The theory of mind which he has
sketched in the two last chapters accounts to his own understanding in
a satisfactory manner for the existence of most of the evils of life,
but whether it will have the same effect upon others must be left to
the judgement of his readers.
sketched in the two last chapters accounts to his own understanding in
a satisfactory manner for the existence of most of the evils of life,
but whether it will have the same effect upon others must be left to
the judgement of his readers.
Malthus - An Essay on the Principle of Population
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Title: An Essay on the Principle of Population
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An Essay on the Principle of Population
Thomas Malthus
1798
AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, AS IT AFFECTS THE FUTURE
IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY WITH REMARKS ON THE SPECULATIONS OF MR. GODWIN,
M. CONDORCET, AND OTHER WRITERS.
LONDON, PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, 1798.
Preface
The following Essay owes its origin to a conversation with a friend, on
the subject of Mr Godwin's essay on avarice and profusion, in his
Enquirer. The discussion started the general question of the future
improvement of society, and the Author at first sat down with an
intention of merely stating his thoughts to his friend, upon paper, in
a clearer manner than he thought he could do in conversation. But as
the subject opened upon him, some ideas occurred, which he did not
recollect to have met with before; and as he conceived that every least
light, on a topic so generally interesting, might be received with
candour, he determined to put his thoughts in a form for publication.
The Essay might, undoubtedly, have been rendered much more complete by
a collection of a greater number of facts in elucidation of the general
argument. But a long and almost total interruption from very particular
business, joined to a desire (perhaps imprudent) of not delaying the
publication much beyond the time that he originally proposed, prevented
the Author from giving to the subject an undivided attention. He
presumes, however, that the facts which he has adduced will be found to
form no inconsiderable evidence for the truth of his opinion respecting
the future improvement of mankind. As the Author contemplates this
opinion at present, little more appears to him to be necessary than a
plain statement, in addition to the most cursory view of society, to
establish it.
It is an obvious truth, which has been taken notice of by many writers,
that population must always be kept down to the level of the means of
subsistence; but no writer that the Author recollects has inquired
particularly into the means by which this level is effected: and it is
a view of these means which forms, to his mind, the strongest obstacle
in the way to any very great future improvement of society. He hopes it
will appear that, in the discussion of this interesting subject, he is
actuated solely by a love of truth, and not by any prejudices against
any particular set of men, or of opinions. He professes to have read
some of the speculations on the future improvement of society in a
temper very different from a wish to find them visionary, but he has
not acquired that command over his understanding which would enable him
to believe what he wishes, without evidence, or to refuse his assent to
what might be unpleasing, when accompanied with evidence.
The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue, but he
feels conscious that he has drawn these dark tints from a conviction
that they are really in the picture, and not from a jaundiced eye or an
inherent spleen of disposition. The theory of mind which he has
sketched in the two last chapters accounts to his own understanding in
a satisfactory manner for the existence of most of the evils of life,
but whether it will have the same effect upon others must be left to
the judgement of his readers.
If he should succeed in drawing the attention of more able men to what
he conceives to be the principal difficulty in the way to the
improvement of society and should, in consequence, see this difficulty
removed, even in theory, he will gladly retract his present opinions
and rejoice in a conviction of his error.
7 June 1798
CHAPTER 1
Question stated--Little prospect of a determination of it, from the
enmity of the opposing parties--The principal argument against the
perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly
answered--Nature of the difficulty arising from population--Outline of
the principal argument of the Essay
The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late
years in natural philosophy, the increasing diffusion of general
knowledge from the extension of the art of printing, the ardent and
unshackled spirit of inquiry that prevails throughout the lettered and
even unlettered world, the new and extraordinary lights that have been
thrown on political subjects which dazzle and astonish the
understanding, and particularly that tremendous phenomenon in the
political horizon, the French Revolution, which, like a blazing comet,
seems destined either to inspire with fresh life and vigour, or to
scorch up and destroy the shrinking inhabitants of the earth, have all
concurred to lead many able men into the opinion that we were touching
on a period big with the most important changes, changes that would in
some measure be decisive of the future fate of mankind.
It has been said that the great question is now at issue, whether man
shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards
illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement, or be condemned to a
perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery, and after every
effort remain still at an immeasurable distance from the wished-for
goal.
Yet, anxiously as every friend of mankind must look forwards to the
termination of this painful suspense, and eagerly as the inquiring mind
would hail every ray of light that might assist its view into futurity,
it is much to be lamented that the writers on each side of this
momentous question still keep far aloof from each other. Their mutual
arguments do not meet with a candid examination. The question is not
brought to rest on fewer points, and even in theory scarcely seems to
be approaching to a decision.
The advocate for the present order of things is apt to treat the sect
of speculative philosophers either as a set of artful and designing
knaves who preach up ardent benevolence and draw captivating pictures
of a happier state of society only the better to enable them to destroy
the present establishments and to forward their own deep-laid schemes
of ambition, or as wild and mad-headed enthusiasts whose silly
speculations and absurd paradoxes are not worthy the attention of any
reasonable man.
The advocate for the perfectibility of man, and of society, retorts on
the defender of establishments a more than equal contempt. He brands
him as the slave of the most miserable and narrow prejudices; or as the
defender of the abuses of civil society only because he profits by
them. He paints him either as a character who prostitutes his
understanding to his interest, or as one whose powers of mind are not
of a size to grasp any thing great and noble, who cannot see above five
yards before him, and who must therefore be utterly unable to take in
the views of the enlightened benefactor of mankind.
In this unamicable contest the cause of truth cannot but suffer. The
really good arguments on each side of the question are not allowed to
have their proper weight. Each pursues his own theory, little
solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced
by his opponents.
The friend of the present order of things condemns all political
speculations in the gross. He will not even condescend to examine the
grounds from which the perfectibility of society is inferred. Much less
will he give himself the trouble in a fair and candid manner to attempt
an exposition of their fallacy.
The speculative philosopher equally offends against the cause of truth.
With eyes fixed on a happier state of society, the blessings of which
he paints in the most captivating colours, he allows himself to indulge
in the most bitter invectives against every present establishment,
without applying his talents to consider the best and safest means of
removing abuses and without seeming to be aware of the tremendous
obstacles that threaten, even in theory, to oppose the progress of man
towards perfection.
It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will
always be confirmed by experiment. Yet so much friction, and so many
minute circumstances occur in practice, which it is next to impossible
for the most enlarged and penetrating mind to foresee, that on few
subjects can any theory be pronounced just, till all the arguments
against it have been maturely weighed and clearly and consistently
refuted.
I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and
of society with great pleasure. I have been warmed and delighted with
the enchanting picture which they hold forth. I ardently wish for such
happy improvements. But I see great, and, to my understanding,
unconquerable difficulties in the way to them. These difficulties it is
my present purpose to state, declaring, at the same time, that so far
from exulting in them, as a cause of triumph over the friends of
innovation, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see them
completely removed.
The most important argument that I shall adduce is certainly not new.
The principles on which it depends have been explained in part by Hume,
and more at large by Dr Adam Smith. It has been advanced and applied to
the present subject, though not with its proper weight, or in the most
forcible point of view, by Mr Wallace, and it may probably have been
stated by many writers that I have never met with. I should certainly
therefore not think of advancing it again, though I mean to place it in
a point of view in some degree different from any that I have hitherto
seen, if it had ever been fairly and satisfactorily answered.
The cause of this neglect on the part of the advocates for the
perfectibility of mankind is not easily accounted for. I cannot doubt
the talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to
doubt their candour. To my understanding, and probably to that of most
others, the difficulty appears insurmountable. Yet these men of
acknowledged ability and penetration scarcely deign to notice it, and
hold on their course in such speculations with unabated ardour and
undiminished confidence. I have certainly no right to say that they
purposely shut their eyes to such arguments. I ought rather to doubt
the validity of them, when neglected by such men, however forcibly
their truth may strike my own mind. Yet in this respect it must be
acknowledged that we are all of us too prone to err. If I saw a glass
of wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, I
should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster
philosophy might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me and
that the offer was not really what I conceived it to be.
In entering upon the argument I must premise that I put out of the
question, at present, all mere conjectures, that is, all suppositions,
the probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just
philosophical grounds. A writer may tell me that he thinks man will
ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him. But
before he can expect to bring any reasonable person over to his
opinion, he ought to shew that the necks of mankind have been gradually
elongating, that the lips have grown harder and more prominent, that
the legs and feet are daily altering their shape, and that the hair is
beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of
so wonderful a conversion can be shewn, it is surely lost time and lost
eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state; to
describe his powers, both of running and flying, to paint him in a
condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he would
be employed only in collecting the necessaries of life, and where,
consequently, each man's share of labour would be light, and his
portion of leisure ample.
I think I may fairly make two postulata.
First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.
Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will
remain nearly in its present state.
These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear
to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto
seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they
will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of
power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and
for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed
laws, all its various operations.
I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will
ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured
that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished. As,
however, he calls this part of his work a deviation into the land of
conjecture, I will not dwell longer upon it at present than to say that
the best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a
contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the
savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But
towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress
whatever has hitherto been made. It appears to exist in as much force
at present as it did two thousand or four thousand years ago. There are
individual exceptions now as there always have been. But, as these
exceptions do not appear to increase in number, it would surely be a
very unphilosophical mode of arguing to infer, merely from the
existence of an exception, that the exception would, in time, become
the rule, and the rule the exception.
Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in
comparison of the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from
the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and
must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.
Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the
seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has
been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to
rear them. The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with
ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds
in the course of a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious all
pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds.
The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great
restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason,
escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects are waste of seed,
sickness, and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice. The
former, misery, is an absolutely necessary consequence of it. Vice is a
highly probable consequence, and we therefore see it abundantly
prevail, but it ought not, perhaps, to be called an absolutely
necessary consequence. The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation
to evil.
This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of
production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must
constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that to
me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.
All other arguments are of slight and subordinate consideration in
comparison of this. I see no way by which man can escape from the
weight of this law which pervades all animated nature. No fancied
equality, no agrarian regulations in their utmost extent, could remove
the pressure of it even for a single century. And it appears,
therefore, to be decisive against the possible existence of a society,
all the members of which should live in ease, happiness, and
comparative leisure; and feel no anxiety about providing the means of
subsistence for themselves and families.
Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive
against the perfectibility of the mass of mankind.
I have thus sketched the general outline of the argument, but I will
examine it more particularly, and I think it will be found that
experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably
confirms its truth.
CHAPTER 2
The different ratio in which population and food increase--The
necessary effects of these different ratios of increase--Oscillation
produced by them in the condition of the lower classes of
society--Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much observed as
might be expected--Three propositions on which the general argument of
the Essay depends--The different states in which mankind have been
known to exist proposed to be examined with reference to these three
propositions.
