POLITICAL ECONOMY all times and in all places. He says that the demand for labor can only increase in propor- tion to the increase of the "funds destined for the payment of wages ;" and yet, while justly holding that it is labor which supplies a people with what they consume, he says that " the attention of government never was so unne- cessarily employed as when directed to watch over the preservation or increase of the quan- tity of money in any country." In his com- plicated arguments respecting "stock" which he says consists of two parts, that which the possessor " expects is to afford him revenue," which "is called his capital," and also that which supplies his " immediate consumption " he involves himself in some of the most serious fallacies to be found in his book, the deductions from which are fatal to much of his system. Money he terms " the great wheel of circulation, the great instrument of com- merce," and adds that it " makes a part and a very valuable part of the capital " of a coun- try or people, and that when possessed of it we can readily obtain whatever else we have occasion for. " The great affair is to get money ; when that is obtained, there is no dif- ficulty in making any other purchase." Here, it will be observed, he recognizes the impor- tant fact that money possesses a quality not to be found in any other commodity : its uni- versal acceptability among men, its power to purchase anything which man desires to sell. In tracing the general progress of wealth, he illustrates the importance of the diversification of industry to the farmer as follows: "An in- land country naturally fertile and easily culti- vated produces a great surplus of provisions beyond what is necessary for maintaining the cultivators; and on account of the expense of land carriage, and inconveniency of river navigation, it may frequently be difficult to send this surplus abroad." When then work- men engaged in other pursuits settle in the neighborhood, "they work up the materials of manufacture which the land produces, and exchange finished work " " or the price of it for more materials and provisions." "They give a new value to the surplus part of the rude produce, by saving the expense of carry- ing it to the water side, or to some differ- ent market ; and they furnish the cultivators with something in exchange for it that ^ is either useful or agreeable to them, upon easier terms than they could have obtained it before. . . . They are thus both encouraged and en- abled to increase this surplus produced by a further improvement and better cultivation of the land ; and as the fertility of the land had given birth to the manufacture, so the prog- ress of the manufacture reacts upon the land, and increases the fertility." As the work improves, more distant markets are reached ; "for though neither the rude produce, nor even the coarse manufacture, could without the greatest difficulty support the expense of a considerable land carriage, the refined and 673 VOL. xin. 43 improved manufacture easily may. In a small bulk it frequently contains the price of a great quantity of rude produce." With all its in- consistencies, few books have exerted so great an influence upon the affairs of mankind. In 1V98 appeared anonymously " An Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of Society," the author of which was the Eev. T. K. Malthus. New revised and enlarged editions have since been pub- lished with the name of the author, the sixth in 1826. According to its preface, this pub- lication " owes origin to a conversation with a friend on the subject of William Godwin's essay on avarice and profusion in his 'In- quirer.'" In addition to an examination of the principle of population, and as a part of his subject, Malthus reviews the doctrines of Godwin as well as those of Condorcet, both of whom held to the possible progress of man toward future perfection, and a consequent reign of equality, peace, and justice. Impress- ed with the force of Godwin's protest against the defects and failures of the existing social organization, in the essay above referred to and in his "Inquiry concerning Political Jus- tice " (1V93), respecting the unequal distribu- tion of property, Malthus aimed to overthrow it by presenting evidence that the inequality among mankind was due to a natural law. His principle is that "population when unchecked increases in a geometrical ratio, while subsis- tence increases only in an arithmetical ratio ;" or, practically stated, that "in two centuries the population would be to the means of sub- sistence as 256 to 9, in three centuries as 4,096 to 13, and in 2,000 years the difference would be almost incalculable." He does little more than state his proposition, when, almost with- out presenting proof in regard to the actual power of increase in man and food respective- ly, he proceeds to show what have been the checks to increase of population throughout the various countries of the world. Popula- tion, he holds, " is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence," and "invariably in- creases where those means increase, unless prevented by some very powerful and obvious check." These checks he divides into the positive and the preventive. The former " in- clude every cause, whether arising from vice or misery, which in any degree contributes to shorten the natural duration of human life," among which maybe enumerated "unwhole- some occupations, severe labor, exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases, and epidem- ics, wars, plagues, and famine." The pre- ventive checks include abstinence from mar- riage and sexual intercourse from Considera- tions of prudence, and all vice and immorality tending to render women unprolific. Few books have formed the subject of greater dis- cussion and controversy than this; and i difficult to say whether among economic wn-
