CHAPTER FOURTH.

THE SCIENCE AND ECONOMY OF POPULATION.

§ 49. THE evolution of life upon our planet, after passing through the vegetable and the merely animal stages, was crowned in the advent of man, the especial theme of social science. All the great processes of nature's development that preceded hist coming, were but preparations to fit the earth to be his home, and to gratify the capacities and bring into action the powers with which he was endowed. The earth was given into his hands, and he was commanded to "multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it."

§ 50. To "subdue the earth," to become master over nature, is, as we have seen, only another way of stating the transition from poverty to wealth. And, as the command implies, that transition has gone hand in hand with the increase of numbers. In the earlier stages of society man lives in comparative isolation from his fellows, weak in the presence of nature's vast powers and therefore poor in the command of her resources The scattered families, the isolated tribes, are unequal to helpful coöperation; for the most part they are confined to the use of such of nature's provisions as are easily accessible to their ineffectual and wasteful labor. First the wild beasts and birds and fruits of the forest are brought into use; then the peaceful flocks whose skins furnish ready-woven clothing, and whose milk and flesh supply food. The wealth of the mine, of the grain-field, of the cotton plantation, are utterly beyond their reach.

§ 51. But with the growth of numbers too great to be fed by the mere pasturage of the land, comes the transition to agricultural industry. New powers of nature, forces that lay unused so long as the scantiness of men forbade efficient coöperation for their mastery, are made to serve man; cattle that ran wild and were slain for food, are tamed to the labors of plough and cart;

plants that grew wild on the hillside are brought under culture, and by improvement and the selection of seed, produce an everincreasing quantity of food and clothing. The waterfall that fell idly over the rocks, or the wind that blew unburdened as it listed, turns the mill; the peat and coal that lay neglected are made into fuel. A division of labor separates the functions of the human members of society, and each species of work is done more effectively and productively for employing the whole time and attention of the men employed in it. Better tools and implements are invented; and last of all, machinery, and the giant forces that actuate it, come into play in man's service, taking the place of muscular strength, and at every advance lowering the value of articles of utility, and making them obtainable in larger quantities and by a larger number of

persons.

§ 52. At every step in this great past of man's industrial development, the growth of numbers and of wealth has gone on with equal strides. In the earlier stages the pressure of population upon the means of subsistence is marked and painful; yet beneficent, as thrusting men into closer and more helpful association, and forcing them to adopt wiser and better methods. But every advance has been richly rewarded, for with each acceleration in the rapidity of social movement, the resistance to be overcome has diminished. Each generation has worked not for itself only, but for all that were to come; and the result of all wisely directed work has been to make easier and more effective the task of those who came later. "Other men

labored; ye have entered into their labors."

§ 53. It is, therefore, apart from all merely ethical considerations, a wise economic policy for a nation to guard the lives and the health of its people, and to remove all artificial obstructions to the natural growth of population. It is indeed the duty correlative to its right to command their lives and persons in its own defence; but it is also the best policy, in view of both the military strength and the industrial welfare and contentment of its people. For the more people there are productively employed

THE STATE THE STEWARD OF LIFE AND HEALTH. 51

in any well-managed country, the greater the share of food and clothing, of necessaries and comforts, that will fall to each one of them. Whatever tends to diminish their numbers,—or, what comes to much the same thing, to lower their bodily health and strength has also the tendency to impoverish them by diminishing their power of coöperation and association. Every retrogression to the sparse numbers of earlier times, is also a retrogression to their poverty.

§ 54. "But," it will be said, "what need is there of state interference in the matter? In every man's breast is implanted the instinct of self-preservation, to lead him to take care of himself. Surely we can leave this matter to individual action, and to the voluntary coöperation of individuals." The instinct in question is exceedingly effective as a motive in the presence of visible and well-understood danger. But where the peril is more recondite, though not less real, the instinct is good for nothing. Only reflection and forethought, accompanied with a large and exact knowledge of the scientific conditions of life and health, and a readiness, by no means universal, to act upon these, is sufficient in this case. The state can command the services and opinions of the best judges; it can carry out wholesale measures, and override the mulish opposition of wrongheaded people, in cases where only general action is of any avail. In so doing, it is not overriding "the judgments of individuals respecting their own interests, but giving effect to that judgment; they being unable to give effect to it except by concert, which concert again cannot be effectual unless it receives validity and sanction from the law" (J. S. Mill). Thus in England the law recently passed to limit the hours of work in mills and factories for married women, received the support of nearly all that class of mill-hands. They were free to make such private contract with the mill-owner as they pleased, but in fact their freedom amounted to nothing whatever until the law required them to refuse excessive work.

