or a rate of births to deaths nearly six to seven. It will also be noticed that, with important exceptions, the excess of births to deaths is in the smaller towns.

Doubtless improvements in sanitary regulations will change the ratios for the better. But still I think that the general principle holds good, that there is a tendency to increase the death-rate above the birth-rate in large towns, with densely crowded population, scarcity of food, insufficient cleanliness, foul air, and still fouler habits and morals.

258. Difference between civilized and savage society in this respect.

We have, then, two causes that influence the rate of increase of population, bearing directly upon the ratio given on a preceding page, namely:

(1) With higher culture, the births among the better class will be fewer, and

(2) In the lower classes the deaths will be greater in proportion to numbers.

Now there can be no doubt that the rate of increase is of the nature of a geometrical ratio, as expressed by the successive denominators given above; and yet, the ratio itself is not constant. may be true for several generations in some states of society and some conditions of human life. But

It

in others it will, for the two causes just named, be less, so that it may become unity, with, of course, a population stationary. And with war, pestilence and famine, and epidemic diseases, it may become a fraction; in which case the series is a decreasing one, and we have a state of things most unfortunate for human morals as well as for the physical wellbeing.

In a

And it is worthy of special note, that at present and in this stage. of human history both causes cooperate infertility of the highly cultivated and frequent deaths among the vicious, debased, and poverty-stricken population of our large towns. savage state, only the latter cause would operate to any considerable extent. But as we pass to a higher civilization, and approach the last stages of human existence, the opportunity for this cause will, as I think, disappear and the other come into fuller operation, and control the conditions of society and the destinies of man. And thus we shall have a state in which there will be and can be no over-population, and that too without death-rates increased by starvation, or by any other cause or influence than such as men and women choose to impose on themselves, irrespective of any question as to the ways and means of raising and providing for the children that may happen to be born to them.

256. Inference from the foregoing.

Taking then the two elements, (1) rate of increase of production, and (2) rate of increase of population, into consideration together, and considering the controlling causes that influence the nature of the rates, we find that there must come a time when the productions of the soil and the means of human subsistence shall have reached its highest limit, and can go no further; and a time, also, when the ratio of increase to the population will be reduced to unity; and then we shall have no further increase in the total or aggregate population of the earth.

From the nature of the case, the two conditions, though to some extent independent of each other, are not, nevertheless, so independent but that they must occur at about the same time.

260. Reference to the present condition of civilized

nations.

Another general fact will be useful in confirming our position.

In all the nations of Europe and in America, too, for that matter, there has been, indeed within the last three hundred years, a great increase in the density of the population. But there can be no doubt that there has been a greater increase in both

the aggregate and the distributive wealth, also, from which it is evident that the aggregate wealth has increased faster than the population.

This might not be inferred, or admitted even, if we were to look only at the conditions of the poorer classes alone. But if we look into the mansions of the rich and consider their style of living, the amount of the products of labor they consume in the family, their houses and their tables, their wardrobes and their stables, and compare these items of expense with what their ancestors, some three or four hundred years ago, were accustomed to, I think we shall find reason to accept the statement that both the aggregate and distributive wealth have greatly increased.

261. The rate of interest indicates the rate of increase of wealth.

But looking at the rate of interest and the rate of increase of population as independent facts, we deduce a conclusion that is both illustrative and confirmatory of the general doctrine just announced.

The rate of interest indicates the rate of increase in capital: that is, it indicates the rate of increase in distributive wealth, that would result if all the wealth were used as capital-the rate of increase therefore, that is always possible for a nation.

Thus, suppose a man with five thousand dollars capital and employing two men, can make a certain net amount of profit in a year. Now suppose that with one thousand dollars more of capital he could make one hundred dollars more after paying for whatever of additional cost there may be in carrying on the business, arising from this increase in his capital. It is manifest that he will hire that one thousand dollars, if he can get it, for a rate of interest that is less than ten per cent., or one hundred dollars on a thousand; that is, he will pay nearly all he can make more, in consequence of the use of the borrowed money, for the use of that money. But of course he can make that amount only because a thousand dollars capital can be made to produce that additional amount of value. Hence the rate of interest is an indication of the increment in distributive wealth, or the addition that is made to it year by year. If this be great, interest will be high; if small, the rate of interest will be low.

262. This compared with the rate of increase of population.

If now we turn to some of the leading nations of the earth, we find that the rate of increase in population per year, is about as follows;