detached essays.
in volume ii. of the “essay on the principle of population” (edition 1806) there are to be found a number of most interesting remarks on the population question. book ii. contains chapters on the fruitfulness of marriage, on the effects of epidemics, on registers of births, deaths, and marriages, and on the general deductions from the preceding view of society.
“there is no absolutely necessary connection,” says malthus, “between the average age of marriage and the average age of death. in a country the resources of which will allow of a rapid increase of population, the expectation of life or the average age of death may be extremely high, and yet the age of marriage may be very early; and the marriages, then, compared with the contemporary deaths of the registers, would, even after the correction for second and third marriages, be very much too great to represent the true proportion of the born living to marry.”
at the commencement of this century, it appears from the transactions of the society of philadelphia, in a paper by mr. barton, entitled “observations on the probability of life in the united states,” that the proportion of marriages to births was as 1 to 4?. as, however, this proportion was taken principally from towns, it is probable, according to malthus, that the births given were too low, and that as many as five might be taken as an average for town and country. according to this author, the mortality at that date was about 1 in 45; and, if the population doubled in twenty-five years, the births would be 1 in 20 (50 per 1,000).
in england at the commencement of this century the proportion of marriages to births appears to have been about 100 to 350. but in those days mr. malthus calculated that the annual marriages to the births in england amounted to about 1 in 4. in the east end of london at the present day the writer has found that the average number of children to a marriage among the women of the poorer classes is about 7, whilst the annual births in england and wales to the marriages 46are nearly as 4? to 1. in france the annual marriages are to the births as 1 to 3.
a writer in mr. malthus’s day, crome, observes that when, the marriages of a country yield less than four births, the population is in a very precarious state; and he estimates the prolificness of marriages by the proportion of yearly births to marriages. if this had been true, the population of many countries of europe would be at present in a precarious state, since in many, as in france, the proportion of marriages to births is much under 4 to 1.
“the preventive check,” says malthus, “is perhaps best measured by the smallness of the proportion of yearly births to the whole population. the proportion of yearly marriages to the population is only a just criterion in countries similarly circumstanced, but is incorrect where there is a difference in the prolificness of marriages or in the proportion of the population under the age of puberty, and in the rate of increase. if all the marriages of a country, be they few or many, take place young, and be consequently prolific, it is evident that to produce the same proportion of births a smaller number of marriages will be necessary, or, with the same proportion of marriages, a greater proportion will be produced.”
curiously enough, in his day malthus mentions that in france both the births and deaths were greater than they were in sweden, although the proportion of marriages was then rather less in france. “and when,” he adds, “in two countries compared, one of them has a much greater part of its population under the age of puberty than the other, it is evident that any general proportion of the yearly marriages to the whole population will not imply the same operation of the preventive check among those of a marriageable age.”
one of the most interesting chapters in the second volume of malthus’ essay is that which relates to the rapid increase of births after the plagues. according to sussmilch, very few countries had hitherto been exempt from plagues, which every now and then would sweep away one-fourth or one-third of their population. that writer calculated that above one-third of the people in prussia were destroyed by the plague of 1711; and yet, notwithstanding this great diminution of the population, it appeared that the number of marriages in 1711 was very nearly double the average of the six years preceding the plague. hence the proportion of births to deaths was prodigious—320 to 100—an excess of births as great, perhaps, as has ever been known in america. in the four years succeeding 47the plague the births were to the deaths in the proportion of above 22 to 10, which, calculating the mortality at 1 in 36, would double the population in 21 years.
“in contemplating,” says malthus, “the plagues and sickly seasons which occur in the tables of sussmilch, after a period of rapid increase, it is impossible not to be struck with the idea that the number of inhabitants had, in these instances, exceeded the food and accommodation necessary to preserve them in health. the mass of the people would, upon this supposition, be obliged to live worse, and a greater number of them would be crowded together in one house; and these natural causes would evidently contribute to increase sickness, even though the country, absolutely considered, might not be crowded and populous. in a country even thinly inhabited, if an increase of population takes place before more food is raised, and more houses are built, the inhabitants must be distressed for room and subsistence.”
