the internal structure of human society from the progress of these inquiries. But the science may be said yet to be in its infancy, and many of the objects on which it would be desirable to have information, have been either omitted or not stated with sufficient accuracy. Among these, perhaps, may be reckoned the proportion of the number of adults to the number of marriages; the extent to which vicious customs have prevailed in consequence of the estraints upon matrimony; the comparative mortality among the children of the most distressed part of the community, and of those who live rather more at their ease; the variations in the real price of labor; the observable differences in the state of the lower classes of society, with respect to ease and happiness, at different times during a certain period; and very accurate registers of births, deaths, and marriages, which are of the utmost importance in this subject. A faithful history, including such particulars, would tend greatly to elucidate the manner in which the constant check upon population acts; and would probably prove the existence of the retrograde and progressive movements that have been mentioned; though the times of their vibration must necessarily be rendered irregular from the operation of many interrupting causes; such as, the introduction or failure of certain manufactures; a greater or less prevalent spirit of agricultural enterprise; years of plenty, or years of scarcity; wars, sickly seasons, poor laws, emigrations, and other causes of a similar nature. the highest honor; and these accounts will ever remain an extraordinary monument of the learning, good sense, and general information of the clergy of Scotland. It is to be regretted that the adjoining parishes are not put together in the work, which would have assisted the memory both in attaining and recollecting the state of particular districts. The repetitions and contradictory opinions which occur are not, in my opinion, so objectionable; as to the result of: testimony, more faith may be given than we could possibly give to the testin of any individual. Even were this result drawn for us by some master h though much valuable time would undoubtedly be saved, the information w not be so satisfactory. If, with a few subordinate improvements, this work contained accurate and complete registers for the last one hundred and fifty ye it would have been inestimable, and would have exhibited a better picture of internal state of a country than has yet been presented to the world. But this most essential improvement no diligence could have effected. A circumstance which has, perhaps, more than any other, contributed to conceal this oscillation from common view, is the difference between the nominal and real price of labor. It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labor universally falls; but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the nominal price of provisions has been gradually rising. This, indeed, will generally be the case, if the increase of manufactures and commerce be sufficient to employ the new laborers that are thrown into the market, and to prevent the increased supply from lowering the money-price.1 But an increased number of laborers receiving the same money-wages will necessarily, by their competition, increase the money-price of corn. This is, in fact, a real fall in the price of labor; and, during this period, the condition of the lower classes of the community must be gradually growing worse. But the farmers and capitalists are growing rich from the real cheapness of labor. Their increasing capitals enable them to employ a greater number of men; and, as the population had probably suffered some check from the greater difficulty of supporting a family, the demand for labor, after a certain period, would be great in proportion to the supply, and its price would of course rise, if left to find its natural level; and thus the wages of labor, and consequently the condition of the lower classes of society, might have progressive and retrograde movements, though the price of labor might never nominally fall. In savage life, where there is no regular price of labor, it is little to be doubted that similar oscillations take place. When population has increased nearly to the utmost limits of the food, all the preventive and the positive checks will naturally operate with increased force. Vicious habits with respect to the sex will be more general, the exposing of children more frequent, and both the probability and fatality of wars and epidemics will be 1 If the new laborers thrown yearly into the market should find no employment but in agriculture, their competition might so lower the money-price of labor as to prevent the increase of population from occasioning an effective demand for more corn; or, in other words, if the landlords and farmers could get nothing but an additional quantity of agricultural labor in exchange for any additional produce which they could raise, they might not be tempted to raise it. L considerably greater; and these causes will probably continue their operation till the population is sunk below the level of the food; and then the return to comparative plenty will again produce an increase, and, after a certain period, its further progress will again be checked by the same causes.1 But without attempting to establish these progressive and retrograde movements in different countries, which would evidently require more minute histories than we possess, and which the progress of civilization naturally tends to counteract, the following propositions are intended to be proved : 1. Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence. 2. Population invariably increases where the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by some very powerful and obvious checks.2 3. These checks, and the checks which repress the superior power of population, and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence, are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery. The first of these propositions scarcely needs illustration. The second and third will be sufficiently established by a review of the immediate checks to population in the past and present state of society. 