CHAPTER 1. 

 THE MALTHUSIAN THEOEY. 



IT is fully more than a quarter of a century since 

 I first read the Essay on Population by Malthus. 

 I had long been an assiduous reader of history, and, as 

 a subsidiary branch of historical information, I had 

 studied with interest the past and present condition of 

 countries that had once been great, or the theatres 

 of great events, as well as the economic conditions of 

 those peoples that had no long historical past, but 

 were become important political factors at the present 

 day. Such studies naturally bred an interest in the 

 social questions that were agitating the different 

 countries of Christendom, according to the measure of 

 their civilisation, and directed my attention to the 

 constituent elements of that civilisation which I saw 

 advancing at a comparatively rapid pace, and raising 

 the standard of living in every European country. 



I did not therefore read the Essay on Population 

 as a tyro prepared "jurare in verba magistri," or, in 

 other words, to accept uncritically what had become 

 a conventional belief, even though that belief were 

 now established as the basis of the universally accepted 

 creed of science, the evolutionary theory of Darwin. 



