Over-population and its attendant miseries may not improbably become a more serious subject of consideration than it ever yet has been, owing to improved sanatation and consequent diminution of the mortality of children, and to the filling up of the spare places of the earth which are still void and able to receive the overflow of Europe. There are no doubt conflicting possibilities which I need not stop to discuss.

The check to over-population mainly advocated by Malthus is a prudential delay in the time of marriage; but the practice of such a doctrine would assuredly be limited, and if limited it would be most prejudicial to the race, as I have pointed out in Hereditary Genius, but may be permitted to do so again. The doctrine would only be followed by the prudent and self-denying; it would be neglected by the impulsive and self-seeking. Those whose race we especially want to have, would leave few descendants, while those whose race we especially want to be quit of, would crowd the vacant space with their progeny, and the strain of population would thenceforward be just as pressing as before. There would have been a little relief during one or two generations, but no permanent increase of the general happiness, while the race of the nation would have deteriorated. The practical application of the doctrine of deferred marriage would therefore lead indirectly to most mischievous results, that were overlooked owing to the neglect of considerations bearing on race. While criticising the main conclusion to which Malthus came, I must take the opportunity of paying my humble tribute of admiration to his great and original work, which seems to me like the rise of a morning star before a day of free social investigation. There is nothing whatever in his book that would be in the least offensive to this generation, but he wrote in advance of his time and consequently roused virulent attacks, notably from his fellow-clergymen, whose doctrinaire notions upon the paternal dispensation of the world were rudely shocked.

The misery check, as Malthus called all those influences that are not prudential, is an ugly phrase not fully justified. It no doubt includes death through inadequate food and shelter, through pestilence from overcrowding, through war, and the like; but it also includes many causes that do not deserve so hard a name. Population decays under conditions that cannot be charged to the presence or absence of misery, in the common sense of the word. These exist when native races disappear before the presence of the incoming white man, when after making the fullest allowances for imported disease, for brandy drinking, and other assignable causes, there is always a large residuum of effect not clearly accounted for. It is certainly not wholly due to misery, but rather to listlessness, due to discouragement, and acting adversely in many ways.

One notable result of dulness and apathy is to make a person unattractive to the opposite sex and to be unattracted by them. It is antagonistic to sexual affection, and the result is a diminution of offspring. There exists strong evidence that the decay of population in some parts of South America under the irksome tyranny of the Jesuits, which crushed what little vivacity the people possessed, was due to this very cause. One cannot fairly apply the term "misery" to apathy; I should rather say that strong affections restrained from marriage by prudential considerations more truly deserved that name.