² Essay, p. 14; cf. 1st ed., pp. 140-1.

³ E.g., his qualifying footnote (Essay, p. 14, also p. 295; first added in the 1817 edition): “It should be observed that, by an increase in the means of subsistence, is here meant such an increase as will enable the mass of the society to command more food. An increase might certainly take place, which in the actual state of a particular society would not be distributed to the lower classes, and consequently would give no stimulus to population.”

⁴ In the Essay, well described by Bonar (Malthus, p. 5) as an inquiry “into the nature and causes of poverty,” Malthus “endeavoured to trace the causes which practically keep down the population of a country to the level of its actual supplies”; while in the Principles his object was “to shew what are the causes which influence these supplies, or call the powers of production forth into the shape of increasing wealth.” See ibid., p. 309; 1st ed., p. 345.

⁵ In the second edition (preface) Malthus states that he deduced the main argument of the first essay from the writings of Hume, Wallace, Adam Smith, and R. Price. The writings of Condorcet and Godwin, of course, gave form and direction to his argument. He both rejected and adopted views set forth in Paley's, William widely read Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (London, 1785).Google Scholar Among the writers who saw that poverty arises from “a too rapid increase of population” Malthus numbered Plato, Aristotle, Montesquieu, Benjamin Franklin, James Steuart, Arthur Young, Joseph Townsend, and some of the Physiocrats. The editions of the Essay of most significance are the first, the second, and the fifth. He gave final form to most of what he had to say in the fifth (1817). Our references, of course, are usually to the sixth which, for the purpose of the present discussion, is virtually identical with the fifth.

⁶ This thesis is set forth most fully in the last chapter of the Principles where he treats of “the immediate causes of the progress of wealth”; it appears in substantially the same form in the 1836 as in the 1820 edition.

⁷ On Franklin's views see my “Malthusianism in Eighteenth Century America” (American Economic Review, vol. XXV, 1935, pp. 691–8).Google Scholar Franklin's Observations … etc., written in 1751 and published in 1755, were printed in Burke's, Annual Register (London) in 1760.Google Scholar Franklin's recommendation that Canada be annexed by Britain, a recommendation based in part upon his population thesis, was followed. Malthus refers to Franklin in the second and later editions of the Essay (I, i). Malthus got from a pamphlet by Styles and cited by Price evidence that the American population was doubling in twenty-five years (Essay, 1st ed., pp. 105, 185). Adam Smith, too, stated that population doubled in twenty to twenty-five years in the British colonies in North America. See Wealth of Nations (Cannan edition, Modern Library), pp. 70, 392.Google Scholar

⁸ Campbell, John, The Present State of Europe (London, 1753, 4th ed.), p. 508.Google Scholar Young, Arthur cites this passage with approval in his Political Arithmetic (London, 1774), pp. 107–9.Google Scholar A similar argument appeared in An Account of the European Settlements in America (London, 1758), vol. II, pp. 293 ff.Google Scholar, attributed to Edmund Burke. Smith, Adam (Wealth of Nations, p. 416)Google Scholar observed that the discovery of America opened new markets, intensified divisions of labour and improvements, and augmented wealth and income; it must, therefore, on his principles, have facilitated population growth in Europe and England.

⁹ Political Arithmetic, p. 86; also pp. 61-2, 68-9, 91, 107 ff., 319-20. Franklin is cited on p. 68. Young took exception to James Steuart's making population depend immediately upon the quantity of food instead of upon employment which gives man the “value of food.” Malthus later criticized opinions such as Young's “Increase your people as much as you please, food will increase with them” (ibid., p. 69).

¹⁰ An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy (1767) (Works, London, 1805, vol. I, pp. 31, 49 Google Scholar; also pp. 30, 49, 73, 191, 193). On p. 154 he speaks of “the effectual demand … which makes the husbandman labour. … ” His italics.

¹¹ Wealth of Nations, p. 80, also pp. 68-9, 79, 81.

¹² Howlett, John, Examination of Dr. Price's Essays on the Population of England and Wales, etc. (1781).Google Scholar See Bonar, J., Theories of Population from Raleigh to Arthur Young (New York, 1931), pp. 210–11Google Scholar; Stangeland, C. E., Pre-Malthusian Doctrines of Population (New York, 1904), p. 348 Google Scholar; sec. III (iv) of this article.

¹³ Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, p. 453. His fundamental proposition was (p. 443) : “Wherever the commerce between the sexes is regulated by marriage, and a provision for that mode of subsistence, to which each class of the community is accustomed, can be procured with ease and certainty, there the number of the people will increase; and the rapidity, as well as the extent of the increase will be proportioned to the degree in which the causes exist.”

¹⁴ 1st ed., chap, XVI; 2d ed., in, vii. He repeats the proposition that the funds for the maintenance of labour do not bear a fixed relation to wealth and capital in the last edition (III, xiii) and in the Principles (2d ed., pp. 234–5). See also below, sections II and III. Adam Smith had said that it is not the actual greatness of national wealth (i.e., “revenue” and “stock”) “but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour”; that “the progressive state is the best for the labouring poor”; and that wages are low in a stationary state and inadequate in a declining state. The “demand for labour, according as it happens to be increasing, stationary, or declining” requires an “increasing, stationary, or declining population” (Wealth of Nations, pp. 69, 71, 73, 81, 85). With this statement Malthus would agree in so far as the “demand for labour” is resolvable into “funds … for the maintenance of labour.” See note 27, below.

