11 March 1804

Polit. Economy

Population

1

{ II. Population IV Sponte acta - V Non Agenda. VI Agenda

The support of population may be aimed at in either of two ways - 1. preventing

decrease by deperition: causing encrease.

I. Prevention of Decrease.

1 To prevent deperition is to afford Security: security against the extremity of

all mischief, destruction of man's life. The only reason for action on the part

of government belongs in this case to another head. See the Defence against

external hostility internal hostility, or calamity.

Examples of institutions for preventing deperition -

1. Hospitals for the use of the curable sick and hurt among the poor

2. Hospitals for the incurable sick and helpless.

3. Establishments for the occasional maintenance and employment of the

able-bodied among the poor: viz: of such by whom either the one or the other is

unobtainable from the ordinary sources. By their maintenance, population is

preserved: by their employment, be wealth encreased or no, crimes of idleness

are prevented.

4. Establishments for the prevention or mitigation of contagious diseases

Establishments till now for inoculation, henceforward for vaccination.

Much may be done on the part of government, under this head as well as so many

others, by instruction. More or less requires to be done, in proportion as by

the ignorance of the people, operations of this class are excluded from the

class of Sponte Acta, and thence placed among the Agenda.

II. Causation of Encrease.

Institutions on the part of government, having for their end in view the

causation of encrease of population by births, may best be characterized by a

parallel example - Institutions punishing men for not eating, or for eating food

not sufficiently nourishing: Institutions paying all mankind for eating, with

premiums for those who eat most and oftenest.

To this head may be referred penal laws punishing for what is commonly meant by

infanticide for abortion, for irregularities of all sorts in the venereal

appetite. The apprehension of a deficiency of population for want of the regular

intercourse between the sexes in the way of marriage is altogether upon a par

with an apprehension of the like result from a general disposition in mankind to

starve themselves. Days in a year, 365: average power of and disposition to

procreation, say equal to one act of sexual conjunction per diem the year round.

Number of children capable of being produced between each pair by a single act

of procreation in the first day of the 365, 1; No of do capable of being

produced by an act of sexual conjunction for each day of the year, one and no

more. On these assumptions, The disposition to sexual conjunction in the regular

way is 365 times as great as it need be to the production of the maximum of

effect in the way of population. Halve the ratio, or double it the conclusion

will be the same. Before any the least decrease of population could have been

produced by the uncontrouled indulgence of irregular appetites, the regular

gratification of the regular appetite must have become unnatural to an

extreme.}