Malthus, Darwin, and the Concept of Struggle Peter J. Bowler Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1976), 631-650. Stable URL: hutp//links jstor.org/sici?sict=0022. 1037%28197610%2F 12%42937%3A4%30631%3AMDATCO%3E2.0,CO%3B2-1 Journal of the History of Ideas is currently published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup:/www.jstororg/about/terms.hml. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup:/www jstor-org/journals/jhup.heml, Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, STOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals, For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org. bupslwww jstor.org/ Pri May 27 16:17:33 2005,MALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE By PeTer J. BowLER ‘Much has been written on the connection between Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection and the contemporary view of the workings of human society, particularly as expressed in Thomas Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population. Four recent articles have reexamined this relationship from quite different points of view: Peter Vorzimmer and Sandra Herbert have analyzed Darwin's own writings to show the exact nature of the stimulus provided by Malthus;! Robert Young has argued that Darwin’s view of nature can be considered largely as a development of the social debates centered on Malthus’ work;? and Barry Gale has displayed the relationship with social thought in a somewhat wider context." Each of these writers has concluded that Darwin did indeed derive an important element of his theory from Malthus, but the extent to which they treat the theory of natural selec- tion as an outgrowth of social attitudes varies. On one point they all agree, however: Malthus’ work does emphasize a concept of struggle which made it particularly easy for Darwin to recognize the principle of population as a driving force for natural selection. It is this particular point that I wish to examine in more detail here, since I believe that the concept of struggle is far more complex than has sometimes been assumed. I shall suggest, in fact, that a careful analysis reveals a signif- icant difference between the ways in which Malthus and Darwin used the idea of struggle, with the concept that was really important in Darwin's theory occupying only a subsidiary position in Malthus’ work, The relationship between their ideas must thus be judged with some care. The Darwinian concept of struggle —The first requirement for an analysis of this kind is to determine the role of struggle in Darwin’s theory: no easy task, since the English language allows the word “strug- gle” to be used in a number of different senses in this context. The essence of natural selection, however, lies in the differential rates of re- “Peter Vorzimmer, “Darwin, Malthus and the theory of natural selection,” JH, 30 (Oct. 1969), 527-42: Sandra Herbert, “Darwin, Malthus and selection,” Journal of the History of Biology, (1971), 208-17, *Robert M. Young, “Malthus and the evolutionists: the common context of bio- logical and social theory,” Past and Present, No. 43 (May 1969), 109-45. Young has ‘extended his analysis in @ number of wider-ranging papers: “Darwin's metaphor: does nature select?” The Monist, $5 (1971), 442-503, and “Evolutionary biology and ideology: then and now.” Science Studies, 1 (1971), 177-206. "Barry G. Gale, “Darwin and the concept of a struggle for existence: a study in the cextrascientific origins of scientific ideas," Isis 63 (1972), 321-44 eat632 PETER J, BOWLER production which result from the success or curring within a species. Animals with a favorable vai that helps them to adjust to a change in the environment, will get more food and be healthier than the average, and will thus tend to produce more offspring sharing their particular character. Conversely, animals with an unfavorable variation will get less food; they will be less healthy and will have fewer offspring, and in harsh circumstances will be climinated altogether. To give an imaginary example, from changes in progress on an island, let the ‘organisation of a canine animal become slightly plastic, which animal preyed chiefly on rabbits, but sometimes on hares; let these same changes cause the umber of rabbits very slowly to decrease and the number of hares to increase; the effect of this would be that the fox or dog would be driven to try to catch more hates, and his numbers would tend to decrease; his organisation, however, being slightly plastic, those individuals with the lightest forms, longest limbs, and best eyesight (though perhaps with less cunning or scent) would be slightly favoured, let the difference be ever so small, and would tend to live longer and to survive during that time of the year when food was shortest; they ‘would also rear more young, which would inherit these slight peculiarities. The less leet ones would be rigidly destroyed.* If we analyze passages such as this carefully, we see that there are, in fact, two quite different concepts of struggle involved. The one which represents Darwin’s most significant insight relates to the competition between the different individuals of the same species to see which of them shall survive and reproduce. This is the real core of the idea of a struggle for existence; for natural selection to work at all, those in viduals with favorable variations must compete with and supplant those which are not so favored. This crucially important element of intra- species competition I shall call “struggle (a).” Itis evident from Darwin's example, however, that “struggle (a)” is related to another concept, namely, that of the struggle of the doz species as a whole against its environment. In the above passage this emerges as the struggle against challenges imposed by the changing na- ture and limited supply of the other species which serve as food. This concept of inter-species struggle I shall call “struggle (b),” and we know that Darwin was made aware of its existence quite early in his career through his reading of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology. Through his discussion of the work of de Candolle, Lyell showed that struggle (b) ‘was not confined to animals, nor was it solely concerned with limitations of food supply. Thus different species of plants will compete for suitable space in which to grow: ‘Darwin, “Essay of 18 (Cambridge, 1958), 119-20. * in Darwin and Wallace, Evolution by Natural SelectionMALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 633 “All the plants of a given country,” says De Candolle, in his usual spirited style, “are at war with one another. The first which establish themselves by chance in a particular spot, tend, by the mere occupancy of space, to exclude other species—the greater choke the smaller, the longest livers replace those which last for a shorter period, the more prolific gradually make themselves masters of the ground, which species multiplying more slowly would otherwise fil.”