“If this supposition be applied to the whole earth, and if it be allowed that the subsistence for man, which the earth affords, might be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what it at present produces, this will be supposing a rate of increase much greater than we can imagine that any possible exertions of mankind could make it.
“It may fairly be pronounced, therefore, that considering the present average state of the earth, the means of subsistence, under circumstances the most favorable to human industry, could not possibly be made to increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio.
“The necessary effects of these two different rates of increase, when brought together, will be very striking. Let us call the population of this island 11,000,000 (Mr. Malthus writes in 1806), and suppose the present produce equal to the easy support of such a number. In the first twenty-five years the population would be 22,000,000, 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 44,000,000, and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of 33,000,000. In the next period the population would be 88,000,000, and the means of subsistence just equal to the support of half that number. And at the conclusion of the first century, the population would be 176,000,000, and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of 55,000,000, leaving a population of 121,000,000 totally unprovided for.”
Now let us see how this stupendous possible power of increase in the human race has been kept in check.
The positive checks (i.e., checks which have operated through the action of natural laws) to an excessive increase of population comprehend the premature death of children and adults by disease, starvation, war and infanticide. Nature has a short and sharp way of dealing with her superfluous children. Amongst savage tribes the positive checks alone are brought into operation. The pages of human history teem with tragic records of famines decimating the unhappy victims of over-population; of pestilence stalking through the land, slaying its tens of thousands; of wars devastating countries and overwhelming the inhabitants in ruin, misery and death. In certain parts of the world the pangs of hunger have destroyed in men and women the primal instinct of parental love; and, in the fifth chapter of his work, Malthus shows how, in the South Sea Islands, where the possible expansion of population was extremely small, the frightful expedient of infanticide was largely resorted to by the inhabitants to check their natural increase. Even then, however, the pressure on the means of subsistence was so great that food became scarce at certain seasons of the year, and destructive wars ensued. Captain Vancouver, visiting Otaheite for the second time in 1791, found that most of the natives whom he had known fourteen years before had perished in battle.
In the course of numerous examples of the effects of over-population upon the condition of the masses in various countries, Malthus gives a striking example of the appalling misery to which even industrious laborers were reduced in densely-peopled China. He quotes the words of a Jesuit missionary, who stated that a Chinaman “will pass whole days in digging the earth, sometimes up to his knees in water, and in the evening is happy to eat a little spoonful of rice, and to drink the insipid water in which it is boiled.” This is obviously an exaggeration, since it would be impossible to maintain life under such conditions; but it serves to show the deplorable state to which the workers may be reduced by excessive population.
It is unnecessary here to follow Malthus through his exhaustive survey of the condition of nations affected by over-population in various stages of the world’s history. Our purpose is rather to furnish an indication of the principle than to reproduce in detail the observations upon which it is based. The most concise formula in which the theory of Malthus has been expressed is as follows: “That population has a constant tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence.”
[1] This has already been admirably done in two pamphlets by Dr. C. R. Drysdale, President of the Malthusian League: (1) The Life and Writings of Malthus; (2) The Population Question. [↑]