The ArrondissementHad a yearly populationmortality of 1 in everyLocationsnon imposées.[TN 71]II,710.07III,670.11I,660.11IV,620.15XI,610.19VI,580.21V,640.22VII,590.22X,490.23IX,500.31VIII,460.32XII,440.38
Villermé, in the Journal des Econ., Novbr. 1853. The average house-rent inarrondissementII, 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.)
[242-6]In Prussia, the Jewish population, between 1822 and 1840, increased 34½ per cent.; the Christians only 28½ 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 circumstances that Jewish mothers leave their homes seldomer to work outside, and thereby devote more attention, even in the lower classes, to the care of their children.
[242-7]Wappäus, Allg. Bevölkerungsstatistik, 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). CompareMessance, 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 Lancashire, 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.)
[242-8]Malthususes 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).
[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.) CompareB. Franklin, Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, § 21.Lamennais, indeed, asserts that no plant and no animal takes away food from any other; that the earth has room for all!
[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.Sismondihere 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 noble families, that wealth leads to sterility; and, on the other hand, poverty (but not famine!) to prolificacy; andDoubleday'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 nobility, 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 nobility, in order to keep their estates together, began to not desire many sons.Sismondi, Hist. des Français, V, 182. CompareBenoiston de Châteauneuf,[TN 72]De la Durée des Familles[TN 73]nobles en France, in the proceedings of the Académie 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 Venetiannobili; in 1581, 1,843 (Daru, VI, 240 ff.); in Addison's time (1705), only 1,500. On the decrease of the Roman patricians, seeDionys., Hal., I, 85;Tacit., Ann., XI, 25; on that of the Spartan knights:Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, II, 407 ff.; of theehrbaren Geschlechter, at Nürnberg:Hegel, N. Stadtchroniken, 1862, 214. Compare, also, Westminster Rev., Oct., 1849.
[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 inMalthus, 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, inSenior, Outlines, 39.
[242-12]SeeBastiat'sbeautiful 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.)
[242-13]CompareProudhon, Contradictions, ch. 13.
[242-14]That want of employment or of business has rather a preventive tendency, seeMalthus, Principle of Population, VII, ch. 14.
[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 evenMachiavelli, Discorsi (between 1515 and 1518), II, 5. And soGiovanni Boterotaught that the number of the population depended not so much on the number ofcongiungimentiso much as on the rearing of children. (Ragion di Stato, 1592, VII, 93 ff.) Thevirtù generativa degli uomini, which is always the same, is found face to face with thevirtù nutritiva delle citta. The former would continue to operatead 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 Città , 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 toChild, 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. SimilarlyDavenaut, 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'sObservations 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.Wallacerelied 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.
Steuartthrew 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 furtherA. 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,[TN 74]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 byforza, and in the case of man, byragione. 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,Ortesasserts 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).
Malthushimself 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. Lerouxin a small pamphlet in answer toMalthus, 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 againstMalthus. 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 asTh. Chalmers, On Political Economy in Connexion with the moral State and moral Prospects of Society, 1832. Malthus' fundamental views, however, are truly scientific. (Κτῆμα á¼Ï‚ ἀεὶ![TN 75]) CompareBaudrillart, Manuel, 424 seq., andA 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, seeR. 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 circumstances, 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 forgottenthat 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 ship emigrants off, like a great many doctors who send their patients away to die! (§ 259 ff.) When Sadler says that human prolificacy, circumstances 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 truthhidden in this assertion 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 sexual 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 Godwin's polemics may be inferred from the fact that he considered it very doubtfulwhether 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 classes, 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]
[243-1]J. S. Mill, Principles I, ch. 10.
[243-2]Everett, New ideas on population, with remarks on the theories of Malthus and Goodwin, 1823. SimilarlyCarey, 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 alsoFontenay, in the Journal des Economistes, Oct., 1850, says:un nombre de travailleurs doublé produit plus du double et ne consomme pas le double de ce que produisaient et consommaient les travailleurs de l'époque précédente. EvenBastiatinclines to the same over-estimation of one factor of production. He promises in the introduction to his Harmonies économiques to prove the proposition:toutes choses égales d'ailleurs, la densité croissante de population équivaut à une facilité croissante de production. (Absolutely it is true, but whether relatively, quære.)
[243-3]Grahame, Inquiry into the Principle of Population, 1816;Carey, Rate of Wages, 236 ff.