* Ithas often been said that Lyell failed to anticipate natural selection be- cause he saw struggle only as a negative factor, an effect that could weed out weak or ill-adapted species but could not create new ones. But the above quotation and the subsequent examples given by Lyell suggest an even more significant limitation: Lyell’s sense of struggle in nature did not extend far enough for him to appreciate that it must also occur among the individuals of the same species. In other words, Lyell was concerned with struggle (b), and his influence does not explain how Darwin was able to link this with struggle (a), Before we turn to consider the relationship between struggle (a) and struggle (b) in Darwin’s theory, we must note that both of these overlap with a third kind of struggle. Whenever a predator/prey relationship is involved in struggle (b), there is an inevitable tendency to speak of the carnivorous species’ primary way of getting food as the result of strug- gle, In Darwin's example, the dog killing a rabbit or hare for food may be regarded as a classic example of the kind of natural struggle which characterizes Tennyson's vision of “‘nature red in tooth and claw.” This is a special case, an intensification of struggle (b) in which the animal ob- tains its food by violence. But of course struggle (b) is not always violent in this sense—we should hardly call the rabbit eating its own food a case of this kind of struggle, nor the kind of competition among plants described by Lyell. The same distinction can be made in the case of struggle (a). Two dogs fighting over a carcass or over hunting territory may be said to be struggling in this more intensive sense, although two rabbits competing for the same patch of grass might quite possibly not resort to actual violence. Ability to crop the grass more quickly might be the deciding factor, but the competition would be no less deadly in the long run, despite the lack of violence or open struggle. Thus in many ways the superficial concept of struggle associated with the actions of carnivorous animals is something of a red herring in the analysis of Darwin's theory. It is not a necessary part of either struggle (a) or struggle (b), and from the beginning Darwin seems to have recognized this. We must thus be very careful not to ascribe too much influence to the Tennysonian view of natural violence. Along with other factors it may have helped to convince Darwin of the intensity of struggle, but it does not in itself explain his crucial interest in struggle (a). Lyell, Principles of Geology, 2nd ed. (London, 1833), 11, 136.634 PETER J. BOWLER Let us turn now to the relationship between struggle (a) and struggle (b) in Darwin’s theory, and to the role of Malthus’ work in determining. the relationship. First of all, it may be observed that the immediate im- plications of Malthus’ principle of population lie in the area of struggle (b): the principle implies that because of the tendency to over-repro- duce, every species will face a constant shortage of food and space. But logically, at least, this does not imply that there must be struggle (a) within each species. Even if there were a constant shortage, some other means besides competition could be employed to decide which animals and plants would live and which would die Periodic catastrophes might simply destroy parts of the population at random, or (as the followers of Lysenko seem to have believed) the weak might voluntarily give up to allow the strong to succeed more easily. Darwin never entertained any such alternative, however; as soon as he appreciated the significance of Malthus’ principle he assumed that the individuals must compete among themselves to decide which will have enough of the limited sup- plies available, The constant pressure of struggle (b) then becomes a driving force which makes struggle (a) more intense and hence more effective in producing natural selection. To make another logical point, the effects which result in differential breeding could still operate even if there were no shortage of food. Given changing conditions, those ani- mals that were more efficiently adapted to the new state of affairs would still be healthier than those that were not, and would rear more off- spring. But Darwin seems to have been unaware of this point, and did not in fact appreciate the importance of struggle (a) until he read Malthus and saw that it would indeed be a struggle for existence, in which the losers would stand an immediate chance of being reduced to the level of starvation because there was not enough food to go around in any case. The real question concerning the origin of Darwin's theory now reduces itself to this one point: Why was Darwin able to connect struggle (a) and struggle (b) in this way as soon as he read Malthus? There are two extreme positions on this issue. The most “internalist” view is that of Sir Gavin de Beer, who holds in effect that the scientific pressures acting on Darwin were enough to ensure that he would make the connection, with Malthus acting only as a stimulus or catalyst be- cause of his emphasis on the intensity of struggle (b).” At the opposite extreme is Robert Young's view, which sees Darwin’s view of nature as essentially an extension of Malthus’ approach, and implies that the con- nection between the two kinds of struggle was already made in the Essay on Population. On this point see the logical analysis of Darwin's theory by Michael Ruse, “Natural selection in The Origin of Species,” Studies inthe History and Philosophy of Science, 1 (1971), 311-51, esp. 326-27, Sir Gavin de Beer, Charles Darwin (London, 1963), 98-100.MALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 635, There are certain arguments which can be brought forward to sup- port the claim that Darwin was driven almost completely by scientific considerations. If we turn to Vorzimmer’s careful analysis of the early development of Darwin's thought, we can see that before Darwin read Malthus he had already decided (1) that the underlying cause of change was related to adaptation and (2) that the actual mechanism adapting species to new conditions would be a counterpart to the activity of the animal breeder or horticulturalist.* Now the breeder works by artificial selection, breeding from individuals with the required characters and not from others. Differentiation between individuals of the same species is the essence of the selective process: hence it can be argued that the only kind of struggle that could have had any meaning for Darwin is struggle (a). But such an attempt to explain the genesis of the theory of natural selection purely in terms of Dar entific requirements founders on the crucial point which Vorzimmer makes, namely, that it was not in fact until he read Malthus that everything fell into place. In terms of the distinction we are using, it seems that Malthus did not just impress upon Darwin the intensity of struggle (b}; he also helped him to connect this with struggle (a) which was essential for natural selection, Unless we resort to coincidence, we must admit that Malthus’ book pro- vided a key which is in some way related to struggle (a) as well as to struggle (b), and our search narrows down to an attempt to define the nature of that key. I believe that there is indeed such a link in Malthus’ work, which by analogy showed Darwin the relationship between the two kinds of struggle. But somewhat paradoxically I shall go on to argue that this link