her former self, when she had\nthirty or forty to the square mile, may be more or she may be less\nover-peopled than she once was; we cannot tell till we know what her\nwealth was and how it was distributed.\n\nUnder the patriarchal government[412] of early times the wealth of the\ncountry consisted literally in its men. If a chief were asked the rent\nof his estate, he would answer that it raised five hundred men; the\ntenant paid him in military service. Adam Smith remembers that in the\nJacobite Rebellion, which disturbed his country at the time he was\nstudying at Oxford, \u201cMr. Cameron of Lochiel, a gentleman of Lochaber in\n[the west highlands of] Scotland, whose rent never exceeded \u00a3500\n[English] a year, carried, in 1745, eight hundred of his own people into\nthe rebellion with him.\u201d[413] Subdivision of land meant more retainers\nand greater honour; and so the highlands were peopled not to the full\nextent of the work to be done, but actually to the full extent of the\nbare food got from the soil.[414] On the establishment of a strong\ngovernment and the abolition of their hereditary judicial\nprivileges,[415] the chiefs soon became willing to convert the value in\nmen into a value in money, exchanging dignity for profit. They no longer\nencouraged their tenants to have large families; and yet they made no\nefforts to remove the habits, which the tenants had formed, of having\nthem.[416] It was this change that gave Sir Walter Scott the materials\nfor his most powerful pictures in _Waverley_ and other novels. But it is\nthe distress of the chiefs that is tragic to him, rather than the misery\nof the clansmen. The clansmen for their part had under feudalism been\nbrought up to be farmers or cattle-dealers and nothing else; there was\nas little variety of occupation in the highlands then as in Ireland now.\nUndoubtedly too they had that customary right of long possession, which\nlaw so often construed into a legal title in the case of more\ninfluential men. It was true also that, if the native highlanders would\nnot cultivate that poor soil, no strangers would, and, if it was\npolitically desirable that the country should remain peopled, the only\nway to secure this was to prevent the native exodus.[417] No such\nattempt was made; but, on the contrary, the highland landlords followed\nthe way that led to the highest rents; they consolidated their farms;\nthey exchanged agriculture for pasture; they substituted deer for sheep.\nAlmost every highland district has sooner or later passed through all\nthese three stages, and with the same result, the employment of fewer\nand fewer men.[418] The discarded men had two courses before them,\nmigration to the lowlands[419] or emigration to the colonies. The farm\nlabourer would migrate, the farmer emigrate. The landlords incurred and\noften deserved odium for the manner of their evictions; but they treated\nthe evicted better than the average British capitalist treats his\ndismissed hands. They usually provided passages and often procured\nsettlements abroad for them. Lord Selkirk, one of the few writers on\nthis subject that preserves a judicial calmness, advised his countrymen\nto acquiesce in the \u201cdepopulation\u201d of the highlands, but to draw the\nstream of emigration to our own colonies. He himself drew it, so far as\nhe could, to the Red River settlement and Prince Edward Island.\n\nFrom the middle of last century to the beginning of this, emigration\nwent on except when war made it impossible. The dangerous qualities of\nthe highlanders made them very valuable in the three great wars that\nprevented them from leaving the country with their families. It may be\nthat this very military consideration induced the English Government to\nconnive at the clearances at first; and interference at any later stage\nwas very difficult. As it is, in the end even the Sutherland\nevictions[420] seem simply to have shifted the population and not\nremoved it. In spite of emigration Sutherland had as many inhabitants at\nthe last census of 1881, as at the first in 1801, namely, above 23,000.\nFishing, an industry new to a great part of the highlands, made this\nphenomenon possible. Fishing villages have grown at the expense of\ninland farms. But this is not the whole truth. Till the time when free\ntrade began to distend Glasgow and other great towns of Scotland, the\nhighland counties taken altogether had actually increased in population,\nas compared with what they were in 1801. The subsequent fall is due not\nto any great clearances or emigrations, but to another cause that had\nbeen acting though not conspicuously for some time before. This was\nmigration to the industrial centres of the lowlands. In the days of the\nTudors there were complaints in England of the decay of towns, because a\nstrong government had at last made the protection of walled towns\nsuperfluous, and industry had spread itself in peace, where it was\nwanted. But two centuries later there was decay not of the towns but of\nthe country districts, because industry was taking forms that made\nconcentration necessary. At first, both in England and Scotland, there\nwas a real diminution in the rural population; there had been for the\ntime a real diminution of the work to be done in the country, and a\ntransference of it to the towns. The hand-loom weaver had been\nsupplanted by the power-loom. The little villages, where the workman\nlived idyllically, half in his farm and half in his workshop, now either\nsent their whole families to the towns, thus stopping their\ncontributions to the parish registers in the country and swelling those\nof the town, or, still keeping the parents, sent three-fourths of the\nchildren there, thus making the country registers a very untrustworthy\nreflection of the real state of the population in the country districts.\nThat country villages in every part of Scotland, but especially near the\nlarge cities, are \u201cbreeding grounds\u201d of this latter description[421] is\nperfectly well known; and the same is true, in a less degree, of\nEngland. This is one reason why even the purely rural districts of\nScotland have greatly increased in apparent population since 1801, and\nmost of them are increasing still; the readiness of the Scotch to\nemigrate has caused the large families quite as much as the large\nfamilies the emigration. Another reason is, that even in the country\ndistricts there is now more work to be done and it is done better.\nOrthodox economists may count this an example of the self-healing\neffects of an economical change that causes much suffering at first. It\nis fair to say that this eventual cure is neither more nor less complete\nthan the cure of the analogous hardships of the newly-introduced factory\nsystem, and the temporary inconveniences of sudden free trade. What keen\ncommercial ambition can do it has done, and its success is at least\nsufficiently complete to justify us in saying of Scotland to-day what\nMalthus said of it eighty years ago: it was most over-populated when it\nhad fewest inhabitants. Modern improvements, however short of\nperfection, have at least both in England and in Scotland absolutely put\nan end to periodical famines. Even the scarcities of 1799 and 1800,\nthough they caused great distress in both countries, were not famines in\neither of them; and, since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, even\nsuch general distress as was caused in Scotland by the potato blight\ncannot occur again. That distress itself was as nothing compared with\nthe terrible dearths from which Scotland used to suffer five or six\ntimes a century, and which England experienced as late as the\nseventeenth.[422] The dismal picture[423] which Malthus draws of the\ncondition of the Scottish peasantry reminds us that it is not much more\nthan a century since Scotland took her first steps in civilization and\nturned her energies from war to commerce. Her population at the \u201945 was\nabout one and a quarter millions, in 1801 about one and a half; but in\n1861 more than three, and in 1881 three and three-quarters. Population\ntherefore has more than doubled within the century. But even now there\nare only a hundred and twenty-one inhabitants to the square mile, as\ncompared with four hundred and forty-five in England. The wealth of the\ncountry has increased immensely faster than the population; it has\nmultiplied fivefold since the middle of this century, and tenfold since\nthe beginning of it.[424]\n\nThe history of population in Ireland would have furnished Malthus with\nstill more striking illustrations of his principles, if his life had\nlasted a few years longer. He contents himself (till the 6th edition of\nthe _Essay_[425]) with a single paragraph: \u201cThe details of the\npopulation of Ireland are but little known. I shall only observe,\ntherefore, that the extended use of potatoes has allowed of a very rapid\nincrease of it during the last century. But the cheapness of this\nnourishing root, and the small piece of ground which, under this kind of\ncultivation, will in average years produce the food for a family, joined\nto the ignorance and depressed state[426] of the people, which have\nprompted them to follow their inclinations with no other prospect than\nan immediate bare subsistence, have encouraged marriage to such a\ndegree, that the population is pushed much beyond the industry and\npresent resources of the country; and the consequence naturally is, that\nthe lower classes of people are in the most impoverished[427] and\nmiserable state. The checks to the population are of course chiefly of\nthe positive kind, and arise from the diseases occasioned by squalid\npoverty, by damp and wretched cabins, by bad and insufficient\nclothing,[428] and occasional want. To these positive checks have of\nlate years been added the vice and misery of intestine commotion, of\ncivil war, and of martial law.\u201d[429]\n\nIn his review of Newenham\u2019s _Statistical and Historical Enquiry into the\nPopulation of Ireland_ in 1808,[430] and in his evidence before the\nEmigration Committee in 1827, Malthus uses even stronger language. We\nmay quote from the latter document as the less known of the two. In 1817\nhe had spent a college vacation in visiting Westmeath and the lakes of\nKillarney,[431] and was able to speak from personal knowledge of the\ncountry. He was asked:\u2014\n\nQu. 3306. \u201cWith reference to Ireland, what is your opinion as to the\nhabits of the people, as tending to promote a rapid increase of\npopulation?\u201d\u2014\u201cTheir habits are very unfavourable in regard to their own\ncondition, because they are inclined to be satisfied with the very\nlowest degree of comfort, and to marry with little other prospect than\nthat of being able to get potatoes for themselves and their\nchildren.\u201d[432]\n\n3307. \u201cWhat are the circumstances which contribute to introduce such\nhabits in a country?\u201d\u2014\u201cThe degraded condition of the people, oppression,\nand ignorance.\u201d\n\n3311. \u201cYou have mentioned that oppression contributes to produce those\nhabits to which you have alluded; in what way do you imagine in Ireland\nthere is oppression?\u201d\u2014\u201cI think that the government of Ireland has, upon\nthe whole, been very unfavourable to habits of that kind; it has tended\nto degrade the general mass of the people, and consequently to prevent\nthem from looking forward and acquiring habits of prudence.\u201d\n\n3312. \u201cIs it your opinion that the minds of the people may be so\ninfluenced by the circumstances under which they live, in regard to\ncivil society, that it may contribute very much to counteract that\nparticular habit which leads to the rapid increase of population?\u201d\u2014\u201cI\nthink so.\u201d\n\n3313. \u201cWhat circumstances in your opinion contribute to produce a taste\nfor comfort and cleanliness among a people?\u201d\u2014\u201cCivil and political\nliberty and education.\u201d[433]\n\nThen the subject of one acre holdings is introduced, and Malthus is\nasked:\u2014\n\n3317. \u201cWhat effect would any change of the moral or religious state of\nthe government of that country produce upon persons occupying such\npossessions?\u201d\u2014\u201cIt could not produce any immediate effect if that system\nwere continued; with that system of occupancy there must always be an\nexcessive redundancy of people, because, from the nature of tolerably\ngood land, it will always produce more than can be employed upon it, and\nthe consequence must be that there will be a great number of people not\nemployed.\u201d\n\n3318. \u201cIs, therefore, not the first step towards improvement in Ireland\nnecessarily to be accomplished by an alteration of the present state of\nthe occupancy of the land?\u201d This was a leading question, but Malthus\nwould not be led. He replied, \u201cI think that such an alteration is of the\ngreatest possible importance, but that the other (the change in the\ngovernment) should accompany it; it would not have the same force\nwithout.\u201d In his answers to later questions he gave his view at greater\nlength on the causes of the difference between English and Irish\ncharacter.\n\nAnsw. to qu. 3411. \u201cAt the time of the introduction of the potato into\nIreland the Irish people were in a very low and degraded state, and the\nincreased quantity of food was only applied to increase the population.\nBut when our [English] wages of labour in wheat were high in the early\npart of the last century, it did not appear that they were employed\nmerely in the maintenance of more families, but in improving the\ncondition of the people in their general mode of living.\u201d[434]\n\n3413. \u201cYou attribute the difference of the character of the people to\nthe difference of food?\u201d\u2014\u201cIn a great measure.\u201d\n\n3414. \u201cWhat circumstance determines the difference of food in the two\ncountries?\u201d\u2014\u201cThe circumstances are partly physical and partly\nmoral.[435] It will depend in a certain degree upon the soil and climate\nwhether the people live on maize, wheat, oats, potatoes, or meat.\u201d[436]\n\n3415. \u201cIs not the selection in some degree dependent on the general\nstate of society?\u201d\u2014\u201cVery much on moral causes, on their being in so\nrespectable a situation that they are in the habit of looking forward,\nand exercising a certain degree of prudence; and there is no doubt that\nin different countries this kind of prudence is exercised in very\ndifferent degrees.\u201d\n\n3416. \u201cDoes it depend at all on the government under which they\nlive?\u201d\u2014\u201cVery much on the government, on the strict and equal\nadministration of justice, on the perfect security of property, on\ncivil, religious, and political liberty; for people respect themselves\nmore under favourable circumstances of this kind, and are less inclined\nto marry, with[out] the prospect of more physical sustenance for their\nchildren.\u201d\n\n3417. \u201cOn the degree of respect with which they are treated by their\nsuperiors?\u201d\u2014\u201cYes; one of the greatest faults in Ireland is that the\nlabouring classes there are not treated with proper respect by their\nsuperiors; they are treated as if they were a degraded people.\u201d\n\nThereupon he is again asked a leading question of a somewhat cynical\ncharacter, but he is again cautious in his answer.\n\n3418. \u201cDoes not that treatment mainly arise from their existing in such\nredundancy as to be no object to their superiors?\u201d\u2014\u201cIn part it does\nperhaps; but it appeared to take place before that [redundancy] was the\ncase, to the same degree.\u201d\n\nThe questioner, however, begs the question and asks:\n\n3419. \u201cThe number being the cause of their treatment, will not their\ntreatment tend to the increase of that number?\u201d and the answer is: \u201cYes,\nthey act and react on each other.\u201d\n\nAccordingly his opinion in 1827 is, as it was in 1803, that emigration\nconjoined with other agencies will be good for Ireland, but by itself\nwill leave matters no better than they were.\n\nAlongside of his weighty words in the essay and in the evidence it is\nworth while to place the words written by Adam Smith half a century\nearlier:\u2014\n\n\u201cBy the union with England, the middling and inferior ranks of people in\nScotland gained a complete deliverance from the power of an aristocracy\nwhich had always before oppressed them. By a union with Great Britain,\nthe greater part of the people of all ranks in Ireland would gain an\nequally complete deliverance from a much more oppressive aristocracy, an\naristocracy not founded, like that of Scotland, in the natural and\nrespectable distinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of\nall distinctions, those of religious and political prejudices;\ndistinctions which, more than any other, animate both the insolence of\nthe oppressors and the hatred and indignation of the oppressed, and\nwhich commonly render the inhabitants of the same country more hostile\nto one another than those of different countries ever are.\u201d[437]\n\nWith such passages before us, we cannot consider the two economists to\nhave been behind their age in their Irish policy. In regard to accurate\nfigures, the later economist was little better off than the earlier.\nIreland was not included in the first two censuses of 1801 and 1811. In\n1695 its population was estimated by Captain South as little more than\none million;[438] in 1731, by inquiry of Irish House of Lords, at two\nmillions; in 1792 by Dr. Beaufort at a little above four millions;[439]\nin 1805 by Newenham at five and a half millions; in 1812 an imperfect\ncensus gave it as nearly six millions; in the census of 1821 it was\n6,800,000. It was clear that the population of Ireland was increasing\neven then faster than that of England.[440] But between these dates and\nour own times comes an episode striking enough to provide all economical\nhistories with a _purpureus pannus_.\n\nFor about two generations England had perpetrated in Ireland her\ncrowning feats of commercial jealousy, a jealousy not more foolish or\nwicked against Ireland than it was against the American colonies, or,\ntill 1707, against Scotland, but more easily victorious. Ireland had not\nbegun to be in any sense an industrial country till the reigns of\nElizabeth and James I.; and the wars of the succeeding reigns hampered\nher early efforts. She had fair corn and meadow lands, and perhaps the\nbest pastures in the world for sheep and cattle. The English farming\ninterest became impatient of Irish competition, and a law was passed to\nforbid the importation of Irish sheep and cattle and dairy produce into\nEngland (1665, 1680). By reason of the later Navigation Acts, Ireland\ncould not make amends for this by trading with America, for all such\ntrading must be by way of England and in English ships, nor by trading\nwith France for the same reason. England in her jealousy would have\nsurrounded her with a cordon quite as close as Berkeley\u2019s wall of\nbrass.[441] As soon as a considerable woollen manufacture grew up,\nEngland stopped it by legislation, which (in 1699) forbade the\nexportation of Irish woollens not only to England but to any other\ncountry whatever. English interference, if it had done no more, added\nimmensely to the uncertainties[442] and fluctuations of Irish trade. The\ngrowth of industries like the woollen manufacture had set on foot a\ngrowth of population which did not stop with the arrest of the\nindustries. As often happens,[443] the effects of an impulse to marriage\nlasted far beyond the industrial progress that gave the impulse. But\nthis means hunger and suffering, if not death. In the case of Ireland,\nthe ruin of all industries but farming over more than three-fourths of\nthe land led to an absolute dependence of the people on the harvest of\ntheir own country; and, where it failed them, they were brought face to\nface with dearth or famine. It led also to the peopling of the country\ndistricts at the expense of the towns,[444] instead of (as usual) the\ntowns at the expense of the country. If Goldsmith\u2019s _Deserted Village_\nis not English, it is not Irish. By the year 1780, when Lord North from\nfear of rebellion granted free trade to Ireland with Great Britain, the\nmischief had been made almost incurable. The great increase in the Irish\npopulation, like the great increase in the English, may be said to begin\nin a free trade movement. In the worst days of legal persecution it\nmight have been said of the Irish Catholic population, the more they\nwere afflicted the more they multiplied and grew. Lavergne[445] thinks\ntheir greater increase was due first to the physiological law, that in\nthe case of all animals the means of reproduction are multiplied in\nproportion to the chances of destruction[?], and second to the\ninstinctively sound tactics of a people otherwise defenceless. The\nprobability is, too, that they remained quiet under their multitudinous\nindustrial, political, and religious disqualifications so long, because\nthey were reduced to that depth of misery that kills the very power of\nresistance; and poverty at its extreme point is a positive but not a\npreventive check on population. Where things are so bad, marriage, it is\nthought, cannot make them worse, and marriage would go on at the expense\nof a high mortality, general pauperism, or continuous emigration. The\npureness of marriage relations in Ireland, though in itself a much\ngreater good than its consequences were evil, acted as it would have\ndone in Godwin\u2019s Utopia;[446] apart from wisdom, virtue itself had its\nevils. Potatoes by-and-by came into general use; and the bad harvests,\nwhich taught even the Scotch and English poor[447] to make frequent use\nof this substitute for corn, converted it in Ireland from a substitute\ninto a staple. Economists viewed this change with almost unanimous\ndisapproval. In the view of Malthus it was the cheapness of this food\nthat made it dangerous for the labourers; his theory of wages led him to\nobject to cheap corn on the same grounds.[448] On the principle that it\nneeds difficulties to generate energy, the Irish are made indolent by\ntheir cheap food, and make no use of it except to increase by it. Living\non the cheapest food procurable, they could not in scarcity fall back on\nanything else. Every man who wished to marry might obtain a cabin and\npotatoes.[449] At the lowest calculation, an acre of land planted with\npotatoes will support twice as much as one of the same quality sown with\nwheat.[450] There are other objections to a potato diet. It is a simple\n(as opposed to a composite) diet, and it involves a low standard of\ncomfort. The second is not the same as the first, for a people that had\nno variety in their food might conceivably have a great variety in their\nother comforts. As a matter of fact, however, it was none of these three\nsupposed disadvantages of the potato that proved the bane of the Irish\npopulation, but a fourth one, its liability to blight.[451]\n\nThe figures of the census tell their own tale. In 1821 the Irish people\nnumbered 6,801,827; in 1831, 7,767,401; in 1841, 8,199,853; but in 1851,\n6,514,473. In each previous decade the increase approached a million; in\nthe last there was not only no increase, but a decrease of more than a\nmillion and a half. There had been a disastrous famine followed by great\nemigrations. What happened on Lord Lansdowne\u2019s estate in Kerry is an\nexample of what took place over Ireland generally.[452] That estate\ncomprehended about 100,000 acres, on which before the famine there was a\npopulation of 16,000 souls. When the famine came a fourth part of them\nperished and another fourth emigrated. In course of time, thanks to\nmoney sent by relatives from America and advances made by Lord\nLansdowne, the emigration continued with such rapidity that only 2000\nsouls were left on the estate. The famine taught the people how to\nemigrate, and gave them some idea of the meaning of over-population. The\nrural districts of Ireland are probably over-peopled now; but there\nseems reason to believe that a body of tenants, who are little short of\npeasant proprietors in security of tenure, and who have been forced into\na knowledge of the world outside Ireland, will not retain the habits of\nthe old occupiers.[453] Without a change of habits, peasant\nproprietorships would have done little for France, and will do little\nfor Ireland.\n\nThis would certainly have been the judgment of Malthus on things as they\nare now in Ireland, after Catholic Emancipation, Disestablishment, and\nthe Land Act. In his own time he was wise enough to see that the first\ncould not be delayed without injustice and danger. The rapid increase of\nthe Catholic population would soon, he foresaw in 1808,[454] bring the\nquestion of Emancipation within the range of \u201cpractical politics,\u201d and\nif the measure had been passed, as he urged, in 1808, instead of twenty\nyears later, the labour of conciliating Ireland might have proved\neasier, and the political change might have helped to produce that\nchange in the habits of the people which Malthus deemed essential to its\npermanent prosperity.\n\n\n\n\n                          BOOK II. ECONOMICS.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I.\n                             THE LANDLORDS.\n\n  Need of an Economical Digression\u2014The Hegemony of Adam Smith\u2019s\n    School\u2014Cardinal Doctrines of the Malthusian Economy\u2014Scope, Method,\n    Details\u2014Malthus doing Injustice to his Economics\u2014Human Character of\n    his Doctrines\u2014Agricultural Situation in 1794\u2014History of Corn\n    Laws\u2014Malthus on Rent in 1803 and afterwards\u2014_Observations on the\n    Corn Laws_\u2014_Grounds of an Opinion_\u2014_Nature and Progress of\n    Rent_\u2014Ricardo\u2019s Criticisms\u2014Agricultural Improvements\u2014Malthusian\n    Ideal of Commercial Policy\u2014The Wall of Brass\u2014Limits to Commercial\n    Progress.\n\n\nThe _Essay on Population_ deals with the past, the present, and the\nfuture. We have tried to follow its account of past and present, and\nmust now consider the author\u2019s view of future prospects and of the\nvarious schemes (including his own) for making the future better than\nthe present.\n\nTo do justice to this half of the essay, we must take further liberties\nwith its arrangement. For the sake of explaining the historical genesis\nof the essay, we have already taken first[455] that criticism of Godwin\nand Condorcet which in the later essay comes in the centre of the\nwork,[456] on the heels of the account of population in the United\nKingdom, the point where we have now arrived; and the chapter on\nemigration has been used before its time. There remain, out of the\nfourteen chapters of the third book of the essay, eleven still\nuntouched; and in all but one[457] a knowledge of the general economical\ndoctrine of Malthus is indispensable to a clear and just understanding\nof him. No apology is needed then for a somewhat long digression, in\nwhich the chief economical writings of our author are briefly analyzed.\nIt is not wholly a digression, as the substance of seven[458] out of ten\nchapters will be found incorporated with it, and their logical\nconnection with the author\u2019s economical theories (so far as it exists)\nwill be shown.\n\nAs a thoroughly practical man, Malthus knew that philanthropy can do\nlittle without sound doctrine; and his economical theories belong to the\nsubstance of his work. They were developed, unlike the _Essay on\nPopulation_, in quiet controversy among friends; Ricardo, James Mill,\nand Jean Baptiste Say, who were critics of the _Political Economy_, had\nbeen converts of the _Essay_. These were, however, the very men who came\nnearest to identify orthodox economics with rigorous abstraction.\nMalthus himself, labouring to build up the neglected pathology of\neconomic science, was not chargeable with this fault. His first work had\nhappily fixed into an intellectual principle his natural inclination to\nlook at speculative questions in their relations to practice, and to\nlook at \u201cthings as they are\u201d[459] rather than as they might be.\nRicardo\u2019s first work, bearing wholly on finance,[460] had unhappily\nfixed for him his inclination to treat every social question as a\nproblem in arithmetic. In both cases the excitement of controversy would\nmake the impression deeper.\n\nThe two economists both start from Adam Smith,[461] as theologians from\nthe Bible. It was becoming clear that these Scriptures were of doubtful\ninterpretation. Men were to choose between the Calvinism of Ricardo and\nthe Arminianism of Malthus; and, when the two writers turned from their\ndebates with the public to debates with each other, no less a prize was\nin question than the hegemony of the school.\n\nThis was won by Ricardo, whose _Principles of Political Economy and\nTaxation_ (1817) were accepted by James Mill, MacCulloch, Nassau Senior,\nto say nothing of others, as the Institutes of their creed. MacCulloch\nthought it not worth his while to print what Ricardo had thought it\nworth his while to write, in vindication of his positions against\nMalthus.[462] The strongest ally of Malthus was Sismondi. It was not\ntill Ricardo had reigned for thirty years that there was serious sign of\ndefection, when the son of James Mill broke with his father\u2019s\ntraditions;[463] and, though in the hands of Thornton, Cliffe Leslie,\nWalker, and others, the reaction has been carried to the utmost, the\neclipse of Ricardo has done nothing to rescue Malthus from obscurity.\nThe very success of the _Essay on Population_ may have deepened the\noblivion of the other writings in virtue of the popular fallacy that a\nman cannot be equally great in general theory and in the advocacy of one\nparticular reform.\n\nThe _Political Economy_ of Malthus has its faults; but it contains in\noutline the main truths which writers of our own time think they have\nestablished against Ricardo. First and foremost, he maintains with them\nthat the proper study of the science is not Wealth, but Man, or more\ndefinitely, Wealth in relation to Man. The qualities of man and the\nearth he cultivates are according to Malthus so many and variable in\nrelation to each other that a study of their relations cannot be an\nexact science like mathematics; it may contain \u201cgreat general\nprinciples\u201d to which there are few exceptions, and \u201cprominent landmarks\u201d\nthat will be safe guides to us in legislation or in life; but \u201ceven\nthese when examined will be found to resemble the most general rules in\nmorals and politics founded upon the known passions and propensities of\nhuman nature.\u201d[464] Human conduct is characterized by such variation and\naberration that we must always be prepared for exceptions to our\nprinciples, and for qualifications which spoil the charm of uniformity,\nbut are faithful to facts,[465] like George Eliot\u2019s \u201canalyses in small\nand subtle characters,\u201d which stimulate no enthusiasm but alone tell the\nwhole truth. In the second place, we are told that the nature of the\nsubject makes a peculiarly cautious Method necessary. Our first business\nbeing to account for things as they are,[466] till we are sure that our\ntheories do so we cannot act on them.[467] A good economical definition\nmust conform to the ordinary usage of words. We must take if possible a\nmeaning which would agree with the ordinary use of words \u201cin the\nconversation of educated persons.\u201d[468] If this does not give sufficient\ndistinctness, we must fall back on the authority of the most celebrated\nwriters on the science, particularly of the founder or founders of it;\n\u201cin this case, whether the term be a new one born with the science, or\nan old one used in a new sense, it will not be strange to the generality\nof readers, or liable to be misunderstood.\u201d[469] If any word must have a\ndifferent meaning from that adopted by either of these authorities, the\nnew sense must not only be free from the faults of the old, but must\nhave a clear and recognizable positive usefulness. The new definitions\nshould be consistent with the old; and the same terms should be used in\nthe same sense, except where inveterate custom insists on an exception.\nWhen all is done, it is still impossible in a social science like\npolitical economy to find a definition entirely beyond cavil.[470]\n\n\u201cWealth\u201d must include all the \u201cmaterial objects that are necessary,\nuseful, or agreeable to mankind;\u201d[471] \u201cproductive labour\u201d must be the\nlabour which realizes itself either in such material objects or the\nincreased value of them; or else we wander from common language, and our\ndiscussions travel off into indefiniteness. Economical reasoning must be\na deduction from observed facts of nature and of human nature verified\nby general experience. Malthus professes to have used this cautious\nmethod throughout, and the theory of population was only the particular\ninstance where circumstances enabled him to make his verification most\ncomplete. \u201cI should never have had that steady and unshaken confidence\nin the theory of population which I have invariably felt, if it had not\nappeared to me to be confirmed, in the most remarkable manner, by the\nstate of society as it actually exists in every country with which we\nare acquainted.\u201d[472] On the other hand, Ricardo, legislating for\nSaturn, gives us little or no verification by experience. It is true\nthat he admits qualifications and exceptions to his own statements; and\nhe would have winced a little at his own biographer\u2019s assertion that\n\u201cMr. Ricardo paid comparatively little attention to the practical\napplication of general principles; his is not a practical work.\u201d[473]\nBut he makes no use of the admissions; his illustrations as a rule are\nnot historical, but imaginary cases and the verification is wanting. In\na letter to Malthus (written on the 24th November, 1820) he says: \u201cOur\ndifferences may in some respects, I think, be ascribed to your\nconsidering my book as more practical than I intended it to be. My\nobject was to elucidate principles, and to do this I imagined strong\ncases, that I might show the operation of these principles.\u201d[474] In\nMalthus and Adam Smith, imaginary cases are rare exceptions, actual\nexamples from life or history are the rule. Malthus goes so far in this\ndirection that (to use his own phraseology) he is tempted to subordinate\nscience to \u201cutility.\u201d Even Adam Smith, though he had abundance of\ngood-will to his kind, did not write to do good but to expound truth. To\nMalthus the discovery of truth was less important than the improvement\nof society. When an economical truth could not be made the means of\nimprovement, he seems to have lost interest in it. His pointed warning\nto others against this error[475] may be regarded as a confession of his\nown liability to it; and, if he obeyed his own warning at all, his\nposition was at the best like that of the latter-day utilitarians, who\ntry to reach happiness by making believe not to think of it. If his\nscience had been less biassed by utility, it might have been more\nthorough; and we might not have had in our own time a Ricardian\nsocialism, appearing like the ghost of the deceased Ricardian orthodoxy\nsitting crowned upon the grave thereof. He has the virtue of refusing to\njoin the economical Pharisees,[476] who would not admit the elasticity\nof economical laws, lest they should discredit their science; but he is\nto blame for not pushing his quarrel against Ricardo with the same\nenergy as against Godwin. His forces, in this campaign, were worse\ndrilled and worse handled. It is justly said by Garnier (_Dict. de\nl\u2019\u00c9con. Pol._, art. \u2018Malthus\u2019), that in spite of its title, the\n_Political Economy_ of Malthus is not the exposition of a system, but\nsimply a collection of economical papers on various subjects that had\nbeen brought specially under his notice in discussion with his friends,\nor (we might add) in his college class. This itself would lead him to\npresent a much less solid front to the enemy than he did in the _Essay_.\n\nTo come, in the third place, to Details, we find the human character of\nthe _Political Economy_ of Malthus appearing not only in his view of\npopulation, where all is at last made to depend on the personal\nresponsibility of the individual man, and legislation is good or bad\naccording as it strengthens or weakens that responsibility,\u2014but in his\nview of the Value of goods, as measured by human labour,\u2014in his view of\ndemand and supply, as sharing the inconstancy of the human desires that\nenter into both of them,\u2014in his view of the Rent of land, as determined\nby the effects of human industry and skill as well as by the natural\nqualities of the soil,\u2014in his view of the Wages of labour, as regulated\nnot by an unchangeable but by a progressive minimum,\u2014in his view of\nluxury, as being equally with parsimony necessary to production, and\npreventive of over-production,\u2014and in his view of free trade, as a rule\nto which we must make exceptions if we would not cause sufferings.\n\nThese doctrines had a distinct relation to current events. Political and\nsocial changes were reacting on political economy. As Godwin and Pitt\nprovoked the essay of 1798, the scarcity of 1799 and 1800 called forth\nthe pamphlet on High Prices (1800). As the latter bears directly on the\nPoor Law, it will best be considered when the thread of the _Essay on\nPopulation_ is taken up again;[477] and the same applies to the letter\nof Malthus to Whitbread (1807). The distresses of a time when wheat went\nso high as \u00a36 the quarter instead of its normal 40_s._ or 50_s._, would\nnaturally make the relief of the poor a question of the day. The high\nprices of corn increased the number of enclosures and Enclosure Bills.\nMore than three millions of acres, or about a twelfth part of the entire\narea of England and Wales, are said to have been taken from waste into\ncultivation between 1800 and 1820. The average price of wheat, always\nthe staple food of the people when they could get it, had been 55_s._\n11_d._ for the years preceding, viz. from 1790 to 1799 inclusive; it was\n82_s._ 2_d._ from 1800 to 1809 inclusive, and 88_s._ 8_d._ from 1810 to\n1819 inclusive, after which it fell (for the next decade) to 58_s._\n5_d._[478] In 1883\u20134 it was 35_s._ 8_d._ a quarter, which means a\nfour-pound loaf (of medium quality) at 4\u00bd_d._ or 5_d._; but at its\nlowest during the war (in 1803) it was at 57_s._ 1_d._, and the loaf was\nat 6\u00be_d._ or 7_d._\n\nYet agriculture had not been standing still. Arthur Young, whose\neccentric energy benefited every one but himself, and fell little short\nof genius, betted his nineteen volumes of _Annals of Agriculture_\nagainst Sir John Sinclair\u2019s twenty-one volumes of the _Statistical\nAccount of Scotland_, that the Government of Pitt would not establish a\nBoard of Agriculture. But Farmer George did establish one, in 1793;[479]\nYoung paid his bet and became Secretary; Sinclair gained his nineteen\nvolumes and became President of the new Board; and together they did\nmuch to make farmers and landlords aware of the rotations of crops,\ndisuse of fallows, new manures, road-makings, that the Secretary had\nbeen preaching in vain for thirty years.[480]\n\nWhen the great scarcities of 1799\u20131800 took place, the Board was equal\nto the occasion. It urged the Government to get supplies of rice from\nIndia; it preached earnestly the cultivation of waste lands and the\ntemporary conversion of grass lands into cornfields. The last was done\nwidely enough when the prices of corn were high. The second, except when\nit meant enclosure of commons, was hardly done at all; and there was a\nstrange impression that the efforts of the Board were at bottom a\npolitical movement against ecclesiastical titles and the Established\nChurch. The importation of rice would have been of immense immediate\nservice; but by the time the order had reached India and the rice ships\nhad come back to England,[481] the famine was over, the people preferred\nwheat, and \u00a3350,000 of bounty were thrown away.[482] Nothing shows the\ninsularity of English commercial policy better than the remedies\ngenerally proposed in those days for curing the evils of a bad harvest.\nThe House of Commons passed self-denying ordinances[483] and brown-bread\nbills, and offered a bounty on potatoes.[484]\n\nThere was some talk inside the House of enforcing a minimum rate of\nwages, and outside of enforcing a maximum price of bread. The people\nwere told to eat red herrings instead of bread; philanthropic soup shops\nwere opened; distilleries and starch manufactories were threatened with\nprohibition. Relief from the poor rates was, however, the favourite way\nof cutting the knot. Better that our people should depend on each other\nthan on the foreigner. This fear of dependence was the more pardonable\nthen, as there were times, in the war with Napoleon, when England was\nmore completely alone against the world than she is ever likely to be\nagain. It was a much more culpable folly to pretend[485] that the\nscarcity was due to \u201cforestalling and regrating,\u201d[486] and that England\ncould have provided for herself well enough, even in 1799 and 1800, but\nfor the corn-dealers and the large farms and the enclosures and the\nnew-fashioned husbandry. The new learning, however, went on its\nway.[487] The benefits of it may have gone to farmer[488] or to\nlandlord,\u2014the question was much debated,\u2014but they did not go to the\nlabourers. The same is true of the improvements in cattle-breeding\nintroduced by Bakewell of Leicester and Chaplin of Lincoln, and\nencouraged by the Smithfield Club (1798), which has long outlived the\nBoard of Agriculture. The life of the country labourers was little\nchanged. They and their wages could not remain entirely unaffected by\nthe growth of manufacturing towns. But custom still had the chief power\nover wages, and had no little influence on rents. From the reports sent\nfrom the Scotch, English, and Welsh counties to the Board of Agriculture\nin 1794, it does not appear that wages were at all, or rent very\nclosely, in correspondence with the amount of the produce.[489] Rents\nwere far from being rack rents, and wages were far from varying with the\nnecessary expenses of the labourer. In truth each country district in\nthe days before railways and steamboats was nearly in the same isolation\nwith regard to the rest as all England was with regard to foreign\nnations. The price of farm produce was indeed tending to be equal over\nEngland, as now over the world. Wages were displaying no such tendency.\nOf all goods a man is the most difficult to move,[490] for you must\nfirst persuade him; and human inertia by making men stationary will keep\nwages low. So it was in 1794. The exertions of landlord and tenant were\ndirected therefore rather to keep up corn than to keep down wages. They\nwere beginning to fear for their monopoly of the corn market. The\nEnglish Government had done its best to keep their market for them. A\nlaw of Charles II. passed in 1670 virtually prohibited importation of\nforeign wheat till the price of home wheat was over 53_s._ 4_d._ a\nquarter, and made it free only when the home price was 80_s._ The\nRevolution of 1688 brought a new phase of commercial policy. The new\nrulers, to conciliate the agricultural classes and atone for the burdens\nwhich had been transferred to them from the industrial classes, granted\na bounty of 5_s._ a quarter on the exportation of wheat so long as the\nhome price was not over 48_s._ In this way, after exportation in the\ndays of the Romans, and alternate exportation and importation according\nto the seasons in after times, there was, after the Revolution,\nexportation encouraged by a bounty, while importation was still hindered\nby duties. The intention was at once to attract capitalists to\nagriculture and to reward those already engaged in it. By this means not\nonly would the farmers be attached to the new dynasty, but England would\nprovide all her own food.[491]\n\nBut the very increase of tillage kept down prices and gave the\nlandowners little benefit. Whenever a scarcity occurred the laws were\nsuspended, and the bounty and duties were taken off together.[492]\nExportation, however, was the rule till a little after the middle of the\ncentury, say at the beginning of George III.\u2019s reign, when the tide had\nfairly turned. Especially after the Peace of Paris (Nov. 1762), commerce\nwas extended and population with it. Canals were made, roads improved,\nand home trade prospered.[493] We could no longer raise enough corn for\nour own wants.[494] In 1766, the year of our author\u2019s birth, there were\nscarcities, Corn Riots, and suspensions of the Corn Laws;[495] but the\nbounty was kept up in name to the end of the century. In 1795 and 1796\nthe price of wheat rose to 80_s._ a quarter, in 1797 and 1798 it sank to\n54_s._; but, at the end of harvest, 1799, it rose to 92_s._, in 1800 to\n128_s._, and before the harvest of 1801 to 177_s._ The quartern loaf\n(under 6_d._ in 1885) was once within \u00bd_d._ of 2_s._! Then came a cycle\nof comparative plenty. Wheat between 1802 and 1807 was at 75_s._ on an\naverage, and a new Corn Law in 1804 prohibited importation till the home\nprice should rise to 63_s._ Between 1808 and 1813 it was 108_s._ on an\naverage; and it was as high as 140_s._ 9_d._ in the severe winter\n(1812\u201313) of Napoleon\u2019s retreat from Moscow. But in the spring of 1815\nwheat was at 60_s._ If it should rise to 63_s._ the ports would be\nopened, and there was not even the Protection of war. The farmers and\nlandowners were terror-stricken, the political economists divided, and\nthe bill for raising the importation price to 80_s._ was hurried through\nthe House. The bounty, relaxed in 1773, had been finally repealed, in\n1814.[496] As the sliding scale of duties was not introduced till 1827,\nwe are to regard Malthus and Ricardo as writing on rent (in 1815 and\n1820) under the severe Corn Law of 1815, as well as when the wisdom of\npassing that measure was still under debate. All their discussions on\nrent bear consciously or unconsciously upon the Corn Laws of their own\ntime.\n\nMalthus is rightly considered the first clear expounder in England of\nthe economical doctrine of rent. Dr. James Anderson, a contemporary of\nAdam Smith, was no doubt before his age in his view of the subject;[497]\nbut, perhaps because he was better known as an agriculturist than as an\neconomist, he does not seem to have made converts. The \u201csimultaneous\nrediscovery\u201d of the true doctrine by West and Malthus in 1815 may be\ncompared with the simultaneous discovery of the Darwinian theory by\nWallace and Darwin in 1859. The times were ripe for it. Malthus gives no\ncertain sound on the subject in the early editions of the _Essay on\nPopulation_. In the second he even says that \u201cone of the principal\ningredients in the price of British corn is the high rent of land\u201d (p.\n460; cf. p. 444). However, needing to lecture on Rent to his pupils at\nHaileybury in 1805, he saw the unsoundness of this position, and in\n1806, in the third edition of the essay, the passage is dropped, and we\nare told, \u201cuniversally it is price that determines rent, not rent that\ndetermines price\u201d (vol. ii. p. 266). The passage is repeated in the\nfourth edition (1807).[498] But when the time came for a fifth edition,\nin 1817, the whole of the chapters on Corn Laws and bounties, which are\nthe only chapters of the essay that deal much with rent, were recast, to\nexpress the clearer views which the author had already expounded\nelsewhere. In the spring of 1814, in the excitement of debates on the\nabolition of the bounty and on new laws to keep out foreign grain,\nMalthus was led for the fourth or fifth time in his life to take the\nfield as a pamphleteer.[499] This time, however, he came forward, he\nsaid, not to take a side but to act as arbitrator. His \u201c_Observations on\nthe effects of the Corn Laws_, and of a rise or fall in the price of\ncorn on the agriculture and general wealth of the country\u201d (1814),[500]\nprofessed to balance the arguments for and against the Corn Laws, and\ndid it, he said, so judiciously, that his own friends were in doubt to\nwhich opinion he leaned.[501] To later readers the bias is not doubtful.\nIt appears even in such a passage as the following, which, incidentally,\nshows us his view of rent, nearly matured:\u2014\u201cIt is a great mistake to\nsuppose that the effects of a fall in the price of corn on cultivation\nmay be fully compensated by a diminution of rents. Rich land, which\nyields a large nett rent, may be kept up in its actual state,\nnotwithstanding a fall in the price of its produce, as a diminution of\nrent may be made entirely to compensate this fall, and all the\nadditional expenses that belong to a rich and highly-taxed country. But\nin poor land the fund of rent will often be found quite insufficient for\nthis purpose. There is a good deal of land in this country of such a\nquality, that the expenses of its cultivation, together with the\noutgoings of poor\u2019s rates, tithes, and taxes, will not allow the farmer\nto pay more than a fifth or sixth of the value of the whole produce in\nthe shape of rent. If we were to suppose the prices of grain to fall\nfrom 75_s._ to 50_s._ the quarter, the whole of such a rent would be\nabsorbed, even if the price of the whole produce of the farm did not\nfall in proportion to the price of grain, and making some allowance for\na fall in the price of labour. The regular cultivation of such land for\ngrain would of course be given up, and any sort of pasture, however\nscanty, would be more beneficial both to the landlord and farmer.\u201d[502]\nThe drift of the pamphlet may be shortly stated. The writer refused to\ngo with Adam Smith in identifying corn with food, and attributing to it\nin that capacity an unchangeable value, which made any rise of price\nfutile for the encouragement of tillage. He thought that it was\nperfectly possible to encourage tillage by Corn Laws; but was it good\npolicy? Before he could answer this question, he felt bound to consider\nseveral others.[503] Under free trade would Great Britain grow her own\ncorn?\u2014if not, ought Government to interfere to secure this?\u2014if so, would\nlaws to hinder importation be the best kind of interference? The answer\nto the first is, that other countries have soils more fertile than\nBritain; Poland can ship corn at Dantzig for England at 32_s._ a\nquarter;[504] and, if there were free trade over Europe, the rich lands\nwhich are not English would send their plenty to relieve the wants of\ntheir neighbours. If Corn Laws have not made us grow our own corn, free\ntrade would not. In answer to the second question, no doubt it is sound\neconomy to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; and, if\nwe had regard to nothing but the greatest \u201cwealth, population, and\npower,\u201d the rule would be invariable; foreign imports of food are in\nevery case a good thing for the country, and, if there is evil in the\nmatter, it is not in them but in the bad season which makes them\nnecessary; moreover, a free trade in corn secures a steadier as well as\ncheaper supply of grain.[505] But, on the other hand, dependence on\nother nations for the first necessary of life is a source of political\ninsecurity to the nation so depending; and, though the dependence is\nmutual, identity of commercial interests seldom prevents nations from\ngoing to war with each other; \u201cwe have latterly seen the most striking\ninstances, in all quarters, of Governments acting from passion rather\nthan interest.\u201d[506] And it might be argued that, if we give up\nagriculture for manufacture, we change the character of our people;\nmanufacturing industry conduces to mental activity, to an expansion of\ncomforts, to the growth of the middle classes, and to the growth with\nthem of political moderation; but it is more subject than agriculture to\nthe fluctuations of fashion, which lead to chronic destitution and\ndiscontent, and the conditions of artizan life are \u201ceven in their best\nstate unfavourable to health and virtue.\u201d[507] Virtue and happiness\nafter all are the end; wealth, population, and power are but the means.\nMalthus himself believes in something like a golden mean, a balance of\nthe two industries, which legislation might possibly preserve.[508]\nThere is another and less plausible argument on the same side. Assuming\nthat wages vary with the price of corn, high money wages, and therefore\nhigh prices of corn, are an advantage to working men, who would have\nmore money to buy the goods of the foreign countries where prices of\ncorn were low and goods were cheap. This argument, though our author is\ninclined to yield to it, is inconsistent with his own views of wages and\nthe facts he cites in support of them.[509] More cogent is the plea that\nit would be unfair suddenly to withdraw a long-established protection,\nthough (it might be replied) we are no more bound to be gradual in\nabolishing protection than in concluding peace during war. But the real\nquestion is, whether once protected is to mean always protected, and\nprotected in an always increasing degree, for it was this increased\nprotection that was proposed in 1814 and 1815. It may be true that if we\nprotect manufacture we ought to protect agriculture; but, instead of\nprotecting both, why not set both free? Statesmen had no courage,\nhowever, to be free-traders, in days when the separate articles\nprotected were as many as the millions in the National Debt, and each\narticle represented a vested interest. Malthus does not seem to expect\nParliament to give free trade a moment\u2019s consideration. But the friends\nof the new Corn Laws, besides using the commonplaces of protectionism,\nargued from the change in the value of the English currency. When paper\nwere paper prices,[510] the importation price of the law of 1804 could\nbe soon reached, and foreign corn came in much faster than the real or\nthe bullion prices of it would have allowed. There was also the long\narray of standing arguments for Corn Laws that lay stress on the heavy\ntaxation of the country, and are meant to show that the agricultural\nclasses bear most of it, and are thus handicapped against the foreigner.\nFrom Malthus himself the old leaven of protectionism was never wholly\npurged away. Like Pitt, though in a less degree, he suffered his\npolitics to corrupt his political economy, and drag him back from the\n\u201csimple system of natural liberty\u201d into \u201cthe mazes of the old\nsystem.\u201d[511] English people since the Repeal of the Corn Laws will\nhardly care to thrash the old straw out again. Perronet Thompson\u2019s\n_Catechism of the Corn Laws_ is the best storehouse of the old arguments\nand their refutations, set forth with a liveliness to which no other\nEnglish economical writing has the slightest claim.[512]\n\nThe real opinion of Malthus came out in the second Corn Law pamphlet on\nthe _Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of restricting the Importation\nof Foreign Corn_ (1815). Between the two came the tract on Rent, which\nis rather an economical book than a political pamphlet, and will be\nnoticed immediately. He now declares himself in favour of a temporary\nduty on imported corn to countervail the artificially low value of the\ncurrency,\u2014\u201cto get rid of that part of our prices which belongs to great\nwealth, combined with a system of restrictions.\u201d[513]\n\nHe warns the Government that they should not take such a step to benefit\na particular trade, but only to benefit the public. The motives are\nthose constantly professed by defenders of the Navigation Act\u2014not\nprivate interests but public policy. Since he wrote his _Observations_\ncircumstances had changed. The sudden peace had brought the then\nunprecedented combination of a bad harvest and low prices; the value of\nthe currency had fallen fast; and last, and not least, France, the best\ncorn country in Europe, had begun to prohibit the exportation of\ngrain[514] in dear years. We must therefore, he says, keep up the high\nfarming which the war taught us, by keeping up the high prices of the\nwar. Eighty shillings might not be too high a price, for the limit of\nprohibited importation.\n\nIt seems extraordinary that, after so clearly recognizing that \u201cwealth\ndoes not consist in the dearness or cheapness of the usual measures of\nvalue, but in the quantity of produce,\u201d and that exports are not so good\na criterion of wealth as the \u201cquantity of produce consumed at\nhome,\u201d[515] Malthus should recommend the increase of abundance by means\nof artificial dearness. It is a poor consolation to us that he was no\nworse than Brougham, who voted for the Corn Law in 1815, and for the\nsupport of the Navigation Act in 1849,\u2014and little worse than Ricardo,\nwho would allow a temporary restriction for the sake of\nleaseholders.[516] A better is that he was advocating a policy that was\nagainst his private interests as a holder of a fixed salary and owner of\nthree per cents.[517] But at the best the atmosphere of these two tracts\nis a little depressing.\n\nThe tract on Rent is more bracing. It was the first-fruits of the larger\nwork on _Political Economy_ (1820); and its substance had been delivered\nin the professor\u2019s lectures at Haileybury. It expounds the _Nature and\nProgress of Rent_ with clearness and intelligibility, if without the\nliveliness of 1798. Malthus gives us to understand that, to explain this\nor any other economical notion, we must keep as closely as possible to\nthe usage of ordinary language, the language of clear-thinking ordinary\nmen.[518]\n\nTo them, rent does not mean, as by derivation, simply produce or profit;\nnor, as to a Frenchman now and to Bailie Nicol Jarvie in his days,\ninterest on a debt. It means a certain price paid to a landlord for the\nuse of his land. But such a definition is too wide. It might include the\nproceeds of a monopoly, or an interest on capital, or a Government tax,\nor a legal rate, or a toll, or a payment for service rendered. We must\ndefine the term a little more clearly.\n\nThere is a certain portion of a landlord\u2019s income and of a peasant\nproprietor\u2019s earnings that has an origin and character distinct from the\nrest, and demands the economist\u2019s separate attention, whether it alone\nreceives the name of rent or not;\u2014this is, the excess of the produce of\nland beyond the cost of production and the current rate of profits.\nRepresent these in money; and suppose the current profit five per cent.\nSuppose that a tenant lays out \u00a3500 on his farm, and gets by the harvest\nand farm produce not only \u00a3500 plus \u00a325, but \u00a3600; the additional \u00a375,\nwhich would if retained by him be over or extra profits as compared with\nthe rate usual among farmers and men of like business, is the value of\nhis rent; and the landlord can take that from him without impoverishing\nhim. Rent is that portion of the produce which remains, after all the\noutlay of the cultivator has been repaid him together with the current\nprofits. From accidental or temporary causes the money rents of land may\nbe more or less than this; but this is the point to which actual rents\nwill gravitate.