consequence of a particular demand, till after the lapse of sixteen or eighteen years; and the conversion of revenue into capital, by saving, may take place much more rapidly; a country is always liable to an increase in the quantity of the funds for the maintenance of labour faster than the increase of population.” To these charges the answer is, first, that Malthus always recognized that over-population was relative, relative to the actual food;[913] second, that he did _not_ recognize the over-population as necessary; it took place as a matter of fact, but he believed that, if working men did as he wished them, it would disappear;[914]—and in the third place, the first sentence quoted by Marx, from the _Political Economy_ is explained by the second, which he does not quote: “In a country of fertile land such habits would be the greatest of all conceivable blessings.” Malthus is comparing Commercial with Agricultural countries, not pronouncing on the general question of wages; and other passages in his writings[915] show that he regarded the high wages, resulting from prudential habits, as a public gain, more than compensating the capitalists’ loss of profits. Even Marx himself grudgingly allows that Malthus was more humane than Ricardo in regard to the hours of labour desirable for the workmen.[916] In the fourth place, the latter half of the quotation (beginning with the words, “From the nature of a population”) first states an obvious fact which a child could have pointed out, and then a disputable proposition which predicts not an over-population but the reverse of it.