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REMARKS ON THE THEORIES
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MALTHUS AND GODWIN.
BY ALEXANDER. H. EVERETT,
CHARGE D’AFFAIREs of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA AT THE court
{of THE NETHERLANDs.
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1823.
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CON TENTS.
PREFACE - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CHAPTER I.
Introductory Remarks - - - - - - - - -
CHAPTER II.
On the economical effect of an increase of population
CHAPTER III.
On the economical effect of an increase of population
at different stages in the progress of society - -
CHAPTER TV.
On the natural proportion between the rates of in-
crease of population, and of the means of Sub-
sistence - - - - - - - - - - - -
CHAPTER V.
On the power of increase in the human species -
11
21
29
44
iv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
PAGE.
On the causes that determine the extent of population 63
CHAPTER VII.
The same subject continued - - - - - - - 69
CHAPTER VIII.
On the increase of population in the United States
of America - - - - - - - - - - - 83
CHAPTER IX.
On the policy of encouraging marriage - - - - 94
CHAPTER X.
On a public provision for the poor - - - - - 104
CHAPTER XI.
On the wages of labor - - - - - - - - - 111
CHAPTER XII.
Recapitulation - - - - - - - - - - - 119
3 ºrtface.
THE following tract was prepared for publica-
tion upon the Continent during the last winter.
A reperusal of the Essay of Mr. Malthus on
Population, and some conversations which I held
at the time with a friend upon the subject of it,
suggested to me certain views which I thought
new, and which are quite at variance with the
conclusions of that eminent philosopher. With-
out feeling any extraordinary confidence in my
own ideas—especially where they differ from
those of an author of great and just celebrity,
whose theories have been sanctioned by the
favorable opinion of many competent judges—I
have nevertheless concluded to submit these
views to the Public. I shall certainly be highly
vi PREFACE,
gratified if they are found to throw any new light
upon the interesting question to which they re-
late, not only because it is always agreeable and
honorable to aid in the discovery of truth, but
because the views which I have taken appear to
me to be in themselves more consonant to the
best affections of our nature, than the system
which is now so generally received. I should
not certainly go the length of saying—as Cicero
did of Epicurus and Plato—that I would rather
be in the wrong upon my own principles than in
the right upon those of Mr. Malthus:—but I
have no hesitation in admitting, that it would
give me pain, independently of any personal con-
siderations, to be convinced of the error of my
opinions, and of the truth of a theory which
tends so strongly as his to embitter the ‘cordial
drop of life.” However the Public may decide
upon the substance of this little tract, I venture
to hope that it will be recognised, in its form and
spirit, as the production of a friend of truth and
human happiness. In digesting the materials, I
have principally aimed at brevity: and shall be
quite satisfied if it shall be found that the higher
and more essential merit of perspicuity has been
no where sacrificed to this consideration.
PREFACE, vii
Upon my arrival in town a few weeks since
for the purpose of superintending the impression
of the work, I took an opportunity of mention-
ing the subject to my illustrious friend Sir James
Mackintosh, and of explaining to him the general
scope of the argument. This great statesman
and philosopher—whose name I feel it a high
honor to be able to mention in connexion with
my own—upon learning that the Essay which I
had prepared was intended in part to correct the
theory of Mr. Malthus, kindly invited me to go
down with him to the East India College, and
converse with that gentleman upon the subject.
I accepted this proposal with much pleasure, as
well from a natural desire to make the acquaint-
ance of so eminent a writer, as from the reflec-
tion, that if I had accidentally taken up any
misconception of his views, I should probably be
able to rectify it by a free communication with
him upon the points in controversy. Had I found
this to be the case, I was fully prepared to sacri-
fice my own ideas and suppress the work.
I had always been highly gratified with the
candid and temperate tone that distinguishes the
writings of Mr. Malthus, although I have not
been so fortunate as to agree with him in his
viii PREFACE,
leading principles, and I hope that I shall not
be thought to pass the bounds of delicacy in
adding, that I found his conversation the perfect
counterpart, in this respect, of his works. I have
rarely met with a finer specimen of the true phi-
losophic temper, graced and set off by the ur-
banity of a finished gentleman, than is seen in
his person. I feel myself greatly indebted to him
for the very hospitable reception which he was
pleased to give me ; and for the kindness and
courtesy with which he entered into all the ex-
planations that I requested in regard to his opi-
mions. I should pay him a very poor compliment,
if I were to suppose it possible that he could be
offended by a free expression of opinions differ-
ent from his own : and I trust that there is
nothing in the tone and manner of the following
tract, that will tend in the slightest degree to
wound his feelings. If, however, I should have
been led unconsciously, by the warmth of com-
position and argument, to make use of any lan-
guage that would naturally produce this effect, I
beg leave here to disavow most explicitly any
such intention, and to assure Mr. Malthus of the
high respect and esteem that I feel for his cha-
racter. Such indeed is my estimation of the
PREFACE. ix
intellectual and moral qualities of this gentle-
man, that I believe he would not only adopt
without reluctance a different opinion from that
which he has hitherto held, if he were satisfied
of its truth ; but that he would do this with real
pleasure, if the new opinion were in its nature
more agreeable and social than the other.
It would be an unbecoming violation of the
confidence of private intercourse to detail par-
ticularly the conversations which I held with Mr.
Malthus upon the subject of the Essay; and it
would also be useless for the present purpose, as
very little, if any thing, was said on his part, that
is not contained in his printed works, or on mine,
that will not be found in the following tract.
After a full and free discussion of all the points
in dispute, I was satisfied that the difference of
opinion between us did not arise from any mis-
understanding on either side, but from a differ-
ence in our modes of considering the subject,
resulting perhaps originally from accident, but
confirmed by habit, and not to be affected by a
few conversations. I had therefore no reason to
change my intention of publishing the present
work.
2
X PREFACE.
It was suggested to me by Mr. Malthus, that
the leading principle maintained in it, is the same
in substance with that of a work on Population
by Mr. S. Gray. I have never read the work
of Mr. Gray, and have not had an opportunity of
consulting it since, for the purpose of comparing
his ideas with mine. Should they be in fact the
same, my views, though original, would not be
entitled to the name which I have given them of
New Ideas. Even in this case, however, as the
work of Mr. Gray does not seem to have made
much impression upon public opinion, a republi-
cation of the same views, by a different hand,
and in a new form, might not be without its use.
But I am inclined to think, from a hasty refer-
ence to some passages of his book at the house
of Mr. Malthus, and from the observations of
that gentleman upon his principles, that he has
not anticipated the theory of the present essay
in its most essential points. \
London, May 20, 1823.
TNetu （ſtag ott 3:30pttſation.
CHAPTER I.
htroductory Remarks.
THE origin of moral and physical evil is a
problem that attracted the attention of reflecting
minds at a very early period, but has not yet
been brought to a satisfactory solution. The
most ancient literary memorials now extant
prove that this subject was examined with a high
degree of interest in the very infancy of society;
and the inquiry has been pursued ever since
without intermission, although with different de-
grees of zeal and industry, up to the present day.
Among the various theories that have been
suggested for the solution of this question, is the
one which was extensively propagated and re-
ceived about the close of the last century, and
which refers the origin of evil to the vices of
12 NEW IDEAS
political institutions, or, as stated in its most
exaggerated form, to the mere fact of their ex-
istence. It supposes that man, in his natural
state, was wise, virtuous, healthy, and happy;
but that he had been depraved and rendered
miserable by the effect of social union. These
premises being admitted, it follows of course
that the abolition of political institutions would
remove the principle of evil, and restore the
human race to its primitive state of perfect inno-
cence and happiness. It is even maintained by
the Marquis de Condorcet, one of the most dis-
tinguished French writers who adopted these
views, that under the circumstances supposed,
death itself would disappear, and that men would
become immortal upon the face of the earth.
Mr. Godwin, in his Political Justice, does not, if
I rightly remember, directly encourage this last
opinion; but holds in every other respect the
same system, and conceives that the destruction
ofgovernment, religion, property, and marriage,
with the subsidiary institutions of less importance
that make up the fabric of society, would effect
at once a return of the golden age.
This theory, thus pursued into its neces-
sary consequences, is sufficiently alarming; but,
ON POPULATION. 13
when coolly considered, presents no great diffi-
culty to an opponent. In the extravagant form
in which it was produced by Condorcet, it is of
course unworthy of attention, and refutes itself
at once. In reply to its more reasonable advo-
cates, it may be remarked that the principle of
evil is evidently an original ingredient in the
system of the universe; and that if man had
been constituted by nature for a life of perfect
innocence and happiness, he could not possibly
have made himself miserable and vicious, either
by means of social institutions, or in any other
way; that the theory in question is directly con-
tradicted by the whole experience of the world,
which shows that man is indebted to political
institutions, taken in the large sense in which
the phrase is here used, for almost all the virtue
and happiness which he ever attains, and that
his situation is uniformly more favorable, in pro-
portion as these institutions obtain a greater de-
gree of consolidation and efficacy. To these
considerations it may be added, that the expec-
tation of deriving happiness from individual inde-
pendence is entirely inconsistent with the prin-
ciples of our nature, which compel us, on the
contrary, to seek for it exclusively in the society
14 NEW IDEAS
of each other, and in various relations, all of
which imply a mutual dependence to a greater
or less degree.
These ideas would probably be decisive with
reflecting minds. There is however a further
objection to the theory of Mr. Godwin, which
presents itself in a still more positive and mate-
rial shape. As moral and physical evil, in the
various forms in which they operate, furnish the
only checks to the increase of population which
we can perceive or imagine, it follows of course,
that if these checks should cease to operate by
the removal of their causes, population would
proceed, with great rapidity, until at no very
distant period the whole earth would be over-
stocked with inhabitants, and physical and moral
evil would reappear in the form of famine, and
its necessary effects. This argument is there-
fore a complete reductio ad absurdum of the
doctrine of perfectibility for all who have not the
courage to deny, with Mr. Godwin, that the
human race has any power of increase at all.
The objection, though obvious, does not appear
to have attracted the public attention until it was
for the first time distinctly and powerfully stated
by Mr. Malthus in the Essay on Population. If
ON POPULATION. 15
this writer had confined himself to a simple de-
velopement of this proposition, he might have
claimed perhaps the credit of a discovery in
political science; and his work would have cer-
tainly been valuable, though not quite so impor-
tant as it has sometimes been considered.
But as the theory which Mr. Malthus under-
took to refute was in a great measure the result
of the political enthusiasm of the time, so the
character of his refutation appears to have been
determined or modified by a reaction of this
enthusiasm. "The advocates of the system of
perfectibility were anxious to reduce their ideas
to practice by abolishing, or at least considerably
altering, the existing institutions of the countries
to which they belonged: or rather their pre-
tended system was only a generalisation, in an
exaggerated form, of their views in regard to
immediate political objects. Hence the first
point with their opponents was to prove the
inexpediency of actual reform, rather than to
attack the abstract theories of the reformers;
and any argument which served the latter of
these purposes, without at the same time securing
the other was, for the moment, irrelevant and
useless. Now the general considerations, which
16 NEW IDEAS
I have stated as furnishing a sufficient answer to
the abstract doctrine of perfectibility, were en-
cumbered with this difficulty. They all suppose
the value of political institutions; and hence,
instead of discouraging, rather favor any rational
attempt to improve them ; since a thing which
is good in itself will probably be the better the
nearer it is brought to the perfection of which
its nature is capable. In like manner the argu-
ment, derived from the increase of population,
though decisive against the possibility of a state
of perfect innocence and happiness, does not
touch, in the slightest degree, the question of
political improvement. It was natural enough,
therefore, that Mr. Malthus, not finding this
argument sufficient for his purpose in its obvious
and true shape, should have been led to modify
it, and to present it in a form in which it would
be more immediately useful.
In order to refute the abstract system of per-
fectibility, and at the same time to demonstrate
the inexpediency of reforming existing institu-
tions, Mr. Malthus passes over somewhat lightly
the argument, that if we suppose the non-exist-
ence of evil, the world would soon be overstock-
ed with inhabitants, and that famine with its
ON POPULATION. 17
attendant miseries would speedily follow. This
result, he remarks, is too remote to be a proper
theme for speculation. He presents the argu-
ment in a different shape, or rather he advances
an entirely new one, and maintains that in con-
sequence of the laws of nature, which regulate
the increase of the human species, and of the
means of their subsistence, there does actually,
and must of necessity, exist in all ages and coun-
tries, and in all the stages of civilisation, a dis-
proportion between the demand for food and
its supply; or in other words, that there is now,
always has been, and always will be, throughout
the whole world, a perpetual famine. This
famine is the ultimate cause of all our sufferings;
or in other words, is the origin of evil. As it is
a necessary consequence of the standing laws of
nature, the existence of evil is also necessary;
and as it has no connexion with political institu-
tions, the greater or less degree of perfection to
which these institutions may be brought can
have no effect upon it. Hence it would be idle
on this supposition to expect relief for any suf-
ferings to which society may be exposed in poli-
tical reform ; and the argument, if well ground-
ed is, for the immediate purpose of Mr. Mal-
3
18 - NEW IDEAS
thus, conclusive. Considered as an answer to
Godwin, it is somewhat similar to the process
which is called at law proving an alibi. In order
to show that the evil we suffer does not proceed
from political institutions, Mr. Malthus points out
another cause, from which he affirms that it
does proceed. His work has therefore, as well
as that of Mr. Godwin, the merit of furnishing
a new theory on the long-contested question of
the origin of evil.
