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 668 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of privation, sickness, and death, and often domestic war, which are the ordinary lot of poor families, especially where they are large (and, indeed, it begins to be almost a contradictio in adjecto to speak of large rich families).

These considerations I advance on rational grounds. Whether the working classes can be educated in this direction ; whether they are sufficiently advanced to grasp the complex relations of cause and effect in economic and demographic phenomena; and whether it can be expected that they will forego their almost only pleasure, so long as they have no other; or whether we must wait for civilization to do its slow and unconscious work, are questions beyond the scope of this essay.

Although the fate of future generations concerns us very little, I would, before closing this article, add a few considera- tions which, if it is true that they are of no practical importance to us, are not lacking in interest from a scientific and speculative point of view.

Malthus founded his great theory on the truism that, by the law of our nature, we cannot live without food. Unfortunately, he gave his conclusions a mathematical form, which, having been misunderstood and misinterpreted, has had the effect of making his views distasteful. He, moreover, did not anticipate the vast changes in the production and distribution of food that have taken place in the course of the present century, when the progress of the arts and sciences, and the revolution caused in the industrial world by steam locomotion, have made possible an unparalleled increase of the means of existence, at a rate which by far exceeds his supposed arithmetical progression. Leaving aside the question of the relation that the increase of food has borne to the increase of population, and of how far the one has been influenced by the other, let us glance at the possibilities of the future. Mr. Longstaff remarks that, while our exceptional circumstances have made us neglect, and even scorn, the warn- ings of Malthus, the coming generations may have to think of him again ; for, although we may grant that our descendants will progress with the same rapidity with which we have progressed, " no such marvel is in store as the opening up of the present