GENERAL NOTES 7 



foods is coming from laboratories and kitchens so 

 rapidly that we now employ nut products by the ton 

 where they were used in small lots at the beginning 

 of the century. 



Malthus in 1798 published his famous essay on 

 Principles of Population, before the days of steam 

 transportation. He placed stress upon the idea that 

 human beings if allowed to multiply without check 

 would increase beyond the food supply. This as- 

 sumption, if correct, would have to include the idea 

 that man is to remain stupid. Up to the days of 

 Malthus history had recorded checks to over-popu- 

 lation by way of pestilence, war, and famine. By 

 pestilence we now mean the microbe. Medical 

 science with its new knowledge of the microbe has 

 taken charge of the question of epidemics to such 

 an extent that we have lost our feeling of helpless- 

 ness in the matter. War, the second check described 

 by Malthus, will be diminished when sociologists 

 make as thorough a study of politicians as the doc- 

 tor makes of microbes, and when a league of na- 

 tions then made possible will exercise police control 

 over the varieties of capitalists who are responsible 

 for infecting diplomats harmfully. Famine, the 

 third check, may be lessened in the natural course 

 of educational advancement as rapidly as men are 

 willing to be taught the principles and practice of 

 effective agriculture. 



The most important and persistent check to over- 

 population was not understood in the day of Mal- 

 thus. I refer to cultural limitation or what is known 



