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.