POPULATION. 



641 



as weeds in fields and waste places ; but, in Ame- 

 rica, they are only seen in gardens, cultivated for 

 ornament. One, indeed, the papaver nudicaule, is 

 found in all the extreme northern regions of the 

 globe. Their roots are annual or perennial ; the 

 leaves alternate, and the flowers terminal and droop- 

 ing until they are expanded ; the calyx is composed 

 of two leaves, and the corolla of four petals ; the 

 stamens are very numerous, and the capsule is one- 

 celled, but is divided internally by several longitu- 

 dinal partitions, and contains a multitude of seeds. 



POPULATION, POLICY OF. It was formerly 

 a maxim in politics, that a country could not be 

 overpeopled, since it was supposed that the means of 

 subsistence increased in proportion to the increase 

 of population. Industry would thus find sufficient 

 means of support, partly by increasing the produce 

 of the earth, partly by procuring more from foreign 

 countries, so that the great population of a country 

 could never be the cause of its falling into want and 

 misery, provided it consisted of productive labour- 

 ers. On this account, some have even made popu- 

 lation the first principle of policy, and recommended 

 all measures by which its increase could be pro- 

 moted. This system also taught that artificial means 

 should be employed to aid the increase of population ; 

 and, as it was considered desirable that all births 

 should take place in matrimony, so that the chil- 

 dren should always be provided with natural guar- 

 dians, it became an object to furnish motives for 

 the encouragement of matrimony. The Romans 

 passed several laws for this purpose, and endea- 

 voured to rendera life of celibacy disgraceful : thus, 

 for instance, he who had the most legitimate chil- 

 dren, had the preference before all the other candi- 

 dates for public offices. Whoever had three chil- 

 dren was exempt from all personal taxes ; free- 

 born women who had three, and freed women who 

 had four children, were released from the continual 

 guardianship to which they were otherwise subject- 

 ed : unmarried females, at the age of forty-five, 

 were not allowed to wear jewels, or to use a litter, 

 &c. Louis XIV. gave pensions to those who had 

 ten or more children, and in other countries we find 

 similar ordinances. The impolicy and injustice of 

 these measures could not escape observation : others, 

 therefore, rejected the principle of population, and 

 maintained, on the contrary, that the policy of states 

 should be to check the increase of population. 



No one has laboured more to carry to its greatest 

 extent the principle of population than Sonnenfels 

 (in his Science of Politics and Finance, and in the 

 Manual of the internal Administration of the State, 

 in German) : but Malthus has opposed this system, 

 and endeavoured to lay the foundation of an oppo- 

 site doctrine (in his Essay on Population, 3d ed., 

 London, 1806). Malthus concludes that no more 

 individuals can subsist in any country than the pro- 

 duce of human industry in that country is able to 

 support. If, now, it can be proved that, in all 

 countries, with a tolerably good government, the 

 increase of population, as soon as it has arrived at 

 a certain degree, is in a far greater proportion than 

 the means of subsistence necessary for the support 

 of the inhabitants, then it is evident that there will 

 be a great scarcity, which will augment every year, 

 as the disproportion between the population and the 

 means of subsistence increases. For, if the popula- 

 tion has already become so numerous, that only the 

 greatest efforts of the nation are able to provide 

 it with the necessary means of subsistence, then the 

 increase of the following year cannot be provided 

 with the necessaries of life without withdrawing 

 them from the already existing population. He 

 further asserts that all civilized countries are either 



at the point, or more or less near it, where as much 

 food is produced from the soil as in any possible 

 way can be obtained from it ; and suppose more 

 could be gained by greater efforts and more indus- 

 try, it will never be in such proportion as the yearly 

 increase of the population ; and thus want and 

 misery are approaching in all civilized countries, 

 against which there is no other remedy than that 

 the government either check the increase of popu- 

 lation, or remove from the country the yearly arising 

 surplus by means of colonies, and other measures 

 conformable to this purpose. If some consider the 

 introduction of inoculation for the small-pox, the 

 diminution of the plague and of other epidemic 

 diseases, as great benefits for the human race, we 

 ought rather to regard them, according to the sys- 

 tem of Malthus, as great evils, which only increase 

 the want and misery of men by the famine which 

 they inevitably produce. A careful examination 

 will show that population may be the object of state 

 policy, but that the promotion of this object must 

 be regulated by a reference to other more important 

 considerations. 



Many of the premises, and of course the conclu- 

 sions, of Malthus are either entirely false, or true 

 only with great limitations. For, 1. although it is 

 abstractly true, that the instinct of propagation in 

 men, if no impediments were put in its way, would 

 increase the population in a geometrical progres- 

 sion, so that a single couple, in the course of a few 

 centuries, would people the whole earth ; yet we 

 no where find any excess of population, and the 

 earth has hitherto always been able to receive an 

 almost innumerable accession of inhabitants. Na- 

 ture herself has provided a thousand ways to pre- 

 vent the increase of the human race beyond the 

 means necessary for its subsistence. She presents 

 to man the means of subsistence with a sparing 

 hand ; she lias made each generation dependent 

 upon the love of parents, and planted in man a 

 moral sentiment which forbids him to produce 

 children before he is able to supply their wants. 

 The cultivation of this sentiment in a nation is the 

 great rule to be observed in respect to population. 

 If the government can sufficiently extend and 

 strengthen this sentiment, it needs do but little more 

 for the regulation of population ; for then marriages 

 will not be contracted without the means of provid- 

 ing for children, and parents will endeavour so to 

 educate their children as to qualify them to earn 

 their own support. Those who wish to marry, and 

 have no prospect of support in the country of their 

 residence, will emigrate. The instinct of propaga- 

 tion, is thus checked, physically and morally, of 

 itself, so that it cannot be against the intention of 

 nature to keep the human race within prescribed 

 limits. Sismondi gives, as an instance to illustrate 

 this, the example of the family of Montmorency, 

 which, if the natural instinct had been allowed to 

 act freely, would have peopled the whole French 

 empire ; and yet nothing approaching to this result 

 has taken place, although no individual of this 

 family has been destitute of the necessary means ot 

 life. Other considerations have restrained the ope- 

 rations of this instinct, so that there are but a small 

 number of individuals of this name existing in 

 France. 



2. That the artificial increase of food in any 

 country cannot keep pace with the yearly increas- 

 iug population, is an assertion also contradicted by 

 experience, since, in fact, the increase of population 

 rather accommodates itself to the means of subsis- 

 tence, than the supply to the population. Where 

 industry, assisted by nature, produces with ease 

 whatever the wants of a numerous family require, 

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