Chapter VI: Letter IV: On the General Tendency of Population to Excess (2)

If we suppose a barren island with half a dozen savages upon it, living upon roots, vermin, and crawfish, without any of the arts or any of the conveniences of life, ignorant of agriculture, neither knowing nor caring how to improve their condition, passing their time in stupid indolence, with as little pretensions to reason or refinement as can well be desired, in short a very unphilosophical, improgressive, viscious, miserable set of barbarians as need be; now what difference would it make in the condition of these poor uninformed wretches, or how would it add to their vices, their ignorance, or ‘squalid poverty,’ if we suppose another island at a few leagues distance, of about the same circumference, maintaining nearly the same number of inhabitants living in the same manner? Yet as it is probable that these poor lousy wretches[7] leading a life of sloth and hunger, may upon the whole have more enjoyment than misery (for even the life of a savage seems better than no life at all, nay some have gone so far as to say that it was better than any other life) it would be desirable that there should be such another island so inhabited. But it is exactly the same thing whether we suppose twice the number of people inhabiting twice the extent of ground, or maintained on the same ground, being twice as much cultivated; population would not press the more on the means of subsistence, nor would the misery be greater, nor the checks required to prevent it greater. That is to say, an advance made in the state of cultivation and in the arts of life so as to maintain double the population must always be the means of doubling the numbers and enjoyment of any people. The only possible difference would be that as this increased population would be the consequence of greater industry and knowledge, it would, one should think, denote of itself, that the people would be less liable to unforeseen accidents, and less likely to involve themselves in wilful distress than before. This is the first step in the progress of civilization and in the history of all nations. From this description of a barren island supporting a few wandering half-starved ignorant savages, such as England might have been once, let us turn our eyes to what England is now;—populous, enlightened, free, rich, powerful and happy; excelling equally in arts, and arms, the delight and terror of the rest of the world; the abode of science, the nurse of virtue, the darling seat of the muses; boasting her long line of heroes, and sages; her Bacon, her Newton, her Shakespear, her Milton, and her Locke;[8] blest with the most perfect government administered in the most perfect manner; having a king, lords, and commons, each balancing the other, and each in their several station and degree being security for every kind of liberty and every kind of property, harmoniously conspiring together for the good of the whole, taking care first of their own rights and interests as the most important, and then of those of others: subject to mild and equal laws, which afford the same immediate protection to every one in the enjoyment of his liberty and his property, whether that property is five thousand a year or no more than a shilling a day: maintaining in different degrees of comfort, and affluence, from the common necessaries to the highest luxuries of life, ten millions of souls, all supported by their own labour and industry or that of others; all plying close with cheerful and patient activity to some ingenious and useful handicraft, or some more severe but necessary labour, or else reclining in ease and elegance, and basking in the sunshine of life; her meanest beggar owing the rags which cover his nakedness, and the crust of bread which keeps his body and soul together to some of the most useful inventions which support, and to that humanity which is only to be found in civilized society. Shall we forget her schools, her colleges, her hospitals, her churches, her crowded cities, her streets lined with shops, enriched with the produce and manufactures of her own soil, or glittering with the spoils of a hundred nations, her thronged assemblies, her theatres, her balls, her operas, her ‘palaces, her ladies and her pomp’; her villas, her parks, her cottages, her hamlets, her rich cultivated lands, teeming with plenty, her green valleys, her ‘upland swells, echoing to the bleat of flocks,’ her brave contented peasantry, their simple manners and honest integrity; and shall we wish to degrade this queen of nations, this mistress of the world once more into a horde of fierce barbarians, treading back our steps, and resigning this splendid profusion of all that can adorn and gladden human life, this gay variety, this happy union of all that is useful and all that is ornamental, the refinements of taste and decorations of fashion, the beautiful distinctions of artificial society, and the solid advantages derived from our constitution in church and state, for the groveling dispositions, the brutal ignorance, the disgusting poverty, the dried skins and miserable huts of the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, or New Holland? Yet this it seems from the doctrine of Mr. Malthus is our only safe policy, since the lower we are in the scale of existence, the fewer and more miserable we are, the farther removed we must be from the tremendous evils of excessive population, which are the necessary consequences of the progress of refinement and civilization. But as the fact _so far_ does not, as I suppose Mr. Malthus will himself allow, square with his theory, (for at no time during the progress of cultivation does the population appear to have been pressing with increased force on the means of subsistence, so that though the produce of the earth was increasing every year, the inhabitants were increasing much faster, every addition to the actual produce only occasioning some new addition to the swoln and bloated state of population, and aggravating the already dreadful symptoms of the disease) as I say the progress of cultivation and improvement of different kinds has not produced any of those fatal consequences we might be led to expect from it, so neither do I apprehend any of these fatal consequences in future from carrying it as much farther as it can go. I should just reverse the reasoning of Mr. Malthus, who taking the evil as at its greatest height when the world is supposed to be completely full and completely enlightened, thence argues downwards against all attempts at improvement as dangerous innovations; so I, finding that an improved cultivation and enlarged population are good things through the inferior gradations, am apt to think they would continue so, proceeding upwards to the topmost round of the ladder, as far as population is concerned, for I once more give full and fair warning that I engage