¹⁵ 5th ed., III, xiii, last paragraph; 6th ed., ibid.

¹⁶ In his essay, “Of Avarice and Profusion,” William Godwin sought to refute the “currently established” maxim that “it is the duty of the rich man to live up to his fortune,” and to demonstrate that the “profuse” man injures the mass of mankind in much greater measure than does the “avaricious” man. The avaricious man lives a life of self-denial; he does not burden the labouring poor, and yet he does not lock up physical goods against use by his contemporaries. The many wants of the profuse man, on the contrary, but increase the burden of work upon the poor and deprive them of the leisure and means necessary to “intellectual cultivation”; whence, whoever invents a new dish or creates a new luxury, adds to the hardship and drudgery of the lower orders but not to their wages and comfort. See The Enquirer (Philadelphia, 1797), pp. 135–48Google Scholar; also Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (Philadelphia, 1796), vol. II, bk. VIII, chap, II, pp. 316 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Essay, 1st ed., pp. 282-5, 295-8. Even supposing production were not checked, how could the unemployed establish title to “a proper share of the food and raiment produced by the society?” (ibid., pp. 298-300). See also sec. III (iii) of this article.

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. 293-4. This statement was obviously inspired by Godwin's comment (Enquirer, p. 140) that several centuries earlier, when there “was little of manufacture,” the great proprietors could not, together with their families, consume all the foodstuffs to which they had title.

¹⁹ Essay, 1st ed., p. 119. Wages are made to depend, in the first edition, upon the ratio of workers to “the fund appropriated to the maintenance of labour, … the aggregate quantity of food possessed by the owners of land beyond their own consumption” (ibid., pp. 205, 305-6). It followed that population pressure was the real cause of low wages (ibid., pp. 30-6, 82-3); that it was better to increase agricultural than non-agricultural production (e.g., 324-6); that an increase in the ratio of proprietors to labourers would benefit the latter and facilitate population growth (ibid., pp. 344-5). He was still thinking predominantly, as did so many eighteenth-century writers (e.g., see my French Predecessors of Malthus, Durham, 1942 Google Scholar) in terms of an essentially cereal or provision standard of life.

²⁰ Principles, 1st ed., p. 261. In the second edition, p. 234, he writes “essentially necessary”; see also ibid., p. 224.

²¹ The term “wage goods,” as used by modern writers, does not quite represent Malthus's later view inasmuch as he looked upon provisions as the Iimitational factor (see note 26, below). Following F. M. Eden, Malthus supposed that in a labourer's family of average size two-fifths of the expenditures went for bread or meal, one for meat and dairy products and potatoes, and two for house-rent, fuel, soap, candles, tea, sugar, and clothing. It followed that the price of corn, while it exerted a powerful influence upon the price of labour, did not regulate it “wholly”; and that corn and labour rarely kept “an even pace together.” See Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws (1814), edited by Hollander, J. H. (Baltimore, 1932), pp. 9–11, 15, 20 Google Scholar; also Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent (1815), edited by Hollander, J. H. (Baltimore, 1903), pp. 39–42.Google Scholar

²² “An increase in the means of subsistence … which in the actual state of a particular society would not be distributed to the lower classes, … would give no stimulus to population” (Essay, p. 14, n. added in 1817; also p. 295, cf. 2d ed., p. 421). See also below on family earnings.

²³ Essay, p. 426; 2d ed., p. 471. See also Essay, pp. 93-4, 127, 138-9, 172 ; 2d ed., pp. 119-20, 162, 178, 221.

²⁴ Essay, p. 331; also pp. 428-9 (2d ed., p. 471). On oscillation of population growth see sec. III (iii) of this article. In a small country, with tittle variety of employment and a snug fit of population to available employment, nuptiality is more sensitive to conditions of employment than where numbers are great and the employment situation is obscure (Essay, pp. 144-6; 2d ed., pp. 186-8).

²⁵ Principles, pp. 436-7; also p. 437 n. (not in 1st ed.) where he says that when there is no demand for labour, “charity” is their only source of food. See also Essay, pp. 331, 429; 2d ed., pp. 471-2; Quarterly Review, 1824, pp. 326–7.Google Scholar Malthus's concern above is with the decline in the demand for labour that developed upon the termination of the Napoleonic wars. See Principles, II, i, 10; O'Leary, J. J., “Malthus's General Theory of Employment and the Post-Napoleonic Depressions” (Journal of Economic History, vol. III, 1943, pp. 185–200).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See sec. III (iii) of this article,, on public works and emigration. Malthus's attitude toward manufacturing was conditioned in part by his belief that employment therein was uncertain and unstable (Essay, pp. 420-3; 2d ed., III, vii).