[519]\n\nSo far as this account goes, it might seem that Malthus\u2019 description is\ntoo general; it would include the extra profits, for example, of any\nmonopoly or a royalty for the use of a patent; and Ricardo\u2019s definition,\n\u201cthe price paid for the indestructible powers of the soil,\u201d might seem\nmore definite. But Malthus is rather too specific than too general. He\nis thinking of agricultural land only, and that mainly as producing food\nfor man. If his description of the Nature of rent adds little to that of\nAdam Smith,[520] his account of its Causes, which he himself was the\nfirst to grasp, is characteristic and peculiar.\n\nFirst, he says, fertile[521] soils yield a produce that more than feeds\nthe producer. This may be put more generally than Malthus has put it. If\nrent is to be paid, there must be wherewithal to pay it; and there\ncannot be so if production does no more than repay cost. There may,\nhowever, be a production beyond mere repayment of cost, not only in\nfarming but in all trades. The very principle of the division of labour\nand the separation of trades implies that devotion to one occupation\nmakes men so dexterous in production that, besides providing for\nthemselves, they have an overplus wherewith to supply their other wants\nand the wants of others.[522] This overplus, where the facilities for\ntrading were specially good, might be so much above the overplus of an\nordinary profit that the granter of the facilities, who is usually the\nground landlord, might get the lion\u2019s share of it, and still leave the\nuser of the facilities as thriving as his neighbours. On the other hand,\nif no such overplus can be earned, no such rent can be paid. Rent, in\nshort, when it is paid by men of business, either in town or in country,\nmeans over-profits, and ground-rents mean advantage of situation.\n\nThe second cause of rent, according to Malthus, who is considering, be\nit remembered, the cause of the Progress of rents as well as of their\nactual volume at any given time,[523] is the peculiarity belonging to\nagricultural land, that the demand increases with the supply; in other\ncases the demand is external to the supply, but in this case[524] the\nsupply creates its demand. Where there is food there will be mouths. In\nthe supply of food no over-production is possible.[525]\n\nIt is here that the _Essay on Rent_ is connected with the _Essay on\nPopulation_. By the law of population the tendency is that where food\nenough for six is being produced by two, the other four will soon make\ntheir appearance; and so, thinks Malthus, the farmer makes his customers\nby simply making his wares. Something like this, we might add, would\nhappen in a completely developed co-operative society, where the makers\nwould sell to each other and buy from each other. It is even true, in a\nsense, of all manufacturers as things now are, in proportion as their\narticles come near to being necessaries;\u2014if they supply that without\nwhich people cannot live, they go far to bring people into being.\nMalthus, however, regarded it as much more true of agricultural\nproduction than of any other. He regarded food as the chief necessary,\nand thought with Adam Smith, that \u201cwhen food is provided it is\ncomparatively easy to find the necessary clothing and lodging.\u201d[526]\nAgainst this we need only remember, how the _Essay on Population_ showed\nthat it was only in the lower stages of existence that increase of mere\nfood involved increase of population; and so the tendency of the supply\nto create its own demand was, on the author\u2019s own showing, nothing more\nthan a tendency.[527] His economical reasoning was swayed a little by\nhis circumstances. The insularity of English life in his days prevented\nhim from conceiving how a nation could safely derive half its food from\nabroad; what Adam Smith had thought too good to be likely,[528] he\nthought too dangerous to be desirable. Good or bad, it is our position\nnow, and the result is, first, that the supply of food does not, in the\nsame degree or way, produce its own demand as formerly, and, second,\nthat our other productions are, even more truly than the agricultural,\nthe supply that creates its own demand, for they give the power of\nbuying the food that feeds new demanders. The production carried on, on\nthe surface of the land, has come in this way to be a more potent cause\nof the Progress of rents than production from the soil itself. With this\nrestatement the second of Malthus\u2019 causes of rent becomes perhaps a\nlittle more intelligible.\n\nHis third cause is that good land is scarce. Lands differ in fertility,\nand there is not, as in a new country, enough of the most fertile to\nsupply all our wants. When the produce of the inferior begins to be\nabsolutely necessary, the inferior will be cultivated at a price enough\nto repay cost and give ordinary profits to the farmer. But what is\nsimply enough to do that for him will do much more than that for all the\nholders of superior lands, and all that is much more can be taken by a\nlandlord as rent without placing the tenant at any disadvantage as\ncompared with his neighbours. As soon as this happens in a country, the\nextra profits, which are called by economists rent, will appear in it;\nand the growth of population, by leading to an increased demand for food\nand to an increased price of it, will cause the cultivation of inferior\nlands, or else a more expensive cultivation of the old ones; and again,\nsince the necessary new supplies cannot be permanently kept up without\none or other of these two resources, the price, and with it the rent,\nwill, in the absence of inventions, remain permanently higher. In other\nwords, this third cause is the \u201claw of diminishing returns.\u201d\n\nIt is this law of diminishing returns which bulks most largely in the\ntract of Sir Edward West, written in the same year as that of Malthus.\nWest\u2019s theory of rent is simply, \u201cthat in the progress of the\nimprovement of cultivation the raising of rude produce becomes\nprogressively more expensive, or in other words, the ratio of the net\nproduce of land to the gross produce is continually diminishing.\u201d[529]\nHe sees how near Adam Smith came to it when he said, that in the\nprogress of cultivation the total amount of rent increased, but the\nproportion of it to the produce diminished, so that from being _e. g._\nhalf the produce it became one-third.[530] He sees, as even in 1798\nMalthus had seen,[531] that but for this law population might increase\nindefinitely on a few fertile lands instead of spreading over the globe\n(West, p. 13), whereas because of this law inventions in agriculture are\nnot able to remove \u201cthe necessity of having recourse to inferior land,\nand of bestowing capital with diminished advantage on land already in\ntillage\u201d (p. 50). He pushes the principle so far as to say broadly that\nwhatever increases agricultural production increases cost, while\nwhatever increases manufacturing production diminishes cost (p. 48),\ninferring that the former must tend abroad and the latter at home to\nprevent the displacement of English agriculture by foreign competition.\nAs he had little or no influence on Malthus, his tract need not be\nnoticed in detail; it is enough to say that, while West is superior in\nstyle and arrangement, Malthus is the more comprehensive. West is\nclearer and simpler because he includes less.\n\nLooking at the three causes together, we see that the first and last\nrelate to the statics, and the second to the dynamics of the subject. We\nneed to remember that Malthus is having regard in the first instance not\nto the value but to the quantity of the produce. Now, apart from\nquestions of value, it is possible there might be, in a country, land\nyielding to the sower more than he sowed; but it might be an ordinary\nexcess, secured by all producers in that country, for the land might be\nall equally fertile, and production from land might be the most fertile\nof industries. In that case, even if the land was a State monopoly and\nthe producer\u2019s gains could be taken from him by a tax, there would be\nnothing corresponding to rent, in the received sense. But, as soon as\nthere were differences in the fertility, and therefore differences in\nthe quantity produced at the same cost, the farmer who had the\ndifference on his side could be said to have a rent. It is this surplus,\nconjoined with the institution of private property, that, according to\nMalthus, makes leisure and mental progress, and even great material\nprosperity, possible.[532] The rent is properly the extra profits, and\nnot the equivalent paid over for them to a landlord; rent can easily\nexist without a landlord. \u201cIt may be laid down, therefore, as an\nincontrovertible truth, that, as a nation reaches any considerable\ndegree of wealth, and any considerable fulness of population, which of\ncourse cannot take place without a great fall both in the profits of\nstock and the wages of labour, the separation of rents, as a kind of\nfixture upon lands of a certain quality, is a law as invariable as the\naction of the principle of gravity. And that rents are neither a mere\nnominal value, nor a value unnecessarily and injuriously transferred\nfrom one set of people to another, but a most real and essential part of\nthe whole value of the national property, and placed by the laws of\nnature where they are, on the land, by whomsoever possessed, whether the\nlandlord, the crown, or the actual cultivator.\u201d[533]\n\nIt is the second cause that brings the first and third into operation in\nsuch a way as to produce the rents that we actually know in an old\ncountry. The fertility which secures a produce beyond cost makes extra\nprofits possible; the growing population, which gives the produce a\nvalue, makes them actual; and the gradations in fertility, whereby a\nuniform increase in the value of produce creates far from uniform extra\nprofits to different cultivators, give the extra profits the peculiar\ngraduated character, which is characteristic of rent in the economical\nsense of the word.\n\nMalthus believed himself to have included, in this theory of rent, what\ntruth there was in the view of the French economists and of Adam Smith,\nwhen they spoke of rent as due to the qualities of the soil and not to\nan ordinary monopoly. His contemporaries admitted him to have been the\nfirst clear expounder of the subject. But his most eminent brother\neconomist found general agreement quite consistent with emphatic\ndivergence in details,[534] not wonderful in a writer who regarded every\neconomical question as a particular case of the problem of value rather\nthan of wealth.\n\nRicardo admits that his own theory of rent is simply a farther\ndevelopment of the Malthusian. In an essay on _The Influence of a low\nprice of Corn on the Profits of Stock, showing the inexpediency of\nRestrictions on Importation_ (1815),[535] published in answer to the two\ntracts of Malthus above mentioned, he makes this quite clear, and,\nunlike his disciples, is warm in praise of his rival\u2019s powers as an\neconomist.[536] He agrees with the definition (of the _Tract on Rent_)\nthat rent is \u201cthat portion of the value of the whole produce which\nremains to the owner after all the outgoings belonging to its\ncultivation have been paid,\u201d including an ordinary rate of profits for\nthe employed.[537]\n\nBut, whereas Malthus regards rent as increased by whatever lessens the\noutgoings in any shape or form, Ricardo considers that can happen in one\nway only, namely, by the increased cost of raising the last part of the\nnecessary supplies. Arithmetically it was clear that, if you had four\nitems making up the total expense of cultivation, whatever reduced any\none of the items _pro tanto_ reduced the total.[538] Accordingly,\nMalthus said that rent could be increased by such an accumulation of\ncapital as will lower the profits of stock,\u2014such an increase of\npopulation as will lower the wages of labour,\u2014such agricultural\nimprovements or such increase of the cultivator\u2019s exertions as will\ndiminish the number of labourers needed,\u2014or such an increase in the\nprices of produce from increased demand as will increase the difference\nbetween the expense of production and the price of produce.[539]\nRicardo, on the other hand, says that profits can never be reduced by\nmere accumulation of capital or competition of capitals, but only by the\nprogressively less fruitful character of the investments to be found for\ncapital as accumulation goes on. As long as there is fertile land to be\nhad, yielding a rich return to capital, no one will accept a poor\nreturn. \u201cIf in the progress of countries in wealth and population new\nportions of fertile land can be added to such countries with every\nincrease of capital, profits would never fall nor rents rise.\u201d[540] In\nthings as they are, capital soon accumulates beyond the rich investments\nand has to take the poorer. Sooner or later, even in a new colony, a\npoint is reached where fertile land will not supply food enough for the\ngrowing population except at an increased cost.[541] Now, if the supply\nis absolutely required, the most costly portion of it, whether it be got\nby an extension of cultivation to poorer lands, or by a more thorough\ncultivation of the richer, will determine the price of all the rest, for\nthere cannot be two prices in the same market; and the profits of the\nproducer of it will determine the profits of all his fellow-cultivators,\nfor there cannot be two rates of profit in the same business.\nFurthermore, the agricultural profits will determine the rate in other\nbusinesses, for in a full-formed society the rate in the others must\nbear a fixed relation to the rate in this business, so that the one\ncannot materially vary without the other.[542] Therefore the greater\ncost of the last portion of the necessary supply of food will lower\nprofits generally, will thereby increase the range of extra profits from\nthe richer soils, and will thereby raise rents.\n\nThe difference between the two men is, that what Malthus makes only one\ncause, Ricardo makes the only one, the increased cost of\ncultivation.[543] Ricardo and his friends have certainly put cause for\neffect.[544] It is of course in the first instance the high prices that\nlead to the costly cultivation, and not _vice vers\u00e2_, for without the\nhigh prices the produce of the costly cultivation would not be\nprofitable.\n\nMalthus was asked by the Committee on Emigration: \u201cAmong other effects\nof resorting to a soil inferior to any now in cultivation, which is\ninvolved in the proposition of cultivating waste lands, would not one be\nto raise the rents of all the landlords throughout Great Britain and\nIreland?\u201d\u2014He answered: \u201cI think not. The cultivating of poor lands is\nnot the cause of the rise of rents; the rise of the price of produce\ncompared with the costs of production, which is the cause of the rise of\nrents, takes place first, and then such rise induces the cultivation of\nthe poorer land. That is the doctrine I originally stated, and I believe\nit to be true; it was altered by others afterwards.\u201d[545]\n\nOn the other hand, what makes the high prices permanent instead of\ntemporary, is the fact that the cultivation essential to the\ncompleteness of the supply cannot be other than costly.[546] It is,\ntherefore, not wrong to consider costly cultivation as one cause of the\npermanence of high prices, and therewith of high rents. But Ricardo goes\nfurther, and counts it the only cause.\n\nThrough the whole progress of society, he says, profits are regulated by\nthe difficulty or facility of procuring food; and, \u201cif the smallness of\nprofits do not check accumulation, there are hardly any limits to the\nrise of rent and the fall of profit.\u201d Nothing can increase the general\nrate of profit but the cheapening of food;[547] as by improvements in\nagriculture, which, by securing the same production with less labour,\nfor the time increase the profits and lower the rents.[548] The\nlandlord\u2019s interest is therefore at all times opposed to that of every\nother class in the community,[549] for it means dear food, low profits,\nand high rents. Still, high rents are not the cause either of the dear\nfood or the low profits, but are, equally with them, the effect of a\ncommon cause, more costly cultivation. The effect of a costly\ncultivation on wages might seem _vi terminorum_ to be a raising of them,\nfor wages depend on the proportion of the supply of labourers to\ncapital\u2019s demand[550] for them, and by assumption there was a greater\ndemand. But since the cause of the rise of price was in the first\ninstance an increase of population, it follows that the increased cost\nof raising the most costly supplies of corn will be incurred not by\nhigher payment of old labourers, but by employment of new. Wages again\nwill buy less corn, for corn has risen. \u201cWhile the price of corn rises\nten per cent., wages will always rise less than ten per cent., but rent\nwill always rise more; the condition of the labourer will generally\ndecline, and that of the landlord will always be improved.\u201d[551] In his\nstatement of the doctrine of wages, Ricardo is perhaps more careful in\n1815 than he is in 1817, saying that, \u201cas experience demonstrates that\ncapital and population alternately take the lead, and wages in\nconsequence are liberal or scanty, nothing can be positively laid down\nrespecting profits as far as wages are concerned.\u201d[552] But even in 1817\nhis exposition is hardly more rigid than that of Malthus himself. So far\nis he from recognizing an iron law driving wages down to \u201cthe natural\nprice\u201d or bare necessaries, that he thinks the market rate may be\nconstantly above the natural for an indefinite period, and he regards\nthe natural itself as expansive. The whole chapter on wages[553] shows a\njust understanding of the _Essay on Population_. Nevertheless, if\nRicardo in one sense made too much of the principle of population in\nrelation to Rent, in another sense he made too little of it. He does not\nsee that in a progressive country it counteracts the tendency of\nimprovements in agriculture to cheapen produce, and thereby reduce\nrents;[554] agricultural rents have risen since 1846 largely because of\nhigh farming. He does not grant that high or low wages can affect rent,\nbecause he regards them as purely relative to profits, and making with\nprofits a total amount, of which only the proportions vary; but it is\ndifficult to believe that the rise in agricultural wages since 1873 or\nso can have failed to play a part in keeping down farmers\u2019 rents since\nthat date. As, however, our view of the power or powerlessness of\nlowered profits or lowered wages to increase rent will be found to\ndepend on our view of the causes of value, and as the difference of the\ntwo economists on the relation of wages to profits might have the\nappearance of a technical subtlety, these two items of the total may be\npassed by for the present.\n\nIn regard to agricultural improvements the issue seemed plainer, and the\nevidence seemed all for Ricardo and against Malthus. In a country\ndepending chiefly on itself for grain, a general adoption of\nimprovements would seem to make supplies cheaper because less costly,\nand therefore to lower rents because forcing farmers to lower prices.\nEven Mr. Mill did not break away from Ricardianism at this point,[555]\nthough he speaks less unreservedly than Ricardo upon it. Malthus, on the\nother hand, who regards rent as depending largely on the ability of the\nagricultural supply to create its own demands, regards rent,\naccordingly, as at all times keeping pace with the increase of grain\ncaused by improvements, unless the improvements outrun population. What\ncheapness does in other cases is to make an article accessible to a\ncircle of buyers previously excluded from it. Every one is a buyer of\nagricultural produce and no one is excluded; but the temporary cheapness\nof grain creates new buyers by making marriage accessible to a wider\ncircle.\n\nThe progress of rents in fact results from the conflict of two\neconomical tendencies\u2014the tendency of economical expedients to lower\nprices, and the tendency of an increasing population to raise them. If\nMalthus\u2019 ripest view of population be true, then a cheapening of food\namong a civilized people by no means leads to a corresponding increase\nof their numbers, and therefore the course of improvement would tend so\nfar towards a diminution of price, and therewith of rent. If rents\ndepended on the price of corn alone, economical expedients (including\nnot only the direct aids to tillage, mechanical and chemical inventions\ndirectly applied to it, but the indirect aids, free trade, railways, and\nsteamers) must certainly have lowered rents in the last hundred years.\nBut the reverse is true,[556] chiefly because the produce of a farm is\nceasing to mean wheat, and coming more and more to mean cattle and dairy\nproduce, which have not fallen but risen in price in one hundred years,\nwhile corn has actually fallen. This variety of productions has proved\nfinancially an equivalent to what Malthus (seventy years ago) considered\nthe main cause of greater extra profits to the farmer and greater money\nrents to the landlord\u2014\u2014the increased fertility of the soil in the matter\nof grain, and an increased price keeping pace with it.\n\nThe commercial policy of England has become what Malthus describes in\nthe latter part of the _Essay on Population_ as a combination of the\nagricultural and the commercial systems. His views on this subject\nbecame modified as he grew older. In the second edition he says:[557]\n\u201cTwo nations might increase exactly with the same rapidity in the\nexchangeable value of the annual produce of their land and labour;\nyet ... in that which had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, the\npoor would live in greater plenty, and population would rapidly\nincrease; in that which had applied itself chiefly to commerce, the poor\nwould be comparatively but little benefited, and consequently population\nwould either be stationary or increase very slowly.\u201d \u201cIn the history of\nthe world the nations whose wealth has been derived principally from\nmanufactures and commerce have been perfectly ephemeral beings compared\nwith those the basis of whose wealth has been agriculture. It is in the\nnature of things that a state which subsists upon a revenue furnished by\nother countries must be infinitely more exposed to all the accidents of\ntime and chance than one which produces its own.\u201d[558] It is not, he\nthinks, because of her trade, but because of her agriculture that\nEngland is so rich in resources; it is not without danger that our\ncommercial policy has diverted capital from agriculture into manufacture\nand commerce. About the middle of the eighteenth century we were\nstrictly an agricultural nation, and we were safe, for in a country\nwhose commerce and manufacture increase from and with the improvement in\nagriculture there is no discoverable germ of decay. But all is changed\nnow; and there is reason to fear that our prosperity is temporary, and\nwe have only risen by the depression of other nations.[559] When the\nnations that now supply us with cheap corn shall have prospered like\nourselves and increased their population till corn is dear among them,\nthen we shall be ruined. The evils of scarcity are so dreadful that it\nis worth our while to give special encouragements to agriculture, and,\nin order to be certain to have enough, to have in general too much.[560]\nOtherwise \u201cwe shall be laid so bare to the shafts of fortune that\nnothing but a miracle can save us from being struck.\u201d[561] \u201cIf England\ncontinues yearly her importations of corn, she cannot ultimately escape\nthat decline which seems to be the natural and necessary consequence of\nexcessive commercial wealth; and the growing prosperity of those\ncountries which supply her with corn must in the end diminish her\npopulation, her riches, and her power,\u201d\u2014not indeed in the next twenty or\nthirty years, but \u201cin the next two hundred or three hundred.\u201d[562] In\n1803 Malthus had much in common with the author of _Great Britain\nindependent of Commerce_, to say nothing of the French economists. He\ncannot be said to have entirely lost the bias in favour of Agriculture\nin later years. In the _Political Economy_, reviewing the last five\ncenturies of English work and wages,[563] he tries to explain away the\ninstances where rising prices of corn and an \u201cinflux of bullion\u201d seem to\nhave injured the condition of the labourer; and there can be little\ndoubt he was indirectly answering an objection to Corn Laws. When\ndepreciation of the currency, whether through American discoveries or\nsuspensions of cash payment, has occurred, the rebound from it (he says)\nhas made prices fall much more than wages, and so (we are to infer),\nwhen prices are kept high, wages will follow. It may be doubted if he\nhad weighed the full consequences of such a contention in the light of\nhis own principles of free trade. Professor Rogers[564] has had the\nvaluable aid of old College accounts. Malthus had little besides Eden,\nArthur Young, and the Reports to the Board of Agriculture; and it is\ndoubtful if he fully understood the effects on the labourer of Henry\nVII.\u2019s debasement of the currency, or could apply the analogy to the\ndepreciation in his own day.[565] But on the whole, as years went on, he\nbecame less physiocratic. He came to acknowledge that, if a purely\nagricultural country might in some cases, like America, be the best\npossible for the labourer, it might in other cases, like Poland or\nIreland, be the worst possible for him. If we hear that the labourer in\none country earns in a year fifteen and in another nine quarters of\nwheat, we cannot be sure that the former is the better off till we know\nthe value of other things in the country in comparison with wheat. If\nmanufactures were very dear in comparison, then the labourer\u2019s wages\nexcept in food would go very little way, unless in a case like America,\nwhere the quantity is so great that it makes up for the little value of\ncorn wages. In Poland the value of corn is so low, and there is so\nlittle capital in the country, that the high corn wages mean low real\nwages, and the population is either stationary or very slow in its\nincrease. The prosperity of an agricultural country, then, depends on\nother causes than the direction of its attention to the one industry of\nagriculture, and without knowing these we could not infer or predict\nit.[566]\n\nMalthus in fact reached the point at which he was always glad to arrive,\nthe medium between two extreme views.[567] He would neither approve of a\npurely agricultural nation, whose danger was want of capital, nor of a\npurely commercial, whose danger was want of food. In a purely\ncommercial, everything depends on a superiority in industry, machinery,\nand trade, which from the nature of things cannot last. Not only foreign\nbut domestic competition will bring down profits, and thereby, by\ndiscouraging saving and enterprise, diminish the demand for labour and\nbring the population to a standstill. Christendom has seen Venice,\nBruges, Holland lose their trade by their neighbours\u2019 gain.[568] To say\nthat the nations of the world ought to be allowed to develope their\ntrade as freely as the provinces of a single empire, is, in his opinion,\nto overlook the reality of political obstacles. If England were still\nseparated into the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, London could not be what\nit is. The interest of a province and the interest of an independent\nstate are never the same.[569] To one who believes political divisions\ninevitable, there can be little hope for universal free trade. Malthus\nis unable to rise to the cosmopolitan view of Cobden, and he never seems\nto see that by ignoring political barriers, free trade may really weaken\nthem. His ideal is a state which combines agriculture and commerce in\nequal proportions.[570] The prosperity of the latter implies the decay\nof feudalism and the establishment of secure government; with security\ncomes the spontaneous extension of enterprise and a steady demand for\nlabour. Since the two great classes of producers provide a market for\neach other, wealth will constantly grow, and without risk of sudden\ncheck by a foreign influence. The prosperity of such a country may (he\nthinks) last practically for ever, and we might answer in the\naffirmative for our own country the query of Bishop Berkeley about\nhis.[571] \u201cThe countries which unite great landed resources with a\nprosperous state of commerce and manufactures, and in which the\ncommercial part of the population never essentially exceeds the\nagricultural part, are eminently secure from sudden reverses. Their\nincreasing wealth seems to be out of the reach of all common accidents,\nand there is no reason to say that they might not go on increasing in\nriches and population for hundreds, nay almost thousands of years.\u201d[572]\nThey would go on in fact till they reached the extreme practical limits\nof population, which under the system of private property would mean\nsuch a state of the land as would \u201cenable the last employed labourers to\nproduce the maintenance of as many probably as four persons,\u201d the man,\nhis wife, and two children. As soon as the labour ceases to produce more\nthan this, it ceases to be worth the employer\u2019s while to give the wages\nand employ the labour. These practical limits are far from the limits of\nthe earth\u2019s power to produce food, and a Government which compelled\nevery member of society to devote himself wholly to the raising of food\nand necessaries, would succeed in coming nearer to those farther limits,\nthough at the expense of everything we mean by civilization.[573] As a\nmatter of fact, even the practical limit is not approached by way of a\nuniform decline of profits and of population. Various causes, acting at\nirregular intervals, stave off the event. The decline of general\nprofits, the introduction of long leases and large farming, would bring\nmore capital to the land; improvements in agriculture will increase the\nproduce, inventions in manufacture will lessen the cost of the\nagriculturist\u2019s comforts, and make his wages and profits go farther; the\nopening of a foreign market may raise home prices; a temporary rise in\nthe value of agricultural produce may stimulate the investment of\ncapital in farming. So Malthus concludes, for reasons not unlike Cliffe\nLeslie\u2019s,[574] that, though there is a tendency of profits to fall, yet\nthe tendency is often defeated. Though there is much truth still in many\nof his statements, the conclusion he draws from them,[575] that we ought\nby a judicious system of corn duties and corn bounties to keep the price\nof food steady and secure a large home supply, is quite out of court\nnow. The variations in price have been under free trade very moderate;\nand the supply from one quarter or another has never failed us. Free\ntrade is no longer among our problems.\n\nIt must be added, however, that there is no reason why the \u201cpractical\nlimits\u201d should not exist under a paternal or fraternal socialism as well\nas under the present social system. Even if industry were initiated and\ndirected not by individuals but socialistically by Government, the sole\nmotive need not be to increase the mere numbers of the people, and\ntherefore the mere total quantity of food needed for a bare life. The\nmotive of socialistic government would be to secure a high degree of\ncomfort, not a bare subsistence, for all; and therefore, at the cost of\na limitation of numbers, society would still remain at a distance from\nits greatest possible production of food. Whether such a limitation of\nnumbers is likely to take place in the reconstituted society is\ndiscussed elsewhere.[576]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n                            THE WORKING MAN.\n\n  _Measure of Value_, 1823\u2014In what sense Labour a\n    Measure\u2014Difficulties\u2014Arguments of the Tract on Value\u2014Measure in the\n    same Country\u2014Measure in different Countries\u2014Measure at different\n    Periods in the same\u2014Measure as applied to varying Value of\n    Currency\u2014The Royal Literary Society\u2014The _Definitions_\u2014Wages\u2014The\n    Minimum of Social different from the Minimum of Physical\n    Necessaries\u2014High Wages, how made Permanent\u2014The \u201cWages Fund,\u201d whose\n    Invention, and how far a Reality\u2014\u201cThe New School of Political\n    Economy,\u201d its three Tenets\u2014A General Glut in what Sense possible.\n\n\nAs the Rent and Corn pamphlets deal chiefly with Mother Earth, the tract\non the Measure of Value[577] deals chiefly with Father Work. The search\nfor a common measure of value is not, to Malthus, a purely academical\nproblem. He considers such a measure desirable because in any inquiry\ninto the wealth of nations it is important to distinguish between the\nrise of one commodity and the fall of another. The former is an\nintrinsic alteration of value which will affect every exchange in which\nthe object is concerned; the latter an extrinsic which affects only the\none exchange, of the object in question with the foreign object that has\nbeen altered. By value of course is to be understood economic value, or\n\u201cthe power of commanding other objects in exchange,\u201d not value in the\n(not uncommon) wider sense, of usefulness in supplying wants.[578] The\neconomic value of anything, taken in relation to some object which never\nchanges its value from intrinsic causes, may be called the \u201cnatural or\nabsolute value\u201d of that thing, and the object with which it was compared\nmay be called the \u201cmeasure\u201d of absolute or natural value, in other\nwords, of the value which a thing must fetch if its supply is to be\ncontinued. While not only money but any and every object may be such a\nmeasure of value for a limited place and time, even money itself is not\na good measure for widely different places or for long periods of time;\nand corn, which is better for long periods, is worse for short.\n\nLabour is better than either, but Labour is ambiguous. We may measure\nthe value of anything either by the labour it has cost us in the making\nof it, which gives us Ricardo\u2019s sense of natural value, or by the labour\nit will purchase after it is made. Adam Smith,[579] who preferred labour\nboth to money and corn as the measure of value, wavered between these\ntwo meanings of the terms. Malthus declares at once against the first\nsense. Labour, he says, in the sense of cost does not altogether\ndetermine value and therefore cannot measure it, even for similar places\nand times. In 1820 Malthus had been of opinion that a mean between corn\nand labour was a better measure of value than labour itself; but since\n1823 he recurred to the view of Adam Smith,[580] and held that the\namount of the unskilled common day labour of the agricultural labourer,\nwhich a thing will purchase or command, is a good measure of the value\nof it even at widely different places and times. \u201cAgricultural labour is\ntaken for the obvious reasons that it is the commonest species of\nlabour, that it directly produces the food of the labourer, and that it\nis the most immediately connected with the gradations of soil and the\nnecessary variations of profits. It is also assumed with Adam Smith, Mr.\nRicardo, and other political economists, that, on an average, other\nkinds of labour continue to bear the same proportions to agricultural\nlabour.\u201d[581] The bodily exertion of the labourer does not change; it is\nthe same sweat of the brow, the same sacrifice of physical force. When\ncorn, for example, will command a less amount of labour than it would\nhave done a century before, we may be sure it is because of a change not\nin the labour but in the corn; and we ought therefore to say not that\nlabour has risen in value, but that corn has fallen. Malthus\u2019 search for\na permanent element in the changeable has led him to individual human\nlabour as the economical unit. If the Chinese labourer has lower wages\nthan the English, it is not because his labour is of lower value, but\nbecause his necessaries are of higher. Wages are higher in the United\nStates not because labour is of higher value, but because necessaries\nare of lower.[582] Of course when skill enters into the labour, the unit\nis not the same; but, when we look only at unskilled, we find\nconfirmation of Malthus\u2019 view in the experience of the elder and the\nyounger Brassey as employers of labour, that quantity for quantity \u201cthe\ncost of the labour [the expense of it to the employer] is the same\neverywhere\u201d over the world.[583] The measure, however, is by no means\nout of court as regards skilled labour; the difference in kind may be\nstated in terms of a difference in degree. If the watchmaker\u2019s labour be\npaid at the rate of 10_s._ a day, and the common agricultural labourer\u2019s\nonly at 1_s._ 8_d._, the former may be stated as equivalent to six days\u2019\ncommon labour.[584] Malthus has in his mind a scale of compensation such\nas is drawn out by Adam Smith in the tenth chapter of the first book of\nthe _Wealth of Nations_.[585] Disagreeableness, difficulty, inconstancy,\nresponsibility, risk of failure, are so many disabilities, for each of\nwhich a compensation must be made to the workman in the scale of his\nwages, as adding in effect so many more hours\u2019 labour; and each higher\nclass of workman must be paid the unit of common labourer\u2019s wages, with\nthe compensations superadded. In practice this means that men will not\nbe found in sufficient numbers to do the higher class work unless the\nwages are sufficient to make it worth their while to undergo the\ndisabilities. It is assumed that this scale has been adjusted by custom\nand the \u201chiggling of the market\u201d from generation to generation, till in\nany given neighbourhood each of the several skilled trades has a\ndefinitely recognized place in the series.[586]\n\nThis reasoning seems less convincing when we consider that the\ntranslation of skill into terms of hours would be different in different\nlocalities, and that the common labour, which is the unit, would vary in\nthe same way. The measure of value would hold only for a given place,\ntime, and people. To escape from the difficulty, we must consider the\ndifference between the common labour at one time and place and the\ncommon labour at another as itself measurable, and allow for it; or else\nwe must consider it as too small to disturb our conclusions, and so\nneglect it altogether. To reduce common labour to its theoretically\nsimplest terms is to reduce it to something below our experience; and to\nreduce it to its actually simplest in the given cases is to reduce it to\none thing in England, a second in France, a third in India, a fourth in\nAmerica. There are differences of quality which cannot be with any\ncertainty resolved into differences of quantity; such are the\ndifferences of individuals, the differences of nations, the differences\nof races. It will be found, also, that the part played by common as\nopposed to skilled labour, and by agricultural as opposed to\nmanufacturing labour, differs so much between country and country that,\nin order to use labour as a measure, we should need other measures in\naddition to it. In short, if we had data enough to apply this measure,\nwe should have data enough to dispense with it.\n\nIt was possibly the force of these considerations that led Malthus, as\ntime went on, to approach somewhat nearer to Ricardo, whose measure, so\nfar as he had one, was not the labour purchased but the labour that\nentered into cost. But he adhered to the substance of his doctrine as\nexpressed in the tract; and his positions, in detail, were as follows:\u2014\n\nThe power of one object to command another in exchange is influenced\neither by a change in the object itself, or by a change in the other. If\nwe found a case where there was never a change in the first object\nitself, then we should have, in that first, a measure of natural or\nabsolute as opposed to nominal or relative value, _i. e._ a measure of\nthat value of an article which satisfies the \u201cconditions of the supply\u201d\nof it, and enables its production to be continued without loss to the\nproducers. By \u201cconditions of supply\u201d is meant Ricardo\u2019s \u201ccost of\nproduction\u201d with the addition of ordinary profits. No measure of market\nor relative values is possible; and to have a measure of natural value\nitself we must make two postulates,\u2014that natural value depends on\n\u201clabour and profits\u201d (_sic_), on rent little if at all, and that the\n\u201cwages\u201d of labour are also the \u201cvalue\u201d of labour,\u2014what labour is paid is\nalso what labour will fetch. It is easy to apply the measure where\n_only_ labour is concerned, for then the labour that the things _cost_\nis a sufficient measure; it would be evident, at any change, that the\nthings had become cheaper, not the labour dearer. But in present society\nvalue is more complicated; labour is no doubt the chief source of it,\nbut profits are a very considerable one.[587] The natural conditions of\nsupply, however, may be stated in terms of labour, just as if labour had\nbeen the sole ingredient. This would give us a measure for the _same_\ncountry at the same place and time. The total quantity of labour that an\narticle cost, with the addition of ordinary profits stated in terms of\nlabour, would be the same as that quantity of labour which an article\nwould purchase in its natural value.\n\nIn the case of _different_ countries, at the same time, the difficulties\nare not quite the same. Exchange is there determined not by labour but\nby money prices; and money is of very different value in the one country\nand in the other. But the differences in the value of money in different\ncountries are in proportion to the different prices of agricultural\nlabour\u20141500 days\u2019 labour at 4_d._ a day in India, at 2_s._ in England,\nmeaning \u00a325 and \u00a3150 respectively; and, if fixed capital to the value of\n300 days\u2019 labour were advanced to each of them, while profits calculated\nin days\u2019 labour were twenty per cent. in the one case, ten in the other,\nthe result would be an article whose conditions of supply would require\nin the one case a money price of \u00a331, in the other of \u00a3168. The\ndifference is no doubt due to the superior efficiency of English\nindustry and skill which enables England to purchase the precious metals\nmore cheaply,[588] but the cost of getting the money would not tell us\nthe true present value of the money in England or in India. It is not\nthe labour spent on the gold, but the labour purchased by it, that will\nhelp us here. In each country within itself we would measure the natural\nvalue of money as well as of anything else by what labour it will\npurchase; know the difference between the value of money in the one and\nits value in the other by the difference between the amount of labour it\nwill purchase in the one case and the amount it will purchase in the\nother.[589]\n\nIn the case of _different periods in the same country_, though we have\nnot, as in the case of two different countries, the test of an actual\nexchange, we can still use labour as the measure. We must allow for the\nhigher profits of the earlier period; and on the (Ricardian) principle\nthat profits and wages vary inversely, though corn wages have risen,\nprofits have in proportion fallen, and the total value of the produce\nmeasured by its power of purchasing labour must be the same,[590] the\npurchased labour then representing the producing labour plus the then\nrate of profits. From Ricardo\u2019s dogma it seems (to Malthus) to follow\ndirectly that the value of labour is constant.[591] Taking the labour\nthey will purchase as the best measure of the value of the precious\nmetals, as of anything else, we have light on one of the pressing\nquestions of the day (in 1823), the causes of the changing value of\nmoney. The causes affect not the labour but the money, and they are of\ntwo kinds. The first Malthus describes as a primary or necessary cause,\nnamely, the variation in profits depending on the (Ricardian) theory of\nthe interlocking of wages and profits, and the (Malthusian) theory of\nthe relation of profits to rent. Dear corn due to difficult cultivation\nwould lower profits, and would alter the value of money, but only in\nrelation to raw, not in relation to manufactured produce, or at least\n(from the effects of Ricardo\u2019s principle of the inverse variation of\nwages and profits) not to the same extent. But the second, which is a\n\u201csecondary and incidental\u201d class of causes, affects both raw and\nmanufactured goods, and is often enough to completely dwarf the effects\nof the primary cause;[592]\u2014it is the general commercial situation of a\ncountry,\u2014\u201cthe fertility and vicinity of the mines, the different\nefficiency of labour in different countries, the abundance or scarcity\nof exportable commodities, and the state of the demand and supply of\ncommodities and labour compared with\u201d the precious metals.[593] The\nefficiency of labour and a prosperous commerce, with a great consequent\ndemand for corn and labour, are often more powerful in making bullion\ncheap than agricultural productiveness and high profits in making\nbullion dear and corn cheap. During the war\u2014say from 1790 to 1814\u2014we had\nan instance of this, and since the war\u2014say from 1814 to 1823\u2014we have had\na clear instance, he thinks, of the converse.[594]\n\nTwo elaborate papers on the measure of value, written in 1825 and 1827,\nshow that Malthus was becoming inclined to make less of his differences\nwith Ricardo.[595] They were intimate friends; their discussions had no\nbitterness; and, to use the words of one of them, \u201cboth were so anxious\nfor the truth that sooner or later they would have agreed.\u201d[596] These\npapers are a fulfilment of his duty not (as we might guess) as a fellow\nof the Royal Society or a member of the Political Economy Club,[597] but\nas an associate of the Royal Society of Literature.[598] \u201cThat branch of\nliterature\u201d [_sic_] \u201con which it shall be his duty to communicate with\nthe Society once a year at least\u201d is described as \u201cpolitical economy and\nstatistics.\u201d[599] He does little credit in these papers to his literary\nfaculty. Their composition is laboured and devoid of ornament. The first\nis _On the Measure of the Conditions necessary to the Supply of\nCommodities_; and the thesis is, that \u201cthe natural and necessary\nconditions of the supply of all commodities,\u201d that are not monopolies,\nare represented and measured by the labour which they will on an average\ncommand, and by nothing else. The second is _On the Meaning which is\nmost usually and most correctly attached to the term, Value of\nCommodities_; and the thesis is, that, when value is used without a\nqualifying adjective or reference to any special equivalent in a\npossible exchange,[600] the term refers to the \u201cconditions of supply.\u201d\nWhen we say, for example, anything is sold at a price far above its true\nvalue, we mean far above its cost price, including under \u201ccost\u201d the\naverage rate of profits that must go to the maker if he is to live by\nhis trade. The two papers taken together form a sort of indirect proof\nof the position taken up in the tract on the _Measure of Value_ (1823),\nand the relevant parts of the second edition of the _Political Economy_\n(1836), and may be stated briefly thus:\u2014The labour commanded by an\narticle is generally the measure of that article\u2019s cost;\u2014but that\narticle\u2019s cost is what people generally mean by its value;\u2014therefore the\nlabour commanded by an article is the measure of that article\u2019s value in\nthe ordinary sense of the word.\n\nThe second paper was written at the same time as the _Definitions in\nPolitical Economy_, and illustrates the rule laid down there,\nprescribing adherence, when possible, to the meaning which economical\nterms bear in the mouths of ordinary folk.[601] The _Definitions_, for\nexample, repeat from (or with) the second paper, \u201cwhen no second object\nis specified, the value of the commodity naturally refers to the causes\u201d\nwhich determine \u201cthe estimation in which it is held\u201d \u201cand the object\nwhich measures it.\u201d[602] \u201cThe natural value of a commodity at any place\nand time\u201d is \u201cthe estimation in which it is held when it is in its\nnatural and ordinary state,\u201d as \u201cdetermined by the elementary costs of\nits production,\u201d or in other words, by \u201cthe conditions of its supply.\u201d\nAnd the measure of the natural value of a commodity at any place and\ntime is \u201cthe quantity of labour for which it will exchange at that place\nand time when it is in its natural and ordinary state.\u201d[603]\n\nAs a literary production the book written for the public is superior\nto the papers prepared for the men of letters. Next to the first\n_Essay on Population_, the critical parts of the _Definitions_ give\nthe most pleasant examples of the author\u2019s style. The two papers above\nmentioned are chiefly important as showing the importance which\nMalthus, unlike Ricardo, attached to the question of a measure of\nvalue.[604] A contemporary writer said very happily that the fault of\nRicardo was to generalize too much, and of Malthus to generalize too\nlittle. Malthus, he added, is a keen observer but poor in analysis; he\nis \u201cso occupied with particulars that he neglects that inductive\nprocess which extends individual experience throughout the infinitude\nof things,\u201d and converts knowledge into science. \u201cAs presented by Mr.\nRicardo, political economy possesses a regularity and simplicity\nbeyond what exists in nature; as exhibited by Mr. Malthus, it is a\nchaos of original but unconnected elements.\u201d[605] On the other hand,\nthe testimony of a recent German writer is very different. Malthus, he\ntells us, resembles Ricardo in his sombre view of human life and frank\nstatement of unpleasant facts. Their names are often associated, and\nno doubt both are children of their times. But their leanings were\nreally unlike. Ricardo took up certain ideas of his time in their\nnarrowest, clearest, and harshest form, and applied them wholly in the\ninterest of capital. Malthus is far less narrow. His influence on\neconomics has been much smaller than Ricardo\u2019s; but he will be found\n\u201cby far the more suggestive and less prejudiced of the two,\u201d and, if\nhe found more opponents, it is because he was less understood and less\nread.[606] The sprightly _Dialogues_[607] of De Quincey contribute\nnothing to the discussion on value; but they show how completely\nRicardo had won the ear of the literary world, and how little pains\nthe opponents of Malthus took to do him justice. Malthus reduced the\nproblem to many elements; Ricardo to few; and the latter, as certainly\neasier to understand, was readily represented as the likelier to be\ntrue. Simplicity in such a case is a treacherous virtue; and the\napparent chaos may have been much nearer the truth than the apparent\ncosmos, if there was a hidden flaw in the latter and a latent\nprinciple of union in the former. Sound or unsound, such a principle\nmay be traced in the most abstract discussions of Malthus. We shall\nfind this true when we compare his views with Ricardo\u2019s on the nature\nand causes of value itself, and the movements of prices. We may\nrecognize it even in these discussions on the measure of value. The\nmeasurement of all value by individual human labour is of a piece with\nthe author\u2019s final view of population, where all is made to depend on\nindividual responsibility.[608] The main weakness of the position is\nperhaps that by unskilled labour he means always agricultural, and\ndoes not sufficiently recognize how in manufacturing England it has\nperhaps become easier to measure unskilled by skilled than the latter\nby the former. The difficulty met Robert Owen, when in his _Labour\nExchanges_[609] he not only tried to reduce all values to a common\nmeasure in labour, but to make labour a means of exchange, for which\nit is certainly worse suited than money.\n\nLabour as something to be rewarded by Wages has a more evident\nconnection with the principles of the _Essay on Population_ than labour\nas the measure of all values. In this case unskilled agricultural labour\nis again the unit. The first \u201ccondition of the supply\u201d of this labour is\nthe necessaries of life, in such quantities as will enable the labourers\nto maintain their numbers or to increase them,[610] as the case may be.\nIf the former only, the price of labour is not, as Ricardo says, the\n\u201cnatural,\u201d but really a most unnatural price, for it would mean that the\ncountry giving it had arrived at the final limit of its resources.[611]\nNecessaries, however, are not a simple or even a fixed element. We can\nof course measure them in corn if we like; but they consist not only of\nthe prime necessary, the staff of life, but of other absolute\nnecessaries, of shelter and clothing, and many \u201cconveniences\u201d which have\nbecome necessaries, inasmuch as they are essential to healthy life, such\nas soap and shoes and candle-light. It has happily become a truism that\nthe necessaries of life are not a fixed but an expanding factor. Even if\ncompetition were always to drive wages down to a \u201cminimum of social\nnecessaries,\u201d[612] social are always beyond animal necessaries; our\nbasest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous; and \u201cthe barest\nsocial necessaries\u201d seem likely in process of time to mean a high\nstandard of comfort. To raise the minimum of social necessaries is the\nway to raise wages really, universally, and almost irrevocably.[613]\nMalthus himself declares that \u201cit is the diffusion of luxury\u201d in this\nsense of the word, \u201camong the mass of the people, and not an excess of\nit in a few,\u201d that seems to be advantageous, both for national wealth\nand national happiness. Paley\u2019s ideal of national prosperity, \u201ca\nlaborious frugal people ministering to the demands of an opulent\nluxurious nation,\u201d is heartily scouted by him. The luxuries of the few\nrich, he says, harass the industry of the poor by varying with the\nfashion; but the luxuries of the poor, when embodied in their general\nstandard of living, are not only the best kind of check to population,\nbut the steadiest encouragement to general trade.[614] He seems to have\nsupposed the elevation in the standard of living to have been effected,\nlike the progress of nations in civilization, by the happy improvement\nof an accidental advantage, by the retention of high wages, when once\nsecured in a time of brisk trade in the ordinary way of competition; the\nworkmen, in short, succeeded in making permanent and _de jure_ a change\nonce _de facto_ for the time effected.[615] \u201cWhen our wages of labour in\nwheat were high in the early part of the last century, it did not appear\nthat they were employed merely in the maintenance of more families, but\nin improving the condition of the people in their general mode of\nliving.\u201d[616] Malthus, without knowing it, was certainly father of the\ntheory of a Wages Fund. The theory is that the average wages of the\nlabouring classes at any given time are high or low in proportion to the\ngreat or small amount of circulating capital devoted to the payment of\nwages, or, as it is sometimes expressed (more tersely and inexactly),\nwages depend on \u201cthe ratio of population to capital.\u201d This might mean no\nmore than the arithmetical truism that we may always find the average\nwages by dividing the total sum received by the total number of\nrecipients; and the quotient would be unalterable only in the sense in\nwhich all other facts might be said to be so, in retrospect. But it is\nusually taken to mean that the first total could not at any given time\nhave been greater or less than it actually was, being fixed unalterably\nby circumstances,[617] and so \u201cdevoted\u201d or \u201cdetermined\u201d to the payment\nof wages. The simplest test of this theory is the application of it to\nthe case of a single individual capitalist and his payments in wages.\nSuppose he has a capital of \u00a310,000, \u00a35000 fixed and \u00a35000 circulating;\nand suppose that the latter means wages only (instead of chiefly), and\nis paid to one hundred men;\u2014\u00a350 a year will be the average wages of the\nhundred men; and, by the theory, given the rate of ordinary profits and\ngiven the \u201cdesire of accumulation\u201d at the time and place, it could not\npossibly have been either more or less. But, as the profits are not\nunconditional, neither are the wages; the capitalist might conceivably,\nto save his business, keep it up in bad times at a loss, and pay wages\nat the expense of profits and at the expense of his personal\npleasures.[618] He has often the choice before him to spend more on\nfixtures, or more on new hands, or more on further employment of the old\nhands. In truth, too, though wages, especially in England, are often in\nthe first instance advanced out of capital, they are always meant to be\npaid out of the gross returns, and in every sound business really are\nso. The workman and employer make their contract beforehand, and expect\neach other to abide by it, be the profit much or little; the wages\ndepend, therefore, directly on this contract, and indirectly on that\nwhich is the means of fulfilling the contract on the master\u2019s side, the\nprice of the article made. The price of the article is the real wages\nfund;[619] and therefore the wages fund must be as flexible as market\nprices, and the actual wages as changeable as are the powers, habits,\nand desires of the two contracting parties.\n\nThe theory of a wages fund was formed from the facts of a perfectly\nexceptional time, and on the strength of two truths misapplied, the\ndoctrine of Malthus (on Population) in its most unripe form, and of\nRicardo (on Value) in its most abstract. J. R. MacCulloch seems to have\nbeen the first who put the two together to deduce a rigid law of wages.\n\u201cThe market rate of wages,\u201d he says, \u201cis exclusively dependent on the\nproportion which the capital of the country, or the means of employing\nlabour, bears to the number of labourers. There is plainly, therefore,\nonly one way of really improving the condition of the great majority of\nthe community or of the labouring class, and that is by increasing the\nratio of capital to population,\u201d which the labourers for their part can\nonly do by diminishing the supply of labour.[620]\n\nEven Mrs. Marcet, a docile Ricardian, had put the case more carefully.\n\u201c_Work_ to be performed is the immediate cause of the demand for labour;\nbut, however great or important is the work which a man may wish to\nundertake, the execution of it must always be limited by the extent of\nhis capital, _i. e._ by the funds he possesses for the maintenance or\npayment of his labourers.