[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—
Most of these figures are very uncertain; and even if they were true, they would afford a very bad proof of his assertion. Besides,Sadlerwas 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, Eléments de Statistique humaine ou Démographie comparée, 1855. But, for instance, in Saxony, population has for a long time increased most rapidly, in those places where it is already densest. CompareEngel,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.)
[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!
[243-6]CompareRossi, Cours d'Economie politique, I, 303 ff.
[243-7]Malthus, Principle of Population, V, ch. 3. ThusJ. B. Sayasks those population-mystics: if in thickly populated countries the power of procreation diminishes of itself, how comes it that even here the extraordinary[TN 76]voids made by pestilence, etc. are so rapidly filled up?
[243-8]Godwin, 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 Godwin'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 space 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.
[243-9]Principle of Population, III, ch. 13. His moral severity in other respects is apparent especially in IV, ch. 13, towards the end.
[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!
SECTION CCXLIV.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.—UNCIVILIZED TIMES.
In the case of those wild tribes which can only use the forces of nature by way of occupation, the small extent of the field of food is filled up by even a very sparse population. And the principal means by which population is there limited are the following: the overburthening and ill treatment of the women,[244-1]by which the simultaneous rearing of several small children is rendered impossible;[244-2]the inordinately long timethat children are kept at the breast;[244-3]the wide-spread practice of abortion;[244-4]numerous cases of murder, especially of the old and weak;[244-5]everlasting war carried on by hunting nations to extend their hunting territory, found in conjunction with cannibalism in many tribes.[244-6]Besides, nations of hunters are frequently decimated by famine and pestilence, the lattergenerally a consequence of never-ending alternation between gluttony and famine.[244-7]
Most negro nations live in such a state of legal insecurity that it is impossible for a higher civilization with its attendant increase of the means of subsistence to take root among them. At the same time, their sexual impulses are very strong.[244-8]Here the slave-trade constituted the chief preventive of over-population. If this traffic were suppressed simply and no care taken through the instrumentality of commerce and of missions to improve the moral and economical condition of the negroes, the only probable but questionable gain would be that the prisoners made in the numberless wars generated by famine would be murdered instead of being sold.
Nomadic races, with their universal chivalry, are wont to treat their women well enough to enable them bear children without any great hardship.[244-9]But the mere use of natural pasturage can never be carried to great intensity. The transition to agriculture with its greater yield of food but with the diminished freedom by which it is accompanied is a thing to which these warlike men are so averse that it directs the surplus population by the way of emigration into neighboring civilized countries, where they either obtain victory, booty and supremacy, or are rapidly subjugated. Such migrationsare a standing chapter in the history of all Asiatic kingdoms; they for a long time disturb declining civilized states, finally conquering them, and begin the same cycle in the new kingdom.[244-10]Where nomadic races see themselves cut off from such migrations their marriages are wont to be unfruitful.[244-11]
[244-1]In New Holland they are beaten by their husbands even on the day of their confinement. Their heads are sometimes covered with countless scars.Collinssays that for mere pity one might wish a young woman there death rather than marriage. (Account of N. S. Wales, 560 ff.) South American Indian women actually kill their daughters, with a view of improving the condition of women. (Azara, Reisen in S. Amerika, II, 63.) How the women among the aboriginal inhabitants of North America were oppressed is best illustrated by the absence of ornaments among the women, while the men were very gaudily decked, and carried small hand-mirrors with them. (Prinz Neuwied, N. A. Reise, II, 108 seq.) The early decay of female beauty among all barbarous nations is related to the ill-treatment they receive.
[244-2]The custom of killing one of twins immediately after birth or of burying a child at the breast with its mother, prevails extensively among savage nations. On New Holland, seeCollins, 362; on North America, Lettres édifiantes, IX, 140; on the Hottentots,Kolb, I, 144.
[244-3]In many Indian tribes, children are kept at the breast until their fifth year. (Klemm, Kulturgeschichte I, 236; II, 85.) Among the Greenlanders, until the third or fourth year (Klemm, I, 208); among the Laplanders and Tonguses, likewise (Klemm, III, 57); among the Mongols and Kalmucks, longer yet. (Klemm, III, 171.)
[244-4]The New Hollanders have a special word to express the killing of the fœtus by pressure. (Collins.) Among certain of the Brazilian tribes, this is performed by every woman until her 30th year; and in many more the custom prevails for a woman when she becomes pregnant to fast, or to be frequently bled. (Spix und Martius, Reise, I, 261.) CompareAzara., II, 79.