The attempt to prove an alibi is generally
considered at law as somewhat dangerous; since
this sort of defence, however triumphant, if com-
pletely successful, amounts to an abandonment
of every other; and, if not made out, is there-
fore a surrender of the case. In philosophy, the
danger is not perhaps in general so great. It
may be remarked, however, that in this particu-
lar case Mr. Malthus, by insisting on the argu-
ment alluded to, loses the advantage of most of
the objections that may really be urged against
the system of Godwin, and which have been
recapitulated in a preceding page; since they all
suppose the value of political institutions, which
is denied by implication in the doctrine of Mal-
thus. It is in fact somewhat singular, that while
ON POPULATION. 19
}
the immediate object of Godwin was to demon-
strate the expediency of practical reform, and
that of Malthus to prove its inutility, the theories
of both these writers admit on general grounds
of precisely the same answer. While Godwin
considers political institutions as absolutely mis-
chievous, Malthus affirms that they are complete-
ly indifferent. The true answer to both is, that
they are neither mischievous nor indifferent, but
extremely valuable : that the origin of evil is not
to be found in the existence of society, nor in
any supposed law of nature which creates a
necessity of perpetual famine, but in the primary
constitution of the universe: that the world was
not intended for a Paradise, nor man for a state
of perfect innocence and bliss; but that we are
principally indebted to the influence of society
for the measure of happiness which we are able
to obtain and fitted to enjoy.
If the value of social institutions be admitted,
it follows of necessity that the theory of Mr.
Malthus, which supposes their indifference must
be false, and the reasoning by which it is sup-
ported without sufficient foundation. But how-
ever conclusive this general answer to his system
may justly be considered, it is still by no means
20 NEW IIDEAS
a superfluous task to examine in detail the argu-
ments which he has brought in proof of it. His
work is entitled to great attention, as well from
the ability displayed in it, as from the approba-
tion that has been bestowed upon it in the most
respectable quarters. His reasoning is also of
such a kind, that if well established, it super-
sedes any other arguments of a different descrip-
tion. Moral evidence, however strong, must
give way to mathematical demonstration: and
we must admit, if necessary, with Mr. Malthus,
that social institutions are matters of indifference,
or even with Mr. Godwin, that they are the
sources of all evil, rather than deny that twe
and two make four.
©N POPULATION. 21
CHAPTER II.
On the Economical Effect of an Increase of
Population.
THE economical effect of an increase of popu-
lation, is an augmentation in the supply of labor
and in the demand for its products. The wants
of the new comers create the new demand, and
their labor furnishes the new supply. These
principles are too obvious to require any deve-
lopement; yet Mr. Malthus seems either to have
not perceived them, or not to have kept them
distinctly in view. He appears throughout his
work to consider the increase of population,
simply in its effect upon the consumption of the
means of subsistence, without regarding its ope-
ration upon their supply. He views every indi-
vidual added to a society as an additional con-
sumer, without appearing to reflect, that he is
also at the same time an additional laborer.
This consideration alone, if properly estimated,
is sufficient, I think, to rectify the whole theory
of this writer, and to refute its paradoxical and
22 NEW IDEAS
dangerous parts. I propose in this and the next
chapter to develope the principle above stated,
and to consider its application to the condition
of society in the various stages of civilisation.
As the effect of an increase of population is
an augmentation in the supply of labor, and an
increased demand for its products, the question
naturally arises in what manner the proportion
previously existing between the demand for these
products and their supply is affected by this
cause. Does an increase of population produce
an increased supply of the products of labor in
proportion to the demand, and consequently a
greater abundance of the necessaries and com-
forts of life; or does it, on the contrary, produce
an increased demand for the products of labor
in proportion to the supply, and consequently a
comparative distress and scarcity ? This is the
real question upon which the whole inquiry turns,
and is the one which Mr. Malthus has attempted
to bring to a summary decision, by a sort of
mathematical demonstration. I shall consider
hereafter the value of this argument in a sepa-
rate chapter, and shall only observe at present,
that Mr. Malthus has been led by it to adopt the
affirmative of the latter of the above questions,
ON POPULATION. 23
and to maintain, as was intimated in the last
chapter, that the increase of population necessa-
rily produces distress and scarcity. It appears
to me, on the contrary, that the affirmative of
the former question is true, and that the effect
of an increase of population is to produce a com-
parative abundance of all the articles of enjoy-
ment and use; as I shall endeavor to show by
considerations drawn immediately from observa-
tion and experience.
If we regard the labor of an individual and
its products as fixed quantities; that is, if we
suppose one man to labor naturally as much as
another, and that a given amount of labor will
always produce an equal quantity of useful ob-
jects; it is evident that an increase of popula-
tion can have no tendency to occasion either a
scarcity or an abundance of the means of sub-
sistence. The additional supply creaſed by such
an increase would correspond exactly with the
additional demand resulting from the same cause,
and the proportion between them would remain
the same as before. This supposition, however,
is far from being correct. The labor of indi-
viduals and the amount of its products, both
vary under different circumstances ; and it is
24 NEW IDEAS
therefore necessary for the solution of the present
Question, to consider what these circumstances
are, and how they are affected by an increase of
population.
1. The labor of individuals is by no means a
fixed quantity, but varies with their natural dis-
positions, and with the motives that determine
their conduct. We observe a remarkable differ-
ence in the activity and industry of different
communities, and of different persons in the
same community, resulting from varieties of situ-
ation and character. For the present purpose,
however, the labor of individuals may be taken
as uniform ; since it is obvious that the distress,
which may result from a mere indisposition to
labor, can have no connexion with any general
law of nature regulating the proportion between
the demand for the means of subsistence and
their supply.
2. The circumstances that determine the pro-
ductiveness of labor are necessarily two, the
natural advantages under which it is applied,
and the skill employed in its application. The
same quantity of labor will produce a hundred
bushels of corn in Mexico, and only ten in Nor-
way: nor could any effort of industry obtain the
ON POPULATION. 25
delicious wines of France and Italy from the
soil of Great Britain. The effect of a difference
in skill is equally remarkable. A single miller
will grind more corn in a day than twenty men
would be able to pound up into powder by hand:
and a single weaver will weave more cloth in an
equal time, than a dozen persons who labor with-
out a machine. These illustrations obviously
afford a very moderate representation of the dif-
ferences in the productiveness of labor resulting
from the varieties of natural advantages, and of
skill under which it is directed. For the present
purpose the advantages of nature, as well as the
labor of individuals, may be considered as uni-
form; since the increase of population can have
no immediate effect in altering the soil, climate,
or other natural properties of the country in which
it occurs. Of the several causes that determine
the amount of the means of subsistence which
will be obtained by the labor of a given number
of individuals, the only one therefore which must
be regarded as variable for the purpose of this
inquiry, is the skill with which their labor is ap-
plied. Hence the question, whether an increase
of population tends to produce an abundance or
a scarcity of the means of subsistence, resolves
4
26 NEW IDEAS
itself into the further one, whether such increase
produces a favorable or an unfavorable effect up-
on the skill employed in the application of labor.
The question being thus reduced to its proper
terms, few intelligent persons, I apprehend, will
hesitate much about the manner in which it should
be answered. It is sufficiently notorious, that an
increase of population on a given territory is fol-
lowed immediately by a division of labor; which
produces in its turn the invention of new ma-
chines, an improvement of methods in all the
departments of industry, and a rapid progress in
the various branches of art and science. The
increase effected by these improvements in the
productiveness of labor is obviously much greater
in proportion than the increase of population, to
which it is owing. The population of Great
Britain, for example, doubled itself in the course
of the last century, while the improvements in
the modes of applying labor, made during the
same period, have increased its productiveness
so much, that it would probably be a moderate
estimate to consider its products as a thousand
times greater than before. If, however, we sup-
pose the increase in the products of labor, natu-
rally resulting from the doubling of a population
ON POPULATION. 27
on a given territory, to be only in the proportion
of ten to one, the means of subsistence will still
be more abundant in the proportion of five to
one, than they were before. And on this very
How calculation, the respective rates of increase
in the amount of population, and the means of
subsistence, comparatively stated, will be as fol-
lows: to wit, for the population, 1. 2. 4. 8, 16,
&c. and for the means of subsistence, 1. 10.
100. 1000, &c.
This statement of ratios is more comfortable,
and, I believe, far more correct, than that of Mr.
Malthus. But this estimate, though moderate,
is still much higher than it need be, in order to
refute the system of this writer. It is only neces-
sary for this purpose to suppose, that the increase
in the products of labor exactly keeps pace with
the increase of population; as, for example, that
the additional supply of laborers, together with
the improvement of methods and invention of
machines, resulting from the doubling of a popu-
lation on a given territory, only maintains the
productiveness of labor at the same point at
which it stood before, and consequently doubles
its products. Even upon this estimate, however
much below the truth, the supply of the means
28 NEW IDEAS
of subsistence remains the same, notwithstand-
ing the increase of consumers. In order to sub-
stantiate the theory of Malthus, it is necessary
to adopt the strange supposition, that labor be-
comes less efficient and productive in proportion
to the degree of skill with which it is applied;
that a man can raise more weight by hand, than
by the help of a lever, and see further with the
naked eye than with the best telescope. These
positions are not, it is true, directly taken by this
writer, but they are necessarily implied in the
general propositions which he has attempted to
establish.
I have considered it safe, to take for granted,
that an increase of population on a given terri-
tory necessarily and naturally produces a division
of labor, and a consequent increase of skill in
its application. No intelligent person would
probably undertake to dispute this principle; but
as it forms the basis of the argument contained
in the present essay, it may be proper to deve-
lope it a little more fully, by taking a rapid view
of the effect of the increase of population, as it
operates at different stages in the progress of
society. This exposition will form the subject
of the following chapter.
ON POPULATION. 29
CHAPTER III.
On the Economical Effect of an Increase of
Population at Different Stages in the Pro-
gress of Society.
It is somewhere observed by Rousseau that
he had passed his life in reading voyages and
travels. This fact does not tend, I think, to
diminish the surprise, which judicious and reflect-
ing men have generally felt at finding so power-
ful a writer maintain that man is by nature an
isolated and independent being, and that his
situation is more eligible in this his natural con-
dition, than it is in the artificial and unnatural
one of society. The position that individual in-
dependence is the natural state of man, and so-
ciety an unnatural institution, is plainly the direct
reverse of the truth. But independently of this
objection, it seems almost incredible that any
observer of tolerable discretion, and especially
one so intelligent and highly gifted as Rousseau,
should retain a favorable opinion of the savage
state, after reading habitually the accounts that
30 NEW IDEAS
are given by travellers of the tribes and nations
which they have found in a condition approach-
ing in any degree to that of individual inde-
pendence. It is a painful consideration, that the
human race is capable, under any circumstances,
of sinking into the state of moral degradation
which these uncivilised communities almost uni-
formly exhibit: and it would be a melancholy
thing indeed to suppose that man was formed and
intended by nature for this degraded condition;
and of course that he has a constant tendency
to return to it, whenever he has been forced
unnaturally into a state of civilisation. Such
opinions are happily as false as they are unplea-
sant. We know, by observing the principles of
our nature, that we were intended for society:
and we find accordingly, that it is only in the
bosom of society and civilisation, that the human
character unfolds itself in its real elevation and
beauty. It is there only that man displays the
talents, virtues, and graces, that adorn and dig-
nify his nature, and reaps the highest enjoyments
of which he is capable. A state of individual
independence, or one in any degree approaching
to it, is therefore not the state of nature, but a
savage state; that is, an unnatural and degraded
ON POPULATION. 31
condition, into which certain fractions of the
human family are thrown by misfortune or acci-
dent; where they are unable to follow out the
instinct of nature and the dictates of reason,
which both lead to the establishment of social
institutions; and where they can neither attain
the accomplishments nor enjoy the pleasures,
which in other circumstances would have been
within their reach. The North American In-
dians furnish one of the most favorable speci-
mens that have yet been found of men in the
savage state : and they appear to be the wrecks
of more flourishing and populous communities,
in which the principle of prosperity must have
been destroyed by the operation of some unfa-
vorable cause.
In such a state of society it is difficult to sup-
pose the possibility of an increase of population.
The quantity of labor employed for the purpose
of obtaining the means of subsistence is im-
mense; while the fruits afforded by it are scanty
and wretched. This single object employs the
whole time and attention of the savage ; and
even the wars in which he is perpetually engaged
are generally connected with it. Still the supply
of the necessaries and comforts of life is so inade-
32 TNEW IDEAS
quate to his wants, and the hardships to which he
is exposed so oppressive, that human nature sinks
under the burden of them : and the population
is in most cases found to be in a state of gradual
diminution. If however we suppose an increase
of population to be effected by the operation of
some accidental cause, it is evident that the con-
sequence will be an immediate improvement in the
condition of the society. If the tribe be in the
hunter state there will now be two hunters where
there was before only one, or three where there
were only two. They will go out in larger com-
panies, and employ better instruments and more
ingenious stratagems. In this way the quantity
of game will be increased in a proportion much
larger than that of the increase in the number
of the hunters. Thus life will become easier,
and the supply of necessaries and comforts more
abundant, supposing even that the principal em-
ployment of the society remains the same as
before.
The ultimate effect of an increase of popula-
tion in such a community, if continued for any
length of time, would however probably be to
effect a transition to an easier and more civilized
mode of living, and to introduce the adoption of
ON POPULATION. - 33
agriculture as the principal means of obtaining
subsistence.
