In the Leipzig Fire Insurance Company, as100:1.87In the Trieste Fire Insurance Company, as100:1.80In the Elberfeld Fire Insurance Company, as100:1.19In the Aix-Munich Fire Insurance Company, as100:1.15In the Cologne Colonia Fire Insurance Company, as100:2.44In the Karlsruhe Phœnix Fire Insurance Company, as100:3.7In the Berlin Fire insurance Company, as100:6.3In the Gotha, about as(including the four fold after payment note)100:2.6
In the same companies the amount of damage and of expense for the last preceding year were, on every 100 thalers, of insurance, 46 pfennigs (1/300 thalers), 44, 29, 48, 67, 55, 35, 42; an average of 45, that is 1½ per 1,000. Besides, much depends on the degree to which the joint-stock capital can be applied. Thus, for instance, in Berlin, on every 1,000 thalers 200 are paid in cash, and a note (Solawechsel) given for the rest, payable in two months after notice. Where the unpaid remaining stock is but a mere book-debt, and may even be evaded by disclaiming the stock itself, it of course affords very little security.
[237d-14]CompareVolz.Tübinger Zeitschr. 1847, 349 ff.
[237d-15]The preparatory steps towards this ideal were taken long ago. Thus, for instance, the personal-property insurance companies have offered premiums for special merit in extinguishing fires (Calenb.-Grubenh., 1814, § 35), saving things from a burning house is looked after by the agents of personal property insurance companies; compensation is almost universally made not only for the damage done by fire, but also that caused while the fire is being extinguished. The excellent fire-extinguishing institutions of England are maintained by the common action of the insurance companies. There have been complaints, however, that they have shown a preference for insured objects. (Mitth., 1874, 113.)]
SECTION CCXXXVIII.
INCREASE OF POPULATION IN GENERAL.
That amid the thousand dangers which threaten the existence of the individual the species may endure, the Creator has endowed every class of organic beings with such reproductive power, and so much pleasure in propagating their kind, that if the action of these were entirely unrestricted, it would soon fill up the earth.[238-1]In the case of the human race, also, the physiological possibility of propagation has very wide limits.[238-2]Itwould be nothing extraordinary that a healthy pair, living in wedlock from the 20th to the 42nd year of the woman's life, that is, during the whole time of her full capacity to bear children, should rear six children to the age of puberty. This would, therefore, suffice to treble the population in a single generation; provided that all who had grown up should marry. According to Euler,[238-3]when the births were 5 per cent. and the deaths 2 per cent., the population doubled in not quite 24 years; when the increase was 2½ per annum, in 28 years; when 2, in 35 years, and when 1½ per cent. in 47 years.
The United States furnish us with a striking illustration ofthis doctrine, and on the grandest scale. There the natural increase of the white population, from 1790 to 1840, was 400.4 per cent.; that is in the first decade 33.9 per cent. of the population in 1790; in the second 33.1, in the third 32.1, in the fourth 30.9, in the fifth 29.6 per cent.[238-4][238-5]
[238-1]Thus, for instance, the sturgeon can, according toLeuckart, produce 3,000,000 eggs in a year. According toBurdach, the posterity of a pair of rabbits may be over 1,000,000 in four years; and that of a plant-louse, according toBonnet, over a 1,000,000,000 in a few weeks. The prolificacy of a species of animals is wont to be greater in proportion as the structure-material (Bildungsmaterial) saved within a given time during the course of individual life, is greater, and as material wants during the embryonic period are limited; also (teleologically), in proportion as to the danger the individual is exposed to. CompareLeuckartinR. Wagner'sphysiolog. Wörterbuch,[TN 62]Art. Zeugung. Teleologically,[TN 63]Bastiatsays:cette surabondance parait calculée partout en raison inverse de la sensibilité, de l'intelligence et de la force avec laquelle chaque espèce résiste à la déstruction. (Harmonies, ch. 16.)