[244-5]On the Bushmen, seeBarrow, Journey in Africa, 379 ff.; on the Hottentots, among whom even the wealthy aged are killed by exposure, seeKolb, Caput bonæ Spei, 1719, I, 321; on the Scandinavian, old Germans,[TN 77]Wendes, Prussians,Grimm, D. Rechtsalterthümer, 486 ff.; on the most ancient Romans,Cicero, pro Rosc. Amer, 35, and Festus v. Depontani, Sexagenarios; on Ceos,Strabo, X, 486; on the ancient Indians,Herodot., III, 38, 99; on the Massagetes,Herodot., I, 216; on the Caspians,Strabo, XI, 517, 520. Touching picture of an old man abandoned in the desert, unable to follow his tribe compelled to emigrate for want of food:Catlin, N. American Indians, I, 216 ff. We here see how the killing of helpless old people may be considered a blessing among many nations. Death is also sometimes desired by reason of superstition. For instance, the Figians think that after death they will continue to live of the same age as that at which they died. (Williams, Figi and the Figians, I, 183.) The Germans who died of disease did not get to Walhalla! (W. Wackernagel, Kl. Schriften, I, 16.)
[244-6]On the frightful cannibalism practiced on the upper Nile, seeSchweinfurthinPetermann'sgeogr. Mettheilungen, IV, 138, seq. Australian women seldom outlive their 30th year.Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, 449. Many are eaten by the men as soon as they begin to get old. (Transactions of the Ethnolog. Society, New Series, III, 248.) A chief of Figi Islands who died recently had eaten 872 men in his lifetime.Lawry, Visit to the Friendly and Fejee Islands, 1850. Even the more highly civilized[TN 78]Mexicans had preserved this abomination. According toGomara, Cronica de la N. Espana, 229, there were here from 20,000 to 25,000 human sacrifices a year; according toTorquemada, Indiana, VII, 21, even 20,000 children a year.B. Diaz, on the other hand, puts the number down at 2,500 only. CompareKlemm, Kulturgeschichte, V, 103, 207, 216.
[244-7]The usual coldness, so much spoken of, of the Indians, seems to have an economic rather than a physiological cause. At least, it has also been observed among the Hottentots. (Levillant, Voyage, I, 12 seq.), and under favorable economic conditions the Indians have sometimes increased very rapidly. (Lettres édifiantes, VIII, 243.) Whether the practice in vogue among the Botocuds to carry the organ of generation continually in a rather narrow envelope, or that among the Patachos of lacing the foreskin with the tendrils of a plant, is not a "preventive check," quære. ComparePrinz Neuwied, Bras. Reise, II, 10; I, 226.
[244-8]On the gold coast, people become fathers in their 12th year even, and mothers at 10. (Ritter, Erdkunde, I, 313.) In the whole of the Soudan the climate is so exciting that the intercourse of the sexes is said to be a "physical necessity," and an unmarried man of eighteen is universally despised. But, indeed, the individual is little valued in Africa, on account of the great prolificacy of the African race. (Ritter, I, 385.)
[244-9]Herodot., IV, 26.
[244-10]CompareMachiavelli, at the beginning of his Istoria Fiorentina. The migration of the Germani is accounted for simply by the family and marriage relations of the Germans, which necessarily favored prolificacy:Severa matrimonia ... singulis uxoribus contenti sunt ... septae pudicitia ... paucissima adulteria ... publicatae pudicitiae nulla venia ... nemo vitia ridet ... numerum liberorum finire, flagitium habetur ... sua quemque mater uberibus alit ... sera juverum Venus eoque inexhausta pubertas ... quanto plus propinquorum, tanto gratiosior senectus.Tacit., Germ., 14. Entirely similar in character were the migrations of the Normans, which lasted just as long as the resistance to the countries they would invade, seemed to them a matter of less difficulty than the transition to a higher civilization in their own country.Malthushas corrected the extravagant notions concerning the former density of population in the North—thevagina nationum, according to Jornandes! (Malthus, I, ch. 6.) Compare, however,Friedrich M., in Antimachiavel, ch. 21, and the later view: Ouevres, IX, 196.
[244-11]Among the Bedouins even three children are considered a large family; and they even complain of that number. (Burckhardt.)
