tion: to there being fewer births or more deaths in a country than the powers of the human constitution would admit of, or a greater amount of emigration from it. If we can form an estimate of the possible rate of human increase, and are acquainted with the actual increase in any given country, it is evident that we can calculate the collective action of these checks upon that country. The slower the population of the country is increasing, the greater must be the collective action of these checks: that is, their action must be inversely proportional to the rate of increase. It is also evident that the share which each check has in the collective action must be greater in proportion as that of the others is less: in other words, that the individual amount of each must vary inversely in proportion to the others. The less the share of celibacy, for instance, the more must be that of the others: the greater the share of celibacy, the less that of the others, &c.

Before proceeding to the second proposition, it may be expedient to repeat the classification of the population-checks adopted by Mr. Malthus, which is exactly the same in reality as that given above, and presents merely a nominal difference. He divided the checks first into two great classes, the preventive and the positive. "These checks to population," he says, "may be classed under two general heads, the preventive and the positive checks." Under the first head he included all the modes in which the birth of children is prevented, namely, celibacy, prostitution, sterility, and preventive intercourse. Under the second head he included all the causes of premature death: such as, to use his own words, "all unwholesome occupations, severe labour, and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of diseases and epidemics, wars, plagues, and famines." But besides this primary division of the checks, he further subdivided them into three classes, namely, moral restraint, vice, and misery: in order to examine them more in detail, and to bring the subject more home to the mind of the reader. "On examining," he says, "the obstacles to the increase of population, which I have classified under the heads of preventive and positive checks, it will appear that they are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery." By the term moral restraint, as he further explains, he meant celibacy; by vice, he meant prostitution and preventive intercourse; and by misery, he meant premature death and the various forms of disease-thus including sterility, which is a form of disease or misery.

My reasons for nominally departing from this classification are, in the first place, that the terms moral restraint, vice, and misery, are in my opinion far too vague, and have tended greatly to confuse the subject in many minds, and to keep up the fatal obscurity which involves the sexual questions. In the second place, the terms moral restraint and vice are very misleading. Moral restraint seems to imply that celibacy is a voluntary state, which is by no means generally true, especially in the case of woman. To include, moreover, under the same head of vice two checks which differ so totally in

their moral and physical character, as prostitution and preventive intercourse, is a great error: it is on every account of the utmost importance that they should be carefully distinguished.

The second proposition, to which I now return, is also undeniable, and scarcely requires additional illustration. It is evident that as the six foregoing checks are the only ones which can retard increase, the different rates of increase known to exist in different countries must be owing absolutely and entirely to them. If the French population increases much more slowly than the English, and the English than the American, it is because there is a much greater collective amount of these checks in France than in England, and in England than America. The actual increase of each population, which is a known fact, is the exact measure of the collective amount of the checks; and thus though we may not be able to tell precisely their absolute amount, from want of exact knowledge of the possible rate of increase, we can tell at a glance their relative amount in one country as compared with others. What share each separate check has had in the amount thus ascertained is not so easily determined; but we can calculate it with tolerable accuracy, by considering the average of life, the amount of emigration, and the sexual habits of each people; and we are at any rate certain, that it has varied inversely in proportion to the others. Thus, whatever part of the difference between the total amount of the checks in France and England is not owing to celibacy, must be owing to the other five checks; whatever is not owing to premature death must be owing to the other five; &c. Thus far of the two first propositions. From a consideration of them it may be laid down as a certain truth, that in every country of the old world there exist at present causes which retard human in crease, and which, though less operative in some countries than in others, yet act with enormous power in all; and that these causes consist of celibacy, prostitution, sterility, preventive intercourse, premature death, and emigration, in varying proportions. Nay more; all statistical research into the past history of such countries shows that their population has always increased comparatively slowly; or, in other words, that some of these checks have always been powerfully active. Since, then, it is known that they have always acted, and do always act, the only question that remains is, must they always act? Can mankind escape from them, or do they arise from a necessity in nature? This leads us to the third and main proposition. Before entering on the proof of this proposition, it may be observed, that the very fact of the universal and constant action of these checks in every old country would of itself lead us to infer that they must always continue to act; that their cause must be some fixed and changeless law of nature, and no mere error of human character or institutions. Accordingly, on examining the matter, we can clearly ascertain that this is the case.

The third proposition affirms that the means of subsistence cannot possibly be increased so fast in old countries, as to allow their population to expand at its natural or possible rate; and that from this

reason some one or more of the checks must for ever continue to act in such countries.

To prove this, it is necessary to form an estimate, firstly, of the possible increase of population; and, secondly, of the rate at which, under the most favourable circumstances, the supply of food could be increased in old countries; and to compare the two estimates. The first question, then, is, What is the possible increase of population? at what rate can the human race multiply when placed in the most favourable circumstances? There are two ways of estimating this: either by considering the most rapid increase which is actually known to take place in any country; or by calculating in the abstract the reproductive powers of the female sex, and observing by what means their action is checked in old countries.

First let us consider what is the highest rate known in any country. On this point all observers are agreed. "It has been established beyond all question," says Mr. M'Culloch, the eminent statistical authority, "that the population of some of the states of North America, after making due allowance for immigration, has continued to double for a century past in so short a period as twenty or at most five-and-twenty years." Even this falls very far short of the possible rate of increase, as is seen by the short average of life in America, and by the large amount of the reproductive power which, even in that country, is lost from celibacy and prostitution. However, for the demonstration of the Malthusian law, it is quite sufficient to take 25 years as the estimate of the possible rate of increase. It may be regarded, then, as an ascertained fact, that population, when the means of subsistence are sufficiently abundant, can easily double itself every 25 years. The capacity of increase in the human race, as in all other organised beings, is in fact boundless and immeasurable.

