sequences of his statements. His argument, indeed, even in its amended form, was fatal to systems of equality, but it was not fatal to progress; and he appears, though imperfectly, to have discerned this fact. "Universally," he writes, "the practice of mankind on the subject of marriage has been much superior to their theories; and however frequent may have been the declamations on the duty of entering into this state," "each individual has practically found it necessary to consider of the means of supporting a family before he ventured to take so important a step. That great vis medicatrix reipublicæ, the desire of bettering our condition and the fear of making it worse, has been constantly in action, and has been constantly directing people into the right road in spite of all the declamations which tended to lead them aside. Owing to this powerful spring of health in every state, which is nothing more than an inference from the general course of the laws of nature irresistibly forced on each man's attention, the prudential check to marriage has increased in Europe, and it cannot be unreasonable to conclude that it will still make further advances." But, on the other hand, there are passages which seem to show that he never rid himself entirely of the associations of his first edition. He "was accused," so he states himself, "of not allowing sufficient weight" in his "review of the different stages of society" to "moral restraint"; but he "thought that " he should "not be found to have erred much" on that account. He was not disposed to deny that the sexual passion was "one of the principal ingredients of human happiness," and that its "extinction or diminution" "would probably convert human life either into a cold and cheerless blank or a scene of savage and merciless ferocity." were It was, therefore, "regulation and direction" that wanted, not diminution or extinction." But he believed that "few" of his "readers" could "be less sanguine" than himself "in their expectations of any sudden and great change in the general conduct of men on this subject." And, firmly as he held the opinion that the "system of the poor laws" was the "first grand obstacle" which opposed the accomplishment of such a change, and emphatically as he declared that that system had "been justly stated to be an evil, in comparison of which the national debt, with all its magnitude of terror," was "of little moment," he still felt that the "evil" was "now so deeply seated, and the relief given by the poor laws so widely extended, that no man of humanity could venture to propose their immediate abolition." He himself "would never wish to push general principles too far," and he only proposed "the gradual, and very gradual, abolition of the poor laws." Nor, again, did he form any very definite or consistent conception of the considerations which entered into the thoughts of the man who practised moral restraint. Sometimes he writes as if they were confined to the provision of the means requisite to secure the necessaries of a bare subsistence. Sometimes he includes considerations of rank and social status for the man himself and of education for his children. "The comforts of the lower classes of society," he writes in one passage, "do not depend solely upon food, nor even upon strict necessaries." And in another he says that "two or three steps of descent in society, particularly at this round of the ladder where education ends and ignorance begins, will not be considered by the generality of people as a chimerical but a real evil." To this side of Malthus' argument, as to that connected with the increase of food, later economic inquiry has added an element of elasticity which is more prominent than it seems to be on his pages. It is now stated with greater emphasis than he can be said to have employed, that the 'standard of comfort,' which under the form of 'moral restraint' exercises an influence on marriage and the rearing of children, is not limited to the physical minimum of a bare existence, but is based on a moral minimum of decencies, comforts, and luxuries, below which men or women will not willingly sink, by incurring the expense attendant on marriage. The standard may vary from class to class, and from country to country; and it may be, and as a matter of fact it has been, raised from age to age, and generation to generation. The element of food no longer enters so largely as it once did into the component parts of the standard in a civilised and progressive country like England,, and the marriage rate conforms rather to the general fluctuations of trade, with its alternating periods of prosperity and depression, than, as it once seemed to do, to the rise and fall of the price of wheat. The iron' law of wages, : which is represented by some socialist writers as ever forcing wages down to the level of a bare subsistence, and by others as tending to make them conform to the requirements of the standard of comfort, because, if they rise above this level, population will grow and competition for employment increase, loses much, if not all, of its hard and unyielding character when subjected to the test of the modern interpretation of the standard. This emphatic recognition of the elastic nature of the standard of comfort is an important modification which has been introduced into Malthus' reasoning by later economic study; but that study has only served to confirm, though some of its exponents have treated the confirmation as a fresh discovery, the truth of his observation that "even poverty itself, which appears to be the great spur to industry, when it has once passed certain limits, almost ceases to operate." A degradation of labour' may follow on some very serious and extensive economic calamity, before which the restorative influence of the standard of comfort is powerless; and in the same way it has been urged that it needs a long spell of a considerable increase in wages to elevate that standard. The standard, in short, offers resistance to change; but it cannot prevail against the influence of a sudden change of great magnitude, or a gradual change of a persistent character. Another important commentary on Malthus' Essay, which subsequent study has brought into prominence, is suggested by the reflection that we have not yet arrived at a full knowledge of the physiological laws which govern the increase of population. There may be relations between the nervous strain, which often accompanies a higher standard of material comfort and intellectual acquirements, and the growth of population, which have not yet been completely disclosed or investigated. But, whether the explanation of changes in the rate at which population increases rests on a moral or a physiological basis, the tendency of present economic thought seems on the whole to incline slightly in the opposite direction to that imposed by Malthus on the thought of his own day. He wrote especially for his own time, and he generalised, perhaps unduly, from the facts he was himself witnessing. The practical success he immediately achieved combines with the important and painstaking nature of his inquiries to give him a high place among English economists. CHAPTER III. DAVID RICARDO. 1772-1823. THE THEORY OF RENT. The Industrial Revolution' of the Eighteenth Century-Ricardo's THE close of the last and the beginning of the present century mark a period of momentous importance in English industrial history. The character and methods of industry. then underwent a change of so vast a nature as to earn the name of a 'revolution.' It was on the eve of this change that Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations; but Malthus saw its fulfilment, and he was contemporary with RICARDO, the third of the great writers who are known by the common designation of the 'older English economists.' This 'industrial revolution' transformed the character of |