in chapter xi. we have some general deductions from the preceding views of society. mr. malthus there shows that the main cause of the slow growth of populations in europe is insufficiency of supplies of food. no settlements, says our author, could have been worse managed than those of spain, mexico, peru and quito. yet, under all their difficulties, these colonies made a quick increase in population. but the english north american colonies added to the quantity of rich land they held in common with the spanish and portuguese settlements, a greater degree of liberty and equality. in pennsylvania there was no right of primogeniture in malthus’ time: and in the provinces of new england the eldest son had only a double share. the consequence of these favourable circumstances united was a rapidity of increase almost without a parallel in history. throughout all the northern provinces the population was found to double itself in 25 years. the original number of persons which had settled in the four provinces of new england, in 1643, was 21,200. afterwards it was calculated that more left them than went to them. in the year 1760 they were increased to half a million. they had, therefore, all along, doubled their numbers in 25 years. in new jersey the period of doubling appeared to be 22 years; and in rhode island still less. in the back settlements, where the inhabitants applied themselves solely to agriculture, and luxury was not known, they were supposed to double their numbers in 15 years.
the population of the united states, says malthus, writing 48in 1806, according to the last census, is 11,000,000. “we have no reason to believe that great britain is less populous at present, for the emigration of the small parent stock which produced these numbers. on the contrary, a certain amount of emigration is known to be favourable to the population of the mother country. whatever was the original number of british emigrants which increased so fast in north america, let us ask. why does not an equal number produce an equal increase in the same time in great britain? the obvious reason is the want of food; and that this want is the most efficient cause of the three immediate checks to population which have been observed to prevail in all societies, is evident, from the rapidity with which even old states recover the desolations of war, pestilence, famine, and the convulsions of nature. they are then for a short time placed a little in the condition of new colonies, and the effect is always answerable to what might be expected. if the industry of the inhabitants be not destroyed, subsistence will soon increase beyond the wants of the reduced numbers; and the invariable consequence will be, that population, which before perhaps was nearly stationary, will begin immediately to increase, and will continue its progress till the former population is recovered.”
the decennial censuses of the united states during this century have been as follows, in round numbers:—in 1800, 5,305,000; in 1810, 7,239,000; in 1820, 9,638,000; in 1830, 12,866,000; in 1840, 17,069,000; in 1850, 23,193,000; in 1860, 31,443,000; in 1870, 38,558,000. if we compare the cypher of 1830—12,866,000—with that of 1800—5,305,000—we see that the population of the states far more than doubled itself in the first thirty years of the century, making all due allowance for immigration, by the simple process of fecundity inherent in the human species.
mr. malthus mentions (chapter xi. p. 67), that in new jersey “the proportion of births to deaths, in an average of seven years, ending 1743, was 300 to 100. in england and france, he says, at that time the highest average proportion could not be reckoned at more than 120 to 100.” at this date, 1880, the proportion of births to deaths in france is as 111 is to 100, and in england it is as 152 is to 100, whereas in dublin the deaths exceed the births. in new zealand the births are to the deaths as 340 is to 100. there is nothing, he says, the least mysterious in this. “the passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same, that it may be considered, in algebraic language, as a given 49quantity. the great law of necessity which prevents population from increasing in any country beyond the food which it can either produce or acquire, is a law so open to our view, so obvious and evident to our understandings, that we cannot for a moment doubt it. the different modes which nature takes to repress a redundant population, do not appear, indeed, to us so certain and regular; but though we cannot always predict the mode, we may with certainty predict the fact. if the proportion of the births to the deaths for a few years indicates an increase of numbers much beyond the proportional increased or acquired food of the country, we may be perfectly certain that unless an emigration take place the deaths will shortly exceed the births, and that the increase that has been observed for a few years cannot be the real average increase of the population of that country. if there were no other depopulating causes, and if the preventive check did not act very strongly, every country would without doubt be subject to periodical plagues and famines.”
this is a well-known passage, and shows the genius of the writer as well as any in his work. how immensely superior is his clear enunciation of the attraction between the sexes when compared with the strange speculations of mr. herbert spencer of late years, about the supposed gradual decay of that attraction in proportion to the alleged increase in the weight of the human brain. it is quite deplorable to see what ingenuity has been exercised by latter-day philosophers to get over the plain and inevitable conclusions of malthus and his common-sense school. the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest has been put forward as a plea for allowing over-population to grind the masses in constant misery, and the delusive ideal of the equation of mouths to food in the course of ages by a mere fanciful tendency of organisms to become more perfect, without the exercise of volition, are the latest struggles of the ostrich to burrow with his head in the sand in order to avoid the sight of the inevitable.