in this question no farther, any loose, general or accidental expressions to the contrary notwithstanding. To make good Mr. Malthus’s argument against population, we must suppose, as I have said before, that the tendency in population to increase goes on increasing with the thing itself: this would be true, if as our author supposes in his first edition, the passion always required the same vent, in all circumstances, that is if we suppose man to be a mere headstrong animal in this respect, his reason having no influence whatever over his conduct, or which amounts to the same thing, that _actual_ vice and misery (not foreseen, but felt) are the only checks to population. At this rate, it is evident that the degree of misery attending the gratification of the passion would have no effect to restrain it, all degrees being alike indifferent or that the quantity of actual misery incurred would be in proportion to the increased power of producing it. I shall examine these positions more at large in another letter; I here wish to shew in a few words that as applied to the subject of increasing population, they lead to a direct absurdity. If we suppose this passion to be perfectly blind and insensible, to be deaf to all remonstrance, and regardless of all consequences, then no matter in what depths of misery it involves us, it will have its way, and go its own lengths. Take away the preventive check of _moral restraint_ (which only comes in as a snivelling interpolation in some places of the second edition) and the population would no doubt go on doubling as fast as it could, not as fast as the means of subsistence would let it; that is, the excess of population would be great in proportion to the actual previous increase, or the excessive multiplication of the species would be the necessary consequence of, and commensurate with the power of excessive multiplication, which would depend on the number of persons having that power. Now this is contrary to all we know of facts and human nature, since in this case there could be no restraint to population at any time, but the extreme of vice or the extreme of misery. The power of population to increase is (we will grant) unlimited, but the tendency to increase is necessarily limited by its tendency to excess and limited by it in proportion to the excess. That is to say, it does not follow that though when there ought to be only two millions of inhabitants, there may be four, owing to the weakness of the above-mentioned principle of _moral restraint_, that therefore that four (by the tendency of population to increase in a geometrical ratio or to double itself,) will in like manner become eight, and so on, namely because the checks to it will increase in proportion; or though the prospect of the inconveniences arising from doubling the population in the first instance, the quantity of food remaining the same, might not be sufficient to deter people, or overcome this propensity, yet the prospect of famine consequent upon the second doubling undoubtedly would, because their regard to consequences is supposed to remain the same, and the evils they have to dread in the one case are greater, and unless we suppose them to have become more stupid and brutal, must operate upon them more forcibly than in the other. The strength of the passion itself may be considered as always the same, or a given quantity: but the motives to resist it arising from the consequences of its indulgence are not always the same, but may be either none at all, or very slight, or considerable, or extreme, as the obstacles to its indulgence may be either none at all, of a trifling inconvenience, or poverty, or absolute famine. Now the degree of excess in population, or the inconveniences to which we expose ourselves by inconsiderate gratification will depend entirely on the difference, be it more or less, between the strength of the passion in each individual, and the strength of moral restraint. If the latter principle is weak, it will require to be stimulated by the immediate apprehension of some very great inconvenience, before it will become a match for the importunity of physical desire. If it is strong, a general conviction of the propriety or prudence of self-denial will be sufficient to incline the balance. But in no case unless we suppose man to be degraded to the condition of the brutes, will this principle be so low and weak as to have no effect at all, so that no apprehension of the last degree of wretchedness, as the consequence, would take off or abate the edge of appetite. There is therefore always a point at which the excess ceases, and we have seen what this point at all times is. Thus if the operation of rational motives is so much upon a level with the physical impulse, as to keep population exactly or nearly down to the means of subsistence, it will do so equally whether that population is actually greater or less, whether it is stationary or progressive, for it will increase only with the means by which it is supported. On the other hand if from the manners, the habits, and institutions of society, there is a considerable tendency in population to excess, this tendency to excess will not be greater or less in proportion to the actual number of inhabitants, or the actual quantity of food, nor will it depend on their being progressive or stationary, but on the morals of the people being retrograde, progressive, or stationary; for the tendency of population itself to excess or to _increase_ excessively (a dubious kind of expression) is not a perpetual, indefinite, invariable tendency to increase from 2 to 4, from 4 to 8, &c. (as I have just shewn) but a tendency to increase _beyond_ the means of subsistence to a certain point or degree. This tendency to excess will consequently be the same wherever we fix the point of subsistence, because it is only a given tendency to outstrip that limit whether nearer or farther off, whether advancing or retreating.[9] It is true there is a tendency in population in this case to increase _faster_ than the means of subsistence, but not to increase _faster and faster_, or to get more and more a-head of it. It is in fact only a disproportionate superiority in certain motives over others, which subjects the community or certain classes of it to a great degree of want and hardship: and as far as their imprudence and folly will carry them, they will go, but they will not go farther. They will submit to be _pinched_, but not to be _starved_, unless this consequence may sometimes be supposed to follow from the partial and unnatural debasement of certain classes of the community, by driving them to despair and rendering them callous to suffering. But the general tendency in population to become excessive can only be increased by the increased relaxation of moral restraint, or by gradually weakening the motives of prudence, reason, &c. I cannot make this matter plainer.

