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The overpopulation which Malthus feared, so far from being an evil, has been shown by the labors of Darwin to be the condition essential to the working of the process of natural selection in the human species. Overpopulation, at least until artificial selection arrives, is not an evil, but a good in human society.
Yet, when the war is over, if not before, we always find that "a place in the sun," "a path to the sea," "a route to India" or something of the sort is at the bottom of the trouble. These are merely other names for expansion. The "need of expansion" is only another name for overpopulation. One supreme example is sufficient to drive home this truth.
As naturalist of the "Beagle" during its four years' cruise around the world, Darwin saw many new lands and observed varied circumstances under which the organisms of the tropics and other regions lived their lives. The fierce struggle for existence waged by the denizens of the jungle recalled to him the views of Malthus regarding overpopulation and its results.
Of course, the impulse must come from the people themselves. We must seem to resist it, the better to arouse it." He bent the paper-knife into a bow with fingers that were rigid. "Times are hard, factions are bitter, our cabinet is in danger, with economic and political chaos from overpopulation in sight," he continued. "We hunger for land, for fresh opportunities for development.
While the low birth-rate among the cultured classes whose condition was the prototype of the general condition under economic equality was refutation enough of the overpopulation objection, yet there is another and far more conclusive answer, the full force of which remains to be brought out.
Everywhere this species seems seized with an aquatic fervor, and in localities hundreds of miles apart I have seen them gradually desert their fly-catching for surface feeding, or often plunging, kingfisher-like, bodily beneath, to emerge with a small wriggling fish another certain reflection of overpopulation and competition.
Some of their rivers, as the Oxus and Jaxartes, have, within the records of history, been dry for several years. To these topographical changes, rather than to political influences, we must impute many of the most celebrated tribal invasions. It has been the custom to refer these events to an excessive overpopulation periodically occurring in Central Asia, or to the ambition of warlike chieftains.
The doctrine of natural selection took form in the mind of Darwin mainly on account of three potent influences; these were, first, the geological doctrine of uniformitarianism proposed by Lyell, second, his own observations of wild life in many lands and his analysis of the breeder's results with domesticated animals, and third, the writings of Malthus dealing with overpopulation.
As the size of a man's family, or his power to reproduce, was an index to his favor with the Almighty the pleasure of the "Lord" in this matter being but the reflection of his own desires, the result as might reasonably be expected was overpopulation to such an extent that the means of subsistence within the small boundary of Judea was inadequate to supply the demands of the swarming masses of "God's children" children which had been created for his honor and glory.
There was wealth out here ... and opportunities for power. With the overpopulation at home, Earth was looking more and more to Mars and Venus for a place to move ... not tiny colonies, but places for millions of people. And as Mars grew, Jupiter Equilateral grew." "But it was just a mining company," Tom said. "At first it was, but then its interests began to expand.
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