"To which purpose, in the case of the Highlands, the surplus funds in the hands of the Relief Committee, and even an additional subscription, may be very properly applied, provided that the districts requiring it are pointed out by their own agents, and that the wholesome stimulus of an effective Poor Law, embracing the case of destitution from want of employment, now existing in all other parts of her Majesty's dominions, be extended to Scotland."
We make no apology for the copiousness of the extracts which we are now to make, and which, we think, will sufficiently explain themselves without much commentary from us.
Nothing can be fairer than the footing on which Dr Alison places his argument at the outset.
"Very little reflection appears to be sufficient to show, that the best system of management of the poor (ceteris paribus) must be that which gives the least encouragement to redundancy of population. I have always regarded, therefore, the doctrine of Malthus—by which all such questions are held to be inseparably connected with the theory of population—to be the true basis of all speculative inquiry on this subject; and I cannot help saying again, that in consequence
of some hasty expressions which he used, and of the great practical error, which, as I believe, and as he himself evidently suspected in the latter part of his life, he had committed in the application of his principle, justice has not yet been generally done to the truth and importance of that fundamental principle itself. In the present state of this country, and indeed of every civilised country, and with a view to the happiness of the human race upon earth, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of any inquiries which promise to indicate the conditions by which the relation of the population to the demand for labour, and the means of subsistence there existing, is determined, and may be regulated.
"We cannot indeed expect, that so striking results can follow from this or any other principle in political science, as have already rewarded the labour of man in investigating the laws of the material world. The beautiful expressions of Cicero, in describing the power which man has acquired over Nature, are more applicable to the present age, than to any one that has preceded it. 'Nos campis, nos montibus fruimur; nostri sunt amnes, nostri lacus; nos fruges serimus, nos arbores; nos aquarum inductionibus terris fecunditatem damus; nos flumina arcemus, dirigimus, avertimus; nostris denique manibus in rerum naturâ quasi alteram naturam efficere conamur.' We can hardly anticipate, that science shall acquire a similar power of regulating the condition of human society or the progress of human affairs. In regard to the changes which these affairs undergo in the progress of time, we are all of us agents, rather than contrivers. 'L'homme avance dans l'exécution d'un plan qu'il n'a point conçu, qu'il ne connoit même pas; il est l'ouvrier intelligent et libre d'une œuvre qui n'est pas la sienne; il ne la reconnoit, ne la comprend que plus tard, lorsqu'elle se manifeste au dehors et dans les realités, et même alors il ne la comprend que très incomplètement."—(Guizot.) Still we may observe, that in all applications of science, moral and political, as well as physical, to the good of mankind, the same principle holds true, 'Natura non vincitur nisi parendo;' and that even in those cases where man is the agent, he may likewise be the interpreter and the minister of Nature. It is only by acquiring a knowledge of the natural laws of motion, of heat, of chemical action, that we acquire that power, "quasi alteram naturam efficere," which Cicero describes; and those events which are due to the agency of free, and intelligent, and responsible human beings, although liable to the influence of a greater number of disturbing forces, and therefore requiring careful investigation, are still subject to laws, which are imposed on the constitution of the human race, and which may be ascertained by observations belonging to the department of statistical science.
"That the natural tendency of the human race is to increase on any given portion, or on the whole of the earth's surface, in a much more rapid ratio than the means of subsistence can be made to increase, I apprehend to be an undeniable fact. I am aware of various objections which have been stated to this principle, but shall not enter on these objections farther than to state, that two considerations appear to me to have been overlooked by those who have advanced them. First, That the term 'means of subsistence,' is not to be restricted to the raising from the land of articles of food, but applies to the extraction from the earth's surface, and the preparation for the use of man, of all productions of Nature, which are either necessary to human existence or adapted for human comfort, and which have, therefore, an exchangeable value;—secondly, that the question regarding these, which concerns us in this inquiry, is not how much a given number of men may raise, but how much a given portion of the earth's surface can supply; and what relation this quantity bears to the power of reproduction granted to the human race. When these considerations are kept in view, it does not appear to me that the objections to the general principle laid down by Malthus are of any weight; and the truth of the principle appears to be strongly illustrated by the care taken by Nature to have a certain number of carnivorous genera, in every order of animals, and among the animated inhabitants of every portion of the earth's surface, whereby the tendency to excess in every class of animals is continually checked and repressed. And although it is certain that the causes of human suffering of all sorts, as of human diseases, are very generally complex, yet we may certainly assert, that this principle is essentially concerned, as a great and permanent predisposing cause, in all those sufferings which result from poverty, and must be carefully kept in view in all wise regulations for their relief.
"Neither is it incumbent on those who acquiesce in this general principle, to assert that the natural checks on this tendency to excessive reproduction in the human race have been well named or fully expounded by Malthus. But the
great distinction which he pointed out, of the positive and the preventive checks on population, is undoubtedly of extreme importance. And in regard to the positive checks, by which it is easy to see that the progress of the human race upon earth has been hitherto rendered so very different from what might have been expected from its powers of reproduction,—when we reflect on the effects of War, of Disease of all kinds, and especially of Pestilence, of Famine, of Vice, of Polygamy, of Tyranny, and misgovernment of all kinds,—while we can easily perceive that all these may be ultimately instruments of good in the hands of Him who can 'make even the wrath of man to praise Him,'—yet we must acknowledge that all, if not properly ranked together under the general name of Misery, are yet causes of human suffering,—so general, and so great, that the most meritorious of all exertions of the human mind are those, which are directed to the object of counteracting and limiting the action of these positive checks on population; and on this consideration it is wise for us to reflect deeply, because it is thus only that we can judge of the value of the great preventive check of Moral Restraint, by which alone the human race can be duly proportioned to the means of subsistence provided for it, without suffering the evils which are involved in the operation of the different positive checks above enumerated.
"I consider, therefore, the general principles of Malthus as not only true, but so important, that the exposition and illustration of them is a real and lasting benefit to mankind. The real error of Malthus lay simply in his supposing, that moral restraint is necessarily or generally weakened by a legal provision against destitution; and this is no part of his general theory, but was, as I maintain, a hypothetical assumption, by which he thought that his theory was made applicable in practice. His argument against Poor Laws was this syllogism: Whatever weakens the moral restraint on population must ultimately injure a people; but a legal protection against destitution weakens that moral restraint; therefore Poor Laws, giving that legal protection, must ultimately injure any people among whom they are enforced. The answer, as I conceive, is simply 'Negatur minor.' How do you know that a legal protection against destitution must necessarily weaken moral restraint? The only answer that I have ever seen, amounts only to an assertion or conjecture, that more young persons will marry, when they know that they may claim from the law protection against death by cold and hunger, than when they have no such protection. But this is only an opinion, supported perhaps by reference to a few individual cases, but resting on no foundation of statistical facts. Where are the facts to prove that early marriages are more frequent, and that population becomes more redundant, among those who have a legal provision against destitution, than among those who have none? I have never seen any such facts, on such a scale as is obviously necessary to avoid the fallacies attending individual observations; and the facts to which I have now to advert, are on a scale, the extent of which we must all deplore, and all tending, like many others formerly stated, to prove that the greatest redundancy of population in her Majesty's dominions exists among those portions of her subjects who have hitherto enjoyed no legal protection, against destitution. As it is generally avowed that it is for the sake of the poor themselves,—with a view to their ultimate preservation from the evils of destitution,—that the law giving them protection in the meantime is opposed, these facts must be regarded as decisive of the question."