Mr. Malthus has not I conceive given this question of increasing population and practical improvement fair play. He has contrived to cover over its real face and genuine features with the terrible mask of modern philosophy. His readers having been prevailed upon to give up the fee-simple of their understandings into his hands, that no undue advantages might be taken of them by the _perfectibility_ school, they find it difficult to get it back out of his hands, though they want it to go on again (the alarm being over) in the old road of common sense, practical improvement, and liberal discussion. He had persuaded himself that population was such an enormous evil in connection with a scheme of unlimited improvement, that he can hardly reconcile himself to it, or tell whether to think it a good or an evil in any shape, or according to any scheme. By indulging his prejudices, he has so confounded his perceptions, that he cannot judge rightly, even when he wishes to do it. He found it most convenient, when he had to confute Mr. Godwin, to describe reason as a principle of no practical value whatever, as a mere negation. As therefore by the removal of vice and misery the office of checking population would devolve upon this principle, which could do nothing, population would in fact have no check left to it, and then certainly the most terrible consequences would ensue. The only question would be, how soon we should begin cutting one another’s throats, or how many (whether a greater or a smaller number) had better be employed on this kind of work. We perceive very plainly that this must be the inevitable consequence of increased population, if it can only be kept down by the positive checks of vice and misery. We apply the theory very clearly to a future stage of the progress; but though, if the theory were true, exactly the same scenes ought to be acting before our eyes at present on a smaller scale, yet as we find that this is not the case, we leave this circumstance out of the question, and conclude that there must be some secret difference, some occult cause, something we cannot very well explain, which makes the present state of things preferable to all others: at least whatever might be the consequences of population, if certain alterations and improvements were to take place, we are sure that it produces no such consequences at present. With respect to the lower, or actual stages of population and improvement, Mr. Malthus supposes the _preventive_ checks to operate as well as the _positive_, the fear of misery as well as the misery itself, because we know that it does: but whenever you suppose any alteration or improvement to take place in the world, so that you have not the fact to confront him with, he immediately assumes the positive checks, or actual vice and misery, as the only checks to population; herein trusting to his theory. Whenever you are found to be advancing in the scale (which must be indeed from some of the restraints being taken off) he directly supposes that you are to be set free from all restraints whatever. He lets loose his ratios upon you, and away they go like a clock running down. This indeed would not be so well. Mr. Malthus thus artfully makes the question of progressive improvement to be, whether we are to be governed as now by mixed motives, or to be released from all moral restraint, for he supposes that if population once passes a certain bourne, which he points out to you, it will then become perfectly untractable, all its future excesses will be prevented only by actual vice and misery. Thus though all the good of our present situation, all wherein it differs from a state of brutal violence or lingering want, is in fact owing to the prevalence of a less degree of reason and foresight, yet that if that principle were strengthened, and the consequence were an increase of population, and a more general diffusion of the comforts of life, this principle would then be of no avail in preventing or correcting the excesses to which the unrestrained indulgence of our appetites would give rise. There is a degree of absurdity, which staggers belief and almost challenges our conviction, by making it incredible that if we ourselves do not labour under some strong deception, the human understanding should be capable of such extreme folly.