I said that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical
ratio, and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.
Let us examine whether this position be just. I think it will be
allowed, that no state has hitherto existed (at least that we have any
account of) where the manners were so pure and simple, and the means of
subsistence so abundant, that no check whatever has existed to early
marriages, among the lower classes, from a fear of not providing well
for their families, or among the higher classes, from a fear of
lowering their condition in life. Consequently in no state that we have
yet known has the power of population been left to exert itself with
perfect freedom.
Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature
and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman. Supposing a
liberty of changing in the case of an unfortunate choice, this liberty
would not affect population till it arose to a height greatly vicious;
and we are now supposing the existence of a society where vice is
scarcely known.
In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and
simple manners prevailed, and where the means of subsistence were so
abundant that no part of the society could have any fears about
providing amply for a family, the power of population being left to
exert itself unchecked, the increase of the human species would
evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto
known.
In the United States of America, where the means of subsistence have
been more ample, the manners of the people more pure, and consequently
the checks to early marriages fewer, than in any of the modern states
of Europe, the population has been found to double itself in
twenty-five years.
This ratio of increase, though short of the utmost power of population,
yet as the result of actual experience, we will take as our rule, and
say, that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every
twenty-five years or increases in a geometrical ratio.
Let us now take any spot of earth, this Island for instance, and see in
what ratio the subsistence it affords can be supposed to increase. We
will begin with it under its present state of cultivation.
If I allow that by the best possible policy, by breaking up more land
and by great encouragements to agriculture, the produce of this Island
may be doubled in the first twenty-five years, I think it will be
allowing as much as any person can well demand.
In the next twenty-five years, it is impossible to suppose that the
produce could be quadrupled. It would be contrary to all our knowledge
of the qualities of land. The very utmost that we can conceive, is,
that the increase in the second twenty-five years might equal the
present produce. Let us then take this for our rule, though certainly
far beyond the truth, and allow that, by great exertion, the whole
produce of the Island might be increased every twenty-five years, by a
quantity of subsistence equal to what it at present produces. The most
enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In
a few centuries it would make every acre of land in the Island like a
garden.
Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical.
It may be fairly said, therefore, that the means of subsistence
increase in an arithmetical ratio. Let us now bring the effects of
these two ratios together.
The population of the Island is computed to be about seven millions,
and we will suppose the present produce equal to the support of such a
number. In the first twenty-five years the population would be fourteen
millions, and the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence
would be equal to this increase. In the next twenty-five years the
population would be twenty-eight millions, and the means of subsistence
only equal to the support of twenty-one millions. In the next period,
the population would be fifty-six millions, and the means of
subsistence just sufficient for half that number. And at the conclusion
of the first century the population would be one hundred and twelve
millions and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of
thirty-five millions, which would leave a population of seventy-seven
millions totally unprovided for.
A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or
other in the country that is deserted. For few persons will leave their
families, connections, friends, and native land, to seek a settlement
in untried foreign climes, without some strong subsisting causes of
uneasiness where they are, or the hope of some great advantages in the
place to which they are going.
But to make the argument more general and less interrupted by the
partial views of emigration, let us take the whole earth, instead of
one spot, and suppose that the restraints to population were
universally removed. If the subsistence for man that the earth affords
was to be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what
the whole world at present produces, this would allow the power of
production in the earth to be absolutely unlimited, and its ratio of
increase much greater than we can conceive that any possible exertions
of mankind could make it.
Taking the population of the world at any number, a thousand millions,
for instance, the human species would increase in the ratio of--1, 2,
4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. and subsistence as--1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. In two centuries and a quarter, the population
would be to the means of subsistence as 512 to 10: in three centuries
as 4096 to 13, and in two thousand years the difference would be almost
incalculable, though the produce in that time would have increased to
an immense extent.
No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may
increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity, yet
still the power of population being a power of a superior order, the
increase of the human species can only be kept commensurate to the
increase of the means of subsistence by the constant operation of the
strong law of necessity acting as a check upon the greater power.
The effects of this check remain now to be considered.
Among plants and animals the view of the subject is simple. They are
all impelled by a powerful instinct to the increase of their species,
and this instinct is interrupted by no reasoning or doubts about
providing for their offspring. Wherever therefore there is liberty, the
power of increase is exerted, and the superabundant effects are
repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment, which is common
to animals and plants, and among animals by becoming the prey of others.
The effects of this check on man are more complicated. Impelled to the
increase of his species by an equally powerful instinct, reason
interrupts his career and asks him whether he may not bring beings into
the world for whom he cannot provide the means of subsistence. In a
state of equality, this would be the simple question. In the present
state of society, other considerations occur. Will he not lower his
rank in life? Will he not subject himself to greater difficulties than
he at present feels? Will he not be obliged to labour harder? and if he
has a large family, will his utmost exertions enable him to support
them? May he not see his offspring in rags and misery, and clamouring
for bread that he cannot give them? And may he not be reduced to the
grating necessity of forfeiting his independence, and of being obliged
to the sparing hand of charity for support?
These considerations are calculated to prevent, and certainly do
prevent, a very great number in all civilized nations from pursuing the
dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman. And this
restraint almost necessarily, though not absolutely so, produces vice.
Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to
a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort
towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly
tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to
prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition.
The way in which, these effects are produced seems to be this. We will
suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy
support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population,
which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the
number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The
food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be
divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor
consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to
severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the
proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend
toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time
tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same
as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements
to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that
population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the
plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst
them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to
turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is
already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in
the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we
set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably
comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened,
and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to
happiness are repeated.
This sort of oscillation will not be remarked by superficial observers,
and it may be difficult even for the most penetrating mind to calculate
its periods. Yet that in all old states some such vibration does exist,
though from various transverse causes, in a much less marked, and in a
much more irregular manner than I have described it, no reflecting man
who considers the subject deeply can well doubt.
Many reasons occur why this oscillation has been less obvious, and less
decidedly confirmed by experience, than might naturally be expected.
One principal reason is that the histories of mankind that we possess
are histories only of the higher classes. We have but few accounts that
can be depended upon of the manners and customs of that part of mankind
where these retrograde and progressive movements chiefly take place. A
satisfactory history of this kind, on one people, and of one period,
would require the constant and minute attention of an observing mind
during a long life. Some of the objects of inquiry would be, in what
proportion to the number of adults was the number of marriages, to what
extent vicious customs prevailed in consequence of the restraints upon
matrimony, what was the comparative mortality among the children of the
most distressed part of the community and those who lived rather more
at their ease, what were the variations in the real price of labour,
and what were the observable differences in the state of the lower
classes of society with respect to ease and happiness, at different
times during a certain period.
Such a history would tend greatly to elucidate the manner in which the
constant check upon population acts and would probably prove the
existence of the retrograde and progressive movements that have been
mentioned, though the times of their vibrations must necessarily be
rendered irregular from the operation of many interrupting causes, such
as the introduction or failure of certain manufactures, a greater or
less prevalent spirit of agricultural enterprise, years of plenty, or
years of scarcity, wars and pestilence, poor laws, the invention of
processes for shortening labour without the proportional extension of
the market for the commodity, and, particularly, the difference between
the nominal and real price of labour, a circumstance which has perhaps
more than any other contributed to conceal this oscillation from common
view.
It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally
falls, but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the
nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in
effect, a real fall in the price of labour, and during this period the
condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow
worse and worse. But the farmers and capitalists are growing rich from
the real cheapness of labour. Their increased capitals enable them to
employ a greater number of men. Work therefore may be plentiful, and
the price of labour would consequently rise. But the want of freedom in
the market of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities,
either from parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of
combination among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates
to prevent the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and
keeps it down some time longer; perhaps till a year of scarcity, when
the clamour is too loud and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.
The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed,
and the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to
the poor, in consideration of a year of scarcity, and, when plenty
returns, indulge themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints,
that the price does not again fall, when a little rejection would shew
them that it must have risen long before but from an unjust conspiracy
of their own.
But though the rich by unfair combinations contribute frequently to
prolong a season of distress among the poor, yet no possible form of
society could prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great
part of mankind, if in a state of inequality, and upon all, if all were
equal.
The theory on which the truth of this position depends appears to me so
extremely clear that I feel at a loss to conjecture what part of it can
be denied.
That population cannot increase without the means of subsistence is a
proposition so evident that it needs no illustration.
That population does invariably increase where there are the means of
subsistence, the history of every people that have ever existed will
abundantly prove.
And that the superior power of population cannot be checked without
producing misery or vice, the ample portion of these too bitter
ingredients in the cup of human life and the continuance of the
physical causes that seem to have produced them bear too convincing a
testimony.
But, in order more fully to ascertain the validity of these three
propositions, let us examine the different states in which mankind have
been known to exist. Even a cursory review will, I think, be sufficient
to convince us that these propositions are incontrovertible truths.
CHAPTER 3
The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed--The shepherd state, or the
tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire--The superiority of
the power of population to the means of subsistence--the cause of the
great tide of Northern Emigration.
In the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal
occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food; the means of
subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the
comparative population must necessarily be thin. It is said that the
passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North American
Indians, than among any other race of men. Yet, notwithstanding this
apathy, the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be
always greater than the means to support it. This appears, from the
comparatively rapid population that takes place, whenever any of the
tribes happen to settle in some fertile spot, and to draw nourishment
from more fruitful sources than that of hunting; and it has been
frequently remarked that when an Indian family has taken up its abode
near any European settlement, and adopted a more easy and civilized
mode of life, that one woman has reared five, or six, or more children;
though in the savage state it rarely happens that above one or two in a
family grow up to maturity. The same observation has been made with
regard to the Hottentots near the Cape. These facts prove the superior
power of population to the means of subsistence in nations of hunters,
and that this power always shews itself the moment it is left to act
with freedom.
It remains to inquire whether this power can be checked, and its
effects kept equal to the means of subsistence, without vice or misery.
The North American Indians, considered as a people, cannot justly be
called free and equal. In all the accounts we have of them, and,
indeed, of most other savage nations, the women are represented as much
more completely in a state of slavery to the men than the poor are to
the rich in civilized countries. One half the nation appears to act as
Helots to the other half, and the misery that checks population falls
chiefly, as it always must do, upon that part whose condition is lowest
in the scale of society. The infancy of man in the simplest state
requires considerable attention, but this necessary attention the women
cannot give, condemned as they are to the inconveniences and hardships
of frequent change of place and to the constant and unremitting
drudgery of preparing every thing for the reception of their tyrannic
lords.
