| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Malthus and his work
Author: Bonar, James
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Malthus and his work" ***
MALTHUS AND HIS WORK
[Illustration]
MALTHUS AND HIS WORK
BY
JAMES BONAR, M.A.
BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
=London=
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1885
_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_
LONDON:
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C.
TO
=Professor Edward Caird=
THIS BOOK,
WHICH OWES MUCH TO HIM,
IS DEDICATED.
INTRODUCTION.
Of the three English writers whose work has become a portion of all
Political Economy, Malthus is the second in time and in honour. His
services to general theory are at least equal to Ricardo’s; and his full
illustration of one particular detail will rank with the best work of
Adam Smith.
In the following pages the detail will be the main subject, and general
theory the episode. The _Political Economy_ and minor writings of
Malthus (which are not few) will be noticed only in relation to the
_Essay on Population_.
Accordingly, the First of these Five Books will deal with the genesis,
history, and contents of the Essay, plunging the reader _in medias res_
and keeping him there, till the facts force him, in the Second Book, to
recur with the author to Economical theory. The Third will show the mind
of Malthus more clearly by adding to his economics his Ethics and
Political Philosophy; and the Fourth, with the case now fully stated,
will criticize the Critics of the Essay, and try to determine how much
of its doctrine remains still valuable. The Fifth Book, with its
Biography, may help the reader to associate the living personality of
the man with his writings.
_London, June 1885._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii
BOOK I. THE ESSAY.
CHAP. I. FIRST THOUGHTS, 1798 1
„ II. SECOND THOUGHTS, 1803 45
„ III. THESES 60
„ IV. THE SAVAGE, BARBARIAN, AND ORIENTAL 85
„ V. NORTH AND MID EUROPE 119
„ VI. FRANCE 153
„ VII. ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND 170
BOOK II. ECONOMICS.
CHAP. I. THE LANDLORDS 207
„ II. THE WORKING MAN 254
„ III. GENERAL GLUTS 282
„ IV. THE BEGGAR 303
BOOK III. MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 319
„ IV. THE CRITICS 355
„ V. BIOGRAPHY 399
INDEX 428
MALTHUS AND HIS WORK
BOOK I. THE ESSAY.
CHAPTER I.
FIRST THOUGHTS, 1798.
The Common Caricature—The Essay an Inquiry into the Poverty of
Nations—Godwin’s _Political Justice_ and _Enquirer_—The Two
Postulates and Conclusions from them—Condorcet’s _Sketch of the
Progress of the Human Mind_—Organic Perfectibility of Man and its
Obstacles—Historical Context of the Essay—_The Crisis_—Pitt’s Poor
Bill—Malthus and his Teachers—Success explained—Theology and
Metaphysics—Faults of the Essay—Immediate aim secured.
He was the “best-abused man of the age.” Bonaparte himself was not a
greater enemy of his species. Here was a man who defended small-pox,
slavery, and child-murder; who denounced soup-kitchens, early marriage,
and parish allowances; who “had the impudence to marry after preaching
against the evils of a family;” who thought the world so badly governed
that the best actions do the most harm; who, in short, took all romance
out of life and preached a dull sermon on the threadbare text—“Vanity of
vanities, all is vanity.” Such was the character of Malthus as described
by his opponents.
If an angry man is probably in the wrong, an abusive man is certainly
so; and, when not one or two, but one or two thousand are engaged in the
abuse, the certainty amounts to a demonstration. We may measure the
soundness of the victim’s logic by the violence of the personal attacks
made upon him. For most worldly purposes, to be ignored and to be
refuted are the same thing.
Malthus from the first was not ignored. For thirty years it rained
refutations. The question, as he stated it, was thoroughly threshed out.
The _Essay on Population_ passed in the author’s lifetime through six
editions (1798, 1803, 1806, 1807, 1817, and 1826); even between the
first edition, in 1798, and the second, in 1803, there were more than a
score of ‘Replies’; and the discussion was carried on in private
correspondence, as well as in public journals and parliamentary
speeches. The case was fully argued; and no one who fairly considers the
extent of the discussion, and the ability of the disputants, can fail to
believe that we have, in the records of this controversy, ample
materials for forming our own judgment on the whole question in dispute.
Such a privilege is seldom used. The world has no time to consult
authorities, though it likes them to be within reach of consultation.
When an author becomes an authority, he too often ceases to be read, and
his doctrines, like current coin, are worn by use till they lose the
clear image and superscription of the issuer. In this way an author’s
name may come to suggest, not his own book, but the current version of
his doctrines. Malthus becomes Malthusianism,—Darwin, Darwinism; and if
Adam Smith’s name were more flexible he too would become an epithet.[1]
As it is, Adam Smith has left a book which “every one praises and nobody
reads,” Malthus a book which no one reads and all abuse. The abuse is,
fortunately, not quite unanimous; but it is certain that Malthus for a
long time had an experience worse than Cassandra’s, for his warnings
were disbelieved without being heard or understood. Miss Martineau, in
her girlhood, heard him denounced “very eloquently and forcibly by
persons who never saw so much as the outside”[2] of his book. This was
in 1816; and when at a later time she inquired about him for herself,
she could never find any one who had read his book, but scores who could
“make great argument about it and about,” or write sentimental pamphlets
on supposed Malthusian subjects. This carelessness was not confined to
the general public; it infected the savants. Nothing more clearly shows
how political economy, or at least one question of it, had descended
into the streets and become a common recreation. Even Nassau William
Senior, perhaps the most distinguished professor of political economy in
his day, confessed with penitence that he had trusted more to his ears
than to his eyes for a knowledge of Malthusian doctrine, and had written
a learned criticism, not of the opinion of Mr. Malthus, but of that
which “the multitudes who have followed and the few who have endeavoured
to oppose” Mr. Malthus, have assumed to be his opinion.[3]
The “opinion” so imagined by Senior and the multitude is still the
current Malthusianism. A Malthusian is supposed to forbid all marriage.
Mr. Malthus was supposed to believe that “the desire of marriage, which
tends to increase population, is a stronger principle than the desire of
bettering our condition, which tends to increase subsistence.”[4] This
meant, as Southey said, that “God makes men and women faster than He can
feed them.” The old adage was wrong then: Providence does not send meat
where He sends mouths; on the contrary, He sends mouths wherever He
sends meat, so that the poor can never cease out of the land, for,
however abundant the food, marriage will soon make the people equally
abundant. It is a question of simple division. A fortune that is wealth
for one will not give comfort to ten, or bare life to twenty. The moral
is, for all about to marry, “Don’t,” and for all statesmen, “Don’t
encourage them.”
This caricature had enough truth in it to save it from instant
detection, and its vitality is due to the superior ease in
understanding, and therefore greater pleasure in hearing, a blank denial
or a blank affirmation as compared with the necessary qualifications of
a scientific statement. The truth must be told, however, that Malthus
and the rest of the learned world were by no means at utter discord. He
always treated a hostile economist as a possible ally. He was carrying
on the work of their common Founder. In the _Essay on Population_ he was
inquiring into the nature and causes of poverty, as Adam Smith had
inquired into the nature and causes of wealth. But Malthus himself did
not intend the one to be a mere supplement to the other. He did not
approach the subject from a purely scientific side. He had not devoted
long years of travel and reflection to the preparation of an economical
treatise. Adam Smith had written his _Moral Sentiments_ seventeen years
before his greater work. When he wrote the latter he had behind him an
academical and literary reputation; and he satisfied the just
expectations of the public by giving them, in the two quarto volumes of
the _Wealth of Nations_, his full-formed and completely digested
conclusions and reasonings definitively expressed (1776). Malthus, on
the contrary, gained his reputation by a bold and sudden stroke, well
followed up. His _Essay_ was an anonymous pamphlet in a political
controversy, and was meant to turn the light of political economy upon
the political philosophy of the day. Whatever the essay contained over
and above politics, and however far afield the author eventually
travelled in the later editions, there is no doubt about the first
origin of the essay itself. It was not, as we are sometimes told, that,
being a kind-hearted clergyman, he set himself to work to inquire
whether after all it was right to increase the numbers of the population
without caring for the quality of it. In 1798 Malthus was no doubt in
holy orders and held a curacy at Albury; but he seems never to have been
more than a curate. The Whigs offered him a living in his later years,
but he passed it to his son;[5] and we should be far astray if we
supposed his book no more than the “recreations of a country parson.”
“Parson” was in his case a title without a _rôle_ and Cobbett’s immortal
nickname is very unhappy.[6] He had hardly more of the parson than
Condillac of the abbé. In 1798 Pitt’s Bill for extending relief to large
families, and thereby encouraging population, was no doubt before the
country; but we owe the essay not to William Pitt, but to William
Godwin. The changed aspect of the book in its later editions need not
blind us to the efficient cause of its first appearance.
Thomas Robert Malthus had graduated at Cambridge as ninth wrangler in
the year 1788, in the twenty-second year of his age. In 1797, after
gaining a fellowship at Jesus College, he happened to spend some time at
his father’s house at Albury in Surrey. Father and son discussed the
questions of the day, the younger man attacking Jacobinism, the elder
defending it. Daniel Malthus had been a friend and executor of Rousseau,
and was an ardent believer in human progress. Robert had written a Whig
tract, which he called _The Crisis_, in the year of Pitt’s new loan and
Napoleon’s Italian campaign (1796); but he did not publish it, and his
views were yet in solution. We may be sure the two men did not spare
each other in debate. In the words of the elder Malthus, Robert then, if
at no other time, “threw little stones” into his garden. An old man must
have the patience of Job if he can look with calmness on a young man
breaking his ideals. But in this case he at least recognized the
strength of the slinger, and he bore him no grudge, though he did not
live to be won by the concessions of the second essay (1803). That
Robert, on his part, was not wanting in respect, is shown by an
indignant letter, written in February, 1800, on his father’s death, in
reply to the supposed slight of a newspaper paragraph.[7]
The fireside debates had in that year (1797) received new matter.
William Godwin, quondam parson, journalist, politician, and novelist,
whose _Political Justice_ was avowedly a “child of the Revolution,”[8]
had written a new book, the _Enquirer_, in which many of his old
positions were set in a new light. The father made it a point of honour
to defend the _Enquirer_; the son played devil’s advocate, partly from
conviction, partly for the sake of argument; and, as often happens in
such a case, Robert found his case stronger than he had thought. Hard
pressed by an able opponent, he was led, on the spur of the moment, to
use arguments which had not occurred to him before, and of which _The
Crisis_ knows nothing. In calmer moments he followed them up to their
conclusions. “The discussion,” he tells us,[9] “started the general
question of the future improvement of society, and the author at first
sat down with an intention of merely stating his thoughts to his friend
upon paper in a clearer manner than he thought he could do in
conversation.” But the subject opened upon him, and he determined to
publish. This is the plain story of the publication of the _Essay on
Population_, reduced to its simplest terms. At the very time when the
best men in both worlds were talking only of progress, Malthus saw rocks
ahead. French and English reformers were looking forward to a golden age
of perfect equality and happiness; Malthus saw an irremovable difficulty
in the way, and he refused to put the telescope to his blind eye.
There had been Cassandras before Malthus, and even in the same century.
Dr. John Bruckner of Norwich had written in the same strain in his
_Théorie du Système Animal_, in 1767;[10] and a few years earlier (in
1761) Dr. Robert Wallace, writing of the _Various Prospects of Mankind,
Nature, and Providence_, had talked of community of goods as a cure for
the ills of humanity, and then had found, very reluctantly, one fatal
objection—the excessive population that would ensue. Men are always
inclined to marry and multiply their numbers till the food is barely
enough to support them all. This objection had since Wallace’s time
become a stock objection, to be answered by every maker of Utopias. It
was left for Malthus to show the near approach which this difficulty
makes to absolute hopelessness, and to throw the burden of proof on the
other side. As the _Wealth of Nations_ altered the standing presumption
in favour of interference to one in favour of liberty in matters of
trade, so the _Essay on Population_ altered the presumption in favour of
the advocates of progress to a presumption against them. This may not
describe the final result of the essay, but it is a true account of its
immediate effect. People had heard of the objection before; it was only
now that they began to look on it as conclusive.
How had Godwin tried to meet it, when it was still in the hands of
weaker men, and therefore not at all conclusive? He could not ignore it.
In his _Political Justice_ (1793) he had given the outlines of a “simple
form of society, without government,” on the principle of Tom Paine,
which was also a received Jacobin motto, “Society is produced by our
wants, government by our wickedness.”[11] He says, with the ruling
philosophy, that man is born a blank, and his outward circumstances make
him good or evil. Thanks to human institutions, especially lawyers,
sovereigns, and statesmen, the outward circumstances, he says, are as
bad as they can be. Everywhere there is inequality. There is great
poverty alongside of great riches, and great tyranny with great slavery.
In the same way the best of his novels, _Caleb Williams_ (1794), tells
us how “things as they are” enable the rich sinner to persecute the poor
righteous man. But he is no pessimist. The _Political Justice_ does not
end with a statement of evils. It goes on to show that in the end truth
will conquer; men will listen to reason, they will abandon their present
laws, and they will form a society without law or government or any kind
of force; no such things will be needed when every man listens to
reason, and contents himself with plain living and high thinking. There
will be no king in Israel; every man will do that which is right in his
own eyes. In our present society, says Godwin, it is distribution and
not production that is at fault. There is more than enough of wealth for
all, but it is not shared amongst all. One man has too much, another
little or nothing. In the new society reason will change all that.
Reason tells us that, if we make an equal division, not only of the good
things of this life, but of the labour of making them, then we shall
secure a production quite sufficient for the needs of plain livers, at
the cost of perhaps half-an-hour’s labour in a day from each of
them.[12] Each of them will, therefore, have leisure, which is the true
riches, and he will use the time for his own moral and intellectual
improvement. In this way, by the omnipotence of truth and the power of
persuasion, not by any violence or power of the sword, perfection and
happiness will in time be established on the earth.
Godwin made no essential change in these views in the later editions of
the _Political Justice_ (1796 and 1798), or in the _Enquirer_ (1797).
“Among the faithless, faithful only he,” when the excesses of the Terror
made even Sir James Mackintosh (not to say Bishop Watson, Southey, and
Wordsworth) a lukewarm reformer. Nothing in Godwin’s life is more
admirable than the perfect confidence with which he holds fast to his
old faith in democratic principles and the perfectibility of man. If it
is obstinacy, it is very like devotion; and perhaps the only author who
shows an equal constancy is Condorcet, the Girondist, marked out for
death, and writing in his hiding-place, almost under the eyes of the
Convention, his eager book on the _Progress of the Species_. Nothing but
intense sincerity and sheer depth of conviction could have enabled these
men to continue the defence of a dishonoured cause. They had not the
martyr’s greatest trial, the doubt whether he is right. The great
impression made by their works was a sign that, as they felt strongly,
they wrote powerfully. Malthus, who refuted both of them, apologized for
giving serious criticism to Condorcet’s palpable extravagances by saying
that Condorcet has many followers who will hold him unanswerable unless
he is specially answered.[13] Of Godwin, Mr. Sumner, writing in 1816,
says that though his book (the _Political Justice_) was becoming out of
date, it was still “the ablest and best known statement” of the
doctrines of equality that had ever appeared in England.[14] It has been
justly called the “first text-book of the philosophical radicals.” The
actual effect of it cannot be measured by the number of copies sold on
its first appearance. Godwin had placed it far beyond the reach of
ordinary democrats by fixing the price at three guineas. In 1793 many
who would have been his keenest readers could not have paid three
shillings for it. But the event proved him wise in his generation. The
Privy Council decided they might safely tolerate so dear a book; and a
small audience even of the rich was better to Godwin than prosecution,
which might mean exile and no audience at all.[15] Few writers of our
own day have so good an excuse for making themselves inaccessible to the
poor. Godwin, however, like Ruskin, reached the poor in spite of his
arrangements for avoiding them. He filtered down among the masses; and
his writings became a political as well as a literary power in England,
long before he had a poetic son-in-law to give him reflected glory. If a
species is to be judged by its best individual, then Godwin represents
better than Paine the class of political writers to which they both
belong; and many fell down with Godwin when he fell down before Malthus.
The _Enquirer_ was less popular than the _Political Justice_. Part of
the charm of the latter undoubtedly lay in the elaborate completeness
and systematic order of the whole discussion. The foundations were laid
in the psychology of Locke; and then the building was raised, stone by
stone, until the whole was finished. But in the _Enquirer_ Godwin’s
dislike of law had extended even to the form of composition. He had been
wrong, he said, in trying to write a systematic treatise on society, and
he would now confine himself to detached essays, wholly experimental,
and not necessarily in harmony with one another. “He (the author) has
carried this principle so far that he has not been severely anxious
relative to inconsistency that may be discovered between the
speculations of one essay and the speculations of another.”[16] The
contrast between these two styles is the contrast between a whole
oratorio and a miscellaneous concert, or between a complete poem and a
volume of extracts.
The thoughts were the same, though they had lost their attractive
expression. The essay on _Avarice and Profusion_[17] tells us, among
other things, that “a state of cultivated equality is that state which,
in speculation and theory, appears most consonant to the nature of man,
and most conducive to the extensive diffusion of felicity.” This was the
essay which led Malthus and his father into their fruitful argument. The
essay on _Riches and Poverty_, and the one on _Beggars_,[18] contain
other applications of the same idea, with many moralizing digressions.
Godwin has not lost his sweet Utopian vision; he has not yielded to the
objections that baffled Dr. Robert Wallace; he thinks he has removed all
objections.
He meets them[19] by saying first of all: “There is a principle in the
nature of human society by means of which everything seems to tend to
its level,” when not interfered with; and the population of a country
when left to itself does not seem to increase beyond the food. But in
the second place, supposing things not to find their level in this way,
the earth is wide and the evil day is far off. It may take myriads of
centuries to till the untilled acres and to replenish the empty earth
with people, and much may happen before then. In fact, he views the
subject as many of us view the question of our coal supply. Before it is
exhausted we may be beyond the need of it.[20] The earth itself may have
collapsed with all its inhabitants. Don’t let us refuse a present
blessing from fear of a remote future danger. Besides, it is not very
hard to imagine a safeguard. Franklin says that “mind will one day
become omnipotent over matter;”[21] why not over the matter of our own
bodies? Does not the bodily health depend largely on the mind?
“A merry heart goes all the day;
Your sad tires in a mile, O!”
The time may come when we shall be so full of liveliness that we shall
not sleep, and so full of life that we shall not die. The _need_ for
marriage will be superseded by earthly immortality, and the _desire_ for
it by the development of intellect. On the renewed earth of the future
there will be neither marrying nor giving in marriage, but we shall be
as the angels. “The whole will be a people of men, and not of children.
Generation will not succeed generation, nor truth have, in a certain
degree, to recommence her career every thirty years. Other improvements
may be expected to keep pace with those of health and longevity. There
will be no war, no crimes, no administration of justice as it is called,
and no government. Besides this, there will be neither disease, anguish,
melancholy, nor resentment. Every man will seek with ineffable ardour
the good of all.”[22]
This sweet strain had been enchanting the public for four or five years,
when Malthus ventured to interrupt it with his modest anonymous _Essay
on the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of
Society_. The writer claims to be as hearty a philanthropist as Mr.
Godwin, but he cannot allow the wish to be father to the thought, and
believe in future perfection against evidence. To prove a theory true,
he says, it is not enough to show that you cannot prove its
contradiction, or that you can prove its usefulness. It would be very
useful to have eyes in both sides of our head; but that does not prove
that we are going to have them. If you told me that man was becoming a
winged creature like the ostrich, I should not doubt that he would find
wings very useful, but I could hardly believe your prophecy without some
kind of proof beyond the mere praises of flying. I should ask you to
show palpable signs in his body and habits that such a change was going
on, that his neck has been lengthening, his lips hardening, and his hair
becoming feathery. In the same way, when you tell me that man is
becoming a purely intellectual being, content with plain living and high
thinking, I see there might be advantage in the change, but I ask for
signs that it is in progress. I see none; but, on the contrary, I see
strong reasons for believing in its impossibility. Grant me two
postulates, and I disprove your millennium. The first is, that food is
necessary; the second, that the instinct for marriage is permanent. No
one denies the first, and Godwin’s denial of the second is purely
dogmatic. He has given us no proofs. Men have no doubt made progress in
other respects; they have passed from barbarism to civilization. But in
respect of the second postulate they are the same now as they were 4000
years ago. Individual exceptions are individual exceptions still. I am
bound, therefore, to believe in the truth of my postulates, and I infer
from them the impossibility of your millennium.
You speak of a society, he continues, where the members are all equally
comfortable and at leisure. Suppose it established, it could not last;
it would go to pieces through the principle of population alone. The
seven years of plenty would be at once devoured by seven years of want.
The proof of this is short and decisive:—Population, when unchecked,
increases in a geometrical ratio; subsistence only in an arithmetical.
“A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first
power in comparison with the second.”[23] “The race of plants and
animals shrinks under this great restrictive law, and the race of man
cannot by any efforts of reason escape from it. Among plants and animals
its effects are waste of seed, sickness, and premature death, among men
misery and vice,” the former necessary, the latter probable. Now, in the
old countries of Europe, population never is unchecked. It is checked by
want of room and food. Vice and misery, and the fear of them, are always
“equalizing” the numbers of the people with the food of the people. In
the New World, “the cynosure of neighbouring eyes,” there are fewer
hindrances to early marriage; there is more room and there is more food;
hard work is the only condition of a happy life. But, even there,
population is not entirely unchecked; the hard work will at least
interfere with the rearing of children; and the people, however
comfortable, are not at the very highest pitch of comfort, or at the
highest pitch of purity and simplicity of life; whereas, by assumption,
Godwin’s imaginary society is all these. If, therefore, the people of
old Europe double their numbers once a century, and the people of new
America (at least in the United States) once in twenty-five years, we
may be sure that in the millennial society of Godwin,
“Where all are proper and well-behaved,
And all are free from sorrow and pain,”
the increase would be much faster. The “leisure” he talks of would soon
disappear, and the old scramble for bread, the old inequality of rank
and property, would again become the order of the day. We should have
our own kind of society back again, with its masters and servants,
landlords and tenants, rich and poor.[24]
Therefore (argues the writer of the essay) if Godwin’s society were once
made it could not last. But we grant too much in supposing it could ever
be made. We cannot believe this and believe in the second postulate at
the same time; and the second postulate is so certain that we can
predict by it. The same causes, then, that would have destroyed Godwin’s
newly-formed society will prevent it from ever being formed at all. “The
passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the
same that it may always be considered, in algebraic language, as a given
quantity.”[25] In spite of the whimpering of old men and _roués_, “the
pleasures of pure love will bear the contemplation of the most improved
reason and the most exalted virtue.”[26] Godwin views the matter in a
dry, intellectual light, and asks us to abstract from all accessories
before we form an estimate of the passion in question. One man or one
woman will then be as good as another. But he might as well tell us to
strip off all the leaves before we estimate our liking for trees. We do
not admire the bare pole, but the whole tree, the tree with all the
“attendant circumstances” of branches and foliage. As well deprive a
magnet of its chief powers of attraction, and then ask us to confess it
as weak as other minerals.[27] The fact is, that man’s large discourse,
which marks him out from the brutes, makes him hide the marriage
instinct under a mass of “attendant circumstances” before he lets
himself be drawn by it. He will not obey the instinct simply _more
feræ_, or in animal fashion, because he feels it. But it is not
destroyed, only disguised. The love is not purely intellectual. Reason,
with its calculation of consequences, can save a man from the abuse of a
passion, but cannot destroy the passion itself;[28] and (he might have
added) its “looking before and after” includes fancy as well as thought.
Take this passion then as it is, an adoration it may be of an assemblage
of accessories; it can never die out of the world.
From this cheerful premise, what conclusion follows? One not altogether
cheerful: Wherever Providence sends meat He will send mouths. Wherever
the people have room and food, they will marry and multiply their
numbers, till they press against the limits of both, and begin a fierce
struggle for existence, in which death is the punishment of defeat.
Godwin and the whole French school are sadly wrong in attributing all
inequality to human institutions; human nature is to blame, and, without
any artificial aid, this one passion of human nature will be the
standing cause of inequality, the most serious obstacle to the removal
of it.[29] Dr. Robert Wallace had more wisdom than he wot of.
Examine the meaning of this argument and its conclusion. It involves an
answer to Godwin’s first defence against Wallace. Here is something very
like a law of nature, a truth past, present, and future, or, in other
words, a truth which, being scientific, ought not to be stated in terms
of time at all: “Where goods increase, they are increased that eat
them.” The “struggle for existence” (Malthus uses the very phrase) is a
present fact, as it has been a past fact, and will be a future. No good
is gained by rhetorical references to the wideness of the world and the
possibilities of the ages.[30] In our own day and land we see people
multiplying up to the limit of the food, and a “great restrictive law”
preventing them, as it prevents all other animals, from multiplying
beyond that limit.[31] In our own day and country, men marry when they
cannot support a family; the children whom they cannot support die of
hunger or sickness, if the charity of the public does not interfere;—or
else the fear of misery makes men avoid a marriage for which they have
not the means, and their celibacy, whether pure or impure, keeps the
numbers of the people on a level with the food.[32] Godwin himself had
written in so many words: “There is a principle in human society by
which population is perpetually kept down to the level of the means of
subsistence.”[33] Why did he not take one step more, and discover what
that principle is?[34]
The fact is that Godwin was at once intellectually sanguine and
emotionally cold. His ideal would have been a man “of large brain and no
affections;” and when he wrote the _Political Justice_ he was not aware
of his own defect. At a later time he was not only aware of it, but
anxious to remove it. In his Memoir of his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft
(1798), and in the story of _St. Leon_ (1799), the man who found the
philosopher’s stone, and became, to his own sorrow, immortal on earth,
he confesses that he has hitherto taken too little thought of feeling as
an element in human action. If Mary had been too much of a Werther, her
husband had been too little. Like Condorcet (and like Buckle), he had
believed civilization to be a purely intellectual movement. He had
dogmatized on the omnipotence of truth and reason, and inferred the
growth of a perfect society. He had dogmatized on the development of
intellect, and inferred an earthly immortality. Moreover, in the
_Memoir_, and in _St. Leon_, if he had added a little to his doctrines,
he had recanted little or nothing, even in regard to immortality.
St. Leon is miserable only because his gift is peculiar to himself; an
immortality that is common to all would be acceptable to all. A
Methuselah would not be melancholy among antediluvians. Such was
probably Godwin’s position. The mere belief in the possibility of
earthly immortality was not uncommon; Godwin is careful to number Bacon
among its supporters.[35] Malthus was probably right in tracing it to
the unconscious influence of Christianity,[36] though the progress in
Godwin’s days of the new science of chemistry had perhaps more to do
with it, and Godwin’s religion was never more than a bare Theism.[37] It
was held by Holcroft, one of Godwin’s most intimate friends,[38] and it
was an important part of Condorcet’s _Sketch of the Progress of the
Human Spirit_.
In the days of the Terror (1794) Condorcet, from his hiding-place in
the Rue Servandoni, had written of the “organic perfectibility of
man.” He looked to medicine, and to the arts and sciences in general,
to banish disease and prolong human life “indefinitely.”[39] Godwin
trusted to the inward development of the mind, not to outward
appliances.[40] But by different ways they arrive at the same
terminus, and receive from their great critic very much the same
reception there. Malthus points out to Godwin that there is no sign
that the body is becoming subjugated to the mind. Even philosophers,
said he (and he wrote feelingly, as he had the malady at the time of
writing), cannot endure the toothache patiently,[41] and even a merry
heart will not enable a weak man to walk as fast and as far as a
strong man. There is no change in the human body, and little or no
change in the relation of the mind to it. To Condorcet he simply
points out that, while the arts have made the lengthening of life
“indefinite,” that does not mean “infinite.” Gardeners can grow
carnations “indefinitely” large; no man can ever say that he has seen
the largest carnation that will ever be grown; but this he can say,
that a carnation will never be as large as a cabbage. The limit is
there, though it is undefined, and there is a limit also to the
lengthening of human life, though no one can fix it to a year.
Condorcet therefore has proved an earthly immortality only by a misuse
of the word “indefinite.” He has shown no organic change in man which
would prove the possibility of perfection in this world. Neither has
Condorcet repelled the objection which troubled Dr. Wallace. It is
true that, like Godwin, he faces the difficulty and admits the
importance of it.[42] The growth of population will always, he says,
cause inequality; there will always be a rich leisured class and a
poor industrial class; and to lighten the hardships of the latter
there ought to be a State Insurance fund, which will make all the
poorest citizens sure of support. But one cannot help thinking, if all
are sure of support, all will marry, and if all marry, will not the
difficulty be increased?[43] Yes, Condorcet grants this; the numbers
will soon be too great, and so throughout the ages there will be an
“oscillation” between the blessings of progress and the evils of
overcrowding, now the one predominating, now the other. In despair he
clutches at the old fallacy, “the day is distant,” but he feels it
fail him, and must needs add a new and startling solution of his own
which Malthus freely denounces.[44] This is not the place to discuss
the questions associated in our own times with Neo-Malthusianism.[45]
But it is beyond all doubt that the Neo-Malthusians are the children
not of Robert Malthus, but of Robert Owen. Malthus was not Malthus
because he said, “The people are too many; thin them down”—any more
than Darwin was Darwin because he said, “Species are not made, but
grow.” If Darwinians are to be judged by Darwin, Malthusians must be
judged by Malthus; and the originality of neither Malthus nor Darwin
can be explained by a single phrase. We cannot understand the meaning
of an author’s words, far less of his work, till we know the context
in which they are set. Once know the context and we understand the
text. The devil, citing Scripture for his purpose, only succeeds
because he never quotes in full.
It follows that, to understand the full meaning of the essay, we must go
beyond its efficient cause, and take a view of its material cause, or
the whole circumstances in which it was written. If the text of the
sermon was Godwin and Condorcet, the application was to the poor of
England and the philanthropists who were trying to relieve them.
The early life of Malthus, coinciding, as it largely does, with the
latter half of the eighteenth century, coincides with England’s greatest
industrial revolution. Malthus was born in 1766, three years after the
Peace of Paris. There was an end, for the time, to foreign wars, and
trade was making a brave start. The discoveries of coal and iron in
Northern England, going hand in hand with the inventions of
cotton-spinning and weaving, were beginning to convert the poorest
counties into the richest, upsetting the political balance. The new
science of chemistry had begun to prove its usefulness. Wedgwood was
perfecting his earthenware, Brindley cutting his canals, Telford laying
out his roads, Watt building his steam-engines. England in Roman days
had been a granary; in later ages she had been a pasture-ground; she was
now becoming the land of machinery and manufacture, as well as the
centre of foreign trade. In other words, she had begun an industrial
change, which was the greatest till then in her history, and rich in the
most magical improvements. But in the early stages of the change, the
evils of it were nearly as much felt as the blessings. The sufferings of
displaced workmen, and the anarchy of the new factory system,
supplanting home labour, and making the word “manufacturer” forget its
etymology,[46] were real evils, however transient. Combined with the
general democratic influence of an expansive manufacturing industry,
they might easily have caused a social convulsion in these days of no
extraordinary virtue; and the country owed its escape in some degree to
the evangelical movement under Whitefield and the Wesleys, which was
fatal at once to religious torpor and to political excitement.[47] The
annoyances of a meddlesome tariff and the futile attempts to exclude
foreign food were to vanish away before a hundred years had passed; but
in the boyhood of Malthus the voice of Adam Smith raised against them in
the _Wealth of Nations_ (1776) was a cry in the wilderness. There was a
general agreement that, whether the high prices prevailing after the
Peace of Paris were caused by the growth of the population, or by the
lessened value of silver, or by the troubles in Poland, the remedy was
not to lie in a free corn trade. The poor were not to have cheap corn,
they were to have large allowances. Legislation had gone backwards in
this matter. In 1723 a new law had introduced a wise workhouse test of
destitution, which might have prevented wilful poverty by reducing
outdoor relief; but the clause was repealed by Gilbert’s Act in 1782;
the poor were to be “set on work” at their own houses; and the new
stringency gave place to the old laxity, with the usual results. The
close of the century saw the troubles of a European war added to the
list, and the tide of political reform ebbed for forty years
(1792–1832). Because the French reform had gone too far, the English
reform was not allowed to take its first steps.
It is a commonplace with historians that the French Revolution would
have been very different without Voltaire and Rousseau to prepare the
way for it. Hunger and new ideas are two advocates of change which
always plead best in each other’s company; hunger makes men willing to
act, and the new ideas give them matter for enactment. In France, when
the crisis came in 1789, the new ideas were not far to seek. Writers of
Utopias, from Plato to More, and from Rousseau to Ruskin, have always
adopted one simple plan: they have struck out the salient enormities of
their own time and inserted the opposite, as when men imagine heaven
they think of their dear native country with its discomforts left out.
Inequality at home had made Frenchmen ready to dote on a vision of
equality when Rousseau presented it to them, and the state of Nature was
the state of France reversed. Philosophically, the theorists of the
Revolution traced their descent to Locke, and their ideas were not long
in recrossing the Channel to visit their birthplace.
Even if Englishmen had not had in America a visible Utopia, or, at
least, Arcadia, there was hunger enough in England to recommend the new
ideas to every rank in society. This is the reason why, in 1793,
Godwin’s book was so successful. It was not only a good English
statement of the French doctrines of equality, and therefore a book for
the times, but it had a vigour of its own, and was no mere translation.
Rousseau and Raynal had thought it necessary to sacrifice universal
improvement to universal equality; they saw (or thought they saw) that
the two could not go together, and they counted equality so desirable
that they were willing to purchase it at the expense of barbarism. Now,
they were perhaps more logical than Godwin; equality may mean barbarism.
But Godwin’s ideal was at least higher than theirs; he thought of
civilization and equality as quite compatible, for he thought that when
all men were truly civilized they would of their own accord restore
equality. As he left everything to reason and nothing to force, his book
was in theory quite harmless; but the tendency of it seemed dangerous,
for it criticized the British constitution in a free way to which the
British nation was not accustomed. In England, moreover, the people have
always confounded ideas with persons. They were not in love with liberty
when it took the form of an American “War of Independence” against
England, and, even if equality had pleased them in 1789, they would have
nothing of it after the Terror. They forsook Fox for Burke, and went to
war for a sentiment. At the time when Malthus wrote, the bulk of the
English people had lost their enthusiasm for the new ideas. It needed
some fortitude to call oneself a Reformer, or even a Whig, when Napoleon
had overrun Italy and was facing us in Egypt. Pitt held all persons
seditious who did not believe in the wisdom of the war.
But even Pitt, though he now ignored the need of reform, could not
overlook the existence of distress. In 1795 there had been a serious
scarcity; war prices had become famine prices. It was the year when “the
lower orders” were held down by special coercion acts;[48] it was the
year when the king’s carriage was stopped by a mob crying “Bread,
bread!” Mr. Whitbread and the rest thought Parliament ought to “do
something”; and Pitt proposed (1796) to meet the difficulty by amending
the Poor Laws. His bill proposed “to restore the original purity of the
Poor Laws” by modifying the law of settlement in the direction of
greater freedom, and by assisting the working man in other ways. One of
these other ways was an attempt of a harmless kind to found schools of
industry, another to attach every labourer to a friendly society. But
another less innocently proposed to encourage the growth of population
by making the poor relief greater where the family was larger. “Let us
make relief,” in such cases, “a matter of right and honour, instead of a
ground for opprobrium and contempt. This will make a large family a
blessing and not a curse; and this will draw a proper line of
distinction between those who are to provide for themselves by their
labour, and those who, after enriching their country with a number of
children, have a claim upon its assistance for their support.”[49]
Malthus in 1796 did not doubt the infallibility of Pitt in such a
matter; _The Crisis_ gives no hint of objection. But in 1798, with his
new light, he could no longer take the recruiting officer’s view of
population. If he had had a good case against Godwin and Condorcet, who
had simply failed to show how population could be kept from growing too
fast, he had still a better case against Pitt, who proposed to make it
grow faster. Besides, their schemes were merely on paper; they had no
chance of realizing them, whereas Pitt’s majority would carry any
measure on which he had set his heart. The danger from this third
quarter was therefore the most imminent. But Malthus needed no new
argument for it; he needed simply to shift round his old argument, and
point the muzzle of it at his new enemy. There is no need, he said, to
encourage marriage; there is no need for Government to make population
grow faster. Wherever Providence has sent meat, He will soon send mouths
to eat it; and, if by your artificial encouragements you increase the
mouths without increasing the meat, you will only bring the people one
step nearer starvation, you will only multiply the nation without
increasing the joy. If stalwart numbers are strength, starving numbers
are weakness.[50]
These commonplaces were then a paradox. Even at the end of the
eighteenth century there was no party in the English House of Commons
identified with enlightened views on the position of the British
workman. Whitbread had always some measure on hand for helping the
labourer out of the rates, or by some other State interference; it was
in opposing one of Whitbread’s bills that the Prime Minister promised to
introduce his own memorable measure. Fox was free to follow either, not
professing to understand the new economical doctrines. Pitt, who admired
Adam Smith,—Fox, Condorcet, and Godwin, who owed Smith no
allegiance,[51]—all were equally purblind in this matter. All Pitt’s
study of the fourth book of the _Wealth of Nations_, chapter fifth, had
not shown him the fallacy of a bounty on children. Yet Malthus had got
his light from no obscure sources, but from “Hume, Wallace, Adam Smith,
and Dr. Price,”[52] who were all well-known and widely-read authors of
the day. “The populousness of ancient nations” had been a happy
hunting-ground for learned antiquarian essay writers over half a
century. Montesquieu, Wallace, and Price[53] claimed the advantage for
the ancients. David Hume, with his usual acute divination, decides for
the moderns, though with his usual irony he professes to adopt a
sceptical conclusion, and makes several concessions to Wallace.[54] This
controversy itself might have been expected to bring men nearer to the
truth on the subject of population than it actually did. It was left to
Malthus to convert Hume’s probability into a certainty from a higher
vantage-ground; but the sifting of the arguments by the various writers
before him must have simplified his task.[55] Other aids and
anticipations were not wanting. As early as 1786, Joseph Townsend, the
Wiltshire rector, had written a _Dissertation on the Poor Laws_, which
gives an admirable statement of those wise views of charity and poor
relief that are only in these latter days becoming current among us.
Malthus records his opinion of Townsend’s work in the best of all
possible ways. From his careful inquiry (in the second edition of the
_Essay_) into the population of European countries, he omits Spain on
the ground that Mr. Townsend’s _Travels in Spain_ has already done the
work for him.[56]
The _Essay on Population_ was therefore not original in the sense of
being a creation out of nothing, but in the same way as the _Wealth of
Nations_. In both cases the author got most of his phrases, and even
many of his thoughts, from his predecessors; but he treated them as his
predecessors were unable to do; he saw them in their connection,
perspective, and wide bearings. We must not assume anticipation where
there is mere identity of language or partial identity of thought; the
words of an earlier writer are not unfrequently quoted by a later away
from their logical context, and therefore not as part of an argument of
which the writer sees the consecutive premises. This is true of Adam
Smith when he is compared with Sir Dudley North, Abraham Tucker, or the
other prophets of free trade[57] catalogued by MacCulloch or Blanqui.
They talked free trade almost as Mons. Jourdain talked prose, without
knowing it. Precisely the same is true of Adam Smith himself in relation
to Malthus. Of his own generalizations he is complete master. Having
reasoned up to them, he can reason down from them. But, when he says,
“Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the
means of their subsistence,” “The demand for men necessarily regulates
the production of men,”[58] he has not anticipated Malthus. His phrases
are touching a principle of which he does not see the most important
bearings; and not having reasoned up to it, he makes hardly any attempt
to reason down from it. Malthus, on the other hand, has taken fast hold
of a general principle, and is able to solve a number of dependent
questions in the way of simple corollaries. Others may have given right
answers to the special questions about the Poor Law and the populousness
of ancient nations. Malthus is the first to show one comprehensive
reason why all these answers must be right.
This was the secret of his success. As Godwin’s _Political Justice_ was
successful because systematic, the _Essay on Population_ was successful
because it seemed to put chaos in order. The very sadness of his
conclusion had a charm for some minds; but the bulk of his readers did
not love him for taking their hopes away, they loved him for giving them
new light. Pestilence and famine begin to lose their vague terrors when
we know whence they come and what they do for the world. Even if the
desire of marriage is itself an evil, it is well to know the truth about
it. Ignorance can only be blissful where it is total; and wilful
ignorance, being of necessity partial, is a perpetual unrest, not even a
fool’s paradise.[59]
The truth in this case was not all sadness. In the last portion of the
essay of 1798 Malthus expounds an argument which he afterwards
reproduced in later editions with a more terrestrial application. He
uses the style of Paley and the Apologists, and he tries to discover the
final cause of the principle of population, on metaphysical lines that
were followed by Mr. Sumner nearly twenty years afterwards, when the
discussion had taken a new turn.[60] The question is how to reconcile
the suffering produced by the principle of population with the goodness
of God. Malthus answers that the difficulty is only one part of the
general problem of evil, the difference between this part and the rest
being that in this case we see farther into the causes; and it is
therefore the easier for us to justify the ways of God to man. “Evil
exists not to create despair but activity.”[61] We ought not to reason
from God to nature, but from nature to God; to know how God works, let
us observe how nature works. We shall then find that nature sends all
sentient creatures through a long and painful process, by which they
gain new qualities and powers, presumably fitting them for a better
place than they have in this world. This world and this life are
therefore in all probability “the mighty process of God,” not indeed for
the mere “probation” of man (for that would imply that his Maker was
suspicious of him, or ignorant of what was in him), but for the
“creation and formation” of the human mind out of the torpor and
corruption of dead matter,[62] “to sublimate the dust of the earth into
soul, to elicit an ethereal spark from the clod of clay.” The varied
influences of life are the forming hand of the Creator, and they are
infinitely diverse, for (in spite of Solomon) there is nothing old under
the sun.[63] Difficulties generate talents.[64] “The first awakeners of
the mind are the wants of the body;” it is these that rouse the
intellect of the infant and sharpen the wits of the savage. Not leisure
but necessity is the mother of invention:
ἁ πενία, Διόφαντε, μόνα τὰς τέχνας ἐγείρες.
Locke was right; the desire to avoid pain is even stronger than the
desire to find pleasure. In this way evil leads to good; for pain, which
is a kind of evil, creates effort, and effort creates mind. This is the
general rule. A particular example of it is, that want of food, which is
one of the most serious of evils, leads to good. By contriving that the
earth shall produce food only in small quantities, and in reward of
labour, God has provided a perpetual spur to human progress. This is the
key to the puzzle of population. By nature man is a lotos-eater till
hunger makes him a Ulysses. Why should he toil, the roof and crown of
things? Mainly because, if he does not toil, neither can he live; the
lotos country will soon be over-peopled, and he must push off his bark
again. “The first awakeners of the mind are the wants of the body,”
though, once awakened, the mind soon finds out wants beyond the body,
and the development of intellect and civilization goes on
indefinitely.[65] The people “tend to increase” more quickly than their
food, not in order that men may suffer, but in order that they may be
roused to save themselves from suffering. The partial ill of all such
general laws is swallowed up in the general good; and the general good
is secured in two ways: humanity is developed; the resources of the
world are developed. In the first place, the intellect of individual men
is developed, for the constancy of nature is the foundation of
reasoning, and human reason would never be drawn out unless men were
absolutely unable to depend on miracles, and were obliged as well as
able to make calculations on the basis of a constant law. To this
constancy of nature we owe the immortal mind of a Newton. In the second
place, the world must be peopled. If savages could have got all their
food from one central spot of fertile ground, the earth at large would
have remained a wilderness; but, as it is, no one settlement can support
an indefinite increase of numbers; the numbers must spread out over the
earth till they find room and food. If there were no law of increase, a
few such careers as Alexander’s or Tamerlain’s might unpeople the whole
world; but the law exists, and the gaps made by any conqueror, or by any
pestilence, are soon filled to overflowing, while the overflowing flood
passes on to reclaim new countries.[66]
This is the cosmology of Malthus. “Life is, generally speaking, a
blessing independent of a future state.”[67] “The impressions and
excitements of this world are the instruments with which the Supreme
Being forms matter into mind.” The necessity of constant exertion, to
avoid evil and pursue good, is the principal spring of these
impressions, and is therefore a sufficient reason for the existence of
natural and moral evil, including the difficulties which arise from the
principle of population. All these are present difficulties, but they
are not beyond remedy. They do not serve their purpose unless human
exertion succeeds in diminishing them. Absolute removal Malthus does not
promise; but, while believing in science and reason as strongly as
Condorcet or Godwin, declines to regard an earthly immortality as a
reasonable hope, and points us instead to a future life and to another
world for perfection and happiness.[68]
Perhaps the great economist went beyond his province in attacking the
problem of evil. In the controversy that followed the essay there are
few references to this part of it, and after the appearance of the
second edition, where this part is omitted altogether, people forgot the
existence of the first edition. From the way in which Sumner speaks of
the difference between his point of view and that of Malthus, it might
fairly be suspected that he knew nothing of the first edition; and yet
the second of his two learned volumes is simply an expansion of its
ideas.[69] The metaphysic itself might be deep or shallow; it would be
impossible to tell till we heard the sense in which the metaphysical
phrases were used, and that we have hardly any means of doing. They
point at least to the “monistic” view, that there is no gulf between
mind and matter. We might believe them idealistic in a German sense; but
we cannot forget how closely the ethical views of Malthus are connected
with those of the English moralists of his century. He cannot be said to
have a place in the history of philosophy; and it is mainly of a curious
personal interest to discover that, although he is nominally a
utilitarian, he separates himself from Paley by refusing to allow moral
value to action done from either fear of punishment or hope of
reward.[70] There is no indication that he was a metaphysical genius.
His researches in the heavier German literature did not perhaps extend
much farther than to the quaint optimist Johann Peter Süssmilch,[71]
from whose _Göttliche Ordnung_ he freely drew his statistics.
Malthus at one time intended to expound his metaphysical views at
greater length.[72] In other words, he meant to write a book in the
manner of Price’s essays, half economical and half literary. We need not
deeply regret the “particular business,” whatever it was, that nipped
this intention in the bud, besides delaying the publication of the essay
as we now have it.[73] The metaphysical and theological passages, as
they stand, have the look of an episode, though the thought of them is
logically enough connected with the tenor of the book. The views of the
author on the other world, the punishment of the wicked, and the use of
miracles, have, like the philosophy, mainly a personal interest. Adam
Smith, in the later edition of his _Moral Sentiments_, had omitted at
least one very marked expression of theological opinion (on the
Atonement) that had appeared in the first edition,[74] and perhaps his
disciple did well to follow suit. At the same time, omission is not
recantation, and we get light on an author’s mind and character by
discovering any views in which he once professed to believe. A writer
who reached absolute truth at a very early stage of study, has
patronized Adam Smith[75] by editing his chief work, and honoured the
other economists by tabulating their conclusions in an historical
introduction. He extends this favour to Malthus. The reasonings of
Malthus he finds, though valuable, are not free from error; he has “all
but entirely overlooked” the beneficial effects of the principle of
population as a stimulus to invention and progress.[76] This charge is
refuted by the essay even in its later form; but, placed alongside of
the cosmology of the first edition, it seems merely grotesque. Malthus
is accused of ignoring the very phenomena which Malthus glorifies as the
“final cause” of the principle of population. He thought he had
explained not only one of the chief causes of poverty, but one of the
chief effects; if Adam Smith had shown the power of labour as a cause of
wealth, Malthus thought he had shown the power of poverty as a cause of
labour. No doubt the mistake was a common one; and (to say nothing of
the encyclopædias and biographical dictionaries) there are few
economical text-books which do justice to Malthus in this matter.[77]
But one who speaks with authority should not be content with a borrowed
knowledge. The same authority tells us that “the work of Mr. Malthus is
valuable rather for having awakened public attention to the subject than
for its giving anything like a complete view of the department of the
science of which it treats.”[78] Malthus for his part lays no claim to
infallibility; like most pioneers, he is sure of little beyond his
leading principles, and he is never ashamed to change his views.[79]
But, if his _Essay on Population_, gradually amended and expanded as it
was, to keep pace with the searching criticisms of thirty years, has not
reached the heart of the matter, surely there is no profit in
discussion.
The fact is, that though the anonymous small 8vo of 1798 was a mere
draught of the completed work of later years, its main fault was not
incompleteness, but wrongness of emphasis. When a man is writing a
controversial pamphlet, he does not try to bring all truths into the
front equally; he sets the neglected ones in the foreground, and allows
the familiar to fall behind, not as denied or ignored, but simply as not
emphasized. It is always possible, in such cases, that the neglected
truths, though unworthy of the old neglect, did not deserve the new
pre-eminence, and must not be allowed to retain it. Science, seeking
answers to its own questions, and not to questions of the eighteenth
century, has no toleration for the false emphasis of passing
controversy. It puts the real beginning first, the middle next, and the
end last, not the end in the middle, or the last first. Accordingly it
takes up the first essay of Malthus on population, and requires the
author to amend it. He must be less critical and more creative, if he is
to give a satisfactory answer to the general problem which he has chosen
to take in hand. The times and the subject, both, demand a change of
attitude,——the times, because political theories have now become less
important than social difficulties, and the subject, because he has
hitherto, while clearly explaining the difficulties, done little more
than hint at the expedients for overcoming them. True, no critic or
iconoclast can ever fully vanquish an opponent except by a truth of his
own which goes beyond the opponent’s falsity; and it is to this he owes
the enthusiasm of his followers. But he does not always expound the
truth so fully as the error; and so, beyond the point of negation, his
friends often follow him rather by faith than by sight. This, then, was
what Malthus had yet to do; to state what were the trustworthy as well
as the delusive methods of raising modern society, and what were the
right as well as the wrong ways of relieving the poor.
The success of the essay, so far, had been very remarkable. It had
provoked replies by the dozen, and an unwilling witness tells us it had
converted friends of progress by the hundred.[80] We find Godwin writing
to the author in August 1798,[81] and we may conclude that the veil of
anonymousness was not very thick, though Malthus used it again in 1800
in the tract on High Prices. In a debate in the House of Commons on the
11th February, 1800, Pitt took occasion to say that, though he still
believed his new Poor Bill a good one, he had dropped it in deference to
the objections of “those whose opinions he was bound to respect.”[82] He
meant Bentham and Malthus. We cannot tell which had the greater share of
the credit, but we know that Malthus regarded Pitt and Paley as his most
brilliant converts.[83] Pitt’s declaration that he still believed his
bill to be a good one could only mean that he still wished to believe it
so. It must have been peculiarly galling to a statesman who affected the
political economist to find that not only the solemn criticisms of
Malthus, but the jocose “Observations” of Bentham,[84] which threshed
the chaff out of the bill clause by clause, had turned his favourite
science against himself.
CHAPTER II.
SECOND THOUGHTS, 1803.
Exaggerations of the First Essay—Its two Postulates not
co-ordinate—Distinctive feature of the Second Essay—Its moderate
Optimism—Rough Classification of Checks—Moral Restraint and Mixed
Motives—Freedom as understood by Godwin and by Malthus—The two men
contrasted.
While Malthus was making such converts as Pitt, Paley, and Parr, and
when even Godwin acknowledged the “writer of the essay” to have made a
“valuable addition to political economy,”[85] the essay was not beyond
criticism. There were some familiar facts of which the writer had taken
too little account, and they were impressed on him by his critics from
all sides. To use the language of philosophy, he had not been
sufficiently concrete; he had gone far to commit Godwin’s fault, and
consider one feature of human nature apart by itself, instead of seeing
it in its place with the rest. The position and prospects of civilized
society in our own day depend on a combination of political,
intellectual, physical, and moral causes, of which the growth or
decrease of population may be only an effect. If we are part man, part
lion, and part hog, it is not fair to assume the predominance of the hog
any more than the predominance of the man. In a herd of animals, as
distinguished from a society of men, the units are simply the fittest
who have survived in the struggle for existence. The principle of
population is in the foreground there; there is no check to it but
famine, disease, and death. We can therefore understand how the study of
the _Essay on Population_ led Charles Darwin to explain the origin of
species by a generalization which Malthus had known and named, though he
did not pursue it beyond man.[86] The “general struggle” among animals
“for room and food” means among civilized men something very like free
trade, the old orthodox economical panacea for economic evils; and the
essayist agrees with Adam Smith in a general resistance to legislative
interference. Bad as are the effects of the irremovable causes of
poverty, interference makes them still worse. But at least, when we come
to man, the struggle is not so cruel. “Plague take the hindmost” is not
the only or the supreme rule. If the fear of starvation, the most
earthly and least intellectual of all motives, is needed to force us to
work at first, it need not therefore be necessary ever afterwards. The
baser considerations are by their definition the lowest layers of our
pile; we rise by means of them, but we tread them down, and the higher
the pile the less their importance. Within civilized countries, in
proportion to their civilization, the struggle in the lowest stages is
abolished; the weakest are often saved, and the lowest raised, in spite
of unfitness.[87] View man not as an animal, but as a citizen; view the
principle of population as checked not only by vice, misery, and the
fear of them, but by all the mixed motives of human society, and we
recognize that Malthus, with the best intentions, had treated the matter
too abstractly. Godwin had over-rated the power of reason, Malthus the
power of passion. “It is probable,” he wrote at a later time, “that,
having found the bow bent too much one way, I was induced to bend it too
much the other, in order to make it straight.”[88] The abstract
principle of increase getting more, and concrete humanity less, than
justice, the next step was, naturally, to deny the possibility of
permanent improvement in this world, and to regard every partial
improvement as a labour of Sisyphus.[89]
It could hardly be otherwise, if we began, like Malthus, by setting down
the desire of food and the desire of marriage as two co-ordinate
principles.[90] They are not really co-ordinate. It is true not merely
of most men, but of all men without a single exception, that they cannot
live without food. Even if a man survive an abstinence from solid food
for forty days, he cannot deny himself water, and he is for all useful
purposes dead to the world during his fast. The second postulate of the
first essay is, on the contrary, true only of most men, and even then
under qualifications. It is not true of any till manhood, and it is not
true of all men equally. Some are beyond its scope by an accident of
birth, and a still larger number, whether priests or laymen, put
themselves beyond its scope for moral reasons.[91] Coleridge puts the
case pertinently enough: “The whole case is this: Are they both alike
passions of physical necessity, and the one equally with the other
independent of the reason and the will? Shame upon our race that there
lives the individual who dares even ask the question.”[92]
Malthus saw that he had been hasty, and he did not republish the essay
till he had given it five years of revision, and added to it the results
of foreign travel and wider reading. In 1799 he went abroad with some
college friends, Otter, Clarke the antiquarian and naturalist, and
Clarke’s pupil Cripps,[93] and visited Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland,
and part of Russia, these being the only countries at that time open to
English travellers. After his return he published his tract on the _High
Price of Provisions_ (1800),[94] and at the conclusion of it he promised
a new edition of the _Essay on Population_. Some people, he says, have
thought the essay “a specious argument inapplicable to the present state
of society,” because it contradicts preconceived opinions; but two years
of reflection have strengthened his conviction that he has discovered
“the real cause of the continued depression and poverty of the lower
classes;” and he will not recant his essay: “I have deferred giving
another edition of it in the hope of being able to make it more worthy
of the public attention, by applying the principle directly and
exclusively to the existing state of society, and endeavouring to
illustrate the power and universality of its operation from the best
authenticated accounts that we have of the state of other countries.”
But he was not satisfied with the accounts of other people. When the
Peace of Amiens let loose thousands of pleasure-seekers on the
Continent, Malthus went to France and Switzerland on no errand of mere
pleasure; and he was luckily at home again, and passing his proof-sheets
through the press, before Napoleon’s unpleasant interference with
English travellers.
It was a happy coincidence that in the dark fighting days of 1798,
Malthus should write only of vice and misery, while in the short gleam
of peace in 1802 and 1803, when the tramp of armed men had ceased for
the moment, he should recollect himself, and write of a less ghastly
restraint on population, a restraint which might perhaps, like the truce
of Amiens, hold out some faint hope for the future. For the sake of the
world let us hope that the parallel goes no further. The wonder is not
that he forgot there was such a thing as civilization, but that amidst
wars and rumours of wars he should ever have remembered it.
In the preface to the new edition (June 1803), he says he has “so far
differed in principle” from the old edition “as to suppose the action of
another check to population which does not come under the head either of
vice or misery,” and he has “tried to soften some of the harshest
conclusions of the first essay.” There was really more change than this.
The first essay contained much of the imperfection of the sudden
magazine-article; and if the writer had lived half a century later he
would probably, instead of writing a small book, have contributed a long
article to a monthly or quarterly magazine, giving a review of Godwin’s
political writings, with incidental remarks on the Poor Bill of Mr.
Pitt. This was evidently the light in which he himself regarded his
first work, or he would not have handled it so freely in republication.
The new edition had new facts, new arrangement, and new emphasis. He had
not written a book once for all, leaving the world to fight over it
after his death. He took the public into partnership with him, and made
every discussion a means of improving his book. This gives the _Essay on
Population_ a unique character among economical writings. It leads the
author to interpret his thoughts to us from many various points of view,
leaving us, unhappily, often in doubt whether an alteration of language
is or is not an alteration of thought. Malthus adds to the difficulty by
omitting and inserting instead of rewriting in full. His chapters cease
to be old without becoming new.
The very face of the book revealed a change. In 1798 it was _An Essay on
the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of
Society_; in 1803, _An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a View
of its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness_. The dreams of the
future are now in the background, and the facts of the present in the
foreground. In 1798 Malthus had given Godwin the lie:—
“Colouring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in picture,
He to a matter of fact still softening, paring, abating,
He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sublime and ideal,
He to the merest it—was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing.”
He must do more now, or his political economy is a dismal science. He
must show how we can cling to the matter of fact without losing our
ideal. It is not enough to refer us to the other world. How far may we
have hope in this world? Let Malthus answer.
The second essay is his answer; and if second thoughts are the best,
then we may rejoice over the second essay, for it lifts the cloud from
the first. It tells us that on the whole the power of civilization is
greater than the power of population; the pressure of the people on the
food is therefore less in modern than it was in ancient times or the
middle ages; there are now less disorder, more knowledge, and more
temperance.[95] The merely physical checks are falling into a
subordinate position. There are two kinds of checks on population. A
check is (_a_) positive, when it cuts down an existing population, (_b_)
preventive, when it keeps a new population from growing up. Among
animals the check is only misery, among savage men vice as well as
misery, and, in civilized society, moral restraint as well as, till now,
both vice and misery. Even in civilized society there are strata which
moral restraint hardly reaches, for there are strata which are not
civilized. On the whole, however, it is true that among animals there is
no sign of any other check than the positive, while among men the
positive is gradually subordinated to the preventive. Among men misery
may act both positively and preventively. In the form of war or disease
it may slay its tens of thousands, and cut down an existing population.
By the fear of its own coming it may prevent many a marriage, and keep a
new population from growing up. Vice may also act in both ways:
positively as in child-murder, preventively as in the scheme of
Condorcet. But in civilized society the forces of both order and
progress are arrayed against their two common enemies; and, if we
recognized no third check, surely the argument that was used against
Godwin’s society holds against all society; its very purification will
ruin it, by forbidding vice and misery to check the growth of
population, and by thereby permitting the people to increase to excess.
There is, however, a third check, which Malthus knows under the title of
moral restraint.
Moral restraint is a distinct form of preventive check. It is not to be
confused with an impure celibacy, which falls under the head of vice;
and yet the adjective “moral” does not imply that the motives are the
highest possible.[96] The adjective is applied not so much to the motive
of the action as to the action itself, from whatever motives proceeding;
and in the mouth of a Utilitarian this language is not unphilosophical.
Moral restraint, in the pages of Malthus, means simply continence; it is
an abstinence from marriage followed by no irregularities.[97] He speaks
of the “moral stimulus” of the bounty on corn, meaning the expectations
it produced in the minds of men, as distinguished from the variations it
produced in the prices of grain;[98] and the word “moral” is often, like
“morale,” used in military matters to denote mental disposition, as
distinguished from material resources. The vagueness of the word is
perhaps not accidental, for nothing is vaguer than the mixed motives
which it denotes; but continence, which is unambiguous, would seem the
better word.
With the enunciation of the third check the theory of Malthus entered
definitively on a new phase; and in sketching the outlines of his work
we shall no longer need to treat it as paradoxical and overstrained, but
as a sober argument from the ground of accepted facts. The author’s
analysis of human nature has been brought into harmony with common
sense. He confesses that it had hitherto been too abstract, and had
separated the inseparable.
The mind of man cannot be sawed into quantities; and, even if it is
possible to distinguish the mixed motives that guide human action, the
fact remains that they only operate when together. It is probable that
no good man’s motives were ever absolutely noble, and no bad man’s ever
absolutely bestial. Even the good man is strongest when he can make his
very circumstances war against his power to do evil. Mixed from the
first of time, human motives will, in this world, remain mixed unto the
last, whether in saint, sage, or savage. But civilization, involving, as
it does, a progressive change in the dominant ideas of society, will
alter the character of the mixture and the proportion of the elements.
The laws of Malthus will be obeyed, though the name of Malthus be not
mentioned, and the checks, physical or moral, be never brought to mind.
Society, moving all together, if it move at all, cannot cure its evils
by one single heroic remedy; but as little can it be content with
self-denying ordinances, prohibitions, or refutations. It needs a
positive truth, and an ideal, that is to say, a religion, to give new
life to the bodily members by giving new hope to the heart. “The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the end of wisdom is the love
of the Lord and the admiration of moral good.”[99] It follows that an
economist, if he knows nothing but his economy, does not know even that.
No economists are more reproached with their want of idealism than
Malthus and his brethren. As the French Revolutionists were said to
believe that the death of their old rulers would of itself bring
happiness and good government, so these writers were said to teach that
the mere removal of hindrances would lead to the best possible
production and distribution of the good things of this life. The ideal
state then, as far as wealth was concerned, would be anarchy _plus_ the
police constable. Godwin would have dispensed with the constable. “Give
a state liberty enough,” he says, “and vice cannot exist in it.”[100]
But neither he nor the economists desired a merely negative change or
removal of hindrances. Their political reformation was to be, like the
Protestant, only successful as it went beyond image-breaking. Malthus,
it will be seen,[101] is far from being an unqualified advocate of
_laissez faire_; and, in all cases where he did desire it, he wished to
make the state small only to make public opinion great. Godwin was not
far away from him here. If he was wrong in attributing too much evil to
institutions, and too little to human nature, he has furnished his own
correction. The _Political Justice_ disclaimed all sympathy with
violence; it taught that a political reform was worthless unless
effected peacefully by reason; and Malthus[102] has the same cure for
social evils—argument and instruction. The difference between them is,
that Malthus takes more into account the unreasonableness as well as the
reasonableness of men. In essentials they are agreed. The thorough
enlightenment of the people, which includes their moral purification as
well as their intellectual instruction, is to complete the work of
mending all, in which men are to be fellow-workers with God—so runs the
teaching of Malthus and all the greatest economists of the last hundred
years. Whether the evils of competition are many or few, serious or
trifling, depends largely on the character of the competitors; and the
more free we make the competition, the more thoroughly we must educate
the competitors. Adam Smith was well aware of this; he recommended
school-boards a hundred years before the Acts of 1870 and 1872;[103] and
Malthus was not behind him.[104] They are aware that the more completely
we exclude the interference of Government, the more actively we must
employ every other moral and social agency. Whether Malthus was prepared
to exclude the interference of Government entirely, even under this
condition, we shall see by-and-by.
The characters of the two men, Malthus and Godwin, are a striking
contrast. Malthus was the student, of quiet settled life, sharing his
little wealth with his friends in unobtrusive hospitality, and
constantly using his pen for the good, as he believed, of the English
poor, that in these wretched times they might have domestic happiness
like his own. There never was a more singular delusion than the common
belief in the hard-heartedness of Malthus. Besides the unanimous voice
of private friends, he has left testimony enough in his own books to
absolve him. While Adam Smith and others owe their errors to
intellectual fallibility, Malthus owes many of his to his tender heart.
His motive for studying political economy was no doubt a mixed motive;
it was partly the interest of an intelligent man in abstract questions;
but it was chiefly the desire to advance the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. In his eyes the elevation of human life was much more
important than the solution of a scientific problem. Even when in 1820
he wrote a book on the “_Principles of Political Economy_,” he took care
to add on the title-page, “_considered with a view to their practical
application_,” refusing to consider in abstractness what always exists
in the concrete. His keen sympathy for the sufferings of displaced
workmen led him to fight a losing battle with Say and Ricardo in favour
of something like an embargo on inventions, and in protest against a
fancied over-production.[105] His private life showed the power of
gentleness; Miss Martineau could hear his mild, sonorous vowels without
her eartrumpet, and his few sentences were as welcome at her
dinner-table as the endless babble of cleverer tongues. He felt the pain
of a thousand slanders “only just at first,” and never let them trouble
his dreams after the first fortnight, saying, with a higher than stoical
calmness, that they passed by him like the idle wind which he respected
not.[106] He outlived obloquy, and saw the fruit of his labours in a
wiser legislation and improved public feeling.
With Godwin all was otherwise. There were fightings within and fears
without. With an immovable devotion to ideas he combined a fickleness of
affection towards human beings. He heeded emotion too little in his
books and too much in his own life, yielding to the fancy of the moment,
quarrelling with his best friends twice a week, and quickly knitting up
the broken ties again. He loved his wife well, but hardly allowed her to
share the same house with him, lest they should weary of one
another.[107] He was the sworn enemy of superstition, and himself the
arch-dreamer of dreams.
Yet when we contrast the haphazard literary life of the one, ending his
days ingloriously[108] in a Government sinecure, unsuccessful and almost
forgotten, with the academical ease of the other, centred in the sphere
of common duties, and passing from the world with a fair consciousness
of success, we feel a sympathy for Godwin that is of a better sort than
the mere liking for a loser. It is a sympathy not sad enough for pity.
It is not wholly sad to find Godwin in his old age a lonely man, his
friends dropping off one by one into the darkness and leaving him
solitary in a world that does not know him. The world that had begun to
realize the ideas of Malthus had begun to realize the ideas of Godwin
also. It was a world far more in harmony with political justice than
that into which Godwin had sent his book forty years before. It was good
that Malthus had lived to see the new Poor Law, but still better that
both had lived to see the Reform of ’32.
They passed away within two years of each other, Malthus in the winter
of 1834, Godwin in the spring of 1836, the year of the first league of
the people against the Corn Laws. In their death they were still
divided, but, “si quis piorum manibus locus,” they are divided no
longer, and they think no hard thoughts of each other any more.
CHAPTER III.
THESES.
Position stated in the Essay—Tendency of Life to increase beyond
Food—Problem not the same for Humanity as for the lower forms of
Life—Man’s Dilemma—Tendency to increase not predicable of Food in
same sense as of Life—The Geometrical and Arithmetical
Ratios—Position stated in _Encyclopædia Britannica_—Milne’s
Confirmation of the Geometrical Ratio—Arithmetical Ratio proved
differently—Private Property a condition of great Production—Fallacy
of confusing possible with actual Production—Laws of Man as well as
of Nature responsible for necessity of Checks—Position stated in
“Summary View”—The Checks on Population classified (_a_) objectively
and (_b_) subjectively—Relation to previous Classification—Cycle in
the movement of Population.
The second essay applies the theory of the first to new facts and with a
new purpose. The author, having gained his case against Godwin, ceases
to be the critic and becomes the social reformer. Despairing to master
all the forms of evil, he confines his study to one of them in
particular, the tendency of living beings to increase beyond their means
of nourishment. This phenomenon is important both from its cause and
from its effects. Its cause is not the action of Governments, but the
constitution of man; and its effects are not of to-day or yesterday, but
constant and perpetual;[109] it frequently hinders the moral goodness
and general happiness of a nation as well as the equal distribution of
its wealth.
This is the general position, which the several chapters of the essay
are to expound in detail. It is not by itself quite simple. “The
constant tendency in all animated life [_sic_][110] to increase beyond
the nourishment prepared for it” is in one sense common to humanity with
plants and animals, but in another sense is not common to any two of the
three. It is certainly true of all of them that the seeds of their life,
whencesoever at first derived, are now infinitely numerous on our
planet, while the means of rearing them are strictly limited. In the
case of plants and animals the strong instinct of reproduction is
“interrupted by no reasoning or doubts about providing for
offspring,”[111] and they crowd fresh lives into the world only to have
them at once shorn away by starvation. With the exception of certain
plants which ape their superiors, like the drosera, and certain men who
ape their inferiors, like the cannibals, the lines of difference between
the three classes of living things are tolerably distinct. The first
class, in the struggle for room and food, can only forestall each other
and leave each other to die; the second deliberately prey on the first
and on each other; while the third prey on both the rest. But with man
this “tendency to increase beyond the food” differs from the same
instinct in the other two cases by more than the fact that man has
larger resources and is longer in reaching his limit. The instinct is
equally strong in him, but he does not unquestioningly follow it.
“Reason interrupts his career,” and asks him whether he may not be
bringing into the world beings for whom he cannot provide the means of
support.[112] If he brushes reason aside, then he shares the fate of
plants and animals; he tends to multiply his numbers beyond the room and
food accessible to them, and the result is that his numbers are cut down
to these limits by suffering and starvation. There is nothing in this
either more or less contrary to the notion of a benevolent Providence
than in the general power given to man of acting rationally or
irrationally according to his own choice in any other instance. On the
other hand, if he listens to reason, he can no doubt defeat the
tendency, but too often he does it at the expense of moral purity. The
dilemma makes the desire for marriage almost an “origin of evil.” If man
obeys his instincts he falls into misery, and, if he resists them, into
vice. Though the dilemma is not perfect, its plausibility demands that
we should test it by details, and to this test Malthus may be said to
have given his whole life. His other economical works are subordinate to
the essay, and may be said to grow out of it. Though we cannot omit them
if we would fully understand and illustrate the central work, still the
latter must come first; and its matured form requires more than the
brief summary which has been given in the two preceding chapters.
The body of the book consists of historical details, and particular
examples showing the checks to population in uncivilized and in
civilized places, in present and in past times. The writer means to
bring his conclusions home to his readers by the “longer way” of
induction. As this, however, was not the way in which he himself reached
them, or even stated them at first, he will ask us first of all to look
at the terms of the dilemma in the light of his two original
postulates[113]—(_a_) food is necessary, (_b_) the desire of marriage is
permanent. What is the quickest possible increase of numbers in
obedience to the second, and of food in obedience to the first? In the
most crucial of the known instances, the actual rapidity of the increase
of population seems to be in direct proportion to the easy possession of
food; and we can infer that the ideally rapid increase would take place
where all obstacles (whether material or moral) to the getting of food
and rearing of a family were removed, so that nature never needed to
remonstrate with instinct. “In no state that we have yet known has the
power of population been left to exert itself with perfect
freedom.”[114] We can guess what it would be from the animal and
vegetable world, where reason does not as a matter of fact interfere
with instinct in any circumstances, so far as we can judge. Benjamin
Franklin, in a passage quoted by Malthus in this connection,[115]
supposes that if the earth were bared of other plants it might be
replenished in a few years with fennel alone. Even as things are now,
fennel would fill the whole earth if the other plants would only allow
it; and the same is true of each of the others. Townsend’s goats and
greyhounds on Juan Fernandez are a better instance, because not
hypothetical.[116] Juan Fernando, the first discoverer, had covered the
island with goats from one pair.[117] The Spaniards resolved to clear it
of goats, in order to make it useless to the English for provisioning.
They put on shore a couple of greyhounds, whose offspring soon caused
the goats to disappear. But without some few goats to eat all the dogs
must have died; and the few were saved to them by their inaccessible
refuges in the rocks, from which they descended at risk of their lives.
In this way only the strongest and fleetest dogs and the hardiest and
fleetest goats survived; and a balance was kept up between goat food and
hound population. Townsend thereupon remarks that human populations are
kept down by want of food precisely in the same way.
There is nothing to prevent the increase of human numbers if we suppose
reason to have no need (as in the lower creatures it has no opportunity)
to interfere. To understand the situation, however, it is best not to
assume the truth of this parallelism, but to take the actually recorded
instances of human increase under the nearest known approaches to
absolute plenty combined with moral goodness, that is to say, with a
state of society in which vice is at a minimum. “In the northern states
of America, where the means of subsistence have been more ample, the
manners of the people more pure, and the checks to early marriages fewer
than in any of the modern states of Europe, the population was found to
double itself for some successive periods every twenty-five years.”[118]
From this near approach to an unchecked increase, we infer that the
unchecked would mean a doubling in less than twenty-five years (say
twenty, or perhaps fifteen), and that all population, in proportion as
it is unchecked, tends towards that rate of increase.
If it is difficult to find an unchecked increase of population, it is
still harder to find an unchecked increase of food; for what is meant is
not that a people should find their food in one fertile country with as
much ease as in another, but that, for a new people, new supplies should
always be found with the same ease as the old ones. Now it is not
necessary to suppose that the most fertile land is always used
first;[119] very often it might only be used late after the rest,
through political insecurity, imperfect agriculture, incomplete
explorations, or the want of capital; but, when it is once occupied, the
question is, will it supply new food to new-comers without any limit at
all? This would be an ideally fertile land corresponding to the ideally
expanding population. And on some such inexhaustible increase of food an
unchecked increase of population would depend, unless men became able to
live without food altogether.
Malthus afterwards pointed out, in the course of controversy,[120] that
there is strictly speaking no question here of the comparison of two
tendencies, for we cannot speak of a tendency to increase food in the
same sense as a tendency to increase population. Population is increased
by itself; food is increased not by food itself, but by an agency
external to it, the human beings that want it; and, while the former
increase is due to an instinct, the latter is (in a sense) acquired.
Eating is instinctive, but not the getting of the food. We have,
therefore, to compare an increase due to an instinctive desire with an
increase due to labour, and “a slight comparison will show the immensity
of the first power over the second.” Malthus allows that it is difficult
to determine this relation with exactness;[121] but, with the natural
liking of a Cambridge man for a mathematical simile,[122] he says that
the one is to the other as an arithmetical to a geometrical ratio,—that
is to say, in any given time (say a century) the one will have increased
by multiplication, the other only by addition. If we represent both the
population and the food at the beginning of that century by ten, then
the population will double itself in twenty-five years; the ten will
become twenty in the first twenty-five years, forty in the second,
eighty in the third, one hundred and sixty in the last, while the food
will only become twenty in the first, thirty in the second, forty in the
third, fifty in the fourth. If this is true, it shows the tendency of
population to outrun subsistence. But of course it needs to be shown
from experience that, while the strength of the desire remains the same
in the later stages of the growth of population as in the earlier, the
laboriousness of the labour is greater in the later stages of the
increase of food than in the earlier. It is the plain truth, says
Malthus, that nature is niggardly in her gifts to man, and by no means
keeps pace with his desires. If men would satisfy their desire of food
at the old rate of speed, they must exert their mind or their body much
more than at first.[123] An obvious objection presents itself. Since
man’s food consists after all of the lower forms of life, animal and
vegetable, and since these admittedly tend to increase, unchecked by
themselves, in a geometrical ratio, it might be thought that the
increase of human population and the increase of its food could proceed
together, with equal ease. But the answer is that this unchecked
geometrical increase of the first could go on only so long as there was
room for it. It could only be true, for example, of wheat in the
corn-field at the time when the seed of it was sown, and the field was
all before it. The equality of the two ratios would only be true of the
first crop.[124] At first there might be five or sixfold the seed; but
in after years, though the geometrical increase from the seed would tend
to be the same, there could be no geometrical increase of the total crop
by unassisted nature. The earth has no tendency to increase its surface.
