this tendency is absolutely irresistible, unless the great mass of men will abstain from marrying and producing children, in a degree to which history does not present the remotest parallel. Those who are imbued with this persuasion, have of course an answer ready at hand to Christians and philanthropists. All other schemes for ameliorating the labourer's lot, they exclaim, are but shams and delusions, which at best can but produce temporary alleviation at the cost of much greater subsequent suffering; the one only true remedy is, to dissuade or prevent him from marrying and producing children.

We suppose that all other causes put together have done much less to discredit political economy with right-minded men, than has the frightful practical superstructure which political economists have built on the above foundation. The doctrine itself has been accepted, says Mr. Greg (p. 57), by "nearly all political economists of position and repute, as a fundamental and established maxim of the science." But this is not the worst. Very many of them have forgotten, that (as we have explained) theirs is not a supreme but a subordinate science; and on this Malthusian doctrine they have based certain practical counsels and rules of life, which no considerations of mere political economy could by possibility justify, and which genuine moral and social science peremptorily denounces.

Let us begin then with supposing, that Malthus had proved all which he had made the least show of proving; and let us inquire what would have been the duty of any Christian statesman, who should have accepted his reasoning. And, in the first place, it is most important to point out, that all which he even appears to prove falls very far short indeed of that theory of his which we just now set forth. His arguments, had they been valid, would have established a certain conclusion; but such conclusion, if rightly expressed, falls vastly short of that which his language conveys. Thus there is not a syllable in his arguments, which would even tend to invalidate the following statement of Mr. Greg's :

:

Since a man can produce from the soil a great deal more than is needed for his own subsistence, and since, in consequence, food will and may increase faster than population,-granted only an unlimited supply of available land, -it is obvious that there can be no necessary pressure on the means of subsistence, until all the available surface of the globe is taken up and fully cultivated. Any pressure that occurs before that extreme point is reached, it is clear, can only be caused by impediments to expansion; and all these impediments are to civilized man artificial, not natural-of human, not of Providential origin. It is obvious that a single family or a single tribe, surrounded by an unlimited territory of uninhabited and productive soil, might go on multiplying indefinitely and without restraint, on the sole condition of spreading as they multiplied; and that, so long as they fulfilled this con

dition, they would never have an idea of what pressure of population on subsistence meant, till they had reached the bounds and exhausted the resources of the habitable earth (pp. 76, 77).

And how many years would elapse before any such result would ensue? Mr. Greg gives various data, from which he draws the following most important inference. These data, he says

Demonstrate that even the most densely populated countries in Europe are probably not peopled up to the full numbers they might comfortably maintain; that many of them fall vastly short of the maximum actually reached by others not more favoured by nature; and that as a whole there is every reason to believe that the European continent could support three or four times its present numbers. They show that a similar conclusion may be adopted with almost equal certainty in reference to a great part of Asia, and perhaps the whole of Africa; that probably in Africa, and certainly in the two Americas, there are vast tracts of fertile land, with fair, if not splendid climates, which are scarcely inhabited at all, and others which contain a mere sprinkling of human beings; and that in Australasia the case is even stronger. In fine, while Belgium and Lombardy, which are the best peopled districts in Europe, contain about 400 souls to the square mile, Paraguay contains only 4, Brazil only 3, and the Argentine Republic only 1. From the aggregate of these facts we are warranted in concluding that an indefinite number of generations and long periods of time must elapse before the world can be fully peopled,—that before that consummation shall be reached we have cycles of years to traverse, ample to afford space for all the influences which civilization may develope to operate to their uttermost extent.