SECTION CCXLV.
INFLUENCE OF A COMMUNITY OF WOMEN AND POLYGAMY.
Most barbarous nations live very unchaste;[245-1]so that, as Tacitus observes, the ancient Germans were a brilliant exception to the rule.[245-2]Vices of unchastity always limit the otherwisenatural increase of population. Premature enjoyment exhausts the sources of fruitfulness in the case of many.[245-3]The life of the child conceived in sin is generally little valued by its parents. Hence the numerous instances of exposure and infanticide.[245-4]We have already seen how closely, psychologically speaking, a community of goods is allied to a community of women. (§ 85.) And, indeed, in the lower stages of civilization, we find as close an approximation to the latter as to the former; and it is difficult to believe that, among men living in a state of nudity, the marriage of one man to one woman could properly exist.[245-5]But it is as little possible to reconcilea community of women with density of population as great national wealth with a community of goods. Any one acquainted with the condition and capacities of new born children knows that the weak little flame easily goes out when not nursed by family care.[245-6]
Polygamy also is a hinderance to the increase of population. Abstract physiology must, indeed, admit that a man may, even without any danger to his health, generate more childrenthan a woman can bear.[245-7]But, in reality, the simultaneous enjoyment of several women leads to excess and early exhaustion;[245-8]and if one of them is married after the other, the older who might still bear children for a long time are neglected by the man.[245-9]Monogamy is, doubtless, the Creator's law, since only in monogamous countries can we expect to find the intimate union of family life, the beauties of social intercourse and free citizenship.[245-10]"God made them male and female."[245-11]And yet in all countries with which we are statistically acquainted, there is a somewhat larger number of boys than of girls born;[245-12]but this excess is removed by the timethat puberty sets in, by reason of the greater mortality of boys. Only extraordinary conditions which thin the ranks of males, such as war and emigration, leave a preponderance of the number of women.[245-13]Hence, among barbarous nations, who live in everlasting strife (§§ 67, 70), polygamy is very generally established. Men are seldom deterred therefrom by a solicitude concerning what they shall eat, since the women are treated as slaves, and rather support the men than are supported by them.[245-14]But in the civilized countries of the east, the polygamy of the great may actually lead to the compulsory singleness of many of the lower classes, as a species of compensation.[245-15]The monstrous institution of eunuchism,which has existed time out of mind in the east, is a consequence of this condition of things as well as of the natural jealousy of the harem.[245-16]
[245-1]Impurity of the Kamtschatdales, bordering on a community of women. (Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, I, 287 ff., 350 ff.; II, 206, 297 seq.) On Lapland, seeKlemm, III, 55. In their purely nomadic period, even the Getes, afterwards remarkable for their noble character (Horat., Carm., III, 24), have had very loose relations of the sexes. (Menander, inStrabo, VII, 297.)
[245-2]Very unlike the Celts:Strabo, IV, 199. But the Germans even at the time when the compensation system alone prevailed, imposed a disgraceful death on thecorpore infames. (Tacit., Germ., 12.) In keeping with this purity of the Germans was the deep gravity and the genuine heartiness of their ancient nuptial ceremonies. (Tacit., Germ., 18.) Similarly, in England throughout the middle ages. (Lappenberg, Engl., Gesch. I, 596.) Great moral severity of the Scandinavians (Weinhold, Altnord. Leben, 255), so that the gratification of the sexual appetite outside of marriage was punishable with death. (Adam Brem., IV, 6, 21.)
[245-3]Abuse of young girls in New Holland (Collins, 563); among the American aborigines (Charlevoix, Histoire de la N. France, III, 304; Lettres édifiantes, VII, 20 ff.); among the negroes (Buffon, Histoire naturelle de l'Homme, VI, 255).
[245-4]Infanticide in Kamtschatka,Klemm, I, 349.