There is a tendency of animals and vegetables to increase geometrically,
in their quality of living things, but not in their quality of being
food for man. The same amount of produce might no doubt be gained on a
fresh field, from the seed yielded by the first, and at the same
geometrical rate; but this assumes that there is a fresh field, and we
should not then be at the proper stage to contrast the two ratios. The
contrast begins to show itself as soon as the given quantity of land has
grown its crop, and its animal and human population have used all its
food. The question is then how any increase of the said population, if
they are confined to their own supplies, is at all to be made possible;
the answer is, only by greater ingenuity and greater labour in the
getting of food; and, however possible this may be, it can hardly be so
easy as the increase of living beings by their own act.
The degree of disparity between the two will of course depend on the
degree of rapidity with which an unchecked population is supposed to
double itself. Sir William Petty,[125] with few trustworthy statistics,
had supposed ten years; Euler, with somewhat better, twelve and
four-fifths; but Malthus prefers to go by the safe figures of the
American colonies, which he always regarded as a crucial proof that the
period was not more than twenty-five. He admits the risk of his own
mathematical simile when he grants that it is more easy to determine the
rate of the natural increase of population than the rate of the increase
of food which is in a much less degree natural (or spontaneous); and he
argues from what had been done in England in his own time that the
increase would not even be in an arithmetical ratio, though agricultural
improvement (thanks to Arthur Young and the Board of Agriculture, and
the long reign of high prices) was raising the average produce very
sensibly. If the Napoleonic times were the times of a forced population
in England, they were also the times of a forced agricultural
production. Yet we ourselves, long after this stimulus, and after much
high farming unknown to our fathers, have reached only an average
produce of twenty-eight bushels per acre of arable land as compared with
twenty-three in 1770,[126] while the population has risen from about six
millions to thirty-five. It may be said that applies only to wheat. But
until lately wheat-growing was the chief object of all our scientific
agriculture; and this is the result of a century’s improvements. It is
far from an arithmetical increase; and, even had the produce been
multiplied sevenfold, along with the population, this would not
overthrow the contention of Malthus, for he is not speaking of any and
every increase of food, but of such an increase made by the same methods
and by the same kind of labour as raised the old supplies.[127] Once it
is acknowledged that to raise new food requires greater labour and new
inventions, while to bring new men into the world requires nothing more
than in all times past, the disparity of the two is already admitted.
The fact that the two processes are both dependent on the action of man,
and both practically illimitable, does not prevent them from being
essentially unlike.[128] Objectors often suppose that the tendency of
population to outrun subsistence is contradicted by the existence of
unpeopled or thinly-peopled countries, just as if the tendency of bodies
to attract each other were contradicted by the incompressibility of
matter. The important point to notice is that the one power is greater
than the other. The one is to the other as the hare is to the tortoise
in the fable. To make the slow tortoise win the race, we must send the
hare to sleep.[129]
Carey (_Social Science_, vol. i. ch. iii. § 5) represents the view of
Malthus by the following propositions:—1. “Matter tends to take upon
itself higher forms,” passing from inorganic to vegetable and animal
life, and from these to man. 2. Matter tends to take on itself the
vegetable and animal forms in an arithmetic ratio only. 3. It tends to
take its highest form, man, in a geometrical ratio, so that the highest
outstrips the lowest. In short he believes that Malthus holds the
geometrical increase to be true of man alone, and only the arithmetical
to be true of animals and vegetables. But Malthus really attributed the
tendency to geometrical increase to all life whatsoever, and
arithmetical to all food, as such.
In Macvey Napier’s Supplement to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (1824)
Malthus has left his mature statement of his cardinal principles, and,
at the risk of repetition, that account may be added here. The main
difference from the essay is in arrangement of the leading ideas; and we
may learn at least what he conceived to be their relative importance
towards the end of his life.
He begins by observing (1) that _all living things_, of whatever kind,
when furnished with their proper nourishment tend to increase in a
geometrical ratio, whether (as wheat) by multiplying sixfold in one
year, or (as sheep) by doubling their numbers in two years, tending to
fill the earth, the one in fourteen, the other in seventy-six years. But
(2) as a matter of fact they do not so increase, and the reason is
either man’s want of will or man’s want of power to provide them their
proper soil or pasture. The actual rate of increase is extremely slow,
while the power of increase is prodigious. (3) Physically man is as the
rest; and if we ask what is the factor of his geometrical increase, we
can only tell it, as in the case of wheat and sheep, by experience. (4)
In the case of other living beings, where there are most room and food
there is greatest increase. These conditions are best fulfilled for man
in the United States, where the distribution of wealth is better than in
other equally fertile places, and the greater number share the
advantages. The American census shows for the three decades between 1790
and 1820 a rate of increase that would double the numbers in 22⅓, 22½,
and 23⁷⁄₁₂ years respectively, after we deduct as immigrants ten
thousand on an average every year.
A striking indirect confirmation of this view of the American increase
was supplied to Malthus[130] by Joshua Milne, the author of the
_Treatise on Annuities_. His calculations were founded on the new
Swedish table of mortality. This table had been drawn up from the
registers of the first five years of the century, years of unusual
healthiness; and might therefore be presumed to represent the normal
condition of a new and healthy country like the United States better
than the old table drawn up from the years before sanitary reform and
vaccination. Milne took the Swedish table as his guide, and one million
of people as his unit of measurement; he calculated in what proportions
the component individuals of the million must belong to childhood,
youth, mature life, and old age, in order that by the principles of the
Swedish table the million might double itself by natural increase in
twenty-five years; and he arrived at a distribution so like that given
by the American census, that he was bound to conclude the American rate
of increase to be at the least very like one that doubles a population
in twenty-five years. But the Swedish law of mortality could not be
exactly true of the United States, which are healthier as a whole than
Sweden even in Sweden’s best years.[131] The United States themselves
are not the very healthiest and wealthiest and happiest country
conceivable; and their increase is therefore not the fastest
conceivable. If the observed fact of increase is the best proof of the
capacity for increase, the observed presence of checks leads to an _a
fortiori_ reasoning, whereby we infer the capacity for a greater
increase than any actually observed. To sum up the whole of this first
branch of the argument,—“taking into consideration the actual rate of
increase which appears from the best documents to have taken place over
a very large extent of country in the United States of America, very
variously circumstanced as to healthiness and rapidity of
progress,—considering further the rate of increase which has taken place
in New Spain and also in many countries of Europe, where the means of
supporting a family, and other circumstances favourable to increase,
bear no comparison with those of the United States,—and adverting
particularly to the actual increase of population which has taken place
in this country during the last twenty years[132] under the formidable
obstacles which must press themselves upon the attention of the most
careless observer, it must appear that the assumption of a rate of
increase such as would double the population in twenty-five years, as
representing the natural progress of population when not checked by the
difficulty of procuring the means of subsistence or other peculiar
causes of premature mortality, must be decidedly within the truth. It
may be safely asserted, therefore, that population when unchecked
increases in a geometrical ratio of such a nature as to double itself
every twenty-five years.”[133]
The problem is only half stated; it is still to be shown what is the
rate of the increase of Food. The case does not admit the same kind of
proof. We can suppose an unchecked increase of men going on without any
change in human nature; we have only to suppose for the future the same
encouragement to marriage and the same habits of life, together with the
same law of mortality. But with the increase of food the causes do not
remain the same. If good land could be got in abundance, the increase of
food from it would be in a geometrical ratio far greater than that of
the men; that of wheat, for example, would be sixfold, as we have seen.
But good lands are comparatively few; they will in the nature of things
soon be occupied; and then the increase of the food will be a laborious
process at a rate rather resembling a decreasing than an increasing
geometrical ratio. “The yearly increment of food, at least, would have a
constant tendency to diminish;” and the amount of the increase in each
successive ten years would probably be less and less. In practice, the
inequalities of distribution may check the increase of food with
precisely the same efficacy as an actual arrival at the physical limits
to the getting of the food. “A man who is locked up in a room may fairly
be said to be confined by the walls of it, though he may never touch
them.”[134] But the main point is, that, inequalities or no
inequalities, there is a tendency to diminished productiveness. Under
either condition the quantity yielded this year will not be doubled or
trebled for an indefinite period with the same ease as it was yielded
this year. In a tolerably well-peopled country such as England or
Germany the utmost might be an increase every twenty-five years equal to
the present produce. But the continuance of this would mean that in the
next two hundred years every farm should produce eight times what it
does now, or, in five hundred years, twenty times as much; and even this
is incredible, though it would be only an arithmetical progression. No
doubt almost all parts of the earth are now more thinly peopled than
their capacities might allow; but the difficulty is to use the
capacities. That this view of Malthus need not imply any ignorance or
any disregard of the resources of high farming may be judged from the
fact that our highest agricultural authority, who recognizes the power
of English farming to provide on emergency even for our entire annual
wants, admits at the same time that, “where full employment and the
means of subsistence are abundant, population increases in geometrical
progression, and therefore in a far more rapid proportion than the
increased productiveness of the soil, which after a certain point is
stationary.”[135] “It follows necessarily” (sums up Malthus) “that the
average rate of the actual increase of population over the greatest part
of the globe, obeying the same law as the increase of food, must be
totally of a different character from the rate at which it would
increase if unchecked.” On no single farm could the produce be so
increased as to keep pace with the geometrical increase of population;
and what is true of a single farm is true in this case of the whole
earth. Machinery and invention can do less in agriculture than in
manufacture, and they can never do so much as to make preventive checks
unnecessary.[136]
This is the argument of the _Encyclopædia_ so far as it relates to the
theses of the essay. Malthus follows it up by a remark on the
institution of property. The alternatives to his mind are always private
property as we now have it, and common property as desired by Godwin. He
upholds the first because, “according to all past experience and the
best observation which can be made on the motives which operate upon the
human mind,” the largest produce from the soil is got by that system,
and because (what is socially much more important), by making a man feel
his responsibility and his dependence on his own efforts, it tends to
cause prudence in marriage as well as industry in work. Common property
has not been successful, historically; and the widest extension of
popular education would not make men the fitter for it. There is indeed
a sense in which common property might tend to carry production farther
than private property; cultivation, not being for profit but for mere
living, would not, like the present, stop at the point where production
ceased to be a good investment. But this would mean[137] that the whole
energies of the society were directed to the mere getting of food;
neither the whole society nor any part of it would have leisure, for
intellectual labour or enjoyment. Whereas private property not only
secures the leisure, but, by stopping at the point of profitableness, it
keeps an unused reserve, on which society may fall back in case of need.
Malthus therefore would stand by private property, though he thinks that
private proprietors may damage the national wealth by game-preserving,
and injure the poorer classes by not spending enough on what they
make.[138]
The actual increase of population (he goes on) and the necessity of
checks to it depend on the difficulty of getting food, from whatever
cause, whether the exhaustion of the earth or the bad structure of
society; and the difficulty is not for the remote future but for the
present.
It is chiefly the contrast between the actual and the possible supplies
that makes men incredulous about the necessity of checks; and we may
grant that under an ideal government, a perfect people, and faultless
social system the produce would at first be so great that the necessity
for checks on population would be very much reduced; but, as the earth’s
productiveness does not expand with population, it would be a very short
time before the pressure of the checks would reassert itself—this time
from no fault of man, but from the mere nature of the soil.[139] The bad
government of our ancestors left much produce unused, and in consequence
we have for the present a large margin to draw on. But, “if merely since
the time of William the Conqueror all the nations of the earth had been
well governed, and if the distribution of property and the habits both
of the rich and the poor had been the most favourable to the demand for
produce and labour, though the amount of food and population would have
been prodigiously greater than at present, the means of diminishing the
checks to population would unquestionably be less.”
But, though the laws of nature are responsible for the necessity of
checks to population,[140] “a vast mass of responsibility remains
behind, on man and the institutions of society.” To them in the first
place is due the scantiness of the present population of the earth,
there being few parts of it that would not with better government and
better morals support twice, ten times, or even one hundred times as
many inhabitants as now. In the second place, though man cannot remove
the necessity of checks, or even make them press much more lightly in
any given place,[141] he is responsible for their precise character and
particular mode of operation. A good government and good institutions
can so direct them that they shall be least hurtful to the general
virtue and happiness, vice and misery disappearing before moral
restraint, though after all the influence of government and institutions
is indirect, and everything depends on the conduct of the individual
citizens.
The rest of the article contains little that is not in the _Essay on
Population_ (5th ed., 1817) and the treatise on _Political Economy_ (1st
ed., 1820). It gives the historical sketches of the former, some small
part of the economical discussions (_e. g._ on wages) of the latter, and
a short answer to current objections, together with some tables of
mortality and other figures, of more special interest to the
professional actuary than to the general reader. The article is an
authoritative summary of the author’s doctrines in their final form. It
was not his last work. From the fact that he undertook the paper in
Sept. 1821,[142] we may perhaps infer that he placed it in Macvey
Napier’s hands in the year 1822.[143] But it was his last attempt to
restate the subject of the essay in an independent form with anything
approaching to fulness of detail, and it shows he had made no change in
his position. The _Summary View of the Principle of Population_ (1830)
was avowedly an abridgment of the article in the _Encyclopædia_, and is
in fact that article with a few paragraphs omitted and a few pronouns
altered.
The clear statement of the two tendencies was, in his own eyes, the
least original part of his work. It had been often perceived distinctly
by other writers that population must always be kept down to the level
of the means of subsistence. “Yet few inquiries have been made into the
various modes by which this level is effected, and the principle has
never been sufficiently pursued to its consequences, nor those practical
inferences drawn from it which a strict examination of its effects on
society appears to suggest.”[144] What some people would count the more
interesting question remained to be considered——the question that
touches individuals and familiar circumstances more nearly, and is not
to be answered by a generality, from which we easily in thought except
our own individual selves. Since, at any given time, in any given place,
among any given people, there is (1) a tendency of population to outrun
subsistence, and there is (2) no such excess as a matter of fact, in
what way or ways is the tendency prevented from carrying itself out? As
was said above,[145] this is effected in two kinds of ways—(1) by the
way of a positive, (2) by the way of a preventive check, the former
cutting down an actual population to the level of its food, the second
forbidding a population to need to be cut down, and being, so far as it
is voluntary, peculiar to man among living creatures. Of the positive,
all those that come from the laws of nature may be called misery pure
and simple; and all those that men bring on themselves by wars,
excesses, and avoidable troubles of all kinds are of a mixed character,
their causes being vice and their consequences misery. Of the
preventive, that restraint from marriage which is not accompanied by any
immoral conduct on the part of the person restraining himself or herself
is called moral restraint. Any restraint which is prudential and
preventive, but immoral, comes under the head of vice, for every action
may be so called which has “a general tendency to produce misery,”
however innocuous its immediate effects.[146] We find, therefore, that
the positive and the preventive checks are all resolvable into vice,
misery, and moral restraint, or sin, pain, and self-control, a threefold
division that makes the second essay “differ in principle” from the
first.[147]
We have here a twofold alongside of a threefold division of the checks
to population. The one is made from an objective, the other from a
subjective point of view. The division of checks (1) into positive and
preventive has regard simply to the outward facts; a population is in
those two ways kept down to the food. The division of them (2) into
vice, misery, and moral restraint has regard to the human agent and his
inward condition, the state of his feelings and of his will. For
example, the positive check viewed subjectively, or from the human
being’s point of view, is the feeling of pain; the will is not directly
concerned with it. The preventive, from the same point of view, is of a
less simple character. First of all, moral restraint involves a
temporary misery or pain in the thwarting of a desire; “considered as a
restraint upon an inclination otherwise innocent and always natural, it
must be allowed to produce a certain degree of temporary unhappiness,
but evidently slight compared with the evils which result from any of
the other checks to population,”[148] and “merely[149] of the same
nature as many other sacrifices of temporary to permanent gratification
which it is the business of a moral agent continually to make.” The
reverse is true of vicious excesses and passions; in their immediate
gratification they are pleasant, but their permanent effects are misery.
From the point of view of the will the case is clear, for the state of
the will would be described by Malthus, if he ever used such terms, as
in the one case good, and in the other case evil, pure and simple. Of
course in treating the matter historically we may neglect the subjective
point of view, not because it is not necessary for proper knowledge of
the facts, but because it leads to a psychological inquiry, the results
of which are independent of dates.
Malthus goes on to say that, in all cases where there is the need for
checks at all, it is the sum total of all the preventive and positive
checks that forms the check to population in any given country at any
given time,[150] and his endeavour will be to show in what relative
proportions and in what degree they prevail in various countries known
to us. He assumes further that the preventive and the positive checks
will “vary inversely as each other.” In countries where the mortality is
great the influence of the preventive check will be small; and, where
the preventive check prevails much, the positive check, or in brief the
mortality, will be small.[151]
In society, as it was in the first years of the nineteenth century,
Malthus thinks he can trace out even by his own observation an
“oscillation,” or what it is the fashion to call a “cycle,” in the
movement of population. History does not show it well, simply because
“the histories of mankind which we possess are in general only of the
higher classes,”[152] and it is the labouring classes to which the
observation applies. Their painful experience of the ruder checks has
not prevented a “constant effort” in the labouring population to have
larger families than they can well support. The consequence is that
their numbers are increased; they must divide amongst eleven and a half
millions the food that was formerly divided among eleven millions; they
must have lower wages and dearer provisions. But this state of distress
will so check population that in process of time the numbers will be
almost at a standstill, while at the same time, since the demand for
food has been greater and labour has been cheaper, the application of
capital to agriculture will have increased the available food. The
result will be the same tolerable degree of comfort as at the beginning
of the cycle, and the same relapse from it as at the second stage. He
conceives the two stages to follow each other as naturally as sunshine
rain and rain sunshine. The existence of such a cycle may remain
concealed from the ordinary historian, if he looks merely to the money
wages of the labourer, for it frequently happens that the labourer gets
the same sums of money for his wages during a long series of years when
the real value of the sums has not remained the same,—the price of bread
in what we have called the second stage of the cycle being much dearer
than it was in the first, and than it will be in the third.[153] Though
Malthus expressly qualifies his statements by showing that civilization
tends to counteract these fluctuations, it certainly seemed to be his
belief in 1803 that on the whole the working classes of Europe, and
especially of England, were powerless to escape from them. How far this
view is justified will be seen presently.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SAVAGE, BARBARIAN, AND ORIENTAL.
Simile supplanted by Fact—Savage Life—Population dependent not on
possible but on actual Food—Indirect Action of Positive
Checks—Hunger not a Principle of Progress—Otaheite a Crux for Common
Sense—Cycle in the Movement of Population—Pitcairn Island—Barbarian
and Oriental—Nomad Shepherds—Abram and Lot—Cimbri and
Teutones—Gibbon _versus_ Montesquieu—“At bay on the limits of the
Universe”—Misgovernment an indirect Check on Population—Ancient
Europe less populous than Modern—Civilization the gradual Victory of
the third Check.
The main position of the essay was so incontrovertible, that when the
critics despaired to convict Malthus of a paradox, they charged him with
a truism. To the friendly Hallam[154] the mathematical basis of the
argument appeared as certain as the multiplication table, and the
unfriendly Hazlitt “did not see what there was to discover after reading
the tables of Noah’s descendants, and knowing that the world is
round.”[155] If the essayist had done nothing more than put half-truths
together into a whole, he would have “entrenched himself in an
impregnable fortress” and given his work a great “air of mastery.”[156]
But he would have convinced the understanding without convincing the
imagination. Adam Smith himself would have done no more than half his
work, if he had been content to prove the reasonableness of free trade
without showing, in detail, the effect of it and its opposites. Even the
most competent reader has seldom all the relevant facts marshalled in
his memory, ready to command; and he will always be thankful for
illustrations. The _Essay on Population_ in its second form certainly
excelled all economical works, save one, in its pertinent examples from
life and history.
Imagination in the narrower sense of the word is to be out of court.
Malthus, like Adam Smith, not only leaves little to his reader’s fancy,
but makes little use of his own. His own had misled his readers in the
first essay, though it had certainly given that little book much of its
piquancy; and he resolves for the sake of truth to chain it up, as
Coleridge chained up his understanding. The self-denying ordinance is
only too fully executed. The style of his essay is truly described by
himself[157] as having gradually “lost all pretensions to merit.”
Edition follows edition, each with its footnotes, supplements,
rearrangements, and corrections, till the reader feels that this writer
“would be clearer if he were not so clear.”
But the title-page supplies a guiding thread. From the second edition
onwards to the last, “Past” and “Present” appear in large letters,
“Future” in small. The entire work may therefore be divided according to
the three tenses, with the emphasis on the two former. The first book is
devoted to the past, the second to the present, and the third and fourth
to the future.
The First deals with the less civilized parts of the world as it now is,
and the uncivilized past times; the Second with the different states of
modern Europe; the Third criticizes popular schemes of future
improvement; while the Fourth gives the author’s own views of the
possible progress of humanity.
After explaining his principles, Malthus takes a survey of human
progress, if not from brute to savage, at least from savage to citizen.
He shows us how the rude and simple positive checks become complicated
with the preventive; and he leads us up from barbarism to civilization
till we find ourselves in a society where the citizens think less of
check than of chief end, and less of self-sacrifice than of
self-devotion, to some cause or person, and even the inferior members
act, at worst, from mixed motives, containing good as well as evil.
These are the two extreme ends of his line. It would be useless to deny
that he lingers longest over the less pleasing, and gives Godwin some
excuse for questioning his logical right to believe in the more pleasing
at all.[158] At the same time it would have been (even logically)
impossible for him to have attacked Godwin for taking abstract views of
human nature, and then to have persisted in an abstraction of his own,
after all his own European travel and historical studies. His fault had
lain in defective premises, not in false reasoning; and he remedies the
fault.
Let us take his account in his own order. Beginning with present
savagery, which with some qualifications is a picture of our own past,
he sifts out the descriptions of Cook, Vancouver, and other travellers,
to see what checks to population operate in different grades of savage
humanity. At the very bottom of the scale comes Tierra del Fuego, by
general consent the abode of pure misery, and therefore naturally the
home of a sparse population. Next come the natives of the Andaman
Islands and of Van Diemen’s Land. “Their whole time is spent in search
of food,” which consists of the raw products of the soil and sea; the
whole time of every individual is devoted to this one labour, and there
is neither room nor inducement for any other industries. Vice is hardly
needed; misery in the shape of perpetual scarcity and famine keeps down
the people to the food. Third in the scale of human beings are the New
Hollanders, the original inhabitants of North-West Australia, among whom
can be traced not only the check of misery, but the check of vice. The
women are so cruelly treated at all times, and the children have so
harsh an upbringing, that there is no difficulty in understanding how
population does not even reach the full limit of the scanty food. War
and pestilence make the assurance doubly sure. As savages are entirely
innocent of sanitary science, the dirt of their persons and their houses
deprives them of “the advantage which usually attends a thinly-peopled
country,” comparative exemption from pestilence.[159] Even the North
American Indians, who are one step higher than the New Hollanders, come
under the same condemnation for overcrowding, and for much else besides.
The account which Malthus gives of them may be compared with that of De
Tocqueville half a century later. Romance has clung to them only because
they were the nearest and best known savages of their kind, and their
necessary labours were in Europe rich men’s pleasures. But hunting and
river-fishing cannot yield much food unless pursued over a wide area. A
hunter is so far like the beast of prey which he pursues, that he must
go long distances for his food, and must either fly from or overcome
every rival. The North American Indian must therefore either go West
after his old food, or else he must stay where he is, to beat off the
Europeans, or to adopt their food and their habits. “The Indians have
only two ways of saving themselves, war and civilization. They must
either destroy the Europeans or become their equals.”[160] As the
civilization of a nation of hunters is almost impossible, their
extinction seems inevitable. The question remains, How is this
population cut down to the level of its food?
In Malthus’ answer to the question occur three remarks of great general
importance. First, what limits the numbers of a people is not the
possible but the actual food.[161] Second, want destroys a population
less often directly by starvation than indirectly through the medium of
manners and customs.[162] Third, the mere pressure of impending
starvation does not lead to progress.[163]
Malthus is never tired of insisting on the first of these remarks; and a
proper understanding of it is essential to a fair judgment on his
doctrine. He never says that it is the tendency of a population to
increase up to the limits of the greatest possible amount of food that
can be produced in a given country. The valley of the Mississippi when
highly cultivated may possibly support a hundred millions; but the
question is not what it would do when highly cultivated, but what it can
do when cultivated as it now is and as men now are. “In a general view
of the American continent as described by historians, the population
seems to have been spread over the surface very nearly in proportion to
the quantity of food which the inhabitants of the different parts in the
actual state of their industry and improvements could as a matter of
fact obtain; and that with few exceptions it pressed hard against this
limit, rather than fell short of it, appears from the frequent
recurrence of distress for want of food in all parts of America.”[164]
What is said here of the Indians a hundred years ago applies to the
Colonists now. “The actual state of industry” is of course a much more
improved one; but the population the land will bear is still in
proportion to it, and the amount could not have been increased till the
actual state of the industry had first been bettered. One cause of the
decay of the numbers of the Indians was that their method of industry,
so far from becoming better, became worse by their contact with
Europeans, and therefore the limit of population was actually contracted
instead of being extended.[165] This explains how it is that their
diminishing numbers do not bring them greater comfort. Whether the
numbers in any given case are too great or too small depends always on
the quantity of the food that is divided among them; and, where the food
decreases faster than the population, a population that has become
smaller numerically becomes actually larger in proportion to the food.
The statement that England or any other country could bear millions more
than it does now is a mere reference to unexplored possibilities,
landing us in the infinite. It may be answered in the same way as the
Eleatic puzzles about motion; land infinitely improvable does not mean
land infinitely improved, as matter infinitely divisible does not mean
matter infinitely divided. The position of Malthus is therefore as
follows: given a people’s skill, and given its standard of living at any
time, its numbers are always tending to be the utmost that can be
furnished by that skill with a living up to that standard,—that is to
say, with what, according to that standard, are the necessaries of human
life. Either a diminution of that skill or an increase in that standard
would cause over-population. The question is always a relative one.
The human as distinguished from the animal character of the problem
appears not only in that relativity (which affects mainly the preventive
checks), but in the indirect way in which the positive checks, if we may
say so, prefer to act. It is as if they were always desirous of
resolving themselves as far as might be into preventive. The ultimate
check, Malthus says, is starvation; but, he adds, it is seldom the
immediate one. The higher up we go in the scale, the more it is hidden
away out of sight. Starvation is interpreted, by all grades of society
above the lowest, to mean the loss of what they conceive to be the
necessaries not of a bare living but of endurable life; and even the
lowest, instead of apprehending some pain, apprehend some bringer of it.
They do not allow famine to kill them; they create manners and customs
that do the work for it, keeping the famine itself afar off. “Both
theory and experience uniformly instruct us that a less abundant supply
of food operates with a gradually increasing pressure for a very long
time before its progress is stopped. It is difficult indeed to conceive
a more tremendous shock to society than the event of its coming at once
to the limits of the means of subsistence, with all the habits of
abundance and early marriages, which accompany a largely increasing
population. But, happily for mankind, this never is nor ever can be the
case. The event is provided for by the concurrent interests and feelings
of individuals long before it arrives; and the gradual diminution of the
real wages of the labouring classes of society slowly and almost
insensibly generates the habits necessary for an order of things in
which the funds for the maintenance of labour are stationary.... The
causes [of the retardation of population] will be generally felt and
[will] generate a change of habits long before the period arrives.”[166]
“An insufficient supply of food to any people does not show itself
merely in the shape of famine, but in other more permanent forms of
distress, and in generating certain customs which operate sometimes with
greater force in the prevention of a rising population” than in the
destruction of the risen.[167] Robertson the historian truly says, that
whether civilization has improved the lot of men may be doubtful, but it
has certainly improved the condition of women. Among the Indians and
almost all savages, “servitude is a name too mild to describe their
wretched state.” The hard life of the men kills their instinctive
fondness for the women; the latter are therefore less likely to become
mothers, while, if they do, their own hardships and heavy tasks are a
great hindrance to nursing. It is not surprising that the surviving
children are of good physique; none but the exceptionally strong could
weather the cruel discipline of childhood.[168] In South America the
difficulty of upbringing actually led to an enforced monogamy, as well
as to late marriages and their not unfrequent accompaniment,
irregularities before marriage. Such customs diminish numbers. But even
the adult savages do not find life easy. They are not the men to think
of providing for a rainy day; in the short moments of plenty they do not
think of the long days of want. Intemperate living as well as the rigour
and the accidents of a hunting life cut off numbers in their prime. They
are subject to diseases and invent no remedies. Their acquiescence in
dirt leads to pestilences, but they invent no sanitary reforms; and
their thinly-peopled country loses its natural exemption from epidemics.
Their wars are internecine, for they are largely prompted by sheer
self-preservation, and the thought that if the one combatant lives the
other cannot. Cannibalism itself was at first due to extreme want,
though what occasional hunger had begun, hate perpetuated in a custom.
This and the low cunning and mean strategy, due to a resolve to survive
at all costs, are the prime inventions of the struggle for existence on
these low levels.
Such are the causes by which the numbers of the North American Indians
are kept down to a very low figure; but, low as it is, the figure is
high enough for the food. Apart from a difference in the standard of
living, the proportion of population to food is similar over the
inhabited world; and in the same neighbourhood or among cognate races it
will be almost identical. A diminution in one Indian tribe, not being
voluntary, will not be the cause of plenty to the survivors; it has been
the effect of want, and it will simply weaken the collective force of
the tribe in the struggle against others.[169]
The supremacy of want as the ultimate check on population is illustrated
by the instant expansion of population which is produced in these grades
of humanity by an accession of plenty. When a tribe falls upon fertile
land, its numbers swell, and its collective might, depending on numbers,
becomes greater. The increase of food, however, seems in this case to
lead to nothing else than increase of numbers. There is a melancholy
equality of suffering between tribe and tribe, as well as between
members of the same tribe. There is no distinction of rank, but only of
sex and bodily strength, as regards endurance of hardships.
It is in this connection that Malthus throws some light on the question
how progress could ever take place at all. His answer is not unlike Adam
Smith’s remark about the connection of high wages with good work. He
says, that beyond a certain limit, hard fare and great want depress men
below the very capacity of improvement; comfort must reach a certain
height before the desires of civilized life can come into being at all.
If the American tribes, he says, have remained hunters, it is not simply
because they have not increased in numbers sufficiently to render the
pastoral or agricultural state necessary to them. Reasons which Malthus
does not pretend to particularize,[170] and which he allows to be
unconnected with mere increase or decrease of numbers, have prevented
these tribes from ever trying to raise cattle or grow corn at all. “If
hunger alone could have prompted the savage tribes of America to such a
change in their habits, I do not conceive that there would have been a
single nation of hunters and fishers remaining; but it is evident that
some fortunate train of circumstances, in addition to this stimulus, is
necessary for this purpose; and it is undoubtedly probable that these
arts of obtaining food will be first invented and improved in those
spots which are best suited to them, and where the natural fertility of
the situation, by allowing a greater number of people to subsist
together, would give the fairest chance to the inventive powers of the
human mind.” “A certain degree of [political] security is perhaps still
more necessary than richness of soil to encourage the change from the
pastoral to the agricultural state.”[171] These passages are remarkable
because they seem to contradict the general tenor of the author’s
writings. We were told with great emphasis in the first edition of the
essay that difficulties generate talents,[172] and even the second and
later are full of approving commentaries on the proverb, “Necessity is
the mother of invention.”[173] The contradiction is soon solved. Malthus
has no faith in the civilizing power of competition when it means a
struggle among starved men for bare life, but much faith in it when it
means the struggle for greater comfort among those who already have the
animal necessaries.[174] The significance of his admissions will be
noticed later. Meanwhile it must be observed that the passage just
quoted is not perfectly precise. The larger the society, the greater
might be the division of labour and consequent stimulus to invention;
but a tribe might be large and yet have little in it of a society, and
still less of a division of labour. Without such favouring circumstances
as Malthus mentions the progress cannot take place; but even with them
it need not; they are therefore not the real motive power.
The account of the state of population among the South Sea
Islanders,[175] which comes next in order to the chapter on the American
Indians, is an illustration of these remarks. These savages live in a
fertile country and yet they make no progress. As this is not the only
point illustrated, it is worth while to look at the chapter in detail.
Malthus begins by observing that population must not be thought more
subject to checks on an island than on a continent. The Abbé Raynal, in
his book on the Indies, had tried to explain a number of modern customs
that retarded population[176] by referring them to an insular origin. He
thought that they were caused at first by the over-population of Britain
and other islands, and were imported therefrom into the continents, to
the perplexity of later ages. But as a matter of fact population on the
mainlands is subject to the same laws as on the islands, though the
limits are not so obvious to common observation, and the case is not put
so neatly in a nutshell. A nation on the continent may be as completely
surrounded by its enemies or its rivals, savage or civilized, as any
islanders by the sea; and emigration may be as difficult in the one case
as in the other. Both continent and island are peopled up to their
actual produce. “There is probably no island yet known, the produce of
which could not be further increased. This is all that can be said of
the whole earth. Both are peopled up to their actual produce. And the
whole earth is in this respect like an island.”[177] The earth is indeed
more isolated than any island of the sea, for no emigration from it is
possible. The question, therefore, to be asked about the whole earth as
about any part of it, is, “By what means the inhabitants are reduced to
such numbers as it can support?”
This was the question which forced itself on Captain Cook when he
visited the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Some of his
experiences there, especially in New Zealand, show that the native
population was kept down in nearly the same way as the American. Their
chief peculiarity is the extreme violence of their local feuds. The
people of every village he visited petitioned him to destroy the people
of the next, and “if I had listened to them I should have extirpated the
whole race.” A sense of human kinship is impossible at so low a level of
being; and the internecine wars of the New Zealanders were the chief
check to their numbers, which, from the distressing effects of
occasional scarcities, would seem always at the best to have been close
to the limits of the food.
The first impression of common sense is that distress is natural where
food is scanty, and unnatural where it is plentiful. But “if we turn our
eyes from the thinly-scattered inhabitants of New Zealand to the crowded
shores of Otaheite and the Society Islands” we find no such phenomenon.
“All apprehension of death seems at first sight to be banished from a
country that is described to be fruitful as the garden of the
Hesperides.” But reflection tells us that happiness and plenty are the
most powerful causes of increase. We might, therefore, expect a large
population in Otaheite; at its first start it might double itself not in
twenty-five but in fifteen years. Captain Cook estimated it (on his
second voyage in 1773) as 204,000. How could a country about one hundred
and twenty miles in circuit support an increase that doubled these
numbers in twenty-five years? Emigration is impossible, for the other
islands are in the same situation. Further cultivation is inadequate,
for scientific invention is quite wanting. The answer is that the
increase does not take place, and yet there is no miracle.
Licentiousness among the higher classes, and infanticide amongst all
classes, are freely practised. The free permission of infanticide no
doubt, as Hume remarks,[178] tends as a rule rather to increase than to
diminish population, for “by removing the terrors of too numerous a
family it would engage many people in marriage,” and such is the force
of natural affection, that comparatively few parents would carry out
their first intentions. But in Otaheite in its old state custom had made
infanticide easy, and it was a real check. War against other islands was
a third check, frequently destroying the food as well as the people,
thus striking down two generations at once. All these checks
notwithstanding, the population was up to the level of the food, and
there was as much scarcity and keen distress as on any barren island.
Such at least was the state of things discovered by Captain Cook in his
three voyages (the last in 1778) and Captain Vancouver (in 1791). On the
other hand, the author of _A Missionary Voyage to the South Pacific
Ocean in 1796–8_ (London, 1799) found a people very scanty as compared
with the food. The accuracy of both accounts is borne out by the
description of the habits of the people at these two periods. Captain
Cook says they were careful to save up every scrap of food, and yet
suffered often from famine. The missionaries observe the frequency of
famine in the Friendly Islands and the Marquesas, but say of the
Otaheitans that they are extremely wasteful, and yet never seem to be in
want. Even in the intervals between one of Cook’s voyages and another
the state of the island had altered. Malthus sees here an illustration
of two facts. The one is that, apart from changes in the standard of
living, population fluctuates between great excess and great defect,
great numbers with great mortality, and great comfort with rapid
multiplication of numbers. The other, which explains the first, is that
any cause affecting population, either towards increase or towards
decrease, continues to act for some time after the disappearance of the
circumstances that first occasioned it. For example, over-populousness
would lead to wars,[179] and the enmities of these wars would long
survive their first occasion. Again, over-populousness would lead to
greater infanticide and vice, which would become habitual. New
circumstances would, no doubt, after a time bring new habits, and, to
use the author’s words, would “restore the population, which could not
long be kept below its natural level without the most extreme violence.
How far European contact may operate in Otaheite with this extreme
violence and prevent it from recovering its former population is a point
which experience only can determine. But, should this be the case, I
have no doubt that on tracing the causes of it, we should find them to
be aggravated vice and misery.”[180] As a matter of fact either European
contact has caused a diminution, or exacter inquiry has made a lower
estimate of the population of all Polynesia. The people of the whole
Society Islands is reckoned at between 15,000 and 18,000,[181] which is
a long way from Cook’s estimate of 204,000 for Otaheite alone. We can
hardly believe, however, that the vice and misery of Otaheite are more
than ten times as great as they were in 1773; and perhaps we may suppose
Malthus to mean that, if the European influences were of the same
character at the end as they were at the beginning, and were as
pernicious to the Polynesian as to the Red Indian, the language of
pessimism would be justified. The passage at least shows how unfair it
is to suppose Malthus to desire at all costs a small population; he is
careful to say that, while vice in Otaheite by reducing the numbers
caused a transient plenty among the survivors, still “a cause which may
prevent any particular evil may be beyond comparison worse than the evil
itself.”[182] Life itself may be bought too dear.
No good is done, however, by denying that excessive numbers are an evil,
or by optimistic assertion that if men are only good they will be happy.
There is at least one Polynesian island whose past history gives a
picturesque proof of the contrary. Pitcairn, “the lonely isle of the
Mutineers,” was a moral contrast to Otaheite. The inhabitants owed
nothing good to their parents, who were the mutineers of H.M.S.
‘Bounty,’ and the women of Otaheite that came with them in 1790, when
they first took refuge in Pitcairn Island. They owed all to the
religious teaching of John Adams, which made them so good, that there
were few like them on the earth.[183] But in latitudes just touching the
tropics, with a single square mile of poor soil, surrounded by wide
ocean, they had no outlet for trade and modern arts. Like the
inhabitants of Godwin’s Utopia,[184] they soon peopled the little
country to the full extent of the food that could be got by the old
methods, and, unlike the Utopians, they had not skill to invent new. If
they had not drawn the line for themselves, misery would have done it
for them. Their little colony at its first founding consisted of fifteen
men and twelve women. Fourteen men and many women died off in the course
of the ten years which passed before the time of moral regeneration. But
they left many children; and, when the patriarch John Adams was visited
by a passing ship in 1814, he was surrounded by a happy circle of devout
families. Rapidly outgrowing the resources of the place, these simple
folk removed in 1831 to Tahiti, eighty-seven strong. Some remained
there; others had no pleasure in their new abode, and came back to
suffer affliction with the people of God, believing with Malthus that “a
cause which may prevent any particular evil may be beyond all comparison
worse than the evil itself.” The evil was real, however, and, in default
of celibacy or new ways of bread winning, their only cure seemed
emigration. So in 1855, Tahiti seeming ineligible, they journeyed
further west to Norfolk Island. Though there are more than four hundred
and forty to the square mile in England and Wales, two hundred people of
this primitive sort had been certainly too many for the single square
mile of Pitcairn Island; and they did not leave a moment too soon. Home
sickness brought back two entire families (of seventeen persons) in
1859. One or two stray travellers joined them five years afterwards;
but, with allowance for these, we find that the increase of population
on Pitcairn Island reaches the highest estimate of Malthus. When the
English Admiral D’Horsey visited the place in 1878, the quarter of a
hundred had grown in nineteen years, at the moderate cost of twelve
deaths, to a population of ninety[185] persons. The primeval virtues
will avail little without the modern arts.
Returning to Malthus, we find him following an order of his own, in
rough conformity with the orthodox progress from deer to sheep, and from
sheep to corn. He takes us from Polynesian savages to the nomad pastoral
nations of ancient Europe.[186] The vast migrations and their momentous
historical effects he ascribes to the “constant tendency in the human
race to increase” beyond its food, and thinks that when history has been
rewritten it will contain more of this.[187] “The misfortune of history
is, that while the particular motives of a few princes and leaders are
sometimes detailed with accuracy, the general causes which crowd their
standards with willing followers are totally overlooked.”[188] At first
sight the phenomenon of civilized agricultural nations unable to repel
the invasion of shepherds seems incredible; a country in pasture cannot
possibly support so many inhabitants as a country in tillage. A
shepherd, it is true, is nearer to the skilled labourer than a hunter;
he does not simply take what nature gives him, where nature puts it; he
keeps the desired objects of consumption under his own control, and his
life is stronger because more social. Early African colonization, as
Adam Smith pointed out, was less successful than early American, because
the natives, being shepherds and even farmers rather than fishermen,
were stronger in their resources and more united than the American
aborigines, so that the European intruders were not able to displace
them.[189] We should have expected the Scythian, Cimbrian, and Gothic
invaders of ancient times to have had a similar rebuff. “But what
renders nations of shepherds so formidable is the power which they
possess of moving altogether, and the necessity they frequently feel of
exerting this power in search of fresh pasture for their herds.”[190]
They have always in their breeding stock a reserve of food for an
emergency. The mere consciousness that their mode of life does not bind
them to one place gives them less anxiety about providing for a family.
Therefore, when they exhaust one region and begin to feel the pinch of
want, they make an armed emigration on the scale of whole tribes at
once, for the occupation of more fruitful regions, and, as a rule, the
conquest of them by force. The law of their life is a series of
periodical “struggles for existence”[191] between one nation and
another, in which the fittest survive at the cost of a prodigious waste
of human life.
The milder initial stage of this process is illustrated by the
separation of Abram and Lot in the book of Genesis.[192] Abram “was very
rich in cattle.” “Lot also had flocks and herds and tents. And the land
was not able to bear them that they might dwell together, for their
substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there
was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of
Lot’s cattle.” They agreed, therefore, to separate, Lot choosing the
fertile valley of the Jordan, Abram going to the left into the land of
Canaan. Migrations of the same sort, more or less peaceable, are
described by modern writers as extending the Russian people from time to
time farther and farther to the south and east.[193] In the instances
best known to history the migrations were far from peaceable, and the
puzzle has been to account for their recurrence. The slaughter of the
German barbarians by Marius, Cæsar, Drusus, Tiberius, Germanicus did not
prevent the reappearance of similar hordes of invaders a generation
later. Claudius destroyed a quarter of a million of Goths; Aurelian and
Probus had the same work to do again. Under Diocletian the barbarians,
finding the conquest of Rome too much for them, slaughtered one another
in frontier wars. No losses seemed to exhaust the permanent
possibilities of population in those quarters. At last in the fourth
century “clouds of barbarians seemed to collect from all parts of the
northern hemisphere. Gathering fresh darkness and terror as they rolled
on, the congregated bodies at length obscured the sun of Italy and sunk
the Western world in night.”[194]
Why were the resources of the North so inexhaustible? Simply because the
power of increase is inexhaustible. The North was not, it is true, more
densely peopled then than now. “The climate of ancient Germany has been
mollified and the soil fertilized by the labour of ten centuries from
the time of Charlemagne. The same extent of ground which at present
maintains in ease and plenty a million of husbandmen and artificers, was
unable to supply a hundred thousand lazy warriors with the simple
necessaries of life. The Germans abandoned their immense forests to the
exercise of hunting, employed in pasturage the most considerable part of
their lands, bestowed on the small remainder a rude and careless
cultivation, and then accused the scantiness and sterility of a country
that refused to maintain the multitude of its inhabitants. When the
return of famine severely admonished them of the importance of the arts,
the national distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration of a
third, perhaps, or a fourth part of their youth.”[195] In short, the
countries were more than fully peopled up to their actual produce; and,
though by agriculture the actual produce would have been made greater,
yet agriculture was not extended. The passion of the Germans for wine
did not lead them to plant vineyards by the Rhine and Danube, but to rob
the vintage of Italy. “Pigrum quin immo et iners videtur sudore
acquirere quod possis sanguine parare.”[196] Malthus supposes that even
the Mark system of land-holding, with its absence of cities and its
periodical redistributions of land, may have sprung from a political
motive, the fear of accustoming the people to a settled agricultural
life, and the desire to make emigration less irksome to them.[197] So
long as there were weaker peoples to be plundered, the northern nations
might freely double their numbers every twenty-five years, or oftener,
and descend again on Italy and the South. Only when the whole was
occupied by their own people who were not likely to be less stout for
defence than for conquest, were the hordes forced back. Not perhaps till
gunpowder was invented was Europe finally safe against them. Long after
their last inland invasions, the Norsemen found their way by sea to the
shores of England and France.
Gibbon’s account of the matter is, according to Malthus, substantially
true. The only flaw is that he thinks it necessary, in denying the
greater populousness of North Europe in ancient times, to deny the
possibility of a rapid increase of population.[198] The German people
were on the whole virtuous and healthy in their manners of living, and,
the checks to increase being mainly the positive ones of war and famine,
the increase itself was prodigious. But Gibbon is greatly in advance of
Montesquieu, who believes with Sir William Temple, Mariana, and
Machiavelli, that the northern countries were, as a matter of fact, more
densely peopled then than they are now, and that, further, when the
Romans repelled them, a huge multitude was driven far north and remained
there biding its time. The same (says Montesquieu) happened under
Charlemagne, and would happen again if a modern prince were to make the
same ravages in Europe; “the nations repulsed to the north, backed
against the limits of the universe, would there make a firm stand, till
the moment when they would inundate and conquer Europe a third
time.”[199] We are to suppose these immense multitudes living “at the
limits of the universe” on ice and air for some hundreds of years. If
this is to answer to the question-begging question, why the North is
less fully peopled than it once was, it involves a miracle. But nothing
more supernatural than ordinary laws is really needed to explain the
movements of pastoral nations a thousand years ago. They are the same
that govern the Tartars and Bedouins now.[200]
In the modern nomads,[201] it is true, the comparative simplicity of the
circumstances and the comparative thoroughness of our knowledge about
them, enable us to see plainly that the local distribution of the people
is in strict accordance with the local distribution of the food, in
other words, with “the quantity of food the people can obtain in the
actual state of their industry and habits.” We should see the same thing
of the rest of the world’s inhabitants, if the complicated commerce of
civilized nations did not make it less gross and palpable. The power of
the earth to support life may be compared with the power of a horse to
carry burdens. He is strong in proportion to the strength of his weakest
part, as a chain to the strength of its weakest link; and the earth’s
powers of nourishment are great in proportion to their greatness in the
worst seasons of the year.[202] Again, owing to imperfect facilities for
distribution, one part of a society may suffer want when another is in
plenty.[203] Among the Tartars and the Arabs this is plainly seen; and
it is clear, too, how the waste of life from war not only acts as a
direct check on population, but checks it indirectly by repressing
productive industry. Its fruits would have no chance of preservation.
“Even the construction of a well requires some funds or labour in
advance, and war may destroy in one day the work of many months and the
resources of a whole year.”[204] When once warlike habits have become
fixed, the two evils, war and scarcity, reproduce and perpetuate one
another. The encouragements held out to large families by the Mohammedan
religion have a like effect. “The promise of Paradise to every man who
had ten children would but little increase their numbers, though it
might greatly increase their misery.”[205] It could only increase their
numbers if it increased their food, and it could not increase their food
without changing their warlike habits into habits of industry. Failing
this, it simply creates a constant uneasiness (through want and poverty)
that multiplies occasions of war. Fortunately for himself, the Arab
often proportions his religious obedience to the extent of his
resources,[206] and in hard times, “when there is a pig at hand and no
Koran,” he thinks best to eat what God has given him.
Nothing but increase of food will permanently increase population, and
where there is food the increase will reach up to it. In those parts of
Africa that have furnished the Western slave supplies, there has been no
discernible gap from the “hundred years’ exportation of negroes which
has blackened half America.”[207] Even in Egypt, where there is a
striking contrast between natural fertility and human lethargy, the
cause is not any deficiency in the principle of increase. It is that
property is insecure, the government being despotic and its exactions
indefinite. It is not the want of population that has checked industry,
but the want of industry that has checked population; and it is bad
government that has occasioned the want of industry. “Ignorance and
despotism seem to have no tendency to destroy the passion which prompts
to increase, but they effectually destroy the checks to it from reason
and forethought.... Industry cannot exist without foresight and
security; the indolence of the savage is well known, and the poor
Egyptian or Abyssinian farmer without capital, who rents land which is
let out yearly to the highest bidder, and who is constantly subject to
the demands of his tyrannical masters, to the casual plunder of an
enemy, and not unfrequently to the violation of his miserable contract,
can have no heart to be industrious, and, if he had, could not exercise
that industry with success. Even poverty itself, which appears to be the
great spur to industry, when it has once passed certain limits almost
ceases to operate. The indigence which is hopeless destroys all vigorous
exertion, and confines the efforts to what is sufficient for bare
existence.[208] It is the hope of bettering our condition, and the fear
of want rather than want itself, that is the best stimulus to industry;
and its most constant and best directed efforts will almost invariably
be found among a class of people above the class of the wretchedly
poor.”[209] This passage repeats an idea expressed in every book of the
essay.[210] Government can retard the increase of population both
directly and indirectly, but can only advance it indirectly, namely, by
encouraging industry, more especially agriculture. For example,
industrious agriculture has made China capable of bearing a great
population, though other causes of a more equivocal character have made
it exceed its great capacities, and its excessive numbers are cut down
by famine and child murder.[211] The Roman emperors found it impossible
by legislation to promote the increase of the old Roman stock, because
they found it impossible to restore the old Roman habits of industry,
though believers in the superior populousness of ancient nations used to
mistake their intentions for accomplished facts.
In the eighteenth-century dispute about the populousness of ancient
nations (one particular skirmish in the general battle of the books) we
have seen that Malthus declares for the moderns. He gives his opinion in
detached passages; but, putting together the different parts wherever we
can find them, we discover his proof to depend on two principles, which
are corollaries of the primary doctrine of the essay. The first is, that
without the extension of agriculture or the better distribution of its
fruits there can be no increase of population;[212] the second is, that
whatever is unfavourable to industry is to that extent unfavourable to
population.[213]
Now in the early days of Greece and Rome[214] the population ought on
these principles to have been a large one, for not only was agriculture
actively prosecuted, but property and wealth were more equally divided
among the people than in later times. On the other hand, the numbers
were always up to the level of the resources; and the smallness of the
political divisions made law-givers like Solon, and theorists like Plato
and Aristotle, conscious of the risk of over-population and full of
plans to provide against it. It is one of Aristotle’s criticisms of
Plato’s Republic that Plato has not sufficiently met this difficulty, or
realized that a community of goods or an equal distribution of property
is impossible without a limitation of families. If every one may have as
many children as he pleases, the result will soon be poverty and
sedition. Of the preventive checks actually recommended by the highest
wisdom of the Greek world, the mildest is late marriages; the rest
include exposure and abortion. Colonization was rather adopted in
practice than recommended in theory. Frequent wars and occasional
plagues were the chief positive checks.
In Rome even more evidently than in Greece[215] the causes that produced
inequality of property led also to thinness of population. In our own
days the absorption of small proprietors by large would have this effect
in a less degree, because the large would need to employ the labour of
the small. In Rome the labour was done by slaves; and the wonder was not
that the number of free citizens should decrease, but that any should
exist at all, except the proprietors.[216]
Yet the legislation of Augustus in favour of marriage, and the universal
lamentation of the later Roman writers over the extinction of the old
Roman stock, are no more than a presumption that the population was
decreasing, not a proof of its actual smallness, while the prevalence of
war and infanticide, so often used to prove the same point, tend really
to do the opposite. They are for the time positive encouragements to
marriage, for people will not hesitate to bring children into the world,
if they are either free to kill off the superfluous or certain to find
sad vacancies ready for them.[217] In the former case, as we noticed,
parental feeling will often interfere with the infanticide, and save
rather too many than too few.[218] Wars, on the other hand, may injure
the quality of the population by removing the most stalwart and even the
most intelligent men; but there is as much food as before, there is more
room, and there are therefore more marriages, till all the gaps are
filled, even to overflowing.[219] Livy need not have wondered that in
the Volscian wars the more were killed the more seemed to come on. The
like is true of plague and famine; epidemics, like the small-pox, have
never permanently lessened the population, though they have increased
the mortality of the infected countries.[220] To take only one instance
(from Süssmilch)—a third of the people in Prussia and Lithuania were
destroyed by the plague in 1710, and in 1711 the number of marriages was
very nearly double the average.[221] Emigration in like manner may drain
off the best blood of a nation, but cannot reduce its numbers for any
length of time, unless the nation is learning a new standard of comfort.
Greece and Rome were not less populous because they were great
colonizers.[222] The known existence of a number of very active checks
to population, instead of proving that the population was absolutely
small, might more naturally, other things being equal, prove it to have
been absolutely large. It might be argued that, if the population had
not been great, fewer and less potent checks would have done the
work.[223]
But other things were not equal. We know that the gratuitous
distribution of foreign corn had ruined Roman husbandry.[224] We know
that even the labour of the slaves who had supplanted the free labourers
of Italy had not been sufficiently (or sufficiently well) directed to
agriculture. Moreover, the increase by marriage in the number of slaves
did not even balance the decrease in the number of the free men; else
why should the Romans need to import fresh cargoes of slaves every year
from all parts of the world?[225]
In short, the Roman habits had become “unfavourable to industry, and
therefore to population.” The very necessity for such a law as the Papia
Poppæa would indicate a moral depravity inconsistent with habits of
industry. This strong argument had escaped even Hume, who thought that
the people would increase very fast under the Peace of Trajan and the
Antonines, forgetting that the people could not unlearn their habits in
so short a time; unlearning is harder than learning, especially for a
whole people; and, “if wars do not depopulate much when industry is in
vigour, peace does not increase population much when industry is
languishing.”[226] Contrariwise, it might be argued that the prevention
of child-murder in India will not cause over-population, when it is part
of a general policy accustoming the people to European habits.
Allow, then, that general viciousness is inconsistent with general
industry, and it follows that those ancient nations in which the first
prevailed were less populous than the modern. This seems to be the
argument of Malthus brought to a focus. From the absence of
censuses,[227] it is strictly deductive; there _could_ not have been so
many people as now, and therefore there _were_ not.[228]
Expressed in more technical language, the meaning is, that where there
is nothing present but the positive check and the lower kind of
preventive, the habits of the people are necessarily such as to hinder
an increase of food and thereby of population. When Europe was less
civilized, it was not more, but less thickly peopled.[229]
This argument seems to be weakened by one consideration—that the poor in
our day put more into their idea of necessaries; they have a higher
standard of living than the poor 2000 years ago. It might therefore be
said with justice that over-population (a peopling beyond the food)
begins much sooner with us than with them, for it begins at a point much
farther removed from starvation, and that therefore with the ancients a
given amount of food would go farther and feed more. But, if we look
only to the poor in each case, the difference between the ancient
standard of comfort and the modern is unhappily much smaller than the
difference between their meagre industrial resources and our ample ones,
for our powers of production have grown far more rapidly than the
comfort of our labouring population. Such difference as there is in the
standards is only made possible by moral restraint, which has a closer
affinity with modern civilization than with ancient or mediæval.[230]
The history of modern civilization is largely the history of the gradual
victory of the third check over the two others; and, as one of the chief
allies of the third has been commercial ambition, the victory of moral
restraint, by causing a larger industry, has caused in the end not a
smaller, but a larger population.[231] The increase by being deferred
has been made only the more certain and permanent.
CHAPTER V.
NORTH AND MID EUROPE.
Different Effects of Commercial Ambition in different Countries—No
single safe Criterion of National Prosperity—Süssmilch’s “Divine
Plan”—Malthus in the Region of Statistics—His Northern Tour—In
Norway the truth brought home by the very nature of Place and
Industries—In Sweden less obvious—In Russia quite ignored—Foundling
Hospitals indefensible—Tendency of People to multiply beyond, up to,
or simply with the Food—Author tripping—Facts the Interpreters and
the Interpreted—Holland—The best _pater patriæ_—Emigration in
various Aspects—Evidence of the Author before Emigration
Committee—Switzerland, St. Cergues and Leysin—The _pons asinorum_ of
the subject.
The broad difference between a savage and a civilized population is,
that the positive checks prevail in the one, the preventive in the
other,—and between ancient and modern civilizations, that vice and
misery prevail in the one, moral restraint in the other.[232] Yet every
civilized nation in modern times has not only passed through these three
stages in the course of its past history, but contains them all within
it now as a matter of observation. Its early history was an endeavour
after independence or bare life, its later history an endeavour after
full development; but there are strata in it to which civilization has
not descended, and in which the struggle for bare existence prevails,
alongside of strata in which the struggle is towards ideals of
commercial ambition and social perfection.
The view which Malthus takes of commercial ambition is substantially
that of Adam Smith. As soon as commerce is separated from slavery, as
soon as wealth is a man’s own acquisition, got by the sweat of his own
brow, then the desire of wealth has a new social aspect. It becomes what
Adam Smith calls “the natural desire of every man to better his own
condition;” and as such it creates modern commercial society, as opposed
both to the ancient society built upon slavery, and to the feudal built
upon war.
This _vis mediatrix reipublicæ_, the desire of rising in the world, so
glorified in the _Wealth of Nations_[233] and in the _Essay on
Population_,[234] is really not easy to define. It is a very composite
motive; and the same differences of race (whatever their origin), which
lead to differences of intellect and language also affect a nation’s
standard of comfort, as soon as it can be said to have one. By the
influence of good climate and much intercourse with foreigners, along
with advantages of upbringing, and perhaps of race, a nation of Southern
Europe comes to put into its notion of happiness a great many more
elements than a northern nation, which has to hew its model out of much
poorer materials. The Norwegian standard will be simpler than the
Parisian. But there is more behind. The question is not simply one of
like and unlike elements, or of many and few elements, but of the
treatment of them by the human subject. The English notion of comfort
differs from the French in its elements, which are probably more in
number as well as other in quality, and have a third peculiarity quite
distinct from the other two, their effect on the habits of the persons
concerned.
French writers have noticed that the English farmer works hard for such
an income as will give him the innumerable little luxuries of toilet,
dinner-table, and drawing-room, that make up the English idea of
comfort, while the French farmer works hard that he may be able to buy
another farm.[235] The one lives up to his income; and in his efforts to
preserve it he is enterprising and persevering; he is always striving to
rise to the class above him. The other, on the contrary, is more content
with his position in society; and simply wishes to make it stronger, by
gaining more property. His willing privations in time of plenty are
rewarded by his secure provision in time of want; he has always his land
to sell.
Both are moved by the civilizing “desire to better one’s own condition”;
but it leads in the one case to simple saving, the old stocking, the
piece of land, or the _rentes_, in the other to active using, the
steam-plough first, that the piano and pony-carriage may follow
afterwards. There is some truth in M. Taine’s paradox, “The Englishman
provides for the future not by his savings but by his expenses.”[236] If
capitalizing means using as well as saving, there is a sense in which
the French and English divide the two functions between them.
This is what prevents the economist from making any exact predictions
about the effect of the _vis mediatrix reipublicæ_. He may, like Adam
Smith, find it doing good work in the undermining of feudalism,[237] and
he may point out that at any rate it would make a better guide to the
world than military glory, which means unhappiness to one-half the
world, and a very mingled happiness to the other half. But he cannot
predict its effect on men whose characters are unknown to him. He cannot
even tell whether a man is wealthy or not, till he knows what his wants
are, for wealth exists to satisfy wants, wants change with human
progress, the notion of wealth expands with civilization, and the
luxuries of one age and one man are the necessaries of another. It is
impossible to treat this relative question as if its conditions were
absolute, and to deal with men as we would with figures on a slate. Two
and two do not always make four in such a case, but sometimes five, and
frequently only three. A new vista of comfort spread before different
men may stimulate one, spoil another, and leave a third unmoved.
It is not surprising then that the question, “By what various modes is
population kept to the level of the food in the states of modern
Europe?” is not a simple one. On some grounds it would seem
comparatively easy to get the answer. There are figures to be had, and
in many cases a census; there is a general similarity of circumstances
which produces a general similarity of habits, and, therewith, of the
movements of population. But there is no invariable order of mortality
and generation. The rates of births and deaths are not the same for all
nations; they depend on the conduct of human beings, and may differ not
only in different countries, but in different parts of the same country.
In the same way, we have no single statistical criterion of the healthy
state of a population, just as it might be said we have no single
criterion of the commercial prosperity of a country, still less of its
happiness. The two former stand to the last as the parts to the whole. A
healthy population and a prosperous trade are parts of the happiness of
a nation, though they do not constitute the whole of it. To ascertain
whether a nation is happy or not, we have to take into account these two
parts of happiness along with many others. The parts in their turn
consist of many parts. We measure the state of trade not only by imports
and exports, railway, banking and Clearing House returns, and the gains
of the public revenue, but by subscriptions to churches, charities, and
schools, by savings banks and benefit societies, sales of books,
pictures, and luxuries of all kinds, by the state of workmen’s wages, by
the poor-law returns, by the number of marriages, emigrants, and
recruits for the army; and we could make little use of most of these
figures without the census returns and the reports of the Registrar
General. In the same way, to measure the healthiness of a population and
ascertain whether it is safely under the level of its food, tending to
pass beyond it, or simply rising up to it, and to ascertain by what ways
and means the process is going on, we need instead of one single general
criterion a whole array of particular tests. It is in the infancy of
statistical science that men yield to appearances and “suppose a greater
uniformity in things than is actually found there.”[238]
This was, for example, the failing of Johann Peter Süssmilch, one of the
earliest inquirers into the movements of population. A book like
Süssmilch’s had the same relation to the _Essay on Population_ as
astrology to astronomy, or alchemy to chemistry; it prepared the way for
the more accurate study. Süssmilch first published his researches in
1761, while the Seven Years’ War was still in progress. He dedicated it
to Frederick the Great, as became a patriot and Church dignitary; and
entitled it, _The Divine Plan in the Changes through which the Human
Race passes in Birth, Death, and Marriage_. The Divine plan is the one
set forth in the exhortation to Noah in Genesis—the peopling of the
earth;[239] and the book tries to show the particular arrangements by
which the plan is carried out. One condition is, he says, that fertility
be greater than mortality; the births must exceed the deaths. On an
average at present each marriage produces four children; and “the
present law of death” is on an average, taking town and country
together, 1 in 36; out of 36 men now living, 1 must die every year. In
the country it is from 1 in 40 to 1 in 45; in the town, from 1 in 38 to
1 in 32. There is a yearly excess of births represented by 1 in 10 and 5
in 10. The increase must have been faster at first than it is now; and
the means God took to effect His end in each case was the lengthening
and shortening of human life. In the times of Methuselah there must have
been a very different law of mortality, perhaps one death in a hundred;
the length of life was greater; and probably the power of parentage
lasted longer. The average number of children might be about twenty in a
family instead of four; and the doubling of population would take place
in ten or twenty years, instead of as now in seventy or eighty.
Antediluvians were long-lived because their long lives were needed for
the replenishment of the earth; and the extreme length was shortened so
soon as the time came when the same end could be reached in other ways.
When we observe the remarkable adaptiveness of man which enables him
alone among the creatures[240] to live in any latitude, and when we
observe how he has been preserved while many animals have become
extinct, we need have no doubt that the replenishment of the earth was
really the Divine purpose. It is remarkable too that, though more sons
are born than daughters, death equalizes their numbers before mature
life. The “system” which prevails in the increase of man is like the
march of a military regiment, in which all the men have their places,
actions, and accoutrements determined for them. The proportion of sons
to daughters, and deaths to births, Süssmilch regards as a tolerably
fixed one; the discovery of unexpected uniformities overjoys him
greatly, and he regards the man who first used the London bill of
mortality to detect these uniformities as a sort of statistical
Columbus. In short, his book is an economical Théodicée, a long piece of
pious deductive reasoning; and it is curious to find Germany producing
two such optimistic books at a time when it was even further from the
millennium than its neighbours.
The facts of Süssmilch, ill-sifted as they were, gave Malthus a much
firmer ground of reasoning than the scanty patches of evidence about the
population of ancient and barbarous nations. He is at last in the region
of statistics as opposed to conjecture, and in the region of the
personal observation and travel of men who were at least asking his own
questions. But the fate of the bills of mortality and other records, in
the hands of Price and Wallace, to say nothing of Petty and Süssmilch,
shows how important was Malthus’ work as an interpreter of statistics.
Statistics were a novelty in his day. As Adam Smith wrote on the _Wealth
of Nations_ without any full statistics of the wealth, and none at all
of the population, of his own country, Malthus wrote his first essay
when there was no census; and, for some time afterwards, so
comparatively isolated were the nations of Europe, that to be at all
certain of his facts, an author needed to verify and collect them by
journeying in person, and seeing the scenes with his own eyes. This
essential work of an investigator Malthus did not leave undone; and his
chapters on the state of population in modern European nations are to a
large extent a record of his own observations. He went for a summer trip
in 1799 with three college friends, Dr. Edward Clarke, Mr. Cripps, and
Mr. Otter, afterwards Bishop of Chichester. They went by Hamburg to
Sweden, and there the party broke up into two, Clarke and his pupil
Cripps going farther north, Otter and Malthus going on through Norway to
visit Finland and St. Petersburg.[241] These were the only European
countries where English travellers could easily make their way in those
years.[242] In 1802 he saw France and Switzerland,[243] but seems not to
have left the kingdom again till 1825, when the journey was taken for
the sake of his wife’s health, on the death of one of his children, and
he was little in the mood for investigations. The tours of 1799 and 1802
are the only ones that have left substantial traces on his economical
work.[244]
In all his travels he found the foreigner as ignorant as the Englishman
on the subject of population. Only twice did he hear the truth expounded
to him; in Norway during his first tour, and in Switzerland during his
second. In the latter case the enlightenment was confined to one
individual; but in the former the whole nation was wise. While the
Swedish Government was continually crying for more people, and trying to
“encourage population,” the Norwegian Government and people seemed to
have understood that the first question must be, “Are there means to
feed more people?” If not, then we multiply the nation without
increasing the joy. Of course there are cases where we might thin down
the nation and still less increase the joy. Mere scantiness of numbers
is no advantage to a nation, any more than fewness of wants to an
individual; it may mean a low state of civilization, in both cases. It
is not by any means so good for a country to be wasted by a pestilence
as to be opened up by a new trade. The denser the population, the
better;—so says Malthus himself;—but, he adds, let it be a population of
strong, comfortable citizens, or let us stand by the small numbers and
the slow increase.
Look now at Norway.[245] If we were dealing with uncivilized times under
the reign of positive checks, we should expect an overflowing
population, a large body of poor, and in times of scarcity a great deal
of distress. There had been no wars for half a century, the cold climate
kept away epidemics, and what else was left but famine to keep down the
population to the limits of the food? Vice was not taken into the
service, and emigration was seldom practised then in these regions. But
Malthus visited the country in one of the hardest years ever known in
Europe, 1799, and found the Norwegians “wearing a face of plenty and
content, while their neighbours the Swedes appeared to be
starving.”[246] He found the death-rate lower in Norway than in any
country in Europe.[247] The population, however, was hardly increasing
at all; and the proportion of marriages to the whole numbers of the
people was smaller than in any country except Switzerland.[248] The
positive check was largely superseded by the preventive. The virtue of
foresight, he says, is elsewhere forced upon the upper classes by the
smallness of their circle and the fewness of openings in business or
professions; in Norway it is forced upon all classes alike by the
evident smallness of the country’s resources, and by the peculiarities
of the national industry. There is almost no variety of occupation or
division of labour. The humbler classes are almost all “housemen”
(_husmänd_), labourers, who receive from a farmer in quasi-feudal
fashion a small house and a little piece of land in return for
occasional labour on his fields. In other countries men may easily fall
into the fallacy of crediting the whole of the land with a greater power
of supporting people than the power possessed by the sum of its parts.
In the great towns of Central Europe a man has perhaps some excuse for
trusting to the chapter of accidents; in the great variety of
occupations he may have some excuse for thinking there will surely be a
vacancy for him, and he may “e’en take Peggie.” Norway, however, is to
manufacturing countries what the country districts elsewhere are to the
towns elsewhere. In the country districts an excess of population cannot
be hidden, and the superfluities must go to the towns. Those who marry,
therefore, when there is no vacancy for them, do so with the
alternatives of poverty or migration clearly before their eyes. In
Norway every peasant, not to say every farmer, knows quite certainly
whether there is an opening for him or not, and, if there is not, he
cannot marry.[249]
The conditions of the problem were in this way simplified, and the
problem itself was satisfactorily answered. The only districts where
Malthus saw signs of poverty were on the coast, where the people live by
fishing; the openings for a fisherman are not so distinctly limited in
their numbers as the openings for a farmer.
Time has united Norway and Sweden under one king (1814), and Sweden now
presents no unfavourable contrast with Norway. Even in 1825 Malthus
wrote[250] that the progress of agriculture and industry, and the
practice of vaccination, had caused a steady and healthful increase of
population since 1805. He would be pleased to find too by the census
that the population of Norway had increased very greatly in proportion
to its poor. The improvement continues. The paupers were about one per
cent. of the population in 1869 (when they were nearly five per cent. in
England), which seems to have meant a decrease from previous years;[251]
but between 1865 and 1875 the population had increased fourteen per
cent. in spite of considerable emigration.[252] Malthus would have
recognized with satisfaction that the nation had been “either increasing
the quantity or facilitating the distribution” of its food,[253] that is
to say, improving either its agriculture or its manufactures. It has
really done both. Though the growth of the population has been greater
in the centres of manufacture, there has been progress also in the
country districts. Many of the old customs and laws that hampered
agriculture have ceased to exist.[254] Malthus himself says that, if
Government would remove hindrances to agriculture, and spread sound
knowledge about it, it would do more for the population of the country
than by establishing five hundred foundling hospitals.[255] He need not
have confined his recommendation to agriculture; and elsewhere he states
the truth in broader terms: “The true encouragement to marriage is the
high price of labour, and an increase of employments which require to be
supplied with proper hands.”[256] Remove hindrances to trade and spread
sound knowledge of it—that (in his view) is the way to increase the
quantity and facilitate the distribution of the products of agriculture;
and, to judge by results, the Norwegian Government has followed it.
Sweden,[257] as it then was, furnished a striking contrast to Norway.
Malthus had the advantage there of the earliest and most regular of
European censuses, beginning with the year 1748, and continued at
intervals first of three and then of five years. He found that there was
a large mortality, though the conditions of life were superficially the
same as in Norway. The only explanation he could see was that the size
and shape of the country, as well as its mode of government, did not so
forcibly bring home to the people the need of restraint as in Norway,
while at the same time the hindrances to good farming were even more
serious than in the smaller country. From the very contiguity and
general similarity of the two countries, they proved Malthus’ point, by
the Method of Difference, almost as well as a deliberate experiment
could have done. It was not that Norway had an absolutely small and
Sweden an absolutely large population; considerations of absolute
greatness or smallness never enter into this, if into any, economical
question. But Norway had a moderately large population in proportion to
her food, while Sweden had in the same regard an excessive population, a
population which was sparely fed even in average years, and decimated by
famine and disease in years below the average.
Russia,[258] which was the third scene of Malthus’ travels, had this in
common with Norway and Sweden, that the movement of its population was
unlike that of Central Europe, and that the eccentricity was due to a
clearly definable cause. In Norway the shape and climate of the country
and the fewness of the available occupations forced the Government and
the people to restrain rather than to encourage the increase of numbers;
in Sweden, under conditions less simple, the habits of the people
conspired with a false policy of the Government to produce an excessive
increase. In both cases we have something different from the typical
modern society of Central Europe, with its full division of labour, its
system of large factories, and its extensive substitution of machinery
for hand labour. Russia was as old-fashioned as Norway and Sweden in
this respect; and her physical vastness made her a difficult country to
know, in these days of slow communication. It is not surprising that the
statistics available in the days of Malthus were open to grave
suspicion. The death-rate was given as 1 in 60, while in Norway itself
it had not been lower than 1 in 48, and it is about 1 in 53 in England
now, yet the number of marriages and of births and the size of families
were no smaller than elsewhere.[259] These facts by themselves would
simply suggest a great rate of increase going on in the country
concerned; and Malthus allows that there is great scope for such in
Russia. But there was one other fact that strengthened his doubts about
the vital statistics of that country; contrary to the experience of all
other countries, it was said that in Russia more women were born than
men. In others, more men are born than women, and the numbers are only
equalized gradually, by the greater risks of masculine life, as the
years go on. In Sweden, with a climate not milder than Russia, this had
long been observed.[260] It turned out on inquiry that the Russian
method of registration allowed loopholes for more omissions in the
deaths than in the births. Public institutions, including hospitals and
prisons, had been left out of account; and the deaths in the foundling
hospitals were alone quite sufficient to alter the average very
significantly for the worse. Malthus’ hatred of Foundling hospitals is
only equalled by his dislike of Poor laws. The idea of such institutions
was, like that of Pitt’s Poor Bill, purely philanthropic. They were “to
enrich the country from year to year with an increasing number of
healthy, active, and industrious burghers,”[261] that would otherwise be
doomed to death soon after birth. It used to be said of the bounty,
granted by the Government of India, on slaughtered snakes, that it
really kept up the supply, for the natives bred them to catch the
bounty. The foundling hospitals had an opposite effect. They were meant
to multiply and they tended to destroy. They encouraged a mother to
desert her child at the precise time it needed the minute and careful
attention that only a mother can give. “It is not to be doubted that, if
the children received into these hospitals had been left to the
management of their parents, taking the chance of all the difficulties
in which they might be involved, a much greater proportion of them would
have reached the age of manhood and have become useful members of the
state.”[262] But, besides increasing the mortality of children, they
injure the very “mainspring of population”[263] by discouraging marriage
and encouraging irregularities. In his talks with his father, Malthus
had no doubt discussed the propriety of Rousseau’s conduct in sending
his children to the Paris Foundling Hospital. He would certainly have
declared against Rousseau. To those who argue that the foundling basket
may prevent child-murder, he answers that an occasional murder from
“false [?] shame” is saved at a very dear price by the violation of “the
best and most useful feelings of the human heart,” which the existence
of such an institution teaches to the poor. To relieve parents of the
care of their children is bad for the parents,[264] because it takes
away from them a responsibility essential to full citizenship and
civilizing in its effects on human character;—and it is unjust to their
fellow-citizens, because, like the Poor Laws, it relieves one portion of
society (in this case rather the worst than the poorest) at the expense
of all the rest, and finds a career for pauper apprentices to the
prejudice of independent workmen and their children.[265] In the third
place, like the Poor Laws, it promises an impossibility—to relieve all
that come. If children are to be received without limit, the resources
for maintaining them should be without limit; otherwise an excessive
mortality is quite unavoidable.[266] The second reason is no doubt an
economical commonplace; it is the first and third that are most
characteristic of Malthus. He never forgets that human wants and human
wills are an element in every economical phenomenon, and therefore
considers that the effects of character on actions and of actions on
character are of great economical importance. He will not allow that it
can be right, even for a Government, to make promises that cannot be
performed. These two plain principles give the tone to the later
chapters, where he interprets for us the comparatively full statistics
of Central Europe and our own England.[267]
The law of population may be described (though not in the exact words of
Malthus) as among savage peoples the tendency to increase beyond the
food, and among civilized to increase up to it. So Professor Rogers
founds his estimate of the numbers of the English people in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries on the principle that “there were
generally as many people existing in this country as there have been, on
an average, quarters of wheat to feed them with.”[268]
In the case of highly progressive modern nations such statements would
be beyond the truth; and we must either say that they tend to increase
not beyond but along with the food, or else we must define food itself
very widely. In the first case “tendency” will mean the abstract
possibility depending on the one physiological condition; in the others
it is the concrete nett possibility depending on all the various
conditions together. In a general preface to his chapters on Central
Europe, Malthus quite recognizes these distinctions and warns us against
exact statements. “It seldom happens,” he says, “that the increase of
food and of population is uniform; and when the circumstances of a
country are varying either from this cause or from any change in the
national habits with respect to prudence and cleanliness, it is evident
that a proportion which is true at one period will not be at another.
