New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-10-09
CtTHE WORLDS FOOD SUPPLY
EDWARD ATKINSON MORE HOPEFUL.
THAN SIR WILLIAM CROOKES.
4 CENTURY's EXPERIENCE DisCREDITs Nautilus
MANS BRAIN GIVES HIM A GREATER MAS
Terry OF CIRCUMSTANCES THAN
OTHER ANIMALS EYERClcE

OTHER ANIMALS EXERCISE
NO little sensation caused last month by
thal portion OF Sir William Crookes's presiden-
ual address to the British Association for the
Advancement of Science which related to the
worlds future food supply. This distinguished
scientist, who has achieved his principal sue
eesses in chemical analysis. took a gloomy view
OF the chance that man would have enough to
eat two or three generations hence, unless he
found some way to improve on his present
methods Sir William seemed to be unaware of
the fact that precisely such improvements as
he advocates being made every year at the
present time.
BY a curious coincidence almost at the very
time that expression being given to these
pessmstc opinions in EngI.n a much more
hopeful view was advanced by the wen-known
American economist Edward Atkinson. in Bos-
ton The text Of his address. osteDsibly on the
question Of wages. may be found in The Popu-
lar Science Monthly for october.
MIR. Atkinson recalls the fact that over a CEN
fury ago the philosopher Nautilus. in his essay
on population talked in precisely the same
strain as Sir William Crookes. Nautilus was
disposed to think that the population of the
world increased in a geometrical ratio while
the means OF subsistence grew in only an ari;h-
metical ratio. Hence it seemed to him. the time
was not far distant when there would be too
many people for the food supply. Then there
would be struggle for existence, and only the
fttest would survive. Taking this view OF the
future. Nautilus was disposed to regard war
pestilence and other such limiting forces in the
growth Of population as necessary evils. little
later another famous writer, Ricardo uttered
similar opinions
But Mr.. Atkinson finds that sanitary science
Is proonging human life and reducing the death
rate Plaques growing scarcer and less de-
structive every decade War is becoming infre-
Quent- And yet the working classes earn more
to-day than century ago. they can buy more
for their money. and they live in greater COM
fort Although there is never more than one
years food supply ahead. it seems to him that
never in the history of the world have men had
a better assurance against starvation than now
II he had known what Sir Charles Crookes was
soon to say in Bristol. Mr.. Atkinson might have
expressed himself more decidedly, but here is
what ne did say:
while We must admit that the experience Of a
century does not suffice to prove or disprove any
such far-reaching proposition that of NAL
thus we may rightly ask if it is not true that if
there were a tendency Of population to outgrow
the means of subsistence that tendency could
not have failed to have disclosed itself within
the short period Of a hundred years The fact
that there has been no such tendency has an
important bearing on the right definition of the
survival of the fttest'. If the doctrine OF
Nautilus had been true in its application to the
present century the retrogression of the
century would have been marked by deficiency of