1 Sir James Stuart very justly compares the generative faculty to a spring loaded with a variable weight (Polit. Econ., Vol. I, Bk. I, chap. iv, p. 20), which would of course produce exactly that kind of oscillation which has been mentioned. In the first book of his Political Economy, he has explained many parts of the subject of population very ably. 2 I have expressed myself in this cautious manner, because I believe there are some instances where population does not keep up to the level of the means of subsistence. But these are extreme cases; and, generally speaking, it might be said that 1. Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence. 2. Population always increases where the means of subsistence increase. 3. The hacke which repress the superior power of population, and keep its effect or the means of subsistence, are all resolvable into moral ery. restraint. C It should meant such an ved that by an increase in the means of subsistence is here ease as will enable the mass of the society to command more ight certainly take place which in the actual state of a d not be distributed to the lower classes, and consequently is to population. 2. GENERAL DEDUCTIONS FROM THE PRECEDING That the checks which have been mentioned are the immediate causes of the slow increase of population, and that these checks result principally from an insufficiency of subsistence, will be evident from the comparatively rapid increase which has invariably taken place, whenever, by some sudden enlargement in the means of subsistence, these checks have in any considerable degree been removed. It has been universally remarked that all new colonies settled in healthy countries, where room and food were abundant, have constantly made a rapid progress in population. . . . Not to dwell on remote instances, the European settlements in America bear ample testimony to the truth of a remark that has never I believe been doubted. Plenty of rich land to be had for little or nothing is so powerful a cause of population as generally to overcome all obstacles. . . . ... The English North American colonies, now the powerful people of the United States of America, far outstripped all the others in the progress of their population. To the quantity of rich land which they possessed in common with the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, they added a greater degree of liberty and equality. Though not without some restrictions on their foreign commerce, they were allowed the liberty of managing their own internal affairs. The political institutions which prevailed were favorable to the alienation and division of property. Lands which were not cultivated by the proprietor within a limited time were declared grantable to any other person. In Pennsylvania there was no right of primogeniture, and in the provinces of New England the eldest son had only a double share. There were no tithes in any of the states, and scarcely any taxes. And on account of the extreme cheapness of good land, and a situation favorable to the exportation of grain, a capital could not be more advantageously employed than in agriculture, which, at the same 1 By T. R. Malthus. Adapted from An Essay on the Principle of Population, 9th edition, pp. 252-262. London, 1888. time that it affords the greatest quantity of healthy work, supplies the most valuable produce to the society. The consequence of these favorable circumstances united was a rapidity of increase almost without parallel in history. Throughout all the northern provinces the population was found to double itself in twenty-five years. The original number of persons which had settled in the four provinces of New England in 1643 was 21,200. Afterwards it was calculated that more left them than went to them. In the year 1760 they were increased to half a million. They had therefore all along doubled their number in twenty-five years. In New Jersey the period of doubling appeared to be twenty-two years, and in Rhode Island still less. In the back settlements, where the inhabitants applied themselves solely to agriculture, and luxury was not known, they were supposed to double their number in fifteen years. Along the seacoast, which would naturally be first inhabited, the period of doubling was about thirty-five years, and in some of the maritime towns the population was absolutely at a stand. From the late census made in America it appears that, taking all the states together, they have still continued to double their numbers within twenty-five years; and as the whole population is now so great as not to be materially affected by the emigrations from Europe, and as it is known that in some of the towns and districts near the seacoast the progress of population has been comparatively slow, it is evident that in the interior of the country in general the period of doubling from procreation only must have been considerably less than twenty-five years. The population of the United States of America, according to the fourth census in 1820, was 7,861,710. We have no reason 1 Price, Observ. on Revers. Paym., Vol. I, pp. 282, 283, and Vol. II, p. 260. I have lately had an opportunity of seeing some extracts from the sermon of Dr. Styles, from which Dr. Price has taken these facts. Speaking of Rhode Island, Dr. Styles says that though the period of doubling for the whole colony is twenty-five years, yet that it is different in different parts, and within land is twenty and fifteen years. The population of the five towns of Gloucester, Situate, Coventry, West Greenwich, and Exeter was 5033, A.D. 1748, and 6986, A.D. 1755, which implies a period of doubling of fifteen years only. He mentions afterwards that the county of Kent doubles in twenty years, and the county of Providence in eighteen years. |