150 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



the general law, or interfere with the general result ; 

 just as the occurrence of sports in botanical species 

 does not divert the botanist from insisting upon the 

 general laws and specific characters of the plants. 



What is a sufficient means of subsistence for 

 entering into the married state is a question 

 determined by a man's place in the graduated scale of 

 social life. A man occupying a high round of the social 

 ladder would not consider himself justified in marrying, 

 though possessed of means which if divided would 

 enable a dozen men on a lower round of the ladder to 

 marry in what they would consider great comfort. 



The law is that a man does not marry until he sees 

 himself in possession of means that will enable him in 

 his degree to marry. This law must not be confounded 

 with Malthus' check of moral restraint ; for the 

 restraint which it imposes is rather of a physical than 

 a moral barrier. 



It forms a universal factor in determining the 

 movement of population, and has been operative at 

 its fullest energy everywhere since man entered into 

 and recognised the social bond. It is a law that must 

 be obeyed, to whose dictates the non-moral as well as 

 the moral must conform. 



Malthus, however, not perceiving the operation 

 of this law, which is manifoldly visible to any 

 present-day student of the statistical information 

 supplied by the bureaus of Christendom, entertained 

 the belief that the majority of the marriages which 

 took place were unaccompanied with due reflection on 