Nothing is more difficult than to lay down rules on this subject that do
not admit of exceptions.”[269]
After this it is hard to believe what he tells us elsewhere, that “the
only criterion of a real and permanent increase in the population of any
country is the increase of the means of subsistence.”[270] It would be
at best a negative criterion and _sine quâ non_,—there can be no
increase of numbers without increase of food,—though even then it is not
true of a “forced population,” living down to a lower food.[271] But
there clearly may be an increase of food without an increase of numbers,
unless the character of the people is such that they do nothing with the
food except increase by it. Therefore, though, within certain wide
limits fixed for us by invariable qualities of human nature, predictions
are justifiable on the ground of the law of population[272] or any other
economical laws, none that specify a particular course of action as a
result of a particular event are trustworthy, till we know the character
of the people concerned.[273] Malthus always tries to bear this in mind;
and, when he tells us that the lists of births, marriages, and deaths in
Mid Europe give more information about its internal economy than the
observations of the wisest travellers,[274] he is at once interpreting
those figures in the light of a principle, and interpreting the
principle by means of the figures. This appears when we look at the four
chief conclusions of the general chapter in question. The first is the
proposition that in the present state of our industrial civilization the
marriages depend very closely on the deaths, and the births on the
marriages.[275] Montesquieu says that wherever there is room for two
persons to live comfortably a marriage will certainly take place.[276]
In old countries experience is usually against any sure expectation of
the means of supporting a family; the place for a new marriage is only
made by the dissolution of an old. As a rule therefore the number of
annual marriages is regulated by the number of annual deaths. “Death is
the most powerful of all the encouragements to marriage,”[277] while on
the other hand the marriages are a frequent cause of the deaths. In
almost every country there is too great a frequency of marriages, which
causes as it were a forced mortality. Which of these two mutual
influences is the more powerful depends on circumstances. In last
century the proportion of annual marriages to inhabitants was in Holland
generally as 1 in 107 or 108. But in twenty-two Dutch villages it was as
1 in 64. Süssmilch explained this anomaly by the number of new trades in
Holland and the new openings for workmen. Malthus would not have denied
this possibility, his startling paradox about death being only a
particular case of the general principle that “the high price of labour
is the real encouragement to marriage.”[278] But in this case the
explanation ought to have applied to all Holland if to any part of it.
The real reason came out when Malthus observed that the mortality, which
was as 1 in 36 in Holland generally, was as 1 in 22 in those villages.
The additional marriages did not really increase the population. They
were caused by the high number of deaths which provided openings for the
living; and the high number of deaths was caused by the unhealthiness of
the region and of its prevailing industries, which were manufacturing
rather than agricultural. The choice in every large population is
between having many lives which end soon, and few which last long.
Greater healthiness in the conditions of life will result in the latter.
We find as a matter of fact that, where there has been the sanitary
improvement as well as simply the “replenishment” of an old country, the
marriage rate goes down at the expense of the death-rate, and there is
an economy of human life and suffering.
Putting the parts of his exposition together, we get something like a
deductive scheme of the growth of population in old countries under an
industrial revolution like that of the eighteenth century. The first
effect of the discovery of new minerals, and even (with some
qualifications) of the invention of new machines, is to provide new
employment for working men, and many new opportunities for marriage; the
proportion of marriages therefore becomes at once greater without any
alteration (from this cause at least) in the death-rate. But, when the
first burst of progress has passed, and the succeeding improvement is
not by leaps and bounds, but at a uniform rate, then the proportion of
marriages will decrease, as the new situations are filled up and there
is no more room for an increasing population. Once the country is really
“old” in the sense of fully peopled and unprovided with new sources of
employment, then the marriages will be regulated principally by the
deaths, and (the habits of the people remaining the same) will bear much
the same proportion to each other at one time as at another. It is not,
however, exactly the same proportion for all old countries, simply
because the habits and standards of living are different, to say nothing
of healthiness or unhealthiness of climate and occupation. For similar
reasons it is not the same for towns as for country districts.[279] “A
general measure of mortality for all countries taken together” would be
useless if procurable; but it cannot be procured.[280]
Habits, however, are sufficiently fixed to make us certain that “any
_direct_ encouragements to marriage must be accompanied by an increased
mortality.”[281] They spur a willing horse. Montesquieu and Süssmilch,
although they both enlarge on the evils of over-population, still think
it a statesman’s duty to be, like Augustus and Trajan, the father of his
people by encouraging their marriages. But, if many marriages mean many
deaths, the princes or statesmen who should really succeed in this
patriotic policy might more justly be called the destroyers than the
fathers of their people.[282]
If Malthus had been asked how a prince could best become a real _pater
patriæ_, he would have named two or three ways. The prince might direct
his mind to the improvement of industry, especially of agriculture.[283]
He might circulate news and knowledge on these subjects;[284] or, as we
should say now, he might institute agricultural exhibitions, and regular
agricultural statistics of home and foreign production. He would in this
way increase the population by helping to increase the food.
In the second place, he might benefit trade everywhere by giving it the
security of good government and impartial justice, a peaceful foreign
policy and light taxation.
In the third place, he might, together with all these, encourage
Emigration. Malthus devotes a special chapter of the essay to this
subject; and, though the chapter is in a later part of his work (Bk.
III. ch. iv.[285]), this seems the best place to touch on the subject.
Emigration, he says, is, apart from political distinctions, the same
thing as migration; and, if it is economically good for a man to go from
a poor land at his door to a rich in the next county, it cannot be
economically bad for him to go from a poor district of his own country
to a rich across the sea. The mere length of the journey or the
difference of latitude does not affect the economical nature of the
change.
Economical motives, however, have come very late in all the great
European emigrations. It was not the desire of finding room for the
over-crowded families at home, but desire of the metal gold, or else it
was the simple love of adventure, or ambition of conquest, that first
sent the Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Dutch to the far East and far
West.[286] “These passions enabled the first adventurers to triumph”
over obstacles that would have deterred quiet industrial emigrants, “but
in many instances in a way to make humanity shudder, and to defeat the
very end of emigration. Whatever may be the character of the Spanish
inhabitants of Mexico and Peru at the present moment, we cannot read the
accounts of the first conquests of these countries without feeling
strongly that the race destroyed was, in moral worth as well as numbers,
superior to the race of their destroyers.” The settlers that followed on
the heels of these pioneers, though they were more like real emigrants,
went unskilfully to work. They seemed to expect that “the moral and
mechanical habits” which suited the old country would suit the new,[287]
and everything would go on as it did at home. At first therefore there
would be a redundant population[288] in the new country rather than in
the old, for, however great the possible produce of the colony, the
actual produce would be less than the wants of the new-comers on their
first arrival. To all this must be added the fact that, though
economically a far and a near place are alike, they are very different
to the sentiments of men. Patriotism is no fault, and the breaking of
home ties is a real evil to the individuals, however beneficial the
emigration may be to the nation. Men are slow to move, not only from the
uncertain prospects of success, but from that _vis inertiæ_ in man which
is always counteracting the _vis mediatriæ_ of commercial ambition. In
addition, therefore, to the mere uneasiness of poverty and the desire of
getting a living, there is need of some spirit of enterprise, to make
men willing and successful emigrants.[289] Those who felt distress most
would often have been the most helpless in a new country; they needed
leaders who were “urged by the spirit of avarice or enterprise, or of
religious or political discontent, or were furnished with means and
support by Government;” otherwise, “whatever degree of misery they might
suffer in their own country from the scarcity of subsistence, they would
be absolutely unable to take possession of any of those uncultivated
regions of which there is such an extent on the earth.” Emigration then
(according to Malthus) is not likely to happen unless political
discontent and extreme poverty have brought the emigrants to such a
plight that it is better for their country as well as for themselves
that they should go. “There are no fears so totally ill-grounded as the
fears of depopulation from emigration.”[290] Emigration is not even a
cure for an over-population; and is much recommended only because little
adopted. Gaps made in the population of old countries are soon filled
up; room found in the new is soon occupied. If emigration is proposed as
a means of securing an absolutely unrestricted increase of population by
placing old countries in the position of new colonies, the hope will be
soon and for ever cut off.[291]
Towards the end of his life, Malthus had an opportunity of explaining
his views on this subject to an audience of statesmen. He appeared as a
witness before the Select Committee[292] of the House of Commons “to
inquire into the expediency of encouraging emigration from the United
Kingdom,” and his influence is traceable in their Reports. They
reported[293] that there had been in the United Kingdom a “redundant
population,” in Ireland agricultural, in Scotland and England
manufacturing; that one cause of it had been the unavoidable
displacement of hand labour by machinery;[294] that meanwhile the
British colonies in America, Africa, and Australia had few men and
plenty of land, and that it would benefit the whole empire if parishes
could convert their probable or actual paupers into emigrants, always
provided that the remaining population could be induced not to grow so
fast as to fill the whole gap thus created.[295] “The testimony” (said
the Committee in their third Report[296]) “which was uniformly given by
the practical witnesses has been confirmed in the most absolute manner
by that of Mr. Malthus, and your Committee cannot but express their
satisfaction at finding that the experience of facts is thus
strengthened throughout by general reasoning and scientific principles.”
They were more disposed than their witness himself to _a priori_
reasoning, and in many of their leading questions he declined to follow
them.[297] But he agreed with their main conclusions, allowing that
under certain conditions it would be even a financial advantage to
remove unemployed workmen to the colonies rather than suffer them to
become paupers at home, and adding, that, if he was against the
admission of any legal claim to relief in ordinary cases of pauperism,
still more would he be against it when the pauper had before him the
alternative of assisted emigration.[298] His own view of emigration had
not changed since he wrote in 1803. It was to him a partial remedy; and
it is more useful when spontaneously adopted by the people[299] than
when pressed on them by their Government. Under the torture of the
question he conceded no more.[300]
As a temporary expedient, the essay tells us,[301] “with a view to the
more general cultivation of the earth and the wider extension of
civilization, it seems to be both useful and proper,” and is to be
encouraged, or at least not prevented, by Governments. All depends on
the rate of wages. If wages were high enough to enable people to live
with what they counted reasonable comfort at home, we may be sure their
domestic and patriotic ties would be strong enough to keep them there.
The complaint that emigration raises wages is most unreasonable. At the
utmost it prevents wages from falling too low, and helps to heal the
mischief caused by fluctuations in trade.
We shall find at a later stage that Malthus is keenly aware of the
unhappiness caused in modern industrial societies by changes in the
demand for goods, occurring even in the natural (or uninterrupted)
course of trade. A movement in favour of emigration in 1806 and 1807 led
him to insert a paragraph in the fourth edition of his essay which
explains the relation of emigration to these changes. He accepts the
statement of Adam Smith, that “the demand for men, like that for any
other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men;”[302] but
he adds (as Cairnes added later) that it takes some little time to bring
more labour into the market when there is demand for it, and some little
time to check the supply when once it has begun to flow.[303] A family
may be reared to catch high wages, and the high wages may have gone
before the family has arrived at maturity. Malthus distinguishes between
a normal or slight “oscillation” of this kind, and an excessive
redundancy caused by an unusual stimulus to production—the stimulus, for
example, of the foreign wars and the foreign trade of the years before
Waterloo. In the normal case we must submit to the inevitable; in the
exceptional we may find an outlet in emigration. No doubt, even if there
be no emigration, in the long run the labour market will right itself;
but the process will be a very painful one to the workmen concerned.
Emigration is the humane and politic remedy.
In some cases, such as Norway and the uplands of Switzerland,[304] there
would seem to be no need for Government to teach the people to emigrate.
Circumstances should do it for them; but human beings are influenced by
habit and “chance” as much as by any deliberate motive, commercial or
otherwise. In the Swiss uplands, as Malthus knew them, “a habit of
emigration depended not only on situation but often on accident.” Three
or four successful emigrations “have frequently given a spirit of
enterprise to a whole village, and three or four unsuccessful ones a
contrary spirit.”[305] This is illustrated by the contrast of two
parishes, both in the Canton de Vaud, St. Cergues in the Jura, and
Leysin[306] in the Bernese Alps near Aigle. The movements of population
in Leysin puzzled M. Muret, the Swiss economist, who drew up a paper on
the depopulation of Switzerland for the Economical Society of Berne in
the year 1766. He found that in this parish of four hundred people there
were born every year on an average only eight children, whereas,
elsewhere in Canton de Vaud, to the same number of people eleven (in
Lyonnais sixteen) children were a common proportion. The difference, he
observed, disappeared by the age of twenty, when, if we may say so, the
difference died off, the eight in Leysin being healthier than the eleven
(or sixteen) elsewhere. Muret infers from this, that “in order to
maintain in all places the proper equilibrium of population, God has
wisely ordered things in such a manner as that the force of life in each
country should be in the inverse ratio of its fecundity.”[307] There is,
however, no need to suppose a miracle. The fact was simply that the
place and the employments were healthy, that the people had not formed
habits of emigration, that their resources were stationary, that,
therefore, they married late, had few children, and were
long-lived.[308] The subsisting marriages were to the annual births as
12 to 1; the births were to the living population as 1 to 49; and the
number of persons above sixteen were to those below as 3 to 1.[309] This
would show that mere number of births is no criterion of the size of a
population, for it took only about half of the ordinary number of births
to keep up a population of four hundred in the parish of Leysin. In St.
Cergues the subsisting marriages were to the annual births as 4 to 1
(instead of 12 to 1 as at Leysin), the births were to the living
population as 1 to 26, and the number of persons above and below sixteen
just equal. That is to say, St. Cergues had nearly twice as many births
a year in proportion to the population, and more than twice as many
marriages; but, instead of three-fourths of its living population being
above sixteen (as at Leysin), those above and those below were equal in
number, and St. Cergues had a smaller proportion of adults than Leysin.
On the other hand, the death-rate was nearly the same; the healthiness
was nearly as great. How came it then that the population of St. Cergues
was only one hundred and seventy-one, as against the four hundred and
five of Leysin? What became of the children born? Seeing that they did
not die, and did not appear on the registers of the living, we infer
that they left their native village; that is all. The situation of the
parish of St. Cergues, on the high road from Paris to Geneva, suggested
emigration; and, as a matter of fact, the place had become, like most
highland hamlets, a breeding-place for the lowlands and the
manufacturing towns. The annual drain of adults made room for the
favoured remnant to marry and have large families. Even Leysin, though
it lay on no high road, might conceivably (says Malthus) have exchanged
its stay-at-home character for a habit of emigration, and might then
have doubled its birth-rate without raising the death-rate. It is one of
the fallacies of old statisticians to infer a large population from a
high birth-rate; in an old country, if the rate of births is high in
comparison with the number of living inhabitants, it means either many
deaths or much emigration.
The people of an old country, if they cannot or will not emigrate, must,
according to Malthus, either look for a high death-rate or accustom
themselves to late marriages. M. Muret’s figures showed that many
cantons of Switzerland had adopted this last course in the eighteenth
century. In the Canton de Vaud, for example, the proportion of marriages
to living inhabitants (1 to 140) was lower than in Norway itself. In a
pastoral country the limits of human resources are so obvious that the
people cannot fail to be impressed with the need of limiting their
numbers. Pastoral industry, again, feeds more than it employs,[310] and
the unemployed must look for employment elsewhere. This was one reason
why there were so many Swiss in foreign service. “When a father has more
than one son, those who are not wanted on the farm are powerfully
tempted to enrol themselves as soldiers, or emigrate in some other way,
as the only chance to enable them to marry.”[311] Malthus was a little
disappointed with the condition of the Swiss peasantry when he saw them
in 1803. Perhaps, he says, they were still suffering from the wars in
which the “Helvetic Republic” had been involved by its French allies;
but more probably they were suffering from the unwise attempts of their
Government in the previous century to “encourage” what they then thought
was a declining population.[312] The peasant who guided Malthus to the
sources of the Orbe[313] talked freely to him on the poverty of the
district, which he ascribed to early and imprudent marriages, “le vice
du pays”; he would have a law passed to prevent a man marrying till he
was forty, and a woman till she was elderly. He said that at one time
the introduction of stone polishing had given the people high wages and
led them to expect constant employment; changes of fashion[314] had
helped to drive the industry away, but the habits taught by it had
remained so fast rooted in the people that emigration itself brought no
relief to their overflowing numbers. But this self-taught Malthusian had
not learned his lesson perfectly. He fancied that the fertile lands of
the low countries, with their abundance of corn and employments, could
never experience the evil of over-population. This was true only in the
unhappy sense that they had greater unhealthiness and a greater
mortality, providing room for early marriages and many births.
It is easy to see that Malthus over-valued his prize. The _pons
asinorum_ of the subject is the doctrine that over-population is not a
question of absolute numbers or absolute quantity of food and fertility
of soil, but of the numbers in relation to the food, in whatever place
or time; and the young peasant had not crossed it.
CHAPTER VI.
FRANCE.
French Numbers a Problem to Europe in 1802, because Law of Increase
not understood—Effects of War—Lament for the unborn millions eighty
years ago—More fitting now—Good Distribution and Production
sometimes inseparable—The Stationary State—Malthus and the French
Revolution.
In the order of his writing Malthus follows the order of his travels,
and takes France[315] after Switzerland. France presents us with facts
of an almost unique kind. But before the Revolution it had no
trustworthy parish registers to show to the English inquirer; and
Malthus would not have lingered over it, if in 1802 the public mind had
not been perplexed by a riddle, about French population and its increase
during war, of which he had the key.[316]
The essay is not meant for a mere history, and its author is not careful
to be full in his historical details if he has a body of facts
sufficient for his purpose. He even says, about some conjectures of his
own based on French figures, that he had only adopted the figures for
the sake of illustration, and had not supposed them to be strictly true.
“It will be but of little consequence if any of the facts or
calculations which have been assumed in the course of this chapter
should turn out to be false. The reader will see that the reasonings are
of a general nature, and may be true though the facts taken to
illustrate them may be inapplicable.”[317] This is not a wary admission.
Nevertheless, the chapter on France is one of the most telling in the
essay. The substance of it may be stated very shortly.
“It has been seen,” he says, “in many of the preceding chapters, that
the proportions of births, deaths, and marriages are extremely different
in different countries, and there is the strongest reason for believing
that they are very different in the same country at different periods
and under different circumstances.”[318] The truth of this remark is
borne out not only by the contrast between the France and the
Switzerland of that time, but, as we shall find, by the contrast between
the France of 1803 and the France of to-day. It is not singular that
Malthus should (wrongly) expect the Swiss to become his pupils more
easily than the French, for in his day both the mortality and the number
of marriages were greater in France than in Switzerland.[319]
He spends most pains in illustrating the contrast between the France
before the Revolution and the France at the Peace of Amiens. In many
ways it was fortunate that he confined himself to the Republican period.
It was the time when the moral position of France was highest, and she
was warring not for conquest but for defence. Switzerland had
exemplified the fact that Emigration does not permanently check
population, but, on the whole, encourages it. France, at the time
chosen, exemplified the fact that even the most destructive Wars have a
similar effect on the growth of numbers. What Malthus had proved more or
less deductively in regard to ancient nations he was able to show more
inductively by statistics in regard to modern. Great surprise was
expressed in the early days of this century that, in spite of her
enormous losses, France had not diminished in population. Malthus says
she had rather increased than diminished. According to the estimate of
the Constituent Assembly, which was confirmed by the calculations of
Necker, the population in 1792, before the war, was 26,000,000. In 1801
it seems, from the returns of the Prefects, to have been about
28,000,000.[320] In ten years the increase had been 2,000,000, or
200,000 a year. Yet at a medium calculation France, in addition to the
ordinary deaths, had lost by the war about 1,000,000 of men up to that
time,[321] or 100,000 a year. How, on the principles of Malthus, were
the two facts to be reconciled?
To reconcile them he shows, first, how, according to the figures given
by Frenchmen themselves, the numbers of the unmarried survivors at home
were more than enough to have kept up in case of necessity the old
number of marriages and the old rate of increase; second, how from
general principles there was a presumption in favour of a rapid increase
at such a time; and third, how the social and industrial conditions of
the French people since the Revolution were favourable to an increase of
population. First, then, he shows that the entire body of unmarried
persons was large enough in spite of the war to fill the vacancies and
keep up the old rate of increase. The body of the unmarried is formed by
the “accumulation” year by year of the numbers of persons, rising to
marriageable age, who are not married (or say briefly of the
marriageable unmarried, including widows and widowers). This
accumulation will only stop when the yearly accessions thereto are no
more than equal to the yearly mortality therein. The size of this body
will therefore vary with the character of the particular nation
considered. In the Canton de Vaud it was equal to the whole number of
the married; but in France both the mortality and the marriage rate were
higher than in Switzerland, and the unmarried were therefore a smaller
fraction of the total numbers. Assuming from the French authorities[322]
a certain birth and death-rate, and assuming from the same authorities
that the unmarried men for the period before the Revolution were one and
a half millions out of five millions that were marriageable, it would
appear that every year there were 600,000 persons arriving at the
marriageable age, of whom (since about 220,000 is the annual number of
marriages) 440,000 marry. The surplus of unmarried is therefore 160,000
persons, or about 80,000 men. It follows that for war purposes (if mere
numbers be considered) the reserve fund of men would be nearly one and a
half millions, and every new annual surplus of 80,000 youths above
eighteen might be taken for military service without any diminution in
the number of marriages.[323] As a matter of fact, it is putting the
case somewhat strongly to suppose as many as 600,000 to be taken for
service in the first instance, and 150,000 additional troops to keep up
the supply every year. But this would still leave in the first instance
nearly 900,000 for the reserve fund, which with the annual 80,000 could
bear a drain on it of 150,000 for ten years, and leave a balance of
200,000 altogether, or 20,000 a year. In other words, there would be
room for an increase in the number of marriages of nearly 20,000. It
would not be miraculous then if the French population should continue to
increase in the face of great losses in war, for the increase before the
war had been very much less than the greatest possible.
In the second place, the circumstances of the civilian population made
an increase very likely. Many out of the reserve fund of unmarried men
will in the course of ten years be past the military age, but not past
the age of marriage. The 150,000 recruits would probably be taken from
the 300,000 who every year rose to marriageable age, and the marriages
would be kept up from the older unmarried men, in the scarcity of
younger husbands. It may be remembered, too, that in the early years of
the war so many youths married prematurely to avoid service,[324] that
the Directory were obliged (in 1798) to extend the conscription to the
married men. But even when the husbands were removed to the war the
marriages were not necessarily childless, and would thus, at the least,
be a means of adding to the people’s numbers that did not exist before
the Revolution. The facility of divorce, too, though bad both in morals
and in politics, would at least, in the existing scarcity of men, act
somewhat like polygamy, and make the number of children greater in
proportion to the number of husbands. It is said, too, that there were
more natural children born in France after the Revolution than before
it; and, since the peasants were better off after it than before it,
there was a better chance that more of the children than formerly should
survive.
In the third place, there is no doubt, says Malthus, that the division
of the domain lands and the creation (or at least the multiplication) of
peasant properties have had a great influence both on wealth and on
population. They add to population more than to wealth, for they
increase the gross produce of food at the expense of the nett surplus.
“If all the land of England were divided into farms of £20 a year, we
should probably be more populous than we are at present, but as a nation
we should be extremely poor. We should be almost without disposable
revenue, and should be under a total inability of maintaining the same
number of manufactures or collecting the same taxes as at present.”[325]
But the division of lands was at least in favour of the gross produce,
and even the passing traveller was inclined to think, from the
appearance of the fields and the style of the field labour, that,
however severely the manufacturing industry of France might have
suffered during the war, her agriculture had rather gained than
lost.[326] The absence of so many strong men with the armies would not
only raise wages at home and make the labourers better off, but by _pro
tanto_ lessening the demand for food and taking from those at home the
burden of supporting so many men, would not raise the price of food with
the wages, but would allow real wages to rise. This would co-operate
with political causes in making the people desert the towns for the
country, and thereby it would reduce the death-rate, which is always
higher in towns than in the country. It is attested by Arthur Young (no
friend to the _Essay on Population_) that the high mortality of France
before the Revolution (according to Necker 1 in 30) was caused by an
over-population which the changes at the Revolution tended to remove.
The probability is, therefore, that the births increased and the deaths
decreased during the ten years after the Revolution; and there could be
no difficulty in understanding the increase of population in spite of
the war. In the later editions of the essay[327] Malthus confesses that
his French figures need revision; the returns of the Prefects for 1801–2
and other Government papers had given a smaller proportion of births
than he had thought probable, for the period before the Revolution. But
(he remarks) the Prefects’ returns do not embrace the earlier years of
the Revolution, precisely the time when the encouragement to marriage
would be greatest and the proportion of births highest. In any case they
show that the population of France is not less but greater since the
Revolution. If in the latter part of this period the increase was
affected by the decrease of deaths rather than by increase of births,
they not only leave his position untouched, but give him a result that
would highly please him. Certainly in England and in Switzerland, and
probably in every European country, the rate of mortality has decreased
in the last two hundred years, through the greater healthiness of the
conditions of life; and it is not at all surprising that a population
should be kept up or even made to increase with a smaller proportion of
births, deaths, and marriages than before.[328]
The French labouring classes at the beginning of the Revolution were
seventy-six per cent. worse fed, clothed, and supported than their
fellows in England.[329] Their wages were 10_d._ a day (as compared with
1_s._ 5_d._), while the price of corn was about the same; but their
condition and their remuneration had been decidedly improved by the
Revolution and the division of the national domains. Wages in money
(since Young wrote) had risen to 1_s._ 3_d._ a day; and, according to
some authorities, the real wages had become even higher than in
England.[330] The new distribution of wealth had been followed by an
immense increase in the production of it, shared by the producers
themselves, and making France immensely stronger as a nation either for
offence or defence.[331] Such an improvement in the condition of the
people would naturally be followed by diminution in the deaths; and a
diminution in the deaths must lead either to an increase of population
or to a decrease in the marriages and births. The latter (which is
presumably an increase of moral restraint) has followed. In the ten
years after the Peace of Amiens the population seems to have increased
only at a very slow rate. “There is perhaps no proposition more
incontrovertible than this, that in two countries, in which the rate of
increase, the natural healthiness of climate, and the state of towns and
manufactures are supposed to be nearly the same, the one in which the
pressure of poverty is the greatest will have the greatest proportion of
births, deaths, and marriages,” and _vice versâ_.[332]
Malthus’ survey of population in France applies only to his own
lifetime, and indeed only to the earlier part of that. To do him full
justice we must place his picture of the real losses of war alongside of
his description of the compensations.
The constant tendency of population to increase up to the limits of the
food may be interpreted (in the case of war) as the tendency of the
births in a country to supply the vacancies made by death. The breaches
are not permanent; they are among the reparable as distinguished from
the irreparable mischiefs of war. But this does not, from a moral or
political aspect, afford the slightest excuse for the misery caused
thereby to the existing inhabitants.
“Can you by filling cradles empty graves?”
There is an exchange of mature beings in the “full vigour of their
enjoyments”[333] for an equal number of helpless infants. Not only is
this a waste of the men who died, but it is a deterioration, for the
time being, of the quality of the whole people; they will consist of
more than the normal proportion of women and children; and the married
will be men and women who in ordinary times would have remained single.
When the drain of men for military service begins to exhaust the reserve
of unmarried persons, and the annual demands are in excess of the number
annually rising to marriageable age, then of course war will actually
diminish population.[334] Till that point is reached, war may alter the
units and spoil the quality of the population, but will not lessen its
total volume. Sir Francis Ivernois, from whom Malthus took some of his
figures, went too far in the other direction when he told us we must not
look so much at the deaths in battle or in hospital, when we are
counting up the destructive effects of war or revolution, as at the
remoter results; “the number of men war has killed is of much less
importance than the number of children whom it has prevented and will
still prevent from coming into the world.” He supposes one million of
men to have been lost in the Revolution itself, and one and a half
millions in its wars; and he says that, if only two millions of these
had been married, they would have needed to have had six children each
in order that a number of children equal to the number of their parents
(_i. e._ four millions) should be alive thirty-nine years afterwards. We
ought, he thinks, to mourn not only for the two and a half millions of
men killed, but for the twelve millions whom their death prevented from
being born. To which Malthus wisely answers that the slain, being
full-grown men, reared at no little cost to themselves and their
country, may be fitly mourned, but not the unborn twelve millions, whose
appearance in the world would only have sent or kept a corresponding
number out of it,—and “if in the best-governed country in Europe we were
to mourn the posterity which is prevented from coming into being, we
should always wear the habit of grief.”[335]
If Sir Francis Ivernois could have foreseen the history of French
population for seventy years after the time when he wrote, he would have
had more reason to utter his curious lament.
“The effect of the Revolution,” wrote Malthus in 1817, “has been to make
every person depend more upon himself and less upon others. The
labouring classes have therefore become more industrious, more saving,
and more prudent in marriage than formerly; and it is quite certain that
without these effects the Revolution would have done nothing for
them.”[336] The country districts which took the least active part in
the Revolution have been the most resolute in conserving the results of
it. Over-population in France is known only in the towns. At the
beginning of the eighteenth century—say one hundred and fifty years ago
(1732)—under Louis XV. the population of France was estimated at twenty
millions of people.[337] There is good reason to believe that the habits
of the people were entirely different from what they are now; they were
even said to be famous for their large families.[338] In 1776 their
numbers were about twenty-four millions,[339] at the Revolution of 1789
about twenty-six millions,[340] in 1831 thirty-two and a half, and in
1866 thirty-eight. At the present time, from loss of territory and from
decrease of numbers in certain parts of the country, they are little
more than thirty-seven and a half millions—not much more than the
population of Great Britain, a country neither so large nor so fertile.
Even in 1815 Malthus spoke of France as having a more stationary and
less crowded population than Britain, though it was richer in corn.[341]
The population of 1881 showed an increase of 766,260 over that of 1876,
and was in all 37,672,048.[342] It increases not by augmentation in the
number of births, for that has been actually lessening, but by
diminution in the deaths. The population of Britain has trebled itself
within the present century; that of France has not even doubled itself
in a century and a half, with every allowance for a varying frontier.
The fears which Malthus expressed,[343] that the law of inheritance and
compulsory division of property would lead to an excessive and
impoverished country population, have not been realized. The industrial
progress of the country has been very great. Fifty years ago the
production of wheat was only the half of what it is to-day, of meat less
than the half. In almost every crop and every kind of food France is
richer now than then in the proportion of more than 2 to 1. In all the
conveniences of life (if food be the necessaries) the increased supply
is as 4 to 1, while foreign trade has become as 6 to 1. Since property
is more widely distributed in France than elsewhere, an increase of
production is much more certain to mean a benefit to the whole people.
But there are certain classes of goods, chiefly necessaries, of which
(even in a land like England, where the great wealth is in a few hands)
it is impossible profitably to extend the production without _pari
passu_ extending the distribution. When articles of food are imported in
vast quantities, they cannot, from the nature of things, go entirely to
the rich; the rich can easily eat and drink beyond the normal value, but
not much (without Gargantua’s mouth) beyond the normal quantity; and, at
least in the case of our own country, very little is exported again.
Generally speaking, it is a true saying that, the more the food, the
more are fed. But what is true of necessaries in England is true even of
other goods in France.[344] The “average wealth of each person” is not
there, as often elsewhere, a mere arithmetical entity, but a very near
approach to the ordinary state of the great majority of the people; and
this average wealth is thought by good authorities[345] to have more
than doubled since the beginning of the century. The population, on the
other hand, has only increased by one-half; and the average duration of
life has lengthened from twenty-eight to thirty-seven years. In a paper
of Chateauneuf’s (1826) quoted by MacCulloch,[346] it was said that the
French people were improving their condition by diminishing their
marriages. The statistician Levasseur, on the contrary, with the facts
of another half-century before him, tells us that married people in
France are the _majority_ of the population,[347] the average age of
marriage being twenty-six for the women, and rather more than thirty for
the men. The birth-rate, however, is the lowest in Europe,[348] being 1
in 37, as opposed to 1 in 27 for England. It is by refusing to fill the
cradles that they leave the graves empty. Yet France is less healthy
than England. Its death-rate in 1882 was 22.2 per thousand, while in
England it was 19.6.[349]
There are other features which make the case unique. There are few
foreigners in France; the numbers of the French people are neither
swelled by immigration nor reduced by emigration. Since the expulsion of
the Huguenots and the colonization of Canada, few nations have been so
rooted in their own country; even Algerian and Tunisian conquests are
due to no popular passion for colonizing. The peasant properties have
made the people averse to movement.
At present most Frenchmen remain during life in the same Department in
which they were born;[350] and recent observers tell us[351] that a
military career is becoming distasteful to all classes. Taking the
absence of immigration as balanced by the absence of emigration, we are
brought to the conclusion that the population of France is stationary by
its own deliberate act.
How far this is in accordance with the views of Malthus it is impossible
to say in one word. It is at least the result of the prudence which he
was always preaching. But his prudence lay in the deferring of marriage;
and this is not the form which prevails in France. Moreover, he thought
with Adam Smith that the progressive state and not the stationary was
the normal one for humanity; if the whole world became contented with
what it had got, there would, in his opinion, be no progress, and the
resources and capacities of human beings and of the world would not be
developed. In fact, he retained the aspirations of the Revolution, which
the country-folk in France seem in danger of losing; he wished men to
have hopes for the future as well as a comfortable life in the present;
he saw no virtue in mere smallness any more than in mere bigness of
numbers; he desired as great as possible a population of stalwart,
well-instructed, wise, and enterprising men; he thought that, without
competition, ambition, and emulation, and without the element of
difficulty and hardship, human beings would never fully exert their best
powers, though he also thought that a time might come when the lower
classes would be as the middle classes, or, in his own words, when the
lower would be diminished and the middle increased, and when, mainly
through the action of the labourers themselves, inventions would become
a real benefit, because accompanied by lighter labour and shorter hours
for the labourers.[352] As for that love of humanity, that was so much
present in the words and thoughts if not in the deeds of the men of the
Revolution, he had a full share of it. He desired a longer life for the
living, and fewer births for the sake of fewer deaths. His work was like
that of the lighthouse, to give light and to save life.
CHAPTER VII.
ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND.
Prevailing Checks—Proposed Census of 1753—Brown’s
Estimate—Depopulation of England in Eighteenth Century—Opposing
Arguments—Census of 1801—Interpretation of Returns—Relative Nature
of the Question of Populousness—Scotland to England as Country to
Town—Industrial changes since the Union—Ireland under English rule
in Eighteenth Century and after—The Wall of Brass—Virtue without
Wisdom—The Potato Standard—The Emigration Committee—The New
Departure.
In dealing with the question of population in his own country,[353]
Malthus tries to answer at least three distinct questions:—What were the
checks actually at work in those days? Had the numbers of the people
increased, or not, in the eighteenth century? What conclusions on either
point may be drawn from the English census?
The first question was answered with comparative fulness in the essay of
1798. It is remarked there that in England the middle and upper classes
increase at a slow rate, because they are always anxious to keep their
station, and afraid of the expense of marriage.[354] No man, as a rule,
would like his wife’s social condition to be out of keeping with her
habits and inclinations. Two or three steps of descent will be
considered by most people as a real evil. “If society be held desirable,
it surely must be free, equal, and reciprocal society, where benefits
are conferred as well as received, and not such as the dependant finds
with his patron or the poor with the rich.” So it happens that many men,
of liberal education and limited income, do not give effect to an early
attachment by an early marriage. When their passion is too strong or
their judgment too weak for this restraint, no doubt they have blessings
that counterbalance the obvious evils; “but I fear it must be owned that
the more general consequences of such marriages are rather calculated to
justify than to repress the forebodings of the prudent.”[355] What
Malthus desires, as we infer from the general tenor of his book, is that
all classes without exception should show reluctance to impair their
standard of living; and his hatred of the Poor Laws is due to his
conviction that they hinder this end. The subject will be more fully
discussed by-and-by.[356] In the chapters on England it is little more
than mentioned, the author devoting himself chiefly to the statistical
data of the census and registers.
In this connection it was impossible for him to avoid the question that
had long agitated the minds of politicians. Had the numbers of the
English people been decreasing or increasing since the Revolution of
1688, and especially in the course of the eighteenth century? Economists
of the present day are overloaded with statistics; but, when Adam Smith
wrote the _Wealth of Nations_, he was unaware of the numbers of his own
nation. To estimate population without a census is to study language
without a dictionary; there had been no census since the coming of the
Armada,[357] and it was not till one hundred years after that event that
statistical studies came much into favour. An annual enumeration of the
people was proposed in the House of Commons in 1753, as a means of
knowing the numbers of our poor.[358] But the proposal was resisted as
anti-Scriptural and un-English, exposing our weakness to the foreigner
and spending public money to settle the wagers of the learned. There was
probably a fear[359] that the tax-gatherer would follow on the heels of
the enumerator, as he had done in France. The House of Lords beat off
the bill, and left England in darkness about the numbers of its people
for another half-century, though something like a census of Scotland was
made for Government in 1755.[360] As without the Irish Famine we might
not have had the total Repeal of the Corn Laws, so without the worst of
all possible harvests in 1799 we might have had no census in 1801, for
Parliament, when they passed Mr. Abbot’s Enumeration Bill in 1800,
looked to an enumeration of the people to guide them in opening and
closing the ports to foreign grain. The practical question about the
increase or decline of English numbers was connected, in logic as well
as in time, with the controversy about the comparative populousness of
ancient and modern nations. The same year (1753) which saw the attempt
to settle by census the question of England’s depopulation, saw also the
publication of Dr. Robert Wallace’s reply to Hume’s _Essay on the
Populousness of Ancient Nations_, in his _Dissertations on the Numbers
of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times_. One of Henry Fox’s objections
to Hardwicke’s Marriage Act (of 1753) was that it would check
population.[361] We are told[362] that the academical discussion roused
attention on the Continent, and a French savant, Deslandes, published an
estimate of the numbers of modern nations, in which England was made
much inferior to France, having only eight millions against twenty. This
was too much for English patriotism. Even in our own day a great war and
a few reverses usually fill England for a year or two with forebodings
of decay. Written in 1757 (at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War),
Dr. John Brown’s _Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times_
was only the most popular of a host of gloomy pamphlets too prejudiced
to be of much use for statistics.[363] Dr. Adam Anderson[364] sides with
the moderns and the optimists. The contributions of Dr. Brackenridge and
Richard Forster to the discussion survive by the mention of them in
Price’s _Observations_ (pp. 182–3) and in George Chalmers’ _Estimate_
(ch. xi. 193), this last giving on the whole perhaps the most lucid
history of the whole depopulation controversy. We know from Goldsmith’s
_Traveller_ (1764) and _Deserted Village_ (1770), with its charming
illogical preface, that even in peace the subject was not out of men’s
thoughts. A similar panic in Switzerland, which owed its beginning to
England,[365] seems afterwards to have reacted on England itself. The
American War of Independence revived the languishing interest in the
controversy. This time it was the English and not the antiquarian topic
that fell into powerful hands. Dr. Richard Price, the Radical dissenter,
the friend of Dr. Franklin, and the inventor of Pitt’s Sinking Fund, did
battle, in his _Observations on Reversionary Payments_ (1769), on behalf
of the pessimistic view; Arthur Young, the agriculturist, the traveller
and the talker, led the opposition to him,[366] and was supported by Sir
Frederick Eden, William Wales, John Howlett, and last but not least by
George Chalmers.[367]
Gregory King[368] and Justice Hale[369] in the seventeenth century, Dr.
Campbell[370] in the eighteenth, had agreed that the numbers of Norman
England must needs have been small, for the government was bad; Dr.
Price, on the contrary, had maintained the paradox that, though the
Revolution of 1688 brought a “happier government,” the numbers of the
people had ever since declined.[371] He reasoned from the decreased
number of dwelling-houses assessed to window tax and house duty, as
compared with those assessed to hearth (or chimney) money before the
Revolution.[372] Opponents denied the accuracy of his data, and thought
his estimate of four and a half or five inhabitants to a house too low.
He pointed to the evil influence of a “devouring metropolis,” a head too
large for the body, and of great cities that were the “graves of
mankind.”[373] Here, too, both the data and the inference were doubtful.
He argued from the decreasing produce of the Excise duties. Opponents
answered that, even if the figures were right, a changed public taste
had lessened the consumption of many taxable articles, and many taxed
ones were supplied free by smuggling.[374] He laid stress on the
difficulty the Government found in raising troops in the middle of the
eighteenth century as compared with the end of the seventeenth, though
he took this as a symptom, not a cause, and complained at the same time
quite consistently that the increase of the army and navy and of
military expenditure in three great wars had been a potent cause of
diminished population. Opponents answered that the first was really a
symptom not of decline but of prosperity; the abundance of other
employments kept men from the need of enlisting in the army; and they
answered too often, that the second (the war expenditure) was good for
trade. They were safer in urging that for the first part of the century
the long peace (1727–40) and the good harvests (1731–50) made the
presumption of increase very strong.[375] Price made much of the
emigrations to America and to the East and West Indies. It was answered
that the known possibility of emigration would give men at home the
greater courage to have a family. Even the engrossing and consolidation
of farms and the enclosure of commons, which he considered to be against
population, would, said his opponents, increase the food, and therefore
the people, though perhaps not the people on the spot;[376] and the
increase of paupers was thought to be a sign of overflowing numbers. He
saw a cause of depopulation in the increased luxury and extravagance of
the people of England. At the beginning of the century gin-drinking was
credited with an evil effect on population.[377] When the opponents of
Price did not meet this with Mandeville’s sophism, luxury benefits
trade, they answered that what had become greater was not the national
vices but the national standard of comfort, the expansion of which
implied an increase of general wealth and presumably of population.[378]
Beyond doubt too (it was argued) the general health was better, and
medical science had won some triumphs.[379] Malthus, however, warns us
against this argument; great unhealthiness is no proof of a small
population nor healthiness of a large.[380] In the ten years after the
American War of Independence (1783–93) the prosperity of the country
seems to have advanced by leaps and bounds, only to make the subsequent
depression the more observable. Dr. Price, who did not live to see the
relapse, seems to have confessed his error. “In allusion to a
diminishing population, on which subject it appears that he has so
widely erred, he says very candidly that perhaps he may have been
insensibly influenced to maintain an opinion once advanced.”[381] Yet
public opinion was not fully convinced till 1801, when “the answers to
the Population Act at length happily rescued the question of the
population of this country from the obscurity in which it had been so
long involved.”[382]
There is no good reason to believe that at the end of last century the
fear of depopulation had given place to a fear of over-population.[383]
Malthus and Arthur Young stood almost alone in their opinion.[384] Alarm
was felt by the agricultural interest, not lest there should be an
excessive population, but lest the population should get its food from
abroad. The population it was feared had grown beyond the English
supplies of food; but of over-population, in the wider sense of an
excess beyond any existing food, the general public and the squires had
learned little or nothing in these years; and we have no reason to
attribute to Malthus any share in the merit of passing the Enumeration
Bill. It was brought forward in an autumn session of Parliament (Nov.
1800) specially convened because of the scarcity. It was moved by Mr.
Abbot,[385] who had made his name more as a financier than as an
economist, and was chiefly remarkable afterwards as a vigorous opponent
of Catholic Emancipation. The motion was seconded by Mr. Wilberforce;
and the combination of finance and philanthropy was irresistible.
Malthus, though he is the true interpreter of the census, neither caused
it in the first instance nor found it of immediate service in spreading
his doctrines.
The first census would hardly have justified him in treating as obsolete
the old quarrel about depopulation; it had decided only the absolute
numbers in the first year of the nineteenth century, not the progress or
relapse during the eighteenth. Besides giving the actual numbers of the
people in 1801, the census no doubt gave “a table of the population of
England and Wales throughout the last century calculated from the
births.” But the births, though a favourite, were an unsafe criterion;
and, for the population at the Revolution of 1688, Malthus would depend
more on “the old calculations from the number of houses.”[386] He finds
no difficulty of principle in admitting with Mr. Rickman, the editor of
the census returns and observations thereon, that the rapid increase of
the English people since 1780 was due to the decrease of deaths rather
than to the increase of births.[387] Such a phenomenon was not only
possible but common, for the rate of births out of relation to the rate
of deaths could give no sure means of judging the numbers. After a
famine[388] or pestilence, for example, the rate of births might be
twice as high as usual, and by the standard of births the numbers of the
people would be at their maximum, when a comparison with the rate of
deaths or an actual enumeration would show them to be at the
minimum,[389] whereas a low rate of births, if lives were prolonged by
great healthiness, might certainly mean an increase, perhaps a high
increase, of numbers. But at the particular time in question the factory
system was coming into being, and manufacturing towns were growing great
at the expense of the country districts. The conditions of life in towns
are at the best inferior to those in the country; new openings for trade
would add not only to the marriages but to the deaths and the
births.[390] The presumption was not all in favour of healthiness; and
the registers at that particular time could not tell the whole
truth;—the drain of recruits for foreign service would keep down the
lists of burials at home, while allowing an increase of births and
marriages.[391] For these and other reasons, Malthus, while he agrees
with Rickman that the general health has improved, trusts little to his
calculations from registers; and concludes that even the census gives us
no clear light on the movement of population in the eighteenth century.
We can be certain that population increased during the last twenty years
of it, and almost certain that the movement was not downwards but
upwards since the Peace of Paris; and we have good ground for believing
that it was rather upwards than downwards even in the earliest years of
the century, during the good harvests and the long peace of
Walpole,[392] and that over the whole country the movement of population
was less fluctuating in England than on the Continent.[393] The author’s
admission, that the proportions of the births, deaths, and marriages
were very different in our country in his time from what they used to
be,[394] seems to put the census of 1801 out of court altogether in the
question of depopulation, especially as there were no previous
enumerations with which to compare it. The figures from the parish
registers for the whole of the century, that were included in the
“returns pursuant to the Population Act,” in addition to the
enumeration, turned out on examination to be unsatisfactory.[395]
Malthus, however, was able to prove some solid conclusions from the
census of 1801. It had shown, for example, as regards marriages, that
the proportion of them to the whole numbers of the people was, in 1801,
as 1 to 123⅕, a smaller proportion than anywhere except in Norway and
Switzerland,[396] and the more likely to be true, because Hardwicke’s
Marriage Act had made registration of marriages more careful than of
burials and baptisms. In the early part of the eighteenth century, the
pessimist, Dr. Short, had estimated the proportion (with much
probability) as 1 to 115; and it would appear, therefore, that at
neither end of the century were the marriages in a high proportion to
the numbers, or had population increased at its highest rate. Again,
Malthus thinks it proved by the census that, since population has as a
matter of fact increased in England in spite of a diminished rate of
marriages, the increase has been at cost of the mortality, the fewer
marriages being partly a cause, partly a consequence, of the fewer
deaths of the later years.[397] Those that married late might have
consoled themselves with the reflection that they were lessening not the
numbers but the mortality of the nation. It was no doubt difficult to
estimate the extent to which such causes operated, or the degree in
which the national health had been improved. In any case the census
guides us better than the registers,[398] for it carries us beyond the
inferred numbers to numbers actually counted out at a given time.
Neither the census nor the registers can be rightly interpreted without
a knowledge of the social condition, government, and history of the
people concerned. In undeveloped countries, like America and Russia, or
in any old countries after special mortality, a large proportion of
births may be a good sign; “but in the average state of a well-peopled
territory there cannot well be a worse sign than a large proportion of
births, nor can there well be a better sign than a small proportion.”
Sir Francis d’Ivernois had very justly observed that, if the various
states of Europe published annually an exact account of their
population, noting carefully in a second column the exact age at which
the children die, this second column would show the comparative goodness
of the governments, and the comparative happiness of their subjects;—a
simple arithmetical statement might then be more conclusive than the
cleverest argument. Malthus assents, but adds that “we should need to
attend less to the column giving the number of children born, than to
the one giving the number which reached manhood, and this number will
almost invariably be the greatest where the proportion of the births to
the whole population is the least.”[399] Tried by this standard, which
is much more truly the central doctrine of Malthus than the ratios, our
own country was even then better than all, save two, European countries.
Tried by it to-day, we have still a good place. Though no great European
countries, except Austro-Hungary and Germany, have had more _marriages_,
in the twenty years from 1861 to 1880, not only these, but Holland,
Spain, and Italy, have had more _births_, and all of them except
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have had more _deaths_, in proportion to
their numbers.[400]
One great advantage of the census is, that it enables the registrars to
calculate from their own data, with certain sure limits of told-out
numbers behind and before them. “When the registers contain all the
births and deaths, and there are the means [given by the census] of
setting out from a known population, it is obviously the same as an
actual enumeration.”[401] Malthus suggested in 1803 that the experiment
of 1801 should be repeated every ten years, and that registrars’ reports
should be made every year.[402] This has been done; and, if both have
been accurate, then the registers of the intervening years, on the basis
of the decennial enumeration, ought to make us able to calculate the
numbers for any intervening year. Accordingly, the population of England
in 1881, as calculated from the births and deaths, was little more than
one-sixth of a million different from the numbers as actually counted
over on the night of the 4th of April in that year.[403] The growth in
the last decade, 1871 to 1881, was higher than in any since
1831–41;[404] the births were more and the deaths fewer than usual.
Another London has been added to our numbers in ten years.[405]
This gives no sure ground, however, for prediction. To suppose a
country’s rate of increase permanent is hardly less fallacious than to
suppose an invariable order of births and deaths over the world
generally. Even if we are beyond the time when we need to make any
allowance for increasing accuracy and fulness, and if we may assume that
no given census has any units to sweep into its net that through their
fear or an official’s carelessness escaped its predecessor, still we
cannot take the rate of increase from one census to another as a sure
indication of the future. With some qualifications the words of Malthus
apply to us in 1881 quite as accurately as to our fathers in 1811: “This
is a rate of increase which in the nature of things cannot be permanent.
It has been occasioned by the stimulus of a greatly increased demand for
labour, combined with a greatly increased power of production, both in
agriculture and manufactures. These are the two elements which form the
most effective encouragement to a rapid increase of population. What has
taken place is a striking illustration of the principle of population,
and a proof that, in spite of great towns, manufacturing occupations,
and the gradually acquired habits of an opulent and luxuriant people, if
the resources of a country will admit of a rapid increase, and if these
resources are so advantageously distributed as to occasion a constantly
increasing demand for labour, the population will not fail to keep pace
with them.”[406] It was a rate of increase which he saw would double the
population in less than fifty-five years; and this doubling has really
happened. The numbers for England in 1801 were 8,892,536; and in 1851
they were 17,927,609. Malthus had not anticipated any greater changes in
manufacture and trade than those of his own day; and he clearly expected
that the rate of increase would not continue and the numbers would not
be doubled. The one thing certain was the impossibility of safe
prediction on the strength of any existing rate. A writer at the
beginning of this century prophesied the extinction of the Turkish
people in one hundred years; Sir William Petty at the end of the
seventeenth century predicted that in 1800 London would have 5,359,000
inhabitants. But the Turks are not yet extinct; London in 1800 had less
than a million of people, and has taken eighty years more to raise them
to the number in the prophecy.[407]
If prediction was difficult in the case of England, it was not less so
in the case of the other parts of the United Kingdom. The conditions of
society and industry were quite different in the three countries; and to
judge of the actual or probable growth of population in Scotland or
Ireland, we must first, as with England, clearly understand these
conditions. In the early part of this century even more than now,
Scotland[408] stood to England as the country districts of England now
stand to its great towns. Continual migration from country to town may
be said to have been its normal state; and the largest towns were in
England. The change from a militant and feudal to an industrial society
was nowhere so marked as in Scotland after the Union, and especially
after the rebellion of 1745. The hereditary judgeships of highland
chiefs were swept away; the relation between chief and clansmen became
the unromantic relation of landlord and tenant. The displacement of
household work by the factory system, and of hand labour by machinery,
crowded the great towns of Scotland at the expense of the country
districts; and crowded the great towns and manufacturing districts of
England at the expense of Scotland. The flood of North Britons into
England was not of Bute’s making; and it was greatest after and not
before the Peace of Paris, although under that peace and a stable
government the farming, the manufacturing, the banking, and the foreign
trading of Scotland itself had grown great enough (it might have seemed)
to employ the whole population at home. Cotton manufacture, which on the
whole is the typical industry of these latter days, was peculiarly
English.[409] Sheep-farming at home and cotton-spinning in England
combined to depopulate the Scotch highlands and much of the lowlands.
The highlands, with their strongly-marked physical features and strictly
limited industrial possibilities, were somewhat in the position of
Norway. In the highlands proper there were no mineral riches; there were
moorlands, mountains, streams, lochs, heather, bracken, peat, and bog;
the patches of cultivable soil would bear a scanty crop of oats, and
perhaps clover, barley, or potatoes.[410] This description applied to a
large half of entire Scotland; and we must bear it in mind to understand
the saying of Malthus in 1803: “Scotland is certainly over-peopled, but
not so much as it was a century or half a century ago, when it contained
fewer inhabitants.”[411] The highlands are over their whole extent what
the lowlands are as regards their hills, fit only for sheep. Sutherland
has about thirteen inhabitants to the square mile now, and Midlothian
seven hundred and forty-six; but Sutherland and not Midlothian may be
over-peopled. Sutherland as compared with her former self, when she had
thirty or forty to the square mile, may be more or she may be less
over-peopled than she once was; we cannot tell till we know what her
wealth was and how it was distributed.
Under the patriarchal government[412] of early times the wealth of the
country consisted literally in its men. If a chief were asked the rent
of his estate, he would answer that it raised five hundred men; the
tenant paid him in military service. Adam Smith remembers that in the
Jacobite Rebellion, which disturbed his country at the time he was
studying at Oxford, “Mr. Cameron of Lochiel, a gentleman of Lochaber in
[the west highlands of] Scotland, whose rent never exceeded £500
[English] a year, carried, in 1745, eight hundred of his own people into
the rebellion with him.”[413] Subdivision of land meant more retainers
and greater honour; and so the highlands were peopled not to the full
extent of the work to be done, but actually to the full extent of the
bare food got from the soil.[414] On the establishment of a strong
government and the abolition of their hereditary judicial
privileges,[415] the chiefs soon became willing to convert the value in
men into a value in money, exchanging dignity for profit. They no longer
encouraged their tenants to have large families; and yet they made no
efforts to remove the habits, which the tenants had formed, of having
them.[416] It was this change that gave Sir Walter Scott the materials
for his most powerful pictures in _Waverley_ and other novels. But it is
the distress of the chiefs that is tragic to him, rather than the misery
of the clansmen. The clansmen for their part had under feudalism been
brought up to be farmers or cattle-dealers and nothing else; there was
as little variety of occupation in the highlands then as in Ireland now.
Undoubtedly too they had that customary right of long possession, which
law so often construed into a legal title in the case of more
influential men. It was true also that, if the native highlanders would
not cultivate that poor soil, no strangers would, and, if it was
politically desirable that the country should remain peopled, the only
way to secure this was to prevent the native exodus.[417] No such
attempt was made; but, on the contrary, the highland landlords followed
the way that led to the highest rents; they consolidated their farms;
they exchanged agriculture for pasture; they substituted deer for sheep.
Almost every highland district has sooner or later passed through all
these three stages, and with the same result, the employment of fewer
and fewer men.[418] The discarded men had two courses before them,
migration to the lowlands[419] or emigration to the colonies. The farm
labourer would migrate, the farmer emigrate. The landlords incurred and
often deserved odium for the manner of their evictions; but they treated
the evicted better than the average British capitalist treats his
dismissed hands. They usually provided passages and often procured
settlements abroad for them. Lord Selkirk, one of the few writers on
this subject that preserves a judicial calmness, advised his countrymen
to acquiesce in the “depopulation” of the highlands, but to draw the
stream of emigration to our own colonies. He himself drew it, so far as
he could, to the Red River settlement and Prince Edward Island.
From the middle of last century to the beginning of this, emigration
went on except when war made it impossible. The dangerous qualities of
the highlanders made them very valuable in the three great wars that
prevented them from leaving the country with their families. It may be
that this very military consideration induced the English Government to
connive at the clearances at first; and interference at any later stage
was very difficult. As it is, in the end even the Sutherland
evictions[420] seem simply to have shifted the population and not
removed it. In spite of emigration Sutherland had as many inhabitants at
the last census of 1881, as at the first in 1801, namely, above 23,000.
Fishing, an industry new to a great part of the highlands, made this
phenomenon possible. Fishing villages have grown at the expense of
inland farms. But this is not the whole truth. Till the time when free
trade began to distend Glasgow and other great towns of Scotland, the
highland counties taken altogether had actually increased in population,
as compared with what they were in 1801. The subsequent fall is due not
to any great clearances or emigrations, but to another cause that had
been acting though not conspicuously for some time before. This was
migration to the industrial centres of the lowlands. In the days of the
Tudors there were complaints in England of the decay of towns, because a
strong government had at last made the protection of walled towns
superfluous, and industry had spread itself in peace, where it was
wanted. But two centuries later there was decay not of the towns but of
the country districts, because industry was taking forms that made
concentration necessary. At first, both in England and Scotland, there
was a real diminution in the rural population; there had been for the
time a real diminution of the work to be done in the country, and a
transference of it to the towns. The hand-loom weaver had been
supplanted by the power-loom. The little villages, where the workman
lived idyllically, half in his farm and half in his workshop, now either
sent their whole families to the towns, thus stopping their
contributions to the parish registers in the country and swelling those
of the town, or, still keeping the parents, sent three-fourths of the
children there, thus making the country registers a very untrustworthy
reflection of the real state of the population in the country districts.
That country villages in every part of Scotland, but especially near the
large cities, are “breeding grounds” of this latter description[421] is
perfectly well known; and the same is true, in a less degree, of
England. This is one reason why even the purely rural districts of
Scotland have greatly increased in apparent population since 1801, and
most of them are increasing still; the readiness of the Scotch to
emigrate has caused the large families quite as much as the large
families the emigration. Another reason is, that even in the country
districts there is now more work to be done and it is done better.
Orthodox economists may count this an example of the self-healing
effects of an economical change that causes much suffering at first. It
is fair to say that this eventual cure is neither more nor less complete
than the cure of the analogous hardships of the newly-introduced factory
system, and the temporary inconveniences of sudden free trade. What keen
commercial ambition can do it has done, and its success is at least
sufficiently complete to justify us in saying of Scotland to-day what
Malthus said of it eighty years ago: it was most over-populated when it
had fewest inhabitants. Modern improvements, however short of
perfection, have at least both in England and in Scotland absolutely put
an end to periodical famines. Even the scarcities of 1799 and 1800,
though they caused great distress in both countries, were not famines in
either of them; and, since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, even
such general distress as was caused in Scotland by the potato blight
cannot occur again. That distress itself was as nothing compared with
the terrible dearths from which Scotland used to suffer five or six
times a century, and which England experienced as late as the
seventeenth.[422] The dismal picture[423] which Malthus draws of the
condition of the Scottish peasantry reminds us that it is not much more
than a century since Scotland took her first steps in civilization and
turned her energies from war to commerce. Her population at the ’45 was
about one and a quarter millions, in 1801 about one and a half; but in
1861 more than three, and in 1881 three and three-quarters. Population
therefore has more than doubled within the century. But even now there
are only a hundred and twenty-one inhabitants to the square mile, as
compared with four hundred and forty-five in England. The wealth of the
country has increased immensely faster than the population; it has
multiplied fivefold since the middle of this century, and tenfold since
the beginning of it.[424]
The history of population in Ireland would have furnished Malthus with
still more striking illustrations of his principles, if his life had
lasted a few years longer. He contents himself (till the 6th edition of
the _Essay_[425]) with a single paragraph: “The details of the
population of Ireland are but little known. I shall only observe,
therefore, that the extended use of potatoes has allowed of a very rapid
increase of it during the last century. But the cheapness of this
nourishing root, and the small piece of ground which, under this kind of
cultivation, will in average years produce the food for a family, joined
to the ignorance and depressed state[426] of the people, which have
prompted them to follow their inclinations with no other prospect than
an immediate bare subsistence, have encouraged marriage to such a
degree, that the population is pushed much beyond the industry and
present resources of the country; and the consequence naturally is, that
the lower classes of people are in the most impoverished[427] and
miserable state. The checks to the population are of course chiefly of
the positive kind, and arise from the diseases occasioned by squalid
poverty, by damp and wretched cabins, by bad and insufficient
clothing,[428] and occasional want. To these positive checks have of
late years been added the vice and misery of intestine commotion, of
civil war, and of martial law.”[429]
In his review of Newenham’s _Statistical and Historical Enquiry into the
Population of Ireland_ in 1808,[430] and in his evidence before the
Emigration Committee in 1827, Malthus uses even stronger language. We
may quote from the latter document as the less known of the two. In 1817
he had spent a college vacation in visiting Westmeath and the lakes of
Killarney,[431] and was able to speak from personal knowledge of the
country. He was asked:—
Qu. 3306. “With reference to Ireland, what is your opinion as to the
habits of the people, as tending to promote a rapid increase of
population?”—“Their habits are very unfavourable in regard to their own
condition, because they are inclined to be satisfied with the very
lowest degree of comfort, and to marry with little other prospect than
that of being able to get potatoes for themselves and their
children.”[432]
3307. “What are the circumstances which contribute to introduce such
habits in a country?”—“The degraded condition of the people, oppression,
and ignorance.”
3311. “You have mentioned that oppression contributes to produce those
habits to which you have alluded; in what way do you imagine in Ireland
there is oppression?”—“I think that the government of Ireland has, upon
the whole, been very unfavourable to habits of that kind; it has tended
to degrade the general mass of the people, and consequently to prevent
them from looking forward and acquiring habits of prudence.”
3312. “Is it your opinion that the minds of the people may be so
influenced by the circumstances under which they live, in regard to
civil society, that it may contribute very much to counteract that
particular habit which leads to the rapid increase of population?”—“I
think so.”
3313. “What circumstances in your opinion contribute to produce a taste
for comfort and cleanliness among a people?”—“Civil and political
liberty and education.”[433]
Then the subject of one acre holdings is introduced, and Malthus is
asked:—
3317. “What effect would any change of the moral or religious state of
the government of that country produce upon persons occupying such
possessions?”—“It could not produce any immediate effect if that system
were continued; with that system of occupancy there must always be an
excessive redundancy of people, because, from the nature of tolerably
good land, it will always produce more than can be employed upon it, and
the consequence must be that there will be a great number of people not
employed.”
3318. “Is, therefore, not the first step towards improvement in Ireland
necessarily to be accomplished by an alteration of the present state of
the occupancy of the land?” This was a leading question, but Malthus
would not be led. He replied, “I think that such an alteration is of the
greatest possible importance, but that the other (the change in the
government) should accompany it; it would not have the same force
without.” In his answers to later questions he gave his view at greater
length on the causes of the difference between English and Irish
character.
Answ. to qu. 3411. “At the time of the introduction of the potato into
Ireland the Irish people were in a very low and degraded state, and the
increased quantity of food was only applied to increase the population.
But when our [English] wages of labour in wheat were high in the early
part of the last century, it did not appear that they were employed
merely in the maintenance of more families, but in improving the
condition of the people in their general mode of living.”[434]
3413. “You attribute the difference of the character of the people to
the difference of food?”—“In a great measure.”
3414. “What circumstance determines the difference of food in the two
countries?”—“The circumstances are partly physical and partly
moral.[435] It will depend in a certain degree upon the soil and climate
whether the people live on maize, wheat, oats, potatoes, or meat.”[436]
3415. “Is not the selection in some degree dependent on the general
state of society?”—“Very much on moral causes, on their being in so
respectable a situation that they are in the habit of looking forward,
and exercising a certain degree of prudence; and there is no doubt that
in different countries this kind of prudence is exercised in very
different degrees.”
3416. “Does it depend at all on the government under which they
live?”—“Very much on the government, on the strict and equal
administration of justice, on the perfect security of property, on
civil, religious, and political liberty; for people respect themselves
more under favourable circumstances of this kind, and are less inclined
to marry, with[out] the prospect of more physical sustenance for their
children.”
3417. “On the degree of respect with which they are treated by their
superiors?”—“Yes; one of the greatest faults in Ireland is that the
labouring classes there are not treated with proper respect by their
superiors; they are treated as if they were a degraded people.”
Thereupon he is again asked a leading question of a somewhat cynical
character, but he is again cautious in his answer.
3418. “Does not that treatment mainly arise from their existing in such
redundancy as to be no object to their superiors?”—“In part it does
perhaps; but it appeared to take place before that [redundancy] was the
case, to the same degree.”
The questioner, however, begs the question and asks:
3419. “The number being the cause of their treatment, will not their
treatment tend to the increase of that number?” and the answer is: “Yes,
they act and react on each other.”
Accordingly his opinion in 1827 is, as it was in 1803, that emigration
conjoined with other agencies will be good for Ireland, but by itself
will leave matters no better than they were.
Alongside of his weighty words in the essay and in the evidence it is
worth while to place the words written by Adam Smith half a century
earlier:—
“By the union with England, the middling and inferior ranks of people in
Scotland gained a complete deliverance from the power of an aristocracy
which had always before oppressed them. By a union with Great Britain,
the greater part of the people of all ranks in Ireland would gain an
equally complete deliverance from a much more oppressive aristocracy, an
aristocracy not founded, like that of Scotland, in the natural and
respectable distinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of
all distinctions, those of religious and political prejudices;
distinctions which, more than any other, animate both the insolence of
the oppressors and the hatred and indignation of the oppressed, and
which commonly render the inhabitants of the same country more hostile
to one another than those of different countries ever are.”[437]
With such passages before us, we cannot consider the two economists to
have been behind their age in their Irish policy. In regard to accurate
figures, the later economist was little better off than the earlier.
Ireland was not included in the first two censuses of 1801 and 1811. In
1695 its population was estimated by Captain South as little more than
one million;[438] in 1731, by inquiry of Irish House of Lords, at two
millions; in 1792 by Dr. Beaufort at a little above four millions;[439]
in 1805 by Newenham at five and a half millions; in 1812 an imperfect
census gave it as nearly six millions; in the census of 1821 it was
6,800,000. It was clear that the population of Ireland was increasing
even then faster than that of England.[440] But between these dates and
our own times comes an episode striking enough to provide all economical
histories with a _purpureus pannus_.
For about two generations England had perpetrated in Ireland her
crowning feats of commercial jealousy, a jealousy not more foolish or
wicked against Ireland than it was against the American colonies, or,
till 1707, against Scotland, but more easily victorious. Ireland had not
begun to be in any sense an industrial country till the reigns of
Elizabeth and James I.; and the wars of the succeeding reigns hampered
her early efforts. She had fair corn and meadow lands, and perhaps the
best pastures in the world for sheep and cattle. The English farming
interest became impatient of Irish competition, and a law was passed to
forbid the importation of Irish sheep and cattle and dairy produce into
England (1665, 1680). By reason of the later Navigation Acts, Ireland
could not make amends for this by trading with America, for all such
trading must be by way of England and in English ships, nor by trading
with France for the same reason. England in her jealousy would have
surrounded her with a cordon quite as close as Berkeley’s wall of
brass.[441] As soon as a considerable woollen manufacture grew up,
England stopped it by legislation, which (in 1699) forbade the
exportation of Irish woollens not only to England but to any other
country whatever. English interference, if it had done no more, added
immensely to the uncertainties[442] and fluctuations of Irish trade. The
growth of industries like the woollen manufacture had set on foot a
growth of population which did not stop with the arrest of the
industries. As often happens,[443] the effects of an impulse to marriage
lasted far beyond the industrial progress that gave the impulse. But
this means hunger and suffering, if not death. In the case of Ireland,
the ruin of all industries but farming over more than three-fourths of
the land led to an absolute dependence of the people on the harvest of
their own country; and, where it failed them, they were brought face to
face with dearth or famine. It led also to the peopling of the country
districts at the expense of the towns,[444] instead of (as usual) the
towns at the expense of the country. If Goldsmith’s _Deserted Village_
is not English, it is not Irish. By the year 1780, when Lord North from
fear of rebellion granted free trade to Ireland with Great Britain, the
mischief had been made almost incurable. The great increase in the Irish
population, like the great increase in the English, may be said to begin
in a free trade movement. In the worst days of legal persecution it
might have been said of the Irish Catholic population, the more they
were afflicted the more they multiplied and grew. Lavergne[445] thinks
their greater increase was due first to the physiological law, that in
the case of all animals the means of reproduction are multiplied in
proportion to the chances of destruction[?], and second to the
instinctively sound tactics of a people otherwise defenceless. The
probability is, too, that they remained quiet under their multitudinous
industrial, political, and religious disqualifications so long, because
they were reduced to that depth of misery that kills the very power of
resistance; and poverty at its extreme point is a positive but not a
preventive check on population. Where things are so bad, marriage, it is
thought, cannot make them worse, and marriage would go on at the expense
of a high mortality, general pauperism, or continuous emigration. The
pureness of marriage relations in Ireland, though in itself a much
greater good than its consequences were evil, acted as it would have
done in Godwin’s Utopia;[446] apart from wisdom, virtue itself had its
evils. Potatoes by-and-by came into general use; and the bad harvests,
which taught even the Scotch and English poor[447] to make frequent use
of this substitute for corn, converted it in Ireland from a substitute
into a staple. Economists viewed this change with almost unanimous
disapproval. In the view of Malthus it was the cheapness of this food
that made it dangerous for the labourers; his theory of wages led him to
object to cheap corn on the same grounds.[448] On the principle that it
needs difficulties to generate energy, the Irish are made indolent by
their cheap food, and make no use of it except to increase by it. Living
on the cheapest food procurable, they could not in scarcity fall back on
anything else. Every man who wished to marry might obtain a cabin and
potatoes.[449] At the lowest calculation, an acre of land planted with
potatoes will support twice as much as one of the same quality sown with
wheat.[450] There are other objections to a potato diet. It is a simple
(as opposed to a composite) diet, and it involves a low standard of
comfort. The second is not the same as the first, for a people that had
no variety in their food might conceivably have a great variety in their
other comforts. As a matter of fact, however, it was none of these three
supposed disadvantages of the potato that proved the bane of the Irish
population, but a fourth one, its liability to blight.[451]
The figures of the census tell their own tale. In 1821 the Irish people
numbered 6,801,827; in 1831, 7,767,401; in 1841, 8,199,853; but in 1851,
6,514,473. In each previous decade the increase approached a million; in
the last there was not only no increase, but a decrease of more than a
million and a half. There had been a disastrous famine followed by great
emigrations. What happened on Lord Lansdowne’s estate in Kerry is an
example of what took place over Ireland generally.[452] That estate
comprehended about 100,000 acres, on which before the famine there was a
population of 16,000 souls. When the famine came a fourth part of them
perished and another fourth emigrated. In course of time, thanks to
money sent by relatives from America and advances made by Lord
Lansdowne, the emigration continued with such rapidity that only 2000
souls were left on the estate. The famine taught the people how to
emigrate, and gave them some idea of the meaning of over-population. The
rural districts of Ireland are probably over-peopled now; but there
seems reason to believe that a body of tenants, who are little short of
peasant proprietors in security of tenure, and who have been forced into
a knowledge of the world outside Ireland, will not retain the habits of
the old occupiers.[453] Without a change of habits, peasant
proprietorships would have done little for France, and will do little
for Ireland.
This would certainly have been the judgment of Malthus on things as they
are now in Ireland, after Catholic Emancipation, Disestablishment, and
the Land Act. In his own time he was wise enough to see that the first
could not be delayed without injustice and danger. The rapid increase of
the Catholic population would soon, he foresaw in 1808,[454] bring the
question of Emancipation within the range of “practical politics,” and
if the measure had been passed, as he urged, in 1808, instead of twenty
years later, the labour of conciliating Ireland might have proved
easier, and the political change might have helped to produce that
change in the habits of the people which Malthus deemed essential to its
permanent prosperity.
BOOK II. ECONOMICS.
CHAPTER I.
THE LANDLORDS.
Need of an Economical Digression—The Hegemony of Adam Smith’s
School—Cardinal Doctrines of the Malthusian Economy—Scope, Method,
Details—Malthus doing Injustice to his Economics—Human Character of
his Doctrines—Agricultural Situation in 1794—History of Corn
Laws—Malthus on Rent in 1803 and afterwards—_Observations on the
Corn Laws_—_Grounds of an Opinion_—_Nature and Progress of
Rent_—Ricardo’s Criticisms—Agricultural Improvements—Malthusian
Ideal of Commercial Policy—The Wall of Brass—Limits to Commercial
Progress.
The _Essay on Population_ deals with the past, the present, and the
future. We have tried to follow its account of past and present, and
must now consider the author’s view of future prospects and of the
various schemes (including his own) for making the future better than
the present.
To do justice to this half of the essay, we must take further liberties
with its arrangement. For the sake of explaining the historical genesis
of the essay, we have already taken first[455] that criticism of Godwin
and Condorcet which in the later essay comes in the centre of the
work,[456] on the heels of the account of population in the United
Kingdom, the point where we have now arrived; and the chapter on
emigration has been used before its time. There remain, out of the
fourteen chapters of the third book of the essay, eleven still
untouched; and in all but one[457] a knowledge of the general economical
doctrine of Malthus is indispensable to a clear and just understanding
of him. No apology is needed then for a somewhat long digression, in
which the chief economical writings of our author are briefly analyzed.
It is not wholly a digression, as the substance of seven[458] out of ten
chapters will be found incorporated with it, and their logical
connection with the author’s economical theories (so far as it exists)
will be shown.