Agriculture, as it is the most agreeable and
productive of all occupations, and the only one
that admits of any considerable progress in po-
pulation and civilisation, may well be considered
as the natural employment of man. The few
scanty and barbarous tribes that live by the rude
resources of hunting and fishing, and even those
in the shepherd state, as the Laplanders, the
Tartars, and the Bedouin Arabs, may therefore
be looked upon, as I just now remarked, not as
specimens of men in a state of nature, but of
men who have sunk by misfortune or accident
below the state of nature, and who will proba-
bly never be able to return to it, unless they
should be led by some other accident of a more
favorable kind to resort to the cultivation of the
soil. The adoption of agriculture as the prin-
cipal means of obtaining subsistence is followed
immediately and necessarily by the introduction
of commerce and manufactures. While the
hunter can hardly obtain by incessant toil and
exposure to intolerable hardships, a wretched
and scanty supply of the articles of first neces-
sity, the husbandman procures by easy and me-
5
34 NEw IDEAs
derate labor an ample provision for himself and
several other persons. This abundance of the
first and most necessary articles naturally intro-
duces the desire for comforts and pleasures of a
higher character. The superfluous portion of
the products is converted into new and more
agreeable forms; and the success of the first
attempts made for this purpose is followed by
a continual course of improvements upon the
same plan. Such is the origin of manufactures:
and these in their turn suppose and require the
existence of commerce. While a part of the
community is exclusively employed in obtaining
by the cultivation of the soil, the natural products
required for the use of the whole, another portion
would in like manner be exclusively employed in
giving new forms to the superfluous portion of
these products: and these two divisions of soci-
ety would exchange with each other the fruits of
their respective labors. Such is the origin of
commerce, which naturally becomes, like agricul-
ture and manufactures, the exclusive employment
of a part of the community. These three occu-
pations therefore, each of which supposes and
requires the existence of the others, and of
which agriculture is the principal, form together
the natural employments of the human race.
ON POPULATION. 35
We find, accordingly, that these employments
have been almost universally adopted throughout
the world, at all the periods of history of which
we have any knowledge. Of the seven or eight
hundred millions at which the population of the
globe has been loosely calculated, probably not
more than five or six millions have ever in any
age subsisted by the ruder arts of the hunter, the
fisherman, or the herdsman : and this scanty and
wretched fragment of the species might, perhaps,
be looked upon as an intermediate link in the
chain of being between men and the other ani-
mals with more propriety than as a genuine por-
tion of the human race. Yet by a strange sort
of caprice it is precisely among these degraded
and barbarous clans that the poets of every age
have delighted to lay the scenes of their pictures
of tenderness and heroism: and by an aberration
still stranger, if possible, the philosophers of
every age have exhibited an almost uniform dis-
position to treat these bastard scions of the
human stock as the true specimens of its ordi-
mary growth, and to consider all variations from
them as alterations of the natural standard, by
improvement according to some, and by corrup-
tion according to others. This error is like that
36 NEW IDEAS
of a botanist, who should estimate the size of
the great magnolia tree by the height that it
reaches in the latitude of Boston ; and should
consider the colossal stature and glorious dis-
play of flowers and foliage with which nature
adorns this splendid plant in the climate of
Florida as artificial and monstrous. The natu-
ral situation of every animal or plant is plainly
the one in which it thrives best with the least
forcing.
Agriculture, therefore, with its attendant occu-
pations, manufactures and commerce, being the
natural and almost universal employment of
man, the question as to the effect of the increase
of population upon the supply of the means of
subsistence, is principally important as applied
to a society in this condition. What then is the
effect of an increase of population upon such a
society P It is evidently an extension of the
power of the society in all its branches, intellect-
ual and physical, and in all the modes in which
this power is applied, according to the degree
in which they are severally encouraged by this
influence of political and physical causes. Addi-
tional tracts of land will be brought under culti-
vation. The conversion to new uses of the
ON POPULATION. 37
surplus products which they afford beyond the
demand for immediate consumption, will open a
new field for manufacturing and commercial
industry: and labor in all its branches being
now pursued upon a larger scale, its division will
be more complete, and the consequent increase
of productiveness and improvement of methods
will be more remarkable. If the country is so
situated in itself, and in relation to others, as to
hold out great inducements to the occupation of
new tracts of land, and the exchange of their
surplus products for the manufactures of other
nations, the increase of population will stimu-
late agricultural and commercial more than
manufacturing industry, as in the United States
of America. If, as in England, the occupation
of new tracts of land to any considerable extent
is impossible, while the situation of the country
and the nature of its foreign relations hold out
great encouragement to manufactures and com-
merce ; it is in the rapid extension of these
forms of labor, that the effect of the increase of
population will be principally observable. In
either case, and in all cases, it will be found the
fruitful source of national wealth and abundance.
The increase of population is to nature, what
38 NEW II).EAS
the natural growth of the body is to individuals.
As long as an individual continues to grow, he
obtains continually new accessions of intellect-
ual and physical power, either by the acquisition
of new faculties, or by a more complete deve-
lopement of those which he possessed before :
and thus a nation, where the population is
increasing, is constantly augmenting its resources
and its power, without being compelled, like
individuals, to look forward to a definite period,
when this state of progression must cease, and
give way to a contrary course of decay and final
dissolution.
The amount of labor at the disposal of the
society, and the skill with which it is applied,
being thus augmented, in proportion to the
increase of population, it is evident that the
result must be a great increase of products. The
greater or less degree of abundance, as respects
the means of subsistence, which will result from
this increase, will depend upon the physical and
political situation of the society, and the greater
or less degree in which the several departments
of industry are favored by it. It seems to be
the opinion of Mr. Malthus, that as long as there
are large tracts of land in a country to be occu-
ON POPULATION. 39
pied, the increase of population is unattended
with danger; and that it is only when the soil
has been entirely appropriated, while the popu-
lation still continues to increase, that the danger
of scarcity begins to present itself. But in this,
as in many other points, the positions of Mr.
Malthus seem to be directly the reverse of the
truth. As long as the principal effect of the
increase of population, is to bring under culti-
vation additional tracts of land, the positive re-
sources and wealth of the society will doubtless
be augmented in the same proportion, but the
means of subsistence will be neither more nor
less abundant than they were before. Let us
suppose, for example, that a hundred families
obtain an easy and abundant subsistence by
cultivating five hundred acres of land. If the
number of families be increased to two hundred,
and the number of acres under cultivation to a
thousand; it is obvious, that the proportion be-
tween the demand for the means of subsistence
and their supply will not be altered. It is only
when the population begins to increase upon a
territory already appropriated, that it produces
the effect of augmenting the supply of the pro-
visions in proportion to the demand. In the
40 NEW IDEAS
former case, the supply of labor is augmented,
but the skill with which it is applied remains
nearly the same as before. In the latter, the
skill as well as the number of the laborers is
increased; and as the productiveness of labor
depends almost wholly upon the skill and sci-
ence with which it is applied, it is obvious, that
the products will be infinitely more abundant in
the latter case, with the same increase of popu-
lation, than they were in the former. The in-
crease of population on an unoccupied territory
only increases the quantity of rude labor and of
its products, but leaves the productiveness of
labor and the comparative abundance of its pro-
ducts as before. On a limited territory, the
same cause introduces the new element of skill,
the effects of which, in augmenting the pro-
ductiveness of labor, and the abundance of its
products, are unbounded and incalculable.
The result, in the latter case, is naturally a
great and immediate extension of manufactures
and commerce. The fine productions of skilful
labor, after satisfying the demand of the neigh-
boring nations, are carried to the most distant
parts of the world, and bring back the coarser
natural productions to be used for consumption
tº:- ON POPULATION. 41
or wrought up into these fine fabrics. This ex-
change is advantageous to both parties, and
especially to the civilised or populous commu-
nity. The labor of a single member of such a
society will perhaps purchase the product of that
of a hundred barbarian hunters. A few glass
beads, which may be valued at nothing, are con-
verted, by the help of the machinery employed
in navigation, into a princely fortune. To faci-
litate these exchanges, some of the inhabitants
of the populous nations fix themselves in foreign
countries. At first they generally return after
realising the immediate object of their expedi-
tion. But as the settlements which they make
for commercial purposes gradually become more
agreeable places of residence, many persons are
induced to remain, and establish themselves for
life. In this way emigration and colonisation
are introduced in connexion with manufactures
and commerce. In the new settlements that
are thus formed, labor is applied with skill, and
is proportionally productive: while population,
encouraged by the high state of civilisation, pro-
ceeds with rapidity. These flourishing esta-
blishments are naturally employed almost wholly
in agriculture; and resort to the mother-country,
6
42 - NEw IDEAs
in order to exchange its fruits for the fine pro-
ducts of taste and art. Thus the rapid growth
of these young scions, instead of exhausting the
parent stock, gives it new health and vigor : and
a dense and increasing population on a limited
territory, instead of bringing with it any danger
of scarcity, is not only an immediate cause of
greater abundance to the nation where it exists,
but a principle of prosperity and civilisation to
every part of the world. The history of most
of the populous nations with which we are ac-
quainted confirms the truth of these remarks:
and they are illustrated in a particular manner
by that of Great Britain and the United States
of America. If well grounded, they are deci-
sive of the whole question, in regard to the in-
fluence of the increase of population upon the
supply of the means of subsistence, and prove
conclusively that the theory of Mr. Malthus is
not only erroneous, but directly the reverse of
the truth; and that an increase of population,
instead of being, as he maintains, the chief
cause of all the physical and moral evil to which
we are exposed, is, on the contrary, the real and
only active principle of national wealth and hap-
piness.
ON POPULATION. 43
To these remarks, however inconsistent with
his theory, Mr. Malthus has nothing to oppose,
but his well-known argument of the difference,
established by a law of nature between the ratios
of the increase of population and of the means
of subsistence. The conclusion which he de-
duces from a comparison of these ratios forms
the whole foundation of his system. It is there-
fore necessary, in order to substantiate the prin-
ciples maintained in this and the preceding
chapter, to examine the value of this celebrated
argument. It will be found, I think, upon closer
inspection, to be much less formidable, than it
has generally been supposed.
A4 NEW IDEAS
CHAPTER IV.
On the Matural Proportion between the Rates
of Increase of Population and of the Means
of Subsistence.
As the quantity of the means of subsistence
which can be obtained from a limited territory
is also of necessity limited, if we suppose the
number of the inhabitants of such a territory to
be regularly increasing for an indefinite length
of time, and if we also suppose that they are
obliged to subsist upon the direct products of
the soil which they occupy, it will follow of
course, that there must be sooner or later an
excess of population and a deficiency of food.
This proposition is perfectly obvious, but of
very little practical importance, excepting in its
application to the abstract theory of perfecta-
bility. In the hands of Mr. Malthus, it assumes
the following shape :
The human species possesses a power of
increase capable of doubling the population of
ON POPULATION. 45
any given territory, as often at least as once in
twenty-five years: But
The quantity of the means of subsistence,
which can be obtained from a given territory,
cannot be augmented to the same extent, nor
faster at the utmost, than by the addition of an
equal quantity, once in twenty-five years.
Hence while the population increases with
the rapidity of a geometrical progression, the
means of subsistence can only be augmented in
the manner of an arithmetical one, and the two
rates of increase compared together, will stand
as follows: to wit, that of population as, 1. 2.
4. 8. 16. &c. and that of food as, 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. &c.
From this comparison, Mr. Malthus concludes
that in every country the population has a con-
stant tendency to increase beyond the supply of
provisions, or in his favorite phrase presses hard
against it. This metaphorical language is equi-
valent to the plainer statement, that in every
country a considerable part of the population
must always of necessity be distressed for want
of food. The proposition is neither very agree-
able, nor very consistent with experience. It is
certainly, however, a fair and necessary conclu-
46 NEW IDEAs
sion from the above comparison of ratios: and
hence if it be erroneous, the defect in the argu-
ment must be looked for in the premises. By
comparing the statement of this argument, made
by Mr. Malthus, with the simpler one given at
the beginning of this chapter, it will be easy to
perceive the nature of the error. It will be
seen that Mr. Malthus has taken for granted the
correctness of two suppositions, neither of which
is in fact true. It is not true that the human
race possesses a rapid and indefinite power of
increase, under the checks to which the pro-
gress of population is subject; and it is not
true that the inhabitants of a given tract of ter-
ritory must necessarily subsist upon the direct
products of the soil they occupy. Thus the
premises of the argument contain two distinct
errors, either of which would alone vitiate com-
pletely the force of the conclusion.
As I propose to treat in a separate chapter
the subject of the real power of increase in the
human species, I shall omit for the present any
further notice of the first of these false suppo-
sitions, and confine myself to an exposition of
the second. The error in this is so very obvi-
ous, that it is really singular how it should have
ON POPULATION. 47
eseaped the observation of Mr. Malthus. It is
perfectly plain that there is no necessity why
the occupant or occupants of a given tract of
land should subsist upon the direct products of
their own soil. The proposition, if true, would
hold with the same force of provinces, cities,
and individuals, as of independent states; and
the error will be seen at once, by applying the
argument to one of these cases in which the
conclusion is notoriously false : as for example,
to that of the city of London. It would then
stand as follows.
The population of the city of London has the
power of doubling itself every twenty-five years,
or of increasing in the manner of a geometrical
progression: But
The means of subsistence which can be
obtained from the direct products of the terri-
tory occupied by the city of London, cannot be
made to increase with greater rapidity than that
of an arithmetical progression :
Hence it may be affirmed with certainty at
any given moment, that the period must very
shortly arrive when the population of the city
of London will be distressed for want of provi-
sions.
48 NEW IDEAS
As this conclusion might have been drawn
with the same force at any preceding epoch in
the history of the city, as at the present, it would
follow that the distress must have been regularly
increasing for at least a thousand years, and
must naturally have become by this time very
poignant and oppressive.
Independently of the error in the first of these
premises, in regard to the power of increase in
the population of the city of London, it is
obvious that the notorious falsehood of the con-
clusion results immediately from the implied
supposition, that the inhabitants of this city
must subsist of necessity upon the fruits of the
soil they occupy; while, as every one knows,
this territory, upon which more than a million
persons are supported in ease and abundance,
does not supply perhaps, directly, the means of
subsistence for twenty.