\u201d[621] She professes to be expounding the\nreceived doctrine of her day. MacCulloch\u2019s exposition is much more\nrigid. When he speaks of the \u201cfunds devoted to the payment of wages,\u201d he\nmeans \u201cthat portion of the capital or wealth of a country which the\nemployers of labour _intend_ or _are willing_ to lay out in the purchase\nof labour.\u201d It \u201cmay be larger at one time than at another. But, whatever\nbe its magnitude, it obviously forms the only source from which any\nportion of the wages of labour can be derived. No other fund is in\nexistence from which the labourers as such can draw a single shilling.\nAnd hence it follows that the average rate of wages or the share of the\nnational capital appropriated to the employment of labour falling, at an\naverage, to each labourer, must entirely depend on its amount as\ncompared with the number of those amongst whom it has to be\ndivided.\u201d[622] Neither MacCulloch, nor James Mill, nor John Mill in his\nearly writings, nor apparently any of the expounders of the theory, were\nin the habit of describing the fund as \u201cunconditionally\u201d devoted to the\npayment of wages, though John Mill, in restating the position after he\nabandoned it, gives us so to understand.[623] Something like\nunconditional determination, however, is assumed in all the reasonings\nof the school. Adam Smith\u2019s frequent use of the words \u201cfunds devoted\u201d or\n\u201cfunds determined\u201d to this or that purpose may easily have been\nmisunderstood. Certainly in his pages they mean no inflexible\ncompulsion. He says the demand of those who live by wages can only\nincrease in proportion to the increase of the \u201cfunds\u201d which are\n\u201cdestined\u201d for the payment of wages, these funds being (he adds) either\nthe surplus revenue of an idle monied man who will \u201cnaturally\u201d use any\naddition to them in increasing his staff of domestic servants, or the\nincreased capital of the capitalist who will just as \u201cnaturally\u201d use\nthem in employing more workmen.[624] The word \u201cdestined\u201d is so far, with\nhim, from implying any iron necessity that it means simply \u201cintended\u201d;\nand the intention is one that can be foiled or altered. He speaks of the\n\u201cfunds destined for the consumption\u201d of the manufacturing class,[625]\nand of the townsfolk\u2019s \u201cfund of subsistence,\u201d[626] meaning simply their\nfood; he even speaks of the funds destined for the repair of the high\nroads in France.[627] Even the strong passage in Book I. chap. viii.,\n\u201cthe demand for those who live by wages necessarily increases with the\nincrease of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly\nincrease without it,\u201d stops considerably short of the doctrine of a\nrigid wages fund. It is never suggested by Adam Smith that the wages\nfund is inelastic, and that wages could not at any given time have been\ngreater or less than they actually were. The doctrine is seldom traced\nfurther back than to Malthus; and Malthus cannot be shown to have held\nthe doctrine. With express reference to the passage last cited from the\n_Wealth of Nations_, he says that \u201cit will be found that the funds for\nthe maintenance of labour do not necessarily increase with the increase\nof wealth, and very rarely increase in proportion to it, and that the\ncondition of the lower classes of society does not depend exclusively\nupon the increase of the funds for the maintenance of labour or the\npower of supporting a greater number of labourers\u201d (_Essay_, 7th ed.,\nIII. xiii. 368). The condition of the working classes depended, he\nthought, partly on the rate at which the \u201cfunds for the maintenance of\nlabour,\u201d[628] or, as he expressed it at first, \u201c_the resources of the\ncountry_\u201d[629] and the demand for labour are increasing, and partly on\nthe \u201chabits of the people.\u201d Among their habits we should need to put\ntheir education and their power of union among themselves, and\nconsequent strength in a struggle with the masters, to obtain or to\nraise the market rate of wages. From Ricardo he differed on the subject\nof wages very much as on the subject of value. Ricardo looked at cost\nprice as the natural value of an article, and mere subsistence as the\nnatural wages of labour. Malthus could do neither.\n\nThe issues between the two economists are nowhere so well or so calmly\nstated as in a paper written by Malthus (a few months after Ricardo\u2019s\ndeath) in the _Quarterly Review_,[630] where he deals with MacCulloch\u2019s\ntreatise on _Political Economy_.[631] In that article Malthus professes\nto regard the political economy of Ricardo, James Mill, and most of the\neconomical writers in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia_, as a new and wrong departure.\nIt is said to have been regarded by the writer as one of the best\neconomical papers he ever wrote;[632] and, among other virtues, it has\nthe merit of perfect courtesy and respect towards the persons\ncriticized. Their system, he says,[633] is remarkably like that of the\nFrench economists. They \u201cwere equally men of the most unquestionable\ngenius, of the highest honour and integrity, and of the most simple,\nmodest, and amiable manners. Their systems were equally distinguished\nfor their discordance with common notions, the apparent closeness of\ntheir reasonings, and the mathematical precision of their calculations\nand conclusions founded on their assumed data. These qualities in the\nsystems and their founders, together with the desire so often felt by\nreaders of moderate abilities of being thought to understand what is\nconsidered by competent judges as difficult, increased the number of\ntheir devoted followers in such a degree, that in France it included\nalmost all the able men who were inclined to attend to such subjects,\nand in England a very large proportion of them.\n\n\u201cThe specific error of the French economists was the having taken so\nconfined a view of wealth and its sources as not to include the results\nof manufacturing and mercantile industry.\n\n\u201cThe specific error of the new school in England is the having taken so\nconfined a view of _value_ as not to include the results of demand and\nsupply, and of the relative abundance and competition of capital.\n\n\u201cFacts and experience have, in the course of some years, gradually\nconverted the economists of France from the erroneous and inapplicable\ntheory of Quesnay to the juster and more practical theory of Adam Smith;\nand, as we are fully convinced that an error equally fundamental and\nimportant is involved in the system of the new school in England as in\nthat of the French economists, we cannot but hope and expect that\nsimilar causes will, in time, produce in our own country similar effects\nin the correction of error and the establishment of truth.\u201d\n\nThe new school has, according to Malthus, three main principles. The\nfirst is, that what determines value is the quantity of labour that a\nthing costs to make,\u2014the second, that supply and demand do not as a rule\naffect values,\u2014and the third, that fertility of soil and not competition\nregulates the rate of profits. The new school thinks that profits enter\nso little into the price of an article that they may be neglected\naltogether in the computation of the causes of value. But (says Malthus)\nthe value of a stone wall would be due, nearly all of it, to labour, and\nthe value of a cask of old wine kept for twenty or thirty years would be\nlargely due to profits. \u00a350 worth of stone wall would have much more\nlabour \u201cworked up in it\u201d than \u00a350 worth of old wine. It is not\nsufficient to answer that profits are simply accumulated wages. As well\nsay that five is another name for four. Ricardo himself introduced many\nqualifications into his own statement that value is due to labour. The\nprinciple (he confessed) was modified by the use of machinery and by the\nunequal durability of capital.[634]\n\nMalthus admits the truth of Ricardo\u2019s dogma that profits and wages can\nonly increase at each other\u2019s expense, and he even applies this\nprinciple of Ricardo\u2019s in a new way to the facts of the commercial\ndepression that had prevailed since the peace.[635] It was universally\nallowed there had been a less demand for labour and a great fall in\nwages, but, it was also allowed, a much greater fall in profits; so that\nwages while lower in gross amount bore a higher proportion to profits\nthan before. The reason was that, while the competition of labourers was\ngreat, the competition of capitalists with capitalists was still\ngreater. The result was a universal fall of prices; the wages, though\nrelatively greater, were absolutely less in amount, and the demand for\nlabour would have been greater if prices had risen and the capitalist\nhad got greater returns to his capital. Malthus would not go farther\nthan this, and the Ricardian doctrine needs to be otherwise applied to\nyield the doctrine of a wages fund. It was applied in some such way as\nfollows:\u2014Competition drives prices down to the cost of production; this\nmeans that at any given time the sum total of profits and wages cannot\nbe more than they actually are, and both are kept down by competition to\ntheir minimum; the masters could not give higher wages without cutting\ndown their profits, the men could not get less wages without either\nstarving or being driven to seek other employments. Malthus does not so\napply his doctrines. To him, what fixes the sum total of wages and\nprofits is not the cost of production, but the demand for the thing\nproduced; not the labour spent on a thing, but the labour that others\nare willing to give for it; and the cause of value is not cost, but\ndemand acting with supply. Ricardo, who prefers to confine his theories\nto natural value, allows that the state of the demand and supply raises\nmarket value above or depresses it below cost price; and he does not see\nhow seriously his own qualifications[636] impair the truth of his theory\nof value even when the value is \u201cnatural.\u201d[637] It is true, on the other\nhand, that the supply at any given time is a supply that will not be\nkept up unless the cost price be paid back. The cost price would\ncertainly be the minimum below which prices could not permanently pass.\nBut to Ricardo the cost in labour is the formal as well as the material\ncause of a value; to Malthus it is only the material, and only part of\nthat, a mere _sine qu\u00e2 non_, while the efficient is the demand, and the\nfinal is the consumption of the article by its last buyer or user.\n\nThe third leading tenet of the new school, says Malthus, is that the\nrate of profits in a country depends on the fertility of the soil there,\nand not, as Adam Smith thought, on the competition of capital with\ncapital for employment. Against them Malthus maintains that there is no\nnecessary (though there is a frequent) connection between the\nproductiveness of industry and the rate of profits, still less between\nthe latter and the productiveness of any one single industry, such as\nagriculture. Profits depend on the proportion of the whole produce which\n\u201cgoes to replace the advances of the capitalist\u201d; but this proportion\nmay remain the same when the productiveness of industry is very various.\nIn the previous eight or nine years, say from 1815 to 1824, there had\ncertainly been no costliness in production. Corn had been cheap, and\nfarmers\u2019 losses had led to the discontinuance of high farming, and\nespecially of the forced cultivation of the dear years. The production,\ntherefore, was at the cost of much less labour. But profits, instead of\nhigher, were much lower. Abundance of produce and competition of\nproducers had caused a fall in the value of produce, so that it was\npossible for the labourer to receive a greater share of what he made,\nthough his labour had not become more productive. Ricardo does not take\nsufficient account of the influence of prices, both on wages and on\nprofits.\n\nThere had in fact been over-production and a general glut. James Mill\u2019s\n_Elements of Political Economy_[638] contain a careful demonstration\nthat general gluts are impossible. It was emphatically a controversial\npassage, and in the pages of John Mill it has the look of an\nanachronism. All depended on the meaning of \u201cgeneral.\u201d If it meant\nuniversal, the case was impossible. It is incredible that all without\nexception should have something to sell and no wish to buy. To offer\nanything for sale must of itself imply a desire to buy something else\nwith it, either directly or by means of money. Even a very near approach\nto universality is not easy to understand; and it would mean simply that\na bad organization of the world\u2019s markets had prevented buyers and\nsellers from reaching each other, and prevented goods from going where\nthey are wanted, at the time when they are wanted; it would mean that\nnot the malady but the scale and degree of it had passed belief.[639]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III.\n                             GENERAL GLUTS.\n\n  French War and English Trade\u2014English Currency\u2014Bullion\n    Committee\u2014Restriction not the only Cause of High Prices\u2014Ricardo on\n    Currency\u2014Tooke on Prices\u2014Say on Gluts\u2014English Trade from 1824\u2014High\n    and Low Wages\u2014Some Fallacies of Malthus.\n\n\nThe discussion on General Gluts was simply a phase of the discussions on\nValue; and the prominence of such discussions in the political economy\nof sixty years ago was largely due to the peculiar effects on trade and\nprices of a twenty years\u2019 war with France. The theories of economists\nwere becoming most abstract precisely at the time when the justest\ngeneralizations were most severely tested by abnormal conditions. Even\nif the Industrial Revolution heralded by the _Wealth of Nations_ had\nbeen allowed a free course, the new conditions of manufacture would have\nraised new economical questions; and they could not have failed to turn,\nto some extent, on the subject of value, which Adam Smith had by no\nmeans exhausted. But there was no free course. War was declared against\nEngland by France in 1793. In the same year Pitt was forced to offer\nEnglish merchants a loan of public money, to cure a financial crisis.\nThen followed, under the long Tory supremacy, heavy taxes, repressive\nlaws, and something more nearly approaching a war of classes than\nanything known in England before or since.\n\nThe effects of the first ten years of the French war (1793 to 1802) were\nto all appearance rather good than bad. Britain itself, unlike the other\nbelligerent countries, was always intact, and the labours of British\nmanufacturers could go on as if nothing unusual was happening on the\nContinent. Our command of the sea, to say nothing of the conquest of new\ncountries, gave us trade which others lost, and made amends for the\nannulment of the French treaty of commerce, and the loss of the Dutch\ntrade. In 1806 the situation became less pleasant. The Berlin and Milan\ndecrees excluding us from almost every country in Europe, the\nretaliatory Orders in Council and consequent alienation of America did\nreal damage to English commerce. The very expectations they caused of a\nprobable scarcity of particular goods sent up prices; and, with the real\nscarcity, contributed to an acute disturbance of trade, which lasted\nabout five years for the Continent and three years more for America\n(1807\u201312, 1807\u201315). New markets were opened to us in South America; and\nthe pent-up commercial enterprise of our countrymen vented itself in\nthat direction, with wild disregard of the needs of consumers in that\nquarter.[640] The same happened, with more reason, in 1814 and 1815.\nWhen peace was restored, it was thought that the whole Continent must be\neager to have our goods, after being so long without them; and we sent\nthem lavishly everywhere without waiting for orders. Unhappily the rest\nof Europe was exhausted by the war, which had lessened their production;\nand such products as they could offer us in exchange for our\nmanufactures we seldom took without taxing. The very food that we most\nwanted from them we were careful to keep out till the last moment.[641]\nAnything more unlike the \u201csimple system of natural liberty\u201d could not be\nconceived; and the result certainly seemed to be an over-production on\nour part;\u2014it was at any rate a reign of low prices and deep commercial\ndepression. This was not all. Since 1797 we had had a paper currency of\nuncertain value. In that year the Bank of England, whose department of\nissue was not then separated from its department of banking, gave\nadvances to Government, in return for which it was relieved of immediate\nobligation to pay gold to the holders of its notes. As long as the\nissues were moderate, the notes kept their value; but this was a time\nwhen economical substitutes for the currency, cheques and bills and\nCounty notes, were lessening the proportion of the Bank\u2019s notes to the\ntotal transactions of trade; and the Bank\u2019s power of calculating the\npublic need without the natural safety-valve of convertibility became\nmore and more fallible; the circulation soon contained superfluous\npaper, which dragged down the whole currency. In these circumstances,\ndiscussions on currency gained an interest they could never have had in\nthe abstract; and they led to measures of the most practical and\npermanent usefulness. Ricardo\u2019s tract _The High Price of Gold Bullion a\nProof of the Depreciation of Bank-Notes_ (1809) prepared the way for the\nBullion Committee of the House of Commons (1810), and through them for\nour own Bank Charter Act (1844). Malthus played a more quiet part. His\nchief writings on the subject of the currency were two magazine\narticles, one in the _Edinburgh Review_ of February 1811,[642] and\nanother in the _Quarterly Review_ of April 1823.\n\nThe first treats of _The Depreciation of Paper Currency_, and is a\nreview of pamphlets by the leading advocates and assailants of the\nprinciples of the Bullion Committee\u2019s Report. The Committee had inquired\ninto three subjects: the high price of gold bullion, the state of the\ncurrency, and the state of the foreign Exchanges. As to the first, they\nfound that, while an ounce of standard gold was converted at the Mint\ninto \u00a33 17_s._ 10\u00bd_d._ (which sum was therefore the Mint price of gold\nbullion), the said ounce could not in the years 1806\u20138 be bought by the\nMint for less than \u00a34 in bank-notes, or in 1809 for less than \u00a34 10_s_.\nThe market price had risen to that extent above the Mint price, of gold\nbullion. As to the second, they found that guineas had gone out of\ncirculation, and were practically replaced by small notes between \u00a31 and\n\u00a35. Finally, as to the third, they found that from the end of 1808 the\nExchanges had become more and more unfavourable to England, till in\n1809\u201310 they were with Hamburg nine, with Amsterdam seven, with Paris\nmore than fourteen per cent. below par. After examination of witnesses\nand consideration of their evidence, the Committee resolved \u201cthat there\nis at present an excess in the paper circulation of this country, of\nwhich the most unequivocal symptom is the very high price of bullion,\nand next to that the low state of the Continental Exchanges; that this\nexcess is to be ascribed to the want of a sufficient check and control\nin the issues of paper from the Bank of England, and originally to the\nsuspension of cash payments, which removed the natural and true\ncontrol.\u201d The effects had been very serious, especially on the wages of\ncommon country labour (_Report_, p. 73); and the Committee recommend a\nspeedy return to the principle of cash payments, whether the nation be\nat peace or war, though caution demands that this take place gradually,\nin the space of two years. It took place, not in two years, but in more\nthan ten, namely on 1st May 1821,[643] Parliament not agreeing to the\nchange till 1819.[644] Cobbett\u2019s venture (to be broiled on a gridiron\nwhen the Bank paid in gold) seemed a perfectly safe one.\n\nBoth Malthus and Ricardo agreed with the Report of the Bullion\nCommittee. Ricardo indeed is in a sense the father of it. Malthus (in\nthe _Edin. Review_) speaks strongly of the bad policy and injustice of\ncontinuing the suspension, and he does not spare the Bank of England and\nits mischievous monopoly,[645] or the \u201cpractical men\u201d and their narrow\nviews.[646] Yet he finds fault with Ricardo here as elsewhere for making\nhis statements too absolute. Malthus\u2019 fault is in the contrary\ndirection; he qualifies too much.[647] He thinks that Ricardo has gone\ntoo far in attributing all the movements of the Exchanges to excessive\nor defective currency; a purely commercial excess of imports over\nexports might, he thinks, cause the same effects, and even in the high\nprice of bullion it was the commercial difficulty that began what the\ndepreciation of currency continued. Ricardo, who replies in a long\nappendix,[648] answers, in substance, that in any and every case money\ngoes from where it is cheaper to where it is dearer, and therefore from\nwhere the currency has lost value to where it has gained it. But this\nhardly meets the contention of Malthus, that the efficient cause, though\nit affects the currency, is not in all cases the currency itself, and in\nthe case of an unequal balance of trade, however temporary, the cause of\nthe exportation of the money is rather the superfluity of the goods in\nthe foreign country than the deficiency of the money there;\u2014it would be\notherwise when the first cause was in the currency itself. The rest of\nthe article contains little that is new to readers of the _Political\nEconomy_, and the reference to a possible over-production is chiefly\nvaluable as a sign of the authorship, and as showing that the views of\nthe author were becoming fixed. The personal acquaintance of Malthus\nwith Ricardo dates probably from the appearance of this article;[649]\nand they continued to discuss and correspond, in perfect friendship,\ntill the death of Ricardo in Sept. 1823.[650]\n\nHis friendship with the Edinburgh Reviewers remained unbroken; and, when\nhe wrote in the _Quarterly Review_, it was the _Review_ not the writer\nthat had changed. On finance, indeed, the _Quarterly Review_ had been\nsaved from unsoundness by Canning\u2019s influence,[651] and an article on\nTooke\u2019s _Prices_ need have no politics.\n\nThere can be little doubt that Thomas Tooke[652] was right in holding\nthe difference between the Mint price and the market price of gold\nbullion to be the full measure of the effect of this depreciation upon\nprices, the rest of the increase being due to great demand with small\nsupply, being as a rule much exaggerated and in its worst forms purely\nlocal. He pointed out that there was, as a matter of fact, no\ncoincidence between the Bank\u2019s contraction or extension of its issues\nand the fall or rise of prices in the market outside. Prices rose, for\nexample, in 1795 and 1796, when the Bank\u2019s circulation had been not\nextended but contracted to meet the commercial crisis; and in 1798, when\nthe Bank\u2019s issues were larger, prices actually fell to what they had\nbeen in 1793. Moreover, when some prices went up, others went down. When\nthe prices of provisions went up in 1799 and 1800, the prices of\ncolonial wares went down. The ruling cause (Tooke argues) was not the\nissue of many or few bank-notes, but scarcity and plenty, especially the\nplenty of a good harvest and the scarcity of a bad one. Wages in the\nsame way fluctuated rather by the harvests than by the currency, but not\nby either so much as by the changes in general trade; it would not be\ntrue to say that the high or low prices produced high or low wages, but\nwhat produced the one produced the other. The recoil of the speculation\nthat followed the Peace brought down both together; there was a glut not\nonly of goods but of hands; and there were the discarded men of the army\nto swell the numbers of the unemployed. The Luddite outbreaks against\nmachines, as taking work away from the hands, had made a notable\nbeginning in 1812 during the war; in 1816, the year after the Peace,\nthey began again with greater violence. The discussions of Say and\nMalthus on Over-production, and the reasonings in Ricardo (1817) and\nJames Mill (1821) on Wages and the Wages Fund, are as truly commentaries\non these events as the Letter of Cobbett to the Luddites[653] or the\nvolumes of Tooke on Prices.\n\nMalthus has adroitly used the work of Tooke to support his own\neconomical positions. In a review in the _Quarterly_ for April 1823[654]\n(pages 214 _seq._) he tries to show that Mr. Tooke\u2019s conclusions as to\nthe high and low prices of the past thirty years prove the following\ngeneral statements:\u2014First, that values and therefore prices depend on\nthe supply compared with the demand, and are only affected by the labour\nrequired to produce goods (_i. e._ by what Ricardo counts the main cause\nof value) so far as this labour is the main condition of their supply;\nsecond, that the supply and demand are chiefly affected by the seasons,\nand, of the other causes, war may limit the supply but can hardly cause\na demand; third, that when demand outruns supply trade is brisk, when\nsupply outruns demand trade is dull; and that, finally, a long-continued\ndeficiency or a long-continued excess of this kind brings with it a fall\nor a rise in the value of the precious metals.[655] Malthus, however,\ngoes further than Tooke with the Bullion Committee. Though on the\nbullion question the opposing parties, Bosanquet and Ricardo, seemed to\nhim to be devoted to a preconceived theory,[656] the Report itself was\n\u201cmore free from this error of preconception than any work that had\nappeared on the subject;\u201d[657] and he agreed with it that there had been\na greater rise of prices and of wages at the end of the period of\nrestriction, than could be explained by the bad seasons, and demand for\nmen, and the difference between paper and gold. He is old-fashioned\nenough to think that even with convertibility there might be over-issue\nand depreciation, and speculation on a basis of paper. His reasoning on\nthis point is hardly sound. It depends on a misapplication of the axiom\nthat, in the case of necessaries, a very small deficiency in the supply\nwill cause a very great increase in the price,\u2014_e. g._ that wheat may\nrise from 100 to 200 per cent. when the deficiency of the crops is not\nmore than 15 or 30.[658] The profits of English farmers between 1793 and\n1815 must therefore have been enormous; and Malthus, though he loves\nagriculture above manufacture, has taken account of these high gains of\nindividuals in judging the cause of the Agricultural Interest against\nthe public.[659] But in connection with currency he actually speaks as\nif those gains were a public advantage; be does not see they were a mere\ntransference of public wealth, not an addition to it. The farmer, he\nsays, is obviously \u201cable to set in motion a much greater quantity of\nindustry than before,\u201d at least till wages have risen. \u201cThe specific\nfunds destined for the maintenance of labour, though diminished in\nquantity, are by this happy provision of nature increased in their\nefficiency;\u201d labourers get more employment, and there is \u201ca burst of\nprosperity to the producing classes.\u201d[660]\n\nThis is a near approach to a worse fallacy than the Wages Fund. The\narchaic reasoning is the more unhappy, because the reasoner proceeds to\nuse it in a good cause. Jean Baptiste Say[661] had taught that all\nincreased or diminished demand depended on increased or diminished\nsupply, and argued thence, with James Mill and Ricardo, the\nimpossibility of general or rather universal gluts. Goods[662] being\nalways meant to be exchanged with goods, one-half will furnish a market\nfor the other half; and thus, as production (which gives the means of\nbuying) is the sole source of demand (so far as demand is effective), an\nexcess in the supply of one article merely proves a deficiency in the\nsupply of another, and is improperly called over-production. Indeed,\nwhereas consumption takes an article away from the market, production\nbrings one into it, and thereby increases, _pro tanto_, the demand by\nincreasing the means of buying. James Mill\u2019s neat demonstration of this\ndoctrine[663] would be quite conclusive if we, first of all, defined\ndemand and supply so as to include each other, and, second, supposed\ngeneral to mean universal. The reply of Malthus himself is that goods\nare not always exchanged for goods, but frequently, perhaps most\nfrequently, for labour. Say rejoins that he for his part used a term\n(\u201cproducts\u201d) which includes both goods and services, and that the latter\nare always the real object of an exchange.[664] Malthus makes a better\npoint when he accuses his opponents of treating goods as if they were\nmathematical symbols, instead of objects of human consumption owing\ntheir whole character to human wants.[665] But his case could be made\nconvincing even on his opponents\u2019 premises. Division of labour, all\nadmitted, is limited by the extent of the market;[666] allow that the\nmost satisfactory cure for the limitation is to widen the market, not to\nlessen the division of the labour\u2014still, _given_ the limitation of the\nmarket, the extension of the division of the labour will cause an\nover-production. All that Malthus maintained was that this might happen\nin a great many cases as well as in a few; Say went as near as he dared\nto the assertion that it could not happen at all.\n\nThe question of a market, again, is not a mere question of numbers but\nof wants. A carpet factory, for example, among a people who preferred\nbare floors would have no market, whatever the numbers and even the\nwealth of the people. Say does not do full justice to Malthus in this\nconnection. He thinks that the author of the _Essay on Population_\ncannot consistently believe in the possibility of a great abundance of\nproducts together with a stationary number of parsimonious consumers.\nBut Malthus had allowed that in one case, the case of food, there could\nbe no over-production,[667] the want in that case being constant,\nwhereas, curiously enough, Ricardo thinks that food is the one object of\nwhich there might be a glut. \u201cIf every man were to forego the use of\nluxuries and be intent only on accumulation, a quantity of necessaries\nmight be produced for which there could not be any immediate\nconsumption. Of commodities so limited in number there might undoubtedly\nbe a universal glut, and consequently there might neither be demand for\nan additional quantity of such commodities nor profits on the employment\nof more capital. If men ceased to consume they would cease to produce.\nThis admission does not impugn the general principle,\u201d for there is no\nlikelihood of such a contingency as it supposes;\u2014there is a limit to the\ndesire of food, but there is no limit to the desire of other good\nthings.[668] The insatiableness of human desires is here assumed by\nRicardo to be always full-grown, instead of what it is, in perhaps\nthree-fourths of the world, an undeveloped possibility. Till we know\nthat the possibility has become actual, we cannot take for granted that\nall we produce will be wanted. Malthus did not enter with sympathy or\neven with full intelligence into the spirit of modern trade. But he sees\nthat large manufacture, with its complement of speculative trading, must\nsucceed or fail precisely as it has judged rightly or judged wrongly of\nits markets, for it no longer, like the old English small production,\nwaits for orders\u2014it anticipates, woos, and coaxes them. He believes that\nthe awakening of man\u2019s insatiable wants will tend to secure us against\nboth over-population and over-production, by creating a high standard of\nliving. The taste for luxuries, whatever its positive advantages, from\nthe educational or artistic point of view, confers at least this\neconomical benefit.[669]\n\nMalthus gets a similar result by applying to wages his favourite idea of\nthe golden mean. The \u201cfunds destined to pay wages\u201d may, he says, be\nincreased either by high prices or by great production at low\nprices,\u2014increased value without increased quantity, or increased\nquantity without increased value. The latter is the more secure way, but\nit lies on the road to \u201cglut.\u201d The most desirable plan is the union of\nthe two. \u201cThere is somewhere a happy mean, where, under the actual\nresources of a country, both the increase of wealth and the demand for\nlabour may be a maximum. A taste for conveniences and comforts not only\ntends to create a more steady demand for labour than a taste for\npersonal services, but by cheapening manufactures and the products of\nforeign commerce, including many of the necessaries of the labouring\nclasses, it actually enlarges the limits of the effectual demand for\nlabour, and renders it for a longer time effective.\u201d[670] If any one had\nurged against this, in the words of Mill, that a demand for goods is not\na demand for labour, but simply gives labour a new direction, Malthus\nwould probably have answered that the new direction was all important,\nbecause the trade begun in it might be a trade in goods more widely\nused, and might therefore last longer and more steadily than the old\ntrade.\n\nWe see that in his views of this subject, expounded tediously enough,\nand at unnecessary length, Malthus had constant thought of the relations\nof production and distribution to consumption as well as to each other,\nfor the condition of the people was always more important to him than\nthe state of the articles concerned. But he never yielded to his\nfeelings so far as to adopt Sismondi\u2019s reactionary ideas on the effects\nof machinery on the workmen.[671] He never wrote any description of the\nevils of division of labour at all so strong as Adam Smith\u2019s.[672] He\ngoes little farther than Ricardo, who says in a well-known passage:\u2014\u201cThe\nsame cause which may increase the nett revenue of the country may at the\nsame time render the population redundant and deteriorate the condition\nof the labourer,\u201d for all the increase may possibly be devoted to fixed\nand not circulating capital, to machinery and buildings instead of\nwages.[673] Ricardo\u2019s admission, that he was wrong in not recognizing\nthis sooner, makes us wonder (as men were even then doing in Germany\nover similar confessions of their philosophers) whether his\ndemonstrations are more accurate than ordinary reasonings. His brother\neconomists never claimed infallibility. Adam Smith gave up his defence\nof Usury Laws.[674] Malthus amended his first views on population, to\nsay nothing of the measure of value.[675] Mill gave up the Wages Fund.\nIt was only the minor economists who proudly remained at the end where\nthey were at the beginning. James Mill refused to follow Ricardo in\nallowing that food could be over-produced, and MacCulloch refused to go\nwith him in the admission above quoted, that increase of wealth might go\nto fixed capital instead of wages.[676] Orthodox economy became most\nabstract when on the death of Ricardo in 1823 its doctrines passed into\nthe hands of the Minor Prophets.\n\nIn the last ten years of his life Malthus made no serious change in his\neconomical views, and approached no nearer to the Ricardians. They were\nyears when economists and political reformers had not learned to work\ntogether so harmoniously as they were to do after his death. Huskisson\u2019s\nchanges in commercial policy were preparing the way in high quarters for\nfree trade. The sliding scale of corn duties introduced in 1826 pointed\non the whole in the same direction. But the agitation of the humbler\nclasses for political freedom, made solid as it was by an appreciable\nprogress in popular education,[677] and kept within bounds of law by the\ninfluence of Cobbett,[678] went on in a way apart; and it will be\nremembered how Chartism stood aloof from the Anti-Corn-Law League. A man\nmight be an advanced economist and social reformer and a reactionary in\npolitics. In 1824, when trades unions were for the first time allowed by\nlaw and the Factory Acts were still too imperfect to give the weak a\nfair chance against the strong, the \u201cnatural state of things,\u201d free\ndevelopment of individual and national faculties, did not exist; and\nMalthus, who missed them keenly, would have been much amazed to hear\nthat his doctrines were, like Ricardo\u2019s, a vindication of things as they\nare. Not only the notorious fact of his opposition to Ricardo, but his\nviews on commercial policy are against the notion.[679] At the Peace\nthere were many fallacies current about wages. The new Corn Law of 1815\nhad inaugurated the aggressive policy of the agricultural interest, who\nfrankly endeavoured, by forms of law, to convert an occasional scarcity\ninto a permanent one, and keep prices at 80_s._ a quarter. Not a few\nfalse friends of the working man recommended him to countenance the law\nand let his bread be made dear, for then, said they, his wages would be\nmade high. Many manufacturers, on the other hand, were declaring the\ninterest of the country to be low wages, and, unto that end, cheap food\nand a great population. Malthus was with neither. His partial approval\nof the new Corn Law was no doubt based on erroneous grounds; but he held\nno such mistaken views of wages. His opinion, if not sufficiently\nobvious from his general views of population, was laid down explicitly\nin all his writings. He says, for example: \u201cIf a country can only be\nrich, by running a successful race for low wages, I should be disposed\nto say at once \u2018Perish such riches!\u2019\u201d[680] \u201cIt is most desirable that\nthe labouring classes should be well paid, for a much more important\nreason than any that can relate to wealth, namely, the happiness of the\ngreat mass of society.\u201d[681] Being asked, \u201cIn a national point of view,\neven if it were admitted that the low rate of wages was an advantage to\nthe capitalist, do you think it fitting that labour should be kept\npermanently in a state bordering on distress, to avoid the injury that\nmight accrue to the national wealth from diminishing the rate of\nprofit?\u201d he answered, \u201cI should say, by no means fitting; I consider the\nlabouring classes as forming the largest part of the nation, and\ntherefore that their general condition is the most important of\nall.\u201d[682]\n\nHe thinks, however, that the change from low to high wages might quite\npossibly so reduce profits as to make trade unprofitable. We might need\nto sacrifice something of our commercial prosperity. He cannot rise to\nthe conception of a society in which the entire body of workmen as\nconsumers would be a sufficient market for the same body as producers.\nHe cannot rid himself of the idea that a body of unproductive consumers\nis a social necessity, to give a stimulus to production by developing\nthe wants which the manufactures are to satisfy. It seems easy to answer\nthat those unproductive consumers can only pay for the manufactures by\nmeans of other products, whencesoever obtained, and there seems no\nreason why their producers should not obtain them.[683] If the workmen\nthemselves had the wants and supplied them by their own labour, all the\nresults that Malthus desires would be obtained without invidious\ndistinctions of classes, and with distinct improvement in the condition\nof the workmen. His aims, at least, were good. The indispensable leisure\nwould be secured if the hours of labour were shortened, as he desired\nthem to be. \u201cI have always thought and felt that many among the\nlabouring classes in this country work too hard for their health,\nhappiness, and intellectual improvement.\u201d[684] The general wealth\ntherefore, if need be, must be sacrificed to the general happiness.\nFactory Acts that would prevent children from labouring too young or too\nlong[685] he thoroughly approves; though such Factory Acts as would\ninterfere with adult labour he considers an injustice to the work-people\nthemselves, and a hopeless interference with \u201cthe principles of\ncompetition, one of the most general principles by which the business of\nsociety is carried on.\u201d[686] The salvation of the labouring classes must\ncome from themselves, from their own \u201csimultaneous resolution to work\nfewer hours in the day.\u201d But trades unions, as we now know them, had not\nthen come into being; and he talks of a future improvement of the\nworking classes in knowledge, comfort, and self-restraint,[687] with\nmuch hesitation.\n\nWe have seen that the economics of Malthus, whether in relation to the\nlandlords, the employers, or the workmen, are by no means identical with\nthe economics of Ricardo and his school, which have been the ruling and\northodox doctrine for the first half of the nineteenth century.\n\nIt would be neither complimentary nor true to ascribe the difference to\nthe logic of sentiment; but it is true that the acute sensitiveness of\nMalthus to the evils of poverty kept constantly before him large classes\nof facts which Ricardo seemed willing to forget, and the path that he\ntook, though long ago obscured and forgotten, led him in some important\npoints away from _laissez faire_ to doctrines of our own day, in which\nsociety acting through its Government is allowed an originative and not\nmerely a regulative action in the matter of industry and wealth.\n\nResuming the thread of the essay, we shall find that the relation of\nsociety to its destitute poor is not to Malthus, as to Ricardo, a\nquestion of taxation and finance, but a problem of morals and politics,\nwhich could only be solved by a clear view of the relation of the\ncitizen to the commonwealth.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n                              THE BEGGAR.\n\n  Arrangement of the Essay\u2014Nature\u2019s Mighty Feast\u2014Tract on _High Price of\n    Provisions_\u2014I cannot, therefore I ought not\u2014Poor Laws\n    condemned\u2014Frederick the Great\u2019s Army\u2014Mitigation of Bad Effects of\n    Poor Law\u2014Step towards Abolition\u2014New Poor Law.\n\n\nIn the foregoing brief review of the economical doctrines of Malthus,\nthe chapters on commercial policy and the Corn Laws,[688] in the third\nbook of the _Essay on Population_, have been already noticed. As the\nFirst and Second books of the essay were supposed to deal with the state\nof population in past and in present times, the Third is supposed to\ndeal with the \u201cdifferent systems of expedients which have been proposed\nor have prevailed in society\u201d for curing the evils arising from the\nprinciple of population, while the Fourth relates to the future\nprospects of society, and the possibility of removing the evils in\nquestion. This division of the subject could not be maintained very\nstrictly. The \u201csystems proposed\u201d no doubt were in most cases mere\ntheories and could be considered by themselves; but the \u201csystems that\nprevailed\u201d included such laws as the Corn Laws and Poor Laws, which\ndirectly affected the present habits and wealth of the people, and might\nfairly have been considered in the second book. The fourth book might\nquite logically have been part of the third, for it simply adds to the\n\u201csystems proposed\u201d the proposal of Malthus himself. The arrangement is\nnot in itself so perfect or so closely respected by its author that we\nneed have any remorse for disregarding it. The earliest chapters of the\nthird book (i. and ii.) are substantially the refutation of Godwin,\nWallace, Condorcet, as it appeared in 1798, with a postscript (ch. iii.)\non Owen and Spence, which will be best considered in another place.[689]\nIn point of style they are probably the best in the book.\n\nAfter a chapter (iv.) on Emigration[690] come three chapters on the Poor\nLaws, to be viewed with ch. viii. of the fourth book, which deals with\nPlans for their Abolition. Of all the applications of the doctrines of\nMalthus, their application to pauperism was probably, at the time, of\nthe greatest public interest. Even the first essay had distinct bearing\non Pitt\u2019s Poor Bill; the next writing of the author was on a question of\nparish relief; and these three chapters in the later _Essay on\nPopulation_ have influenced public opinion and legislation about the\ndestitute poor almost as powerfully as the _Wealth of Nations_ has\ninfluenced commercial policy. Malthus is the father not only of the new\nPoor Law, but of all our latter-day societies for the organization of\ncharity.\n\nThe subject is best introduced in the words of a celebrated parable,\nwhich Malthus having used once was never afterwards allowed to\nforget:[691]\u2014\u201cA man who is born into a world already possessed, if he\ncannot get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has a just demand,\nand if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of _right_ to\nthe smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where\nhe is. At nature\u2019s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She\ntells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders, if he do\nnot work upon the compassion of some of her guests. If these guests get\nup and make room for him, other intruders immediately appear demanding\nthe same favour. The report of a provision for all that come, fills the\nhall with numerous claimants. The order and harmony of the feast is\ndisturbed, the plenty that before reigned is changed into scarcity; and\nthe happiness of the guests is destroyed by the spectacle of misery and\ndependence in every part of the hall, and by the clamorous importunity\nof those, who are justly enraged at not finding the provision which they\nhad been taught to expect. The guests learn too late their error, in\ncounteracting those strict orders to all intruders, issued by the great\nmistress of the feast, who, wishing that all her guests should have\nplenty, and knowing that she could not provide for unlimited numbers,\nhumanely refused to admit fresh comers when her table was already\nfull.\u201d[692]\n\nOur neighbours\u2019 misfortunes have seldom been made so picturesque. The\nfigure itself was no new one. Lucretius had written:\u2014\n\n            \u201cCur non, ut plenus vit\u00e6 conviva, recedis?\u201d[693]\n\nand Fenton, in Pope\u2019s[694] familiar lines:\u2014\n\n          \u201cFrom Nature\u2019s temperate feast rose satisfied,\n          Thanked heaven that he had lived and that he died.\u201d\n\nBut the new application took hold on the public fancy. Sir William\nPulteney and Windham are said to have been, beyond others, delighted\nwith its conservative moral.[695] Malthus may have got the hint of it\nfrom a passage in Paley\u2019s _Moral and Political Philosophy_. Paley was\ncriticizing a justification of private property, which founded it on\nevery man\u2019s right to take what he wants of the things God made for the\nuse of all, just as, when an entertainment is given to the freeholders\n(as the free and independent electors?) of a county, we see them coming\nin and eating and drinking each what he chooses, without asking the\nconsent of the other guests. The simile, says Paley, is not perfect, for\nin a freeholder\u2019s feast nobody is allowed to fill his pockets or to\nthrow anything away, \u201cespecially if by so doing he pinched the guests at\nthe lower end of the table.\u201d[696]\n\nEven the friends of Malthus thought the passage too gloomy; and, as\nevery one noticed,[697] it was not retained after 1803. It contains,\nhowever, at least two positions that were never retracted:\u2014that the poor\ncannot claim relief as a right, but only as a favour, and that poor\nrelief can only raise one man by depressing another. The latter position\nmay be illustrated from the tract written in 1800 on the _High Price of\nProvisions_. The main aim of the tract was to show that the price was\ntoo extravagantly high to be due to the deficiency, which was admittedly\nonly one-fourth. But the author throws light on his own general\ndoctrines.[698] He argues, in substance, that to give relief in money is\nto enable the relieved persons to retain their ordinary rate of\nconsumption at the expense of the rest. To this the reply is\nobvious:\u2014the sufficiency of the stock is not so finely calculated,\nneither is the amount of it so fixed that it cannot be increased from\nhome or foreign stores,\u2014and to withdraw money from the rich for the\npoor, and increase the country\u2019s total expenditure on necessaries, might\nbe simply to divert the stream of importation into the channel of\nnecessaries, and lead to a larger use of food other than bread. Under\nthe conditions of the time, however, the author\u2019s views were not\nunnatural. On his return from Sweden in 1800 he found scarcity\nprevailing in England as elsewhere, but with prices much higher than in\nother countries. These were the days when Chief Justice Kenyon and a\njury enforced the antiquated laws against forestalling and\nregrating.[699] Malthus had not read his Adam Smith to so little purpose\nthat he could approve such proceedings; much of his pamphlet was simply\nan application, to one particular case, of the principles of the _Wealth\nof Nations_ (Book IV. chap. v.).[700] Neither could he agree with the\nnotion that the paper currency had done it all.[701] Settling down to\nhis parish work in Surrey, he watched the course of events. What\nhappened, he said, there and presumably elsewhere was as follows:\u2014In\nprogress of the scarcity the poor complained to the justices that their\nwages were too low to buy bread at present prices; the justices\nthereupon inquired at what, as the lowest wages, they would have been\nable to buy it, and then \u201cvery humanely, and I am far from saying\nimproperly,\u201d gave parish relief accordingly.[702] But, like the water\nfrom the mouth of Tantalus, the corn slipped from the grasp of the poor;\nprices rose a step further, and the relief had to follow the prices.\n\nThe rates accordingly rose in many places from four to fourteen\nshillings in the pound. By the double burden of dear food and high\nrates, perhaps five or six millions of the richer classes were certainly\nmade to feel the pinch of the scarcity, which would otherwise have been\nborne, say by two millions of the poorest, who would have died under\nit.[703] In this instance the Poor Laws did the country a distinct\nservice. But it was done by taking from the first guests to give to the\nimportunate intruders, and could not justify a general eulogy of the\nPoor Laws. The whole drift of the _Essay on Population_ had gone against\nsuch institutions; and \u201ctwo years\u2019 reflection,\u201d says the writer of the\n_Essay_, \u201chave served strongly to convince me of the truth of the\nprinciple there advanced, and of its being the real cause of the\ncontinued depression and poverty of the lower classes of society, of the\ntotal inadequacy of all the present establishments in their favour to\nrelieve them, and of the [certainty of] periodical returns of such\nseasons of distress as we have of late experienced.\u201d[704] In the first\nessay he had spoken strongly not only against Pitt\u2019s new Poor Bill, but\nagainst all legal relief, and amongst other reasons precisely on the\nground that it caused food to rise in price beyond the point to which\nscarcity would have raised it apart from interference.[705]\n\nThe second was a stronger reason;\u2014in the language of Kant, the claim\nallowed (with little qualification[706]) by the English Poor Laws was a\nclaim that could not be made universal without contradiction. If every\none exercised the supposed right of demanding relief, no community could\nfulfil the supposed duty of granting it.[707] If it could have been\nfulfilled, Malthus thinks, the obligation would have held; and, instead\nof declaring \u201cI cannot, therefore I ought not,\u201d he would have confessed,\n\u201cI can, therefore I ought.\u201d[708] As the case stands, he agrees with Sir\nFrederick Eden in thinking the giving of legal relief impracticable, and\ntherefore no duty, and also that, \u201cupon the whole, the sum of good to be\nexpected from a compulsory maintenance of the poor will be far\noutbalanced by the sum of evil which it will inevitably create.\u201d[709] It\nrelieved individual suffering at the cost of making the suffering\ngeneral. It created the poor which it maintained, for it led men to\nmarry with the certainty of parish assistance. It thereby increased the\npopulation without increasing the food of the country, and it has to a\nlarge extent broken down the ancient spirit of independence. \u201cHard as it\nmay appear in individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be held\ndisgraceful.\u201d[710] High wages and independence and moral restraint are\nbetter than low wages with a parish supplement and a pauper family. \u201cI\nfeel persuaded that if the Poor Laws had never existed in this country,\nthough there might have been a few more instances of very severe\ndistress, the aggregate mass of happiness among the common people would\nhave been much greater than it is at present.\u201d[711] This was his belief\nto the end.[712]\n\nAn allegory of these things may be found in Dr. John Moore\u2019s description\nof the army of Frederick the Great. Dr. Moore saw a man caned for being\na few seconds late in replacing his ramrod; and the officers told him\nthat, since they could not distinguish wilful blunders from accidental,\nthey punished all alike, and the result, they said, was excellent; all\nthe men were on the alert, and fewer blunders were committed on the\nwhole. It used to be common on field-days for dragoons to have their\nhats blown off and to be thrown from their horses. At last a general\ngave orders to punish every man to whom either of these accidents\nhappened; since then hardly anybody lost his hat or fell from his horse.\nDr. Moore heard of a poor hussar who had fallen from his horse at last\nreview, and was to be punished for it as soon as he could leave the\nhospital. This seemed hard, but the King of Prussia thought he could\nonly hope to make his army superior to others by improving its\ndiscipline, training its officers by honour and disgrace, and its\nprivates by physical punishment; he considered that the occasional\nsuffering of an innocent individual does less harm to an army than the\ntoleration of negligence, which makes the negligence greater.[713] So\nfar as legal relief goes, Malthus would recommend the same martial\nseverity, and try to put men on their guard against poverty by making\nthem bear the discipline of its consequences. There are other points in\nwhich the allegory applies to the \u201csimple system of natural liberty;\u201d\nthe discipline of industrial competition is certainly in some respects\nas severe as the discipline of an army. On the other hand, society does\nnot consist of picked strong men, but includes the weak also, and its\nprivates are supposed not to take their orders from a commander, but to\n\u201cfend for themselves.\u201d Society under socialism may resemble an army, but\nnot society under individualism. Malthus, therefore, would have\nrepudiated the analogy. He does not reach his conclusions by a\npreconceived theory of the state, but by observing the ill results of\nthe common preconceived theory that every citizen when destitute has a\nright to be supported by the state. He finds that, as a matter of fact,\nwhere material relief has been given as a duty, and claimed as a right,\nthe effect on the recipient has been clearly bad; the Poor Law stands\ncondemned by experience.\n\nYet he admits that the badness of the law has been largely counteracted\nby the remissness of its execution. The attempt to secure a fixed rate\nof wages to the labourer in all states of trade has not really been made\nin England as the Elizabethan Poor Law enjoined. The scantiness of the\nrelief actually given, together with the insolence of the officials\nconcerned in the giving of it, has disturbed the sense of complete\nsecurity, which in the view of Malthus would in such a case have been\nfatal. \u201cThe desire of bettering our condition and the fear of making it\nworse, like the _vis mediatrix natur\u00e6_ in physics, is the _vis mediatrix\nreipublic\u00e6_ in politics, and is continually counteracting the disorders\narising from narrow human institutions.\u201d The Poor Law has been so\nimperfectly carried out that it has left some room still for prudential\nmotives among the labourers; they cannot count on complete provision for\ntheir families if they marry recklessly, and some few of them still\nthink caution needful. Moreover, from fear of the Poor Law the rich will\noften refuse to build cottages, lest their occupants become\npaupers.[714] In the third place, pauper children, like foundlings, do\nnot live long.[715]\n\nIn his _Letter to Samuel Whitbread, M.P., on his proposed Bill for the\namendment of the Poor Laws_ (1807), Malthus allows that abolition must\nnot come till public opinion is ripe for it; but he recommends\nlegislation in the direction of abolition, to prepare the minds of all\nclasses for the final steps, and to expose to the working classes the\ndelusiveness of the present boon. Poor Laws, he says, are peculiar to\nEngland, and their absence in other countries does not seem to have the\neffects expected from their abolition here. In reply to Malthus, it\nmight be urged that the Poor Laws are not entirely peculiar to England,\nbut occur in Denmark and elsewhere.[716] In the second place, as\nMacCulloch argues in a letter, aimed at Malthus, to Macvey Napier,[717]\nBritain is peculiarly subject to fluctuations in trade, due, for\nexample, to the changes in foreign tariffs, and therefore there are more\ncases of sudden and unavoidable distress, that need such a provision as\nthe Poor Law\u2019s. In the third place, too, it is difficult to see how we\ncan make begging unlawful if we make legal relief inaccessible,[718] any\nmore than we can logically make education compulsory while we insist on\nthe payment of fees. In the fourth place, an indiscriminate private\ncharity is probably more mischievous than a discriminating public\nrelief. Malthus, however, was not against all relief, but only against\nit when claimed as a right; and he was fully aware that the risks of the\nEnglish working man were greater than those of his Continental brethren.\nAll he desired was to give the workman scope for that sense of personal\nresponsibility out of which the Poor Law was beguiling him. He knew\nquite well that no good end would be served by the removal of the Poor\nLaw, unless the public had been educated out of the evil ways of it. He\nproposed therefore to make a gradual change, the essence of which was to\nbe the disclaimer of any right on the part of a poor man to be supported\nat the public expense; children have a right to be supported by their\nparents, but not by the public.