Defectives are an additional burden to the State. How shall
population be so regulated as to established an equilibrium between the
stability of the State, and the highest well-being of the citizens?
The combined philosophy of the Greeks counselled the encouragement of
the best citizens to increase their kind, and the practice of the
exposure of infants and abortion.
A century of debate has raged round the name of Malthus, the great
modern analyst of the population problem. He published his first essay
on population in 1798, a modest pamphlet, which fed so voraciously on
the criticism supplied to it, that it developed into a mighty
contribution to a great social problem, second only in time and in
honour to the work of his great predecessor in economic studies, Adam
Smith.
Malthus's first essay defined and described the laws of multiplication
as they apply only to the lower animals and savage man. It was only in
his revised work, published five years later, that he described moral
restraint as a third check to population.
Adverse criticism had been bitter and severe, and Malthus saw that his
first work had been premature. He went to the continent to study the
problem from personal observation in different countries.
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