In like manner the error in the argument may
be shown, by applying it to the case of an indi-
vidual; as for example, to that of Mr. Malthus
itself. He informs us in one of his works, that
he is not a landholder; and he cannot of course
derive his means of subsistence from the pro-
ducts of his own soil. His existence therefore
ON POPULATION. 49
demonstrates the falsehood of his system : and
if the theory of the Essay on Population were
true, its author could never have lived to write it.
On the supposition of the truth of this system
of Malthus, the population of every part of the
globe would be regulated exactly by the supply
of the means of subsistence, and would not any
where either fall below or rise above it. As it
happens, however, this is no where the case ;
and it would, perhaps, be difficult to produce a
single example of a territory in which the popu-
lation is determined exactly by the products of
the soil, and neither falls below nor rises above
the precise number of persons which these pro-
ducts are capable of subsisting. Mr. Malthus
has noticed himself a very large class of cases
in which the population falls below the means
of subsistence ; and has accounted for their
existence upon principles just in themselves, but
wholly at variance with his own theory, as I
shall have occasion to show hereafter. The
large class of cases in which the population
rises above the means of subsistence, and which
is still more fatal to his system than the other,
he has wholly overlooked, and has not even
made an attempt to account for. This class of
7
56) NEW IDEAS
cases includes all cities, many rich and exten-
sive provinces, as for instance that of Holland
at the time of its highest prosperity, and even
some independent states, as the kingdoms of
Sweden and Norway, which derive from abroad
a part of their supply of provisions. Any one
of these instances is completely ruinous to the
system of Malthus: for whatever reasons may
be given why the population does not reach in
particular cases the standard fixed by the supply
of provisions, it is evident that there can be no
exception on the other side until a method shall
be discovered of living without food.
Having thus pointed out the most obvious
error in the celebrated argument of the com-
parison of ratios, I shall proceed in the next
chapter to consider the real power of increase
in the human species, and to examine the cor-
rectness of the assumption of Mr. Malthus in
regard to this subject.
QN POPULATION. 51
CHAPTER V.
On the Power of Increase in the Human
Species.
In the refutation of the main argument of Mr.
Malthus, which has been attempted in the pre-
ceding chapter, I have taken for granted both
his preliminary propositions in regard to the rates
of increase of population and of food; and
have shown, I think, satisfactorily, that, even on
this supposition, his conclusion is entirely errone-
ous. But this supposition is far from being cor-
rect: and of the two preliminary propositions or
premises, the one which states the rate of
increase of the human species, involves another
material error, sufficient of itself, and indepen-
dently of the objection developed in the pre-
ceding chapter, to vitiate completely the author's
conclusion.
The abstract theory of perfectibility ascribes
all the evils we suffer to the existence or the
abuses of political institutions; and maintains,
that by the abolition or reform of these institu-
52 NEW IDEAS
tions, their consequences, physical and moral
evil, would of course disappear entirely. To
this it is objected, that as physical and moral
evil are the only known checks upon the progress
of population, the removal of these checks would
be followed by a rapid and indefinite increase
of the species, until the whole earth would be
finally overpeopled. If, in order to present this
objection in a more definite shape, we attempt
to make a statement of the actual rate of increase
that might be expected under such circumstances,
it is evident, that the highest rate which has ever
been known actually to occur, will be a very low
calculation: because the supposition is, that the
ordinary checks on the progress of population
are removed; and however favorable may have
been the circumstances under which its highest
known rate of increase was observed, it must
still have taken place under the operation, to a
greater or less degree, of the ordinary checks.
The population of the United States of America,
which affords the instance in question, however
favorably situated, has by no means been wholly
exempt from the influence of moral and physical
evil. Hence, for the purpose of refuting the
abstract theory of Mr. Godwin, the rate of
ON POPULATION. 53
increase assumed by Mr. Malthus, upon the
authority of the example of the United States,
is not an exaggerated estimate, but, on the con-
trary, is far below the truth. But for the main
purpose for which Mr. Malthus employs this esti-
mate, namely, that of ascertaining the proportion
existing in reality between the rate of increase
of population under all its ordinary checks, and
that of the means of subsistence, it is evident,
that the estimate in question is as much too high,
as it is in the other case too low.
With a view of refuting the theory of Godwin,
we assume the truth of his conclusion, that phy-
sical and moral evil, the ordinary checks on the
progress of population, have ceased to exist.
When we wish to discover the real relation
between the rates of increase of population and
of food, we must take into consideration all the
checks to which the increase of either is subject.
To assume the highest known rate of increase
that has ever been observed as the standard of
the ordinary progress of population, would be
like assuming the strength and intelligence of the
most powerful and wisest man that ever existed
as the standard of the ordinary intellectual
and physical endowments of the race. It is evi-
54 NEW IDEAS
dent that in this case it would be unsafe to draw
a general conclusion from a single instance; and
that the single instances least suitable for this
purpose would be precisely those of the highest
and of the lowest known rates of increase ; the
former of which has been selected by Mr. Mal-
thus. The proper course would be to inquire,
first, what is the natural power of increase in
the human species P secondly, what are the
checks, ordinary and extraordinary, that oppose
the developement of this power P and, lastly,
what is the real rate of increase which we ob-
serve to occur in fact under the operation of
these checks? Having ascertained in this way
the true rate at which population actually
increases under any given circumstances; and
having also ascertained the pinciples that regu-
late the supply of provisions, we may establish
with safety a comparison between the respective
rates of increase of population and of food, and
may calculate the probability, under any given
circumstances, of the occurrence of abundance
or scarcity.
Mr. Malthus, on the contrary, has not even
attempted to calculate the real rate at which
population increases under the operation of all
ON POPULATION. 55
the natural checks. His assumption is therefore
entirely gratuitous: and if it were correct, it
could only be by a lucky chance. In reality,
however, it is not only gratuitous, but wholly
false : and, what is somewhat remarkable, the
work of Mr. Malthus himself contains a com-
plete and satisfactory refutation of it, forming
one of the longest and most valuable sections
of the Essay. A little explanation will show
the reader at once the nature of this refutation,
and the way in which Mr. Malthus was led
unconsciously to furnish it himself.
Having established, to his own satisfaction, on
abstract grounds, the principle, that population
has a tendency every where to go beyond the
supply of provisions, and in fact presses hard
against it, Mr. Malthus naturally looks round the
world to see how far his doctrine is confirmed
by experience, and finds that almost every
known case is, in one way or another, at vari-
ance with it. The United States of America,
which furnish his rule in regard to the rate of
increase, confute his conclusion, by also furnish-
ing the example of the most abundant supply of
provisions that has ever been known. On the
eontrary, in many barbarous communities, where
56 NEW IDEAS.
population is actually diminishing, there is much
suffering from actual want. In a large class of
cases, the population actually exceeds very much
the number of persons which could be subsisted
from the direct products of the soil occupied by
it, and yet lives in abundance. In another large
class the population falls in greater or less
degrees below the number that might be sup-
ported from the direct products of the soil, and
feels of course no apprehension of a scarcity.
In few if any instances do we see any symptoms
of this necessary and universal famine, except-
ing under the precise circumstances in which it
was least of all to be expected on the author’s
principles, to wit, among the barbarous tribes
where population is actually declining.
Of these several classes of instances, all in
different ways adverse to the theory he has
attempted to establish, Mr. Malthus seems to
have been principally struck with those in which
the population falls short of the number which
the products of the soil would easily support;
and in which, although the country is well peo-
pled, there is no suffering, unless by accident, º
from actual famine. This is in fact the situa-
tion of almost all the civilised nations on the
ON POPULATION. 57
globe : and Mr. Malthus has endeavored to
account for the possibility of it by examining in
detail the particular circumstances of most of
these nations, with a view of proving that the
population is here kept below its natural level
by the operation of moral and physical evil: and
in each particular case he points out the particu-
lar forms of evil which produce this result.
The reasoning of Mr. Malthus in this part of
the Essay is just and conclusive : but he does
not seem to have observed that it overthrows
entirely one of the two preliminary propositions
upon which the whole fabric of his system is
founded. This will appear very plainly by
stating the two arguments in a simple and con-
cise form.
The human race, says Mr. Malthus in the
first chapter of the Essay, has the power of
increasing its numbers in the manner of a geo-
metrical progression :
But the necessary means of subsistence can
only be increased in the manner of an arithme-
tical progression:
Therefore there is a constant tendency in
every part of the world towards an excess of
population and a scarcity of food.
8
58 NEW IDEAS
\
But, says the same writer in the subsequent
part of the Essay now alluded to, there is in
point of fact no example of a nation in which
the populaton is not kept below the level of the
means of subsistence by the operation of moral
and physical evil:
Therefore the human race, under the opera-
tion of these checks, has not the power of
increasing its numbers in the manner of a geo-
metrical progression :
Therefore there is no tendency in any part of
the world towards an excess of population and
a scarcity of food.
Both these arguments rest alike upon the
authority of Mr. Malthus; it is sufficiently clear
that the latter of them completely refutes the
former, and leaves it no force whatever, except-
ing as an answer to the abstract system of
perfectibility, which supposes the non-existence
of evil.
Mr. Malthus has, however, contrived to recon-
cile the two arguments with each other in his
own mind in such a way that he appears to be
fully convinced of the correctness of both : and
even considers the conclusions of both as appli-
cable to the same communities at the same time.
on population. 59
He holds, in other words, that the same nation
has and has not, at a given moment, a tendency
towards an excess of population and scarcity
of food. Take for example the kingdom of
France. Mr. Malthus maintains that the natural
power of the human race to increase its num-
bers in the manner of a geometrical progres-
sion, is checked in that country by the operation
of certain moral and physical causes. The
necessary consequence from this position is, that
the human race does not possess in that country
the power of increasing its numbers in the man-
ner supposed, and that the danger of scarcity
deduced by Mr. Malthus from the existence of
this power does not occur in France. It would
seem then that France, or any other country
thus situated, must be treated as an exception
to the general rule, even on the principles of
Mr. Malthus himself. Far from it. Mr. Mal-
thus holds, on the contrary, that the population
still presses hard against the means of subsist-
ence, in the same cases in which he asserts at
the same time, that it is kept below the means
of subsistence by the operation of moral and
physical checks.
Mr. Malthus might perhaps reply to this
objection, that there is no inconsistency in
60 NEW IDEAS
assuming the power of increase to be rapid and
indefinite, except as far as it is checked by a
want of the means of subsistence, and then
stating that the same power is actually limited,
in a great variety of cases, by the various forms
of physical and moral evil; because these various
forms, in their effect upon population, all resolve
themselves into a want of the means of subsist-
ence, and therefore the check upon the power
of increase is in both statements precisely the
same. But this reply admits of the obvious
answer, that if the power of increase is subject
by the laws of our nature to be checked by an
accidental want of subsistence, resulting from
the influence of moral and physical evil, before
it is checked by a necessary want arising from
the exhaustion of the resources of the earth, or
any part of it, then it is necessary, in order to
ascertain the rate of increase, for the purpose of
comparing it with the possible resources of the
soil, to take into view the effects of this prior
and accidental check. The population of Tur-
key, for example, is subject to the check of
tyranny. If then we wish to know how fast it
is likely to increase, and whether it will proba-
bly ever exhaust the resources of the soil, we
cannot assume an indefinite power of increase
ON POPULATION, 61
in the population, and compare it with a limited
power of production in the soil; but we must
inquire first what are the resources of the terri-
tory, and then what is the power of increase in
a population subject to the check of tyranny.
Whether this check operates by producing a
premature and accidental scarcity, or in any
other way, is of no importance.
The power of increase in the human species,
taken in general, is therefore the natural power
of increase limited by the checks resulting from
the moral and physical imperfections of our
nature, whether they operate in the form of
scarcity, or in any other way. If it were the
object of an inquirer to ascertain the extent of
this power by examples, it would be necessary
to examine all the known cases in connexion
with the circumstances under which they occur-
red, and to deduce a mean number from the
whole. To assume any single example as a
standard, would be clearly a vicious mode of rea-
soning; and, as I observed before, the instances
least suitable for this purpose would be pre-
cisely those of the highest and lowest known
rates. As I have endeavored to show in some
of the preceding chapters, that the increase of
62. NEW IDEAS
population is the principle of abundance and
not of scarcity, it is unnecessary for the present
purpose to inquire what the real power of
increase is. Nevertheless, as the subject is:
interesting, and as it has generally been ex-
amined in connexion with the question which
I have undertaken to discuss, I shall offer a
few remarks upon it in the two succeeding.
chapters.
ON POPULATION. 63.
CHAPTER VI.
On the Causes that Determine the Extent of
Population.
It is a part of the system of Mr. Malthus,
that the extent of population is regulated by the
supply of the means of subsistence. This pro-
position is not, however, directly made out, either
by argument or induction ; but is merely a
corollary from the comparison of ratios, upon
which his whole theory is founded. As the
population on this system must of necessity
overtake the supply of provisions, and cannot
outstrip it by the condition of our nature, it will
of course be determined or regulated by it.
If the objections which I have advanced in
the two preceding chapters against the argument
of the comparison of ratios are well founded,
this conclusion, as well as the others which Mr.
Malthus has drawn from that argument, falls of
itself. The principle has also been refuted in
another form in the second and third chapters,
where I have shown that the supply of provisions
64 - NEW IDEAS
in every country is determined by the extent
and character of the population, and of course
that the proposition is not only incorrect, but
directly contrary to the truth. I have also had
occasion to observe in the preceding chapter,
that Mr. Malthus himself admits, that there are
very few if any instances in which his theory is
confirmed by experience. As far, therefore, as
there is any foundation for the general princi-
ples maintained in this Essay, the assertion that
population is regulated by the supply of provi-
sions has already been sufficiently refuted.
