THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL

SCIENCE.

In the two first editions, this work ended with the preceding essay. However, as my main object is to demonstrate the truth of the Malthusian Law of Population; to show that this law is the real cause of the great social evils of old countries, and preventive sexual intercourse their only remedy; I am very desirous, before taking leave of the reader, to do everything in my power to promote the clear apprehension of these fundamental truths, by endeavouring to present them in a somewhat more systematic form. This appears to me advisable, not only from the incomparable importance of the subject, but also because it is still so little understood and so frequently misconceived. In parliament, and in other public discussions on social questions, the principle of population continues to be almost entirely ignored, and treated as non-existent; whereas a true art of legislation should be, in the main, based on this great principle, in the same manner as navigation on astronomy, or medicine on anatomy and physiology. In our newspapers and popular literature, whenever, at rare intervals, the Malthusian doctrines are mentioned, the very same fallacies and misconceptions are usually brought forward which were exposed by Mr. Malthus himself fifty years ago, and have been so often repeated since his time, that they may now be called traditional. The great want of the age, as has been so admirably shown by Mr. Mill and M. Comte (although the latter, by his hasty and inconsiderate rejection of political economy and the principle of population, has signally failed in supplying it), is that there should be a Social Science. By this is meant, a body of ascertained laws relating to human society, which, like those that constitute the sciences of mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, or physiology, should be definitely accepted and regarded by all men as beyond dispute. Until there be such a body of truths, universally acknowledged and

respected, society must remain in a state of profound disorder, whatever unanimity may exist upon matters of minor importance. In order to obtain them, it is necessary that the subject should be treated in the same careful and systematic manner, with the same attention to the rules of induction and deduction, as the other sciences; and not abandoned, as at present is so generally the case, merely to vague and popular discussion. "If," says Mr. Mill, "on matters so much the most important on which the human intellect can occupy itself, a more general agreement is ever to exist among thinkers; if what has been pronounced the proper study of mankind' is not destined to remain the only subject which Philosophy cannot succeed in rescuing from Empiricism: the same processes through which the laws of many simpler phenomena have by general acknowledgment been placed beyond dispute, must be consciously and deliberately applied to these more difficult inquiries."

Although the science of society has hitherto received so little general attention or recognition, that most people do not even know of its existence, nay, deny its very possibility, it must by no means be supposed that little has been done, or that the subject is still in its infancy. On the contrary, I am convinced that by far the most important discoveries have already been made, and that the science is already sufficiently advanced to meet the greatest practical wants of mankind. It is true indeed, that it has not yet been exhibited as a whole, and that many of its branches have been very imperfectly, if at all, cultivated. But others, and especially political economy, the science of wealth, are already in a highly advanced state; and above all, the great principles have been ascertained, which give the true scientific explanation of society in its principal features, in the same manner as the law of gravitation explained the main phenomena of the material universe. The law of population, together with the more elementary laws of exercise, fecundity, and agricultural industry, from which it is derived, may in fact be regarded as the groundwork of the true theory of human society-as the main elements of social science. These laws lie at the very root, not merely of political economy, (of which, as we have already seen, Mr. Mill declares the law of agricultural industry to be "the most important proposition"), but also of sanitary and ethical science, and the other departments of social philosophy. They are the principal causes of the deplorable state of society in this and other old countries, and of the poverty, prostitution, disease, and crime, by which in every age, so many millions of the human race have been oppressed. With a knowledge of these laws, it is comparatively easy to understand the chief phenomena of society, and to see the way to a true social regeneration; without them, this is not merely difficult, but impossible.

I would wish therefore to add to what has already been said, a somewhat more methodical exposition of the above laws, in the hope that it may assist the reader in thoroughly mastering the subject. For this purpose, I shall first give a short statement and proof of the law of population itself, and endeavour to show in what manner it

