[253-3] Compare J. Harrington (ob. 1677), Prerogative of a popular Government, I, ch. II; Sir J. Stewart, Principles, I, ch. 18; Malthus, Principle of Population, IV, ch. 1; McCulloch very happily shows how seldom those who can live comfortably without it are extraordinarily active. The Malthusian law prevents this ever becoming the condition of the majority. Precisely during those years that man is most capable of labor, there is a prospect of a great increase of outlay, in case one does not remain single, which would inevitably degrade every one, a few over-rich excepted, who had not taken care to provide for a corresponding increase of income. Were it not for this, human progress would become slower and slower, for the reason that the dura necessitas would be felt less and less.
[253-4] According to Purves, Principles of Population, 1818, 456, there were, in England (London not included):
| In the seven most densely populated counties. | In the seven counties of average population. | In the five most sparsely populated counties. | |
| Inhabitants per geographical sq. mile, | 4,904 | 2,229 | 1,061 |
| One man with £60 income in every | 034 inhabitants | 037 | 477 |
| One man with £200 income in every | 193 inhabitants | 199 | 472 |
| Aggregate of all incomes over £200 per square mile, | £25,118 | £12,676 | £2,441 |
Compare Rau, Lehrbuch, II, § 13. Something analogous has frequently been observed as to taxation capacity. Thus, for instance, the Hessian provinces paid in direct taxation and taxation on wines, liquors, etc.; and the density of the population was in the ratio—
| In Rhenish Hessen, | 100 | 100. |
| In Starkenburg, | 65 | 64. |
| In Upper Hessen, | 64 | 59. |
(Rau, Lehrbuch, III, § 280.) In many European countries, the population has for a long period of time, and in a comfortable way, increased most rapidly where it has been densest. Thus, for instance, the kingdom of Saxony was, in 1837, the most densely populated of all the monarchical states of Germany (6,076 inhabitants per square mile), Hanover (2,416) and Mecklenburg-Schwerin (2,004) were among the most sparsely peopled. And yet the annual increase of population between 1837 and 1858 was greatest in Saxony (1.36 per cent.) while Hanover (0.44) and Mecklenburg-Schwerin (0.59) stood very low in this respect. In very thinly populated countries, nature permits even the civilized man to deteriorate: thus the French in Canada, the Spaniard in the valley of the La Plata.
[253-5] This excellent expression seems to have been first used by Gerstner, Grundlehren der Staatsverwaltung, 1864, II, 1, 176 ff. It must indeed be distinguished from a rapidly growing, but for the time being, a sparsely settled country. A nation with an equal population on a larger surface is, frequently in the immediate present weaker than another in which the population is more dense; but it has the advantage of a greater possibility of growth in the future. Think of the electorates of Saxe and of Brandenburg in the sixteenth century. Just as Thaer, Landwirthschaftliche Gewerbelehre, § 149, advises that a mere annuitant should, values being the same, rather purchase a smaller fertile estate; a very able husbandman the reverse.
[253-6] We need only call to mind such facts as for instance that the United States wealth of coal is 22 times as great as that of Great Britain. (Rogers, The Coal Formation and a Description of the Coal Fields of North America and Great Britain, 1858.) In addition to this, only about 16 per cent. of the combustible material is really used in the way furnaces are now generally filled, only 10 per cent. in foundry furnaces, and from 14 to 15 per cent. in the transportation of passengers on railways. The Falls of Niagara afford a water-power equal to 2/3 of all the steam engines which existed, a short time since, in the whole world. (E. Hermann, Principien der Wirthschaft, 1873, p. 49, 153, 243.) But that single families, houses, branches of business, etc. may be over-peopled, and the impoverishing disproportion between numbers and the means of subsistence not be susceptible of immediate removal by the unaided power of the crowded circle, cannot be questioned.
[253-7] Aristotle had recognized the possibility of over-population. (Polit., II, 4, 3, 7, 4; VII, 4, 5; VII, 14.) Schmitthenner,[TN 106] Staatswisensschaften, I, distinguishes between relative and absolute over-population: the former is remediable by intellectual and especially by political development, while the latter borders on the extreme physical and possible limits of the means of subsistence. W. Thornton, Over-population and its Remedy, 1849, 9, considers a country in English circumstances over-populated when a man between twenty and seventy years of age is not in a condition to support, by means of his wages, 1¼ persons in need of assistance (children under 10, women over 60, and men over 70 years of age).
[253-8] Thus, for instance, in war, one million of peasants are infinitely more powerful, especially in case of a protracted defensive war, than two millions of proletarians. Alaric's saying: "thick-growing grass is most easily mowed."