Before I proceed to inquire into the causes that
really produce this effect, I propose, however, to
add a few explanatory remarks in regard to this
part of the theory of Mr. Malthus. -
If by the assertion, that population is regu-
lated by the supply of provisions, it were merely
intended to be intimated that a quantity of pro-
visions actually existing at any given moment,
will not afford a competent support to a much
larger number of persons than those by whose
labor it was procured, and for whose use it was
intended, the proposition is no doubt very obvi-
ously true, in its application both to individuals
and communities, but is of no value in political
oN population. 65
science. It is certain that if I am surprised at
dinner-time by half a dozen friends, when I
have only provided for my own family, the enter-
tainment they find will be scanty. In like man-
ner, if, by miracle, a large number of additional
guests should present themselves, at once,
without giving previous notice, at the great
banquet of nature, they would find, to use
the phrase of Mr. Malthus, that no place had
been provided for them. But miracles are not
the subject of consideration in political econo-
my; and the natural order of events has been
so regulated by the great Dispenser of this ban-
quet, that no additional guest can ever present
himself, until timely notice has been given of
his coming, and ample provision made for his
reception.
If by the assertion alluded to it be meant, that
the supply of the means of subsistence which
any country is capable of affording is a fixed
quantity, which can only support a given num-
ber of persons, to which number the population
must of course be limited, it may be remarked
in answer, that if the quantity of provisions
which a country is able to afford be a fixed one,
there must be some cause to fix it, and that on
9
66 NEW IDEAS
the system of Mr. Malthus no such cause can
be assigned. If instead of supposing the sup-
ply of the means of subsistence to be regulated,
as it really is, by the extent and character of the
population, we reverse the order of cause and
effect, and suppose the extent and character of
the population to be regulated by the supply of
the means of subsistence; no imaginable cause
remains by which the latter can be determined,
unless it be the influence of soil and climate.
But this cause is wholly insufficient to account
for the effect, because we find, that under the
same circumstances of soil and climate, the
same countries afford at different and even at
the same periods, the most various quantities of
the means of subsistence. If the supply of the
means of provisions were fixed by the nature of
the soil and climate, or by any cause other than
the extent and character of the population, we
should regularly find all the different races of
- men inhabiting any given country equally well
supplied with the comforts of life, and increas-
ing or diminishing in number in the same way.
In point of fact, however, most large countries
contain, at the same time and under the same
circumstances of soil and climate, various races
ON POPULATION. 67
of men very differently situated in regard to the
circumstances above mentioned. North America
affords at present a striking illustration of this
remark. There is a race of men to be found
upon it, whose numbers do not at present exceed
at the utmost a few hundred thousands, and are
constantly and rapidly diminishing. Few as
they are, and scattered over the vast extent of a
boundless and most productive continent, they
are nevertheless unable, by incessant and unre-
mitted labor, and by exposure to inconceivable
hardships and dangers, to obtain a sufficient
supply of the ordinary comforts and necessaries
of life. On the same continent, and in the
same circumstances of soil and climate, another
race of men obtains, by moderate labor and
very trifling personal sacrifices, an ample and
luxurious subsistence, for a rapidly increasing
population of more than ten millions. Upon
any theory, excepting that which supposes the
supply of provisions to be determined by the
extent and character of the population, such a
difference as this is wholly unaccountable.
In reality, however, Mr. Malthus would not
probably maintain the proposition, that popula-
tion is regulated by the supply of provisions, in
68 NEW IDEAS
either of the precise senses alluded to above.
His doctrine is, that without inquiry into the
causes that regulate the supply of provisions,
and supposing this supply to attain the maxi-
mum which the laws of nature render possible,
the power of increase is so active, that popula-
tion will still overtake the means of subsistence,
and tend strongly to outstrip them. Hence the
true answer to this part of the theory of Mr.
Malthus is furnished by the objections in the
two preceding chapters to the argument of the
comparison of ratios. The remarks which I
have now made may serve however to indicate a
deficiency in the system of this writer, even
admitting the correctness of his leading princi-
ples. If population is determined by the sup-
ply of the means of subsistence, it remains for
Mr. Malthus to point out by what cause the
supply of those means of subsistence is deter-
mined ; and why, of two races of men equally
favored in every point of natural situation, one
is pining and perishing with actual want, and
the other revelling in plenty, and supplying from
its abundance the necessities of half the nations
on the globe.
ON POPULATION. 69
CHAPTER VII.
The same Subject continued.
THE reality of a considerable power of increase
in the human species is too obvious a fact to be
called in question, and is admitted by all the
writers who have treated this subject. The
absolute extent of this power is variously stated
by different authors. Mr. Malthus, resting on
the authority of the example of the United
States, affirms that the human race has the
power of doubling its numbers at least once in
twenty-five years. Mr. Godwin denies the cor-
rectness of the accounts given of the increase of
population in the United States; but affirms, on
the authority of what he considers a better at-
tested instance, that of Sweden, that the power
of increase is competent to the doubling of a
population once in about a century.
For the purposes of general reasoning, it is
evident that the theory is in both cases precisely
the same. Both suppositions admit a consider-
able power of increase, capable, if not counter-
70 NEW IDEAS
acted, of overstocking the earth with inhabitants
at no very remote period. The theory of God-
win also admits, like that of Malthus, that the
operation of the unchecked power of increase,
would be in the manner of a geometrical pro-
gression. If the population of the kingdom of
Sweden was one million in the year 1700, and
two millions a century after, it will amount, on
the principles of Mr. Godwin, to four millions in
the year 1900, and to eight in the year 2000:
and would thus proceed in the manner of the
series of numbers 1. 2.4. 8. &c. which is a ge-
ometrical progression. It is rather singular that
Mr. Godwin should not have perceived, that in
contesting this part of the system of Mr. Mal-
thus, he was in fact contradicting one of his own
leading principles.
As these two writers and the public in general
are agreed in regard to the theory of the abso-
lute power of increase, so they also admit, with
equal unanimity, that this power of increase is
checked in its developement, and does not pro-
duce in reality its natural and complete effect.
Although the population of the United States
has doubled itself for a length of time every
twenty-five years, and although that of Sweden,
ON POPULATION. 71
and some other countries in Europe, appears to
be doubling itself about once in a century, it is
acknowledged, that the population of the globe
has not, taken together, been increasing at this
rate during the period of which we have an his-
torical account; and it even seems doubtful,
whether it is at all greater now than it was three
or four thousand years ago. It is acknowledged,
that in many parts of the earth population has
been stationary for long periods of time : and
that in others it has rapidly diminished, and is
still diminishing. As no effect can happen
without some adequate cause, it follows there-
fore, that as there is, by the admission of all, an
active power of increase in the species, so there
must be, by the admission of all, some active
causes in operation of a contrary nature that
tend to check it.
As Godwin and Malthus are agreed upon these
preliminary points, so they also agree in regard
to the character of the immediate, causes that
produce the effect in question. It is granted by
both and by all other inquirers, that these imme-
diate causes are the various forms of physical
and moral evil. It is only in assigning the re-
mote origin of these immediate causes, that the
72 NEW IDEAS
theories begin to differ. Mr. Malthus, as we
have seen, ascribes them to a constant and uni-
versal excess of population resulting necessarily
from a standing law of nature. Mr. Godwin,
on the contrary, traces them to the influence of
vicious political institutions. The inherent errors
of the theory of Malthus, which accounts for the
depression of population by supposing its excess,
have been already pointed out. That of God-
win is, thus far, more just and plausible, inas-
much as vicious political institutions are among
the most active and operative forms of evil.
But the theory is radically erroneous, because
it exactly reverses the order of cause and ef-
fect. Vicious political institutions are not the
causes but the consequences of the existence
of moral and physical evil, and are among the
forms in which these causes operate. If man
were a being incapable by nature of vice or error,
it is obvious that the political institutions formed
by him, like all his other works, would be per-
fect. The original imperfection of our constitu-
tion, and the existence of a principle of evil, are
therefore the final causes to which we must trace
the faults of political institutions, as well as the
other forms of vice and error. Hence we see
ON POPULATION. 73
\the error of Mr. Godwin's deduction, that the
abolition of political institutions would bring
| about a state of perfect innocence and happiness.
This would be true, if bad government were the
sole and original principle of evil; since with
the non-existence of the cause, the effect of
course would cease. But the error is obvious,
when we consider vicious institutions as only
one of the various forms of evil; since if evil
should cease to exist in this form by the aboli-
tion, or which indeed is a much more likely way
of producing the effect, by the highest possible
improvement of these institutions, it would still
display itself in the various and innumerable
shapes in which it appears under the name of
individual error and vice.
In order to rectify the theories of Godwin and
Malthus, in regard to the nature of the causes
which counteract the progress of population, it
is only necessary to take the point in which they
are both agreed, to wit, that the immediate
checks on population are the various forms of
moral and physical evil; and rejecting their at-
tempts to trace the principle of evil to some
other original cause, to consider it as itself an
10
74 . NEw IDEAs
original ingredient in the constitution of the uni-
verse. An earthquake swallows up the whole
population of a large city. This is not the
effect of bad government, nor of any dispropor-
tion between the ratios that regulate the increase
of provisions and of population. It results from
the existence of earthquakes as a part of the
order of nature. A furious conqueror ravages
at the head of his troops a civilised and populous
territory, and massacres a considerable part of
its inhabitants. This is not the effect of vicious
institutions, or of an excess of population, but of
the possibility in the order of nature of the oc-
currence of individual vice in this horrid form.
The principle of evil is therefore the original as
well as the immediate check upon the increase
of the human race: as the 'social feelings to
which we owe this increase are acknowledged
by all to be the principle of good. Topulation
and depopulation are the forms in which good
and evil, virtue and vice, happiness and misery,
exercise their operation upon man: and wherever
we find the effect, we are sure to find it attended
by the corresponding cause, population by virtue
and happiness, and depopulation by misery and
W1CC.
ON POPULATION. 75
As the various persons and parties that differ
in opinion upon the controverted questions dis-
cussed in the present work are all agreed in
thinking, that the immediate practical checks
upon the progress of population are moral and
physical evil, it is unnecessary to enlarge upon
this point for the purpose of proving it. It may
be proper, however, to complete the general
view here given of the subject, by specifying the
principal forms under which these causes ope-
rate in producing the effect supposed. These
forms may be conveniently reduced to four gene-
ral heads. 1. Physical evil, wholly independent
of human agency, or casualties. 2. Private vice.
3. Vicious political institutions. 4. Barbarism.
I shall add a few observations upon each of
these classes, inverting the order in which they
are here named.
1. Barbarism: This form of evil might per-
haps be considered as belonging to the class of
vicious political institutions. But for reasons
given in a preceding chapter, I regard it as an
imperfect and unnatural state, and the scanty
fractions of the race that are found in it as hardly
entitled to the name of moral beings. The dis-
tinguishing character of this state of society is
76 NEW IDEAS
the employment of insufficient methods of ob-
taining subsistence ; and the resort to agricul-
ture, as the principal means for effecting this
purpose, draws, as I have observed in a preced-
ing chapter, the distinguishing line between the
barbarous and civilised states. All other modes,
such as hunting, fishing, and the keeping of
flocks and herds, afford so precarious and scanty
a supply of necessaries, as not to admit of any
increase of population. Under the pressure of
continual hardships and want, the increase of
the inhabitants is checked in every possible way.
Marriages are unproductive from the excessive
toil and suffering to which the parties are expos-
ed. The same causes sweep off a great part of
the children that are born in infancy, and thin
the numbers of the small portion that arrive at
maturity. In every community where agricul-
ture is not the principal means of obtaining sub-
sistence, the population will probably be found
to be diminishing with greater or less rapidity.
The rude political institutions that exist in this
state of society are necessarily of the worst kind,
and private vice prevails in its most atrocious
and disgusting forms; but the radical defect is
a vicious economical system, which at once lies
ON POPULATION. 77
at the root of all the immediate evils, and ren-
ders improvement impossible.