[238-2]The researches of modern physiology make it probable that an ovum is detached from the ovaries at each period of healthy menstruation. (Bischoff, Beweis der von der Begattung unabhängigen periodischen Reifung und Lösung der Eier bei den Säugethieren und Menschen, 1844.) It is hardly possible to ascertain how many of these ova are capable of fecundation. Among the animals, on which the greater number of accurate observations have been made, that is in the case of horses, it has been found that, in the two districts of Prussia most favorably conditioned, of 100 mares that had been lined, 63.3 became pregnant, and 53.5 gave birth to live foals; in the rest of the Prussian monarchy, the births were only 46 per cent. CompareSchubert, Staatskunde, VII, 1, 98. In the Belgianharas(places for breeding horses), between 1841 and 1850, about 30 per cent. of the "leaps" proved fruitful, from 2 to 3 per cent. aborted, the rest were either probably or certainly unfruitful. (Horn., Statist. Gemälde, 171.) In the human species, also, the great number of first-born generated in the first weeks of marriage, bears witness to a high degree of procreative susceptibility.
On the other hand, the healthy male semen ejected during a single act of coition contains innumerable germs, a very few of which are sufficient to produce fecundation. (Leuckart, loc. cit, 907.) According toOesterlen, Handbuch der medicischen Statistik, 1865, 196, from 10 to 20 per cent. of all marriages were childless. In the United Kingdom,Farr, report on the Census of 1851, estimated that in a population of 27,511,000, there were 1,000,000 childless families, when the term is allowed to embrace widows and widowers as well as married couples.
[238-3]See the exhaustive table inEuler, Mémoires de l'Académie de Berlin 1756, inSüssmilch, Göttl. Ordnung, I, § 160. Bridge has constructed the following formula: Log. A = Log. P + n x Log.(1+(m-b)/mb). Here P stands for the actually existing population, 1/m = the ratio between the annual mortality and the number of the living, 1/b, the ratio of the number of annual births to the number of the living, n the number of years, A, the population at the end of three years, the quantity sought for.
[238-4]Tucker, Progress of the United States, 89, ff. 98. Here deduction is already made of immigrants and their posterity, who after subtracting the loss by emigration back to the old country, amounted to over 1,000,000. It probably amounted to more yet. If, asWappäusdoes (Bevölekerungsstatistik, 1859, I, 93, 122 ff.), we calculate the rate of increase per annum, we have an average during the first decade of 2.89, during the second of 2.83, the third of 2.74, the fourth of 2.52, the seventh of 2.39, the eighth (1860-70) of probably 2.25 per cent. On the still greater ratio of increase in earlier times, seePrice, Observations on reversionary Payments, 1769, 4 ed. 1783, I, 282 seq., I, 260.
It was nothing unheard of to see an old man with a living posterity of 100. (Franklin, Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, and the Peopling of New Countries, 1751.) It is said that in the region about Contendas, in Brazil, there were on from 70 to 80 births a mortality of from 3 to 4 per annum (how long?), and an unfortunate birth (unglücklichen) was scarcely ever heard of. Mothers 20 years of age had from 8 to 10 children; and one woman in the fifties had a posterity of 204 living persons. (Spix und Martius, Reise III, 525).
[238-5]Immense increase of the Israelites in Egypt. (Genesis 46, 27; Numbers, 1.)
SECTION CCXXXIX.
LIMITS TO THE INCREASE OF POPULATION.
There is certainly one limit which the increase of no organic being can exceed: the limit of the necessary means of subsistence. But, so far as the human race is concerned, this notion is somewhat more extensive, inasmuch as it embraces besides food, also clothing, shelter, fuel, and a great many other goods which are not, indeed, necessary to life, but which are so considered.[239-1]We may illustrate the matter by a simple examplein the rule of division. If we take the aggregate of the means of subsistence as a dividend, the number of mankind as divisor; then the average share of each is the quotient. Where two of these quantities are given, the third may be found. Only when the dividend has largely increased can the divisor and quotient increase at the same time (prosperous increase of population). If, however, the quotient remains unchanged, the increase of the divisor can take place only at the expense of the quotient (proletarian increase of population).[239-2]Hence it is to be expected that the quantity of the means of subsistence being given and also the requirement of each individual, the number of births and the number of deaths should condition each other. Where, for instance, the number of church livings has not been increased, only as many candidates can marry as clergymen who held such livings have died. The greater the average age of the latter is, the later do the former marry, in the average, andvice versa. And so, in the case of whole nations, when their economic consumption and production remain unaltered.[239-3]A basin entirely filled withwater can be made to contain more only in case it is either increased itself, or a means is found to compress its contents. Otherwise as much must flow out on the one side as is poured in on the other.