[245-5]In most mythical histories, the institutions of property and of marriage are ascribed to the same name (Menes Cecrops, the Athenian Thesmophories.) Among the Indian tribes of Terra Firma, the exchange of wives and thejus primæ noctisof the chiefs are very common. (DeponsVoyage, I, 304, ff.) In North America, the Indians are very eager to rent out their wives for a glass of brandy. (Prinz Neuwied, N. A. Reise, I, 572 seq.) CompareLewisandClarke, Travels to the Source of the Missouri and the Pacific Ocean, 1804-1806. Almost always on entering a higher age-class it is one of[TN 79]the principal conditions to leave one's wife for a time to the more distinguished. On feast days, prayer days, etc., the women give themselves publicly up to vice; and this can be commuted only by a gift. (Prinz Neuwied, I, 129 ff., 272.) Community of women in California. (Bagert, Nachrichten von der Halbinsel C. 1772.) In many of the South Sea Islands, the youth of the higher classes were wont to form themselves into so-calledarreyo-societies, the object of which was the most unlimited intercourse of the sexes (a pair being united generally only from 2 to 3 days), and the murder of the new born children. The girls principally were murdered, and hence the missionaries at Otaheite (New Cytheria) found only 1/5 as many women as men.Chaque femme semble être la femme de tous les hommes chaque homme le mari de toutes les femmes.(Marchand, I, 122.) The many governing queens here are characteristic. CompareForster, Reise II, 100, 128;Kotzebue, Reise, III, 119; European Magazine, June, 1806;Reybaud, Voyages, et marines, 128, and the quotations inKlemm, Kulturgesch., IV, 307.
Similar customs are found among the nomads. The Bedouins dissolve their marriages so easily that a man forty-five years old had 50 wives; family secrets are a thing unknown there. (Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins, 64; Travels app. II, 448;Ritter, Erdkunde, XII, 205, 211, 983.) On the Libyans, seeHerodot., IV, 168, 172, 186, 180: on the Massagetes,Herodot., I, 216; on the Taprobanes,Diod., II, 58; on the Troglodytes,Pomp, Mella., I, 8,Agatharch, 30. Community of women among the ancient Britons,Caesar, B. G. V, 14 seq.; also among the naked, tatooed Caledonians,Dio Cass., LXXVI, 12; probably also among the cannibal Irish.Strabo, IV, 201. Great laxity of the marriage tie in Moelmud's laws of Wales, (Palgrave, Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, I, 458 ff.) in which country a species of tenure in common of land and servants was customary. (Wachsmuth, Europ. Sittengesch. II, 225.) In Russia, in very ancient times, only the Polanes had real marriages. (Nestor v. Schlözer, I, 125 seq.) Something very analogous even among the Spartans: same education for boys and girls, admittance for men to the female gymnasiums; marriage in the form of an abduction, and afterwards fornication. (Xenoph., De rep. Laced. I, 6:Plutarch, Lycurg. 15.) Adultery tolerated by law in countless cases. (Xenoph., II, 7 ff.;St. John, The Hellenes, I, 394.) History of the origin of the so-called Partheniæ;Strabo, VI, 279. (Supra, § 83.) The custom which prevails among so many barbarous nations to designate one's progeny by the name of the mother,Sanchoniathantraces to the licentiousness of women. (p. 16, Orell.) Traces of this also in Egypt:Schmidt, Papyrusurkunden, 321 ff. Avunculus means little grand-father. Many proofs whichPeschel, Völkerkunde, 243 seq. explains otherwise, but which seem to me to point to an original community of wives.
[245-6]The relation existing between the so-called organization of labor (§ 82) and a community of wealth is repeated in the relation of a community of wives to the situation in Dahomey, where every man has to purchase his wife from the king.Gumprecht, Afrika, 196. Similarly among the Incas:Prescott, Hist. of Peru, I, 159. Even the sale of wives is a step in advance as compared with a community of wives (§ 67 seq).
[245-7]It is said that a German prince of the 18th century had 352 natural children. (Dohm, Denkwürdigkeiten, IV, 67.) Feth Ali, shah of Persia, had made 49 of his own sons provincial governors, and he had besides 140 daughters. (Ker Porter, II, 508.)
[245-8]Turkish married men are frequently impotent at the age of 30. (Volney, Voyage dans la Turquie, II, 445.) Similarly in Arabia. (Niebuhr,Beschreibung, 74.) The use of aphrodisiac means very wide-spread in the East. According toNiebuhr(76), monogamous marriages produced absolutely more children than polygamous. CompareG. Botero, Ragion di Stato, VIII, 93 ff.;Montesquieu, Lettres Persanes,[TN 80]N., 114;Süssmilch, Göttl. Ordnung, I, Kap., 11. On the other hand,Th. L. Lau, Aufrichtiger Vorschlag von ... Einrichtung der Intraden (1719), 6, recommends the allowing of polygamy as a means of increasing population.
