第54章 Malthus(12)

This is a trifling instance of a very general truth.People had been content to notice the deaths caused by war and disease,and to infer at once that what caused death must diminish population.Malthus shows the necessity of observing other collateral results.The gap may be made so great as to diminish population;but it may be compensated by a more rapid reproduction;or,the rapidity of reproduction may itself be the cause of the disease;so that to remove one kind of mortality may be on some occasion to introduce others.The stream is dammed on one breach to flow more strongly through other outlets.65This is,I conceive,to say simply that Malthus was introducing a really scientific method.The facts taken in the true order became at once intelligible instead of suggesting mysterious and irregular interferences.Earlier writers had been content to single out one particular set of phenomena without attending to its place in the more general and complex processes,of which they formed an integral part.Infanticide,as Hume had pointed out,might tend to increase population.66In prospect,it might encourage people to have babies;and when babies came,natural affection might prevent the actual carrying out of the intention.To judge of the actual effect,we have to consider the whole of the concrete case.It may be carried out,as apparently in the South Sea islands,so generally as to limit population;or it may be,as in China,an indication that the pressure is so great that a number of infants become superfluous.Its suppression might,in the one case,lead to an increase of the population;in the other,to the increase of other forms of mortality.Malthus's investigations illustrate the necessity of referring every particular process to its place in the whole system,of noting how any given change might set up a set of actions and reactions in virtue of the general elasticity of population,and thus of constantly referring at every step to the general conditions of human life.He succeeded in making many points clear,and of showing how hastily many inferences had been drawn.He explained,for example,why the revolutionary wars had not diminished the population of France,in spite of the great number of deaths,67and thus gave an example of a sound method of inquiry which has exercised a great influence upon later observers.Malthus was constantly misunderstood and misrepresented,and his opponents often allege as fatal objections to his doctrine the very facts by which it was really supported.But we may,I think,say,that since his writing no serious economical writer has adopted the old hasty guesses,or has ventured to propose a theory without regard to the principles of which he first brought out the full significance.

V.POLITICAL APPLICATION

This I take to indicate one real and permanent value of Malthus's writings.He introduced a new method of approaching the great social problems.The value of the method may remain,however inaccurate may be the assumptions of facts,the 'tendency,'if interpreted to mean that people are always multiplying too rapidly,may be a figment,if it is taken as calling attention to one essential factor in the case,it is a most important guide to investigation,this brings out another vital point.The bearing of the doctrine upon the political as well as upon the economical views of the Utilitarians is of conspicuous importance.Malthus's starting-point,as we have seen,was the opposition to the doctrine of 'perfectibility.'Hard facts,which Godwin and Condorcet had neglected,were fatal to their dreams.You have,urged Malthus,neglected certain undeniable truths as to the unalterable qualities of human nature,and,therefore,your theories will not work.The revolutionists had opposed an ideal 'state of nature'to the actual arrangements of society.They imagined that the 'state of nature'represented the desirable consummation,and that the constitution of the 'natural'order could be determined from certain abstract principles.The equality of man,and the absolute rights which could be inferred by a kind of mathematical process,supplied the necessary dogmatic basis.The antithesis to the state of nature was the artificial state,marked by inequality,and manifesting its spirit by luxury.