2. The civilised or agricultural state affords
the possibility of a regular and rapid increase of
population. We find, however, that such regu-
lar and rapid increase is far from being universal,
and that there are other forms of moral and
physical evil, which produce in this state of
society an effect, less powerful indeed, but ana-
logous in its operation to the vicious economical
system that forms the counteracting principle in
barbarous tribes. Of these various forms it can
hardly be doubted, that vicious political institu-
tions, from the permanent and extensive influ-
ence which they exercise, are among the most
effective. Where the vices of these institutions
are notorious and glaring, as for example in
Turkey, the advantages of society are exclusively
in the hands of a very small number of persons,
and the mass of the people are exposed to nearly
the same hardships and suffering as in a state of
absolute barbarism. Their moral and intellec-
tual character is equally degraded, and the in-
crease of population is checked to nearly the
same extent. Hence, in Turkey, and in most
of the Mahometan countries, population appears
78 NEW IDEAS
to have been, for a long time, in a regular course
of diminution. In most of the Christian coun-
tries of Europe, the political institutions, though
vicious in greater or less degrees, still afford, to
a certain extent, protection to the personal rights
of the whole mass of society. In such a situa-
tion there is opportunity for industry, and for the
developement of valuable intellectual and moral
qualities, or in other words, for the progress of
civilisation, and the increase of numbers. We
find accordingly, that in most of these countries
population appears to have been, for a long time,
gradually though slowly increasing; and espe-
cially within the two or three last centuries, dur-
ing which the improvement of political institu-
tions and the progress of civilisation have been
most remarkable. This increase of population
is most perceptible in the states which are best
governed and most civilised, as in England,
France, and Germany. Beside the regular ope-
ration of vicious political institutions, in checking
the progress of population by degrading the
character and condition of the mass of the people,
the frequent wars which they naturally produce
have a still more direct tendency towards the
same point.
on PopUILATION. 79
3. Private vice : The operation of individual
vices, such as indolence, improvidence, and sen-
suality, in counteracting the power of increase,
is too obvious to require any explanation. These
are probably the checks that operate with most
force in long settled and thickly peopled coun-
tries, as for example in China and Japan, where
the government is mild, and the means of sub-
sistence abundant, but where there are evidently
some causes in operation which prevent the po-
pulation from increasing very fast, perhaps, not
at all. In the savage state, where the life of man
is a perpetual warfare with all the elements and
animals that surround him—where constant
suffering hardens the heart, and exasperates the
temper—the prevailing vices are ferocity and
contempt for the happiness of others. In the
bosom of civilised society, where existence is
joyous and easy, these qualities disappear; but
the imperfection of our nature displays itself in
a train of softer vices, less offensive and odious
in their character than those of barbarism, but
probably very effectual in their operation as
checks on the increase of the species. We are
too little acquainted with the history of the great
eastern empires above mentioned, to know pre-
80 NEW IDEAS
cisely what the state of population is, much less
to decide with certainty upon the causes that
regulate it. There is however room to suppose,
that vicious political institutions, as well as pri-
vate immorality, have some operation in pro-
ducing this effect.
4. Physical evils, wholly independent of the
agency of man, such as earthquakes, inunda-
tions, epidemic diseases, the accidental failure
of crops, and other occurrences of this descrip-
tion, must also be reckoned among the active
checks on the progress of population. The
operation of this class of checks is of course
entirely irregular, and probably much less con-
siderable than that of any of the others.
Such are the principal forms of moral and
physical evil which neutralize the power of
increase at the various stages in the progress of
civilisation. What then do we gain, it may be
asked, by the improvements of our economical
or political systems, if they only serve to substi-
tute one sort of vice for another ? The answer
to this question, though obvious, is quite satis-
factory. - - w
1. In the first place we gain for a given terri-
tory a great increase of human beings suscepti-
ON POPULATION. 81
ble of enjoyment and capable of virtue ; and
their situation is, in point of fact, superior and
happier in proportion to the degree of their
civilisation. The inhabitants of a city in the
United States are not without their imperfec-
tions, their vices, and their sufferings; but their
condition is certainly every way preferable to
that of a tribe of the neighboring Indians, or a
village of Russian slaves. Here then is a great
positive acquisition of human life and human
happiness.
2. The vices most frequent in a state of civili-
sation are not necessary or irremediable in any
given degree, but may be indefinitely diminished
by the continual progress of civilisation and
improvement ; although, as I have already ob-
served, they can never be entirely removed.
It is the tendency of good institutions to substi-
tute industry and activity in the room of sen-
suality and indolence among the mass of the
people. In proportion to the improvement of
the public morals, population would continue to
advance with proportional rapidity ; and this
advance would not be attended with any danger
of scarcity, but, as I think I have shown in a
11
82 NEW IDEAS
preceding chapter, would be a powerful prin-
ciple of abundance until the whole earth should
be overpeopled : an event which, as Mr. Mal-
thus justly observes, is too remote to be a sub-
ject of reasonable apprehension. -
ON POPULATION, 83
CHAPTER VIII.
On the Increase of Population in the United
States of America.
THE United States of America furnish the
most remarkable example of a rapid increase of
population that has yet appeared in any age or
country. From the time of the first settlement
of their territory two hundred years ago up to .
the present day, the number of their inhabitants
has regularly doubled itself at least as often as
once in twenty-five years. Mr. Godwin, it is
true, ascribes this extraordinary increase, in a
great measure, to the effect of emigration from
Europe; but in the attempt to substantiate this
assertion he has failed completely. His calcula-
tions, in regard to the amount of the emigration
into the United States, are entirely at variance
with all the most authentic statistical accounts;
and the argument upon which he principally
seems to rely, drawn from a comparison of the
two enumerations of 1800 and 1810, involves an
error which evidently destroys its force. It is
83; NEW IDEAS
true that the number of persons over ten years
of age given in the census of 1810, must be the
same with the whole number of inhabitants
given in that of 1800, deducting the deaths
which occurred between these two periods; and
it is alsó'true that on the calculations of the
amount of this mortality contained in the work
of Mr., Godwin, there would remain a very
great difference between the two numbers to be
accounted for by emigration. But these calcu-
lations are founded on the very obviously false
supposition, that the mortality among that part
of the population over one or two years of age,
is as great in proportion, as it is among the
whole population taken together. This palpa-
ble error being corrected, and the real mortality
estimated from the surest accounts, and the most
probable conjectures, the conclusions drawn from
a comparison of the enumerations according to
the method of Mr. Booth agree very well with
the best statistical documents. It appears from
all these sources of information, that the num-
ber of emigrants has, at no period since the first
settlement of the country, been considerable
enough to produce any material effect upon the
state of population. The rapid augmentation
ON POPULATION. 85
of numbers that has taken place is therefore the
result of the natural power of increase operat-
ing under circumstances more favorable than
have hitherto been known in any other country.
As the various forms of moral and physical
evil are admitted by all to be the only checks on
the progress of population, it follows of course,
that they must be less felt in the United States
than in any other part of the world. In the pre-
ceding chapter, I have attempted to arrange
these forms under several principal heads; and
it may not be uninteresting to take a rapid
review of the actual situation of the United
States in reference to this arrangement. If it
be correct, we may expect to find the operation
of the several classes of checks which I have
enumerated less considerable in the United
States than elsewhere.
Of these checks, the one first mentioned, that
of barbarism, has of course no operation in an
agricultural and civilised community.
The fourth, comprehending physical evils, in-
dependent of human agency, is far from being
wholly unfelt. Accidental famine, it is true,
is quite unknown: but epidemical and other
diseases, not resulting immediately from intem-
86 NEW IDEAS
perance, prevail in the United States to a con-
siderable extent. The principal cities in the
southern section are regularly visited by the yel-
low fever; but as this scourge is limited in its
operation to the inhabitants of three or four not
very populous places, the actual mortality result-
ing from it is not very great. But indepen-
dently of the yellow fever, the inhabitants of the
whole interior part of the country suffer from
diseases occasioned by the unwholesome exhala-
tions that arise from a rich and humid soil,
opened for the first time to the influence of the
sun. The eastern and middle states, which
have long been settled, and are now pretty well
cleared, and comparatively populous, are the
only ones which can be considered as positively
healthy. And as the most rapid increase of
population takes place in the new states, it is
plain that it cannot be accounted for by the sup-
position of an uncommonly salubrious climate.
In fact there are probably few parts of Europe
in which the check of diseases not resulting
from intemperance or want is felt so strongly as
it is in the United States.
There are also other checks belonging to this
class that have always operated very powerfully
ON POPULATION. 87
from the first settlement of the country up to
the present day. The physical hardships en-
dured by the inhabitants of the United States,
have probably been greater than any civilised
community was ever compelled to struggle with
before. The first settlers founded their esta-
blishments in the midst of a hardy and ferocious
race of savages, with whom they were forced to
carry on a perpetual war of life and death. As
the population increased, the savages retired
into the interior ; but the enterprising emigrants
from the new states, as they gradually pushed
forward the European settlements, always did it
with the tomahawk and scalping knife impend-
ing over their heads. The rapid decay of these
tribes, and their growing respect for the govern-
ment of the United States, have at last, in a
great measure, relieved the country from this
scourge, except in time of war with Great
Britain, a power whose government considers
the horrors of savage hostility as a very honor-
able and useful engine to employ against a
Christian and civilised enemy.
Independently of the inconvenience of waging
a perpetual war with the savages, the other
hardships naturally incident to the exploring of
88 NEW IDEAS
a new country are far from being slight. The
labor, to which the first settlers in a wilderness
are exposed, is excessive, and their privations
almost insupportable. The emigrant goes out
into the woods with no resources but his axe
and his gun. He has no shelter from the
weather till he has built him a house of the
trees that were growing when he arrived; and
he plants his first crop of corn among the
stumps of the forest which he has hewn or burnt
down to make room for it. He has no hope of
a competent provision for the close of his life,
except such as is founded upon wielding the axe
and urging the plough with incessant activity as
long as health and strength remain. When we
add to these hardships the diseases incident to
new settlements, of which I have already spoken,
it must be allowed that the physical situation of
their inhabitants is far from being particularly
favorable. It is evidently therefore not to the
absence of merely physical checks that we are
to trace the unprecedented increase of popula-
tion in the United States : and we must rather
look for it in the comparatively lighter pressure
of moral evil in its two principal forms of vicious
political institutions and private vice.
ON POPULATION. 89
We find accordingly, upon reference to the
situation of the United States, that the checks
of population arising from both these causes,
are probably less considerable than they ever
were in any other country. The object of good
government, that is, the security of personal and
national rights, is completely attained; and with
as small sacrifices on the part of individuals, in
the various forms of taxes, military service, or
acquiescence in restraints on their industry, as
can well be imagined possible; much smaller
certainly than were ever made before for the
same purpose in other communities. The check
resulting from vicious institutions may therefore
be regarded as absolutely null.
Various circumstances also unite to render
the check resulting from private vice less con-
siderable than in most other countries. From
the combined effect of the character of our
institutions' and the state of property, there is
no country in which the importance of indivi-
duals in the community is so great as it is with us.
By far the greater part of the citizens are pro-
prietors of land ; and the laborer, from the
ºfacility with which he can become a proprietor
if he pleases, is nearly as independent and as
12
90 NEW IDEAS
important as the proprietor himself. Almost
every citizen possesses political rights ; and
takes a part, in one form or another, in the go-
vernment of the country. These circumstances
naturally give to the individual a sense of his
own dignity and value; and tend to produce,
in the first place, attention to his own interest,
or habits of foresight and industry, and, secondly,
intelligence, or the capacity of promoting his
own interest, and that of his family and con-
nexions. One of the consequences of such
habits and feelings is a comparatively slight
pressure upon the mass of the people, of the
diseases and sufferings that are the natural
effects of improvidence, idleness, and vicious
habits.
To these causes for the comparative absence
of private vice may be added the nature of the
employment most general among the people,
and the thinness of the population. Agricul-
ture, the almost universal occupation of the citi-
zens of the United States, is generally regarded
as more favorable to good morals and to health
than any other whatever. The soft and sensual
vices, that naturally grow up in the soil of a
dense population, and probably act as the prin-
ON POPULATION. 91
oipal check on the increase of man in the later
periods of the progress of society, are in a great
measure unknown. The mass of the inhabit-
ants are thinly scattered over a boundless terri-
tory; and if they lose the ease and joyousness
that form the charm of life in more populous
communities, they are free, in compensation,
from the vice and disease to which such com-
munities are subject. Their happiness is of a
chaste and serious cast. Abundance is within
the reach of all; and the prevalent habits and
institutions naturally inspire all with an ardent
wish to obtain it. But this can only be done by
a steady course of labor continued unremittingly
through the active part of life. Temperance
and industry are therefore the general character-
istics of the inhabitants of the United States;
and their principal relaxations are found in the
quiet comforts of the domestic circle. They
know but little of the thoughtless mirth and the
joyous light-heartedness that prevail in some
other countries; and if individuals occasionally
turn their attention from their immediate con-
cerns, it is probably to fix it upon the still more
weighty matters of politics or religion. Whether
such a society has a better enjoyment of life
92 NEW, IDEAS
than any other, is a question which we need not
undertake to determine: it is sufficient for the
present purpose to remark, that the habits I have
deseribed are more favorable than any others to
the increase of population.
In one word, the causes of the rapid increase
of population in the United States must be
looked for in their peculiar political and geo-
graphical circumstances, in consequence of which
the inhabitants have been able to take advantage
of the improved moral habits and social institu-
tions which are found in advanced stages of civil-
isation, without being exposed to the peculiar
evils of immorality, improvidence and indolence,
which in older and more populous countries are
usually, by way of compensation, the natural
products of the same rich soil.
Good government and good morals, or in
other words, the absence of the checks result-
ing from vicious institutions and private vice,
are therefore the main causes of this remark-
able phenomenon. We are authorised to draw
this conclusion from actual observations on the
situation of the country: and there is also no
way of accounting for the fact in question, but
by the supposition that the checks on population
ON POPULATION, 93
resulting from the pressure of moral evil are
comparatively small, since, as we have seen, the
check of immediate physical evil is probably
quite as severe as in most other civilised coun-
tries.
Here then, it may be remarked en passant,
we have a short and decisive answer to the
calumnies on the moral character of the citizens
of the United States, in which some European
writers are accustomed to indulge. When the
judicious travellers, and still more judicious
critics of the mother country, think proper to
gratify their spleen by representing us as an in-
dolent, immoral, and irreligious people, we have
only to refer them to the census for a complete
mathematical demonstration of the folly and
falsehood of their assertions.
94 NEW IDEAS
CHAPTER IX.
On the Policy of encouraging Marriage.
If the system of Mr. Malthus were correct,
and the power of increase were, as he supposes,
the real and original principle of all the evil we
suffer, the only possible hope of any improve-
ment in the state of society would be founded
upon an attempt to check the operation of this
power by artificial means in one way or another.
Some conclusions, that necessarily follow from
these premises, can hardly be very agreeable to
persons of correct judgment and good feelings.