The theory of mind which he has
sketched in the two last chapters accounts to his own understanding in
a satisfactory manner for the existence of most of the evils of life,
but whether it will have the same effect upon others must be left to
the judgement of his readers.
If he should succeed in drawing the attention of more able men to what
he conceives to be the principal difficulty in the way to the
improvement of society and should, in consequence, see this difficulty
removed, even in theory, he will gladly retract his present opinions
and rejoice in a conviction of his error.
7 June 1798
CHAPTER 1
Question stated--Little prospect of a determination of it, from the
enmity of the opposing parties--The principal argument against the
perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly
answered--Nature of the difficulty arising from population--Outline of
the principal argument of the Essay
The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late
years in natural philosophy, the increasing diffusion of general
knowledge from the extension of the art of printing, the ardent and
unshackled spirit of inquiry that prevails throughout the lettered and
even unlettered world, the new and extraordinary lights that have been
thrown on political subjects which dazzle and astonish the
understanding, and particularly that tremendous phenomenon in the
political horizon, the French Revolution, which, like a blazing comet,
seems destined either to inspire with fresh life and vigour, or to
scorch up and destroy the shrinking inhabitants of the earth, have all
concurred to lead many able men into the opinion that we were touching
on a period big with the most important changes, changes that would in
some measure be decisive of the future fate of mankind.
It has been said that the great question is now at issue, whether man
shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards
illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement, or be condemned to a
perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery, and after every
effort remain still at an immeasurable distance from the wished-for
goal.
Yet, anxiously as every friend of mankind must look forwards to the
termination of this painful suspense, and eagerly as the inquiring mind
would hail every ray of light that might assist its view into futurity,
it is much to be lamented that the writers on each side of this
momentous question still keep far aloof from each other. Their mutual
arguments do not meet with a candid examination. The question is not
brought to rest on fewer points, and even in theory scarcely seems to
be approaching to a decision.
The advocate for the present order of things is apt to treat the sect
of speculative philosophers either as a set of artful and designing
knaves who preach up ardent benevolence and draw captivating pictures
of a happier state of society only the better to enable them to destroy
the present establishments and to forward their own deep-laid schemes
of ambition, or as wild and mad-headed enthusiasts whose silly
speculations and absurd paradoxes are not worthy the attention of any
reasonable man.
The advocate for the perfectibility of man, and of society, retorts on
the defender of establishments a more than equal contempt. He brands
him as the slave of the most miserable and narrow prejudices; or as the
defender of the abuses of civil society only because he profits by
them. He paints him either as a character who prostitutes his
understanding to his interest, or as one whose powers of mind are not
of a size to grasp any thing great and noble, who cannot see above five
yards before him, and who must therefore be utterly unable to take in
the views of the enlightened benefactor of mankind.
In this unamicable contest the cause of truth cannot but suffer. The
really good arguments on each side of the question are not allowed to
have their proper weight. Each pursues his own theory, little
solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced
by his opponents.
The friend of the present order of things condemns all political
speculations in the gross. He will not even condescend to examine the
grounds from which the perfectibility of society is inferred. Much less
will he give himself the trouble in a fair and candid manner to attempt
an exposition of their fallacy.
The speculative philosopher equally offends against the cause of truth.
With eyes fixed on a happier state of society, the blessings of which
he paints in the most captivating colours, he allows himself to indulge
in the most bitter invectives against every present establishment,
without applying his talents to consider the best and safest means of
removing abuses and without seeming to be aware of the tremendous
obstacles that threaten, even in theory, to oppose the progress of man
towards perfection.
It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will
always be confirmed by experiment. Yet so much friction, and so many
minute circumstances occur in practice, which it is next to impossible
for the most enlarged and penetrating mind to foresee, that on few
subjects can any theory be pronounced just, till all the arguments
against it have been maturely weighed and clearly and consistently
refuted.
I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and
of society with great pleasure. I have been warmed and delighted with
the enchanting picture which they hold forth. I ardently wish for such
happy improvements. But I see great, and, to my understanding,
unconquerable difficulties in the way to them. These difficulties it is
my present purpose to state, declaring, at the same time, that so far
from exulting in them, as a cause of triumph over the friends of
innovation, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see them
completely removed.
The most important argument that I shall adduce is certainly not new.
The principles on which it depends have been explained in part by Hume,
and more at large by Dr Adam Smith. It has been advanced and applied to
the present subject, though not with its proper weight, or in the most
forcible point of view, by Mr Wallace, and it may probably have been
stated by many writers that I have never met with. I should certainly
therefore not think of advancing it again, though I mean to place it in
a point of view in some degree different from any that I have hitherto
seen, if it had ever been fairly and satisfactorily answered.
The cause of this neglect on the part of the advocates for the
perfectibility of mankind is not easily accounted for. I cannot doubt
the talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to
doubt their candour. To my understanding, and probably to that of most
others, the difficulty appears insurmountable. Yet these men of
acknowledged ability and penetration scarcely deign to notice it, and
hold on their course in such speculations with unabated ardour and
undiminished confidence. I have certainly no right to say that they
purposely shut their eyes to such arguments. I ought rather to doubt
the validity of them, when neglected by such men, however forcibly
their truth may strike my own mind. Yet in this respect it must be
acknowledged that we are all of us too prone to err. If I saw a glass
of wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, I
should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster
philosophy might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me and
that the offer was not really what I conceived it to be.
In entering upon the argument I must premise that I put out of the
question, at present, all mere conjectures, that is, all suppositions,
the probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just
philosophical grounds. A writer may tell me that he thinks man will
ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him. But
before he can expect to bring any reasonable person over to his
opinion, he ought to shew that the necks of mankind have been gradually
elongating, that the lips have grown harder and more prominent, that
the legs and feet are daily altering their shape, and that the hair is
beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of
so wonderful a conversion can be shewn, it is surely lost time and lost
eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state; to
describe his powers, both of running and flying, to paint him in a
condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he would
be employed only in collecting the necessaries of life, and where,
consequently, each man's share of labour would be light, and his
portion of leisure ample.
I think I may fairly make two postulata.
First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.
Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will
remain nearly in its present state.
These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear
to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto
seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they
will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of
power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and
for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed
laws, all its various operations.
I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will
ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured
that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished. As,
however, he calls this part of his work a deviation into the land of
conjecture, I will not dwell longer upon it at present than to say that
the best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a
contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the
savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But
towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress
whatever has hitherto been made. It appears to exist in as much force
at present as it did two thousand or four thousand years ago. There are
individual exceptions now as there always have been. But, as these
exceptions do not appear to increase in number, it would surely be a
very unphilosophical mode of arguing to infer, merely from the
existence of an exception, that the exception would, in time, become
the rule, and the rule the exception.
Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in
comparison of the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from
the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and
must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.
Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the
seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has
been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to
rear them. The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with
ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds
in the course of a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious all
pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds.
The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great
restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason,
escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects are waste of seed,
sickness, and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice. The
former, misery, is an absolutely necessary consequence of it. Vice is a
highly probable consequence, and we therefore see it abundantly
prevail, but it ought not, perhaps, to be called an absolutely
necessary consequence. The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation
to evil.
This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of
production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must
constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that to
me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.
All other arguments are of slight and subordinate consideration in
comparison of this. I see no way by which man can escape from the
weight of this law which pervades all animated nature. No fancied
equality, no agrarian regulations in their utmost extent, could remove
the pressure of it even for a single century. And it appears,
therefore, to be decisive against the possible existence of a society,
all the members of which should live in ease, happiness, and
comparative leisure; and feel no anxiety about providing the means of
subsistence for themselves and families.
Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive
against the perfectibility of the mass of mankind.
I have thus sketched the general outline of the argument, but I will
examine it more particularly, and I think it will be found that
experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably
confirms its truth.
CHAPTER 2
The different ratio in which population and food increase--The
necessary effects of these different ratios of increase--Oscillation
produced by them in the condition of the lower classes of
society--Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much observed as
might be expected--Three propositions on which the general argument of
the Essay depends--The different states in which mankind have been
known to exist proposed to be examined with reference to these three
propositions.
I said that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical
ratio, and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.
Let us examine whether this position be just. I think it will be
allowed, that no state has hitherto existed (at least that we have any
account of) where the manners were so pure and simple, and the means of
subsistence so abundant, that no check whatever has existed to early
marriages, among the lower classes, from a fear of not providing well
for their families, or among the higher classes, from a fear of
lowering their condition in life. Consequently in no state that we have
yet known has the power of population been left to exert itself with
perfect freedom.
Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature
and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman. Supposing a
liberty of changing in the case of an unfortunate choice, this liberty
would not affect population till it arose to a height greatly vicious;
and we are now supposing the existence of a society where vice is
scarcely known.
In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and
simple manners prevailed, and where the means of subsistence were so
abundant that no part of the society could have any fears about
providing amply for a family, the power of population being left to
exert itself unchecked, the increase of the human species would
evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto
known.
In the United States of America, where the means of subsistence have
been more ample, the manners of the people more pure, and consequently
the checks to early marriages fewer, than in any of the modern states
of Europe, the population has been found to double itself in
twenty-five years.
This ratio of increase, though short of the utmost power of population,
yet as the result of actual experience, we will take as our rule, and
say, that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every
twenty-five years or increases in a geometrical ratio.
Let us now take any spot of earth, this Island for instance, and see in
what ratio the subsistence it affords can be supposed to increase. We
will begin with it under its present state of cultivation.
If I allow that by the best possible policy, by breaking up more land
and by great encouragements to agriculture, the produce of this Island
may be doubled in the first twenty-five years, I think it will be
allowing as much as any person can well demand.
In the next twenty-five years, it is impossible to suppose that the
produce could be quadrupled. It would be contrary to all our knowledge
of the qualities of land. The very utmost that we can conceive, is,
that the increase in the second twenty-five years might equal the
present produce. Let us then take this for our rule, though certainly
far beyond the truth, and allow that, by great exertion, the whole
produce of the Island might be increased every twenty-five years, by a
quantity of subsistence equal to what it at present produces. The most
enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In
a few centuries it would make every acre of land in the Island like a
garden.
Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical.
It may be fairly said, therefore, that the means of subsistence
increase in an arithmetical ratio. Let us now bring the effects of
these two ratios together.
The population of the Island is computed to be about seven millions,
and we will suppose the present produce equal to the support of such a
number. In the first twenty-five years the population would be fourteen
millions, and the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence
would be equal to this increase. In the next twenty-five years the
population would be twenty-eight millions, and the means of subsistence
only equal to the support of twenty-one millions. In the next period,
the population would be fifty-six millions, and the means of
subsistence just sufficient for half that number. And at the conclusion
of the first century the population would be one hundred and twelve
millions and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of
thirty-five millions, which would leave a population of seventy-seven
millions totally unprovided for.