As a thoroughly practical man, Malthus knew that philanthropy can do
little without sound doctrine; and his economical theories belong to the
substance of his work. They were developed, unlike the _Essay on
Population_, in quiet controversy among friends; Ricardo, James Mill,
and Jean Baptiste Say, who were critics of the _Political Economy_, had
been converts of the _Essay_. These were, however, the very men who came
nearest to identify orthodox economics with rigorous abstraction.
Malthus himself, labouring to build up the neglected pathology of
economic science, was not chargeable with this fault. His first work had
happily fixed into an intellectual principle his natural inclination to
look at speculative questions in their relations to practice, and to
look at “things as they are”[459] rather than as they might be.
Ricardo’s first work, bearing wholly on finance,[460] had unhappily
fixed for him his inclination to treat every social question as a
problem in arithmetic. In both cases the excitement of controversy would
make the impression deeper.
The two economists both start from Adam Smith,[461] as theologians from
the Bible. It was becoming clear that these Scriptures were of doubtful
interpretation. Men were to choose between the Calvinism of Ricardo and
the Arminianism of Malthus; and, when the two writers turned from their
debates with the public to debates with each other, no less a prize was
in question than the hegemony of the school.
This was won by Ricardo, whose _Principles of Political Economy and
Taxation_ (1817) were accepted by James Mill, MacCulloch, Nassau Senior,
to say nothing of others, as the Institutes of their creed. MacCulloch
thought it not worth his while to print what Ricardo had thought it
worth his while to write, in vindication of his positions against
Malthus.[462] The strongest ally of Malthus was Sismondi. It was not
till Ricardo had reigned for thirty years that there was serious sign of
defection, when the son of James Mill broke with his father’s
traditions;[463] and, though in the hands of Thornton, Cliffe Leslie,
Walker, and others, the reaction has been carried to the utmost, the
eclipse of Ricardo has done nothing to rescue Malthus from obscurity.
The very success of the _Essay on Population_ may have deepened the
oblivion of the other writings in virtue of the popular fallacy that a
man cannot be equally great in general theory and in the advocacy of one
particular reform.
The _Political Economy_ of Malthus has its faults; but it contains in
outline the main truths which writers of our own time think they have
established against Ricardo. First and foremost, he maintains with them
that the proper study of the science is not Wealth, but Man, or more
definitely, Wealth in relation to Man. The qualities of man and the
earth he cultivates are according to Malthus so many and variable in
relation to each other that a study of their relations cannot be an
exact science like mathematics; it may contain “great general
principles” to which there are few exceptions, and “prominent landmarks”
that will be safe guides to us in legislation or in life; but “even
these when examined will be found to resemble the most general rules in
morals and politics founded upon the known passions and propensities of
human nature.”[464] Human conduct is characterized by such variation and
aberration that we must always be prepared for exceptions to our
principles, and for qualifications which spoil the charm of uniformity,
but are faithful to facts,[465] like George Eliot’s “analyses in small
and subtle characters,” which stimulate no enthusiasm but alone tell the
whole truth. In the second place, we are told that the nature of the
subject makes a peculiarly cautious Method necessary. Our first business
being to account for things as they are,[466] till we are sure that our
theories do so we cannot act on them.[467] A good economical definition
must conform to the ordinary usage of words. We must take if possible a
meaning which would agree with the ordinary use of words “in the
conversation of educated persons.”[468] If this does not give sufficient
distinctness, we must fall back on the authority of the most celebrated
writers on the science, particularly of the founder or founders of it;
“in this case, whether the term be a new one born with the science, or
an old one used in a new sense, it will not be strange to the generality
of readers, or liable to be misunderstood.”[469] If any word must have a
different meaning from that adopted by either of these authorities, the
new sense must not only be free from the faults of the old, but must
have a clear and recognizable positive usefulness. The new definitions
should be consistent with the old; and the same terms should be used in
the same sense, except where inveterate custom insists on an exception.
When all is done, it is still impossible in a social science like
political economy to find a definition entirely beyond cavil.[470]
“Wealth” must include all the “material objects that are necessary,
useful, or agreeable to mankind;”[471] “productive labour” must be the
labour which realizes itself either in such material objects or the
increased value of them; or else we wander from common language, and our
discussions travel off into indefiniteness. Economical reasoning must be
a deduction from observed facts of nature and of human nature verified
by general experience. Malthus professes to have used this cautious
method throughout, and the theory of population was only the particular
instance where circumstances enabled him to make his verification most
complete. “I should never have had that steady and unshaken confidence
in the theory of population which I have invariably felt, if it had not
appeared to me to be confirmed, in the most remarkable manner, by the
state of society as it actually exists in every country with which we
are acquainted.”[472] On the other hand, Ricardo, legislating for
Saturn, gives us little or no verification by experience. It is true
that he admits qualifications and exceptions to his own statements; and
he would have winced a little at his own biographer’s assertion that
“Mr. Ricardo paid comparatively little attention to the practical
application of general principles; his is not a practical work.”[473]
But he makes no use of the admissions; his illustrations as a rule are
not historical, but imaginary cases and the verification is wanting. In
a letter to Malthus (written on the 24th November, 1820) he says: “Our
differences may in some respects, I think, be ascribed to your
considering my book as more practical than I intended it to be. My
object was to elucidate principles, and to do this I imagined strong
cases, that I might show the operation of these principles.”[474] In
Malthus and Adam Smith, imaginary cases are rare exceptions, actual
examples from life or history are the rule. Malthus goes so far in this
direction that (to use his own phraseology) he is tempted to subordinate
science to “utility.” Even Adam Smith, though he had abundance of
good-will to his kind, did not write to do good but to expound truth. To
Malthus the discovery of truth was less important than the improvement
of society. When an economical truth could not be made the means of
improvement, he seems to have lost interest in it. His pointed warning
to others against this error[475] may be regarded as a confession of his
own liability to it; and, if he obeyed his own warning at all, his
position was at the best like that of the latter-day utilitarians, who
try to reach happiness by making believe not to think of it. If his
science had been less biassed by utility, it might have been more
thorough; and we might not have had in our own time a Ricardian
socialism, appearing like the ghost of the deceased Ricardian orthodoxy
sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. He has the virtue of refusing to
join the economical Pharisees,[476] who would not admit the elasticity
of economical laws, lest they should discredit their science; but he is
to blame for not pushing his quarrel against Ricardo with the same
energy as against Godwin. His forces, in this campaign, were worse
drilled and worse handled. It is justly said by Garnier (_Dict. de
l’Écon. Pol._, art. ‘Malthus’), that in spite of its title, the
_Political Economy_ of Malthus is not the exposition of a system, but
simply a collection of economical papers on various subjects that had
been brought specially under his notice in discussion with his friends,
or (we might add) in his college class. This itself would lead him to
present a much less solid front to the enemy than he did in the _Essay_.
To come, in the third place, to Details, we find the human character of
the _Political Economy_ of Malthus appearing not only in his view of
population, where all is at last made to depend on the personal
responsibility of the individual man, and legislation is good or bad
according as it strengthens or weakens that responsibility,—but in his
view of the Value of goods, as measured by human labour,—in his view of
demand and supply, as sharing the inconstancy of the human desires that
enter into both of them,—in his view of the Rent of land, as determined
by the effects of human industry and skill as well as by the natural
qualities of the soil,—in his view of the Wages of labour, as regulated
not by an unchangeable but by a progressive minimum,—in his view of
luxury, as being equally with parsimony necessary to production, and
preventive of over-production,—and in his view of free trade, as a rule
to which we must make exceptions if we would not cause sufferings.
These doctrines had a distinct relation to current events. Political and
social changes were reacting on political economy. As Godwin and Pitt
provoked the essay of 1798, the scarcity of 1799 and 1800 called forth
the pamphlet on High Prices (1800). As the latter bears directly on the
Poor Law, it will best be considered when the thread of the _Essay on
Population_ is taken up again;[477] and the same applies to the letter
of Malthus to Whitbread (1807). The distresses of a time when wheat went
so high as £6 the quarter instead of its normal 40_s._ or 50_s._, would
naturally make the relief of the poor a question of the day. The high
prices of corn increased the number of enclosures and Enclosure Bills.
More than three millions of acres, or about a twelfth part of the entire
area of England and Wales, are said to have been taken from waste into
cultivation between 1800 and 1820. The average price of wheat, always
the staple food of the people when they could get it, had been 55_s._
11_d._ for the years preceding, viz. from 1790 to 1799 inclusive; it was
82_s._ 2_d._ from 1800 to 1809 inclusive, and 88_s._ 8_d._ from 1810 to
1819 inclusive, after which it fell (for the next decade) to 58_s._
5_d._[478] In 1883–4 it was 35_s._ 8_d._ a quarter, which means a
four-pound loaf (of medium quality) at 4½_d._ or 5_d._; but at its
lowest during the war (in 1803) it was at 57_s._ 1_d._, and the loaf was
at 6¾_d._ or 7_d._
Yet agriculture had not been standing still. Arthur Young, whose
eccentric energy benefited every one but himself, and fell little short
of genius, betted his nineteen volumes of _Annals of Agriculture_
against Sir John Sinclair’s twenty-one volumes of the _Statistical
Account of Scotland_, that the Government of Pitt would not establish a
Board of Agriculture. But Farmer George did establish one, in 1793;[479]
Young paid his bet and became Secretary; Sinclair gained his nineteen
volumes and became President of the new Board; and together they did
much to make farmers and landlords aware of the rotations of crops,
disuse of fallows, new manures, road-makings, that the Secretary had
been preaching in vain for thirty years.[480]
When the great scarcities of 1799–1800 took place, the Board was equal
to the occasion. It urged the Government to get supplies of rice from
India; it preached earnestly the cultivation of waste lands and the
temporary conversion of grass lands into cornfields. The last was done
widely enough when the prices of corn were high. The second, except when
it meant enclosure of commons, was hardly done at all; and there was a
strange impression that the efforts of the Board were at bottom a
political movement against ecclesiastical titles and the Established
Church. The importation of rice would have been of immense immediate
service; but by the time the order had reached India and the rice ships
had come back to England,[481] the famine was over, the people preferred
wheat, and £350,000 of bounty were thrown away.[482] Nothing shows the
insularity of English commercial policy better than the remedies
generally proposed in those days for curing the evils of a bad harvest.
The House of Commons passed self-denying ordinances[483] and brown-bread
bills, and offered a bounty on potatoes.[484]
There was some talk inside the House of enforcing a minimum rate of
wages, and outside of enforcing a maximum price of bread. The people
were told to eat red herrings instead of bread; philanthropic soup shops
were opened; distilleries and starch manufactories were threatened with
prohibition. Relief from the poor rates was, however, the favourite way
of cutting the knot. Better that our people should depend on each other
than on the foreigner. This fear of dependence was the more pardonable
then, as there were times, in the war with Napoleon, when England was
more completely alone against the world than she is ever likely to be
again. It was a much more culpable folly to pretend[485] that the
scarcity was due to “forestalling and regrating,”[486] and that England
could have provided for herself well enough, even in 1799 and 1800, but
for the corn-dealers and the large farms and the enclosures and the
new-fashioned husbandry. The new learning, however, went on its
way.[487] The benefits of it may have gone to farmer[488] or to
landlord,—the question was much debated,—but they did not go to the
labourers. The same is true of the improvements in cattle-breeding
introduced by Bakewell of Leicester and Chaplin of Lincoln, and
encouraged by the Smithfield Club (1798), which has long outlived the
Board of Agriculture. The life of the country labourers was little
changed. They and their wages could not remain entirely unaffected by
the growth of manufacturing towns. But custom still had the chief power
over wages, and had no little influence on rents. From the reports sent
from the Scotch, English, and Welsh counties to the Board of Agriculture
in 1794, it does not appear that wages were at all, or rent very
closely, in correspondence with the amount of the produce.[489] Rents
were far from being rack rents, and wages were far from varying with the
necessary expenses of the labourer. In truth each country district in
the days before railways and steamboats was nearly in the same isolation
with regard to the rest as all England was with regard to foreign
nations. The price of farm produce was indeed tending to be equal over
England, as now over the world. Wages were displaying no such tendency.
Of all goods a man is the most difficult to move,[490] for you must
first persuade him; and human inertia by making men stationary will keep
wages low. So it was in 1794. The exertions of landlord and tenant were
directed therefore rather to keep up corn than to keep down wages. They
were beginning to fear for their monopoly of the corn market. The
English Government had done its best to keep their market for them. A
law of Charles II. passed in 1670 virtually prohibited importation of
foreign wheat till the price of home wheat was over 53_s._ 4_d._ a
quarter, and made it free only when the home price was 80_s._ The
Revolution of 1688 brought a new phase of commercial policy. The new
rulers, to conciliate the agricultural classes and atone for the burdens
which had been transferred to them from the industrial classes, granted
a bounty of 5_s._ a quarter on the exportation of wheat so long as the
home price was not over 48_s._ In this way, after exportation in the
days of the Romans, and alternate exportation and importation according
to the seasons in after times, there was, after the Revolution,
exportation encouraged by a bounty, while importation was still hindered
by duties. The intention was at once to attract capitalists to
agriculture and to reward those already engaged in it. By this means not
only would the farmers be attached to the new dynasty, but England would
provide all her own food.[491]
But the very increase of tillage kept down prices and gave the
landowners little benefit. Whenever a scarcity occurred the laws were
suspended, and the bounty and duties were taken off together.[492]
Exportation, however, was the rule till a little after the middle of the
century, say at the beginning of George III.’s reign, when the tide had
fairly turned. Especially after the Peace of Paris (Nov. 1762), commerce
was extended and population with it. Canals were made, roads improved,
and home trade prospered.[493] We could no longer raise enough corn for
our own wants.[494] In 1766, the year of our author’s birth, there were
scarcities, Corn Riots, and suspensions of the Corn Laws;[495] but the
bounty was kept up in name to the end of the century. In 1795 and 1796
the price of wheat rose to 80_s._ a quarter, in 1797 and 1798 it sank to
54_s._; but, at the end of harvest, 1799, it rose to 92_s._, in 1800 to
128_s._, and before the harvest of 1801 to 177_s._ The quartern loaf
(under 6_d._ in 1885) was once within ½_d._ of 2_s._! Then came a cycle
of comparative plenty. Wheat between 1802 and 1807 was at 75_s._ on an
average, and a new Corn Law in 1804 prohibited importation till the home
price should rise to 63_s._ Between 1808 and 1813 it was 108_s._ on an
average; and it was as high as 140_s._ 9_d._ in the severe winter
(1812–13) of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. But in the spring of 1815
wheat was at 60_s._ If it should rise to 63_s._ the ports would be
opened, and there was not even the Protection of war. The farmers and
landowners were terror-stricken, the political economists divided, and
the bill for raising the importation price to 80_s._ was hurried through
the House. The bounty, relaxed in 1773, had been finally repealed, in
1814.[496] As the sliding scale of duties was not introduced till 1827,
we are to regard Malthus and Ricardo as writing on rent (in 1815 and
1820) under the severe Corn Law of 1815, as well as when the wisdom of
passing that measure was still under debate. All their discussions on
rent bear consciously or unconsciously upon the Corn Laws of their own
time.
Malthus is rightly considered the first clear expounder in England of
the economical doctrine of rent. Dr. James Anderson, a contemporary of
Adam Smith, was no doubt before his age in his view of the subject;[497]
but, perhaps because he was better known as an agriculturist than as an
economist, he does not seem to have made converts. The “simultaneous
rediscovery” of the true doctrine by West and Malthus in 1815 may be
compared with the simultaneous discovery of the Darwinian theory by
Wallace and Darwin in 1859. The times were ripe for it. Malthus gives no
certain sound on the subject in the early editions of the _Essay on
Population_. In the second he even says that “one of the principal
ingredients in the price of British corn is the high rent of land” (p.
460; cf. p. 444). However, needing to lecture on Rent to his pupils at
Haileybury in 1805, he saw the unsoundness of this position, and in
1806, in the third edition of the essay, the passage is dropped, and we
are told, “universally it is price that determines rent, not rent that
determines price” (vol. ii. p. 266). The passage is repeated in the
fourth edition (1807).[498] But when the time came for a fifth edition,
in 1817, the whole of the chapters on Corn Laws and bounties, which are
the only chapters of the essay that deal much with rent, were recast, to
express the clearer views which the author had already expounded
elsewhere. In the spring of 1814, in the excitement of debates on the
abolition of the bounty and on new laws to keep out foreign grain,
Malthus was led for the fourth or fifth time in his life to take the
field as a pamphleteer.[499] This time, however, he came forward, he
said, not to take a side but to act as arbitrator. His “_Observations on
the effects of the Corn Laws_, and of a rise or fall in the price of
corn on the agriculture and general wealth of the country” (1814),[500]
professed to balance the arguments for and against the Corn Laws, and
did it, he said, so judiciously, that his own friends were in doubt to
which opinion he leaned.[501] To later readers the bias is not doubtful.
It appears even in such a passage as the following, which, incidentally,
shows us his view of rent, nearly matured:—“It is a great mistake to
suppose that the effects of a fall in the price of corn on cultivation
may be fully compensated by a diminution of rents. Rich land, which
yields a large nett rent, may be kept up in its actual state,
notwithstanding a fall in the price of its produce, as a diminution of
rent may be made entirely to compensate this fall, and all the
additional expenses that belong to a rich and highly-taxed country. But
in poor land the fund of rent will often be found quite insufficient for
this purpose. There is a good deal of land in this country of such a
quality, that the expenses of its cultivation, together with the
outgoings of poor’s rates, tithes, and taxes, will not allow the farmer
to pay more than a fifth or sixth of the value of the whole produce in
the shape of rent. If we were to suppose the prices of grain to fall
from 75_s._ to 50_s._ the quarter, the whole of such a rent would be
absorbed, even if the price of the whole produce of the farm did not
fall in proportion to the price of grain, and making some allowance for
a fall in the price of labour. The regular cultivation of such land for
grain would of course be given up, and any sort of pasture, however
scanty, would be more beneficial both to the landlord and farmer.”[502]
The drift of the pamphlet may be shortly stated. The writer refused to
go with Adam Smith in identifying corn with food, and attributing to it
in that capacity an unchangeable value, which made any rise of price
futile for the encouragement of tillage. He thought that it was
perfectly possible to encourage tillage by Corn Laws; but was it good
policy? Before he could answer this question, he felt bound to consider
several others.[503] Under free trade would Great Britain grow her own
corn?—if not, ought Government to interfere to secure this?—if so, would
laws to hinder importation be the best kind of interference? The answer
to the first is, that other countries have soils more fertile than
Britain; Poland can ship corn at Dantzig for England at 32_s._ a
quarter;[504] and, if there were free trade over Europe, the rich lands
which are not English would send their plenty to relieve the wants of
their neighbours. If Corn Laws have not made us grow our own corn, free
trade would not. In answer to the second question, no doubt it is sound
economy to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; and, if
we had regard to nothing but the greatest “wealth, population, and
power,” the rule would be invariable; foreign imports of food are in
every case a good thing for the country, and, if there is evil in the
matter, it is not in them but in the bad season which makes them
necessary; moreover, a free trade in corn secures a steadier as well as
cheaper supply of grain.[505] But, on the other hand, dependence on
other nations for the first necessary of life is a source of political
insecurity to the nation so depending; and, though the dependence is
mutual, identity of commercial interests seldom prevents nations from
going to war with each other; “we have latterly seen the most striking
instances, in all quarters, of Governments acting from passion rather
than interest.”[506] And it might be argued that, if we give up
agriculture for manufacture, we change the character of our people;
manufacturing industry conduces to mental activity, to an expansion of
comforts, to the growth of the middle classes, and to the growth with
them of political moderation; but it is more subject than agriculture to
the fluctuations of fashion, which lead to chronic destitution and
discontent, and the conditions of artizan life are “even in their best
state unfavourable to health and virtue.”[507] Virtue and happiness
after all are the end; wealth, population, and power are but the means.
Malthus himself believes in something like a golden mean, a balance of
the two industries, which legislation might possibly preserve.[508]
There is another and less plausible argument on the same side. Assuming
that wages vary with the price of corn, high money wages, and therefore
high prices of corn, are an advantage to working men, who would have
more money to buy the goods of the foreign countries where prices of
corn were low and goods were cheap. This argument, though our author is
inclined to yield to it, is inconsistent with his own views of wages and
the facts he cites in support of them.[509] More cogent is the plea that
it would be unfair suddenly to withdraw a long-established protection,
though (it might be replied) we are no more bound to be gradual in
abolishing protection than in concluding peace during war. But the real
question is, whether once protected is to mean always protected, and
protected in an always increasing degree, for it was this increased
protection that was proposed in 1814 and 1815. It may be true that if we
protect manufacture we ought to protect agriculture; but, instead of
protecting both, why not set both free? Statesmen had no courage,
however, to be free-traders, in days when the separate articles
protected were as many as the millions in the National Debt, and each
article represented a vested interest. Malthus does not seem to expect
Parliament to give free trade a moment’s consideration. But the friends
of the new Corn Laws, besides using the commonplaces of protectionism,
argued from the change in the value of the English currency. When paper
were paper prices,[510] the importation price of the law of 1804 could
be soon reached, and foreign corn came in much faster than the real or
the bullion prices of it would have allowed. There was also the long
array of standing arguments for Corn Laws that lay stress on the heavy
taxation of the country, and are meant to show that the agricultural
classes bear most of it, and are thus handicapped against the foreigner.
From Malthus himself the old leaven of protectionism was never wholly
purged away. Like Pitt, though in a less degree, he suffered his
politics to corrupt his political economy, and drag him back from the
“simple system of natural liberty” into “the mazes of the old
system.”[511] English people since the Repeal of the Corn Laws will
hardly care to thrash the old straw out again. Perronet Thompson’s
_Catechism of the Corn Laws_ is the best storehouse of the old arguments
and their refutations, set forth with a liveliness to which no other
English economical writing has the slightest claim.[512]
The real opinion of Malthus came out in the second Corn Law pamphlet on
the _Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of restricting the Importation
of Foreign Corn_ (1815). Between the two came the tract on Rent, which
is rather an economical book than a political pamphlet, and will be
noticed immediately. He now declares himself in favour of a temporary
duty on imported corn to countervail the artificially low value of the
currency,—“to get rid of that part of our prices which belongs to great
wealth, combined with a system of restrictions.”[513]
He warns the Government that they should not take such a step to benefit
a particular trade, but only to benefit the public. The motives are
those constantly professed by defenders of the Navigation Act—not
private interests but public policy. Since he wrote his _Observations_
circumstances had changed. The sudden peace had brought the then
unprecedented combination of a bad harvest and low prices; the value of
the currency had fallen fast; and last, and not least, France, the best
corn country in Europe, had begun to prohibit the exportation of
grain[514] in dear years. We must therefore, he says, keep up the high
farming which the war taught us, by keeping up the high prices of the
war. Eighty shillings might not be too high a price, for the limit of
prohibited importation.
It seems extraordinary that, after so clearly recognizing that “wealth
does not consist in the dearness or cheapness of the usual measures of
value, but in the quantity of produce,” and that exports are not so good
a criterion of wealth as the “quantity of produce consumed at
home,”[515] Malthus should recommend the increase of abundance by means
of artificial dearness. It is a poor consolation to us that he was no
worse than Brougham, who voted for the Corn Law in 1815, and for the
support of the Navigation Act in 1849,—and little worse than Ricardo,
who would allow a temporary restriction for the sake of
leaseholders.[516] A better is that he was advocating a policy that was
against his private interests as a holder of a fixed salary and owner of
three per cents.[517] But at the best the atmosphere of these two tracts
is a little depressing.
The tract on Rent is more bracing. It was the first-fruits of the larger
work on _Political Economy_ (1820); and its substance had been delivered
in the professor’s lectures at Haileybury. It expounds the _Nature and
Progress of Rent_ with clearness and intelligibility, if without the
liveliness of 1798. Malthus gives us to understand that, to explain this
or any other economical notion, we must keep as closely as possible to
the usage of ordinary language, the language of clear-thinking ordinary
men.[518]
To them, rent does not mean, as by derivation, simply produce or profit;
nor, as to a Frenchman now and to Bailie Nicol Jarvie in his days,
interest on a debt. It means a certain price paid to a landlord for the
use of his land. But such a definition is too wide. It might include the
proceeds of a monopoly, or an interest on capital, or a Government tax,
or a legal rate, or a toll, or a payment for service rendered. We must
define the term a little more clearly.
There is a certain portion of a landlord’s income and of a peasant
proprietor’s earnings that has an origin and character distinct from the
rest, and demands the economist’s separate attention, whether it alone
receives the name of rent or not;—this is, the excess of the produce of
land beyond the cost of production and the current rate of profits.
Represent these in money; and suppose the current profit five per cent.
Suppose that a tenant lays out £500 on his farm, and gets by the harvest
and farm produce not only £500 plus £25, but £600; the additional £75,
which would if retained by him be over or extra profits as compared with
the rate usual among farmers and men of like business, is the value of
his rent; and the landlord can take that from him without impoverishing
him. Rent is that portion of the produce which remains, after all the
outlay of the cultivator has been repaid him together with the current
profits. From accidental or temporary causes the money rents of land may
be more or less than this; but this is the point to which actual rents
will gravitate.[519]
So far as this account goes, it might seem that Malthus’ description is
too general; it would include the extra profits, for example, of any
monopoly or a royalty for the use of a patent; and Ricardo’s definition,
“the price paid for the indestructible powers of the soil,” might seem
more definite. But Malthus is rather too specific than too general. He
is thinking of agricultural land only, and that mainly as producing food
for man. If his description of the Nature of rent adds little to that of
Adam Smith,[520] his account of its Causes, which he himself was the
first to grasp, is characteristic and peculiar.
First, he says, fertile[521] soils yield a produce that more than feeds
the producer. This may be put more generally than Malthus has put it. If
rent is to be paid, there must be wherewithal to pay it; and there
cannot be so if production does no more than repay cost. There may,
however, be a production beyond mere repayment of cost, not only in
farming but in all trades. The very principle of the division of labour
and the separation of trades implies that devotion to one occupation
makes men so dexterous in production that, besides providing for
themselves, they have an overplus wherewith to supply their other wants
and the wants of others.[522] This overplus, where the facilities for
trading were specially good, might be so much above the overplus of an
ordinary profit that the granter of the facilities, who is usually the
ground landlord, might get the lion’s share of it, and still leave the
user of the facilities as thriving as his neighbours. On the other hand,
if no such overplus can be earned, no such rent can be paid. Rent, in
short, when it is paid by men of business, either in town or in country,
means over-profits, and ground-rents mean advantage of situation.
The second cause of rent, according to Malthus, who is considering, be
it remembered, the cause of the Progress of rents as well as of their
actual volume at any given time,[523] is the peculiarity belonging to
agricultural land, that the demand increases with the supply; in other
cases the demand is external to the supply, but in this case[524] the
supply creates its demand. Where there is food there will be mouths. In
the supply of food no over-production is possible.[525]
It is here that the _Essay on Rent_ is connected with the _Essay on
Population_. By the law of population the tendency is that where food
enough for six is being produced by two, the other four will soon make
their appearance; and so, thinks Malthus, the farmer makes his customers
by simply making his wares. Something like this, we might add, would
happen in a completely developed co-operative society, where the makers
would sell to each other and buy from each other. It is even true, in a
sense, of all manufacturers as things now are, in proportion as their
articles come near to being necessaries;—if they supply that without
which people cannot live, they go far to bring people into being.
Malthus, however, regarded it as much more true of agricultural
production than of any other. He regarded food as the chief necessary,
and thought with Adam Smith, that “when food is provided it is
comparatively easy to find the necessary clothing and lodging.”[526]
Against this we need only remember, how the _Essay on Population_ showed
that it was only in the lower stages of existence that increase of mere
food involved increase of population; and so the tendency of the supply
to create its own demand was, on the author’s own showing, nothing more
than a tendency.[527] His economical reasoning was swayed a little by
his circumstances. The insularity of English life in his days prevented
him from conceiving how a nation could safely derive half its food from
abroad; what Adam Smith had thought too good to be likely,[528] he
thought too dangerous to be desirable. Good or bad, it is our position
now, and the result is, first, that the supply of food does not, in the
same degree or way, produce its own demand as formerly, and, second,
that our other productions are, even more truly than the agricultural,
the supply that creates its own demand, for they give the power of
buying the food that feeds new demanders. The production carried on, on
the surface of the land, has come in this way to be a more potent cause
of the Progress of rents than production from the soil itself. With this
restatement the second of Malthus’ causes of rent becomes perhaps a
little more intelligible.
His third cause is that good land is scarce. Lands differ in fertility,
and there is not, as in a new country, enough of the most fertile to
supply all our wants. When the produce of the inferior begins to be
absolutely necessary, the inferior will be cultivated at a price enough
to repay cost and give ordinary profits to the farmer. But what is
simply enough to do that for him will do much more than that for all the
holders of superior lands, and all that is much more can be taken by a
landlord as rent without placing the tenant at any disadvantage as
compared with his neighbours. As soon as this happens in a country, the
extra profits, which are called by economists rent, will appear in it;
and the growth of population, by leading to an increased demand for food
and to an increased price of it, will cause the cultivation of inferior
lands, or else a more expensive cultivation of the old ones; and again,
since the necessary new supplies cannot be permanently kept up without
one or other of these two resources, the price, and with it the rent,
will, in the absence of inventions, remain permanently higher. In other
words, this third cause is the “law of diminishing returns.”
It is this law of diminishing returns which bulks most largely in the
tract of Sir Edward West, written in the same year as that of Malthus.
West’s theory of rent is simply, “that in the progress of the
improvement of cultivation the raising of rude produce becomes
progressively more expensive, or in other words, the ratio of the net
produce of land to the gross produce is continually diminishing.”[529]
He sees how near Adam Smith came to it when he said, that in the
progress of cultivation the total amount of rent increased, but the
proportion of it to the produce diminished, so that from being _e. g._
half the produce it became one-third.[530] He sees, as even in 1798
Malthus had seen,[531] that but for this law population might increase
indefinitely on a few fertile lands instead of spreading over the globe
(West, p. 13), whereas because of this law inventions in agriculture are
not able to remove “the necessity of having recourse to inferior land,
and of bestowing capital with diminished advantage on land already in
tillage” (p. 50). He pushes the principle so far as to say broadly that
whatever increases agricultural production increases cost, while
whatever increases manufacturing production diminishes cost (p. 48),
inferring that the former must tend abroad and the latter at home to
prevent the displacement of English agriculture by foreign competition.
As he had little or no influence on Malthus, his tract need not be
noticed in detail; it is enough to say that, while West is superior in
style and arrangement, Malthus is the more comprehensive. West is
clearer and simpler because he includes less.
Looking at the three causes together, we see that the first and last
relate to the statics, and the second to the dynamics of the subject. We
need to remember that Malthus is having regard in the first instance not
to the value but to the quantity of the produce. Now, apart from
questions of value, it is possible there might be, in a country, land
yielding to the sower more than he sowed; but it might be an ordinary
excess, secured by all producers in that country, for the land might be
all equally fertile, and production from land might be the most fertile
of industries. In that case, even if the land was a State monopoly and
the producer’s gains could be taken from him by a tax, there would be
nothing corresponding to rent, in the received sense. But, as soon as
there were differences in the fertility, and therefore differences in
the quantity produced at the same cost, the farmer who had the
difference on his side could be said to have a rent. It is this surplus,
conjoined with the institution of private property, that, according to
Malthus, makes leisure and mental progress, and even great material
prosperity, possible.[532] The rent is properly the extra profits, and
not the equivalent paid over for them to a landlord; rent can easily
exist without a landlord. “It may be laid down, therefore, as an
incontrovertible truth, that, as a nation reaches any considerable
degree of wealth, and any considerable fulness of population, which of
course cannot take place without a great fall both in the profits of
stock and the wages of labour, the separation of rents, as a kind of
fixture upon lands of a certain quality, is a law as invariable as the
action of the principle of gravity. And that rents are neither a mere
nominal value, nor a value unnecessarily and injuriously transferred
from one set of people to another, but a most real and essential part of
the whole value of the national property, and placed by the laws of
nature where they are, on the land, by whomsoever possessed, whether the
landlord, the crown, or the actual cultivator.”[533]
It is the second cause that brings the first and third into operation in
such a way as to produce the rents that we actually know in an old
country. The fertility which secures a produce beyond cost makes extra
profits possible; the growing population, which gives the produce a
value, makes them actual; and the gradations in fertility, whereby a
uniform increase in the value of produce creates far from uniform extra
profits to different cultivators, give the extra profits the peculiar
graduated character, which is characteristic of rent in the economical
sense of the word.
Malthus believed himself to have included, in this theory of rent, what
truth there was in the view of the French economists and of Adam Smith,
when they spoke of rent as due to the qualities of the soil and not to
an ordinary monopoly. His contemporaries admitted him to have been the
first clear expounder of the subject. But his most eminent brother
economist found general agreement quite consistent with emphatic
divergence in details,[534] not wonderful in a writer who regarded every
economical question as a particular case of the problem of value rather
than of wealth.
Ricardo admits that his own theory of rent is simply a farther
development of the Malthusian. In an essay on _The Influence of a low
price of Corn on the Profits of Stock, showing the inexpediency of
Restrictions on Importation_ (1815),[535] published in answer to the two
tracts of Malthus above mentioned, he makes this quite clear, and,
unlike his disciples, is warm in praise of his rival’s powers as an
economist.[536] He agrees with the definition (of the _Tract on Rent_)
that rent is “that portion of the value of the whole produce which
remains to the owner after all the outgoings belonging to its
cultivation have been paid,” including an ordinary rate of profits for
the employed.[537]
But, whereas Malthus regards rent as increased by whatever lessens the
outgoings in any shape or form, Ricardo considers that can happen in one
way only, namely, by the increased cost of raising the last part of the
necessary supplies. Arithmetically it was clear that, if you had four
items making up the total expense of cultivation, whatever reduced any
one of the items _pro tanto_ reduced the total.[538] Accordingly,
Malthus said that rent could be increased by such an accumulation of
capital as will lower the profits of stock,—such an increase of
population as will lower the wages of labour,—such agricultural
improvements or such increase of the cultivator’s exertions as will
diminish the number of labourers needed,—or such an increase in the
prices of produce from increased demand as will increase the difference
between the expense of production and the price of produce.[539]
Ricardo, on the other hand, says that profits can never be reduced by
mere accumulation of capital or competition of capitals, but only by the
progressively less fruitful character of the investments to be found for
capital as accumulation goes on. As long as there is fertile land to be
had, yielding a rich return to capital, no one will accept a poor
return. “If in the progress of countries in wealth and population new
portions of fertile land can be added to such countries with every
increase of capital, profits would never fall nor rents rise.”[540] In
things as they are, capital soon accumulates beyond the rich investments
and has to take the poorer. Sooner or later, even in a new colony, a
point is reached where fertile land will not supply food enough for the
growing population except at an increased cost.[541] Now, if the supply
is absolutely required, the most costly portion of it, whether it be got
by an extension of cultivation to poorer lands, or by a more thorough
cultivation of the richer, will determine the price of all the rest, for
there cannot be two prices in the same market; and the profits of the
producer of it will determine the profits of all his fellow-cultivators,
for there cannot be two rates of profit in the same business.
Furthermore, the agricultural profits will determine the rate in other
businesses, for in a full-formed society the rate in the others must
bear a fixed relation to the rate in this business, so that the one
cannot materially vary without the other.[542] Therefore the greater
cost of the last portion of the necessary supply of food will lower
profits generally, will thereby increase the range of extra profits from
the richer soils, and will thereby raise rents.
The difference between the two men is, that what Malthus makes only one
cause, Ricardo makes the only one, the increased cost of
cultivation.[543] Ricardo and his friends have certainly put cause for
effect.[544] It is of course in the first instance the high prices that
lead to the costly cultivation, and not _vice versâ_, for without the
high prices the produce of the costly cultivation would not be
profitable.
Malthus was asked by the Committee on Emigration: “Among other effects
of resorting to a soil inferior to any now in cultivation, which is
involved in the proposition of cultivating waste lands, would not one be
to raise the rents of all the landlords throughout Great Britain and
Ireland?”—He answered: “I think not. The cultivating of poor lands is
not the cause of the rise of rents; the rise of the price of produce
compared with the costs of production, which is the cause of the rise of
rents, takes place first, and then such rise induces the cultivation of
the poorer land. That is the doctrine I originally stated, and I believe
it to be true; it was altered by others afterwards.”[545]
On the other hand, what makes the high prices permanent instead of
temporary, is the fact that the cultivation essential to the
completeness of the supply cannot be other than costly.[546] It is,
therefore, not wrong to consider costly cultivation as one cause of the
permanence of high prices, and therewith of high rents. But Ricardo goes
further, and counts it the only cause.
Through the whole progress of society, he says, profits are regulated by
the difficulty or facility of procuring food; and, “if the smallness of
profits do not check accumulation, there are hardly any limits to the
rise of rent and the fall of profit.” Nothing can increase the general
rate of profit but the cheapening of food;[547] as by improvements in
agriculture, which, by securing the same production with less labour,
for the time increase the profits and lower the rents.[548] The
landlord’s interest is therefore at all times opposed to that of every
other class in the community,[549] for it means dear food, low profits,
and high rents. Still, high rents are not the cause either of the dear
food or the low profits, but are, equally with them, the effect of a
common cause, more costly cultivation. The effect of a costly
cultivation on wages might seem _vi terminorum_ to be a raising of them,
for wages depend on the proportion of the supply of labourers to
capital’s demand[550] for them, and by assumption there was a greater
demand. But since the cause of the rise of price was in the first
instance an increase of population, it follows that the increased cost
of raising the most costly supplies of corn will be incurred not by
higher payment of old labourers, but by employment of new. Wages again
will buy less corn, for corn has risen. “While the price of corn rises
ten per cent., wages will always rise less than ten per cent., but rent
will always rise more; the condition of the labourer will generally
decline, and that of the landlord will always be improved.”[551] In his
statement of the doctrine of wages, Ricardo is perhaps more careful in
1815 than he is in 1817, saying that, “as experience demonstrates that
capital and population alternately take the lead, and wages in
consequence are liberal or scanty, nothing can be positively laid down
respecting profits as far as wages are concerned.”[552] But even in 1817
his exposition is hardly more rigid than that of Malthus himself. So far
is he from recognizing an iron law driving wages down to “the natural
price” or bare necessaries, that he thinks the market rate may be
constantly above the natural for an indefinite period, and he regards
the natural itself as expansive. The whole chapter on wages[553] shows a
just understanding of the _Essay on Population_. Nevertheless, if
Ricardo in one sense made too much of the principle of population in
relation to Rent, in another sense he made too little of it. He does not
see that in a progressive country it counteracts the tendency of
improvements in agriculture to cheapen produce, and thereby reduce
rents;[554] agricultural rents have risen since 1846 largely because of
high farming. He does not grant that high or low wages can affect rent,
because he regards them as purely relative to profits, and making with
profits a total amount, of which only the proportions vary; but it is
difficult to believe that the rise in agricultural wages since 1873 or
so can have failed to play a part in keeping down farmers’ rents since
that date. As, however, our view of the power or powerlessness of
lowered profits or lowered wages to increase rent will be found to
depend on our view of the causes of value, and as the difference of the
two economists on the relation of wages to profits might have the
appearance of a technical subtlety, these two items of the total may be
passed by for the present.
In regard to agricultural improvements the issue seemed plainer, and the
evidence seemed all for Ricardo and against Malthus. In a country
depending chiefly on itself for grain, a general adoption of
improvements would seem to make supplies cheaper because less costly,
and therefore to lower rents because forcing farmers to lower prices.
Even Mr. Mill did not break away from Ricardianism at this point,[555]
though he speaks less unreservedly than Ricardo upon it. Malthus, on the
other hand, who regards rent as depending largely on the ability of the
agricultural supply to create its own demands, regards rent,
accordingly, as at all times keeping pace with the increase of grain
caused by improvements, unless the improvements outrun population. What
cheapness does in other cases is to make an article accessible to a
circle of buyers previously excluded from it. Every one is a buyer of
agricultural produce and no one is excluded; but the temporary cheapness
of grain creates new buyers by making marriage accessible to a wider
circle.
The progress of rents in fact results from the conflict of two
economical tendencies—the tendency of economical expedients to lower
prices, and the tendency of an increasing population to raise them. If
Malthus’ ripest view of population be true, then a cheapening of food
among a civilized people by no means leads to a corresponding increase
of their numbers, and therefore the course of improvement would tend so
far towards a diminution of price, and therewith of rent. If rents
depended on the price of corn alone, economical expedients (including
not only the direct aids to tillage, mechanical and chemical inventions
directly applied to it, but the indirect aids, free trade, railways, and
steamers) must certainly have lowered rents in the last hundred years.
But the reverse is true,[556] chiefly because the produce of a farm is
ceasing to mean wheat, and coming more and more to mean cattle and dairy
produce, which have not fallen but risen in price in one hundred years,
while corn has actually fallen. This variety of productions has proved
financially an equivalent to what Malthus (seventy years ago) considered
the main cause of greater extra profits to the farmer and greater money
rents to the landlord——the increased fertility of the soil in the matter
of grain, and an increased price keeping pace with it.
The commercial policy of England has become what Malthus describes in
the latter part of the _Essay on Population_ as a combination of the
agricultural and the commercial systems. His views on this subject
became modified as he grew older. In the second edition he says:[557]
“Two nations might increase exactly with the same rapidity in the
exchangeable value of the annual produce of their land and labour;
yet ... in that which had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, the
poor would live in greater plenty, and population would rapidly
increase; in that which had applied itself chiefly to commerce, the poor
would be comparatively but little benefited, and consequently population
would either be stationary or increase very slowly.” “In the history of
the world the nations whose wealth has been derived principally from
manufactures and commerce have been perfectly ephemeral beings compared
with those the basis of whose wealth has been agriculture. It is in the
nature of things that a state which subsists upon a revenue furnished by
other countries must be infinitely more exposed to all the accidents of
time and chance than one which produces its own.”[558] It is not, he
thinks, because of her trade, but because of her agriculture that
England is so rich in resources; it is not without danger that our
commercial policy has diverted capital from agriculture into manufacture
and commerce. About the middle of the eighteenth century we were
strictly an agricultural nation, and we were safe, for in a country
whose commerce and manufacture increase from and with the improvement in
agriculture there is no discoverable germ of decay. But all is changed
now; and there is reason to fear that our prosperity is temporary, and
we have only risen by the depression of other nations.[559] When the
nations that now supply us with cheap corn shall have prospered like
ourselves and increased their population till corn is dear among them,
then we shall be ruined. The evils of scarcity are so dreadful that it
is worth our while to give special encouragements to agriculture, and,
in order to be certain to have enough, to have in general too much.[560]
Otherwise “we shall be laid so bare to the shafts of fortune that
nothing but a miracle can save us from being struck.”[561] “If England
continues yearly her importations of corn, she cannot ultimately escape
that decline which seems to be the natural and necessary consequence of
excessive commercial wealth; and the growing prosperity of those
countries which supply her with corn must in the end diminish her
population, her riches, and her power,”—not indeed in the next twenty or
thirty years, but “in the next two hundred or three hundred.”[562] In
1803 Malthus had much in common with the author of _Great Britain
independent of Commerce_, to say nothing of the French economists. He
cannot be said to have entirely lost the bias in favour of Agriculture
in later years. In the _Political Economy_, reviewing the last five
centuries of English work and wages,[563] he tries to explain away the
instances where rising prices of corn and an “influx of bullion” seem to
have injured the condition of the labourer; and there can be little
doubt he was indirectly answering an objection to Corn Laws. When
depreciation of the currency, whether through American discoveries or
suspensions of cash payment, has occurred, the rebound from it (he says)
has made prices fall much more than wages, and so (we are to infer),
when prices are kept high, wages will follow. It may be doubted if he
had weighed the full consequences of such a contention in the light of
his own principles of free trade. Professor Rogers[564] has had the
valuable aid of old College accounts. Malthus had little besides Eden,
Arthur Young, and the Reports to the Board of Agriculture; and it is
doubtful if he fully understood the effects on the labourer of Henry
VII.’s debasement of the currency, or could apply the analogy to the
depreciation in his own day.[565] But on the whole, as years went on, he
became less physiocratic. He came to acknowledge that, if a purely
agricultural country might in some cases, like America, be the best
possible for the labourer, it might in other cases, like Poland or
Ireland, be the worst possible for him. If we hear that the labourer in
one country earns in a year fifteen and in another nine quarters of
wheat, we cannot be sure that the former is the better off till we know
the value of other things in the country in comparison with wheat. If
manufactures were very dear in comparison, then the labourer’s wages
except in food would go very little way, unless in a case like America,
where the quantity is so great that it makes up for the little value of
corn wages. In Poland the value of corn is so low, and there is so
little capital in the country, that the high corn wages mean low real
wages, and the population is either stationary or very slow in its
increase. The prosperity of an agricultural country, then, depends on
other causes than the direction of its attention to the one industry of
agriculture, and without knowing these we could not infer or predict
it.[566]
Malthus in fact reached the point at which he was always glad to arrive,
the medium between two extreme views.[567] He would neither approve of a
purely agricultural nation, whose danger was want of capital, nor of a
purely commercial, whose danger was want of food. In a purely
commercial, everything depends on a superiority in industry, machinery,
and trade, which from the nature of things cannot last. Not only foreign
but domestic competition will bring down profits, and thereby, by
discouraging saving and enterprise, diminish the demand for labour and
bring the population to a standstill. Christendom has seen Venice,
Bruges, Holland lose their trade by their neighbours’ gain.[568] To say
that the nations of the world ought to be allowed to develope their
trade as freely as the provinces of a single empire, is, in his opinion,
to overlook the reality of political obstacles. If England were still
separated into the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, London could not be what
it is. The interest of a province and the interest of an independent
state are never the same.[569] To one who believes political divisions
inevitable, there can be little hope for universal free trade. Malthus
is unable to rise to the cosmopolitan view of Cobden, and he never seems
to see that by ignoring political barriers, free trade may really weaken
them. His ideal is a state which combines agriculture and commerce in
equal proportions.[570] The prosperity of the latter implies the decay
of feudalism and the establishment of secure government; with security
comes the spontaneous extension of enterprise and a steady demand for
labour. Since the two great classes of producers provide a market for
each other, wealth will constantly grow, and without risk of sudden
check by a foreign influence. The prosperity of such a country may (he
thinks) last practically for ever, and we might answer in the
affirmative for our own country the query of Bishop Berkeley about
his.[571] “The countries which unite great landed resources with a
prosperous state of commerce and manufactures, and in which the
commercial part of the population never essentially exceeds the
agricultural part, are eminently secure from sudden reverses. Their
increasing wealth seems to be out of the reach of all common accidents,
and there is no reason to say that they might not go on increasing in
riches and population for hundreds, nay almost thousands of years.”[572]
They would go on in fact till they reached the extreme practical limits
of population, which under the system of private property would mean
such a state of the land as would “enable the last employed labourers to
produce the maintenance of as many probably as four persons,” the man,
his wife, and two children. As soon as the labour ceases to produce more
than this, it ceases to be worth the employer’s while to give the wages
and employ the labour. These practical limits are far from the limits of
the earth’s power to produce food, and a Government which compelled
every member of society to devote himself wholly to the raising of food
and necessaries, would succeed in coming nearer to those farther limits,
though at the expense of everything we mean by civilization.[573] As a
matter of fact, even the practical limit is not approached by way of a
uniform decline of profits and of population. Various causes, acting at
irregular intervals, stave off the event. The decline of general
profits, the introduction of long leases and large farming, would bring
more capital to the land; improvements in agriculture will increase the
produce, inventions in manufacture will lessen the cost of the
agriculturist’s comforts, and make his wages and profits go farther; the
opening of a foreign market may raise home prices; a temporary rise in
the value of agricultural produce may stimulate the investment of
capital in farming. So Malthus concludes, for reasons not unlike Cliffe
Leslie’s,[574] that, though there is a tendency of profits to fall, yet
the tendency is often defeated. Though there is much truth still in many
of his statements, the conclusion he draws from them,[575] that we ought
by a judicious system of corn duties and corn bounties to keep the price
of food steady and secure a large home supply, is quite out of court
now. The variations in price have been under free trade very moderate;
and the supply from one quarter or another has never failed us. Free
trade is no longer among our problems.
It must be added, however, that there is no reason why the “practical
limits” should not exist under a paternal or fraternal socialism as well
as under the present social system. Even if industry were initiated and
directed not by individuals but socialistically by Government, the sole
motive need not be to increase the mere numbers of the people, and
therefore the mere total quantity of food needed for a bare life. The
motive of socialistic government would be to secure a high degree of
comfort, not a bare subsistence, for all; and therefore, at the cost of
a limitation of numbers, society would still remain at a distance from
its greatest possible production of food. Whether such a limitation of
numbers is likely to take place in the reconstituted society is
discussed elsewhere.[576]
CHAPTER II.
THE WORKING MAN.
_Measure of Value_, 1823—In what sense Labour a
Measure—Difficulties—Arguments of the Tract on Value—Measure in the
same Country—Measure in different Countries—Measure at different
Periods in the same—Measure as applied to varying Value of
Currency—The Royal Literary Society—The _Definitions_—Wages—The
Minimum of Social different from the Minimum of Physical
Necessaries—High Wages, how made Permanent—The “Wages Fund,” whose
Invention, and how far a Reality—“The New School of Political
Economy,” its three Tenets—A General Glut in what Sense possible.
As the Rent and Corn pamphlets deal chiefly with Mother Earth, the tract
on the Measure of Value[577] deals chiefly with Father Work. The search
for a common measure of value is not, to Malthus, a purely academical
problem. He considers such a measure desirable because in any inquiry
into the wealth of nations it is important to distinguish between the
rise of one commodity and the fall of another. The former is an
intrinsic alteration of value which will affect every exchange in which
the object is concerned; the latter an extrinsic which affects only the
one exchange, of the object in question with the foreign object that has
been altered. By value of course is to be understood economic value, or
“the power of commanding other objects in exchange,” not value in the
(not uncommon) wider sense, of usefulness in supplying wants.[578] The
economic value of anything, taken in relation to some object which never
changes its value from intrinsic causes, may be called the “natural or
absolute value” of that thing, and the object with which it was compared
may be called the “measure” of absolute or natural value, in other
words, of the value which a thing must fetch if its supply is to be
continued. While not only money but any and every object may be such a
measure of value for a limited place and time, even money itself is not
a good measure for widely different places or for long periods of time;
and corn, which is better for long periods, is worse for short.
Labour is better than either, but Labour is ambiguous. We may measure
the value of anything either by the labour it has cost us in the making
of it, which gives us Ricardo’s sense of natural value, or by the labour
it will purchase after it is made. Adam Smith,[579] who preferred labour
both to money and corn as the measure of value, wavered between these
two meanings of the terms. Malthus declares at once against the first
sense. Labour, he says, in the sense of cost does not altogether
determine value and therefore cannot measure it, even for similar places
and times. In 1820 Malthus had been of opinion that a mean between corn
and labour was a better measure of value than labour itself; but since
1823 he recurred to the view of Adam Smith,[580] and held that the
amount of the unskilled common day labour of the agricultural labourer,
which a thing will purchase or command, is a good measure of the value
of it even at widely different places and times. “Agricultural labour is
taken for the obvious reasons that it is the commonest species of
labour, that it directly produces the food of the labourer, and that it
is the most immediately connected with the gradations of soil and the
necessary variations of profits. It is also assumed with Adam Smith, Mr.
Ricardo, and other political economists, that, on an average, other
kinds of labour continue to bear the same proportions to agricultural
labour.”[581] The bodily exertion of the labourer does not change; it is
the same sweat of the brow, the same sacrifice of physical force. When
corn, for example, will command a less amount of labour than it would
have done a century before, we may be sure it is because of a change not
in the labour but in the corn; and we ought therefore to say not that
labour has risen in value, but that corn has fallen. Malthus’ search for
a permanent element in the changeable has led him to individual human
labour as the economical unit. If the Chinese labourer has lower wages
than the English, it is not because his labour is of lower value, but
because his necessaries are of higher. Wages are higher in the United
States not because labour is of higher value, but because necessaries
are of lower.[582] Of course when skill enters into the labour, the unit
is not the same; but, when we look only at unskilled, we find
confirmation of Malthus’ view in the experience of the elder and the
younger Brassey as employers of labour, that quantity for quantity “the
cost of the labour [the expense of it to the employer] is the same
everywhere” over the world.[583] The measure, however, is by no means
out of court as regards skilled labour; the difference in kind may be
stated in terms of a difference in degree. If the watchmaker’s labour be
paid at the rate of 10_s._ a day, and the common agricultural labourer’s
only at 1_s._ 8_d._, the former may be stated as equivalent to six days’
common labour.[584] Malthus has in his mind a scale of compensation such
as is drawn out by Adam Smith in the tenth chapter of the first book of
the _Wealth of Nations_.[585] Disagreeableness, difficulty, inconstancy,
responsibility, risk of failure, are so many disabilities, for each of
which a compensation must be made to the workman in the scale of his
wages, as adding in effect so many more hours’ labour; and each higher
class of workman must be paid the unit of common labourer’s wages, with
the compensations superadded. In practice this means that men will not
be found in sufficient numbers to do the higher class work unless the
wages are sufficient to make it worth their while to undergo the
disabilities. It is assumed that this scale has been adjusted by custom
and the “higgling of the market” from generation to generation, till in
any given neighbourhood each of the several skilled trades has a
definitely recognized place in the series.[586]
This reasoning seems less convincing when we consider that the
translation of skill into terms of hours would be different in different
localities, and that the common labour, which is the unit, would vary in
the same way. The measure of value would hold only for a given place,
time, and people. To escape from the difficulty, we must consider the
difference between the common labour at one time and place and the
common labour at another as itself measurable, and allow for it; or else
we must consider it as too small to disturb our conclusions, and so
neglect it altogether. To reduce common labour to its theoretically
simplest terms is to reduce it to something below our experience; and to
reduce it to its actually simplest in the given cases is to reduce it to
one thing in England, a second in France, a third in India, a fourth in
America. There are differences of quality which cannot be with any
certainty resolved into differences of quantity; such are the
differences of individuals, the differences of nations, the differences
of races. It will be found, also, that the part played by common as
opposed to skilled labour, and by agricultural as opposed to
manufacturing labour, differs so much between country and country that,
in order to use labour as a measure, we should need other measures in
addition to it. In short, if we had data enough to apply this measure,
we should have data enough to dispense with it.
It was possibly the force of these considerations that led Malthus, as
time went on, to approach somewhat nearer to Ricardo, whose measure, so
far as he had one, was not the labour purchased but the labour that
entered into cost. But he adhered to the substance of his doctrine as
expressed in the tract; and his positions, in detail, were as follows:—
The power of one object to command another in exchange is influenced
either by a change in the object itself, or by a change in the other. If
we found a case where there was never a change in the first object
itself, then we should have, in that first, a measure of natural or
absolute as opposed to nominal or relative value, _i. e._ a measure of
that value of an article which satisfies the “conditions of the supply”
of it, and enables its production to be continued without loss to the
producers. By “conditions of supply” is meant Ricardo’s “cost of
production” with the addition of ordinary profits. No measure of market
or relative values is possible; and to have a measure of natural value
itself we must make two postulates,—that natural value depends on
“labour and profits” (_sic_), on rent little if at all, and that the
“wages” of labour are also the “value” of labour,—what labour is paid is
also what labour will fetch. It is easy to apply the measure where
_only_ labour is concerned, for then the labour that the things _cost_
is a sufficient measure; it would be evident, at any change, that the
things had become cheaper, not the labour dearer. But in present society
value is more complicated; labour is no doubt the chief source of it,
but profits are a very considerable one.[587] The natural conditions of
supply, however, may be stated in terms of labour, just as if labour had
been the sole ingredient. This would give us a measure for the _same_
country at the same place and time. The total quantity of labour that an
article cost, with the addition of ordinary profits stated in terms of
labour, would be the same as that quantity of labour which an article
would purchase in its natural value.
In the case of _different_ countries, at the same time, the difficulties
are not quite the same. Exchange is there determined not by labour but
by money prices; and money is of very different value in the one country
and in the other. But the differences in the value of money in different
countries are in proportion to the different prices of agricultural
labour—1500 days’ labour at 4_d._ a day in India, at 2_s._ in England,
meaning £25 and £150 respectively; and, if fixed capital to the value of
300 days’ labour were advanced to each of them, while profits calculated
in days’ labour were twenty per cent. in the one case, ten in the other,
the result would be an article whose conditions of supply would require
in the one case a money price of £31, in the other of £168. The
difference is no doubt due to the superior efficiency of English
industry and skill which enables England to purchase the precious metals
more cheaply,[588] but the cost of getting the money would not tell us
the true present value of the money in England or in India. It is not
the labour spent on the gold, but the labour purchased by it, that will
help us here. In each country within itself we would measure the natural
value of money as well as of anything else by what labour it will
purchase; know the difference between the value of money in the one and
its value in the other by the difference between the amount of labour it
will purchase in the one case and the amount it will purchase in the
other.[589]
In the case of _different periods in the same country_, though we have
not, as in the case of two different countries, the test of an actual
exchange, we can still use labour as the measure. We must allow for the
higher profits of the earlier period; and on the (Ricardian) principle
that profits and wages vary inversely, though corn wages have risen,
profits have in proportion fallen, and the total value of the produce
measured by its power of purchasing labour must be the same,[590] the
purchased labour then representing the producing labour plus the then
rate of profits. From Ricardo’s dogma it seems (to Malthus) to follow
directly that the value of labour is constant.[591] Taking the labour
they will purchase as the best measure of the value of the precious
metals, as of anything else, we have light on one of the pressing
questions of the day (in 1823), the causes of the changing value of
money. The causes affect not the labour but the money, and they are of
two kinds. The first Malthus describes as a primary or necessary cause,
namely, the variation in profits depending on the (Ricardian) theory of
the interlocking of wages and profits, and the (Malthusian) theory of
the relation of profits to rent. Dear corn due to difficult cultivation
would lower profits, and would alter the value of money, but only in
relation to raw, not in relation to manufactured produce, or at least
(from the effects of Ricardo’s principle of the inverse variation of
wages and profits) not to the same extent. But the second, which is a
“secondary and incidental” class of causes, affects both raw and
manufactured goods, and is often enough to completely dwarf the effects
of the primary cause;[592]—it is the general commercial situation of a
country,—“the fertility and vicinity of the mines, the different
efficiency of labour in different countries, the abundance or scarcity
of exportable commodities, and the state of the demand and supply of
commodities and labour compared with” the precious metals.[593] The
efficiency of labour and a prosperous commerce, with a great consequent
demand for corn and labour, are often more powerful in making bullion
cheap than agricultural productiveness and high profits in making
bullion dear and corn cheap. During the war—say from 1790 to 1814—we had
an instance of this, and since the war—say from 1814 to 1823—we have had
a clear instance, he thinks, of the converse.[594]
Two elaborate papers on the measure of value, written in 1825 and 1827,
show that Malthus was becoming inclined to make less of his differences
with Ricardo.[595] They were intimate friends; their discussions had no
bitterness; and, to use the words of one of them, “both were so anxious
for the truth that sooner or later they would have agreed.”[596] These
papers are a fulfilment of his duty not (as we might guess) as a fellow
of the Royal Society or a member of the Political Economy Club,[597] but
as an associate of the Royal Society of Literature.[598] “That branch of
literature” [_sic_] “on which it shall be his duty to communicate with
the Society once a year at least” is described as “political economy and
statistics.”[599] He does little credit in these papers to his literary
faculty. Their composition is laboured and devoid of ornament. The first
is _On the Measure of the Conditions necessary to the Supply of
Commodities_; and the thesis is, that “the natural and necessary
conditions of the supply of all commodities,” that are not monopolies,
are represented and measured by the labour which they will on an average
command, and by nothing else. The second is _On the Meaning which is
most usually and most correctly attached to the term, Value of
Commodities_; and the thesis is, that, when value is used without a
qualifying adjective or reference to any special equivalent in a
possible exchange,[600] the term refers to the “conditions of supply.”
When we say, for example, anything is sold at a price far above its true
value, we mean far above its cost price, including under “cost” the
average rate of profits that must go to the maker if he is to live by
his trade. The two papers taken together form a sort of indirect proof
of the position taken up in the tract on the _Measure of Value_ (1823),
and the relevant parts of the second edition of the _Political Economy_
(1836), and may be stated briefly thus:—The labour commanded by an
article is generally the measure of that article’s cost;—but that
article’s cost is what people generally mean by its value;—therefore the
labour commanded by an article is the measure of that article’s value in
the ordinary sense of the word.
The second paper was written at the same time as the _Definitions in
Political Economy_, and illustrates the rule laid down there,
prescribing adherence, when possible, to the meaning which economical
terms bear in the mouths of ordinary folk.[601] The _Definitions_, for
example, repeat from (or with) the second paper, “when no second object
is specified, the value of the commodity naturally refers to the causes”
which determine “the estimation in which it is held” “and the object
which measures it.”[602] “The natural value of a commodity at any place
and time” is “the estimation in which it is held when it is in its
natural and ordinary state,” as “determined by the elementary costs of
its production,” or in other words, by “the conditions of its supply.”
And the measure of the natural value of a commodity at any place and
time is “the quantity of labour for which it will exchange at that place
and time when it is in its natural and ordinary state.”[603]
As a literary production the book written for the public is superior
to the papers prepared for the men of letters. Next to the first
_Essay on Population_, the critical parts of the _Definitions_ give
the most pleasant examples of the author’s style. The two papers above
mentioned are chiefly important as showing the importance which
Malthus, unlike Ricardo, attached to the question of a measure of
value.[604] A contemporary writer said very happily that the fault of
Ricardo was to generalize too much, and of Malthus to generalize too
little. Malthus, he added, is a keen observer but poor in analysis; he
is “so occupied with particulars that he neglects that inductive
process which extends individual experience throughout the infinitude
of things,” and converts knowledge into science. “As presented by Mr.
Ricardo, political economy possesses a regularity and simplicity
beyond what exists in nature; as exhibited by Mr. Malthus, it is a
chaos of original but unconnected elements.”[605] On the other hand,
the testimony of a recent German writer is very different. Malthus, he
tells us, resembles Ricardo in his sombre view of human life and frank
statement of unpleasant facts. Their names are often associated, and
no doubt both are children of their times. But their leanings were
really unlike. Ricardo took up certain ideas of his time in their
narrowest, clearest, and harshest form, and applied them wholly in the
interest of capital. Malthus is far less narrow. His influence on
economics has been much smaller than Ricardo’s; but he will be found
“by far the more suggestive and less prejudiced of the two,” and, if
he found more opponents, it is because he was less understood and less
read.[606] The sprightly _Dialogues_[607] of De Quincey contribute
nothing to the discussion on value; but they show how completely
Ricardo had won the ear of the literary world, and how little pains
the opponents of Malthus took to do him justice. Malthus reduced the
problem to many elements; Ricardo to few; and the latter, as certainly
easier to understand, was readily represented as the likelier to be
true. Simplicity in such a case is a treacherous virtue; and the
apparent chaos may have been much nearer the truth than the apparent
cosmos, if there was a hidden flaw in the latter and a latent
principle of union in the former. Sound or unsound, such a principle
may be traced in the most abstract discussions of Malthus. We shall
find this true when we compare his views with Ricardo’s on the nature
and causes of value itself, and the movements of prices. We may
recognize it even in these discussions on the measure of value. The
measurement of all value by individual human labour is of a piece with
the author’s final view of population, where all is made to depend on
individual responsibility.[608] The main weakness of the position is
perhaps that by unskilled labour he means always agricultural, and
does not sufficiently recognize how in manufacturing England it has
perhaps become easier to measure unskilled by skilled than the latter
by the former. The difficulty met Robert Owen, when in his _Labour
Exchanges_[609] he not only tried to reduce all values to a common
measure in labour, but to make labour a means of exchange, for which
it is certainly worse suited than money.
Labour as something to be rewarded by Wages has a more evident
connection with the principles of the _Essay on Population_ than labour
as the measure of all values. In this case unskilled agricultural labour
is again the unit. The first “condition of the supply” of this labour is
the necessaries of life, in such quantities as will enable the labourers
to maintain their numbers or to increase them,[610] as the case may be.
If the former only, the price of labour is not, as Ricardo says, the
“natural,” but really a most unnatural price, for it would mean that the
country giving it had arrived at the final limit of its resources.[611]
Necessaries, however, are not a simple or even a fixed element. We can
of course measure them in corn if we like; but they consist not only of
the prime necessary, the staff of life, but of other absolute
necessaries, of shelter and clothing, and many “conveniences” which have
become necessaries, inasmuch as they are essential to healthy life, such
as soap and shoes and candle-light. It has happily become a truism that
the necessaries of life are not a fixed but an expanding factor. Even if
competition were always to drive wages down to a “minimum of social
necessaries,”[612] social are always beyond animal necessaries; our
basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous; and “the barest
social necessaries” seem likely in process of time to mean a high
standard of comfort. To raise the minimum of social necessaries is the
way to raise wages really, universally, and almost irrevocably.[613]
Malthus himself declares that “it is the diffusion of luxury” in this
sense of the word, “among the mass of the people, and not an excess of
it in a few,” that seems to be advantageous, both for national wealth
and national happiness. Paley’s ideal of national prosperity, “a
laborious frugal people ministering to the demands of an opulent
luxurious nation,” is heartily scouted by him. The luxuries of the few
rich, he says, harass the industry of the poor by varying with the
fashion; but the luxuries of the poor, when embodied in their general
standard of living, are not only the best kind of check to population,
but the steadiest encouragement to general trade.[614] He seems to have
supposed the elevation in the standard of living to have been effected,
like the progress of nations in civilization, by the happy improvement
of an accidental advantage, by the retention of high wages, when once
secured in a time of brisk trade in the ordinary way of competition; the
workmen, in short, succeeded in making permanent and _de jure_ a change
once _de facto_ for the time effected.[615] “When our wages of labour in
wheat were high in the early part of the last century, it did not appear
that they were employed merely in the maintenance of more families, but
in improving the condition of the people in their general mode of
living.”[616] Malthus, without knowing it, was certainly father of the
theory of a Wages Fund. The theory is that the average wages of the
labouring classes at any given time are high or low in proportion to the
great or small amount of circulating capital devoted to the payment of
wages, or, as it is sometimes expressed (more tersely and inexactly),
wages depend on “the ratio of population to capital.” This might mean no
more than the arithmetical truism that we may always find the average
wages by dividing the total sum received by the total number of
recipients; and the quotient would be unalterable only in the sense in
which all other facts might be said to be so, in retrospect. But it is
usually taken to mean that the first total could not at any given time
have been greater or less than it actually was, being fixed unalterably
by circumstances,[617] and so “devoted” or “determined” to the payment
of wages. The simplest test of this theory is the application of it to
the case of a single individual capitalist and his payments in wages.
Suppose he has a capital of £10,000, £5000 fixed and £5000 circulating;
and suppose that the latter means wages only (instead of chiefly), and
is paid to one hundred men;—£50 a year will be the average wages of the
hundred men; and, by the theory, given the rate of ordinary profits and
given the “desire of accumulation” at the time and place, it could not
possibly have been either more or less. But, as the profits are not
unconditional, neither are the wages; the capitalist might conceivably,
to save his business, keep it up in bad times at a loss, and pay wages
at the expense of profits and at the expense of his personal
pleasures.[618] He has often the choice before him to spend more on
fixtures, or more on new hands, or more on further employment of the old
hands. In truth, too, though wages, especially in England, are often in
the first instance advanced out of capital, they are always meant to be
paid out of the gross returns, and in every sound business really are
so. The workman and employer make their contract beforehand, and expect
each other to abide by it, be the profit much or little; the wages
depend, therefore, directly on this contract, and indirectly on that
which is the means of fulfilling the contract on the master’s side, the
price of the article made. The price of the article is the real wages
fund;[619] and therefore the wages fund must be as flexible as market
prices, and the actual wages as changeable as are the powers, habits,
and desires of the two contracting parties.
The theory of a wages fund was formed from the facts of a perfectly
exceptional time, and on the strength of two truths misapplied, the
doctrine of Malthus (on Population) in its most unripe form, and of
Ricardo (on Value) in its most abstract. J. R. MacCulloch seems to have
been the first who put the two together to deduce a rigid law of wages.
“The market rate of wages,” he says, “is exclusively dependent on the
proportion which the capital of the country, or the means of employing
labour, bears to the number of labourers. There is plainly, therefore,
only one way of really improving the condition of the great majority of
the community or of the labouring class, and that is by increasing the
ratio of capital to population,” which the labourers for their part can
only do by diminishing the supply of labour.[620]
Even Mrs. Marcet, a docile Ricardian, had put the case more carefully.
“_Work_ to be performed is the immediate cause of the demand for labour;
but, however great or important is the work which a man may wish to
undertake, the execution of it must always be limited by the extent of
his capital, _i. e._ by the funds he possesses for the maintenance or
payment of his labourers.”[621] She professes to be expounding the
received doctrine of her day. MacCulloch’s exposition is much more
rigid. When he speaks of the “funds devoted to the payment of wages,” he
means “that portion of the capital or wealth of a country which the
employers of labour _intend_ or _are willing_ to lay out in the purchase
of labour.” It “may be larger at one time than at another. But, whatever
be its magnitude, it obviously forms the only source from which any
portion of the wages of labour can be derived. No other fund is in
existence from which the labourers as such can draw a single shilling.
And hence it follows that the average rate of wages or the share of the
national capital appropriated to the employment of labour falling, at an
average, to each labourer, must entirely depend on its amount as
compared with the number of those amongst whom it has to be
divided.”[622] Neither MacCulloch, nor James Mill, nor John Mill in his
early writings, nor apparently any of the expounders of the theory, were
in the habit of describing the fund as “unconditionally” devoted to the
payment of wages, though John Mill, in restating the position after he
abandoned it, gives us so to understand.[623] Something like
unconditional determination, however, is assumed in all the reasonings
of the school. Adam Smith’s frequent use of the words “funds devoted” or
“funds determined” to this or that purpose may easily have been
misunderstood. Certainly in his pages they mean no inflexible
compulsion. He says the demand of those who live by wages can only
increase in proportion to the increase of the “funds” which are
“destined” for the payment of wages, these funds being (he adds) either
the surplus revenue of an idle monied man who will “naturally” use any
addition to them in increasing his staff of domestic servants, or the
increased capital of the capitalist who will just as “naturally” use
them in employing more workmen.[624] The word “destined” is so far, with
him, from implying any iron necessity that it means simply “intended”;
and the intention is one that can be foiled or altered. He speaks of the
“funds destined for the consumption” of the manufacturing class,[625]
and of the townsfolk’s “fund of subsistence,”[626] meaning simply their
food; he even speaks of the funds destined for the repair of the high
roads in France.[627] Even the strong passage in Book I. chap. viii.,
“the demand for those who live by wages necessarily increases with the
increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly
increase without it,” stops considerably short of the doctrine of a
rigid wages fund. It is never suggested by Adam Smith that the wages
fund is inelastic, and that wages could not at any given time have been
greater or less than they actually were. The doctrine is seldom traced
further back than to Malthus; and Malthus cannot be shown to have held
the doctrine. With express reference to the passage last cited from the
_Wealth of Nations_, he says that “it will be found that the funds for
the maintenance of labour do not necessarily increase with the increase
of wealth, and very rarely increase in proportion to it, and that the
condition of the lower classes of society does not depend exclusively
upon the increase of the funds for the maintenance of labour or the
power of supporting a greater number of labourers” (_Essay_, 7th ed.,
III. xiii. 368). The condition of the working classes depended, he
thought, partly on the rate at which the “funds for the maintenance of
labour,”[628] or, as he expressed it at first, “_the resources of the
country_”[629] and the demand for labour are increasing, and partly on
the “habits of the people.” Among their habits we should need to put
their education and their power of union among themselves, and
consequent strength in a struggle with the masters, to obtain or to
raise the market rate of wages. From Ricardo he differed on the subject
of wages very much as on the subject of value. Ricardo looked at cost
price as the natural value of an article, and mere subsistence as the
natural wages of labour. Malthus could do neither.
The issues between the two economists are nowhere so well or so calmly
stated as in a paper written by Malthus (a few months after Ricardo’s
death) in the _Quarterly Review_,[630] where he deals with MacCulloch’s
treatise on _Political Economy_.[631] In that article Malthus professes
to regard the political economy of Ricardo, James Mill, and most of the
economical writers in the _Encyclopædia_, as a new and wrong departure.
It is said to have been regarded by the writer as one of the best
economical papers he ever wrote;[632] and, among other virtues, it has
the merit of perfect courtesy and respect towards the persons
criticized. Their system, he says,[633] is remarkably like that of the
French economists. They “were equally men of the most unquestionable
genius, of the highest honour and integrity, and of the most simple,
modest, and amiable manners. Their systems were equally distinguished
for their discordance with common notions, the apparent closeness of
their reasonings, and the mathematical precision of their calculations
and conclusions founded on their assumed data. These qualities in the
systems and their founders, together with the desire so often felt by
readers of moderate abilities of being thought to understand what is
considered by competent judges as difficult, increased the number of
their devoted followers in such a degree, that in France it included
almost all the able men who were inclined to attend to such subjects,
and in England a very large proportion of them.
“The specific error of the French economists was the having taken so
confined a view of wealth and its sources as not to include the results
of manufacturing and mercantile industry.
“The specific error of the new school in England is the having taken so
confined a view of _value_ as not to include the results of demand and
supply, and of the relative abundance and competition of capital.
“Facts and experience have, in the course of some years, gradually
converted the economists of France from the erroneous and inapplicable
theory of Quesnay to the juster and more practical theory of Adam Smith;
and, as we are fully convinced that an error equally fundamental and
important is involved in the system of the new school in England as in
that of the French economists, we cannot but hope and expect that
similar causes will, in time, produce in our own country similar effects
in the correction of error and the establishment of truth.”
The new school has, according to Malthus, three main principles. The
first is, that what determines value is the quantity of labour that a
thing costs to make,—the second, that supply and demand do not as a rule
affect values,—and the third, that fertility of soil and not competition
regulates the rate of profits. The new school thinks that profits enter
so little into the price of an article that they may be neglected
altogether in the computation of the causes of value. But (says Malthus)
the value of a stone wall would be due, nearly all of it, to labour, and
the value of a cask of old wine kept for twenty or thirty years would be
largely due to profits. £50 worth of stone wall would have much more
labour “worked up in it” than £50 worth of old wine. It is not
sufficient to answer that profits are simply accumulated wages. As well
say that five is another name for four. Ricardo himself introduced many
qualifications into his own statement that value is due to labour. The
principle (he confessed) was modified by the use of machinery and by the
unequal durability of capital.[634]
Malthus admits the truth of Ricardo’s dogma that profits and wages can
only increase at each other’s expense, and he even applies this
principle of Ricardo’s in a new way to the facts of the commercial
depression that had prevailed since the peace.[635] It was universally
allowed there had been a less demand for labour and a great fall in
wages, but, it was also allowed, a much greater fall in profits; so that
wages while lower in gross amount bore a higher proportion to profits
than before. The reason was that, while the competition of labourers was
great, the competition of capitalists with capitalists was still
greater. The result was a universal fall of prices; the wages, though
relatively greater, were absolutely less in amount, and the demand for
labour would have been greater if prices had risen and the capitalist
had got greater returns to his capital. Malthus would not go farther
than this, and the Ricardian doctrine needs to be otherwise applied to
yield the doctrine of a wages fund. It was applied in some such way as
follows:—Competition drives prices down to the cost of production; this
means that at any given time the sum total of profits and wages cannot
be more than they actually are, and both are kept down by competition to
their minimum; the masters could not give higher wages without cutting
down their profits, the men could not get less wages without either
starving or being driven to seek other employments. Malthus does not so
apply his doctrines. To him, what fixes the sum total of wages and
profits is not the cost of production, but the demand for the thing
produced; not the labour spent on a thing, but the labour that others
are willing to give for it; and the cause of value is not cost, but
demand acting with supply. Ricardo, who prefers to confine his theories
to natural value, allows that the state of the demand and supply raises
market value above or depresses it below cost price; and he does not see
how seriously his own qualifications[636] impair the truth of his theory
of value even when the value is “natural.”[637] It is true, on the other
hand, that the supply at any given time is a supply that will not be
kept up unless the cost price be paid back. The cost price would
certainly be the minimum below which prices could not permanently pass.
