128 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



In the days of national stress during the Seven Years' 

 War, Pitt desired an increase of the people, and 

 reckoned as a benefactor to his country a man who 

 brought up a large family. In 1798 Malthus, misled 

 by a partial knowledge of the problem, proclaimed that 

 human population always tended to outrun its means 

 of subsistence. It could only be kept within bounds 

 by famine, pestilence, and war, whereby the redundant 

 individuals were eliminated. In later editions of his 

 book, it is true, Malthus recognised the importance of 

 the prudential check of postponement of marriage, 

 and the extension of knowledge which followed the 

 institution of the census in 1801 soon showed how 

 effective this check was in adjusting population to the 

 existing economic demand. 



But Malthus made a more serious mistake in believ- 

 ing that, while population tended to increase in a 

 geometrical progression in the ratio of the numbers 

 i, 2, 4, 8 . . ., subsistence could only grow in the 

 arithmetical series I, 2, 3, 4 ... It is certain that 

 during the past century, wealth and the means of 

 existence have increased in England faster even than 

 the population, which itself has grown to an extent 

 that would have seemed impossible to Malthus. 

 While the natural produce of the earth, which could 

 be used by savage men, increases slowly, a second 

 term is involved in the total amount of subsistence 

 the produce of civilized industry, which grows, other 

 things being equal, in proportion to the number of 

 competent, civilized men. But other things are not 

 equal. A comparatively dense population is more 

 effective in modern industry than one more scattered ; 