“the only criterion,” says malthus, “of a real and permanent increase in the population of any country is the increase in the means of subsistence. but even this criterion is subject to slight variations, which, however, are completely open to observation. in some countries population seems to have been forced: that is the people have been habituated by degrees to live almost upon the smallest possible quantity of food. there must have been periods in such countries when population increased permanently without an increase in the 50means of subsistence. china, india, and the countries possessed by the bedoween arabs, as we have seen in the former part of this work, appear to answer to this description. the average produce of these countries seems to be but barely sufficient to support the lives of the inhabitants, and, of course, any deficiency from the badness of the seasons must be fatal. nations in this state must necessarily be subject to famines.”
almost all the histories of epidemics which we have read tend to confirm the supposition that they are greatly caused by that over-population which, as in dublin in 1880, leads to over-crowded houses filled by ill-fed and ill-clad inmates. dr. short, an author of the last century, shows in his work (air, seasons, &c., vol. ii. p. 206), that a very considerable proportion of the epidemic years either have followed or were accompanied by seasons of dearth and bad food. in other places he also mentions great plagues as diminishing particularly the numbers of the poorest classes; and in speaking of different diseases, he observes, that those which are occasioned by bad and unwholesome food generally last the longest.
“we know (says our author) from constant experience that fevers are generated in our jails, our manufactories, our crowded workhouses, and in the narrow and close streets of our large towns, all which situations appear to be similar in their effects to squalid poverty, and we cannot doubt that causes of this kind, aggravated in degree, contributed to the production and prevalence of those great and wasting plagues formerly so common in europe, but which now, from the mitigation of their causes, are everywhere considerably abated, and in many places appear to be completely extirpated.
“of the other great scourge of mankind—famine—it may be observed that it is not in the nature of things that the increase of population should absolutely produce one. this increase, though rapid, is necessarily gradual, and as the human frame cannot be supported, even for a very short time, without food, it is evident that no more human beings can grow up than there is provision to maintain. but though the principle of population cannot absolutely produce a famine, it prepares the way for one in the most complete manner, and by obliging all the lower classes of people to subsist merely on the smallest quantity of food that will support life, turns even a slight deficiency from the failure of the seasons into a severe dearth; and may be fairly said, therefore, to be one of 51the principal causes of famine. among the signs of an approaching dearth, dr. short mentions one or more years of luxuriant crops together, and this observation is probably just, as we know that the general effect of years of cheapness and abundance is to dispose a greater number of persons to marry, and under such circumstances the return to a year which gives only an average crop might produce a scarcity.”
much has been lately spoken in professional assemblies about recent epidemics of small-pox. it is curious to hear what our author, writing in 1806, or seven years after the discovery of edward jenner, has to say. “the small-pox (says malthus, book 2, ch. xi., p. 61), which at present may be considered as the most prevalent and fatal epidemic in europe, is of all others, perhaps, the most difficult to account for, though the periods of its return are in many places regular. dr. short (air, seasons, vol. ii., p. 441), observes that from the history of this disorder it seems to have very little dependence on present constitutions of the weather of seasons, and that it appears epidemically at all times and in all states of the air, though not so frequently in hard frost. we know of no instances, i believe, of its being clearly generated under any circumstances of situation. i do not mean, therefore, to insinuate that poverty and crowded houses ever absolutely produced it; but i may be allowed to remark that in those places where its returns are regular, and its ravages among children, particularly among those of the lowest class, are considerable, it necessarily follows that these circumstances, in a greater degree than usual, must always precede and accompany its appearance; that is, from the time of its last visit, the average number of children will be increasing, the people will, in consequence, be growing poorer, and the houses will be more crowded till another visit removes this superabundant population.”
other circumstances being equal, it may be affirmed that countries are populous according to the quantity of human food which they produce or can acquire; and happy, according to the liberality with which the food is divided, or the quantity which a day’s labor will purchase. compare, on this standard of our author, the condition of an agricultural laborer in england, with beefsteak at one shilling the pound in london, with that of dunedin, where, as we write, it is at fourpence the pound, and wages are at least two and a half those in england for that class. “corn countries are more populous than pasture countries, and rice countries more 52populous than corn countries. but their happiness does not depend either upon their being thinly or fully inhabited, upon their poverty or their riches, their youth or their age; but on the proportion which the population and the food bear to each other. this proportion is generally the most favorable in new colonies, where the knowledge and industry of an old state operate on the fertile unappropriated land of a new one. in other cases the youth or the age of a state is not, in this respect, of great importance. it is probable that the food of great britain is divided in more liberal shares to its inhabitants at the present period than it was two thousand, three thousand, or four thousand years ago.”
this passage from malthus shows that he at least does not believe in the view sometimes attributed to him that the position of civilised society is tending continually to become more and more unbearable from pressure of population on food. malthus saw quite clearly that the prevention of a rapid birth-rate was more and more practised by nations in proportion as they became better educated, and he therefore did not at all take the pessimistic aspect of human society that many believe.
