this part of the subject. In medical ethics, let it be clearly understood, that the practitioner who prescribes fornication to any patient, under any circumstances whatever, commits a heinous offence, not only against morals, but also against both the science and the character of his profession. His advice is not more flagrantly immoral, than it is disgracefully unscientific and unsound." Fortunately for medicine, and for the interests of suffering humanity, there are already many eminent practitioners in this country and still more on the continent, who take a very different view of medical duty on this subject from Professor Miller. But here too it is necessary to make a careful distinction; for Professor Miller has again confused the question by mixing up the recommendation of sexual intercourse with the recommendation of prostitution. It appears to me to be the undeniable duty of a medical man, when he sees a patient, whether man or woman, suffering from the effects of sexual abstinence, to tell them candidly that this is, in his opinion, the cause of their disease, and that sexual intercourse is necessary for their cure. However frequently this duty may be evaded by medical men (especially when the patient is a female), and however difficult and unpleasant it may often be in the present state of society, yet surely it cannot be denied. It is surely the duty of the physician in all cases to inform a patient candidly of what he considers to be the true cause and cure of his disease. If he does not, what is the real value of his advice? But, in the case before us, to recommend sexual intercourse, is not to recommend prostitution. All that the practitioner is, properly speaking, called upon to do, is to inform the patient that he considers sexual intercourse necessary to his recovery; in what manner this intercourse is to be obtained, is a question mainly for the patient to consider. It is for him to consider whether he will marry, or form an unmarried connection with some one, or indulge in prostitution (hat is, intercourse with women of the town), or remain continent. It is indeed true that in the present state of society, where sexual intercourse is in very many cases attainable only by an indissoluble marriage, or by prostitution-the first of which is so often impracticable, especially to an invalid, while the second is in many respects degrading the patient will frequently adopt the latter alternative; but the practitioner is not responsible for this, nor is so miserable a dilemma inherent in the nature of things. As I have already endeavoured to show, the present system of prostitution and indissoluble marriage (which are closely connected together), might be, and ought to be, superseded by preventive intercourse and by a relaxation of the marriage code; when the diseases of abstinence and abuse might not only be satisfactorily treated, but effectually prevented. As long however as prostitution continues to be in many cases the only attainable intercourse, although I deeply deplore its existence, it seems to me a far smaller evil that a man should indulge in it, than that he should waste away under the miseries of spermatorrhoea or other evils of abstinence or abuse; and I admire from my heart the eminent men, including M. M. Lallemand, Ricord, Roubaud,

and inany others in this and other countries, who have both felt and acted upon this truth, whatever obloquy they incurred thereby. Had they cared more for their personal convenience, and less for the interests of their patients and of science, it would have been easy to have evaded the obnoxious question altogether.

With respect to Professor Newman's strictures, I shall only remark that in one place he makes the assertion that I have denied chastity to be a virtue. But this depends upon the definition given to the word. In the popular sense of the word, chastity is usually understood to mean Complete sexual abstinence, for however prolonged a period, except during the married state." Benjamin Franklin however defined chastity to mean "the regulated and strictly temperate satisfaction, without injury to others, of those desires which are natural to all healthy adult beings." The late Mr. Robert Owen defined it in a similar manner, as "sexual intercourse with affection." If the word be understood according to the definition of Franklin and Mr. Owen, then I consider chastity to be a very great virtue; but chastity, in the sense of prolonged sexual abstinence, I cannot but regard as an infringement of the laws of health, and therefore a natural sin either in man or woman; though doubtless in the actual state of society there are certain cases in which it is unavoidable.

By the word prostitution I have meant here, and generally throughout this work, "indiscriminate and mercenary intercourse;" in other words, I have used it with special reference to the public women of the town. It is necessary to state this, for several writers have included under the word all kinds of unmarried intercourse, making little or no distinction between the moral character of any connections, which are not sanctioned by the marriage tie; or, at least, regarding all such connections as highly reprehensible. From this view, I need scarcely repeat that I entirely differ. On the contrary, the noblest sexual conduct, in the present state of society, appears to me to be that of those who, while endeavouring to fulfil the real sexual duties, enumerated in a former essay, live together openly and without disguise, but refuse to enter into an indissoluble contract of which they conscientiously disapprove.]

OPINIONS

OF

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN WRITERS ON THE LAW OF POPULATION,

The four laws which have just been considered, namely, the laws of exercise, fecundity, and agricultural industry, with the derivative law of population, are, in my opinion, incomparably the most important truths with which man has to do. They form the true explanation of the chief phenomena of society, and hold the same relation to all other social theories, that the doctrine of gravitation does to the various theories of the planetary motions, which existed up to the time of Newton. I am unwilling to quit this great subject, without adding to what has already been said, the testimony of several distinguished writers, English and foreign, whose opinions are of far greater weight and value than my own. The following quotations will show the reader how general and complete is the acceptance of the Malthusian theory among those who have carefully studied, and rightly apprehended the question. In fact, the modern science of political economy is in the main based on this great theory, in the same manner as astronomy and mechanics are based on the laws of motion and gravitation. As Mr. Senior and Mr. Mill have shown, political economy as a science consists almost entirely of a series of deductions from the laws of fecundity and agricultural industry, and from the familiar law of human nature that "man tends to prefer a greater gain to a smaller." It is mainly by reasoning from these premises, that Malthus, Ricardo, and their successors have given to the science its present highly developed form. "Political Economy, properly so called," says Mr. Mill, has grown up almost from infancy since the time of Adam Smith." To deny the Malthusian theory is therefore in reality equivalent to a rejection of the whole modern science of political economy, just in the same way as to deny the laws of motion and gravitation would be to reject the astronomicai and mechanical sciences. It may be imagined with what extreme