²⁶ He uses the term “resources” at times; e.g., see Essay, pp. 547-50 (written in 1807). The limitational group of resources, however, appears to be food; for he nowhere suggests that some lack other than food fixes the potential maximum. Furthermore, he described “want of food” as the “ultimate check” and as the “most efficient cause of the three immediate checks”; and an “increase in the means of subsistence” as the “only true criterion of a real and permanent increase in the population.” See Essay, pp. 7, 288, 294; 2d ed., pp. 336, 340, 347. He nowhere observed that what constitutes the limitational resource, or group of resources, depends upon the consumption habits of the population, presumably because he supposed this limitational resource to be food. He anticipated that the situation of the labouring classes would improve, if they exercised moral restraint, even though subsistence had come nearly to a stand (Senior, Two Lectures on Population, p. 71).

²⁷ “When the demand for labour is either stationary, or increasing very slowly, people not seeing any employment open by which they can support a family, or the wages of common labour being inadequate to this purpose, will of course be deterred from marrying. But if a demand for labour continue increasing with some rapidity, although the supply of food be uncertain, on account of variable seasons and a dependence on other countries, the population will evidently go on, till it is positively checked by famine or the diseases arising from severe want.” See Essay, p. 429; 2d ed., pp. 471-2. Cf. Adam Smith, note 14 above.

²⁸ Principles, p. 234. “These funds consist principally in the necessaries of life, or in the means of commanding the food, clothing, lodging, and firing of the labouring classes of society” (ibid., p. 234); “luxuries” are not included in the “funds … for … ordinary labour” (ibid., p. 365). This statement does not appear in the first edition (cf. pp. 261, 418-19) where he sometimes uses the term “resources” as he uses the term “funds etc.” in the second (cf. 1st ed., p. 246 with 2d ed., p. 223). He had already employed the concept of “funds” (which, as Taussig observes [ Wages and Capital, New York, 1898, p. 160]Google Scholar, he apparently derived from Adam Smith [Wealth of Nations, bk. I, cap. viii]) in the Essay (1st ed., p. 305; 2d ed., p. 420). Adam Smith (ibid., p. 421) had made employment depend upon a society's “whole capital.” See also note 21 above.

²⁹ Elsewhere ( Quarterly Review, 1824, pp. 326–7Google Scholar) he said that if the elasticity of demand for produce were less than unity, an increase in the supply of the funds destined for the maintenance of labour would be accompanied by a diminution in the quantity of labour employed. He was thinking in terms of the demand for labour and had in mind a situation in which the demand for produce was slack and the money price of labour apparently was high and sticky in relation to the money price of corn (cf. below, note 48). See also Principles, pp. 231-3.

³⁰ Principles, II, i, 10, pp. 414–15, 424.Google Scholar See also Essay, pp. 96, 367-8, 428-30; 2d ed., pp. 122, 472. Malthus reasoned in like manner with respect to capital whose law of increase he compared to that of population. If an effectual demand for capital is lacking, and in consequence the rate of return on it is too low, saving from revenue to add to capital will merely aggravate the distress of the capitalists just as an increase of births augments misery and mortality when an effective demand for labour is lacking (Principles, pp. 404, 414-15, 433-5).

³¹ 0n the effect of trading relations, here supposed given, see below, sections II and III (ii). The increase of the funds destined for the maintenance of labour depends “upon the degree of industry, intelligence and activity” with which a country's physical powers of production are called forth ( Edinburgh Review, 1810, p. 467 Google Scholar).

³² Essay, pp. 400, 420, 428; Principles, pp. 281-2, also pp. 114-15, 158-9, 275-6, 278-9, 297-8. Under these circumstances, rent too would come to a stand (ibid., I, iii, pp. 140-3, 146, 154, 160-1, 199, 211). On Malthus's views on rent see Bonar, Malthus, pp. 237 ff.; Hollander, , Notes, pp. xxxiv–lxvii.Google Scholar Between interest of landlord and that of state Malthus found the “strictest union,” at least so long as a country did not import food; but between other classes (e.g., labour, capitalists) and the state there existed no such close identity of interest (ibid., pp. lxi ff.; Principles, p. 206). See also sec. III (iii) of this article.

³³ Essay, pp. 400, 428; Principles, I, iv, 2, pp. 224–6Google Scholar, also p. 279. See his discussion of the forces that might bring population growth in Ireland to a stop ( Edinburgh Review, 1808, pp. 343, 353 Google Scholar). Also Essay, 2d ed., p. 427, where he refers to Steuart's statement (Works, vol. I, chap, XVIII) of the limit to population growth in a commercial state.

³⁴ E.g., see Edinburgh Review, 1808, p. 345.

³⁵ Population is “regulated by the real wages of labour” and comes to “a stand when the necessaries which these wages … command [are] not sufficient, under the actual habits of the people, to encourage an increase of numbers” (Essay, p. 400, not in 2d ed.; also pp. 420, 428; also Summary View, pp. 35, 64).

³⁶ Essay, p. 427; also pp. 426-8; not in 2d ed. See also Edinburgh Review, 1821, p. 373.Google Scholar

³⁷ The standard of life, differences in which also account for differences in the effect of given real wage rates, is here implicitly supposed constant (Essay, p. 428).

