HISTORICAL 21 



tage of a large population in supplying a large army proved most 

 attractive and greatly influenced the authors of the eighteenth 

 century.! It has not altogether lost its attraction for some people 

 at the present day, as we shall have reason to notice in a later 

 chapter. This simple view of the benefits of a large population 

 coincided with the development of the mercantile theory of trade. 

 Authors of this school of thought also concluded that upon the 

 whole the larger the population the better. Protests against this 

 point of view are, however, met with from time to time. Those 

 responsible for this opposition to the prevailing opinion were 

 influenced in some cases more by observation than by theory and 

 in other cases more by theory than by observation. As instances 

 of the former several English writers of the end of the sixteenth 

 and beginning of the seventeenth centuries may be cited ; as 

 instances of the latter several authors chiefly belonging to the 

 later part of the eighteenth century. The views of the last- 

 mentioned authors are often influenced by a conception of the 

 relation between population and subsistence closely similar to 

 that of Malthus. But they are not alone in their anticipation 

 of his position. .From the sixteenth century onwards we find in 

 passages dealing with population more or less clear statements 

 of the Malthusian position. These authors, however, are not 

 always led to an unfavourable view of an increase in population. 

 Many of them, indeed, support the current view as to the advan- 

 tages of large numbers. Nevertheless on the whole a consideration 

 of the connexion between population and the food-supply is usually 

 associated with a fear of increase. We may now review in more 

 detail the trend of opinion sketched above. This will bring us to 

 the publication of the Essay on Population.^ 



4. Long before the sixteenth century men gave expression to 

 the view that large numbers are beneficial. ' Quae familia plus 

 multiplicatur in prolem, amplius cedit ad firmamentum politiae,' 

 said Saint Thomas Aquinas.^ But it is only later that we meet with 

 a marked insistence on this view. ' In my opinion ', says Bodin, 

 ' they erre much who doubt of a scarcitie by the multitude of 



1 Thus Montesquieu wrote : ' II n'y a que les grandes nations qui aient des 

 armees ' {Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, p. 130). * The literature has 



been several times reviewed. I am chiefly indebted to Stangeland, ' Pre-Malthusian 

 Doctrines of Population ', Studies in History, Economics and Public Laic — -Columbia 

 University; vol. xxi, No. 3, 1901. ^ Thomas Aquinas, De Regimine 



Principum, Bk. IV, cli. ix. (The fourth book is supposititious ; nevertheless it 

 probably represents the views of St. Thomas.) 



