344 continued his investigations in France and Switzerland. The result of these praiseworthy labours appeared in the greatly enlarged and more mature edition of his work, which was published in 1803. In 1805 Malthus married happily, and not long after was appointed professor of modern history and political economy in the East India Company s College at Haileybury. This situation he retained till his death in 1834. Malthus was one of the most amiable; candid, and cultured of men. In all his private relations he was not only without reproach, but distinguished for the beauty of his character. He bore the popular abuse and misrepresentation without the slightest murmur or sourness of temper. The aim of his inquiries was to promote the happiness of mankind, which could be better accomplished by pointing out the real possibilities of progress than by indulging in vague dreams of perfectibility apart from the actual facts which condition human life. Malthus s Essay on Population grew out of some discus sions which he had with his father respecting the perfecti bility of society. His father shared the theories on that subject of Condorcet and Godwin ; and his son combated them on the ground that the realization of a happy society will always be hindered by the miseries consequent on the tendency of population to increase faster than the means of subsistence. His father was struck by the weight and originality of his views, asked him to put them in writing, and then recommended the publication of the manuscript. It was in this way the Essay saw the light. Thus it will be seen that both historically and philosophically the doctrine of Malthus was a corrective reaction against the superficial optimism diffused by the school of Rousseau. It was the same optimism, with its easy methods of regenerating society and its fatal blindness to the real conditions that circumscribe human life, that was re sponsible for the wild theories of the French Revolution and many of its consequent excesses. The Essay on the Principle of Population will best be considered Tinder two heads : (1) the principle itself, with the arguments and illustrations by which it is supported; and (2) remarks on its origin and its applications. I. _The principle itself. The idea with which Malthus starts is the improvement of society. In an inquiry concerning the im provement of society there are two things to be done, (1) to investigate the causes that have hitherto impeded the progress of mankind to happiness, and (2) to examine the probability of the total or partial removal of these causes in future. Waiving the considera tion of such an immense field of thought, Malthus restricts him self to the examination of one great cause intimately connected with human nature and its effects on society, which, though operat ing since the commencement of society, has been little noticed by writers. This cause is the constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it. Throughout both the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. Life on this planet is so prolific that, if allowed free room to develop itself, it would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years. There is only one limit to the indefinite increase, and that is necessity. In plants and irrational animals, which are impelled by blind instinct untroubled by doubts about providing for their off spring, the problem is simple ; in their case increase is checked only by want of room and nourishment. As regards man, whose equally powerful instinct is controlled by reason, the question is more complicated. In his case, increase must either be checked by preventive restraint, which too frequently produces vi^e ; or a con stant check, from the difficulty of acquiring food, must be in opera tion. That population tends to increase beyond the means of subsist ence is obvious in two ways, (1) from a comparison of the natural increase of population, if left to exert itself with perfect freedom, with the available increase of subsistence under the most favourable conditions, and (2) from a review of the different states of society in which man has existed. Under the first head, Malthus considers it a safe calculation that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-live years. It has even been calcu lated that it may double itself in about thirteen years ; that pro portion has actually occurred for short periods in more countries than one. Malthus, however, contents himself with the more moderate rate, namely, that population, when unchecked, doubles itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio. If so, how is the rate of increase of the means of subsistence to be estimated ? If we take a limited area, no improvement in develop ing the resources of the soil will keep pace with the unchecked increase of population. We may allow that, through the great improvements of agriculture in Great Britain, the average produce of the island could be doubled in the first twenty-five years ; but in the next twenty-five it is impossible to suppose that the produce could be quadrupled. The utmost we can allow is that the pro duce might be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what it at present yields. If we apply this supposition to the whole earth, we shall assume an increase much greater than any possible exertions of mankind could effect. On the whole, then, in the present average state of the earth, the means of sub sistence could not be made to increase faster than in an arithmeti cal ratio. With such a disproportion between the ratio of increase of population and of the means of subsistence, population can be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence only by the strong law of necessity operating as a check on the greater power. In fact, the ultimate check to population is the want of food ; but this ultimate check is never the immediate check, except in cases of actual famine. The immediate check consists of all those cus toms and all those diseases which are generated by a scarcity of food, and all the causes independent of the scarcity which tend to weaken and destroy the human frame. These checks are either preventive or positive ; and the former consist either of moral restraint or of vice, always so pernicious to society. The positive checks are extremely various, including everything that contributes to shorten the natural duration of human life. " Under this head may be enumerated all unwholesome occupations, severe labour and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, large towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague, and famine." The checks of all kinds may be reduced to three heads moral restraint, vice, and misery. This theoretical exposition of the checks to population Malthus supports and illustrates by an exhaustive examination of the checks which have operated or still operate in the various countries and states of society from the brutal and revolting practices prevalent among the savages of Tierra del Fuego and Australia to the moral self-control of the highest nations. It is not a pleasant picture, but it is merely a presentation of historical and statistical facts for which Malthus is in no way responsible. Throughout his entire exposition he does not theorize, but seeks only to systematize and elucidate facts which cannot be contro verted, belonging as they do to the history of the world. The only notable exception is his attempt to express in mathematical lan guage the possible increase of the means of subsistence. The con ditions determining such increase are too vague and various to be calculated in such a way. On this point Malthus is not followed by subsequent economists, and it is not essential to his principle. At the same time, in spite of its unsoundness, it does help us to realize the disproportion between the possible increase of population and the means of subsistence. II. What remains to be said of the Essay on the Principle of Popu lation may be embraced in the following notes. (1) Origin of the principle. The population question has always had a great influ ence on the development of mankind. In the most barbarous nations the problem of preserving the balance between food and population must ahvays have been a pressing one, and has led to some of their cruellest and most immoral customs. The more theoretic consideration of the question has a large place in the political treatises of Plato and Aristotle. Just before Malthus s time it had been touched by such writers as Benjamin Franklin (Olser- vations concerning the Increase of Mankind), Hume (Populousncss of the Ancient Nations), Wallace (On the Numbers of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times), Townshend ( Travels in Spain), not to mention many other modern writers of less recent date. (2) The remedy for over-population usually proposed is emigration. N"o doubt there are immense fertile areas yet unpeopled. But the diffi culty of transferring the surplus population, and especially of con veying surplus capital to these regions, and of co-ordinating the two, is a point that must not be overlooked. In spite of the great de velopment of steam as a means of emigration, it remains a fact that population tends to excess in many of the most important centres of the world. Besides, emigration is only a postponing of the diffi culty. In another century even the Mississippi valley will be well stocked. (3) Relation of Malthus to Darwin. In his book Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. i. p. 10, Darwin expressly acknowledges his indebtedness to Malthus in thinking out his cardinal principle of natural selection. After the study of domestic productions had given him a just idea of the power of selection, he saw, " on reading Malthus On Population, that natural selection was the inevitable result of the rapid increase of all organic beings." (4) Poor-law reform. The reformed poor law of 1834 was a real triumph of Malthus s teaching. .The effect of the old poor law
was to encourage population by relieving the labouring classes of