§ 3. So much then for the doctrine of Malthus, and now for his opponents. One of the most prominent of the writers who have recently taken the field against him is Mr. Rickards, late Professor of Political Economy at Oxford. Of his work on 'Population and Capital,' the chief portion is devoted to an elaborate attack on the position of Malthus. The objections advanced by Mr. Rickards are not absolutely new,' but they are stated by him with greater fulness and clearness than I have seen them elsewhere, and I shall therefore avail myself of his statement of them. The following passage is taken from the work just referred to:

"It is obvious that there are two methods by which the respective rates of increase of man and of subsistence may be compared. They may be regarded-I mean, of course, both the one and the other—either in the abstract or in the concrete; either potentially or practically. We may investigate, for instance, according to the laws of nature manifested by experience, what is the stated period within which a given society of human beings are physically capable of doubling their numbers, abstracting the operation of those checks, that impaired longevity and increased mortality, which may be found practically keeping down the number of any society. On the other hand, we may estimate the potential rate of increase of those animals or substances which are adapted for human subsistence, assuming no obstacle to their multiplication to arise from the difficulty of finding hands to rear, or space upon the earth to nourish them. By this method we may ascertain which of the two elements, population or subsistence, is physically capable of the greater expansion in a given time. Or we may adopt another mode

1 See 'Lawson's Lectures on Political Economy;' also 'Laing's Travels in Europe,' chap. iii.

of testing their relative rates of increase-we may compare the progress of man and of production in the actual state of any community, or of all communities together. In all existing societies there are checks in operation upon the multiplication of the human species. There are checks, likewise, upon the indefinite increase of the animal and vegetable world. We may take the operation of the checks into account on both sides of our calculation. In any given country, or in the world at large, if we like it better, we may compute, with reference to the actual state of things-looking to the experience of the past, and to the circumstances of the present, to all the causes, social, moral, or political, which restrain the propagation both of man and of his food-what has actually been, or what probably may be henceforward, the comparative rates of increase of population and of production. Either of these two methods of comparison would be fair and logical. I need scarcely add, that the latter will be more likely to conduce to a useful practical conclusion. But a third method, which cannot fail to lead us by the road of false logic to an utterly wrong result, is that of comparing the potential increase of mankind, according to the unchecked laws of nature, with the actual progress in any given country of production, excluding the operation of the counteracting forces on the one side, importing them into the estimate on the other. It is no wonder, when we use such a balance as this, if the scales are found to hang prodigiously unequal. . .

But it requires nothing more than a careful attention to this point to bring out in a clear point of view the fundamental fallacy of the whole argument. What is that ratio in regard to the multiplication of subsistence which Mr. Malthus has placed in contrast with the potential increase of human beings? Not the potential increase of animal and vegetable existences proper for the food of men under the like favourable conditions; the power left to exert itself with perfect freedom,' limited by no check or obstacle,— which formed his datum in regard to population. He enters

into no estimate as to the periods in which, according to the laws of nature, the fruits of the earth, the corn, the olive, and the vine, are capable-it is vain to talk of duplication in such cases, but-of multiplication, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some an hundredfold. He omits to consider the almost marvellous fecundity of some of those animals which form, in civilized communities, the chief subsistence of the mass of the people. . . . His calculation as to the ratio in which subsistence may be multiplied is founded upon the state of things then actually existing in England. He compares the abstract with the concrete-nature, in the region of hypothesis, acting in 'perfect freedom,' with nature obstructed by all the 'checks' which restrain production in the actual world." 1

The first point to be remarked upon in this is that Mr. Rickards does not here deny the doctrine of Malthus in the sense in which Malthus asserted that doctrine; he admits that in this sense the scales' do 'hang prodigiously unequal;' nor does he impugn the reasoning by which Malthus deduced from the doctrine thus understood the conclusions which it was the object of his essay to establish; in short, he neither denies the premisses of the Malthusian argument, nor their sufficiency to establish the Malthusian conclusion. The passage, therefore, which I have quoted, if it be intended as anything more than a verbal criticism on the form in which the meaning of Malthus is expressed, must be regarded as an example of the fallacy called ignoratio elenchi; and if my object were simply to defend the Malthusian doctrine, I might at once pass by these objections as

irrelevant. As an example, however, of the confused notions which prevail respecting economic method, it will be desirable to consider them somewhat more at length.

I propose, therefore, to show that, while the comparison instituted by Malthus is perfectly legitimate and logical, those suggested by Mr. Rickards are wholly irrelevant to the ends of economic science, inasmuch as, whether concluded in the affirmative or negative, they illustrate no economic principle whatever, and afford us no assistance in solving any problem presented by the phenomena of wealth.

And here I may remark in passing that, granting for the moment that a comparison of the abstract with the concrete be inadmissible, the criticism may be at once obviated by substituting for the word subsistence,' the expression capacity of the soil to yield subsistence,' which equally well conveys the meaning of Malthus. We may then compare the abstract with the abstract, the 'potential fecundity' of man with the 'potential' fertility of the soil; and we may deduce from the proposition thus stated precisely the same conclusions which it was the object of Malthus to inculcate.1

But why, let us ask, should a comparison of the abstract with the concrete be necessarily illogical? I know of no criterion by which to decide on the

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1 Mr. Rickards in fact elsewhere states the question in this way :Now, precisely the same assumption-that of the diminishing productiveness of the land, as compared with the undiminished power of human fecundity-forms the basis of the Malthusian theory."-Population and Capital, p. 127.

propriety of a comparison except by reference to the object for which the comparison is instituted. The object which Malthus had in view in writing his essay was to ascertain the influence of the principle of population upon human well-being;1 to ascertain whether the natural force of the principle was such that, with a view to the happiness of mankind, it should be stimulated or restrained; whether it was desirable that inducements should be held out tending to encourage early marriages and large families; or, on the contrary, whether we should favour those institutions and usages of society of which the tendency is to develop the virtues of prudence and moral restraint in the relations of the sexes. This was clearly and properly an economic question-it was a question as to the influence of a given principle on the distribution of wealth; and it was one which, from the terms in which it is stated, evidently involved the very comparison to which Mr. Rickards objects-a comparison of the natural and inherent force of the principle of population with the actual means at man's disposal, situated as he is in the world, for obtaining subsistence --a comparison of "nature in the region of hypothesis, acting with perfect freedom, with nature obstructed by all the checks which restrain production in the actual

1 "To enter fully into this question, and to enumerate all the causes that have hitherto influenced human improvement, would be much beyond the power of an individual. The principal object of the present essay is to examine the effects of one great cause intimately united with the very nature of man; which, though it has been constantly and powerfully operating since the commencement of society, has been little noticed by writers who have treated this subject."--Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 2. Ed. 1807.