On the whole, the experience of man kind proves that the sexual passion will, if unrestrained, always, or except under very peculiar circumstances, nearly al ways increase the population by new births up to the level of the means of subsistence at each moment existing ; during short intervals the propagation of the species may also have been so active as to have outstripped the means of sub sistence existing at the end of such in tervals. But though the population during short intervals may so increase, its increase at the end of a series of such consecutive intervals can only be the effect of a previous increase in the means of subsistence ; always supposing the condition of the people not to be growing worse, for there may be, as already ob served, an increase of population up to the limit of a bare subsistence, without any actual increase in the whole means of subsistence. Therefore the increase of the means of subsistence, that is, the products of human labour, are the ante cedent conditions of any actual increase, and the increase of population may be to the amount of such increase, but can not surpass it. If for short periods the increase of population does surpass the increase on which by the supposition it depends, the increase is checked; and on taking the account at longer intervals, there is, or may be, no actual increase of the population. If for short periods the increase of the means of subsistence surpasses the increase of population, this is made up in the next periods by an in crease in the population. There is then, or may be, a constant fluctuation for short periods, the population and the means of subsistence alternately in creasing with greater rapidity. But any increase of population, even for a short period, supposes a previous increase of the means of subsistence over those which the actual population found to be merely sufficient before the commence ment of such short period ; whatever may be the comnarative rates of increase between the two during such short period. It seems then that in the sense here explained population may so rapidly increase that at the end of an interval from the commencement of which the increase of population is reckoned, the means of subsistence existing at the com mencement of such interval, and which were sufficient for the then population and something more, added to the means of subsistence produced during such in terval. may be insufficient to support the
population existing at the end of such interval, in the same way in which the existing population at the commence ment of such interval was living ; and, on the other hand, the means of sub sistence existing at the end of such in terval may be more than sufficient to support the population existing at the end of such interval in the same way of living. At the end of any long interval, if there is an increase of population, as compared with the commencement of such interval, there has been during such interval, on the whole, a balance on the side of the means of subsistence, pro vided the mode of living has not been lowered ; and a fortiori, there must have been such balance, if the mode of living has been raised ; that is, the means of subsistence at the commencement of such interval, and those produced during it, have been sufficient to produce and leave in existence at the end of such interval, a larger population than at the commence ment of it. This excess on the side of the means of subsistence, if distributed equally through every moment of the long interval, would leave at the end of each such interval a surplus of subsist ence, the antecedent condition of an in crease in the following interval. The actual fact may be that in some intervals population has passed a little beyond what was provided at the beginning of and during such intervals, the conse quence of which is a diminution in its rate of increase in the next interval, and sometimes an increase of deaths. • In discussing this question, it is always actual increments that are to be consi dered. and both for short and long periods. The tendency is nothing; for a tendency of any kind, that is, a capacity to or for a given end, means nothing in such spe culations as these, unless it becomes an effect.
The principle of population is stated by Mr. Malthus with more precision than by some writers who have adopted his opinions ; and though it seems to us that his langnar is not always quite free from objection, his real meaning is per fectly so. His correspondence with Mr. Senior shows this. The importance of right notions on this subject must be our apology for this further attempt at explaining it.