“in a country never to be overrun by a people more advanced in arts, but left to its own natural progress in civilisation; from the time when its produce might be considered as a unit, to the time that it might be considered as a million, during the lapse of many thousand years, there would not be a single period when the mass of the people could be said to be free from distress, either directly or indirectly, from want of food. in every state in europe, since we have first had accounts of it, millions and millions of human existences have been suppressed from this simple cause, though perhaps in some of these states an absolute famine may never have been known.”
these expressions of mr. malthus are entirely opposed to the idea that he held that the future of society was likely to be less bright than that of the past. still there is a certain sadness in the following sentence, which is the real secret of the unpopularity of the great discoverer’s doctrine. in page 73, book ii., chap. xi., he says: “population invariably increases when the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by powerful and obvious checks.... famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. the power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that unless arrested by the preventive 53check, premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. the vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. they are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. but should they fail in this work of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. should success be still incomplete, gigantic, inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and at one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.”
in mr. malthus’s edition of 1806, the third book contains several essays on the different systems or expedients which have been proposed or have prevailed in society, as they affect the evils arising from the principle of population. in chapter i., p. 77, he treats of systems of equality proposed by wallace, and the illustrious condorcet. mr. wallace, whose name has been adverted to by many writers as one of those who partly saw the importance of the tendency of mankind to increase more rapidly than food, did not seem to be aware that any difficulty would arise from this cause till the whole earth had been cultivated as a garden, and was incapable of any further increase of produce. mr. malthus remarks upon this idea of mr. wallace, that “at every period during the period of cultivation, from the present moment to the time when the whole earth was become like a garden, the distress for want of food would be constantly pressing on all mankind if they were equal. though the produce of the earth would be increasing every year, population would be tending to increase much faster, and the redundancy must necessarily be checked by the periodical action of moral restraint, vice, or misery.”
m. condorcet’s esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain was written, it is said, under the pressure of that cruel proscription which terminated in his death during the french revolution, and the posthumous publication is only a sketch of a much larger work which he proposed to write. by the application of calculations to the probabilities of life and the interest of money, condorcet proposed that a fund should be established, which should assure to the old an assistance produced in part by their own former savings, and in part by the savings of individuals, who in making the same sacrifice die before they reap the benefit of it. these establishments, he observes, might be made in the name and under the protection of the state. mr. blackley brought forward a somewhat similar proposal in 1880. condorcet adds that by 54the just application of such calculations, means might be found of more completely preserving a state of equality, by preventing credit from being the exclusive privilege of large fortunes, and yet giving it a basis equally solid, and by rendering the industry and activity of commerce less dependent on great capitalists.
mr. malthus criticises the schemes of condorcet as follows:—“supposing for a moment that they would give no check to production, the greatest difficulty remains behind. were every man sure of a comfortable provision for a family, almost every man would have one; and were the rising generation free from the killing frost of misery, population must increase with unusual rapidity.” and condorcet himself saw this, for he says: “but in this progress of industry and happiness, each generation will be called to more extended enjoyments, and, in consequence, by the physical constitution of the human frame, to an increase in the number of individuals. must not there arise a period when these laws, equally necessary, shall counteract each other; when the increase of the number of men surpassing their means of subsistence, the necessary result must be, either a continual diminution of happiness and population—a movement truly retrograde—or, at least, a kind of oscillation between good and evil. shall we ever arrive at such a period? it is equally impossible to pronounce for or against the future realization of an event, which cannot take place but at an era when the human race will have attained improvements of which we can at present scarcely form a conception.”
to this mr. malthus replies that the only point in which he differs from condorcet in the paragraph just cited is with regard to the period when it may be applied to the human race. condorcet thought that his age of iron would not come until a very distant era. our author remarks, on the contrary, that the period when the number of men surpassed their subsistence had long ago arrived; and that this constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery has existed ever since we have any history of mankind, and continues to exist at the present moment.