[719] Let a law be passed, he said,\ndeclaring that no legitimate child born from any marriage taking place a\nyear after the law\u2019s enactment, and no illegitimate born two years\nthereafter, shall ever be entitled to parish relief. \u201cAnd to give a more\ngeneral knowledge of this law, and to enforce it more strongly on the\nminds of the lower classes of people, the clergyman of each parish\nshould, previously to the solemnization of a marriage, read a short\naddress to the parties, stating the strong obligation on every man to\nsupport his own children; the impropriety, and even immorality, of\nmarrying without a fair prospect of being able to do this; the evils\nwhich had resulted to the poor themselves, from the attempt which had\nbeen made to assist, by public institutions, in a duty which ought to be\nexclusively appropriated to parents, and the absolute necessity which\nhad at length appeared, of abandoning all such institutions, on account\nof their producing effects totally opposite to those which were\nintended. This would operate as a fair, distinct, and precise notice\nwhich no man could well mistake, and without pressing hard upon any\nparticular individuals, would at once throw off the rising generation\nfrom their miserable and helpless dependence upon the Government and the\nrich.\u201d[720] Both their irritation against the upper classes and their\nhelplessness in devising expedients in time of want, arise from \u201cthe\nwretched system of governing too much. When the poor were once taught,\nby the abolition of the Poor Laws, and a proper knowledge of their real\nsituation, to depend more upon themselves, we might rest secure that\nthey would be fruitful enough in resources, and that the evils which\nwere absolutely irremediable they would bear with the fortitude of men\nand the resignation of Christians.\u201d[721] However comical may be the\npicture of a clergyman following up the very un-Malthusian marriage\nservice by such a moral lecture as is here recommended, the principle of\nthe recommendation is sober sense, and has largely influenced the\nbenevolence of later philanthropists. Dr. Chalmers applied it in his\nParochial System, which would have been an admirable substitute for the\nPoor Law on the (unfortunately untrue) hypothesis of an absence of\nsects. The Mendicity Society (dating from 1815) and the Charity\nOrganisation (from 1869) build on the same foundation.\n\nThe new Poor Law of 1834 differed from Malthus in that it did not deny\nthe right to relieve, and still kept up the fiction that the law of\nElizabeth was good, and we had degenerated from it.[722] But it allowed\nthe right only to the indigent,[723] refusing all relief in aid of wages\nto the merely poor and the able-bodied; and it carried out the principle\nthat dependent poverty (in the words of Malthus) should be held\ndisgraceful and made disagreeable. \u201cEvery penny bestowed that tends to\nrender the condition of a pauper more eligible than that of the\nindependent labourer is a bounty on indolence and vice.\u201d \u201cIn proportion\nas the condition of any pauper class is elevated above the condition of\nindependent labourers, the condition of the independent class is\ndepressed.\u201d[724] If this meant that poor relief should run a race with\nthe average wages of labour, keeping always one stage behind them, it\nmight be argued that in good times a pauper would get too much comfort\nand in bad times too little food. But the disgrace of dependence and the\ndiscomfort of constraint are the deterrents which Malthus himself has\nmost in mind.\n\nWithout the discussions raised by the _Essay on Population_ it is very\ndoubtful if public opinion would have been so far advanced in 1834 as to\nmake a bill, drawn on such lines, at all likely to pass into law. The\nabolition of outdoor relief to the able-bodied was nothing short of a\nrevolution. It had needed a lifetime of economical doctrine, reproof,\nand correction to convince our public men, and to some extent the\nnation, that the way of rigour was at once the way of justice, of mercy,\nand of self-interest. The history of the English Poor Law is ample proof\nthat men do not instinctively follow their own interest. It was the\nratepayer\u2019s interest,[725] unless he was an employer, that relief should\nbe sparely given; and it was given lavishly. It was the poor man\u2019s\ninterest to be thrifty and sober; and as a rule he was neither. There\nwas no hope of reform till both rich and poor learned a deeper sense of\ntheir personal responsibility for the remoter effects of their own acts,\nwhether unwisely benevolent or heedlessly selfish. The clear\nconsciousness of personal responsibility seems to Malthus to be the soul\nand centre of every healthy reform. In this sense, at least, he would\nsay that virtue is knowledge.\n\nHis thoughts on society are connected at this point with his thoughts on\nman\u2019s place and duty in the world. His psychology and ethics, slightly\nas they are sketched, throw light on his sociology and economics, and\nmust be considered before we can estimate his position in social\nphilosophy. This will lead us over the greater portion of the fourth\nbook of the essay, leaving the critical chapters till we come to deal\nwith the Critics as a body.\n\n\n\n\n                               BOOK III.\n                    MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.\n\n  Cardinal Doctrines of the Malthusian Ethics\u2014Application to Desire of\n    Marriage\u2014Place of Man on the Earth\u2014Criticism of Moral\n    Philosophy\u2014Teleology and Utility\u2014Benevolence and Self-love\u2014Malthus\n    and Paley\u2014Greatest Happiness\u2014Earthly Paradise\u2014Malthus and the French\n    Revolution\u2014Malthus not a Political Reactionary\u2014Not committed to\n    _laissez faire_\u2014His Modifications of that Doctrine\u2014Utilitarianism\n    _plus_ Nationality\u2014Experience as much the Riddle as the\n    Interpretation\u2014The State an Organism\u2014Political Ideals before and\n    after 1846.\n\n\nThe moral philosophy of Malthus, like that of Aristotle, starts from a\nteleology.\n\nNature makes nothing in vain. Every desire has its proper place and\nproper gratification, if we can find them. The passions are the\nmaterials out of which happiness is made; and they are therefore to be\nregulated and harmonized; they are not to be extinguished, or even\ndiminished in intensity.[726] There is a way of so gratifying the\ndesires that they produce a general balance of consequences in favour of\nhappiness; and there is an opposite way with opposite effects. The\nformer is evidently the way of nature, for utility is the only guide of\nconduct we have apart from Scripture.[727] We must not eradicate any\nimpulses; but we must follow none so far \u201cas to trench upon some other\nlaw [_sic_] which equally demands our attention.\u201d What is the golden\nmean, and what is too much or too little, we can only know by our own\nand others\u2019 experience of the consequences of actions.[728] Nature shows\nus the wrongness of an act by bringing from it a train of painful\nconsequences. Diseases, instead of being the \u201cinevitable inflictions of\nProvidence,\u201d are \u201cindications that we have offended against some of the\nlaws of nature. The plague at Constantinople and in other towns of the\nEast is a constant admonition of this kind to the inhabitants. The human\nconstitution cannot support such a state of filth and torpor; and as\ndirt, squalid poverty, and indolence are in the highest degree\nunfavourable to happiness and virtue,[729] it seems a benevolent\ndispensation that such a state should by the laws of nature produce\ndisease and death, as a beacon to others to avoid splitting on the same\nrock.\u201d[730] As epidemics indicate bad food, unwholesome houses, or bad\ndrainage, and as indigestion follows over-eating, so the misery that\nfollows on too great an increase of numbers is simply the law of nature\nrecoiling on the law-breaker.[731] In this case it has taken a longer\nexperience to teach men the conduct most favourable to happiness, and\ntherefore the conduct right for them. But even the best food, best\nclothing, and best housing have not been taught all at once; and the\nprinciple of the lesson is clearly the same in all the cases.\n\nTo say, therefore, that the desire of marriage is to be restrained and\nregulated is not to treat it exceptionally or to deny its naturalness.\nThere is a lawful and there is an irregular gratification even of hunger\nand thirst; and the irregular is punished both by nature and, when it\ntakes, for example, the form of theft, by human laws. Society could give\nsuch punishment only on the ground that the action punished tended to\ninjure the general happiness. The act of the hungry man who steals a\nloaf is only distinguishable from the act of the hungry man who takes a\nloaf of his own, by means of its consequences. If all were to steal\nloaves there would in the end be fewer loaves for everybody.[732] We\nmust apply the same criterion to the irregular gratification of all\nother desires.\n\nAfter the desire for food, the desire of marriage is the most powerful\nand general of our desires. \u201cWhen we contemplate the constant and severe\ntoil of the greatest part of mankind, it is impossible not to be\nforcibly impressed with the reflection that the sources of human\nhappiness would be most cruelly diminished if the prospect of a good\nmeal, a warm house, and a comfortable fireside in the evening were not\nincitements sufficiently vivid to give interest and cheerfulness to the\nlabours and privations of the day.\u201d[733] This desire gives strength of\ncharacter to a man in proportion as the animal element in it is hidden\naway out of sight, and in proportion as the gratification of it is won\nby exertion and, it may be, by waiting. To do as Jacob did for Rachel, a\nman must have some strength of character. Most of us, in the opinion of\nMalthus, owe whatever of definite plan there is in our lives to the\nexistence of such a central object of affection.[734] Malthus himself,\nit will appear, did not marry till on the eve of becoming a professor at\nthe East India College, nearly a year after these passages were written.\nEven in 1798 he wrote: \u201cPerhaps there is scarcely a man who has once\nexperienced the genuine delights of virtuous love, however great his\nintellectual pleasures may have been, that does not look back to the\nperiod as the sunny spot in his whole life, where his imagination loves\nto bask, which he recollects and contemplates with the fondest regrets,\nand which he would most wish to live over again.\u201d[735] Such a passage,\nthough it disappeared, with other flowers of language, in the later\neditions of the essay, show us that Malthus, though wiser, was not\ncolder than his fellow-men, and drew his facts from experience as well\nas observation, of the matters concerned.[736]\n\nIf we assume the intention of the Creator to replenish the earth, we can\nsee a reason in cosmical polity for the strength of this desire of\nmarriage. If the fertility of fertile soils had been as great as the\npower of population to increase, there would have been no inducement to\nmen to cultivate the poorer soils or frequent the less attractive parts\nof the earth\u2019s surface; human industry and ingenuity would have wanted\ntheir first stimulus.[737] As it is, the disparity of the two powers\nleads to an over-spreading of the world; men are led to avoid\novercrowding from fear of the evils that spring from it. Man\u2019s duties\nvary with his situations; and, as these are not uniform, but infinitely\nvarious, all his powers are kept in play. This language might make us\ndoubt whether the final cause is the development of man, or simply the\nreplenishment of the earth. If the first essay be allowed in evidence,\nit is clear that man (with whatever justice) is made the chief end of\nthe earth, though his own chief end is not supposed to be realized\nthere.[738]\n\nThe natural theology of Malthus and Paley is the foundation of their\nethics. It was the English ethics of last century, not only before Kant,\nbut before Bentham. There are signs that Malthus, in his views of\nmetaphysics and of the \u201cmoral sentiments,\u201d[739] preferred where he could\nto draw rather from Tucker than from Paley. Abraham Tucker[740] (the\n\u201cEdward Search\u201d who began the _Light of Nature_ in 1756, and finished\nit, blind, in 1774) lived for nearly fifty years[741] at Betchworth\nCastle near Dorking. It is possible in these days, when near neighbours\nknew each other better than they care to do now, that Daniel Malthus,\nthough the younger man, may have known Tucker. They were both of them\nOxford men, small proprietors, eccentric, literary, and fond of\nphilosophizing. Whether through his father at home or through Paley at\ncollege, it is certain that Malthus at an early date studied the _Light\nof Nature_ and adopted much of its teaching. Before he appeared in\npublic as an author, he had formed some settled philosophical\nconvictions, which (whatever their value) at least left his mind free\nfor its other work, and kept it at peace with itself as regards the\nproblems of philosophy.\n\nThe substantial agreement of his views with the doctrines of the _Moral\nand Political Philosophy_ no doubt helped to bring Malthus under the\ncommon prejudice against \u201cPigeon Paley,\u201d[742] the defender of things as\nthey are and preacher of contentment to starving labourers. When Paley\nbecame an open convert to the _Essay on Population_, the public would no\ndoubt believe their suspicions confirmed. But Malthus and Paley agree\nnot as disciple and master, but at most as disciples of the same master.\nMalthus tries to work out his own philosophy for himself.[743]\n\nIt is open to many criticisms. In his ethics he seems to have made no\ndistinct analysis or classification of the passions. He takes for\ngranted that the Passions are on one side and Reason on the other, and\nthere is no middle term between the two except the Design of God, which\nis worked out by the passions of men as by external nature, and which is\n(we are left to infer) in some way akin to human reason, for human\nreason can find it out. The impulse of benevolence, for example, is said\nto be, like all our natural passions, \u201cgeneral\u201d (by which he seems to\nmean vague), \u201cand in some degree indiscriminate and blind;\u201d and, like\nthe impulses of love, anger, ambition, the desire of eating and\ndrinking, or any other of our \u201cnatural propensities,\u201d it must be\nregulated by experience and frequently brought to the test of utility,\nor it will defeat its own purpose.[744] In other words, Malthus treats\nall human impulses as if they were appetites, co-ordinate with each\nother, primary and irresolvable. All desires are equally natural, and\nabstractedly considered equally virtuous,[745] though not equally\nstrong, and therefore not equally fit at first sight to carry out their\nCreator\u2019s purpose.\n\nThe Reason of Man, therefore, must assist the Reason of his Maker in\ncarrying out the teleology of his passions, as well as the teleology of\nnature itself.[746] The \u201capparent object\u201d (or evident final cause), for\nexample, of the desire of marriage is the continuance of the race and\nthe care of the weak, and not merely the happiness of the two persona\nmost concerned.[747] To take another example, the object of the impulse\nof benevolence is to increase the sum of human happiness by binding the\nhuman race together.[748] Self-love is made a stronger motive than\nbenevolence for a wise and perfectly ascertainable purpose. The\nascertainment of the purpose, however, presents a difficulty.\nAcknowledging that we ought to do the will of God, how are we to\ndiscover it?\n\nWe are told in answer to this question, that the intention of the\nCreator to procure the good of His creatures is evident partly from\nScripture and partly from experience; and it is that intention, so\nmanifested, which we are bound to promote. What on God\u2019s side is\nteleology, on man\u2019s is utility; utility is the ruling principle of\nmorals. Not being a passion it cannot itself lead to action; but it\nregulates passion, and that, so powerfully, that all our most important\nlaws and customs, such as the institution of property and the\ninstitution of marriage, are simply disguised forms of it.[749] As\nanimals, we follow the dictates of nature, which would mean unhindered\npassion; but as reasonable beings we are under the strongest obligations\nto attend to the consequences of our acts, and, if they be evil to\nourselves or others, we may justly infer that such a mode of indulging\nthose passions is \u201cnot suited to our state or conformable to the will of\nGod.\u201d As moral agents, therefore, it is clearly our duty to restrain the\nindulgence of our passions in those particular directions, that by thus\ncarefully examining their consequences, and by frequently bringing them\nto the test of utility, we may gradually acquire a habit of gratifying\nthem only in the way which, being unattended with evil, will clearly\n\u201cadd to the sum of human happiness, and fulfil the apparent purpose of\nthe Creator.\u201d[750] All the moral codes which have laid down the\nsubjection of the passions to reason have been really (thinks Malthus)\nbuilt on this foundation, whether their promulgators were aware of it or\nnot. \u201cIt is the test alone by which we can know independently of the\nrevealed will of God whether a passion ought or ought not to be\nindulged, and is therefore the surest criterion of modern rules which\ncan be collected from the light of nature.\u201d In other words, our\ntheological postulates lead us to control our passions so as to secure\nnot merely our own individual happiness, but \u201cthe greatest sum of human\nhappiness.\u201d And the tendency of an action to promote or diminish the\ngeneral happiness is our only criterion of its morality.[751]\n\nFrom this it directly follows that, because the free and indiscriminate\nindulgence of benevolence leads to the reverse of general happiness, we\nought to practise a discriminating charity which blesses him that gives\nand him that takes. There is what Bastiat would call a harmony between\nthe two.[752]\n\nIn this case, indeed, nature reinforces utility by making the passion of\nself-love stronger in men than the passion of benevolence. Every man\npursues his own happiness first as his primary object, and it is best\nthat he should do so. It is best that every man should, in the first\ninstance, work out his own salvation, and have a sense of his own\nresponsibility. Not only charity but moral reformation must begin at\nhome. Benevolence apart from wisdom is even more mischievous than mere\nself-love, which is not to be identified with the \u201codious vice of\nselfishness,\u201d but simply with personal ambition, the person to whom it\nis personal including as a rule children and parents, and in fact a\nwhole world besides the single atom or \u201cdividual self.\u201d[753] If the\ndesire of giving to others had been as ardent as the desire of giving to\nourselves, the human race would not have been equal to the task of\nproviding for all its possible members. But because it is impossible for\nit to provide for all, there is a tendency in all to provide for\nthemselves first; and, though we consider that the selfish element in\nthis feeling ought to grow less in a man in proportion as he becomes\nricher and less embarrassed by his own wants, we must recognize that its\nexistence has been due to a wise provision for the general\nhappiness.[754] Malthus does not deny at the same time that benevolence\nis always the weaker motive, and needs continually to be strengthened by\ndoctrine, reproof, and correction. It ought always to be thought a\n\u201cgreat moral duty\u201d to assist our fellow-creatures in distress.[755]\n\nWith these ethical views, it was easy for Malthus to meet the objection\nthat the general adoption of the moral restraint recommended in his\n_Essay on Population_ would diminish the numbers of the people too far.\nHe (or his spokesman) answers[756] that we might as well fear to teach\nbenevolence lest we should make men too careless of their private\ninterests. \u201cThere is in such a case a mean point of perfection, which it\nis our duty to be constantly aiming at; and the circumstance of this\npoint being surrounded on all sides with dangers is only according to\nthe analogy of all ethical experience.\u201d There is as much danger of\nmaking men too generous or too compassionate, as there is of\n\u201cdepopulating the world by making them too much the creatures of reason,\nand giving prudence too great a mastery over the natural passions and\naffections. The prevailing error in the game of life is, not that we\nmiss the prizes through excess of timidity, but that we overlook the\ntrue state of the chances in our eager and sanguine expectations of\nwinning them.[757] Of all the objections that were ever made to a\nmoralist who offered to arm men against the passions that are everywhere\nseducing them into misery, the most flattering, but undoubtedly the most\nchimerical, is that his reasons are so strong that, if he were allowed\nto diffuse them, passion would be extinguished altogether, and the\nactivity as well as the enjoyments of man annihilated along with his\nvices.\u201d[758]\n\nIn his view of the passions and of the moral sentiments, Malthus is\nclearly a man of the eighteenth century, and on the whole is more nearly\nat one with Paley than with any moralist after Tucker. There are points\nof divergence. He could not, in view of his cosmology, have fully\napproved Paley\u2019s definition of virtue, \u201cdoing good to mankind in\nobedience to the will of God and for the sake of everlasting\nhappiness.\u201d[759] He may have seen how it followed that a solitary man\nhad no duties, that a pagan had no power to do right, that the moral\nimperative was hypothetical, and that it had no force for any who\nabjured their future bliss. At least he contents himself with agreeing\nthat \u201cthe will of God is plainly general happiness, as we discover both\nby Scripture and the light of nature;\u201d[760] and, \u201cprovided we discover\nit, it matters nothing by what means;\u201d\u2014there are clear marks of design\nin the world showing that its Maker willed the happiness of His\ncreatures; and what He willed they should will.\n\nIn other words, the ethical system of both is a utilitarianism which is\nnarrow and personal in its motive (the private happiness of the\nindividual in another world), but broad and catholic in its end (the\ngeneral happiness of human beings in the present world). It is as if God\ninduced us to promote other people\u2019s happiness now, by telling us that\nHe would in return promote our own by-and-by. There are signs that\nMalthus took a larger view, and thought rather of the development of the\nhuman faculties[761] than of mere satisfaction of desires, both in this\nworld and in the next; but he nowhere distinctly breaks with Paley, and\nhis division of passions into self-love (or prudence) and benevolence is\ntaken straight from that theologian.[762]\n\nBy the vagueness of their phraseology when they spoke of the general sum\nof happiness, the older utilitarians avoided some of the difficulties\nthat encounter their successors. Apart from the hardness of defining\nhappiness and a sum of happiness,[763] there is a difficulty in fixing\nthe precise extent of the generality. The tendency of utilitarianism in\nthe hands of Bentham was towards equality and the removal of privilege;\nevery one to count as one, no one as more than one. But both with him\nand with the older members it may be doubted whether the doctrine did\nnot tend to benefit the majority at the expense of the minority.\n\nWe find Malthus thinking[764] that, had the Poor Laws never existed,\nthere \u201cmight have been a few more instances of very severe distress,\u201d\nbut \u201cthe aggregate mass of happiness among the common people would have\nbeen much greater than it is at present.\u201d In other words, what he wanted\nwas the \u201cgreatest amount of happiness\u201d on the whole, whatever an\n\u201camount\u201d of happiness may mean. Malthus would probably have refused to\nuse the formula of Bentham, \u201cthe greatest happiness of the greatest\nnumber\u201d; he would have counted the first item, the happiness, out of all\nproportion more important than the second.[765] He had refused something\nlike it at the hands of Paley. \u201cI cannot agree with Archdeacon Paley,\nwho says that the quantity of happiness in any country is best measured\nby the number of its people. Increasing population is the most certain\npossible sign of the happiness and prosperity of a state; but the actual\npopulation may be only a sign of the happiness that is past.\u201d[766]\nMalthus would not, for example, have wished to see the highlands of\nScotland brought back to their ancient condition, in which they had\ngreater numbers than now living in rude comfort, but also greater\nnumbers exposed to precarious indigence.[767]\n\nOn the other hand, it is certain (in spite of a common prejudice) that\nMalthus desired the great numbers as well as the great happiness, and\nwas indeed quite naturally led by his theological views to prefer a\nlittle happiness for each of many individuals to a great deal for each\nof a few. He \u201cdesires a great actual population and a state of society\nin which abject poverty and dependence are comparatively but little\nknown,\u201d[768]\u2014two perfectly compatible requirements, which if realized\ntogether would lead to what may be called Malthus\u2019 secondary or earthly\nparadise, which is not above mundane criticism.\n\nThis earthly paradise is, even in our author\u2019s opinion, the end most\nvisibly concerned in our schemes of reform. His idea of it as a society\nwhere moral restraint is perfect, invites the remark that the chief end\nof society cannot be the mere removal of evil; it must be the\nestablishment of some good, the former being at the utmost an essential\ncondition _sine qu\u00e2 non_ of the latter. Moreover, moral restraint is not\nthe removal of every but only of one evil; and it kills only one cause\nof poverty. A complete reformation must not only remove all the evils,\nbut must positively amend and transform all the three branches of social\neconomy,\u2014the making, the sharing, and the using of wealth,\u2014not one or\neven two of them alone. Every Utopian scheme should be tested by the\nquestion: Does it reform all three, or only one, or two, of the three?\nNeglect of the third might spoil all. A scheme which affects all three,\nhowever, must have something like a Religion in it. With these\nreservations Malthus\u2019 picture of the good time coming has much value and\ninterest.[769]\n\nUnlike Godwin, he relies on the ordinary motives of men, which he\nregards as forms of an enlightened self-love. Self-love is the\nmainspring of the social machine;[770] but self-love, when the self is\nso expanded as to include other selves, is not a low motive. Commercial\nambition, encouraged by political liberty, and unhampered by Poor Laws,\nleads naturally to prosperity.[771] The happiness of the whole is to\nresult from the happiness of individuals, and to begin first with them.\nHe \u201csees in all forms of thought and work the life and death struggles\nof separate human beings.\u201d[772] \u201cNo co-operation is required. Every step\ntells. He who performs his duty faithfully will reap the full fruits of\nit, whatever may be the number of others who fail. This duty is\nintelligible to the humblest capacity. It is merely that he is not to\nbring beings into the world for whom he cannot find the means of\nsupport. When once this subject is cleared from the obscurity thrown\nover it by parochial laws and private benevolence, every man must feel\nthe strongest conviction of such an obligation. If he cannot support his\nchildren, they must starve; and, if he marry in the face of a fair\nprobability that he will not be able to support his children, he is\nguilty of all the evils which he thus brings upon himself, his wife, and\nhis offspring. It is clearly his interest, and will tend greatly to\npromote his happiness, to deter marrying till by industry and economy he\nis in a capacity to support the children that he may reasonably expect\nfrom his marriage; and, as he cannot in the mean time gratify his\npassions without violating an express command of God, and running a\ngreat risk of injuring himself or some of his fellow-creatures,\nconsiderations of his own interest and happiness will dictate to him the\nstrong obligation to a moral conduct while he remains unmarried.\u201d[773]\nSupposing passion to be thus controlled, we should see a very different\nscene from the present. \u201cThe period of delayed gratification would be\npassed in saving the earnings which were above the wants of a single\nman.\u201d Savings Banks and Friendly Societies would have their perfect\nwork; and \u201cin a natural state of society such institutions, with the aid\nof private charity well directed, would probably be all the means\nnecessary to produce the best practicable effects.\u201d[774] The people\u2019s\nnumbers would be constantly within the limits of the food, though\nconstantly following its increase; the real value of wages would be\nraised, in the most permanent way possible; \u201call abject poverty would be\nremoved from society, or would at least be confined to a very few who\nhad fallen into misfortunes against which no prudence or foresight could\nprovide.\u201d[775] It must be brought home to the poor that \u201cthey are\nthemselves the cause of their own poverty.\u201d[776] While Malthus insists\nagainst Godwin that it is not institutions and laws but ourselves that\nare to blame, he still shares, with Godwin, the desire to lessen the\nnumber of institutions; and, as a first reform, would repeal at least\none obnoxious law.\n\nThe relation of Malthus to the French Revolution and its English\npartisans is indeed not to be expressed in a sentence. It has been said\nthat he cannot be justly described as being a reactionary;[777] and, in\ntruth, besides being a critic of Godwin and of Condorcet, he is\ninfluenced to some extent by the same ideas that influenced them. The\n_Essay on Population_ is coloured throughout by a tacit or open\nreference to the Rights of Man, a watchword borrowed from France by the\nAmerican Republic, to be restored again at the Revolution. Paine\u2019s book\non the _Rights of Man_, in reply to Burke\u2019s _Reflections on the French\nRevolution_, had been widely read before it was suppressed by the\nEnglish Government; and Godwin and Mackintosh[778] were not silenced.\nMalthus himself, as a Whig, does not disparage the rights of man when\nthey meant political freedom and equality, but only when they included\nthe right to be supported by one\u2019s neighbour, as had been asserted by\nthe Abb\u00e9 Raynal and some other writers of the Revolution.[779] As the\nsame assertion was practically made by the English Poor Law, which had\nvenerable conservative prejudice on its side, our author\u2019s opposition to\nit was no proof that his politics were reactionary. His economical\nantecedents and his political views bound him to the French Revolution.\nIn his range of ideas and his habitual categories he could not depart\nfar from the French Economists, who had helped to prepare the way for\nthe Jacobins. Adam Smith himself had felt their influence. Though he had\ncriticized the noble savage and the state of nature,[780] he had himself\na lingering preference for agriculture over manufacture; and he himself\nspoke of a \u201cnatural\u201d price, a \u201cnatural\u201d progress of opulence, a\n\u201cnatural\u201d rate of wages, and \u201cnatural liberty.\u201d To him as to the French\nwriters, Nature[781] meant what would grow of itself if men did not\ninterfere,\u2014the difficulty being that the interference seems also to grow\nof itself, and it is impossible to separate the necessary protection\nfrom the mischievous interference. Malthus retains the phraseology with\nan even nearer approach to personification. Nature points out to us\ncertain courses of conduct.[782] If we break Nature\u2019s laws, she will\npunish us. At Nature\u2019s mighty feast there is no cover laid for the\nsuperfluous new-comer. The Poor Laws offend against Nature; they\ninterfere with human action in a case where it would spontaneously right\nitself by ordinary motives of self-interest; if men knew they could not\ncount on parish relief, they would probably help themselves. Be the\nargument worth much or little, its strength is not the greater because\nof this figure; and his use of it shows that Malthus had not risen above\nthe metaphysical superstitions of his age. But the charge sometimes made\nagainst him is that he was not merely not before his age but positively\nbehind it; and this is certainly false.\n\nIn politics he was as little of a reactionary as his opponent, who if\n\u201cin principle a Republican was in practice a Whig.\u201d[783] He followed Fox\nrather than Burke, and lost neither his head nor his temper over the\nRevolution. \u201cMalthus will prove a peace-monger,\u201d wrote Southey in\n1808.[784] He was a steady friend of Catholic Emancipation. He saw the\nfolly of attributing with Godwin and Paine all evil to the Government,\nand with Cobbett all evil to taxation and the funds;[785] but he is one\nwith them all in dislike of standing armies, and is more alarmed at the\noverbearing measures of the Government against sedition than at the\nalleged sedition itself. One of the most remarkable chapters in the\nsecond edition of the essay[786] is on \u201cthe effects of the knowledge of\nthe principal cause of poverty on civil liberty.\u201d Its main argument is,\nthat, where there is much distress and destitution, there will be much\ndiscontent and sedition, and, where there is much of the two last, there\nwill be much coercion and despotism. A knowledge of the chief cause of\npoverty by taking away the distress would leave Government at least no\nexcuse for tyranny. \u201cThe pressure of distress on the lower classes of\npeople, together with the habit of attributing this distress to their\nrulers, appears to me to be the rock of defence, the castle, the\nguardian spirit of despotism. It affords to the tyrant the fatal and\nunanswerable plea of necessity. It is the reason why every free\nGovernment tends constantly to destruction, and that its appointed\nguardians become daily less jealous of the encroachments of power.\u201d[787]\nThe French people had been told that their unhappiness was due to their\nrulers; they overthrew their rulers, and, finding their distress not\nremoved, they sacrificed the new rulers; and this process would have\ncontinued indefinitely if despotism had not been found preferable to\nanarchy. In England \u201cthe Government of the last twenty years[788] has\nshown no great love of peace or liberty,\u201d and the country gentlemen have\napparently surrendered themselves to Government on condition of being\nprotected from the mob.[789] A few more scarcities like 1800 might cause\nsuch convulsions and lead to such sternness of repression that the\nBritish constitution would end as Hume foretold,[790] in \u201cabsolute\nmonarchy, the easiest death, the true _euthanasia_ of the British\nconstitution.\u201d The \u201ctendency of mobs to produce tyranny\u201d can only be\ncounteracted by the subversion, not of the tyrants, but of the mobs. The\nresult would be a lean and wiry people, weak for offence, but strong for\ndefence; there would be freedom at home and peace abroad.[791]\n\nOf course the \u201cknowledge of the principal cause of poverty\u201d is not\nconceived by Malthus as the only lesson worth learning. He shares the\ngrowing enthusiasm of all friends of the people for popular\neducation,[792] and thinks the Tory arguments against instructing the\npoorer classes \u201cnot only illiberal, but to the last degree feeble, if\nnot really disingenuous.\u201d[793] \u201cAn instructed and well-informed people\nwould be much less likely to be led away by inflammatory writings, and\nmuch better able to detect the false declamation of interested and\nambitious demagogues than an ignorant people.\u201d[794] These words were\nwritten in 1803, four years before Whitbread made his motion on Schools\nand Savings Banks, and thirteen years before Brougham\u2019s Committee on\nEducation.[795] Malthus in fact was in politics an advanced Whig, ahead\nof his party in ideas of social reform. This may be seen from the\nfollowing passage, which is only one out of many, that show his large\nview of his subject. He says that in most countries among the poor there\nseems to be something like \u201ca standard of wretchedness, a point below\nwhich they will not continue to marry.\u201d \u201cThis standard is different in\ndifferent countries, and is formed by various concurring circumstances\nof soil, climate, government, degree of knowledge, civilization, &c.\u201d It\nis raised by liberty, security of property, the diffusion of knowledge,\nand a taste for the conveniences and the comforts of life. It is lowered\nby despotism and ignorance. \u201cIn an attempt to better the condition of\nthe labouring classes of society, our object should be to raise this\nstandard as high as possible by cultivating a spirit of independence, a\ndecent pride, and a taste for cleanliness and comfort. The effect of a\ngood Government in increasing the prudential habits and personal\nrespectability of the lower classes of society has already been insisted\non; but certainly this effect will always be incomplete without a good\nsystem of education, and indeed it may be said that no Government can\napproach to perfection that does not provide for the instruction of the\npeople. The benefits derived from education are among those which may be\nenjoyed without restriction of numbers; and, as it is in the power of\nGovernments to confer these benefits, it is undoubtedly their duty to do\nit.\u201d[796]\n\nOur author\u2019s historical sense saved him from Ricardian presumptions in\nfavour of _laissez faire_. Writers go too far, however, in declaring\nunlimited competition to be against the spirit of his work, and\nasserting that he undervalued the influence of institutions, only that\nhe might save his country\u2019s institutions from hasty reform.[797] He knew\nthat society did not grow up on economical principles; instead of\nbeginning with non-interference, and extending interference by degrees\nwhere it was found imperative, it began with interference everywhere,\nand relaxed the interference by degrees where it was found possible and\nthought desirable. We have begun with status and paternal government,\nand have made our way towards contract and _laissez faire_; but we have\nnever reached them, because, as men now are, we cannot go on without\ndamage to the common weal. But it seemed to Malthus that experience had\nshown the need as clearly as the dangers of natural liberty;\u2014history,\nfor example, had clearly proved that the material relief of the poor,\nwhich had never been abandoned by the Government, might best have been\nleft to private action. The extreme view would have been that it was not\nevery one\u2019s duty in general, but every one\u2019s in particular, a\nresponsibility of which no one could divest himself. But, though Malthus\noften speaks as if the burden ought to lie specially on a man\u2019s\nrelatives and private friends, he does not share Adam Smith\u2019s antipathy\nto associations, and would probably have recognized division of labour\nto be as necessary in charity as in industry. Still, even as\nadministered by an organization of men specially fitted for the work by\nnature and choice, the distribution of material relief never seems to\nhim a case where society can help the poor without in some degree\ninjuring their independence and their strength of character. In the\nmatter of charity he is clearly on the side of natural liberty and\nindividualism.\n\nBut, in other directions, he has made admissions which seriously modify\nthe unlimited competition of natural liberty. He admits, first of all,\nthat the struggle for existence when it is the struggle for bare life\ndoes not lead to progress;[798] and he admits, therefore, in the second\nplace, that the state should interfere with the \u201csystem of natural\nliberty,\u201d positively, to educate the citizens,[799] and to grant medical\naid to the poor,[800] to assist emigration,[801] and even to give direct\nrelief in money to men that have a family of more than six\nchildren,[802]\u2014as well as negatively, to restrict foreign trade when it\ncauses more harm to the public than good to the traders,[803] and to\nrestrict the home trade where children\u2019s labour is concerned.[804]\n\nA critic might ask on what principle he justifies these admissions; or\nmight hint that he makes them on no conscious principle at all, but in\nthe spirit of a judge, who is administering a law that he knows to be\nbad, but prefers to make continual exceptions rather than suggest a new\nlaw;\u2014otherwise could any rule stand the test of so many exceptions?\n\nIt might be replied that Malthus nowhere writes a treatise on political\nphilosophy, and his views must be inferred from scattered hints, but it\ndoes not follow that he was not, consciously or unconsciously, possessed\nof a guiding principle. His several admissions have a certain logical\nconnection. It is more doubtful whether their connecting principle will\nseem adequate to a modern reader whose questions in political philosophy\nhave been stated for him by Comte and the latter-day socialists.\n\nThe first of the admissions is the more significant, as Malthus, while\nmaking it, refuses to approve of the means then actually adopted (by the\nPoor Law) for raising the level of the weakest citizens, and so fitting\nthem for their struggle. If the absence of provision was an evil, the\nexisting provision was hardly a less one. It was bad for society to give\nhelp by giving bread and butter, for that was a gift to full-grown men\nand women, not really weak, but quite ready to be indolent. A gift of\neducation, on the other hand, is given, he considers, to those who are\nreally incapable of helping themselves and really ignorant of their\npowers.[805] It makes the weak strong, and tends to remove indolence,\nnot create it.[806] In the same way Factory Acts assist the weak and not\nthe indolent, while the (rare) interference with free trade, the\ngranting of medical relief, the special aid in case of large families,\nand the aid to Irish peasants, are all of them special remedies in cases\nwhere the sufferers could not be expected to foresee and provide against\nthe distress, and were therefore sufferers from circumstances rather\nthan from indolence. Malthus continually takes the view that security is\na greater blessing than wealth itself, and insecurity a worse evil than\npoverty. The circumstances that cause insecurity were therefore in his\nview the most distressing; they baffled individual effort.\n\nHis critics might have answered: \u201cIn all the cases mentioned by you as\njustifying interference, a perfectly enlightened self-interest would\nhave provided against the mishap; and relief of any kind would be in the\nend equivalent to relief in bread and butter, for, as far as it goes, it\nallows the more to be left over either to the man or his parents for\nbread and butter, and thereby it is a relief that fosters indolence.\u201d He\ncould rejoin, however, that (even if we grant the practical possibility\nof such a perfect enlightenment) direct relief appeals far more to\nindolence than indirect,[807] and the good of the indirect can often,\nthe good of the direct very seldom, outweigh the evil. He would have\nadded that even the direct relief in bread and butter was not opposed by\nhim on any theory, but on the ground of its known tendency to evil,\u2014and,\nif it had been possible from the nature of men and things to keep the\npromises of the Poor Law, he would have given his voice for it. He was\ncommitted to free trade itself only because and only so far as\nexperience was in its favour. His only axiom in political philosophy was\nthat the end of politics is the greatest happiness of the great body of\nthe people; and his only rule for securing that end was the observation\nof what, as a matter of experience, actually did secure it.\n\nOn the other hand, nothing is clearer from his own writings than that\nthe language of experience owes much of its meaning to its interpreter;\nand we ask \u201cWhat were his principles of interpretation?\u201d\n\nThe answer is, that, in spite of the affinity between utilitarianism in\nmorals and individualism in politics, he tried to retain the first\nwithout the second. He understood moral goodness to consist in the\ntendency of actions to produce a balance of pleasures over pains; but\nhis utility when examined turned out, as we have seen, to be much nearer\nthe notion of self-development than simply a sum of pleasures\nirrespective of their quality. At this point the strong grasp which\nfamily life held on his fancy lifted him above the notion that the chief\nend could be the individual happiness of isolated units, and showed him\nthat the real unit was a group. The state to Malthus, as to Aristotle,\nis an aggregate of families, though he recognizes very clearly that,\nbesides the connection of householder with householder by the common\nsubjection to the laws, there is the common bond of nationality, a\ncommunity of feeling, a partnership of past traditions, present\nprivileges, and future hopes.[808] It is one of the plainest facts of\nexperience that men are often led by their attachment to their country\nand countrymen to run counter to their worldly interests.[809]\n\nThe nation is a little world within the great world, and on the analogy\nof the great world it is the scene where difficulties generate talents\nand bring out the character.[810] From this point of view it is not far\nfrom the truth to parody a well-known description of modern Judaism, and\ndescribe the political philosophy of Malthus as Utilitarianism _plus_ a\nNationality. The individualism of Malthus is limited by the particular\ninstitutions and particular interests of the English nation.[811] In his\nintellectual history a strong emphasis on the state preceded the\nemphasis on the individual; and even in his mature view the state is\nlimited in its interference with the citizens only by its powers of\ndoing good to them. But he holds with Adam Smith and the other\neconomists that its powers of doing good to them are very much narrower\nthan on the old conception of the state, as a kind of family. The duties\nof a state to the citizens are narrower than those of a father to his\nchildren, because what the father can and must do for his children the\nstate cannot do for its citizens with equal safety to their\nindependence. It remains, however, true that the relation of state to\ncitizen is not the commercial relation of one contracting party with\nanother; it is a relation prior to the commercial, and gives to all\ncontracts whatever validity they have.\n\nIf Malthus himself had been asked to reconcile his departure from the\ngeneral principle of natural liberty with his general adherence to it,\nhe would have made some such answer as the following: \u201cFrom the first,\nwhen I wrote in 1798, it appeared to me that the action of Government\ncould neither have so uniformly bad an effect as Godwin supposed, nor so\nuniformly good as Pitt\u2019s Bill implied. If, as Godwin desires, there were\nno Government, but only a chastened _laissez faire_, unsophisticated\nhuman nature would be quite enough to bring back misery and sin.[812]\nBut the chastening of the _laissez faire_ could not in my opinion take\nplace without the Government, for it is one of the most proper functions\nof Government, not adequately dischargeable by individuals, to provide\nfor the people the education that is supposed to chasten. Even when that\nprovision has been made, the education will not do its perfect work if\nit has not included the particular doctrines which it has fallen to me\nmore than any man to bring home to the public mind. With such an\neducation there will be hope for better things. Things as they are and\nthe struggle for existence as it now is among the helpless classes can\nplease me as little as Godwin. It is a struggle which leads to no\nprogress. But, unlike Godwin, I do not regard Government as necessarily\ncreating the distress; and I certainly regard it as the necessary engine\nfor removing the distress by education in the end, and toning down its\neffects by restrictions for the present. If only as an engine of\neducation, paternal government must be a permanent factor of society.\nWhere a public necessity has been well supplied by individual action, I\nshould leave it in the hands of individuals; but not otherwise. I did\nnot object to the Poor Law on the broad ground that it took the place of\nprivate action, but because its own action was mischievous. I should try\nevery case on its merits, and be guided to interfere or not interfere by\nthe known results of the existing policies.\u201d\n\nIn so speaking, Malthus would no doubt have justified his own\nconsistency. But the modern reader might justly reply to Malthus, that\nwe have often to judge tendencies as well as results, and experience\nbecomes then an uncertain guide; he might complain that Malthus himself\nis sometimes led to judge both of them by a half-acknowledged\nsupplementary principle of the balance of classes and safety of the\nmean, which can be applied in a way very unfavourable to popular rights.\nHe might urge that the apparent success of an institution might have\nbeen due to a concurrent cause that cancelled its defects, and we cannot\nalways pronounce on its merits from experience of it. How can experience\nhelp us unless we have the key to its interpretation? Without such a key\nnothing would be so false as facts except figures. In human politics\nmere survival is seldom the test of fitness.\n\nIf we compare the state to an organism and convert our simile into a\nrule of judgment, we may say that, when each part has its function and\ncontributes to the efficiency of the whole, the body politic is well;\nwhen any part does not, there is need of the doctor or surgeon. This\nfigure seems to give us a key for the interpretation of social\nexperience; but unhappily the figure itself needs an interpreter.[813]\nIf we interpret organism as the ideal union of members in one body, it\nceases to be a simile, for the body politic is not merely like this\nunion,\u2014it is the best example of it. For in the body politic the general\nlife is the source of all individual energy, and at the same time the\nindividual members are continually paying back the debt, by an active\nsympathy and conscious union with the commonwealth, to which the\ncommonwealth in its turn owes all its collective energy; the citizen is\nnothing without his state, or the state without its citizens. This is to\nmake the figure useful, by making it change places with the thing\nprefigured. So long as the same idea is grasped in both, their relation\nin rhetoric need not affect us.\n\nSuch an idea of the state would lead us beyond the admissions of Malthus\nto some such demands as the following:\u2014For his every possession, the\ncitizen must be able to show some service rendered to his countrymen,\nand must be taught and expected to hold his property in trust for the\ncommon good, that so the body politic may have no useless member. In\nproportion as private possession involves monopoly, its use should be\njealously restricted in the public interest, which in the extreme cases\nwould lead to the withdrawing of it, with as little friction as might\nbe, from the private owner to the state. Education acts, sanitary laws,\nand factory acts should be strictly and universally enforced, not for\nthe sake of the parents, guardians, and employers, or even altogether\nfor the sake of the sufferers themselves, but for the sake of the\ncommunity, in order that in the struggle for existence every competitor\nshould start fair as an efficient citizen, with full possession of his\npowers of mind and body. For the rest, security and order should be the\nwatchword of the state, free course being allowed to commercial and\nindustrial enterprise, scientific inquiry, and speculative discussion,\nin order that progress may be made in the surest of all ways, by the\nmoral and intellectual development of the individual citizens, which\nwill soon express itself in their institutions. With these postulates,\nhalf from the old economists and half from the new reformers, on the way\nto be realized, and with industrial co-operation in prospect, we need\nnot despair of the future of man on our part of the earth.\n\nTried by such a standard Malthus certainly fails to give us a perfect\npolitical philosophy, and seems little farther advanced than his master\nAdam Smith, who taught that the state was profitable only for defence,\nfor justice, and for such public works as could not be so well done by\nindividuals. With all his regard for the nation, Malthus looks at social\nproblems too much from the individual\u2019s point of view. He speaks much,\nfor example, of the good effect, on the individual man, of the domestic\nideal, and of the ideals of personal prosperity in the world, both built\non security of property and liberty of action. He speaks little of the\nduty of the citizen to the community, and of the return he owes it for\nhis security and liberty. The citizen in his picture of him seems to\nhave nothing but duties to his family and nothing but claims on the\nstate. The citizen is lost in the householder. He is content to be let\nalone, and does not positively and actively recognize his identity with\nthe legislative power, and his obligation to repay service with service.\nLater political philosophy would press the counter-claims of the\ncommunity on the citizen. It would demand, for example, that he shall\nneither leave his lands waste nor preserve his game, if either practice\nis contrary to the public good. It would keep in mind that the holders\nof large fortunes owe more to the public for protection of them than the\nholders of small, and should bear a heavier burden of taxes. It would\nnot leave men to do as they willed with their own.[814]\n\nIn regard to the lowest classes that are hardly to be called citizens,\nfor they are struggling in hopeless weakness for mere bread, Malthus\nnever seems to see that his own acknowledgment of their powerlessness to\nrise must justify much more than the mere establishment of compulsory\neducation for their children or even mechanics\u2019 institutes for\nthemselves. It would justify the adoption of such measures as will make\ntheir surroundings likely to give and preserve to them a higher standard\nof living. It would sanction measures of \u201clocal option\u201d to keep away\nfrom them the infection of dangerous moral diseases; and it would\nenforce the obligation on the owners of houses to make them habitable\nand healthy. It would give town and country tenants secure tenure by\nlaw, where an insecure tenure of custom had induced them to spend labour\non their holdings.\n\nThe older economists had the just idea that security in possession was\nthe first condition of industrial progress; but they did not see that\nthis very principle would justify very large restrictions on the use of\nproperty, and that the restrictions would increase in largeness as the\nproperty approached the nature of a monopoly; they did not see that for\nthe public interest it may be as necessary to prohibit deer forests as\nto pull down unsanitary dwellings or enforce vaccination.\n\nThe reason was that for a long time in England it was a hard enough task\nfor reformers to secure the negative freedom of being let alone, the\nfreedom of trade and of the press and of local government, with the\nabolition of privileges. Cobden\u2019s attempt to resolve Politics into\nEconomics was well-timed and fruitful in its generation; and the\nManchester school has still a part to play in our own time. But the\nspecial work of political reform in the future is to achieve the\npositive freedom, \u201cthe maximum of power, for all members of human\nsociety alike, to make the best of themselves.\u201d[815] Of this programme\nneither Malthus nor any writer of his day had any clear conception. He\nhimself had no claim to a seer\u2019s vision; and the horizon of his\nopponents was never wider than his own.\n\nIt is time to go back to the _Essay_ and confront its opponents. We have\nnow a sufficient knowledge of the economics and philosophy of Malthus to\nbe able to sympathize with him under misconception, or at least to\nunderstand what appearance an objection would wear to his mind. Not that\nwe have a complete picture of the man, or even a view of his entire\nmental furniture, which is more than this _curta supellex_; but we see\nenough to judge the cause of the _Essay_ on its merits, not prejudiced,\nfavourably or unfavourably, by the life and character of the author.\n\n\n\n\n                                BOOK IV.\n                              THE CRITICS.\n\n  Three Questions for the Critics\u2014Parr and _Thoughts on Parr_\u2014Pulpit\n    Philosophy\u2014Godwin\u2019s Blessing in 1801\u2014The Cursing in\n    1820\u2014Theology\u2014The Command to Noah\u2014The Ratios\u2014Population \u201cfitful\u201d\u2014S.\n    T. Coleridge among the Economists\u2014James Grahame\u2014Empson\u2019s\n    Classification of Critics\u2014Weyland and Arthur Young\u2014\u201cCannot,\n    therefore ought not\u201d\u2014Spence\u2019s _Plan_ and Owen\u2019s\u2014_Progress and\n    Poverty_\u2014_Das Kapital_\u2014Herbert Spencer\u2014Classification of\n    Critics\u2014Ethics of the Hearth and of the World\u2014End and Means of\n    Malthus.\n\n\nThe critics of Malthus had three questions before them: Do the\nconclusions of Malthus follow from his premises? Does he himself draw\nthem? Are they true as a matter of fact? The answers will be best given\nby a short survey of the principal critics with whom Malthus contended\nin his lifetime, and those who have most formidably contended with his\nfollowers since his death.\n\nThere is a sense in which the _Essay on Population_ begins and ends with\nGodwin, for it begins and ends with the question of human\nperfectibility. The relations of Malthus and Godwin are as it were the\ntale on which the play is founded.\n\nGodwin\u2019s _Political Justice_ was written in 1793, his _Enquirer_ in\n1797, and Malthus\u2019 _Essay_ in 1798. Others kept the ball a-rolling. On\nthe Easter Tuesday of 1800 Dr. Samuel Parr preached an anniversary\nsermon in Christ\u2019s Hospital before the Corporation of London. He chose\nhis text from Galatians vi. 10: \u201cAs we have therefore opportunity, let\nus do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household\nof faith.\u201d Like Butler\u2019s sermons in the Rolls Chapel, the discourse was\nreally a treatise on moral philosophy. It began by contrasting the\nselfish and the benevolent system of ethics, pronouncing both of them\nfaulty. If the one has done less harm, the other has done less good than\nmight have been expected, for it has been connected with the new\ndoctrine of universal philanthropy. The new doctrine is false because\nlocal neighbourhood of all men is impossible, _vi terminorum_, and a\nwidening out of the feelings that usually prevail between local\nneighbours would only make those feelings thin and watery.