n6 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



The impression produced upon me by the perusal 

 of the Essay on Population was that the conclusions 

 of Malthus were not borne out by the teaching of 

 history in regard to past movements of population, 

 and that they are contradicted by all the phenomena 

 of the different movements of population in the 

 nineteenth century, in regard to which we possess 

 detailed information, not only in the returns of 

 periodical censuses, but also in the Registrar's Annual 

 Eeports which record the vital statistics of each 

 country. 



I perceived that in every country the population of 

 which was increasing from one decade to another, 

 the standard of living was steadily rising ; and 

 that the degree of the growing prosperity of each 

 country was indicated by the rate of its numerical 

 growth. This was clearly at variance with the 

 essential principles of Malthus. 



Malthus compared the potential increase of popu- 

 lation with the potential increase of food obtained 

 from the produce of the soil, and enunciated the famous 

 formula, that whereas the food production of the soil 

 cannot, even under the most favourable circumstances, 

 be supposed to increase in successive generations in 

 more than an arithmetical ratio, or as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 

 population is able to increase in successive generations 

 in a geometrical ratio, or as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, doubling 

 itself in the course of each generation. Hence he 

 deduced the general conclusion that \>o\ .illation lends 

 to increase faster than the food supply. 