was not really strong or significant enough to substantiate ‘Young’s claim that the Darwinian view of nature arose naturally out of the social attitudes underlying Malthus’ work. Malthus and the concept of struggle —Most of the historians who have regarded Malthus’ work as a source of Darwin's ideas have, I believe, been muddled in their thinking about struggle. They have tended to assume that the idea of struggle in nature or human society is a single, unified idea and hence that because Malthus is clearly talking about a kind of struggle he must in essence have foreshadowed the Dar- winian doctrine, Young in particular argues that Malthus legitimized the belief that nature is governed by a “law of struggle,” and this forms the principal basis of his claim that Malthus and Darwin can be seen as participants in the same debate The distinction between struggle (a) *Vorzimmer, op. ct. esp. 537 "Young also makes the important point that Malthus’ work was a significant contribution to the process by which man himself came to be regarded as a part of na- ture, a process eventually completed by Darwin's theory. But since Darwin began by ‘thinking in terms of animals and only later came to worry about the implications of ex- tending his theory to man, this point does not affect the present issue of the origin of the idea of selection636 PETER J. BOWLER and struggle (b) was introduced above principally to avoid this kind of confusion. We have already seen that the real key to Darwin’s theory is struggle (a), but that Malthus’ work is directly relevant only to struggle (b). Hence Young’s wider analysis could be accepted only if it could be shown in addition that Malthus did, in fact, argue that struggle (b) en- tailed a society based on struggle (a). If he did not make such a connec- tion, the degree of intellectual continuity between his thought and Darwin's implied by Young’s analysis must seem greatly exaggerated. At first sight it is easy—too easy—to assume that since Malthus was certainly associated with the /aissez-faire school of economics, he must have held that society was based on individualism, competition, and hence, on struggle (a). I shall challenge this assumption below by sug- gesting that there is a real conceptual gulf between Darwin's struggle for existence and the laissez-faire philosophy, particularly as represented in Malthus’ work. We cannot simply equate the Jaissez- faire economics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with the social Darwinism of later decades; the one may have evolved from the other, but it did so via an important shift of emphasis which is also represented in Darwin’s view of nature. I do not want to deny altogether that Malthus recognized a connec- tion between over-population and struggle (a), but I believe that he cusses such a link principally in dealing with primitive, not contempo- rary European societies. This is significant, because it provides by analogy just the association that Darwin was looking for, and in its most obvious form. If men in almost a state of nature are driven to struggle one another for the limited supplies of food, with death as the penalty for weakness, this would appeal directly to Darwin, who was himself concerned with animals in a state of nature and was already searching for an effect which would differentiate between fit and less fit individuals. This is the key which Malthus provided, the catalyst which helped Darwin to formulate the theory of natural selection, But if it can be shown that Malthus’ view of contemporary society did not depend on the same element of struggle (a), it would follow that what was central to Darwin's argument was only incidental to Malthus’s. Young's claim that Darwinism arose directly out of the Malthusian debate is based on the assumption that Malthus was concerned to show that contemporary society was based on struggle (a)—after all, it was contemporary rather than primitive society that the debate was really about. For Malthus’ view of society to serve as a human analogy of the Darwinian struggle for existence, it would have to include the belief that the poor and miserable represent the part of the population which has, through weak- ness and inefficiency, lost out against those better endowed in a competi- tion for the available wealth. If once it can be shown that laissez-faire in- dividualism cannot be equated with this kind of struggle (a), Young’sMALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 637 generalizations about the intimacy of the relationship between science and social thought must be viewed with some suspicion, even if it be admitted that Malthus recognized this kind of struggle in primitive societies. There will still be a link, but not the high degree of intellectual continuity Young implies. What at bottom originally drove Malthus to write his Essay was a conviction that the proponents of the idea of human progress—writers. such as Condorcet and Godwin—had completely ignored a purely practical force which negated their philosophical optimism. His inten- tion was to show that the human race naturally tended to increase at a geometrical rate, although held in check by inability to increase the food supply at anything like that rate. The result is that the greater propor- tion of the race must live in an almost permanent state of misery, constantly subjected to famines and plagues which keep the numbers down to a level equivalent to the food supply. This natural inequality of the two great powers of population and of production in the earth and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their effects equal form the great difficulty that to me appears insurmountable in the ‘way to the perfectibility of society. .. . No fancied equality, no agrarian regula- tions in their utmost extent, could remove the pressure of it even for a single century, Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive against the perfectibilty of the mass of mankind.” ‘The emphasis is clearly on struggle (b), on the limitation imposed on the species as a whole by its environment. The “mass of mankind,” the ma- jority of the human race, must be doomed to live in misery whatever the nature of the society, whether primitive, modern, or pseudo-utopian. Naturally, however, Malthus was led to examine the implications of this for the various kinds of society, in particular for their attempts to deal with the problem, and it is among these implications that we must search for any traces of struggle (a) considered as a consequence of struggle (b).. Although the first edition of the Essay contained none of the anthro- pological information introduced as supporting evidence into later edi tions, it did contain a few references to the conditions of primitive societies. Malthus realized that savages would feel the pressure of popu- lation very heavily; he ridiculed the idea of the “noble savage,” pointing out for every one who appears to reach such a state, a hundred die or live in misery.'" At this point, however, he did not suggest that the suc- "Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, asi affects the future improvement of society, with remarks on the speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. ‘Condorcet