And so, everything else remaining stationary, the fruitfulness of marriages must, at least in the long run, be in the inverse ratio of their frequency. (See § 247.)[239-4][239-5]
[239-1]When it is known that, in the Hebrides, one-third of all the labor of the people has to be employed in procuring combustible material (McCulloch, Statist. Account, I, 319), it will no longer excite surprise that, according to Scotch statistics, some parishes increase in population after coal has been found in them, and others decrease when their turf-beds are exhausted.
[239-2]CompareIsaias, 9:3. According toCourcelle-Seneuil, Traité théorique et pratique d'Economie politique, I, 1858, thechiffre nécessaire de la population égal à la somme des revenus de la société[TN 64]diminuée de la somme des inégalités de consommation et divisée[TN 65]par le minimum de consommation: P=(R-J)/M.
[239-3]ThusSüssmilch, Göttliche Ordnung in den Veränderungen des menschlichen Geschlechts, 1st ed., 1742, 4th ed., 1775, I, 126 ff., assumes that one marriage a year takes place, on from every 107 to every 113 persons living. On the other hand, 22 Dutch towns gave an average of 1 in every 64. This abnormal proportion is very correctly ascribed byMalthus, Principles of Population, II, ch. 4, to the great mortality of those towns: viz., a death for every 22 or 23 persons living, while the average is 1:36. The Swiss,Müret, (in the Mémoires de la Société économique de Berne, 1766, I, 15 ff.), could not help wondering that the villages with the largest average duration of life should be those in which there were fewest births. "So much life-power and yet so few procreative resources!" Here too,Malthus, II, ch. 5, solved the enigma. The question was concerned with Alpine villages with an almost stationary cow-herd business: no one married until one cow-herd cottage had become free; and precisely because the tenants lived so long, the new comers obtained their places so late. Compared'Ivernois, Enquête[TN 66]sur les Causes patentes et occultes[TN 67]de la faible Proportion de Naissances à Montreux: yearly 1:46, of the persons living, while the average in all Switzerland was 1:28.
In France according toQuételet, Sur l'Homme, 1835, I, 83 ff., there was:
In number of DepartmentsOne marriage a year for everyChildren to a marriageOne death yearly for every4110-120inhabitants3.7935.4inhabitants15120-130"3.7939.2"23130-140"4.1739.0"18140-150"4.3640.6"10150-160"4.4340.3"9160-170"4.4842.7"6170 and more"4.4846.4"
The two departments of Orne and Finisterre present a very glaring contrast: in the former, one birth per annum on every 44.8 (1851 = 51.6), a marriage on every 147.5, a death on every 52.4 (1851 = 54.1) living persons; in the latter, on the contrary, on every 26 (1851 = 29.8), 113.9 and 30.4 (1851 = 34.2). In Namur, the proportions were 30.1, 141, 51.8; in Zeeland, 21.9, 113.2, 28.5. (Quételet, I, 142.) The Mexican province, Guanaxuato, presents the most frightful extreme: one birth per annum on every 16.08 of the population living, and one death in every 19.7. (Quételet, I, 110.)
[239-4]Compare evenSteuart, Principles, I, ch. 13.Sadler, Law of Population, 1830, II, 514:
Marriages perannum onevery 10,000inhabitantsChildren onevery 100Marriages[239-5]In the purely Flemish provinces of Belgium128481In the purely Wallonic provinces of Belgium139448In the mixed provinces of Belgium152425In Holland148476In Lombardy166489In Bohemia173413In the kingdom of Saxony170410
CompareHorn, Bevölkerungswissenschaftliche Studien, I, 162 ff., 191, 252 ff. In most countries, there is a much larger number of children to a marriage in the rural districts than in the cities; but at the same time, marriages are much less frequent there. In Saxony, however, where the cities show a greater marital productiveness, the rural districts present a large number of marriages. Of the 10 countries compared byWappäus, II, 481 ff., only Prussia and Schleswig are exceptions to the rule.
SECTION CCXL.
INFLUENCE OF AN INCREASE OF THE MEANS OF SUBSISTENCE.
