ments. This is inevitable from the nature of the

case.

4. Definitions in the present state of economic science should be regarded as provisional only, and may be expected to need constant revision and modification with the progress of economic knowledge. Economic definitions are thus progressive. A complete nomenclature pretending to be definitive would at present be premature, and, if framed and generally accepted, would probably prove obstructive. But the time has come when increased precision may be usefully given to the more fundamental conceptions, always with the understanding that these also must still be taken as provisional.

LECTURE VII.

OF THE MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF POPULATION.

§ 1. I ALLUDED in the opening lecture of this course to the present unsettled and unsatisfactory condition of Political Economy with regard to some of its fundmental principles, attributing this state of things, as you will probably remember, to the loose and unscientific views which prevail respecting the character of economic doctrines and the kind of proof by which they are to be sustained or refuted. This led me in the succeeding lectures to explain and illustrate at some length the character and method of the science. I now propose to vindicate the importance of the topics on which I have been insisting, by showing, in the instance of some fundamental doctrines, the manner in which unscientific views regarding the nature and method of the science have operated in producing those differences of opinion to which I have referred.

One of these doctrines, as I conceive quite fundamental in the science of Political Economy, though impugned and controverted in several recent publi

cations, is the doctrine of population as expounded by Malthus. It would of course be quite impossible, within the compass of a single lecture, to notice, much less satisfactorily to answer, all the various objections that have been in times past, or may still be, urged against this doctrine; and it would be unnecessary were it possible; most of them having received as full an answer as they deserve either from Malthus himself or from succeeding writers. I shall therefore confine myself to those which, either from their novelty, or from the circumstance that they have been lately endorsed by some economists of position, or from their logical character, will be most suitable to the object which I have in view-the illustration of economic method.

In order, however, that you should appreciate the force of these objections, it will be necessary for me to state the doctrine against which they have been advanced.

The celebrated Malthusian doctrine is to the following effect, viz. that there is a constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it;' or, with reference more particularly to the human race, that 'population tends to increase faster than subsistence.' From what I have already said of the character of an economic law, as well as from the terms of the proposition itself, you will at once perceive that it is not here asserted that population in fact increases faster than subsistence : this would of course be physically impossible. You will also perceive that it is not inconsistent with this

doctrine that subsistence should in fact be increased much faster than population. It may also, perhaps, be worth remarking that the doctrine, as it is stated by Malthus, is not invulnerable to verbal criticism. The sentence, 'population tends to increase faster than subsistence,' is elliptical, and the natural way of supplying the ellipsis would be by reading it thus :— Population tends to increase faster than subsistence tends to increase;' but it cannot with propriety be said that subsistence tends to increase' at all. I mention this verbal inaccuracy, not because I think it is likely that any candid or intelligent reader could be misled by it, but because I have seen it dwelt upon by anti-Malthusian writers. But, waiving verbal cavils, what Malthus asserted, and what it is the object of his essay to prove, is this-that, regard being had to the powers and propensities in human nature on which the increase of the species depends, there is a constant tendency in human beings to multiply faster than, regard being had to the actual circumstances of the external world, and the power which man can exercise over the resources at his disposal, the means of subsistence are capable of being increased.

The reasoning by which Malthus established this proposition was as follows. He had first to ascertain the capacity and disposition to increase inherent in mankind-in other words, the natural strength of the principle of population. Now, in order to discover the real character of any given principle, obviously the proper course is to consider that principle as it operates when unimpeded by principles of an opposite

tendency. Malthus, accordingly, took an instance in which the external conditions were most favourable to the uncontrolled action of the principle of population. This was the case of new colonies, where a population with all the resources of civilization at their command are brought into contact with a new and virgin soil. In these he found that population from internal sources alone, and excluding immigration, frequently doubled itself in twenty-five years. This rate of increase was evidently not owing to anything peculiar or abnormal in the physical or mental constitution of the inhabitants of such countries, but owing to the favourable character of the external circumstances under which the principle of population came into play. He, therefore, concluded that the ratio of increase, according to which population doubles itself in twenty-five years, represents the natural force of the principle-the rate at which population always tends to increase the rate at which, if unrestrained by principles of an opposite character or by the physical incapacity of sustaining life, population always will increase.

On the other hand, on looking to the means placed at man's disposal for obtaining subsistence, Malthus found that it was physically impossible that subsist

As a specimen of the intelligence exhibited in criticisms of Malthus, take the following from Blanqui's Histoire de l'Économie Politique :-"Le choix que Malthus a fait de l'Amérique, où la population double tous les vingt-cinq ans, n'est pas plus concluant que celui de la Suède, où, selon M. Godwin, elle ne double que tous les cent ans. Les sociétés ne procèdent point ainsi par périodes regulières, comme les astres et les saisons, etc." Malthus could find his opponents in arguments, but not in brains.