Principles of Political Economy Part 33

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

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

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

========================================================= _The | _Had a yearly mortality | _Locations Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_| of 1 in every_ | non imposees._ ---------------+-------------------------+--------------- 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 =========================================================

_Villerme_, in the Journal des Econ., Novbr. 1853. The average house-rent in _arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ 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 cla.s.ses, and each cla.s.s, in turn, into three sub-cla.s.ses, according to the qualities of the dwellings. The yearly mortality in I a was 1:51; in I b = 1:45; I c = 36; II a = 1:55; II b = 1:38; III c = 1:25. (Report of Inquiry into the State of large Towns and Populous Districts, 1843.)]

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

[Footnote 242-7: _Wappaus_, Allg. Bevolkerungsstatistik, I, 315. In Thurgau, in 1815, the mortality was = 2,143, in 1817 = 3,440; in Luzerne, in 1820 = 1,543, in 1817 = 3,511.

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

[Footnote 242-8: _Malthus_ uses the word "preventive check,"

while he calls the repressive counter-tendencies "positive."

_R. Mohl_, Polizeiwissenschaft, I, 88, speaks of preventive and destructive causes. Anteriorly and subsequently operating causes. (_Knapp_).]

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

[Footnote 242-10: The rule that population tends to extend everywhere as far as the means of subsistence will permit, _Sismondi_, N. Principes, VII, ch. 3, has taken occasion to ridicule, basing himself on the example of the Montmorency family. This family has, notoriously, always lived in superabundance, and is, notwithstanding, on the verge of extinction. _Sismondi_ here forgets the relativity of the idea "means of subsistence." Persons occupying an exalted social position not only think that they want more in this respect, but they are wont in forming marriage contracts to use the greatest and frequently exaggerated caution. Hence it is that families of this rank become, relatively speaking, frequently extinct; and, moreover, such a fact is here most frequently taken notice of. _Sadler_, Law of Population, 1830, infers from the frequent extinction of English n.o.ble families, that wealth leads to sterility; and, on the other hand, poverty (but not famine!) to prolificacy; and _Doubleday's_ (True Law of Population, 12 ff.) suggestion, in explanation hereof, that over-fed animals and over-manured plants are sterile, as ably refuted in the Edinburg Rev., LI. It is there shown that the marriages of the English peers are fruitful above the average; that their extinction is partly due to the fact that the younger sons seldom married, and that hence there is a lack of collateral relations. But, in great part, such extinction is only apparent; since such a family is said to be extinct when only the male stem is extinct. The French n.o.bility, from the 9th to the 11th century, continually increased in number.

After this, the succession of females and cases of extinction became more frequent, because the n.o.bility, in order to keep their estates together, began to not desire many sons. _Sismondi_, Hist. des Francais, V, 182. Compare _Benoiston de Chateauneuf_, De la Duree des Familles n.o.bles en France, in the proceedings of the Academie des Sciences morales et politiques, II, 792 ff. Besides, between 1611 and 1819, 763 English baronet families became actually extinct, 653 continued to exist, and 139 had been raised to the peerage; an average of from 3 to 4 peer families became extinct yearly. (Statist. Journal, 1869, 224.) There were, about 1569 2,219 Venetian _n.o.bili_; in 1581, 1,843 (_Daru_, VI, 240 ff.); in Addison's time (1705), only 1,500. On the decrease of the Roman patricians, see _Dionys._, Hal., I, 85; _Tacit._, Ann., XI, 25; on that of the Spartan knights: _Clinton_, Fasti h.e.l.lenici, II, 407 ff.; of the _ehrbaren Geschlechter_, at Nurnberg: _Hegel_, N. Stadtchroniken, 1862, 214. Compare, also, Westminster Rev., Oct., 1849.]

[Footnote 242-11: How, in England, not only many distinguished persons, but also their servants, are kept from marriage in this way, because they are sure of not being able to satisfy the wants of their bachelorhood as fathers of families, see in _Malthus_, P. of P., II, ch. 8.

A description of the general misery which would result if all men consumed only that which was physically indispensable, in _Senior_, Outlines, 39.]

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

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

13.]

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

[Footnote 242-15: _Malthus_, P. of P., II, ch. 13. I formerly called this natural law by the name of the investigator who earned the largest share of scientific merit in connection therewith. It cannot, indeed, be said, that he was the first to observe it. Compare even _Machiavelli_, Discorsi (between 1515 and 1518), II, 5. And so _Giovanni Botero_ taught that the number of the population depended not so much on the number of _congiungimenti_ so much as on the rearing of children.