“m. condorcet (says malthus) however goes on to say that should the period which he conceives to be so distant ever arrive, the human race, and the advocates of the perfectibility of man, need not be alarmed at it. he then proceeds to remove the difficulty in a manner which i profess not to understand. having observed that the ridiculous prejudice of 55superstition would by that time have ceased to throw over morals a corrupt and degrading austerity, he alludes either to a promiscuous concubinage which would prevent breeding, or to something else as unnatural. to remove the difficulty in this way will surely, in the opinion of most men, be to destroy that virtue and purity of manners which the advocates of equality, and of the perfectibility of man, profess to be the end and object of their views.”
it is from passages such as these that mr. malthus differs so much from the so-called new-malthusians, who look for the solution of the population difficulty to the “small-family system” of the french. it would seem that the great french writer, condorcet, had a prophetic knowledge of what the effect of the great french revolution would be, a revolution which, by converting the cultivator of the soil of that state into the proprietor, has made france the most prudent country in the known world in the question of the size of families. mr. bonar, too, in a clever pamphlet, published in 1880, shows that mr. malthus retained somewhat the same phraseology as he uses here, in his 7th edition, page 512, where he thus speaks: “if it were possible for each married couple to limit by a wish the number of their children, there is certainly reason to fear that the indolence of the human race would be very greatly increased.” had he lived in 1881, and seen how rapidly the industry of france is increasing, her wealth developing, and poverty diminishing in that happiest of modern european states in the face of the lowest european birth-rate (26 per 1,000), he would have been the first, we doubt not, to retract these crude expressions, and to see wherein the virtue consists.
m. condorcet seems to have entertained some very hopeful ideas as to the perfectibility of the human frame, and to have thought that though man would not become absolutely immortal, yet that the duration between his birth and his natural death would increase without ceasing, would have no natural term, and might properly be expressed by the term indefinite. malthus demurs to these speculations. he thinks that the average duration of human life will, to a certain extent, vary from healthy or unhealthy climates, from wholesome or unwholesome food, from virtuous or vicious manners, and from other causes; but it may be fairly doubted whether there has been really the smallest perceptible advance in the natural duration of human life since we had any authentic history of man. “what can we reason but from what we know?”
56“the capacity of improvement in plants and animals, to a certain extent, no person can possibly doubt. a clear and decided progress has already been made, and yet i think that it would be highly absurd to say that this progress has no limits.... the error does not seem to lie in supposing a small degree of improvement possible, but in not discriminating between a small improvement, the limit of which is undefined, and an improvement really unlimited. as the human race could not be improved in the same way as the domestic animals, without condemning all the bad specimens to celibacy, it is not probable that an attention to breed should ever become general.” here, again, we prefer the injunction of professor mantegazza to consumptive parents: ‘amate, ma non generate’ (‘marry but do not reproduce’). the speculations of condorcet seem, to a certain extent, to have been revived in modern days by mr. h. spencer and dr. b. w. richardson. the former of these distinguished authors seems to look forward to a time when the wants of mankind shall by the process of evolution become equated to their powers of acquiring food, without calling in the will; and dr. richardson seems to look forward to a far greater longevity for individuals of the human species than has been experienced in its past history.
“when paradoxes of this kind (says malthus) are advanced by ingenious and able men, neglect has no tendency to convince them of their mistakes. priding themselves on what they conceive to be a mark of the make and size of their own understandings, of the extent and comprehensiveness of their views, they will look upon this neglect merely as an indication of poverty and narrowness of the mental exertions of their contemporaries, and only think that the world is not yet prepared to receive their sublime truths. on the contrary, a candid investigation of these subjects, accompanied with a perfect readiness to adopt anything warranted by sound philosophy, may have a tendency to convince them that in forming unfounded and improbable hypotheses, so far from enlarging the bounds of science, they are contracting it; so far from promoting the improvement of the human mind, they are obstructing it; they are throwing us back again almost into the infancy of knowledge, and weakening the foundations of that mode of philosophising under the auspices of which science has of late made such rapid advance. the late rage for wide and unrestrained speculation seems to have been a kind of mental intoxication, arising perhaps from the great 57and unexpected discoveries which had been made in various branches of science. to men elate and inspired with such successes, everything appears to be within the grasp of human powers, and under this illusion they confounded subjects where no real progress could be proved with those where the progress had been marked, certain and acknowledged.”
the great antagonist of mr. malthus at the commencement of this century was mr. godwin, who, in his work on political justice, gives a magnificent picture of a system of equality, which, by his account, is to regenerate society. on page 458 of book iv. of that work mr. godwin thus speaks:—“the spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and the spirit of fraud, then, are the immediate growth of the established administration of property. they are alike hostile to intellectual improvement. the other vices of envy, malice, and revenge are their inseparable companions. in a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where all shared alike the bounties of nature, these sentiments would inevitably expire. the narrow principle of selfishness would vanish. no man being obliged to guard his little store, or provide with anxiety or pain for his restless wants, each would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good. no man would be an enemy to his neighbours, for they would have no subject of contention; and, of consequence, philanthropy would resume the empire which reason assigns her. mind would be delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporeal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is congenial to her. each would assist the inquiries of all.”
