e expected to
allow the force of habit to operate, to accustom the men to a better
mode of living and forestall the conduct that would bring them down to
their old position. The standard of living, of course, will affect
wages only by controlling the number of laborers, and the
discouragement due to Malthusianism lies in the fact that it seems to
say that the number of workers is foreordained to increase so quickly,
after a rise in wages, as to bring them to their old level. Whether it
does or does not do this is a question of fact, and the answer is a
very clear one. The higher standards actually have come from the
higher pay, and they have had time to establish themselves.
Subsistence wages have given place to wages that provided comforts,
and these again to rates that provided greater comforts and modest
luxuries; and the progress has continued so long that, if habit has
any power whatever, there is afforded even by the Malthusian law
itself a guarantee that earnings will not fall to their former level
nor nearly to it.

_A Radical Change in Theory._--Progress is self-perpetuating. Instead
of insuring a retrogression, it causes further progress. The man who
has advanced from the position in which he earned a bare subsistence
to one in which he earns comforts is, for that very reason, likely to
advance farther and to obtain the modest luxuries which appear on a
well-paid workman's budget. "To him that hath shall be given," and
that by the direct action of economic law. This is a radical departure
from the Malthusian conclusion.

_Three Possible Conditions for the Wage-earning Class._--Workers are
in one of three possible conditions:--

(1) They may have a fixed standard and a very low one. Whenever they
get more than this standard requires, they may marry early, rear large
families, and see their children sink to their own original condition.

(2) They may have a fixed standard, but a higher one. They may be
unwilling to marry early on the least they can possibly live on, but
may do so as soon as their pay affords a modicum of comfort.

(3) They may have a progressive standard. There may be something
dynamic in their psychology, and it may become a mental necessity for
them to live better and better with advancing years, and to place
their children in a higher status than they themselves ever obtained.

_A Historical Fact._--The manner in which Malthus was actually
interpreted was as much due to the condition o