The sexual instinct and the love for children are incentives of such universality and power, that an increase of the means of subsistence is uniformly[TN 68]followed by an increase in the numbers of mankind.Partout, où deux personnes peuvent vivre commodément, il se fait un mariage.(Montesquieu.) Thus after a good harvest, the number of marriages and births is wont to considerably increase; and conversely to diminish after bad harvests.[240-1][240-2][240-3]In the former case, it is rather hope thanactual possession which constitutes the incentive to the founding of new families. Hence the greatest increase is not found in connection with the absolutely lowest price of corn, butwith those prices which present the most striking contrast to those of a previous bad year.[240-4]
The introduction of the potato has promoted the rapid increase of population in most countries. Thus, the population of Ireland in 1695, was only 1,034,000; in 1654, when the cultivation of the potato became somewhat more common it was 2,372,000; in 1805, 5,395,000; in 1823, 6,801,827; in 1841, 8,175,000. In 1851, after the fearful spread of the potato-rot it fell again to 6,515,000.[240-5]In general, every new or increasing branch of industry, as soon as it yields a real net product is wont to invite an increase of population. Machines, however, have not this effect only when they operate to produce rather a more unequal division of the national income than an absolute increase of that income.[240-6]
[240-1]That rich food directly increased prolificacy is proved from the fact that, for instance, our domestic animals are much more prolific than wild ones of the same species. CompareVillermé, in the Journ. des Economistes VI, 400 ff. The months richest in conceptions fall universally in the spring, and again in the pleasant season immediately following the harvest. On the other hand, during the seasons of fast in the Catholic church the number of cases of conception is below the average. (Jour. des Econ., 1857, 808).
[240-2]Thus the annual mean number of marriages amounted to:
Between 1841and 1850.In 1847alone.In Saxony,215,505214,220In Holland,222,352219,280In Belgium,228,968224,145In France,280,330249,797
Horn, loc. cit. I, 167. In the governmental district (Regierungsbezirke) of Düsseldorf, there was in the years of scarcity, 1817 and 1818, one marriage for every 134 and 137 souls; on the other hand, in 1834 and 1835, in every 103 and 105. (Viebahn, I, 120 seq.) In England, the variations in the yearly price of corn are reflected in the variations in the number of yearly marriages. Thus, in 1800, 114 shillings per quarter; 1801, 122 shillings; 1802 (Peace of Amiens), 70 shillings; 1803, 58 shillings. The number of marriages in the four years respectively was 69,851, 67,288, 90,396, 94,379. (Porter, Progress of the Nation, III, ch. 14, 453.)
Similarly in Germany, in 1851, the conclusion of peace increased the number of marriages, and the scarcity of 1817 diminished it. In Prussia, in 1816, there was one marriage for every 88.1 of the population; in 1828, for every 121.4; in 1834 (origin of the great Zollverein), for every 104; in 1855, for every 136.4; in 1858 (hope of a new era), in every 105.9. (v. Viebahn, Statistik des Zollvereins II, 206.)
In Austria, the price of rye was:
Per Metze.No. of Marriages.In 1851,2.47 florins336,800In 1852,2.11 florins316,800In 1853,3.38 florins283,400In 1854,4.36 florins258,000In 1855,4.43 florins245,400 (Czörnig.)
On Sweden, see Wargentin inMalthus, II, ch. 2.
The decreased number of births in consequence of a bad harvest, andvice versa, appears of course only during the following calendar year. Thus, in 1847, as compared with the average of the years 1844 and 1845, there were fewer children born in England by 4 per 1,000, in Saxony by 7 per 1,000, in Lombardy by 59, in France by 63, in Prussia by 82, in Belgium by 122, in Holland by 159 per 1,000. (Horn, I, 239 ff.) In Germany, the conscription-years corresponding to the scarcity time, 1816-17, gave aminusof 25 per cent. in many places below the average. (Bernouilli, Populationistik, 219.) In the case of marriage, the relative increase or decrease is still more characteristic, so far as our purpose is concerned, than the absolute increase or decrease. Thus in Belgium, for instance, against 1,000 marriages dissolved by death, there were, in 1846, only 971 new ones contracted, and in 1847 only 747; while in 1850 there were 1,500. The falling off in Flanders alone was still greater. Thus, in 1847, there were only 447 marriages contracted for 1,000 dissolved. (Horn, I, 170 ff.) However,Berg, using Sweden as an illustration, rightly calls attention to the fact, that the variations in the number of marriages and births is determined in part by the number of adults, that is, of the number of births 20 and more years before. CompareEngel'sStatist. Zeitschr., 1869, 7.