I shall conclude this letter by laying down two or three general maxims, which appear to me to follow clearly from the view which has been here taken of the subject.

First, while population goes on increasing at that tremendous rate described by Mr. Malthus, it shews that there is nothing to restrain it; that there is no need of any thing to restrain it: that it is wanted, that its increase is a thing to be desired, not to be dreaded, and that if it were possible for it to increase ten times faster, it would be so much the better.

Secondly, when it arrives at a certain point, that is, where the population begins to press on the means of subsistence, either from natural or artificial causes, or when it threatens to become an evil from excess, it naturally stops short of its own accord, the checks to it from vice, misery and moral restraint taken all together becoming stronger as the excess becomes greater. It therefore produces its own antidote and produces it in quantities exactly in proportion to its own extent. It is not therefore (as Mr. Malthus would, when he pleases, have us believe) like a stone hanging suspended over a precipice, which if it once loses its balance will be hurled furiously down, rolling and bounding from steep to steep with increased velocity till it reaches the bottom, but like a balance suspended by a check-weight, where you cannot increase the pressure on one side without increasing the resistance proportionably on the other. It may therefore at worst be left very safely to itself, instead of being considered as an evil against whose unforeseen ravages no precautions are sufficient.

Thirdly, as the same quantity of vice and misery co-operating with the same degree of moral restraint, will always keep population at the same (relative) point, so a less degree of actual vice and misery operating on a greater degree of moral restraint, that is, of reason, prudence, virtue, &c. will produce the same effect: and we may always judge of the happiness of a people, and of the beneficial effects of population by the prevalence of moral restraint over vice and misery, instead of supposing that vice and misery are the best pledges of the happiness of a state, and the only possible security against excessive population. Consequently, the object of the philosopher must be to increase the influence of rational motives, and lessen the actual operation of vice and misery. It is only in proportion as he does this, that he does any thing; for not only are vice and misery such cheap commodities that they may be had at any corner merely with asking for (any bungler may contract for them in the gross) but farther though they undoubtedly operate as checks to population, I must be excused from admitting that they _remedy_ the evils of population, unless the disease can be considered as its own remedy, for in the degree in which they generally exist, they are the only evils, that are ever likely to rise from it, and as to those imaginary, unknown and unheard of evils, with which Mr. Malthus is perpetually threatening us in order to reconcile us to those we bear, I deny the possibility of their existence upon any known principles of human society, either in its improved, or unimproved state.

I do not mean to say that there is any thing in the general principles here stated that Mr. Malthus is at present disposed to deny, or that he has not himself expressly insisted on in some part or other of his _various_ work; it is enough for my purpose that there are other parts of his work in which he has contradicted them and himself, and that the uniform tenor of his first work leans directly the opposite way; and it is not my business so much to inquire, how much Mr. Malthus retains of his old philosophy, as how many of their old feelings his readers retain on the subject, on which he will be able to build as many false conclusions as he pleases, and with more safety to himself, than if he still persevered in the direct and unqualified assertion of exploded error. Plain, downright consistent falsehood is not dangerous: it is only that spurious mixture of truth and falsehood, that perpetual oscillation between the two extremes, that wavering and uncertainty that baffles detection by rendering it difficult to know on what ground you are to meet your adversary, that makes the sophist so formidable as he is. In order therefore that Mr. Malthus may not avail himself of his inconsistencies, I shall assume a right to contradict him as often as he contradicts himself, and to consider the peculiar doctrines of his work as its essential and only important doctrines.