Population and Sustenance. 61 



increase of produce is obtained by a more tlian proportional increase in 

 the application of labor."* " This general law of agricultural industry," 

 says Mr. Mill, " is the most important proposition in political economy." 



Now if there be a law in accordance with which the human 

 race must go on multiplying till there shall not even be stand- 

 ing room for them upon the earth, unless checked by famine, 

 pestilence or war, or by such restraints as are both unnatural 

 and impracticable ; and if there be another law by which the 

 same amount of labor gives less and less means of sustenance, 

 the prospect for humanit}^ is indeed deplorable. These two 

 laws combine to form the doctrine " that there is in the consti- 

 tution of earthly things a positive, natural and ever-increasing 

 disparity between the production of human life and the capa- 

 bility of the earth to support it." They agree with each other 

 in this respect, if in no other, that they are as discordant as 

 possible with all the other managements of Providence of 

 which we know anything. Such an hypothesis needs to be 

 carefully examined before it takes its place as an admitted 

 principle of social science. 



It becomes us to be suspicious of any proposition which is 

 out of harmony with the general order of nature. The doc- 

 trine under consideration is certainly adapted to excite such a 

 suspicion. 



It is, no doubt, to be admitted that during considerable pe- 

 riods of history, and in many portions of the earth, the in- 

 crease of population has been very rapid. It may also be ad- 

 mitted that in many of these times and places the mortality 

 has been frightfully large. In some of these instances the pop- 

 ulation has increased faster than the means of sustenance. 

 But it does not necessarily follow that the vast number of births 

 was the cause of the extraordinary number of deaths, or that 

 the diminished proportion of sustenance was owing to the too 

 great number of births. It is clearly possible that the in- 

 creased number of births was an effort of nature to supply the 



*Polltical Economy, Bk. I, Chap, xii, § 2. 