and other writers (London, 1798) reprinted as Population: the first essay (Ann Arbor, 1959), 6 bid.638 PETER J, BOWLER cessful savage is he who emerges triumphant from a struggle with his neighbors. On the contrary, he is the one who has by chance survived the many perils of disease and starvation which face his people. The stress here is on the privations of savage society as a whole, not on the means by which a few individuals escape the pressure. A far clearer sense of struggle emerges in Malthus’ discussion of the expansions of the “shepherd” tribes of Asia. He argues that the pressure of popula- tion caused each tribe to expand its territory, a process that naturally led to conflict among them. ‘And when they fell in with any tribes like their own, the contest was a struggle for existence, and they fought with desperate courage, inspired by the reflection that death was the punishment for defeat and life the prize of victory.!? Only those that were lucky enough to find themselves a leader skilled in war, an Attila or a Genghis Khan, would make really extensive con- quests. This emphasis on struggle (a) between tribes if not between i dividuals—as an inevitable consequence of population pressure was sup- ported by numerous examples in the later editions of the Essay. Malthus stressed that constant shortage of food causes savage tribes a ways to be at war with one another, each driven by the instinct for self- preservation and knowing that failure or weakness will result in death."* ‘Again, the key phrase “struggle for existence” is used to describe this kind of conflict.'* Gale, in fact, argues that almost the whole first half of the Essay in its later editions is devoted to a description of struggle as it affects various kinds of societies."* But although struggle (a) is recognized, as shown above, it would be an exaggeration to claim that this whole section is devoted to the topic. The real subject is still strug- gle (b), ic., the hardships experienced by the race as a whole when faced with the limitations of food supply. Most of the discussion concerns famine, disease, and social practices aimed at limiting the population; factors which affect the whole population equally and hence have noth- ing to do with struggle (a). Warfare is just one such factor, and the only ‘one which leads to a concept of society based on struggle (a) rather than (b). Darwin read a late edition of the Essay (the sixth) which included the extensive discussion of savage life just described. It seems highly proba- ble that it was this part of the book which influenced him, since primitive societies would obviously suggest the closest analogy to animals in a state of nature, He would thus naturally be led to see that one conse- quence of the tendency toward over-population was inter-tribal conflict, (bid... "Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 7th ed. (London, 1872; repr. 1914), see, eg, the chapter on the American Indians, I, 26-43, Ibid. 60. "Gale, op. cit 337.MALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 639 a real struggle for existence, Even if struggle (a) was not stressed as much as some historians have imagined, he would still have been able to make the obvious connection with his own requirement for a mechanism that would select out the fittest. The fact that Malthus presented popu- lation pressure as a bar to progress, an “anti-evolutionary” factor, would not necessarily prove a stumbling block to him since he was al- ready convinced that evolution did occur in nature. Malthus had, in any case, come to take a slightly more optimistic view in his later editions, holding that a limited amount of progress in a modern society might be possible through public education in the realities of political economy. It is significant, however, that he certainly did not see progress as a result of struggle occurring in society, and this brings us back to the whole question of the extent to which he saw the economic life of his own time as governed by struggle (a). He had never implied that even primitive societies engaged in struggle at the individual level, always speaking in terms of inter-tribal conflict. We must now try to assess the extent to which his association with the individualism of the laissez-faire school can be counted as a new kind of interest in a modern version of the struggle for existence at this level. There can be no doubt that Malthus assumed modern society operated on a basis of self-interest and competition. But whether or not we can associate this kind of competition with the Darwinian struggle for existence is another matter which needs to be considered very care- fully. In his first edition, Malthus noted that it was competition that would drive up the price of food if a higher poor rate were levied and dis- tributed without an increase in the real supply of food."* He also displayed his sympathy with the aims of laissez-faire by arguing that a free market in labor was, in fact, essential for the well-being of society.” He emphasized the prevalence of the spirit of self-interest by arguing that even if the perfect state of society envisioned by writers such as Godwin could ever be established, it would break up at the first sign of scarcity and a system of private property would be reestablished."* This last argument implies that a class of wealthy property owners is almost certain to arise in almost any society, but there is no ex of the argument to suggest that this class will be formed of those indi- viduals who enjoy superior abilities. In fact, Malthus seems to have ac- cepted that once a system of property was established, wealth became a matter of birth and inheritance rather than ability. Competition, in other words, occurred within the different classes and was not seen as a means by which an individual could rise to a higher station. Malthus cer- tainly realized that positive checks such as starvation act only on the poor," but it is possible to bring forward a number of arguments to show "Malthus, Essay (Ist ed),26. bid. 33, Abid, 66°69. ° bid. 25,640 PETER J. BOWLER that it was never his intention to claim that such sufferings were a natural penalty imposed on those who had lost out in a struggle for existence. We may begin by noting that Malthus tended to work with a simple view of society as divided into two classes: a small group controlling enough wealth to escape the general misery, and the great mass of the laboring poor. In other words, for him “the poor” were not an under- privileged minority driven to the bottom of the social scale as a result of their own inefficiency, but the whole laboring population. As we have al- ready seen, one of his first conclusions was that the pressure of popula- tion must result in misery for the great mass of mankind, and this seems to be the origin of his tendency to treat the poor as a single group. As an example of this tendency, we can take his discussion of the plagues which limited the population of Germany during three successive years of the mid-eighteenth century. He writes that when the population rose too quickly “The mass of the people would . .. be obliged to live harder, and a greater number would be crowded together in one house, and it is surely not