[816] Man\u2019s\nobligations cannot be stretched beyond his powers; he has no powers, and\ntherefore no obligation to do good unto all men.[817] Love of the\nuniverse, in the intense sense of the word love, can only belong to the\nomnipotent Being who has the care of the universe upon Him. We, being\nmen, must only see to it that our benevolence is of His quality,\nextending, like His, to the unthankful and to the evil. But a universal\nphilanthropist exaggerates and pampers this one particular form of the\nduty of benevolence at the expense of the rest, and forgets duties that\nlie near to him, towards kindred and friends and neighbours; he neglects\ncommon duties of life in favour of the uncommon and fanciful. Very\ndifferent is \u201cthe calm desire of general happiness,\u201d which draws those\nthat are near still nearer, and makes us value and assist the benevolent\ninstitutions, like Christ\u2019s Hospital, which are at our own doors.\n\nThe hearers of the sermon could have no doubt at whom it was aimed; and\nthe footnotes of the published version of it contained large quotations\nfrom the _Essay on Population_ and large direct commendations of its\nauthor, which made the sermon\u2019s oblique censure of Godwin the more\nstinging.\n\nPulpit philosophizing was not rare in those times; it had been practised\nsince Butler\u2019s days by Dr. Ezra Styles[818] in 1761; and Dr. Richard\nPrice had used a dissenter\u2019s pulpit to utter his enthusiastic views on\nthe future improvement of mankind (1787) and the love of our country\n(1789).[819] Burke had denounced him for this in his _Reflections_;[820]\nbut, if Parr could do the same thing on the other side a few years\nafterwards, it cannot have been any great singularity. Parr\u2019s sermon was\nthe subject of Sydney Smith\u2019s first paper in the _Edinburgh Review_ (Oct\n1802); but its economical interest is due to its effect on Godwin.\nGodwin had been assailed shortly before by Sir James Mackintosh, a\nformer friend and political ally, in his _Discourse on the Law of Nature\nand Nations_, delivered in Lincoln\u2019s Inn Hall, 1799; but Dr. Parr\u2019s\ncensures were more severe. Parr may have been alienated by an offensive\ndescription in the _Enquirer_[821] of the clergy, as characterized by \u201ca\nperennial stationariness of understanding, abortive learning, artificial\nmanners, infantine prejudices, and arrogant infallibility.\u201d As all the\nother professions were equally well abused, the censure need not have\nbeen taken to heart. The letter of Malthus to Godwin, written after the\npublication of the _Enquirer_, is full of courtesy. At that time, and\nindeed for a few years afterwards, there was nothing but good-will\nbetween the two writers. When Godwin in 1801 made his letters to his\nthree critics into a book,[822] under the title, _Thoughts on Dr. Parr\u2019s\nSpital Sermon_, with remarks on Mackintosh and the writer of the _Essay\non Population_, he was bitter only against the two former. He was\nsurprised at the \u201coverbearing scornfulness\u201d of Mackintosh, and at the\n\u201cvenom\u201d of Dr. Parr. If he had changed some of his views it was not in\ndeference to their criticism. Of the _Essay on Population_, \u201cand the\nspirit in which it is written,\u201d he \u201ccan never speak but with unfeigned\nrespect;\u201d contending only that it is meant to attack his conclusions and\nnot his premises.[823] Parr had hailed it as a complete demonstration\nthat Godwin\u2019s scheme of equality would not work, and many better men had\nfelt their mouths shut, and had begged Godwin to speak for them. Godwin\nconsents in these _Thoughts_. If he was sincere in saying, \u201cI confess I\ncould not see that the essay had any very practical bearing on my own\nhopes\u201d (p. 55), he must have been in the state which the _Enquirer_\nascribes to the clergyman: \u201cHe lives in the midst of evidence and is\ninsensible to it. He is in daily contemplation of contradictions and\nfinds them consistent. He listens to arguments that would impress\nconviction upon every impartial hearer and is astonished at their\nfutility. He never dares trust himself to one unprejudiced\ncontemplation. He starts with impatience and terror from its possible\nresult.\u201d Malthus, on the other hand, though in orders, has behaved very\nunlike the clergyman of the _Enquirer_, for we are told by Godwin\nhimself, \u201che has neither laboured to excite hatred nor contempt against\nme and my tenets; he has argued the questions between us just as if they\nhad never been made a theme for political party and the intrigues of\nfaction; he has argued just as if he had no end in view but the\ninvestigation of evidence and the development of truth\u201d (p. 55 ft.).\nMoreover, he has \u201cmade as unquestionable an addition to the theory of\npolitical economy as any writer for a century past. The grand\npropositions and outlines of his work will, I believe, be found not less\nconclusive and certain than they are new. For myself, I cannot refuse to\ntake some pride in so far as by my writings I gave the occasion and\nfurnished an incentive to the producing so valuable a treatise\u201d (p. 56).\nSurely concession could no further go. Godwin even admits the\narithmetical and geometrical ratios.[824] His criticisms are all on the\nchecks, which (be it remembered) were only the checks of the first\nessay, vice, misery, and the fear of them. Are Governments henceforward\nto prevent the evils of an excessive population by encouraging these\nunsightly counter-agents? and is every scheme for the amelioration of\nman\u2019s lot foredoomed? No, the \u201cauthor of the essay\u201d has too small an\nidea of the resources of the human mind; it is no conclusive argument\nagainst a scheme to say that when it is realized it will probably not\nlast.[825] He does not attach sufficient weight to the fact that in\nEngland, for example, \u201cprudence and pride\u201d prevent early marriages, and\nfrom late ones come smaller families. In a state of universal\nimprovement there would be not less but more of these feelings, and a\nsimilar effect would follow in a greater degree.[826]\n\nThat there was force in this reasoning appears from the way in which\nMalthus received it when stated to him by letter a few months after the\npublication of the essay. He replied that the \u201cprudence\u201d in question, if\nexisting in Godwin\u2019s new society, would mean an eye to the main chance;\nit would mean that one man is strengthening his position and getting to\nhimself more than the minimum of necessaries; if you prevent this, what\nbecomes of your freedom? if you do not, what becomes of your equality\nand wealth? Secondly, the effect of the prudence would be that the\npopulation would not be the greatest possible, but considerably within\nthe limits of the food; and yet you object to present society, that its\narrangements prevent the \u201cgreatest practicable population.\u201d In all our\npolitical theories, if we would trace to particular institutions the\nevil that is really due to them, we must deduct the evil that is known\nto be due to other causes. \u201cThe very admission of the necessity of\nprudence to prevent the misery from an overcharged population, removes\nthe blame from public institutions to the conduct of individuals. And\ncertain it is, that almost under the worst form of government, where\nthere was any tolerable freedom of competition, the race of labourers,\nby not marrying, and consequently decreasing their numbers, might\nimmediately better their condition, and under the very best form of\ngovernment, by marrying and greatly increasing their numbers they would\nimmediately make their condition worse.\u201d[827]\n\nThis was no doubt a point against Godwin, but it was also a point\nagainst Malthus himself. The essay in its first form had not made\nsufficient allowance for \u201cprudence\u201d; and the introduction of moral\nrestraint in the second edition might very plausibly have been ascribed\nby Godwin\u2019s friends to Godwin himself, in spite of the elaborate reply\nto the _Thoughts_ in a chapter afterwards dropped.[828] Godwin said to\nhim afterwards that he had no right to introduce a new element into his\nsolution of the problem, and pretend that it was the same solution as\nbefore;[829] if he altered his premises he ought to alter his\nconclusion. To which Malthus might have answered, that, though his\nconclusion is altered, it retains its value as an argument against\nGodwin. At first the tendency of numbers to increase up to the food was\ndescribed as an obstacle fatal to progress; now it is indeed an obstacle\nwhich must be faced and overcome, but it is fatal not to progress, but\nonly to equality. Godwin himself had at first considered it an entirely\nimaginary obstacle which might be ignored for the present by reformers;\nand his very doctrine of prudence amounts to an admission that his view\nof it had changed.\n\nGodwin himself was not conscious of his change of front; as the seventh\nof thirteen children he may have thought the matter personal; and\nwhatever concessions he had made in 1801 he withdrew in 1820. In that\nyear, with David Booth, the patient author of the _English Analytical\nDictionary_, to arrange his statistics and vouch for his calculations,\nhe published an elaborate reply to the _Essay on Population_. The\npoliticians, the political economists, the bulk of the press, and the\npublic had accepted the Malthusian doctrines, though the conversion of\nthe public was no deeper than it was on Free Trade, and the statesmen\nwith a few exceptions were not sorry to make capital out of the\n\u201codiousness\u201d of the doctrines whenever the \u201cacknowledged truth\u201d of them\nwould not serve their turn. Still it seemed true that time had declared\nfor Malthus, and Godwin had fallen out of notice. Sydney Smith\u2019s\nassertion,[830] \u201cMalthus took the trouble of refuting him, and we hear\nno more of Mr. Godwin,\u201d is not very far from the truth. Malthus had\nsurvived his refutation, and Godwin his reputation. Pitt, Paley, and\nCopleston were with Malthus; he had gained over Hallam among historians,\nJames Mill, Senior, and Ricardo among economists, Brougham, Mackintosh,\nand even Whitbread among politicians. Southey, Hazlitt, and Cobbett were\nnot a sufficient make-weight. Hazlitt in his _Reply_ to the _Essay on\nPopulation_ (in letters of which some appeared in Cobbett\u2019s _Pol.\nRegister_, 1807) acknowledges the popularity, though he predicts its\ndecay.[831] It seems clear that in educated circles at least the view of\nMalthus was as early as 1820 what it was in 1829, \u201cthe popular\nview,\u201d[832] which is quite compatible, as Darwin long experienced, with\ngreat unpopularity in particular quarters. No better evidence could be\ngiven of this popularity than the unwilling testimony given by Godwin\nhimself in his new book.[833] At the end of 1819 Brougham had referred\nin the House of Commons to the principle of Malthus as \u201cone of the\nsoundest principles of political economy,\u201d and said it was melancholy to\nobserve how the press scouted it and abused its defenders.[834] The\npress, however, was divided. The _Edinburgh Review_ from the first had\nsided with Malthus. The _Quarterly_ had begun by strong hostility (Dec.\n1812, pp. 320 _seq._); had softened its tone as time went on (Dec. 1813,\npp. 157 _seq._, and Oct. 1814, pp. 154\u20135); had spoken with hesitation\nand doubtfulness (Oct. 1816, pp. 50 _seq._); and had at last completely\nsurrendered (July 1817, pp. 369 _seq._), confessing it to be \u201cmuch\neasier to disbelieve Mr. Malthus than to refute him\u201d (p. 396),\nthereafter utilizing his doctrine for the support of things as they are,\nonly regretting that Malthus himself would not do the same a little more\nstoutly (pp. 402\u20133). Finally, as we have seen, Malthus, after having\ncontributed to the _Edinburgh_, became a contributor to the _Quarterly_.\nThe change of public opinion, illustrated by the conversion of the\n_Quarterly_, gave greater bitterness to the attacks of the enemies that\nremained unconverted. But it gave them no new arguments.\n\nIn Godwin\u2019s _Enquiry concerning Population_ (when we neglect mere\nepigrams such as \u201ca man is surer that he has ancestors than that he will\nhave posterity\u201d) there are substantially four arguments:\u2014Malthus has\nchanged his position; the world is not peopled; the ratios are not as he\nrepresents; and experience is against him. We have already discussed the\nfirst. The use of the second implies a misunderstanding of the\nMalthusian position, for it ignores distinction between actual and\npossible supplies of food, and does not allow that a man is \u201cconfined\u201d\nby four walls unless he touches them.[835] Godwin does not mend the\nargument by comparing it to the objection brought against\nChristianity\u2014\u201cthe world is not yet Christianized\u201d; still less by\nappealing to Christianity itself, and taunting Malthus with the texts,\n\u201cIncrease and multiply,\u201d \u201cHappy is the man that hath his quiver full of\nthem,\u201d \u201cmade a little lower than the angels,\u201d \u201cforty sons and thirty\ngrandsons, which rode on threescore and ten ass colts,\u201d \u201cIn the last\ndays some shall depart from the faith, forbidding to marry.\u201d[836]\nMalthus had been attacked in 1807 by a Puritan or Covenanting pamphlet\nentitled, \u2018A summons of Wakening, or the evil tendency and danger of\nSpeculative Philosophy, exemplified in Mr. [Sir John] Leslie\u2019s _Enquiry\ninto the Nature of Heat_, and Mr. Malthus\u2019 _Essay on Population_, and in\nthat speculative system of common law which is at present administered\nin these kingdoms.\u2019[837] The body of this book had been even more\nremarkable than its title, for it had proved Malthus guilty not merely\nof heterodoxy, but of atheism. \u201cIt is evident to any one who attentively\nreads the _Essay on Population_ that its author does not believe in the\nexistence of God, but substitutes for Him sometimes the principle of\nPopulation, sometimes that of Necessity.\u201d Sadler many years later\ndeclared in the same spirit that \u201cthe insults the theory of Malthus\nlevels at God, and the injuries it meditates inflicting upon man, will\nbe endured by neither.\u201d[838]\n\nOnce for all, let Parson Malthus explain his consistency with the\nreligious text-book of his Church. Prior to the injunction given to men\nto increase and multiply, come, says Malthus, all the moral and physical\nlaws without which they cannot increase or multiply. Suppose the command\nhad been to increase and multiply not men but vegetables; this could not\nmean, \u201cSow the seed broadcast, in the air, over the sea, on stony\nground,\u201d but, \u201cTake all the means made necessary, by pre-existing laws,\nto secure the best growth of vegetables.\u201d That man would best obey the\ncommand, who should prepare the soil, and provide for the watering and\ntilling of it, where those things were wanting before. So he will best\nobey the command to increase and multiply Men, who prepares food for men\nwhere there was none before, and not he who brings them recklessly into\nthe world without any such provision. \u201cI believe it is the intention of\nthe Creator that the earth should be replenished, but certainly with a\nhealthy, virtuous, and happy population, not an unhealthy, vicious, and\nmiserable one. And, if, in endeavouring to obey the command to increase\nand multiply, we people it only with beings of the latter description\nand suffer accordingly, we have no right to impeach the justice of the\ncommand, but our irrational mode of executing it.\u201d[839] He might have\nadded, that to give any other interpretation of the passage in Genesis\nis to forget the circumstances in which the words were spoken. The\nDeluge had just swept away all the earth\u2019s inhabitants except one\nfamily, expressly on the score of wickedness; and, if a wicked\nreplenishing were not desirable, an unhappy or a poor one would be at\nthe best only one degree less so. Regarding the question then purely\nfrom the outside, we cannot find anything in the writings of Parson\nMalthus inconsistent with his ecclesiastical orthodoxy; and we can\nhardly believe that free-thinking Godwin was very serious in the\nobjection.\n\nMalthus himself replies to it as a charge commonly brought against him\nby others, with no reference to Godwin in particular. For the most part\nhe ignores Godwin\u2019s book on Population, as mere rhetoric and\nscurrility.[840] Godwin, however, had given more than two years of hard\nlabour to the writing of it;[841] and his biographer regards it as the\nlast work of his best days. He employed his son William and his friend\nHenry Blanch Rosser to help him, in addition to Booth. His whole mind\nwas occupied with Booth\u2019s calculations and his own deductions from them.\nHe himself \u201ccould not pursue a calculation for an hour without being\nsick to the lowest ebb.\u201d[842] If Booth lagged behind him he was\nmiserable. He rose in early morning to note down an idea and was ill for\nthe rest of the day after it. He is satisfied, however, with the result\nof his labours. He thinks his chapter on the Geometrical Ratio will\ndelight his friends and astonish his foes. In any case his comfort is\nthat \u201ctruth\u201d will prevail, and, whether through him or another, \u201cthe\nsystem of Malthus can never rise again, and the world is delivered from\nthis accursed apology in favour of vice and misery and hard-heartedness\nand oppression,\u201d[843] and the world will see that there is \u201cno need of\nany remedies,\u201d for the numbers of mankind never did and never can\nincrease in the ways described by Malthus.[844] A few of his younger\nfriends[845] believed him successful; and the book was mentioned in the\nHouse of Commons as a conclusive refutation of Malthus, especially in\nregard to the ratios.[846] But the fact remains not only that poor\nGodwin made no bread and butter by it,[847] but that he converted no one\nwhose opinion in such a matter was of any weight. Mackintosh, though at\npeace again with his old friend, when he writes to him in September\n1821,[848] cannot praise his work; even thinks its tone intolerant; and\nwill only say that he sees nothing in the Malthusian doctrines\ninconsistent with perfectibility. He takes pains at the same time to\ndisclaim the authorship of the notice in the _Edinburgh Review_ for July\n1821, which was lacking in the courtesy due to Godwin, though it did not\nreproduce the scurrility of the earliest review of him.[849] The\ninconclusiveness of the book, even in the view of Malthus\u2019 opponents,\nappears from the stream of new refutations, which made no pause.\n\nEven the question of the ratios was not settled. Godwin had counted his\ndiscussion of them the most important part of his book. It gives us his\nthird substantial argument against Malthus. Godwin takes up,[850] what\nseems to have been a common charge, that the essayist had written a\nquarto volume to prove that population increases in a geometrical and\nfood in an arithmetical ratio. The essayist had answered, as long ago as\n1806,[851] that the first proposition was proved as soon as the facts\nabout America were authenticated, and the second was self-evident; his\nbook was meant less to prove the ratios than to trace their effects. His\nauthorities, as he told Godwin afterwards,[852] were Dr. Price, Styles,\nBenjamin Franklin, Euler, and Sir William Petty, supplemented, for\nfigures, by Short and S\u00fcssmilch and the censuses of the United States\nand England, and, for principles, by Adam Smith and Hume. We have\nalready seen[853] how far the simile of geometrical and arithmetical\nratios was meant to be pressed. Godwin thinks he exposes it by arguing\nthat the increase of population can never be quite exactly\ngeometrical[854] (which Malthus would admit),\u2014that America was an\nexception[855] (in face of the maxim that the exception tests the\nrule),\u2014that, in order to suppose population doubling itself in the\nUnited States, we must suppose it, as regards births, doing the same in\nthe Old World (in other words, fact is the same as tendency),\u2014that the\nnormal increase is not that of America but that of Sweden,[856] in which\ncase (Malthus would answer) the normal increase must be one that takes\nplace in face of very severe restrictions. To the charge of damaging the\nborrowed kettle the old Irishwoman had three answers:\u2014It was cracked\nwhen I got it; it was whole when I returned it; I never had it. So\nGodwin\u2019s views of the American colonies vacillated between three\ninconsistent propositions: the great increase of the numbers is natural\n(or spontaneous), but that of the food is greater still;[857] the great\nincrease is not natural, but due to immigration;[858] there has been no\ngreat increase at all.[859] The reader has three alternative arguments\npresented to him, and it matters little whereby he is convinced, if only\nin the end he is persuaded to believe with Godwin, that population\nrequires no checks at all,[860] and is a fitful principle.[861] In\nhistory, says Godwin, it seems to operate by fits and starts; and such\nirregular effects cannot have a uniform cause. It might be replied that\nin the same sense gravitation is fitful, for we seem to break it by\nwalking upstairs as well as down, by using a siphon as well as a\nwater-jug, or by drying up a drop of ink with blotting-paper instead of\nletting it sink down into the paper. Yet in these cases the fitfulness\nis never imputed to the absence of a cause, but to the presence of more\ncauses than one. To believe, as Godwin seems to do, in occult laws which\nvary with the circumstances is to believe in no laws at all. The only\nconstancy would be the constant probability of miracles.[862]\nFreethinkers had not as yet identified themselves with the party of\norder in physics; and perhaps Godwin was simply carrying out his dislike\nof law one step farther. Having applied it to politics (1793) and to\nstyle (1797), he now applied it to nature (1820). He deliberately placed\na whole army of facts out of the range of science. It was fortunate for\nhimself that he appeared no more in the character of an economist, but\nleft Booth the task of replying to the Edinburgh reviewer.[863]\n\nIf economical criticism was weak with Godwin, the political philosopher,\nit was still weaker with Coleridge, the philosophizing poet. The main\ncriticisms of Coleridge[864] are contained in manuscript marginal\ncomments with pen and pencil written on his copy of the second (quarto)\nedition of the Essay (1803), now in the British Museum. When Malthus\nwrites (in Preface, p. vi) that if he had confined himself to general\nviews, his main principle was so incontrovertible that he could have\nentrenched himself in an impregnable fortress, Coleridge breaks in: \u201cIf\nby the main principle the author means both the _Fact_[865] (i. e. that\npopulation unrestrained should infinitely outrun food) and the deduction\nfrom the fact, _i. e._ that the human race is _therefore_ not\nindefinitely improvable, a pop-gun would batter down the impregnable\nFortress. If only the Fact be meant, the assertion is quite nugatory, in\nthe former case vapouring, in the latter a vapour.\u201d (And on p. vii:)\n\u201cAre we now to have a quarto to teach us that great misery and great\nvice arise from poverty, and that there must be poverty in its worst\nshape wherever there are more mouths than loaves and more Heads than\nBrains?\u201d\n\nThis may be taken as simply the argument of Hazlitt, who \u201cdid not see\nwhat there was to be proved;\u201d\u2014the principle of Malthus is a truism. Even\nwhen commenting on the statement of the Ratios (on p. 8), after some\ndenunciation of the \u201cverbiage and senseless repetition\u201d of the essay,\nColeridge goes on to agree with it. He would restate the whole so as to\nsubstitute \u201ca proportion which no one in his senses would consider as\nother than axiomatic, viz.: Suppose that the human race amount to a\nthousand millions. Divide the square acres of food-producing surface by\n500,000,000, that is to say, so much to each married couple. Estimate\nthis quotum as high as you like, and, if you will, even at a thousand or\neven at ten thousand acres to each family. Suppose population without\ncheck, and take the average increase from two families at five (which is\nirrationally small, supposing the human race healthy, and each man\nmarried at twenty-one to a woman of eighteen), and in twelve generations\nthe increase would be 48,828,125. Now as to any conceivable increase in\nthe production or improvement in the productiveness of the thousand or\nten thousand acres, it is ridiculous even to think of production at all,\ninasmuch as it is demonstrable that either already in this twelfth\ngeneration, or _certainly_ in a few generations more (I leave the exact\nstatement to schoolboys, not having Cocker\u2019s Arithmetic by me, and\nhaving forgotten the number of square feet in an acre), the quotum of\nland would not furnish standing room to the descendants of the first\nagrarian proprietors. Best do the sum at once. Find out the number of\nsquare acres on the globe (of land), and divide the number by 500,000. I\nhave myself been uselessly prolix, and in grappling with the man have\ncaught his itch of verbiage.\u201d He goes on to say that if every man were\nto marry and have a family, and each of his children were to do the\nsame, their posterity would soon want standing room, and, if _all_\nchecks were removed, this would of course happen much faster. \u201cAny\nschoolboy who has learned arithmetic as far as compound interest may\nastonish his younger sister both by the fact and by the exact number of\nyears in which it would take place. On the other hand, let the\nproductiveness of the earth be increased beyond the hopes of the most\nvisionary agriculturist, still the productions take up room. If the\npresent crop of turnips occupy one-fifth of the space of the turnip\nfield, the increase can never be more than quintupled, and, if you\nsuppose two planted for one, the increase still cannot exceed ten; so\nthat, supposing a little island of a single acre, and its productions\noccupying one-fifth of its absolute space, and sufficient to maintain\ntwo men and two women, four generations would outrun its _possible_\npower of furnishing them with food; and we may boldly affirm that a\ntruth so self-evident as this was never overlooked or even by\nimplication contradicted. What proof has Mr. Malthus brought? What proof\ncan he bring that any writer or theorist has overlooked this fact, which\nwould not apply (with reverence be it spoken) to the Almighty Himself\nwhen He pronounced the awful command, \u2018Increase and multiply\u2019?\u201d\n\nFrom some of the phrases dropped in the course of these comments, we\nshould infer they were the preparation for a formal review of the book\nby Coleridge himself. It is therefore extremely puzzling to find the\nwhole comments printed almost word for word and letter for letter in a\nreview[866] hitherto considered by every one (Southey included) to be\nSouthey\u2019s. This applies to the subsequent MS. notes, which are happily\nbriefer. Coleridge finds fault with Malthus (p. 11) for using the words\nvirtue and vice without defining them, apparently overlooking the\nfootnote under his very eyes (p. 11 n.) which says, \u201cThe general\nconsequence of vice is misery, and this consequence is the precise\nreason why an action is termed vicious.\u201d[867] Coleridge says, in\nrelation to the list of irregularities given in the last paragraph but\none of the page (11): \u201cThat these and all these are vices in the present\nstate of society, who doubt? So was Celibacy in the patriarchal ages.\nVice and Virtue subsist in the agreement of the habits of a man with his\nreason and conscience, and these can have but one moral guide, Utility,\nor the Virtue[868] and Happiness of Rational beings. We mention this not\nunder the miserable notion that any state of society will render those\nactions capable of being performed with conscience and virtue, but to\nexpose the utter unguardedness of this speculation.\u201d Then after some\nremarks on New Malthusians (as they would be now called) he goes on:\n\u201cAll that follows to the three hundred and fifty-fifth page[869] may be\nan entertaining farrago of quotations from books of travels, &c., but\nsurely very impertinent in a philosophical work. Bless me, three hundred\nand forty pages\u2014for what purpose! A philosophical work can have no\nlegitimate purpose but proof and illustration, and three hundred and\nfifty pages to prove an axiom! to illustrate a self-evident truth! It is\nneither more nor less than bookmaking!\u201d He thinks, however, that what\nMalthus wrote of Condorcet applies to himself;\u2014though his paradox is\nvery absurd, it must be refuted, or he will think the toleration of his\ncontemporaries due to their mental inferiority and his own sublimity of\nintellect.[870] The remaining marginal notes are chiefly of an\ninterjectional character,[871] many of them not very refined. Malthus\nhimself never falls into coarseness; but his opponents seldom avoid it,\nand Coleridge (or Southey) is no exception to the rule.[872] Except for\nthe interest attaching even to the foolish words of a great man, it\nwould not have been worth while to revive his _obiter scripta_ on a\nmatter beyond his ken.\n\nA few words are necessary in regard to Grahame and Weyland, who form the\nchief subject of the long second appendix of later editions of the\nessay. Grahame\u2019s charges were such as owed all their force to the\ngeneral ignorance of the actual writings of Malthus himself.[873] Mr.\nMalthus regards famine as nature\u2019s benevolent remedy for want of food;\nMr. Malthus believes that nature teaches men to invent (p. 100) diseases\nin order to prevent over-population; Mr. Malthus, regarding vice and\nmisery generally as benevolent remedies for over-population, thinks that\nthey are rather to be encouraged than otherwise (p. 100). Malthus, for\nhis part, deploring the fact that this last charge has been current \u201cin\nvarious quarters for fourteen years\u201d (or since his quarto essay of\n1803), thinks he may well pass it by. \u201cVice and Misery, and these alone,\nare the evils which it has been my great object to contend against. I\nhave expressly proposed moral restraint as their rational and proper\nremedy,\u201d a sufficient proof that he regarded them as the disease.[874]\nGrahame himself does not deny the tendency to increase beyond food (p.\n102), but thinks emigration a sufficient remedy (p. 104).\n\nEmpson,[875] playfully classifying the opponents of Malthus, says there\nare some who will not comprehend \u201cout of sheer stupidity, like Mr.\nGrahame,\u201d or out of sentimental horror, like Southey,[876] Coleridge,\nand Bishop Huntingford;[877] or because, like Sadler[878] and Godwin,\nwho followed Price and Muret,[879] they imagine the law of population to\nvary with the circumstances; or else because they invent laws of their\nown, like Anderson, Owen, and Poulett Scrope;[880] or because, like\nWeyland,[881] they deny the premises of Malthus as well as the\nconclusion. Weyland, like Grahame, has the honour of a special\nrefutation from Malthus. He allows that Malthus in his essay has raised\nhis subject from the level of desultory academical discussion to that of\nscientific inquiry, and his book is the point from which every later\ninvestigation must start. He allows that his order is lucid and his\nreasoning fair, and that he enables an opponent at once to discuss the\nquestion on its merits. Granting his premises, says Weyland, we cannot\ndeny his conclusion; but that premise of his is false which assumes that\nthe highest known rate of increase in a particular state of society is\nthe natural or spontaneous rate in all;[882] we cannot take the height\nof Chang or of the Hale Child as the natural standard of the height of\nall. To this Malthus answers, that, if we had observed in any country\nthat all the people who were short carried weights upon their heads, and\nthe people who were tall did not, we should infer that the weights had\nsomething to do with the height,\u2014and so, when we find that the increase\nof a people is fast or slow in proportion as the pressure of certain\nchecks on increase is heavy or light, we cannot but believe that the\nrate would be at its fastest if there were no checks at all. To say with\nWeyland, in the terms of his first cardinal proposition,[883] that\n\u201cpopulation has a natural tendency to keep within the powers of the soil\nto afford it subsistence in every gradation through which society\npasses,\u201d is to say \u201cthat every man has a natural tendency to remain in\nprison who is necessarily confined to it by four strong walls.\u201d One\nmight as well infer that the pine of the crowded Norwegian forest has no\ntendency to have lateral branches, because as a matter of fact there is\nno room for it to have any.[884]\n\nWeyland thinks that, without any moral restraint, population will keep\nwithin limits of the food, in proportion as it reaches a high state of\nmorality, religion, and political liberty.[885] Malthus, on the\ncontrary, would say that, without moral restraint, even morality,\nreligion, and political liberty will not save a people from\nwretchedness;[886] and, for his part, the design always uppermost in his\nmind when writing has been \u201cto improve the condition and increase the\nhappiness of the lower classes of society.\u201d[887]\n\nOne argument of Weyland\u2019s[888] has some weight in it. With a rich soil,\nhigh farming, and abundant food, the bulk of the people of a country\nmight by the natural division of labour be employed in manufacture, and\ntheir unhealthy manner of life in towns might so check population that\nit might be far from keeping up to the level of the food. Malthus\nreplies that this case is rare, for our town populations have increased\nrapidly,\u2014but, such as it is, he has allowed for it in the second clause\nof his second proposition: \u201cPopulation invariably increases where the\nmeans of subsistence increase, _unless prevented by some very powerful\nand obvious checks_.\u201d[889]\n\nThere are two other critics to whom Malthus replies in some detail, one\nthe visionary Owen, who is embraced in Empson\u2019s classification, the\nother the practical man Arthur Young, who cannot so easily be\nclassified. \u201cI mean,\u201d says the latter, \u201cto deal in facts alone, happy\nwhen I can discover them pure and unalloyed with prejudice.\u201d[890] As\nthis was his practice as well as his profession, it may easily be\nbelieved that in his voluminous records of fifty years\u2019 travelling and\nexperimenting[891] he has spun rope enough to hang himself. It ought to\nbe added that, like Godwin, he claims the privilege of being\ninconsistent. Nothing could be more clear than his recognition in his\n_Travels in France_ of the evils of over-population.[892] Yet in 1800,\nin his _Question of Scarcity plainly stated and Remedies considered_, he\nrecommends as his remedy that each country labourer who has three\nchildren be provided with a cow and half an acre of potato ground.[893]\nIn other words, he would reduce the English standard of living to the\ncommon Irish one, milk and potatoes. Malthus replies by giving reasons\nwhy people should \u201clive dear,\u201d and by reminding Arthur Young of his own\ncomments on the proceedings of the National Assembly. Recognizing their\nduty to grant relief, but wishing to avoid an English Poor Law, the\nNational Assembly set aside fifty millions of francs a year for support\nof the poor. If it had been really a duty, wrote Arthur Young (in his\n_Travels_), necessity might have occasioned them to extend the relief to\none hundred, two hundred, or three hundred millions, and so on, \u201cin the\nsame miserable progression that has taken place in England.\u201d[894]\nMalthus hardly needed to go back to the _Travels_, as Young himself\nconfessed in his later writings that his plan did not apply to large\ncities, and though he still held by the claim of right, he confessed\nthat his faith must be without works; in other words, he claimed the\nright to be inconsistent. But he continued to question Malthus\u2019 axiom\nthat what cannot be ought not to be; and he thinks that, if a man\nmarries without the means to keep a family, he may justly blame society\nfor not providing him with the means. He argues, too, that Malthus for\nthe success of his scheme assumes perfect chastity in the unmarried.\nMalthus really assumed only that the evils, which on an average in a\ncivilized country attend the prudential check, are less than the evils\nof premature mortality and other miseries entailed by the opposite\ncourse; he declares himself not against but in favour of schemes that\nimprove the condition of the poor even on a limited scale; and he only\nasks that every such scheme be tested not by its first success, for\nhardly any scheme of the kind is unsuccessful at first, but by its\neffect on a new generation.[895]\n\nThis test might be applied to schemes like Owen\u2019s and later ones on the\nsame model. Malthus perhaps deals too peremptorily with them. Speaking\nof Owen\u2019s system of the community of labour and goods, and of Spence\u2019s\n_Plan for Parochial Partnerships in the Land_[896] (\u201cthe only remedy for\nthe distresses and oppressions of the people,\u201d the land to be \u201cthe\npeople\u2019s farm\u201d), he answers that there are two \u201cdecisive arguments\nagainst systems of equality\u201d: first, the inability of a state of\nequality to furnish adequate motives for exertion, the goad of necessity\nbeing absent,\u2014and, second, the tendency of population to increase faster\nthan subsistence. In reply it must be said that there might be socialism\nwithout communism; there might even be communism without an absolute\nequality, such as would put idle and industrious on the same footing;\nthere might be an approximation of the social extremes, bringing poor\nand rich nearer, and giving the former not weaker but stronger motives\nto exertion; finally, it is not at all inconceivable that at least\none-half of this result might come, as Godwin wished, by the act of the\nrich themselves, which means also as Malthus wished, for it would come\nfrom a strong sense of personal obligation. It cannot be denied that\nMalthus, in using the argument in question, seems to forget his own\nadmission, that the goad of necessity does not act with effect either on\nthe lowest or on the highest classes.[897] Moreover, he allows, there\nhave been cases, _e. g._ among the Moravian communities, where industry\nand community of goods have existed side by side. \u201cIt may be said that,\nallowing the stimulus of inequality of conditions to have been necessary\nin order to raise man from the indolence and apathy of the savage to the\nactivity and intelligence of civilized life, it does not follow that the\ncontinuance of the same stimulus should be necessary when this activity\nand energy of mind has been once gained.\u201d[898]\n\nThe second of his arguments against Owen is of course his more cogent\nand characteristic one. As we have seen, it is not deprived of its point\nby the inclusion of moral restraint among the checks to population. It\nwas argued against him that his own ideal of a society where moral\nrestraint universally prevailed would involve precisely what is\nnecessary to make such systems as Godwin\u2019s and Owen\u2019s permanently\npossible.[899] There is an air of conclusiveness in the remark that, in\nproportion as moral restraint prevails in the world, Malthus\napproximates to Godwin. But Malthus believes that equality and community\nwould destroy the motive for moral restraint. The passions would still\nbe present, and no man would be in a position where there seemed any\nneed to restrain them; the restraint would be the interest of the whole\nsociety, but not of the individual himself, for the effects were to be\nborne not by himself, but by the whole society. No doubt the good of the\nwhole society ought to be a sufficient reason; but it would be so in a\nvery few men now; and, unless it were in all men then, the result would\nbe an expansion of population, with the results Malthus described. Owen\nis aware of this, and suggests artificial checks, allowing men to\ngratify desire without the usual consequences, and dispensing with any\neffort of will. Malthus, on the other hand, would throw all the\nresponsibility and burden on the individual, which he thinks it\nimpossible to do without allowing the individual his private\nproperty.[900] No further justification of things as they are is to be\nfound in Malthus; and, so far from being reactionary, his principles\n(with all their qualifications) were probably the most advanced\nindividualism that was ever preached in these days. They are adopted in\nfull view of the facts that have been again vividly brought before the\npublic mind in our day by writers who are to our generation what Godwin,\nSpence, and Owen were to theirs.\n\nMalthus seems to believe, with Dugald Stewart, that Utopian schemes are\nlike the tunes of a barrel-organ, recurring at melancholy intervals from\nage to age with damnable iteration.[901] But, unless society itself has\nmoved in a circle, the Utopias will resemble each other no more and no\nless than do the states of society which they would replace. Our own\nsocialists, therefore, can hardly be dismissed by the stroke of the pen,\nthat classifies them with people so curiously unlike them and each other\nas Plato, Ball, More, the Fifth Monarchy men, the Levellers, Godwin and\nSpence and Owen. Malthus does not, in fact, so dismiss them. Besides\nbringing forward his own argument, he examines Owen\u2019s attempt to deal\nwith it.[902]\n\nSince Malthus, every complete reform has needed to face in some way or\nother the question which he treated; but he left little for others to\ndo. Of the two most prominent schemes of our own day for the\nreconstruction of society, one, that of Mr. Henry George, involves an\nunconscious recourse to the old weapons of Godwin, Sadler, and other\nopponents of Malthus; _Progress and Poverty_ does not contain any\nargument not to be found in these writers. The conjecture about a \u201cfixed\nquantity of human life on the earth\u201d (ed. 1881, p. 97) is hardly an\nargument. It may be compared with what is stated by St. G. Mivart[903]\nto be the basis of Darwinism. \u201cEvery individual has to endure a very\nsevere struggle for existence owing to the tendency to geometrical\nincrease of all kinds of animals and plants, while the total animal and\nvegetable population (man and his agency excepted) remains almost\nstationary.\u201d Mr. Mivart\u2019s reason for excepting man seems to be Mr.\nGeorge\u2019s reason for including him. The latter\u2019s more direct arguments\nagainst Malthus are as follows:\u2014first, the difficulty is in the future\n(p. 85);\u2014second, Malthus shifts the responsibility from man to the\nCreator (p. 87);\u2014third, Malthus justifies the _status quo_ and parries\nthe demand for reform (p. 88);\u2014fourth, Malthus ascribes excessive\nincrease of numbers to a general tendency of human nature, while it is\nreally due to the badness of our institutions in old countries, as in\nIndia and Ireland (pp. 101\u2013114), or the very thinness of population in\nnew (p. 92);\u2014fifth, Malthus does not distinguish between tendency to\nincrease and actual increase, and is therefore refuted by the fact that\nthe world is not yet peopled (p. 94). In the sixth place, we are told,\nif there had been such a law as the Malthusian, it would have been\nsooner and more widely recognized (p. 98);\u2014that families often become\nextinct (p. 99), and it is more certain that we have ancestors than that\nwe shall have descendants;[904]\u2014that better industry would keep a larger\npopulation (p. 107);\u2014Malthus says that vice and misery are necessary (p.\n109);\u2014Malthus does not see that vegetables and animals increase faster\nthan population (p. 115),\u2014or that the increase of man involves the\nincrease of his food (p. 116), for a division of labour makes man\nproduce more than he consumes (p. 126), and so the most populous\ncountries are always the most wealthy (p. 128);\u2014Malthus forgets that the\nworld is wide (p. 119),\u2014and that the tendency to increase is checked by\ndevelopment of intellect,[905]\u2014and by the elevation of the standard of\ncomfort (pp. 121, 123);\u2014he forgets that \u201cthe power of population to\nproduce the necessaries of life is not to be measured by the necessaries\nof life\u201d it actually produces, but by its powers to produce wealth in\nall forms (p. 127);\u2014Malthus will not see that twenty men where nature is\nniggardly (_e. g._ on a bare rock?) will produce more than twenty times\nwhat one man will where nature is bountiful (p. 134);\u2014and the Malthusian\ntheory \u201cattributes want to the decrease of productive power\u201d (p.\n134);\u2014finally Malthus does not know \u201cthe real law of population,\u201d which\nis that \u201cthe tendency to increase, instead of being always uniform, is\nstrong where a greater population would give increased comfort, and\nwhere the perpetuity of the race is threatened by the mortality induced\nby adverse conditions, but weakens just as the higher development of the\nindividual becomes possible, and the perpetuity of the race is assured\u201d\n(p. 123). What is right in this view of the real law of population is\ncommon to Mr. George with Mr. Herbert Spencer;[906] what is wrong is\ncommon to him with Godwin.[907]\n\nThe view of Karl Marx,[908] the prophet of the International and of\nmodern economic Socialism, is built on much more solid foundations. It\nis a corollary of his view of capital. The general law of the\naccumulation of capital, in these days of large manufactories and\nmachinery, involves not only a progressive addition to the quantity of\ncapital, which is all that Adam Smith contemplated, but a qualitative\nchange in the proportion between fixed capital, such as machinery, and\nthe circulating which is paid in wages. To use the author\u2019s words, the\nprogress of accumulation brings with it a relative decrease of the\nvariable component of capital and a relative increase of its constant\ncomponent. New machinery is constantly supplanting labour without any\nreal compensation in increased demand, either at once or in the long\nrun. The constant element increases at the cost of the variable; and\nthis can only result in the progressive production of a population\nwhich, in relation to capital, is a surplus or superfluity, an\nover-population;\u2014the cause which increases the net revenue of the\ncountry at the same time renders the population redundant and\ndeteriorates the condition of the labourer.[909] So far from deploring\nthe existence of this redundant class, the capitalists depend on\nit,[910] as the reserve of their army. They trust to its cheap labour to\nsave them from the depression which in our days (though never before)\nappears with unfailing regularity after brisk trade and a crisis. If the\nhands were not always there for them to employ, they would not at once\nbe able to seize the happy moment of a reviving demand for their goods.\n\u201cMalthus with his narrow views understands the surplus population to be\nsuperfluous absolutely in itself, and not merely in relation to capital;\nbut even he recognizes that over-population is a necessity of modern\nindustry.\u201d[911] In proof of these statements he quotes the words of\nMalthus (_Pol. Econ._, ed. 1836, pp. 215,[912] 319, 320):\u2014\u201cPrudential\nhabits with regard to marriage carried to a considerable extent among\nthe labouring classes, of a country mainly depending upon manufactures\nand commerce, might injure it.\u201d... \u201cFrom the nature of a population, an\nincrease of labourers cannot be brought into [the] market, in\nconsequence of a particular demand, till after the lapse of sixteen or\neighteen years; and the conversion of revenue into capital, by saving,\nmay take place much more rapidly; a country is always liable to an\nincrease in the quantity of the funds for the maintenance of labour\nfaster than the increase of population.\u201d\n\nTo these charges the answer is, first, that Malthus always recognized\nthat over-population was relative, relative to the actual food;[913]\nsecond, that he did _not_ recognize the over-population as necessary; it\ntook place as a matter of fact, but he believed that, if working men did\nas he wished them, it would disappear;[914]\u2014and in the third place, the\nfirst sentence quoted by Marx, from the _Political Economy_ is explained\nby the second, which he does not quote: \u201cIn a country of fertile land\nsuch habits would be the greatest of all conceivable blessings.\u201d Malthus\nis comparing Commercial with Agricultural countries, not pronouncing on\nthe general question of wages; and other passages in his writings[915]\nshow that he regarded the high wages, resulting from prudential habits,\nas a public gain, more than compensating the capitalists\u2019 loss of\nprofits. Even Marx himself grudgingly allows that Malthus was more\nhumane than Ricardo in regard to the hours of labour desirable for the\nworkmen.[916] In the fourth place, the latter half of the quotation\n(beginning with the words, \u201cFrom the nature of a population\u201d) first\nstates an obvious fact which a child could have pointed out, and then a\ndisputable proposition which predicts not an over-population but the\nreverse of it.\n\nMarx is seeking to demonstrate the hopelessness of the labourer\u2019s\nposition; and he is too acute not to know that his demonstration would\nbe seriously weakened if he admitted the truth of the Malthusian\ndoctrine and the bare possibility of the adoption of prudential habits\nby the labourers. This is the real reason of his bitter attacks on the\nEssay. He says of it:[917] \u201cWhen I say Eden\u2019s work on the Poor was the\nonly important writing by a disciple of Adam Smith in the eighteenth\ncentury, I may be reminded of the essay of Malthus. But this book in its\nfirst form (and the later editions did nothing but add and adapt\nborrowed materials) is nothing but a plagiarism from Sir James Steuart,\nTownsend, Franklin, Wallace, full of schoolboy superficiality and\nclerical declamation, and not containing a single original sentence. By\nthe way, although Malthus was a clergyman of the Church of England, he\nhad taken the monastic oath of celibacy[!], for this is one of the\nconditions of a fellowship at the Protestant University of Cambridge.\n\u2018Socios collegiorum maritos esse non permittimus, sed statim postquam\nquis uxorem duxerit, socius collegii desinat esse\u2019 (_Reports of\nCambridge University Commission_, p. 172). By this circumstance Malthus\nis favourably distinguished from the other Protestant clergy, who have\ncast off the Catholic rule of celibacy....[918] With exception of\nOrtes[919] the Venetian monk, an original and clever writer, most of the\nwriters on Population are Protestant clergymen,\u201d a contrast, he goes on,\nto the days when political economists were all philosophers. Marx\nadopts[920] the common view that Malthus being a clergyman was the\nbond-slave of Toryism and the ruling classes, and therefore ready to\nadopt a principle that attributed over-population to the eternal laws of\nnature rather than to the historical laws (also natural) of the\ncapitalists\u2019 production. Marx does not see that the \u201ceternal laws\u201d in\nquestion do not lead to over-population except when the precepts of\nMalthus are neglected; and never shows how, apart from these precepts,\nover-population will be prevented in the renovated society itself, which\nhas nationalized not only the land but all the instruments of\nproduction. Would the habits of men be so changed by this stroke of\nnationalization that the want of ordinary commercial motives would not\nbe felt?[921] Would not the millennium of the Socialist, like that of\nthe Christian, postulate a religious conversion on the largest scale for\nits first introduction, to say nothing of its continuance? Productive\nCo-operation, depending on the spontaneous action of the labourers for\nits creation, and on their intelligence and prudence for its success,\nwould nationalize capital more surely; and it would not make the\nimpossible postulate of Socialism, that a passionless unselfishness,\nwhich not one in a hundred thousand in our day exhibits at any time,\nshall at once become the invariable daily rule of all without exception.\nBut Co-operation, if it neglects Malthus, will find its work no sooner\ndone than undone.\n\nIt may be thought that there are causes at work which will remove\nover-population among the working classes even under the present system\nof separated capital and labour. It is a doctrine of the \u201cfiner wits,\u201d\nfounded on striking biological analogies, that the general development\nof intellect in the race will weaken the passion for marriage and\nsupersede the necessity for any checks on it;[922]\u2014the exercise of the\nenergies of concentration or \u201cindividuation\u201d developes these energies at\nthe expense of those of diffusion or \u201cgenesis;\u201d\u2014the individual is made\nstrong in himself, at the expense of his power of creating new\nindividuals. Quite apart from the disagreeable fact that this principle\nwould lessen the pressure most in those classes where lessening is at\npresent least needed, and least where it is most needed, Malthus would\nprobably have pointed out, first, that unless the appetite is absolutely\nkilled, no physiological check can supersede some control of the will\nover the passion,\u2014and, second, that intellectual development will more\ncertainly check population by making men alive to their responsibilities\nand strengthening their power of restraint than by weakening the passion\nto be restrained. The expounder of the theory is of all people the least\nlikely to teach men that they may become civilized by the progress of\ntheir race without the trouble of civilizing themselves individually.\nBut his theory admits the misapplication; and, if it be said by the\nmisappliers that we ought to tell the truth without fear of\nconsequences, we must answer that in this case the consequences are part\nof the truth. On the other hand, to theorists like W. R. Greg, who\nsuggest unknown physiological laws that may act as a spontaneous check,\nMalthus would have replied as to Condorcet:[923]\n\n              \u201cWhat can we reason but from what we know?\u201d\n\nThis brief survey of typical critics and commentators may be completed\nby a classification of the former, which, among other advantages, will\ngive a bird\u2019s-eye view of the chief points in discussion. Empson\nclassified the opponents of Malthus by their motives,[924] a proceeding\nhardly fair either to them or to the essay itself. It is not fair to\nthem, for as a rule the critics appeal to argument, and must be judged\nby what they adduce, not by their good or ill will, wisdom or folly, in\nadducing it; and not fair to the essay, because few books have owed so\nmuch to their reviewers.\n\nThe positions of the critics may be classified as follows:\u2014\n\nI. Some say the doctrine of the essay is a truism.[925]\n\nII. Others admit that it is unanswerable, but retain a philosophical\nfaith in the future discovery of some contrary principle.[926]\n\nIII. Others find fault with the details of the doctrine, either (_a_) in\nregard to the ratios of increase, asserting that no tendency to a\ngeometrical increase of population has been proved, but something much\nless rapid, even (a few say) a decreasing ratio,[927]\u2014and that no mere\narithmetical increase of food has been proved, but something much more\nrapid,[928]\u2014or (_b_) in regard to the checks on population, asserting\nthat no checks are necessary,[929]\u2014that vice and misery sometimes add to\npopulation instead of checking it,[930]\u2014that to include moral restraint\nis to stultify the original doctrine,[931]\u2014that moral restraint\nsometimes involves as great evil as excessive numbers, both from the\npersonal practice of it and from the preaching of it to\nothers,[932]\u2014that important checks have been omitted, the chief being\nmisgovernment,[933] bad laws,[934] high feeding,[935] intellectual\ndevelopment,[936] and those of Owen.[937]\n\nThere is, besides, an _a priori_ criticism, which is either (I.)\necclesiastical,[938] alleging that Malthus contradicts the Bible or some\nother authority,\u2014(II.) theological,[939] that he denies Providence,\u2014or\n(III.) doctrinaire,[940] that he denies natural rights and the\npre-established harmony of moral and economical laws, and the instinct\nof equality,\u2014or (IV.) ethical and popular,[941] that he runs counter to\nthe moral sense and the natural benevolence of men and cosmopolitan\nmorality. These arguments have been already considered. The fourth of\nthem has, in its last branch, an appearance of truth, because Malthus\nhas certainly pled less for the cosmopolitan than for the domestic and\ncivic virtues. He wishes to lay the foundations solidly and leave the\nbuilding to others. Cosmopolitan morality can rarely be the foundation.\nIn the Empire, Christianity may have raised the people, and Stoicism the\nphilosophers, to the wider morality without the training of the\nnarrower, so that the converts were made better members of their own\nsmall communities by becoming members of the commonwealth of the saints\nand citizens of the great world. But it seems to Malthus that, in the\nworld of to-day, the many conditions of a steady moral progress are best\nsecured if the domestic and civic virtues precede the cosmopolitan. We\nmust not legislate for a world of heroes, but for men as we know them to\nbe; and a comfortable domestic life (\u03b2\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2) must be the common\nhighway to goodness in a society of ordinary men. If poverty were no\nevil, churlishness would be no vice. But extreme poverty[942] is a real\nhindrance to goodness. In the apparent exceptions, as in the voluntary\npoverty of St. Francis, the greatest evil is absent, for there is no\nstruggle for bare life. To abolish that struggle, and help men to\ncomfort, is in some degree to help men to goodness; and it was the end\nfor which Malthus laboured. The most sure and solid way of reaching it\nlay, as he thought, in impressing every man with a strong sense of his\nresponsibility for his acts and of his power over his own destiny. To\nreform a nation, we must reform the members of it, who, if they are good\nat first in spite of their institutions, will at last conform their\ninstitutions to the model of their own goodness. To hold men the\ncreatures of society, and make society responsible for their character,\nwas, he thought, to mistake the order of nature. Society can feel its\nresponsibility only in its individual members; and no member of it can\nfree his own soul by the purity of a collective or representative\nconscience.