(Ragion di Stato, 1592, VII, 93 ff.) The _virtu generativa degli uomini_, which is always the same, is found face to face with the _virtu nutritiva delle citta_. The former would continue to operate _ad infinitum_, if the latter did not limit it. The larger a city is, the more difficult it is to provide it with the means of subsistence. In the last instance, the slave-sales of Guinea, the cannibalism of the Indians, the robber-system of the Arabians and the Tartars, the migration of nations, crimes, litigation, etc., are traced back to the narrowness of the means of subsistence.

(Delle Cause della Grandezza delle Citta, 1598, Libr. III.) Sir Walter Raleigh (ob. 1618), was of opinion that the earth would not only be full but overflowing with human beings were it not that hunger, pestilence, crime, war, abstinence welcome sterility, etc. did away with the surplus population. (History of the World, I, ch. 8, 4. Discourse of war: Works, VII, 257 ff.) According to _Child_, Discourse of Trade, 371 ff., 149, the population is always in proportion to the amount of employment.

If England could employ only 100 men while 150 were reared, 50 would have to emigrate or perish; and so, too, conversely, occasional vacancies would soon be filled.

Similarly _Davenaut_, Works II, 233, 185; who, however, in the practical application of this law of nature, adopts the error of his contemporary, G. King, the statistician, according to whom the population of England would increase to 11,000,000 (II, 176) only after 600 years. _Benjamin Franklin's_ Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of new Countries, etc., 1751, are very good.

Franklin here shows that the same tables of mortality do not apply to town and country, nor to old nations and new ones.

The nation increases more rapidly in proportion as it is easy to contract marriage. Hence the increase is smallest in luxurious cities and thickly populated countries. Other circ.u.mstances, being equal, hunting nations require the largest quant.i.ty 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 Interets 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 n.a.z.ione per rapporto all'Economia n.a.z.ionale, 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_ a.s.serts 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 quant.i.ties (8).

_Malthus_ himself wrote his cla.s.sical 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 n.i.g.g.ardliness of nature; and in greater part the pa.s.sions and sins of men themselves. If he sometimes described the limits as narrower than they really are, and if an occasional coa.r.s.e 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, _Moser_, 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. (?t?a ?? ?e?!) 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 cla.s.s of socialists base themselves on the same view, without, however, thanking Malthus for it. Thus for instance, _K.

Marlo_, System der Weltokonomie (1848, 52), pa.s.sim. For an excellent history of the theory of population, see _R.

Mohl_, Gesch. und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften, III, 409 ff. (1858).]

SECTION CCXLIII.

OPPONENTS OF MALTHUS.

Of Malthus' opponents, John Stuart Mill has said, that a confused notion of the causes which, at most times and places, keep the actual increase of mankind so far behind their capacity for increase, has every now and then given birth to some ephemeral theory, speedily forgotten; as if the law of the increase of population were a different one under different circ.u.mstances, and as if the fecundity of the human species, by direct divine decree, was in keeping with the wants of society for the time being.[243-1]

The majority of such theories are based, on the proof that Malthus'

description of one stage of civilization is not true of another, although the great discoverer, who, with his admirable many-sidedness, had investigated the law of population in and throughout all the stages of civilization, had, as a rule, himself given due weight to all of this. The objection of unwarranted generalization applies to Malthus much less than to the majority of his opponents. Since, for instance, in young colonies, even the natural forces, which are in themselves limited or exhaustible, afford a wide field of operation for a long time; many American writers have supposed that labor alone was the source of wealth, and that, to say the least, wealth should increase in the same ratio as mankind; and even in a still greater ratio, since the division of labor grows easier as population increases in density.[243-2] But here it is forgotten that in every instance of economic production, there are many factors engaged, each one of which can take the place of another only up to a certain point. There are others, especially Grahame and Carey,[243-3] who allude to the possibility of emigration, which is still so far from being exhausted. But Malthus had nothing to say of the impossibility of emigration. He spoke only of the great difficulties in its way. (III. ch. 4.) There are many writers who would wish simply to s.h.i.+p emigrants off, like a great many doctors who send their patients away to die! (-- 259 ff.) When Sadler says that human prolificacy, circ.u.mstances remaining the same, is inversely as the density of population, he uses, to say the least, a very inaccurate mode of expression.[243-4] The grain of truth hidden in this a.s.sertion does certainly not come from Gray's theory, that in the higher stages of civilization, the better living usual is a hinderance to the increase of population, and that the prevailing influence of large cities increases mortality;[243-5] but from influences, or, to speak more correctly, from free human considerations, on which no one has thrown so much light as Malthus. And indeed, where is the man who has better understood or more warmly recommended the "aristocratic" impulse which should, in well ordered civil society, hold the s.e.xual instinct in equilibrium?[243-6]