A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or
other in the country that is deserted. For few persons will leave their
families, connections, friends, and native land, to seek a settlement
in untried foreign climes, without some strong subsisting causes of
uneasiness where they are, or the hope of some great advantages in the
place to which they are going.
But to make the argument more general and less interrupted by the
partial views of emigration, let us take the whole earth, instead of
one spot, and suppose that the restraints to population were
universally removed. If the subsistence for man that the earth affords
was to be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what
the whole world at present produces, this would allow the power of
production in the earth to be absolutely unlimited, and its ratio of
increase much greater than we can conceive that any possible exertions
of mankind could make it.
Taking the population of the world at any number, a thousand millions,
for instance, the human species would increase in the ratio of--1, 2,
4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. and subsistence as--1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. In two centuries and a quarter, the population
would be to the means of subsistence as 512 to 10: in three centuries
as 4096 to 13, and in two thousand years the difference would be almost
incalculable, though the produce in that time would have increased to
an immense extent.
No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may
increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity, yet
still the power of population being a power of a superior order, the
increase of the human species can only be kept commensurate to the
increase of the means of subsistence by the constant operation of the
strong law of necessity acting as a check upon the greater power.
The effects of this check remain now to be considered.
Among plants and animals the view of the subject is simple. They are
all impelled by a powerful instinct to the increase of their species,
and this instinct is interrupted by no reasoning or doubts about
providing for their offspring. Wherever therefore there is liberty, the
power of increase is exerted, and the superabundant effects are
repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment, which is common
to animals and plants, and among animals by becoming the prey of others.
The effects of this check on man are more complicated. Impelled to the
increase of his species by an equally powerful instinct, reason
interrupts his career and asks him whether he may not bring beings into
the world for whom he cannot provide the means of subsistence. In a
state of equality, this would be the simple question. In the present
state of society, other considerations occur. Will he not lower his
rank in life? Will he not subject himself to greater difficulties than
he at present feels? Will he not be obliged to labour harder? and if he
has a large family, will his utmost exertions enable him to support
them? May he not see his offspring in rags and misery, and clamouring
for bread that he cannot give them? And may he not be reduced to the
grating necessity of forfeiting his independence, and of being obliged
to the sparing hand of charity for support?
These considerations are calculated to prevent, and certainly do
prevent, a very great number in all civilized nations from pursuing the
dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman. And this
restraint almost necessarily, though not absolutely so, produces vice.
Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to
a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort
towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly
tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to
prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition.
The way in which, these effects are produced seems to be this. We will
suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy
support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population,
which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the
number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The
food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be
divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor
consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to
severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the
proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend
toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time
tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same
as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements
to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that
population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the
plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst
them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to
turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is
already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in
the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we
set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably
comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened,
and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to
happiness are repeated.
This sort of oscillation will not be remarked by superficial observers,
and it may be difficult even for the most penetrating mind to calculate
its periods. Yet that in all old states some such vibration does exist,
though from various transverse causes, in a much less marked, and in a
much more irregular manner than I have described it, no reflecting man
who considers the subject deeply can well doubt.
Many reasons occur why this oscillation has been less obvious, and less
decidedly confirmed by experience, than might naturally be expected.
One principal reason is that the histories of mankind that we possess
are histories only of the higher classes. We have but few accounts that
can be depended upon of the manners and customs of that part of mankind
where these retrograde and progressive movements chiefly take place. A
satisfactory history of this kind, on one people, and of one period,
would require the constant and minute attention of an observing mind
during a long life. Some of the objects of inquiry would be, in what
proportion to the number of adults was the number of marriages, to what
extent vicious customs prevailed in consequence of the restraints upon
matrimony, what was the comparative mortality among the children of the
most distressed part of the community and those who lived rather more
at their ease, what were the variations in the real price of labour,
and what were the observable differences in the state of the lower
classes of society with respect to ease and happiness, at different
times during a certain period.
Such a history would tend greatly to elucidate the manner in which the
constant check upon population acts and would probably prove the
existence of the retrograde and progressive movements that have been
mentioned, though the times of their vibrations must necessarily be
rendered irregular from the operation of many interrupting causes, such
as the introduction or failure of certain manufactures, a greater or
less prevalent spirit of agricultural enterprise, years of plenty, or
years of scarcity, wars and pestilence, poor laws, the invention of
processes for shortening labour without the proportional extension of
the market for the commodity, and, particularly, the difference between
the nominal and real price of labour, a circumstance which has perhaps
more than any other contributed to conceal this oscillation from common
view.
It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally
falls, but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the
nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in
effect, a real fall in the price of labour, and during this period the
condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow
worse and worse. But the farmers and capitalists are growing rich from
the real cheapness of labour. Their increased capitals enable them to
employ a greater number of men. Work therefore may be plentiful, and
the price of labour would consequently rise. But the want of freedom in
the market of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities,
either from parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of
combination among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates
to prevent the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and
keeps it down some time longer; perhaps till a year of scarcity, when
the clamour is too loud and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.
The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed,
and the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to
the poor, in consideration of a year of scarcity, and, when plenty
returns, indulge themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints,
that the price does not again fall, when a little rejection would shew
them that it must have risen long before but from an unjust conspiracy
of their own.
But though the rich by unfair combinations contribute frequently to
prolong a season of distress among the poor, yet no possible form of
society could prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great
part of mankind, if in a state of inequality, and upon all, if all were
equal.
The theory on which the truth of this position depends appears to me so
extremely clear that I feel at a loss to conjecture what part of it can
be denied.
That population cannot increase without the means of subsistence is a
proposition so evident that it needs no illustration.
That population does invariably increase where there are the means of
subsistence, the history of every people that have ever existed will
abundantly prove.
And that the superior power of population cannot be checked without
producing misery or vice, the ample portion of these too bitter
ingredients in the cup of human life and the continuance of the
physical causes that seem to have produced them bear too convincing a
testimony.
But, in order more fully to ascertain the validity of these three
propositions, let us examine the different states in which mankind have
been known to exist. Even a cursory review will, I think, be sufficient
to convince us that these propositions are incontrovertible truths.
CHAPTER 3
The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed--The shepherd state, or the
tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire--The superiority of
the power of population to the means of subsistence--the cause of the
great tide of Northern Emigration.
In the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal
occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food; the means of
subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the
comparative population must necessarily be thin. It is said that the
passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North American
Indians, than among any other race of men. Yet, notwithstanding this
apathy, the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be
always greater than the means to support it. This appears, from the
comparatively rapid population that takes place, whenever any of the
tribes happen to settle in some fertile spot, and to draw nourishment
from more fruitful sources than that of hunting; and it has been
frequently remarked that when an Indian family has taken up its abode
near any European settlement, and adopted a more easy and civilized
mode of life, that one woman has reared five, or six, or more children;
though in the savage state it rarely happens that above one or two in a
family grow up to maturity. The same observation has been made with
regard to the Hottentots near the Cape. These facts prove the superior
power of population to the means of subsistence in nations of hunters,
and that this power always shews itself the moment it is left to act
with freedom.
It remains to inquire whether this power can be checked, and its
effects kept equal to the means of subsistence, without vice or misery.
The North American Indians, considered as a people, cannot justly be
called free and equal. In all the accounts we have of them, and,
indeed, of most other savage nations, the women are represented as much
more completely in a state of slavery to the men than the poor are to
the rich in civilized countries. One half the nation appears to act as
Helots to the other half, and the misery that checks population falls
chiefly, as it always must do, upon that part whose condition is lowest
in the scale of society. The infancy of man in the simplest state
requires considerable attention, but this necessary attention the women
cannot give, condemned as they are to the inconveniences and hardships
of frequent change of place and to the constant and unremitting
drudgery of preparing every thing for the reception of their tyrannic
lords. These exertions, sometimes during pregnancy or with children at
their backs, must occasion frequent miscarriages, and prevent any but
the most robust infants from growing to maturity. Add to these
hardships of the women the constant war that prevails among savages,
and the necessity which they frequently labour under of exposing their
aged and helpless parents, and of thus violating the first feelings of
nature, and the picture will not appear very free from the blot of
misery. In estimating the happiness of a savage nation, we must not fix
our eyes only on the warrior in the prime of life: he is one of a
hundred: he is the gentleman, the man of fortune, the chances have been
in his favour and many efforts have failed ere this fortunate being was
produced, whose guardian genius should preserve him through the
numberless dangers with which he would be surrounded from infancy to
manhood. The true points of comparison between two nations seem to be
the ranks in each which appear nearest to answer to each other. And in
this view, I should compare the warriors in the prime of life with the
gentlemen, and the women, children, and aged, with the lower classes of
the community in civilized states.
May we not then fairly infer from this short review, or rather, from
the accounts that may be referred to of nations of hunters, that their
population is thin from the scarcity of food, that it would immediately
increase if food was in greater plenty, and that, putting vice out of
the question among savages, misery is the check that represses the
superior power of population and keeps its effects equal to the means
of subsistence. Actual observation and experience tell us that this
check, with a few local and temporary exceptions, is constantly acting
now upon all savage nations, and the theory indicates that it probably
acted with nearly equal strength a thousand years ago, and it may not
be much greater a thousand years hence.
Of the manners and habits that prevail among nations of shepherds, the
next state of mankind, we are even more ignorant than of the savage
state. But that these nations could not escape the general lot of
misery arising from the want of subsistence, Europe, and all the
fairest countries in the world, bear ample testimony. Want was the goad
that drove the Scythian shepherds from their native haunts, like so
many famished wolves in search of prey. Set in motion by this all
powerful cause, clouds of Barbarians seemed to collect from all points
of the northern hemisphere. Gathering fresh darkness and terror as they
rolled on, the congregated bodies at length obscured the sun of Italy
and sunk the whole world in universal night. These tremendous effects,
so long and so deeply felt throughout the fairest portions of the
earth, may be traced to the simple cause of the superior power of
population to the means of subsistence.
It is well known that a country in pasture cannot support so many
inhabitants as a country in tillage, but what renders nations of
shepherds so formidable is the power which they possess of moving all
together and the necessity they frequently feel of exerting this power
in search of fresh pasture for their herds. A tribe that was rich in
cattle had an immediate plenty of food. Even the parent stock might be
devoured in a case of absolute necessity. The women lived in greater
ease than among nations of hunters. The men bold in their united
strength and confiding in their power of procuring pasture for their
cattle by change of place, felt, probably, but few fears about
providing for a family. These combined causes soon produced their
natural and invariable effect, an extended population. A more frequent
and rapid change of place became then necessary. A wider and more
extensive territory was successively occupied. A broader desolation
extended all around them. Want pinched the less fortunate members of
the society, and, at length, the impossibility of supporting such a
number together became too evident to be resisted.