[240-3]Sometimes, a sudden increase in the frequency of marriages may have very accidental and transitory causes. Thus, for instance, in France in 1813, when the unmarried were so largely conscripted, the number of marriages rose to 387,000, whereas the average of the five previous years was 229,000. (Bernouilli, Populationistik, 103.)
[240-4]Thus, for instance, in nearly all countries affected by the movement of 1848, there were, during the last months of that year, an unusually large number of conceptions. (Horn., I, 241 seq.) According toDieterici, Abh. der Berliner Akademie, 1855, 321 ff., there was one birth a year for the number of persons living.
Ten years' average.1849 alone.In France,36.1935.79In Tuscany,24.4222.82In Saxony,24.5123.08In Prussia,25.5023.62
The great majority of men at that time believed all they liked to believe.
[240-5]Marshall, Digest of all Accounts, I, 15.Porter, I, ch. I, 9.
[240-6]Wallace, in this respect, places industry far behind agriculture. (On the Numbers of mankind in ancient and modern Times.) The county of Lancashire had, in 1760, that is shortly before the introduction of the great machine industry, 297,000 inhabitants; in 1801, 672,000; in 1831, 1,336,000; in 1861, 2,490,000. Saxony has, in almost every place, a relatively large number of births in proportion as in any locality, commerce and industry preponderate over agriculture, andvice versa. SeeEngel, Bewegung der Bevölkerung im K. Sachsen, 1854. But this should not be generalized into a universal law. For instance, Prussia and Posen have an average number of births greater than that of the Rhine country and Westphalia. (v. Viebahn, Statistik des L. V, II, 222.)
SECTION CCXLI.
EFFECT OF WARS ON POPULATION.
We may now understand why it is that only those wars which are accompanied by a diminution of the sources of the means of support decrease population. The loss in the numbers of mankind produced by wars, hardships, etc., would, as a rule, be readily made up for by increased procreation.[241-1]Thus, for instance, in Holland, the long Spanish war permitted an increase of the population for the reason that the national wealth increased at the same time; while the short war with Cromwell, which curtailed commerce, caused 3,000 houses in Amsterdam alone to remain empty.[241-2]In England and Wales, the population increased during the most frightfulwar of modern times, from 8,540,000 in 1790, to over 12,000,000 in 1821; in France, from, probably, 26,000,000 or 27,000,000 in 1791, to 29,217,000 in 1817. England, indeed, was itself never the seat of war, and its commerce was increased by the war in some directions as much as it was diminished by it in others. France's own territory was devastated only in the first and in the last years of the war. But the Revolution had, on the whole, once the storms of the Reign of Terror were over, not only more equally divided the means of subsistence in France, but it had developed them in a higher degree.[241-3][241-4]
It cannot even be unconditionally predicated of emigration, that it hinders the increase of population. As soon as people have begun to calculate upon emigration, as a resort for themselves in case of distress, or upon the emigration of others, by which they would be left a larger field for action at home, a number of marriages is contracted and a number of children born; which would otherwise not have been the case. Most men, especially when young and enamoured, hope for the realization of all their wishes. Favorable chances, open to a great number of men alike and which every one thinks himself competent to calculate, are commonly over-estimated by the majority.[241-5](See § 259.)
[241-1]The war of 1870-71 cost Germany 44,890 lives. (Preuss. Statist. Ztschr., 1872, 293.) This number is not quite 20 per cent. of the excess of births (794,206) over deaths (563,065) in Prussia in the year 1865. On the other hand, in from 1856 to 1861 there were 10,000 cases of murder and manslaughter in all Europe, Turkey excepted. (Hausner, Vergl. Statistik, I, 145.) About the end of the last century, it was estimated that about 1,000,000 children were born annually in France. (Necker, Administration des Finances, I, 256.) Of these, about 600,000 outlived their 18th year. (Peuschet, Essai de Statistique, 31.) There were, annually, about 220,000 marriages. Hence the number of the unmarried was increased annually by 80,000 young men, who, according toPeucshet(32), amounted to over 1,450,000. According to this, the number of recruits, per annum, might amount to hundreds of thousands without causing any appreciable diminution in the number of births and marriages. CompareMalthus, Principle of Population, II, ch. 6. On the other hand, long continued wars have the effect of keeping the men physically strongest from marriage, and so to deteriorate the race.
