Suppressed work! On the possibility of limiting populousness : to which is added, the theory of painless extinction / by Marcus.

  • Marcus, active 19th century.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suppressed work! On the possibility of limiting populousness : to which is added, the theory of painless extinction / by Marcus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/48 (page 11)
    6N TEE POSSIBILITY OF Limiting Populousness. CHAPTER x VIEW OF THE SUBJECT. Rut for a strong persuasion that the remedy is neither impossible nor remote, I should not have ventured to display to the world a picture, which, hitherto, it has been wiser to veil and conceal. The greater parts of the truths which form our subject are too visible to have been at any time unknown. But a conventional silence has been observed on so gloomy a matter, and what men might not speak of, they did not habi¬ tually think of. This silence was first broken by MALT KUS: who seems however to have shrunk back, soon after, scared at his own indiscretion. Nevertheless, if a new policy arise, having for its basis the science of population, his name will justly be set to mark the* commencement of that era. For it frequently happens that an author lifts his leaders to a level, from whence they reach immediately to some further discoveries, which they certainly never would have thought of, but for that advanced position, in which, by his labours, they have been placed. Reserving for a future occasion to speak of the works of others wb > have prepared the way, I present, without further apology, the followm enunciations :— Maxim l.—Excess of population is, at once, the main evil, and the main cause of all the other evils which affect human society. All others may by skill and industry be made to disappear, or be, at least, alleviated indefinitely, if once be effected the reduction of this—the Great One. Maxim 2.-—Every superfluous portion of population is not merely doomed itself to degtadation and suffering, but is an agent force, con¬ stantly pul'ing down and deteriorating the order of society to which it immediately belongs, and ultimately, the whole social body in general. Maxim 3._Whenever society, by favour of a casual clearance of population, makes some progress, the return of the excess carries it back again. . , Maxim 4._The steps by which these effects take place are,—the deterioration of feelings and of morals : the cheapness and depreciation of men : the loathsomeness of misery : and the discouragement t© the efforts of the benevolent caused hv the prospect of a fruitless enterprize and a mortifying failure. . But let us once remove’this g*eat obstacle, and all moral evil is moved. And for happiness'Ve may then rely ou our courage, and oo the other consolations whichfeheavea bestows,^ _ .