It is certain, for example, that on the supposition
of Mr. Malthus, many proceedings of the most
& Slaw | 'inhuman and immoral character, such as the
(~ exposure of infants and the promiscuous inter-
2 course of the sexes, would be in the highest
ldegree favorable to the general good. Without
enlarging upon this objection, which however is
one of very great importance, it may be proper
to notice in a brief manner the plan which Mr.
ON POPULATION. 95
Malthus himself proposes for diminishing the
activity of the principle of increase.
This author considers it as a clearly immoral
act in any individual to marry without a reason-
able prospect of being able to provide for his
family; but does not conceive that the society,
to which he belongs, have a right to prevent him
from so doing. Whatever good can be done,
must therefore be effected by the spontaneous
action of individuals. The plan of Mr. Malthus
is, that the public authorities should invite and
encourage the people to abstain from marrying
under the circumstances just mentioned, and
should assure them explicitly that if they do it,
it must be at their own risk and peril; that they
are responsible for the consequences, whatever
they may be ; and that if they or their families
come to want, they have no relief to expect from
the bounty of society. As a part of this system,
all public provision for the poor, the aged, and
the infirm, is to be gradually abolished; and
charity, in all the acceptations of the word, to
become a dead letter, unless when it may occa-
sionally lead to the relief of an individual case
of distress.
Such is the plan which Mr. Malthus himself
recommends as being naturally suggested by his
96 NEW II) EAS
own theory. If his enemy had written a book,
he certainly could not have presented the sys-
tem under a more revolting aspect. Still it must
be allowed, that if the truth of the general the-
ory be admitted, these measures, or some others
of a similar tendency, would really become ex-
pedient. Mr. Malthus has therefore proved the
firmness and honesty of his character, by thus
pursuing his system into all its consequences,
however odious and unnatural. I must confess,
however, that even on his own supposition of
facts, his reasoning in regard to the most expe-
dient remedy for the evil in question does not
seem to me to be quite correct: and there are
other measures of the same general tendency,
that appear to be at once more effectual and
equitable than those which he proposes.
It is doubtless very evident, as Mr. Malthus
affirms, that it is a clearly immoral act for an
individual to marry without a reasonable pros-
pect of being able to support a family: but the
principle, that society has no right to prevent
him from doing this, does not seem to be equally
certain. It is obvious, on the contrary, that as
man was intended by nature for a social being,
all his personal rights are limited by the general
good; and that no individual can possess any,
ON POPULATION. 97
the exercise of which would be inconsistent
with this object. If acts of the kind above
mentioned happened only now and then by way
of exception, or if the immorality of them were
of a nature to produce but little practical injury
to society, it might be inexpedient to adopt any
prohibitory measures in regard to them: not
because society would not have a right so to do,
but because the trouble of carrying such a law
into execution might be a greater evil than the
one to be remedied. But since, on the theory
of Mr. Malthus, a large portion of every com-
munity are placed by the law of nature under a
constant temptation to take this course ; and
since this precise species of immorality is the
one to which all our sufferings and vices must
be traced as to a fountain head; it is clearly not
only the right but the bounden and indispensa-
ble duty of governments to make such laws as
may serve most effectually to remedy the evil.
The care of providing the necessary check can-
not be left with safety to individuals, since those
of the poorer sort, who compose the mass of the
people, are wholly unable to judge of the neces-
sity of any such measures; and if they even
13
98. NEW IDEAS
ence of a strong natural tendency, which would
lead them to overlook the obligation of provid-
ing against it. To the magistrates, therefore,
who see the evil, and have no temptation to be
negligent, belongs undoubtedly the duty of pre-
venting it by legislative measures. -
This might be done in two ways, either of
which would be effectual, and on the supposi-
tion, unobjectionable. A calculation might be
made of the age at which the whole population
might marry without any danger to the society
of an excess of numbers. After this period had
been determined with mathematical exactness, a
law should be passed prohibiting any marriage
between parties who had not arrived at the legal
age. Such a law would be equitable, because
it would operate impartially upon the whole
community. On the system of Mr. Malthus, the
poor, in addition to their other inconveniences,
are required to sacrifice the comforts of do-
mestic life to the general good; and the rich
are invested, beside all their other advantages,
with a monopoly of love and marriage. Such a
plan is neither just nor safe; and the privations
and sufferings, imposed upon communities by
common necessities, must be shared alike by all.
ON POPULATION. 99
When the crew of a ship are put upon short
allowance, the officers, if they do not wish to be
massacred, must submit to the same fare with
the rest.
Another equally plausible arrangement would
be, to calculate with exactness how large a pro-
portion of the community might marry at an
early age without any danger of an excess of
population, and then to select by lot the requisite
number of individuals of the two sexes, and
prohibit the rest from marrying at all. Society
would then resemble, in this particular, the
monarchy of the bees, and would have its
queens, its drones, and its laborers. The two
former classes would devote their attention to
the continuation of the race, while the indivi-
duals of the latter were exclusively employed in
providing for the comfortable subsistence of the
whole. Both these schemes, as it strikes me,
are far more plausible, on the supposition of the
truth of Mr. Malthus's theory, than the one
which he has adopted. If they appear absurd,
we may conclude that the suppositions which
naturally lead to them are false and groundless.
It is doubtless true, as I have observed already,
that it would be an immoral act for a man to
100 - NEW IDEAS
marry without a reasonable prospect of being
able to support a family. In like manner it
would be immoral for a man to eat without a
reasonable prospect of being able to digest his
food. We are bound to exercise our under-
standings in the regulation of these parts of our
conduct as of every other. But Providence has
not made the preservation of life and the con-
tinuance of the species to depend upon the mere
suggestions of a sense of duty. For the pur-
pose of insuring the accomplishment of these
essential objects, the attention of individuals is
directed to them by the impulses of strong
natural instincts. The instinct of love is the
natural motive to marriage. As it is given to
every individual, it is evidently the intention of
nature that all should marry : and as it is
stronger at an early period of life than at any
other, it is equally evident that youth was the
time intended by nature for the gratification of
this instinct in marriage. As a general rule,
therefore, the order of nature has provided that
all should marry young ; and the accomplish-
ment of this, as of every other law of nature,
must tend to promote the general good, at the
same time that it advances the happiness of
ON POPULATION. 101.
individuals. To this, as to all other laws of
nature, there are are doubtless exceptions; and
an individual, whose case happens to form one
of the exceptions, or who supposes that it does,
is bound to act accordingly. But to affirm that
the mass of mankind, in obeying without hesita-
tion the law of nature, indicated by a strong
natural instinct, would run any risk of doing
injury to themselves or to society, and that such
injury could be prevented by acting in each case
upon a calculation of probabilities, either sup-
poses that the dictates of feeling and of reason.
are essentially different, while they are, in fact,
only two forms in which the same common law
of nature declares itself; or that reason is, with
the mass of the people, a surer instrument by
which to ascertain the law of nature than feel-
ing; a proposition too obviously false to be sus-
tained for a moment. -
Since then it is provided in the order of na-
ture that all should marry early, we are certain
that the general good will be promoted by an
obedience to this law. The few exceptions to
it, that prudence may render necessary, do not
require to be regulated by any legislative pro-
ceedings of the nature of those recommended
102 NEW IDEAS
by Mr. Malthus, or suggested above. Any sys-
tem which affirms that the universal prevalence
of early marriages is adverse to the general
good, and ought to be checked, is in open con-
tradiction with the certain laws of nature ; and
must therefore of necessity be false. Such is
the character of that of Mr. Malthus.
The most distinguished legislators and phi-
losophers of ancient and modern times have in
general regarded the increase of population as
a very desirable thing ; and if the principles
which I have endeavored to establish are correct,
the laws which have been enacted at various
times and in different countries for the encou-
ragement of marriage, were predicated upon a
much more correct view of the subject, than that
taken by Mr. Malthus. In reality, however,
little or nothing can be done by legislation, or
in any more indirect way, either for the preven-
tion or the encouragement of marriage. Provi-
dence has not left it to the wisdom of politicians,
to make arrangements for the continuance of
the species: but has recommended it to every
individual by a motive that was made and meant
to be stronger than any adverse consideration
that can present itself in the ordinary course of
on PopULATION. 103
events. The consequence is, that the mass of
the people in all countries and at all periods
always have married and always will marry upon
their arrival at maturity. They want no legal
encouragement to do this ; nor would any pro-
hibitory measures prevent them from doing it.
Such measures would be as ineffectual as they
are superfluous, on the principles maintained in
the present work.
104 INEW IDEAS
CHAPTER X.
On a Public Provision for the Poor.
ON the system of Mr. Malthus, a public pro-
vision for the support of the poor, such as now
exists in Great Britain, and most other Christian
nations, is among the most enormous and wanton
impositions with which an unhappy people could
possibly be visited: and it would be the impe-
rious and pressing duty of the government of
every country, where such a system was esta-
blished, to abolish it as speedily as possible. If
Mr. Malthus be correct in his theory, the com-
munity are loaded with an intolerable burden,
for no other end but to create and keep in exist-
ence an immense mass of poverty and wretch-
edness; and thus make themselves miserable
for the strange object of making other people
so. The abolition of the poor laws is therefore
one of the first and most urgent practical mea-
sures resulting from the theory of this writer.
If the principles which I have endeavored to
establish are correct, the poor laws present
ON POPULATION. 105
\
themselves under a very different point of view.
Population not being regulated by the supply of
the means of subsistence ; but, on the contrary,
the means of subsistence being determined by
the extent and character of the population, a
legal provision for the infirm and the aged has
no effect in augmenting the number of the in-
habitants any further than as it may save a few
individuals from a premature death. There is
no danger that the expectation of being provided
for in the alms-house, will either lead to impro-
vident marriages, or prevent the people from
pursuing their occupations with zeal and in-
dustry. That the whole mass of the people
will marry under any circumstances, is a point.
which must be calculated upon in every com-
munity: and the supposition that the sight of
the alms-house will tempt the poor to be impro-
vident and idle, is about as reasonable as it
would be to imagine that the view of the gallows
would seduce them to the commission of high-
way robbery. -
A legal provision for the aged, the infirm, and
the destitute, is thus unattended with any ill
effects. It is also absolutely and imperiously
required in every civilised and populous com-
14
- 106 NEW IDEAS
munity, by a regard for justice and common
humanity. In all such communities the effect
of casualties, whether they occur in the order of
natural or of political events, is increased in
exact proportion to the progress of civilisation
and population. An earthquake or an inunda-
tion, that unsettles a few cabins or destroys a
few individuals in a region inhabited by savage
tribes, if it occurs in the territory of a populous
nation, sweeps off its thousands, and leaves its
tens of thousands destitute of their ordinary
means of subsistence. In civilised warfare
every battle that is fought deprives a multitude
of families of their natural protection. The
distress that may be brought upon a populous
country by a change in its political condition was
sadly proved by the situation of England and
many other parts of Europe after the close of
the late wars. The events of the last summer
in Ireland illustrate the fatal consequences of
the casual failure of a crop.
The exposure to such casualties is one of the
compensations attending a high state of civilisa-
tion and a dense population. It is one of the
first and principal duties of the government, in
countries thus situated, to guard against such
ON POPULATION. 107
accidents, as far as possible, by the most prudent
and careful administration. This, however, on
the most favorable supposition, can never be
done beyond a certain extent: and it happens
unfortunately that these tremendous visitations
are much more frequently owing to the faults of
rulers than to natural accidents. But from
whatever cause they may arise, it would be the
height of inhumanity to permit their victims to
suffer without relief, or to abandon them to the
chance of private charity. The benevolence of
individuals will, in all civilised countries, operate
in a most favorable manner to supply the de-
ficiencies and obviate the accidental defects of
the public institutions of charity. But a wise
and efficient organisation of these institutions
must form of necessity the basis of every com-
petent system of provision for the poor; and
will never be wanting among the political esta-
blishments of a generous and Christian country.
The ideas of Mr. Malthus are rather more
plausible when applied to institutions intended
to relieve the misery resulting directly from pri-
wate vice. Such, for example, are foundling
hospitals, the tenants of which must be supposed
in general to be the offspring of illicit connex-
108 New IDEAs
ions. Such institutions, considered merely in
their effect upon parents, are perhaps in a slight
degree encouragements to vice: although there
is room to suppose that the irregularities in
question can seldom be traced with propriety to
motives of cool calculation. But in these insti-
tutions the child and not the parent is the object
of attention. An innocent being must not be
deprived of existence, and abandoned to vice
and wretchedness, because it owed its birth to a
fault. We are not required to visit the sins of
the fathers upon the children; but we are re-
quired to relieve suffering and to preserve life
whenever we can. Some unfavorable conse-
quences may indirectly result from almost every
act of benevolence ; but for these we are not
responsible: and neither reason nor humanity
authorise us to do evil directly with a view of
avoiding the possible indirect ill effects of doing
good,
In general, it is one of the least agreeable
consequences of the system of Mr. Malthus, that
it leads of necessity to a low estimate of the
value of life. Individuals, on the supposition of
its truth, are of no importance. Uno avulso non
deficit alter. At every vacancy that happens at
ON POPULATION. 109
the banquet of nature, three or four candidates
for the prize are eagerly pushing forward, of
whom one only can obtain it. The paragon of
animals is of all commodities the cheapest and
the most abundant. The loss of a hundred
thousand lives is supplied at once, and is of no
real importance to the general good. Hence
the consequence that life may be expended
without remorse to any extent by any statesman
or projector, who conscientiously believes that
he can thereby effect some ultimate object of a
beneficial character. With the physical value
of man, the estimate of his moral worth must
also fall of course. It can hardly be sup-
posed that a being, whose life is of no conse-
quence, possesses any high moral qualities, or
any rights that are entitled to attention. The
natural social feeling which leads us to regard
such a being with benevolence and respect is a
mere deception: and no good reason can be
given why the few, who have discovered the
secret, should not take advantage of it to pro-
mote their own private views at the expense of
the interest and happiness of others.
