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.