Thomas Malthus
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Title: An Essay on the Principle of Population
Author: Thomas Malthus
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An Essay on the Principle of Population
Thomas Malthus
1798
AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, AS IT AFFECTS THE FUTURE
IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY WITH REMARKS ON THE SPECULATIONS OF MR. GODWIN,
M. CONDORCET, AND OTHER WRITERS.
LONDON, PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, 1798.
Preface
The following Essay owes its origin to a conversation with a friend, on
the subject of Mr Godwin's essay on avarice and profusion, in his
Enquirer. The discussion started the general question of the future
improvement of society, and the Author at first sat down with an
intention of merely stating his thoughts to his friend, upon paper, in
a clearer manner than he thought he could do in conversation. But as
the subject opened upon him, some ideas occurred, which he did not
recollect to have met with before; and as he conceived that every least
light, on a topic so generally interesting, might be received with
candour, he determined to put his thoughts in a form for publication.
The Essay might, undoubtedly, have been rendered much more complete by
a collection of a greater number of facts in elucidation of the general
argument. But a long and almost total interruption from very particular
business, joined to a desire (perhaps imprudent) of not delaying the
publication much beyond the time that he originally proposed, prevented
the Author from giving to the subject an undivided attention. He
presumes, however, that the facts which he has adduced will be found to
form no inconsiderable evidence for the truth of his opinion respecting
the future improvement of mankind. As the Author contemplates this
opinion at present, little more appears to him to be necessary than a
plain statement, in addition to the most cursory view of society, to
establish it.
It is an obvious truth, which has been taken notice of by many writers,
that population must always be kept down to the level of the means of
subsistence; but no writer that the Author recollects has inquired
particularly into the means by which this level is effected: and it is
a view of these means which forms, to his mind, the strongest obstacle
in the way to any very great future improvement of society. He hopes it
will appear that, in the discussion of this interesting subject, he is
actuated solely by a love of truth, and not by any prejudices against
any particular set of men, or of opinions. He professes to have read
some of the speculations on the future improvement of society in a
temper very different from a wish to find them visionary, but he has
not acquired that command over his understanding which would enable him
to believe what he wishes, without evidence, or to refuse his assent to
what might be unpleasing, when accompanied with evidence.
The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue, but he
feels conscious that he has drawn these dark tints from a conviction
that they are really in the picture, and not from a jaundiced eye or an
inherent spleen of disposition. The theory of mind which he has
sketched in the two last chapters accounts to his own understanding in
a satisfactory manner for the existence of most of the evils of life,
but whether it will have the same effect upon others must be left to
the judgement of his readers.
If he should succeed in drawing the attention of more able men to what
he conceives to be the principal difficulty in the way to the
improvement of society and should, in consequence, see this difficulty
removed, even in theory, he will gladly retract his present opinions
and rejoice in a conviction of his error.
7 June 1798
CHAPTER 1
Question stated--Little prospect of a determination of it, from the
enmity of the opposing parties--The principal argument against the
perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly
answered--Nature of the difficulty arising from population--Outline of
the principal argument of the Essay
The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late
years in natural philosophy, the increasing diffusion of general
knowledge from the extension of the art of printing, the ardent and
unshackled spirit of inquiry that prevails throughout the lettered and
even unlettered world, the new and extraordinary lights that have been
thrown on political subjects which dazzle and astonish the
understanding, and particularly that tremendous phenomenon in the
political horizon, the French Revolution, which, like a blazing comet,
seems destined either to inspire with fresh life and vigour, or to
scorch up and destroy the shrinking inhabitants of the earth, have all
concurred to lead many able men into the opinion that we were touching
on a period big with the most important changes, changes that would in
some measure be decisive of the future fate of mankind.
It has been said that the great question is now at issue, whether man
shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards
illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement, or be condemned to a
perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery, and after every
effort remain still at an immeasurable distance from the wished-for
goal.
Yet, anxiously as every friend of mankind must look forwards to the
termination of this painful suspense, and eagerly as the inquiring mind
would hail every ray of light that might assist its view into futurity,
it is much to be lamented that the writers on each side of this
momentous question still keep far aloof from each other. Their mutual
arguments do not meet with a candid examination. The question is not
brought to rest on fewer points, and even in theory scarcely seems to
be approaching to a decision.
The advocate for the present order of things is apt to treat the sect
of speculative philosophers either as a set of artful and designing
knaves who preach up ardent benevolence and draw captivating pictures
of a happier state of society only the better to enable them to destroy
the present establishments and to forward their own deep-laid schemes
of ambition, or as wild and mad-headed enthusiasts whose silly
speculations and absurd paradoxes are not worthy the attention of any
reasonable man.
The advocate for the perfectibility of man, and of society, retorts on
the defender of establishments a more than equal contempt. He brands
him as the slave of the most miserable and narrow prejudices; or as the
defender of the abuses of civil society only because he profits by
them. He paints him either as a character who prostitutes his
understanding to his interest, or as one whose powers of mind are not
of a size to grasp any thing great and noble, who cannot see above five
yards before him, and who must therefore be utterly unable to take in
the views of the enlightened benefactor of mankind.
In this unamicable contest the cause of truth cannot but suffer. The
really good arguments on each side of the question are not allowed to
have their proper weight. Each pursues his own theory, little
solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced
by his opponents.
The friend of the present order of things condemns all political
speculations in the gross. He will not even condescend to examine the
grounds from which the perfectibility of society is inferred. Much less
will he give himself the trouble in a fair and candid manner to attempt
an exposition of their fallacy.
The speculative philosopher equally offends against the cause of truth.
With eyes fixed on a happier state of society, the blessings of which
he paints in the most captivating colours, he allows himself to indulge
in the most bitter invectives against every present establishment,
without applying his talents to consider the best and safest means of
removing abuses and without seeming to be aware of the tremendous
obstacles that threaten, even in theory, to oppose the progress of man
towards perfection.
It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will
always be confirmed by experiment. Yet so much friction, and so many
minute circumstances occur in practice, which it is next to impossible
for the most enlarged and penetrating mind to foresee, that on few
subjects can any theory be pronounced just, till all the arguments
against it have been maturely weighed and clearly and consistently
refuted.
I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and
of society with great pleasure. I have been warmed and delighted with
the enchanting picture which they hold forth. I ardently wish for such
happy improvements. But I see great, and, to my understanding,
unconquerable difficulties in the way to them. These difficulties it is
my present purpose to state, declaring, at the same time, that so far
from exulting in them, as a cause of triumph over the friends of
innovation, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see them
completely removed.
The most important argument that I shall adduce is certainly not new.
The principles on which it depends have been explained in part by Hume,
and more at large by Dr Adam Smith. It has been advanced and applied to
the present subject, though not with its proper weight, or in the most
forcible point of view, by Mr Wallace, and it may probably have been
stated by many writers that I have never met with. I should certainly
therefore not think of advancing it again, though I mean to place it in
a point of view in some degree different from any that I have hitherto
seen, if it had ever been fairly and satisfactorily answered.
The cause of this neglect on the part of the advocates for the
perfectibility of mankind is not easily accounted for. I cannot doubt
the talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to
doubt their candour. To my understanding, and probably to that of most
others, the difficulty appears insurmountable. Yet these men of
acknowledged ability and penetration scarcely deign to notice it, and
hold on their course in such speculations with unabated ardour and
undiminished confidence. I have certainly no right to say that they
purposely shut their eyes to such arguments. I ought rather to doubt
the validity of them, when neglected by such men, however forcibly
their truth may strike my own mind. Yet in this respect it must be
acknowledged that we are all of us too prone to err. If I saw a glass
of wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, I
should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster
philosophy might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me and
that the offer was not really what I conceived it to be.
In entering upon the argument I must premise that I put out of the
question, at present, all mere conjectures, that is, all suppositions,
the probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just
philosophical grounds. A writer may tell me that he thinks man will
ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him. But
before he can expect to bring any reasonable person over to his
opinion, he ought to shew that the necks of mankind have been gradually
elongating, that the lips have grown harder and more prominent, that
the legs and feet are daily altering their shape, and that the hair is
beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of
so wonderful a conversion can be shewn, it is surely lost time and lost
eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state; to
describe his powers, both of running and flying, to paint him in a
condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he would
be employed only in collecting the necessaries of life, and where,
consequently, each man's share of labour would be light, and his
portion of leisure ample.
I think I may fairly make two postulata.
First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.
Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will
remain nearly in its present state.
These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear
to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto
seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they
will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of
power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and
for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed
laws, all its various operations.
I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will
ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured
that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished. As,
however, he calls this part of his work a deviation into the land of
conjecture, I will not dwell longer upon it at present than to say that
the best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a
contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the
savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But
towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress
whatever has hitherto been made. It appears to exist in as much force
at present as it did two thousand or four thousand years ago. There are
individual exceptions now as there always have been. But, as these
exceptions do not appear to increase in number, it would surely be a
very unphilosophical mode of arguing to infer, merely from the
existence of an exception, that the exception would, in time, become
the rule, and the rule the exception.
Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in
comparison of the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from
the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and
must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.
Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the
seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has
been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to
rear them. The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with
ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds
in the course of a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious all
pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds.
The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great
restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason,
escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects are waste of seed,
sickness, and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice. The
former, misery, is an absolutely necessary consequence of it. Vice is a
highly probable consequence, and we therefore see it abundantly
prevail, but it ought not, perhaps, to be called an absolutely
necessary consequence. The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation
to evil.
This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of
production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must
constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that to
me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.
All other arguments are of slight and subordinate consideration in
comparison of this. I see no way by which man can escape from the
weight of this law which pervades all animated nature. No fancied
equality, no agrarian regulations in their utmost extent, could remove
the pressure of it even for a single century. And it appears,
therefore, to be decisive against the possible existence of a society,
all the members of which should live in ease, happiness, and
comparative leisure; and feel no anxiety about providing the means of
subsistence for themselves and families.
Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive
against the perfectibility of the mass of mankind.
I have thus sketched the general outline of the argument, but I will
examine it more particularly, and I think it will be found that
experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably
confirms its truth.
CHAPTER 2
The different ratio in which population and food increase--The
necessary effects of these different ratios of increase--Oscillation
produced by them in the condition of the lower classes of
society--Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much observed as
might be expected--Three propositions on which the general argument of
the Essay depends--The different states in which mankind have been
known to exist proposed to be examined with reference to these three
propositions.
I said that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical
ratio, and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.