³⁸ Principles, p. 240, also p. 252; also p. 387, where he suggests that when prices fall, wages lag, and consequently, production and employment decline. An influx of money, occasioned by a favourable balance of trade, Paley had said, encourages population growth: indirectly, by stimulating employment; directly, but only for a time, by increasing money wages faster than the price of provisions (Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, pp. 462-5).

³⁹ Of the extension of the practice of task work, with its long hours and low rates of pay, Malthus disapproved; it was prejudicial to health and happiness, even though it provided temporary relief in times of scarcity. See Inquiry, p. 40 n.; and cf. Principles, p. 279.

⁴⁰ Essay, pp. 426-8; Principles, I, iv, 3, 5, pp. 232–4, 239–40, 258–60.Google Scholar Population grew at a higher rate in 1790-1811 than in 1735-55; corn wages were lower in 1790-1811 than in the earlier period but, because of fuller employment and greater parish allowances, the real income of the lower classes was greater. See Essay, p. 428; also Principles, I, iv, 4-5, and p. 234. When prices are rising, entrepreneurial prospects improve, together with the demand for labour. E.g., see Zinke, , “Six Letters from Malthus to Pierré Prevost,” pp. 185–7.Google Scholar Malthus attributed the lack of demand for labour and capital at the close of the Napoleonic wars to a diminution of “home revenues” aggravated by “contraction of the currency”; but he rejected proposals to issue paper money, saying that what was wanted was higher prices and lower wages in terms of bullion ( Principles, I, ii, 10, pp. 416, 424–6, 430–2Google Scholar).

⁴¹ Principles, II, i, 2 Google Scholar, especially p. 313.

⁴² See sec. III of this article.

⁴³ Ayres, C. E., The Theory of Economic Progress (Chapel Hill, 1944), pp. 52–61.Google Scholar The progress of a country in capital equipment, population, and/or well-being, Malthus observed as had Smith, Adam (Wealth of Nations, p. 464)Google Scholar, depends upon “the produce of a country” exceeding “the consumption of those employed in its production” (Principles, p. 41).

⁴⁴ Principles, p. 314. Malthus criticized (ibid., p. 314 n.) Lauderdale ( Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, Edinburgh, 1804 Google Scholar) for going “much too far in deprecating capital accumulation.” Lauderdale (ibid., pp. 339-42) cites Malthus (Essay, 2d ed., pp. 9-10) and declares that the distribution of wealth to which the preventive check is to be traced, “in a great degree determines the progress of population throughout the world.” Lauderdale quoted with approval (pp. 247-8) Quesnay's attack upoh hoarding and emphasis upon consumption, in which view Hollander (Notes, p. lxxix) finds the beginning of the doctrine against which Say's law was directed. In his Letters to Malthus ([1821], London, 1936 Google Scholar) Say did not examine critically Malthus's views on population as enunciated in the Principles.

⁴⁵ Principles, II, i, 3, pp. 320-6; cf. Essay, pp. 94-6, 127; 2d ed. pp. 120-2, 162.

⁴⁶ Ibid., pp. 328, 326-30, 414-15; also Essay, pp. 430-1 (2d ed., pp. 473-4) and sec. III (iv) of this article.

⁴⁷ See sec. III of this article.

⁴⁸ Cf. Robbins, L., “On the Elasticity of Demand for Income in Terms of Effort” (Economica, vol. X, 1930, pp. 123–9)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hicks, J. R., Value and Capital (London, 1939), pp. 36–7Google Scholar; Douglas, P. H., The Theory of Wages (New York, 1934)Google Scholar, chap. XII. Malthus did not apply this type of analysis in his discussion of saving. See also note 29, above.

⁴⁹ Principles, pp. 320-2, 402-4. The “general desire of mankind to better their condition, and make provision for a family” re-enforced and intensified the limit imposed on the demand for luxuries and conveniences by the “luxury of indolence” (ibid., p. 402). Edward Gibbon, having noted that luxury prompts the landowner to improve his estate and distributes to non-landowners that which they otherwise would not receive, declared that “in the present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of property” ( The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Modern Library Edition, vol. I, p. 48 Google Scholar). Wallace considered simplicity of tastes most favourable to propagation when lands were evenly divided. Yet he supposed that when many or most men have more land than they need to maintain themselves, they “must be lazy and indolent” and less populous than they would be if arts and manufactures were introduced among them, their tastes were refined, their wants were increased, and their desires were excited by alluring objects: “this awakens ambition, kindles emulation, quickens industry, and engages men to labour, that they may procure the tempting objects they desire”; and it facilitates progress in wealth and number ( A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind inAncientand Modern Times, Edinburgh, 1753, pp. 27–9Google Scholar; but see sec. III (i)-(iii) of this article. See also Montesquieu, C., De l'esprit des lois (1748), XXIII, XV, IV, iv.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Principles, p. 355.

⁵¹ Ibid., pp. 320-1. This thesis is well developed in the Essay. “If the labourer can obtain the full support of himself and family by two or three days labour,” he will usually prefer leisure rather than work the remainder of the week “to furnish himself with conveniences and comforts” (Essay, pp. 424-5). In the first edition (pp. 77-8) Malthus suggests that an increase in money wages alone would cause workers to fancy themselves richer and therefore to reduce the number of hours of labour they stood ready to supply.