But to Ricardo the cost in labour is the formal as well as the material
cause of a value; to Malthus it is only the material, and only part of
that, a mere _sine quâ non_, while the efficient is the demand, and the
final is the consumption of the article by its last buyer or user.
The third leading tenet of the new school, says Malthus, is that the
rate of profits in a country depends on the fertility of the soil there,
and not, as Adam Smith thought, on the competition of capital with
capital for employment. Against them Malthus maintains that there is no
necessary (though there is a frequent) connection between the
productiveness of industry and the rate of profits, still less between
the latter and the productiveness of any one single industry, such as
agriculture. Profits depend on the proportion of the whole produce which
“goes to replace the advances of the capitalist”; but this proportion
may remain the same when the productiveness of industry is very various.
In the previous eight or nine years, say from 1815 to 1824, there had
certainly been no costliness in production. Corn had been cheap, and
farmers’ losses had led to the discontinuance of high farming, and
especially of the forced cultivation of the dear years. The production,
therefore, was at the cost of much less labour. But profits, instead of
higher, were much lower. Abundance of produce and competition of
producers had caused a fall in the value of produce, so that it was
possible for the labourer to receive a greater share of what he made,
though his labour had not become more productive. Ricardo does not take
sufficient account of the influence of prices, both on wages and on
profits.
There had in fact been over-production and a general glut. James Mill’s
_Elements of Political Economy_[638] contain a careful demonstration
that general gluts are impossible. It was emphatically a controversial
passage, and in the pages of John Mill it has the look of an
anachronism. All depended on the meaning of “general.” If it meant
universal, the case was impossible. It is incredible that all without
exception should have something to sell and no wish to buy. To offer
anything for sale must of itself imply a desire to buy something else
with it, either directly or by means of money. Even a very near approach
to universality is not easy to understand; and it would mean simply that
a bad organization of the world’s markets had prevented buyers and
sellers from reaching each other, and prevented goods from going where
they are wanted, at the time when they are wanted; it would mean that
not the malady but the scale and degree of it had passed belief.[639]
CHAPTER III.
GENERAL GLUTS.
French War and English Trade—English Currency—Bullion
Committee—Restriction not the only Cause of High Prices—Ricardo on
Currency—Tooke on Prices—Say on Gluts—English Trade from 1824—High
and Low Wages—Some Fallacies of Malthus.
The discussion on General Gluts was simply a phase of the discussions on
Value; and the prominence of such discussions in the political economy
of sixty years ago was largely due to the peculiar effects on trade and
prices of a twenty years’ war with France. The theories of economists
were becoming most abstract precisely at the time when the justest
generalizations were most severely tested by abnormal conditions. Even
if the Industrial Revolution heralded by the _Wealth of Nations_ had
been allowed a free course, the new conditions of manufacture would have
raised new economical questions; and they could not have failed to turn,
to some extent, on the subject of value, which Adam Smith had by no
means exhausted. But there was no free course. War was declared against
England by France in 1793. In the same year Pitt was forced to offer
English merchants a loan of public money, to cure a financial crisis.
Then followed, under the long Tory supremacy, heavy taxes, repressive
laws, and something more nearly approaching a war of classes than
anything known in England before or since.
The effects of the first ten years of the French war (1793 to 1802) were
to all appearance rather good than bad. Britain itself, unlike the other
belligerent countries, was always intact, and the labours of British
manufacturers could go on as if nothing unusual was happening on the
Continent. Our command of the sea, to say nothing of the conquest of new
countries, gave us trade which others lost, and made amends for the
annulment of the French treaty of commerce, and the loss of the Dutch
trade. In 1806 the situation became less pleasant. The Berlin and Milan
decrees excluding us from almost every country in Europe, the
retaliatory Orders in Council and consequent alienation of America did
real damage to English commerce. The very expectations they caused of a
probable scarcity of particular goods sent up prices; and, with the real
scarcity, contributed to an acute disturbance of trade, which lasted
about five years for the Continent and three years more for America
(1807–12, 1807–15). New markets were opened to us in South America; and
the pent-up commercial enterprise of our countrymen vented itself in
that direction, with wild disregard of the needs of consumers in that
quarter.[640] The same happened, with more reason, in 1814 and 1815.
When peace was restored, it was thought that the whole Continent must be
eager to have our goods, after being so long without them; and we sent
them lavishly everywhere without waiting for orders. Unhappily the rest
of Europe was exhausted by the war, which had lessened their production;
and such products as they could offer us in exchange for our
manufactures we seldom took without taxing. The very food that we most
wanted from them we were careful to keep out till the last moment.[641]
Anything more unlike the “simple system of natural liberty” could not be
conceived; and the result certainly seemed to be an over-production on
our part;—it was at any rate a reign of low prices and deep commercial
depression. This was not all. Since 1797 we had had a paper currency of
uncertain value. In that year the Bank of England, whose department of
issue was not then separated from its department of banking, gave
advances to Government, in return for which it was relieved of immediate
obligation to pay gold to the holders of its notes. As long as the
issues were moderate, the notes kept their value; but this was a time
when economical substitutes for the currency, cheques and bills and
County notes, were lessening the proportion of the Bank’s notes to the
total transactions of trade; and the Bank’s power of calculating the
public need without the natural safety-valve of convertibility became
more and more fallible; the circulation soon contained superfluous
paper, which dragged down the whole currency. In these circumstances,
discussions on currency gained an interest they could never have had in
the abstract; and they led to measures of the most practical and
permanent usefulness. Ricardo’s tract _The High Price of Gold Bullion a
Proof of the Depreciation of Bank-Notes_ (1809) prepared the way for the
Bullion Committee of the House of Commons (1810), and through them for
our own Bank Charter Act (1844). Malthus played a more quiet part. His
chief writings on the subject of the currency were two magazine
articles, one in the _Edinburgh Review_ of February 1811,[642] and
another in the _Quarterly Review_ of April 1823.
The first treats of _The Depreciation of Paper Currency_, and is a
review of pamphlets by the leading advocates and assailants of the
principles of the Bullion Committee’s Report. The Committee had inquired
into three subjects: the high price of gold bullion, the state of the
currency, and the state of the foreign Exchanges. As to the first, they
found that, while an ounce of standard gold was converted at the Mint
into £3 17_s._ 10½_d._ (which sum was therefore the Mint price of gold
bullion), the said ounce could not in the years 1806–8 be bought by the
Mint for less than £4 in bank-notes, or in 1809 for less than £4 10_s_.
The market price had risen to that extent above the Mint price, of gold
bullion. As to the second, they found that guineas had gone out of
circulation, and were practically replaced by small notes between £1 and
£5. Finally, as to the third, they found that from the end of 1808 the
Exchanges had become more and more unfavourable to England, till in
1809–10 they were with Hamburg nine, with Amsterdam seven, with Paris
more than fourteen per cent. below par. After examination of witnesses
and consideration of their evidence, the Committee resolved “that there
is at present an excess in the paper circulation of this country, of
which the most unequivocal symptom is the very high price of bullion,
and next to that the low state of the Continental Exchanges; that this
excess is to be ascribed to the want of a sufficient check and control
in the issues of paper from the Bank of England, and originally to the
suspension of cash payments, which removed the natural and true
control.” The effects had been very serious, especially on the wages of
common country labour (_Report_, p. 73); and the Committee recommend a
speedy return to the principle of cash payments, whether the nation be
at peace or war, though caution demands that this take place gradually,
in the space of two years. It took place, not in two years, but in more
than ten, namely on 1st May 1821,[643] Parliament not agreeing to the
change till 1819.[644] Cobbett’s venture (to be broiled on a gridiron
when the Bank paid in gold) seemed a perfectly safe one.
Both Malthus and Ricardo agreed with the Report of the Bullion
Committee. Ricardo indeed is in a sense the father of it. Malthus (in
the _Edin. Review_) speaks strongly of the bad policy and injustice of
continuing the suspension, and he does not spare the Bank of England and
its mischievous monopoly,[645] or the “practical men” and their narrow
views.[646] Yet he finds fault with Ricardo here as elsewhere for making
his statements too absolute. Malthus’ fault is in the contrary
direction; he qualifies too much.[647] He thinks that Ricardo has gone
too far in attributing all the movements of the Exchanges to excessive
or defective currency; a purely commercial excess of imports over
exports might, he thinks, cause the same effects, and even in the high
price of bullion it was the commercial difficulty that began what the
depreciation of currency continued. Ricardo, who replies in a long
appendix,[648] answers, in substance, that in any and every case money
goes from where it is cheaper to where it is dearer, and therefore from
where the currency has lost value to where it has gained it. But this
hardly meets the contention of Malthus, that the efficient cause, though
it affects the currency, is not in all cases the currency itself, and in
the case of an unequal balance of trade, however temporary, the cause of
the exportation of the money is rather the superfluity of the goods in
the foreign country than the deficiency of the money there;—it would be
otherwise when the first cause was in the currency itself. The rest of
the article contains little that is new to readers of the _Political
Economy_, and the reference to a possible over-production is chiefly
valuable as a sign of the authorship, and as showing that the views of
the author were becoming fixed. The personal acquaintance of Malthus
with Ricardo dates probably from the appearance of this article;[649]
and they continued to discuss and correspond, in perfect friendship,
till the death of Ricardo in Sept. 1823.[650]
His friendship with the Edinburgh Reviewers remained unbroken; and, when
he wrote in the _Quarterly Review_, it was the _Review_ not the writer
that had changed. On finance, indeed, the _Quarterly Review_ had been
saved from unsoundness by Canning’s influence,[651] and an article on
Tooke’s _Prices_ need have no politics.
There can be little doubt that Thomas Tooke[652] was right in holding
the difference between the Mint price and the market price of gold
bullion to be the full measure of the effect of this depreciation upon
prices, the rest of the increase being due to great demand with small
supply, being as a rule much exaggerated and in its worst forms purely
local. He pointed out that there was, as a matter of fact, no
coincidence between the Bank’s contraction or extension of its issues
and the fall or rise of prices in the market outside. Prices rose, for
example, in 1795 and 1796, when the Bank’s circulation had been not
extended but contracted to meet the commercial crisis; and in 1798, when
the Bank’s issues were larger, prices actually fell to what they had
been in 1793. Moreover, when some prices went up, others went down. When
the prices of provisions went up in 1799 and 1800, the prices of
colonial wares went down. The ruling cause (Tooke argues) was not the
issue of many or few bank-notes, but scarcity and plenty, especially the
plenty of a good harvest and the scarcity of a bad one. Wages in the
same way fluctuated rather by the harvests than by the currency, but not
by either so much as by the changes in general trade; it would not be
true to say that the high or low prices produced high or low wages, but
what produced the one produced the other. The recoil of the speculation
that followed the Peace brought down both together; there was a glut not
only of goods but of hands; and there were the discarded men of the army
to swell the numbers of the unemployed. The Luddite outbreaks against
machines, as taking work away from the hands, had made a notable
beginning in 1812 during the war; in 1816, the year after the Peace,
they began again with greater violence. The discussions of Say and
Malthus on Over-production, and the reasonings in Ricardo (1817) and
James Mill (1821) on Wages and the Wages Fund, are as truly commentaries
on these events as the Letter of Cobbett to the Luddites[653] or the
volumes of Tooke on Prices.
Malthus has adroitly used the work of Tooke to support his own
economical positions. In a review in the _Quarterly_ for April 1823[654]
(pages 214 _seq._) he tries to show that Mr. Tooke’s conclusions as to
the high and low prices of the past thirty years prove the following
general statements:—First, that values and therefore prices depend on
the supply compared with the demand, and are only affected by the labour
required to produce goods (_i. e._ by what Ricardo counts the main cause
of value) so far as this labour is the main condition of their supply;
second, that the supply and demand are chiefly affected by the seasons,
and, of the other causes, war may limit the supply but can hardly cause
a demand; third, that when demand outruns supply trade is brisk, when
supply outruns demand trade is dull; and that, finally, a long-continued
deficiency or a long-continued excess of this kind brings with it a fall
or a rise in the value of the precious metals.[655] Malthus, however,
goes further than Tooke with the Bullion Committee. Though on the
bullion question the opposing parties, Bosanquet and Ricardo, seemed to
him to be devoted to a preconceived theory,[656] the Report itself was
“more free from this error of preconception than any work that had
appeared on the subject;”[657] and he agreed with it that there had been
a greater rise of prices and of wages at the end of the period of
restriction, than could be explained by the bad seasons, and demand for
men, and the difference between paper and gold. He is old-fashioned
enough to think that even with convertibility there might be over-issue
and depreciation, and speculation on a basis of paper. His reasoning on
this point is hardly sound. It depends on a misapplication of the axiom
that, in the case of necessaries, a very small deficiency in the supply
will cause a very great increase in the price,—_e. g._ that wheat may
rise from 100 to 200 per cent. when the deficiency of the crops is not
more than 15 or 30.[658] The profits of English farmers between 1793 and
1815 must therefore have been enormous; and Malthus, though he loves
agriculture above manufacture, has taken account of these high gains of
individuals in judging the cause of the Agricultural Interest against
the public.[659] But in connection with currency he actually speaks as
if those gains were a public advantage; be does not see they were a mere
transference of public wealth, not an addition to it. The farmer, he
says, is obviously “able to set in motion a much greater quantity of
industry than before,” at least till wages have risen. “The specific
funds destined for the maintenance of labour, though diminished in
quantity, are by this happy provision of nature increased in their
efficiency;” labourers get more employment, and there is “a burst of
prosperity to the producing classes.”[660]
This is a near approach to a worse fallacy than the Wages Fund. The
archaic reasoning is the more unhappy, because the reasoner proceeds to
use it in a good cause. Jean Baptiste Say[661] had taught that all
increased or diminished demand depended on increased or diminished
supply, and argued thence, with James Mill and Ricardo, the
impossibility of general or rather universal gluts. Goods[662] being
always meant to be exchanged with goods, one-half will furnish a market
for the other half; and thus, as production (which gives the means of
buying) is the sole source of demand (so far as demand is effective), an
excess in the supply of one article merely proves a deficiency in the
supply of another, and is improperly called over-production. Indeed,
whereas consumption takes an article away from the market, production
brings one into it, and thereby increases, _pro tanto_, the demand by
increasing the means of buying. James Mill’s neat demonstration of this
doctrine[663] would be quite conclusive if we, first of all, defined
demand and supply so as to include each other, and, second, supposed
general to mean universal. The reply of Malthus himself is that goods
are not always exchanged for goods, but frequently, perhaps most
frequently, for labour. Say rejoins that he for his part used a term
(“products”) which includes both goods and services, and that the latter
are always the real object of an exchange.[664] Malthus makes a better
point when he accuses his opponents of treating goods as if they were
mathematical symbols, instead of objects of human consumption owing
their whole character to human wants.[665] But his case could be made
convincing even on his opponents’ premises. Division of labour, all
admitted, is limited by the extent of the market;[666] allow that the
most satisfactory cure for the limitation is to widen the market, not to
lessen the division of the labour—still, _given_ the limitation of the
market, the extension of the division of the labour will cause an
over-production. All that Malthus maintained was that this might happen
in a great many cases as well as in a few; Say went as near as he dared
to the assertion that it could not happen at all.
The question of a market, again, is not a mere question of numbers but
of wants. A carpet factory, for example, among a people who preferred
bare floors would have no market, whatever the numbers and even the
wealth of the people. Say does not do full justice to Malthus in this
connection. He thinks that the author of the _Essay on Population_
cannot consistently believe in the possibility of a great abundance of
products together with a stationary number of parsimonious consumers.
But Malthus had allowed that in one case, the case of food, there could
be no over-production,[667] the want in that case being constant,
whereas, curiously enough, Ricardo thinks that food is the one object of
which there might be a glut. “If every man were to forego the use of
luxuries and be intent only on accumulation, a quantity of necessaries
might be produced for which there could not be any immediate
consumption. Of commodities so limited in number there might undoubtedly
be a universal glut, and consequently there might neither be demand for
an additional quantity of such commodities nor profits on the employment
of more capital. If men ceased to consume they would cease to produce.
This admission does not impugn the general principle,” for there is no
likelihood of such a contingency as it supposes;—there is a limit to the
desire of food, but there is no limit to the desire of other good
things.[668] The insatiableness of human desires is here assumed by
Ricardo to be always full-grown, instead of what it is, in perhaps
three-fourths of the world, an undeveloped possibility. Till we know
that the possibility has become actual, we cannot take for granted that
all we produce will be wanted. Malthus did not enter with sympathy or
even with full intelligence into the spirit of modern trade. But he sees
that large manufacture, with its complement of speculative trading, must
succeed or fail precisely as it has judged rightly or judged wrongly of
its markets, for it no longer, like the old English small production,
waits for orders—it anticipates, woos, and coaxes them. He believes that
the awakening of man’s insatiable wants will tend to secure us against
both over-population and over-production, by creating a high standard of
living. The taste for luxuries, whatever its positive advantages, from
the educational or artistic point of view, confers at least this
economical benefit.[669]
Malthus gets a similar result by applying to wages his favourite idea of
the golden mean. The “funds destined to pay wages” may, he says, be
increased either by high prices or by great production at low
prices,—increased value without increased quantity, or increased
quantity without increased value. The latter is the more secure way, but
it lies on the road to “glut.” The most desirable plan is the union of
the two. “There is somewhere a happy mean, where, under the actual
resources of a country, both the increase of wealth and the demand for
labour may be a maximum. A taste for conveniences and comforts not only
tends to create a more steady demand for labour than a taste for
personal services, but by cheapening manufactures and the products of
foreign commerce, including many of the necessaries of the labouring
classes, it actually enlarges the limits of the effectual demand for
labour, and renders it for a longer time effective.”[670] If any one had
urged against this, in the words of Mill, that a demand for goods is not
a demand for labour, but simply gives labour a new direction, Malthus
would probably have answered that the new direction was all important,
because the trade begun in it might be a trade in goods more widely
used, and might therefore last longer and more steadily than the old
trade.
We see that in his views of this subject, expounded tediously enough,
and at unnecessary length, Malthus had constant thought of the relations
of production and distribution to consumption as well as to each other,
for the condition of the people was always more important to him than
the state of the articles concerned. But he never yielded to his
feelings so far as to adopt Sismondi’s reactionary ideas on the effects
of machinery on the workmen.[671] He never wrote any description of the
evils of division of labour at all so strong as Adam Smith’s.[672] He
goes little farther than Ricardo, who says in a well-known passage:—“The
same cause which may increase the nett revenue of the country may at the
same time render the population redundant and deteriorate the condition
of the labourer,” for all the increase may possibly be devoted to fixed
and not circulating capital, to machinery and buildings instead of
wages.[673] Ricardo’s admission, that he was wrong in not recognizing
this sooner, makes us wonder (as men were even then doing in Germany
over similar confessions of their philosophers) whether his
demonstrations are more accurate than ordinary reasonings. His brother
economists never claimed infallibility. Adam Smith gave up his defence
of Usury Laws.[674] Malthus amended his first views on population, to
say nothing of the measure of value.[675] Mill gave up the Wages Fund.
It was only the minor economists who proudly remained at the end where
they were at the beginning. James Mill refused to follow Ricardo in
allowing that food could be over-produced, and MacCulloch refused to go
with him in the admission above quoted, that increase of wealth might go
to fixed capital instead of wages.[676] Orthodox economy became most
abstract when on the death of Ricardo in 1823 its doctrines passed into
the hands of the Minor Prophets.
In the last ten years of his life Malthus made no serious change in his
economical views, and approached no nearer to the Ricardians. They were
years when economists and political reformers had not learned to work
together so harmoniously as they were to do after his death. Huskisson’s
changes in commercial policy were preparing the way in high quarters for
free trade. The sliding scale of corn duties introduced in 1826 pointed
on the whole in the same direction. But the agitation of the humbler
classes for political freedom, made solid as it was by an appreciable
progress in popular education,[677] and kept within bounds of law by the
influence of Cobbett,[678] went on in a way apart; and it will be
remembered how Chartism stood aloof from the Anti-Corn-Law League. A man
might be an advanced economist and social reformer and a reactionary in
politics. In 1824, when trades unions were for the first time allowed by
law and the Factory Acts were still too imperfect to give the weak a
fair chance against the strong, the “natural state of things,” free
development of individual and national faculties, did not exist; and
Malthus, who missed them keenly, would have been much amazed to hear
that his doctrines were, like Ricardo’s, a vindication of things as they
are. Not only the notorious fact of his opposition to Ricardo, but his
views on commercial policy are against the notion.[679] At the Peace
there were many fallacies current about wages. The new Corn Law of 1815
had inaugurated the aggressive policy of the agricultural interest, who
frankly endeavoured, by forms of law, to convert an occasional scarcity
into a permanent one, and keep prices at 80_s._ a quarter. Not a few
false friends of the working man recommended him to countenance the law
and let his bread be made dear, for then, said they, his wages would be
made high. Many manufacturers, on the other hand, were declaring the
interest of the country to be low wages, and, unto that end, cheap food
and a great population. Malthus was with neither. His partial approval
of the new Corn Law was no doubt based on erroneous grounds; but he held
no such mistaken views of wages. His opinion, if not sufficiently
obvious from his general views of population, was laid down explicitly
in all his writings. He says, for example: “If a country can only be
rich, by running a successful race for low wages, I should be disposed
to say at once ‘Perish such riches!’”[680] “It is most desirable that
the labouring classes should be well paid, for a much more important
reason than any that can relate to wealth, namely, the happiness of the
great mass of society.”[681] Being asked, “In a national point of view,
even if it were admitted that the low rate of wages was an advantage to
the capitalist, do you think it fitting that labour should be kept
permanently in a state bordering on distress, to avoid the injury that
might accrue to the national wealth from diminishing the rate of
profit?” he answered, “I should say, by no means fitting; I consider the
labouring classes as forming the largest part of the nation, and
therefore that their general condition is the most important of
all.”[682]
He thinks, however, that the change from low to high wages might quite
possibly so reduce profits as to make trade unprofitable. We might need
to sacrifice something of our commercial prosperity. He cannot rise to
the conception of a society in which the entire body of workmen as
consumers would be a sufficient market for the same body as producers.
He cannot rid himself of the idea that a body of unproductive consumers
is a social necessity, to give a stimulus to production by developing
the wants which the manufactures are to satisfy. It seems easy to answer
that those unproductive consumers can only pay for the manufactures by
means of other products, whencesoever obtained, and there seems no
reason why their producers should not obtain them.[683] If the workmen
themselves had the wants and supplied them by their own labour, all the
results that Malthus desires would be obtained without invidious
distinctions of classes, and with distinct improvement in the condition
of the workmen. His aims, at least, were good. The indispensable leisure
would be secured if the hours of labour were shortened, as he desired
them to be. “I have always thought and felt that many among the
labouring classes in this country work too hard for their health,
happiness, and intellectual improvement.”[684] The general wealth
therefore, if need be, must be sacrificed to the general happiness.
Factory Acts that would prevent children from labouring too young or too
long[685] he thoroughly approves; though such Factory Acts as would
interfere with adult labour he considers an injustice to the work-people
themselves, and a hopeless interference with “the principles of
competition, one of the most general principles by which the business of
society is carried on.”[686] The salvation of the labouring classes must
come from themselves, from their own “simultaneous resolution to work
fewer hours in the day.” But trades unions, as we now know them, had not
then come into being; and he talks of a future improvement of the
working classes in knowledge, comfort, and self-restraint,[687] with
much hesitation.
We have seen that the economics of Malthus, whether in relation to the
landlords, the employers, or the workmen, are by no means identical with
the economics of Ricardo and his school, which have been the ruling and
orthodox doctrine for the first half of the nineteenth century.
It would be neither complimentary nor true to ascribe the difference to
the logic of sentiment; but it is true that the acute sensitiveness of
Malthus to the evils of poverty kept constantly before him large classes
of facts which Ricardo seemed willing to forget, and the path that he
took, though long ago obscured and forgotten, led him in some important
points away from _laissez faire_ to doctrines of our own day, in which
society acting through its Government is allowed an originative and not
merely a regulative action in the matter of industry and wealth.
Resuming the thread of the essay, we shall find that the relation of
society to its destitute poor is not to Malthus, as to Ricardo, a
question of taxation and finance, but a problem of morals and politics,
which could only be solved by a clear view of the relation of the
citizen to the commonwealth.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BEGGAR.
Arrangement of the Essay—Nature’s Mighty Feast—Tract on _High Price of
Provisions_—I cannot, therefore I ought not—Poor Laws
condemned—Frederick the Great’s Army—Mitigation of Bad Effects of
Poor Law—Step towards Abolition—New Poor Law.
In the foregoing brief review of the economical doctrines of Malthus,
the chapters on commercial policy and the Corn Laws,[688] in the third
book of the _Essay on Population_, have been already noticed. As the
First and Second books of the essay were supposed to deal with the state
of population in past and in present times, the Third is supposed to
deal with the “different systems of expedients which have been proposed
or have prevailed in society” for curing the evils arising from the
principle of population, while the Fourth relates to the future
prospects of society, and the possibility of removing the evils in
question. This division of the subject could not be maintained very
strictly. The “systems proposed” no doubt were in most cases mere
theories and could be considered by themselves; but the “systems that
prevailed” included such laws as the Corn Laws and Poor Laws, which
directly affected the present habits and wealth of the people, and might
fairly have been considered in the second book. The fourth book might
quite logically have been part of the third, for it simply adds to the
“systems proposed” the proposal of Malthus himself. The arrangement is
not in itself so perfect or so closely respected by its author that we
need have any remorse for disregarding it. The earliest chapters of the
third book (i. and ii.) are substantially the refutation of Godwin,
Wallace, Condorcet, as it appeared in 1798, with a postscript (ch. iii.)
on Owen and Spence, which will be best considered in another place.[689]
In point of style they are probably the best in the book.
After a chapter (iv.) on Emigration[690] come three chapters on the Poor
Laws, to be viewed with ch. viii. of the fourth book, which deals with
Plans for their Abolition. Of all the applications of the doctrines of
Malthus, their application to pauperism was probably, at the time, of
the greatest public interest. Even the first essay had distinct bearing
on Pitt’s Poor Bill; the next writing of the author was on a question of
parish relief; and these three chapters in the later _Essay on
Population_ have influenced public opinion and legislation about the
destitute poor almost as powerfully as the _Wealth of Nations_ has
influenced commercial policy. Malthus is the father not only of the new
Poor Law, but of all our latter-day societies for the organization of
charity.
The subject is best introduced in the words of a celebrated parable,
which Malthus having used once was never afterwards allowed to
forget:[691]—“A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he
cannot get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has a just demand,
and if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of _right_ to
the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where
he is. At nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She
tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders, if he do
not work upon the compassion of some of her guests. If these guests get
up and make room for him, other intruders immediately appear demanding
the same favour. The report of a provision for all that come, fills the
hall with numerous claimants. The order and harmony of the feast is
disturbed, the plenty that before reigned is changed into scarcity; and
the happiness of the guests is destroyed by the spectacle of misery and
dependence in every part of the hall, and by the clamorous importunity
of those, who are justly enraged at not finding the provision which they
had been taught to expect. The guests learn too late their error, in
counteracting those strict orders to all intruders, issued by the great
mistress of the feast, who, wishing that all her guests should have
plenty, and knowing that she could not provide for unlimited numbers,
humanely refused to admit fresh comers when her table was already
full.”[692]
Our neighbours’ misfortunes have seldom been made so picturesque. The
figure itself was no new one. Lucretius had written:—
“Cur non, ut plenus vitæ conviva, recedis?”[693]
and Fenton, in Pope’s[694] familiar lines:—
“From Nature’s temperate feast rose satisfied,
Thanked heaven that he had lived and that he died.”
But the new application took hold on the public fancy. Sir William
Pulteney and Windham are said to have been, beyond others, delighted
with its conservative moral.[695] Malthus may have got the hint of it
from a passage in Paley’s _Moral and Political Philosophy_. Paley was
criticizing a justification of private property, which founded it on
every man’s right to take what he wants of the things God made for the
use of all, just as, when an entertainment is given to the freeholders
(as the free and independent electors?) of a county, we see them coming
in and eating and drinking each what he chooses, without asking the
consent of the other guests. The simile, says Paley, is not perfect, for
in a freeholder’s feast nobody is allowed to fill his pockets or to
throw anything away, “especially if by so doing he pinched the guests at
the lower end of the table.”[696]
Even the friends of Malthus thought the passage too gloomy; and, as
every one noticed,[697] it was not retained after 1803. It contains,
however, at least two positions that were never retracted:—that the poor
cannot claim relief as a right, but only as a favour, and that poor
relief can only raise one man by depressing another. The latter position
may be illustrated from the tract written in 1800 on the _High Price of
Provisions_. The main aim of the tract was to show that the price was
too extravagantly high to be due to the deficiency, which was admittedly
only one-fourth. But the author throws light on his own general
doctrines.[698] He argues, in substance, that to give relief in money is
to enable the relieved persons to retain their ordinary rate of
consumption at the expense of the rest. To this the reply is
obvious:—the sufficiency of the stock is not so finely calculated,
neither is the amount of it so fixed that it cannot be increased from
home or foreign stores,—and to withdraw money from the rich for the
poor, and increase the country’s total expenditure on necessaries, might
be simply to divert the stream of importation into the channel of
necessaries, and lead to a larger use of food other than bread. Under
the conditions of the time, however, the author’s views were not
unnatural. On his return from Sweden in 1800 he found scarcity
prevailing in England as elsewhere, but with prices much higher than in
other countries. These were the days when Chief Justice Kenyon and a
jury enforced the antiquated laws against forestalling and
regrating.[699] Malthus had not read his Adam Smith to so little purpose
that he could approve such proceedings; much of his pamphlet was simply
an application, to one particular case, of the principles of the _Wealth
of Nations_ (Book IV. chap. v.).[700] Neither could he agree with the
notion that the paper currency had done it all.[701] Settling down to
his parish work in Surrey, he watched the course of events. What
happened, he said, there and presumably elsewhere was as follows:—In
progress of the scarcity the poor complained to the justices that their
wages were too low to buy bread at present prices; the justices
thereupon inquired at what, as the lowest wages, they would have been
able to buy it, and then “very humanely, and I am far from saying
improperly,” gave parish relief accordingly.[702] But, like the water
from the mouth of Tantalus, the corn slipped from the grasp of the poor;
prices rose a step further, and the relief had to follow the prices.
The rates accordingly rose in many places from four to fourteen
shillings in the pound. By the double burden of dear food and high
rates, perhaps five or six millions of the richer classes were certainly
made to feel the pinch of the scarcity, which would otherwise have been
borne, say by two millions of the poorest, who would have died under
it.[703] In this instance the Poor Laws did the country a distinct
service. But it was done by taking from the first guests to give to the
importunate intruders, and could not justify a general eulogy of the
Poor Laws. The whole drift of the _Essay on Population_ had gone against
such institutions; and “two years’ reflection,” says the writer of the
_Essay_, “have served strongly to convince me of the truth of the
principle there advanced, and of its being the real cause of the
continued depression and poverty of the lower classes of society, of the
total inadequacy of all the present establishments in their favour to
relieve them, and of the [certainty of] periodical returns of such
seasons of distress as we have of late experienced.”[704] In the first
essay he had spoken strongly not only against Pitt’s new Poor Bill, but
against all legal relief, and amongst other reasons precisely on the
ground that it caused food to rise in price beyond the point to which
scarcity would have raised it apart from interference.[705]
The second was a stronger reason;—in the language of Kant, the claim
allowed (with little qualification[706]) by the English Poor Laws was a
claim that could not be made universal without contradiction. If every
one exercised the supposed right of demanding relief, no community could
fulfil the supposed duty of granting it.[707] If it could have been
fulfilled, Malthus thinks, the obligation would have held; and, instead
of declaring “I cannot, therefore I ought not,” he would have confessed,
“I can, therefore I ought.”[708] As the case stands, he agrees with Sir
Frederick Eden in thinking the giving of legal relief impracticable, and
therefore no duty, and also that, “upon the whole, the sum of good to be
expected from a compulsory maintenance of the poor will be far
outbalanced by the sum of evil which it will inevitably create.”[709] It
relieved individual suffering at the cost of making the suffering
general. It created the poor which it maintained, for it led men to
marry with the certainty of parish assistance. It thereby increased the
population without increasing the food of the country, and it has to a
large extent broken down the ancient spirit of independence. “Hard as it
may appear in individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be held
disgraceful.”[710] High wages and independence and moral restraint are
better than low wages with a parish supplement and a pauper family. “I
feel persuaded that if the Poor Laws had never existed in this country,
though there might have been a few more instances of very severe
distress, the aggregate mass of happiness among the common people would
have been much greater than it is at present.”[711] This was his belief
to the end.[712]
An allegory of these things may be found in Dr. John Moore’s description
of the army of Frederick the Great. Dr. Moore saw a man caned for being
a few seconds late in replacing his ramrod; and the officers told him
that, since they could not distinguish wilful blunders from accidental,
they punished all alike, and the result, they said, was excellent; all
the men were on the alert, and fewer blunders were committed on the
whole. It used to be common on field-days for dragoons to have their
hats blown off and to be thrown from their horses. At last a general
gave orders to punish every man to whom either of these accidents
happened; since then hardly anybody lost his hat or fell from his horse.
Dr. Moore heard of a poor hussar who had fallen from his horse at last
review, and was to be punished for it as soon as he could leave the
hospital. This seemed hard, but the King of Prussia thought he could
only hope to make his army superior to others by improving its
discipline, training its officers by honour and disgrace, and its
privates by physical punishment; he considered that the occasional
suffering of an innocent individual does less harm to an army than the
toleration of negligence, which makes the negligence greater.[713] So
far as legal relief goes, Malthus would recommend the same martial
severity, and try to put men on their guard against poverty by making
them bear the discipline of its consequences. There are other points in
which the allegory applies to the “simple system of natural liberty;”
the discipline of industrial competition is certainly in some respects
as severe as the discipline of an army. On the other hand, society does
not consist of picked strong men, but includes the weak also, and its
privates are supposed not to take their orders from a commander, but to
“fend for themselves.” Society under socialism may resemble an army, but
not society under individualism. Malthus, therefore, would have
repudiated the analogy. He does not reach his conclusions by a
preconceived theory of the state, but by observing the ill results of
the common preconceived theory that every citizen when destitute has a
right to be supported by the state. He finds that, as a matter of fact,
where material relief has been given as a duty, and claimed as a right,
the effect on the recipient has been clearly bad; the Poor Law stands
condemned by experience.
Yet he admits that the badness of the law has been largely counteracted
by the remissness of its execution. The attempt to secure a fixed rate
of wages to the labourer in all states of trade has not really been made
in England as the Elizabethan Poor Law enjoined. The scantiness of the
relief actually given, together with the insolence of the officials
concerned in the giving of it, has disturbed the sense of complete
security, which in the view of Malthus would in such a case have been
fatal. “The desire of bettering our condition and the fear of making it
worse, like the _vis mediatrix naturæ_ in physics, is the _vis mediatrix
reipublicæ_ in politics, and is continually counteracting the disorders
arising from narrow human institutions.” The Poor Law has been so
imperfectly carried out that it has left some room still for prudential
motives among the labourers; they cannot count on complete provision for
their families if they marry recklessly, and some few of them still
think caution needful. Moreover, from fear of the Poor Law the rich will
often refuse to build cottages, lest their occupants become
paupers.[714] In the third place, pauper children, like foundlings, do
not live long.[715]
In his _Letter to Samuel Whitbread, M.P., on his proposed Bill for the
amendment of the Poor Laws_ (1807), Malthus allows that abolition must
not come till public opinion is ripe for it; but he recommends
legislation in the direction of abolition, to prepare the minds of all
classes for the final steps, and to expose to the working classes the
delusiveness of the present boon. Poor Laws, he says, are peculiar to
England, and their absence in other countries does not seem to have the
effects expected from their abolition here. In reply to Malthus, it
might be urged that the Poor Laws are not entirely peculiar to England,
but occur in Denmark and elsewhere.[716] In the second place, as
MacCulloch argues in a letter, aimed at Malthus, to Macvey Napier,[717]
Britain is peculiarly subject to fluctuations in trade, due, for
example, to the changes in foreign tariffs, and therefore there are more
cases of sudden and unavoidable distress, that need such a provision as
the Poor Law’s. In the third place, too, it is difficult to see how we
can make begging unlawful if we make legal relief inaccessible,[718] any
more than we can logically make education compulsory while we insist on
the payment of fees. In the fourth place, an indiscriminate private
charity is probably more mischievous than a discriminating public
relief. Malthus, however, was not against all relief, but only against
it when claimed as a right; and he was fully aware that the risks of the
English working man were greater than those of his Continental brethren.
All he desired was to give the workman scope for that sense of personal
responsibility out of which the Poor Law was beguiling him. He knew
quite well that no good end would be served by the removal of the Poor
Law, unless the public had been educated out of the evil ways of it. He
proposed therefore to make a gradual change, the essence of which was to
be the disclaimer of any right on the part of a poor man to be supported
at the public expense; children have a right to be supported by their
parents, but not by the public.[719] Let a law be passed, he said,
declaring that no legitimate child born from any marriage taking place a
year after the law’s enactment, and no illegitimate born two years
thereafter, shall ever be entitled to parish relief. “And to give a more
general knowledge of this law, and to enforce it more strongly on the
minds of the lower classes of people, the clergyman of each parish
should, previously to the solemnization of a marriage, read a short
address to the parties, stating the strong obligation on every man to
support his own children; the impropriety, and even immorality, of
marrying without a fair prospect of being able to do this; the evils
which had resulted to the poor themselves, from the attempt which had
been made to assist, by public institutions, in a duty which ought to be
exclusively appropriated to parents, and the absolute necessity which
had at length appeared, of abandoning all such institutions, on account
of their producing effects totally opposite to those which were
intended. This would operate as a fair, distinct, and precise notice
which no man could well mistake, and without pressing hard upon any
particular individuals, would at once throw off the rising generation
from their miserable and helpless dependence upon the Government and the
rich.”[720] Both their irritation against the upper classes and their
helplessness in devising expedients in time of want, arise from “the
wretched system of governing too much. When the poor were once taught,
by the abolition of the Poor Laws, and a proper knowledge of their real
situation, to depend more upon themselves, we might rest secure that
they would be fruitful enough in resources, and that the evils which
were absolutely irremediable they would bear with the fortitude of men
and the resignation of Christians.”[721] However comical may be the
picture of a clergyman following up the very un-Malthusian marriage
service by such a moral lecture as is here recommended, the principle of
the recommendation is sober sense, and has largely influenced the
benevolence of later philanthropists. Dr. Chalmers applied it in his
Parochial System, which would have been an admirable substitute for the
Poor Law on the (unfortunately untrue) hypothesis of an absence of
sects. The Mendicity Society (dating from 1815) and the Charity
Organisation (from 1869) build on the same foundation.
The new Poor Law of 1834 differed from Malthus in that it did not deny
the right to relieve, and still kept up the fiction that the law of
Elizabeth was good, and we had degenerated from it.[722] But it allowed
the right only to the indigent,[723] refusing all relief in aid of wages
to the merely poor and the able-bodied; and it carried out the principle
that dependent poverty (in the words of Malthus) should be held
disgraceful and made disagreeable. “Every penny bestowed that tends to
render the condition of a pauper more eligible than that of the
independent labourer is a bounty on indolence and vice.” “In proportion
as the condition of any pauper class is elevated above the condition of
independent labourers, the condition of the independent class is
depressed.”[724] If this meant that poor relief should run a race with
the average wages of labour, keeping always one stage behind them, it
might be argued that in good times a pauper would get too much comfort
and in bad times too little food. But the disgrace of dependence and the
discomfort of constraint are the deterrents which Malthus himself has
most in mind.
Without the discussions raised by the _Essay on Population_ it is very
doubtful if public opinion would have been so far advanced in 1834 as to
make a bill, drawn on such lines, at all likely to pass into law. The
abolition of outdoor relief to the able-bodied was nothing short of a
revolution. It had needed a lifetime of economical doctrine, reproof,
and correction to convince our public men, and to some extent the
nation, that the way of rigour was at once the way of justice, of mercy,
and of self-interest. The history of the English Poor Law is ample proof
that men do not instinctively follow their own interest. It was the
ratepayer’s interest,[725] unless he was an employer, that relief should
be sparely given; and it was given lavishly. It was the poor man’s
interest to be thrifty and sober; and as a rule he was neither. There
was no hope of reform till both rich and poor learned a deeper sense of
their personal responsibility for the remoter effects of their own acts,
whether unwisely benevolent or heedlessly selfish. The clear
consciousness of personal responsibility seems to Malthus to be the soul
and centre of every healthy reform. In this sense, at least, he would
say that virtue is knowledge.
His thoughts on society are connected at this point with his thoughts on
man’s place and duty in the world. His psychology and ethics, slightly
as they are sketched, throw light on his sociology and economics, and
must be considered before we can estimate his position in social
philosophy. This will lead us over the greater portion of the fourth
book of the essay, leaving the critical chapters till we come to deal
with the Critics as a body.
BOOK III.
MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Cardinal Doctrines of the Malthusian Ethics—Application to Desire of
Marriage—Place of Man on the Earth—Criticism of Moral
Philosophy—Teleology and Utility—Benevolence and Self-love—Malthus
and Paley—Greatest Happiness—Earthly Paradise—Malthus and the French
Revolution—Malthus not a Political Reactionary—Not committed to
_laissez faire_—His Modifications of that Doctrine—Utilitarianism
_plus_ Nationality—Experience as much the Riddle as the
Interpretation—The State an Organism—Political Ideals before and
after 1846.
The moral philosophy of Malthus, like that of Aristotle, starts from a
teleology.
Nature makes nothing in vain. Every desire has its proper place and
proper gratification, if we can find them. The passions are the
materials out of which happiness is made; and they are therefore to be
regulated and harmonized; they are not to be extinguished, or even
diminished in intensity.[726] There is a way of so gratifying the
desires that they produce a general balance of consequences in favour of
happiness; and there is an opposite way with opposite effects. The
former is evidently the way of nature, for utility is the only guide of
conduct we have apart from Scripture.[727] We must not eradicate any
impulses; but we must follow none so far “as to trench upon some other
law [_sic_] which equally demands our attention.” What is the golden
mean, and what is too much or too little, we can only know by our own
and others’ experience of the consequences of actions.[728] Nature shows
us the wrongness of an act by bringing from it a train of painful
consequences. Diseases, instead of being the “inevitable inflictions of
Providence,” are “indications that we have offended against some of the
laws of nature. The plague at Constantinople and in other towns of the
East is a constant admonition of this kind to the inhabitants. The human
constitution cannot support such a state of filth and torpor; and as
dirt, squalid poverty, and indolence are in the highest degree
unfavourable to happiness and virtue,[729] it seems a benevolent
dispensation that such a state should by the laws of nature produce
disease and death, as a beacon to others to avoid splitting on the same
rock.”[730] As epidemics indicate bad food, unwholesome houses, or bad
drainage, and as indigestion follows over-eating, so the misery that
follows on too great an increase of numbers is simply the law of nature
recoiling on the law-breaker.[731] In this case it has taken a longer
experience to teach men the conduct most favourable to happiness, and
therefore the conduct right for them. But even the best food, best
clothing, and best housing have not been taught all at once; and the
principle of the lesson is clearly the same in all the cases.
To say, therefore, that the desire of marriage is to be restrained and
regulated is not to treat it exceptionally or to deny its naturalness.
There is a lawful and there is an irregular gratification even of hunger
and thirst; and the irregular is punished both by nature and, when it
takes, for example, the form of theft, by human laws. Society could give
such punishment only on the ground that the action punished tended to
injure the general happiness. The act of the hungry man who steals a
loaf is only distinguishable from the act of the hungry man who takes a
loaf of his own, by means of its consequences. If all were to steal
loaves there would in the end be fewer loaves for everybody.[732] We
must apply the same criterion to the irregular gratification of all
other desires.
After the desire for food, the desire of marriage is the most powerful
and general of our desires. “When we contemplate the constant and severe
toil of the greatest part of mankind, it is impossible not to be
forcibly impressed with the reflection that the sources of human
happiness would be most cruelly diminished if the prospect of a good
meal, a warm house, and a comfortable fireside in the evening were not
incitements sufficiently vivid to give interest and cheerfulness to the
labours and privations of the day.”[733] This desire gives strength of
character to a man in proportion as the animal element in it is hidden
away out of sight, and in proportion as the gratification of it is won
by exertion and, it may be, by waiting. To do as Jacob did for Rachel, a
man must have some strength of character. Most of us, in the opinion of
Malthus, owe whatever of definite plan there is in our lives to the
existence of such a central object of affection.[734] Malthus himself,
it will appear, did not marry till on the eve of becoming a professor at
the East India College, nearly a year after these passages were written.
Even in 1798 he wrote: “Perhaps there is scarcely a man who has once
experienced the genuine delights of virtuous love, however great his
intellectual pleasures may have been, that does not look back to the
period as the sunny spot in his whole life, where his imagination loves
to bask, which he recollects and contemplates with the fondest regrets,
and which he would most wish to live over again.”[735] Such a passage,
though it disappeared, with other flowers of language, in the later
editions of the essay, show us that Malthus, though wiser, was not
colder than his fellow-men, and drew his facts from experience as well
as observation, of the matters concerned.[736]
If we assume the intention of the Creator to replenish the earth, we can
see a reason in cosmical polity for the strength of this desire of
marriage. If the fertility of fertile soils had been as great as the
power of population to increase, there would have been no inducement to
men to cultivate the poorer soils or frequent the less attractive parts
of the earth’s surface; human industry and ingenuity would have wanted
their first stimulus.[737] As it is, the disparity of the two powers
leads to an over-spreading of the world; men are led to avoid
overcrowding from fear of the evils that spring from it. Man’s duties
vary with his situations; and, as these are not uniform, but infinitely
various, all his powers are kept in play. This language might make us
doubt whether the final cause is the development of man, or simply the
replenishment of the earth. If the first essay be allowed in evidence,
it is clear that man (with whatever justice) is made the chief end of
the earth, though his own chief end is not supposed to be realized
there.[738]
The natural theology of Malthus and Paley is the foundation of their
ethics. It was the English ethics of last century, not only before Kant,
but before Bentham. There are signs that Malthus, in his views of
metaphysics and of the “moral sentiments,”[739] preferred where he could
to draw rather from Tucker than from Paley. Abraham Tucker[740] (the
“Edward Search” who began the _Light of Nature_ in 1756, and finished
it, blind, in 1774) lived for nearly fifty years[741] at Betchworth
Castle near Dorking. It is possible in these days, when near neighbours
knew each other better than they care to do now, that Daniel Malthus,
though the younger man, may have known Tucker. They were both of them
Oxford men, small proprietors, eccentric, literary, and fond of
philosophizing. Whether through his father at home or through Paley at
college, it is certain that Malthus at an early date studied the _Light
of Nature_ and adopted much of its teaching. Before he appeared in
public as an author, he had formed some settled philosophical
convictions, which (whatever their value) at least left his mind free
for its other work, and kept it at peace with itself as regards the
problems of philosophy.
The substantial agreement of his views with the doctrines of the _Moral
and Political Philosophy_ no doubt helped to bring Malthus under the
common prejudice against “Pigeon Paley,”[742] the defender of things as
they are and preacher of contentment to starving labourers. When Paley
became an open convert to the _Essay on Population_, the public would no
doubt believe their suspicions confirmed. But Malthus and Paley agree
not as disciple and master, but at most as disciples of the same master.
Malthus tries to work out his own philosophy for himself.[743]
It is open to many criticisms. In his ethics he seems to have made no
distinct analysis or classification of the passions. He takes for
granted that the Passions are on one side and Reason on the other, and
there is no middle term between the two except the Design of God, which
is worked out by the passions of men as by external nature, and which is
(we are left to infer) in some way akin to human reason, for human
reason can find it out. The impulse of benevolence, for example, is said
to be, like all our natural passions, “general” (by which he seems to
mean vague), “and in some degree indiscriminate and blind;” and, like
the impulses of love, anger, ambition, the desire of eating and
drinking, or any other of our “natural propensities,” it must be
regulated by experience and frequently brought to the test of utility,
or it will defeat its own purpose.[744] In other words, Malthus treats
all human impulses as if they were appetites, co-ordinate with each
other, primary and irresolvable. All desires are equally natural, and
abstractedly considered equally virtuous,[745] though not equally
strong, and therefore not equally fit at first sight to carry out their
Creator’s purpose.
The Reason of Man, therefore, must assist the Reason of his Maker in
carrying out the teleology of his passions, as well as the teleology of
nature itself.[746] The “apparent object” (or evident final cause), for
example, of the desire of marriage is the continuance of the race and
the care of the weak, and not merely the happiness of the two persona
most concerned.[747] To take another example, the object of the impulse
of benevolence is to increase the sum of human happiness by binding the
human race together.[748] Self-love is made a stronger motive than
benevolence for a wise and perfectly ascertainable purpose. The
ascertainment of the purpose, however, presents a difficulty.
Acknowledging that we ought to do the will of God, how are we to
discover it?
We are told in answer to this question, that the intention of the
Creator to procure the good of His creatures is evident partly from
Scripture and partly from experience; and it is that intention, so
manifested, which we are bound to promote. What on God’s side is
teleology, on man’s is utility; utility is the ruling principle of
morals. Not being a passion it cannot itself lead to action; but it
regulates passion, and that, so powerfully, that all our most important
laws and customs, such as the institution of property and the
institution of marriage, are simply disguised forms of it.[749] As
animals, we follow the dictates of nature, which would mean unhindered
passion; but as reasonable beings we are under the strongest obligations
to attend to the consequences of our acts, and, if they be evil to
ourselves or others, we may justly infer that such a mode of indulging
those passions is “not suited to our state or conformable to the will of
God.” As moral agents, therefore, it is clearly our duty to restrain the
indulgence of our passions in those particular directions, that by thus
carefully examining their consequences, and by frequently bringing them
to the test of utility, we may gradually acquire a habit of gratifying
them only in the way which, being unattended with evil, will clearly
“add to the sum of human happiness, and fulfil the apparent purpose of
the Creator.”[750] All the moral codes which have laid down the
subjection of the passions to reason have been really (thinks Malthus)
built on this foundation, whether their promulgators were aware of it or
not. “It is the test alone by which we can know independently of the
revealed will of God whether a passion ought or ought not to be
indulged, and is therefore the surest criterion of modern rules which
can be collected from the light of nature.” In other words, our
theological postulates lead us to control our passions so as to secure
not merely our own individual happiness, but “the greatest sum of human
happiness.” And the tendency of an action to promote or diminish the
general happiness is our only criterion of its morality.[751]
From this it directly follows that, because the free and indiscriminate
indulgence of benevolence leads to the reverse of general happiness, we
ought to practise a discriminating charity which blesses him that gives
and him that takes. There is what Bastiat would call a harmony between
the two.[752]
In this case, indeed, nature reinforces utility by making the passion of
self-love stronger in men than the passion of benevolence. Every man
pursues his own happiness first as his primary object, and it is best
that he should do so. It is best that every man should, in the first
instance, work out his own salvation, and have a sense of his own
responsibility. Not only charity but moral reformation must begin at
home. Benevolence apart from wisdom is even more mischievous than mere
self-love, which is not to be identified with the “odious vice of
selfishness,” but simply with personal ambition, the person to whom it
is personal including as a rule children and parents, and in fact a
whole world besides the single atom or “dividual self.”[753] If the
desire of giving to others had been as ardent as the desire of giving to
ourselves, the human race would not have been equal to the task of
providing for all its possible members. But because it is impossible for
it to provide for all, there is a tendency in all to provide for
themselves first; and, though we consider that the selfish element in
this feeling ought to grow less in a man in proportion as he becomes
richer and less embarrassed by his own wants, we must recognize that its
existence has been due to a wise provision for the general
happiness.[754] Malthus does not deny at the same time that benevolence
is always the weaker motive, and needs continually to be strengthened by
doctrine, reproof, and correction. It ought always to be thought a
“great moral duty” to assist our fellow-creatures in distress.[755]
With these ethical views, it was easy for Malthus to meet the objection
that the general adoption of the moral restraint recommended in his
_Essay on Population_ would diminish the numbers of the people too far.
He (or his spokesman) answers[756] that we might as well fear to teach
benevolence lest we should make men too careless of their private
interests. “There is in such a case a mean point of perfection, which it
is our duty to be constantly aiming at; and the circumstance of this
point being surrounded on all sides with dangers is only according to
the analogy of all ethical experience.” There is as much danger of
making men too generous or too compassionate, as there is of
“depopulating the world by making them too much the creatures of reason,
and giving prudence too great a mastery over the natural passions and
affections. The prevailing error in the game of life is, not that we
miss the prizes through excess of timidity, but that we overlook the
true state of the chances in our eager and sanguine expectations of
winning them.[757] Of all the objections that were ever made to a
moralist who offered to arm men against the passions that are everywhere
seducing them into misery, the most flattering, but undoubtedly the most
chimerical, is that his reasons are so strong that, if he were allowed
to diffuse them, passion would be extinguished altogether, and the
activity as well as the enjoyments of man annihilated along with his
vices.”[758]
In his view of the passions and of the moral sentiments, Malthus is
clearly a man of the eighteenth century, and on the whole is more nearly
at one with Paley than with any moralist after Tucker. There are points
of divergence. He could not, in view of his cosmology, have fully
approved Paley’s definition of virtue, “doing good to mankind in
obedience to the will of God and for the sake of everlasting
happiness.”[759] He may have seen how it followed that a solitary man
had no duties, that a pagan had no power to do right, that the moral
imperative was hypothetical, and that it had no force for any who
abjured their future bliss. At least he contents himself with agreeing
that “the will of God is plainly general happiness, as we discover both
by Scripture and the light of nature;”[760] and, “provided we discover
it, it matters nothing by what means;”—there are clear marks of design
in the world showing that its Maker willed the happiness of His
creatures; and what He willed they should will.
In other words, the ethical system of both is a utilitarianism which is
narrow and personal in its motive (the private happiness of the
individual in another world), but broad and catholic in its end (the
general happiness of human beings in the present world). It is as if God
induced us to promote other people’s happiness now, by telling us that
He would in return promote our own by-and-by. There are signs that
Malthus took a larger view, and thought rather of the development of the
human faculties[761] than of mere satisfaction of desires, both in this
world and in the next; but he nowhere distinctly breaks with Paley, and
his division of passions into self-love (or prudence) and benevolence is
taken straight from that theologian.[762]
By the vagueness of their phraseology when they spoke of the general sum
of happiness, the older utilitarians avoided some of the difficulties
that encounter their successors. Apart from the hardness of defining
happiness and a sum of happiness,[763] there is a difficulty in fixing
the precise extent of the generality. The tendency of utilitarianism in
the hands of Bentham was towards equality and the removal of privilege;
every one to count as one, no one as more than one. But both with him
and with the older members it may be doubted whether the doctrine did
not tend to benefit the majority at the expense of the minority.
We find Malthus thinking[764] that, had the Poor Laws never existed,
there “might have been a few more instances of very severe distress,”
but “the aggregate mass of happiness among the common people would have
been much greater than it is at present.” In other words, what he wanted
was the “greatest amount of happiness” on the whole, whatever an
“amount” of happiness may mean. Malthus would probably have refused to
use the formula of Bentham, “the greatest happiness of the greatest
number”; he would have counted the first item, the happiness, out of all
proportion more important than the second.[765] He had refused something
like it at the hands of Paley. “I cannot agree with Archdeacon Paley,
who says that the quantity of happiness in any country is best measured
by the number of its people. Increasing population is the most certain
possible sign of the happiness and prosperity of a state; but the actual
population may be only a sign of the happiness that is past.”[766]
Malthus would not, for example, have wished to see the highlands of
Scotland brought back to their ancient condition, in which they had
greater numbers than now living in rude comfort, but also greater
numbers exposed to precarious indigence.[767]
On the other hand, it is certain (in spite of a common prejudice) that
Malthus desired the great numbers as well as the great happiness, and
was indeed quite naturally led by his theological views to prefer a
little happiness for each of many individuals to a great deal for each
of a few. He “desires a great actual population and a state of society
in which abject poverty and dependence are comparatively but little
known,”[768]—two perfectly compatible requirements, which if realized
together would lead to what may be called Malthus’ secondary or earthly
paradise, which is not above mundane criticism.
This earthly paradise is, even in our author’s opinion, the end most
visibly concerned in our schemes of reform. His idea of it as a society
where moral restraint is perfect, invites the remark that the chief end
of society cannot be the mere removal of evil; it must be the
establishment of some good, the former being at the utmost an essential
condition _sine quâ non_ of the latter. Moreover, moral restraint is not
the removal of every but only of one evil; and it kills only one cause
of poverty. A complete reformation must not only remove all the evils,
but must positively amend and transform all the three branches of social
economy,—the making, the sharing, and the using of wealth,—not one or
even two of them alone. Every Utopian scheme should be tested by the
question: Does it reform all three, or only one, or two, of the three?
Neglect of the third might spoil all. A scheme which affects all three,
however, must have something like a Religion in it. With these
reservations Malthus’ picture of the good time coming has much value and
interest.[769]
Unlike Godwin, he relies on the ordinary motives of men, which he
regards as forms of an enlightened self-love. Self-love is the
mainspring of the social machine;[770] but self-love, when the self is
so expanded as to include other selves, is not a low motive. Commercial
ambition, encouraged by political liberty, and unhampered by Poor Laws,
leads naturally to prosperity.[771] The happiness of the whole is to
result from the happiness of individuals, and to begin first with them.
He “sees in all forms of thought and work the life and death struggles
of separate human beings.”[772] “No co-operation is required. Every step
tells. He who performs his duty faithfully will reap the full fruits of
it, whatever may be the number of others who fail. This duty is
intelligible to the humblest capacity. It is merely that he is not to
bring beings into the world for whom he cannot find the means of
support. When once this subject is cleared from the obscurity thrown
over it by parochial laws and private benevolence, every man must feel
the strongest conviction of such an obligation. If he cannot support his
children, they must starve; and, if he marry in the face of a fair
probability that he will not be able to support his children, he is
guilty of all the evils which he thus brings upon himself, his wife, and
his offspring. It is clearly his interest, and will tend greatly to
promote his happiness, to deter marrying till by industry and economy he
is in a capacity to support the children that he may reasonably expect
from his marriage; and, as he cannot in the mean time gratify his
passions without violating an express command of God, and running a
great risk of injuring himself or some of his fellow-creatures,
considerations of his own interest and happiness will dictate to him the
strong obligation to a moral conduct while he remains unmarried.”[773]
Supposing passion to be thus controlled, we should see a very different
scene from the present. “The period of delayed gratification would be
passed in saving the earnings which were above the wants of a single
man.” Savings Banks and Friendly Societies would have their perfect
work; and “in a natural state of society such institutions, with the aid
of private charity well directed, would probably be all the means
necessary to produce the best practicable effects.”[774] The people’s
numbers would be constantly within the limits of the food, though
constantly following its increase; the real value of wages would be
raised, in the most permanent way possible; “all abject poverty would be
removed from society, or would at least be confined to a very few who
had fallen into misfortunes against which no prudence or foresight could
provide.”[775] It must be brought home to the poor that “they are
themselves the cause of their own poverty.”[776] While Malthus insists
against Godwin that it is not institutions and laws but ourselves that
are to blame, he still shares, with Godwin, the desire to lessen the
number of institutions; and, as a first reform, would repeal at least
one obnoxious law.
The relation of Malthus to the French Revolution and its English
partisans is indeed not to be expressed in a sentence. It has been said
that he cannot be justly described as being a reactionary;[777] and, in
truth, besides being a critic of Godwin and of Condorcet, he is
influenced to some extent by the same ideas that influenced them. The
_Essay on Population_ is coloured throughout by a tacit or open
reference to the Rights of Man, a watchword borrowed from France by the
American Republic, to be restored again at the Revolution. Paine’s book
on the _Rights of Man_, in reply to Burke’s _Reflections on the French
Revolution_, had been widely read before it was suppressed by the
English Government; and Godwin and Mackintosh[778] were not silenced.
Malthus himself, as a Whig, does not disparage the rights of man when
they meant political freedom and equality, but only when they included
the right to be supported by one’s neighbour, as had been asserted by
the Abbé Raynal and some other writers of the Revolution.[779] As the
same assertion was practically made by the English Poor Law, which had
venerable conservative prejudice on its side, our author’s opposition to
it was no proof that his politics were reactionary. His economical
antecedents and his political views bound him to the French Revolution.
In his range of ideas and his habitual categories he could not depart
far from the French Economists, who had helped to prepare the way for
the Jacobins. Adam Smith himself had felt their influence. Though he had
criticized the noble savage and the state of nature,[780] he had himself
a lingering preference for agriculture over manufacture; and he himself
spoke of a “natural” price, a “natural” progress of opulence, a
“natural” rate of wages, and “natural liberty.” To him as to the French
writers, Nature[781] meant what would grow of itself if men did not
interfere,—the difficulty being that the interference seems also to grow
of itself, and it is impossible to separate the necessary protection
from the mischievous interference. Malthus retains the phraseology with
an even nearer approach to personification. Nature points out to us
certain courses of conduct.[782] If we break Nature’s laws, she will
punish us. At Nature’s mighty feast there is no cover laid for the
superfluous new-comer. The Poor Laws offend against Nature; they
interfere with human action in a case where it would spontaneously right
itself by ordinary motives of self-interest; if men knew they could not
count on parish relief, they would probably help themselves. Be the
argument worth much or little, its strength is not the greater because
of this figure; and his use of it shows that Malthus had not risen above
the metaphysical superstitions of his age. But the charge sometimes made
against him is that he was not merely not before his age but positively
behind it; and this is certainly false.
In politics he was as little of a reactionary as his opponent, who if
“in principle a Republican was in practice a Whig.”[783] He followed Fox
rather than Burke, and lost neither his head nor his temper over the
Revolution. “Malthus will prove a peace-monger,” wrote Southey in
1808.[784] He was a steady friend of Catholic Emancipation. He saw the
folly of attributing with Godwin and Paine all evil to the Government,
and with Cobbett all evil to taxation and the funds;[785] but he is one
with them all in dislike of standing armies, and is more alarmed at the
overbearing measures of the Government against sedition than at the
alleged sedition itself. One of the most remarkable chapters in the
second edition of the essay[786] is on “the effects of the knowledge of
the principal cause of poverty on civil liberty.” Its main argument is,
that, where there is much distress and destitution, there will be much
discontent and sedition, and, where there is much of the two last, there
will be much coercion and despotism. A knowledge of the chief cause of
poverty by taking away the distress would leave Government at least no
excuse for tyranny. “The pressure of distress on the lower classes of
people, together with the habit of attributing this distress to their
rulers, appears to me to be the rock of defence, the castle, the
guardian spirit of despotism. It affords to the tyrant the fatal and
unanswerable plea of necessity. It is the reason why every free
Government tends constantly to destruction, and that its appointed
guardians become daily less jealous of the encroachments of power.”[787]
The French people had been told that their unhappiness was due to their
rulers; they overthrew their rulers, and, finding their distress not
removed, they sacrificed the new rulers; and this process would have
continued indefinitely if despotism had not been found preferable to
anarchy. In England “the Government of the last twenty years[788] has
shown no great love of peace or liberty,” and the country gentlemen have
apparently surrendered themselves to Government on condition of being
protected from the mob.[789] A few more scarcities like 1800 might cause
such convulsions and lead to such sternness of repression that the
British constitution would end as Hume foretold,[790] in “absolute
monarchy, the easiest death, the true _euthanasia_ of the British
constitution.” The “tendency of mobs to produce tyranny” can only be
counteracted by the subversion, not of the tyrants, but of the mobs. The
result would be a lean and wiry people, weak for offence, but strong for
defence; there would be freedom at home and peace abroad.[791]
Of course the “knowledge of the principal cause of poverty” is not
conceived by Malthus as the only lesson worth learning. He shares the
growing enthusiasm of all friends of the people for popular
education,[792] and thinks the Tory arguments against instructing the
poorer classes “not only illiberal, but to the last degree feeble, if
not really disingenuous.”[793] “An instructed and well-informed people
would be much less likely to be led away by inflammatory writings, and
much better able to detect the false declamation of interested and
ambitious demagogues than an ignorant people.”[794] These words were
written in 1803, four years before Whitbread made his motion on Schools
and Savings Banks, and thirteen years before Brougham’s Committee on
Education.[795] Malthus in fact was in politics an advanced Whig, ahead
of his party in ideas of social reform. This may be seen from the
following passage, which is only one out of many, that show his large
view of his subject. He says that in most countries among the poor there
seems to be something like “a standard of wretchedness, a point below
which they will not continue to marry.” “This standard is different in
different countries, and is formed by various concurring circumstances
of soil, climate, government, degree of knowledge, civilization, &c.” It
is raised by liberty, security of property, the diffusion of knowledge,
and a taste for the conveniences and the comforts of life. It is lowered
by despotism and ignorance. “In an attempt to better the condition of
the labouring classes of society, our object should be to raise this
standard as high as possible by cultivating a spirit of independence, a
decent pride, and a taste for cleanliness and comfort. The effect of a
good Government in increasing the prudential habits and personal
respectability of the lower classes of society has already been insisted
on; but certainly this effect will always be incomplete without a good
system of education, and indeed it may be said that no Government can
approach to perfection that does not provide for the instruction of the
people. The benefits derived from education are among those which may be
enjoyed without restriction of numbers; and, as it is in the power of
Governments to confer these benefits, it is undoubtedly their duty to do
it.”[796]
Our author’s historical sense saved him from Ricardian presumptions in
favour of _laissez faire_. Writers go too far, however, in declaring
unlimited competition to be against the spirit of his work, and
asserting that he undervalued the influence of institutions, only that
he might save his country’s institutions from hasty reform.[797] He knew
that society did not grow up on economical principles; instead of
beginning with non-interference, and extending interference by degrees
where it was found imperative, it began with interference everywhere,
and relaxed the interference by degrees where it was found possible and
thought desirable. We have begun with status and paternal government,
and have made our way towards contract and _laissez faire_; but we have
never reached them, because, as men now are, we cannot go on without
damage to the common weal. But it seemed to Malthus that experience had
shown the need as clearly as the dangers of natural liberty;—history,
for example, had clearly proved that the material relief of the poor,
which had never been abandoned by the Government, might best have been
left to private action. The extreme view would have been that it was not
every one’s duty in general, but every one’s in particular, a
responsibility of which no one could divest himself. But, though Malthus
often speaks as if the burden ought to lie specially on a man’s
relatives and private friends, he does not share Adam Smith’s antipathy
to associations, and would probably have recognized division of labour
to be as necessary in charity as in industry. Still, even as
administered by an organization of men specially fitted for the work by
nature and choice, the distribution of material relief never seems to
him a case where society can help the poor without in some degree
injuring their independence and their strength of character. In the
matter of charity he is clearly on the side of natural liberty and
individualism.
But, in other directions, he has made admissions which seriously modify
the unlimited competition of natural liberty. He admits, first of all,
that the struggle for existence when it is the struggle for bare life
does not lead to progress;[798] and he admits, therefore, in the second
place, that the state should interfere with the “system of natural
liberty,” positively, to educate the citizens,[799] and to grant medical
aid to the poor,[800] to assist emigration,[801] and even to give direct
relief in money to men that have a family of more than six
children,[802]—as well as negatively, to restrict foreign trade when it
causes more harm to the public than good to the traders,[803] and to
restrict the home trade where children’s labour is concerned.[804]
A critic might ask on what principle he justifies these admissions; or
might hint that he makes them on no conscious principle at all, but in
the spirit of a judge, who is administering a law that he knows to be
bad, but prefers to make continual exceptions rather than suggest a new
law;—otherwise could any rule stand the test of so many exceptions?
It might be replied that Malthus nowhere writes a treatise on political
philosophy, and his views must be inferred from scattered hints, but it
does not follow that he was not, consciously or unconsciously, possessed
of a guiding principle. His several admissions have a certain logical
connection. It is more doubtful whether their connecting principle will
seem adequate to a modern reader whose questions in political philosophy
have been stated for him by Comte and the latter-day socialists.
The first of the admissions is the more significant, as Malthus, while
making it, refuses to approve of the means then actually adopted (by the
Poor Law) for raising the level of the weakest citizens, and so fitting
them for their struggle. If the absence of provision was an evil, the
existing provision was hardly a less one. It was bad for society to give
help by giving bread and butter, for that was a gift to full-grown men
and women, not really weak, but quite ready to be indolent. A gift of
education, on the other hand, is given, he considers, to those who are
really incapable of helping themselves and really ignorant of their
powers.[805] It makes the weak strong, and tends to remove indolence,
not create it.[806] In the same way Factory Acts assist the weak and not
the indolent, while the (rare) interference with free trade, the
granting of medical relief, the special aid in case of large families,
and the aid to Irish peasants, are all of them special remedies in cases
where the sufferers could not be expected to foresee and provide against
the distress, and were therefore sufferers from circumstances rather
than from indolence. Malthus continually takes the view that security is
a greater blessing than wealth itself, and insecurity a worse evil than
poverty. The circumstances that cause insecurity were therefore in his
view the most distressing; they baffled individual effort.
His critics might have answered: “In all the cases mentioned by you as
justifying interference, a perfectly enlightened self-interest would
have provided against the mishap; and relief of any kind would be in the
end equivalent to relief in bread and butter, for, as far as it goes, it
allows the more to be left over either to the man or his parents for
bread and butter, and thereby it is a relief that fosters indolence.” He
could rejoin, however, that (even if we grant the practical possibility
of such a perfect enlightenment) direct relief appeals far more to
indolence than indirect,[807] and the good of the indirect can often,
the good of the direct very seldom, outweigh the evil. He would have
added that even the direct relief in bread and butter was not opposed by
him on any theory, but on the ground of its known tendency to evil,—and,
if it had been possible from the nature of men and things to keep the
promises of the Poor Law, he would have given his voice for it. He was
committed to free trade itself only because and only so far as
experience was in its favour. His only axiom in political philosophy was
that the end of politics is the greatest happiness of the great body of
the people; and his only rule for securing that end was the observation
of what, as a matter of experience, actually did secure it.
On the other hand, nothing is clearer from his own writings than that
the language of experience owes much of its meaning to its interpreter;
and we ask “What were his principles of interpretation?”
The answer is, that, in spite of the affinity between utilitarianism in
morals and individualism in politics, he tried to retain the first
without the second. He understood moral goodness to consist in the
tendency of actions to produce a balance of pleasures over pains; but
his utility when examined turned out, as we have seen, to be much nearer
the notion of self-development than simply a sum of pleasures
irrespective of their quality. At this point the strong grasp which
family life held on his fancy lifted him above the notion that the chief
end could be the individual happiness of isolated units, and showed him
that the real unit was a group. The state to Malthus, as to Aristotle,
is an aggregate of families, though he recognizes very clearly that,
besides the connection of householder with householder by the common
subjection to the laws, there is the common bond of nationality, a
community of feeling, a partnership of past traditions, present
privileges, and future hopes.[808] It is one of the plainest facts of
experience that men are often led by their attachment to their country
and countrymen to run counter to their worldly interests.[809]
The nation is a little world within the great world, and on the analogy
of the great world it is the scene where difficulties generate talents
and bring out the character.[810] From this point of view it is not far
from the truth to parody a well-known description of modern Judaism, and
describe the political philosophy of Malthus as Utilitarianism _plus_ a
Nationality. The individualism of Malthus is limited by the particular
institutions and particular interests of the English nation.[811] In his
intellectual history a strong emphasis on the state preceded the
emphasis on the individual; and even in his mature view the state is
limited in its interference with the citizens only by its powers of
doing good to them. But he holds with Adam Smith and the other
economists that its powers of doing good to them are very much narrower
than on the old conception of the state, as a kind of family. The duties
of a state to the citizens are narrower than those of a father to his
children, because what the father can and must do for his children the
state cannot do for its citizens with equal safety to their
independence. It remains, however, true that the relation of state to
citizen is not the commercial relation of one contracting party with
another; it is a relation prior to the commercial, and gives to all
contracts whatever validity they have.
If Malthus himself had been asked to reconcile his departure from the
general principle of natural liberty with his general adherence to it,
he would have made some such answer as the following: “From the first,
when I wrote in 1798, it appeared to me that the action of Government
could neither have so uniformly bad an effect as Godwin supposed, nor so
uniformly good as Pitt’s Bill implied. If, as Godwin desires, there were
no Government, but only a chastened _laissez faire_, unsophisticated
human nature would be quite enough to bring back misery and sin.[812]
But the chastening of the _laissez faire_ could not in my opinion take
place without the Government, for it is one of the most proper functions
of Government, not adequately dischargeable by individuals, to provide
for the people the education that is supposed to chasten. Even when that
provision has been made, the education will not do its perfect work if
it has not included the particular doctrines which it has fallen to me
more than any man to bring home to the public mind. With such an
education there will be hope for better things. Things as they are and
the struggle for existence as it now is among the helpless classes can
please me as little as Godwin. It is a struggle which leads to no
progress. But, unlike Godwin, I do not regard Government as necessarily
creating the distress; and I certainly regard it as the necessary engine
for removing the distress by education in the end, and toning down its
effects by restrictions for the present. If only as an engine of
education, paternal government must be a permanent factor of society.
Where a public necessity has been well supplied by individual action, I
should leave it in the hands of individuals; but not otherwise. I did
not object to the Poor Law on the broad ground that it took the place of
private action, but because its own action was mischievous. I should try
every case on its merits, and be guided to interfere or not interfere by
the known results of the existing policies.”
In so speaking, Malthus would no doubt have justified his own
consistency. But the modern reader might justly reply to Malthus, that
we have often to judge tendencies as well as results, and experience
becomes then an uncertain guide; he might complain that Malthus himself
is sometimes led to judge both of them by a half-acknowledged
supplementary principle of the balance of classes and safety of the
mean, which can be applied in a way very unfavourable to popular rights.