improbable that these were among the natural causes that produced the three sickly years.” Overcrowding and disease, then, affect the mass of the population, not just a small group which could be considered as the losers in a struggle for existence. With such a view of society it would be difficult for Malthus to stress the negative aspect of struggle (a)—the elimination of the unfit. Nor, indeed, does he imply that the distinction between rich and poor is based on the latter's supe- rior abilities as manifested in a struggle for existence. Whatever the origins of the system of property, he knew that inheritance would soon ensure that wealth became a matter of birth, ie., chance, rather than ability. He spoke of the poor, in fact, as those who have “in the great lot- tery of life, drawn a blank.” Of course, Malthus did in practice recog- nize that there were different levels within the lower class, principally a division between those who have jobs and those who are forced to depend on charity; and we shall return to this below. But in general his emphasis was on the pressures which affect the poorer classes as a whole as a result of their tendency to over-reproduce. The poor were not poor because the rich absorbed the wealth that could relieve their misery—on the contrary, the rich form such a small proportion of the population that they could not possibly relieve the poor even if they de- voted their whole energy and fortune to the matter. The rich, though they think themselves of great importance, bear but a small proportion in point of numbers to the poor, and would, therefore, relieve them of but a small proportion of their burden by taking a share.** ™ Ibid. 41. "bid. 71 [bid 101MALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 641 Nor do the rich maintain their position by oppression. It is their organiz~ ing ability and capital that actually provides work for the poor and opens. up new agricultural land to provide increased food supplies.”* The real problem is that the amount of land is limited, and there is thus a limit to what these efforts can achieve, when measured against the ever-increas- ing number of mouths to feed. Far from presenting the rich as the vic tors over the poor in a struggle for existence, Malthus sees their wealth as a form of responsibility thrust upon them—they may enjoy it to a certain extent, but their ability to use it constructively offers one of the few temporary expedients by which the poor may be relieved. Malthus’ lack of interest in the possibility of a struggle for existence that would eliminate the least able members of society is also illustrated by his belief that poverty and the inevitable shortage of food act as a stimulus encouraging the lazy to work, This point was developed in his first edition, as well as the claim that the poor laws are harmful pre- cisely because they remove this stimulus by giving the poor an auto- matic way out.” At this stage, Malthus was even prepared to argue that the inevitable shortages were a divine provision to ensure that the race did not stagnate. The attack on the poor laws was expanded to major proportions in the later editions of the Essay as he tried to drive home the point about the uselessness of this kind of intervention, but his diminished faith in the divine benevolence underlying the system is evident from the fact that he now stressed the inability of the system to provide work for all those who are willing to do it* Although he admits at one point that those in the workhouses tend to be the “least useful” members of society (meaning perhaps the laziest), this cannot be an absolute distinction.2* Many who could work will still find themselves unable to do so because there will always tend to be more people than jobs. Despite the shift of emphasis in the later editions, the implications of Malthus’ view for the concept of struggle are clear. In his earlier at- tempt to reconcile his system with natural theology, the real danger leading an individual toward starvation was evidently supposed to be laziness, not lack of ability to compete with those more able. Given the appropriate stimulus, all members of the laboring classes will do their best to find work, and the implication that the inefficient would be unsuccessful is not developed. The only ones to suffer more than the average would be the lazy, those who have willingly opted out of the system by preferring abject poverty to work. This is in no way an equivalent to the struggle for existence, in which it is assumed that every individual participates to the best of his ability. In the more pessimistic mood of his later editions, Malthus seems to have acquired a keener "id. 103. ™ Ibid, 122, 29-20. Malthus, Essay (7th ed), H, 87. ™ Ibid. 8.642, PETER J, BOWLER sense of the meaning of the population principle, realizing that the shortage of food will often be so acute that many of those that are will- ing and able to work will still suffer. This was actually implied even throughout the first edition, but was muted by the attempt to reconcile the system with divine benevolence. Under these circumstances the idea of a struggle for existence simply does not emerge. Chance, not superior ability, will determine which of the poor are able to get the limited number of job: Although in the later editions Malthus had lost his theological op- timism, he now began to feel that there might be a practical solution to the problem of excess population, namely, education of the poor. Since the supply of food can never be increased at the same rate as the popula- tion, the number of births must be artificially limited if misery is to be avoided. But Malthus classed birth control as a vice, and hence came to feel that the only solution lay in teaching the whole population the need for moral restraint27 Each man must be convinced that it is his duty to bring children into the world only when he is in a position to provide for them, Malthus felt that such a sense of duty could be built up by appeal- ing to each man’s self-interest, by showing him the personal evils which must inevitably follow from the over-production of children.* To achieve this end and remove the chief obstacle to progress, the govern- ment would be justified in ignoring the principle of laissez-faire to pro- mote the needed education. Here again, Malthus’ solution to the prob- lem illustrates how little concerned he was with a concept of society based on struggle (a). He implies that in the present situation the poor are poor because they are ignorant of the consequences of their actions, not because they are idle, and certainly not because they have lost out in a struggle for existence against the rich. Given adequate education, the pressure of population—struggle (b)—can be circumvented altogether, and whatever tensions exist within the society can be removed. Not only does Malthus avoid the implication that society is, in fact, based on struggle (a), his solution to the problem also reveals that he was far from believing that struggle was necessary to produce progress, the essential point of social Darwinism. Although Malthus’ work challenged the principles of the /aissez~ faire school in some respects, his refusal to identify the spirit of in vidualism