But this is not all. Not only are few countries in the world adequately peopled, but none even of the most peopled countries are adequately cultivated. England has the best tilled soil in the world, though by no means the best climate; yet in England the average produce of the soil is not half -perhaps not a third-what it might be, and what in many districts it actually is. But the average yield of France, usually regarded as a very productive country, is only half that of England; nay, the average yield of the splendid grain-growing provinces in America, which ought greatly to exceed that of England, falls short of it by one-half. Without bringing a single additional acre under the plongh, the production of the world, by decent cultivation, might be easily trebled or quadrupled. In addition to this hopeful prospect, we see ample ground for expanding still further our conception of the amount of human life that might be maintained in comfort on the earth's surface, in the wasted or neglected riches of the sea, in the utilization of lands now devoted to the production of needless or noxious superfluities, in the more skilful extraction from the materials of our food of the real nutriment they contain, and in the transfer of much land from pasture to cereals, and in other economies too numerous to mention (pp. 81, 83).

But further, as Mr. Greg points out (p. 64), Malthus himself admitted." that as long as good land was attainable, the rate at which food could be made to increase would far exceed what was

necessary to keep pace with the most rapid increase of population which the laws of nature in relation to human kind permit.' Mr. Greg adds (p. 63) that "there can be no question that a very moderate amount of regular industry, whether applied to the production of one article or of many, would secure to man an abundant supply of all the necessaries, and most of the comforts, of life-at least in all temperate or tropical climates." And he very reasonably concludes, that "since, given the land and the labour, food can be made to increase incomparably faster than population, and would naturally do so,-all that is wanted to put man at his ease is a field whereon to bestow his industry. It is not that population has a natural tendency to increase faster than food, or as fast; but simply that the surface of the earth is limited, and portions of that surface not always nor easily accessible" (p. 64).

We will still suppose then, for argument's sake, that Malthus's reasoning was in itself valid; and in order that we may see the true Catholic way of dealing therewith, we will suppose that it has entirely convinced some pious and loyal Catholic statesman, who is able to influence as he pleases his country's legislation. What will be his course of practical action? He has before him such data as the following: The Church teaches that God has laid down a certain assemblage of laws concerning marriage; and there are various counsels also, concerning that sacrament, which her experience in every age has taught her to urge as most conducive to her children's spiritual welfare. The weight of such authority immeasurably preponderates over every possible number of antagonistic considerations; and our statesman would do everything in his power to promote the observance of those laws and counsels. At the same time he would regard it as among his most sacred duties, to organize a comprehensive and well-considered scheme-whether by means of emigration or otherwise--in order that the cultivation of land shall increase so much more rapidly than the growth of population, as to place the labouring class in a constantly improving position. As to what may happen after vast "cycles of years shall have elapsed, and when at last that period shall arrive, which (he has learned from Malthus to think) will introduce inevitable conflict between population and its means of subsistence, our Catholic statesman will rest secure in faith. He cannot even guess that God intends the world to last beyond this period: and even if God does intend this, he knows that the Divine resources are inexhaustible; that God can change the laws of nature as easily as He once appointed them.

We have spoken of a Catholic statesman: but a Protestant, who believes the inspiration of Scripture, should be led by its study to a similar practical conciusion. In fact, Dr. Arnold, many years ago, pointed to God's command (Gen. i. 28) "crescite et multiplica

mini et replete terram et subjicite eam," as the stand-point of his opposition to the practical counsels of Malthusians.

We have been proceeding on the supposition, that Malthus really proved what his arguments on the surface appear to prove. But Mr. Greg, apparently with excellent reason, denies that there has been even an approximation to such a proof. Malthus's arguments have literally no force whatever, unless it be assumed (p. 60) that there are no physiological influences or laws, of which he was ignorant, which counteract and control those which he perceived so clearly." But he did not make the faintest attempt to prove this; and it is evident therefore, that his conclusion is a purely arbitrary and gratuitous hypothesis. But Mr. Greg goes further. He adduces various considerations, based on indubitable phenomena, which tend to make it positively and indeed very highly probable, that there are such laws; and that Malthus's doctrine therefore is in every sense absolutely false.