\n\nThe doctrine of Malthus is, therefore, a strong appeal to personal\nresponsibility. He would make men strong in will, to subdue their animal\nwants to their notion of personal good and personal goodness, which, he\nbelieved, could never fail to develope into the common good and goodness\nof all. Believers in the omnipotence of outward circumstances and the\npowerlessness of the human will, to alter them or the human character,\nmay put Malthus beyond the pale of sympathy. But all can enter into the\nmind of Malthus and understand his work, who know the hardness of the\nstruggle between the flesh and the spirit, and yet believe in the power\nof ideas to change the lives of men, and have faith not only in the\nrigour of natural laws, but in man\u2019s power to conquer nature by obeying\nher.\n\n\n\n\n                                BOOK V.\n                               BIOGRAPHY.\n\n  Parentage\u2014Early Education\u2014Graves and Wakefield\u2014Course at\n    Cambridge\u2014Correspondence with his Father\u2014Change in Studies\u2014The\n    _Crisis_ and the Curacy\u2014Effect of the Essay on its Author\u2014Early and\n    Late Styles\u2014Life from 1799 to 1834\u2014_Ingrata Patria?_\u2014East India\n    College\u2014Professor\u2019s Lectures\u2014_Hic Jacet_.\n\n\nThe few facts that are known of the life of Malthus bring us nearer to\nhim than we can come in his writings, and show us how well, on the\nwhole, his antecedents and surroundings fitted him for his work. Our\nchief authorities are Bishop Otter\u2019s biographical preface to the second\nedition of our author\u2019s _Political Economy_, which was posthumously\npublished in 1836, and Professor Empson\u2019s notice of the book in the\n_Edinburgh Review_ for January 1837.[943] Otter was the college\ncompanion and life-long friend of Malthus; Empson was his colleague at\nHaileybury. The information they give us, though meagre, is trustworthy;\nand happily it can be supplemented by hints from other quarters.\n\nHis father, Daniel Malthus, was born in 1730, and went to Queen\u2019s\nCollege, Oxford, in 1747,[944] the year when Adam Smith went home from\nBalliol to Scotland. He left without a degree, not because of the\nArticles, for he subscribed them at matriculation,[945] or from Dr.\nJohnson\u2019s reason of poverty, for he was a gentleman commoner, but\nprobably from a contempt for the distinction itself.[946] His mind was\nactive and open, and he seems to have formed literary friendships that\nstood his son in good stead afterwards. He liked to stay up in Oxford in\nvacation, working hard at his own studies in his own ways, and seeing\nnone but chosen friends. He wrote to his son in later years, \u201cI used to\nthink Oxford none the less pleasant and certainly not the less useful\nfor being disburdened of some of its society; I imagine you will say the\nsame of Cambridge.\u201d[947] On leaving the university he married and went\nto live in Surrey at a quiet country house on the way from Dorking to\nGuildford, still known by its old name of the Rookery. Of his eldest\nson, who took his grandfather\u2019s name of Sydenham,[948] we know little\nexcept that in due time he married, and had two sons, Sydenham and\nCharles, and a daughter Mary. Mary died single in 1881 in her\neighty-second year, Charles in 1821 in his fifteenth, their father in\n1821 in his sixty-eighth. Sydenham, our author\u2019s nephew, who died in\n1869, was proprietor of Dalton Hill, Albury, where members of his family\nwere, till recently, still living; his son, Lieut.-Col. Sydenham\nMalthus, C.B., of the 94th Regiment, served with distinction in the Zulu\nwar a few years ago.\n\nDaniel\u2019s second son, Thomas Robert, familiarly known as Robert, was born\nat the Rookery on 14th February, 1766, the year when Rousseau came to\nEngland. His mother seems to have died before her husband; she is not\nmentioned in our meagre biographies.[949] His father, full of the\nteaching of the \u00c9mile, and by no means prejudiced by his Oxford\nexperience in favour of the ordinary conventional training of the\nEnglish youth, seems to have sent his sons to no public school of any\nkind, and in all probability brought them up at home under his own eye\nfor the first eight or nine years of their life. We may think of Robert,\ntherefore, as passing his childhood without privation, if without\nluxury, in the home of an English country gentleman of moderate fortune,\nwho was devoted to books and botany, fireside and hillside\nphilosophizing,[950] and the improvement of his house and grounds,\u2014a man\nfull of life and originality, gifted with vigorous health, and joining\nin his boys\u2019 walks and games.[951] In his quiet little valley it was\neasy for Daniel Malthus to picture to himself a Millennial Hall of the\nfuture in store for every one else, on the type of his own Rookery, with\nno worse interruption than the rooks that cawed there nightly on the\nhill above him. From his son\u2019s description[952] and his own letters, we\ngather that he was one of the best sort of the Enlightened followers of\nNature. He knew Rousseau personally, and became his executor;[953] but\nthey were liker in views than in character; Daniel Malthus had a deeper\nvein of reverence and a stronger inclination to put theory into\npractice.[954] The neighbours thought him an amiable and clever man who\nwas an ornament to his parish, but decidedly eccentric, for he made few\nfriends and was fondest of his own and his children\u2019s company.[955] He\nwas versed beyond his compeers in French and German literature, or he\nwould hardly have been credited with having translated _Paul et\nVirginie_, D\u2019Ermenonville\u2019s _Essay on Landscape_, and the _Sorrows of\nWerther_. We have Robert\u2019s authority for saying that, although he wrote\nno translations, he wrote many pieces that were very successful, but\nalways anonymous.[956] With much of his son\u2019s talent, he had no power,\nlike his son\u2019s, of sustained intellectual effort.\n\nHe saw the boy\u2019s promise early, and gave him an education which is\ncondemned by Robert\u2019s chief biographer as irregular and desultory, but\nhad a method in it. He believed that sons are always what their fathers\nwere at their age, with the same kind of faults and virtues; and the men\nwhose influence would have been best for himself would, he thought, be\nthe best teachers for Robert. At the same time he believed with the\n\u201c\u00c9mile\u201d that a sort of _laissez faire_ was the best policy in the\neducation of children; they should be left to grow, and use their own\neyes and hands and heads for themselves. At the age of nine or ten, say\nin the year 1776, Robert was accordingly delivered over to Mr. Richard\nGraves, Rector of Claverton, near Bath, to be taught little but Latin\nand good behaviour, along with a few other boys, most of them older than\nhimself. Graves, who was Daniel\u2019s senior by some years, had been\nintimate with the poet Shenstone at Pembroke College, Oxford, \u201ca society\nwhich for half a century\u201d (on Johnson\u2019s partial testimony) \u201cwas eminent\nfor English poetry and elegant literature.\u201d From his novel, _The\nSpiritual Quixote, or the Summer\u2019s Ramble of Mr. Geoffry\nWildgoose_,[957] we should not fancy him the best guide for ingenuous\nyouth. The book is a coarse and offensive satire on Whitfield and\nWesley;[958] and shows Graves as a clergyman to be liker Laurence Sterne\nthan Dr. Primrose. \u201cDon Roberto,\u201d however, as the tutor nicknamed his\npupil, was fonder of fun and fighting than of his books, and at the ripe\nage of ten is not likely to have been troubled about the universe or\nabout clerical consistency. From Graves he passed[959] into the hands of\na much better man, Gilbert Wakefield, a clergyman who had rebelled\nagainst the Articles, turned dissenter, and become classical master of\nan academy at Warrington, founded in 1779 \u201cto provide a course of\nliberal education for the sons of dissenters, and particularly for\ndissenting ministers.\u201d[960] About one-third of the boys at the\nWarrington Academy were sons of members of the Church of England, who\nwere, like Daniel Malthus, liberal in their opinions, and wished their\nsons to be likewise. Wakefield held decided views on education; and they\nwere in close accordance with Daniel and the \u00c9mile. \u201cThe greatest\nservice of tuition,\u201d he said, \u201cto any youth, is to teach him the\nexercise of his own powers, to conduct him to the hill of knowledge by\nthat gradual process in which he sees and secures his own way, and\nrejoices in a consciousness of his own faculties and his own\nproficiency. Puppies and sciolists alone can be expected to be formed by\nany other process.\u201d[961] The tutor\u2019s best service is to point the pupil\nto the best authors and give him advice (not lectures) when he wants it.\nThere was self-denial as well as wisdom in Wakefield\u2019s view, for in one\ncase at least the pupil showed his proficiency by departing from the\nopinions of his tutor.\n\nWakefield, himself a Fellow of Jesus,[962] procured Malthus an entrance\nto that college, and directed his studies till he matriculated there as\na pensioner (or ordinary commoner) on 17th December, 1784, beginning\nresidence in 1785.[963] Robert esteemed him highly. He described him\ntwenty years afterwards[964] as a man \u201cof the strictest and most\ninflexible integrity,\u201d who gave up not only prospects of preferment, but\neven opportunities of usefulness, rather than deny the truth and offend\nhis conscience,\u2014a man hot and intemperate in public controversy,[965]\nbut modest and genial in society, never advancing his opinions till\nchallenged, nor trying to make converts to them, but urging others to an\nindependent study of the facts,\u2014finally, a genius cramped by its own\nlearning and good memory, never taking time and pains to do itself\njustice in its writings. Though a foe to the thirty-nine Articles,\nWakefield was a stout believer in Christianity, and attacked Paine\u2019s\n_Age of Reason_ in a rough style that contrasts strongly with the sober\nremarks of Malthus on Paine\u2019s _Rights of Man_.\n\nUp to 1785, therefore, his father and Wakefield had the largest share in\nthe education of Malthus; and their influence was shown in the very fact\nthat the opinions of Malthus were not fixed by them. His opinions were\nto be of his own forming; and, having never learned the schoolboy\u2019s\nambition of prize-taking,[966] he found time at college not only for\nwhat would give him the best degree, but for every study that interested\nhim, especially history and poetry and modern languages, as in his later\nyears for Italian literature. Frend, author of a political tract, _Peace\nand Union_, which brought him the honour of prosecution,[967] was his\ncollege tutor, and spoke highly of him.[968] It says much for his\nmathematical powers that in spite of his wide general reading he took\nthe ninth place among the wranglers of his year, 1788. If he had been\nconfining himself, as his father supposed, to the beaten track, he\nmight, like Paley, have reached the senior wranglership.[969] After the\nTripos he proposed to study at Cambridge and at home on a plan of his\nown. His father, on the false analogy of his own experience, had warned\nhim against the abstract studying of scientific and mathematical\nprinciples apart from their applications; he must not \u201cwork curious\nstitches on a piece of rag\u201d; he must become a practical surveyor,\nmechanic, and navigator. The son had answered that there would be ample\ntime after the Tripos to make the applications, and there was little\nenough time in three years to study the principles. But thereafter, \u201cif\nyou will give me leave to proceed in my own plans of reading for the\nnext two years (I speak with submission to your judgment), I promise you\nat the expiration of that time to be a decent natural philosopher, and\nnot only to know a few principles, but to be able to apply these\nprinciples in a variety of useful problems.\u201d[970] In reality, so far\nfrom having his father\u2019s tendency to abstract speculation, he was (as he\nsays himself) rather \u201cremarked in college for talking of what actually\nexists in nature or may be put to real practical use.\u201d[971]\n\nThough the son had the best of this personal controversy, he would have\ndone well to have responded to his father\u2019s letters in the spirit in\nwhich they were written; in one instance at least, his father complains\nthat Robert \u201cdrove him back into himself.\u201d But this was rare. His father\ndescribes him as an admirable companion, sympathetic and generous, and\nmaking everybody easy and amused about him.[972] He was a favourite at\nhome. When the family was removing from the Rookery at Dorking to the\nCottage[973] at Albury in 1787, he was told: \u201cYou must find your way to\nus over bricks and tiles and meet with five in a bed and some of us\nunder hedges, but everybody says they will make room for Robert.\u201d It was\nRobert\u2019s own warm heart that led him to give those years of leisure\nafter the Tripos to studies very different from those of his first plan.\nSocial problems were competing for his attention with scientific.\n\nIn 1797 he took his Master\u2019s degree. In the same year he got a\nfellowship at his college; wrote but, on his father\u2019s advice, did not\nprint the _Crisis_;[974] and took a curacy near Albury. If the _Crisis_\ndid nothing more, it showed how the attention of the man was fixing\nitself on the subjects that engrossed him during life, and how his\ncharacter was changing from gay to grave. It is difficult for a reader\nof the later _Essay_ or the _Political Economy_ to conceive that the\nwriter could ever have been very merry in heart or light in touch; and\nthere is a still wider distance between the pugnacious Don Roberto,\nnever long without a black eye, and the grave gentle host of Miss\nMartineau at the East India College. The change in style between his\nearly writings and his later was due to a real change in character,\nproduced by the concentration of his thoughts on the problem of poverty.\nThe success of the first _Essay on Population_[975] fixed for him the\nwork of his life. He was to set one neglected truth clearly before the\nworld; and he devoted himself wholly to it, pushing his inquiries not\nonly by study of authorities and facts at home,[976] but by his own[977]\nand his friends\u2019[978] travels, and by conversation and correspondence\nwith all that were likely to give him anything in conference.[979] He\nsacrificed to it, fortunately or unfortunately, his youthful buoyancy\nand freshness of style, though in speculation his opinions passed from\npessimism to a moderate optimism, and he was never too old in spirit to\nunlearn a fault.\n\nIn his mature writings the composition is less faulty than the diction,\nwhich is certainly too Johnsonian. The composition is a little bald and\noften diffuse; but the meaning of each sentence is always clear, and in\neconomical writing that is the first of virtues. In a work of\nimagination we may desire to have the greatest number of the greatest\nideas put into each sentence; but a scientific treatise is more often\nconcerned with a single truth in its full development; and the perpetual\nrecurrence of the same phrases in different connections is unavoidable,\nin proportion to the thoroughness of the discussion. Great variety of\nlanguage would either imply in the writer or cause in the reader some\nconfusion of thought. It is not surprising, then, to find Malthus saying\nsubstantially the same thing in nearly the same words, whether he is\npresenting his views on Population directly in a book on the subject, or\nplacing them in their economical context in a book on Political Economy,\nor touching them incidentally in a Corn Law pamphlet or _Quarterly_\narticle, or answering questions about them before a Commons Committee.\nHis abundant metaphors in the first essay[980] had simply led to\nmisunderstanding; and he deliberately renounced fine writing for high\nthinking, present popularity for permanent usefulness.[981]\n\nThe first essay was the turning-point in his literary life. Except the\npamphlets on Haileybury College, all his later writings are economical.\nHis personal history, being uneventful, was, like a time of dull annals,\npresumably happy. The fine portrait of him by Linnell,[982] taken in his\nold age, gives a pleasing impression, not only of mildness and firmness,\nbut of serene contentment, without any trace of physical suffering or\nphysical defect, though it is certain he had the latter.[983] In person\nhe was tall and \u201celegantly formed.\u201d[984] 1799 is the year of his first\nContinental journey.[985] In January 1800 his father died, at the age of\nseventy. In the same year appeared the tract on _The High Price of\nProvisions_. In 1802 Malthus was again on the Continent.[986] In June\n1803 he published the second (or quarto) essay, which seems, from a\npassage in Edward Clarke\u2019s _Travels_, to have been long expected by his\nfriends. \u201cI am sorry,\u201d writes Clarke to him from Constantinople on 16th\nMarch, 1802, \u201cto find you confess your breach of duty in not having\nwritten a book. But you have been engaged in the press, because I heard\nat the Palace that you had published a new edition of your _Population_,\nand, moreover, I was there assured so long ago as last year that you had\nwritten a work on the Scarcity of Corn. How does this accord with your\ndeclaration? Perhaps it is a pamphlet, and therefore strictly not \u2018a\nbook.\u2019\u201d[987]\n\nIt is not impossible that Clarke had heard this rumour from Lord Elgin,\nand Lord Elgin from Pitt himself, for Pitt had visited Cambridge on the\neve of the dissolution following the Peace of Amiens. On the 16th\n(December 1801) he was present at the Commemoration dinner in Trinity\nCollege Hall.[988] The visit is described by Otter:[989] \u201cIt happened\nthat Mr. Pitt was at this time upon a sort of canvassing visit at the\nuniversity.... At a supper at Jesus Lodge in the company of some young\ntravellers, particularly Mr. Malthus, &c., he was induced to unbend in a\nvery easy conversation respecting Sir Sidney Smith, the massacre at\nJaffa, the Pacha of Acre, Clarke, Carlisle,[990] &c.\u201d Though the talk\nwas largely on poetry and foreign politics, it may easily have embraced\neconomics; and the personal meeting may have helped to gain Malthus his\nappointment as Professor of History and Political Economy at Haileybury\nCollege. With or without Pitt, the appointment was made in 1805; and in\nview of it Malthus was able to carry out, on 13th March 1804, his\nmarriage with Harriet Eckersall (daughter of John Eckersall of Claverton\nHouse, St. Catherine\u2019s, near Bath), to whom he had probably been for\nsome years engaged.[991] In 1806 he published the third edition of the\nessay (in two volumes), in 1807 the fourth edition, and also the letter\nto Samuel Whitbread on his Bill for amending the Poor Laws. If it is\ntrue that he visited Owen at New Lanark, it must have been in the course\nof the next seven years.[992] There is nothing signed from his pen in\nthat time but a letter to Lord Grenville in defence of the East India\nCollege;[993] but in 1814 and 1815 he wrote the _Observations on the\nCorn Laws_, the _Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of restricting\nImportation_, and _The Nature and Progress of Rent_. In 1807 he had been\nwith Horner in Wales, impressing Horner, as they went together from\nRaglan to Abergavenny, with his idea that the people should \u201clive\ndear\u201d;[994] and in 1817 he visited Kerry and Westmeath. In the same\nyear, 1817, he published the fifth edition of his essay. 1818 would be\nmemorable to him as the year when Mackintosh joined him at Haileybury as\nProfessor of General Polity and Law in succession to Mr. Christian. In\n1819 Malthus appears as Fellow of the Royal Society, though the honour\ndid not tempt him back into physical science.[995] In 1820 appeared the\nfirst edition of the _Political Economy_. In 1821, Thomas Tooke, the\nauthor of _High and Low Prices_, founded the Political Economy Club,\nJames Mill drafting the rules. Malthus, Grote, and Ricardo were among\nits members; and the survivors are said to remember well the \u201ccrushing\ncriticisms\u201d by James Mill of Malthus\u2019 speeches.[996]\n\n1823 is the year of the tract on the _Measure of Value_ and the\n_Quarterly_ article on Tooke; 1824 of the paper on Population in the\n_Supplement to the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_, and the article on the New\nPolitical Economy in the _Quarterly Review_.[997] In 1825 he lost a\ndaughter, and went for his own and his wife\u2019s health to the Continent.\nIn that year he contributed his first paper to the Royal Society of\nLiterature, of which he had been made an Associate two years before; and\nthat year saw Empson take the place of Mackintosh at Haileybury. In 1826\nwas published the sixth edition of the essay, the last published in his\nlifetime. In 1827 we find him before the Emigration Committee, and we\nhave from his pen the _Definitions in Political Economy_, and the second\npaper contributed to the Royal Society of Literature. In 1829 letters\npassed between him and W. Nassau Senior, which were appended by the\nlatter to his _Lectures on Population_. In 1830 he wrote the _Summary\nView_, which involved no new effort. Indeed his whole time seems to have\nbeen spent in revising his _Political Economy_ in the light of his\npublic and private discussions with Ricardo, though he did not live to\nprint the new edition himself. Shortly before his death he said to some\none who rebuked him for his delay: \u201cMy views are before the public. If I\nam to alter anything, I can do little more than alter the language, and\nI don\u2019t know if I should alter it for the better\u201d (Empson, _l. c._ p.\n472). He was one of the first Fellows of the Statistical Society,\nfounded in March 1834, and its first Annual Report contains a high\neulogy on him and his work; but he did not live to take much share in\nits proceedings. He died suddenly of heart disease on Monday, 29th\nDecember, 1834, on a visit to Mr. Eckersall at St. Catherine\u2019s, where he\nwas spending Christmas with his wife and family. He is buried in the\nAbbey Church at Bath, in the north aisle of the nave. Of his three\nchildren, two survived him, of whom one, a daughter, is still\nliving.[998]\n\nBrougham, in a letter to Macvey Napier (31st Jan., 1837), denies the\ntruth of an assertion of Empson\u2019s, that Lords Lansdowne and Holland\ntried to get preferment for Malthus, but failed; on the contrary, he had\nhimself, he says, offered Malthus a living, but Malthus had declined it\nin favour of his son, Henry,[999] \u201cwho got it, and I believe now has\nit.\u201d Henry, however, did not become vicar of Effingham (near Leatherhead\nin Surrey) till 1835, the year after his father\u2019s death,\u2014or of\nDonnington (near Chichester in Sussex) till 1837, the year when Brougham\nwas writing. The second appointment may have been due to Empson\u2019s\nreproach or Otter\u2019s influence. Henry died in August 1882 at the age of\nseventy-six. Since, between the two parishes, he kept as many as four\ncurates at a time, the combined salaries of the two, amounting to \u00a3672,\nseem a small income.[1000] His father himself told Gallois, the French\npublicist, in 1820, that all his works till then had not brought him\nabove \u00a31000. Gallois, repeating this to the poet Moore, slily remarked\nthat in England poetry seemed to be better paid than useful\nlearning.[1001] There is no reason for the belief that Malthus was made\nrich by the second essay,[1002] or indeed by anything else. He did not\ngo the right way to be rich. He could no doubt have got Church\npreferment if he had pursued it like Paley. At the end of his days, even\nif he had desired it, he was too mild a partisan to be a _grata persona_\nto the Whigs in office; he had acquiesced in the Reform of 1832, but\nwithout enthusiasm,[1003] having a livelier interest in social than in\npolitical changes. But the world after all used him kindly. Of worldly\ncomfort, after 1805, he had enough; and he was fully satisfied, as he\nhad reason to be, with his lot in the East India College. It gave him\nnearly thirty years of the leisure which Godwin had justly counted the\ntrue riches of life.\n\nThe position had its cares, for the college was an educational\nexperiment. Governor-General Wellesley[1004] had proposed to found a\ncollege at Fort William, Calcutta, for the general education of the\ncivil servants of the Company as well as their special instruction in\nOriental languages. He pointed out that their functions, judicial,\nadministrative, diplomatic, were now totally unlike their names of\nwriter, factor, and merchant, and they needed something higher than the\ncommercial training which was all that was then required of them. The\nDirectors of the East India Company carried out his wishes so far as to\nallow Fort William College to do the advanced training in languages; but\nthey thought that the general education should be given before the\ncadets left England, and at the end of 1805 they passed a scheme for\nestablishing for that purpose a college at Haileybury, near Hertford. On\ntheir nomination, instead of going out at once to India, the future\ncivil servants of India were to spend two or three years at Haileybury,\nand to receive _first_ a General education on the lines of Oxford and\nCambridge, and _second_ a Special education to prepare them for their\nduties in their province.[1005] The Professor of \u201cHistory and Political\nEconomy\u201d and the Professor of \u201cGeneral Polity and the Laws of England\u201d\nwere regarded as giving both the general and the special kinds of\ntraining. \u201cAs the study of law and political economy\u201d (so runs the\nscheme) \u201cis to form an essential part in the general system of\neducation, it will be required that, in the lectures upon these\nsubjects, particular attention be given to the explanation of the\npolitical and commercial relations subsisting between India and Great\nBritain.\u201d[1006] The two professors were required to give \u201c(1) a course\nof lectures on general history and on the history and statistics of the\nmodern nations of Europe, (2) a course of lectures on political economy,\n(3) a course of lectures on general polity, on the laws of England and\nprinciples of the British Constitution.\u201d[1007] The other subjects were\nClassics, Oriental Languages, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy. The\ncollege course lasted, as a rule, two years, each year consisting of two\nterms of about five months each (Feb. to June, Aug. to Dec.); and there\nwere periodical examinations, honour lists, and prizes. The ages of the\npupils ranged from as low as fifteen to as high as twenty-two, and about\nforty joined every year. Malthus would seldom have a class beyond twelve\nor fourteen, all in the later year of their course.[1008]\n\nThe general discipline of the classes and the surveillance or want of\nsurveillance of the pupils in their private rooms were rather on the\nmodel of an unreformed Oxford college than of a public school.[1009]\nSense of personal responsibility and habits of self-government were to\ntake the place of the schoolboy\u2019s fear of punishment. Unhappily, before\nlearning the new motives, the boys too often abused the absence of the\nold.[1010]\n\nAbout half of the professors were in holy orders and did duty in the\ncollege chapel. If Malthus took his turn with the rest, we need not\nsuppose with his clerical biographer that he magnified the office. His\nsermons would always be earnest; they might often perhaps be too long.\nHis week-day lectures, unless he made them liker the first essay with\nits fine writing than the later books with their plain unvarnished\narguments, could not have been very fascinating to immature youths,\nespecially as the lecturer had a slight defect in utterance.[1011] Eight\nyears of teaching convinced him that Political Economy was not, as he\nonce thought, too hard for boys of sixteen or seventeen;\u2014\u201cthey could not\nonly understand it,\u201d he said, \u201cbut they did not even think it\ndull.\u201d[1012] We may hope it was so; but in view of the whole case, it is\nprobable that our author\u2019s labours, in the classroom and out of it, were\nfar from light, and that the pleasantness of the life was purchased with\na large share of discomfort.\n\nThe physical surroundings were all that could be desired. \u201cWe are so\nrural and quiet here, that there can be no greater contrast [to London].\nThis house is in a cluster of tall shrubs and young trees, with a little\nbit of smooth lawn sloping to a bright pond, in which old weeping\nwillows are dipping their hair, and rows of young pear trees admiring\ntheir blooming faces. Indeed, there never was such a flash of shadowing\nhigh-hanging flowers as we have around us; and almost all, as it\nhappens, of that pure, silvery, snowy, bridal tint; and we live, like\nCampbell\u2019s sweet Gertrude, \u2018as if beneath a galaxy of overhanging\nsweets, with blossoms white.\u2019 There are young horse-chestnuts with\nflowers half a yard long, fresh, full-clustered white lilacs, tall\nGuelder roses, broadspreading pear and cherry trees, low thickets of\nblooming sloe, and crowds of juicy-looking detached thorns, quite\ncovered with their fragrant May-flowers, half open, like ivory filigree,\nand half shut like Indian pearls, and all so fresh and dewy since the\nmilky showers of yesterday; and resounding with nightingales, and\nthrushes, and skylarks, shrilling high up, overhead, among the dazzling\nslow-sailing clouds. Not to be named, I know and feel as much as you can\ndo, with your Trossachs, and Loch Lomonds, and Inverarys; but very\nsweet, and vernal, and soothing, and fit enough to efface all\nrecollections of hot, swarming, whirling, and bustling London from all\ngood minds.\u201d[1013]\n\nEqually pleasant is a glimpse of the daily life at Haileybury, given by\nMiss Martineau, who saw it in 1833. Malthus considered her one of his\nbest expositors;\u2014\u201cwhereas his friends had done him all manner of\nmischief by defending him injudiciously, my tales had represented his\nviews precisely as he could have wished;\u201d\u2014and he was at the pains to\nseek her out in London and bring her down to the college.[1014] \u201cIt was\na delightful visit, and the well-planted county of Herts was a welcome\nchange from the pavement of London in August.... My room was a large and\nairy one, with a bay window and a charming view.\u201d[1015] She found desk,\nbooks, and everything needed for her work. Her entertainers had guessed\nfrom her books that she must be, like Malthus himself,[1016] fond of\nriding; and she found her riding-habit and whip ready. Exploring the\ngreen lanes round Amwell, Ware, and Hertford, on horseback, in parties\nof five or six, seems to have been the chief amusement. \u201cThe subdued\njests and external homage and occasional insurrections of the young men,\nthe archery of the young ladies, the curious politeness of the Persian\nprofessor [Ibrahim], the fine learning and eager scholarship of\nPrincipal[1017] Le Bas, and the somewhat old-fashioned courtesies of the\nsummer evening parties are all over now, except as pleasant pictures in\nthe interior gallery of those who knew the place, of whom I am thankful\nto have been one.\u201d\n\nWhen she again visited Haileybury, Malthus was gone; Professor Jones was\nin his chair, and Empson in his house, probably one of the most\ncomfortable in a building which, if smaller, was much more picturesque\nthan the present school.[1018]\n\nThe \u201coccasional insurrections of the young men\u201d were a feature of the\ncollege from the beginning. Sydney Smith writes to Lord Holland in June\n1810, when there was talk of making Mackintosh professor at Haileybury:\n\u201cThe season for lapidating the professors is now at hand; keep\nMackintosh quiet at Holland House till all is over;\u201d[1019] and to\nWhishaw in January 1818, when the appointment had been made: \u201cHis\nsituation at Hertford will suit him very well, peltings and contusions\nalways excepted. He should stipulate for \u2018pebble money,\u2019 as it is\ntechnically termed, or an annual pension in case he is disabled by the\npelting of the students. By the bye, might it not be advisable for the\nprofessors to learn the use of the sling (_balearia habena_)? It would\ngive them a great advantage over the students.\u201d[1020] The lapidations\nwere probably no worse than similar scenes at our English and Scotch\nUniversities that have not yet destroyed the credit of these\ninstitutions. But the opponents of the college complained of much more\nthan the insubordination of the students. Lord Grenville had made an\nattack on it (in April 1813), on the ground that it separated the future\nCivil servants from the ordinary life of Englishmen, and prevented them\nfrom becoming imbued with \u201cEnglish manners, English attachments, English\nprinciples, and I am not ashamed to say English prejudices.\u201d[1021]\nMalthus, who had gone up to London to hear Grenville\u2019s speech in the\nHouse of Lords, became champion of the college, and had no difficulty in\nmeeting this assault. The defence of the professors, as set forth by him\nin 1817,[1022] was that the plan of the college was good in theory and\nhad proved good in practice. The insubordination was due to the\ndependence of the professorial staff upon the Company\u2019s Directors, who\nhad (till then) withheld from the teachers their best means of\ndiscipline, the power of expulsion.\n\nThe students were as little likely as army or navy cadets to become\nun-English; and they were much less likely to form a caste at Haileybury\nthan if they had been sent to an Indian college. The details of this\nextinct controversy need not detain us. It is enough to say that Malthus\ndischarged his part with great vigour and something of his early\nvivacity. At the best, it must be confessed, the college was a\ncompromise; and the unavoidable difficulties of the situation were quite\nenough to try the mettle of the teachers. The cadets of the first year\nmight be fifteen or they might be eighteen, and there was no natural\naristocracy of senior boys to check the juniors. Those of the younger\nage were physically and mentally more like schoolboys than\nundergraduates, and unfit, as yet, for the quasi-independent life of the\nlatter. Many were unwilling to go to India at all, and it was their\nparents or guardians who really feared the expulsion of incorrigibles.\nBut it was better that the unfit should be rejected in England, where\nthey could find other openings, than in India, where they could find\nnone; and it was better their training should be carried on where the\nclimate, the expense, and the moral, social, and intellectual advantages\nwere in keeping with their age and their state of pupilage. \u201cLittle\nother change is wanting,\u201d in the system as it then was, \u201cthan that an\nappointment should be considered in spirit and in truth, not in mere\nwords, as a prize to be contended for, not a property already\npossessed,[1023] which may be lost. If the Directors were to appoint\none-fifth every year beyond the number finally to go out, and the\nfour-fifths were to be the beat of the whole body, the appointments\nwould then really be prizes to be contended for, and the effects would\nbe admirable. Each appointment to the college would then be of less\nvalue; but they would be more in number, and the patronage would hardly\nsuffer. A Director could not then, indeed, be able to send out an\nunqualified son. But is it fitting that he should? This is a fair\nquestion for the consideration of the Legislature and the British\npublic.\u201d[1024] In these matters, at least, Malthus was no reactionary.\n\nIn spite of Joseph Hume and its other enemies, the college lived out its\nhalf-century, and does not die out, on the pages of the _India\nRegister_, till the death of the Company in 1858. Its monopoly was gone\nsome time before then. An Act of 1827 provided, theoretically, for the\nexamination and appointment of India Civil servants who had not studied\nat Hertford College. In 1833 provision was made for the limited\ncompetition which Malthus had recommended.[1025] In 1855 came the end.\nThe Company was \u201crelieved of the obligation to keep up the college;\u201d the\nreign of open competition, ushered in by Macaulay\u2019s Report (Nov. 1854),\nbrought a new order of things; and the college was only continued till\nthose who had joined it at the time of the change had been able to\nfinish their course.[1026] There are numbers of old officials, like Sir\nWilliam Muir, who still hold it in affectionate remembrance;[1027] but\nexcept in their memory it exists no more.\n\nThe work of Malthus was less in the East India College than in his\nwritings. But his connection with the college was perhaps the most\nimportant of the external facts of his life; and it has helped to\npreserve a record of scenes and incidents which reveal the character\nmore clearly than all the adjectives of panegyrists. Otter, Empson, Miss\nMartineau, Sydney Smith,[1028] and Horner,[1029] may supply the\npanegyrics; and the eulogy of Mackintosh is remarkable: \u201cI have known\nAdam Smith slightly, Ricardo well, Malthus intimately. Is it not\nsomething to say for a science that its three great masters were about\nthe three best men I ever knew?\u201d[1030]\n\nHis epitaph in Bath Abbey, probably from the pen of Otter, is given on\nthe following page.\n\n                          SACRED TO THE MEMORY\n\n                                   of\n\n                   =The Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus,=\n\n                    LONG KNOWN TO THE LETTERED WORLD\n\n          BY HIS ADMIRABLE WRITINGS ON THE SOCIAL BRANCHES OF\n\n                           POLITICAL ECONOMY,\n\n               PARTICULARLY BY HIS \u201cESSAY ON POPULATION.\u201d\n\n              ONE OF THE BEST MEN AND TRUEST PHILOSOPHERS\n\n                         OF ANY AGE OR COUNTRY,\n\n                    RAISED BY NATIVE DIGNITY OF MIND\n\n              ABOVE THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE IGNORANT\n\n                     AND THE NEGLECT OF THE GREAT,\n\n                   HE LIVED A SERENE AND HAPPY LIFE,\n\n                DEVOTED TO THE PURSUIT AND COMMUNICATION\n\n                               OF TRUTH,\n\n             SUPPORTED BY A CALM BUT FIRM CONVICTION OF THE\n\n                       USEFULNESS OF HIS LABOURS,\n\n           CONTENT WITH THE APPROBATION OF THE WISE AND GOOD.\n\n\n                HIS WRITINGS WILL BE A LASTING MONUMENT\n\n          OF THE EXTENT AND CORRECTNESS OF HIS UNDERSTANDING.\n\n\n               THE SPOTLESS INTEGRITY OF HIS PRINCIPLES,\n\n                 THE EQUITY AND CANDOUR OF HIS NATURE,\n\n             HIS SWEETNESS OF TEMPER, URBANITY OF MANNERS,\n\n                        AND TENDERNESS OF HEART,\n\n                     HIS BENEVOLENCE AND HIS PIETY,\n\n            ARE THE STILL DEARER RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FAMILY\n\n                              AND FRIENDS.\n\n\n            _Born Feb. 14, 1766._      _Died Dec. 29, 1834._\n\n\n\n\n                                 INDEX.\n\n\n Abbot, Chas., mover of Enumeration Bill, 173, 178\n\n Africa, 105, 111\n\n America, North, 17, 28, 69 _seq._;\n   Indians, 89 _seq._, 105, 111, 143, 167, 174, &c.;\n   cf. 369, 370 (American increase)\n\n America, South, 88\n\n Anderson, Adam, 173, 174\n\n Anderson, Jas., 221, 377\n\n Arabs, 109, 110\n\n Aristotle, 113, 211, 214, 319, 356, 384\n\n\n Bacon, Francis, 22, 47, 66, 124, 396\n\n Bagehot, Walter, 227, 383\n\n Ball, John, 385\n\n Bamford, Sam., 298\n\n Bentham, Jeremy, 43, 44, 323, 325, 331\n\n Berkeley, Bishop, 201\n\n Bert, Paul, 371\n\n Births, no criterion of numbers, 149;\n   or of increase, 179;\n   cf. 161\n\n Board of Agriculture, 176, 186, 216\u2013218\n\n Booth, David, 362, 371\n\n Bosanquet, Chas., 291\n\n Bounties, 31, 217, 220, &c.\n\n Brassey, Thos., 257\n\n Brougham, H., 228, 415\n\n Brown, Dr. J., \u2018Estimate,\u2019 173\n\n Bruckner, Dr. John, of Norwich, 8\n\n Buckle, H. T., 22, 33\n\n Bullion Committee, 285 _seq._\n\n\n Caird, Jas., 69, 75, 76, 245\n\n Cairnes, J. E., 138, 245, 261\n\n Cannibalism, 94\n\n Carey, H. C., 65, 68, 70, 239, 395\n\n Census, Swedish, 132;\n   English, B. I. ch. vii.\n\n Chalmers, Geo., 174\n\n Chalmers, Dr. Thos., 316, 409\n\n Chartism, 298\n\n Checks on population, classified, 52, 81, _passim_ B. I. and B. IV.\n\n China, 112, 113\n\n Clarke, Edw., 48, 127, B. V. _passim_\n\n Cobbett, Wm., 6 and note, 287, 290, 298, 338, 363, 395\n\n Cobden, R., 225, 287, 353;\n   cf. 55\n\n Coleridge, S. T., the Poet, 22, 48, 95, 111, 371 _seq._;\n   the MS. notes genuine? 374;\n   cf. 48, 377\n\n Comte, Auguste, 20, 344;\n   cf. 213\n\n Comte, Charles, 413, 416\n\n Condorcet, Marquis de, 11, 22\u201324, 30, 31, 375, &c.\n\n Conversion of the world, the postulate of Socialism as of Christianity,\n    392\n\n Cook, Captain, _passim_ B. I. ch. iv.\n\n Co-operation, 232, 300, 352, 392\n\n Copleston, Dr. E., 363\n\n Corn Laws, B. II. ch. i.;\n   corn as measure of value, 224, 255\u20136\n\n Corn Law Catechism, 227, 308\n\n Cosmology of Malthus, 34 _seq._\n\n Cosmopolitanism, 347, 356, 396;\n   cf. 328\n\n Cripps, 127\n\n Critics of Malthus, I, 45, B. IV. _passim_\n\n Currency, 226\u20137, and B. II. ch. iii.\n\n Cycle, 83, 84, 147\n\n\n Darwin, Chas., 24, 46, 363\n\n Decreasing returns, law of, 234 _seq._;\n   cf. 37, 74, 78\n\n \u2018Definitions in Pol. Econ.,\u2019 211, 265, and generally B. II. ch. ii.\n\n Dependence on the foreigner, 217, 225, 233;\n   dependent poverty, 310\n\n Depopulation controversy, 173 _seq._\n\n Depreciation of currency, 285, and generally B. II. ch. iii.;\n   cf. 227, 248\u20139\n\n Distribution, when keeping pace with production, 166\n\n Doubleday, Thos., 396\n\n Dyer, T. H., 339\n\n\n Eckersall, Harriet (Mrs. Malthus), 412;\n   cf. 322\n\n Economists, 47, 247, 248, 276\n\n Economy, political, its method, &c., B. II. ch. i.;\n   Club first founded, 263, 413;\n   place among the studies of youth, 419\n\n Eden, Sir Fred., \u2018the State of the Poor\u2019 (1797), 248, 310, &c.\n\n \u2018Edinburgh Review,\u2019 notice of Malthus, 43;\n   connection with Malthus, 33, 329, 364, 371, 412;\n     but _see_ \u2018Malthus, T. R.\u2019;\n   notice of Godwin, 12, 368, 371\n\n Education, 56, 77, 275, 298, 301, 340, 341;\n   cf. 403, 404, 419, 420\n\n Egypt, 111\n\n Emigration, B. I. ch. v.;\n   Commons Committee, _l. c._ and 195 _seq._, 240, 377\n\n Empson, Wm., 43, 213 n.;\n   his classification of critics, 377, 394;\n   life of Malthus, 399\n\n Enclosures, 176, 215, 217\n\n \u2018Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica,\u2019 article of Malthus in Supplement, 70 _seq._\n\n England, B. I. ch. vii.\n\n Essay on Population, editions, 2;\n   origin, 5, 32, &c.;\n   B. I. _passim_, B. IV. _passim_\n\n Ethics of Malthus, B. III.\n\n Euler, 69, 369\n\n\n Factory Acts, 301, 343, 345\n\n Fawcett, Mrs., 240\n\n Fawcett, Prof., 273\n\n Ferguson, Adam, 297\n\n Fifth Monarchy Men, 385\n\n Finland, 48, 127\n\n Foundling Hospitals, 134, 135;\n   cf. 409\n\n Fox, Ch. J., 29, 31, 338\n\n Fox, Henry, 173\n\n France, B. I. ch. vi.\n\n Franklin, Benj., 10, 14, 63, 369\n\n Frend, tutor of Malthus, 406\n\n Fyffe, C. A., 161\n\n\n Gallois, 416\n\n Garnier, his article on Malthus in \u2018Dict. de l\u2019\u00c9con. Pol.,\u2019 214, 410,\n    415\n\n George, Henry, 38, 40;\n   cf. 236, 382;\n   on population, 385\u2013388\n\n George III., 29, 324\n\n Germany, 126, 183\n\n Gibbon, Edw., 21 n., 107, 108, 400\n\n Giffen, R., 72 n., 78 n.\n\n Gilbert\u2019s Act, 27\n\n Glut, or over-production, B. II. ch. iii.\n\n Godwin, Wm., 7; Pol. Justice, 9\u201311, &c.;\n     cf. 355, 371;\n   Enquirer, 13, 14;\n     cf. 355\u2013371;\n   Caleb Williams, 10;\n   Memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft, 21;\n   St. Leon, 21, 22, 31;\n   Parr\u2019s Sermon, 43 n., 45, 358;\n   Population, 43, 87, 364 _seq._;\n   character, 58;\n   in hands of \u2018Edinburgh Review,\u2019 12, 368, 371\n\n Government, influence on population, 112, &c.;\n   due to our wickedness? 9;\n   acting from passion, 225;\n   Whig, as patrons, 415, 416\n\n Grahame, Jas., 376 _seq._\n\n Graves, Rich., tutor of Malthus, 404 _seq._\n\n Green, T. H., 354\n\n Greg, W. R., 41, 394\n\n Grote, George, 413\n\n\n Haileybury College, Malthus\u2019 lectures in, 214, 222, 229, 416 _seq._;\n   _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ and death, 415 _seq._;\n   physical surroundings, 420\n\n Hallam, H., 85, 363\n\n Hazlitt, W., 85, 329, 372, 386, 394\n\n Held, Adolf, 41, 325, 331, 382\n\n Highlands, 150, 187\u2013190\n\n \u2018High Price of Provisions,\u2019 43, 49, 215, 307, 408, 411\n\n \u2018High Price of Gold Bullion,\u2019 285\n\n History, needs to be rewritten, 83;\n   of English commerce, 25, 282, 283, 298;\n   Corn Laws, 219;\n   currency, 286\u2013290\n\n Holcroft, friend of Godwin, 22\n\n Holland, B. I. ch. v.\n\n Holyoake, G. J., 412\n\n Horner, Francis, B. V. _passim_;\n   cf. 285, 340, &c.\n\n Hume, David, 31, 32, 99, 115 n., 116, 135, 173, &c., &c.\n\n Hume, Joseph, 425\n\n Huntingford, Bishop, 377\n\n\n India, child-murder, 117;\n   cf. 115\n\n India Civil Servants, 417 _seq._\n\n Ingram, Disquisitions on Population, 329\n\n Ireland, 146, 172, and B. I. ch. vii.\n\n d\u2019Ivernois, Sir F., 154, 163\n\n\n Jeffrey, Francis, 329;\n   description of Haileybury, 418\n\n\n Kant, E., 309, 321, 323\n\n Kautsky, Karl, 416\n\n\n Labour, as the measure of value, and as earning wages, B. II. ch. ii.\n\n Land and its rent, B. II. ch. i.\n\n Lassalle, 268\n\n Lecky, W. E. H., 26, 177, 202\n\n Leslie, Cliffe, 138, 165, 210, 252\n\n Levasseur, E., 164 _seq._\n\n Levellers, 385\n\n Locke, J., 13\n\n Luddites, 290\n\n Luxuries, 215, 225, 295.\n   See Standard of living.\n\n Lyell, Sir Chas., 46\n\n\n Macaulay, T. B., 272, 336;\n   review of Sadler, 377, 410, 425\n\n MacCulloch, J. R., 33, 40, 167, B. II. ch. i. _passim_\n\n Mackintosh, Sir Jas., B. V. _passim_;\n   cf. 336\n\n Macleod, H. D., 287\n\n Malthus, Daniel, 7, 399 _seq_.;\n   cf. 135, 324\n\n Malthus, Henry, 6, 415\n\n Malthus, T. R., his several works: Crisis, 7, 30;\n   Essay on Population, B. I. chs. i. ii and _passim_;\n   High Price of Provisions, 43, 49, 307, &c.;\n   Letter to Whitbread, 215, 313;\n   Article on Newenham, 93, 195, 202;\n   other articles in \u2018Edinburgh\u2019 and \u2018Quarterly,\u2019 33, 212, 271, 275, 285\n      and note, 288, 290, 329, 371;\n   Observations on the Corn Laws, 222, 223;\n   Grounds of an Opinion, 227;\n   Nature and Progress of Rent, 229;\n   Political Economy, 210\u2013214;\n   Measure of Value, 254;\n   Definitions in Political Economy, 211, 265;\n   article in Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, 71;\n   Papers read before Royal Society of Literature, 263;\n   Evidence before Emigration Committee, 144 _seq._;\n   Summary View, 80;\n   Tracts on East India College, 423;\n   correspondence with Godwin, Senior, Napier, Ricardo, Clarke,\n      Sinclair, _see_ under these names;\n   letter on Wakefield, 405;\n   style, 50, 265, 304, 408, 409;\n   character, 57, and B. V. _passim_\n\n Man on the earth. _See_ Cosmology and Ethics\n\n Manufacturer, late and early sense, 26\n\n Marat, 404\n\n Marcet, Mrs., 272\n\n Martineau, Harriet, 3, 57, 58, 85, 287, 323, and B. V. _passim_\n\n Marx, Karl, 84, 257, 268, 388 _seq._\n\n Mean, golden, 225 and note, 295, 320\n\n Mercantile theory, 47\n\n Middle classes, 225\n\n Mill, Jas., 208, 209, 273, 276, 280, 281, 293, 413, 414\n\n \u2014 John, 209, 239, 244, 271, 273, 281\n\n Millennium, Godwin\u2019s, 16;\n   Socialistic and Christian, 392\n\n Milne, Joshua, 71, 72\n\n Minimum of wages, 217, 268, &c.;\n   of prices, 279\n\n Mivart, St George, 385\n\n Montesquieu, 32, 108, 109, 138, &c.\n\n Moore, Dr. John, 311\n\n \u2014 Thomas, 416\n\n Moral impossibility, &c., 53\n\n Moral restraint, 49\u201353, 118, 119, 383, &c., &c.\n\n \u2014 Philosophy of Malthus, B. III.\n\n Moravians, 383\n\n \u2018Mordecai Mullion,\u2019 297\n\n More, Sir Thos., 11 n., 27, 385\n\n Muret, 148 _seq._, 174, 377\n\n\n Napier, Macvey, 6, 43, 71, 314, 398, &c.\n\n Nationality, 346\u20137\n\n Nationalization of land, 236, 382, 392\n\n \u2018Nature\u2019 defined, 337;\n   \u2018Nature\u2019s mighty feast,\u2019 305\n\n Navigation Act, 228\u20139\n\n Necessaries and luxuries, 117, 118, 122\n\n New and old Malthusians, 24, 375;\n   cf. 384\n\n Newenham, reviewed by Malthus, 93, 195\n\n \u2018New School of Political Economy,\u2019 275 _seq._\n\n Norway, B. I. ch. v.\n\n\n Ortes, G. M., 391\n\n Otaheite, B. I. ch. iv.\n\n Otter, Bishop, 48, 127, B. V. _passim_\n\n Over-population, 117, 145, 164, &c.\n\n Over-production, B. II. ch. iii.;\n     cf. 57, 215;\n   of food not possible, 232, 294\n\n Over-profits, see under Rent, esp. 230\n\n Owen, Robert, 11 n., 24, 267, 301, 377, 380, 382 _seq._, 412\n\n\n Paine, Thos., 9, 336, 405\n\n Paley, W., 34, 38 and note, 39, 43, 269, B. III. _passim_, &c.\n\n Parr, Dr. S., 43;\n   _see_ Godwin\n\n Peace of Paris, 35, 220\n\n Perfectibility of man, 11, 22;\n   _see_ Condorcet, Godwin\n\n Petty, W., 68, 186, 369\n\n Pitcairn Island, 102\n\n Pitt, W., B. I. chs. i., ii.;\n   cf. 227, 363; B. II. ch. iv. &c., &c.\n\n Plato, 66 n., 101 n., 113;\n   cf. 385\n\n Poland, 249\n\n Political justice. _See_ Godwin\n\n Politics of Malthus; _see_ B. III.;\n   cf. 198, 225, 298, &c.\n\n Poor Bill of Pitt, 6, 29, 43\n\n Poor Laws, English, 6, 27, 29, 215, 135, &c., B. II. ch. iv.\n\n \u2014 Foreign, 313\n\n Population, B. I. _passim_, B. IV. _passim_;\n   cf. esp. 212\n\n Populousness of ancient nations, 31, 32, 113\u2013117\n\n Postulates of 1st Essay, 16, 47;\n   cf. B. I. ch. ii., Theses\n\n Potatoes, 194\u2013198, 203, 204, 217, 380\n\n Price, Dr. R., 31, 32, 39, 174, but esp. 175, 176;\n   cf. 377\n\n Production in relation to distribution, 166, and _passim_;\n   in relation to consumption, 296\n\n Productive labour, 212\n\n Property, private, 76, 236;\n   cf. 18\n\n Prosperity, criterion of national, 123\n\n Protection, B. II. ch. i.\n\n Prussia, B. I. ch. v.\n\n\n \u2018Quarterly Review,\u2019 articles of Malthus in, 212, 285 _seq._\n\n \u2014 attitude to Malthus, 363\u20134\n\n \u2018Querist,\u2019 Berkeley\u2019s. _See_ Wall of Brass\n\n de Quincey, 266, 297, 363\n\n\n Ratio, geometrical and arithmetical, 17, 66, and generally B. I. ch.\n    iii.;\n   B. IV. esp. 369\n\n Raynal, Abb\u00e9, 26, 28, 97, 336, 337\n\n Revolution, Industrial, in England, 25, 282\n\n \u2014 in France, 7, 11, 27, 154 _seq._, 336, &c.\n\n Ricardo, D., 57, B. II. _passim_;\n   letters to Malthus, 213, 265 note, 414;\n   Pol. Econ. and Taxation, 209;\n   High Price of Bullion, 285;\n   Low Price of Corn, 238;\n   contrasted with Malthus, 265\u20136\n\n Rickman, J., 179 _seq._, 338\n\n Rogers, Prof. Thorold, 37, 96, 136, 238, 240, 269, &c.\n\n Rome, B. I. ch. iv.\n\n Roscher, W., 210, 267\n\n Rousseau, J. J., 7, 27, 135, 401\n\n Russia, B. I. ch. v.\n\n\n Sadler, Mich., 377 _seq._\n\n Sargant, W. L., 412\n\n Say, J. B., 57, 208, 292 _seq._\n\n Scotland, B. I., ch. vii.\n\n Scrope, G. Poulett, 377\n\n Senior, W. N., 3, 4, 47, 209, 414\n\n Short, 369\n\n Simonin, 376\n\n Sinclair, Sir John, 186, 216, 368, 369, 370, 426\n\n Sismondi, Chas. de, 209, 296, 415\n\n Smith, Adam, 3, 5, 9, 26, 31, 33, 47, 56, 57, 86, 95, 105, 117 and\n    _passim_\n\n Smith, Sydney, B. V. _passim_\n\n Socialism, 214, 252, 312, 382 _seq._\n\n Society, Royal, 413;\n   of Literature, 263, 414;\n   Statistical, 415\n\n Southey, Robt., 4, 11, 338, 374, 377, 383\n\n Speenhamland Act, 30\n\n Spence, Wm., Great Britain Independent of Commerce, 247, 293\n\n Spence, author of \u2018The Land the People\u2019s Farm,\u2019 382, 385\n\n Spencer, Herbert, 393, 396\n\n Standard of Comfort, 117, 120 _seq._, 137, 140, 194, 195\u2013198, 269, 295,\n    &c., &c.\n\n State insurance, 24\n\n Steuart, Sir J., 32\n\n Stewart, Dugald, barrel-organ, 385\n\n Struggle for existence, 20, 47, 119;\n   not leading to progress, 96, 112\n\n Styles, Dr. E., 357, 369\n\n \u2018Summons of Wakening,\u2019 365\n\n Sumner, Dr. J. B., Archbishop of Canterbury, 12, 34, 38, 307\n\n Sunday Schools, 298\n\n Suspension of cash payments, 284 _seq._\n\n S\u00fcssmilch, J. P., 39, 115, 124 _seq._, 139, 369\n\n Sweden, B. I. ch. v.;\n   cf. 72, 73, 370\n\n\n Taine, 121\n\n Talleyrand, 418\n\n Teleology, 319 _seq._, 326\n\n Tendency, B. I. ch. iii. _passim_, esp. 61, 65, 66\n\n Theses. _See_ Postulates\n\n Thompson, l\u2019erronet, 227, 308\n\n Thornton, W. T., 130 n., 210, 273\n\n de Tocqueville, 89\n\n Tooke, Thos., 288, 291, B. II. ch. iii., _passim_, 412, &c.\n\n Torrens, R., contrasts Malthus unfavourably with Ricardo, 265\n\n Townsend, Joseph, 32, 64\n\n Toynbee, A., 314, 378\n\n Tucker, Abraham, 35, 164, B. III. _passim_, esp. 324, 403, &c.\n\n Tucker, Josiah, 33, 324\n\n Turkey, 112\n\n\n United States. _See_ America\n\n Utilitarianism, 39, 53, and B. III.;\n   cf. 213, 374\u20135\n\n\n Vice and virtue defined, 81, 327, 330;\n   cf. 374\n\n Voltaire, 27, 33\n\n\n Wages, B. II. ch. ii.;\n     cf. 226;\n   review of wages for five centuries, 247\u20138\n\n Wages Fund, 270 _seq._\n\n Wakefield, Gilb., tutor of Malthus, 339, 404\n\n Walker, F. A., 210, 244\n\n Wall of Brass, 201, 250\u20131\n\n Wallace, A. R., 46, 47\n\n Wallace, Dr. Robt., 8, 9, 20, 31, 126, 173\n\n War, reparable and irreparable evils of, 155 _seq._\n\n Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, 11, 405\n\n Wealth, as subject of Pol. Econ., 210, 212\n\n Wesleyan movement, 26;\n   cf. 403\n\n West, Sir Edw., 222, 234\u20135, 240\n\n Weyland, J., 377, 410\n\n Whishaw, John, 409\n\n Whitbread, Samuel, 29, 31, &c.\n\n Wollstonecraft, Mary, 21\n\n\n Young, Arthur, 69, 159 _seq._, 178, 201, 216, 380\n\n\n           _R. Clay & Sons, Bread Street Hill, London, E. C._\n\n-----\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  The Germans talk of \u2018Smithianismus.\u2019\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  _Autobiogr._, vol. i. p. 71.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  Senior, _Two Lectures on Population_, 1829, Appendix, pp. 56, 57.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  Senior, _l. c._, p. 56.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  Macvey Napier\u2019s _Correspondence_, p. 187. Cf. _Pol. Econ._, 2nd ed.,\n  pp. xxxv, liv.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  \u201cWhy,\u201d said I, \u201chow many children do you reckon to have at last?\u201d \u201cI\n  do not care how many,\u201d said the man, \u201cGod never sends mouths without\n  sending meat.\u201d \u201cDid you ever hear,\u201d said I, \u201cof one Parson Malthus? he\n  wants an act of parliament to prevent poor people from marrying young,\n  and from having such lots of children.\u201d \u201cOh, the brute!\u201d exclaimed the\n  wife; while the husband laughed, thinking I was joking.\u2014Cobbett\u2019s\n  _Advice to Young Men_, Letter 3, p. 83. The references to Cobbett in\n  the Essay are probably, 7th ed., pp. 310 and 318, cf. p. 313; but his\n  name is not mentioned.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  Namely, in the _Monthly Magazine_ for Jan. 1800. But see below, Book\n  V.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  _Thoughts on Parr\u2019s Sermon_, p. 2, and _Pol. Justice_, Pref. p. x.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  Preface to first edition of Essay, 1798.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  Leyden, 1767, translated under the title _Philosophical Survey of the\n  Animal Creation_, Lond., 1768. See especially chs. vii. and x.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  _Common Sense_, p. 1, quoted in _Pol. Justice_, Bk. II. ch. i. p. 124\n  (3rd ed.).\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  _Pol. Justice_, Bk. VIII. ch. vi. p. 484. On the other hand, Franklin,\n  in his _Letter on Luxury, Idleness, and Industry_ (1784), had\n  estimated the necessary labour more moderately at four hours. Sir\n  Thos. More suggested nine. Owen recurred to the half-hour. _New Moral\n  World_, 1836, pp. x, xi.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 161\u20132, footnote.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n  _Records of the Creation_, vol. i. p. 54, note.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n  Life by Kegan Paul, vol. i. p. 80. Cf. a curious passage in the\n  _Edinburgh Review_, about Godwin\u2019s _Population_: \u201cAs the book was\n  dear, and not likely to fall into the hands of the labouring classes,\n  we had no thoughts of noticing it,\u201d July 1821, p. 363.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n  _Enquirer_ (1797), Pref., p. 7.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n  Part II., Essay II.\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n  Part II., Essays I. and III.\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n  _Political Justice_, Book VIII. ch. ix. pp. 515\u201319 (3rd ed.).\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n  Cf. Rich. Jones, _Pol. Econ._ (1859), p. 596.\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n  Quoted, _Political Justice_, Book VIII. ch. viii. pp. 503, 520, on the\n  authority of Price.\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n  _l. c._, Book VIII. ch. ix. p. 528.\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 14.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n  1st ed., pp. 20, 173, &c., 7th ed., Book III. ch. ii.\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n  1st ed., p. 128; cf. p. 210.\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 211.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 215.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 215.\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n  1st ed., p. 17; cf. pp. 47\u20138.\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n  Even Comte, who reproves economists for saying that difficulties right\n  themselves in the \u201clong run,\u201d thinks that this particular difficulty\n  will only occur _there_. (_Pos. Phil._, ii. 128 (tr.); cf. p. 54.)\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n  1st ed., pp. 15, 16.\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n  _Ibid._ pp. 19, 62\u201366.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n  _Pol. Just._, VIII. iii 466.\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 175\u20136, 193; 7th ed., pp. 272, 277. Cf. Gibbon,\n  ch. L., quoted in _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 94; 7th ed., p. 65: \u201cThe\n  measure of population is regulated by the means of subsistence.\u201d\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n  _Pol. Just._, Book VIII. ch. ix. p. 520 n. (3rd ed.).\n\nFootnote 36:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 240\u20131.\n\nFootnote 37:\n\n  Due to Coleridge. See Godwin\u2019s _Life_, i. 357.\n\nFootnote 38:\n\n  _Ibid._ i. 25.\n\nFootnote 39:\n\n  _Esquisse d\u2019un tableau historique des progr\u00e8s de l\u2019esprit humain_ (3rd\n  ed., 1797), pp. 384 _seq._\n\nFootnote 40:\n\n  _Political Justice_, VIII. ix. 520 n.\n\nFootnote 41:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 227.\n\nFootnote 42:\n\n  _Esquisse_, pp. 362 _seq._\n\nFootnote 43:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 146, 150.\n\nFootnote 44:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 154; Condorcet, _Esquisse_, pp. 364\u2013373.\n\nFootnote 45:\n\n  The _locus classicus_ in Malthus is _Essay_, Append, (of 1817), p.