of animals, and the arithmetical ratio of
increase in the case of food, contain the vital and irrefutable truth of
the immense disproportion between the power of reproduction in man and
the power of production in food.

Under the normal conditions of life, the population tends constantly to
press upon, and is restrained by the limits of food. The true
significance of the word _tends_ must not be overlooked, or a similar
fallacy to that of Nitti's will occur, when he overlooked the
significance of the term "power to multiply." It is perfectly true to
say, that population _tends_ to press upon the limits of subsistence,
and unrestrained by moral means or man's reason actually does so.

Some social writers appear to think that, if they can show that
production has far outstripped population, that, in other words,
population for the last fifty years at least has _not_ pressed upon the
limits of food, Malthus by that fact is refuted.

Nitti says (Population and the Social System, p. 91), "But now that
statistics have made such great progress, and the comparison between the
population and the means of subsistence in a fixed period of time is no
longer based upon hypothesis, but upon concrete and certain data in a
science of observation it is no longer possible to give the name of law
to a theory like that of Malthus, which is a complete disagreement with
facts. As our century has been free from the wars, pestilences and
famines which have afflicted other ages, population has increased as it
never did before, and, nevertheless, the production of the means of
subsistence has far exceeded the increase of men."

And later on (p. 114) he says "Malthus's law explains nothing just as it
comprehends nothing. Bound by rigid formulas which are belied by history
and demography, it is incapable of explaining not only the mystery of
poverty, but the alternate reverses of human civilization."

Nitti's conclusions are based largely on the fact that while food
supplies have become abundant and cheap, birth-rates have steadily and
persistently declined.

No-one who has studied the economic and vital statistics of the last
half century can fail to be impressed with the change that has come over
the relative ratios of increase in population and food.

Bonar says (Malthus and his Work, p. 165), "The industrial progress of
the country (France) has been very great. Fifty years ago, the
production of wheat was only half of what it is to-day