THE Life and Writings OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS BY CHAS. R. DRYSDALE, M.D. [Illustration] LONDON: GEO. STANDRING, 7 & 9 FINSBURY STREET, E.C. SECOND EDITION.—1892. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS PREFACE. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. CHAPTER II. AN ANALYSIS OF THE “ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.” CHAPTER III. OF THE CHECKS TO POPULATION AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS. CHAPTER IV. CHECKS TO POPULATION IN MODERN EUROPE. CHAPTER V. OF THE CHECKS TO POPULATION IN FRANCE. CHAPTER VI. ON THE CHECKS TO POPULATION IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND. CHAPTER VII. DETACHED ESSAYS. CHAPTER IX. OF POOR LAWS. CHAPTER X. WEALTH AS IT AFFECTS THE POOR. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. APPENDIX. PREFACE. Since 1877, when the Lord Chief Justice of England in his charge to the jury pronounced the discovery of Malthus to be an irrefragable truth, a vast amount of literature has appeared upon the population question. The conclusion come to by many of the most recent writers has been in accord with that pithy expression of John Stuart Mill, where he says: “Every one has a right to live. We will suppose this granted. But no one has a right to bring children into life to be supported by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of these rights must renounce all pretension to the last.” Mr. Cotter Morison, a distinguished writer, says, in his work entitled _The Service of Man_: “The criminality of producing children whom one has no reasonable probability of being able to keep, must in time be seen in its true light, as one of the most unsocial and selfish proceedings of which a man nowadays is capable. If only the devastating torrent of children could be arrested for a few years, it would bring untold relief.” Sir William Windeyer, of New South Wales, in a judgment delivered in 1888, concerning a Malthusian work, says: “It is idle to preach to the masses the necessity of deferred marriage and of a celibate life during the heyday of passion.... To use and not abuse, to direct and control in its operation any God-given faculty, is the true aim of man, the true object of all morality.” The Rev. Mr. Whatham, in a pamphlet entitled _Neo-Malthusianism_, says: “It becomes the duty of every thoughtful man and woman to think out some plan to stop or even check this advancing tide of desolation; and the only plan, to my thinking, that is at all workable is artificial prevention of child-birth.” Professor Mantegazza, Senator of Italy, says, in his _Elements of Hygiene_, to those affected with hereditary diseases: “Love, but do not beget children.” The Rev. Mr. Haweis says,