He might urge that the apparent success of an institution might have
been due to a concurrent cause that cancelled its defects, and we cannot
always pronounce on its merits from experience of it. How can experience
help us unless we have the key to its interpretation? Without such a key
nothing would be so false as facts except figures. In human politics
mere survival is seldom the test of fitness.
If we compare the state to an organism and convert our simile into a
rule of judgment, we may say that, when each part has its function and
contributes to the efficiency of the whole, the body politic is well;
when any part does not, there is need of the doctor or surgeon. This
figure seems to give us a key for the interpretation of social
experience; but unhappily the figure itself needs an interpreter.[813]
If we interpret organism as the ideal union of members in one body, it
ceases to be a simile, for the body politic is not merely like this
union,—it is the best example of it. For in the body politic the general
life is the source of all individual energy, and at the same time the
individual members are continually paying back the debt, by an active
sympathy and conscious union with the commonwealth, to which the
commonwealth in its turn owes all its collective energy; the citizen is
nothing without his state, or the state without its citizens. This is to
make the figure useful, by making it change places with the thing
prefigured. So long as the same idea is grasped in both, their relation
in rhetoric need not affect us.
Such an idea of the state would lead us beyond the admissions of Malthus
to some such demands as the following:—For his every possession, the
citizen must be able to show some service rendered to his countrymen,
and must be taught and expected to hold his property in trust for the
common good, that so the body politic may have no useless member. In
proportion as private possession involves monopoly, its use should be
jealously restricted in the public interest, which in the extreme cases
would lead to the withdrawing of it, with as little friction as might
be, from the private owner to the state. Education acts, sanitary laws,
and factory acts should be strictly and universally enforced, not for
the sake of the parents, guardians, and employers, or even altogether
for the sake of the sufferers themselves, but for the sake of the
community, in order that in the struggle for existence every competitor
should start fair as an efficient citizen, with full possession of his
powers of mind and body. For the rest, security and order should be the
watchword of the state, free course being allowed to commercial and
industrial enterprise, scientific inquiry, and speculative discussion,
in order that progress may be made in the surest of all ways, by the
moral and intellectual development of the individual citizens, which
will soon express itself in their institutions. With these postulates,
half from the old economists and half from the new reformers, on the way
to be realized, and with industrial co-operation in prospect, we need
not despair of the future of man on our part of the earth.
Tried by such a standard Malthus certainly fails to give us a perfect
political philosophy, and seems little farther advanced than his master
Adam Smith, who taught that the state was profitable only for defence,
for justice, and for such public works as could not be so well done by
individuals. With all his regard for the nation, Malthus looks at social
problems too much from the individual’s point of view. He speaks much,
for example, of the good effect, on the individual man, of the domestic
ideal, and of the ideals of personal prosperity in the world, both built
on security of property and liberty of action. He speaks little of the
duty of the citizen to the community, and of the return he owes it for
his security and liberty. The citizen in his picture of him seems to
have nothing but duties to his family and nothing but claims on the
state. The citizen is lost in the householder. He is content to be let
alone, and does not positively and actively recognize his identity with
the legislative power, and his obligation to repay service with service.
Later political philosophy would press the counter-claims of the
community on the citizen. It would demand, for example, that he shall
neither leave his lands waste nor preserve his game, if either practice
is contrary to the public good. It would keep in mind that the holders
of large fortunes owe more to the public for protection of them than the
holders of small, and should bear a heavier burden of taxes. It would
not leave men to do as they willed with their own.[814]
In regard to the lowest classes that are hardly to be called citizens,
for they are struggling in hopeless weakness for mere bread, Malthus
never seems to see that his own acknowledgment of their powerlessness to
rise must justify much more than the mere establishment of compulsory
education for their children or even mechanics’ institutes for
themselves. It would justify the adoption of such measures as will make
their surroundings likely to give and preserve to them a higher standard
of living. It would sanction measures of “local option” to keep away
from them the infection of dangerous moral diseases; and it would
enforce the obligation on the owners of houses to make them habitable
and healthy. It would give town and country tenants secure tenure by
law, where an insecure tenure of custom had induced them to spend labour
on their holdings.
The older economists had the just idea that security in possession was
the first condition of industrial progress; but they did not see that
this very principle would justify very large restrictions on the use of
property, and that the restrictions would increase in largeness as the
property approached the nature of a monopoly; they did not see that for
the public interest it may be as necessary to prohibit deer forests as
to pull down unsanitary dwellings or enforce vaccination.
The reason was that for a long time in England it was a hard enough task
for reformers to secure the negative freedom of being let alone, the
freedom of trade and of the press and of local government, with the
abolition of privileges. Cobden’s attempt to resolve Politics into
Economics was well-timed and fruitful in its generation; and the
Manchester school has still a part to play in our own time. But the
special work of political reform in the future is to achieve the
positive freedom, “the maximum of power, for all members of human
society alike, to make the best of themselves.”[815] Of this programme
neither Malthus nor any writer of his day had any clear conception. He
himself had no claim to a seer’s vision; and the horizon of his
opponents was never wider than his own.
It is time to go back to the _Essay_ and confront its opponents. We have
now a sufficient knowledge of the economics and philosophy of Malthus to
be able to sympathize with him under misconception, or at least to
understand what appearance an objection would wear to his mind. Not that
we have a complete picture of the man, or even a view of his entire
mental furniture, which is more than this _curta supellex_; but we see
enough to judge the cause of the _Essay_ on its merits, not prejudiced,
favourably or unfavourably, by the life and character of the author.
BOOK IV.
THE CRITICS.
Three Questions for the Critics—Parr and _Thoughts on Parr_—Pulpit
Philosophy—Godwin’s Blessing in 1801—The Cursing in
1820—Theology—The Command to Noah—The Ratios—Population “fitful”—S.
T. Coleridge among the Economists—James Grahame—Empson’s
Classification of Critics—Weyland and Arthur Young—“Cannot,
therefore ought not”—Spence’s _Plan_ and Owen’s—_Progress and
Poverty_—_Das Kapital_—Herbert Spencer—Classification of
Critics—Ethics of the Hearth and of the World—End and Means of
Malthus.
The critics of Malthus had three questions before them: Do the
conclusions of Malthus follow from his premises? Does he himself draw
them? Are they true as a matter of fact? The answers will be best given
by a short survey of the principal critics with whom Malthus contended
in his lifetime, and those who have most formidably contended with his
followers since his death.
There is a sense in which the _Essay on Population_ begins and ends with
Godwin, for it begins and ends with the question of human
perfectibility. The relations of Malthus and Godwin are as it were the
tale on which the play is founded.
Godwin’s _Political Justice_ was written in 1793, his _Enquirer_ in
1797, and Malthus’ _Essay_ in 1798. Others kept the ball a-rolling. On
the Easter Tuesday of 1800 Dr. Samuel Parr preached an anniversary
sermon in Christ’s Hospital before the Corporation of London. He chose
his text from Galatians vi. 10: “As we have therefore opportunity, let
us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household
of faith.” Like Butler’s sermons in the Rolls Chapel, the discourse was
really a treatise on moral philosophy. It began by contrasting the
selfish and the benevolent system of ethics, pronouncing both of them
faulty. If the one has done less harm, the other has done less good than
might have been expected, for it has been connected with the new
doctrine of universal philanthropy. The new doctrine is false because
local neighbourhood of all men is impossible, _vi terminorum_, and a
widening out of the feelings that usually prevail between local
neighbours would only make those feelings thin and watery.[816] Man’s
obligations cannot be stretched beyond his powers; he has no powers, and
therefore no obligation to do good unto all men.[817] Love of the
universe, in the intense sense of the word love, can only belong to the
omnipotent Being who has the care of the universe upon Him. We, being
men, must only see to it that our benevolence is of His quality,
extending, like His, to the unthankful and to the evil. But a universal
philanthropist exaggerates and pampers this one particular form of the
duty of benevolence at the expense of the rest, and forgets duties that
lie near to him, towards kindred and friends and neighbours; he neglects
common duties of life in favour of the uncommon and fanciful. Very
different is “the calm desire of general happiness,” which draws those
that are near still nearer, and makes us value and assist the benevolent
institutions, like Christ’s Hospital, which are at our own doors.
The hearers of the sermon could have no doubt at whom it was aimed; and
the footnotes of the published version of it contained large quotations
from the _Essay on Population_ and large direct commendations of its
author, which made the sermon’s oblique censure of Godwin the more
stinging.
Pulpit philosophizing was not rare in those times; it had been practised
since Butler’s days by Dr. Ezra Styles[818] in 1761; and Dr. Richard
Price had used a dissenter’s pulpit to utter his enthusiastic views on
the future improvement of mankind (1787) and the love of our country
(1789).[819] Burke had denounced him for this in his _Reflections_;[820]
but, if Parr could do the same thing on the other side a few years
afterwards, it cannot have been any great singularity. Parr’s sermon was
the subject of Sydney Smith’s first paper in the _Edinburgh Review_ (Oct
1802); but its economical interest is due to its effect on Godwin.
Godwin had been assailed shortly before by Sir James Mackintosh, a
former friend and political ally, in his _Discourse on the Law of Nature
and Nations_, delivered in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, 1799; but Dr. Parr’s
censures were more severe. Parr may have been alienated by an offensive
description in the _Enquirer_[821] of the clergy, as characterized by “a
perennial stationariness of understanding, abortive learning, artificial
manners, infantine prejudices, and arrogant infallibility.” As all the
other professions were equally well abused, the censure need not have
been taken to heart. The letter of Malthus to Godwin, written after the
publication of the _Enquirer_, is full of courtesy. At that time, and
indeed for a few years afterwards, there was nothing but good-will
between the two writers. When Godwin in 1801 made his letters to his
three critics into a book,[822] under the title, _Thoughts on Dr. Parr’s
Spital Sermon_, with remarks on Mackintosh and the writer of the _Essay
on Population_, he was bitter only against the two former. He was
surprised at the “overbearing scornfulness” of Mackintosh, and at the
“venom” of Dr. Parr. If he had changed some of his views it was not in
deference to their criticism. Of the _Essay on Population_, “and the
spirit in which it is written,” he “can never speak but with unfeigned
respect;” contending only that it is meant to attack his conclusions and
not his premises.[823] Parr had hailed it as a complete demonstration
that Godwin’s scheme of equality would not work, and many better men had
felt their mouths shut, and had begged Godwin to speak for them. Godwin
consents in these _Thoughts_. If he was sincere in saying, “I confess I
could not see that the essay had any very practical bearing on my own
hopes” (p. 55), he must have been in the state which the _Enquirer_
ascribes to the clergyman: “He lives in the midst of evidence and is
insensible to it. He is in daily contemplation of contradictions and
finds them consistent. He listens to arguments that would impress
conviction upon every impartial hearer and is astonished at their
futility. He never dares trust himself to one unprejudiced
contemplation. He starts with impatience and terror from its possible
result.” Malthus, on the other hand, though in orders, has behaved very
unlike the clergyman of the _Enquirer_, for we are told by Godwin
himself, “he has neither laboured to excite hatred nor contempt against
me and my tenets; he has argued the questions between us just as if they
had never been made a theme for political party and the intrigues of
faction; he has argued just as if he had no end in view but the
investigation of evidence and the development of truth” (p. 55 ft.).
Moreover, he has “made as unquestionable an addition to the theory of
political economy as any writer for a century past. The grand
propositions and outlines of his work will, I believe, be found not less
conclusive and certain than they are new. For myself, I cannot refuse to
take some pride in so far as by my writings I gave the occasion and
furnished an incentive to the producing so valuable a treatise” (p. 56).
Surely concession could no further go. Godwin even admits the
arithmetical and geometrical ratios.[824] His criticisms are all on the
checks, which (be it remembered) were only the checks of the first
essay, vice, misery, and the fear of them. Are Governments henceforward
to prevent the evils of an excessive population by encouraging these
unsightly counter-agents? and is every scheme for the amelioration of
man’s lot foredoomed? No, the “author of the essay” has too small an
idea of the resources of the human mind; it is no conclusive argument
against a scheme to say that when it is realized it will probably not
last.[825] He does not attach sufficient weight to the fact that in
England, for example, “prudence and pride” prevent early marriages, and
from late ones come smaller families. In a state of universal
improvement there would be not less but more of these feelings, and a
similar effect would follow in a greater degree.[826]
That there was force in this reasoning appears from the way in which
Malthus received it when stated to him by letter a few months after the
publication of the essay. He replied that the “prudence” in question, if
existing in Godwin’s new society, would mean an eye to the main chance;
it would mean that one man is strengthening his position and getting to
himself more than the minimum of necessaries; if you prevent this, what
becomes of your freedom? if you do not, what becomes of your equality
and wealth? Secondly, the effect of the prudence would be that the
population would not be the greatest possible, but considerably within
the limits of the food; and yet you object to present society, that its
arrangements prevent the “greatest practicable population.” In all our
political theories, if we would trace to particular institutions the
evil that is really due to them, we must deduct the evil that is known
to be due to other causes. “The very admission of the necessity of
prudence to prevent the misery from an overcharged population, removes
the blame from public institutions to the conduct of individuals. And
certain it is, that almost under the worst form of government, where
there was any tolerable freedom of competition, the race of labourers,
by not marrying, and consequently decreasing their numbers, might
immediately better their condition, and under the very best form of
government, by marrying and greatly increasing their numbers they would
immediately make their condition worse.”[827]
This was no doubt a point against Godwin, but it was also a point
against Malthus himself. The essay in its first form had not made
sufficient allowance for “prudence”; and the introduction of moral
restraint in the second edition might very plausibly have been ascribed
by Godwin’s friends to Godwin himself, in spite of the elaborate reply
to the _Thoughts_ in a chapter afterwards dropped.[828] Godwin said to
him afterwards that he had no right to introduce a new element into his
solution of the problem, and pretend that it was the same solution as
before;[829] if he altered his premises he ought to alter his
conclusion. To which Malthus might have answered, that, though his
conclusion is altered, it retains its value as an argument against
Godwin. At first the tendency of numbers to increase up to the food was
described as an obstacle fatal to progress; now it is indeed an obstacle
which must be faced and overcome, but it is fatal not to progress, but
only to equality. Godwin himself had at first considered it an entirely
imaginary obstacle which might be ignored for the present by reformers;
and his very doctrine of prudence amounts to an admission that his view
of it had changed.
Godwin himself was not conscious of his change of front; as the seventh
of thirteen children he may have thought the matter personal; and
whatever concessions he had made in 1801 he withdrew in 1820. In that
year, with David Booth, the patient author of the _English Analytical
Dictionary_, to arrange his statistics and vouch for his calculations,
he published an elaborate reply to the _Essay on Population_. The
politicians, the political economists, the bulk of the press, and the
public had accepted the Malthusian doctrines, though the conversion of
the public was no deeper than it was on Free Trade, and the statesmen
with a few exceptions were not sorry to make capital out of the
“odiousness” of the doctrines whenever the “acknowledged truth” of them
would not serve their turn. Still it seemed true that time had declared
for Malthus, and Godwin had fallen out of notice. Sydney Smith’s
assertion,[830] “Malthus took the trouble of refuting him, and we hear
no more of Mr. Godwin,” is not very far from the truth. Malthus had
survived his refutation, and Godwin his reputation. Pitt, Paley, and
Copleston were with Malthus; he had gained over Hallam among historians,
James Mill, Senior, and Ricardo among economists, Brougham, Mackintosh,
and even Whitbread among politicians. Southey, Hazlitt, and Cobbett were
not a sufficient make-weight. Hazlitt in his _Reply_ to the _Essay on
Population_ (in letters of which some appeared in Cobbett’s _Pol.
Register_, 1807) acknowledges the popularity, though he predicts its
decay.[831] It seems clear that in educated circles at least the view of
Malthus was as early as 1820 what it was in 1829, “the popular
view,”[832] which is quite compatible, as Darwin long experienced, with
great unpopularity in particular quarters. No better evidence could be
given of this popularity than the unwilling testimony given by Godwin
himself in his new book.[833] At the end of 1819 Brougham had referred
in the House of Commons to the principle of Malthus as “one of the
soundest principles of political economy,” and said it was melancholy to
observe how the press scouted it and abused its defenders.[834] The
press, however, was divided. The _Edinburgh Review_ from the first had
sided with Malthus. The _Quarterly_ had begun by strong hostility (Dec.
1812, pp. 320 _seq._); had softened its tone as time went on (Dec. 1813,
pp. 157 _seq._, and Oct. 1814, pp. 154–5); had spoken with hesitation
and doubtfulness (Oct. 1816, pp. 50 _seq._); and had at last completely
surrendered (July 1817, pp. 369 _seq._), confessing it to be “much
easier to disbelieve Mr. Malthus than to refute him” (p. 396),
thereafter utilizing his doctrine for the support of things as they are,
only regretting that Malthus himself would not do the same a little more
stoutly (pp. 402–3). Finally, as we have seen, Malthus, after having
contributed to the _Edinburgh_, became a contributor to the _Quarterly_.
The change of public opinion, illustrated by the conversion of the
_Quarterly_, gave greater bitterness to the attacks of the enemies that
remained unconverted. But it gave them no new arguments.
In Godwin’s _Enquiry concerning Population_ (when we neglect mere
epigrams such as “a man is surer that he has ancestors than that he will
have posterity”) there are substantially four arguments:—Malthus has
changed his position; the world is not peopled; the ratios are not as he
represents; and experience is against him. We have already discussed the
first. The use of the second implies a misunderstanding of the
Malthusian position, for it ignores distinction between actual and
possible supplies of food, and does not allow that a man is “confined”
by four walls unless he touches them.[835] Godwin does not mend the
argument by comparing it to the objection brought against
Christianity—“the world is not yet Christianized”; still less by
appealing to Christianity itself, and taunting Malthus with the texts,
“Increase and multiply,” “Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of
them,” “made a little lower than the angels,” “forty sons and thirty
grandsons, which rode on threescore and ten ass colts,” “In the last
days some shall depart from the faith, forbidding to marry.”[836]
Malthus had been attacked in 1807 by a Puritan or Covenanting pamphlet
entitled, ‘A summons of Wakening, or the evil tendency and danger of
Speculative Philosophy, exemplified in Mr. [Sir John] Leslie’s _Enquiry
into the Nature of Heat_, and Mr. Malthus’ _Essay on Population_, and in
that speculative system of common law which is at present administered
in these kingdoms.’[837] The body of this book had been even more
remarkable than its title, for it had proved Malthus guilty not merely
of heterodoxy, but of atheism. “It is evident to any one who attentively
reads the _Essay on Population_ that its author does not believe in the
existence of God, but substitutes for Him sometimes the principle of
Population, sometimes that of Necessity.” Sadler many years later
declared in the same spirit that “the insults the theory of Malthus
levels at God, and the injuries it meditates inflicting upon man, will
be endured by neither.”[838]
Once for all, let Parson Malthus explain his consistency with the
religious text-book of his Church. Prior to the injunction given to men
to increase and multiply, come, says Malthus, all the moral and physical
laws without which they cannot increase or multiply. Suppose the command
had been to increase and multiply not men but vegetables; this could not
mean, “Sow the seed broadcast, in the air, over the sea, on stony
ground,” but, “Take all the means made necessary, by pre-existing laws,
to secure the best growth of vegetables.” That man would best obey the
command, who should prepare the soil, and provide for the watering and
tilling of it, where those things were wanting before. So he will best
obey the command to increase and multiply Men, who prepares food for men
where there was none before, and not he who brings them recklessly into
the world without any such provision. “I believe it is the intention of
the Creator that the earth should be replenished, but certainly with a
healthy, virtuous, and happy population, not an unhealthy, vicious, and
miserable one. And, if, in endeavouring to obey the command to increase
and multiply, we people it only with beings of the latter description
and suffer accordingly, we have no right to impeach the justice of the
command, but our irrational mode of executing it.”[839] He might have
added, that to give any other interpretation of the passage in Genesis
is to forget the circumstances in which the words were spoken. The
Deluge had just swept away all the earth’s inhabitants except one
family, expressly on the score of wickedness; and, if a wicked
replenishing were not desirable, an unhappy or a poor one would be at
the best only one degree less so. Regarding the question then purely
from the outside, we cannot find anything in the writings of Parson
Malthus inconsistent with his ecclesiastical orthodoxy; and we can
hardly believe that free-thinking Godwin was very serious in the
objection.
Malthus himself replies to it as a charge commonly brought against him
by others, with no reference to Godwin in particular. For the most part
he ignores Godwin’s book on Population, as mere rhetoric and
scurrility.[840] Godwin, however, had given more than two years of hard
labour to the writing of it;[841] and his biographer regards it as the
last work of his best days. He employed his son William and his friend
Henry Blanch Rosser to help him, in addition to Booth. His whole mind
was occupied with Booth’s calculations and his own deductions from them.
He himself “could not pursue a calculation for an hour without being
sick to the lowest ebb.”[842] If Booth lagged behind him he was
miserable. He rose in early morning to note down an idea and was ill for
the rest of the day after it. He is satisfied, however, with the result
of his labours. He thinks his chapter on the Geometrical Ratio will
delight his friends and astonish his foes. In any case his comfort is
that “truth” will prevail, and, whether through him or another, “the
system of Malthus can never rise again, and the world is delivered from
this accursed apology in favour of vice and misery and hard-heartedness
and oppression,”[843] and the world will see that there is “no need of
any remedies,” for the numbers of mankind never did and never can
increase in the ways described by Malthus.[844] A few of his younger
friends[845] believed him successful; and the book was mentioned in the
House of Commons as a conclusive refutation of Malthus, especially in
regard to the ratios.[846] But the fact remains not only that poor
Godwin made no bread and butter by it,[847] but that he converted no one
whose opinion in such a matter was of any weight. Mackintosh, though at
peace again with his old friend, when he writes to him in September
1821,[848] cannot praise his work; even thinks its tone intolerant; and
will only say that he sees nothing in the Malthusian doctrines
inconsistent with perfectibility. He takes pains at the same time to
disclaim the authorship of the notice in the _Edinburgh Review_ for July
1821, which was lacking in the courtesy due to Godwin, though it did not
reproduce the scurrility of the earliest review of him.[849] The
inconclusiveness of the book, even in the view of Malthus’ opponents,
appears from the stream of new refutations, which made no pause.
Even the question of the ratios was not settled. Godwin had counted his
discussion of them the most important part of his book. It gives us his
third substantial argument against Malthus. Godwin takes up,[850] what
seems to have been a common charge, that the essayist had written a
quarto volume to prove that population increases in a geometrical and
food in an arithmetical ratio. The essayist had answered, as long ago as
1806,[851] that the first proposition was proved as soon as the facts
about America were authenticated, and the second was self-evident; his
book was meant less to prove the ratios than to trace their effects. His
authorities, as he told Godwin afterwards,[852] were Dr. Price, Styles,
Benjamin Franklin, Euler, and Sir William Petty, supplemented, for
figures, by Short and Süssmilch and the censuses of the United States
and England, and, for principles, by Adam Smith and Hume. We have
already seen[853] how far the simile of geometrical and arithmetical
ratios was meant to be pressed. Godwin thinks he exposes it by arguing
that the increase of population can never be quite exactly
geometrical[854] (which Malthus would admit),—that America was an
exception[855] (in face of the maxim that the exception tests the
rule),—that, in order to suppose population doubling itself in the
United States, we must suppose it, as regards births, doing the same in
the Old World (in other words, fact is the same as tendency),—that the
normal increase is not that of America but that of Sweden,[856] in which
case (Malthus would answer) the normal increase must be one that takes
place in face of very severe restrictions. To the charge of damaging the
borrowed kettle the old Irishwoman had three answers:—It was cracked
when I got it; it was whole when I returned it; I never had it. So
Godwin’s views of the American colonies vacillated between three
inconsistent propositions: the great increase of the numbers is natural
(or spontaneous), but that of the food is greater still;[857] the great
increase is not natural, but due to immigration;[858] there has been no
great increase at all.[859] The reader has three alternative arguments
presented to him, and it matters little whereby he is convinced, if only
in the end he is persuaded to believe with Godwin, that population
requires no checks at all,[860] and is a fitful principle.[861] In
history, says Godwin, it seems to operate by fits and starts; and such
irregular effects cannot have a uniform cause. It might be replied that
in the same sense gravitation is fitful, for we seem to break it by
walking upstairs as well as down, by using a siphon as well as a
water-jug, or by drying up a drop of ink with blotting-paper instead of
letting it sink down into the paper. Yet in these cases the fitfulness
is never imputed to the absence of a cause, but to the presence of more
causes than one. To believe, as Godwin seems to do, in occult laws which
vary with the circumstances is to believe in no laws at all. The only
constancy would be the constant probability of miracles.[862]
Freethinkers had not as yet identified themselves with the party of
order in physics; and perhaps Godwin was simply carrying out his dislike
of law one step farther. Having applied it to politics (1793) and to
style (1797), he now applied it to nature (1820). He deliberately placed
a whole army of facts out of the range of science. It was fortunate for
himself that he appeared no more in the character of an economist, but
left Booth the task of replying to the Edinburgh reviewer.[863]
If economical criticism was weak with Godwin, the political philosopher,
it was still weaker with Coleridge, the philosophizing poet. The main
criticisms of Coleridge[864] are contained in manuscript marginal
comments with pen and pencil written on his copy of the second (quarto)
edition of the Essay (1803), now in the British Museum. When Malthus
writes (in Preface, p. vi) that if he had confined himself to general
views, his main principle was so incontrovertible that he could have
entrenched himself in an impregnable fortress, Coleridge breaks in: “If
by the main principle the author means both the _Fact_[865] (i. e. that
population unrestrained should infinitely outrun food) and the deduction
from the fact, _i. e._ that the human race is _therefore_ not
indefinitely improvable, a pop-gun would batter down the impregnable
Fortress. If only the Fact be meant, the assertion is quite nugatory, in
the former case vapouring, in the latter a vapour.” (And on p. vii:)
“Are we now to have a quarto to teach us that great misery and great
vice arise from poverty, and that there must be poverty in its worst
shape wherever there are more mouths than loaves and more Heads than
Brains?”
This may be taken as simply the argument of Hazlitt, who “did not see
what there was to be proved;”—the principle of Malthus is a truism. Even
when commenting on the statement of the Ratios (on p. 8), after some
denunciation of the “verbiage and senseless repetition” of the essay,
Coleridge goes on to agree with it. He would restate the whole so as to
substitute “a proportion which no one in his senses would consider as
other than axiomatic, viz.: Suppose that the human race amount to a
thousand millions. Divide the square acres of food-producing surface by
500,000,000, that is to say, so much to each married couple. Estimate
this quotum as high as you like, and, if you will, even at a thousand or
even at ten thousand acres to each family. Suppose population without
check, and take the average increase from two families at five (which is
irrationally small, supposing the human race healthy, and each man
married at twenty-one to a woman of eighteen), and in twelve generations
the increase would be 48,828,125. Now as to any conceivable increase in
the production or improvement in the productiveness of the thousand or
ten thousand acres, it is ridiculous even to think of production at all,
inasmuch as it is demonstrable that either already in this twelfth
generation, or _certainly_ in a few generations more (I leave the exact
statement to schoolboys, not having Cocker’s Arithmetic by me, and
having forgotten the number of square feet in an acre), the quotum of
land would not furnish standing room to the descendants of the first
agrarian proprietors. Best do the sum at once. Find out the number of
square acres on the globe (of land), and divide the number by 500,000. I
have myself been uselessly prolix, and in grappling with the man have
caught his itch of verbiage.” He goes on to say that if every man were
to marry and have a family, and each of his children were to do the
same, their posterity would soon want standing room, and, if _all_
checks were removed, this would of course happen much faster. “Any
schoolboy who has learned arithmetic as far as compound interest may
astonish his younger sister both by the fact and by the exact number of
years in which it would take place. On the other hand, let the
productiveness of the earth be increased beyond the hopes of the most
visionary agriculturist, still the productions take up room. If the
present crop of turnips occupy one-fifth of the space of the turnip
field, the increase can never be more than quintupled, and, if you
suppose two planted for one, the increase still cannot exceed ten; so
that, supposing a little island of a single acre, and its productions
occupying one-fifth of its absolute space, and sufficient to maintain
two men and two women, four generations would outrun its _possible_
power of furnishing them with food; and we may boldly affirm that a
truth so self-evident as this was never overlooked or even by
implication contradicted. What proof has Mr. Malthus brought? What proof
can he bring that any writer or theorist has overlooked this fact, which
would not apply (with reverence be it spoken) to the Almighty Himself
when He pronounced the awful command, ‘Increase and multiply’?”
From some of the phrases dropped in the course of these comments, we
should infer they were the preparation for a formal review of the book
by Coleridge himself. It is therefore extremely puzzling to find the
whole comments printed almost word for word and letter for letter in a
review[866] hitherto considered by every one (Southey included) to be
Southey’s. This applies to the subsequent MS. notes, which are happily
briefer. Coleridge finds fault with Malthus (p. 11) for using the words
virtue and vice without defining them, apparently overlooking the
footnote under his very eyes (p. 11 n.) which says, “The general
consequence of vice is misery, and this consequence is the precise
reason why an action is termed vicious.”[867] Coleridge says, in
relation to the list of irregularities given in the last paragraph but
one of the page (11): “That these and all these are vices in the present
state of society, who doubt? So was Celibacy in the patriarchal ages.
Vice and Virtue subsist in the agreement of the habits of a man with his
reason and conscience, and these can have but one moral guide, Utility,
or the Virtue[868] and Happiness of Rational beings. We mention this not
under the miserable notion that any state of society will render those
actions capable of being performed with conscience and virtue, but to
expose the utter unguardedness of this speculation.” Then after some
remarks on New Malthusians (as they would be now called) he goes on:
“All that follows to the three hundred and fifty-fifth page[869] may be
an entertaining farrago of quotations from books of travels, &c., but
surely very impertinent in a philosophical work. Bless me, three hundred
and forty pages—for what purpose! A philosophical work can have no
legitimate purpose but proof and illustration, and three hundred and
fifty pages to prove an axiom! to illustrate a self-evident truth! It is
neither more nor less than bookmaking!” He thinks, however, that what
Malthus wrote of Condorcet applies to himself;—though his paradox is
very absurd, it must be refuted, or he will think the toleration of his
contemporaries due to their mental inferiority and his own sublimity of
intellect.[870] The remaining marginal notes are chiefly of an
interjectional character,[871] many of them not very refined. Malthus
himself never falls into coarseness; but his opponents seldom avoid it,
and Coleridge (or Southey) is no exception to the rule.[872] Except for
the interest attaching even to the foolish words of a great man, it
would not have been worth while to revive his _obiter scripta_ on a
matter beyond his ken.
A few words are necessary in regard to Grahame and Weyland, who form the
chief subject of the long second appendix of later editions of the
essay. Grahame’s charges were such as owed all their force to the
general ignorance of the actual writings of Malthus himself.[873] Mr.
Malthus regards famine as nature’s benevolent remedy for want of food;
Mr. Malthus believes that nature teaches men to invent (p. 100) diseases
in order to prevent over-population; Mr. Malthus, regarding vice and
misery generally as benevolent remedies for over-population, thinks that
they are rather to be encouraged than otherwise (p. 100). Malthus, for
his part, deploring the fact that this last charge has been current “in
various quarters for fourteen years” (or since his quarto essay of
1803), thinks he may well pass it by. “Vice and Misery, and these alone,
are the evils which it has been my great object to contend against. I
have expressly proposed moral restraint as their rational and proper
remedy,” a sufficient proof that he regarded them as the disease.[874]
Grahame himself does not deny the tendency to increase beyond food (p.
102), but thinks emigration a sufficient remedy (p. 104).
Empson,[875] playfully classifying the opponents of Malthus, says there
are some who will not comprehend “out of sheer stupidity, like Mr.
Grahame,” or out of sentimental horror, like Southey,[876] Coleridge,
and Bishop Huntingford;[877] or because, like Sadler[878] and Godwin,
who followed Price and Muret,[879] they imagine the law of population to
vary with the circumstances; or else because they invent laws of their
own, like Anderson, Owen, and Poulett Scrope;[880] or because, like
Weyland,[881] they deny the premises of Malthus as well as the
conclusion. Weyland, like Grahame, has the honour of a special
refutation from Malthus. He allows that Malthus in his essay has raised
his subject from the level of desultory academical discussion to that of
scientific inquiry, and his book is the point from which every later
investigation must start. He allows that his order is lucid and his
reasoning fair, and that he enables an opponent at once to discuss the
question on its merits. Granting his premises, says Weyland, we cannot
deny his conclusion; but that premise of his is false which assumes that
the highest known rate of increase in a particular state of society is
the natural or spontaneous rate in all;[882] we cannot take the height
of Chang or of the Hale Child as the natural standard of the height of
all. To this Malthus answers, that, if we had observed in any country
that all the people who were short carried weights upon their heads, and
the people who were tall did not, we should infer that the weights had
something to do with the height,—and so, when we find that the increase
of a people is fast or slow in proportion as the pressure of certain
checks on increase is heavy or light, we cannot but believe that the
rate would be at its fastest if there were no checks at all. To say with
Weyland, in the terms of his first cardinal proposition,[883] that
“population has a natural tendency to keep within the powers of the soil
to afford it subsistence in every gradation through which society
passes,” is to say “that every man has a natural tendency to remain in
prison who is necessarily confined to it by four strong walls.” One
might as well infer that the pine of the crowded Norwegian forest has no
tendency to have lateral branches, because as a matter of fact there is
no room for it to have any.[884]
Weyland thinks that, without any moral restraint, population will keep
within limits of the food, in proportion as it reaches a high state of
morality, religion, and political liberty.[885] Malthus, on the
contrary, would say that, without moral restraint, even morality,
religion, and political liberty will not save a people from
wretchedness;[886] and, for his part, the design always uppermost in his
mind when writing has been “to improve the condition and increase the
happiness of the lower classes of society.”[887]
One argument of Weyland’s[888] has some weight in it. With a rich soil,
high farming, and abundant food, the bulk of the people of a country
might by the natural division of labour be employed in manufacture, and
their unhealthy manner of life in towns might so check population that
it might be far from keeping up to the level of the food. Malthus
replies that this case is rare, for our town populations have increased
rapidly,—but, such as it is, he has allowed for it in the second clause
of his second proposition: “Population invariably increases where the
means of subsistence increase, _unless prevented by some very powerful
and obvious checks_.”[889]
There are two other critics to whom Malthus replies in some detail, one
the visionary Owen, who is embraced in Empson’s classification, the
other the practical man Arthur Young, who cannot so easily be
classified. “I mean,” says the latter, “to deal in facts alone, happy
when I can discover them pure and unalloyed with prejudice.”[890] As
this was his practice as well as his profession, it may easily be
believed that in his voluminous records of fifty years’ travelling and
experimenting[891] he has spun rope enough to hang himself. It ought to
be added that, like Godwin, he claims the privilege of being
inconsistent. Nothing could be more clear than his recognition in his
_Travels in France_ of the evils of over-population.[892] Yet in 1800,
in his _Question of Scarcity plainly stated and Remedies considered_, he
recommends as his remedy that each country labourer who has three
children be provided with a cow and half an acre of potato ground.[893]
In other words, he would reduce the English standard of living to the
common Irish one, milk and potatoes. Malthus replies by giving reasons
why people should “live dear,” and by reminding Arthur Young of his own
comments on the proceedings of the National Assembly. Recognizing their
duty to grant relief, but wishing to avoid an English Poor Law, the
National Assembly set aside fifty millions of francs a year for support
of the poor. If it had been really a duty, wrote Arthur Young (in his
_Travels_), necessity might have occasioned them to extend the relief to
one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred millions, and so on, “in the
same miserable progression that has taken place in England.”[894]
Malthus hardly needed to go back to the _Travels_, as Young himself
confessed in his later writings that his plan did not apply to large
cities, and though he still held by the claim of right, he confessed
that his faith must be without works; in other words, he claimed the
right to be inconsistent. But he continued to question Malthus’ axiom
that what cannot be ought not to be; and he thinks that, if a man
marries without the means to keep a family, he may justly blame society
for not providing him with the means. He argues, too, that Malthus for
the success of his scheme assumes perfect chastity in the unmarried.
Malthus really assumed only that the evils, which on an average in a
civilized country attend the prudential check, are less than the evils
of premature mortality and other miseries entailed by the opposite
course; he declares himself not against but in favour of schemes that
improve the condition of the poor even on a limited scale; and he only
asks that every such scheme be tested not by its first success, for
hardly any scheme of the kind is unsuccessful at first, but by its
effect on a new generation.[895]
This test might be applied to schemes like Owen’s and later ones on the
same model. Malthus perhaps deals too peremptorily with them. Speaking
of Owen’s system of the community of labour and goods, and of Spence’s
_Plan for Parochial Partnerships in the Land_[896] (“the only remedy for
the distresses and oppressions of the people,” the land to be “the
people’s farm”), he answers that there are two “decisive arguments
against systems of equality”: first, the inability of a state of
equality to furnish adequate motives for exertion, the goad of necessity
being absent,—and, second, the tendency of population to increase faster
than subsistence. In reply it must be said that there might be socialism
without communism; there might even be communism without an absolute
equality, such as would put idle and industrious on the same footing;
there might be an approximation of the social extremes, bringing poor
and rich nearer, and giving the former not weaker but stronger motives
to exertion; finally, it is not at all inconceivable that at least
one-half of this result might come, as Godwin wished, by the act of the
rich themselves, which means also as Malthus wished, for it would come
from a strong sense of personal obligation. It cannot be denied that
Malthus, in using the argument in question, seems to forget his own
admission, that the goad of necessity does not act with effect either on
the lowest or on the highest classes.[897] Moreover, he allows, there
have been cases, _e. g._ among the Moravian communities, where industry
and community of goods have existed side by side. “It may be said that,
allowing the stimulus of inequality of conditions to have been necessary
in order to raise man from the indolence and apathy of the savage to the
activity and intelligence of civilized life, it does not follow that the
continuance of the same stimulus should be necessary when this activity
and energy of mind has been once gained.”[898]
The second of his arguments against Owen is of course his more cogent
and characteristic one. As we have seen, it is not deprived of its point
by the inclusion of moral restraint among the checks to population. It
was argued against him that his own ideal of a society where moral
restraint universally prevailed would involve precisely what is
necessary to make such systems as Godwin’s and Owen’s permanently
possible.[899] There is an air of conclusiveness in the remark that, in
proportion as moral restraint prevails in the world, Malthus
approximates to Godwin. But Malthus believes that equality and community
would destroy the motive for moral restraint. The passions would still
be present, and no man would be in a position where there seemed any
need to restrain them; the restraint would be the interest of the whole
society, but not of the individual himself, for the effects were to be
borne not by himself, but by the whole society. No doubt the good of the
whole society ought to be a sufficient reason; but it would be so in a
very few men now; and, unless it were in all men then, the result would
be an expansion of population, with the results Malthus described. Owen
is aware of this, and suggests artificial checks, allowing men to
gratify desire without the usual consequences, and dispensing with any
effort of will. Malthus, on the other hand, would throw all the
responsibility and burden on the individual, which he thinks it
impossible to do without allowing the individual his private
property.[900] No further justification of things as they are is to be
found in Malthus; and, so far from being reactionary, his principles
(with all their qualifications) were probably the most advanced
individualism that was ever preached in these days. They are adopted in
full view of the facts that have been again vividly brought before the
public mind in our day by writers who are to our generation what Godwin,
Spence, and Owen were to theirs.
Malthus seems to believe, with Dugald Stewart, that Utopian schemes are
like the tunes of a barrel-organ, recurring at melancholy intervals from
age to age with damnable iteration.[901] But, unless society itself has
moved in a circle, the Utopias will resemble each other no more and no
less than do the states of society which they would replace. Our own
socialists, therefore, can hardly be dismissed by the stroke of the pen,
that classifies them with people so curiously unlike them and each other
as Plato, Ball, More, the Fifth Monarchy men, the Levellers, Godwin and
Spence and Owen. Malthus does not, in fact, so dismiss them. Besides
bringing forward his own argument, he examines Owen’s attempt to deal
with it.[902]
Since Malthus, every complete reform has needed to face in some way or
other the question which he treated; but he left little for others to
do. Of the two most prominent schemes of our own day for the
reconstruction of society, one, that of Mr. Henry George, involves an
unconscious recourse to the old weapons of Godwin, Sadler, and other
opponents of Malthus; _Progress and Poverty_ does not contain any
argument not to be found in these writers. The conjecture about a “fixed
quantity of human life on the earth” (ed. 1881, p. 97) is hardly an
argument. It may be compared with what is stated by St. G. Mivart[903]
to be the basis of Darwinism. “Every individual has to endure a very
severe struggle for existence owing to the tendency to geometrical
increase of all kinds of animals and plants, while the total animal and
vegetable population (man and his agency excepted) remains almost
stationary.” Mr. Mivart’s reason for excepting man seems to be Mr.
George’s reason for including him. The latter’s more direct arguments
against Malthus are as follows:—first, the difficulty is in the future
(p. 85);—second, Malthus shifts the responsibility from man to the
Creator (p. 87);—third, Malthus justifies the _status quo_ and parries
the demand for reform (p. 88);—fourth, Malthus ascribes excessive
increase of numbers to a general tendency of human nature, while it is
really due to the badness of our institutions in old countries, as in
India and Ireland (pp. 101–114), or the very thinness of population in
new (p. 92);—fifth, Malthus does not distinguish between tendency to
increase and actual increase, and is therefore refuted by the fact that
the world is not yet peopled (p. 94). In the sixth place, we are told,
if there had been such a law as the Malthusian, it would have been
sooner and more widely recognized (p. 98);—that families often become
extinct (p. 99), and it is more certain that we have ancestors than that
we shall have descendants;[904]—that better industry would keep a larger
population (p. 107);—Malthus says that vice and misery are necessary (p.
109);—Malthus does not see that vegetables and animals increase faster
than population (p. 115),—or that the increase of man involves the
increase of his food (p. 116), for a division of labour makes man
produce more than he consumes (p. 126), and so the most populous
countries are always the most wealthy (p. 128);—Malthus forgets that the
world is wide (p. 119),—and that the tendency to increase is checked by
development of intellect,[905]—and by the elevation of the standard of
comfort (pp. 121, 123);—he forgets that “the power of population to
produce the necessaries of life is not to be measured by the necessaries
of life” it actually produces, but by its powers to produce wealth in
all forms (p. 127);—Malthus will not see that twenty men where nature is
niggardly (_e. g._ on a bare rock?) will produce more than twenty times
what one man will where nature is bountiful (p. 134);—and the Malthusian
theory “attributes want to the decrease of productive power” (p.
134);—finally Malthus does not know “the real law of population,” which
is that “the tendency to increase, instead of being always uniform, is
strong where a greater population would give increased comfort, and
where the perpetuity of the race is threatened by the mortality induced
by adverse conditions, but weakens just as the higher development of the
individual becomes possible, and the perpetuity of the race is assured”
(p. 123). What is right in this view of the real law of population is
common to Mr. George with Mr. Herbert Spencer;[906] what is wrong is
common to him with Godwin.[907]
The view of Karl Marx,[908] the prophet of the International and of
modern economic Socialism, is built on much more solid foundations. It
is a corollary of his view of capital. The general law of the
accumulation of capital, in these days of large manufactories and
machinery, involves not only a progressive addition to the quantity of
capital, which is all that Adam Smith contemplated, but a qualitative
change in the proportion between fixed capital, such as machinery, and
the circulating which is paid in wages. To use the author’s words, the
progress of accumulation brings with it a relative decrease of the
variable component of capital and a relative increase of its constant
component. New machinery is constantly supplanting labour without any
real compensation in increased demand, either at once or in the long
run. The constant element increases at the cost of the variable; and
this can only result in the progressive production of a population
which, in relation to capital, is a surplus or superfluity, an
over-population;—the cause which increases the net revenue of the
country at the same time renders the population redundant and
deteriorates the condition of the labourer.[909] So far from deploring
the existence of this redundant class, the capitalists depend on
it,[910] as the reserve of their army. They trust to its cheap labour to
save them from the depression which in our days (though never before)
appears with unfailing regularity after brisk trade and a crisis. If the
hands were not always there for them to employ, they would not at once
be able to seize the happy moment of a reviving demand for their goods.
“Malthus with his narrow views understands the surplus population to be
superfluous absolutely in itself, and not merely in relation to capital;
but even he recognizes that over-population is a necessity of modern
industry.”[911] In proof of these statements he quotes the words of
Malthus (_Pol. Econ._, ed. 1836, pp. 215,[912] 319, 320):—“Prudential
habits with regard to marriage carried to a considerable extent among
the labouring classes, of a country mainly depending upon manufactures
and commerce, might injure it.”... “From the nature of a population, an
increase of labourers cannot be brought into [the] market, in
consequence of a particular demand, till after the lapse of sixteen or
eighteen years; and the conversion of revenue into capital, by saving,
may take place much more rapidly; a country is always liable to an
increase in the quantity of the funds for the maintenance of labour
faster than the increase of population.”
To these charges the answer is, first, that Malthus always recognized
that over-population was relative, relative to the actual food;[913]
second, that he did _not_ recognize the over-population as necessary; it
took place as a matter of fact, but he believed that, if working men did
as he wished them, it would disappear;[914]—and in the third place, the
first sentence quoted by Marx, from the _Political Economy_ is explained
by the second, which he does not quote: “In a country of fertile land
such habits would be the greatest of all conceivable blessings.” Malthus
is comparing Commercial with Agricultural countries, not pronouncing on
the general question of wages; and other passages in his writings[915]
show that he regarded the high wages, resulting from prudential habits,
as a public gain, more than compensating the capitalists’ loss of
profits. Even Marx himself grudgingly allows that Malthus was more
humane than Ricardo in regard to the hours of labour desirable for the
workmen.[916] In the fourth place, the latter half of the quotation
(beginning with the words, “From the nature of a population”) first
states an obvious fact which a child could have pointed out, and then a
disputable proposition which predicts not an over-population but the
reverse of it.
Marx is seeking to demonstrate the hopelessness of the labourer’s
position; and he is too acute not to know that his demonstration would
be seriously weakened if he admitted the truth of the Malthusian
doctrine and the bare possibility of the adoption of prudential habits
by the labourers. This is the real reason of his bitter attacks on the
Essay. He says of it:[917] “When I say Eden’s work on the Poor was the
only important writing by a disciple of Adam Smith in the eighteenth
century, I may be reminded of the essay of Malthus. But this book in its
first form (and the later editions did nothing but add and adapt
borrowed materials) is nothing but a plagiarism from Sir James Steuart,
Townsend, Franklin, Wallace, full of schoolboy superficiality and
clerical declamation, and not containing a single original sentence. By
the way, although Malthus was a clergyman of the Church of England, he
had taken the monastic oath of celibacy[!], for this is one of the
conditions of a fellowship at the Protestant University of Cambridge.
‘Socios collegiorum maritos esse non permittimus, sed statim postquam
quis uxorem duxerit, socius collegii desinat esse’ (_Reports of
Cambridge University Commission_, p. 172). By this circumstance Malthus
is favourably distinguished from the other Protestant clergy, who have
cast off the Catholic rule of celibacy....[918] With exception of
Ortes[919] the Venetian monk, an original and clever writer, most of the
writers on Population are Protestant clergymen,” a contrast, he goes on,
to the days when political economists were all philosophers. Marx
adopts[920] the common view that Malthus being a clergyman was the
bond-slave of Toryism and the ruling classes, and therefore ready to
adopt a principle that attributed over-population to the eternal laws of
nature rather than to the historical laws (also natural) of the
capitalists’ production. Marx does not see that the “eternal laws” in
question do not lead to over-population except when the precepts of
Malthus are neglected; and never shows how, apart from these precepts,
over-population will be prevented in the renovated society itself, which
has nationalized not only the land but all the instruments of
production. Would the habits of men be so changed by this stroke of
nationalization that the want of ordinary commercial motives would not
be felt?[921] Would not the millennium of the Socialist, like that of
the Christian, postulate a religious conversion on the largest scale for
its first introduction, to say nothing of its continuance? Productive
Co-operation, depending on the spontaneous action of the labourers for
its creation, and on their intelligence and prudence for its success,
would nationalize capital more surely; and it would not make the
impossible postulate of Socialism, that a passionless unselfishness,
which not one in a hundred thousand in our day exhibits at any time,
shall at once become the invariable daily rule of all without exception.
But Co-operation, if it neglects Malthus, will find its work no sooner
done than undone.
It may be thought that there are causes at work which will remove
over-population among the working classes even under the present system
of separated capital and labour. It is a doctrine of the “finer wits,”
founded on striking biological analogies, that the general development
of intellect in the race will weaken the passion for marriage and
supersede the necessity for any checks on it;[922]—the exercise of the
energies of concentration or “individuation” developes these energies at
the expense of those of diffusion or “genesis;”—the individual is made
strong in himself, at the expense of his power of creating new
individuals. Quite apart from the disagreeable fact that this principle
would lessen the pressure most in those classes where lessening is at
present least needed, and least where it is most needed, Malthus would
probably have pointed out, first, that unless the appetite is absolutely
killed, no physiological check can supersede some control of the will
over the passion,—and, second, that intellectual development will more
certainly check population by making men alive to their responsibilities
and strengthening their power of restraint than by weakening the passion
to be restrained. The expounder of the theory is of all people the least
likely to teach men that they may become civilized by the progress of
their race without the trouble of civilizing themselves individually.
But his theory admits the misapplication; and, if it be said by the
misappliers that we ought to tell the truth without fear of
consequences, we must answer that in this case the consequences are part
of the truth. On the other hand, to theorists like W. R. Greg, who
suggest unknown physiological laws that may act as a spontaneous check,
Malthus would have replied as to Condorcet:[923]
“What can we reason but from what we know?”
This brief survey of typical critics and commentators may be completed
by a classification of the former, which, among other advantages, will
give a bird’s-eye view of the chief points in discussion. Empson
classified the opponents of Malthus by their motives,[924] a proceeding
hardly fair either to them or to the essay itself. It is not fair to
them, for as a rule the critics appeal to argument, and must be judged
by what they adduce, not by their good or ill will, wisdom or folly, in
adducing it; and not fair to the essay, because few books have owed so
much to their reviewers.
The positions of the critics may be classified as follows:—
I. Some say the doctrine of the essay is a truism.[925]
II. Others admit that it is unanswerable, but retain a philosophical
faith in the future discovery of some contrary principle.[926]
III. Others find fault with the details of the doctrine, either (_a_) in
regard to the ratios of increase, asserting that no tendency to a
geometrical increase of population has been proved, but something much
less rapid, even (a few say) a decreasing ratio,[927]—and that no mere
arithmetical increase of food has been proved, but something much more
rapid,[928]—or (_b_) in regard to the checks on population, asserting
that no checks are necessary,[929]—that vice and misery sometimes add to
population instead of checking it,[930]—that to include moral restraint
is to stultify the original doctrine,[931]—that moral restraint
sometimes involves as great evil as excessive numbers, both from the
personal practice of it and from the preaching of it to
others,[932]—that important checks have been omitted, the chief being
misgovernment,[933] bad laws,[934] high feeding,[935] intellectual
development,[936] and those of Owen.[937]
There is, besides, an _a priori_ criticism, which is either (I.)
ecclesiastical,[938] alleging that Malthus contradicts the Bible or some
other authority,—(II.) theological,[939] that he denies Providence,—or
(III.) doctrinaire,[940] that he denies natural rights and the
pre-established harmony of moral and economical laws, and the instinct
of equality,—or (IV.) ethical and popular,[941] that he runs counter to
the moral sense and the natural benevolence of men and cosmopolitan
morality. These arguments have been already considered. The fourth of
them has, in its last branch, an appearance of truth, because Malthus
has certainly pled less for the cosmopolitan than for the domestic and
civic virtues. He wishes to lay the foundations solidly and leave the
building to others. Cosmopolitan morality can rarely be the foundation.
In the Empire, Christianity may have raised the people, and Stoicism the
philosophers, to the wider morality without the training of the
narrower, so that the converts were made better members of their own
small communities by becoming members of the commonwealth of the saints
and citizens of the great world. But it seems to Malthus that, in the
world of to-day, the many conditions of a steady moral progress are best
secured if the domestic and civic virtues precede the cosmopolitan. We
must not legislate for a world of heroes, but for men as we know them to
be; and a comfortable domestic life (βίος τέλειος) must be the common
highway to goodness in a society of ordinary men. If poverty were no
evil, churlishness would be no vice. But extreme poverty[942] is a real
hindrance to goodness. In the apparent exceptions, as in the voluntary
poverty of St. Francis, the greatest evil is absent, for there is no
struggle for bare life. To abolish that struggle, and help men to
comfort, is in some degree to help men to goodness; and it was the end
for which Malthus laboured. The most sure and solid way of reaching it
lay, as he thought, in impressing every man with a strong sense of his
responsibility for his acts and of his power over his own destiny. To
reform a nation, we must reform the members of it, who, if they are good
at first in spite of their institutions, will at last conform their
institutions to the model of their own goodness. To hold men the
creatures of society, and make society responsible for their character,
was, he thought, to mistake the order of nature. Society can feel its
responsibility only in its individual members; and no member of it can
free his own soul by the purity of a collective or representative
conscience.
The doctrine of Malthus is, therefore, a strong appeal to personal
responsibility. He would make men strong in will, to subdue their animal
wants to their notion of personal good and personal goodness, which, he
believed, could never fail to develope into the common good and goodness
of all. Believers in the omnipotence of outward circumstances and the
powerlessness of the human will, to alter them or the human character,
may put Malthus beyond the pale of sympathy. But all can enter into the
mind of Malthus and understand his work, who know the hardness of the
struggle between the flesh and the spirit, and yet believe in the power
of ideas to change the lives of men, and have faith not only in the
rigour of natural laws, but in man’s power to conquer nature by obeying
her.
BOOK V.
BIOGRAPHY.
Parentage—Early Education—Graves and Wakefield—Course at
Cambridge—Correspondence with his Father—Change in Studies—The
_Crisis_ and the Curacy—Effect of the Essay on its Author—Early and
Late Styles—Life from 1799 to 1834—_Ingrata Patria?_—East India
College—Professor’s Lectures—_Hic Jacet_.
The few facts that are known of the life of Malthus bring us nearer to
him than we can come in his writings, and show us how well, on the
whole, his antecedents and surroundings fitted him for his work. Our
chief authorities are Bishop Otter’s biographical preface to the second
edition of our author’s _Political Economy_, which was posthumously
published in 1836, and Professor Empson’s notice of the book in the
_Edinburgh Review_ for January 1837.[943] Otter was the college
companion and life-long friend of Malthus; Empson was his colleague at
Haileybury. The information they give us, though meagre, is trustworthy;
and happily it can be supplemented by hints from other quarters.
His father, Daniel Malthus, was born in 1730, and went to Queen’s
College, Oxford, in 1747,[944] the year when Adam Smith went home from
Balliol to Scotland. He left without a degree, not because of the
Articles, for he subscribed them at matriculation,[945] or from Dr.
Johnson’s reason of poverty, for he was a gentleman commoner, but
probably from a contempt for the distinction itself.[946] His mind was
active and open, and he seems to have formed literary friendships that
stood his son in good stead afterwards. He liked to stay up in Oxford in
vacation, working hard at his own studies in his own ways, and seeing
none but chosen friends. He wrote to his son in later years, “I used to
think Oxford none the less pleasant and certainly not the less useful
for being disburdened of some of its society; I imagine you will say the
same of Cambridge.”[947] On leaving the university he married and went
to live in Surrey at a quiet country house on the way from Dorking to
Guildford, still known by its old name of the Rookery. Of his eldest
son, who took his grandfather’s name of Sydenham,[948] we know little
except that in due time he married, and had two sons, Sydenham and
Charles, and a daughter Mary. Mary died single in 1881 in her
eighty-second year, Charles in 1821 in his fifteenth, their father in
1821 in his sixty-eighth. Sydenham, our author’s nephew, who died in
1869, was proprietor of Dalton Hill, Albury, where members of his family
were, till recently, still living; his son, Lieut.-Col. Sydenham
Malthus, C.B., of the 94th Regiment, served with distinction in the Zulu
war a few years ago.
Daniel’s second son, Thomas Robert, familiarly known as Robert, was born
at the Rookery on 14th February, 1766, the year when Rousseau came to
England. His mother seems to have died before her husband; she is not
mentioned in our meagre biographies.[949] His father, full of the
teaching of the Émile, and by no means prejudiced by his Oxford
experience in favour of the ordinary conventional training of the
English youth, seems to have sent his sons to no public school of any
kind, and in all probability brought them up at home under his own eye
for the first eight or nine years of their life. We may think of Robert,
therefore, as passing his childhood without privation, if without
luxury, in the home of an English country gentleman of moderate fortune,
who was devoted to books and botany, fireside and hillside
philosophizing,[950] and the improvement of his house and grounds,—a man
full of life and originality, gifted with vigorous health, and joining
in his boys’ walks and games.[951] In his quiet little valley it was
easy for Daniel Malthus to picture to himself a Millennial Hall of the
future in store for every one else, on the type of his own Rookery, with
no worse interruption than the rooks that cawed there nightly on the
hill above him. From his son’s description[952] and his own letters, we
gather that he was one of the best sort of the Enlightened followers of
Nature. He knew Rousseau personally, and became his executor;[953] but
they were liker in views than in character; Daniel Malthus had a deeper
vein of reverence and a stronger inclination to put theory into
practice.[954] The neighbours thought him an amiable and clever man who
was an ornament to his parish, but decidedly eccentric, for he made few
friends and was fondest of his own and his children’s company.[955] He
was versed beyond his compeers in French and German literature, or he
would hardly have been credited with having translated _Paul et
Virginie_, D’Ermenonville’s _Essay on Landscape_, and the _Sorrows of
Werther_. We have Robert’s authority for saying that, although he wrote
no translations, he wrote many pieces that were very successful, but
always anonymous.[956] With much of his son’s talent, he had no power,
like his son’s, of sustained intellectual effort.
He saw the boy’s promise early, and gave him an education which is
condemned by Robert’s chief biographer as irregular and desultory, but
had a method in it. He believed that sons are always what their fathers
were at their age, with the same kind of faults and virtues; and the men
whose influence would have been best for himself would, he thought, be
the best teachers for Robert. At the same time he believed with the
“Émile” that a sort of _laissez faire_ was the best policy in the
education of children; they should be left to grow, and use their own
eyes and hands and heads for themselves. At the age of nine or ten, say
in the year 1776, Robert was accordingly delivered over to Mr. Richard
Graves, Rector of Claverton, near Bath, to be taught little but Latin
and good behaviour, along with a few other boys, most of them older than
himself. Graves, who was Daniel’s senior by some years, had been
intimate with the poet Shenstone at Pembroke College, Oxford, “a society
which for half a century” (on Johnson’s partial testimony) “was eminent
for English poetry and elegant literature.” From his novel, _The
Spiritual Quixote, or the Summer’s Ramble of Mr. Geoffry
Wildgoose_,[957] we should not fancy him the best guide for ingenuous
youth. The book is a coarse and offensive satire on Whitfield and
Wesley;[958] and shows Graves as a clergyman to be liker Laurence Sterne
than Dr. Primrose. “Don Roberto,” however, as the tutor nicknamed his
pupil, was fonder of fun and fighting than of his books, and at the ripe
age of ten is not likely to have been troubled about the universe or
about clerical consistency. From Graves he passed[959] into the hands of
a much better man, Gilbert Wakefield, a clergyman who had rebelled
against the Articles, turned dissenter, and become classical master of
an academy at Warrington, founded in 1779 “to provide a course of
liberal education for the sons of dissenters, and particularly for
dissenting ministers.”[960] About one-third of the boys at the
Warrington Academy were sons of members of the Church of England, who
were, like Daniel Malthus, liberal in their opinions, and wished their
sons to be likewise. Wakefield held decided views on education; and they
were in close accordance with Daniel and the Émile. “The greatest
service of tuition,” he said, “to any youth, is to teach him the
exercise of his own powers, to conduct him to the hill of knowledge by
that gradual process in which he sees and secures his own way, and
rejoices in a consciousness of his own faculties and his own
proficiency. Puppies and sciolists alone can be expected to be formed by
any other process.”[961] The tutor’s best service is to point the pupil
to the best authors and give him advice (not lectures) when he wants it.
There was self-denial as well as wisdom in Wakefield’s view, for in one
case at least the pupil showed his proficiency by departing from the
opinions of his tutor.
Wakefield, himself a Fellow of Jesus,[962] procured Malthus an entrance
to that college, and directed his studies till he matriculated there as
a pensioner (or ordinary commoner) on 17th December, 1784, beginning
residence in 1785.[963] Robert esteemed him highly. He described him
twenty years afterwards[964] as a man “of the strictest and most
inflexible integrity,” who gave up not only prospects of preferment, but
even opportunities of usefulness, rather than deny the truth and offend
his conscience,—a man hot and intemperate in public controversy,[965]
but modest and genial in society, never advancing his opinions till
challenged, nor trying to make converts to them, but urging others to an
independent study of the facts,—finally, a genius cramped by its own
learning and good memory, never taking time and pains to do itself
justice in its writings. Though a foe to the thirty-nine Articles,
Wakefield was a stout believer in Christianity, and attacked Paine’s
_Age of Reason_ in a rough style that contrasts strongly with the sober
remarks of Malthus on Paine’s _Rights of Man_.
Up to 1785, therefore, his father and Wakefield had the largest share in
the education of Malthus; and their influence was shown in the very fact
that the opinions of Malthus were not fixed by them. His opinions were
to be of his own forming; and, having never learned the schoolboy’s
ambition of prize-taking,[966] he found time at college not only for
what would give him the best degree, but for every study that interested
him, especially history and poetry and modern languages, as in his later
years for Italian literature. Frend, author of a political tract, _Peace
and Union_, which brought him the honour of prosecution,[967] was his
college tutor, and spoke highly of him.[968] It says much for his
mathematical powers that in spite of his wide general reading he took
the ninth place among the wranglers of his year, 1788. If he had been
confining himself, as his father supposed, to the beaten track, he
might, like Paley, have reached the senior wranglership.[969] After the
Tripos he proposed to study at Cambridge and at home on a plan of his
own. His father, on the false analogy of his own experience, had warned
him against the abstract studying of scientific and mathematical
principles apart from their applications; he must not “work curious
stitches on a piece of rag”; he must become a practical surveyor,
mechanic, and navigator. The son had answered that there would be ample
time after the Tripos to make the applications, and there was little
enough time in three years to study the principles. But thereafter, “if
you will give me leave to proceed in my own plans of reading for the
next two years (I speak with submission to your judgment), I promise you
at the expiration of that time to be a decent natural philosopher, and
not only to know a few principles, but to be able to apply these
principles in a variety of useful problems.”[970] In reality, so far
from having his father’s tendency to abstract speculation, he was (as he
says himself) rather “remarked in college for talking of what actually
exists in nature or may be put to real practical use.”[971]
Though the son had the best of this personal controversy, he would have
done well to have responded to his father’s letters in the spirit in
which they were written; in one instance at least, his father complains
that Robert “drove him back into himself.” But this was rare. His father
describes him as an admirable companion, sympathetic and generous, and
making everybody easy and amused about him.[972] He was a favourite at
home. When the family was removing from the Rookery at Dorking to the
Cottage[973] at Albury in 1787, he was told: “You must find your way to
us over bricks and tiles and meet with five in a bed and some of us
under hedges, but everybody says they will make room for Robert.” It was
Robert’s own warm heart that led him to give those years of leisure
after the Tripos to studies very different from those of his first plan.
Social problems were competing for his attention with scientific.
In 1797 he took his Master’s degree. In the same year he got a
fellowship at his college; wrote but, on his father’s advice, did not
print the _Crisis_;[974] and took a curacy near Albury. If the _Crisis_
did nothing more, it showed how the attention of the man was fixing
itself on the subjects that engrossed him during life, and how his
character was changing from gay to grave. It is difficult for a reader
of the later _Essay_ or the _Political Economy_ to conceive that the
writer could ever have been very merry in heart or light in touch; and
there is a still wider distance between the pugnacious Don Roberto,
never long without a black eye, and the grave gentle host of Miss
Martineau at the East India College. The change in style between his
early writings and his later was due to a real change in character,
produced by the concentration of his thoughts on the problem of poverty.
The success of the first _Essay on Population_[975] fixed for him the
work of his life. He was to set one neglected truth clearly before the
world; and he devoted himself wholly to it, pushing his inquiries not
only by study of authorities and facts at home,[976] but by his own[977]
and his friends’[978] travels, and by conversation and correspondence
with all that were likely to give him anything in conference.[979] He
sacrificed to it, fortunately or unfortunately, his youthful buoyancy
and freshness of style, though in speculation his opinions passed from
pessimism to a moderate optimism, and he was never too old in spirit to
unlearn a fault.
In his mature writings the composition is less faulty than the diction,
which is certainly too Johnsonian. The composition is a little bald and
often diffuse; but the meaning of each sentence is always clear, and in
economical writing that is the first of virtues. In a work of
imagination we may desire to have the greatest number of the greatest
ideas put into each sentence; but a scientific treatise is more often
concerned with a single truth in its full development; and the perpetual
recurrence of the same phrases in different connections is unavoidable,
in proportion to the thoroughness of the discussion. Great variety of
language would either imply in the writer or cause in the reader some
confusion of thought. It is not surprising, then, to find Malthus saying
substantially the same thing in nearly the same words, whether he is
presenting his views on Population directly in a book on the subject, or
placing them in their economical context in a book on Political Economy,
or touching them incidentally in a Corn Law pamphlet or _Quarterly_
article, or answering questions about them before a Commons Committee.
His abundant metaphors in the first essay[980] had simply led to
misunderstanding; and he deliberately renounced fine writing for high
thinking, present popularity for permanent usefulness.[981]
The first essay was the turning-point in his literary life. Except the
pamphlets on Haileybury College, all his later writings are economical.
His personal history, being uneventful, was, like a time of dull annals,
presumably happy. The fine portrait of him by Linnell,[982] taken in his
old age, gives a pleasing impression, not only of mildness and firmness,
but of serene contentment, without any trace of physical suffering or
physical defect, though it is certain he had the latter.[983] In person
he was tall and “elegantly formed.”[984] 1799 is the year of his first
Continental journey.[985] In January 1800 his father died, at the age of
seventy. In the same year appeared the tract on _The High Price of
Provisions_. In 1802 Malthus was again on the Continent.[986] In June
1803 he published the second (or quarto) essay, which seems, from a
passage in Edward Clarke’s _Travels_, to have been long expected by his
friends. “I am sorry,” writes Clarke to him from Constantinople on 16th
March, 1802, “to find you confess your breach of duty in not having
written a book. But you have been engaged in the press, because I heard
at the Palace that you had published a new edition of your _Population_,
and, moreover, I was there assured so long ago as last year that you had
written a work on the Scarcity of Corn. How does this accord with your
declaration? Perhaps it is a pamphlet, and therefore strictly not ‘a
book.’”[987]
It is not impossible that Clarke had heard this rumour from Lord Elgin,
and Lord Elgin from Pitt himself, for Pitt had visited Cambridge on the
eve of the dissolution following the Peace of Amiens. On the 16th
(December 1801) he was present at the Commemoration dinner in Trinity
College Hall.[988] The visit is described by Otter:[989] “It happened
that Mr. Pitt was at this time upon a sort of canvassing visit at the
university.... At a supper at Jesus Lodge in the company of some young
travellers, particularly Mr. Malthus, &c., he was induced to unbend in a
very easy conversation respecting Sir Sidney Smith, the massacre at
Jaffa, the Pacha of Acre, Clarke, Carlisle,[990] &c.” Though the talk
was largely on poetry and foreign politics, it may easily have embraced
economics; and the personal meeting may have helped to gain Malthus his
appointment as Professor of History and Political Economy at Haileybury
College. With or without Pitt, the appointment was made in 1805; and in
view of it Malthus was able to carry out, on 13th March 1804, his
marriage with Harriet Eckersall (daughter of John Eckersall of Claverton
House, St. Catherine’s, near Bath), to whom he had probably been for
some years engaged.[991] In 1806 he published the third edition of the
essay (in two volumes), in 1807 the fourth edition, and also the letter
to Samuel Whitbread on his Bill for amending the Poor Laws. If it is
true that he visited Owen at New Lanark, it must have been in the course
of the next seven years.[992] There is nothing signed from his pen in
that time but a letter to Lord Grenville in defence of the East India
College;[993] but in 1814 and 1815 he wrote the _Observations on the
Corn Laws_, the _Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of restricting
Importation_, and _The Nature and Progress of Rent_. In 1807 he had been
with Horner in Wales, impressing Horner, as they went together from
Raglan to Abergavenny, with his idea that the people should “live
dear”;[994] and in 1817 he visited Kerry and Westmeath. In the same
year, 1817, he published the fifth edition of his essay. 1818 would be
memorable to him as the year when Mackintosh joined him at Haileybury as
Professor of General Polity and Law in succession to Mr. Christian. In
1819 Malthus appears as Fellow of the Royal Society, though the honour
did not tempt him back into physical science.[995] In 1820 appeared the
first edition of the _Political Economy_. In 1821, Thomas Tooke, the
author of _High and Low Prices_, founded the Political Economy Club,
James Mill drafting the rules. Malthus, Grote, and Ricardo were among
its members; and the survivors are said to remember well the “crushing
criticisms” by James Mill of Malthus’ speeches.[996]
1823 is the year of the tract on the _Measure of Value_ and the
_Quarterly_ article on Tooke; 1824 of the paper on Population in the
_Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica_, and the article on the New
Political Economy in the _Quarterly Review_.[997] In 1825 he lost a
daughter, and went for his own and his wife’s health to the Continent.
In that year he contributed his first paper to the Royal Society of
Literature, of which he had been made an Associate two years before; and
that year saw Empson take the place of Mackintosh at Haileybury. In 1826
was published the sixth edition of the essay, the last published in his
lifetime. In 1827 we find him before the Emigration Committee, and we
have from his pen the _Definitions in Political Economy_, and the second
paper contributed to the Royal Society of Literature. In 1829 letters
passed between him and W. Nassau Senior, which were appended by the
latter to his _Lectures on Population_. In 1830 he wrote the _Summary
View_, which involved no new effort. Indeed his whole time seems to have
been spent in revising his _Political Economy_ in the light of his
public and private discussions with Ricardo, though he did not live to
print the new edition himself. Shortly before his death he said to some
one who rebuked him for his delay: “My views are before the public. If I
am to alter anything, I can do little more than alter the language, and
I don’t know if I should alter it for the better” (Empson, _l. c._ p.
472). He was one of the first Fellows of the Statistical Society,
founded in March 1834, and its first Annual Report contains a high
eulogy on him and his work; but he did not live to take much share in
its proceedings. He died suddenly of heart disease on Monday, 29th
December, 1834, on a visit to Mr. Eckersall at St. Catherine’s, where he
was spending Christmas with his wife and family. He is buried in the
Abbey Church at Bath, in the north aisle of the nave. Of his three
children, two survived him, of whom one, a daughter, is still
living.[998]
Brougham, in a letter to Macvey Napier (31st Jan., 1837), denies the
truth of an assertion of Empson’s, that Lords Lansdowne and Holland
tried to get preferment for Malthus, but failed; on the contrary, he had
himself, he says, offered Malthus a living, but Malthus had declined it
in favour of his son, Henry,[999] “who got it, and I believe now has
it.” Henry, however, did not become vicar of Effingham (near Leatherhead
in Surrey) till 1835, the year after his father’s death,—or of
Donnington (near Chichester in Sussex) till 1837, the year when Brougham
was writing. The second appointment may have been due to Empson’s
reproach or Otter’s influence. Henry died in August 1882 at the age of
seventy-six. Since, between the two parishes, he kept as many as four
curates at a time, the combined salaries of the two, amounting to £672,
seem a small income.[1000] His father himself told Gallois, the French
publicist, in 1820, that all his works till then had not brought him
above £1000. Gallois, repeating this to the poet Moore, slily remarked
that in England poetry seemed to be better paid than useful
learning.[1001] There is no reason for the belief that Malthus was made
rich by the second essay,[1002] or indeed by anything else. He did not
go the right way to be rich. He could no doubt have got Church
preferment if he had pursued it like Paley. At the end of his days, even
if he had desired it, he was too mild a partisan to be a _grata persona_
to the Whigs in office; he had acquiesced in the Reform of 1832, but
without enthusiasm,[1003] having a livelier interest in social than in
political changes. But the world after all used him kindly. Of worldly
comfort, after 1805, he had enough; and he was fully satisfied, as he
had reason to be, with his lot in the East India College. It gave him
nearly thirty years of the leisure which Godwin had justly counted the
true riches of life.
The position had its cares, for the college was an educational
experiment. Governor-General Wellesley[1004] had proposed to found a
college at Fort William, Calcutta, for the general education of the
civil servants of the Company as well as their special instruction in
Oriental languages. He pointed out that their functions, judicial,
administrative, diplomatic, were now totally unlike their names of
writer, factor, and merchant, and they needed something higher than the
commercial training which was all that was then required of them. The
Directors of the East India Company carried out his wishes so far as to
allow Fort William College to do the advanced training in languages; but
they thought that the general education should be given before the
cadets left England, and at the end of 1805 they passed a scheme for
establishing for that purpose a college at Haileybury, near Hertford. On
their nomination, instead of going out at once to India, the future
civil servants of India were to spend two or three years at Haileybury,
and to receive _first_ a General education on the lines of Oxford and
Cambridge, and _second_ a Special education to prepare them for their
duties in their province.[1005] The Professor of “History and Political
Economy” and the Professor of “General Polity and the Laws of England”
were regarded as giving both the general and the special kinds of
training. “As the study of law and political economy” (so runs the
scheme) “is to form an essential part in the general system of
education, it will be required that, in the lectures upon these
subjects, particular attention be given to the explanation of the
political and commercial relations subsisting between India and Great
Britain.”[1006] The two professors were required to give “(1) a course
of lectures on general history and on the history and statistics of the
modern nations of Europe, (2) a course of lectures on political economy,
(3) a course of lectures on general polity, on the laws of England and
principles of the British Constitution.”[1007] The other subjects were
Classics, Oriental Languages, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy. The
college course lasted, as a rule, two years, each year consisting of two
terms of about five months each (Feb. to June, Aug. to Dec.); and there
were periodical examinations, honour lists, and prizes. The ages of the
pupils ranged from as low as fifteen to as high as twenty-two, and about
forty joined every year. Malthus would seldom have a class beyond twelve
or fourteen, all in the later year of their course.[1008]
The general discipline of the classes and the surveillance or want of
surveillance of the pupils in their private rooms were rather on the
model of an unreformed Oxford college than of a public school.[1009]
Sense of personal responsibility and habits of self-government were to
take the place of the schoolboy’s fear of punishment. Unhappily, before
learning the new motives, the boys too often abused the absence of the
old.[1010]
About half of the professors were in holy orders and did duty in the
college chapel. If Malthus took his turn with the rest, we need not
suppose with his clerical biographer that he magnified the office. His
sermons would always be earnest; they might often perhaps be too long.