Let us examine whether this position be just. I think it will be
allowed, that no state has hitherto existed (at least that we have any
account of) where the manners were so pure and simple, and the means of
subsistence so abundant, that no check whatever has existed to early
marriages, among the lower classes, from a fear of not providing well
for their families, or among the higher classes, from a fear of
lowering their condition in life. Consequently in no state that we have
yet known has the power of population been left to exert itself with
perfect freedom.
Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature
and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman. Supposing a
liberty of changing in the case of an unfortunate choice, this liberty
would not affect population till it arose to a height greatly vicious;
and we are now supposing the existence of a society where vice is
scarcely known.
In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and
simple manners prevailed, and where the means of subsistence were so
abundant that no part of the society could have any fears about
providing amply for a family, the power of population being left to
exert itself unchecked, the increase of the human species would
evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto
known.
In the United States of America, where the means of subsistence have
been more ample, the manners of the people more pure, and consequently
the checks to early marriages fewer, than in any of the modern states
of Europe, the population has been found to double itself in
twenty-five years.
This ratio of increase, though short of the utmost power of population,
yet as the result of actual experience, we will take as our rule, and
say, that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every
twenty-five years or increases in a geometrical ratio.
Let us now take any spot of earth, this Island for instance, and see in
what ratio the subsistence it affords can be supposed to increase. We
will begin with it under its present state of cultivation.
If I allow that by the best possible policy, by breaking up more land
and by great encouragements to agriculture, the produce of this Island
may be doubled in the first twenty-five years, I think it will be
allowing as much as any person can well demand.
In the next twenty-five years, it is impossible to suppose that the
produce could be quadrupled. It would be contrary to all our knowledge
of the qualities of land. The very utmost that we can conceive, is,
that the increase in the second twenty-five years might equal the
present produce. Let us then take this for our rule, though certainly
far beyond the truth, and allow that, by great exertion, the whole
produce of the Island might be increased every twenty-five years, by a
quantity of subsistence equal to what it at present produces. The most
enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In
a few centuries it would make every acre of land in the Island like a
garden.
Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical.
It may be fairly said, therefore, that the means of subsistence
increase in an arithmetical ratio. Let us now bring the effects of
these two ratios together.
The population of the Island is computed to be about seven millions,
and we will suppose the present produce equal to the support of such a
number. In the first twenty-five years the population would be fourteen
millions, and the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence
would be equal to this increase. In the next twenty-five years the
population would be twenty-eight millions, and the means of subsistence
only equal to the support of twenty-one millions. In the next period,
the population would be fifty-six millions, and the means of
subsistence just sufficient for half that number. And at the conclusion
of the first century the population would be one hundred and twelve
millions and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of
thirty-five millions, which would leave a population of seventy-seven
millions totally unprovided for.
A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or
other in the country that is deserted. For few persons will leave their
families, connections, friends, and native land, to seek a settlement
in untried foreign climes, without some strong subsisting causes of
uneasiness where they are, or the hope of some great advantages in the
place to which they are going.
But to make the argument more general and less interrupted by the
partial views of emigration, let us take the whole earth, instead of
one spot, and suppose that the restraints to population were
universally removed. If the subsistence for man that the earth affords
was to be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what
the whole world at present produces, this would allow the power of
production in the earth to be absolutely unlimited, and its ratio of
increase much greater than we can conceive that any possible exertions
of mankind could make it.
Taking the population of the world at any number, a thousand millions,
for instance, the human species would increase in the ratio of--1, 2,
4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. and subsistence as--1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. In two centuries and a quarter, the population
would be to the means of subsistence as 512 to 10: in three centuries
as 4096 to 13, and in two thousand years the difference would be almost
incalculable, though the produce in that time would have increased to
an immense extent.
No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may
increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity, yet
still the power of population being a power of a superior order, the
increase of the human species can only be kept commensurate to the
increase of the means of subsistence by the constant operation of the
strong law of necessity acting as a check upon the greater power.
The effects of this check remain now to be considered.
Among plants and animals the view of the subject is simple. They are
all impelled by a powerful instinct to the increase of their species,
and this instinct is interrupted by no reasoning or doubts about
providing for their offspring. Wherever therefore there is liberty, the
power of increase is exerted, and the superabundant effects are
repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment, which is common
to animals and plants, and among animals by becoming the prey of others.
The effects of this check on man are more complicated. Impelled to the
increase of his species by an equally powerful instinct, reason
interrupts his career and asks him whether he may not bring beings into
the world for whom he cannot provide the means of subsistence. In a
state of equality, this would be the simple question. In the present
state of society, other considerations occur. Will he not lower his
rank in life? Will he not subject himself to greater difficulties than
he at present feels? Will he not be obliged to labour harder? and if he
has a large family, will his utmost exertions enable him to support
them? May he not see his offspring in rags and misery, and clamouring
for bread that he cannot give them? And may he not be reduced to the
grating necessity of forfeiting his independence, and of being obliged
to the sparing hand of charity for support?
These considerations are calculated to prevent, and certainly do
prevent, a very great number in all civilized nations from pursuing the
dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman. And this
restraint almost necessarily, though not absolutely so, produces vice.
Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to
a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort
towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly
tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to
prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition.
The way in which, these effects are produced seems to be this. We will
suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy
support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population,
which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the
number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The
food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be
divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor
consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to
severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the
proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend
toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time
tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same
as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements
to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that
population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the
plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst
them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to
turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is
already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in
the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we
set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably
comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened,
and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to
happiness are repeated.
This sort of oscillation will not be remarked by superficial observers,
and it may be difficult even for the most penetrating mind to calculate
its periods. Yet that in all old states some such vibration does exist,
though from various transverse causes, in a much less marked, and in a
much more irregular manner than I have described it, no reflecting man
who considers the subject deeply can well doubt.
Many reasons occur why this oscillation has been less obvious, and less
decidedly confirmed by experience, than might naturally be expected.
One principal reason is that the histories of mankind that we possess
are histories only of the higher classes. We have but few accounts that
can be depended upon of the manners and customs of that part of mankind
where these retrograde and progressive movements chiefly take place. A
satisfactory history of this kind, on one people, and of one period,
would require the constant and minute attention of an observing mind
during a long life. Some of the objects of inquiry would be, in what
proportion to the number of adults was the number of marriages, to what
extent vicious customs prevailed in consequence of the restraints upon
matrimony, what was the comparative mortality among the children of the
most distressed part of the community and those who lived rather more
at their ease, what were the variations in the real price of labour,
and what were the observable differences in the state of the lower
classes of society with respect to ease and happiness, at different
times during a certain period.
Such a history would tend greatly to elucidate the manner in which the
constant check upon population acts and would probably prove the
existence of the retrograde and progressive movements that have been
mentioned, though the times of their vibrations must necessarily be
rendered irregular from the operation of many interrupting causes, such
as the introduction or failure of certain manufactures, a greater or
less prevalent spirit of agricultural enterprise, years of plenty, or
years of scarcity, wars and pestilence, poor laws, the invention of
processes for shortening labour without the proportional extension of
the market for the commodity, and, particularly, the difference between
the nominal and real price of labour, a circumstance which has perhaps
more than any other contributed to conceal this oscillation from common
view.
It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally
falls, but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the
nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in
effect, a real fall in the price of labour, and during this period the
condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow
worse and worse. But the farmers and capitalists are growing rich from
the real cheapness of labour. Their increased capitals enable them to
employ a greater number of men. Work therefore may be plentiful, and
the price of labour would consequently rise. But the want of freedom in
the market of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities,
either from parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of
combination among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates
to prevent the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and
keeps it down some time longer; perhaps till a year of scarcity, when
the clamour is too loud and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.
The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed,
and the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to
the poor, in consideration of a year of scarcity, and, when plenty
returns, indulge themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints,
that the price does not again fall, when a little rejection would shew
them that it must have risen long before but from an unjust conspiracy
of their own.
But though the rich by unfair combinations contribute frequently to
prolong a season of distress among the poor, yet no possible form of
society could prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great
part of mankind, if in a state of inequality, and upon all, if all were
equal.
The theory on which the truth of this position depends appears to me so
extremely clear that I feel at a loss to conjecture what part of it can
be denied.
That population cannot increase without the means of subsistence is a
proposition so evident that it needs no illustration.
That population does invariably increase where there are the means of
subsistence, the history of every people that have ever existed will
abundantly prove.
And that the superior power of population cannot be checked without
producing misery or vice, the ample portion of these too bitter
ingredients in the cup of human life and the continuance of the
physical causes that seem to have produced them bear too convincing a
testimony.
But, in order more fully to ascertain the validity of these three
propositions, let us examine the different states in which mankind have
been known to exist. Even a cursory review will, I think, be sufficient
to convince us that these propositions are incontrovertible truths.
CHAPTER 3
The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed--The shepherd state, or the
tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire--The superiority of
the power of population to the means of subsistence--the cause of the
great tide of Northern Emigration.
In the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal
occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food; the means of
subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the
comparative population must necessarily be thin. It is said that the
passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North American
Indians, than among any other race of men. Yet, notwithstanding this
apathy, the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be
always greater than the means to support it. This appears, from the
comparatively rapid population that takes place, whenever any of the
tribes happen to settle in some fertile spot, and to draw nourishment
from more fruitful sources than that of hunting; and it has been
frequently remarked that when an Indian family has taken up its abode
near any European settlement, and adopted a more easy and civilized
mode of life, that one woman has reared five, or six, or more children;
though in the savage state it rarely happens that above one or two in a
family grow up to maturity. The same observation has been made with
regard to the Hottentots near the Cape. These facts prove the superior
power of population to the means of subsistence in nations of hunters,
and that this power always shews itself the moment it is left to act
with freedom.
It remains to inquire whether this power can be checked, and its
effects kept equal to the means of subsistence, without vice or misery.
The North American Indians, considered as a people, cannot justly be
called free and equal. In all the accounts we have of them, and,
indeed, of most other savage nations, the women are represented as much
more completely in a state of slavery to the men than the poor are to
the rich in civilized countries. One half the nation appears to act as
Helots to the other half, and the misery that checks population falls
chiefly, as it always must do, upon that part whose condition is lowest
in the scale of society. The infancy of man in the simplest state
requires considerable attention, but this necessary attention the women
cannot give, condemned as they are to the inconveniences and hardships
of frequent change of place and to the constant and unremitting
drudgery of preparing every thing for the reception of their tyrannic
lords.
The theory of mind which he has
sketched in the two last chapters accounts to his own understanding in
a satisfactory manner for the existence of most of the evils of life,
but whether it will have the same effect upon others must be left to
the judgement of his readers.