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care principles of so fundamental a character have been examined by scientific men. Those who, in the present day, endeavour to refute the Malthusian theory, should know that they are arguing, not against an isolated proposition, or a single individual, but against a science, and a whole scientific body.

I may first quote the opinion of Mr. John Stuart Mill, the most eminent economist and sociologist of the age. After showing that the law of the Increase of Production depends on the laws of increase in the three agents of production-labor, capital, and land-Mr. Mill proceeds to consider the first of these agents. "The increase of Îabor," he says, "is the increase of mankind; of population. On this subject the discussions excited by the Essay of Mr. Malthus, have made the truth, though by no means universally admitted, yet so fully known, that a briefer examination of the question than would otherwise have been necessary, will probably on the present occasion suffice.

"The power of multiplication inherent in all organic life may be regarded as infinite. There is no one species of vegetable or animal, which, if the earth were entirely abandoned to it, and to the things on which it feeds, would not in a small number of years overspread every region of the globe of which the climate was compatible with its existence.

"To this property of organized beings the human species forms no exception. Its power of increase is indefinite, and the actual multiplication would be extraordinarily rapid, if the power were exercised to the utmost. It never is exercised to the utmost, and yet, in the most favorable circumstances known to exist, which are those of a fertile region colonized from an industrious and civilized community, population has continued for several generations, independently of fresh immigration, to double itself in not much more than twenty years. That the multiplication in the human species exceeds even this, is evident if we consider how great is the ordinary number of children to a family, where the climate is good and early marriages usual; and how small a proportion of them die before the age of maturity, in the present state of hygienic knowledge, where the locality is healthy, and the family adequately provided with the means of living. It is a very low estimate of the capacity of increase, if we only assume that in a good sanitary condition of the people, each generation may be double the number of the generation which preceded it.

"Twenty or thirty years ago, these propositions might still have required considerable enforcement and illustration; but the evidence of them is so ample and incontestible that they have made their way against all kinds of opposition, and may now be regarded as axiomatic." Mr. Mill then states the causes by which these boundless powers of increase are checked in old countries-namely, by want or the dread of want, by poverty or sexual restraint. "If the multiplication of mankind," he says, "proceeded only, like that of the other animals, from a blind instinct, it would be limited in the same manner with

theirs; the births would be as numerous as the physical constitution of the species admitted of, and the population would be kept down by deaths. But the conduct of human creatures is more or less influenced by foresight of consequences. In proportion as mankind rise above the condition of the beasts, population is restrained by the fear of want rather than by want itself."

Mr. James Mill, in his Elements of Political Economy, after stating the law of fecundity, and adducing facts to show the powers of increase under favorable circumstances, says, "That population therefore has such a tendency to increase as would enable it to double itself in a small number of years, is a proposition resting on the strongest evidence, which nothing that deserves the name of evidence has been brought on the other side to oppose." "We know well," he says again, "that there are two causes by which it may be prevented from increasing, how great soever its natural tendency to increase. The one is poverty; under which, let the number born be what it may, all but a certain number undergo a premature destruction. The other cause is prudence; by which, either marriages are sparingly contracted, or care is taken that children, beyond a certain number, shall not be the fruit." Again, in comparing the increase of population with that of capital, he says, "If it were the natural tendency of capital to increase faster than population, there would be no difficulty in preserving a prosperous condition of the people. If on the other hand, it were the natural tendency of population to increase faster than capital, the difficulty would be very great. There would be a perpetual tendency in wages to fall. That population has a tendency to increase faster than capital has, in most places, actually increased, is proved, incontestibly, by the condition of the population in almost all parts of the globe. In almost all countries the condition of the great body of the people is poor and miserable. This is an impossibility if capital had increased faster than population. In that case wages of necessity must have risen, and would have placed the laborer in a state of affluence, far above the miseries of want."

In his article on Colonies in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Mr. James Mill makes the following allusion to preventive intercourse. In speaking of the necessity of meeting the population difficulty in a straightforward and resolute manner, he says, "This is indeed the most important practical problem to which the wisdom of the politician or the moralist can be applied. It has till this time been miserably evaded by all those who have meddled with the subject, as well as by all those who were called upon by their situation to find a remedy for the evils to which it relates. And yet if the superstitions of the nursery were discarded, and the principle of utility kept steadily in view, a solution might not be difficult to be found, and the means of drying up one of the most copious sources of evila source which, if all other sources of evil were taken away, would alone suffice to retain the great mass of human beings in miserywould be seen to be neither doubtful nor difficult to be applied."

Mr. David Ricardo, in his Principles of Political Economy and