ABSTRACT
The law of population first laid down in this country by the Rev. T. R. Malthus in his great work entitled "The Principle of Population," has long been known to every student, and accepted by every thinker. The law of population, tersely stated, is—"there is a tendency in all animated existence to increase faster than the means of subsistence." Nature produces more life than she can support, and the superabundant life is kept down by the want of food. Malthus put the law thus: "The constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it". Acknowledged as an axiom by the naturalist and by the political economist, the law of population has never been appreciated by the mass of the people. The "power of increase" of the human species, according to John Stuart Mill, is indefinite, and the actual multiplication would be extraordinarily rapid, if the power were exercised to the utmost.
