The great problem of society is to main tain the most beneficial proportion be tween population and food—" to unite two grand desiderata, a great actual popula tion and a state of society in which squalid poverty and dependence are compara tively but little known." Disheartening as the evils resulting from the principle of population may at first sight seem, they are capable of mitigation. This principle may even be regarded as one of the great springs of human improvement —as the parent of invention and the stimulus to exertion—which preserves society from that state of imbecility and decline into which it would fall if not urged onward by some extraordinary power. It is the interest of all members of society, and is particularly incumbent on those who have the power, to use their best exertions to elevate the habits, tastes, and moral feelings of the people ; and by this means to render every suc cessive material improvement conducive to the happiness of society. If this be not done, as much wretchedness as we find in the lower stages of society may co-exist with the highest efforts of art and science, and the greatest perfection in all the processes of industry. Even the introduction of vaccination or any similar means of diminishing mortality is of little avail provided the number of mar riages continue the same without any corresponding increase of the resources of society, and the average mortality will not be diminished, but disease will be fatal under other forms. Every im provement which tends to increase the quantity of human food, and every in vention which enriches society by cheap ening the processes for obtaining the necessaries of life, should be accompanied by a corresponding advance in the intel lectual and moral character of a nation, in order to secure all the advantages which these improvements are calculated to confer.
Mr. Malthus's theory is now generally accepted as the true exposition of the principle of population. Many of the objections that have been urged against it are hardly worthy of notice. Some are content to quote the Scripture com mand, " Increase and multiply," forgetful of the moral obligations which are im posed in connection with it. Others have imagined that they have discovered a supernatural law of fecundity which varies with the fluctuating circumstances of society. Dr. Price, Mr. Godwin, and Mr. Sadler entertained this notion. Mr. Malthus's reasons for not replying to Mr. Godwin's work are stated in the ap pendix to the sixth edition of the Essay oo Population.' The fallacies of Mr.
Sadler's work are most ably exposed in the Edinburgh Review,' No. 102. Mr. Senior is the only economist of any dis tinction who has objected to the theory of Mr. Malthus. He contends, in his Two Lectures on Population,' for the doctrine that " the means of subsistence have a natural tendency to increase faster than population." The appendix to these 'Lectures' contains a correspondence be tween Mr. Malthus and Mr. Senior on their respective views : it exhibits the latest views of Mr. Malthus, though. after forty years' anxious reflection on the subject, he had no change to make in his opinions.
The latest works on population are, The Principles of Population, and their Connection with Human Happiness,' by Archibald Alison, Esq., published in 1840; and • Over-Population and its Remedy ; or, an Inquiry into the Extent and Causes of the Distress prevailing among the La bouring Classes, and into the Means of Remedying it,' by W. T. Thornton (1846).
The disputes about the principle of population, like those which have arisen in many other questions of a like kind, are mainly owing to the ambiguity of language : in fact they are very little more than questions about the consistent use of words. If we analyse the pro position of Mr. Senior, it will appear that it is not easy to conceive with clear ness the meaning of its terms. The words " means of subsistence" may sig nify the subsistence which is obtained from spontaneous products of the earth, and from the natural increase of animals. The products of the earth may be said to have a natural tendency to increase, or naturally to increase, or rather to be produced; and it may, for argument's sake, be admitted, though it is not true, that animals have the same kind of natural tendency to increase, or are in like manner naturally increased, or rather are produced. There is no other natural tendency to increase, or natural increase, or natural produce, that we can conceive, if the word " natural " is to have its ordinary acceptation. The increase of population, or the produce of new population, may be said to be natural, exactly in the same sense in which the Increase or produce of animals generally may be called natural. If then this
should be the sense of the word " natural," the proposition means that vegetables and animals (not including man) have a natural tendency to increase faster than man, who is an animal—a proposition which is not worth the trouble of dis cussion.
But this is not the meaning of the writer who maintains this proposition : he is evidently speaking of human labour and its products when he is speaking of the "means of subsistence." The term " means of subsistence " therefore con tains the notion of human labour ; and " means of subsistence " are the products obtained by human industry applied to material objects. Everything "natural" therefore is by the very force of the term "means of subsistence" excluded from these words ; for it is not of natural pro duce simply that the writer is speaking, but of that which human labour produces: in other words, though nature (to use the vulgar term) co-operates, the thing pro duced is not viewed as nature's product, but as the product of human labour. There is then nothing "natural" in "the means of subsistence," and therefore there is no natural tendency to increase in the means of subsistence ; and con sequently the comparison contained in the proposition between things that have no natural tendency to increase, and things that, in a sense, have a natural tendency, is unmeaning. Whether then the assertion be that " there is a natural tendency in population to increase faster than capital" (Mill), or "that the means of' subsistence have a natural tendency to increase faster than population" (Senior), in either case the use of the word "natural " is incorrect, and not only tends to cause, but does cause confusion. It should be observed that in enunciating this proposition, Mr. Senior sometimes omits the word " natural." Again, the natural tendency of popula tion to increase is simply the desire and the power to gratify the animal passion, the consequence of which is the physical union of the sexes and the production of their kind. But this tendency (to use again this very vague expression) is positively checked by want of food and other things necessary for human susten tation and health. If food and such other things could be had to an indefinite amount without any labour, so far as food and such other things only are necessary to its increase, population would go on continually increasing. But the actual conditions of obtaining food and such other things are human labour ; that is, the labour of those animals, who if supplied with all that they want with out any' labour, might go on increasing indefinitely. It appears then that this so-called natural tendency of population to increase has no effect, that is, it re mains a tendency ; that is, it is nothing at all in results, unless man labours • and the amount of his labour, in considering this question, is quite immaterial. It is unimportant whether it consists in making a plough and ploughing the earth, or plucking an apple from a tree and eating it. The whole proposition then may be developed thus :—The means of subsistence are only produced or had by man's labour : these " means of subsistence" so produced have no natural tendency to increase, except so far as man has a natural tendency to increase. Now, man has in a sense a natural tendency to increase, that is, he has a desire and a capacity to increase, and be can increase if he has the means of subsistence. But he must have the means of subsistence first ; and if the actual means of subsistence are only suf ficient for the actual population, there I can be no increase of the population till the means of subsistence are increased. The " means of subsistence." at any given time, and in any given nation, signify those things which the individuals of that nation require according to their several stations and the habits of society : they may be the bare means of sustain ing life ; or they may be those things also which Mr. Senior has well defined under the heads of " decencies " and " luxuries." If while the means of sub sistence remain the same, the population lower their scale of living, it may in crease further, for the relative means of subsistence are by the supposition in creased. It is true that this lowering of the scale of living is an evil, inasmuch as it tends to make society move in a retrograde direction: there is also a limit to the extent to which the scale of living can be lowered. The antecedent con dition then on which the increase of population depends is its own labour, for it cannot increase without the increase of the means of subsistence, and such in crease is the effect of labour only.