If he should succeed in drawing the attention of more able men to what
he conceives to be the principal difficulty in the way to the
improvement of society and should, in consequence, see this difficulty
removed, even in theory, he will gladly retract his present opinions
and rejoice in a conviction of his error.
7 June 1798
CHAPTER 1
Question stated--Little prospect of a determination of it, from the
enmity of the opposing parties--The principal argument against the
perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly
answered--Nature of the difficulty arising from population--Outline of
the principal argument of the Essay
The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late
years in natural philosophy, the increasing diffusion of general
knowledge from the extension of the art of printing, the ardent and
unshackled spirit of inquiry that prevails throughout the lettered and
even unlettered world, the new and extraordinary lights that have been
thrown on political subjects which dazzle and astonish the
understanding, and particularly that tremendous phenomenon in the
political horizon, the French Revolution, which, like a blazing comet,
seems destined either to inspire with fresh life and vigour, or to
scorch up and destroy the shrinking inhabitants of the earth, have all
concurred to lead many able men into the opinion that we were touching
on a period big with the most important changes, changes that would in
some measure be decisive of the future fate of mankind.
It has been said that the great question is now at issue, whether man
shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards
illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement, or be condemned to a
perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery, and after every
effort remain still at an immeasurable distance from the wished-for
goal.
Yet, anxiously as every friend of mankind must look forwards to the
termination of this painful suspense, and eagerly as the inquiring mind
would hail every ray of light that might assist its view into futurity,
it is much to be lamented that the writers on each side of this
momentous question still keep far aloof from each other. Their mutual
arguments do not meet with a candid examination. The question is not
brought to rest on fewer points, and even in theory scarcely seems to
be approaching to a decision.
The advocate for the present order of things is apt to treat the sect
of speculative philosophers either as a set of artful and designing
knaves who preach up ardent benevolence and draw captivating pictures
of a happier state of society only the better to enable them to destroy
the present establishments and to forward their own deep-laid schemes
of ambition, or as wild and mad-headed enthusiasts whose silly
speculations and absurd paradoxes are not worthy the attention of any
reasonable man.
The advocate for the perfectibility of man, and of society, retorts on
the defender of establishments a more than equal contempt. He brands
him as the slave of the most miserable and narrow prejudices; or as the
defender of the abuses of civil society only because he profits by
them. He paints him either as a character who prostitutes his
understanding to his interest, or as one whose powers of mind are not
of a size to grasp any thing great and noble, who cannot see above five
yards before him, and who must therefore be utterly unable to take in
the views of the enlightened benefactor of mankind.
In this unamicable contest the cause of truth cannot but suffer. The
really good arguments on each side of the question are not allowed to
have their proper weight. Each pursues his own theory, little
solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced
by his opponents.
The friend of the present order of things condemns all political
speculations in the gross. He will not even condescend to examine the
grounds from which the perfectibility of society is inferred. Much less
will he give himself the trouble in a fair and candid manner to attempt
an exposition of their fallacy.
The speculative philosopher equally offends against the cause of truth.
With eyes fixed on a happier state of society, the blessings of which
he paints in the most captivating colours, he allows himself to indulge
in the most bitter invectives against every present establishment,
without applying his talents to consider the best and safest means of
removing abuses and without seeming to be aware of the tremendous
obstacles that threaten, even in theory, to oppose the progress of man
towards perfection.
It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will
always be confirmed by experiment. Yet so much friction, and so many
minute circumstances occur in practice, which it is next to impossible
for the most enlarged and penetrating mind to foresee, that on few
subjects can any theory be pronounced just, till all the arguments
against it have been maturely weighed and clearly and consistently
refuted.
I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and
of society with great pleasure. I have been warmed and delighted with
the enchanting picture which they hold forth. I ardently wish for such
happy improvements. But I see great, and, to my understanding,
unconquerable difficulties in the way to them. These difficulties it is
my present purpose to state, declaring, at the same time, that so far
from exulting in them, as a cause of triumph over the friends of
innovation, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see them
completely removed.
The most important argument that I shall adduce is certainly not new.
The principles on which it depends have been explained in part by Hume,
and more at large by Dr Adam Smith. It has been advanced and applied to
the present subject, though not with its proper weight, or in the most
forcible point of view, by Mr Wallace, and it may probably have been
stated by many writers that I have never met with. I should certainly
therefore not think of advancing it again, though I mean to place it in
a point of view in some degree different from any that I have hitherto
seen, if it had ever been fairly and satisfactorily answered.
The cause of this neglect on the part of the advocates for the
perfectibility of mankind is not easily accounted for. I cannot doubt
the talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to
doubt their candour. To my understanding, and probably to that of most
others, the difficulty appears insurmountable. Yet these men of
acknowledged ability and penetration scarcely deign to notice it, and
hold on their course in such speculations with unabated ardour and
undiminished confidence. I have certainly no right to say that they
purposely shut their eyes to such arguments. I ought rather to doubt
the validity of them, when neglected by such men, however forcibly
their truth may strike my own mind. Yet in this respect it must be
acknowledged that we are all of us too prone to err. If I saw a glass
of wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, I
should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster
philosophy might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me and
that the offer was not really what I conceived it to be.
In entering upon the argument I must premise that I put out of the
question, at present, all mere conjectures, that is, all suppositions,
the probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just
philosophical grounds. A writer may tell me that he thinks man will
ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him. But
before he can expect to bring any reasonable person over to his
opinion, he ought to shew that the necks of mankind have been gradually
elongating, that the lips have grown harder and more prominent, that
the legs and feet are daily altering their shape, and that the hair is
beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of
so wonderful a conversion can be shewn, it is surely lost time and lost
eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state; to
describe his powers, both of running and flying, to paint him in a
condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he would
be employed only in collecting the necessaries of life, and where,
consequently, each man's share of labour would be light, and his
portion of leisure ample.
I think I may fairly make two postulata.
First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.
Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will
remain nearly in its present state.
These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear
to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto
seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they
will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of
power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and
for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed
laws, all its various operations.
I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will
ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured
that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished. As,
however, he calls this part of his work a deviation into the land of
conjecture, I will not dwell longer upon it at present than to say that
the best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a
contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the
savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But
towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress
whatever has hitherto been made. It appears to exist in as much force
at present as it did two thousand or four thousand years ago. There are
individual exceptions now as there always have been. But, as these
exceptions do not appear to increase in number, it would surely be a
very unphilosophical mode of arguing to infer, merely from the
existence of an exception, that the exception would, in time, become
the rule, and the rule the exception.
Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in
comparison of the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from
the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and
must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.
Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the
seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has
been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to
rear them. The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with
ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds
in the course of a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious all
pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds.
The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great
restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason,
escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects are waste of seed,
sickness, and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice. The
former, misery, is an absolutely necessary consequence of it. Vice is a
highly probable consequence, and we therefore see it abundantly
prevail, but it ought not, perhaps, to be called an absolutely
necessary consequence. The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation
to evil.
This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of
production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must
constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that to
me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.
All other arguments are of slight and subordinate consideration in
comparison of this. I see no way by which man can escape from the
weight of this law which pervades all animated nature. No fancied
equality, no agrarian regulations in their utmost extent, could remove
the pressure of it even for a single century. And it appears,
therefore, to be decisive against the possible existence of a society,
all the members of which should live in ease, happiness, and
comparative leisure; and feel no anxiety about providing the means of
subsistence for themselves and families.
Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive
against the perfectibility of the mass of mankind.
I have thus sketched the general outline of the argument, but I will
examine it more particularly, and I think it will be found that
experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably
confirms its truth.
CHAPTER 2
The different ratio in which population and food increase--The
necessary effects of these different ratios of increase--Oscillation
produced by them in the condition of the lower classes of
society--Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much observed as
might be expected--Three propositions on which the general argument of
the Essay depends--The different states in which mankind have been
known to exist proposed to be examined with reference to these three
propositions.
I said that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical
ratio, and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.
Let us examine whether this position be just. I think it will be
allowed, that no state has hitherto existed (at least that we have any
account of) where the manners were so pure and simple, and the means of
subsistence so abundant, that no check whatever has existed to early
marriages, among the lower classes, from a fear of not providing well
for their families, or among the higher classes, from a fear of
lowering their condition in life. Consequently in no state that we have
yet known has the power of population been left to exert itself with
perfect freedom.
Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature
and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman. Supposing a
liberty of changing in the case of an unfortunate choice, this liberty
would not affect population till it arose to a height greatly vicious;
and we are now supposing the existence of a society where vice is
scarcely known.
In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and
simple manners prevailed, and where the means of subsistence were so
abundant that no part of the society could have any fears about
providing amply for a family, the power of population being left to
exert itself unchecked, the increase of the human species would
evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto
known.
In the United States of America, where the means of subsistence have
been more ample, the manners of the people more pure, and consequently
the checks to early marriages fewer, than in any of the modern states
of Europe, the population has been found to double itself in
twenty-five years.
This ratio of increase, though short of the utmost power of population,
yet as the result of actual experience, we will take as our rule, and
say, that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every
twenty-five years or increases in a geometrical ratio.
Let us now take any spot of earth, this Island for instance, and see in
what ratio the subsistence it affords can be supposed to increase. We
will begin with it under its present state of cultivation.
If I allow that by the best possible policy, by breaking up more land
and by great encouragements to agriculture, the produce of this Island
may be doubled in the first twenty-five years, I think it will be
allowing as much as any person can well demand.
In the next twenty-five years, it is impossible to suppose that the
produce could be quadrupled. It would be contrary to all our knowledge
of the qualities of land. The very utmost that we can conceive, is,
that the increase in the second twenty-five years might equal the
present produce. Let us then take this for our rule, though certainly
far beyond the truth, and allow that, by great exertion, the whole
produce of the Island might be increased every twenty-five years, by a
quantity of subsistence equal to what it at present produces. The most
enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In
a few centuries it would make every acre of land in the Island like a
garden.
Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical.
It may be fairly said, therefore, that the means of subsistence
increase in an arithmetical ratio. Let us now bring the effects of
these two ratios together.
The population of the Island is computed to be about seven millions,
and we will suppose the present produce equal to the support of such a
number. In the first twenty-five years the population would be fourteen
millions, and the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence
would be equal to this increase. In the next twenty-five years the
population would be twenty-eight millions, and the means of subsistence
only equal to the support of twenty-one millions. In the next period,
the population would be fifty-six millions, and the means of
subsistence just sufficient for half that number. And at the conclusion
of the first century the population would be one hundred and twelve
millions and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of
thirty-five millions, which would leave a population of seventy-seven
millions totally unprovided for.