the great error, as malthus observes, under which mr. godwin labors throughout his whole work is in attributing almost all the vices and miseries that prevail in civil society to human institutions. political regulations, and the established administration of property, are, with him, the fruitful sources of all evil, the hotbed of all the crimes that degrade mankind. “man cannot live (says malthus) in the midst of plenty. all cannot share alike the bounties of nature. were there no established administration of property, every man would be obliged to guard with force his little store. selfishness would be triumphant. the subjects of contention would be perpetual. every individual would be under a constant anxiety about corporeal support, and not a single intellect would be left free to expatiate in the field of thought.”
mr. godwin supposed that the population difficulty would 58only become of importance at some remote future. “three-fourths of the habitable globe are now uncultivated. the parts already cultivated are capable of immeasurable improvement. myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants.” mr. malthus asks us to imagine for a moment mr. godwin’s system of equality realised in its utmost extent, and see how soon the difficulty of population might be expected to press upon us under so perfect a form of society.
let us suppose, he says, all the causes of vice and misery in this island removed. “war and contention cease. unwholesome trades and manufactories do not exist. crowds no longer collect together in great and pestilent cities for purposes of court intrigue, of commerce, and vicious gratification. simple, healthy, and rational amusements take place of drinking, gambling, and debauchery. there are no towns sufficiently large to have any prejudicial effects on the human constitution. the greater part of the happy inhabitants of this terrestrial paradise live in hamlets and farm-houses, scattered over the face of the country. all men are equal. the labors of luxury are at an end, and the necessary labors of agriculture are shared amicably among all. the number of persons and the produce of the island we suppose to be the same as at present. “the spirit of benevolence guided by impartial justice will divide this produce among all the members of society according to their wants. though it would be impossible that they should all have animal food every day, yet vegetable food, with meat occasionally, would satisfy the desires of a frugal people, and would be sufficient to preserve them in health, strength, and spirits.”
“mr. godwin considers marriage as a fraud and a monopoly. let us suppose the commerce of the sexes established upon principles of the most perfect freedom. mr. godwin does not think himself that this freedom would lead to a promiscuous intercourse, and in this i perfectly agree with him. the love of variety is a vicious, corrupt, and unnatural taste, and could not prevail in any great degree in a simple and virtuous state of society. each man would probably select for himself a partner to whom he would adhere, as long as that adherence continued to be the choice of both parties. it would be of little consequence, according to mr. godwin, how many children a woman had, or to whom they belonged. provisions and assistance would spontaneously flow from the quarter in 59which they abounded to the quarter in which they were deficient, and every man according to his capacity would be ready to furnish instruction to the rising generation.”
“i cannot conceive a form of society so favorable upon the whole to population. the irremediableness of marriage, as it is at present constituted, undoubtedly deters many from entering into this state. an unshackled intercourse, on the contrary, would be a most powerful incitement to early attachments, and as we are supposing no anxiety about the future support of children to exist, i do not conceive that there would be one woman in a hundred, of twenty-three years of age, without a family.”
“with these extraordinary encouragements to population, and every cause of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed, the numbers would necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been known. i have before mentioned that the inhabitants of the back settlements of america appear to double their numbers in fifteen years. england is certainly a healthier country than the back settlements of america; and as we have supposed every house in the island to be airy and wholesome, and the encouragements to have a family greater even than in america, no probable reason can be assigned why the population should not double itself in less, if possible, than fifteen years.”... “it is probable that the half of every man’s time (in a system of equality) must be employed for this purpose (in agriculture). yet with such a much greater exertion, a person who is acquainted with the nature of the soil of the country, and who reflects on the fertility of the lands already in cultivation, and the barrenness of those that are not cultivated, will be very much disposed to doubt whether the whole average produce could possibly be doubled in twenty years from the present period. the only chance of success would be from the ploughing up most of the grazing countries, and putting an end almost entirely to animal food. yet this scheme would probably defeat itself. the soil of england will not produce much without dressing; and cattle seem to be necessary to make that species of manure which best suits the land.
“alas, what becomes of the picture, where men lived in the midst of plenty, when no man was obliged to provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants; when the narrow principles of selfishness did not exist; when the man was delivered from his perpetual anxiety for corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is so congenial 60to him? this beautiful fabric of the imagination vanishes at the severe touch of truth.... the children are sickly from insufficient food. the rosy flush of health gives place to the pallid cheek and hollow eye of misery.”
in as short a period as fifty years the whole of the worst evils of society will certainly re-appear, if population be not checked (says malthus) by moral restraint, vice, or misery. after showing that a regime of equality would inevitably end in these shallows, so long as the birth-rate was not restricted, malthus contends that some such laws of private property, as those which at present exist, would be certain to re-appear and misery to be increased. he then continues to give the best account of the irrevocable contract of marriage, with which we are familiar, that any writer has ever attempted to give.