⁵² E.g., see Principles, pp. 337, 340; Essay, pp. 424-5. Adam Smith did not estimate the demand for income in terms of effort as did Malthus. “The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniences and ornaments of building, dress, equipage, and household furniture seems to have no limit or certain boundary” (Wealth of Nations, p. 164). Plenty did not cause men, as a rule, to relax their industry. “Some workmen, indeed, when they can earn in four days what will maintain them through the week, will be idle the other three. This, however, is by no means the case with the greater part. Workmen, on the contrary, when they are liberally paid by the piece, are very apt to over-work themselves …” (ibid., p. 81, also pp. 82-3). Steuart, (Works, vol. I, p. 193 Google Scholar) had remarked that “the most delicate liver in Paris will not put more of the earth's productions into his belly, than another”; but he added that “there are no bounds to the consumption of work.” Steuart believed, however, that where men are lazy, or tastes and manners are simple, cultivation tends to be restrained and with it multiplication ; he considered such nations “in a moral incapacity of multiplying” (ibid., pp. 38-40, 44, 47, 157). Human happiness, observed Hume, consists in “action, pleasure, indolence.” When the “mechanical arts” are undeveloped, there is left to men only indolence, and it loses much of its relish because it does not succeed to labour. Where there is no taste and no demand for “superfluities, men sink into indolence, lose all enjoyment of life, and are useless to the public.” See “Of Luxury” (Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, edited by Green, T. H. and Grose, T. H., New York, 1898, vol. I, pp. 300–3).Google Scholar Hume later entitled this essay, “Of Refinement in the Arts.”

⁵³ Among the three causes of rent Malthus numbered “that quality peculiar to the necessaries of life of being able, when properly distributed, to create their own demand, or to raise up … demanders in proportion to … necessaries produced.” See Principles, 1st ed., pp. 139–40, 541; 2d ed., p. 140; Inquiry, p. 18; Hollander, , Notes, pp. xlvi ff.Google Scholar; my italics. While an increase in raw produce alone cannot occasion a proportionate increase in population, Malthus noted, it should be recollected that land produces besides food the materials for clothing, lodging, and firing—the means, in short, by which people are brought into being and supported. Land thus differs from every other kind of machine. See Principles, 1st ed., pp. 141–2; 2d ed., p. 142. Malthus's discussion here is not well integrated with that in the text above.

⁵⁴ Principles, II, i, 4, especially pp. 344, 351, 331-5, 342-3, also Essay, e.g., I, ix (in 2d ed.). Cf. Malthus's views (e.g., Principles, pp. 342-3) with those of Cantillon and Garnier (in French Predecessors, chap. iv). Hume (“Of Commerce,” Essays, vol. I, pp. 298–9Google Scholar) remarked that favourable agricultural conditions sometimes make for poverty. In Ireland, Malthus, observed (Edinburgh Review, 1808, p. 341)Google Scholar, indolence and holidays restricted the supply of labour and thus prevented wage rates from falling as much as they otherwise would; in this instance the effect was beneficial.

⁵⁵ Principles, p. 370, note on Ricardo's treatment of “gross and net revenue.” See also Hollander, , Notes, pp. xcii–xcvi.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Principles, II, i, 5, p. 360 Google Scholar; also 355-7.

⁵⁷ Principles, II, i, 6, p. 361.Google Scholar Distribution, as Malthus used the term, adapts products, “in quantity and quality, to the actual tastes and wants of the consumers, and creates new tastes and wants by means of greater facilities of intercourse” (ibid., p. 371; not in 1st ed.). Paley, (Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, pp. 451 ff.)Google Scholar had described “distribution” as “of equal consequence with the production” of provision. On the idea of distribution see Cannan, E., History of the Theories of Production and Distribution, 3rd ed., London, 1924 Google Scholar, chaps, VI-VIII. Malthus's thesis, stated above, appears in the Essay, pp. 93 ff., 127, 138-9 ; 2d ed., pp. 119 ff., 162, 178. Malthus criticized both Sismondi's reply to the Essay and his assertion that the “free-contract” wages system was responsible for unemployment, poverty, and population pressure (Principles, p. 366 n.; Zinke, , “Six Letters from Malthus to Pierre Prevost,” pp. 182 ff.).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Essay, p. 244, 5th ed., II, pp. 103-4.

⁵⁹ Principles, p. 371, also pp. 36377, 415, 424. Cf. Essay, pp. 95, 428; Summary View, pp. 6, 18, 27, 37-40.

⁶⁰ Principles, pp. 309-10; also note 86 below.

⁶¹ Ibid., p. 372.

