THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY 121 



the youths of warlike races, to whom had come the 

 knowledge that regions more fertile than their own. 

 wintry climes and dark forests, regions inhabited by 

 peoples devoted to peaceful occupations, and enriched 

 by the accumulated fruits of industry and commerce, 

 lay before them as a spoil of conquest. 



Historians, it is true, have spoken of the teeming 

 forests of Germany and Scandinavia pouring forth 

 their superabundant surplus populations to occupy and 

 possess new lands. But in the range of their 

 historical information they are unable to point to a 

 single country or district which at any time suffered 

 from the existence of a surplus population a 

 Malthusian expression for what has never existed as 

 a result of the relative difference in the rates of 

 increase of population and the means of subsistence. 

 Experience and observation abundantly testify that 

 where population has increased, the means of living 

 have increased in an equal degree, and in almost every 

 case in a much greater degree. That this must 

 necessarily be the case will be clearly demonstrated 

 when I expound the universal law which governs the 

 movements of population. 



I shall now deal with the cases of Ireland and 

 India, which Malthusians have founded upon as 

 supporting the dogma that population tends to 

 increase faster than the means of subsistence, and 

 I shall show that these cases, when duly examined, 

 exemplify my contention. They regard the rapid 

 increase of the population of Ireland between 1690 