Malthus himself pleasantly derides his opponents, who, to explain how the same rifle, charged with the same powder and provided with the same ball, produces an effect varying with the nature of the object at which it is fired, prefer, instead of calculating the force of resistance of the latter, to take refuge in a mysterious faculty by virtue of which the powder has a different explosive force, according to the greater or less resistance the ball meets when it strikes.[243-7] The peculiarity of G.o.dwin's polemics may be inferred from the fact that he considered it very doubtful whether the population of England had increased during the four preceding generations; and that he traces the increase of the population of the United States to the influence of emigration almost exclusively, and allows the desertion of whole English regiments in 1812 ff. to play a part in accounting for that increase.[243-8]

Malthus has been accused of rejoicing over the evils which are wont to decimate surplus population; but the same charge might be brought against those physicians who trace the diseases back to the causes that produce them. He has also been branded as the enemy of the lower cla.s.ses, spite of the fact that he is the very first who took a scientific interest in their prosperity.[243-9] As John Stuart Mill has said, the idea that all human progress must at last end in misery was so far from Malthus' mind, that it can be thoroughly combated only by carrying Malthus' principles into practice.[243-10]

[Footnote 243-1: _J. S. Mill_, Principles I, ch. 10.]

[Footnote 243-2: _Everett_, New ideas on population, with remarks on the theories of Malthus and Goodwin, 1823.

Similarly _Carey_, Principles of Social Science, I, 88 ff., who, with a "natural philosophical" generalization, shows that the more the matter existing on the earth takes the form of men, the greater becomes the power of the latter to give direction to natural forces with an ever accelerated movement. So also _Fontenay_, in the Journal des Economistes, Oct., 1850, says: _un nombre de travailleurs double produit plus du double et ne consomme pas le double de ce que produisaient et consommaient les travailleurs de l'epoque precedente_. Even _Bastiat_ inclines to the same over-estimation of one factor of production. He promises in the introduction to his Harmonies economiques to prove the proposition: _toutes choses egales d'ailleurs, la densite croissante de population equivaut a une facilite croissante de production_. (Absolutely it is true, but whether relatively, quaere.)]

[Footnote 243-3: _Grahame_, Inquiry into the Principle of Population, 1816; _Carey_, Rate of Wages, 236 ff.]

[Footnote 243-4: Varies inversely as their numbers: _M. Th.

Sadler_, The Law of Population, a treatise in Disproof of the Superfecundity of human Beings, and developing the real Principles of their Increase, III, 1830. There were, for instance--

=================================================== | _Inhabitants_ | _Number of_ | _per English_ | _children to a_ | _sq. mile_ | _marriage_ ------------------+---------------+---------------- The Cape | 1 | 5.48 The United States | 4 | 5.22 Russia in Europe | 23 | 4.94 Denmark | 73 | 4.98 Prussia | 100 | 4.70 France | 150 | 4.22 England | 160 | 3.66 ===================================================

Most of these figures are very uncertain; and even if they were true, they would afford a very bad proof of his a.s.sertion. Besides, _Sadler_ was one of those extreme tories who resorted almost to Jacobin measures in opposition to the reforms advocated by Huskisson, Peel and Wellington. Like Sadler, _A. Guillard_, Elements de Statistique humaine ou Demographie comparee, 1855. But, for instance, in Saxony, population has for a long time increased most rapidly, in those places where it is already densest. Compare _Engel,_ loc. cit. The five German kingdoms and Mecklenburg-Strelitz hold the same relative rank, on a ten-year average, in relation to the number of births that they do to density of population, (_v. Viehbahn_, Statistik des Z. V., II, 321 seq.)]

[Footnote 243-5: _Gray_, The Happiness of States, or an Inquiry concerning Population, 1875. _Weyland_, Principles of Population and Production, 1816, had already ascribed to industry in itself a tendency to make the increase of Population less rapid!]

[Footnote 243-6: Compare _Rossi_, Cours d'Economie politique, I, 303 ff.]

[Footnote 243-7: _Malthus_, Principle of Population, V, ch.

3. Thus _J. B. Say_ asks those population-mystics: if in thickly populated countries the power of procreation diminishes of itself, how comes it that even here the extraordinary voids made by pestilence, etc. are so rapidly filled up?]

[Footnote 243-8: _G.o.dwin_, Inquiry concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind, III, 1821; III, ch. IV.

Compare the same socialistic writer's essay: Inquiry concerning public Justice (II, 1793), which in part provoked Malthus' book. _David Booth_ (in G.o.dwin's first book) had the misfortune to ridicule Malthus by comparing his law with the law of gravitation, which he said did not freely operate in nature and was undemonstrable in s.p.a.ce void of air! From a better point of view, Bastiat says of Malthus' traducers, that they might as well blame Newton when they were injured by a fall.]

[Footnote 243-9: Principle of Population, III, ch. 13. His moral severity in other respects is apparent especially in IV, ch. 13, towards the end.]

[Footnote 243-10: Every good family takes care of their children even before their birth. How far from practical is the view that the means of subsistence come as a matter of course, provided only that men are here before them!]