⁶² Principles, II, i, 7 Google Scholar; Essay, pp. 93 ff., 127, 134 ff. (2d ed., pp. 119 ff., 162, 172 ff.); also Principles (p. 154; cf. p. 199) where he states that improperly conceived taxes upon the produce of land check cultivation and bring population to a premature stop. Although Malthus observed, as had Smith, Adam (Wealth of Nations, p. 392)Google Scholar, that primogeniture checks cultivation (Essay, p. 286; 1st ed., p. 344), and that in America “easy division of landed property” had facilitated cultivation and population growth (Principles, p. 373), he opposed extreme subdivision, because it prevented efficient cultivation, discouraged “prudence in marriage,” and undermined civil liberty. Unlike Ricardo (Notes, p. 211), he was alarmed lest the French law of succession bring about a minute subdivision of agricultural property, and, within a century, visit “extraordinary poverty and distress” upon the French people and destroy their republican form of government. See Principles, pp. 375-9; Essay, pp. 204, 210, 214, 511. On later interpretations of the effect of this law see my France Faces Depopulation (Durham, 1938), pp. 146–56.Google Scholar In the British Empire primogeniture and entail did not prevent the breaking up of landed property; and their usual effects were offset by the fact that England was industrially developed and possessed a great consuming middle class. Furthermore, in England the landed aristocracy counterbalanced the mercantile class, thus making the constitution more secure; while the opportunity “to contend in wealth with the great landlords” stimulated merchants and manufacturers to exercise their skills. See Principles, pp. 379-81. Paley, (Principles of Moral and, Political Philosophy, pp. 450–1, 474–5Google Scholar) had described “the right of common” and “manorial claims” as condemning the land “to perpetual sterility,” and tithes as retarding cultivation, and all these conditions as unfavourable to population growth.

⁶³ Principles, II, i, 8 Google Scholar, especially pp. 384-8, 393-7, also pp. 240, 403. Earlier (p. 324 n.) Malthus states that economists “from the fear of appearing to attach too much importance to money, have perhaps been too apt to throw it out of their consideration in their reasonings.” On Malthus's role in the development of the theory of trade see Viner, J., Studies in the Theory of International Trade (New York, 1937)Google Scholar; Hollander, , Notes, pp. c–cvi.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Principles, p. 400, my italics.

⁶⁵ Ibid., p. 234. It was frequently noted that agriculturalists produce a surplus above their own maintenance for which they must find vent, and upon which depends the size of the non-agricultural population. E.g., see Hume, , “Of Commerce” in Essays, vol. I, p. 289 Google Scholar; Steuart, , Works, vol. I, pp. 40, 46, 117 Google Scholar; Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. Ill, cap. i, iv; my French Predecessors.

⁶⁶ Malthus included under “productive” labour, that which is “directly productive of material wealth”; and under “personal services,” that which does not directly create material wealth, and which Smith, Adam called “unproductive” (Principles, pp. 35, 49 Google Scholar; cf. 1st ed., pp. 30 ff.).

⁶⁷ Principles, II, i, 9 Google Scholar, especially pp. 412-13, 404-12. Malthus noted that since menials are complements to unproductive forms of wealth such as houses, the demand for the latter depends in part upon the availability of the former (Ibid., pp. 408-9).

⁶⁸ Ibid., I, iv, 3, pp. 234-6, 239; cf. Essay, pp. 416-17.

⁶⁹ Principles, II, i, 9 Google Scholar, especially pp. 404-13.

⁷⁰ Essay, pp. 294-5.

⁷¹ On this last point, see sec. III (i) and (ii) of this article.

⁷² E.g., Essay, III, xiv Google Scholar; 2d ed., III, xi; also Bonar's, comments, Malthus, pp. 136 ff.Google Scholar On agriculture see ibid., 1st ed., chaps, xvi-xvii and pp. 95-7; 2d ed., III, vii-x; 5th ed., III, viii-xiii. Our discussion is based largely on his final views.

⁷³ Essay, 1st ed., chaps, xvi-xvii, especially pp. 301-2, 308-10, 312-15, 320-6, 329, 332-7, 344; cf. Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations, pp. 391 ff.Google Scholar Malthus apparently was not too friendly to industry (Essay, 1st ed., p. 293); but he considered it as reasonable to expect to prevent a “mistress from growing old by never exposing her to the sun or air” as to expect to prevent the development of manufactures and luxury in new countries (ibid., pp. 343-4).

⁷⁴ Ibid., pp. 96-7, 300-1.

⁷⁵ He now looked upon “commerce and manufactures” as “the most distinguishing characteristics of civilization, the most obvious and striking marks of the improvement of society, and calculated to enlarge our enjoyments, and add to the sum of human happiness. No great surplus produce of agriculture could exist without them …” (Essay, 2d ed., pp. 467–8, n.).

⁷⁶ Essay, 2d ed., pp. 422, 426–9, 436–40, 450–1, 465–6; also sec. III (ii) of this article. Malthus's concern at the supposed neglect of agriculture is remindful of the Physiocrats. He was careful to point out, however, that in the absence of moral restraint, no measures could make the food supply keep pace with an unchecked population (ibid., pp. 467-9; also 1st ed., pp. 27-9, 346-7, where he is more pessimistic than in the second).

⁷⁷ Essay, 2d ed., pp. 120 ff., 162, 193-4, 205-6, 221-2.

⁷⁸ E.g., Essay, p. 369; 2d ed., pp. 433-9.

