60 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



habitable portions of the earth must be filled to their utmost 

 capacity, so that not another human being could find subsist- 

 ence, if nature takes its own course without artificial obstruc- 

 tion. 



The second remedy, which is yet a precaution rather than a 

 remedy, has two forms. The one is that of restriction by pub- 

 lic law ; the other, that of self restraint. The former has been 

 tried in several countries, but with different success. The 

 fact that it has been abandoned in some of them which are now 

 still more populous, though less over-populous, than before the 

 remedy was applied and abandoned, would seem to militate 

 against it. A project so unnatural and fanatical is not likely 

 to be largely accepted among men of practical wisdom. Nor 

 is the other form of the remedy more promising. The influ- 

 ence to be exercised by self-restraint in relation to a course of 

 action to which both nature and inclination powerfully prompt, 

 must depend upon such a degree of moral and spiritual devel- 

 opment as seldom exists among the classes which are chiefly 

 to be benefited. Even so it must be in the line of motives 

 which nature itself furnishes and not in antagonism therewith. 



If, then, the law of the increase of population referred to re- 

 ally exists, it would seem that no humane or prudential provis- 

 ion to prevent or remedy the evil is practicable. These only 

 remain frightful "checks of war, famine and pestilence," which 

 by destroying a portion of the human surplusage, will tem- 

 porarily relieve the remainder. 



This prospect is indeed still more appalling in view of 

 another law announced by an eminent economist. Says Mr. 

 Mill: 



" After a certain and not very advanced stage in the progress of agri- 

 culture; as soon, in fact, as mankind liave applied themselves to cultiva- 

 tion with any energy, and have brought to it any tolerable tools; from 

 tliat time it is the law of production from the land, that in any given 

 state of agricultural skill and knowledge, by increasing the labor the 

 produce is not increased in an equal degree; doubling the labor does not 

 double the produce; or, to express the same thing in other words, every 