\n  512; cf. III. iii. 286, IV. xiii. 474. The pages are those of the 7th\n  edition (Reeves and Turner), a reprint of the 6th.\n\nFootnote 46:\n\n  Malthus sometimes uses the word in the earlier sense, and Adam Smith\n  seldom in the later.\n\nFootnote 47:\n\n  Lecky, _Hist. of Eighteenth Century_, vol ii. p. 638.\n\nFootnote 48:\n\n  Cf. Godwin, pref. to _Pol. Just._\n\nFootnote 49:\n\n  Hansard, _Parl. Hist._, vol. xxxiii, pp. 703 _seq._, Feb 12, 1796; cf.\n  vol. xxxii. pp. 687 _seq._ The \u201cSpeenhamland Act of Parliament\u201d was\n  really an act of the Berkshire magistrates (1795), but had been widely\n  imitated, and had certainly prepared the way for Pitt\u2019s bill.\n\nFootnote 50:\n\n  Cf. _Essay_, 7th ed., I. vii. p. 65; 1st ed., pp. 94, 95, &c.\n\nFootnote 51:\n\n  Godwin, _Pol. Just._, VIII. viii. 508 (3rd ed.).\n\nFootnote 52:\n\n  Preface to _Essay_, 2nd ed.\n\nFootnote 53:\n\n  By implication. See below, Book I. ch. vii. p. 175.\n\nFootnote 54:\n\n  _Moral and Political Essays_, Vol. I., Essay XI., Of the Populousness\n  of Ancient Nations (ed. 1768), written in 1752.\n\nFootnote 55:\n\n  So even Sir James Steuart, Vol. I. _Pol. Econ._, ch. iii. p. 22 (ed.\n  1805), might have helped him. Steuart wrote in 1767.\n\nFootnote 56:\n\n  _Essay_, Book II. ch. vi.; 7th ed., p. 184.\n\nFootnote 57:\n\n  Buckle would include Voltaire. See _Civil. in Europe_, ii. 304 n.\n\nFootnote 58:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, I. viii. 36, 2 (MacCulloch\u2019s ed.). These passages\n  are said to have suggested to Malthus the idea of his essay. The\n  article on Population in _Edin. Review_, Aug. 1810, possibly written\n  by Malthus himself, bears out this view.\n\nFootnote 59:\n\n  Compare _Essay_, Appendix (to 3rd ed., 1807), 7th ed., p. 507.\n\nFootnote 60:\n\n  _Records of Creation_, 1816.\n\nFootnote 61:\n\n  1st ed., p. 395.\n\nFootnote 62:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 353. This and much else were probably suggested by Tucker,\n  _Light of Nature_, Theology, ch. xix. (especially \u00a7 20). Cf. below,\n  Book III.\n\nFootnote 63:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 381.\n\nFootnote 64:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 371.\n\nFootnote 65:\n\n  Cf. _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 65; later editions, I. vi. (beginning), where\n  he says that sloth is the natural state of man, and his activity is\n  due in the first instance to the \u201cstrong goad of necessity,\u201d though it\n  may be kept up afterwards by habit, the spirit of enterprise, and the\n  thirst for glory.\n\nFootnote 66:\n\n  1st ed., pp. 360\u2013366. For the replenishment of the gap made by the\n  Great Plague of 1348, see Prof. Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and\n  Wages_ (1884), p. 226.\n\nFootnote 67:\n\n  1st ed., p. 391.\n\nFootnote 68:\n\n  1st ed., pp. 394\u20136; cf. pp. 241\u20136. Compare Mr. Henry George\u2019s epilogue\n  to _Progress and Poverty_. It is right to remember that this passage\n  of Malthus was written two years before Paley\u2019s _Natural Theology_,\n  though four years after his _Evidences of Christianity_, and many more\n  after the _Moral and Political Philosophy_.\n\nFootnote 69:\n\n  _R. of Cr._, vol. ii. 103.\n\nFootnote 70:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 387.\n\nFootnote 71:\n\n  See below, Book I. ch. v.\n\nFootnote 72:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 356 note.\n\nFootnote 73:\n\n  _l. c._ He is ready with a similar excuse in the tract on the _Measure\n  of Value_, p. 61. Where there is no will there is no way.\n\nFootnote 74:\n\n  Part II. sect. ii. pp. 204\u20136.\n\nFootnote 75:\n\n  MacCulloch (J. R.), editor of the _Commercial Dictionary_, and\n  probably the original of Carlyle\u2019s Macrowdy. No one could have a\n  proper reverence for the Fathers of Political Economy who perpetually\n  referred to the greatest of them without his distinctive pr\u00e6nomen.\n\nFootnote 76:\n\n  Introduction to _W. of N._, p. lii. So the writer of _Progress and\n  Poverty_ tells us \u201cthe doctrine of Malthus did not originally and does\n  not necessarily involve the idea of progression\u201d (Bk. II. ch. i. p.\n  89, ed. 1881).\n\nFootnote 77:\n\n  Bagehot (_Econ. Studies_, p. 136 _seq._), W. R. Greg (_Enigmas of\n  Life_), and Held (_Sociale Geschichte Englands_) may be acquitted, but\n  they are not writers of text-books.\n\nFootnote 78:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, Introduction, p. lii.\n\nFootnote 79:\n\n  See _e. g._ the tract on the _Measure of Value_, p. 23, and cf. _Pol.\n  Ec._ (2nd ed.), p. 234.\n\nFootnote 80:\n\n  Godwin\u2019s _Thoughts on Parr\u2019s Sermon_, 1801, p. 54; cf. Godwin\u2019s\n  _Population_ (1820), Bk. i. 27.\n\nFootnote 81:\n\n  Godwin\u2019s _Life_, by Kegan Paul, vol. i. 321.\n\nFootnote 82:\n\n  Hansard, _sub dato_, p. 1429.\n\nFootnote 83:\n\n  Empson in _Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1837, p. 483; cf. _Essay on\n  Population_, 7th ed. p. 473 n. Empson\u2019s authorship of that article\n  appears from Macvey Napier\u2019s _Correspondence_, p. 187. See below, Book\n  V.\n\nFootnote 84:\n\n  _Works_, vol. viii. p. 440.\n\nFootnote 85:\n\n  _Thoughts on Parr\u2019s Sermon_, p. 56.\n\nFootnote 86:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 17, 47, 48; _Origin of Species_, ch. iii. p. 50.\n  Hence Sir Chas. Lyell even denies the originality of Darwin and\n  Wallace (_Antiquity of Man_, ch. xxi p. 456).\n\nFootnote 87:\n\n  Cf. A. R. Wallace, _Contributions to Theory of Natural Selection_, and\n  the discussions raised thereupon, 1868. See also _Essays in\n  Philosophical Criticism_ (1883), Essay VIII., _The Struggle for\n  Existence_, in which some of the mixed motives are further described.\n\nFootnote 88:\n\n  Appendix to 5th ed., 1817; 7th ed., p. 526. Cf. Bacon (Essay\n  XXXVIII.), \u201cto bend nature like a wand to a contrary extreme whereby\n  to set it aright.\u201d Adam Smith had used the simile of a bent stick to\n  describe the reaction of the French Economists against the Mercantile\n  theorists (_Wealth of Nations_, IV. ix. 300).\n\nFootnote 89:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 367. Cf. Senior\u2019s _Lectures on Population_, p.\n  79, and p. 75, where he compares such progress to the exploits of the\n  snail which every day climbed up a wall four feet and fell back three.\n\nFootnote 90:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 10.\n\nFootnote 91:\n\n  Cf. St. Matth. xix. 12.\n\nFootnote 92:\n\n  MS. notes on p. vii of S. T. Coleridge\u2019s copy of the 2nd ed. of the\n  _Essay_, in Brit. Museum (from the library of his executor, Dr. Joseph\n  H. Green).\n\nFootnote 93:\n\n  See Otter\u2019s biographical preface to Malthus\u2019 _Pol. Ec._ (1836), p.\n  xxxvi, and Otter\u2019s _Life of Clarke_ (1825), i. 437, &c.\n\nFootnote 94:\n\n  See below, Book II. chap. iv.\n\nFootnote 95:\n\n  2nd ed., Book IV. chap, xii.; 7th ed., p. 477.\n\nFootnote 96:\n\n  2nd ed., I. ii. 10, 11; cf. xiv. 180; 7th ed., pp. 8 note, 262, &c.\n\nFootnote 97:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 11.\n\nFootnote 98:\n\n  7th ed., p. 351; so I. ix. 82, \u201cmoral impossibility\u201d of increase, in a\n  case where there is plenty of food, but bad distribution makes it\n  unattainable. The impossibility is due not to physical law but to\n  human institutions (_mores_).\n\nFootnote 99:\n\n  Malthus, _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 387.\n\nFootnote 100:\n\n  In an unpublished MS. quoted in his _Life_, i. 76. His published\n  writings contain nothing quite so strong.\n\nFootnote 101:\n\n  See below, Book III.\n\nFootnote 102:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., B. IV. chap. vi. and ix.\n\nFootnote 103:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, B. V. ch. i. Pt. iii. Art. 2.\n\nFootnote 104:\n\n  _Essay_, Book IV. ch. ix. of 7th ed., esp. p. 439.\n\nFootnote 105:\n\n  Cf. even _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 33, 34, and 324. But see later, B. II.\n  chaps. ii. and iii.\n\nFootnote 106:\n\n  7th ed., Append., p. 495. Cf. Miss Martineau\u2019s _Autob._, vol. i. p.\n  211; cf. pp. 209, 210.\n\nFootnote 107:\n\n  _Life_, vol. i. ch. ix. p. 233.\n\nFootnote 108:\n\n  Ingloriously, because of the severe chapter he wrote in the _Political\n  Justice_, \u2018Of Pensions and Salaries\u2019 (ch. ix. of Bk. VI.).\n\nFootnote 109:\n\n  Cf. _Essay_, 7th ed., II. xiii. p. 259.\n\nFootnote 110:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 2.\n\nFootnote 111:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 3.\n\nFootnote 112:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 3.\n\nFootnote 113:\n\n  1st ed.; see p. 16, above. \u201cFood\u201d in such propositions includes all\n  the outward conditions necessary to life.\n\nFootnote 114:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 4; 7th ed., p. 3.\n\nFootnote 115:\n\n  _l. c._ Franklin\u2019s _Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind_,\n  1751.\n\nFootnote 116:\n\n  _Dissertation on the Poor Laws by a well-wisher to Mankind_ (1786),\n  pp. 42\u201345, 53. He is quoting Dampier\u2019s _Voyages_, vol. i. pt. ii p.\n  88.\n\nFootnote 117:\n\n  It is fair to say that Ulloa, B. II. ch. iv., says \u201ctwo or three\n  goats.\u201d\n\nFootnote 118:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 4; cf. 7th ed., p. 3.\n\nFootnote 119:\n\n  Carey (H. C.) has certainly made a good case for the reverse. See\n  _Princ. of Social Science_, vol. i. ch. iv. (1858).\n\nFootnote 120:\n\n  Letter to Senior, Appendix to Senior\u2019s _Lectures on Population_, pp.\n  60\u201372.\n\nFootnote 121:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 5.\n\nFootnote 122:\n\n  He might have been warned from such by \u201c\u03bf\u1f50 \u03b3\u03b5\u03c9\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u2019 \u1f10\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2\n  \u1f00\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\u201d (Plato, _Republic_, v. 458). But Bacon had applied the same\n  figure still more widely: \u201cCustom goes in arithmetical, Nature in\n  geometrical progression\u201d (_Advancement of L_., VI. iii. 259).\n\nFootnote 123:\n\n  Cf. what is said of the cosmology of Malthus above, pp. 34 _seq._\n\nFootnote 124:\n\n  Or, keeping in view Mr. Carey\u2019s exception, we should say not perhaps\n  the first crop, but the earliest in which the farmer did justice to\n  the known resources of the best land.\n\nFootnote 125:\n\n  _Political Arithmetic\u2014Essay on the Multiplication of Mankind_, 1682,\n  pp. 7, 13 _seq._, especially p. 21 (ed. 1755).\n\nFootnote 126:\n\n  Sir James Caird, _Landed Interest_, 4th ed., 1880, p. 177.\n\nFootnote 127:\n\n  But see below, Bk. II. ch. i.\n\nFootnote 128:\n\n  2nd ed., I. i. p. 8; 7th ed., p. 6.\n\nFootnote 129:\n\n  _Essay_, IV. iii., 7th ed., p. 407.\n\nFootnote 130:\n\n  _Encycl. Brit., art. Population._ Cf. _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 236 n.\n\nFootnote 131:\n\n  Sweden was a favourite with statisticians because Sweden alone at that\n  time furnished sound statistics. For an account of the American\n  population down to 1880, and its probable future, see Mr. Giffen\u2019s\n  Address on the Utility of Common Statistics (Stat. Soc., Dec. 1882).\n\nFootnote 132:\n\n  1804\u201324, or simply from the first census, 1801, to the third, 1821.\n  The increase was such as would double the population of England in\n  fifty-one years at the least (_Essay_, II. ix., 7th ed., p. 217).\n\nFootnote 133:\n\n  _Encycl. Brit._, _l. c._\n\nFootnote 134:\n\n  _Essay_, III. xiv., 7th ed., p. 387.\n\nFootnote 135:\n\n  Caird, _Landed Interest_, pp. 18, 46.\n\nFootnote 136:\n\n  _Encycl. Brit._, _l. c._\n\nFootnote 137:\n\n  Apart, he ought to have said, from prudence in marriage, which would\n  allow each man\u2019s share to be much more than a bare living. But see\n  below, Bk. II. ch. ii.\n\nFootnote 138:\n\n  See below, Bk. II. ch. iii.\n\nFootnote 139:\n\n  By the \u201claw\u201d of decreasing returns. See below, Bk. II. ch. i.\n\nFootnote 140:\n\n  Mr. Giffen, in the Address above quoted, speaks as if Malthus\n  considered the positive checks as the \u201cnatural checks\u201d (p. 531). This,\n  however, is against his distinct statement in _Essay_, 7th ed., App.\n  p. 480.\n\nFootnote 141:\n\n  This is probably the meaning of the author\u2019s phrase, \u201calter the\n  _proportionate amount_ of the checks to population, or the degree in\n  which they press upon the actual numbers\u201d (_Encyclop._, _l. c._, p.\n  415).\n\nFootnote 142:\n\n  See his letter of that date in Macvey Napier\u2019s _Correspondence_, p.\n  29.\n\nFootnote 143:\n\n  It was not published till 1824. It was certainly written after the\n  results of the Census of 1821 had been published.\n\nFootnote 144:\n\n  Pref. to 2nd ed., pp. iv, v; 7th ed., p. vi.\n\nFootnote 145:\n\n  p. 52.\n\nFootnote 146:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 11 n.; 7th ed., p. 9 n.\n\nFootnote 147:\n\n  2nd ed., Pref. p. vii.\n\nFootnote 148:\n\n  2nd ed., Bk. I. ch. ii. p. 10.\n\nFootnote 149:\n\n  Adds the 3rd ed.\n\nFootnote 150:\n\n  3rd ed., p. 21; 7th ed., p. 9.\n\nFootnote 151:\n\n  3rd ed. _l. c._\n\nFootnote 152:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 13; 7th ed., p. 10. His own book has helped to make this\n  less true.\n\nFootnote 153:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 14, 15. With this description of the \u201ccycle\u201d compare the\n  view of Marx as given below in Book IV.\n\nFootnote 154:\n\n  Miss Martineau, _Autob._, vol. i. p. 210.\n\nFootnote 155:\n\n  Reply to Malthus, p. 20. Cf. below, Book IV.\n\nFootnote 156:\n\n  Pref. to 2nd ed., p. vi.\n\nFootnote 157:\n\n  2nd ed., Pref. p. vi. True even then, and much more afterwards.\n\nFootnote 158:\n\n  Godwin, _On Population_, I. iv. 31, 32.\n\nFootnote 159:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 31; 7th ed., p. 23.\n\nFootnote 160:\n\n  _D\u00e9mocratie en Am\u00e9rique_, Pt. II. ch. x. p. 278. The author is in\n  thorough agreement with Malthus.\n\nFootnote 161:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 39; 7th ed., p. 28.\n\nFootnote 162:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 25; 7th ed., p. 18.\n\nFootnote 163:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 43; 7th ed., p. 31.\n\nFootnote 164:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 39; 7th ed., p. 28.\n\nFootnote 165:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 44; 7th ed., p. 32.\n\nFootnote 166:\n\n  Malthus in _Edin. Rev._, July 1803, p. 345.\n\nFootnote 167:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 25; 7th ed., p. 18.\n\nFootnote 168:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 29; 7th ed., p. 21.\n\nFootnote 169:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 37, 45; 7th ed., pp. 27, 32.\n\nFootnote 170:\n\n  Though, like Coleridge (MS. note in another place), he mentions\n  brandy.\n\nFootnote 171:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 43, 92; 7th ed., pp. 31, 64. Cf. I. vi., 2nd ed., p. 82\n  n.; 7th ed., p. 57 n.\n\nFootnote 172:\n\n  See above, pp. 35, 36.\n\nFootnote 173:\n\n  _E. g._ 2nd ed., II. ii. 199; 7th ed., p. 135.\n\nFootnote 174:\n\n  Compare the suggestive remarks of Rogers, _Six Centuries_, pp. 270,\n  271. He thinks that a movement like Lollardism could not have\n  succeeded in times of utter depression.\n\nFootnote 175:\n\n  _Essay_, Book I. ch. v.\n\nFootnote 176:\n\n  _E. g._ cannibalism and late marriages.\n\nFootnote 177:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 46; 7th ed., p. 33. Cf. pp. 290 and 339.\n\nFootnote 178:\n\n  In _Essays_, vol. i., Essay XI., _Populousness of Ancient Nations_, p.\n  444 (ed. 1768).\n\nFootnote 179:\n\n  Cf. Plato, _Repub._, ii.\n\nFootnote 180:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 57; 7th ed., p. 41.\n\nFootnote 181:\n\n  Behm and Wagner (Bev\u00f6lk. d. Erde, 1882) give it at 16,300.\n\nFootnote 182:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 57 n.; 7th ed., p. 40 n.\n\nFootnote 183:\n\n  Report of Admiral D\u2019Horsey to the Admiralty, 1878.\n\nFootnote 184:\n\n  See above, pp. 17, 18.\n\nFootnote 185:\n\n  Behm and Wagner say ninety-three.\n\nFootnote 186:\n\n  _Essay_, Book I. ch. vi.\n\nFootnote 187:\n\n  See above, p. 83.\n\nFootnote 188:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 68 n.; 3rd ed., p. 115 n. He afterwards altered \u201ctotally\u201d\n  to \u201coften entirely,\u201d 7th ed., p. 47 n.\n\nFootnote 189:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, Book IV. ch. vii. Part iii. p. 286 (ed. MacC.).\n\nFootnote 190:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 66; 7th ed., p. 46.\n\nFootnote 191:\n\n  His own word: 2nd ed., p. 67; 7th ed., p. 47.\n\nFootnote 192:\n\n  Gen. xiii. 1\u20139. _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 65; 7th ed., p. 45.\n\nFootnote 193:\n\n  See _e. g._ Mackenzie Wallace: _Russia_, vol. ii. pp. 48, 90, &c.\n\nFootnote 194:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 72; 7th ed., pp. 50, 51.\n\nFootnote 195:\n\n  _Gibbon_, ch. ix. p. 175.\n\nFootnote 196:\n\n  Tacitus, _Germ._ 14.\n\nFootnote 197:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 74, 77; 7th ed., pp. 52, 53.\n\nFootnote 198:\n\n  Ch. ix. 176: \u201cindeed the _impossibility_ of the supposition.\u201d\n\nFootnote 199:\n\n  _Grandeur et D\u00e9cadence des Romains_, ch. xvi. p. 138, ed. 1876.\n\nFootnote 200:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 76; 7th ed., p. 53.\n\nFootnote 201:\n\n  _Ibid._ Bk. I. ch. vii.\n\nFootnote 202:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 99; 7th ed., p. 68.\n\nFootnote 203:\n\n  7th ed., p. 82.\n\nFootnote 204:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 92; 7th ed., p. 63.\n\nFootnote 205:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 94; 7th ed., p. 65.\n\nFootnote 206:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 104; 7th ed., p. 72.\n\nFootnote 207:\n\n  Coleridge (MS. notes) reminds our author that Mahomet allowed\n  oblations of _sand_ for water.\n\nFootnote 208:\n\n  Cf. above, p. 96, &c.\n\nFootnote 209:\n\n  2nd ed., III. xi. 474\u20135; 7th ed., III. xiv. 381.\n\nFootnote 210:\n\n  Especially Book I. ch. x., the chapter on Turkey.\n\nFootnote 211:\n\n  _Essay_, Bk. I. ch. xii., \u2018China and Japan.\u2019\n\nFootnote 212:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 162; 7th ed., p. 112.\n\nFootnote 213:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 175; 7th ed., p. 120.\n\nFootnote 214:\n\n  See _Essay_, Bk. I. chs. xiii., xiv.\n\nFootnote 215:\n\n  Sparta is the chief Greek instance.\n\nFootnote 216:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 172; 7th ed., p. 118.\n\nFootnote 217:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 150; cf. pp. 164, 172\u20133. 7th ed., p. 104; cf. pp. 113,\n  118.\n\nFootnote 218:\n\n  See above, p. 99.\n\nFootnote 219:\n\n  1st ed., p. 119; 7th ed., Appendix, p. 515.\n\nFootnote 220:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 122.\n\nFootnote 221:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 254; 7th ed., p. 246. Cf. 2nd ed., pp. 172, 175, and 67;\n  7th ed., pp. 118, 120, and 47. Cf. Hume, _Pop. of Anc. N._, pp. 487,\n  and especially 504.\n\nFootnote 222:\n\n  7th ed., pp. 163, 387, 394; 2nd ed., pp. 113, 287, 292. Cf. 1st ed.,\n  pp. 118\u201319, 123 n.\n\nFootnote 223:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 178; 7th ed., p. 122.\n\nFootnote 224:\n\n  7th ed., p. 380, top.\n\nFootnote 225:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 175; 7th ed., p. 120.\n\nFootnote 226:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 175; 7th ed., p. 120.\n\nFootnote 227:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 180; 7th ed., p. 124. \u201cIt is therefore upon these causes\n  alone,\u2014independently of [2nd ed. says \u2018besides\u2019] actual\n  enumerations,\u2014on which we can with certainty rely.\u201d\n\nFootnote 228:\n\n  Dr. Wallace, _Dissertation_, p. 55, had given Attica in its palmy days\n  a population of 608 to the square mile; England in the nineteenth\n  century has only 445, and crowded Belgium 487.\n\nFootnote 229:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 54; 7th ed., pp. 120, 122; cf. pp. 262, 434. Cf.\n  _Wealth of Nations_, IV. vii. 254, 255.\n\nFootnote 230:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 598; 7th ed., p. 476.\n\nFootnote 231:\n\n  _l. c._ cf. 2nd ed., pp. 175, 178; 7th ed., pp. 120, 122.\n\nFootnote 232:\n\n  _Essay on Population_, 2nd ed., p. 180; 7th ed., p. 124.\n\nFootnote 233:\n\n  _E. g._ II. iii. 152, 1; IV. ix. 304, 2 (ed. MacC.).\n\nFootnote 234:\n\n  _E. g._ 7th ed., pp. 307, 434, 473\u20134.\n\nFootnote 235:\n\n  Taine, _Angleterre_, pp. 176, 232\u20133.\n\nFootnote 236:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 233.\n\nFootnote 237:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, III. iv. 183, 2, &c.\n\nFootnote 238:\n\n  Bacon, _Nov. Org._, I. xlv.\n\nFootnote 239:\n\n  See below, Bk. IV.\n\nFootnote 240:\n\n  Except the hog, adds Gibbon, _Decl. and F._, ch. ix. p. 171 n.\n\nFootnote 241:\n\n  See above, p. 48.\n\nFootnote 242:\n\n  The phrase on p. 216 of 2nd ed. (p. 148 of 7th), \u201cin the preceding\n  summer of 1788,\u201d is probably a slip. We do not hear elsewhere of any\n  visit so early. See below, Bk. V.\n\nFootnote 243:\n\n  See above, p. 49. Cf. 2nd ed., p. 281; 7th ed., p. 173, &c.\n\nFootnote 244:\n\n  For his other movements and other details of his life, see Bk. V.\n  (Biography).\n\nFootnote 245:\n\n  2nd and 7th edd., Bk. II. ch. i.\n\nFootnote 246:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 189; 7th ed., p. 129.\n\nFootnote 247:\n\n  The Russian figures being incredible. See later, p. 133.\n\nFootnote 248:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 184; 7th ed., p. 126.\n\nFootnote 249:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 188, 189; 7th ed., pp. 128, 129. Cf. Thornton\u2019s chapter\n  (II.) on the \u201cSocial Effects of Peasant Proprietorships,\u201d _Peas.\n  Prop._ (ed. 1874), p. 55.\n\nFootnote 250:\n\n  In 6th ed., 1826. See 7th ed., p. 144.\n\nFootnote 251:\n\n  _English Blue Book on Foreign Poor Laws_, 1875, p. 109.\n\nFootnote 252:\n\n  _Statesman\u2019s Year Book_, 1880, p. 439.\n\nFootnote 253:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p 112.\n\nFootnote 254:\n\n  _E. g._ that of _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 130.\n\nFootnote 255:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 139; cf. pp. 151, 152.\n\nFootnote 256:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 152.\n\nFootnote 257:\n\n  _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. ii.\n\nFootnote 258:\n\n  _Ibid._ Bk. II. ch. iii.\n\nFootnote 259:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 213\u201314; 7th ed., pp. 146, 147.\n\nFootnote 260:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 214\u201315; 7th ed., p. 147, foot.\n\nFootnote 261:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 218; 7th ed., p. 150. Cf. above, p. 30.\n\nFootnote 262:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 219; 7th ed., p. 151. Compare Price, _Observations_, p.\n  280 note; and especially Hume, _Pop. of Anc. N._, p. 445 (ed. 1768).\n\nFootnote 263:\n\n  _Essay_, ibid.\n\nFootnote 264:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 220; 7th ed., p. 151.\n\nFootnote 265:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 221; 7th ed., p. 152.\n\nFootnote 266:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 216\u201317; 7th ed., p. 149.\n\nFootnote 267:\n\n  _Ibid._ 7th ed., Bk. II. chs. iv. to x., as rearranged in the 3rd ed.\n\nFootnote 268:\n\n  _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, pp. 118, 119.\n\nFootnote 269:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., II. v. p. 245; 7th ed., II. iv. p. 159. Cf. 2nd ed.,\n  p. 320; 7th ed., p. 206.\n\nFootnote 270:\n\n  _Ibid._ 2nd ed., p. 347; 7th ed., p. 260.\n\nFootnote 271:\n\n  _Ibid._ 2nd ed., p. 348; 7th ed., p. 260.\n\nFootnote 272:\n\n  See above, p. 18.\n\nFootnote 273:\n\n  So in substance Cairnes in his rehabilitation of the Wages Fund.\n  _Leading Principles_, pp. 196 seq. Cliffe Leslie _passim_.\n\nFootnote 274:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 240; 7th ed., p. 155.\n\nFootnote 275:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 247; 7th ed., p. 160.\n\nFootnote 276:\n\n  \u201cPartout o\u00f9 il se trouve une place o\u00f9 deux personnes peuvent vivre\n  commod\u00e9ment, il se fait un mariage.\u201d\u2014_Esprit des Lois_, Bk. XXIII. ch.\n  x. (not XXII., as in 7th ed.).\n\nFootnote 277:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 247; 7th ed., p. 160.\n\nFootnote 278:\n\n  _Ibid._ 2nd ed., p. 221; 7th ed., p. 152.\n\nFootnote 279:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 248\u20139; 7th ed., pp. 161\u20132.\n\nFootnote 280:\n\n  _Ibid._\n\nFootnote 281:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 246; 7th ed., p. 159. The Italics are the author\u2019s.\n\nFootnote 282:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 247; 7th ed., p. 160.\n\nFootnote 283:\n\n  _Ibid._\n\nFootnote 284:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 205; 7th ed., p. 139.\n\nFootnote 285:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 387 _seq._; 7th ed., pp. 287 _seq._\n\nFootnote 286:\n\n  _Ibid._\n\nFootnote 287:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 391; 7th ed., pp. 289\u201390.\n\nFootnote 288:\n\n  _Ibid._\n\nFootnote 289:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 393; 7th ed., p. 291.\n\nFootnote 290:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 395; 7th ed., p. 292.\n\nFootnote 291:\n\n  _Ibid._\n\nFootnote 292:\n\n  Appointed in March 1826, in the last thirteen months of Lord\n  Liverpool\u2019s Government. Malthus came before them on 5th May, 1827. See\n  _Third Report of Emigration Committee_, pp. 9, 10, and for his\n  evidence pp. 311 _seq._\n\nFootnote 293:\n\n  1st Report, 1826 (May); 2nd, 1827 (April). The free use of technical\n  terms is not surprising, for political economy was then a popular\n  study. For examples see 1st Report, pp. 46, 57; 2nd Report, pp. 63,\n  102; 3rd Report, pp. 261, 308.\n\nFootnote 294:\n\n  2nd Report.\n\nFootnote 295:\n\n  3rd Report, 1827 (June).\n\nFootnote 296:\n\n  p. 9.\n\nFootnote 297:\n\n  Cf. below, ch. vii. (on Ireland), especially pp. 197 and 199.\n\nFootnote 298:\n\n  3rd Report, p. 315, qu. 3257.\n\nFootnote 299:\n\n  The Emigration Committee recommended that the help of the state should\n  only be given on condition of a local initiative and local\n  contribution.\n\nFootnote 300:\n\n  See _e. g._ qu. 3370.\n\nFootnote 301:\n\n  7th ed., p. 292.\n\nFootnote 302:\n\n  _W. of N._, I. viii. 36 (MacC.\u2019s ed.). \u201cOther\u201d is not a slip; the\n  writer is conscious of his cynicism.\n\nFootnote 303:\n\n  _Essay_, III. iv. 293, of which the concluding paragraph was added in\n  1817.\n\nFootnote 304:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., Bk. II. ch. v.\n\nFootnote 305:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 275\u20136; 7th ed., p. 169.\n\nFootnote 306:\n\n  Or \u201cLeyzin,\u201d as Malthus spells it.\n\nFootnote 307:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 271; 7th ed., p. 166.\n\nFootnote 308:\n\n  Average sixty-one years.\n\nFootnote 309:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 274; 7th ed., p. 168.\n\nFootnote 310:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 280; 7th ed., p. 173, top. The remark savours of paradox.\n\nFootnote 311:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 280, foot; 7th ed., p. 173.\n\nFootnote 312:\n\n  _Ibid._ p. 281; 7th ed., p. 173.\n\nFootnote 313:\n\n  See above, p. 127.\n\nFootnote 314:\n\n  Compare above on \u201coscillations,\u201d p. 147, and below, Bk. II. chs. ii.\n  and iii.\n\nFootnote 315:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., Bk. II. chs. vi., vii.\n\nFootnote 316:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 285; 7th ed., p. 175.\n\nFootnote 317:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 296; cf. 7th ed., p. 182 n. \u201cIndeed in adopting Sir F.\n  d\u2019Ivernois\u2019s calculations respecting the actual loss of men during the\n  Revolution, I never thought myself borne out by facts, but the reader\n  will be aware that I adopted them rather for the sake of illustration\n  than from supposing them strictly true.\u201d\n\nFootnote 318:\n\n  7th ed., p. 188.\n\nFootnote 319:\n\n  7th ed., p. 176; cf. p. 175.\n\nFootnote 320:\n\n  7th ed., pp. 177, 181 n.\n\nFootnote 321:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 178 and n.\n\nFootnote 322:\n\n  Not above suspicion. See 7th ed., p. 176 n.\n\nFootnote 323:\n\n  The military advantage of an increasing population is pointed out also\n  in the article on Newenham\u2019s \u2018Ireland,\u2019 _Edin. Rev._, July 1808, p.\n  350.\n\nFootnote 324:\n\n  Cf. Josiah Tucker, _On Trade_, p. 17 (3rd ed., 1753).\n\nFootnote 325:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 297 n; 7th ed., p. 185, which omits one clause.\n  Cf. 2nd ed., pp. 290\u20131; 7th ed., pp. 179, 180.\n\nFootnote 326:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 291; 7th ed., pp. 179, 180. Cf. the often-quoted passages\n  about the bleak rock and the garden, written (be it remarked) before\n  and not after the Revolution, in Arthur Young\u2019s _Travels in France_\n  (Bury St. Edmunds, 1792), pp. 36, 37, 42; cf. p. 341.\n\nFootnote 327:\n\n  _E. g._ 5th, 1817; 7th ed., ch. vii.\n\nFootnote 328:\n\n  7th ed., p. 188.\n\nFootnote 329:\n\n  Arthur Young, _Travels in France_, pp. 410, 437.\n\nFootnote 330:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 189.\n\nFootnote 331:\n\n  Cf. Fyffe, _Mod. Europe_, i. 124.\n\nFootnote 332:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 189.\n\nFootnote 333:\n\n  A characteristic utilitarian touch. 2nd ed., p. 295, top; 7th ed., p.\n  183.\n\nFootnote 334:\n\n  _Ibid._\n\nFootnote 335:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 294; 7th ed., p. 183.\n\nFootnote 336:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 320 (III. vii.).\n\nFootnote 337:\n\n  Levasseur, _France avec ses Colonies_ (1875), p. 842. According to\n  Anderson, _Chron. Ded._, Vol. III. p. xliii, some said twenty, others\n  seventeen. But Mr. Kitchin cites Vauban to show that there had been a\n  decline in population from fifteen to thirteen millions between the\n  beginning of the war of Succession and the end of it (1702,\n  1713).\u2014_History of France_, vol. iii. p. 342. Cf. Fox Bourne\u2019s _Life\n  of Locke_, i. p. 350; Vauban\u2019s _D\u00eeme Royale_, pp. 162\u20133.\n\nFootnote 338:\n\n  Josiah Tucker, _Essay on Trade_ (3rd ed., 1753), p. 14. There may be\n  rhetorical exaggeration in his statements. \u201cThe subordination of the\n  common people is an unspeakable advantage to the French in respect to\n  trade. By this means the manufacturers [workmen] are always kept\n  industrious. They dare not run into debauchery; to drunkenness they\n  are not inclined. They are [practically by the law of military\n  service] obliged to enter into the married state, whereby they raise\n  up large families to labour, and keep down the price of it; and\n  consequently, by working cheaper, enable the merchant to sell the\n  cheaper.\u201d\n\nFootnote 339:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, IV. iii. pp. 220\u20131.\n\nFootnote 340:\n\n  See above, p. 155. Levasseur makes it twenty-five; Arthur Young, who\n  considers France over-populated by five or six millions, makes it\n  twenty-six (_Travels in France_, pp. 468\u20139; cf. p. 474). Price had\n  made it thirty.\n\nFootnote 341:\n\n  _Grounds of an Opinion_, &c., p. 12. See below, Bk. II. ch. i.\n\nFootnote 342:\n\n  Census as given in _Annuaire de l\u2019\u00c9conomie Politique_ (1882), p. 899.\n\nFootnote 343:\n\n  _Political Economy_ (1820), pp. 433 _seq._ Cliffe Leslie (_Mor. and\n  Pol. Essays_, 1879, p. 424) attributes the few births to the very Law\n  of Succession of which Malthus was afraid.\n\nFootnote 344:\n\n  In the country districts at least. On the relation of luxury to trade,\n  &c., see below, Bk. II. ch. iii. p. 268.\n\nFootnote 345:\n\n  _E. g._ by M. Levasseur in _La France avec ses Colonies_ (1875), p.\n  853.\n\nFootnote 346:\n\n  Appendix to _Wealth of Nations_, note iv. p. 465.\n\nFootnote 347:\n\n  Levasseur, _l. c._ pp. 845, 846 ft.\n\nFootnote 348:\n\n  _Times_, Jan. 1883.\n\nFootnote 349:\n\n  _English Registrar-General\u2019s 45th Report_, for 1882, pp. cii, cvii.\n\nFootnote 350:\n\n  Levasseur, _La France_, _l. c._\n\nFootnote 351:\n\n  E. g. _Times_, _l. c._\n\nFootnote 352:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. xiii. p. 474; 2nd ed., IV. xi. p. 594.\n\nFootnote 353:\n\n  2nd ed., II. ix.; 7th ed., II. viii, ix.\n\nFootnote 354:\n\n  1st ed., pp. 63, 64.\n\nFootnote 355:\n\n  1st ed., pp. 65\u20136; cf. 2nd ed., p. 300, and 7th ed., p. 193.\n\nFootnote 356:\n\n  See below, Bk. II. ch. iv., &c.\n\nFootnote 357:\n\n  The numbers given then were five millions.\u2014Froude, _Hist. of England_,\n  i. 3.\n\nFootnote 358:\n\n  See Hansard, _Parl. Hist._, xiv. 1317.\n\nFootnote 359:\n\n  Not unfelt in 1801. So Arthur Young speaks as if the agricultural\n  interest had not unfrequently regarded the Board of Agriculture as a\n  new instrument of taxation. (_Report on Suffolk_, p. 16.)\n\nFootnote 360:\n\n  In charge of Rev. Alexander Webster.\n\nFootnote 361:\n\n  _Parl. Hist._, vol. xv. p. 69, quoted by Mahon, _Hist. of England_,\n  sub dato, ch. xxxi. p. 39. Cf. Trevelyan, _Early Life of Fox_, ch. i.\n  p. 14.\n\nFootnote 362:\n\n  Dr. Adam Anderson, _Chronological Deduc. of Commerce_, Introd., p.\n  xliii.; first printed in 1762.\n\nFootnote 363:\n\n  See especially _Estimate_ (7th ed., 1758), Vol. I. Pt. II. sect. viii.\n  pp. 186 _seq._\n\nFootnote 364:\n\n  _Chron. Ded._, ibid.\n\nFootnote 365:\n\n  _I. e._ to the discussion described by Dr. Anderson. Cf. Malthus,\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 164. Muret\u2019s pessimistic paper was printed in\n  1766.\n\nFootnote 366:\n\n  In his _Political Arithmetic_, 1774.\n\nFootnote 367:\n\n  _Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the present\n  and four preceding Reigns_, by George Chalmers, F.R.S., S.A., 1st ed.,\n  1782.\n\nFootnote 368:\n\n  _Natural and Political Observations_, 1696. _Apud_ Davenant and\n  Chalmers.\n\nFootnote 369:\n\n  _Primitive Origination of Mankind._\n\nFootnote 370:\n\n  _Political Survey of Great Britain_, 1774.\n\nFootnote 371:\n\n  Cf. Chalmers, _Estimate_, p. 4, Pref. p. cxxxviii., and John Howlett\u2019s\n  _Examination of Dr. Price\u2019s Essay_ (Maidstone), 1781.\n\nFootnote 372:\n\n  Cf. Macaulay, _History_, ch. iii. 137.\n\nFootnote 373:\n\n  _Observations_, supplement, p. 366. Cf. Malthus, _Essay_, App. p. 519.\n  Arthur Young, _France_, p. 409. The whole subject will be considered\n  later in connection with Scotland.\n\nFootnote 374:\n\n  See _Observations on Smuggling_, 1779.\n\nFootnote 375:\n\n  But see the _caveat_ in the _Registrar-General\u2019s 44th Report_ (for\n  1881), p. vi.: The price of wheat and the marriage rate do not always\n  vary inversely.\n\nFootnote 376:\n\n  In the same way the returns to the Board of Agriculture at the end of\n  the century are full of (not quite disinterested) praises of\n  enclosures as an encouragement of population.\n\nFootnote 377:\n\n  Lecky, _Eighteenth Cent._, i. 261, 479 _seq._ Restrictions on the sale\n  were successfully adopted by Pelham in 1751, at the time when the\n  question of depopulation was coming to the front.\n\nFootnote 378:\n\n  An unsafe presumption. See below, Bk. II. ch. ii., &c.\n\nFootnote 379:\n\n  _E. g._ inoculation.\n\nFootnote 380:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 317; 7th ed., p. 198, compared with 7th ed., p.\n  189, &c., above, pp. 115\u201316.\n\nFootnote 381:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 198 note; first printed in 3rd ed. (1806), p. 461\n  n.\n\nFootnote 382:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 302 n.; 7th ed., p. 194 n.\n\nFootnote 383:\n\n  This is asserted in the _Preliminary Report_ to the last English\n  census (1881). Against the idea, see the _Annual Register\u2019s_ reviews\n  of Eden\u2019s work on the _Poor_ (1797), and of his _Estimate_ of English\n  numbers (1800). The _Register_ had numbered Burke and Godwin among its\n  writers, and was not likely to be behind public opinion.\n\nFootnote 384:\n\n  See the review of Arthur Young\u2019s _Question of Scarcity plainly\n  stated_, 1800, in _Ann. Register_, sub dato.\n\nFootnote 385:\n\n  Chairman of the Committee on the Public Finances 1797, Speaker of the\n  Commons 1802, Lord Colchester 1817.\n\nFootnote 386:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 318; 7th ed., p. 204. Cf. 2nd ed., p. 317; 7th ed., pp.\n  192, 203, 206, 219, &c.\n\nFootnote 387:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 311; 7th ed., pp. 201, 202, foot. Compare _44th Rept. of\n  Reg.-Gen._ (England), p. v.\n\nFootnote 388:\n\n  As _e. g._ in 1800\u20131 compared with 1802\u20133; 7th ed., p. 214.\n\nFootnote 389:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 319; 7th ed., p. 205. Cf. passages cited on last page.\n\nFootnote 390:\n\n  Cf. _Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 308\u20139; 7th ed., pp. 198\u20139.\n\nFootnote 391:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 312\u201313; 7th ed., p. 201. The 2nd ed. has a reference to\n  \u201cthe late scarcities\u201d wanting in the later edds. Registration, be it\n  remembered, was then of baptisms and burials, not births and deaths.\n\nFootnote 392:\n\n  See above, p. 176. Cf. on the other hand the concession, 2nd ed., p.\n  317; 7th ed., p. 203, middle.\n\nFootnote 393:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 319; 7th ed., pp. 205\u20136.\n\nFootnote 394:\n\n  7th ed., p. 188.\n\nFootnote 395:\n\n  Rickman himself allowed their defectiveness. See _Essay_, 2nd ed., p.\n  304; 7th ed., p. 196. Cf. above, p. 179.\n\nFootnote 396:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 302; 7th ed., p. 194. By the _Registrar-General\u2019s Report_\n  for 1882 it was as 1 in 64\u00bd in that year.\n\nFootnote 397:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 303; 7th ed., p. 195.\n\nFootnote 398:\n\n  7th ed., p. 205.\n\nFootnote 399:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 213\u201314; 7th ed., p. 202.\n\nFootnote 400:\n\n  _45th Report of Registrar-General_ (England), (1882), p. ci.\n\nFootnote 401:\n\n  7th ed., p. 210.\n\nFootnote 402:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 302; 7th ed., p. 194 n.\n\nFootnote 403:\n\n  Numbers calculated by \u201cnatural increment,\u201d _i. e._ births\n  and deaths\u201426,138,248; numbers actually\n  enumerated\u201425,968,286.\u2014_Preliminary Report_, p. iii.\n\nFootnote 404:\n\n  \u201931\u2013\u201941, incr. 14.52; \u201971\u2013\u201981, incr. 14.34.\n\nFootnote 405:\n\n  Or three and a quarter millions of people to England and Wales alone.\n\nFootnote 406:\n\n  7th ed., II. ix. p. 215 (written first in 5th ed., 1817).\n\nFootnote 407:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 258; cf. _Prel. Rept. Census_, 1881, p. ix.\n\nFootnote 408:\n\n  The account of Scotland in the _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. x., is taken from\n  the _Statistical Account_ of Sir John Sinclair, 1791\u201399. Sinclair was\n  acting, on the south side of the Tweed, as President of the Board of\n  Agriculture. See below, Bk. II. ch. i. p. 218.\n\nFootnote 409:\n\n  There was very little in Scotland. It is only once mentioned by Adam\n  Smith. MacCulloch says \u201cnever,\u201d but he had overlooked _Wealth of\n  Nations_, IV. vii. 251\u20132.\n\nFootnote 410:\n\n  The last of late introduction. See _Reports to Board of Agriculture:\n  Central Highlands_ (1794), p. 21.\n\nFootnote 411:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 384; 7th ed., p. 229.\n\nFootnote 412:\n\n  Not feudal but pre-feudal, or allodial. See _Wealth of Nations_, III.\n  iv. 183, 1.\n\nFootnote 413:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, ibid.\n\nFootnote 414:\n\n  Selkirk, _Highlands_, 1805, p. 25.\n\nFootnote 415:\n\n  See the _Legend of Montrose_, &c.\n\nFootnote 416:\n\n  Adam Smith, _l. c._; cf. I. viii 36, 1 (the often-quoted description\n  of \u201chalf-starved highland women\u201d with their twenty children in\n  contrast to the \u201cpampered fine lady\u201d with few or none.)\n\nFootnote 417:\n\n  _Reports to Board of Agriculture: Central Highlands_, 1794, p. 52.\n\nFootnote 418:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, III. iv. 184, 1 (written 1774), a passage which\n  shows that the clearances and the consequent cry of Depopulation are\n  to be looked for as early as the middle of the century. We are\n  sometimes told that from the \u201945 to the end of the century was the\n  golden age of highland farmers. But the willingness of the clansmen to\n  enter Chatham\u2019s highland regiments would hardly imply great\n  contentment.\n\nFootnote 419:\n\n  Cf. _Essay on Pop._, pp. 332 (2nd ed.), 227 (7th ed.), and Selkirk,\n  _l. c._, pp. 43 _seq._ _Contra_, see _Report of Crofters Commission_,\n  1884, p. 51.\n\nFootnote 420:\n\n  Made under the Marquis of Stafford between 1807 and 1820, in which\n  year the popular odium was at its height, and the landlord made his\n  defence in a well-known pamphlet by his factor, James Loch.\n\nFootnote 421:\n\n  Cf. Malthus, _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 229, top; cf. pp. 221 ft., 223 ft.;\n  2nd ed., pp. 326\u20137.\n\nFootnote 422:\n\n  See Malthus, _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 227. Cf. Farr in _Statist. Journ._,\n  16th Feb. 1846.\n\nFootnote 423:\n\n  Drawn chiefly from the _Statistical Account of Scotland_, 1791\u201399.\n\nFootnote 424:\n\n  Lavergne, _Econ. Rur. de l\u2019Angleterre_, ch. xx. p. 310.\n\nFootnote 425:\n\n  The 6th simply adds the numbers of the people from the census of 1821,\n  with hardly any comment.\n\nFootnote 426:\n\n  2nd ed. says \u201cbarbarism.\u201d\n\nFootnote 427:\n\n  2nd ed., \u201cdepressed.\u201d\n\nFootnote 428:\n\n  2nd ed. adds, \u201cby the filth of their persons.\u201d\n\nFootnote 429:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 334\u20135; 7th ed., p. 229. He refers to the rebellion of\n  1795\u201398, that was prelude to the Union of 1800, and was fresh in his\n  memory.\n\nFootnote 430:\n\n  _Edin. Review_, July 1808, the only review in that journal assigned to\n  him by express testimony.\n\nFootnote 431:\n\n  _3rd Report of Emigration Committee_ (1827), Evid., qu. 3225.\n\nFootnote 432:\n\n  In the article on Newenham he incidentally utters the paradox that in\n  view of the low standard of food the people\u2019s indolence is almost an\n  advantage, for it prevents wages falling quite down to that\n  level.\u2014Art. p. 341. Cf. _Essay_, IV. xi. 456\u20137. For his view of\n  potatoes in Ireland, _ibid._, 453.\n\nFootnote 433:\n\n  Cf. _Review of Newenham_, p. 352.\n\nFootnote 434:\n\n  Cf. Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_ (1884), p. 484.\n\nFootnote 435:\n\n  In a sense already frequently noticed. So in answer 3401, where he\n  seems to accept the phrase \u201cmoral degradation\u201d as applied to Ireland.\n\nFootnote 436:\n\n  Cf. above, pp. 95 and 195 n. Professor Rogers must have forgotten such\n  passages as these when he wrote the 62nd and 63rd pages of his _Six\n  Centuries of Work and Wages_ (1884), though he furnishes his own\n  correction on a following page (484).\n\nFootnote 437:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, V. iii. 430, 1, 2.\n\nFootnote 438:\n\n  Sir Wm. Petty made it 1,100,000 in 1672. See MacCulloch, Append. to\n  _Wealth of Nations_, (IV.) 462.\n\nFootnote 439:\n\n  See Sir H. Parnell\u2019s evidence in _3rd Report to Emigration Committee_,\n  1827, p. 200. He thinks that between 1792 and 1821 the population of\n  Ireland had doubled itself.\n\nFootnote 440:\n\n  Malthus, Evidence before Emigration Committee, 1827; _3rd Report_, qu.\n  3430, p. 327.\n\nFootnote 441:\n\n  Querist (1735) 134: \u201cWhether if there was a wall of brass a thousand\n  cubits high round this kingdom, our natives might not nevertheless\n  live cleanly and comfortably, till the land, and reap the fruits of\n  it?\u201d The \u201ccaged rats\u201d of the Corn Law pamphlets give us the other side\n  of the question.\n\nFootnote 442:\n\n  \u201cOf such consequence in the encouragement of any industry is a steady\n  unvarying policy.\u201d\u2014\u2014Arthur Young, _France_, p. 388.\n\nFootnote 443:\n\n  See above, p. 151, &c.\n\nFootnote 444:\n\n  See above, pp. 191\u20132.\n\nFootnote 445:\n\n  _l. c._ p. 399. Cf. Lecky, _Eighteenth Cent._, vol. ii. pp. 222\n  _seq._; _Review of Newenham_, pp. 349, 350.\n\nFootnote 446:\n\n  See above, p. 18.\n\nFootnote 447:\n\n  7th ed., p. 378 ft. Cf. _Polit. Econ._, 1st ed., pp. 252, 290, and 394\n  _seq._\n\nFootnote 448:\n\n  _Essay_, III. viii. 323 (first in 5th ed.). See later, p. 268, &c.\n\nFootnote 449:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., pp. 452\u20133; 2nd ed., pp. 575\u20136.\n\nFootnote 450:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 323 ft. (7th); MacCulloch, Appendix to _W. of N._, p. 467,\n  2.\n\nFootnote 451:\n\n  _Essay on Pop._, 2nd ed., p. 576; 7th ed., p. 453 ft.\n\nFootnote 452:\n\n  _Lavergne_, pp. 423\u20134.\n\nFootnote 453:\n\n  Even in 1875 the Registrar-General\u2019s Report showed that there were\n  then fewer marriages in Ireland than in England, in proportion to the\n  population, and that they came later. Cf. the _18th Report_, for\n  Ireland (1882), pp. 18, 19.\n\nFootnote 454:\n\n  _Review of Newenham_, pp. 351\u20134.\n\nFootnote 455:\n\n  See above, Bk. I. ch. i.\n\nFootnote 456:\n\n  2nd ed., Bk. III. chs. i. to iii.; 7th ed., Bk. III. chs. i. and ii.\n\nFootnote 457:\n\n  7th ed., ch. iii. (on Owen, &c.), which replaces a reply (2nd and 3rd\n  edd.) to Godwin\u2019s first reply.\n\nFootnote 458:\n\n  All except those on pauperism. When pauperism is reached, the thread\n  of the essay is again taken up.\n\nFootnote 459:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, 1820, Introd. p. 11. Cf. _Tract on Value_, p. 60 ft.,\n  and above, p. 37.\n\nFootnote 460:\n\n  _High Price of Bullion_, 1809. See below, p. 285.\n\nFootnote 461:\n\n  Malthus, _Pol. Econ._, Introd. pp. 2, 5, 22, &c.; _Essay on Pop._,\n  Pref. &c.; Ricardo, _Principles of Pol. Econ. and Taxn._ (1817), Pref.\n\nFootnote 462:\n\n  Life of Ricardo in preface to _Works_, p. xxxi.\n\nFootnote 463:\n\n  J. S. Mill, _Political Economy_, 1848 and 1849. It was not a complete\n  breach. The new faith and the old perplex each other and the reader,\n  in the pages of Mill.\n\nFootnote 464:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, Introd. Cf. the Discussions on the Measure of Value,\n  _Pol. Econ._, ch. ii., and pamphlet on the subject. So Roscher,\n  _National\u00f6konomie_, \u00a7 1 and n.\n\nFootnote 465:\n\n  Arist., _Ethics_, i. (3).\n\nFootnote 466:\n\n  \u201c_Definitions in Political Economy_, preceded by an inquiry into the\n  rules which ought to guide political economists in the definition and\n  use of their terms, with remarks on the deviations from these rules in\n  their writings\u201d (1827), p. 5.\n\nFootnote 467:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, Introd. p. 11.\n\nFootnote 468:\n\n  _Definitions_, p. 4.\n\nFootnote 469:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 5.\n\nFootnote 470:\n\n  _Definitions_, pp. 6, 7.\n\nFootnote 471:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 28. \u201cAnd have an exchangeable value,\u201d was the\n  Ricardian addition; and in the _Quarterly Rev._, Jan. 1824, p. 298,\n  Malthus weakly allows the addition to pass.\n\nFootnote 472:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, Introd. p. 11.\n\nFootnote 473:\n\n  MacCulloch, _Life of Ricardo_, prefixed to _Princ. of Econ. and\n  Taxation_ (ed. 1876), p. xxv.\n\nFootnote 474:\n\n  Letter quoted by Empson in _Edin. Review_, Jan. 1837.\n\nFootnote 475:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, Pref. pp. 12, 13 (2nd ed.). Cf. above, p. 57.\n\nFootnote 476:\n\n  Arist., _Ethics_, x. 1. Some thought pleasure was the goal, but, for\n  the sake of others, \u201cone must not say so.\u201d\n\nFootnote 477:\n\n  See below, ch. iv.\n\nFootnote 478:\n\n  Porter\u2019s _Progress of the Nation_, p. 148 (ed. 1851). Cf. MacCulloch,\n  _Wealth of Nations_, Notes, p. 525.\n\nFootnote 479:\n\n  Dissolved in 1817.\n\nFootnote 480:\n\n  Between 1767 and his death in 1820, he wrote no less than a hundred\n  volumes on agriculture. His bet is given in Sir J. Sinclair\u2019s _Life_\n  by Archdeacon Sinclair, i. 253.\n\nFootnote 481:\n\n  At the end of 1801.\n\nFootnote 482:\n\n  _Communications to Board of Agriculture_, iv. 232\u20135 (1805). Cf. _Ann.\n  Reg._, 1801, p. 131.\n\nFootnote 483:\n\n  _E. g._ that the members should always use mixed instead of pure\n  wheaten flour.\n\nFootnote 484:\n\n  _Ann. Reg._, 1801, p. 129.\n\nFootnote 485:\n\n  As was done, _e. g._, by Chief Justice Kenyon, King\u2019s Bench, Rex _v._\n  John Rusby, Nov. 1799.\n\nFootnote 486:\n\n  See J. S. Girdler, _Forestalling_, &c. (1800), S. J. Pratt\u2019s poem on\n  _Bread for the Poor_ (1800).\n\nFootnote 487:\n\n  Girdler, _l. c._ pp. 46,48, &c.\n\nFootnote 488:\n\n  Philps, _Progress of Great Britain_, p. 132.\n\nFootnote 489:\n\n  Cf. the figures given in Malthus\u2019 _Tract on Value_, pp. 69\u201379, and in\n  Professor Rogers\u2019 _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, pp. 487\n  _seq._,\u2014both of them taken chiefly from Eden on the Poor.\n\nFootnote 490:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, I. viii. 44, 1.\n\nFootnote 491:\n\n  On the whole subject see Craik, _Hist. of Commerce_, ii. 142\u20135.\n\nFootnote 492:\n\n  Macpherson, ditto, iii. 148 (year 1728), 307 (year 1757).\n\nFootnote 493:\n\n  _Ibid._, iii. 329, 331; MacC., _Comm. Dict._ (ed. 1871), p. 430.\n\nFootnote 494:\n\n  Cf. _Essay on Population_, p. 352 (7th ed.). Cf. above, p. 25.\n\nFootnote 495:\n\n  Macpherson, iii. 438, 452.\n\nFootnote 496:\n\n  Cf. Malthus, _Essay on Pop._, p. 453 (2nd ed.); _Grounds of on\n  Opinion_, &c., p. 43.\n\nFootnote 497:\n\n  E. g. _National Industry of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 208\u20139 (1779).\n  MacCulloch has quoted other passages (_Wealth of Nations_, xlviii. n.,\n  and _Note on Rent_, p. 453, 1, and n.). Sir Edward West agrees with\n  Malthus in his qualified approval of the Corn Laws. See _Price of\n  Corn_, &c., p. 139.\n\nFootnote 498:\n\n  A reprint of the 3rd (?)\n\nFootnote 499:\n\n  If we include the _Crisis_, it would be the fifth time.\n\nFootnote 500:\n\n  It was popular enough to reach a 3rd edition in 1815.\n\nFootnote 501:\n\n  See _Grounds of an Opinion_, &c., p. 2.\n\nFootnote 502:\n\n  _Observations_, pp. 20\u20131.\n\nFootnote 503:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 17.\n\nFootnote 504:\n\n  The English price in Nov. 1884.\n\nFootnote 505:\n\n  _Observations_, pp. 19, 22, 23, 27.\n\nFootnote 506:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 28. If the Ricardian hypothesis is not true of\n  individuals, it is still less true of Governments, as Cobden\n  experienced.\n\nFootnote 507:\n\n  _Ibid._, pp. 30, 31.\n\nFootnote 508:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 32: \u201cMany of the questions both in morals and politics\n  seem to be of the nature of the problems _de maximis et minimis_ in\n  fluxions; in which there is always a point where a certain effect is\n  the greatest, while on either side of this point it gradually\n  diminishes.\u201d\n\nFootnote 509:\n\n  Cf. even _Observations_, pp. 5, 12, 13.\n\nFootnote 510:\n\n  See below, chs. ii. and iii.\n\nFootnote 511:\n\n  The expression of Grenville in a letter to Pitt, 1800. See Stanhope,\n  _Life of Pitt_, ii. 371.\n\nFootnote 512:\n\n  Unless perhaps Mr. Bagehot\u2019s. Col. Thompson understood the theory of\n  population only in its cruder form. In answer 337 of the _Catechism_\n  (1839) he meets the objection that free trade would only increase\n  population by saying: \u201cNo man has a right to prevent us running a\n  constant race with hunger if we can.\u201d\n\nFootnote 513:\n\n  _Grounds_, &c., p. 46 n.\n\nFootnote 514:\n\n  _Ibid._, pp. 3, 11, 12,\n\nFootnote 515:\n\n  _Ibid._, pp. 30, 33.\n\nFootnote 516:\n\n  Ricardo, _Works_, p. 33[8?]5 (MacC.\u2019s ed.). For remarks on this part\n  of Malthus\u2019 tract see _ibid._, p. 382.\n\nFootnote 517:\n\n  _Grounds_, &c., p. 36 n. Cf. Ricardo, p. 390.\n\nFootnote 518:\n\n  See above, p. 211.\n\nFootnote 519:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, ch. iii. sect. i. p. 134 (1820).\n\nFootnote 520:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, I. xi., beginning.\n\nFootnote 521:\n\n  He does not always prefix this qualification; but that he intended it\n  appears clearly from the _Tract on Rent_, p. 3 n.: Not every land that\n  yields food will yield rent. Cf. _Pol Econ._ (1820), p. 141.\n\nFootnote 522:\n\n  Compare _Tract on Rent_, p. 16 n.\n\nFootnote 523:\n\n  The title of the tract is, _An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of\n  Rent, and the Principles by which it is regulated_. It appears from a\n  letter of Malthus to Sir John Sinclair on 31st Jan., 1815, that it was\n  passing through the press in that month. Sinclair, _Correspondence_,\n  i. 391 (1831).\n\nFootnote 524:\n\n  As, he might have added, in education.\n\nFootnote 525:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 142, but especially p. 187. Cf. _Tract on\n  Rent_, pp. 8\u201312.\n\nFootnote 526:\n\n  _Rent_, p. 10.\n\nFootnote 527:\n\n  Cf. also below, p. 294.\n\nFootnote 528:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, IV. ii. 307, 2; cf. IV. v. 240, 2.\n\nFootnote 529:\n\n  _Essay on the Application of Capital to Land_, with observations\n  showing the impolicy of any great restriction of the importation of\n  corn, and that the bounty of 1688 did not lower the price of it. By a\n  fellow of University College, Oxford. (London, 1815.) Page 2.\n\nFootnote 530:\n\n  _W. of N._, II. iii. 148, 1.\n\nFootnote 531:\n\n  _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 363.\n\nFootnote 532:\n\n  _Tract on Rent_, p. 16; _Essay on Pop._ (7th ed.), p. 327. Cf. above.\n\nFootnote 533:\n\n  _Rent_, p. 20; cf. pp. 18, 57. _Essay on Pop._, 2nd ed., p. 433; 7th\n  ed., p. 327. \u201cIf we look only to the clear monied rent,\u201d &c.\n\nFootnote 534:\n\n  Ricardo, Preface to _Principles of Pol. Econ. and Taxation_.\n\nFootnote 535:\n\n  Reprinted by MacCulloch in his edition of _Pol. Econ. and Taxation_,\n  pp. 367\u2013390.\n\nFootnote 536:\n\n  MacCulloch ed. of _Pol. Econ. and Taxation_, p. 374 n.\n\nFootnote 537:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 371.\n\nFootnote 538:\n\n  So Prof. Rogers ascribes the high rents of the seventeenth and\n  eighteenth centuries very largely to the low wages; higher ones would\n  have \u201creduced rent first, and profits afterwards.\u201d\u2014_Six Centuries_, p.\n  482; cf. pp. 480 and 492.\n\nFootnote 539:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 161 (ch. iii. sect. iii.).\n\nFootnote 540:\n\n  _Pol. Econ. and Taxation_, pp. 373, 375, 379\u201380; cf. pp. 71 and 72,\n  but especially 68 ft. Malthus on the whole follows Adam Smith, I. ix.;\n  Mill has followed Ricardo.\n\nFootnote 541:\n\n  So far as the account is meant to be historical, it must be corrected\n  by Carey. See above, p. 65.\n\nFootnote 542:\n\n  Ricardo, _l. c._ p. 372 and n. Cf. below. He appeals to Adam Smith\u2019s\n  principle of compensation (_Wealth of Nations_, I. x.).\n\nFootnote 543:\n\n  Rogers (_Six Centuries_, p. 352) goes so far the other way as to make\n  improvements the only cause of an increase of rent, though the passage\n  should be read with p. 480, and especially pp. 482 and 492.\n\nFootnote 544:\n\n  _E. g._ Mrs. Fawcett, _Pol. Econ. for Beginners_, pp. 65, 66; and even\n  West, on _Rent_, p. 50.\n\nFootnote 545:\n\n  _3rd Report_, 1827, p. 321, qu. 3341. Cf. Perr. Thompson, _True Theory\n  of Rent_, pp. 8, 12, 34, &c. (1832, 9th ed.).\n\nFootnote 546:\n\n  _Tract on Value_, p. 6.\n\nFootnote 547:\n\n  Ricardo, _Low Price of Corn_, &c., _Works_, pp. 373, 380, 381, &c.\n\nFootnote 548:\n\n  _Ibid._, pp. 377, 379.\n\nFootnote 549:\n\n  Ricardo, _Works_, _l. c._ p. 378.\n\nFootnote 550:\n\n  _Pol. Econ. and Tax._, ibid. pp. 50 _seq._, esp. pp. 54, 55.\n\nFootnote 551:\n\n  _l. c._ p. 55 ft.\n\nFootnote 552:\n\n  _Low Price_, &c., _ibid._, p. 379.\n\nFootnote 553:\n\n  _Pol. Econ. and Tax._, ch. v.; cf. Malthus, _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p.\n  230.\n\nFootnote 554:\n\n  But cf. _Works_, p. 377 n.\n\nFootnote 555:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, IV. iii \u00a7 4. Cf. Walker, _Land and its Rent_, pp.\n  177\u201381, though it has been pointed out that on p. 178 that writer\n  omits Mill\u2019s qualifying phrase, (improvements) \u201csuddenly made.\u201d\n\nFootnote 556:\n\n  See Sir James Caird\u2019s table appended to _Landed Interest_ (1878). Cf.\n  Cairne\u2019s _Essays in Pol. Ec._, vi. p. 216.\n\nFootnote 557:\n\n  Bk. III. ch. vii p. 429.\n\nFootnote 558:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., Bk. III. ch. viii. p. 437.\n\nFootnote 559:\n\n  _Ibid._, _l. c._ ch. ix. pp. 443 _seq._\n\nFootnote 560:\n\n  _Essay_, Bk. III. ch. ix. p. 450.\n\nFootnote 561:\n\n  _Ibid._, ch. x. p. 465.\n\nFootnote 562:\n\n  _Ibid._, Bk. V. ch. x. p. 468 n.\n\nFootnote 563:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1820), pp. 227 _seq._, (1836) pp. 240 _seq._\n\nFootnote 564:\n\n  _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, ch. xii., esp. p. 345.\n\nFootnote 565:\n\n  The facts of Malthus\u2019 \u201creview\u201d may be roughly given in the following\n  diagram, where the bar indicates the wheat earned per day by the\n  agricultural labourer. The amount for 1350 assumes that the Statute of\n  Labourers was successful.\n\n                                One peck.              Two pecks.\n 1340 (before Plague)    :--------------     :                   :\n 1350 (after Plague)     :-----------------  :                   :\n 1400                    :-------------------:                   :\n 1500                    :-------------------:-------------------:\n 1603                    :-----------------  :                   :\n 1650                    :-----------        :                   :\n 1699                    :-------------------:                   :\n 1730                    :-------------------:                   :\n 1766                    :------------------ :                   :\n 1811                    :------------------ :                   :\n 1822 (?)                :-------------------:                   :\n\n Add 1884, taking wages  ------------------------------------\n   at 14_s._ a week and\n   wheat at 36_s._ a\n   quarter, or 1_s._\n   1\u00bd_d._ a peck.\n\nFootnote 566:\n\n  7th ed., pp. 321 _seq._ (Bk. III. ch. viii.), first in 1817.\n\nFootnote 567:\n\n  Cf. above, p. 225 n. In _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 432, he says, \u201cAll the\n  great results in _Pol. Econ._ respecting wealth depend upon\n  proportions.\u201d 2nd ed. added (p. 376), \u201cnot only there, but throughout\n  the whole range of nature and art.