⁷⁹ Essay, III, xiii, pp. 416, 419, 424–5.Google Scholar Here Malthus is taking exception to Adam Smith's (Wealth of Nations, bk. I, cap. viii) manner of reasoning that every increase in wealth makes for the improvement of the condition of the lower classes. In the second edition (pp. 420-9, 435; cf. 1st ed., pp. 305-21) Malthus said: “The comforts of the labouring poor must necessarily depend upon the funds destined for the maintenance of labour; and will generally be in proportion to the rapidity of their increase.” These funds do not tend to keep pace with wealth. If wealth increases at the expense of agriculture, workers tend to suffer a decrease in real wages, and some of their number are shunted into relatively unhealthful urban occupations. “Unless the increase of the riches of a country from manufactures give the lower classes of the society, on an average, a decidedly greater command over the necessaries and conveniences of life, it will not appear that their condition is improved.” In the last editions he states that although an increase of wealth “does not imply a proportionate increase of the funds for the maintenance of labour, yet it brings with it advantages to the lower classes of society which may fully counterbalance the disadvantages with which it is attended” (Essay, p. 425).

⁸⁰ Essay, p. 419. Malthus's point here is that the supply of food is less elastic (cf. p. 310 in 1st ed.) than that of non-agricultural products; but he remarks (Essay, p. 424; not in 2d ed.) that, with the labourer converting less of his wages into food, “he will not indeed have the same power of maintaining a large family; but with a small family he may be better lodged and clothed, and better able to command the decencies and comforts of life.” Cf. Senior, Two Lectures on Population, p. 71. See above, note 21, for composition of worker's budget.

⁸¹ Essay, III, viii, especially pp. 360–8Google Scholar; also Principles, pp. 364-5. This argument does not appear in first and second editions; but there (1st ed., pp. 293-4 ; 2d ed., pp. 221-2, 438, 593) Malthus notes the evils peculiar to a feudal agricultural economy and indicates that agriculture, to be prosperous, must have vent for its products.

⁸² Essay, pp. 364, 368; also Principles, p. 373, where he notes the stimulus to American agriculture supplied by “foreign commerce” and the “easy division of landed property.”

⁸³ Essay, pp. 173, 368-9, 423-5; 2d. ed., ppr 221-2; Principles, pp. 374-5. Griffith, (Population Problems of the Age of Malthus, pp. 255–6)Google Scholar attributed the fact, that before the Industrial Revolution the English population was practically stationary, to the localized character of markets and demands and to “the general water-tight structure of society.” Before 1860 American pro-slavery writers defended the slave economy on the ground, among others, that, being less elastic than free-labour economies, it was more immune to population pressure. See my “Population Theory in the Ante-Bellum South” (Journal of Southern History, vol. II, 1936, pp. 360 ff.)Google Scholar; “Malthusianism and the Debate on Slavery” (South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. XXXIV, 1935, pp. 170 ff.).Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Essay, I, ix, p. 95 Google Scholar (not in 2d ed.). Excessive soil fertility merely aggravated the difficulty described. For similar opinions, see 2d ed., pp. 120-1, 162, and note 88, below.

⁸⁵ Essay, p. 368, also pp. 93 ff., 173, 424-5 ; 2d ed., pp. 120 ff., 221-2; Principles, II, i, 4 Google Scholar, on Ireland and New Spain.

⁸⁶ Malthus noted, of course, such impediments to agriculture and population as bad government, tyranny, insecurity of person and property, lack of habits of industry, and localized institutional obstacles to effective cultivation. See Essay, pp. 72, 80, 83, 89, 100, 104-5, 148-9, 158, 428; 2d ed., pp. 92, 103, 106, 113-14, 126, 132, 190-1, 204-5; citations in Bonar, , Malthus, pp. 78–9, 196, 198.Google Scholar See note 60 and text.

⁸⁷ Essay, pp. 80, 93-4, 138-9, 150, 156, 159, 172 ; 2d ed., pp. 103, 119-20, 178, 193, 202, 205-6, 221.

⁸⁸ “In countries where … land is divided into very large shares; … arts and manufactures are absolutely necessary to the existence of any considerable population. Without them modern Europe would be unpeopled” (Essay, p. 127; 2d ed., p. 162). Cf. Hume, , Essays, vol. I, p. 412 Google Scholar, whom Malthus cites in the preceding paragraph. See also Wallace, note 49 above.

⁸⁹ Essay, pp. 127, 134-9; 2d ed., pp. 162, 172-9. Malthus's emphasis is upon the defective distributive system which accompanied slavery in Rome rather than upon the acknowledged unfavourableness of slavery to propagation. Steuart [ Works, vol. I, pp. 50, 52 Google Scholar) had contended that so long as the wants of men were few, slavery was necessary to agricultural progress and multiplication. “Men were then forced to labour because they were slaves to others; men are now forced to labour because they are slaves to their own wants.” Cf. Herrenschwand's, analysis, summarized in my French Predecessors, pp. 291 ff.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Malthus here cites Steuart, , Works, vol. I, pp. 38–40, 154–6.Google Scholar See note 52 above.

⁹¹ Essay, pp. 93-6; 2d ed., pp. 119-22. Because it is “most difficult” to change long-existing habits, Malthus added, the importation of industry and industrial workers may be advisable in these circumstances (Essay, p. 98; 2d ed., p. 124).

⁹² Principles, pp. 42-3, also pp. 115-16, 350 n.; Essay, pp. 367-70, and pp. 145-6 (2d ed., pp. 187-8), where he compares the composition of employment in Norway with that in England.

