Vital statistics : a memorial volume of selections from the reports and writings of William Farr / edited for the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain by Noel A. Humphreys.

  • William Farr
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vital statistics : a memorial volume of selections from the reports and writings of William Farr / edited for the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain by Noel A. Humphreys. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    46/600 (page 14)
    One of tlic corollaries from the doctrine was a plan for the gradual sibolition of the poor laws, by declaring that no cliild horn from any marriage taking place after a given dtite should ovrr lio entitled to parish assistance.' All that is peculiar in this doctrine, all that is erroneous, and all that has shocked the public opinion of the country, ever since its enunciation, flows from a flagrant oversight; which might be pardoned in a young, hasty controversialist, but should assuredly have been at once taken into account when it was discovered in the light of Sir James Steuart's orio-inal analytical work that had been first published in 1767.* Malthusiauism had, however, become a sect; had been persecuted; and was modified and softened, but still upheld, by its disciples. Sir James Steuart, who wrote before Adam Smith, lays down the fundamental principle of Malthus, but, limits it by a preceding over- ruling Broposition. (1.) We find, he says, the productions oj all countries, generally speaking, in proportion, to the number of their inhabitants; and (2.), on the other hand [as Malthus asserts], inhabitants are most commonly in proportion to the/oorf. Steuart tnen shows that the food o£ the world maybe divided mto two portions: (A.) the natural produce of the earth ; and (B.) the portion which is created bv human industry. (A.) corresponds to the food of animals and is the limit to the number of savages. (B.) is the product^ of industry, and increases (all other things being equal) in proportion to the numbers of civilized men. The whole of the chapter on 1 opula- tion in Steuart's work should be consulted. Malthus, it will be observed loses sight of this analysis, and throughout his work confounds the yield of the untilled earth with the produce of human industry; which increases at least as rapidly as the numbers of civilized men and w. 1 increase until the resources of science arc exhausted and thewoildis ^^-YhQ population that a country sustains does not depend exclusively on the imount of svbsisleace existing at any one time J/^^ P/o^uce of -x country is limited chiefly by the character of the inhabitants For li, as an eiLmple, twenty-one millions of men from any part of Europe weiTput in^the place of the people of Great Britain after harvest, the v' iois produce'would not be maintained in --eechng yea^^^^^^^^^ in the hands of Cafl^res, of American Indians, or of the wietcliecl nhaSi^at of Terra del Fuego, however great t^-t-^^^^^^^^ miv be at the beginning of a ten years' occupation of these tcrt le Sds tt is evidfnt that, at the end, both the subsistence and he necnle would vary with their industry, but would declme, and be, ?om^ararvely to the actual produce, inconsiderable in aniount _ Fu ure comparam eiy i genius, science, skill, and industry 'nZTJ7oX^% tl,e th»i.y of Malthus ..»um« that a dimhn,- And conveise y, tl.e si^^^ .^^^^^ Sir James Stcnnvt, IBOfi, vol. i.