His week-day lectures, unless he made them liker the first essay with
its fine writing than the later books with their plain unvarnished
arguments, could not have been very fascinating to immature youths,
especially as the lecturer had a slight defect in utterance.[1011] Eight
years of teaching convinced him that Political Economy was not, as he
once thought, too hard for boys of sixteen or seventeen;—“they could not
only understand it,” he said, “but they did not even think it
dull.”[1012] We may hope it was so; but in view of the whole case, it is
probable that our author’s labours, in the classroom and out of it, were
far from light, and that the pleasantness of the life was purchased with
a large share of discomfort.
The physical surroundings were all that could be desired. “We are so
rural and quiet here, that there can be no greater contrast [to London].
This house is in a cluster of tall shrubs and young trees, with a little
bit of smooth lawn sloping to a bright pond, in which old weeping
willows are dipping their hair, and rows of young pear trees admiring
their blooming faces. Indeed, there never was such a flash of shadowing
high-hanging flowers as we have around us; and almost all, as it
happens, of that pure, silvery, snowy, bridal tint; and we live, like
Campbell’s sweet Gertrude, ‘as if beneath a galaxy of overhanging
sweets, with blossoms white.’ There are young horse-chestnuts with
flowers half a yard long, fresh, full-clustered white lilacs, tall
Guelder roses, broadspreading pear and cherry trees, low thickets of
blooming sloe, and crowds of juicy-looking detached thorns, quite
covered with their fragrant May-flowers, half open, like ivory filigree,
and half shut like Indian pearls, and all so fresh and dewy since the
milky showers of yesterday; and resounding with nightingales, and
thrushes, and skylarks, shrilling high up, overhead, among the dazzling
slow-sailing clouds. Not to be named, I know and feel as much as you can
do, with your Trossachs, and Loch Lomonds, and Inverarys; but very
sweet, and vernal, and soothing, and fit enough to efface all
recollections of hot, swarming, whirling, and bustling London from all
good minds.”[1013]
Equally pleasant is a glimpse of the daily life at Haileybury, given by
Miss Martineau, who saw it in 1833. Malthus considered her one of his
best expositors;—“whereas his friends had done him all manner of
mischief by defending him injudiciously, my tales had represented his
views precisely as he could have wished;”—and he was at the pains to
seek her out in London and bring her down to the college.[1014] “It was
a delightful visit, and the well-planted county of Herts was a welcome
change from the pavement of London in August.... My room was a large and
airy one, with a bay window and a charming view.”[1015] She found desk,
books, and everything needed for her work. Her entertainers had guessed
from her books that she must be, like Malthus himself,[1016] fond of
riding; and she found her riding-habit and whip ready. Exploring the
green lanes round Amwell, Ware, and Hertford, on horseback, in parties
of five or six, seems to have been the chief amusement. “The subdued
jests and external homage and occasional insurrections of the young men,
the archery of the young ladies, the curious politeness of the Persian
professor [Ibrahim], the fine learning and eager scholarship of
Principal[1017] Le Bas, and the somewhat old-fashioned courtesies of the
summer evening parties are all over now, except as pleasant pictures in
the interior gallery of those who knew the place, of whom I am thankful
to have been one.”
When she again visited Haileybury, Malthus was gone; Professor Jones was
in his chair, and Empson in his house, probably one of the most
comfortable in a building which, if smaller, was much more picturesque
than the present school.[1018]
The “occasional insurrections of the young men” were a feature of the
college from the beginning. Sydney Smith writes to Lord Holland in June
1810, when there was talk of making Mackintosh professor at Haileybury:
“The season for lapidating the professors is now at hand; keep
Mackintosh quiet at Holland House till all is over;”[1019] and to
Whishaw in January 1818, when the appointment had been made: “His
situation at Hertford will suit him very well, peltings and contusions
always excepted. He should stipulate for ‘pebble money,’ as it is
technically termed, or an annual pension in case he is disabled by the
pelting of the students. By the bye, might it not be advisable for the
professors to learn the use of the sling (_balearia habena_)? It would
give them a great advantage over the students.”[1020] The lapidations
were probably no worse than similar scenes at our English and Scotch
Universities that have not yet destroyed the credit of these
institutions. But the opponents of the college complained of much more
than the insubordination of the students. Lord Grenville had made an
attack on it (in April 1813), on the ground that it separated the future
Civil servants from the ordinary life of Englishmen, and prevented them
from becoming imbued with “English manners, English attachments, English
principles, and I am not ashamed to say English prejudices.”[1021]
Malthus, who had gone up to London to hear Grenville’s speech in the
House of Lords, became champion of the college, and had no difficulty in
meeting this assault. The defence of the professors, as set forth by him
in 1817,[1022] was that the plan of the college was good in theory and
had proved good in practice. The insubordination was due to the
dependence of the professorial staff upon the Company’s Directors, who
had (till then) withheld from the teachers their best means of
discipline, the power of expulsion.
The students were as little likely as army or navy cadets to become
un-English; and they were much less likely to form a caste at Haileybury
than if they had been sent to an Indian college. The details of this
extinct controversy need not detain us. It is enough to say that Malthus
discharged his part with great vigour and something of his early
vivacity. At the best, it must be confessed, the college was a
compromise; and the unavoidable difficulties of the situation were quite
enough to try the mettle of the teachers. The cadets of the first year
might be fifteen or they might be eighteen, and there was no natural
aristocracy of senior boys to check the juniors. Those of the younger
age were physically and mentally more like schoolboys than
undergraduates, and unfit, as yet, for the quasi-independent life of the
latter. Many were unwilling to go to India at all, and it was their
parents or guardians who really feared the expulsion of incorrigibles.
But it was better that the unfit should be rejected in England, where
they could find other openings, than in India, where they could find
none; and it was better their training should be carried on where the
climate, the expense, and the moral, social, and intellectual advantages
were in keeping with their age and their state of pupilage. “Little
other change is wanting,” in the system as it then was, “than that an
appointment should be considered in spirit and in truth, not in mere
words, as a prize to be contended for, not a property already
possessed,[1023] which may be lost. If the Directors were to appoint
one-fifth every year beyond the number finally to go out, and the
four-fifths were to be the beat of the whole body, the appointments
would then really be prizes to be contended for, and the effects would
be admirable. Each appointment to the college would then be of less
value; but they would be more in number, and the patronage would hardly
suffer. A Director could not then, indeed, be able to send out an
unqualified son. But is it fitting that he should? This is a fair
question for the consideration of the Legislature and the British
public.”[1024] In these matters, at least, Malthus was no reactionary.
In spite of Joseph Hume and its other enemies, the college lived out its
half-century, and does not die out, on the pages of the _India
Register_, till the death of the Company in 1858. Its monopoly was gone
some time before then. An Act of 1827 provided, theoretically, for the
examination and appointment of India Civil servants who had not studied
at Hertford College. In 1833 provision was made for the limited
competition which Malthus had recommended.[1025] In 1855 came the end.
The Company was “relieved of the obligation to keep up the college;” the
reign of open competition, ushered in by Macaulay’s Report (Nov. 1854),
brought a new order of things; and the college was only continued till
those who had joined it at the time of the change had been able to
finish their course.[1026] There are numbers of old officials, like Sir
William Muir, who still hold it in affectionate remembrance;[1027] but
except in their memory it exists no more.
The work of Malthus was less in the East India College than in his
writings. But his connection with the college was perhaps the most
important of the external facts of his life; and it has helped to
preserve a record of scenes and incidents which reveal the character
more clearly than all the adjectives of panegyrists. Otter, Empson, Miss
Martineau, Sydney Smith,[1028] and Horner,[1029] may supply the
panegyrics; and the eulogy of Mackintosh is remarkable: “I have known
Adam Smith slightly, Ricardo well, Malthus intimately. Is it not
something to say for a science that its three great masters were about
the three best men I ever knew?”[1030]
His epitaph in Bath Abbey, probably from the pen of Otter, is given on
the following page.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY
of
=The Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus,=
LONG KNOWN TO THE LETTERED WORLD
BY HIS ADMIRABLE WRITINGS ON THE SOCIAL BRANCHES OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY,
PARTICULARLY BY HIS “ESSAY ON POPULATION.”
ONE OF THE BEST MEN AND TRUEST PHILOSOPHERS
OF ANY AGE OR COUNTRY,
RAISED BY NATIVE DIGNITY OF MIND
ABOVE THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE IGNORANT
AND THE NEGLECT OF THE GREAT,
HE LIVED A SERENE AND HAPPY LIFE,
DEVOTED TO THE PURSUIT AND COMMUNICATION
OF TRUTH,
SUPPORTED BY A CALM BUT FIRM CONVICTION OF THE
USEFULNESS OF HIS LABOURS,
CONTENT WITH THE APPROBATION OF THE WISE AND GOOD.
HIS WRITINGS WILL BE A LASTING MONUMENT
OF THE EXTENT AND CORRECTNESS OF HIS UNDERSTANDING.
THE SPOTLESS INTEGRITY OF HIS PRINCIPLES,
THE EQUITY AND CANDOUR OF HIS NATURE,
HIS SWEETNESS OF TEMPER, URBANITY OF MANNERS,
AND TENDERNESS OF HEART,
HIS BENEVOLENCE AND HIS PIETY,
ARE THE STILL DEARER RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FAMILY
AND FRIENDS.
_Born Feb. 14, 1766._ _Died Dec. 29, 1834._
INDEX.
Abbot, Chas., mover of Enumeration Bill, 173, 178
Africa, 105, 111
America, North, 17, 28, 69 _seq._;
Indians, 89 _seq._, 105, 111, 143, 167, 174, &c.;
cf. 369, 370 (American increase)
America, South, 88
Anderson, Adam, 173, 174
Anderson, Jas., 221, 377
Arabs, 109, 110
Aristotle, 113, 211, 214, 319, 356, 384
Bacon, Francis, 22, 47, 66, 124, 396
Bagehot, Walter, 227, 383
Ball, John, 385
Bamford, Sam., 298
Bentham, Jeremy, 43, 44, 323, 325, 331
Berkeley, Bishop, 201
Bert, Paul, 371
Births, no criterion of numbers, 149;
or of increase, 179;
cf. 161
Board of Agriculture, 176, 186, 216–218
Booth, David, 362, 371
Bosanquet, Chas., 291
Bounties, 31, 217, 220, &c.
Brassey, Thos., 257
Brougham, H., 228, 415
Brown, Dr. J., ‘Estimate,’ 173
Bruckner, Dr. John, of Norwich, 8
Buckle, H. T., 22, 33
Bullion Committee, 285 _seq._
Caird, Jas., 69, 75, 76, 245
Cairnes, J. E., 138, 245, 261
Cannibalism, 94
Carey, H. C., 65, 68, 70, 239, 395
Census, Swedish, 132;
English, B. I. ch. vii.
Chalmers, Geo., 174
Chalmers, Dr. Thos., 316, 409
Chartism, 298
Checks on population, classified, 52, 81, _passim_ B. I. and B. IV.
China, 112, 113
Clarke, Edw., 48, 127, B. V. _passim_
Cobbett, Wm., 6 and note, 287, 290, 298, 338, 363, 395
Cobden, R., 225, 287, 353;
cf. 55
Coleridge, S. T., the Poet, 22, 48, 95, 111, 371 _seq._;
the MS. notes genuine? 374;
cf. 48, 377
Comte, Auguste, 20, 344;
cf. 213
Comte, Charles, 413, 416
Condorcet, Marquis de, 11, 22–24, 30, 31, 375, &c.
Conversion of the world, the postulate of Socialism as of Christianity,
392
Cook, Captain, _passim_ B. I. ch. iv.
Co-operation, 232, 300, 352, 392
Copleston, Dr. E., 363
Corn Laws, B. II. ch. i.;
corn as measure of value, 224, 255–6
Corn Law Catechism, 227, 308
Cosmology of Malthus, 34 _seq._
Cosmopolitanism, 347, 356, 396;
cf. 328
Cripps, 127
Critics of Malthus, I, 45, B. IV. _passim_
Currency, 226–7, and B. II. ch. iii.
Cycle, 83, 84, 147
Darwin, Chas., 24, 46, 363
Decreasing returns, law of, 234 _seq._;
cf. 37, 74, 78
‘Definitions in Pol. Econ.,’ 211, 265, and generally B. II. ch. ii.
Dependence on the foreigner, 217, 225, 233;
dependent poverty, 310
Depopulation controversy, 173 _seq._
Depreciation of currency, 285, and generally B. II. ch. iii.;
cf. 227, 248–9
Distribution, when keeping pace with production, 166
Doubleday, Thos., 396
Dyer, T. H., 339
Eckersall, Harriet (Mrs. Malthus), 412;
cf. 322
Economists, 47, 247, 248, 276
Economy, political, its method, &c., B. II. ch. i.;
Club first founded, 263, 413;
place among the studies of youth, 419
Eden, Sir Fred., ‘the State of the Poor’ (1797), 248, 310, &c.
‘Edinburgh Review,’ notice of Malthus, 43;
connection with Malthus, 33, 329, 364, 371, 412;
but _see_ ‘Malthus, T. R.’;
notice of Godwin, 12, 368, 371
Education, 56, 77, 275, 298, 301, 340, 341;
cf. 403, 404, 419, 420
Egypt, 111
Emigration, B. I. ch. v.;
Commons Committee, _l. c._ and 195 _seq._, 240, 377
Empson, Wm., 43, 213 n.;
his classification of critics, 377, 394;
life of Malthus, 399
Enclosures, 176, 215, 217
‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ article of Malthus in Supplement, 70 _seq._
England, B. I. ch. vii.
Essay on Population, editions, 2;
origin, 5, 32, &c.;
B. I. _passim_, B. IV. _passim_
Ethics of Malthus, B. III.
Euler, 69, 369
Factory Acts, 301, 343, 345
Fawcett, Mrs., 240
Fawcett, Prof., 273
Ferguson, Adam, 297
Fifth Monarchy Men, 385
Finland, 48, 127
Foundling Hospitals, 134, 135;
cf. 409
Fox, Ch. J., 29, 31, 338
Fox, Henry, 173
France, B. I. ch. vi.
Franklin, Benj., 10, 14, 63, 369
Frend, tutor of Malthus, 406
Fyffe, C. A., 161
Gallois, 416
Garnier, his article on Malthus in ‘Dict. de l’Écon. Pol.,’ 214, 410,
415
George, Henry, 38, 40;
cf. 236, 382;
on population, 385–388
George III., 29, 324
Germany, 126, 183
Gibbon, Edw., 21 n., 107, 108, 400
Giffen, R., 72 n., 78 n.
Gilbert’s Act, 27
Glut, or over-production, B. II. ch. iii.
Godwin, Wm., 7; Pol. Justice, 9–11, &c.;
cf. 355, 371;
Enquirer, 13, 14;
cf. 355–371;
Caleb Williams, 10;
Memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft, 21;
St. Leon, 21, 22, 31;
Parr’s Sermon, 43 n., 45, 358;
Population, 43, 87, 364 _seq._;
character, 58;
in hands of ‘Edinburgh Review,’ 12, 368, 371
Government, influence on population, 112, &c.;
due to our wickedness? 9;
acting from passion, 225;
Whig, as patrons, 415, 416
Grahame, Jas., 376 _seq._
Graves, Rich., tutor of Malthus, 404 _seq._
Green, T. H., 354
Greg, W. R., 41, 394
Grote, George, 413
Haileybury College, Malthus’ lectures in, 214, 222, 229, 416 _seq._;
_raison d’être_ and death, 415 _seq._;
physical surroundings, 420
Hallam, H., 85, 363
Hazlitt, W., 85, 329, 372, 386, 394
Held, Adolf, 41, 325, 331, 382
Highlands, 150, 187–190
‘High Price of Provisions,’ 43, 49, 215, 307, 408, 411
‘High Price of Gold Bullion,’ 285
History, needs to be rewritten, 83;
of English commerce, 25, 282, 283, 298;
Corn Laws, 219;
currency, 286–290
Holcroft, friend of Godwin, 22
Holland, B. I. ch. v.
Holyoake, G. J., 412
Horner, Francis, B. V. _passim_;
cf. 285, 340, &c.
Hume, David, 31, 32, 99, 115 n., 116, 135, 173, &c., &c.
Hume, Joseph, 425
Huntingford, Bishop, 377
India, child-murder, 117;
cf. 115
India Civil Servants, 417 _seq._
Ingram, Disquisitions on Population, 329
Ireland, 146, 172, and B. I. ch. vii.
d’Ivernois, Sir F., 154, 163
Jeffrey, Francis, 329;
description of Haileybury, 418
Kant, E., 309, 321, 323
Kautsky, Karl, 416
Labour, as the measure of value, and as earning wages, B. II. ch. ii.
Land and its rent, B. II. ch. i.
Lassalle, 268
Lecky, W. E. H., 26, 177, 202
Leslie, Cliffe, 138, 165, 210, 252
Levasseur, E., 164 _seq._
Levellers, 385
Locke, J., 13
Luddites, 290
Luxuries, 215, 225, 295.
See Standard of living.
Lyell, Sir Chas., 46
Macaulay, T. B., 272, 336;
review of Sadler, 377, 410, 425
MacCulloch, J. R., 33, 40, 167, B. II. ch. i. _passim_
Mackintosh, Sir Jas., B. V. _passim_;
cf. 336
Macleod, H. D., 287
Malthus, Daniel, 7, 399 _seq_.;
cf. 135, 324
Malthus, Henry, 6, 415
Malthus, T. R., his several works: Crisis, 7, 30;
Essay on Population, B. I. chs. i. ii and _passim_;
High Price of Provisions, 43, 49, 307, &c.;
Letter to Whitbread, 215, 313;
Article on Newenham, 93, 195, 202;
other articles in ‘Edinburgh’ and ‘Quarterly,’ 33, 212, 271, 275, 285
and note, 288, 290, 329, 371;
Observations on the Corn Laws, 222, 223;
Grounds of an Opinion, 227;
Nature and Progress of Rent, 229;
Political Economy, 210–214;
Measure of Value, 254;
Definitions in Political Economy, 211, 265;
article in Encyclopædia Britannica, 71;
Papers read before Royal Society of Literature, 263;
Evidence before Emigration Committee, 144 _seq._;
Summary View, 80;
Tracts on East India College, 423;
correspondence with Godwin, Senior, Napier, Ricardo, Clarke,
Sinclair, _see_ under these names;
letter on Wakefield, 405;
style, 50, 265, 304, 408, 409;
character, 57, and B. V. _passim_
Man on the earth. _See_ Cosmology and Ethics
Manufacturer, late and early sense, 26
Marat, 404
Marcet, Mrs., 272
Martineau, Harriet, 3, 57, 58, 85, 287, 323, and B. V. _passim_
Marx, Karl, 84, 257, 268, 388 _seq._
Mean, golden, 225 and note, 295, 320
Mercantile theory, 47
Middle classes, 225
Mill, Jas., 208, 209, 273, 276, 280, 281, 293, 413, 414
— John, 209, 239, 244, 271, 273, 281
Millennium, Godwin’s, 16;
Socialistic and Christian, 392
Milne, Joshua, 71, 72
Minimum of wages, 217, 268, &c.;
of prices, 279
Mivart, St George, 385
Montesquieu, 32, 108, 109, 138, &c.
Moore, Dr. John, 311
— Thomas, 416
Moral impossibility, &c., 53
Moral restraint, 49–53, 118, 119, 383, &c., &c.
— Philosophy of Malthus, B. III.
Moravians, 383
‘Mordecai Mullion,’ 297
More, Sir Thos., 11 n., 27, 385
Muret, 148 _seq._, 174, 377
Napier, Macvey, 6, 43, 71, 314, 398, &c.
Nationality, 346–7
Nationalization of land, 236, 382, 392
‘Nature’ defined, 337;
‘Nature’s mighty feast,’ 305
Navigation Act, 228–9
Necessaries and luxuries, 117, 118, 122
New and old Malthusians, 24, 375;
cf. 384
Newenham, reviewed by Malthus, 93, 195
‘New School of Political Economy,’ 275 _seq._
Norway, B. I. ch. v.
Ortes, G. M., 391
Otaheite, B. I. ch. iv.
Otter, Bishop, 48, 127, B. V. _passim_
Over-population, 117, 145, 164, &c.
Over-production, B. II. ch. iii.;
cf. 57, 215;
of food not possible, 232, 294
Over-profits, see under Rent, esp. 230
Owen, Robert, 11 n., 24, 267, 301, 377, 380, 382 _seq._, 412
Paine, Thos., 9, 336, 405
Paley, W., 34, 38 and note, 39, 43, 269, B. III. _passim_, &c.
Parr, Dr. S., 43;
_see_ Godwin
Peace of Paris, 35, 220
Perfectibility of man, 11, 22;
_see_ Condorcet, Godwin
Petty, W., 68, 186, 369
Pitcairn Island, 102
Pitt, W., B. I. chs. i., ii.;
cf. 227, 363; B. II. ch. iv. &c., &c.
Plato, 66 n., 101 n., 113;
cf. 385
Poland, 249
Political justice. _See_ Godwin
Politics of Malthus; _see_ B. III.;
cf. 198, 225, 298, &c.
Poor Bill of Pitt, 6, 29, 43
Poor Laws, English, 6, 27, 29, 215, 135, &c., B. II. ch. iv.
— Foreign, 313
Population, B. I. _passim_, B. IV. _passim_;
cf. esp. 212
Populousness of ancient nations, 31, 32, 113–117
Postulates of 1st Essay, 16, 47;
cf. B. I. ch. ii., Theses
Potatoes, 194–198, 203, 204, 217, 380
Price, Dr. R., 31, 32, 39, 174, but esp. 175, 176;
cf. 377
Production in relation to distribution, 166, and _passim_;
in relation to consumption, 296
Productive labour, 212
Property, private, 76, 236;
cf. 18
Prosperity, criterion of national, 123
Protection, B. II. ch. i.
Prussia, B. I. ch. v.
‘Quarterly Review,’ articles of Malthus in, 212, 285 _seq._
— attitude to Malthus, 363–4
‘Querist,’ Berkeley’s. _See_ Wall of Brass
de Quincey, 266, 297, 363
Ratio, geometrical and arithmetical, 17, 66, and generally B. I. ch.
iii.;
B. IV. esp. 369
Raynal, Abbé, 26, 28, 97, 336, 337
Revolution, Industrial, in England, 25, 282
— in France, 7, 11, 27, 154 _seq._, 336, &c.
Ricardo, D., 57, B. II. _passim_;
letters to Malthus, 213, 265 note, 414;
Pol. Econ. and Taxation, 209;
High Price of Bullion, 285;
Low Price of Corn, 238;
contrasted with Malthus, 265–6
Rickman, J., 179 _seq._, 338
Rogers, Prof. Thorold, 37, 96, 136, 238, 240, 269, &c.
Rome, B. I. ch. iv.
Roscher, W., 210, 267
Rousseau, J. J., 7, 27, 135, 401
Russia, B. I. ch. v.
Sadler, Mich., 377 _seq._
Sargant, W. L., 412
Say, J. B., 57, 208, 292 _seq._
Scotland, B. I., ch. vii.
Scrope, G. Poulett, 377
Senior, W. N., 3, 4, 47, 209, 414
Short, 369
Simonin, 376
Sinclair, Sir John, 186, 216, 368, 369, 370, 426
Sismondi, Chas. de, 209, 296, 415
Smith, Adam, 3, 5, 9, 26, 31, 33, 47, 56, 57, 86, 95, 105, 117 and
_passim_
Smith, Sydney, B. V. _passim_
Socialism, 214, 252, 312, 382 _seq._
Society, Royal, 413;
of Literature, 263, 414;
Statistical, 415
Southey, Robt., 4, 11, 338, 374, 377, 383
Speenhamland Act, 30
Spence, Wm., Great Britain Independent of Commerce, 247, 293
Spence, author of ‘The Land the People’s Farm,’ 382, 385
Spencer, Herbert, 393, 396
Standard of Comfort, 117, 120 _seq._, 137, 140, 194, 195–198, 269, 295,
&c., &c.
State insurance, 24
Steuart, Sir J., 32
Stewart, Dugald, barrel-organ, 385
Struggle for existence, 20, 47, 119;
not leading to progress, 96, 112
Styles, Dr. E., 357, 369
‘Summons of Wakening,’ 365
Sumner, Dr. J. B., Archbishop of Canterbury, 12, 34, 38, 307
Sunday Schools, 298
Suspension of cash payments, 284 _seq._
Süssmilch, J. P., 39, 115, 124 _seq._, 139, 369
Sweden, B. I. ch. v.;
cf. 72, 73, 370
Taine, 121
Talleyrand, 418
Teleology, 319 _seq._, 326
Tendency, B. I. ch. iii. _passim_, esp. 61, 65, 66
Theses. _See_ Postulates
Thompson, l’erronet, 227, 308
Thornton, W. T., 130 n., 210, 273
de Tocqueville, 89
Tooke, Thos., 288, 291, B. II. ch. iii., _passim_, 412, &c.
Torrens, R., contrasts Malthus unfavourably with Ricardo, 265
Townsend, Joseph, 32, 64
Toynbee, A., 314, 378
Tucker, Abraham, 35, 164, B. III. _passim_, esp. 324, 403, &c.
Tucker, Josiah, 33, 324
Turkey, 112
United States. _See_ America
Utilitarianism, 39, 53, and B. III.;
cf. 213, 374–5
Vice and virtue defined, 81, 327, 330;
cf. 374
Voltaire, 27, 33
Wages, B. II. ch. ii.;
cf. 226;
review of wages for five centuries, 247–8
Wages Fund, 270 _seq._
Wakefield, Gilb., tutor of Malthus, 339, 404
Walker, F. A., 210, 244
Wall of Brass, 201, 250–1
Wallace, A. R., 46, 47
Wallace, Dr. Robt., 8, 9, 20, 31, 126, 173
War, reparable and irreparable evils of, 155 _seq._
Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, 11, 405
Wealth, as subject of Pol. Econ., 210, 212
Wesleyan movement, 26;
cf. 403
West, Sir Edw., 222, 234–5, 240
Weyland, J., 377, 410
Whishaw, John, 409
Whitbread, Samuel, 29, 31, &c.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 21
Young, Arthur, 69, 159 _seq._, 178, 201, 216, 380
_R. Clay & Sons, Bread Street Hill, London, E. C._
-----
Footnote 1:
The Germans talk of ‘Smithianismus.’
Footnote 2:
_Autobiogr._, vol. i. p. 71.
Footnote 3:
Senior, _Two Lectures on Population_, 1829, Appendix, pp. 56, 57.
Footnote 4:
Senior, _l. c._, p. 56.
Footnote 5:
Macvey Napier’s _Correspondence_, p. 187. Cf. _Pol. Econ._, 2nd ed.,
pp. xxxv, liv.
Footnote 6:
“Why,” said I, “how many children do you reckon to have at last?” “I
do not care how many,” said the man, “God never sends mouths without
sending meat.” “Did you ever hear,” said I, “of one Parson Malthus? he
wants an act of parliament to prevent poor people from marrying young,
and from having such lots of children.” “Oh, the brute!” exclaimed the
wife; while the husband laughed, thinking I was joking.—Cobbett’s
_Advice to Young Men_, Letter 3, p. 83. The references to Cobbett in
the Essay are probably, 7th ed., pp. 310 and 318, cf. p. 313; but his
name is not mentioned.
Footnote 7:
Namely, in the _Monthly Magazine_ for Jan. 1800. But see below, Book
V.
Footnote 8:
_Thoughts on Parr’s Sermon_, p. 2, and _Pol. Justice_, Pref. p. x.
Footnote 9:
Preface to first edition of Essay, 1798.
Footnote 10:
Leyden, 1767, translated under the title _Philosophical Survey of the
Animal Creation_, Lond., 1768. See especially chs. vii. and x.
Footnote 11:
_Common Sense_, p. 1, quoted in _Pol. Justice_, Bk. II. ch. i. p. 124
(3rd ed.).
Footnote 12:
_Pol. Justice_, Bk. VIII. ch. vi. p. 484. On the other hand, Franklin,
in his _Letter on Luxury, Idleness, and Industry_ (1784), had
estimated the necessary labour more moderately at four hours. Sir
Thos. More suggested nine. Owen recurred to the half-hour. _New Moral
World_, 1836, pp. x, xi.
Footnote 13:
_Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 161–2, footnote.
Footnote 14:
_Records of the Creation_, vol. i. p. 54, note.
Footnote 15:
Life by Kegan Paul, vol. i. p. 80. Cf. a curious passage in the
_Edinburgh Review_, about Godwin’s _Population_: “As the book was
dear, and not likely to fall into the hands of the labouring classes,
we had no thoughts of noticing it,” July 1821, p. 363.
Footnote 16:
_Enquirer_ (1797), Pref., p. 7.
Footnote 17:
Part II., Essay II.
Footnote 18:
Part II., Essays I. and III.
Footnote 19:
_Political Justice_, Book VIII. ch. ix. pp. 515–19 (3rd ed.).
Footnote 20:
Cf. Rich. Jones, _Pol. Econ._ (1859), p. 596.
Footnote 21:
Quoted, _Political Justice_, Book VIII. ch. viii. pp. 503, 520, on the
authority of Price.
Footnote 22:
_l. c._, Book VIII. ch. ix. p. 528.
Footnote 23:
_Essay_, 1st ed., p. 14.
Footnote 24:
1st ed., pp. 20, 173, &c., 7th ed., Book III. ch. ii.
Footnote 25:
1st ed., p. 128; cf. p. 210.
Footnote 26:
_Ibid._ p. 211.
Footnote 27:
_Ibid._ p. 215.
Footnote 28:
_Ibid._ p. 215.
Footnote 29:
1st ed., p. 17; cf. pp. 47–8.
Footnote 30:
Even Comte, who reproves economists for saying that difficulties right
themselves in the “long run,” thinks that this particular difficulty
will only occur _there_. (_Pos. Phil._, ii. 128 (tr.); cf. p. 54.)
Footnote 31:
1st ed., pp. 15, 16.
Footnote 32:
_Ibid._ pp. 19, 62–66.
Footnote 33:
_Pol. Just._, VIII. iii 466.
Footnote 34:
_Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 175–6, 193; 7th ed., pp. 272, 277. Cf. Gibbon,
ch. L., quoted in _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 94; 7th ed., p. 65: “The
measure of population is regulated by the means of subsistence.”
Footnote 35:
_Pol. Just._, Book VIII. ch. ix. p. 520 n. (3rd ed.).
Footnote 36:
_Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 240–1.
Footnote 37:
Due to Coleridge. See Godwin’s _Life_, i. 357.
Footnote 38:
_Ibid._ i. 25.
Footnote 39:
_Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain_ (3rd
ed., 1797), pp. 384 _seq._
Footnote 40:
_Political Justice_, VIII. ix. 520 n.
Footnote 41:
_Essay_, 1st ed., p. 227.
Footnote 42:
_Esquisse_, pp. 362 _seq._
Footnote 43:
_Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 146, 150.
Footnote 44:
_Ibid._ p. 154; Condorcet, _Esquisse_, pp. 364–373.
Footnote 45:
The _locus classicus_ in Malthus is _Essay_, Append, (of 1817), p.
512; cf. III. iii. 286, IV. xiii. 474. The pages are those of the 7th
edition (Reeves and Turner), a reprint of the 6th.
Footnote 46:
Malthus sometimes uses the word in the earlier sense, and Adam Smith
seldom in the later.
Footnote 47:
Lecky, _Hist. of Eighteenth Century_, vol ii. p. 638.
Footnote 48:
Cf. Godwin, pref. to _Pol. Just._
Footnote 49:
Hansard, _Parl. Hist._, vol. xxxiii, pp. 703 _seq._, Feb 12, 1796; cf.
vol. xxxii. pp. 687 _seq._ The “Speenhamland Act of Parliament” was
really an act of the Berkshire magistrates (1795), but had been widely
imitated, and had certainly prepared the way for Pitt’s bill.
Footnote 50:
Cf. _Essay_, 7th ed., I. vii. p. 65; 1st ed., pp. 94, 95, &c.
Footnote 51:
Godwin, _Pol. Just._, VIII. viii. 508 (3rd ed.).
Footnote 52:
Preface to _Essay_, 2nd ed.
Footnote 53:
By implication. See below, Book I. ch. vii. p. 175.
Footnote 54:
_Moral and Political Essays_, Vol. I., Essay XI., Of the Populousness
of Ancient Nations (ed. 1768), written in 1752.
Footnote 55:
So even Sir James Steuart, Vol. I. _Pol. Econ._, ch. iii. p. 22 (ed.
1805), might have helped him. Steuart wrote in 1767.
Footnote 56:
_Essay_, Book II. ch. vi.; 7th ed., p. 184.
Footnote 57:
Buckle would include Voltaire. See _Civil. in Europe_, ii. 304 n.
Footnote 58:
_Wealth of Nations_, I. viii. 36, 2 (MacCulloch’s ed.). These passages
are said to have suggested to Malthus the idea of his essay. The
article on Population in _Edin. Review_, Aug. 1810, possibly written
by Malthus himself, bears out this view.
Footnote 59:
Compare _Essay_, Appendix (to 3rd ed., 1807), 7th ed., p. 507.
Footnote 60:
_Records of Creation_, 1816.
Footnote 61:
1st ed., p. 395.
Footnote 62:
_Ibid._ p. 353. This and much else were probably suggested by Tucker,
_Light of Nature_, Theology, ch. xix. (especially § 20). Cf. below,
Book III.
Footnote 63:
_Essay_, 1st ed., p. 381.
Footnote 64:
_Ibid._ p. 371.
Footnote 65:
Cf. _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 65; later editions, I. vi. (beginning), where
he says that sloth is the natural state of man, and his activity is
due in the first instance to the “strong goad of necessity,” though it
may be kept up afterwards by habit, the spirit of enterprise, and the
thirst for glory.
Footnote 66:
1st ed., pp. 360–366. For the replenishment of the gap made by the
Great Plague of 1348, see Prof. Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and
Wages_ (1884), p. 226.
Footnote 67:
1st ed., p. 391.
Footnote 68:
1st ed., pp. 394–6; cf. pp. 241–6. Compare Mr. Henry George’s epilogue
to _Progress and Poverty_. It is right to remember that this passage
of Malthus was written two years before Paley’s _Natural Theology_,
though four years after his _Evidences of Christianity_, and many more
after the _Moral and Political Philosophy_.
Footnote 69:
_R. of Cr._, vol. ii. 103.
Footnote 70:
_Essay_, 1st ed., p. 387.
Footnote 71:
See below, Book I. ch. v.
Footnote 72:
_Ibid._ p. 356 note.
Footnote 73:
_l. c._ He is ready with a similar excuse in the tract on the _Measure
of Value_, p. 61. Where there is no will there is no way.
Footnote 74:
Part II. sect. ii. pp. 204–6.
Footnote 75:
MacCulloch (J. R.), editor of the _Commercial Dictionary_, and
probably the original of Carlyle’s Macrowdy. No one could have a
proper reverence for the Fathers of Political Economy who perpetually
referred to the greatest of them without his distinctive prænomen.
Footnote 76:
Introduction to _W. of N._, p. lii. So the writer of _Progress and
Poverty_ tells us “the doctrine of Malthus did not originally and does
not necessarily involve the idea of progression” (Bk. II. ch. i. p.
89, ed. 1881).
Footnote 77:
Bagehot (_Econ. Studies_, p. 136 _seq._), W. R. Greg (_Enigmas of
Life_), and Held (_Sociale Geschichte Englands_) may be acquitted, but
they are not writers of text-books.
Footnote 78:
_Wealth of Nations_, Introduction, p. lii.
Footnote 79:
See _e. g._ the tract on the _Measure of Value_, p. 23, and cf. _Pol.
Ec._ (2nd ed.), p. 234.
Footnote 80:
Godwin’s _Thoughts on Parr’s Sermon_, 1801, p. 54; cf. Godwin’s
_Population_ (1820), Bk. i. 27.
Footnote 81:
Godwin’s _Life_, by Kegan Paul, vol. i. 321.
Footnote 82:
Hansard, _sub dato_, p. 1429.
Footnote 83:
Empson in _Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1837, p. 483; cf. _Essay on
Population_, 7th ed. p. 473 n. Empson’s authorship of that article
appears from Macvey Napier’s _Correspondence_, p. 187. See below, Book
V.
Footnote 84:
_Works_, vol. viii. p. 440.
Footnote 85:
_Thoughts on Parr’s Sermon_, p. 56.
Footnote 86:
_Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 17, 47, 48; _Origin of Species_, ch. iii. p. 50.
Hence Sir Chas. Lyell even denies the originality of Darwin and
Wallace (_Antiquity of Man_, ch. xxi p. 456).
Footnote 87:
Cf. A. R. Wallace, _Contributions to Theory of Natural Selection_, and
the discussions raised thereupon, 1868. See also _Essays in
Philosophical Criticism_ (1883), Essay VIII., _The Struggle for
Existence_, in which some of the mixed motives are further described.
Footnote 88:
Appendix to 5th ed., 1817; 7th ed., p. 526. Cf. Bacon (Essay
XXXVIII.), “to bend nature like a wand to a contrary extreme whereby
to set it aright.” Adam Smith had used the simile of a bent stick to
describe the reaction of the French Economists against the Mercantile
theorists (_Wealth of Nations_, IV. ix. 300).
Footnote 89:
_Essay_, 1st ed., p. 367. Cf. Senior’s _Lectures on Population_, p.
79, and p. 75, where he compares such progress to the exploits of the
snail which every day climbed up a wall four feet and fell back three.
Footnote 90:
_Essay_, 1st ed., p. 10.
Footnote 91:
Cf. St. Matth. xix. 12.
Footnote 92:
MS. notes on p. vii of S. T. Coleridge’s copy of the 2nd ed. of the
_Essay_, in Brit. Museum (from the library of his executor, Dr. Joseph
H. Green).
Footnote 93:
See Otter’s biographical preface to Malthus’ _Pol. Ec._ (1836), p.
xxxvi, and Otter’s _Life of Clarke_ (1825), i. 437, &c.
Footnote 94:
See below, Book II. chap. iv.
Footnote 95:
2nd ed., Book IV. chap, xii.; 7th ed., p. 477.
Footnote 96:
2nd ed., I. ii. 10, 11; cf. xiv. 180; 7th ed., pp. 8 note, 262, &c.
Footnote 97:
2nd ed., p. 11.
Footnote 98:
7th ed., p. 351; so I. ix. 82, “moral impossibility” of increase, in a
case where there is plenty of food, but bad distribution makes it
unattainable. The impossibility is due not to physical law but to
human institutions (_mores_).
Footnote 99:
Malthus, _Essay_, 1st ed., p. 387.
Footnote 100:
In an unpublished MS. quoted in his _Life_, i. 76. His published
writings contain nothing quite so strong.
Footnote 101:
See below, Book III.
Footnote 102:
_Essay_, 7th ed., B. IV. chap. vi. and ix.
Footnote 103:
_Wealth of Nations_, B. V. ch. i. Pt. iii. Art. 2.
Footnote 104:
_Essay_, Book IV. ch. ix. of 7th ed., esp. p. 439.
Footnote 105:
Cf. even _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 33, 34, and 324. But see later, B. II.
chaps. ii. and iii.
Footnote 106:
7th ed., Append., p. 495. Cf. Miss Martineau’s _Autob._, vol. i. p.
211; cf. pp. 209, 210.
Footnote 107:
_Life_, vol. i. ch. ix. p. 233.
Footnote 108:
Ingloriously, because of the severe chapter he wrote in the _Political
Justice_, ‘Of Pensions and Salaries’ (ch. ix. of Bk. VI.).
Footnote 109:
Cf. _Essay_, 7th ed., II. xiii. p. 259.
Footnote 110:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 2.
Footnote 111:
2nd ed., p. 3.
Footnote 112:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 3.
Footnote 113:
1st ed.; see p. 16, above. “Food” in such propositions includes all
the outward conditions necessary to life.
Footnote 114:
2nd ed., p. 4; 7th ed., p. 3.
Footnote 115:
_l. c._ Franklin’s _Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind_,
1751.
Footnote 116:
_Dissertation on the Poor Laws by a well-wisher to Mankind_ (1786),
pp. 42–45, 53. He is quoting Dampier’s _Voyages_, vol. i. pt. ii p.
88.
Footnote 117:
It is fair to say that Ulloa, B. II. ch. iv., says “two or three
goats.”
Footnote 118:
2nd ed., p. 4; cf. 7th ed., p. 3.
Footnote 119:
Carey (H. C.) has certainly made a good case for the reverse. See
_Princ. of Social Science_, vol. i. ch. iv. (1858).
Footnote 120:
Letter to Senior, Appendix to Senior’s _Lectures on Population_, pp.
60–72.
Footnote 121:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 5.
Footnote 122:
He might have been warned from such by “οὐ γεωμετρικαῖς ἀλλ’ ἐρωτικαῖς
ἀνάγκαις” (Plato, _Republic_, v. 458). But Bacon had applied the same
figure still more widely: “Custom goes in arithmetical, Nature in
geometrical progression” (_Advancement of L_., VI. iii. 259).
Footnote 123:
Cf. what is said of the cosmology of Malthus above, pp. 34 _seq._
Footnote 124:
Or, keeping in view Mr. Carey’s exception, we should say not perhaps
the first crop, but the earliest in which the farmer did justice to
the known resources of the best land.
Footnote 125:
_Political Arithmetic—Essay on the Multiplication of Mankind_, 1682,
pp. 7, 13 _seq._, especially p. 21 (ed. 1755).
Footnote 126:
Sir James Caird, _Landed Interest_, 4th ed., 1880, p. 177.
Footnote 127:
But see below, Bk. II. ch. i.
Footnote 128:
2nd ed., I. i. p. 8; 7th ed., p. 6.
Footnote 129:
_Essay_, IV. iii., 7th ed., p. 407.
Footnote 130:
_Encycl. Brit., art. Population._ Cf. _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 236 n.
Footnote 131:
Sweden was a favourite with statisticians because Sweden alone at that
time furnished sound statistics. For an account of the American
population down to 1880, and its probable future, see Mr. Giffen’s
Address on the Utility of Common Statistics (Stat. Soc., Dec. 1882).
Footnote 132:
1804–24, or simply from the first census, 1801, to the third, 1821.
The increase was such as would double the population of England in
fifty-one years at the least (_Essay_, II. ix., 7th ed., p. 217).
Footnote 133:
_Encycl. Brit._, _l. c._
Footnote 134:
_Essay_, III. xiv., 7th ed., p. 387.
Footnote 135:
Caird, _Landed Interest_, pp. 18, 46.
Footnote 136:
_Encycl. Brit._, _l. c._
Footnote 137:
Apart, he ought to have said, from prudence in marriage, which would
allow each man’s share to be much more than a bare living. But see
below, Bk. II. ch. ii.
Footnote 138:
See below, Bk. II. ch. iii.
Footnote 139:
By the “law” of decreasing returns. See below, Bk. II. ch. i.
Footnote 140:
Mr. Giffen, in the Address above quoted, speaks as if Malthus
considered the positive checks as the “natural checks” (p. 531). This,
however, is against his distinct statement in _Essay_, 7th ed., App.
p. 480.
Footnote 141:
This is probably the meaning of the author’s phrase, “alter the
_proportionate amount_ of the checks to population, or the degree in
which they press upon the actual numbers” (_Encyclop._, _l. c._, p.
415).
Footnote 142:
See his letter of that date in Macvey Napier’s _Correspondence_, p.
29.
Footnote 143:
It was not published till 1824. It was certainly written after the
results of the Census of 1821 had been published.
Footnote 144:
Pref. to 2nd ed., pp. iv, v; 7th ed., p. vi.
Footnote 145:
p. 52.
Footnote 146:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 11 n.; 7th ed., p. 9 n.
Footnote 147:
2nd ed., Pref. p. vii.
Footnote 148:
2nd ed., Bk. I. ch. ii. p. 10.
Footnote 149:
Adds the 3rd ed.
Footnote 150:
3rd ed., p. 21; 7th ed., p. 9.
Footnote 151:
3rd ed. _l. c._
Footnote 152:
2nd ed., p. 13; 7th ed., p. 10. His own book has helped to make this
less true.
Footnote 153:
2nd ed., pp. 14, 15. With this description of the “cycle” compare the
view of Marx as given below in Book IV.
Footnote 154:
Miss Martineau, _Autob._, vol. i. p. 210.
Footnote 155:
Reply to Malthus, p. 20. Cf. below, Book IV.
Footnote 156:
Pref. to 2nd ed., p. vi.
Footnote 157:
2nd ed., Pref. p. vi. True even then, and much more afterwards.
Footnote 158:
Godwin, _On Population_, I. iv. 31, 32.
Footnote 159:
2nd ed., p. 31; 7th ed., p. 23.
Footnote 160:
_Démocratie en Amérique_, Pt. II. ch. x. p. 278. The author is in
thorough agreement with Malthus.
Footnote 161:
2nd ed., p. 39; 7th ed., p. 28.
Footnote 162:
2nd ed., p. 25; 7th ed., p. 18.
Footnote 163:
_Ibid._ p. 43; 7th ed., p. 31.
Footnote 164:
_Ibid._ p. 39; 7th ed., p. 28.
Footnote 165:
2nd ed., p. 44; 7th ed., p. 32.
Footnote 166:
Malthus in _Edin. Rev._, July 1803, p. 345.
Footnote 167:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 25; 7th ed., p. 18.
Footnote 168:
_Ibid._ p. 29; 7th ed., p. 21.
Footnote 169:
2nd ed., pp. 37, 45; 7th ed., pp. 27, 32.
Footnote 170:
Though, like Coleridge (MS. note in another place), he mentions
brandy.
Footnote 171:
2nd ed., pp. 43, 92; 7th ed., pp. 31, 64. Cf. I. vi., 2nd ed., p. 82
n.; 7th ed., p. 57 n.
Footnote 172:
See above, pp. 35, 36.
Footnote 173:
_E. g._ 2nd ed., II. ii. 199; 7th ed., p. 135.
Footnote 174:
Compare the suggestive remarks of Rogers, _Six Centuries_, pp. 270,
271. He thinks that a movement like Lollardism could not have
succeeded in times of utter depression.
Footnote 175:
_Essay_, Book I. ch. v.
Footnote 176:
_E. g._ cannibalism and late marriages.
Footnote 177:
2nd ed., p. 46; 7th ed., p. 33. Cf. pp. 290 and 339.
Footnote 178:
In _Essays_, vol. i., Essay XI., _Populousness of Ancient Nations_, p.
444 (ed. 1768).
Footnote 179:
Cf. Plato, _Repub._, ii.
Footnote 180:
2nd ed., p. 57; 7th ed., p. 41.
Footnote 181:
Behm and Wagner (Bevölk. d. Erde, 1882) give it at 16,300.
Footnote 182:
2nd ed., p. 57 n.; 7th ed., p. 40 n.
Footnote 183:
Report of Admiral D’Horsey to the Admiralty, 1878.
Footnote 184:
See above, pp. 17, 18.
Footnote 185:
Behm and Wagner say ninety-three.
Footnote 186:
_Essay_, Book I. ch. vi.
Footnote 187:
See above, p. 83.
Footnote 188:
2nd ed., p. 68 n.; 3rd ed., p. 115 n. He afterwards altered “totally”
to “often entirely,” 7th ed., p. 47 n.
Footnote 189:
_Wealth of Nations_, Book IV. ch. vii. Part iii. p. 286 (ed. MacC.).
Footnote 190:
2nd ed., p. 66; 7th ed., p. 46.
Footnote 191:
His own word: 2nd ed., p. 67; 7th ed., p. 47.
Footnote 192:
Gen. xiii. 1–9. _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 65; 7th ed., p. 45.
Footnote 193:
See _e. g._ Mackenzie Wallace: _Russia_, vol. ii. pp. 48, 90, &c.
Footnote 194:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 72; 7th ed., pp. 50, 51.
Footnote 195:
_Gibbon_, ch. ix. p. 175.
Footnote 196:
Tacitus, _Germ._ 14.
Footnote 197:
2nd ed., pp. 74, 77; 7th ed., pp. 52, 53.
Footnote 198:
Ch. ix. 176: “indeed the _impossibility_ of the supposition.”
Footnote 199:
_Grandeur et Décadence des Romains_, ch. xvi. p. 138, ed. 1876.
Footnote 200:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 76; 7th ed., p. 53.
Footnote 201:
_Ibid._ Bk. I. ch. vii.
Footnote 202:
2nd ed., p. 99; 7th ed., p. 68.
Footnote 203:
7th ed., p. 82.
Footnote 204:
2nd ed., p. 92; 7th ed., p. 63.
Footnote 205:
2nd ed., p. 94; 7th ed., p. 65.
Footnote 206:
_Ibid._ p. 104; 7th ed., p. 72.
Footnote 207:
Coleridge (MS. notes) reminds our author that Mahomet allowed
oblations of _sand_ for water.
Footnote 208:
Cf. above, p. 96, &c.
Footnote 209:
2nd ed., III. xi. 474–5; 7th ed., III. xiv. 381.
Footnote 210:
Especially Book I. ch. x., the chapter on Turkey.
Footnote 211:
_Essay_, Bk. I. ch. xii., ‘China and Japan.’
Footnote 212:
2nd ed., p. 162; 7th ed., p. 112.
Footnote 213:
_Ibid._ p. 175; 7th ed., p. 120.
Footnote 214:
See _Essay_, Bk. I. chs. xiii., xiv.
Footnote 215:
Sparta is the chief Greek instance.
Footnote 216:
2nd ed., p. 172; 7th ed., p. 118.
Footnote 217:
2nd ed., p. 150; cf. pp. 164, 172–3. 7th ed., p. 104; cf. pp. 113,
118.
Footnote 218:
See above, p. 99.
Footnote 219:
1st ed., p. 119; 7th ed., Appendix, p. 515.
Footnote 220:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 122.
Footnote 221:
2nd ed., p. 254; 7th ed., p. 246. Cf. 2nd ed., pp. 172, 175, and 67;
7th ed., pp. 118, 120, and 47. Cf. Hume, _Pop. of Anc. N._, pp. 487,
and especially 504.
Footnote 222:
7th ed., pp. 163, 387, 394; 2nd ed., pp. 113, 287, 292. Cf. 1st ed.,
pp. 118–19, 123 n.
Footnote 223:
2nd ed., p. 178; 7th ed., p. 122.
Footnote 224:
7th ed., p. 380, top.
Footnote 225:
2nd ed., p. 175; 7th ed., p. 120.
Footnote 226:
2nd ed., p. 175; 7th ed., p. 120.
Footnote 227:
2nd ed., p. 180; 7th ed., p. 124. “It is therefore upon these causes
alone,—independently of [2nd ed. says ‘besides’] actual
enumerations,—on which we can with certainty rely.”
Footnote 228:
Dr. Wallace, _Dissertation_, p. 55, had given Attica in its palmy days
a population of 608 to the square mile; England in the nineteenth
century has only 445, and crowded Belgium 487.
Footnote 229:
_Essay_, 1st ed., p. 54; 7th ed., pp. 120, 122; cf. pp. 262, 434. Cf.
_Wealth of Nations_, IV. vii. 254, 255.
Footnote 230:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 598; 7th ed., p. 476.
Footnote 231:
_l. c._ cf. 2nd ed., pp. 175, 178; 7th ed., pp. 120, 122.
Footnote 232:
_Essay on Population_, 2nd ed., p. 180; 7th ed., p. 124.
Footnote 233:
_E. g._ II. iii. 152, 1; IV. ix. 304, 2 (ed. MacC.).
Footnote 234:
_E. g._ 7th ed., pp. 307, 434, 473–4.
Footnote 235:
Taine, _Angleterre_, pp. 176, 232–3.
Footnote 236:
_Ibid._ p. 233.
Footnote 237:
_Wealth of Nations_, III. iv. 183, 2, &c.
Footnote 238:
Bacon, _Nov. Org._, I. xlv.
Footnote 239:
See below, Bk. IV.
Footnote 240:
Except the hog, adds Gibbon, _Decl. and F._, ch. ix. p. 171 n.
Footnote 241:
See above, p. 48.
Footnote 242:
The phrase on p. 216 of 2nd ed. (p. 148 of 7th), “in the preceding
summer of 1788,” is probably a slip. We do not hear elsewhere of any
visit so early. See below, Bk. V.
Footnote 243:
See above, p. 49. Cf. 2nd ed., p. 281; 7th ed., p. 173, &c.
Footnote 244:
For his other movements and other details of his life, see Bk. V.
(Biography).
Footnote 245:
2nd and 7th edd., Bk. II. ch. i.
Footnote 246:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 189; 7th ed., p. 129.
Footnote 247:
The Russian figures being incredible. See later, p. 133.
Footnote 248:
2nd ed., p. 184; 7th ed., p. 126.
Footnote 249:
2nd ed., pp. 188, 189; 7th ed., pp. 128, 129. Cf. Thornton’s chapter
(II.) on the “Social Effects of Peasant Proprietorships,” _Peas.
Prop._ (ed. 1874), p. 55.
Footnote 250:
In 6th ed., 1826. See 7th ed., p. 144.
Footnote 251:
_English Blue Book on Foreign Poor Laws_, 1875, p. 109.
Footnote 252:
_Statesman’s Year Book_, 1880, p. 439.
Footnote 253:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p 112.
Footnote 254:
_E. g._ that of _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 130.
Footnote 255:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 139; cf. pp. 151, 152.
Footnote 256:
_Ibid._ p. 152.
Footnote 257:
_Essay_, Bk. II. ch. ii.
Footnote 258:
_Ibid._ Bk. II. ch. iii.
Footnote 259:
2nd ed., pp. 213–14; 7th ed., pp. 146, 147.
Footnote 260:
2nd ed., pp. 214–15; 7th ed., p. 147, foot.
Footnote 261:
_Ibid._ p. 218; 7th ed., p. 150. Cf. above, p. 30.
Footnote 262:
2nd ed., p. 219; 7th ed., p. 151. Compare Price, _Observations_, p.
280 note; and especially Hume, _Pop. of Anc. N._, p. 445 (ed. 1768).
Footnote 263:
_Essay_, ibid.
Footnote 264:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 220; 7th ed., p. 151.
Footnote 265:
_Ibid._ p. 221; 7th ed., p. 152.
Footnote 266:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 216–17; 7th ed., p. 149.
Footnote 267:
_Ibid._ 7th ed., Bk. II. chs. iv. to x., as rearranged in the 3rd ed.
Footnote 268:
_Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, pp. 118, 119.
Footnote 269:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., II. v. p. 245; 7th ed., II. iv. p. 159. Cf. 2nd ed.,
p. 320; 7th ed., p. 206.
Footnote 270:
_Ibid._ 2nd ed., p. 347; 7th ed., p. 260.
Footnote 271:
_Ibid._ 2nd ed., p. 348; 7th ed., p. 260.
Footnote 272:
See above, p. 18.
Footnote 273:
So in substance Cairnes in his rehabilitation of the Wages Fund.
_Leading Principles_, pp. 196 seq. Cliffe Leslie _passim_.
Footnote 274:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 240; 7th ed., p. 155.
Footnote 275:
_Ibid._ p. 247; 7th ed., p. 160.
Footnote 276:
“Partout où il se trouve une place où deux personnes peuvent vivre
commodément, il se fait un mariage.”—_Esprit des Lois_, Bk. XXIII. ch.
x. (not XXII., as in 7th ed.).
Footnote 277:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 247; 7th ed., p. 160.
Footnote 278:
_Ibid._ 2nd ed., p. 221; 7th ed., p. 152.
Footnote 279:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 248–9; 7th ed., pp. 161–2.
Footnote 280:
_Ibid._
Footnote 281:
2nd ed., p. 246; 7th ed., p. 159. The Italics are the author’s.
Footnote 282:
_Ibid._ p. 247; 7th ed., p. 160.
Footnote 283:
_Ibid._
Footnote 284:
2nd ed., p. 205; 7th ed., p. 139.
Footnote 285:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 387 _seq._; 7th ed., pp. 287 _seq._
Footnote 286:
_Ibid._
Footnote 287:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 391; 7th ed., pp. 289–90.
Footnote 288:
_Ibid._
Footnote 289:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 393; 7th ed., p. 291.
Footnote 290:
2nd ed., p. 395; 7th ed., p. 292.
Footnote 291:
_Ibid._
Footnote 292:
Appointed in March 1826, in the last thirteen months of Lord
Liverpool’s Government. Malthus came before them on 5th May, 1827. See
_Third Report of Emigration Committee_, pp. 9, 10, and for his
evidence pp. 311 _seq._
Footnote 293:
1st Report, 1826 (May); 2nd, 1827 (April). The free use of technical
terms is not surprising, for political economy was then a popular
study. For examples see 1st Report, pp. 46, 57; 2nd Report, pp. 63,
102; 3rd Report, pp. 261, 308.
Footnote 294:
2nd Report.
Footnote 295:
3rd Report, 1827 (June).
Footnote 296:
p. 9.
Footnote 297:
Cf. below, ch. vii. (on Ireland), especially pp. 197 and 199.
Footnote 298:
3rd Report, p. 315, qu. 3257.
Footnote 299:
The Emigration Committee recommended that the help of the state should
only be given on condition of a local initiative and local
contribution.
Footnote 300:
See _e. g._ qu. 3370.
Footnote 301:
7th ed., p. 292.
Footnote 302:
_W. of N._, I. viii. 36 (MacC.’s ed.). “Other” is not a slip; the
writer is conscious of his cynicism.
Footnote 303:
_Essay_, III. iv. 293, of which the concluding paragraph was added in
1817.
Footnote 304:
_Essay_, 7th ed., Bk. II. ch. v.
Footnote 305:
2nd ed., pp. 275–6; 7th ed., p. 169.
Footnote 306:
Or “Leyzin,” as Malthus spells it.
Footnote 307:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 271; 7th ed., p. 166.
Footnote 308:
Average sixty-one years.
Footnote 309:
2nd ed., p. 274; 7th ed., p. 168.
Footnote 310:
2nd ed., p. 280; 7th ed., p. 173, top. The remark savours of paradox.
Footnote 311:
_Ibid._ p. 280, foot; 7th ed., p. 173.
Footnote 312:
_Ibid._ p. 281; 7th ed., p. 173.
Footnote 313:
See above, p. 127.
Footnote 314:
Compare above on “oscillations,” p. 147, and below, Bk. II. chs. ii.
and iii.
Footnote 315:
_Essay_, 7th ed., Bk. II. chs. vi., vii.
Footnote 316:
2nd ed., p. 285; 7th ed., p. 175.
Footnote 317:
2nd ed., p. 296; cf. 7th ed., p. 182 n. “Indeed in adopting Sir F.
d’Ivernois’s calculations respecting the actual loss of men during the
Revolution, I never thought myself borne out by facts, but the reader
will be aware that I adopted them rather for the sake of illustration
than from supposing them strictly true.”
Footnote 318:
7th ed., p. 188.
Footnote 319:
7th ed., p. 176; cf. p. 175.
Footnote 320:
7th ed., pp. 177, 181 n.
Footnote 321:
_Ibid._, p. 178 and n.
Footnote 322:
Not above suspicion. See 7th ed., p. 176 n.
Footnote 323:
The military advantage of an increasing population is pointed out also
in the article on Newenham’s ‘Ireland,’ _Edin. Rev._, July 1808, p.
350.
Footnote 324:
Cf. Josiah Tucker, _On Trade_, p. 17 (3rd ed., 1753).
Footnote 325:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 297 n; 7th ed., p. 185, which omits one clause.
Cf. 2nd ed., pp. 290–1; 7th ed., pp. 179, 180.
Footnote 326:
2nd ed., p. 291; 7th ed., pp. 179, 180. Cf. the often-quoted passages
about the bleak rock and the garden, written (be it remarked) before
and not after the Revolution, in Arthur Young’s _Travels in France_
(Bury St. Edmunds, 1792), pp. 36, 37, 42; cf. p. 341.
Footnote 327:
_E. g._ 5th, 1817; 7th ed., ch. vii.
Footnote 328:
7th ed., p. 188.
Footnote 329:
Arthur Young, _Travels in France_, pp. 410, 437.
Footnote 330:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 189.
Footnote 331:
Cf. Fyffe, _Mod. Europe_, i. 124.
Footnote 332:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 189.
Footnote 333:
A characteristic utilitarian touch. 2nd ed., p. 295, top; 7th ed., p.
183.
Footnote 334:
_Ibid._
Footnote 335:
2nd ed., p. 294; 7th ed., p. 183.
Footnote 336:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 320 (III. vii.).
Footnote 337:
Levasseur, _France avec ses Colonies_ (1875), p. 842. According to
Anderson, _Chron. Ded._, Vol. III. p. xliii, some said twenty, others
seventeen. But Mr. Kitchin cites Vauban to show that there had been a
decline in population from fifteen to thirteen millions between the
beginning of the war of Succession and the end of it (1702,
1713).—_History of France_, vol. iii. p. 342. Cf. Fox Bourne’s _Life
of Locke_, i. p. 350; Vauban’s _Dîme Royale_, pp. 162–3.
Footnote 338:
Josiah Tucker, _Essay on Trade_ (3rd ed., 1753), p. 14. There may be
rhetorical exaggeration in his statements. “The subordination of the
common people is an unspeakable advantage to the French in respect to
trade. By this means the manufacturers [workmen] are always kept
industrious. They dare not run into debauchery; to drunkenness they
are not inclined. They are [practically by the law of military
service] obliged to enter into the married state, whereby they raise
up large families to labour, and keep down the price of it; and
consequently, by working cheaper, enable the merchant to sell the
cheaper.”
Footnote 339:
_Wealth of Nations_, IV. iii. pp. 220–1.
Footnote 340:
See above, p. 155. Levasseur makes it twenty-five; Arthur Young, who
considers France over-populated by five or six millions, makes it
twenty-six (_Travels in France_, pp. 468–9; cf. p. 474). Price had
made it thirty.
Footnote 341:
_Grounds of an Opinion_, &c., p. 12. See below, Bk. II. ch. i.
Footnote 342:
Census as given in _Annuaire de l’Économie Politique_ (1882), p. 899.
Footnote 343:
_Political Economy_ (1820), pp. 433 _seq._ Cliffe Leslie (_Mor. and
Pol. Essays_, 1879, p. 424) attributes the few births to the very Law
of Succession of which Malthus was afraid.
Footnote 344:
In the country districts at least. On the relation of luxury to trade,
&c., see below, Bk. II. ch. iii. p. 268.
Footnote 345:
_E. g._ by M. Levasseur in _La France avec ses Colonies_ (1875), p.
853.
Footnote 346:
Appendix to _Wealth of Nations_, note iv. p. 465.
Footnote 347:
Levasseur, _l. c._ pp. 845, 846 ft.
Footnote 348:
_Times_, Jan. 1883.
Footnote 349:
_English Registrar-General’s 45th Report_, for 1882, pp. cii, cvii.
Footnote 350:
Levasseur, _La France_, _l. c._
Footnote 351:
E. g. _Times_, _l. c._
Footnote 352:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. xiii. p. 474; 2nd ed., IV. xi. p. 594.
Footnote 353:
2nd ed., II. ix.; 7th ed., II. viii, ix.
Footnote 354:
1st ed., pp. 63, 64.
Footnote 355:
1st ed., pp. 65–6; cf. 2nd ed., p. 300, and 7th ed., p. 193.
Footnote 356:
See below, Bk. II. ch. iv., &c.
Footnote 357:
The numbers given then were five millions.—Froude, _Hist. of England_,
i. 3.
Footnote 358:
See Hansard, _Parl. Hist._, xiv. 1317.
Footnote 359:
Not unfelt in 1801. So Arthur Young speaks as if the agricultural
interest had not unfrequently regarded the Board of Agriculture as a
new instrument of taxation. (_Report on Suffolk_, p. 16.)
Footnote 360:
In charge of Rev. Alexander Webster.
Footnote 361:
_Parl. Hist._, vol. xv. p. 69, quoted by Mahon, _Hist. of England_,
sub dato, ch. xxxi. p. 39. Cf. Trevelyan, _Early Life of Fox_, ch. i.
p. 14.
Footnote 362:
Dr. Adam Anderson, _Chronological Deduc. of Commerce_, Introd., p.
xliii.; first printed in 1762.
Footnote 363:
See especially _Estimate_ (7th ed., 1758), Vol. I. Pt. II. sect. viii.
pp. 186 _seq._
Footnote 364:
_Chron. Ded._, ibid.
Footnote 365:
_I. e._ to the discussion described by Dr. Anderson. Cf. Malthus,
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 164. Muret’s pessimistic paper was printed in
1766.
Footnote 366:
In his _Political Arithmetic_, 1774.
Footnote 367:
_Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the present
and four preceding Reigns_, by George Chalmers, F.R.S., S.A., 1st ed.,
1782.
Footnote 368:
_Natural and Political Observations_, 1696. _Apud_ Davenant and
Chalmers.
Footnote 369:
_Primitive Origination of Mankind._
Footnote 370:
_Political Survey of Great Britain_, 1774.
Footnote 371:
Cf. Chalmers, _Estimate_, p. 4, Pref. p. cxxxviii., and John Howlett’s
_Examination of Dr. Price’s Essay_ (Maidstone), 1781.
Footnote 372:
Cf. Macaulay, _History_, ch. iii. 137.
Footnote 373:
_Observations_, supplement, p. 366. Cf. Malthus, _Essay_, App. p. 519.
Arthur Young, _France_, p. 409. The whole subject will be considered
later in connection with Scotland.
Footnote 374:
See _Observations on Smuggling_, 1779.
Footnote 375:
But see the _caveat_ in the _Registrar-General’s 44th Report_ (for
1881), p. vi.: The price of wheat and the marriage rate do not always
vary inversely.
Footnote 376:
In the same way the returns to the Board of Agriculture at the end of
the century are full of (not quite disinterested) praises of
enclosures as an encouragement of population.
Footnote 377:
Lecky, _Eighteenth Cent._, i. 261, 479 _seq._ Restrictions on the sale
were successfully adopted by Pelham in 1751, at the time when the
question of depopulation was coming to the front.
Footnote 378:
An unsafe presumption. See below, Bk. II. ch. ii., &c.
Footnote 379:
_E. g._ inoculation.
Footnote 380:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 317; 7th ed., p. 198, compared with 7th ed., p.
189, &c., above, pp. 115–16.
Footnote 381:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 198 note; first printed in 3rd ed. (1806), p. 461
n.
Footnote 382:
2nd ed., p. 302 n.; 7th ed., p. 194 n.
Footnote 383:
This is asserted in the _Preliminary Report_ to the last English
census (1881). Against the idea, see the _Annual Register’s_ reviews
of Eden’s work on the _Poor_ (1797), and of his _Estimate_ of English
numbers (1800). The _Register_ had numbered Burke and Godwin among its
writers, and was not likely to be behind public opinion.
Footnote 384:
See the review of Arthur Young’s _Question of Scarcity plainly
stated_, 1800, in _Ann. Register_, sub dato.
Footnote 385:
Chairman of the Committee on the Public Finances 1797, Speaker of the
Commons 1802, Lord Colchester 1817.
Footnote 386:
2nd ed., p. 318; 7th ed., p. 204. Cf. 2nd ed., p. 317; 7th ed., pp.
192, 203, 206, 219, &c.
Footnote 387:
2nd ed., p. 311; 7th ed., pp. 201, 202, foot. Compare _44th Rept. of
Reg.-Gen._ (England), p. v.
Footnote 388:
As _e. g._ in 1800–1 compared with 1802–3; 7th ed., p. 214.
Footnote 389:
2nd ed., p. 319; 7th ed., p. 205. Cf. passages cited on last page.
Footnote 390:
Cf. _Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 308–9; 7th ed., pp. 198–9.
Footnote 391:
2nd ed., pp. 312–13; 7th ed., p. 201. The 2nd ed. has a reference to
“the late scarcities” wanting in the later edds. Registration, be it
remembered, was then of baptisms and burials, not births and deaths.
Footnote 392:
See above, p. 176. Cf. on the other hand the concession, 2nd ed., p.
317; 7th ed., p. 203, middle.
Footnote 393:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 319; 7th ed., pp. 205–6.
Footnote 394:
7th ed., p. 188.
Footnote 395:
Rickman himself allowed their defectiveness. See _Essay_, 2nd ed., p.
304; 7th ed., p. 196. Cf. above, p. 179.
Footnote 396:
2nd ed., p. 302; 7th ed., p. 194. By the _Registrar-General’s Report_
for 1882 it was as 1 in 64½ in that year.
Footnote 397:
2nd ed., p. 303; 7th ed., p. 195.
Footnote 398:
7th ed., p. 205.
Footnote 399:
2nd ed., pp. 213–14; 7th ed., p. 202.
Footnote 400:
_45th Report of Registrar-General_ (England), (1882), p. ci.
Footnote 401:
7th ed., p. 210.
Footnote 402:
2nd ed., p. 302; 7th ed., p. 194 n.
Footnote 403:
Numbers calculated by “natural increment,” _i. e._ births
and deaths—26,138,248; numbers actually
enumerated—25,968,286.—_Preliminary Report_, p. iii.
Footnote 404:
’31–’41, incr. 14.52; ’71–’81, incr. 14.34.
Footnote 405:
Or three and a quarter millions of people to England and Wales alone.
Footnote 406:
7th ed., II. ix. p. 215 (written first in 5th ed., 1817).
Footnote 407:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 258; cf. _Prel. Rept. Census_, 1881, p. ix.
Footnote 408:
The account of Scotland in the _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. x., is taken from
the _Statistical Account_ of Sir John Sinclair, 1791–99. Sinclair was
acting, on the south side of the Tweed, as President of the Board of
Agriculture. See below, Bk. II. ch. i. p. 218.
Footnote 409:
There was very little in Scotland. It is only once mentioned by Adam
Smith. MacCulloch says “never,” but he had overlooked _Wealth of
Nations_, IV. vii. 251–2.
Footnote 410:
The last of late introduction. See _Reports to Board of Agriculture:
Central Highlands_ (1794), p. 21.
Footnote 411:
2nd ed., p. 384; 7th ed., p. 229.
Footnote 412:
Not feudal but pre-feudal, or allodial. See _Wealth of Nations_, III.
iv. 183, 1.
Footnote 413:
_Wealth of Nations_, ibid.
Footnote 414:
Selkirk, _Highlands_, 1805, p. 25.
Footnote 415:
See the _Legend of Montrose_, &c.
Footnote 416:
Adam Smith, _l. c._; cf. I. viii 36, 1 (the often-quoted description
of “half-starved highland women” with their twenty children in
contrast to the “pampered fine lady” with few or none.)
Footnote 417:
_Reports to Board of Agriculture: Central Highlands_, 1794, p. 52.
Footnote 418:
_Wealth of Nations_, III. iv. 184, 1 (written 1774), a passage which
shows that the clearances and the consequent cry of Depopulation are
to be looked for as early as the middle of the century. We are
sometimes told that from the ’45 to the end of the century was the
golden age of highland farmers. But the willingness of the clansmen to
enter Chatham’s highland regiments would hardly imply great
contentment.
Footnote 419:
Cf. _Essay on Pop._, pp. 332 (2nd ed.), 227 (7th ed.), and Selkirk,
_l. c._, pp. 43 _seq._ _Contra_, see _Report of Crofters Commission_,
1884, p. 51.
Footnote 420:
Made under the Marquis of Stafford between 1807 and 1820, in which
year the popular odium was at its height, and the landlord made his
defence in a well-known pamphlet by his factor, James Loch.
Footnote 421:
Cf. Malthus, _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 229, top; cf. pp. 221 ft., 223 ft.;
2nd ed., pp. 326–7.
Footnote 422:
See Malthus, _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 227. Cf. Farr in _Statist. Journ._,
16th Feb. 1846.
Footnote 423:
Drawn chiefly from the _Statistical Account of Scotland_, 1791–99.
Footnote 424:
Lavergne, _Econ. Rur. de l’Angleterre_, ch. xx. p. 310.
Footnote 425:
The 6th simply adds the numbers of the people from the census of 1821,
with hardly any comment.
Footnote 426:
2nd ed. says “barbarism.”
Footnote 427:
2nd ed., “depressed.”
Footnote 428:
2nd ed. adds, “by the filth of their persons.”
Footnote 429:
2nd ed., pp. 334–5; 7th ed., p. 229. He refers to the rebellion of
1795–98, that was prelude to the Union of 1800, and was fresh in his
memory.
Footnote 430:
_Edin. Review_, July 1808, the only review in that journal assigned to
him by express testimony.
Footnote 431:
_3rd Report of Emigration Committee_ (1827), Evid., qu. 3225.
Footnote 432:
In the article on Newenham he incidentally utters the paradox that in
view of the low standard of food the people’s indolence is almost an
advantage, for it prevents wages falling quite down to that
level.—Art. p. 341. Cf. _Essay_, IV. xi. 456–7. For his view of
potatoes in Ireland, _ibid._, 453.
Footnote 433:
Cf. _Review of Newenham_, p. 352.
Footnote 434:
Cf. Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_ (1884), p. 484.
Footnote 435:
In a sense already frequently noticed. So in answer 3401, where he
seems to accept the phrase “moral degradation” as applied to Ireland.
Footnote 436:
Cf. above, pp. 95 and 195 n. Professor Rogers must have forgotten such
passages as these when he wrote the 62nd and 63rd pages of his _Six
Centuries of Work and Wages_ (1884), though he furnishes his own
correction on a following page (484).
Footnote 437:
_Wealth of Nations_, V. iii. 430, 1, 2.
Footnote 438:
Sir Wm. Petty made it 1,100,000 in 1672. See MacCulloch, Append. to
_Wealth of Nations_, (IV.) 462.
Footnote 439:
See Sir H. Parnell’s evidence in _3rd Report to Emigration Committee_,
1827, p. 200. He thinks that between 1792 and 1821 the population of
Ireland had doubled itself.
Footnote 440:
Malthus, Evidence before Emigration Committee, 1827; _3rd Report_, qu.
3430, p. 327.
Footnote 441:
Querist (1735) 134: “Whether if there was a wall of brass a thousand
cubits high round this kingdom, our natives might not nevertheless
live cleanly and comfortably, till the land, and reap the fruits of
it?” The “caged rats” of the Corn Law pamphlets give us the other side
of the question.
Footnote 442:
“Of such consequence in the encouragement of any industry is a steady
unvarying policy.”——Arthur Young, _France_, p. 388.
Footnote 443:
See above, p. 151, &c.
Footnote 444:
See above, pp. 191–2.
Footnote 445:
_l. c._ p. 399. Cf. Lecky, _Eighteenth Cent._, vol. ii. pp. 222
_seq._; _Review of Newenham_, pp. 349, 350.
Footnote 446:
See above, p. 18.
Footnote 447:
7th ed., p. 378 ft. Cf. _Polit. Econ._, 1st ed., pp. 252, 290, and 394
_seq._
Footnote 448:
_Essay_, III. viii. 323 (first in 5th ed.). See later, p. 268, &c.
Footnote 449:
_Essay_, 7th ed., pp. 452–3; 2nd ed., pp. 575–6.
Footnote 450:
_Ibid._, p. 323 ft. (7th); MacCulloch, Appendix to _W. of N._, p. 467,
2.