⁹³ Essay, pp. 423-4; also pp. 534-5 (2d ed., p. 593).

⁹⁴ Essay, III, ix Google Scholar; 2d ed., pp. 425-7, 467-9 n.; also sec. III (ii) of this article. The security of a nation's capital, Smith, Adam wrote (Wealth of Nations, p. 395 Google Scholar), is contingent on its being invested in part in domestic agriculture.

⁹⁵ Essay, III, x, xiii Google Scholar, especially pp. 379, 372-3, 378-82, 387, 423-5.

⁹⁶ Principles, pp. 402-3.

⁹⁷ Observations, pp. 24-5.

⁹⁸ See Clark, C., The Conditions of Economic Progress (London, 1940), p. 176.Google Scholar Clark substantiates this thesis stated several years earlier by Fisher, A. G. B. (e.g., “The Economic Implications of Material Progress,” International Labor Review, vol. XXXII, 1935, pp. 5 ff.).Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Principles, 1st ed., pp. 482–3 (not in 2d ed.). The substance of this argument, however, appears in the second edition. See also Pancoast, O., “Malthus versus Ricardo …” (Political Science Quarterly, vol. LVIII, 1943, pp. 47–66).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰⁰ “The condition of the labouring classes of society must evidently depend … partly, on the habits of the people in respect to their food, clothing, and lodging”; upon the amount of necessaries and conveniences “without which they would not consent to keep up their numbers” ( Principles, I, iv, 2, p. 224 Google Scholar). See also Essay, pp. 536-7; 2d ed., pp. 595-6.

¹⁰¹ Essay, IV, xiii, pp. 534–5Google Scholar, also pp. 367, 471, 479-80, 491; Principles, pp. 226-7.

¹⁰² E.g., see Essay, pp. 368, 378-9, 424-5; 1st ed., pp. 123 n., 293-4; Principles, II, especially vii-viii. Smith, Adam (Wealth of Nations, p. 385 Google Scholar) had said: “Commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals.” Hume, Adam Smith believed, was the first writer to note this. See Hume's essays, “Of Commerce” and “Of Luxury,” in Essays.

¹⁰³ Principles, I, iv, 2, pp. 224–5Google Scholar; Essay, pp. 378-9, 424-5. He noted, however, that in some Scottish parishes the introduction of manufactures had made possible the employment of very young children with the result that both marriages and child mortality had increased (ibid., p. 251; 2d ed., p. 324). Malthus, of course, looked with disapproval upon the indiscriminate employment of children (Essay, p. 530 ; 2d ed., p. 586).

¹⁰⁴ Essay, III, viii, pp. 364–7Google Scholar, also p. 379.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid., p. 515, also p. 379 ; 2d ed., p. 579. Here Malthus has in mind that if the price of food is high, and money wages and the supply of labour are largely regulated by it, the overall condition of the common people must improve for reasons indicated in the text. Malthus did not, however, say wages are regulated by the price of corn, or of food. He observed, rather, that they are influenced by the prices of both food and the other elements included in the worker's budget, and by changes in his habits of consumption (Observations, pp. 9-12, 15, 20; Principles, pp. 218 ff., 225-9). In another connection he said that a high price for raw produce signified a favourable state of economic affairs (Inquiry, pp. 39-42; Hollander, , Notes, pp. xliii ff.)Google Scholar; and even in the Principles (2d ed., pp. 184–9) he indicated that when a country was prosperous the price of its raw produce tended to be high.

¹⁰⁶ Essay, pp. 364-7, 379, 423-5. Malthus's attitude toward the repeal of the corn laws may have been somewhat influenced by the above considerations, since repeal would lower the prices of corn and labour (Principles, p. 105). Were the ports opened to grain, the stimulus to population arising from the cheapness of grain would probably depress real wages in England (Observations, p. 26). His argument is similar to that he advanced against a cheapened diet (Essay, pp. 515-16).

¹⁰⁷ E.g., see Essay, pp. 423-5; Principles, pp. 373-6.

¹⁰⁸ Essay, IV, xiii, pp. 534–6Google Scholar, also p. 543; 2d ed., pp. 594-5, 603-4; cf. 1st ed., pp. 367-9. Industrialization intensified somewhat the operation of the positive checks because urban and manufacturing employments were less healthful than rural employments, and probably would always remain so (Essay, pp. 420-1, 538; cf. 2d., pp. 422, 597).

¹⁰⁹ Principles, pp. 355-6.

¹¹⁰ Essay, p. 294; 1st ed., p. 132.

¹¹¹ “Of Commerce” ( Essays, vol. I, pp. 289–90, 293, 296 Google Scholar).

¹¹² Works, vol. I, chaps, V-VIII, XVIII, pp. 177, 203-4, 210-12.

¹¹³ Wealth of Nations, bk. III, Cf. Steuart's account (Works, vol. I, chap, x) of the decline of the feudal economy.

¹¹⁴ Political Arithmetic, chap. I, sec. vii.

¹¹⁵ Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, p. 456. See also E. Burke, , Works (London, 1803), vol. I, pp. 203–4Google Scholar, vol. V, pp. 290-2.