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
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.
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![incomparably greater than tlie sliarc oC the Indian liunter's family wlion there was not one person to every square mile of territory. In tho. rudest state, where men live on fish, or fruit, or game, the population is rarely limited by the amount of subsistence existing, but directly by the skill, industry, and courage of the savage ; for any improvement in the use of the net, hook, bow, spear, or weapon is followed by an increase of the tribe ; while any diminution of its courage or industry is followed by extermination or decay. In the pastoral or in the civilized state, the same causes, operating on a larger scale, ])roduce effects still more striking. The character of every race of men is the real limit to its numbers in the world, if allowance be made for accidents of position and time. Population is often out of the place where it is wanted, or could be most productive; but the population of the world is not, as Makhus assumes, redundant ; and not only is there a paucity of men of tran- scendent genius in all countries, but few persons who have occasion to undertake or who accomplish great industrial, political, warlike, or other operations ever find that the men of skill, industry, and entire trustworthiness—of whom they can dispose, either in the highest or the lowest departments—are superabundant. Every master knows that good men—and every man that good masters—are scarce. The idle who will not work, the unskilful who cannot work, and the criminal classes who cannot be trusted, are, however, it may be admitted, whether numerous or few, always redundant. But as the disciples of Malthus, if there were two millions of sucli peojile in Great Britain, would not hear the public executioner invoked for their destruction, neither can we admit the vahdity of the argument of that writer when he attempts to reconcile us to the loss of lives by shipwrecks, explosions, small-pox, close habitations on low sites,—by the ignorance of men, the fevers of towns, or the blind fury of pestilences,—which are fatal to all classes of the nation. New births may repair the numbers, but never fill the places, of the dead. The assumption that subsistence increases at a rate corresponding to any arithmetical progression rests on no authentic observations. The produce of this country has never been valued at stated intervals. Capital, however, increases, it is always assumed, when terms of years are considered, in a geometrical progression ; and at compound interest the increase is much more rapid than the increase of population in any European state. The interest of money, indicating the annual increase of value, is the produce of property, and bears a rather close analogy to the increase of the means of subsistence. At 3 per cent, per annum compound interest the value of capital is doubled in 24 years; and a popidation increasing at 3 per cent., which is near the natural rate, doubles in the same time; while'actually the British ])opulation has increased at the rate o£ 1-329 per cent, annually for the fifty years 1801-51 ; and has doubled in 53 years. Thus—if we take this indica- tion—the means of subsistence have increased faster than the numbers of the people; for, while the population has doubled, the value of capital under investment at 3 per cent, compound interest has quadrupled. The PRODUCE of Great Britain, Avhich in the present state of commerce is always convertible into the means of subsistence has probably not increased at a lower ratio; and no one can pretend, in the absence of the exact facts, that the ratio has been arithmetical. The assertion falls to the ground that the disappearance of small-pox, of cholera, or of other epidemics, must be followed immediately by famine, or by an increase of other diseases. The principle may hold](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21364333_0047.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