Footnote 451:
_Essay on Pop._, 2nd ed., p. 576; 7th ed., p. 453 ft.
Footnote 452:
_Lavergne_, pp. 423–4.
Footnote 453:
Even in 1875 the Registrar-General’s Report showed that there were
then fewer marriages in Ireland than in England, in proportion to the
population, and that they came later. Cf. the _18th Report_, for
Ireland (1882), pp. 18, 19.
Footnote 454:
_Review of Newenham_, pp. 351–4.
Footnote 455:
See above, Bk. I. ch. i.
Footnote 456:
2nd ed., Bk. III. chs. i. to iii.; 7th ed., Bk. III. chs. i. and ii.
Footnote 457:
7th ed., ch. iii. (on Owen, &c.), which replaces a reply (2nd and 3rd
edd.) to Godwin’s first reply.
Footnote 458:
All except those on pauperism. When pauperism is reached, the thread
of the essay is again taken up.
Footnote 459:
_Pol. Econ._, 1820, Introd. p. 11. Cf. _Tract on Value_, p. 60 ft.,
and above, p. 37.
Footnote 460:
_High Price of Bullion_, 1809. See below, p. 285.
Footnote 461:
Malthus, _Pol. Econ._, Introd. pp. 2, 5, 22, &c.; _Essay on Pop._,
Pref. &c.; Ricardo, _Principles of Pol. Econ. and Taxn._ (1817), Pref.
Footnote 462:
Life of Ricardo in preface to _Works_, p. xxxi.
Footnote 463:
J. S. Mill, _Political Economy_, 1848 and 1849. It was not a complete
breach. The new faith and the old perplex each other and the reader,
in the pages of Mill.
Footnote 464:
_Pol. Econ._, Introd. Cf. the Discussions on the Measure of Value,
_Pol. Econ._, ch. ii., and pamphlet on the subject. So Roscher,
_Nationalökonomie_, § 1 and n.
Footnote 465:
Arist., _Ethics_, i. (3).
Footnote 466:
“_Definitions in Political Economy_, preceded by an inquiry into the
rules which ought to guide political economists in the definition and
use of their terms, with remarks on the deviations from these rules in
their writings” (1827), p. 5.
Footnote 467:
_Pol. Econ._, Introd. p. 11.
Footnote 468:
_Definitions_, p. 4.
Footnote 469:
_Ibid._, p. 5.
Footnote 470:
_Definitions_, pp. 6, 7.
Footnote 471:
_Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 28. “And have an exchangeable value,” was the
Ricardian addition; and in the _Quarterly Rev._, Jan. 1824, p. 298,
Malthus weakly allows the addition to pass.
Footnote 472:
_Pol. Econ._, Introd. p. 11.
Footnote 473:
MacCulloch, _Life of Ricardo_, prefixed to _Princ. of Econ. and
Taxation_ (ed. 1876), p. xxv.
Footnote 474:
Letter quoted by Empson in _Edin. Review_, Jan. 1837.
Footnote 475:
_Pol. Econ._, Pref. pp. 12, 13 (2nd ed.). Cf. above, p. 57.
Footnote 476:
Arist., _Ethics_, x. 1. Some thought pleasure was the goal, but, for
the sake of others, “one must not say so.”
Footnote 477:
See below, ch. iv.
Footnote 478:
Porter’s _Progress of the Nation_, p. 148 (ed. 1851). Cf. MacCulloch,
_Wealth of Nations_, Notes, p. 525.
Footnote 479:
Dissolved in 1817.
Footnote 480:
Between 1767 and his death in 1820, he wrote no less than a hundred
volumes on agriculture. His bet is given in Sir J. Sinclair’s _Life_
by Archdeacon Sinclair, i. 253.
Footnote 481:
At the end of 1801.
Footnote 482:
_Communications to Board of Agriculture_, iv. 232–5 (1805). Cf. _Ann.
Reg._, 1801, p. 131.
Footnote 483:
_E. g._ that the members should always use mixed instead of pure
wheaten flour.
Footnote 484:
_Ann. Reg._, 1801, p. 129.
Footnote 485:
As was done, _e. g._, by Chief Justice Kenyon, King’s Bench, Rex _v._
John Rusby, Nov. 1799.
Footnote 486:
See J. S. Girdler, _Forestalling_, &c. (1800), S. J. Pratt’s poem on
_Bread for the Poor_ (1800).
Footnote 487:
Girdler, _l. c._ pp. 46,48, &c.
Footnote 488:
Philps, _Progress of Great Britain_, p. 132.
Footnote 489:
Cf. the figures given in Malthus’ _Tract on Value_, pp. 69–79, and in
Professor Rogers’ _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, pp. 487
_seq._,—both of them taken chiefly from Eden on the Poor.
Footnote 490:
_Wealth of Nations_, I. viii. 44, 1.
Footnote 491:
On the whole subject see Craik, _Hist. of Commerce_, ii. 142–5.
Footnote 492:
Macpherson, ditto, iii. 148 (year 1728), 307 (year 1757).
Footnote 493:
_Ibid._, iii. 329, 331; MacC., _Comm. Dict._ (ed. 1871), p. 430.
Footnote 494:
Cf. _Essay on Population_, p. 352 (7th ed.). Cf. above, p. 25.
Footnote 495:
Macpherson, iii. 438, 452.
Footnote 496:
Cf. Malthus, _Essay on Pop._, p. 453 (2nd ed.); _Grounds of on
Opinion_, &c., p. 43.
Footnote 497:
E. g. _National Industry of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 208–9 (1779).
MacCulloch has quoted other passages (_Wealth of Nations_, xlviii. n.,
and _Note on Rent_, p. 453, 1, and n.). Sir Edward West agrees with
Malthus in his qualified approval of the Corn Laws. See _Price of
Corn_, &c., p. 139.
Footnote 498:
A reprint of the 3rd (?)
Footnote 499:
If we include the _Crisis_, it would be the fifth time.
Footnote 500:
It was popular enough to reach a 3rd edition in 1815.
Footnote 501:
See _Grounds of an Opinion_, &c., p. 2.
Footnote 502:
_Observations_, pp. 20–1.
Footnote 503:
_Ibid._, p. 17.
Footnote 504:
The English price in Nov. 1884.
Footnote 505:
_Observations_, pp. 19, 22, 23, 27.
Footnote 506:
_Ibid._, p. 28. If the Ricardian hypothesis is not true of
individuals, it is still less true of Governments, as Cobden
experienced.
Footnote 507:
_Ibid._, pp. 30, 31.
Footnote 508:
_Ibid._, p. 32: “Many of the questions both in morals and politics
seem to be of the nature of the problems _de maximis et minimis_ in
fluxions; in which there is always a point where a certain effect is
the greatest, while on either side of this point it gradually
diminishes.”
Footnote 509:
Cf. even _Observations_, pp. 5, 12, 13.
Footnote 510:
See below, chs. ii. and iii.
Footnote 511:
The expression of Grenville in a letter to Pitt, 1800. See Stanhope,
_Life of Pitt_, ii. 371.
Footnote 512:
Unless perhaps Mr. Bagehot’s. Col. Thompson understood the theory of
population only in its cruder form. In answer 337 of the _Catechism_
(1839) he meets the objection that free trade would only increase
population by saying: “No man has a right to prevent us running a
constant race with hunger if we can.”
Footnote 513:
_Grounds_, &c., p. 46 n.
Footnote 514:
_Ibid._, pp. 3, 11, 12,
Footnote 515:
_Ibid._, pp. 30, 33.
Footnote 516:
Ricardo, _Works_, p. 33[8?]5 (MacC.’s ed.). For remarks on this part
of Malthus’ tract see _ibid._, p. 382.
Footnote 517:
_Grounds_, &c., p. 36 n. Cf. Ricardo, p. 390.
Footnote 518:
See above, p. 211.
Footnote 519:
_Pol. Econ._, ch. iii. sect. i. p. 134 (1820).
Footnote 520:
_Wealth of Nations_, I. xi., beginning.
Footnote 521:
He does not always prefix this qualification; but that he intended it
appears clearly from the _Tract on Rent_, p. 3 n.: Not every land that
yields food will yield rent. Cf. _Pol Econ._ (1820), p. 141.
Footnote 522:
Compare _Tract on Rent_, p. 16 n.
Footnote 523:
The title of the tract is, _An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of
Rent, and the Principles by which it is regulated_. It appears from a
letter of Malthus to Sir John Sinclair on 31st Jan., 1815, that it was
passing through the press in that month. Sinclair, _Correspondence_,
i. 391 (1831).
Footnote 524:
As, he might have added, in education.
Footnote 525:
_Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 142, but especially p. 187. Cf. _Tract on
Rent_, pp. 8–12.
Footnote 526:
_Rent_, p. 10.
Footnote 527:
Cf. also below, p. 294.
Footnote 528:
_Wealth of Nations_, IV. ii. 307, 2; cf. IV. v. 240, 2.
Footnote 529:
_Essay on the Application of Capital to Land_, with observations
showing the impolicy of any great restriction of the importation of
corn, and that the bounty of 1688 did not lower the price of it. By a
fellow of University College, Oxford. (London, 1815.) Page 2.
Footnote 530:
_W. of N._, II. iii. 148, 1.
Footnote 531:
_Essay_, 1st ed., p. 363.
Footnote 532:
_Tract on Rent_, p. 16; _Essay on Pop._ (7th ed.), p. 327. Cf. above.
Footnote 533:
_Rent_, p. 20; cf. pp. 18, 57. _Essay on Pop._, 2nd ed., p. 433; 7th
ed., p. 327. “If we look only to the clear monied rent,” &c.
Footnote 534:
Ricardo, Preface to _Principles of Pol. Econ. and Taxation_.
Footnote 535:
Reprinted by MacCulloch in his edition of _Pol. Econ. and Taxation_,
pp. 367–390.
Footnote 536:
MacCulloch ed. of _Pol. Econ. and Taxation_, p. 374 n.
Footnote 537:
_Ibid._, p. 371.
Footnote 538:
So Prof. Rogers ascribes the high rents of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries very largely to the low wages; higher ones would
have “reduced rent first, and profits afterwards.”—_Six Centuries_, p.
482; cf. pp. 480 and 492.
Footnote 539:
_Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 161 (ch. iii. sect. iii.).
Footnote 540:
_Pol. Econ. and Taxation_, pp. 373, 375, 379–80; cf. pp. 71 and 72,
but especially 68 ft. Malthus on the whole follows Adam Smith, I. ix.;
Mill has followed Ricardo.
Footnote 541:
So far as the account is meant to be historical, it must be corrected
by Carey. See above, p. 65.
Footnote 542:
Ricardo, _l. c._ p. 372 and n. Cf. below. He appeals to Adam Smith’s
principle of compensation (_Wealth of Nations_, I. x.).
Footnote 543:
Rogers (_Six Centuries_, p. 352) goes so far the other way as to make
improvements the only cause of an increase of rent, though the passage
should be read with p. 480, and especially pp. 482 and 492.
Footnote 544:
_E. g._ Mrs. Fawcett, _Pol. Econ. for Beginners_, pp. 65, 66; and even
West, on _Rent_, p. 50.
Footnote 545:
_3rd Report_, 1827, p. 321, qu. 3341. Cf. Perr. Thompson, _True Theory
of Rent_, pp. 8, 12, 34, &c. (1832, 9th ed.).
Footnote 546:
_Tract on Value_, p. 6.
Footnote 547:
Ricardo, _Low Price of Corn_, &c., _Works_, pp. 373, 380, 381, &c.
Footnote 548:
_Ibid._, pp. 377, 379.
Footnote 549:
Ricardo, _Works_, _l. c._ p. 378.
Footnote 550:
_Pol. Econ. and Tax._, ibid. pp. 50 _seq._, esp. pp. 54, 55.
Footnote 551:
_l. c._ p. 55 ft.
Footnote 552:
_Low Price_, &c., _ibid._, p. 379.
Footnote 553:
_Pol. Econ. and Tax._, ch. v.; cf. Malthus, _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p.
230.
Footnote 554:
But cf. _Works_, p. 377 n.
Footnote 555:
_Pol. Econ._, IV. iii § 4. Cf. Walker, _Land and its Rent_, pp.
177–81, though it has been pointed out that on p. 178 that writer
omits Mill’s qualifying phrase, (improvements) “suddenly made.”
Footnote 556:
See Sir James Caird’s table appended to _Landed Interest_ (1878). Cf.
Cairne’s _Essays in Pol. Ec._, vi. p. 216.
Footnote 557:
Bk. III. ch. vii p. 429.
Footnote 558:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., Bk. III. ch. viii. p. 437.
Footnote 559:
_Ibid._, _l. c._ ch. ix. pp. 443 _seq._
Footnote 560:
_Essay_, Bk. III. ch. ix. p. 450.
Footnote 561:
_Ibid._, ch. x. p. 465.
Footnote 562:
_Ibid._, Bk. V. ch. x. p. 468 n.
Footnote 563:
_Pol. Econ._ (1820), pp. 227 _seq._, (1836) pp. 240 _seq._
Footnote 564:
_Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, ch. xii., esp. p. 345.
Footnote 565:
The facts of Malthus’ “review” may be roughly given in the following
diagram, where the bar indicates the wheat earned per day by the
agricultural labourer. The amount for 1350 assumes that the Statute of
Labourers was successful.
One peck. Two pecks.
1340 (before Plague) :-------------- : :
1350 (after Plague) :----------------- : :
1400 :-------------------: :
1500 :-------------------:-------------------:
1603 :----------------- : :
1650 :----------- : :
1699 :-------------------: :
1730 :-------------------: :
1766 :------------------ : :
1811 :------------------ : :
1822 (?) :-------------------: :
Add 1884, taking wages ------------------------------------
at 14_s._ a week and
wheat at 36_s._ a
quarter, or 1_s._
1½_d._ a peck.
Footnote 566:
7th ed., pp. 321 _seq._ (Bk. III. ch. viii.), first in 1817.
Footnote 567:
Cf. above, p. 225 n. In _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 432, he says, “All the
great results in _Pol. Econ._ respecting wealth depend upon
proportions.” 2nd ed. added (p. 376), “not only there, but throughout
the whole range of nature and art.” So he thinks a peck of wheat a
good “middle point” of wages. _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 284, (1836) p.
254.
Footnote 568:
_Essay_, 7th ed., Bk. III. ch. ix. pp. 328 _seq._ Cf. pp. 334, 338.
Footnote 569:
_Ibid._, p. 332.
Footnote 570:
_Ibid._, Bk. III. ch. x. pp. 334 _seq._
Footnote 571:
See above, p. 201 n. Cf. _Essay on Pop._, 7th ed., p. 337.
Footnote 572:
_Essay_, _l. c._ p. 338.
Footnote 573:
_l. c._ Bk. III. ch. x. pp. 338–9.
Footnote 574:
_Fortnightly Review_, Nov. 1881, his last writing. Cf. _Essay_, _l.
c._ pp. 340–342.
Footnote 575:
In two long chapters on Corn Laws and Bounties, _Essay on Pop._, Bk.
III. ch. xi. pp. 343–367. Cf. above, pp. 226 _seq._
Footnote 576:
See below, Bk. IV.
Footnote 577:
_The Measure of Value stated and illustrated, with an application of
it to the alteration in the value of the English currency since 1790._
(April) 1823.
Footnote 578:
So _Tract on Value_, p. 1. But in _Definitions_ value is “the relation
of one object to some other or others, in exchange, resulting from the
estimation in which a thing is held” (def. 40, 41; cf. with def. 5).
Footnote 579:
Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, I. v.
Footnote 580:
_Measure of Value_, p. 23. Cf. _Pol. Econ._ (1820), pp. 126 _seq._;
(1836), pp. 84, 93 _seq._
Footnote 581:
_Measure of Value_, p. 20 n. On pp. 23–4 he adds, “taking the average
of summer and winter wages.”
Footnote 582:
See below, p. 268. _Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 125; (1836) p. 102, &c.;
_Tract on Value_, passim.
Footnote 583:
_Work and Wages_, ch. iii. p. 75. Malthus, _Pol. Econ._, 2nd ed., pp.
108 _seq._
Footnote 584:
Cf. Marx, _Kapital_, pp. 19, 21, &c.
Footnote 585:
MacC.’s ed., pp. 45 _seq._ Cf. _Tract on Value_, p. 20 n., above
quoted.
Footnote 586:
Cf. Ricardo, _Pol. Econ._, _Works_ (ed. MacC.), p. 15.
Footnote 587:
_Meas. of Value_, pp. 8–12.
Footnote 588:
_Meas. of Value_, pp. 22, 65. Cf. Cairnes, _Australian Episode_, in
_Essays in Pol. Econ._ (pp. 92 _seq._; cf. pp. 37, 61), (1873),—first
published in _Fraser’s Mag._, Sept. 1859.
Footnote 589:
_Meas. of Value_, p. 23.
Footnote 590:
_Ibid._, pp. 27–29.
Footnote 591:
_Meas. of Value_, p. 29 n.
Footnote 592:
He might have said simply that the one is intrinsic, the other
extrinsic, in relation to the agricultural products themselves.
Footnote 593:
_Meas. of Value_, p. 63.
Footnote 594:
_Meas. of Value_, pp. 67 _seq._ Cf. below, pp. 283 _seq._
Footnote 595:
Who allows cost to play a greater part in value. Cf. below, pp. 278–9.
But Ricardo, _Pol. Econ._, sect vi. p. 28, disclaims belief in _any_
universal measure of value.
Footnote 596:
Malthus, quoted by Empson, _Edin. Rev._, Jan. 1837, p. 499.
Footnote 597:
He was F.R.S. 1819, and a member of Pol. Econ. Club at its foundation
in 1821.
Footnote 598:
4th May, 1825; 7th Nov., 1827. _Transactions of it R. S. L._, vol. i.
part i. p. 171.
Footnote 599:
_Report of R. S. L._, 1824, p. 21.
Footnote 600:
We might expressly wish to know a coat’s value in money or its value
in cutlery or coals. The Professor at the Breakfast-table talks of
“Madeira worth from two to six Bibles a bottle.”
Footnote 601:
_Definitions_ (1827), p. 235.
Footnote 602:
I. e. _to_ the object which measures that _cost-value_.
Footnote 603:
_Ibid._, p. 243.
Footnote 604:
See above, p. 254. Ricardo’s long correspondence with Malthus on the
subject is mentioned by Empson, _Edin. Rev._, _l. c._ p. 469. Empson’s
extracts from it are the most valuable part of his article.
Footnote 605:
R. Torrens, _Production of Wealth_, 1821, pp. iv, v.
Footnote 606:
Held, _Sociale Geschichte Englands_, p. 205.
Footnote 607:
_Dialogues of Three Templars on Political Economy_, 1824 (_Works_,
Black, 1863, vol. iv.). All depends on the assumption in the middle of
Dialogue I. p. 196, (“it is Mr. Ricardo’s doctrine that,” &c.), and on
the confinement of the discussion to natural value (p. 198).
Footnote 608:
_Measure of Value_, p. 20 n.
Footnote 609:
London, 1832; Birmingham, 1833. The Constituent Assembly applied the
same measure, but in a different way, in 1791. See Roscher,
_National-ökon._ (1879), p. 298.
Footnote 610:
The words are, “enable the labourers to maintain a stationary or an
increasing population” (_Pol. Econ._, 1836, p. 218). The awkwardness
of the sentence may be due to bad editing; but we read elsewhere of
the “_price of wages_.”
Footnote 611:
_Pol. Econ._, 1836, pp. 218, 223.
Footnote 612:
See Lassalle and Marx.
Footnote 613:
Cf. Malthus, _Pol. Econ._ (1836), pp. 224, 225, &c. _Essay on
Population_, 7th ed., III viii. 323, but especially IV. xiii. 473. See
also Rogers, _Six Centuries_, ch. viii., ‘The Famine and the Plague,’
especially pp. 233–242.
Footnote 614:
Malthus, _Essay on Pop._, IV. xiii. 473; cf. pp. 373 and 434.
Footnote 615:
Cf. especially _Essay on Pop._ (2nd ed.), III. ix. 444. “The price of
labour has been rising—not to fall again.”
Footnote 616:
_Emigr. Comm._ (1827), p. 326, qu. 3411; cf. 3408, 3409. Cf. above, p.
197.
Footnote 617:
The chief of them being the rate of profits which is at the given time
enough to induce the “undertaker” (or “enterpriser”) to continue
business.
Footnote 618:
See Mill on Thornton’s ‘Labour,’ _Fortnightly Review_, May 1869. Cf.
Walker on _The Wages Question_, pp. 140 _seq._
Footnote 619:
So in _Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1824, p. 315, Malthus says profits
depend rather on the demand for produce than on the demand for labour.
Footnote 620:
_Discourse on Pol. Econ._, by J. R. MacCulloch, pp. 61, 62 (1st and
2nd edd.), 1825.
Footnote 621:
_Conversations on Pol. Econ._, 1817 (1st and 2nd edd.), p. 137. Mrs.
Marcet’s memory is preserved for latter-day readers by Macaulay’s
reference to her in the essay on Milton.
Footnote 622:
_Discourse_, _l. c._ Cf. MacC.’s _Pol. Econ._, Pt. III. ch. ii. p. 378
(ed. 1843); Prof. Fawcett’s _Manual of Pol. Econ._, p. 131 (1876).
Footnote 623:
James Mill, _Elem._ (1821), p. 25; John Mill, _Principles_, II. xi. §
1. Cf. _Fort. Rev._, 1869, May; Thornton, _Labour_, II. i. p. 83.
Footnote 624:
_Wealth of Nations_, I. viii. p. 31, 2.
Footnote 625:
_Ibid._, IV. ix. 306, 1.
Footnote 626:
_Ibid._, IV. ix. 310, 2.
Footnote 627:
_Ibid._, V. i. 327, 2.
Footnote 628:
_Pol. Econ._, ed. 1836, ch. iv. sect. ii. p. 224.
Footnote 629:
_Ibid._ ed. 1820, ch. iv. p. 248.
Footnote 630:
_Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1824. Cf. below, p. 288.
Footnote 631:
Supplement to _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Cf. above, p. 71.
Footnote 632:
Empson in _Edin. Rev._, Jan. 1837, p. 496.
Footnote 633:
_Quart. Rev._, Jan. 1824 (no. lx.), pp. 333–4.
Footnote 634:
Ricardo, _Pol. Econ. and Tax._, ch. i. sections iv., v.; _Works_, pp.
20, 25. Cf. Malthus, _Pol. Econ._, 1820, p. 104, and the whole of
section iii. pp. 72 _seq._
Footnote 635:
_Quart. Rev._, _l. c._ p. 324; cf. p. 315. Cf. above.
Footnote 636:
_Pol. Econ. and Tax._, ch. i. sections iv. and v.
Footnote 637:
Any given value, it might be added, is influenced by custom as well as
competition.
Footnote 638:
1821, p. 186, ch. iv. sect. iii. “That consumption is coextensive with
production.”
Footnote 639:
_Pol. Econ._, III. xiv. “Of excess of supply.” Cf. I. v. § 3, p. 42.
Footnote 640:
A cargo of skates was sent to Rio Janeiro in 1808.
Footnote 641:
The intention of the new Corn Law of 1815 was to keep out all foreign
grain till the home price should reach 80_s._ a quarter, or the loaf
1_s._ See above, p. 221.
Footnote 642:
The article on the Bullion question, in August of the same year, might
be his, if it was not Francis Horner’s. Cf. Horner’s _Life_, vol. i.
ch. vi., dates April and Sept. 1805, from which it appears that Horner
was working hard at the question and meant to write on it, as he might
have done better in 1811, fresh from his experience on the Bullion
Committee. As to the February article, the authorship is shown partly
by internal evidence, partly by Horner’s _Life_, vol. ii. p. 68 (Jan.
1811): “I received Malthus’ MS. from you [Jeffrey] and have since
transmitted it to him with such remarks as occurred to me in perusing
it,” &c. MacCulloch did not begin to write the economical articles for
the _Edin. Rev._ till 1818. See _Notes and Queries_, 5th Oct., 1878.
Footnote 643:
For the history of the currency in the interval see Miss Martineau’s
_Introd. to Hist. of Peace_, Bk. II. ch. iii.; _Hist. of the Peace_,
Bk. I. ch. iii. and ch. xv.; Cobbett’s _Paper v. Gold_; Macleod’s
_Banking_, vol. ii., end of ch. ix. pp. 174–221, much the completest
account.
Footnote 644:
Peel changed his views then on Currency, as he did later on Catholic
Emancipation and the Corn Laws.
Footnote 645:
p. 370. He speaks approvingly of the American free trade in banking in
a way that would have pleased Cobden.
Footnote 646:
p. 371.
Footnote 647:
_E. g._ Horner complains of this even in so clear a paper as that on
Newenham. See Horner’s _Life_, vol. i. pp. 436–7 (_sub dato_ 1808).
Footnote 648:
_Works_ (ed. MacC.), pp. 291–296.
Footnote 649:
Ricardo, _Works_ (MacC.), p. xxi.
Footnote 650:
Cf. below, Bk. V.
Footnote 651:
Horner’s _Life_, vol. ii. p. 68 (Jan. 1811).
Footnote 652:
_Thoughts and Details on High and Low Prices during the last Thirty
Years, 1793–1823._ The later ed. of 1838 in three vols. is more
valuable.
Footnote 653:
_Political Register_, 30th Nov., 1816.
Footnote 654:
Internal evidence, _e. g._ p. 237 of the _Quarterly_, compared with p.
65 of _Measure of Value_, would show his authorship, and the article
is ascribed to him by Tooke, _Prices_, ed. 1838, vol. i. p. 21.
Footnote 655:
_l. c._ pp. 215–16.
Footnote 656:
Bosanquet, _Practical Observations on the Report of the Bullion
Committee_ (1810); Ricardo, _The High Price of Bullion a Proof of the
Depreciation of Bank-Notes_ (1809), and his _Reply to Bosanquet_
(1811).
Footnote 657:
_l. c._ _Pol. Econ._, Introd. (1820), pp. 6 and 7 n., (1836) p. 5 n.
Cf. Tooke, _Prices_, Part I. p. 6 (ed. 1823).
Footnote 658:
Tooke, _Prices_, Part III. p. 91.
Footnote 659:
See _Tract on Value_, p. 18.
Footnote 660:
_Quarterly_, April 1823, p. 230.
Footnote 661:
_Econ. Pol._, Part III. ch. ii., 2nd ed., 1842; 1st ed., 1802.
Footnote 662:
“Products” is Say’s word, however.
Footnote 663:
_Elements_ (1821), ch. iv. sect. iii. pp. 186 _seq._ “That consumption
is coextensive with production.” Mill taught this as early as 1808 in
his tract (against Spence) _Commerce defended_.
Footnote 664:
_Lettres à M. Malthus sur différents sujets d’écon. pol., notamment
sur les causes de la stagnation générale du commerce_ (1820), pp. 26
_seq._
Footnote 665:
_Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 355, (1836) p. 316. Against Say’s general
position see _Definitions_, p. 56 n.
Footnote 666:
_Wealth of Nations_, I. iii.
Footnote 667:
See above, p. 232. A curious footnote in _Essay on Pop._, 3rd ed.,
vol. ii. p. 264, suggested that there might be over-production in the
case of high farming when its cost made the farmers charge more than
the public could bear. But this note disappeared afterwards.
Footnote 668:
Ricardo, _Pol. Econ. and Taxation_, ch. xxi. p. 176 (MacCull.’s ed.).
Mill (_Elements_, pp. 193 ft., 194) is more rigid.
Footnote 669:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. xiii. 473.
Footnote 670:
_Pol. Econ._ (1836), ch. iv. sect. iii. p. 239, slightly altered from
1st ed., 1820, ch. iv. sect. iii. p. 266.
Footnote 671:
Sismondi, _Nouveaux Principes de l’Écon. Pol._, 1819. See Malthus,
_Pol. Econ._ (1820), p. 420, (1836) pp. 325 n., 366 n. Cf. on the
other hand _Essay_, III. xiii. 372–3 and n.
Footnote 672:
_Wealth of Nations_, V. i. art. ii. pp. 350–353 (ed. MacC.). He is
outrivalled by Ferguson, _Civil Society_, parts iv. and v. (ed. 1773).
Footnote 673:
3rd ed. of _Pol. Ec. and Tax._ (1821), ch. xxxi. pp. 468–9, ed.
MacCull., pp. 235–6. Cf. below (Critics). It is the position of Marx.
Footnote 674:
If we believe Bowring, _Life of Bentham_ (ed. 1843), p. 176.
Footnote 675:
“Supposing that his opinions have not altered within the last twelve
months.”—_De Quincey_, vol. iv. p. 231.
Footnote 676:
James Mill, _Elements_, pp. 193, 194. MacCull., _Pol. Ec._, p. 207.
Cf. the tract _Mordecai Mullion_ (1826).
Footnote 677:
Especially by Sunday Schools, according to the testimony of Samuel
Bamford.—_Radical_, vol. i. p. 7 (1844).
Footnote 678:
We have his counterpart in our own day.
Footnote 679:
See below, Bk. III., for disproof of the charge that he was
reactionary in his politics, like many economical optimists.
Footnote 680:
_Pol. Econ._, 1820, p. 236.
Footnote 681:
_l. c._ p. 472.
Footnote 682:
_Emigr. Comm._ (1827), p. 317, qu. 3281.
Footnote 683:
Some such view is suggested by Malthus himself, _Essay_, IV. xiii. p.
473 (cf. _Pol. Ec._, 1820, p. 475), a passage which it is hard to
reconcile with the passages in the _Quarterly_ and in the _Pol. Ec._
that speak of the necessity of a special class of unproductive
consumers.
Footnote 684:
_Pol. Econ._ (1820), ch. vii. sect. ix. p. 473. Cf. _Tract on Rent_,
p. 48 n.
Footnote 685:
_Essay on Pop._, III. iii. p. 282 (in relation to Robert Owen). Cf.
the whole ch. xiii. of Book III., where he treats of “Increasing
Wealth as it affects the Condition of the Poor.”
Footnote 686:
_Pol. Econ._, _l. c._ p. 474.
Footnote 687:
_Ibid._, _l. c._ pp. 474–5.
Footnote 688:
See above, pp. 245 _seq._ and 252.
Footnote 689:
See below, Bk. IV., and cf. above, p. 208.
Footnote 690:
See above, p. 142.
Footnote 691:
The passage is quoted in full because by recent critics it is much
garbled; _e. g._ in _Progress and Poverty_, VII. i. 304 n.
Footnote 692:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., IV. vi. 531.
Footnote 693:
Lucretius, iii. 951. Cicero’s simile of the theatre open to all
comers, but giving each man his own seat, had special application to
Property (_De Finibus_, iii. 20).
Footnote 694:
Epitaph on Fenton.
Footnote 695:
James Grahame’s _Population_ (1816), p. 34. Cf. _Quarterly Rev._, Dec.
1812, p. 327; Hazlitt, _Spirit of the Age_, ‘Malthus,’ end.
Footnote 696:
Book III. Part I. ch. iv. (1785).
Footnote 697:
_E. g._ Godwin, _Population_ (1820), I. iii. 17. The withdrawal was
probably due to Sumner. See Otter, Life of Malthus in _Pol. Ec._
(1836), p. lii.
Footnote 698:
Cf. _Essay_, 2nd ed., pp. 400, 401, and nn.; 7th ed., p. 298 n. Cf.
pp. 295 and 297 n. Cf. also Tooke, above quoted, p. 291.
Footnote 699:
Cf. above, p. 220.
Footnote 700:
On Bounties and the Corn Trade. Cf. _High Price of Provisions_, p. 3.
Footnote 701:
_l. c._ p. 23. See above, p. 289. Also _Corn Law Catechism_, 1839, qu.
244.
Footnote 702:
_l. c._ pp. 9–11. Cf. the “make up” and “bread money” mentioned in
_Report of Poor Law Commission_, 1834, p. 27.
Footnote 703:
_High Price_, &c. pp. 19, 20.
Footnote 704:
_l. c._ p. 27. Cf. above, p. 43.
Footnote 705:
1st ed., pp. 82, 83; 7th ed., pp. 302–3.
Footnote 706:
_Essay_, 7th ed., Appendix, p. 493.
Footnote 707:
He borrows, as he himself says, the language of Sir Frederick Eden on
the _State of the Poor_ (1797). See _Essay on Population_, 2nd ed., p.
417 n.; 7th ed., p. 308 n.
Footnote 708:
_Letter to Whitbread_ (1807), pp. 12, 13; cf. _Essay_, p. 445 ft.
Footnote 709:
Quoted, _Essay_, III. vi. 308 n.
Footnote 710:
7th ed., III. vi. 303; 1st ed., p. 365.
Footnote 711:
III. vi. (7th ed.), p. 305.
Footnote 712:
See e. g. _Emigration Committee_, 1827, qu. 3369, p. 323.
Footnote 713:
Dr. John Moore’s _View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland,
and Germany_ (7th ed., 1789), vol. ii. pp. 144–157.
Footnote 714:
_Essay_, 7th ed., III. vi. p. 307; _Emigration Committee_ (1827), qu.
3361, p. 323.
Footnote 715:
_l. c._ pp. 307–8. Cf. above, p. 134.
Footnote 716:
_Reports to Local Gov. Bd. on Foreign Poor Laws_, 1875, p. 7.
Footnote 717:
Macvey Napier’s _Correspondence_, pp. 29 _seq._ Date 30th Sept, 1821.
Footnote 718:
_Report of Poor Law Comm._, 1834; _Remedial Measures_, p. 227.
Footnote 719:
_Essay on Population_, Appendix, p. 492. It was probably this
disclaimer of public duty that led Coleridge to complain, “the entire
tendency of the modern or Malthusian political economy is to
denationalize” (_Table Talk_, p. 327). Cf. Toynbee, _Industr. Revol._,
p. 24. But it may have been simply the idea that Malthus, like
Ricardo, advocated _laissez faire_; and in this case it is singular he
should not have said “Ricardian” instead of “Malthusian.”
Footnote 720:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., IV. vii. p. 538; 7th ed., IV. viii. p. 530.
Footnote 721:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 539.
Footnote 722:
E. g. _Report of Commissioners_, p. 13.
Footnote 723:
_Report_, pp. 227–8.
Footnote 724:
_Report_, p. 228.
Footnote 725:
Even if he were a poor ratepayer, voting a sum of which his richer
neighbour would pay the larger share.
Footnote 726:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 490; 7th ed., p. 394; cf. pp. 392 top and 396.
Footnote 727:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. pp. 442–3; cf. p. 161.
Footnote 728:
7th ed., IV. i. p. 390. Cf. above, p. 37.
Footnote 729:
Not quite logical, if the test of a virtuous action is its tendency to
produce happiness.
Footnote 730:
_Ibid._, IV. i. p. 390.
Footnote 731:
2nd ed., pp. 489, 490, 501; 7th ed., pp. 390, 401. Cf. Paley, _M. and
P. Phil._, I. vi., II. iv.; Tucker, _Light of Nature_ (1st ed., 1768),
vol. ii. ch. xxix., esp. § 12.
Footnote 732:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. i. 391. Kant’s test of a moral law, so far as it
was not purely dogmatic, was most easily illustrated, or he would have
said parodied, by this Utilitarian argument.
Footnote 733:
_Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 487; 7th ed., p. 392.
Footnote 734:
_Ibid._, 2nd ed., p. 488; 7th ed., pp. 392–3; cf. p. 398.
Footnote 735:
_Ibid._, 1st ed. (1798), p. 211.
Footnote 736:
The passage in _A Tale of the Tyne_, which left no trace on Miss
Martineau’s own memory, but so faithfully expounded Malthus that he
called on purpose to thank her for it (_Autobiogr._, i. 253), is
easily identified in the light of these extracts as ch. iii. p. 56 of
ed. 1833.
Footnote 737:
2nd ed., pp. 491–2; 7th ed., p. 395. See above, p. 36.
Footnote 738:
2nd ed., p. 494; 7th ed., p. 397. Cf. above, p. 38.
Footnote 739:
The phrase in _Essay_, 7th ed., p. 401.
Footnote 740:
Not to be confused with his contemporary, Josiah Tucker, Dean of
Gloucester, the forerunner of Adam Smith.
Footnote 741:
1727 to 1774, the year of his death. Betchworth, now absorbed in Mrs.
Hope’s estate of Deepdene, was on the farther side of Dorking from
Albury and the Rookery.
Footnote 742:
This lucid epithet is ascribed to George III.
Footnote 743:
A point of difference has been noted above (p. 39) and below (p. 330).
He differs from Bentham also, who would not gratify the passions but
destroy them. See Held, _Soc. Geschichte_, p. 213.
Footnote 744:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. 441.
Footnote 745:
_Ibid._, IV. i. 391.
Footnote 746:
See above, p. 35.
Footnote 747:
7th ed., p. 441 ft.
Footnote 748:
_Ibid._, p. 442 top.
Footnote 749:
_Essay_, III. ii. 279, explains in this way the popular prejudice
which, in one case at least, visits the same sin more severely in a
woman than in a man.
Footnote 750:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. 442.
Footnote 751:
_Ibid._, IV. ii. 401. Cf. Paley, _Moral Philos._, Vol. I. Book II. ch.
iv. p. 65, there quoted, and Tucker, _L. of N._ (1st ed.), vol. ii ch.
xxix., especially §§ 5–7 and 12.
Footnote 752:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. 443, 444 ft.
Footnote 753:
_Ibid._, IV. viii. 432, 433, compared with p. 492.
Footnote 754:
_Essay_, 7th ed., App. pp. 492–3. Cf. 7th ed., p. 280: “Self-love is
the mainspring of the great machine.”
Footnote 755:
III. vii. 311.
Footnote 756:
_Edin. Rev._, 1810 (Aug.), an article on Ingram’s _Disquisitions on
Population_, and [Hazlitt’s] _Letters in Reply to Malthus_. As the
relations of Malthus to the _Review_ were close at this time, and as
the arguments and the style are remarkably like our author’s, there is
at least a strong probability that he wrote the article, Jeffrey after
his custom providing it with a head and tail to disguise the
authorship. Cf. Cockburn’s _Life of Jeffrey_, Vol. I. 301, 302, cf.
285.
Footnote 757:
Cf. _Wealth of Nations_, I. x. 48, 49.
Footnote 758:
_Edin. Rev._, 1810 (Aug.), p. 475.
Footnote 759:
Paley, _Mor. and Pol. Phil._, I. vii. 9; cf. Malthus, _Essay_, IV. ii.
397, &c. Cf. above, p. 39.
Footnote 760:
Paley, _ibid._, I. iv. 14.
Footnote 761:
See above, p. 37. The passages there cited completely refute Held’s
assertion that “Malthus appealed to Utility in the teeth of his belief
in the Bible” (_Sociale Geschichte Englands_, Book I. ch. ii p. 234).
Footnote 762:
_Mor. and Pol. Phil._, vii. 10.
Footnote 763:
“Any condition may be denominated ‘happy’ in which the amount or
aggregate of pleasure exceeds that of pain.”—Paley, _M. and P. Ph._,
I. vi.
Footnote 764:
_Essay_, 7th ed., III. vi. 305.
Footnote 765:
See Mr. Sidgwick’s _Method of Ethics_, p. 385 ft.
Footnote 766:
Quoted from _The Crisis_, by Empson, _Edin. Rev._, Jan. 1837, p. 482.
Footnote 767:
_Report of the Crofters Commission_, 1884, p. 9.
Footnote 768:
_Essay_, IV. iii. 407.
Footnote 769:
It would help the social reformer to learn, _e. g._ from clergymen,
guardians of the poor, and police magistrates, what exact proportion
of the destitution within their experience has been due, (_a_) to the
fault of the victim, (_b_) to the fault of his parents, (_c_) to the
fraud or oppression of others, and (_d_) to the mere accidents of
trade.
Footnote 770:
7th ed., p. 280.
Footnote 771:
III. ii. 434.
Footnote 772:
_Scenes of Clerical Life_, p. 250.
Footnote 773:
7th ed., p. 404.
Footnote 774:
p. 464, 1817. As early as 1803 (_Essay_, 2nd ed., IV. xi 689) Malthus
had recommended Savings Banks.
Footnote 775:
7th ed., p. 397. Cf. p. 407, &c.
Footnote 776:
7th ed., p. 405. To make the whole picture complete we must add what
is said above (ch. i.) on the place of man on the earth, and also (Bk.
III. chs. ii. and iii.) on industrial society as it might be.
Footnote 777:
See above, p. 298.
Footnote 778:
Mackintosh changed but never recanted. See Macaulay’s _Essays_.
Footnote 779:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. vi 420–1.
Footnote 780:
_W. of N._, I. i.
Footnote 781:
More strictly, what grows of itself is natural; what makes it grow of
itself is Nature.
Footnote 782:
See e. g. _Essay_, p. 390.
Footnote 783:
_Life of Godwin_, ii. 266.
Footnote 784:
Southey wished some “Crusader” like Rickman to write economical
articles for the Quarterly and keep out Malthus (_Life and Letters_,
vol. iii. p. 188).
Footnote 785:
_Essay_, III. vii. 318; written in 1817.
Footnote 786:
2nd ed., IV. vi.; 7th ed., IV. vi. and vii. He must have remembered,
when he wrote these words, the imprisonment of his poor tutor Gilbert
Wakefield for a seditious pamphlet (1799–1800). See below, Bk. V.
Footnote 787:
7th ed., p. 417.
Footnote 788:
7th ed., p. 426: written in 1817. For the tendency of the French
before the Revolution to look to Government for everything, see _e.
g._ Dyer’s _Modern Europe_, vol. iv. ch. lii p. 304.
Footnote 789:
7th ed., p. 418.
Footnote 790:
_Essays Moral and Political_, vol. i. p. 49; ‘The British Parliament.’
Footnote 791:
Malthus, _Essay_, 2nd ed., p. 502; 7th ed., p. 402. Cf. a striking
passage in the review of Newenham, _Edin. Rev._, July 1808, pp. 348–9.
Footnote 792:
_E. g._ 7th ed., pp. 438–9 and 478. Cf. above, p. 56. Horner’s letter
to Malthus in. Feb. 1812 (_Mem. of Horner_, vol. ii. pp. 109–10) shows
it was an active sympathy. Malthus agreed to act as a “steward” at one
of Lancaster’s meetings in London.
Footnote 793:
2nd ed., pp. 556–7; opponents “may fairly be suspected of a wish to
encourage their ignorance as a pretext for tyranny.”
Footnote 794:
7th ed., p. 439; 2nd ed., pp. 555–6.
Footnote 795:
Miss Martineau, _Hist. of Peace_, I. vii. 117–18.
Footnote 796:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. ix. 440, 441.
Footnote 797:
Held, _Soc. Gesch._, p. 215.
Footnote 798:
See above, pp. 95, 96, &c.
Footnote 799:
See above, p. 340.
Footnote 800:
_Essay_, 7th ed., IV. x. 446–7.
Footnote 801:
Emigr. Comm. (1827), qu. 3310.
Footnote 802:
IV. xiii. 474. Potatoes are a godsend to such, he says in another
place (_Edin. Rev._, July 1808, p. 344).
Footnote 803:
See above, Bk. II. ch. i.
Footnote 804:
See above, p. 301.
Footnote 805:
E. g. _Essay_, IV. ix. 433.
Footnote 806:
In Germany poor scholars from the country are often, when attending
the University, billeted for bread and butter on the well-to-do
citizens; and learning proves on the whole so inconsistent with
laziness, that the practice does not make them unwilling to earn their
own living afterwards.
Footnote 807:
A protective duty is indirect relief of the protected industry, but as
a rule the protected are secured against indolence by their own
domestic competition; and the fault of protection lies elsewhere than
in encouragement of indolence.
Footnote 808:
Rénan, _Qu’est ce qu’une Nation?_
Footnote 809:
Cf. above, p. 225.
Footnote 810:
Cf. p. 36.
Footnote 811:
The reaction against Rousseau and Godwin may partly account for the
absence of Cosmopolitanism.
Footnote 812:
See above, ch. i.
Footnote 813:
Some one has said, “Was man nicht definiren kann, zieht man als
Organismus an;” and we had been told, long before, that a simile is
either “idem per idem” or “idem per aliud,” either of them a logical
fallacy.
Footnote 814:
_Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. x. p. 445. “Every man has a right to do what he
will with his own.” But the question is:—What is his own?
Footnote 815:
Professor T. H. Green, _Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract_,
Oxford, 1881.
Footnote 816:
τὴν φιλίαν ἀναγκαῖον ὑάρη γίνεσθαι. _Ar. Pol._, II. ii.
Footnote 817:
See above, p. 310.
Footnote 818:
_Discourse on the Christian Union._ See _Essay on Population_, 7th
ed., p. 254 n.; Price, _Observations_, p. 206 n.
Footnote 819:
From Matth. vi. 10, and Psal. cxxii. 2 _seq._
Footnote 820:
See esp. pp. 12–18, and 20 (4th ed., 1790).
Footnote 821:
Pt. II. Essay V. pp. 228 _seq._ _Life_, ii. 292. Cf. ii. 64.
Footnote 822:
_Life_, ii. 64.
Footnote 823:
_Thoughts_, p. 10 and n. Cf. pp. 43, 45. In _Progress and Poverty_ (p.
93, ed. 1881) we are told that Godwin “until his old age disdained a
reply” to Malthus.
Footnote 824:
_Thoughts_, p. 61.
Footnote 825:
_Ibid._, p. 67.
Footnote 826:
_Ibid._, pp. 72–3.
Footnote 827:
_Life of Godwin_, i. 324.
Footnote 828:
See above, p. 208 n. In the 5th edition he turns his back on Godwin
and addresses Owen.
Footnote 829:
So Coleridge (MS. note to p. vii. of his quarto copy of the essay):
“And of course you wholly confute your former pamphlet, and might have
spared yourself the trouble of _making up_ the present quarto.”
Footnote 830:
_Edin. Rev._, 1802, on Dr. Rennel’s _Discourses_, Syd. Sm., _Works_,
i. p. 8.
Footnote 831:
p. 18. Compare De Quincey’s answer to Hazlitt in _London Magazine_,
1823 (vol. viii. pp. 349, 459, 569, 586).
Footnote 832:
Senior, _Lect. on Pop._, p. 35.
Footnote 833:
_Population_, I. iv. p. 27 (1820).
Footnote 834:
Cf. also speech on 9th April, 1816. Hansard, _sub dato_, p. 1109.
Footnote 835:
See above, p. 75. Cf. also above, pp. 142 _seq._, on Emigration.
Footnote 836:
Godwin, _Popn._, I. xiii. 106. Cf. I. iv. 22, II. ii. 142, VI. vi.
585.
Footnote 837:
Hawick, 1807, especially p. 84.
Footnote 838:
Sadler, _Popn._, I. i. 15 (1830).
Footnote 839:
Append. to 3rd ed., 1806; 7th ed., p. 485; cf. pp. 395, 446, and al.
Footnote 840:
See Appendix to ed. 1826, 7th ed., p. 627.
Footnote 841:
_Life_, ii. 271.
Footnote 842:
_l. c._ p. 259.
Footnote 843:
_Life_, ii. 259, 260. Cf. what Godwin writes to Sir John Sinclair,
July 1821 (Sinclair’s _Correspondence_, i. 393).
Footnote 844:
_l. c._ p. 271.
Footnote 845:
Morgan and Rosser, _e. g._ See _Life_, ii. 272–5; cf. p. 280.
Footnote 846:
_Edin. Rev._, July 1821, p. 364.
Footnote 847:
_Life of Godwin_, ii. 274
Footnote 848:
_Ibid._, pp. 274–5.
Footnote 849:
No. 1, Oct 1802, esp. p. 26.
Footnote 850:
_Population_, I. i.
Footnote 851:
Appendix to 3rd ed., p. 520 n.; 7th ed., p. 491 n.
Footnote 852:
See his Letter to Godwin, dated October 1818, and quoted in Godwin’s
_Population_, Bk. II. ch. i pp. 116–123, with comments.
Footnote 853:
See above, p. 66.
Footnote 854:
_Population_, II. x. 244–7.
Footnote 855:
_E. g._ II. xi. 274, 282, but especially I. iv. 25, and for the third
argument, pp. 29, 30, cf. pp. 43–50, &c. Cf. also Godwin to Sinclair
in Sinclair’s _Correspondence_, i. 393.
Footnote 856:
Population tends to double in a bundled years, and there is no risk of
over-population except in occasional times of dull trade (Letter of
Godwin to Sinclair, Sinclair’s _Correspondence_, _l. c._). A notable
exception.
Footnote 857:
_Population_, II. xi. 251–2.
Footnote 858:
IV. i.
Footnote 859:
II. ii. 127, and cf. above.
Footnote 860:
II. xi. 287, &c., &c.
Footnote 861:
III. iii. 327 _seq._
Footnote 862:
_Coups d’état_ in nature. Paul Bert, _L’Enseignement Primaire_, 1880,
p. xxviii.
Footnote 863:
_Edinburgh Review_, July 1821. Cf. Letter to the Rev. T. R. Malthus by
David Booth (1823), who absurdly assumes Malthus to be the reviewer.
Though internal evidence dispels this fancy, it shows that Malthus was
still believed to write for the _Edinburgh Review_.
Footnote 864:
Others, in _Table Talk_ and _Biogr. Literaria_, are chiefly
declamation.
Footnote 865:
In these quotations the capitals are in the original, and the italics
correspond to underlinings.
Footnote 866:
Arthur Aikin’s _Annual Review_, vol. ii. (for 1803) pp. 292 _seq._ Cf.
Southey’s _Life and Correspondence_ (ed. 1850), vol. ii. p. 251, 20th
Jan. 1804: “Yesterday Malthus received, I trust, a mortal wound from
my hand;” cf. vol. vi. p. 399, and vol. ii. p. 294. There is no hint
of obligation to Coleridge.
Footnote 867:
Cf. above, ch. iii. pp. 81 _seq._, and Bk. III.
Footnote 868:
_Sic_, though it explains a thing by itself.
Footnote 869:
He probably meant 353rd, but his numbers are careless.
Footnote 870:
On margin of p. 364, 2nd paragr.: “Quote and apply to himself.”
Footnote 871:
_E. g._ on p. 65 opposite to lines 5, 6, “Ass!” a monosyllabic
refinement omitted in Southey’s review.
Footnote 872:
First in 1817, 7th ed., pp. 509 _seq._
Footnote 873:
One of the charges (p. 18: that Malthus recommends the same remedies
as Condorcet) is sufficient to stamp the character of the book—_An
Inquiry into the Principle of Population_, &c., by James Grahame. Its
Introduction gives a useful list of writers on both sides; see p. 71.
(Edin., 1816.) Simonin repeats Grahame’s charges, with more mistakes
of his own. See his _Hist. de la Psychologie_ (1879), pp. 397–9.
Footnote 874:
7th ed., p. 511. Cf. above, p. 52, and the reply to Godwin’s Reply,
_Essay_, 2nd ed., III. iii. 384.
Footnote 875:
_Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1837.
Footnote 876:
_Life and Correspondence of Southey_, vol. iii. pp. 21–2, and p. 188.
Footnote 877:
Bishop of Gloucester and later of Hereford. _Theolog. Works_ (1832).
Footnote 878:
“The prolificness of human things, otherwise similarly circumstanced,
varies inversely as their numbers.”—Sadler, _Popn._, vol. iii. p. 352
(1830). Reviewed somewhat caustically by Macaulay in _Edin. Rev._,
July 1830. See Trevelyan’s _Life of Macaulay_, vol. i. p. 126. Cf.
Sadler’s ‘Reply’ to _Edin. Rev._ His weakest point was his use of
“inversely.”
Footnote 879:
Malthus, _Essay_, II. v. (7th ed.), pp. 164, 166; cf. p. 485.
Footnote 880:
G. P. Scrope, M.P., _Pol. Econ._, 1833, &c. Malthus, _Essay_, III.
iii. (7th ed.), 282–6 (Owen), IV. xii. 457 (Owen), III. xiv. 380 n.
(Anderson).
Footnote 881:
John Weyland, junr., F.R.S. _The Principles of Population and
Production as they are affected by the Progress of Society with a view
to Moral and Political Consequences_, 1816.
Footnote 882:
So Arnold Toynbee, _Industrial Revolution_, p. 107.
Footnote 883:
Ch. iii. p. 21. He adds, as his second: “This tendency can never be
destroyed.”
Footnote 884:
_Essay_, Appendix, p. 517.
Footnote 885:
Propos. iii and iv.
Footnote 886:
_Essay_, _l. c._ p. 521, a very strong passage.
Footnote 887:
Append. p. 526.
Footnote 888:
_Pop. and Prod._, pp. 82 _seq._
Footnote 889:
7th ed., I. ii. 12 n.; 2nd ed., p. 16.
Footnote 890:
_Tour in Southern Counties of England_, 1767, p. 342.
Footnote 891:
Between 1767 and 1820. Cf. above (England).
Footnote 892:
_Travels in France_, pp. 408–9 (ed. 1792) and al.
Footnote 893:
_Essay on Pop._, 7th ed., pp. 449, 451 _seq._; _Annals of
Agriculture_, no. 239, pp. 219 _seq._ (quoted in _Essay_, App. pp.
496–7). Young had reproached Malthus for denying the right to relief.
Footnote 894:
_Travels in France_, ed. 1792, pp. 438–9.
Footnote 895:
App. to _Essay_, pp. 499, 500. It is not true that “Owen was right _as
against Malthus_ when he regarded a certain amount of comfort as the
indispensable condition of a moral life, and thought that a
considerable increase of man’s powers of production was possible”
(Held, _Soc. Gesch. Englands_, pp. 351–2). Malthus himself did both.
Footnote 896:
The _Plan_ is quoted by Cobbett, _Pol. Reg._, Dec. 14, 1816. Malthus
(_Pol. Ec._ (1820), pp. 434, 435, (1836) p. 378) thinks that
“co-proprietorship” of Government with the landlords, after the scheme
of the Economists and on the analogy of Oriental “sole
proprietorship,” might become too ready an engine of taxation for a
military despotism.
Footnote 897:
See above, pp. 87, 112, &c.
Footnote 898:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 284.
Footnote 899:
_E. g._ by Bagehot, _Econ. Stud._ (1880), pp. 135 _seq._, and by
Southey in Aikin’s _Annual Review_ above quoted.
Footnote 900:
III. iii. 286. This and the rest of his argument (even its application
to Civil Liberty) is to be found in Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 3 and
4, but esp. 5. δεὶ δὲ μηδὲ τοῦτο λανθάνειν, &c.
Footnote 901:
_Essay on Pop._, 7th ed., p. 282.
Footnote 902:
See above, p. 24.
Footnote 903:
_Genesis of Species_, 2nd ed., 1871, p. 5.
Footnote 904:
The puzzling effect of counting up one’s great-grandfathers and
great-grandmothers up to the twentieth degree or so is described by
Blackstone as quoted by Godwin (_Popn._) and re-quoted by Hazlitt
(_Spirit of the Age_, 1825, p. 273, ‘Godwin’). The puzzle is less if
we remember that our remote ancestors must have married into each
other’s families, or rather were scions in the end of the same
families. We cannot go back to a single pair except through the
“prohibited degrees.”
Footnote 905:
We are to understand, therefore, that Malthus and the author agree
_that_ population needs a check, and are simply not agreed _what_ the
checks are to be.
Footnote 906:
See below, p. 392.
Footnote 907:
See above, p. 370. The sixteen positions not touched in their own
place will be met by a reference to the following places in this book:
i. to p. 20, add _Essay_, 2nd ed. Bk. III. ch. iii. p. 383, ii. to p.
37, iii. to p. 338, iv. to pp. 51, 78, v. to p. 80, vi. to p. 83,
viii. to p. 113, ix. to p. 376, x. to p. 67, xi. to pp. 231, 297, see
_Essay_, 7th ed. p. 381, xii. to pp. 70, 75, 91, xiii. to p. 393, xiv.
to pp. 91, 270, xv. to p. 294, xvi. to p. 69, and xvii. to p. 75.
Footnote 908:
_Das Kapital_, 7ter Abschn. 23tes Kap. pp. 653 _seq._ (ed. 1872); cf.
646 _seq._
Footnote 909:
The language of Ricardo, ch. xxxi. p. 236 (quoted by Marx, p. 656 n.).
Cf. above, p. 297. Cf. also Marx, pp. 427 foll.
Footnote 910:
Cf. what Prof. Rogers says in _Six Centuries_, p. 229, of the attempt
made in the fifteenth century to increase the “residuum” of
agricultural labour for the benefit of the farmers and landlords. Also
above, p. 164 n.
Footnote 911:
Marx, _ibid._, p. 659.
Footnote 912:
Misprinted in Marx as 254.
Footnote 913:
See above, pp. 137, 188, &c.
Footnote 914:
See above, p. 335.
Footnote 915:
See above, pp. 299, 335, &c.
Footnote 916:
_Das Kap._, p. 549 n.
Footnote 917:
_Das Kap._, p. 641 n.
Footnote 918:
The passage omitted is neither true nor decent.
Footnote 919:
G. M. Ortes _Reflessioni sulla popolazione_ (1790).
Footnote 920:
_Das Kap._, p. 549 n.
Footnote 921:
Cf. above, p. 382, and Malthus, _Essay_, 2nd ed. III. iii. 386, where
he says that Duty and Interest must work together.
Footnote 922:
‘Theory of Population,’ in _Westminster Rev._, April 1852, pirated by
the German Professor Trall in 1877 (_Eine neue Bevölkerungstheorie_),
and substantially maintained by its author (Mr. Herbert Spencer) in
_Principles of Biology_, Vol. II. Part vi., ‘Laws of Multiplication.’
Footnote 923:
_Essay_, 7th ed., p. 269.
Footnote 924:
Above, p. 377.
Footnote 925:
_E. g._ Hazlitt, _Reply to Essay on Population_, p. 20.
Footnote 926:
W. R. Greg, _Enigmas of Life_, 8th ed., 1874, pp. 58 _seq._ This was
nearly Godwin’s position in his first reply.
Footnote 927:
Sadler on _Population_, and Reply to _Edinburgh Review_. Godwin,
_Population_, Bk. VI. ch. ii., &c.
Footnote 928:
Carey (H. C.), _Princ. of Social Science_ (1858), vol. i. ch. xiv.;
cf. above, p. 74 _seq._ H. George, _Progress and Poverty_, pp. 115,
116. Sadler, p. 70, &c.
Footnote 929:
Godwin, Sadler, &c.
Footnote 930:
Sadler, pp. 354–5, &c. Cf. Adam Smith, _W. of N._, I. viii. 36. See
above, pp. 82, 83.
Footnote 931:
Godwin, see above, p. 361. Southey, _Life and Corresp._, III. 188.
Bagehot, _Econ. Studies_, pp. 133 _seq._ Cf. George, II. ii. 94.
Above, pp. 362, 381.
Footnote 932:
Besant, _Law of Population_, ch. iii. Cf. Malthus, pp. 407 _seq._ (IV.
iv.); Cobbett, _Taking Leave of his Countrymen_ (1817), p. 6;
_Political Register_, 4th Jan. 1817, p. 26, &c., &c. Above, p. 329.
Footnote 933:
Godwin, _Population_, passim. George, II. ii. 102, 109. Above, pp.
111, 112.
Footnote 934:
Godwin, _ibid._; George, pp. 138, 259, &c., &c.; Coleridge, MS. note
to p. 358 (of _Essay_, 2nd ed.), where for “physical constitution of
our nature” he would read, “in the existing system of society.” So
verbatim Southey in Aikin’s _Ann. Rev._ _l. c._
Footnote 935:
Doubleday, _True Law of Population_ (1841). Above, p. 65. See Herbert
Spencer, _Biology_, Vol. II. pt. vi. ch. xii. pp. 455, 480, &c. The
physiologists have amply refuted Doubleday.
Footnote 936:
Herbert Spencer. See above, p. 393. W. R. Greg, _Enigmas_. Above, p.
394.
Footnote 937:
New Malthusians. See above, p. 24.
Footnote 938:
See above, pp. 365 _seq._ The orthodoxy of Malthus is proved not by a
few orthodox sentences which can be gleaned from him (as from Bacon),
or even by the discovery of flaws in the received doctrine, but by the
whole logic of the essay.
Footnote 939:
See above, pp. 365 _seq._
Footnote 940:
See above, p. 336.
Footnote 941:
See above, p. 328.
Footnote 942:
See above, p. 96.
Footnote 943:
The authorship of the article is shown by Macvey Napier’s Letters _sub
dato_, and that of the biogr. preface by Empson’s art., p. 472.
Footnote 944:
“Daniel Malthus, 17, Sydenham de parochia Sti Giles Londini Armigeri
filius” (Matriculation entry, Easter term, 1747).
Footnote 945:
See Gibbon’s _Memoirs_, p. 46 (ed. Hunt and Clarke), and Jeffrey’s
_Life_, i. 40.
Footnote 946:
Cf. _Wealth of Nations_, V. i. art., pp. 341 foll.
Footnote 947:
Biogr. pref. to _Pol. Econ._ (1836), p. xxvi.
Footnote 948:
The name Malthus itself is probably Malt-hus, or Malthouse (cf.
Shorthouse, Maltby), which still occurs as a surname in England.
Francis (or, some say, Thomas) Malthus wrote on ‘Fireworks,
fortification, and arithmetic,’ in French and in English, 1629.
Footnote 949:
Except _perhaps_ in a letter quoted by Otter, biogr. pref. p. xxvii.
(date 1788).
Footnote 950:
_l. c._ p. xxv.
Footnote 951:
_l. c._ pp. xxv and xxvi, which show, however, that at fifty-seven the
strength had failed a little.
Footnote 952:
“He was not born to copy the works of others.”—Letter in _Gentl.
Mag._, Feb. 1800. See above, p. 7, and Otter, p. xxii.
Footnote 953:
Otter, pp. xxi, xxii.
Footnote 954:
So he urges Robert continually to “apply his tools.” “I hate to see a
girl working curious stitches upon a piece of rag.”—Otter, p. xxvi.
Footnote 955:
_Gentl. Mag._, Jan. 1800, p. 86; cf. Feb. 1800, p. 177; Otter, p.
xxvi.
Footnote 956:
_Monthly Mag._, March 1800, Otter, p. xxii. What and where were the
pieces we are not told.
Footnote 957:
Written in 1772, and republished in Mrs. Barbauld’s series of _British
Novelists_, 1820. Graves lived at Claverton from 1750 till his death
in 1804, in his ninetieth year. He became Fellow of All Souls in 1730,
and may have known Daniel Malthus at Oxford.
Footnote 958:
Whom he names and quotes freely. Tucker, in _Light of Nature_, shows
the same open dislike of them, but with much more good-humour and
taste.
Footnote 959:
In 1780 or thereabouts.
Footnote 960:
Wakefield’s _Life_ (1804), vol. i. p. 214. It is curious to remember
that Marat is said to have been an usher at a Warrington School a
short time before this.
Footnote 961:
Wakefield’s _Life_, i. p. 344.
Footnote 962:
Elected in 1776. See _Life_, i. p. 111 ft.
Footnote 963:
Otter, _l. c._ p. xxvii. ft.
Footnote 964:
Letter in App. II. to Wakefield, Life, ii. pp. 454–463. A comparison
of this letter with Wakefield, _Life_, ii. p. 334, and Otter, _l. c._
p. xxiv. ft. (“by his own acknowledgment”), makes it almost certain
that the letter is by Malthus.
Footnote 965:
_E. g._ with such very different men as Watson, Bishop of Llandaff,
and Thomas Paine.
Footnote 966:
Though at college he took several prizes for Latin and Greek and
English Declamations. We may hope that his defect of utterance had not
become pronounced at that date, or that the declamations were not
always declaimed.
Footnote 967:
Wakefield, _Life_, ii. p. 9.
Footnote 968:
Otter, _l. c._ p. xxv.
Footnote 969:
Otter himself was fourth wrangler in 1790, and E. D. Clarke junior
optime in the same year.
Footnote 970:
Otter, _l. c._ p. xxviii.
Footnote 971:
_l. c._ p. xxvii.
Footnote 972:
_l. c._ p. xxviii.
Footnote 973:
On the road leading out of Albury towards Guildford, a snug little
low-roofed house clinging to a hill slope, less ambitious than the
Rookery, but not without its pleasant garden walks, trees, and
shrubberies.
Footnote 974:
See above, p. 7.
Footnote 975:
Of which the genesis has been sufficiently described above, Bk. I. ch.
i.
Footnote 976:
One of his sources is shown by _Essay_, IV. ix. 438: “In some
conversations with labouring men during the late scarcities.” Cf. the
tract on _The High Price of Provisions_, p. 10, &c.
Footnote 977:
See above, pp. 48, 49 (abroad), and p. 195 (in Ireland).
Footnote 978:
Clarke (E. D.) (_Life_ by Otter, vol. ii. p. 15) refers to a letter
from Malthus, asking about the Foundling Hospital at St. Petersburg
(date March 1800). Cf. _ibid._, p. 39: “As for Malthus, tell him he is
not worth writing to. He is wrapped up in other matters and
obliterating all traces of his pilgrimage.... He is a great deal _trop
de plomb pour un tourist_” [_sic_]. So he draws on Mackintosh when the
latter is in India, in 1804. See Mackintosh’s _Life_ (1836), p. 215.
Footnote 979:
_E. g._ Ricardo, Senior, and Dr. Thos. Chalmers (who paid him a flying
visit in October 1822: _Life_ by Hanna, vol. ii. p. 358), and Francis
Horner (_Memoirs and Corresp._, e. g. vol. i. p. 406). In i. 436 of
his _Memoirs_ Horner speaks of having gone with John Whishaw, the
barrister, to visit Malthus at Haileybury in 1808, and takes occasion
to praise his mere love of truth above the eloquence and versatility
of others, though that, he says, may look like a decision in favour of
dulness.
Footnote 980:
_E. g._ the reservoir, p. 106; but the most extravagant is perhaps the
botanical figure, on p. 273, where he says that “the forcing manure,”
employed to cause the French Revolution, has “burst the calyx of
humanity.” Macaulay uses a similar metaphor of precisely the same
event, in the _Essay on Burleigh_.
Footnote 981:
His own command of metaphor made it the easier for him to turn the
edge of an opponent’s. See _e. g._ his handling of Weyland’s Giant,
Musket-ball, and Swaddling-clothes, in _Essay_, Append. pp. 514–521.
Footnote 982:
Engraved by Fournier for the _Dictionnaire de l’Économie Politique_,
art. ‘Malthus.’
Footnote 983:
See below, p. 418 n.
Footnote 984:
_Gentl. Mag._, March 1835, p. 324.
Footnote 985:
_Essay_ (7th ed.), II. iii. 148, where “winter of 1788” is perhaps for
1798, though it is 1788 in the second and all subsequent editions; or
else “preceding” may be wrong. Cf. _High Price of Prov._, p. 2.
Footnote 986:
Cf. above, pp. 48, 127, which should be read in conjunction with this
Biography.
Footnote 987:
_Life of Clarke_, vol. ii. p. 183. We know from a footnote in the
essay itself (7th ed., p. 194) that part of it at least was written in
1802.
Footnote 988:
Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iii. p. 36; cf. p. 53. “Our election at
Cambridge was perfectly quiet.”
Footnote 989:
_Life of Clarke_, ii. 203–4 n.
Footnote 990:
Earl of Carlisle, the poet. See _Engl. Bards and Scotch Reviewers_.
Footnote 991:
Otter, _l. c._ p. xxvi. Cf. _Essay_, 1st ed., pp. 210–12. _Gentl.
Mag._, April 1804, p. 374. A compliment which Otter pays him (in an
obituary in the _Athenæum_, 10th Jan. 1835), that his servants stayed
long with him, would fall more naturally to his wife.
Footnote 992:
Mr. Sargant (_Life of Owen_, p. 85) says, on the authority of Mr.
Holyoake, that Malthus visited New Lanark in its palmy days. Owen’s
work then was after Malthus’ own heart; he was reforming the world by
beginning with one individual corner of it. Cf. _Essay_, III. iii. 282
ft.
Footnote 993:
See below, p. 423.
Footnote 994:
_Memoirs of Horner_, i. 436–7; cf. p. 406. Cf. Miss Martineau, _Hist.
of Peace_, Introduction, II. i. 257.
Footnote 995:
He was made a member of the French Institute, and, in 1833, one of the
five foreign Associates of the Acad. des Sciences Mor. and Pol., and a
member of the Royal Academy of Berlin (Otter, _l. c._ p. xli.). See
Chas. Comte, _Notice_, and Garnier, _Dict. de l’Éc. Pol._
Footnote 996:
Bain, _Life of James Mill_ (1882), p. 199.
Footnote 997:
All that is certainly known of the bulk of his contributions to the
_Edin. Review_ is that, like those of James Mill and Mackintosh, they
do not occur before the twentieth number of it (in July 1807). See
Bain, _Life of James Mill_, p. 75 n. Horner mentions (_Memoirs_, Vol.
I. p. 437) the article on Newenham’s _Population of Ireland_, 1808,
and another (of which he had seen the MS.) Feb. 1811 (Vol. II. p. 68).
But see above, p. 285, note.
Footnote 998:
The apocryphal story of his eleven daughters is given and exposed by
Garnier, _Dict. de l’Éc. Pol._, art. ‘Malthus.’
Footnote 999:
Otter’s son-in-law. “Hal” in his childhood was asked what he would
have done if, like the Good Samaritan, he had found a man half dead by
the roadside; he answered (on the analogy of flies), “I should have
killed him outright.” Contrast the child’s answer with his father’s
remarks on the same parable in _Essay_, IV. xi. 447.
Footnote 1000:
Clergy List, 1881.
Footnote 1001:
Moore’s _Memoirs_, _Journals_, &c. (ed. Russell, 1853), vol. iii. p.
148, date Sept. 1820. Moore himself speaks of meeting Malthus and his
wife when he was on a visit to Mackintosh at Haileybury in May 1819.
_Ibid._, ii. 315.
Footnote 1002:
_Volksvermehrung_, p. 9. Kautsky sometimes trips, but he is more
accurate than most of Malthus’ foreign biographers. Chas. Comte (in
his _Notice historique sur la vie et les travaux de M. T. R. Malthus_,
read to Acad. of Mor. and Pol. Sciences, 28th Dec., 1836) converts
Haileybury into _Aylesbury_ (p. 31).
Footnote 1003:
_Pol. Econ._ (1836), p. 380 n. Sydney Smith wrote to Grey about him
without success, in 1831 (Holland’s _Life of Sydney Smith_, vol, ii.
p. 328).
Footnote 1004:
Richard, the brother of Wellington. See his Minute of 18th August,
1800, quoted by Malthus in his _Statements_.
Footnote 1005:
_E. India Register and Directory_ (Hatchard), year 1807, pp. xxiv.
_seq._ “Preliminary view of the establishment of the E. India
College.” These two branches of the Haileybury programme correspond in
their subjects to the Competitive and the Further examinations of
candidates for the Civil Service of India as at present conducted.
Malthus claims the credit of making the test in Oriental languages a
necessary condition of final appointment (_Statements_, p. 100).
Footnote 1006:
Accordingly Malthus gets many of his illustrations from India, e. g.
_Pol. Ec._ (2nd ed.), pp. 154–5.
Footnote 1007:
_India Register_, _l. c._ p. xxv.
Footnote 1008:
There must be some on the Pension List who still remember him.
Footnote 1009:
From the first there was a school, affiliated with the college though
not confined to its future pupils. The present school is of later
origin.
Footnote 1010:
_Statements_, p. 103, &c. This idea of the proper preparation for a
civilian’s career in India chimes in with Malthus’ idea of the first
requisite of good citizenship at home and everywhere.
Footnote 1011:
A hare-lip. Miss Martineau, who describes it, adds that “his vowels at
least were sonorous, whatever might become of the consonants.” But she
understood him without her ear trumpet. _Autobiogr._, i. 327–8. Cf.
above, p. 58. Sydney Smith says, “I would almost consent to speak as
inarticulately if I could think and act as wisely.” _Life_ by Holland,
vol. ii. p. 326. He attributes a similar physical defect to
Talleyrand, with perhaps as much seriousness. _Life_ by Holland, vol.
ii. pp. 256–7.
Footnote 1012:
_Letter to Lord Grenville_ (1813), p. 14. Cf. what he says of the
importance of teaching Political Economy in elementary schools, &c.
_Essay_, IV. ix. 438 n.
Footnote 1013:
Jeffrey, _Life_, vol. ii. pp. 339, 340. To Mrs. C. Innes, 9th May,
1841.
Footnote 1014:
_Autobiogr._, i. 327. Other visits of Malthus to her are recorded,
iii. 83, i. 253. For her view of him and his work see especially i.
200, 209, 253, 331.
Footnote 1015:
_Ib._ I. pp. 328–9.
Footnote 1016:
Cf. 1st _Essay_, pp. 225–6, which shows him on the Hunting-Field.
Footnote 1017:
A slip of the pen for “Professor.” The Principal was J. H. Batten,
F.R.S.
Footnote 1018:
Where the fear expressed in some quarters (see _Statements_, p. 87)
that the place would become a barrack has been realized
architecturally.
Footnote 1019:
_Life_ by Holland, vol. ii. p. 73.
Footnote 1020:
_l. c._ vol. ii p. 150.
Footnote 1021:
Debate in House of Lords, April 9th, 1813, Hansard, pp. 750, 751.
Footnote 1022:
‘Statements respecting the East India College, with an appeal to facts
in refutation of the charges lately brought against it in the Court of
Proprietors’ (1817). Cf. his ‘Letter to Lord Grenville, occasioned by
some observations of his Lordship on the E. India Co.’s establishment
for the education of their Civil servants’ (1813). Cf. _Edin. Rev._,
Dec. 1816. The Letter to Lord Grenville (1813) states the case a
little less fully; but both pamphlets contain substantially the same
arguments.
Footnote 1023:
A property it often was, in the most literal sense, being bought and
sold for cash. See _Hist. of Peace_, Introd. II. ii. 329–30.
Footnote 1024:
_Statements_, p. 103 n.
Footnote 1025:
Candidates were to be nominated in groups of four, the best of the
four to have the appointment. Cf. Mill and Wilson’s _Brit. India_,
Vol. IX. Book III. ch. ix. p. 381.
Footnote 1026:
The steps of the change may be followed in the fourth _Report (1858)
of the Civil Service Commissioners_, pp. xix. _seq._ and 228 _seq._
Cf. also their first Report (1855).
Footnote 1027:
For proofs of their regard, see the letters quoted in the blue-book of
1876 on “the Selection and Training of candidates for the Civil
Service of India,” _passim_, and Trevelyan’s “Competition Wallah”
(1864), pp. 7, 8, 15, 16, but cf. 149.
Footnote 1028:
See _Works_, Review of Rennel, footnote.
Footnote 1029:
_Memoirs_, Vol. I. p. 436, &c.
Footnote 1030:
Quoted in Empson, _Edin. Rev._, Jan. 1837, p. 473. Sinclair’s
‘Correspondence’ (1831), amongst other curious matter, gives the
autographs of the three great masters (I. 101).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Malthus and his work" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.