and competition with the struggle for existence he recognized in savage societies cannot be counted as part of this challenge. Indeed, this part of his approach is no more than a continuation of that school’s basic view of human nature, which was very far from being a real antici- pation of social Darwinism. It was never the intention of Adam Smith ™ Jbid., 160. On Malthus’ belie that a limited kind of progress might be possible in this way: S. M. Levine, “Malthus and the idea of progress," JH, 27 (1966), 92-108. Malthus, Essay (7th ed), I, 168-68.MALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 643 and his followers to treat the relationship between rich and poor as founded upon struggle. On the contrary, competition was usually vi- sualized as taking place between individuals with the same position in the economy, not between classes, and served as a means of regulating prices to the benefit of all. Thus, for instance, we find Smith himself urg- ing the advantages of competition between merchants because this, just as with competition at every other level of the economy, will hold down Prices for the consumer.” He admitted that occasionally one of the ‘competitors might actually be driven out of business, but this was only an incidental aspect of the mechanism, in no way conducive to the general good. It was for similar reasons that both Smith and Malthus argued for a free market in labor, although Malthus especially knew full well the extreme penalty for failure at this level. Self-interest dictated that an employer would pay the lowest possible wages, and the laissez- Jaire principle held that the workmen should not be allowed to combine in order to drive up wages artificially. But this relationship was not seen as a struggle between the two interests in anything like the Darwinian sense; the workers were not seen as the unsuccessful competitors, forced to accept starvation wages by the triumphant employer. This is a twentieth-century view, conditioned one suspects by both Darwinian and Marxist influences, and bearing no relationship to the spirit of ‘Smith's school. The whole point of laissez-faire was that a combination among the workmen, although it might benefit those individuals at the expense of the employer, would not be for the benefit of other workers or of the economy as a whole. The apparent evils caused by self-interest were ultimately for the advantage of all. A class of wealthy entre- preneurs motivated by self-interest was essential for the expansion of the economy; if the operations of this class were hampered by artificial wage increases, the whole system would suffer, including in the end the bulk of the labor force. Where the modern observer sees cutthroat struggle and exploitation, the laissez-faire school saw a natural harmony between the different sections of the economy, with competition between self-seeking individuals at each level leading to a balance in which all would benefit. Fluctuations of supply and demand could be smoothly accommodated, and the activity of the wealthy ensured eco- nomic development. Malthus in particular saw that competition would spread the constant effect of hardship equally over the mass of the population through the raising of prices, while the opening up of new land offered the only immediate hope of relief. Whatever the realities of the situation, the approach to society upon which the early theories of capitalism were constructed was, as Halévy has pointed out, based on the eighteenth century’s underlying faith in the natural (and by implication divinely planned) harmony of superfi- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776] (repr. London, 1910), 1,322644 PETER J. BOWLER cially divergent interests. As the subtitle of Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees put it, “Private vices [are] public virtues,”" or in Pope's even more famous words: ‘Thus God and Nature link’d the gen’ral frame, ‘And bade Self-love and Social be the same.*? ‘The writers of the later eighteenth century may have developed a more sophisticated economic theory, but at bottom they remained faithful to this vision, so difficult for the modern mind to comprehend. Sympathy may occasionally temper egoism in private life, but on the public level self-interest reigns; God, however, has ensured that this situation will lead to the general good, with the inevitable misery reduced to a minimum. Far from seeing society as a struggle for existence in which the weak suffer and the strong triumph, this view held that things were so designed that competition operated for the benefit of all. The em- phasis was not on those who lose or win in the competition, but on the advantages for the whole society produced by the harmonious tension between conflicting interests. The luxury of the rich is not the prize of strength gained at the expense of the poor and weak, but a stimulus necessary to ensure that those born to wealth use it to the best ad- vantage (i.e., for the public as well as their own private benefit). The collapse of this conception of nature and society as a harmoniously designed system is the central feature of the enormously significant in- tellectual change in which Malthus and Darwin both played significant roles. The real question we face here is: Just how far did Malthus go along the road which leads to the total un-design of the Darwinian view? Clearly he did break away from the belief that the relationship of each species to its environment, or to nature as a whole, is harmonious. But it has been shown above that he did not abandon the idea of natural harmony as far as the internal workings of society are concerned, and to this extent he failed to anticipate Darwin's crucial contribution to the process. ‘The laissez-faire approach to competition may in some respects be seen as an analogy to another typically eighteenth-century concept, that of the “balance of nature.” To the extent that writers of this period recognized the existence of struggle in nature, they tended to give it a beneficent appearance by arguing that the whole system is designed in %E, Halévy, The Growth of Philasophic Radicalism (repr. Boston, 1955), 13-18. On the relationship between Smith and Malthus: ibid, 25-48, "'The claim that Mandeville was a precursor of the laissez-faire school has been disputed; for a discussion which shows how he can be at least partially related to the tradition: Nathan Rosenberg, “Mandeville and laissez-faire,” JHI, 24 (1963), 183-96; also Philip Harth’s introduction to the reprint of The Fable of the Bees (Har- mondsworth, Middlesex, 1970). Pope, An Essay on Man, epstle 3, Works (London, 1751), 111,70MALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 645 such a way that each species is kept in check by the activity of others which prey upon it or serve as its food. Nature as a whole is a balanced, harmonious system in a state of dynamic equilibrium—any slight distur- bance such as the overexpansion of one species is immediately cancelled out by the appropriately stimulated activity of others. Both the balance of nature and the laissez-faire view of competition were based on the belief that nature and society are fundamentally harmonious systems in which apparent conflict