“the next subject which would come under discussion, intimately connected with the preceding, is the commerce of the sexes. it would be urged by those who had turned their attention to the true cause of the difficulties under which the community labored, that while every man felt secure that all his children would be well provided for by general benevolence, the powers of the earth would be absolutely inadequate to produce food for the population which would inevitably ensue; that even if the whole attention and labor of the society were directed to this sole point, and if by the most perfect security of property, and every other encouragement that could be thought of, the greatest possible increase of produce were yearly obtained; yet still the increase of food would by no means keep pace with the much more rapid increase of population; that some check to population, therefore, was imperiously called for; that the most natural and obvious check seemed to be to make every man provide for his own children; that this would operate in some respect as a measure and a guide in the increase of population, as it might be expected that no man would bring beings into the world for whom he could not find the means of support; that when this, notwithstanding, was the case, it seemed necessary, for the example of others, that the disgrace and inconvenience attending such conduct should fall upon that individual who had thus inconsiderately plunged himself and his innocent children into want and misery. the institution of marriage, or at least of some express or implied obligation on every man to support his own children, seems to be the natural result of these reasonings, in a community under the difficulties that we have supposed.”
61mr. malthus then proceeds with his theory of the reason why society punishes carelessness in sexual relations much more in the case of a woman than in that of a man. “the view of these difficulties presents us with a very natural reason why the disgrace which attends a breach of chastity should be greater in a woman than in a man. it could not be expected that a woman should have resources sufficient to support her own children. when, therefore, a woman had lived with a man who had entered into no compact to maintain her children; and aware of the inconveniences that he might bring upon himself, had deserted her, those children must necessarily fall upon the society for support or starve. and to prevent the frequent recurrence of such an inconvenience, as it would be highly unjust to punish so natural a fault by personal restraint or infliction, society might agree to punish it with disgrace. the defence is besides more obvious and conspicuous in the woman, and less liable to any mistake. the father of a child may not always be known; but the same uncertainty cannot easily exist with regard to the mother. where the evidence of the offence was most complete, and the inconvenience to society at the same time the greatest, there it was agreed that the largest share of blame should fall. the obligation on every man to support his children the society would enforce by positive law, and the greater degree of inconvenience or labor to which a family would necessarily subject him, added to some feature of disgrace, which every human being must incur who leads another into unhappiness, might be considered as a sufficient punishment for the man.
“that a woman should at present be almost driven from society for an offence which men commit nearly with impunity, seems to be undoubtedly a breach of natural justice. but the origin of the custom, as the most obvious and effectual method of preventing the frequent recurrence of a serious inconvenience to a community, appears to be natural, though not perhaps perfectly justifiable. this origin, however, is now lost in the new train of ideas that the custom has since generated. what at first sight might be dictated by state necessity is now supported by female delicacy, and operates with the greatest force on that part of the society, where, if the original intention of the custom were preserved, there is the least occasion for it.”
these most ingenious speculations of our author contain undoubtedly a great deal of truth in them. at the same time, it is clear that when society shall begin to replace traditional 62views of morality by more positive and scientific deductions from experience, when it shall be generally acknowledged in all civilised states of the old world that the basis of true morality must consist in that conduct which will keep the birth-rate very low, mr. malthus’s arguments in favour of irrevocable marriage and excessive severity towards those who prefer not to enter the imperfect marriage arrangements of modern european countries, with a full knowledge of what they are doing, must be gradually replaced by some law which shall affix a stigma, not so much upon illegitimacy, but rather upon the production of large families. those who are well acquainted with the modern position of the marriage question in europe, and who have studied what has been written on it by wilhelm von humboldt and j. s. mill, will readily acknowledge that, if society would but take care to stigmatise as immoral all those persons who take more than a very moderate share of the blessings of parentage in old countries, it might, as humboldt proposes, entirely withdraw from all legal interference in the contracts between the sexes. moral obligations might still remain in full force towards those who have been led to base their future life on the implied continuance of such contracts; but doubtless the law of civilised states is at present tending towards far greater facility of dissolving such contracts than mr. malthus seems to have approved of.
