Workmen's advocate., 1889-11-30

principles upon which Malthusanism is based? There are two of them. The first declares that mankind multipies in geometrical ratio; the second, that subsistence increases in an arithmetcal ratio; all of which MalthuS and hls disciples seek to corroborate by data, statistical, historical, agronomical, etc. After a masterly examination of all the Malthusian structures and superstruct. ures in the shape of statistical and historical data, all of which "come ratt- ling down" at the mighty touch of his keen logic, Chernishefsky now con. templates the subject in principia.
 Given hundred people-fifty males and fifty females-placed under the best thinkdble conditions, and whose sole business it is to manufacture chil- dren in all possible hurry, each of them being-say twenty years of age. Now physiology says that the human female, be she ever so much of q MaIthusian, bears, on the average, one child in about two years, and that her chld-bearing capacity ceases when she is about forty four years of age. Or shall we for the admirers of the geometrical ratio make It a child for each year and prolong the period of collaborating until she is sixty, seventy, eighty, hundred years old? (Chernishefsky does not allow such straning of probabilities. But do it for brevity's sake).
 Now, twenty-one years have passed and a new generation is in for the busi- ness of child manufacturing. But is the population living at this moment capable of the same ratio of propagation as were our original hundred people Let us see. How many are there now, at the end of the twenty-tirst year, of twenty years of age? Well, those fifty women could have given birth only to fifty children who are now twenty years of age these being equally divided between the sexes there are only 20 males and 9 females capable of maintaining the original ratio of propagation; while all the rest of the population, being either above or below twenty, are capable of ratio of prOpa- gation necessarily lower than the origi- nal one. The whole population at that moment amounting to fifty times twenty, to which must be added our original hundred, in all HOO individuals, only fifty, that is 4 per cent, are cap. able of the original ratio of propagation. Now, still another twenty-one years pass. Of people capable of maintaining the original ratio will there now be only 75 :: fifty born by the fifty females of the first generation, and p borne by the p females of the second generations; ali the rest of the population, being either older or younger, are only capable of main taining ratio LOWER than tl.e original one. The whole population amounting now to 260O persons, only 75 of them, that is less than three per cent, are capable of the original ratio.
 Following up the line of thought just indicated, anybody knowing the multi plication table will easily find out for himself this fundamental law of popula- ton: With people ptaced under the best hygienic conditions tue rdtio of prop dgatioa DECREASES as the population INCREASES. Chernishefsky, it seems, did not formulate the law. But he gave the method, by which we come to see It. And method is of prime importance. if it is not all, in sociology as well as in all sciences.
 Take It from still anotherpoi of view. Males bear no children, do they? Fe- males of anormally propagating race bear but one child every other year and that only when they are between twenty and forty years of age, period equal to about one third of their lives. suppOsing they live sixty years. That is, one half of the population are capable of child bearing during one third of their lives :; consequently only One-siXth of the pOpu- lation bear children every other year; which means that under normal condi- tions the greatest ratio of increase of population cannot long exceed s per cent, or one-twelfth of its number. Evidently it must take twelve years be- fore the population shall have doubled. But the number, which has thus doubled the original amount, will be found to consist of children less than thirteen years of age; which means that while the population has increased the ratio of propagation has decreased. (Or do you think that children hardly in their teens are capable of child bearingD
 The Malthusian geometrical ratio amounts to this: {: Some pick minded "head of a family", on perCeiving that by the end of the second year of hls mat rimonial experience his family consisted of four himself, wife and two babies) quickly makes the calculation, that If in two years his family has doubled it will by the end of the tenth year lave in creased thirty-two times and forth with shoots himself. The poor man was true Malthusian: he did not see that children below ten years of age bear no children.
 As to the means of subsistence Cher nishefsky proves by ingenious calcu- lations as well as by solid facts that it in creases much faster than is generally admitted, and, surely, as fast as does