SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF THE HENRY GEORGE MOVEMENT. 37 



That law Mr. George thus summarizes : " The essence of the Malthu- 

 sian doctrine is that population tends to increase faster than the 

 povs^er of providing food ; " and again : " The vital point is that there 

 is a natural tendency and constant effort in population to increase 

 beyond the means of subsistence ; " and again : " Population, con- 

 stantly tending to increase, must, when unrestrained, ultimately press 

 against the limits of subsistence, not as against a fixed but as against 

 an elastic barrier, which makes the procurement of subsistence pro- 

 gressively moi'e and more difficult, and thus, wherever reproduction 

 has had time to assert its power, and is unchecked by prudence, there 

 must exist that degree of want which will keep population within the 

 bounds of subsistence.'' Each of these versions of the doctrine is 

 substantially correct and is axiomatically true, and Mi-. George him- 

 self admits that the doctrine was ten years ago " an accei)ted truth 

 which compels the recognition even of those who would fain disbelieve 

 it," he might have added " on grounds of natural theology." In 

 reality the Malthusian principle is neither more nor less than a well- 

 known biological fact which is as much the basis of Darwin's law of 

 the " survival of the fittest " as it is of the doctrine of the 

 " unearned increment." Darwin himself instances the elephant as the 

 slowest breeder of all known animals, and yet, assuming one hundred 

 years as the limit of its life, apart from violence, " after a period of 

 from 740 to 750 years there would be alive nearly 19,000,000 

 elephants descended from the first pair." Man breeds more rapidly 

 than the elephant, and under favorable circumstances a single pair will 

 have, without twins, as many as thirty children. This is no pheno- 

 menal occurrence amongst the French people in Quebec, and families 

 of over 20 childi'en are very common. Mr. George's refutation of the 

 law is no refutation at all, and his citation of the cases of China, 

 Iftdia, and Ireland are not at all in point. On the conti'ary, each of 

 these countries is a remarkable proof of the truth of the Malthiisian 

 doctrine. That doctrine, taken in connection wiih the law of dimin- 

 ishing returns from the application of labor and capital to land, is 

 the basis of the Ricardian theory of rent, and also of Mr. George's 

 doctrine of the unearned increment. The pressure of population on the 

 means of subsistence would never have been felt but for the law of 

 diminishing returns ; the operation of the law of diminishing returns 

 would never have been noticed but for the pressure of population on 