Such, I am sure, are not the sentiments of
Mr. Malthus; but such sentiments are unques-
110 - NEW IDEAS
tionably the natural effects of his theory. For-
tunately the benevolent feelings, as they are not
the result of calculation, will never be materially
shaken by sophistry. Nevertheless the operation
of this system, as far as it is believed and adopt-
ed, is to deprive these sentiments of any rational
foundation, and to place them in fact in opposi-
tion with the dictates of sound sense. The
friends of humanity who acquiesce at present in
the truth of the principles in question, would
therefore probably not regret, as has lately been
admitted by one of the most distinguished among
them, to find these principles satisfactorily re-
futed. I venture to hope that the arguments,
adduced in the preceding chapters, have shown
that they are as much at variance with expe-
rience and reason, as they are with common
humanity and an elevated notion of the character
and destiny of man.
6N POPULATION. 111
CHAPTER XI.
On the Wages of Labor.
THE wages of labor are its products. Hence
if labor becomes more productive, as population
increases on a given territory, the natural conse
quence would be that the wages of labor must
rise in proportion. As this result does not uni-
formly happen, it is necessary to examine the
causes which regulate the rate of wages, and
make it vary in many cases from the natural
standard.
If every member of the community enjoyed
the whole fruits of his labor, or the value of them
in money, it is evident that the same cause, that
is, the increase of skill, which makes the labor
of the community more productive as it increases
in population, would also make the labor of
every individual more productive in the same
proportion; or rather the increased productive-
ness of the labor of the community is the result
of the increased productiveness of the labor of
all its members. But if the products of the labor
112 NEw IDEAs
of the community are distributed among its
members upon any other principle than that of
giving to each member the fruits of his own
labor, it is evident that the productiveness of
labor in general will form no certain criterion of
the reward of individual labor, or in other words,
of the rate of wages. The rate of wages will in
this case be a compound result of the produc-
tiveness of labor, and of the principles upon
which the products of the labor of the commu-
nity are distributed among its members.
These principles form every where one of the
most important parts of the political institutions:
and they are essentially different in almost every
different country. In many of the most consi-
derable states of ancient and modern times, the
mass of the population have been considered as
entitled to no share whatever in the fruits of
their own labor. The laborers in this case are
said to be slaves, and wages are wholly unknown.
Although the master is clothed and fed by the
labor of the slave, the slave is supposed to have
no legal right even to the share of its products
necessary for his own subsistence, but is said to
be fed and clothed by the bounty of his master.
In such a situation man loses his moral value,
ON POPULATION. 113
and is no better than the most intelligent and
serviceable of the beasts of burden.
There are other communities in which the
right of all the members to the fruits of their own
labor is recognised and protected by law, but in
which the state of property makes the mass of
the population almost absolutely dependent upon
a very few individuals. If a populous territory is
distributed among a small number of proprietors,
so that the mass of the people have little or no
opportunity of exercising their industry except
for the purpose of supplying the wants or per-
forming the commands of the proprietors, it is
obvious that the rate of wages will be very low,
whatever may be the productiveness of labor. A
society thus constituted, tends of necessity to
decay and dissolution. The rewards of labor
are insufficient to support the laborer and his
family in health and comfort. The population
first becomes stationary, and then gradually de-
clines. The country seems to be wasted by a
silent but fatal pestilence; and, without any
external shock or apparent interior convulsion, it
sinks in wealth and power at every successive
generation, and finally takes the form of an un-
cultivated and uninhabited desert. The history
- 15
114 r NEW IDEAS
of the world is filled with examples of this de-
scription. None perhaps is more striking than
that of the island of Sicily, which once main-
tained twelve million inhabitants in abundance,
and exported at the same time such quantities
of corn as to be called the granary of the Roman
empire. Its population is now limited to a few
ignorant and barbarous nobles, and a few hun-
dred thousand half-starved and wretched pea-
SantS. - - -
The unfavorable effect of such a state of pro-
perty upon the rate of wages would be augment-
ed, and the decline of the country would be still
more rapid, if the magistrates, that represent
the community, exacted from the laborer a large
part of his earnings under the pretext of paying
the necessary expense of protecting him in the
enjoyment of his personal rights and the scanty
residue of his wages. It has generally happened
however, by a sort of compensation, that where
the state of property is extremely vicious, the
taxes are also comparatively light.
A vicious state of property may however re-
duce considerably the rewards of individual
labor, without entirely checking the progress of
population. In this case a principle of improve-
ON POPULATION. 115
ment will be constantly at work. The number
of laborers will be regularly increasing. The
productiveness of labor being also increased in
the same proportion, all the articles of use and
enjoyment will become more abundant. The
consumption of them will be extended in conse-
quence, and the whole society will put on an
aspect of new activity and wealth. The pro-
ducts of the joint labor of the community, and
the wages of individual labor, will both be aug-
mented; although the latter may not be so high
as in some other less populous communities
where the state of property is more favorable to
the importance of individuals. Such has been
the progress of events in Great Britain, where
the great improvement in the political institutions
and in the internal condition of the country, that
took place after the close of the civil wars led
to an increase of population, to a great exten-
sion of labor in all its departments, and to the
most remarkable improvements in the modes of
its application. The wages of labor rose in
proportion to the increase of its productiveness;
and when not depressed by accidental causes,
are now much higher than they were formerly,
though certainly far from being so high as they
116 NEW IDEAS
would be if the fruits of the labor of the whole
nation were more equally distributed among its
members. The population of England and
Wales is about the same with that of the United
States of America; but while the total product
of the labor of the former countries is far greater
than that of the latter, the wages of individual
labor with the latter are much higher than with
the former; because in the United States (ex-
cepting in those parts where the land is culti-
vated by slaves) every individual enjoys the
entire fruits of his own labor, with scarcely any
diminution either from the taxes or the state of
property.
It may be taken therefore as a general rule,
that the population and productiveness of labor
being given, the rate of wages will depend upon
the circumstances, political and economical,
which regulate the distribution of the fruits of
the labor of the community among its members.
The differences in the rates of wages, as esti-
mated in money, may not however in all cases
correspond precisely with the differences in their
real value as computed in the necessaries of life.
If we suppose the quantity of money in every
country to be fixed, the money value of the
ON POPULATION. 117
necessaries of life will decrease in proportion to
their abundance: and, on this supposition, if the
necessaries of life are four times as abundant in
one country as they are in another, any given
sum of money will procure in the former four
times as large a supply of the necessaries of life
as in the latter. Hence if the nominal rate of
wages be one shilling a day in the former, and
four in the latter, the real rate in both will be
precisely the same. It is true that where every
other article of use and enjoyment is abundant,
money, considered as a material object, will also
abound in the same proportion. The supply of
the precious metals, as compared with the de-
mand, will probably be as great as that of corn
or cotton; and as far as the supply of money is
augmented, the rise occasioned by it in the
nominal value of the necessaries of life will
counterbalance the fall occasioned by the abun-
dance of the latter, and keep up the nominal
rate of wages. But in reality the demand for a
material medium of exchange does not increase
in proportion to the increase in the productive-
ness of labor, and the abundance of its products.
Credit is soon found to be a far more conve-
nient instrument for the transaction of business
118 NEw IDEAs.
on a considerable scale than money: and the
latter is hardly used except for the daily occa-
sions of civil and domestic life.
These considerations serve to account in part
for the difference in the nominal rate of wages
in England and the United States, which seems
at first to be greater than a comparison of the
political and personal situation of individuals
would naturally lead us to expect.
ON POPULATION, 119
CHAPTER XII.
Recapitulation.
THE theory maintained in the present work
has been stated, for the purpose of brevity, in so
very condensed a form, that the essay itself is
little more than a summary of the principal
heads of the argument; and it may appear un-
necessary to attempt a recapitulation of them in
a separate chapter. I shall, however, venture to
exhibit again the leading points of the discus-
sion in a still more naked shape, in the hope that
a review of them may convey to the reader's
mind a more accurate notion of the scope of the
reasoning, and of the connexion between the
several propositions that have been successively
supported in the course of the work.
/ In the first chapter I have stated, as a prelimi-
mary objection to the theories of Godwin and
Malthus, that they suppose on the one hand, that
political institutions are the source of all evil,
and on the other, that they have no tendency to
improve the condition of mankind, and are
120 NEW IBEAS
entirely indifferent. The former proposition is
directly maintained by Godwin, and the latter is
implied in the theory of Malthus, which attri-
butes all our miseries to a necessary and perma-
ment excess of population, entirely independent
of political institutions. Without attempting to
substantiate by argument the value of these in-
stitutions, I have taken for granted that it would
be admitted by all the persons to whom I wish
to address myself: and if it be, the falsehood of
the two theories in which it is denied must be
conceded of course.
In the second chapter I have advanced the
new idea which forms the leading principle of
the work, and which is, that the increase of po-
pulation is a cause of abundance, and not of
scarcity; since it augments the supply of labor
in precisely the same proportion with the demand
for its products, and developes at the same time
the new element of skill, by means of which the
same quantity of labor is applied with greater
effect, and becomes more productive than before.
This proposition is dwelt upon in the second
and third chapters, and proved by a reference to
general principles and to the history of civilisa-
tion. If correct, it shows that the theory of
on population. 121
Malthus is not only false, but directly the reverse
of the truth.
But admitting that labor naturally becomes
more productive, and the means of subsistence
more abundant, in consequence of an increase of
population, there will still be a danger of scarci-
ty resulting from this circumstance, wherever
the possible supply of the means of subsistence
is, or is likely to be, exhausted. The theory of
Mr. Malthus supposes that this is permanently
the precise state of things in all parts of the
world, in consequence of a universal tendency to
an excess of population and deficiency of food,
arising from the different rates at which food
and population naturally increase. It is neces-
sary therefore to refute this objection, in order
to establish the theory maintained in the second
and third chapters.
This I have attempted to do in the fourth and
fifth chapters, by showing, first, that the argu-
ment takes for granted that a given population
must necessarily subsist upon the direct products
of the soil they occupy—a supposition quite
groundless in itself, and refuted by a great
variety of examples, as for instance that of the
city of London: and, secondly, that the rate of
16
122 NEw IDEAs
increase of the human species, assumed by Mr.
Malthus as true, being deduced from a single
case, and not from an average of all the known
cases, involves a logical error, and in point of
fact is a great deal too high. Each of these
errors is of itself sufficient to destroy the force
of the objection.
The proposition, that the increase of population
is a principle of abundance and not of scarci-
ty, being thus established in a positive way, and
cleared of the only objection that can be made
to it, it becomes unnecessary for the present
purpose to ascertain what the rate of increase of
the human species really is, and what the causes
are that determine the extent of population.
But as these are interesting questions, and have
generally been discussed in connexion with the
inquiry whether the increase of population be ‘a
principle of abundance or of scarcity, I have
briefly touched upon them in the sixth and
seventh chapters, where I have shown that the
extent of population is determined almost wholly
by the degree of civilisation ; and that its in-
crease is checked at every stage of civilisation
by particular forms of moral and physical evil,
ON POPULATION. 123
the operation of which may be indefinitely di-
minished, but can never be wholly removed, and
will always prevent the earth from being over-
stocked with inhabitants.
This theory is illustrated in the eighth chapter
by a reference to the example of the United
States of America. The unprecedented in-
crease of population in that country is attributed
to its extraordinary political and geographical
situation, by means of which the inhabitants
have been almost wholly exempt from the influ-
ence of the checks on population that have
generally existed in communities at the same
point of civilisation. It is attributed, in other
words, to the goodness of the social institutions
and the good morals of the people. The
abundance of the means of subsistence enjoyed
there is stated to be the consequence and not
the cause of their favorable moral and political
situation ; and this point is illustrated by a re-
ference to the case of the neighboring Indians,
whose position is precisely the same in every
particular excepting that of civilisation, and
who, instead of increasing in population and liv-
ing in abundance, are diminishing in numbers
and dying of want.
124 -- NEW IIDEAS
These three chapters, though they illustrate
the subject, have no immediate connexion with
the main argument of the essay. -
The proposition, that the increase of popula-
tion is a principle of abundance and not of
scarcity, being established, and the opposite
theory of Mr. Malthus refuted, the conclusions
which he has drawn from this theory, of the
propriety of discouraging marriage and abolish-
ing the poor laws, fall of themselves./ I have
briefly stated this point in the ninth and tenth
chapters, and have taken the occasion to remark,
that the inconsistency between the system of
this writer and the benevolent and social in-
stincts of our nature, which lead to the universal
prevalence of early marriages, and to the esta-
blishment of institutions for the relief of the
destitute, furnishes, independently of any more
positive objection, a strong presumption of its
falsehood. - r
In the eleventh chapter I have explained the
manner in which the state of civilisation affects
the rate of wages, and prevents in many cases
the rewards of individual labor from increasing
in proportion to the increased productiveness of
the labor of the community. * -
ON POPULATION. 125
Such are the principal points which have been
successively touched upon in the preceding work.
The leading propositions which I have main-
tained certainly present themselves to my mind
with a high degree of evidence ; and, as far as I
am acquainted with the subject, are entirely new.
Whether they will appear to the public either
new or important, I can hardly undertake to
anticipate. However this may be, I shall not
regret that I have devoted a few pages to a
defence of social and benevolent feelings, should
it even prove to have been conducted on false
principles: and I flatter myself that the work,
though controversial in its nature, will not tend
by its manner to excite malignant passion ; but
rather to encourage the same kind sentiments
which it was written to defend.
THE END,
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