[245-9]Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines, and only 88 children (II Chron., 11, 21); that is not much more than one child by each.
[245-10]The high esteem for woman requisite to true love seems to be almost irreconcilable with polygamy. The wife stands to the husband in the relation of a mistress; and, in reference to the latter, fidelity has scarcely any meaning. The husband also has no confidence in his wife; and hence the seclusion of the harem. But the domestic tyrant is easily made the slave of a higher power. And what becomes of fraternal love with the half-brother feeling of children of different mothers?
[245-11]Genesis 1, 27; 5, 12; 7, 13.
[245-12]CompareJ. Graunt, Natural and Political Observations on the Bills of Mortality (1662). During the course of the 19th century, according to averages made from long series of years, there were, for every 1,000 girls born alive in Lombardy, 1,070 boys; in Bohemia, 1,062; in France, 1,058; in Holland, 1,057; in Saxony, 1,056; in Belgium, 1,052; in England, 1,050; in Prussia,[TN 81]1,048. On the whole, the ratio in 70,000,000 children born alive was as 100 : 105.83. The excess of males over females in bastards is smaller than in the case of legitimate children, in towns than in the country. Everything considered, the number of boys born seems to be greater than the number of girls in proportion as the father is in advance of his wife in years. CompareSadler, Law of Population, II, 343.Hofacker, Ueber die Eigenschaften die sich vererben, 51 ff.Wappäus, Allg. Bevölkerungstatistik, II, 151, 160 ff., 306 ff.Per contra, we haveLegoyt'ssupposition that the number of boys born is greater in proportion as the parents are more nearly of an age: Statistique comparée, 500.
[245-13]According to the censuses between 1856 and 1861, there are for every 1,000 men in Belgium 994 women; in Austria, 1,004; in Prussia, 1,004; in France, 1,001; in England, 1,039; in Holland, 1,038. The majority of the latter seems to have diminished everywhere the greater the distance in time from the most recent great wars; and to belong only to those age-classes which were coeval with those wars. (Preuss. amtliche Tabellen für 1849, I, 292.) In the United States there were, 1800-1844, for every 1,000 women, 1,033-1,050 men; mainly accounted for by large immigration. Between 1819 and 1855 the immigration was 2,713,391 men and 1,720,305 women. (W. Bromwell, History of Immigration to the United States, New York, 1856.) In Switzerland, among the population belonging to the cantons, there were for every 1,000 men, 1,038 women; among the foreign Swiss, 970; among foreigners, 650. (Bernouilli, Populationistik, 31.) CompareHorn, loc. cit., I, 105 ff., who supposes a natural principle of equilibrium: thegreaterthe preponderance of the number of women, the more does it happen that only the younger women are married; the greater consequently the difference between the ages of the married couple, and the more probable the birth of boys, andvice versa. (115 ff.)
[245-14]CompareCatlin, N. American Indians, I, 118 ff. Even Strabo believed that among the Median mountaineers each man had five wives! (XI, 526.)
[245-15]Concerning Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines, see I Kings, 11, 3; according to the Canticle of Canticles, only 60 wives and 80 concubines. According toMirkhondandKhondemir, there was in the place in which the Sassand shah resided, 3,000 women of the harem and 12,000 female slaves. Polygamy among the latter class is seldom possible or thought of. Of 2,800 Moslems in Bombay, only 100 lived in polygamy, and only 5 had three wives each. (Ritter, Erdkunde, 1088.) I lay no weight here on the assertion so frequently repeated of travelers in the east, that more girls than boys are born there; for the reason that there is there no real statistics, and that the infidel travelers can be permitted few glimpses into the secrecy of family life.Lady Sheilindeed assures us that in Persia itself the opinion prevails that there are a great many more women than men. Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, 1855. Similar pretense among the Mormons.
