WCP2133

[1]¹

MILL ROAD INFIRMARY,

LIVERPOOL.²

Oct[ober] 7. [18]99.

Dear Sir

I have just read your book "The Wonderful Century", with I hope both profit and instruction, but what has struck me with intense surprise, surprise the more marked because of the position you have taken up with regard to other very unpopular questions, is your complete and utter silence upon a subject than which there is none other of equal [2] importance. When detailing how you came to think of the method of evolution by means of the struggle for existence, you mentioned that the book which contained the first suggestion of a clue was Malthus' Essay on Population. The checks to population which he showed to be at work in the case of man, you inferred must likewise act upon animals, but throughout the whole of your book on 'The Wonderful Century' you completely ignore Malthus. When you come to [3] the failures of the century you never allude to Malthus', to the part which he has demonstrated the principle of population and its tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence plays in the production of poverty, disease, and crime. How it is apparent to anyone who has studied this question at all that any scheme of social melioration which neglects to deal with this principle of population, foredooms itself to failure. A man in entire ignorance of this question might [4] perhaps advocate the remedies you propose for pauperism, but with the knowledge which you have obtained by studying Malthus', you cannot plead ignorance, and thus demonstrate that you are neither straightforward nor honest in your neglect of his teachings.

You cannot but be aware that in this position you are only doing what the majority of men in this century are likewise doing, as anyone who reads Malthus' knows that adhesion to his principles has be[en] given by William Pitt, Hallam, James Mill & John Stuart Mill, [5] Ricardo, and Lord Salisbury, Mr, Balfour & Mr. Chamberlain of our own day. In spite of this acknowledgement t of the truth of the principle of population, to be afraid² of publicly mentioning it and of counselling [sic] the people on how they may achieve the restraint of over-population, "which is the one² social arrangement by which want can be permanently eliminated", is to render the practical outcome of your book on this question negative [6] and of no value. For my own part, having satisfied myself of the truth of Malthus' contentions and moreover from my own experience being aware of the evil attending late marriages, I have become a member of the Malthusian League (which exists for the purpose of spreading a knowledge of the law of population) and of its Medical Branch, and it is to me a by no means edifying spectacle to notice the way in which this movement and this question is persistently and systematically [7] ignored by those who on other questions are not so backward in acting as the world's authorities, teachers and guides.

I remain | Yours sincerely | F.S. Pitt-Taylor. M.B.

P.S. This is one of the failures you did not mention.

F.S.P-T.