In the first place Malthus drew a highly coloured picture, as to the inevitable increase of population, wherever such increase should be unchecked, either by "vice or misery" on one hand, or by severest "moral restraint" in the matter of marriage on the other. But Mr. Greg points out, adding statistical facts in large corroboration :

:

That the actual fecundity of the human race has never equalled, and scarcely ever even distantly approached [what Malthus regards as] its possible fecundity and that this difference is observable, where there is neither vice, misery, nor moral restraint to account for it; that in the midst of the most ample supply of food, where there need and can be no anxiety as to the future, where parents are healthy, where the climate is good,-where, in a word, every circumstance is as favourable as possible to the unchecked multiplication of the species, where everybody marries, and where marriages are as early as is compatible with vigour,-the population does not increase nearly as fast as [according to Malthus] theoretically it might do (pp. 60, 61).

Mr. Greg quotes against Malthus the well-known political economist, Mr. Nassau Senior :

It was pointed out by the late Mr. Senior, as another very suggestive fact, that, taking the world as a whole, and history so far as we are acquainted with it, food always has increased faster than population, in spite of the alleged tendency of population to increase faster than food. Famines, which used to be so frequent in earlier ages and in thickly-peopled countries, are now scarcely ever heard of, while, at the same time, the average condition of the mass of the people has on the whole improved, that is, that they have more of the necessaries of life than formerly. Probably the only cases in our days of scarcity of food amounting to actual famine are to be found where the staple crop of a whole country has been destroyed by locusts, as sometimes in Asia; or by drought, as occasionally in Hindostan ; or by vegetable disease, as in the potato rot of Ireland. In sparsely-peopled Australia famine has often supervened; in densely-peopled Belgium, never. "I admit (says

Mr. Senior) the abstract power of population to increase so as to press upon the means of subsistence. I deny the habitual tendency. I believe the tendency to be just the reverse" (pp. 63, 64).

Another class of facts which I shall do no more than allude to, because, though often examined casually, they have, as far as I know, never been thoroughly sifted or brought into a focus, points even more distinctly to the existence of some cause operating, under certain circumstances, to limit human fertility, even beyond what is consistent with the multiplication or preservation of the race, or class, or type. I refer to cases in which a family or set of families, or a whole variety, dies out where no deficiency or difficulty of subsistence can be alleged as the explanation, and where, therefore, some other cause, almost certainly physiological, must be pre-supposed. Such is the case of baronets, whose titles are perpetually lapsing from the failure of male heirs-assuredly not from abstinence from marriage, nor from lack of food. Such, again, is the frequent extinction of peerage families, of whom plentiful sustenance may at least be predicated. I am aware of Mr. Galton's ingenious explanation, based upon the fact of peers so often marrying heiresses, who of course ex vi termini come from comparatively unfertile families;-but the explanation itself is a collateral confirmation of the fact I am pointing out,--for whence arise these many unfertile but rich families? If the wealthy, who have every facility for prolonging life, and no motive to abstain from marriage, are so often barren and liable to see their families die out, or dwindle down to one heiress, does not the circumstance point to the operation of some influence other than Malthus' "pressure on subsistence," almost antagonistic to it, and especially potent in the most civilized and comfortable forms of life? (pp. 66, 67).

There are many other parts of Mr. Greg's Essay well worthy our readers' attentive consideration, but we have adduced enough for our purpose. The argument against Malthus comes to this. Hi3 reasoning was utterly worthless, unless he had either proved, or at least given probable grounds for supposing, that there are no natural laws at work to limit human fecundity, except those with which he was acquainted. But he never attempted to do anything of the kind; and his Essay is, therefore, pervaded by a fallacy which stultifies the whole. Even had Mr. Greg left the matter here, he would have rendered most important service. But he has gone much further. He has given much positive reason for holding that there are such natural laws as those of which Malthus virtually denied the existence. Lastly, if Malthus had proved the whole which his arguments have any appearance of establishing, they would not have afforded the very slightest reasonable basis for those practical counsels, which he and so many other political economists have pressed on mankind.

We are not aware of any other doctrine, even alleged or as apper