[245-16]We find, even on Egyptian temples, pictures representing the castration of prisoners.Franck, in the Mémoires sur l'Egypte, IV, 126. On Babylon, seeHellanicus, apud. Donat. ad Terent. Eunuch., I, 2, 87. This province, besides Assyria (the ancient seat of sultan glory), delivered 500 castrated boys per annum to the king of Persia. (Herodot., III, 92.) Of the califs, Soliman is said to be the first (at the beginning of the 8th century) who had his harem superintended by eunuchs; a very sensual master who frequently changed his wives. (Reiske Z. Abulfeda, I, 109 ff.;Weil, Gesch. der Kalifen, I, 573.) At an audience which the calif Moktadir gave to a Byzantine ambassador, there appeared 4,000 white and 3,000 black eunuchs. (Rehm., Gesch. des Mittelalters, I, 2, 32.) In the harems of the present Persian persons of rank, there are usually from 6 to 8 eunuchs.Rosenmüller, Altes und Neues Morgenland, IV, 290. In Upper Egypt, the castration of handsome boys by monks (!) is a regular trade. About 2 per cent. die in consequence of the operation, the others rise in consequence in price from 200-300 to 1,000 piasters. (Ritter, Erdkunde, I, 548.) In the Frankish middle age, the merchants of Verdun castrated persons to sell them in Spain. CompareLiutprand, Hist., VI, 3, inMuratori, Script. Rerum Ital., II, 1, 470.
SECTION CCXLVI.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.—IN HIGHLY CIVILIZED TIMES.
The conditions of population among mature and flourishing nations is characterized by this, that the moral and rational preventive tendencies counter to over-population decidedly preponderate. Here so much value is attached to the life, andto the healthy and comfortable life of human beings already in existence that even the majority of the lower classes take care to bring no more children into the world than can be properly supported, nor to bring them into being in advance of food. Here, too, mortality is relatively small, which when population is stationary is found in connection with a higher average duration of human life.[246-1]While among savage andsemi-savage nations, travelers are struck by no phenomenon as much as by the total absence of old men,[246-2]in most European nations the average duration of life has, during the last centuries, seemed to noticeably increase. In France, for instance, between 1771 and 1780, on a population of 29,000,000 at most, there were as many deaths as on 35,000,000 between 1844 and 1853.[246-3]In Sweden, the classic land of statistics relating to population, mortality from 1749 to 1855 had diminished 0.107 per cent. per annum.[246-4][246-5]
No reasonable man considers mere living the highest good; but, from an average prolongation of life, we may with great probability infer an improvement in the means of subsistence, in hygienic measures, etc., even for the lower classes, who everywhere constitute the great majority of the population.Aisance est vitalité!—at least on the supposition that morality remains the same.[246-6]How great may not have been the effect,for instance, of the healthier mode of the building of modern cities, of the disappearance of the greater number of fortifications etc., the more rational character of the healing art, the extension of vaccination,[246-7]the hygienic measures adopted by governments,[246-8]the better care of the poor and especially theasylums for small children! The modern system of agriculture and of the corn trade make famines less destructive of life.[246-9](§ 115). The modern quarantine-system has protected us entirely against a number of plagues; and the worst epidemics of our day cannot be compared with those of earlier periods or in less civilized countries. In the second half of the 17th century, it was estimated in London that a plague would occur once in every 20 years, each of which swept away one-fifth of the entire population.[246-10]And in that very city the annualmortality between 1740 and 1750 varied three-fifths, during the second half of the 18th century only one-third, during the 19th century only one-fifth in the same decade; a clear proof of the diminished fatality of epidemics.[246-11][246-12]
[246-1]The so-calledPopulationistikersare wont to distinguish between the average and probable duration of life (vie moyenne—vie probable); and understand by the former the number of years which, on an average, have been accorded to one deceased; by the latter, the number of years after the expiration of which one-half of a given number of human beings have disappeared. Ifxdeceased persons have lived an aggregate ofsyears, their average duration of life =s/x. In the case of a whole people, indeed, even the many-years' average of the duration of life of those deceased expresses the true average duration of life only when (a rare case) the aggregate population remains stationary. For, when the population is increasing, the average age of the deceased is smaller than the average duration of life, and, when population is decreasing, larger. In the saddest case of all, when there are no births whatever, and the nation is gradually dying out, there would be an increase from year to year of the average age. In all such cases, strictly speaking, only the actual observation and following up of those born, until they die; can afford a safe result. This isHermann'smethod, introduced into Bavaria since 1835. Compare the XIII. and XVII. numbers of the official Bavarian statistics withG. Meyer'scriticism inHildebrand'sJahrbüchern, 1867, I. And indeedHopf, Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., says that a complete table of mortality can be made, according to the best method, only after centuries of observation.
