50 100 2 420
100 150 9 396
150 200 16 390
200 250 4 388
250 300 5 378
300 350 3 353
500 600 2 331
4000 and upwards 1 246
"Now, I think it quite reasonable to conclude, that, were there not
another document in existence relative to this subject, the facts thus
deduced from the census of England are fully sufficient to demonstrate
the position, that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as
their numbers. How, I ask, can it be evaded?"
What, we ask, is there to evade? Is 246 to 420 as 50 to 4000? Is 331 to
396 as 100 to 500? If the law propounded by Mr Sadler were correct, the
births to a hundred marriages in the least populous part of England,
would be 246 x 4000 / 50, that is 19,680,--nearly two hundred children
to every mother. But we will not carry on these calculations. The
absurdity of Mr Sadler's proposition is so palpable that it is
unnecessary to select particular instances. Let us see what are the
extremes of population and fecundity in well-known countries. The space
which Mr Sadler generally takes is a square mile. The population at the
Cape of Good Hope is, according to him, one to the square mile. That
of London is two hundred thousand to the square mile. The number of
children at the Cape, Mr Sadler informs us, is 5.48 to a marriage. In
London, he states it at 2.35 to a marriage. Now how can that of which
all the variations lie between 2.35 and 5.48 vary, either directly or
inversely, as that which admits of all the variations between one and
two hundred thousand? Mr Sadler evidently does not know the meaning of
the word proportion. A million is a larger quantity than ten. A hundred
is a larger quantity than five. Mr Sadler thinks, therefore, that there
is no impropriety in saying that a hundred is to five as a million is to
ten, or in the inverse ratio of ten to a million. He proposes to prove
that the fecundity of marriages varies in inverse proportion to the
density of the population. But all that he attempts to prove is that,
while the population increases from one to a hundred and sixty on the
square mile, the fecundity will diminish from 5.48 to 3.66; and that
again, while the population increases from one hundred and sixty to two
hundred thousand on the square mile, the fecundity will diminish from
3.66 to 2.35.
The proposition which Mr Sadler enounces, without understanding the
words which he uses, would indeed, if it could be proved, set us at ease
as to the dangers of over-population. But it is, as we have shown, a
proposition so grossly absurd that it is difficult for any man to keep
his countenance while he repeats it. The utmost that Mr Sadler has
ever attempted to prove is this,--that the fecundity of the human
race diminishes as population becomes more condensed,--but that the
diminution of fecundity bears a very small ratio to the increase
of population,--so that, while the population on a square mile is
multiplied two hundred-thousand-fold, the fecundity decreases by little
more than one half.
Does this principle vindicate the honour of God? Does it hold out any
new hope or comfort to man? Not at all. We pledge ourselves to
show, with the utmost strictness of reasoning, from Mr Sadler's own
principles, and from facts of the most notorious description, that every
consequence which follows from the law of geometrical progression, laid
down by Mr Malthus, will follow from the law, miscalled a law of inverse
variation, which has been laid down by Mr Sadler.
London is the most thickly peopled spot of its size in the known world.
Therefore the fecundity of the population of London must, according
to Mr Sadler, be less than the fecundity of human beings living on
any other spot of equal size. Mr Sadler tells us, that "the ratios
of mortality are influenced by the different degrees in which the
population is condensated; and that, other circumstances being similar,
the relative number of deaths in a thinly-populated, or country
district, is less than that which takes place in towns, and in towns of
a moderate size less again than that which exists in large and populous
cities." Therefore the mortality in London must, according to him, be
greater than in other places. But, though, according to Mr Sadler, the
fecundity is less in London than elsewhere, and though the mortality is
greater there than elsewhere, we find that even in London the number of
births greatly exceeds the number of deaths. During the ten years which
ended with 1820, there were fifty thousand more baptisms than burials
within the bills of mortality. It follows, therefore, that, even within
London itself, an increase of the population is taking place by internal
propagation.