In other cases the right of state interference rests on the same ground as the laws that forbid and furnish attempts at self

murder. The man who persists in maintaining a dunghill or a cesspool under his windows, or in living in a house sordid with filth or imperfectly ventilated, may have the excuse of ignorance, but society has not. The officers of the state have as much right to force him to reform these things, as they would have to dash a dose of poison out of his hand. In some cases there is not even this excuse. Certain trades, such as cutlerygrinding in Sheffield, are paid at a high rate because they prove fatal in ten or fifteen years to those who engage in them; but the workmen have been known to resist stoutly any provision that was meant to diminish the risk (or rather to postpone the certainty) of death, as tending to lower wages. "A short life and a merry one!" is the reckless saying with which such people take their lives in their hands.

§ 55. The state, then, is the steward of the life and the health of its individual members. There are many measures by which it naturally and fitly discharges this trust; such as (1) requiring local governments and municipalities to enforce public cleanliness and to provide thorough drainage, and good roads for safe travel; (2) by quarantining vessels and persons who come from places where infectious diseases are raging; (3) by enjoining the adoption of preventive measures (disinfectants, vaccination, &c.), in times of epidemics; (4) by chartering and endowing colleges competent to give medical instruction and to grant medical degrees, and by requiring that a doctor so qualified shall sign a certificate of death and of its cause, before legal interment shall take place; (5) by forbidding the sale of unripe, overripe, diseased or adulterated articles of food; (6) by forbidding women and minors from engaging in excessive work or in night-work in factories; (7) by requiring that dangerous employments shall only be carried on, and explosive machines used, with all possible precautions for the safety of the workmen and the public, and by enforcing this by general state inspection.

Besides these negative checks on the waste of human life and health, there are many positive measures that contribute to the same end. Such are the public instruction of the young in the

MALTHUS'S "LAW OF POPULATION.”

53

first principles of practical hygiene; the establishment of public baths, parks and gymnasia; the requiring of cities to furnish an abundance of pure water, and to see that it is introduced into every house.

It is questionable whether the sale of what are called patent medicines should be allowed by the state. Most of these substances, I believe, are compounds that would be useful in some cases of disease, but are exceedingly dangerous when used indiscriminatingly, as they must be in the absence of competent advice. Others are simply fraudulent, and contain nothing that could have any effect, either good or bad.

§ 56. But all this is open to a general objection, that has occupied a very large space in the discussion of this subject. It will be said that measures to hinder the action of those destructive agencies, and more especially such as tend to promote and foster the increase of a nation's population, will do a very great deal of mischief instead of good. For unless something check it, the number of people in a country will double every twenty-five years, and go on increasing in a geometrical ratio, while subsistence increases only by an arithmetical increment. Thus in two centuries, "taking the whole earth and supposing the present population equal to a thousand millions, the human species would," if the growth were thus unchecked, "increase as the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256; and subsistence as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. In two centuries the population would be to the means of subsistence as 256 is to 9; in three centuries as 4096 is to 13; and in two thousand years the difference would be incalculable" (Rev. T. R. Malthus).

Mr. Malthus's Essay on Population appeared in 1798. Its main position was anticipated by Herrenschwand (Discours fondamental sur la Population, 1786), but the theory obtained its wide currency through the English writer. It was eloquently opposed by Godwin, the author of Political Justice; then in detail by Sadler, Allison, Doubleday, N. W. Senior and Quetelet. Its latest English opponents are Herbert Spencer and W. R. Greg. The latter says: "The doctrine has been accepted by every writer of repute on economical subjects. None of the many authors who have questioned or assailed it, . in any degree its hold upon the public mind. the fixed, axiomatic belief of the educated world." (The Enigmas of Life.)

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