CompareKopf, in the 3d edition ofKolb'sHandbuch der Statistik, and the solid works ofG. F. Knapp, Ueber die Ermittelung der Sterblichkeit (1868) and Die Sterblichkeit in Sachsen (1869).Price'smode of calculation of whichDeparcieuxis the real author, which divides the number of the living by the arithmetical mean of the number of births and deaths is not only inaccurate (Meyer, loc. cit., 43 ff.) but erroneous in principle, since it allows two countries of equal population to be the same, the one of which has 120,000 births and a mortality of 80,000, and the other, on the contrary, 80,000 births and a mortality of 120,000.Engelrecommends as the measure of real vitality the ratio between the "living years" and the "dead years," meaning by the former the sum of the years which those still living have lived through, and by the latter the sum of the years lived through by those who have died within a given period. (Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., 1861, 348 ff.) But the inference which may be drawn from a high or a low average of life is altogether ambiguous. A high average may as well be produced by a great mortality among children as by a favorable mortality among those of mature age; and a low average as well by a relatively small number of births as by a relatively short duration of life. (Meyer, loc. cit., 23, 24.)
[246-2]On the aborigines of America, see Lettres édifiantes, VII, 317 ff.Cook,Third Voyage, III, ch. 2.La Pérouse, Voyage, ch. 9.Robertson, Hist. of America B., IV.Raynal, Histoire des Indes L., XV. On the African negroes:M. Park, ch. 1. They are said to manifest the symptoms of old age at 40, and very seldom to live to be over 55 or 60 years of age.
[246-3]Necker, De l'Administration des Finances de la France, 1784, I, 205 ff., gives for 1771-80 the average number of births, per annum, 940,935; of deaths, 818,391; the population at 24,229,000.Legoyt, Statist. Comp., estimates the last, in 1784, at at least 26,748,843, probably even at 28,718,000. During the period, 1844-53, 35,000,000 to 36,000,000 Frenchmen had only about as many births (956,317) and deaths (815,723) as a much smaller population before the Revolution—the latter numbers, according to official estimation, omitting the still-born—whichNeckeralso scarcely took into consideration.C'est la différence entre un peuple de prolétaires et une nation, dont les deux tiers jouissent des bienfaits de la propriété. (Moreau de Jonnès).In France, there was one death, in 1784, on every 30 living; in 1801, on every 35.8 living; in 1834-5, on every 38 living; in 1844, on every 39.9 living; in 1855-57 (average), on every 41.1 living; in 1860-65 (average), on every 43.7 living. It is also probable, that the average duration of life in France increased from the fact that, from 1800 to 1807, the number of persons subject to conscription was only 45 per cent. of the whole corresponding number of births; but that from 1822 to 1825 it was 61 per cent. (Bernoulli, Populationistik, 452.) On Paris alone, seeVillermé, Mémoire lu à l'Académie des Sciences, 29 Nov., 1824. Comparesupra, § 10.
[246-4]Wappäus, Allg. Bevölkerungsstatistik. In Prussia, in the less cultured provinces (the eastern), the mortality and number of births is greatest; but in the whole country the relative mortality seems to have remained stationary since 1748. (Engel, Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., 1861, 336 seq.) And even the average age of the deceased decreased even between 1820 and 1860 (344 ff.) In Berlin alone, the arithmetical mean of the number of births and deaths shows no improvement, at least (loc. cit. 1862, 195).
[246-5]In Geneva, where there have been almost uninterrupted tables of mortality, giving the age at the time of death, the average duration of life during the 2d half of the 16th century is estimated at 21-1/6 years; during the 17th century, at 25¾ years; from 1701 to 1750, at 32-7/12 years; from 1750 to 1800, at 34½ years; from 1814 to 1833, at 40-2/3 years. CompareMallet, Recherches historiques et statistiques sur la Population de Genève, 1837, 98 ff., 104 ff., andBernouilli, Schweiz, Archiv., II, 77;per contra, d'Ivernois, sur la Mortalité proportionelle des peuples considérée comme Mesure de leur Aisance et Civilization, 1833, 12 ff. But little can be inferred from this, on account of the large immigration, of adults for the most part. Geneva is said to have had, in the 16th century, never much more than 13,000 inhabitants; at the end of the 17th century it had 17,000; in 1789, 26,000; between 1695 and 1795 there was an increase of 6,000 at least from abroad. (Bernouilli, Populationistik, 369 seq.) CompareWappäusin the Götting. Gesellsch. der Wissensch. Bd., VIII, 1860, who, however, as well asNeison, Contributions to Vital Statistics, VI ff., is too skeptical as regards modern progress in vitality.