Now, if the population of a place in which the fecundity is less and
the mortality greater than in other places still goes on increasing
by propagation, it follows that in other places the population will
increase, and increase still faster. There is clearly nothing in Mr
Sadler's boasted law of fecundity which will keep the population from
multiplying till the whole earth is as thick with human beings as St
Giles's parish. If Mr Sadler denies this, he must hold that, in places
less thickly peopled than London, marriages may be less fruitful than
in London, which is directly contrary to his own principles; or that in
places less thickly peopled than London, and similarly situated, people
will die faster than in London, which is again directly contrary to his
own principles. Now, if it follows, as it clearly does follow, from Mr
Sadler's own doctrines, that the human race might be stowed together
by three or four hundred to the acre, and might still, as far as the
principle of propagation is concerned, go on increasing, what advantage,
in a religious or moral point of view, has his theory over that of
Mr Malthus? The principle of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, leads to
consequences of the most frightful description. Be it so. But do not
all these consequences spring equally from his own principle? Revealed
religion condemns Mr Malthus. Be it so. But Mr Sadler must share in the
reproach of heresy. The theory of Mr Malthus represents the Deity as a
Dionysius hanging the sword over the heads of his trembling slaves. Be
it so. But under what rhetorical figure are we to represent the Deity of
Mr Sadler?
A man who wishes to serve the cause of religion ought to hesitate long
before he stakes the truth of religion on the event of a controversy
respecting facts in the physical world. For a time he may succeed in
making a theory which he dislikes unpopular by persuading the public
that it contradicts the Scriptures and is inconsistent with the
attributes of the Deity. But, if at last an overwhelming force of
evidence proves this maligned theory to be true, what is the effect of
the arguments by which the objector has attempted to prove that it is
irreconcilable with natural and revealed religion? Merely this, to make
men infidels. Like the Israelites, in their battle with the Philistines,
he has presumptuously and without warrant brought down the ark of God
into the camp as a means of ensuring victory:--and the consequence of
this profanation is that, when the battle is lost, the ark is taken.
In every age the Church has been cautioned against this fatal and
impious rashness by its most illustrious members,--by the fervid
Augustin, by the subtle Aquinas, by the all-accomplished Pascal. The
warning has been given in vain. That close alliance which, under
the disguise of the most deadly enmity, has always subsisted between
fanaticism and atheism is still unbroken. At one time, the cry was,--"If
you hold that the earth moves round the sun, you deny the truth of the
Bible." Popes, conclaves, and religious orders, rose up against the
Copernican heresy. But, as Pascal said, they could not prevent the
earth from moving, or themselves from moving along with it. One thing,
however, they could do, and they did. They could teach numbers to
consider the Bible as a collection of old women's stories which the
progress of civilisation and knowledge was refuting one by one. They
had attempted to show that the Ptolemaic system was as much a part of
Christianity as the resurrection of the dead. Was it strange, then, that
when the Ptolemaic system became an object of ridicule to every man of
education in Catholic countries, the doctrine of the resurrection should
be in peril? In the present generation, and in our own country, the
prevailing system of geology has been, with equal folly, attacked on the
ground that it is inconsistent with the Mosaic dates. And here we have
Mr Sadler, out of his especial zeal for religion, first proving that the
doctrine of superfecundity is irreconcilable with the goodness of God,
and then laying down principles, and stating facts, from which the
doctrine of superfecundity necessarily follows. This blundering piety
reminds us of the adventures of a certain missionary who went to convert
the inhabitants of Madagascar. The good father had an audience of the
king, and began to instruct his majesty in the history of the human race
as given in the Scriptures. "Thus, sir," said he, "was woman made out
of the rib of man, and ever since that time a woman has had one rib
more than a man." "Surely, father, you must be mistaken there," said the
king. "Mistaken!" said the missionary. "It is an indisputable fact.
My faith upon it! My life upon it!" The good man had heard the fact
asserted by his nurse when he was a child,--had always considered it as
a strong confirmation of the Scriptures, and fully believed it without
having ever thought of verifying it. The king ordered a man and woman,
the leanest that could be found, to be brought before him, and desired
his spiritual instructor to count their ribs. The father counted over
and over, upward and downward, and still found the same number in both.
He then cleared his throat, stammered, stuttered, and began to assure
the king that though he had committed a little error in saying that a
woman had more ribs than a man, he was quite right in saying that the
first woman was made out of the rib of the first man. "How can I tell
that?" said the king. "You come to me with a strange story which you say
is revealed to you from heaven. I have already made you confess that
one half of it is a lie: and how can you have the face to expect that I
shall believe the other half?"
We have shown that Mr Sadler's theory, if it be true, is as much a
theory of superfecundity as that of Mr Malthus. But it is not true. And
from Mr Sadler's own tables we will prove that it is not true.