[241-2]Richesse de Hollande, I, 149. During the Amsterdam commercial crisis, from 1795 to 1814, there were for every 4 births an average of 7 deaths. So that the population, in 1795, was still 217,000, and in 1815, only 180,000. (Bickes, Bewegung der Bevölkerung Anhang, 28.)
[241-3]On the other hand, the population of East Prussia, between 1807 and 1815 diminished 14 per cent. (v. Haxthausen, Ländl. Verfassung der Preuss. Monarchie, I, 93.) The battles of the Seven Years' War are said to have consumed 120,000 Russians, 140,000 Austrians, 200,000 Frenchmen, 160,000 Englishmen, Hanoverians, etc., 25,000 Swedes, 28,000 of the troops of the empire, and 180,000 Prussians. Yet the population of Prussia fell off 1,500,000. (Frédéric, Œuvres posthumes, IV, 414; Preuss. Gesch. Friedrich's M., II, 349.) During the Thirty Years' War, the population of Bohemia fell from 3,000,000 to 780,000. (Mailath, Gesch. von Oesterr, III, 455.) Württemberg, according to the military recruiting lists had a population, in 1622, of 300,000 inhabitants. (Spittler, Werke, XII, 34.) In 1641, the population was only 48,000; according to a promotion-speech ofJ. B. Andreä. But between 1628 and 1650, more than 58,000,000 florins were lost by war contributions, and about 60,000,000 florins by plunder; about 36,000 private houses were in ruins. (Spittler, Württ. Gesch., 254.) On Alsace, Freisingen and Göttingen, seeLondorp, Bellum sexenn., II, 563;Zschocke, Bayerische Geschichte, III, 302;Spittler, Hanov. Gesch., II, 37 ff., 114. On Germany generally, seeR. F. Hanser, Deutschland nach dem dreissigjährigen Kriege, 1862. However, many estimates of the diminution of the population are exaggerated, because it has not been considered that a great part of the men who disappeared in one place fled to another, for the time being more secure. CompareKiusinHildebrand'sJahrb., 1870, I ff.
The population of Massachusetts increased 8,310 yearly, before the War of Independence; during the war, only 1,161, although the enemy scarcely ever entered the country. (Ebeling, Gesch. und Erdbeschreib. der V. Staaten I, 236.) Russia had a mortality during the war years, 1853-55, of 2,272,000, 2,148,000, and 2,541,000; in the years of peace previous, 2,000,000 at most.
[241-4]Besides the mere loss of men, war operates destructively on production, since it affects especially the most productive classes as to age, while pestilence, famine, etc., carry off children, old people, and the feeble. Hence, a people's public economy recovers more readily from the last named misfortune than from war.
[241-5]CompareGiov. Botero, Della Cause della Grandezza della Città, L. II, and Ragion di Stato, VIII, 95; where colonization is compared to the swarming of bees.W. Raleigh, Discourse of War in general, Works VIII. 257 ff. SimilarlyChild, Discourse of Trade, 371 ff.Ustariz, Teoria y Practica del Commercio, 1724, ch. 4.Franklin, Observations on the Increase of Mankind, which reminds one of the continued growth of polyps.
SECTION CCXLII.
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[TN 69]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 thesense 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 areelbowed 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 andhealthy 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[TN 70]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 foundinga 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]
[242-1]Principle of Population, I, ch. I. Adam Smith also implicitly held the view that the demand for the means of subsistence is always in advance of them. Wealth of Nat., I, ch. II, pref. and P. I.
[242-2]This may be represented by what physicists call the "parallelogram of forces." CompareSenior, Outlines, 47.Malthus'own explanation of "tendency," in his letter at the end ofSenior, Two Lectures on Population, 1829.
[242-3]On the inaccuracy of the expression, "geometrical progression," in the present case, seeMoser, Gesetze des Lebensdauer, 1839, 132.
[242-4]Weyland, Principles of Population and Production, 1816, 25 ff.
[242-5]In Paris the mortality is greater in thearrondissementsin proportion to their poverty, of which the relative numbers of untaxed dwellings afford a criterion. According to this, between 1822 and 1826,