The preventive and the positive checks which form the obstacles to the increase of population are resolvable into, 1, moral restraint ; 2, vice ; 3, misery. Moral restraint (considered as one of the checks to population for the first time in the second edition, 1803) is the prudential restraint from marriage, with a conduct strictly moral during the period of this restraint. Promiscuous intercourse, vio lation of the marriage bed, and improper arts to conceal the consequences of irre gular connections, are included under the head of Vice. Those positive checks which appear to arise unavoidably from the laws of nature may be called exclu sively Misery. Such are the checks which repress the superior power of population, and keep it on a level with the means of subsistence.
The Essay on Population' places the question in every light which can eluci date the truth. It is divided into four books, the first of which notices the checks to population in the less civilised parts of the world and in past times. The second book passes in review the different states of modern Europe (most of which Mr. Malthus visited in the in terval preceding the publication of the second edition), and he points out the checks to population which prevailed in each. Chapter xi. of this book is On the Fruitfulness of Marriages chapter xii. ' On the Effects of Epidemics on Regis ters of Births, Deaths, and Marriages;' and chapter xiii. is devoted to General Deductions from the preceding view of Society.' The third book comprehends an examination of the different systems or expedients which have been proposed or have prevailed in society, as they affect the evils arising from the principle of population in the first three chapters ; the systems of equality proposed by Wal lace, Condorcet, Godwin, &c. are con sidered. Several chapters are devoted to the consideration of poor-laws ; corn laws (first in connection with bounties on exportation, and secondly under re strictions on importation); the agricul tural system ; the commercial system ; and the combination of both. The last two chapters are, ' Of increasing Wealth as it affects the Condition of the Poor;' and a summary containing General Ob servations.' The fourth book treats of Our Future Prospects respecting the Removal or Mitigation of the Evils arising from the Principle of Popula tion.' Chapter i. treats ' Of Moral Re straint and our Obligations to practise this Virtue.' Chapter ii. is Of the Ef fects which would result to Society from the prevalence of Moral Restraint.' Chapter iii. is ' Of the only effectual Mode of Improving the Condition of the Poor.' And the last chapter is our rational Expectations respecting the Future Improvement of Society.' Perhaps no author has been more ex posed to vulgar abuse than Mr. Malthus. He was accused of hardness of heart, and represented as the enemy of the poorer classes, whereas no man was more benevolent in his views ; and the earnestness with which he engaged in his work ' On Population' arose from his desire to diminish the evils of poverty. His mind was philosophic, practical, and sagacious; his habits, manners, and tastes, simple and unassuming ; his whole character gentle and placid. The last edition of his Principles of Politi cal Economy' contains an interesting memoir of his life and writings by Dr. Otter, late Bishop of Chichester, who had known him intimately for half a century. A list of Mr. Malthus's works
and writings is given in page 42 of this Memoir it is a matter of regret that they have never been published in a col lected form. Several of his most valu able productions appeared in the Edin burgh and Quarterly Reviews. Mr. Malthus was born at Albury, near Guild ford, in 1766 ; became a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and entered holy orders : he afterwards married. In 1804 he was appointed Professor of History and Political Economy at the East India College, Haileybury, the duties of which he fulfilled to the time of his death, in December, 1834. Mr. Malthus was a Fellow of the Royal Society and member of the National Institute of France. It is not creditable to those who had the distri bution of ecclesiastical patronage, that Mr. Malthus never held any preferment in the church. From this brief notice of the individual whose name is so inti mately identified with the theory of population, to the elucidation of which the best part of his life was devoted, we return to the subject of the present article.
Although circumstances may some times occur in which the tendency of population to outstrip the means of sub sistence may be counteracted, and food may for a time increase faster than popu lation, yet this only gives an impulse to population, and the former proportion is quickly re-established, provided no im provement takes place either in the pru dential habits of the people or in the elevation of their tastes and desires. The poverty and misery which are ob servable among the lower classes of the people in every country can in a great degree be accounted for by a reference to the principle of population. It is evident, for example, that the rate of wages depends, for one of its elements, on the proportion between population and the means of employment, or in other words capital ; and that any altera tion in either directly affects wages. If population has increased while the funds for employing labour have remained sta tionary, the competition of labourers will cause the rate of wages to decline. lf, on the other hand, capital has increased faster than population, or capital has been con centrated on any given spot more rapidly than population, wages will rise in the former case, and in the latter will be higher than in other places where the same thing has not taken place. Thus occasionally in some parts of the United States so many emigrants with capital will flock to a single spot, that the wages of carpenters, tailors, and others, whose labour is in immediate demand, will be come very high compared with any other place that has not been recently settled. The tendency of population to increase is the same under all circumstances, but this is not the case with capital ; for iu proportion to the capital already accu mulated, the difficulty of adding to it becomes greater, that is, the field for the employment of capital becomes less ex tensive. Under such circumstances wages would have a constant tendency to fall, if the checks to population did nos interpose ; but it depends upon the peo ple themselves whether the level is to be maintained by vice and misery, or by habits of prudential restraint, which, if adopted, would certainly secure to them a fair proportion of the necessaries of life.