A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or
other in the country that is deserted. For few persons will leave their
families, connections, friends, and native land, to seek a settlement
in untried foreign climes, without some strong subsisting causes of
uneasiness where they are, or the hope of some great advantages in the
place to which they are going.
But to make the argument more general and less interrupted by the
partial views of emigration, let us take the whole earth, instead of
one spot, and suppose that the restraints to population were
universally removed. If the subsistence for man that the earth affords
was to be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what
the whole world at present produces, this would allow the power of
production in the earth to be absolutely unlimited, and its ratio of
increase much greater than we can conceive that any possible exertions
of mankind could make it.
Taking the population of the world at any number, a thousand millions,
for instance, the human species would increase in the ratio of--1, 2,
4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. and subsistence as--1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. In two centuries and a quarter, the population
would be to the means of subsistence as 512 to 10: in three centuries
as 4096 to 13, and in two thousand years the difference would be almost
incalculable, though the produce in that time would have increased to
an immense extent.
No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may
increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity, yet
still the power of population being a power of a superior order, the
increase of the human species can only be kept commensurate to the
increase of the means of subsistence by the constant operation of the
strong law of necessity acting as a check upon the greater power.
The effects of this check remain now to be considered.
Among plants and animals the view of the subject is simple. They are
all impelled by a powerful instinct to the increase of their species,
and this instinct is interrupted by no reasoning or doubts about
providing for their offspring. Wherever therefore there is liberty, the
power of increase is exerted, and the superabundant effects are
repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment, which is common
to animals and plants, and among animals by becoming the prey of others.
The effects of this check on man are more complicated. Impelled to the
increase of his species by an equally powerful instinct, reason
interrupts his career and asks him whether he may not bring beings into
the world for whom he cannot provide the means of subsistence. In a
state of equality, this would be the simple question. In the present
state of society, other considerations occur. Will he not lower his
rank in life? Will he not subject himself to greater difficulties than
he at present feels? Will he not be obliged to labour harder? and if he
has a large family, will his utmost exertions enable him to support
them? May he not see his offspring in rags and misery, and clamouring
for bread that he cannot give them? And may he not be reduced to the
grating necessity of forfeiting his independence, and of being obliged
to the sparing hand of charity for support?
These considerations are calculated to prevent, and certainly do
prevent, a very great number in all civilized nations from pursuing the
dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman. And this
restraint almost necessarily, though not absolutely so, produces vice.
Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to
a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort
towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly
tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to
prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition.
The way in which, these effects are produced seems to be this. We will
suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy
support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population,
which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the
number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The
food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be
divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor
consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to
severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the
proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend
toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time
tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same
as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements
to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that
population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the
plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst
them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to
turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is
already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in
the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we
set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably
comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened,
and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to
happiness are repeated.
This sort of oscillation will not be remarked by superficial observers,
and it may be difficult even for the most penetrating mind to calculate
its periods. Yet that in all old states some such vibration does exist,
though from various transverse causes, in a much less marked, and in a
much more irregular manner than I have described it, no reflecting man
who considers the subject deeply can well doubt.
Many reasons occur why this oscillation has been less obvious, and less
decidedly confirmed by experience, than might naturally be expected.
One principal reason is that the histories of mankind that we possess
are histories only of the higher classes. We have but few accounts that
can be depended upon of the manners and customs of that part of mankind
where these retrograde and progressive movements chiefly take place. A
satisfactory history of this kind, on one people, and of one period,
would require the constant and minute attention of an observing mind
during a long life. Some of the objects of inquiry would be, in what
proportion to the number of adults was the number of marriages, to what
extent vicious customs prevailed in consequence of the restraints upon
matrimony, what was the comparative mortality among the children of the
most distressed part of the community and those who lived rather more
at their ease, what were the variations in the real price of labour,
and what were the observable differences in the state of the lower
classes of society with respect to ease and happiness, at different
times during a certain period.
Such a history would tend greatly to elucidate the manner in which the
constant check upon population acts and would probably prove the
existence of the retrograde and progressive movements that have been
mentioned, though the times of their vibrations must necessarily be
rendered irregular from the operation of many interrupting causes, such
as the introduction or failure of certain manufactures, a greater or
less prevalent spirit of agricultural enterprise, years of plenty, or
years of scarcity, wars and pestilence, poor laws, the invention of
processes for shortening labour without the proportional extension of
the market for the commodity, and, particularly, the difference between
the nominal and real price of labour, a circumstance which has perhaps
more than any other contributed to conceal this oscillation from common
view.
It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally
falls, but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the
nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in
effect, a real fall in the price of labour, and during this period the
condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow
worse and worse. But the farmers and capitalists are growing rich from
the real cheapness of labour. Their increased capitals enable them to
employ a greater number of men. Work therefore may be plentiful, and
the price of labour would consequently rise. But the want of freedom in
the market of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities,
either from parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of
combination among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates
to prevent the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and
keeps it down some time longer; perhaps till a year of scarcity, when
the clamour is too loud and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.
The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed,
and the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to
the poor, in consideration of a year of scarcity, and, when plenty
returns, indulge themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints,
that the price does not again fall, when a little rejection would shew
them that it must have risen long before but from an unjust conspiracy
of their own.
But though the rich by unfair combinations contribute frequently to
prolong a season of distress among the poor, yet no possible form of
society could prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great
part of mankind, if in a state of inequality, and upon all, if all were
equal.
The theory on which the truth of this position depends appears to me so
extremely clear that I feel at a loss to conjecture what part of it can
be denied.
That population cannot increase without the means of subsistence is a
proposition so evident that it needs no illustration.
That population does invariably increase where there are the means of
subsistence, the history of every people that have ever existed will
abundantly prove.
And that the superior power of population cannot be checked without
producing misery or vice, the ample portion of these too bitter
ingredients in the cup of human life and the continuance of the
physical causes that seem to have produced them bear too convincing a
testimony.
But, in order more fully to ascertain the validity of these three
propositions, let us examine the different states in which mankind have
been known to exist. Even a cursory review will, I think, be sufficient
to convince us that these propositions are incontrovertible truths.
CHAPTER 3
The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed--The shepherd state, or the
tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire--The superiority of
the power of population to the means of subsistence--the cause of the
great tide of Northern Emigration.
In the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal
occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food; the means of
subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the
comparative population must necessarily be thin. It is said that the
passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North American
Indians, than among any other race of men. Yet, notwithstanding this
apathy, the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be
always greater than the means to support it. This appears, from the
comparatively rapid population that takes place, whenever any of the
tribes happen to settle in some fertile spot, and to draw nourishment
from more fruitful sources than that of hunting; and it has been
frequently remarked that when an Indian family has taken up its abode
near any European settlement, and adopted a more easy and civilized
mode of life, that one woman has reared five, or six, or more children;
though in the savage state it rarely happens that above one or two in a
family grow up to maturity. The same observation has been made with
regard to the Hottentots near the Cape. These facts prove the superior
power of population to the means of subsistence in nations of hunters,
and that this power always shews itself the moment it is left to act
with freedom.
It remains to inquire whether this power can be checked, and its
effects kept equal to the means of subsistence, without vice or misery.
The North American Indians, considered as a people, cannot justly be
called free and equal. In all the accounts we have of them, and,
indeed, of most other savage nations, the women are represented as much
more completely in a state of slavery to the men than the poor are to
the rich in civilized countries. One half the nation appears to act as
Helots to the other half, and the misery that checks population falls
chiefly, as it always must do, upon that part whose condition is lowest
in the scale of society. The infancy of man in the simplest state
requires considerable attention, but this necessary attention the women
cannot give, condemned as they are to the inconveniences and hardships
of frequent change of place and to the constant and unremitting
drudgery of preparing every thing for the reception of their tyrannic
lords. These exertions, sometimes during pregnancy or with children at
their backs, must occasion frequent miscarriages, and prevent any but
the most robust infants from growing to maturity. Add to these
hardships of the women the constant war that prevails among savages,
and the necessity which they frequently labour under of exposing their
aged and helpless parents, and of thus violating the first feelings of
nature, and the picture will not appear very free from the blot of
misery. In estimating the happiness of a savage nation, we must not fix
our eyes only on the warrior in the prime of life: he is one of a
hundred: he is the gentleman, the man of fortune, the chances have been
in his favour and many efforts have failed ere this fortunate being was
produced, whose guardian genius should preserve him through the
numberless dangers with which he would be surrounded from infancy to
manhood. The true points of comparison between two nations seem to be
the ranks in each which appear nearest to answer to each other. And in
this view, I should compare the warriors in the prime of life with the
gentlemen, and the women, children, and aged, with the lower classes of
the community in civilized states.
May we not then fairly infer from this short review, or rather, from
the accounts that may be referred to of nations of hunters, that their
population is thin from the scarcity of food, that it would immediately
increase if food was in greater plenty, and that, putting vice out of
the question among savages, misery is the check that represses the
superior power of population and keeps its effects equal to the means
of subsistence. Actual observation and experience tell us that this
check, with a few local and temporary exceptions, is constantly acting
now upon all savage nations, and the theory indicates that it probably
acted with nearly equal strength a thousand years ago, and it may not
be much greater a thousand years hence.
Of the manners and habits that prevail among nations of shepherds, the
next state of mankind, we are even more ignorant than of the savage
state. But that these nations could not escape the general lot of
misery arising from the want of subsistence, Europe, and all the
fairest countries in the world, bear ample testimony. Want was the goad
that drove the Scythian shepherds from their native haunts, like so
many famished wolves in search of prey. Set in motion by this all
powerful cause, clouds of Barbarians seemed to collect from all points
of the northern hemisphere. Gathering fresh darkness and terror as they
rolled on, the congregated bodies at length obscured the sun of Italy
and sunk the whole world in universal night. These tremendous effects,
so long and so deeply felt throughout the fairest portions of the
earth, may be traced to the simple cause of the superior power of
population to the means of subsistence.
It is well known that a country in pasture cannot support so many
inhabitants as a country in tillage, but what renders nations of
shepherds so formidable is the power which they possess of moving all
together and the necessity they frequently feel of exerting this power
in search of fresh pasture for their herds. A tribe that was rich in
cattle had an immediate plenty of food. Even the parent stock might be
devoured in a case of absolute necessity. The women lived in greater
ease than among nations of hunters. The men bold in their united
strength and confiding in their power of procuring pasture for their
cattle by change of place, felt, probably, but few fears about
providing for a family. These combined causes soon produced their
natural and invariable effect, an extended population. A more frequent
and rapid change of place became then necessary. A wider and more
extensive territory was successively occupied. A broader desolation
extended all around them. Want pinched the less fortunate members of
the society, and, at length, the impossibility of supporting such a
number together became too evident to be resisted.
