Moral physiology ; or, a brief and plain treatise on the population question / [Robert Dale Owen].

  • Robert Dale Owen
Date:
[1846]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Moral physiology ; or, a brief and plain treatise on the population question / [Robert Dale Owen]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    part towards the alleviation of the human suffering that everywhere stares him in the face.* It is vain to argue with the defenders of the evils that be, that at present there is land and every other necessary in abundance for all, if wisdom were used in their distribution, and that the day of ultimate overstocking is afar off. They tell you it must come at last; and that the more you do to remove vice and misery— those destroyers of population—the sooner it will come.—And what reply can one make to the argument in the abstract? I believe it to be true, that population, unrestrained,t will double itself on an average every twenty-five to fifty years. If so, it is evident to demonstration, that, if population were not restrained, morally or immorally, the earth would at last furnish scarcely foothold for the human beings that would be produced. Take a medium calculation as to the natural rate of increase, and say, that population, unrestrained, will double itself every thirty-three and a third years. That it has done so, (without reckoning the increase from emigration,) in many parts of this continent, is certain. Then, if we suppose the present numerous checks to population, viz., want, war, vice, and misery, removed by rational reform, and if we assume the present population of the world at one thousand millions, we shall find the rate of increase as follows : At the end of 100 years, there will be eight thousand millions. -200-sixty-four thousand millions. - 300-five hundred and twelve thousand mil- - 400-four million millions. [lions. - 500-thirty-two million millions. And so on, multiplying by 0 for every additional hundred years. So that, in 500 years, there would be more than thirty thousand times as many as at present j and in 1000 years, upwards of a thousand million times as many human beings as at this moment: consequently, one single pair, if suffered to increase without check, would, in 1000 years, increase to more than double the present popula¬ tion of the globe. It is evident, then, to demonstration, that there is not space on this earth for population, under any circumstances, to increase unrestrained during more than a few hundred years. We are thus compelled to admit to Malthus, that, sooner or later, some restraint or other to population must be employed : and compelled to admit to his aristocratic expounders, that if no other better restraint than vice and misery can be found, then vice and misery must be; they ars the lot of man, from generation to generation. Let me repeat it: it is no question—never can be a question— * Let me not be understood as charging- on Mr. Malthus a system of rea¬ soning he disclaims. I do but remind the reader how easily selfish men may pervert his doctrine to mischievous purposes. + Poverty, war, libertinism, famine, &c., are all powerful checks to popula¬ tion. In this sense, and not simply as applying to preventative moral re¬ straint, have I employed the word unrestrained,throughout this chapter.
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