SECTION CCXLII.. Counter Tendencies to the Increase of Population.

COUNTER TENDENCIES TO THE INCREASE OF POPULATION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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