produces its three specific effects, poverty, prostitution, and celibacy; and then examine a little more fully the elementary laws of exercise, fecundity, and agricultural industry, and more especially the first of these, since it alone has not yet been generally and explicitly accepted by scientific men. I shall also give quotations from English and foreign writers on the law of population and its discoverer; for I am anxious that the reader should be aware of the general, nay, it might almost be said, universal acceptance of the Malthusian doctrines among those men of science who have paid due attention to the subject. This is the more needed, because the opponents of these doctrines in our newspapers and elsewhere, are accustomed to represent them as bygone and refuted speculations, instead of being as they are, and as they have been for nearly half a century, definitely accepted principles of science; principles which are as well established as the rotation of the earth, or the circulation of the blood. It appears to me advisable also to add a short outline of the chief principles of political economy, including the laws of the production and distribution of wealth, and the three laws of value. No science is less generally understood, or more urgently needed, not only for the comprehension of economical questions in general, but more particularly in order to give a clear insight into the action of the population principle. It is only by a knowledge of the laws of political economy that we are enabled to understand accurately the influence of this great principle on wages, profits, rents, values, and prices.

Before proceeding to consider these subjects, a few remarks may be offered on the laws of nature in general.

It must be regarded as an ascertained truth, though as yet by no means generally admitted, that the Law of Universal Causation prevails everywhere throughout nature. This law, which forms the foundation of all the inductive sciences, is, that every phenomenon in nature which begins to exist, arises from some cause or combination of causes, which it invariably and unconditionally follows. The whole course of nature consists of uniformities of succession and of co-existence; every natural object, animate or inanimate, has its own laws or properties, according to which it invariably acts; and to discover these and trace them to their consequences, forms the sole problem of the various sciences.

This law of universal causation is the most important proposition of logic, the sciense of proof, and upon it, as Mr. Mill shows in his masterly work on that science, all the rules of induction depend for their validity. It is, to use Mr. Mill's words, "the foundation of every scientific theory of successive phenomena." No scientific conclusion would be justified, no general proposition could be sustained, unless we knew, from the uniform experience of ages, that the laws of nature are invariable, and that the same causes are always followed by the same effects.

Perhaps I should here allude to an ambiguity in the word law which causes a great deal of confusion and false reasoning. The word has two meanings quite distinct from one another. In the moral and

political sense it means a command, as when it is enjoined that men shall abstain from a certain act, such as theft or falsehood, or perform a certain duty, such as paying a tax. In this sense a law may be obeyed or disobeyed, and rewards and punishments may be awarded accordingly. In the scientific sense, however, a law means an invariable sequence or co-existence, as, for example, the law that bodies, when once set in motion, tend to move in a straight line, and with uniform velocity, for ever; that the three angles of any triangle are equal to two right angles; or that health depends on the proper discharge of the bodily functions. It is with laws of this kind alone that science is concerned, while laws, in the sense of commands or rules, belong to the province of art. A science consists of a body of invariable sequences or co-existences; an art of a body of precepts or rules for practice. Science treats of what is, was, or will be, and the ultimate principle by which its laws or uniformities are justified is the law of universal causation; art treats of what shall be, or ought to be, and the ultimate principle which forms the justification of its laws or rules, is, as Mr. Jeremy Bentham so clearly and forcibly pointed out, the principle of utility, or of the greatest happiness of mankind. The scientific laws are not commands, but invariable truths, which are never defeated (though they may be counteracted by other laws), and therefore they cannot, strictly speaking, be said to be obeyed or disobeyed, or to be broken or violated. However, phrases of this kind are constantly used, as when, for example, it is said that disease or poverty results from a violation of the sanitary or economical laws; the latter being here regarded as commands, and not as uniformities of cause and effect, which they really are. Such phrases may be used without inconvenience, if it be understood that they are merely metaphorical, and if the real meaning of a scientific law be clearly perceived. Too often, however, the ambiguity in the word causes much false reasoning, especially on social questions, and leads people to confound the fundamental distinction between science and art, and to speak of social science or its branches, as if they were a collection of general maxims and precepts, instead of a body of invariable sequences or co-existences.

The laws or uniformities of nature, with which science is concerned, are either ultimate or derivative: that is, they are either properties of the elementary substances which compose the universe, or consequences arising from them. There are some bodies in nature, to which the name of Permanent Causes, or primeval natural agents, has been given, as they have existed and produced their proper effects, throughout the whole of human experience and for an indefinite time previously. Such are the sun, the earth and planets, the elementary chemical substances, and some of their combinations, as air, water, &c. Of the origin of these bodies we are utterly ignorant: nor can we perceive any regularity or law in their relative amount or position in space.

"All phenomena without exception which begin to exist," says Mr. Mill, "that is, all except the primeval causes, are effects either imme