serves for the benefit of all. Malthus certainly challenged the element of harmony in the balance of nature, replacing it with a sense of what we have called struggle (b). His work is a milestone in the process by which nature came to be seen as a potentially un- balanced system, in which species achieve only temporary stability at the expense of considerable suffering. But he did not challenge the other aspect of natural harmony as represented by the laissez-faire view of competition. Although he broke down the principle by arguing for government intervention in education, he still believed that the normal operations of society produced the best possible harmony under the cir- cumstances. His ultimate solution rested on the conviction that once the pressure of population was avoided, major social evils would disappear. Having replaced the natural harmony between species with struggle (b), he was still a long way from recognizing that harmony within the species should perhaps be abandoned in favor of the element of struggle (a) later accepted by the social Darwinists. Reactions to Malthus.—The reactions to Malthus’ Essay were far too many and various for us to deal with them in detail here, but two that are mentioned in Young’s survey of the debate are of particular interest. William Paley and Thomas Chalmers both tried to evade the implications of Malthus’ point by incorporating it into a theological system, yet both in some way represent only an extreme to which some of Malthus’ own attitudes could be pushed, and thus show how far both sides of the debate were from moving toward a view of society based on struggle. Paley included a brief discussion of the population issue in his Natural Theology of 1802, making it clear that although ostensibly a convert, his real intention was to subvert the spirit of Malthus’ doctrine and incorporate it into the traditional argument from design. In effect, Paley did not accept that the population tends to expand to excess—he simply claimed that the number of people in any area will rise until the supply of goods reaches a degree of scarcity “as must leave the greatest part of the inhabitants unable to procure them without toilsome endeavours, or, out of the different kinds of these articles, to procure any kind except that which is most easily produced.”** In other words, extensive starvation never occurs, but the normal condition of most countries is such that the mass of people must work hard to earn a liv- Paley, Natural Theology, Works (London, 1819), 1V, 395.646 PETER J. BOWLER ing. This both explains and justifies the fact that society must rest on the basis of a large class of laboring poor; the implication is that hard work is good for you, and God has ensured that you must do it. Lest this be seen as just an attempt to placate the poor by showing them the inevi- tability of their position, Paley went on to point out that material wealth is not everything, nor should we fall into the trap of believing that those who are given the responsibility of leadership are necessarily happy. Al- though his moral philosophy was based on a theologically modified util tarian individualism, it is clear that Paley had no intention of presenting society as a struggle for existence. His whole view reflects the earlier belief in the natural harmony of nature and society. Yet his discussion does no more than draw out the logical conclusion of the theological reconciliation that Malthus had himself attempted in his first edition. The ultimate implication of this is to deny the real pressure of struggle (b) itself, and Malthus soon realized the incompatibility of this particular section with the rest of his book. But as far as the internal ‘workings of society are concerned, the fact that Malthus began from a viewpoint quite similar to that of Paley illustrates how far he was from recognizing a real element of struggle (a). The real message of both Paley’s discussion and Malthus’ first edition was that if any suffer more than the average degree of misery, it is because of laziness, not the fierceness of the competition A rather more realistic response to Malthus came from the pen of Thomas Chalmers, who was commissioned to write the first volume of the series of Bridgewater Treatises that were meant to expand the scope of Paley’s natural theology. In this and other works Chalmers ex- pounded a forceful view of society, the seeds of which may again be found in some of Malthus’ own opinions. He made no attempt to cover up the extent of the suffering that results from overpopulation, although he did try to show that it served a definite purpose as designed by the Creator. We can see, in the words of one of his chapter headings, “the capacities of the world for making a virtuous species happy.” The point is that many are not virtuous, and we can interpret their sufferings as a well merited punishment. In Chalmers’ opinion we should not be surprised to find that the character of the Deity is such that He allows the wicked and lazy to suffer—this was exactly where Paley's attempt to see benevolence in everything broke down. Since suffering is the result of ignorance of one’s duty, education is the main solution to the problem, a view that differed from Malthus’ later opinions only in that Chalmers favored the Bible as a source of the necessary virtue. This similarity again reveals how both Malthus and his opponents failed to “Chalmers, On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as manifested in the ‘adaptation of external nature 10 the moral and intellectual constitution of man (London, 1839), I, 101-33, my italics.MALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 647 recognize that society might be based on struggle (a)—both he and Chalmers were well aware of the extent of the suffering in society, but instead of holding this to be the penalty for weakness in the sense of inefficiency, they believed that it could be eradicated by means of sui able education. Conclusion —If the distinctions made in the above analysis of Malthus’ work are valid, it will be necessary to examine with some care the claim advanced by historians such as Young that Malthus and Darwin were participating in different aspects of the same debate, What we have discovered certainly does not imply that Darwin owed nothing to Malthus, as some of the more internalist historians of science have claimed. On the contrary, it is clear that his emphasis on the pressure of the environment on a population always tending to expand—what we have called struggle (b)—was very important in supplying the driving force for natural selection. Furthermore, it has been shown that in analysis of primitive societies, Malthus did recognize that struggle (b) gives rise to struggle (a), i.e., competition within the species in which the weakest succumb and the strongest triumph. Here was the essential ele- ment of Darwin’s theory, needing only the conviction (which Malthus himself explicitly opposed) that vari turn it into the concept of natural selection. It seems highly probable that Darwin's interest in animals in a state of nature allowed him im- mediately to appreciate the significance of Malthus’ view of primitive societies. But does this really justify the claim