\u201d So he thinks a peck of wheat a\n  good \u201cmiddle point\u201d of wages. _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 284, (1836) p.\n  254.\n\nFootnote 568:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., Bk. III. ch. ix. pp. 328 _seq._ Cf. pp. 334, 338.\n\nFootnote 569:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 332.\n\nFootnote 570:\n\n  _Ibid._, Bk. III. ch. x. pp. 334 _seq._\n\nFootnote 571:\n\n  See above, p. 201 n. Cf. _Essay on Pop._, 7th ed., p. 337.\n\nFootnote 572:\n\n  _Essay_, _l. c._ p. 338.\n\nFootnote 573:\n\n  _l. c._ Bk. III. ch. x. pp. 338\u20139.\n\nFootnote 574:\n\n  _Fortnightly Review_, Nov. 1881, his last writing. Cf. _Essay_, _l.\n  c._ pp. 340\u2013342.\n\nFootnote 575:\n\n  In two long chapters on Corn Laws and Bounties, _Essay on Pop._, Bk.\n  III. ch. xi. pp. 343\u2013367. Cf. above, pp. 226 _seq._\n\nFootnote 576:\n\n  See below, Bk. IV.\n\nFootnote 577:\n\n  _The Measure of Value stated and illustrated, with an application of\n  it to the alteration in the value of the English currency since 1790._\n  (April) 1823.\n\nFootnote 578:\n\n  So _Tract on Value_, p. 1. But in _Definitions_ value is \u201cthe relation\n  of one object to some other or others, in exchange, resulting from the\n  estimation in which a thing is held\u201d (def. 40, 41; cf. with def. 5).\n\nFootnote 579:\n\n  Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, I. v.\n\nFootnote 580:\n\n  _Measure of Value_, p. 23. Cf. _Pol. Econ._ (1820), pp. 126 _seq._;\n  (1836), pp. 84, 93 _seq._\n\nFootnote 581:\n\n  _Measure of Value_, p. 20 n. On pp. 23\u20134 he adds, \u201ctaking the average\n  of summer and winter wages.\u201d\n\nFootnote 582:\n\n  See below, p. 268. _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 125; (1836) p. 102, &c.;\n  _Tract on Value_, passim.\n\nFootnote 583:\n\n  _Work and Wages_, ch. iii. p. 75. Malthus, _Pol. Econ._, 2nd ed., pp.\n  108 _seq._\n\nFootnote 584:\n\n  Cf. Marx, _Kapital_, pp. 19, 21, &c.\n\nFootnote 585:\n\n  MacC.\u2019s ed., pp. 45 _seq._ Cf. _Tract on Value_, p. 20 n., above\n  quoted.\n\nFootnote 586:\n\n  Cf. Ricardo, _Pol. Econ._, _Works_ (ed. MacC.), p. 15.\n\nFootnote 587:\n\n  _Meas. of Value_, pp. 8\u201312.\n\nFootnote 588:\n\n  _Meas. of Value_, pp. 22, 65. Cf. Cairnes, _Australian Episode_, in\n  _Essays in Pol. Econ._ (pp. 92 _seq._; cf. pp. 37, 61), (1873),\u2014first\n  published in _Fraser\u2019s Mag._, Sept. 1859.\n\nFootnote 589:\n\n  _Meas. of Value_, p. 23.\n\nFootnote 590:\n\n  _Ibid._, pp. 27\u201329.\n\nFootnote 591:\n\n  _Meas. of Value_, p. 29 n.\n\nFootnote 592:\n\n  He might have said simply that the one is intrinsic, the other\n  extrinsic, in relation to the agricultural products themselves.\n\nFootnote 593:\n\n  _Meas. of Value_, p. 63.\n\nFootnote 594:\n\n  _Meas. of Value_, pp. 67 _seq._ Cf. below, pp. 283 _seq._\n\nFootnote 595:\n\n  Who allows cost to play a greater part in value. Cf. below, pp. 278\u20139.\n  But Ricardo, _Pol. Econ._, sect vi. p. 28, disclaims belief in _any_\n  universal measure of value.\n\nFootnote 596:\n\n  Malthus, quoted by Empson, _Edin. Rev._, Jan. 1837, p. 499.\n\nFootnote 597:\n\n  He was F.R.S. 1819, and a member of Pol. Econ. Club at its foundation\n  in 1821.\n\nFootnote 598:\n\n  4th May, 1825; 7th Nov., 1827. _Transactions of it R. S. L._, vol. i.\n  part i. p. 171.\n\nFootnote 599:\n\n  _Report of R. S. L._, 1824, p. 21.\n\nFootnote 600:\n\n  We might expressly wish to know a coat\u2019s value in money or its value\n  in cutlery or coals. The Professor at the Breakfast-table talks of\n  \u201cMadeira worth from two to six Bibles a bottle.\u201d\n\nFootnote 601:\n\n  _Definitions_ (1827), p. 235.\n\nFootnote 602:\n\n  I. e. _to_ the object which measures that _cost-value_.\n\nFootnote 603:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 243.\n\nFootnote 604:\n\n  See above, p. 254. Ricardo\u2019s long correspondence with Malthus on the\n  subject is mentioned by Empson, _Edin. Rev._, _l. c._ p. 469. Empson\u2019s\n  extracts from it are the most valuable part of his article.\n\nFootnote 605:\n\n  R. Torrens, _Production of Wealth_, 1821, pp. iv, v.\n\nFootnote 606:\n\n  Held, _Sociale Geschichte Englands_, p. 205.\n\nFootnote 607:\n\n  _Dialogues of Three Templars on Political Economy_, 1824 (_Works_,\n  Black, 1863, vol. iv.). All depends on the assumption in the middle of\n  Dialogue I. p. 196, (\u201cit is Mr. Ricardo\u2019s doctrine that,\u201d &c.), and on\n  the confinement of the discussion to natural value (p. 198).\n\nFootnote 608:\n\n  _Measure of Value_, p. 20 n.\n\nFootnote 609:\n\n  London, 1832; Birmingham, 1833. The Constituent Assembly applied the\n  same measure, but in a different way, in 1791. See Roscher,\n  _National-\u00f6kon._ (1879), p. 298.\n\nFootnote 610:\n\n  The words are, \u201cenable the labourers to maintain a stationary or an\n  increasing population\u201d (_Pol. Econ._, 1836, p. 218). The awkwardness\n  of the sentence may be due to bad editing; but we read elsewhere of\n  the \u201c_price of wages_.\u201d\n\nFootnote 611:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, 1836, pp. 218, 223.\n\nFootnote 612:\n\n  See Lassalle and Marx.\n\nFootnote 613:\n\n  Cf. Malthus, _Pol. Econ._ (1836), pp. 224, 225, &c. _Essay on\n  Population_, 7th ed., III viii. 323, but especially IV. xiii. 473. See\n  also Rogers, _Six Centuries_, ch. viii., \u2018The Famine and the Plague,\u2019\n  especially pp. 233\u2013242.\n\nFootnote 614:\n\n  Malthus, _Essay on Pop._, IV. xiii. 473; cf. pp. 373 and 434.\n\nFootnote 615:\n\n  Cf. especially _Essay on Pop._ (2nd ed.), III. ix. 444. \u201cThe price of\n  labour has been rising\u2014not to fall again.\u201d\n\nFootnote 616:\n\n  _Emigr. Comm._ (1827), p. 326, qu. 3411; cf. 3408, 3409. Cf. above, p.\n  197.\n\nFootnote 617:\n\n  The chief of them being the rate of profits which is at the given time\n  enough to induce the \u201cundertaker\u201d (or \u201centerpriser\u201d) to continue\n  business.\n\nFootnote 618:\n\n  See Mill on Thornton\u2019s \u2018Labour,\u2019 _Fortnightly Review_, May 1869. Cf.\n  Walker on _The Wages Question_, pp. 140 _seq._\n\nFootnote 619:\n\n  So in _Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1824, p. 315, Malthus says profits\n  depend rather on the demand for produce than on the demand for labour.\n\nFootnote 620:\n\n  _Discourse on Pol. Econ._, by J. R. MacCulloch, pp. 61, 62 (1st and\n  2nd edd.), 1825.\n\nFootnote 621:\n\n  _Conversations on Pol. Econ._, 1817 (1st and 2nd edd.), p. 137. Mrs.\n  Marcet\u2019s memory is preserved for latter-day readers by Macaulay\u2019s\n  reference to her in the essay on Milton.\n\nFootnote 622:\n\n  _Discourse_, _l. c._ Cf. MacC.\u2019s _Pol. Econ._, Pt. III. ch. ii. p. 378\n  (ed. 1843); Prof. Fawcett\u2019s _Manual of Pol. Econ._, p. 131 (1876).\n\nFootnote 623:\n\n  James Mill, _Elem._ (1821), p. 25; John Mill, _Principles_, II. xi. \u00a7\n  1. Cf. _Fort. Rev._, 1869, May; Thornton, _Labour_, II. i. p. 83.\n\nFootnote 624:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, I. viii. p. 31, 2.\n\nFootnote 625:\n\n  _Ibid._, IV. ix. 306, 1.\n\nFootnote 626:\n\n  _Ibid._, IV. ix. 310, 2.\n\nFootnote 627:\n\n  _Ibid._, V. i. 327, 2.\n\nFootnote 628:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, ed. 1836, ch. iv. sect. ii. p. 224.\n\nFootnote 629:\n\n  _Ibid._ ed. 1820, ch. iv. p. 248.\n\nFootnote 630:\n\n  _Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1824. Cf. below, p. 288.\n\nFootnote 631:\n\n  Supplement to _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_. Cf. above, p. 71.\n\nFootnote 632:\n\n  Empson in _Edin. Rev._, Jan. 1837, p. 496.\n\nFootnote 633:\n\n  _Quart. Rev._, Jan. 1824 (no. lx.), pp. 333\u20134.\n\nFootnote 634:\n\n  Ricardo, _Pol. Econ. and Tax._, ch. i. sections iv., v.; _Works_, pp.\n  20, 25. Cf. Malthus, _Pol. Econ._, 1820, p. 104, and the whole of\n  section iii. pp. 72 _seq._\n\nFootnote 635:\n\n  _Quart. Rev._, _l. c._ p. 324; cf. p. 315. Cf. above.\n\nFootnote 636:\n\n  _Pol. Econ. and Tax._, ch. i. sections iv. and v.\n\nFootnote 637:\n\n  Any given value, it might be added, is influenced by custom as well as\n  competition.\n\nFootnote 638:\n\n  1821, p. 186, ch. iv. sect. iii. \u201cThat consumption is coextensive with\n  production.\u201d\n\nFootnote 639:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, III. xiv. \u201cOf excess of supply.\u201d Cf. I. v. \u00a7 3, p. 42.\n\nFootnote 640:\n\n  A cargo of skates was sent to Rio Janeiro in 1808.\n\nFootnote 641:\n\n  The intention of the new Corn Law of 1815 was to keep out all foreign\n  grain till the home price should reach 80_s._ a quarter, or the loaf\n  1_s._ See above, p. 221.\n\nFootnote 642:\n\n  The article on the Bullion question, in August of the same year, might\n  be his, if it was not Francis Horner\u2019s. Cf. Horner\u2019s _Life_, vol. i.\n  ch. vi., dates April and Sept. 1805, from which it appears that Horner\n  was working hard at the question and meant to write on it, as he might\n  have done better in 1811, fresh from his experience on the Bullion\n  Committee. As to the February article, the authorship is shown partly\n  by internal evidence, partly by Horner\u2019s _Life_, vol. ii. p. 68 (Jan.\n  1811): \u201cI received Malthus\u2019 MS. from you [Jeffrey] and have since\n  transmitted it to him with such remarks as occurred to me in perusing\n  it,\u201d &c. MacCulloch did not begin to write the economical articles for\n  the _Edin. Rev._ till 1818. See _Notes and Queries_, 5th Oct., 1878.\n\nFootnote 643:\n\n  For the history of the currency in the interval see Miss Martineau\u2019s\n  _Introd. to Hist. of Peace_, Bk. II. ch. iii.; _Hist. of the Peace_,\n  Bk. I. ch. iii. and ch. xv.; Cobbett\u2019s _Paper v. Gold_; Macleod\u2019s\n  _Banking_, vol. ii., end of ch. ix. pp. 174\u2013221, much the completest\n  account.\n\nFootnote 644:\n\n  Peel changed his views then on Currency, as he did later on Catholic\n  Emancipation and the Corn Laws.\n\nFootnote 645:\n\n  p. 370. He speaks approvingly of the American free trade in banking in\n  a way that would have pleased Cobden.\n\nFootnote 646:\n\n  p. 371.\n\nFootnote 647:\n\n  _E. g._ Horner complains of this even in so clear a paper as that on\n  Newenham. See Horner\u2019s _Life_, vol. i. pp. 436\u20137 (_sub dato_ 1808).\n\nFootnote 648:\n\n  _Works_ (ed. MacC.), pp. 291\u2013296.\n\nFootnote 649:\n\n  Ricardo, _Works_ (MacC.), p. xxi.\n\nFootnote 650:\n\n  Cf. below, Bk. V.\n\nFootnote 651:\n\n  Horner\u2019s _Life_, vol. ii. p. 68 (Jan. 1811).\n\nFootnote 652:\n\n  _Thoughts and Details on High and Low Prices during the last Thirty\n  Years, 1793\u20131823._ The later ed. of 1838 in three vols. is more\n  valuable.\n\nFootnote 653:\n\n  _Political Register_, 30th Nov., 1816.\n\nFootnote 654:\n\n  Internal evidence, _e. g._ p. 237 of the _Quarterly_, compared with p.\n  65 of _Measure of Value_, would show his authorship, and the article\n  is ascribed to him by Tooke, _Prices_, ed. 1838, vol. i. p. 21.\n\nFootnote 655:\n\n  _l. c._ pp. 215\u201316.\n\nFootnote 656:\n\n  Bosanquet, _Practical Observations on the Report of the Bullion\n  Committee_ (1810); Ricardo, _The High Price of Bullion a Proof of the\n  Depreciation of Bank-Notes_ (1809), and his _Reply to Bosanquet_\n  (1811).\n\nFootnote 657:\n\n  _l. c._ _Pol. Econ._, Introd. (1820), pp. 6 and 7 n., (1836) p. 5 n.\n  Cf. Tooke, _Prices_, Part I. p. 6 (ed. 1823).\n\nFootnote 658:\n\n  Tooke, _Prices_, Part III. p. 91.\n\nFootnote 659:\n\n  See _Tract on Value_, p. 18.\n\nFootnote 660:\n\n  _Quarterly_, April 1823, p. 230.\n\nFootnote 661:\n\n  _Econ. Pol._, Part III. ch. ii., 2nd ed., 1842; 1st ed., 1802.\n\nFootnote 662:\n\n  \u201cProducts\u201d is Say\u2019s word, however.\n\nFootnote 663:\n\n  _Elements_ (1821), ch. iv. sect. iii. pp. 186 _seq._ \u201cThat consumption\n  is coextensive with production.\u201d Mill taught this as early as 1808 in\n  his tract (against Spence) _Commerce defended_.\n\nFootnote 664:\n\n  _Lettres \u00e0 M. Malthus sur diff\u00e9rents sujets d\u2019\u00e9con. pol., notamment\n  sur les causes de la stagnation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale du commerce_ (1820), pp. 26\n  _seq._\n\nFootnote 665:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 355, (1836) p. 316. Against Say\u2019s general\n  position see _Definitions_, p. 56 n.\n\nFootnote 666:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, I. iii.\n\nFootnote 667:\n\n  See above, p. 232. A curious footnote in _Essay on Pop._, 3rd ed.,\n  vol. ii. p. 264, suggested that there might be over-production in the\n  case of high farming when its cost made the farmers charge more than\n  the public could bear. But this note disappeared afterwards.\n\nFootnote 668:\n\n  Ricardo, _Pol. Econ. and Taxation_, ch. xxi. p. 176 (MacCull.\u2019s ed.).\n  Mill (_Elements_, pp. 193 ft., 194) is more rigid.\n\nFootnote 669:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. xiii. 473.\n\nFootnote 670:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1836), ch. iv. sect. iii. p. 239, slightly altered from\n  1st ed., 1820, ch. iv. sect. iii. p. 266.\n\nFootnote 671:\n\n  Sismondi, _Nouveaux Principes de l\u2019\u00c9con. Pol._, 1819. See Malthus,\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 420, (1836) pp. 325 n., 366 n. Cf. on the\n  other hand _Essay_, III. xiii. 372\u20133 and n.\n\nFootnote 672:\n\n  _Wealth of Nations_, V. i. art. ii. pp. 350\u2013353 (ed. MacC.). He is\n  outrivalled by Ferguson, _Civil Society_, parts iv. and v. (ed. 1773).\n\nFootnote 673:\n\n  3rd ed. of _Pol. Ec. and Tax._ (1821), ch. xxxi. pp. 468\u20139, ed.\n  MacCull., pp. 235\u20136. Cf. below (Critics). It is the position of Marx.\n\nFootnote 674:\n\n  If we believe Bowring, _Life of Bentham_ (ed. 1843), p. 176.\n\nFootnote 675:\n\n  \u201cSupposing that his opinions have not altered within the last twelve\n  months.\u201d\u2014_De Quincey_, vol. iv. p. 231.\n\nFootnote 676:\n\n  James Mill, _Elements_, pp. 193, 194. MacCull., _Pol. Ec._, p. 207.\n  Cf. the tract _Mordecai Mullion_ (1826).\n\nFootnote 677:\n\n  Especially by Sunday Schools, according to the testimony of Samuel\n  Bamford.\u2014_Radical_, vol. i. p. 7 (1844).\n\nFootnote 678:\n\n  We have his counterpart in our own day.\n\nFootnote 679:\n\n  See below, Bk. III., for disproof of the charge that he was\n  reactionary in his politics, like many economical optimists.\n\nFootnote 680:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, 1820, p. 236.\n\nFootnote 681:\n\n  _l. c._ p. 472.\n\nFootnote 682:\n\n  _Emigr. Comm._ (1827), p. 317, qu. 3281.\n\nFootnote 683:\n\n  Some such view is suggested by Malthus himself, _Essay_, IV. xiii. p.\n  473 (cf. _Pol. Ec._, 1820, p. 475), a passage which it is hard to\n  reconcile with the passages in the _Quarterly_ and in the _Pol. Ec._\n  that speak of the necessity of a special class of unproductive\n  consumers.\n\nFootnote 684:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1820), ch. vii. sect. ix. p. 473. Cf. _Tract on Rent_,\n  p. 48 n.\n\nFootnote 685:\n\n  _Essay on Pop._, III. iii. p. 282 (in relation to Robert Owen). Cf.\n  the whole ch. xiii. of Book III., where he treats of \u201cIncreasing\n  Wealth as it affects the Condition of the Poor.\u201d\n\nFootnote 686:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._, _l. c._ p. 474.\n\nFootnote 687:\n\n  _Ibid._, _l. c._ pp. 474\u20135.\n\nFootnote 688:\n\n  See above, pp. 245 _seq._ and 252.\n\nFootnote 689:\n\n  See below, Bk. IV., and cf. above, p. 208.\n\nFootnote 690:\n\n  See above, p. 142.\n\nFootnote 691:\n\n  The passage is quoted in full because by recent critics it is much\n  garbled; _e. g._ in _Progress and Poverty_, VII. i. 304 n.\n\nFootnote 692:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., IV. vi. 531.\n\nFootnote 693:\n\n  Lucretius, iii. 951. Cicero\u2019s simile of the theatre open to all\n  comers, but giving each man his own seat, had special application to\n  Property (_De Finibus_, iii. 20).\n\nFootnote 694:\n\n  Epitaph on Fenton.\n\nFootnote 695:\n\n  James Grahame\u2019s _Population_ (1816), p. 34. Cf. _Quarterly Rev._, Dec.\n  1812, p. 327; Hazlitt, _Spirit of the Age_, \u2018Malthus,\u2019 end.\n\nFootnote 696:\n\n  Book III. Part I. ch. iv. (1785).\n\nFootnote 697:\n\n  _E. g._ Godwin, _Population_ (1820), I. iii. 17. The withdrawal was\n  probably due to Sumner. See Otter, Life of Malthus in _Pol. Ec._\n  (1836), p. lii.\n\nFootnote 698:\n\n  Cf. _Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 400, 401, and nn.; 7th ed., p. 298 n. Cf.\n  pp. 295 and 297 n. Cf. also Tooke, above quoted, p. 291.\n\nFootnote 699:\n\n  Cf. above, p. 220.\n\nFootnote 700:\n\n  On Bounties and the Corn Trade. Cf. _High Price of Provisions_, p. 3.\n\nFootnote 701:\n\n  _l. c._ p. 23. See above, p. 289. Also _Corn Law Catechism_, 1839, qu.\n  244.\n\nFootnote 702:\n\n  _l. c._ pp. 9\u201311. Cf. the \u201cmake up\u201d and \u201cbread money\u201d mentioned in\n  _Report of Poor Law Commission_, 1834, p. 27.\n\nFootnote 703:\n\n  _High Price_, &c. pp. 19, 20.\n\nFootnote 704:\n\n  _l. c._ p. 27. Cf. above, p. 43.\n\nFootnote 705:\n\n  1st ed., pp. 82, 83; 7th ed., pp. 302\u20133.\n\nFootnote 706:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., Appendix, p. 493.\n\nFootnote 707:\n\n  He borrows, as he himself says, the language of Sir Frederick Eden on\n  the _State of the Poor_ (1797). See _Essay on Population_, 2nd ed., p.\n  417 n.; 7th ed., p. 308 n.\n\nFootnote 708:\n\n  _Letter to Whitbread_ (1807), pp. 12, 13; cf. _Essay_, p. 445 ft.\n\nFootnote 709:\n\n  Quoted, _Essay_, III. vi. 308 n.\n\nFootnote 710:\n\n  7th ed., III. vi. 303; 1st ed., p. 365.\n\nFootnote 711:\n\n  III. vi. (7th ed.), p. 305.\n\nFootnote 712:\n\n  See e. g. _Emigration Committee_, 1827, qu. 3369, p. 323.\n\nFootnote 713:\n\n  Dr. John Moore\u2019s _View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland,\n  and Germany_ (7th ed., 1789), vol. ii. pp. 144\u2013157.\n\nFootnote 714:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., III. vi. p. 307; _Emigration Committee_ (1827), qu.\n  3361, p. 323.\n\nFootnote 715:\n\n  _l. c._ pp. 307\u20138. Cf. above, p. 134.\n\nFootnote 716:\n\n  _Reports to Local Gov. Bd. on Foreign Poor Laws_, 1875, p. 7.\n\nFootnote 717:\n\n  Macvey Napier\u2019s _Correspondence_, pp. 29 _seq._ Date 30th Sept, 1821.\n\nFootnote 718:\n\n  _Report of Poor Law Comm._, 1834; _Remedial Measures_, p. 227.\n\nFootnote 719:\n\n  _Essay on Population_, Appendix, p. 492. It was probably this\n  disclaimer of public duty that led Coleridge to complain, \u201cthe entire\n  tendency of the modern or Malthusian political economy is to\n  denationalize\u201d (_Table Talk_, p. 327). Cf. Toynbee, _Industr. Revol._,\n  p. 24. But it may have been simply the idea that Malthus, like\n  Ricardo, advocated _laissez faire_; and in this case it is singular he\n  should not have said \u201cRicardian\u201d instead of \u201cMalthusian.\u201d\n\nFootnote 720:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., IV. vii. p. 538; 7th ed., IV. viii. p. 530.\n\nFootnote 721:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 539.\n\nFootnote 722:\n\n  E. g. _Report of Commissioners_, p. 13.\n\nFootnote 723:\n\n  _Report_, pp. 227\u20138.\n\nFootnote 724:\n\n  _Report_, p. 228.\n\nFootnote 725:\n\n  Even if he were a poor ratepayer, voting a sum of which his richer\n  neighbour would pay the larger share.\n\nFootnote 726:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 490; 7th ed., p. 394; cf. pp. 392 top and 396.\n\nFootnote 727:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. pp. 442\u20133; cf. p. 161.\n\nFootnote 728:\n\n  7th ed., IV. i. p. 390. Cf. above, p. 37.\n\nFootnote 729:\n\n  Not quite logical, if the test of a virtuous action is its tendency to\n  produce happiness.\n\nFootnote 730:\n\n  _Ibid._, IV. i. p. 390.\n\nFootnote 731:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 489, 490, 501; 7th ed., pp. 390, 401. Cf. Paley, _M. and\n  P. Phil._, I. vi., II. iv.; Tucker, _Light of Nature_ (1st ed., 1768),\n  vol. ii. ch. xxix., esp. \u00a7 12.\n\nFootnote 732:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. i. 391. Kant\u2019s test of a moral law, so far as it\n  was not purely dogmatic, was most easily illustrated, or he would have\n  said parodied, by this Utilitarian argument.\n\nFootnote 733:\n\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 487; 7th ed., p. 392.\n\nFootnote 734:\n\n  _Ibid._, 2nd ed., p. 488; 7th ed., pp. 392\u20133; cf. p. 398.\n\nFootnote 735:\n\n  _Ibid._, 1st ed. (1798), p. 211.\n\nFootnote 736:\n\n  The passage in _A Tale of the Tyne_, which left no trace on Miss\n  Martineau\u2019s own memory, but so faithfully expounded Malthus that he\n  called on purpose to thank her for it (_Autobiogr._, i. 253), is\n  easily identified in the light of these extracts as ch. iii. p. 56 of\n  ed. 1833.\n\nFootnote 737:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 491\u20132; 7th ed., p. 395. See above, p. 36.\n\nFootnote 738:\n\n  2nd ed., p. 494; 7th ed., p. 397. Cf. above, p. 38.\n\nFootnote 739:\n\n  The phrase in _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 401.\n\nFootnote 740:\n\n  Not to be confused with his contemporary, Josiah Tucker, Dean of\n  Gloucester, the forerunner of Adam Smith.\n\nFootnote 741:\n\n  1727 to 1774, the year of his death. Betchworth, now absorbed in Mrs.\n  Hope\u2019s estate of Deepdene, was on the farther side of Dorking from\n  Albury and the Rookery.\n\nFootnote 742:\n\n  This lucid epithet is ascribed to George III.\n\nFootnote 743:\n\n  A point of difference has been noted above (p. 39) and below (p. 330).\n  He differs from Bentham also, who would not gratify the passions but\n  destroy them. See Held, _Soc. Geschichte_, p. 213.\n\nFootnote 744:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. 441.\n\nFootnote 745:\n\n  _Ibid._, IV. i. 391.\n\nFootnote 746:\n\n  See above, p. 35.\n\nFootnote 747:\n\n  7th ed., p. 441 ft.\n\nFootnote 748:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 442 top.\n\nFootnote 749:\n\n  _Essay_, III. ii. 279, explains in this way the popular prejudice\n  which, in one case at least, visits the same sin more severely in a\n  woman than in a man.\n\nFootnote 750:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. 442.\n\nFootnote 751:\n\n  _Ibid._, IV. ii. 401. Cf. Paley, _Moral Philos._, Vol. I. Book II. ch.\n  iv. p. 65, there quoted, and Tucker, _L. of N._ (1st ed.), vol. ii ch.\n  xxix., especially \u00a7\u00a7 5\u20137 and 12.\n\nFootnote 752:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. 443, 444 ft.\n\nFootnote 753:\n\n  _Ibid._, IV. viii. 432, 433, compared with p. 492.\n\nFootnote 754:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., App. pp. 492\u20133. Cf. 7th ed., p. 280: \u201cSelf-love is\n  the mainspring of the great machine.\u201d\n\nFootnote 755:\n\n  III. vii. 311.\n\nFootnote 756:\n\n  _Edin. Rev._, 1810 (Aug.), an article on Ingram\u2019s _Disquisitions on\n  Population_, and [Hazlitt\u2019s] _Letters in Reply to Malthus_. As the\n  relations of Malthus to the _Review_ were close at this time, and as\n  the arguments and the style are remarkably like our author\u2019s, there is\n  at least a strong probability that he wrote the article, Jeffrey after\n  his custom providing it with a head and tail to disguise the\n  authorship. Cf. Cockburn\u2019s _Life of Jeffrey_, Vol. I. 301, 302, cf.\n  285.\n\nFootnote 757:\n\n  Cf. _Wealth of Nations_, I. x. 48, 49.\n\nFootnote 758:\n\n  _Edin. Rev._, 1810 (Aug.), p. 475.\n\nFootnote 759:\n\n  Paley, _Mor. and Pol. Phil._, I. vii. 9; cf. Malthus, _Essay_, IV. ii.\n  397, &c. Cf. above, p. 39.\n\nFootnote 760:\n\n  Paley, _ibid._, I. iv. 14.\n\nFootnote 761:\n\n  See above, p. 37. The passages there cited completely refute Held\u2019s\n  assertion that \u201cMalthus appealed to Utility in the teeth of his belief\n  in the Bible\u201d (_Sociale Geschichte Englands_, Book I. ch. ii p. 234).\n\nFootnote 762:\n\n  _Mor. and Pol. Phil._, vii. 10.\n\nFootnote 763:\n\n  \u201cAny condition may be denominated \u2018happy\u2019 in which the amount or\n  aggregate of pleasure exceeds that of pain.\u201d\u2014Paley, _M. and P. Ph._,\n  I. vi.\n\nFootnote 764:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., III. vi. 305.\n\nFootnote 765:\n\n  See Mr. Sidgwick\u2019s _Method of Ethics_, p. 385 ft.\n\nFootnote 766:\n\n  Quoted from _The Crisis_, by Empson, _Edin. Rev._, Jan. 1837, p. 482.\n\nFootnote 767:\n\n  _Report of the Crofters Commission_, 1884, p. 9.\n\nFootnote 768:\n\n  _Essay_, IV. iii. 407.\n\nFootnote 769:\n\n  It would help the social reformer to learn, _e. g._ from clergymen,\n  guardians of the poor, and police magistrates, what exact proportion\n  of the destitution within their experience has been due, (_a_) to the\n  fault of the victim, (_b_) to the fault of his parents, (_c_) to the\n  fraud or oppression of others, and (_d_) to the mere accidents of\n  trade.\n\nFootnote 770:\n\n  7th ed., p. 280.\n\nFootnote 771:\n\n  III. ii. 434.\n\nFootnote 772:\n\n  _Scenes of Clerical Life_, p. 250.\n\nFootnote 773:\n\n  7th ed., p. 404.\n\nFootnote 774:\n\n  p. 464, 1817. As early as 1803 (_Essay_, 2nd ed., IV. xi 689) Malthus\n  had recommended Savings Banks.\n\nFootnote 775:\n\n  7th ed., p. 397. Cf. p. 407, &c.\n\nFootnote 776:\n\n  7th ed., p. 405. To make the whole picture complete we must add what\n  is said above (ch. i.) on the place of man on the earth, and also (Bk.\n  III. chs. ii. and iii.) on industrial society as it might be.\n\nFootnote 777:\n\n  See above, p. 298.\n\nFootnote 778:\n\n  Mackintosh changed but never recanted. See Macaulay\u2019s _Essays_.\n\nFootnote 779:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. vi 420\u20131.\n\nFootnote 780:\n\n  _W. of N._, I. i.\n\nFootnote 781:\n\n  More strictly, what grows of itself is natural; what makes it grow of\n  itself is Nature.\n\nFootnote 782:\n\n  See e. g. _Essay_, p. 390.\n\nFootnote 783:\n\n  _Life of Godwin_, ii. 266.\n\nFootnote 784:\n\n  Southey wished some \u201cCrusader\u201d like Rickman to write economical\n  articles for the Quarterly and keep out Malthus (_Life and Letters_,\n  vol. iii. p. 188).\n\nFootnote 785:\n\n  _Essay_, III. vii. 318; written in 1817.\n\nFootnote 786:\n\n  2nd ed., IV. vi.; 7th ed., IV. vi. and vii. He must have remembered,\n  when he wrote these words, the imprisonment of his poor tutor Gilbert\n  Wakefield for a seditious pamphlet (1799\u20131800). See below, Bk. V.\n\nFootnote 787:\n\n  7th ed., p. 417.\n\nFootnote 788:\n\n  7th ed., p. 426: written in 1817. For the tendency of the French\n  before the Revolution to look to Government for everything, see _e.\n  g._ Dyer\u2019s _Modern Europe_, vol. iv. ch. lii p. 304.\n\nFootnote 789:\n\n  7th ed., p. 418.\n\nFootnote 790:\n\n  _Essays Moral and Political_, vol. i. p. 49; \u2018The British Parliament.\u2019\n\nFootnote 791:\n\n  Malthus, _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 502; 7th ed., p. 402. Cf. a striking\n  passage in the review of Newenham, _Edin. Rev._, July 1808, pp. 348\u20139.\n\nFootnote 792:\n\n  _E. g._ 7th ed., pp. 438\u20139 and 478. Cf. above, p. 56. Horner\u2019s letter\n  to Malthus in. Feb. 1812 (_Mem. of Horner_, vol. ii. pp. 109\u201310) shows\n  it was an active sympathy. Malthus agreed to act as a \u201csteward\u201d at one\n  of Lancaster\u2019s meetings in London.\n\nFootnote 793:\n\n  2nd ed., pp. 556\u20137; opponents \u201cmay fairly be suspected of a wish to\n  encourage their ignorance as a pretext for tyranny.\u201d\n\nFootnote 794:\n\n  7th ed., p. 439; 2nd ed., pp. 555\u20136.\n\nFootnote 795:\n\n  Miss Martineau, _Hist. of Peace_, I. vii. 117\u201318.\n\nFootnote 796:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. ix. 440, 441.\n\nFootnote 797:\n\n  Held, _Soc. Gesch._, p. 215.\n\nFootnote 798:\n\n  See above, pp. 95, 96, &c.\n\nFootnote 799:\n\n  See above, p. 340.\n\nFootnote 800:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. 446\u20137.\n\nFootnote 801:\n\n  Emigr. Comm. (1827), qu. 3310.\n\nFootnote 802:\n\n  IV. xiii. 474. Potatoes are a godsend to such, he says in another\n  place (_Edin. Rev._, July 1808, p. 344).\n\nFootnote 803:\n\n  See above, Bk. II. ch. i.\n\nFootnote 804:\n\n  See above, p. 301.\n\nFootnote 805:\n\n  E. g. _Essay_, IV. ix. 433.\n\nFootnote 806:\n\n  In Germany poor scholars from the country are often, when attending\n  the University, billeted for bread and butter on the well-to-do\n  citizens; and learning proves on the whole so inconsistent with\n  laziness, that the practice does not make them unwilling to earn their\n  own living afterwards.\n\nFootnote 807:\n\n  A protective duty is indirect relief of the protected industry, but as\n  a rule the protected are secured against indolence by their own\n  domestic competition; and the fault of protection lies elsewhere than\n  in encouragement of indolence.\n\nFootnote 808:\n\n  R\u00e9nan, _Qu\u2019est ce qu\u2019une Nation?_\n\nFootnote 809:\n\n  Cf. above, p. 225.\n\nFootnote 810:\n\n  Cf. p. 36.\n\nFootnote 811:\n\n  The reaction against Rousseau and Godwin may partly account for the\n  absence of Cosmopolitanism.\n\nFootnote 812:\n\n  See above, ch. i.\n\nFootnote 813:\n\n  Some one has said, \u201cWas man nicht definiren kann, zieht man als\n  Organismus an;\u201d and we had been told, long before, that a simile is\n  either \u201cidem per idem\u201d or \u201cidem per aliud,\u201d either of them a logical\n  fallacy.\n\nFootnote 814:\n\n  _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. x. p. 445. \u201cEvery man has a right to do what he\n  will with his own.\u201d But the question is:\u2014What is his own?\n\nFootnote 815:\n\n  Professor T. H. Green, _Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract_,\n  Oxford, 1881.\n\nFootnote 816:\n\n  \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03ba\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u1f51\u03ac\u03c1\u03b7 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9. _Ar. Pol._, II. ii.\n\nFootnote 817:\n\n  See above, p. 310.\n\nFootnote 818:\n\n  _Discourse on the Christian Union._ See _Essay on Population_, 7th\n  ed., p. 254 n.; Price, _Observations_, p. 206 n.\n\nFootnote 819:\n\n  From Matth. vi. 10, and Psal. cxxii. 2 _seq._\n\nFootnote 820:\n\n  See esp. pp. 12\u201318, and 20 (4th ed., 1790).\n\nFootnote 821:\n\n  Pt. II. Essay V. pp. 228 _seq._ _Life_, ii. 292. Cf. ii. 64.\n\nFootnote 822:\n\n  _Life_, ii. 64.\n\nFootnote 823:\n\n  _Thoughts_, p. 10 and n. Cf. pp. 43, 45. In _Progress and Poverty_ (p.\n  93, ed. 1881) we are told that Godwin \u201cuntil his old age disdained a\n  reply\u201d to Malthus.\n\nFootnote 824:\n\n  _Thoughts_, p. 61.\n\nFootnote 825:\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 67.\n\nFootnote 826:\n\n  _Ibid._, pp. 72\u20133.\n\nFootnote 827:\n\n  _Life of Godwin_, i. 324.\n\nFootnote 828:\n\n  See above, p. 208 n. In the 5th edition he turns his back on Godwin\n  and addresses Owen.\n\nFootnote 829:\n\n  So Coleridge (MS. note to p. vii. of his quarto copy of the essay):\n  \u201cAnd of course you wholly confute your former pamphlet, and might have\n  spared yourself the trouble of _making up_ the present quarto.\u201d\n\nFootnote 830:\n\n  _Edin. Rev._, 1802, on Dr. Rennel\u2019s _Discourses_, Syd. Sm., _Works_,\n  i. p. 8.\n\nFootnote 831:\n\n  p. 18. Compare De Quincey\u2019s answer to Hazlitt in _London Magazine_,\n  1823 (vol. viii. pp. 349, 459, 569, 586).\n\nFootnote 832:\n\n  Senior, _Lect. on Pop._, p. 35.\n\nFootnote 833:\n\n  _Population_, I. iv. p. 27 (1820).\n\nFootnote 834:\n\n  Cf. also speech on 9th April, 1816. Hansard, _sub dato_, p. 1109.\n\nFootnote 835:\n\n  See above, p. 75. Cf. also above, pp. 142 _seq._, on Emigration.\n\nFootnote 836:\n\n  Godwin, _Popn._, I. xiii. 106. Cf. I. iv. 22, II. ii. 142, VI. vi.\n  585.\n\nFootnote 837:\n\n  Hawick, 1807, especially p. 84.\n\nFootnote 838:\n\n  Sadler, _Popn._, I. i. 15 (1830).\n\nFootnote 839:\n\n  Append. to 3rd ed., 1806; 7th ed., p. 485; cf. pp. 395, 446, and al.\n\nFootnote 840:\n\n  See Appendix to ed. 1826, 7th ed., p. 627.\n\nFootnote 841:\n\n  _Life_, ii. 271.\n\nFootnote 842:\n\n  _l. c._ p. 259.\n\nFootnote 843:\n\n  _Life_, ii. 259, 260. Cf. what Godwin writes to Sir John Sinclair,\n  July 1821 (Sinclair\u2019s _Correspondence_, i. 393).\n\nFootnote 844:\n\n  _l. c._ p. 271.\n\nFootnote 845:\n\n  Morgan and Rosser, _e. g._ See _Life_, ii. 272\u20135; cf. p. 280.\n\nFootnote 846:\n\n  _Edin. Rev._, July 1821, p. 364.\n\nFootnote 847:\n\n  _Life of Godwin_, ii. 274\n\nFootnote 848:\n\n  _Ibid._, pp. 274\u20135.\n\nFootnote 849:\n\n  No. 1, Oct 1802, esp. p. 26.\n\nFootnote 850:\n\n  _Population_, I. i.\n\nFootnote 851:\n\n  Appendix to 3rd ed., p. 520 n.; 7th ed., p. 491 n.\n\nFootnote 852:\n\n  See his Letter to Godwin, dated October 1818, and quoted in Godwin\u2019s\n  _Population_, Bk. II. ch. i pp. 116\u2013123, with comments.\n\nFootnote 853:\n\n  See above, p. 66.\n\nFootnote 854:\n\n  _Population_, II. x. 244\u20137.\n\nFootnote 855:\n\n  _E. g._ II. xi. 274, 282, but especially I. iv. 25, and for the third\n  argument, pp. 29, 30, cf. pp. 43\u201350, &c. Cf. also Godwin to Sinclair\n  in Sinclair\u2019s _Correspondence_, i. 393.\n\nFootnote 856:\n\n  Population tends to double in a bundled years, and there is no risk of\n  over-population except in occasional times of dull trade (Letter of\n  Godwin to Sinclair, Sinclair\u2019s _Correspondence_, _l. c._). A notable\n  exception.\n\nFootnote 857:\n\n  _Population_, II. xi. 251\u20132.\n\nFootnote 858:\n\n  IV. i.\n\nFootnote 859:\n\n  II. ii. 127, and cf. above.\n\nFootnote 860:\n\n  II. xi. 287, &c., &c.\n\nFootnote 861:\n\n  III. iii. 327 _seq._\n\nFootnote 862:\n\n  _Coups d\u2019\u00e9tat_ in nature. Paul Bert, _L\u2019Enseignement Primaire_, 1880,\n  p. xxviii.\n\nFootnote 863:\n\n  _Edinburgh Review_, July 1821. Cf. Letter to the Rev. T. R. Malthus by\n  David Booth (1823), who absurdly assumes Malthus to be the reviewer.\n  Though internal evidence dispels this fancy, it shows that Malthus was\n  still believed to write for the _Edinburgh Review_.\n\nFootnote 864:\n\n  Others, in _Table Talk_ and _Biogr. Literaria_, are chiefly\n  declamation.\n\nFootnote 865:\n\n  In these quotations the capitals are in the original, and the italics\n  correspond to underlinings.\n\nFootnote 866:\n\n  Arthur Aikin\u2019s _Annual Review_, vol. ii. (for 1803) pp. 292 _seq._ Cf.\n  Southey\u2019s _Life and Correspondence_ (ed. 1850), vol. ii. p. 251, 20th\n  Jan. 1804: \u201cYesterday Malthus received, I trust, a mortal wound from\n  my hand;\u201d cf. vol. vi. p. 399, and vol. ii. p. 294. There is no hint\n  of obligation to Coleridge.\n\nFootnote 867:\n\n  Cf. above, ch. iii. pp. 81 _seq._, and Bk. III.\n\nFootnote 868:\n\n  _Sic_, though it explains a thing by itself.\n\nFootnote 869:\n\n  He probably meant 353rd, but his numbers are careless.\n\nFootnote 870:\n\n  On margin of p. 364, 2nd paragr.: \u201cQuote and apply to himself.\u201d\n\nFootnote 871:\n\n  _E. g._ on p. 65 opposite to lines 5, 6, \u201cAss!\u201d a monosyllabic\n  refinement omitted in Southey\u2019s review.\n\nFootnote 872:\n\n  First in 1817, 7th ed., pp. 509 _seq._\n\nFootnote 873:\n\n  One of the charges (p. 18: that Malthus recommends the same remedies\n  as Condorcet) is sufficient to stamp the character of the book\u2014_An\n  Inquiry into the Principle of Population_, &c., by James Grahame. Its\n  Introduction gives a useful list of writers on both sides; see p. 71.\n  (Edin., 1816.) Simonin repeats Grahame\u2019s charges, with more mistakes\n  of his own. See his _Hist. de la Psychologie_ (1879), pp. 397\u20139.\n\nFootnote 874:\n\n  7th ed., p. 511. Cf. above, p. 52, and the reply to Godwin\u2019s Reply,\n  _Essay_, 2nd ed., III. iii. 384.\n\nFootnote 875:\n\n  _Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1837.\n\nFootnote 876:\n\n  _Life and Correspondence of Southey_, vol. iii. pp. 21\u20132, and p. 188.\n\nFootnote 877:\n\n  Bishop of Gloucester and later of Hereford. _Theolog. Works_ (1832).\n\nFootnote 878:\n\n  \u201cThe prolificness of human things, otherwise similarly circumstanced,\n  varies inversely as their numbers.\u201d\u2014Sadler, _Popn._, vol. iii. p. 352\n  (1830). Reviewed somewhat caustically by Macaulay in _Edin. Rev._,\n  July 1830. See Trevelyan\u2019s _Life of Macaulay_, vol. i. p. 126. Cf.\n  Sadler\u2019s \u2018Reply\u2019 to _Edin. Rev._ His weakest point was his use of\n  \u201cinversely.\u201d\n\nFootnote 879:\n\n  Malthus, _Essay_, II. v. (7th ed.), pp. 164, 166; cf. p. 485.\n\nFootnote 880:\n\n  G. P. Scrope, M.P., _Pol. Econ._, 1833, &c. Malthus, _Essay_, III.\n  iii. (7th ed.), 282\u20136 (Owen), IV. xii. 457 (Owen), III. xiv. 380 n.\n  (Anderson).\n\nFootnote 881:\n\n  John Weyland, junr., F.R.S. _The Principles of Population and\n  Production as they are affected by the Progress of Society with a view\n  to Moral and Political Consequences_, 1816.\n\nFootnote 882:\n\n  So Arnold Toynbee, _Industrial Revolution_, p. 107.\n\nFootnote 883:\n\n  Ch. iii. p. 21. He adds, as his second: \u201cThis tendency can never be\n  destroyed.\u201d\n\nFootnote 884:\n\n  _Essay_, Appendix, p. 517.\n\nFootnote 885:\n\n  Propos. iii and iv.\n\nFootnote 886:\n\n  _Essay_, _l. c._ p. 521, a very strong passage.\n\nFootnote 887:\n\n  Append. p. 526.\n\nFootnote 888:\n\n  _Pop. and Prod._, pp. 82 _seq._\n\nFootnote 889:\n\n  7th ed., I. ii. 12 n.; 2nd ed., p. 16.\n\nFootnote 890:\n\n  _Tour in Southern Counties of England_, 1767, p. 342.\n\nFootnote 891:\n\n  Between 1767 and 1820. Cf. above (England).\n\nFootnote 892:\n\n  _Travels in France_, pp. 408\u20139 (ed. 1792) and al.\n\nFootnote 893:\n\n  _Essay on Pop._, 7th ed., pp. 449, 451 _seq._; _Annals of\n  Agriculture_, no. 239, pp. 219 _seq._ (quoted in _Essay_, App. pp.\n  496\u20137). Young had reproached Malthus for denying the right to relief.\n\nFootnote 894:\n\n  _Travels in France_, ed. 1792, pp. 438\u20139.\n\nFootnote 895:\n\n  App. to _Essay_, pp. 499, 500. It is not true that \u201cOwen was right _as\n  against Malthus_ when he regarded a certain amount of comfort as the\n  indispensable condition of a moral life, and thought that a\n  considerable increase of man\u2019s powers of production was possible\u201d\n  (Held, _Soc. Gesch. Englands_, pp. 351\u20132). Malthus himself did both.\n\nFootnote 896:\n\n  The _Plan_ is quoted by Cobbett, _Pol. Reg._, Dec. 14, 1816. Malthus\n  (_Pol. Ec._ (1820), pp. 434, 435, (1836) p. 378) thinks that\n  \u201cco-proprietorship\u201d of Government with the landlords, after the scheme\n  of the Economists and on the analogy of Oriental \u201csole\n  proprietorship,\u201d might become too ready an engine of taxation for a\n  military despotism.\n\nFootnote 897:\n\n  See above, pp. 87, 112, &c.\n\nFootnote 898:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 284.\n\nFootnote 899:\n\n  _E. g._ by Bagehot, _Econ. Stud._ (1880), pp. 135 _seq._, and by\n  Southey in Aikin\u2019s _Annual Review_ above quoted.\n\nFootnote 900:\n\n  III. iii. 286. This and the rest of his argument (even its application\n  to Civil Liberty) is to be found in Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 3 and\n  4, but esp. 5. \u03b4\u03b5\u1f76 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf \u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, &c.\n\nFootnote 901:\n\n  _Essay on Pop._, 7th ed., p. 282.\n\nFootnote 902:\n\n  See above, p. 24.\n\nFootnote 903:\n\n  _Genesis of Species_, 2nd ed., 1871, p. 5.\n\nFootnote 904:\n\n  The puzzling effect of counting up one\u2019s great-grandfathers and\n  great-grandmothers up to the twentieth degree or so is described by\n  Blackstone as quoted by Godwin (_Popn._) and re-quoted by Hazlitt\n  (_Spirit of the Age_, 1825, p. 273, \u2018Godwin\u2019). The puzzle is less if\n  we remember that our remote ancestors must have married into each\n  other\u2019s families, or rather were scions in the end of the same\n  families. We cannot go back to a single pair except through the\n  \u201cprohibited degrees.\u201d\n\nFootnote 905:\n\n  We are to understand, therefore, that Malthus and the author agree\n  _that_ population needs a check, and are simply not agreed _what_ the\n  checks are to be.\n\nFootnote 906:\n\n  See below, p. 392.\n\nFootnote 907:\n\n  See above, p. 370. The sixteen positions not touched in their own\n  place will be met by a reference to the following places in this book:\n  i. to p. 20, add _Essay_, 2nd ed. Bk. III. ch. iii. p. 383, ii. to p.\n  37, iii. to p. 338, iv. to pp. 51, 78, v. to p. 80, vi. to p. 83,\n  viii. to p. 113, ix. to p. 376, x. to p. 67, xi. to pp. 231, 297, see\n  _Essay_, 7th ed. p. 381, xii. to pp. 70, 75, 91, xiii. to p. 393, xiv.\n  to pp. 91, 270, xv. to p. 294, xvi. to p. 69, and xvii. to p. 75.\n\nFootnote 908:\n\n  _Das Kapital_, 7ter Abschn. 23tes Kap. pp. 653 _seq._ (ed. 1872); cf.\n  646 _seq._\n\nFootnote 909:\n\n  The language of Ricardo, ch. xxxi. p. 236 (quoted by Marx, p. 656 n.).\n  Cf. above, p. 297. Cf. also Marx, pp. 427 foll.\n\nFootnote 910:\n\n  Cf. what Prof. Rogers says in _Six Centuries_, p. 229, of the attempt\n  made in the fifteenth century to increase the \u201cresiduum\u201d of\n  agricultural labour for the benefit of the farmers and landlords. Also\n  above, p. 164 n.\n\nFootnote 911:\n\n  Marx, _ibid._, p. 659.\n\nFootnote 912:\n\n  Misprinted in Marx as 254.\n\nFootnote 913:\n\n  See above, pp. 137, 188, &c.\n\nFootnote 914:\n\n  See above, p. 335.\n\nFootnote 915:\n\n  See above, pp. 299, 335, &c.\n\nFootnote 916:\n\n  _Das Kap._, p. 549 n.\n\nFootnote 917:\n\n  _Das Kap._, p. 641 n.\n\nFootnote 918:\n\n  The passage omitted is neither true nor decent.\n\nFootnote 919:\n\n  G. M. Ortes _Reflessioni sulla popolazione_ (1790).\n\nFootnote 920:\n\n  _Das Kap._, p. 549 n.\n\nFootnote 921:\n\n  Cf. above, p. 382, and Malthus, _Essay_, 2nd ed. III. iii. 386, where\n  he says that Duty and Interest must work together.\n\nFootnote 922:\n\n  \u2018Theory of Population,\u2019 in _Westminster Rev._, April 1852, pirated by\n  the German Professor Trall in 1877 (_Eine neue Bev\u00f6lkerungstheorie_),\n  and substantially maintained by its author (Mr. Herbert Spencer) in\n  _Principles of Biology_, Vol. II. Part vi., \u2018Laws of Multiplication.\u2019\n\nFootnote 923:\n\n  _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 269.\n\nFootnote 924:\n\n  Above, p. 377.\n\nFootnote 925:\n\n  _E. g._ Hazlitt, _Reply to Essay on Population_, p. 20.\n\nFootnote 926:\n\n  W. R. Greg, _Enigmas of Life_, 8th ed., 1874, pp. 58 _seq._ This was\n  nearly Godwin\u2019s position in his first reply.\n\nFootnote 927:\n\n  Sadler on _Population_, and Reply to _Edinburgh Review_. Godwin,\n  _Population_, Bk. VI. ch. ii., &c.\n\nFootnote 928:\n\n  Carey (H. C.), _Princ. of Social Science_ (1858), vol. i. ch. xiv.;\n  cf. above, p. 74 _seq._ H. George, _Progress and Poverty_, pp. 115,\n  116. Sadler, p. 70, &c.\n\nFootnote 929:\n\n  Godwin, Sadler, &c.\n\nFootnote 930:\n\n  Sadler, pp. 354\u20135, &c. Cf. Adam Smith, _W. of N._, I. viii. 36. See\n  above, pp. 82, 83.\n\nFootnote 931:\n\n  Godwin, see above, p. 361. Southey, _Life and Corresp._, III. 188.\n  Bagehot, _Econ. Studies_, pp. 133 _seq._ Cf. George, II. ii. 94.\n  Above, pp. 362, 381.\n\nFootnote 932:\n\n  Besant, _Law of Population_, ch. iii. Cf. Malthus, pp. 407 _seq._ (IV.\n  iv.); Cobbett, _Taking Leave of his Countrymen_ (1817), p. 6;\n  _Political Register_, 4th Jan. 1817, p. 26, &c., &c. Above, p. 329.\n\nFootnote 933:\n\n  Godwin, _Population_, passim. George, II. ii. 102, 109. Above, pp.\n  111, 112.\n\nFootnote 934:\n\n  Godwin, _ibid._; George, pp. 138, 259, &c., &c.; Coleridge, MS. note\n  to p. 358 (of _Essay_, 2nd ed.), where for \u201cphysical constitution of\n  our nature\u201d he would read, \u201cin the existing system of society.\u201d So\n  verbatim Southey in Aikin\u2019s _Ann. Rev._ _l. c._\n\nFootnote 935:\n\n  Doubleday, _True Law of Population_ (1841). Above, p. 65. See Herbert\n  Spencer, _Biology_, Vol. II. pt. vi. ch. xii. pp. 455, 480, &c. The\n  physiologists have amply refuted Doubleday.\n\nFootnote 936:\n\n  Herbert Spencer. See above, p. 393. W. R. Greg, _Enigmas_. Above, p.\n  394.\n\nFootnote 937:\n\n  New Malthusians. See above, p. 24.\n\nFootnote 938:\n\n  See above, pp. 365 _seq._ The orthodoxy of Malthus is proved not by a\n  few orthodox sentences which can be gleaned from him (as from Bacon),\n  or even by the discovery of flaws in the received doctrine, but by the\n  whole logic of the essay.\n\nFootnote 939:\n\n  See above, pp. 365 _seq._\n\nFootnote 940:\n\n  See above, p. 336.\n\nFootnote 941:\n\n  See above, p. 328.\n\nFootnote 942:\n\n  See above, p. 96.\n\nFootnote 943:\n\n  The authorship of the article is shown by Macvey Napier\u2019s Letters _sub\n  dato_, and that of the biogr. preface by Empson\u2019s art., p. 472.\n\nFootnote 944:\n\n  \u201cDaniel Malthus, 17, Sydenham de parochia Sti Giles Londini Armigeri\n  filius\u201d (Matriculation entry, Easter term, 1747).\n\nFootnote 945:\n\n  See Gibbon\u2019s _Memoirs_, p. 46 (ed. Hunt and Clarke), and Jeffrey\u2019s\n  _Life_, i. 40.\n\nFootnote 946:\n\n  Cf. _Wealth of Nations_, V. i. art., pp. 341 foll.\n\nFootnote 947:\n\n  Biogr. pref. to _Pol. Econ._ (1836), p. xxvi.\n\nFootnote 948:\n\n  The name Malthus itself is probably Malt-hus, or Malthouse (cf.\n  Shorthouse, Maltby), which still occurs as a surname in England.\n  Francis (or, some say, Thomas) Malthus wrote on \u2018Fireworks,\n  fortification, and arithmetic,\u2019 in French and in English, 1629.\n\nFootnote 949:\n\n  Except _perhaps_ in a letter quoted by Otter, biogr. pref. p. xxvii.\n  (date 1788).\n\nFootnote 950:\n\n  _l. c._ p. xxv.\n\nFootnote 951:\n\n  _l. c._ pp. xxv and xxvi, which show, however, that at fifty-seven the\n  strength had failed a little.\n\nFootnote 952:\n\n  \u201cHe was not born to copy the works of others.\u201d\u2014Letter in _Gentl.\n  Mag._, Feb. 1800. See above, p. 7, and Otter, p. xxii.\n\nFootnote 953:\n\n  Otter, pp. xxi, xxii.\n\nFootnote 954:\n\n  So he urges Robert continually to \u201capply his tools.\u201d \u201cI hate to see a\n  girl working curious stitches upon a piece of rag.\u201d\u2014Otter, p. xxvi.\n\nFootnote 955:\n\n  _Gentl. Mag._, Jan. 1800, p. 86; cf. Feb. 1800, p. 177; Otter, p.\n  xxvi.\n\nFootnote 956:\n\n  _Monthly Mag._, March 1800, Otter, p. xxii. What and where were the\n  pieces we are not told.\n\nFootnote 957:\n\n  Written in 1772, and republished in Mrs. Barbauld\u2019s series of _British\n  Novelists_, 1820. Graves lived at Claverton from 1750 till his death\n  in 1804, in his ninetieth year. He became Fellow of All Souls in 1730,\n  and may have known Daniel Malthus at Oxford.\n\nFootnote 958:\n\n  Whom he names and quotes freely. Tucker, in _Light of Nature_, shows\n  the same open dislike of them, but with much more good-humour and\n  taste.\n\nFootnote 959:\n\n  In 1780 or thereabouts.\n\nFootnote 960:\n\n  Wakefield\u2019s _Life_ (1804), vol. i. p. 214. It is curious to remember\n  that Marat is said to have been an usher at a Warrington School a\n  short time before this.\n\nFootnote 961:\n\n  Wakefield\u2019s _Life_, i. p. 344.\n\nFootnote 962:\n\n  Elected in 1776. See _Life_, i. p. 111 ft.\n\nFootnote 963:\n\n  Otter, _l. c._ p. xxvii. ft.\n\nFootnote 964:\n\n  Letter in App. II. to Wakefield, Life, ii. pp. 454\u2013463. A comparison\n  of this letter with Wakefield, _Life_, ii. p. 334, and Otter, _l. c._\n  p. xxiv. ft. (\u201cby his own acknowledgment\u201d), makes it almost certain\n  that the letter is by Malthus.\n\nFootnote 965:\n\n  _E. g._ with such very different men as Watson, Bishop of Llandaff,\n  and Thomas Paine.\n\nFootnote 966:\n\n  Though at college he took several prizes for Latin and Greek and\n  English Declamations. We may hope that his defect of utterance had not\n  become pronounced at that date, or that the declamations were not\n  always declaimed.\n\nFootnote 967:\n\n  Wakefield, _Life_, ii. p. 9.\n\nFootnote 968:\n\n  Otter, _l. c._ p. xxv.\n\nFootnote 969:\n\n  Otter himself was fourth wrangler in 1790, and E. D. Clarke junior\n  optime in the same year.\n\nFootnote 970:\n\n  Otter, _l. c._ p. xxviii.\n\nFootnote 971:\n\n  _l. c._ p. xxvii.\n\nFootnote 972:\n\n  _l. c._ p. xxviii.\n\nFootnote 973:\n\n  On the road leading out of Albury towards Guildford, a snug little\n  low-roofed house clinging to a hill slope, less ambitious than the\n  Rookery, but not without its pleasant garden walks, trees, and\n  shrubberies.\n\nFootnote 974:\n\n  See above, p. 7.\n\nFootnote 975:\n\n  Of which the genesis has been sufficiently described above, Bk. I. ch.\n  i.\n\nFootnote 976:\n\n  One of his sources is shown by _Essay_, IV. ix. 438: \u201cIn some\n  conversations with labouring men during the late scarcities.\u201d Cf. the\n  tract on _The High Price of Provisions_, p. 10, &c.\n\nFootnote 977:\n\n  See above, pp. 48, 49 (abroad), and p. 195 (in Ireland).\n\nFootnote 978:\n\n  Clarke (E. D.) (_Life_ by Otter, vol. ii. p. 15) refers to a letter\n  from Malthus, asking about the Foundling Hospital at St. Petersburg\n  (date March 1800). Cf. _ibid._, p. 39: \u201cAs for Malthus, tell him he is\n  not worth writing to. He is wrapped up in other matters and\n  obliterating all traces of his pilgrimage.... He is a great deal _trop\n  de plomb pour un tourist_\u201d [_sic_]. So he draws on Mackintosh when the\n  latter is in India, in 1804. See Mackintosh\u2019s _Life_ (1836), p. 215.\n\nFootnote 979:\n\n  _E. g._ Ricardo, Senior, and Dr. Thos. Chalmers (who paid him a flying\n  visit in October 1822: _Life_ by Hanna, vol. ii. p. 358), and Francis\n  Horner (_Memoirs and Corresp._, e. g. vol. i. p. 406). In i. 436 of\n  his _Memoirs_ Horner speaks of having gone with John Whishaw, the\n  barrister, to visit Malthus at Haileybury in 1808, and takes occasion\n  to praise his mere love of truth above the eloquence and versatility\n  of others, though that, he says, may look like a decision in favour of\n  dulness.\n\nFootnote 980:\n\n  _E. g._ the reservoir, p. 106; but the most extravagant is perhaps the\n  botanical figure, on p. 273, where he says that \u201cthe forcing manure,\u201d\n  employed to cause the French Revolution, has \u201cburst the calyx of\n  humanity.\u201d Macaulay uses a similar metaphor of precisely the same\n  event, in the _Essay on Burleigh_.\n\nFootnote 981:\n\n  His own command of metaphor made it the easier for him to turn the\n  edge of an opponent\u2019s. See _e. g._ his handling of Weyland\u2019s Giant,\n  Musket-ball, and Swaddling-clothes, in _Essay_, Append. pp. 514\u2013521.\n\nFootnote 982:\n\n  Engraved by Fournier for the _Dictionnaire de l\u2019\u00c9conomie Politique_,\n  art. \u2018Malthus.\u2019\n\nFootnote 983:\n\n  See below, p. 418 n.\n\nFootnote 984:\n\n  _Gentl. Mag._, March 1835, p. 324.\n\nFootnote 985:\n\n  _Essay_ (7th ed.), II. iii. 148, where \u201cwinter of 1788\u201d is perhaps for\n  1798, though it is 1788 in the second and all subsequent editions; or\n  else \u201cpreceding\u201d may be wrong. Cf. _High Price of Prov._, p. 2.\n\nFootnote 986:\n\n  Cf. above, pp. 48, 127, which should be read in conjunction with this\n  Biography.\n\nFootnote 987:\n\n  _Life of Clarke_, vol. ii. p. 183. We know from a footnote in the\n  essay itself (7th ed., p. 194) that part of it at least was written in\n  1802.\n\nFootnote 988:\n\n  Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iii. p. 36; cf. p. 53. \u201cOur election at\n  Cambridge was perfectly quiet.\u201d\n\nFootnote 989:\n\n  _Life of Clarke_, ii. 203\u20134 n.\n\nFootnote 990:\n\n  Earl of Carlisle, the poet. See _Engl. Bards and Scotch Reviewers_.\n\nFootnote 991:\n\n  Otter, _l. c._ p. xxvi. Cf. _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 210\u201312. _Gentl.\n  Mag._, April 1804, p. 374. A compliment which Otter pays him (in an\n  obituary in the _Athen\u00e6um_, 10th Jan. 1835), that his servants stayed\n  long with him, would fall more naturally to his wife.\n\nFootnote 992:\n\n  Mr. Sargant (_Life of Owen_, p. 85) says, on the authority of Mr.\n  Holyoake, that Malthus visited New Lanark in its palmy days. Owen\u2019s\n  work then was after Malthus\u2019 own heart; he was reforming the world by\n  beginning with one individual corner of it. Cf. _Essay_, III. iii. 282\n  ft.\n\nFootnote 993:\n\n  See below, p. 423.\n\nFootnote 994:\n\n  _Memoirs of Horner_, i. 436\u20137; cf. p. 406. Cf. Miss Martineau, _Hist.\n  of Peace_, Introduction, II. i. 257.\n\nFootnote 995:\n\n  He was made a member of the French Institute, and, in 1833, one of the\n  five foreign Associates of the Acad. des Sciences Mor. and Pol., and a\n  member of the Royal Academy of Berlin (Otter, _l. c._ p. xli.). See\n  Chas. Comte, _Notice_, and Garnier, _Dict. de l\u2019\u00c9c. Pol._\n\nFootnote 996:\n\n  Bain, _Life of James Mill_ (1882), p. 199.\n\nFootnote 997:\n\n  All that is certainly known of the bulk of his contributions to the\n  _Edin. Review_ is that, like those of James Mill and Mackintosh, they\n  do not occur before the twentieth number of it (in July 1807). See\n  Bain, _Life of James Mill_, p. 75 n. Horner mentions (_Memoirs_, Vol.\n  I. p. 437) the article on Newenham\u2019s _Population of Ireland_, 1808,\n  and another (of which he had seen the MS.) Feb. 1811 (Vol. II. p. 68).\n  But see above, p. 285, note.\n\nFootnote 998:\n\n  The apocryphal story of his eleven daughters is given and exposed by\n  Garnier, _Dict. de l\u2019\u00c9c. Pol._, art. \u2018Malthus.\u2019\n\nFootnote 999:\n\n  Otter\u2019s son-in-law. \u201cHal\u201d in his childhood was asked what he would\n  have done if, like the Good Samaritan, he had found a man half dead by\n  the roadside; he answered (on the analogy of flies), \u201cI should have\n  killed him outright.\u201d Contrast the child\u2019s answer with his father\u2019s\n  remarks on the same parable in _Essay_, IV. xi. 447.\n\nFootnote 1000:\n\n  Clergy List, 1881.\n\nFootnote 1001:\n\n  Moore\u2019s _Memoirs_, _Journals_, &c. (ed. Russell, 1853), vol. iii. p.\n  148, date Sept. 1820. Moore himself speaks of meeting Malthus and his\n  wife when he was on a visit to Mackintosh at Haileybury in May 1819.\n  _Ibid._, ii. 315.\n\nFootnote 1002:\n\n  _Volksvermehrung_, p. 9. Kautsky sometimes trips, but he is more\n  accurate than most of Malthus\u2019 foreign biographers. Chas. Comte (in\n  his _Notice historique sur la vie et les travaux de M. T. R. Malthus_,\n  read to Acad. of Mor. and Pol. Sciences, 28th Dec., 1836) converts\n  Haileybury into _Aylesbury_ (p. 31).\n\nFootnote 1003:\n\n  _Pol. Econ._ (1836), p. 380 n. Sydney Smith wrote to Grey about him\n  without success, in 1831 (Holland\u2019s _Life of Sydney Smith_, vol, ii.\n  p. 328).\n\nFootnote 1004:\n\n  Richard, the brother of Wellington. See his Minute of 18th August,\n  1800, quoted by Malthus in his _Statements_.\n\nFootnote 1005:\n\n  _E. India Register and Directory_ (Hatchard), year 1807, pp. xxiv.\n  _seq._ \u201cPreliminary view of the establishment of the E. India\n  College.\u201d These two branches of the Haileybury programme correspond in\n  their subjects to the Competitive and the Further examinations of\n  candidates for the Civil Service of India as at present conducted.\n  Malthus claims the credit of making the test in Oriental languages a\n  necessary condition of final appointment (_Statements_, p. 100).\n\nFootnote 1006:\n\n  Accordingly Malthus gets many of his illustrations from India, e. g.\n  _Pol. Ec._ (2nd ed.), pp. 154\u20135.\n\nFootnote 1007:\n\n  _India Register_, _l. c._ p. xxv.\n\nFootnote 1008:\n\n  There must be some on the Pension List who still remember him.\n\nFootnote 1009:\n\n  From the first there was a school, affiliated with the college though\n  not confined to its future pupils. The present school is of later\n  origin.\n\nFootnote 1010:\n\n  _Statements_, p. 103, &c. This idea of the proper preparation for a\n  civilian\u2019s career in India chimes in with Malthus\u2019 idea of the first\n  requisite of good citizenship at home and everywhere.\n\nFootnote 1011:\n\n  A hare-lip. Miss Martineau, who describes it, adds that \u201chis vowels at\n  least were sonorous, whatever might become of the consonants.\u201d But she\n  understood him without her ear trumpet. _Autobiogr._, i. 327\u20138. Cf.\n  above, p. 58. Sydney Smith says, \u201cI would almost consent to speak as\n  inarticulately if I could think and act as wisely.\u201d _Life_ by Holland,\n  vol. ii. p. 326. He attributes a similar physical defect to\n  Talleyrand, with perhaps as much seriousness. _Life_ by Holland, vol.\n  ii. pp. 256\u20137.\n\nFootnote 1012:\n\n  _Letter to Lord Grenville_ (1813), p. 14. Cf. what he says of the\n  importance of teaching Political Economy in elementary schools, &c.\n  _Essay_, IV. ix. 438 n.\n\nFootnote 1013:\n\n  Jeffrey, _Life_, vol. ii. pp. 339, 340. To Mrs. C. Innes, 9th May,\n  1841.\n\nFootnote 1014:\n\n  _Autobiogr._, i. 327. Other visits of Malthus to her are recorded,\n  iii. 83, i. 253. For her view of him and his work see especially i.\n  200, 209, 253, 331.\n\nFootnote 1015:\n\n  _Ib._ I. pp. 328\u20139.\n\nFootnote 1016:\n\n  Cf. 1st _Essay_, pp. 225\u20136, which shows him on the Hunting-Field.\n\nFootnote 1017:\n\n  A slip of the pen for \u201cProfessor.\u201d The Principal was J. H. Batten,\n  F.R.S.\n\nFootnote 1018:\n\n  Where the fear expressed in some quarters (see _Statements_, p. 87)\n  that the place would become a barrack has been realized\n  architecturally.\n\nFootnote 1019:\n\n  _Life_ by Holland, vol. ii. p. 73.\n\nFootnote 1020:\n\n  _l. c._ vol. ii p. 150.\n\nFootnote 1021:\n\n  Debate in House of Lords, April 9th, 1813, Hansard, pp. 750, 751.\n\nFootnote 1022:\n\n  \u2018Statements respecting the East India College, with an appeal to facts\n  in refutation of the charges lately brought against it in the Court of\n  Proprietors\u2019 (1817). Cf. his \u2018Letter to Lord Grenville, occasioned by\n  some observations of his Lordship on the E. India Co.\u2019s establishment\n  for the education of their Civil servants\u2019 (1813). Cf. _Edin. Rev._,\n  Dec. 1816. The Letter to Lord Grenville (1813) states the case a\n  little less fully; but both pamphlets contain substantially the same\n  arguments.\n\nFootnote 1023:\n\n  A property it often was, in the most literal sense, being bought and\n  sold for cash. See _Hist. of Peace_, Introd. II. ii. 329\u201330.\n\nFootnote 1024:\n\n  _Statements_, p. 103 n.\n\nFootnote 1025:\n\n  Candidates were to be nominated in groups of four, the best of the\n  four to have the appointment. Cf. Mill and Wilson\u2019s _Brit. India_,\n  Vol. IX. Book III. ch. ix. p. 381.\n\nFootnote 1026:\n\n  The steps of the change may be followed in the fourth _Report (1858)\n  of the Civil Service Commissioners_, pp. xix. _seq._ and 228 _seq._\n  Cf. also their first Report (1855).\n\nFootnote 1027:\n\n  For proofs of their regard, see the letters quoted in the blue-book of\n  1876 on \u201cthe Selection and Training of candidates for the Civil\n  Service of India,\u201d _passim_, and Trevelyan\u2019s \u201cCompetition Wallah\u201d\n  (1864), pp. 7, 8, 15, 16, but cf. 149.\n\nFootnote 1028:\n\n  See _Works_, Review of Rennel, footnote.\n\nFootnote 1029:\n\n  _Memoirs_, Vol. I. p. 436, &c.\n\nFootnote 1030:\n\n  Quoted in Empson, _Edin. Rev._, Jan. 1837, p. 473. Sinclair\u2019s\n  \u2018Correspondence\u2019 (1831), amongst other curious matter, gives the\n  autographs of the three great masters (I. 101).\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in\n      spelling.\n 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"Malthus and his work","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":121893}