We arrive at a similar result by considering in the abstract the female reproductive powers. It is a moderate estimate to assume that each woman could produce ten or twelve children, were these powers not checked by various causes. Many individual women in our society do produce as many or more, and the causes which prevent others from doing so, are simple and obvious; they are, i fact, and can only be, the very same five checks already enumerated Having, therefore, ascertained that population under favourabl circumstances can easily double itself every 25 years, the next question is, can the means of subsistence in old countries also do so? Can the supply of food be doubled every 25 years? We know both from reason and experience that this cannot possibly be done. In old and civilized countries all the most fertile land has long since been brought under cultivation, and land even of a very inferior quality has been resorted to; so that it is out of the question to suppose that the home produce could be doubled every 25 years. Importation of food, as Mr. Mill has shown, is also a limited resource, for the corn-exporting countries are either poor in capital, and therefore without the means of rapidly increasing their cultivation, or, like America, their own

population is advancing so rapidly as to need the most of the food for their own support. All experience confirms these theoretical conclusions. Even in England, where, during the last half-century, the increase of the means of subsistence, by improvements in domestic agriculture and the importation of food, have been quite unparalleled, in the history of an old country, it has not enabled population to advance with a rapidity at all approaching to that of America.

Thus we see that the true cause that checks the increase of food and population in old countries is the limited extent and productiveness of their land. The general law, which determines the productiveness of land, is called by political economists the "Law of Agricultural Industry" or the "Law of Diminishing Productiveness." It is, that the returns to agricultural industry tend to diminish; that after an early stage in the progress of cultivation, the produce of the soil does not increase in an equal proportion with the labour bestowed on it. The proof of this law is the fact, that inferior lands are cultivated; for the very meaning of inferior land, is that which with equal labour returns less produce. The elaborate cultivation seen in this and other old countries is another proof of this law; for such high farming costs much more in proportion than the low farming seen in America and other new colonies, where land is plentiful and labour dear.

"This general law of agricultural industry," says Mr. Mill, “is the most important proposition in political economy. Were it different, almost all the phenomena of the production and distribution of wealth would be other than they are." Were this law not counteracted by several tendencies of an opposite character, it would, by diminishing the proportional returns to agriculture, not only maintain but necessarily increase the population checks in each successive generation, until it had worn society down to what is called by political economists the stationary state; namely, where population and capital either do not increase at all, or very slowly. The circumstances which tend to counteract the law, are improvements in agriculture and the other arts of production; so that the question whether the condition of a people at any given time be improving or deteriorating, depends on the state of the balance between these two opposite tendencies; on the question whether improvement be increasing faster than population, or population than improvement.

The law of agricultural industry, therefore, or in other words, the impossibility of increasing the means of subsistence with sufficient rapidity, is the fundamental cause why population has always hitherto been checked in old countries, and must always continue to be so. The law of population is a secondary or derivative law, arising from the laws of exercise, fecundity, and agricultural industry, in the same manner as the law of the earth's rotation arises from the opposing forces of gravitation, and of rectilinear motion. It is this natural antagonism between the laws of the human constitution, and those of the soil, which forms the true, though unseen barrier, on which the hopes of mankind have in every age been wrecked. The

great social evils of old countries, when reduced to their simplest expression, are found to arise from the vast superiority of the powers of increase in man over the powers of increase in the land; from the antagonism between the laws of exercise and fecundity, which preside over the reproductive organs and passions, and the law of agricultural industry.

As a further illustration of the truth of the third proposition, and of the utter fallacy of all attempts to subvert it, let us apply the American rate of increase to the population of this country. Is it conceivably possible, that the population of England or any other old country should double itself every 25 years? In Great Britain there are now about 21 millions: is it conceivable that the means of subsistence could be so rapidly increased, as to allow these 21 millions to swell to 42 millions in the first 25 years; to 84 millions in the next; to 168 millions in the next, &c.? The supposition is evidently absurd. Even the rate of increase of the last 53 years (in which time the British population has doubled) cannot possibly be long continued. If it were, it would increase our population in three centuries to about 1300 millions; or in other words, to more than the total population of the globe, which is estimated at about 1000 millions. Tho rate of increase has already begun to slacken, as is shown by the last three Census Reports, which give a constantly diminishing proportional increase for each successive decenniad.

It may therefore be regarded as a settled truth, that the population of old countries must always remain under the powerful action of some one or more of the retarding causes; and that the only difference in this respect which can exist between such countries, is in the relative collective amount of the checks, and the proportional action of each individually. It is a mere question of relative amount; no old country, by any exertion, can escape from an immense absolute amount.

Let us now proceed to the fourth proposition. It is intended to expose the fallacy, which more than almost any other confuses the subject in many minds; namely, that Emigration is a mode of escape from the population-evils of old countries, and that it can supply the place of the other checks. But when we consider the power of human increase, as shown by the fact that population can easily double itself every 25 years, we can clearly perceive that no possible amount of emigration could suffice to neutralize it. All attainable means of emigration could not enable a single old country, much less all such countries together, to put forth its full powers of increase even for one generation. Emigration, moreover, is a mere accident in human history; and in the great majority of the countries of the old world its action as a population-check is quite insignificant. Even in this country, in which it has been carried of late years to an extent quite unparalleled, it has made but little perceptible difference in the grinding pressure of the other checks.

The full and complete statement of the law of population is cor tained in the concluding sentence of the fourth proposition, in which