in chapter iii. of book iii. our author disposes of the so-called “futurity fallacy,” which unfortunately still continues to be opposed to the teachings of the economists, as if it had not been over and over again refuted by the author of the essay on population. “other persons,” says our author, “besides mr. godwin have imagined that i looked to certain periods in future when population would exceed the means of subsistence in a much greater degree than at present, and that the evils arising from the principle of population were rather in contemplation than in existence; but this is a total misconception of my argument. poverty, and not absolute famine, is the specific effect of the principle of population, as i have before endeavoured to show. many countries are now suffering all the evils that can ever be expected to flow from this principle, and even if we were arrived at the absolute limit to all further increase of produce, a point which we shall certainly never reach, i should by no means expect that those evils would be in any marked manner aggravated. the increase of produce in most european countries is so very slow, compared with what would be required to support an 63unrestricted increase of people, that the checks which are constantly in action to repress the population to the level of a produce increasing so slowly would have very little more to do in wearing it down to a produce absolutely stationary.”
the great historian hume had pointed out that in those countries where infanticide was permitted by law, there was greater over-population than in others where it was prohibited, because parents were too humane to betake themselves to such a frightful “positive check.” the excessive poverty of china, where the custom of infanticide prevails, is an example of the truth of mr. hume’s remarks. “it is still, however, true,” adds our author (p. 139), “that the expedient is, in its own nature, adequate to the end for which it was cited, but to make it so in fact, it must be done by the magistrate, and not left to the parents. the almost invariable tendency of this custom to increase population, when it depends entirely upon the parents, shows the extreme pain which they must feel in making such a sacrifice, even when the distress arising from excessive poverty may be supposed to have deadened in great measure their sensibility. what must the pain be then upon the supposition of the interference of a magistrate, or of a positive law, to make parents destroy a child, which they feel the desire and think they possess the power of supporting? the permission of infanticide is bad enough and cannot but have a bad effect on the moral sensibility of a nation: but i cannot conceive anything more detestable or shocking to the feelings than any direct regulation of this kind, although sanctioned by the names of plato and aristotle.”
it is a singular fact that mr. godwin (reply, p. 70), made a supposition respecting the number of children that might be allowed to each prolific marriage. that writer, however, did not enter into any detail as to the mode by which a greater number might be prevented. the last check which mr. godwin mentions, mr. malthus feels persuaded is the only one which that author would seriously recommend. it is “that sentiment, whether virtue, prudence, or pride, which continually restrains the universality and frequent repetition of the marriage contract.” he says he entirely approves of this check, and adds that the tendency to early marriage is so strong that we want every possible help that we can get to counteract it; and therefore he thinks that a system of equality like that proposed by mr. godwin, which tends to weaken the foundations of private property, and to lessen in any degree 64the full advantage and superiority which each individual may derive from his prudence, must remove the only counteracting weight to the passion of love that can be depended upon for any essential effect.
mr. godwin acknowledges that in his system “the ill consequences of a numerous family will not come so coarsely home to each man’s individual interest as they do at present.” mr. malthus is sorry to say that from what we know hitherto of the human character, we can have no rational hopes of success without this coarse application to individual interest.
in our author’s day it was out of the question for him to be aware that mr. godwin’s hint as to the limitation of the family would come to be the prominent social doctrine it has since become. in france, among the respectable classes the production of a large family is now looked upon as quite a mark of a low state of morality and culture; and so effectual has this public opinion become in that most remarkable state that the families of the professional classes are not even two on an average (1·74). that mr. malthus should have considered late marriage as the only remedy for poverty is easily understood. experience alone can enable mankind to judge of how happiness is to be best attained; and it was doubtless because our incomparable writer on social questions, mr. j. s. mill, had so long resided in france that he could take the decided stand he did against the large families which cause such terrible misery in england and germany. the result of this great prudence among the better classes of france is well shown by the very small excess of births over deaths. thus, in 1879, the increase of population from this cause was but 92,000, whereas m. yves guyot speaks of a total of births in 1879 in unfortunate ireland of 887,055, with a total of deaths of 500,348, which gives an excess of births over deaths, in a population of about five millions, of 386,707. no wonder that ireland is so fond of emigration and still so steeped in poverty.
it has recently been contended by the author of the “elements of social science” that the only way of raising wages and profits in old countries and making life a desirable thing to all lies in the state making it an offence, to be punished by a small fine, to bring into an over-crowded country more than a very moderate average number of children. mr. j. s. mill’s teachings tended in the same direction, and this view of the duty of the citizen towards his neighbour is fast becoming a piece of morality accepted by 65the most thinking and most dutiful portion of society. when this duty of limiting our offspring, not only to the income we possess, but also to the powers possessed by the community, of affording an increase of numbers, becomes a political question, then, but not until then, will happiness for the masses be possible.