that their ideas were simply part of one wider debate? My contention has been that we must be very cautious in making such sweeping claims, and that Young’s ac- count implies an exaggerated degree of intellectual continuity between them. This counter-argument is based on the belief that Malthus did not extend his concept of struggle (a) to modern society, remaining instead within the confines of a totally different system of social thought. A simple claim that Malthus moved at least one step toward Darwinism by emphasizing the constant imbalance of nature would not be hard to substantiate, and at this level his influence has an obvious significance. But Young goes far beyond this, claiming that Malthus ‘le- gitimized the idea of a law of struggle” as well as “impressed Darwin with the intensity of struggle.” His emphasis on the role of struggle as a link between them seems to carry the implication that Malthus an- ticipated at the social level what Darwin was to apply to nature, in effect that in some degree Malthus foreshadowed the ideas of the social Darwinists. This implication emerges because of the deficient analysis of the concept of struggle that underlies the whole of Young’s account. By assuming that there is really only one “law of struggle,” he leaves us to Malthus, Essay (Ist ed), 58. Young, op. clt,"*Malthus and the evolutionists,” 130,648, PETER J, BOWLER imagine that once he has demonstrated Malthus’ concern for such a law, he has shown us the vital link between his work and the theory of natural selection. I have argued in contrast that such an assumption still eaves us in the dark as far as a real understanding of the origins of Darwin's ideas is concerned, and that once we begin to analyze the con- cept of struggle more carefully, gaps appear in the succession of ideas that Young presents as continuous. Darwin's theory was based on a subtle combination of what we have called struggle (a) and (b), but Malthus’ view of his own society recognized only struggle (b) and gave the mechanism of competition a role completely different from that im- plied by struggle (a). For Malthus, and indeed for the whole laissez-faire movement from which Malthus did not escape in this particular, com- petition was a phenomenon which operated for the benefit of all by spreading the effect of scarcity smoothly and fairly over the whole popu- lation by means of price adjustments. It did not correspond to struggle (a), in which the weakest would go to the wall after losing out to the strong, nor did Malthus imply that such a struggle could ever serve as a means to progress. Darwin did not borrow the vital concept of struggle (a) from the participants in the Malthusian debate, since Malthus himself was no more a proponent of such a view of contemporary society than were Paley and Chalmers, whom Young discusses to show how more conservative thinkers tried to evade the issue of population pressure. The connection between struggle (a) and struggle (b) came only from Malthus’ account of primitive societies and in no way reflects the view of early nineteenth-century society accepted by the political ‘economists. By raising struggle (a) to the status of a major driving force in nature, Darwin added a new dimension which cannot be seen as a continuous development from the earlier social debates. The corresponding development of social Darwinism in the later nineteenth century extended the role of struggle (a) to make it a social as well as a biological effect. The laissez-faire principle was maintained, but it was no longer allowed to rest on the assumption that economic activity was stimulated solely by a more or less fixed wealthy class. Development was now to be ensured by allowing everyone his chance to participate in the struggle for economic superiority (hence the doc- trine’s special appeal in America), and those who failed would have to pay the penalty. In contrast, it should be noted that Karl Marx in- troduced a totally different concept of struggle which relates neither to the Malthusian nor the Darwinian model, although Marx praised Darwin's work as a great contribution to the growth of the naturalistic outlook. He objected strongly to Malthus’ implication that poverty was a naturally inevitable phenomenon, relating it instead to the struggle between the classes. Although he recognized that capitalism was based ‘on competition between individual members of the ruling class, Marx still held to the un-Darwinian assumption that the classes were rela-MALTHUS, DARWIN, AND THE CONCEPT OF STRUGGLE 649 tively fixed, at least within a particular economic situation. In effect he stressed a totally different kind of intra-species struggle that could hope to be resolved by the eventual production of the classless society. To argue that Darwin’s use of struggle (a) cannot be connected directly with the social theory of the early nineteenth century does not, of course, mean that this aspect of his system has no relation: ciety itself, Indeed it opens up the possibility of an even more interesting kind of connection: if we accept that life or death competition was in fact, the spirit of early capitalism, then Darwin’s theory could be seen as a reflection of society as it really was, not as it was represented in the academic debates of the political economists. As the century progressed, there does seem to have been a gradual recognition of the fact that society was based on struggle (a). Gale, for instance, cites a number of novels and other general works to show that there was a “Victorian competitive ethos,” and suggests that Darwinism parallels this growing realization of the true state of society.*” Such an approach has interesting implications, however, since it would seem that as far as both social theorists and scientists were concerned, this realization ‘came about far more slowly than we might at first expect. There is some evidence to suggest that the /aissez-faire approach to competition not only served as the basis of the Malthusian debate, but gave way only very gradually to the spirit of social Darwinism even in the later decades of the century. Robert C. Bannister has argued recently that historians such as Richard Hofstadter have consistently overestimated the role of social Darwinism in late nineteenth-century thought." Even Young admits that Herbert Spencer—usually seen as a founder of social Darwinism, and certainly the most extreme of the later proponents of laissez-faire—did not make much use of struggle in his view of society” and this is confirmed by J. D. Y. Peel's recent biography"? On the scientific side, A. Ellegdrd’s survey of the Darwinian debate reveals that although Darwin made many converts to evolution in the decade after 1859, he convinced few general writers of the truth of natural selec- tion—surely an indication that few were as yet prepared to appreciate the significance of struggle" This fits in with the fact that most scien- Gale, op. cit, 342-43, Robert C, Bannister, “The survival of the fittest is our doctrine: history or hist conics?" JH, 31 (1970), 377-98; Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought (Boston, 1955) Young, op. cit, "Malthus and the evolutionists,” 134-37. Young points out that, to the extent that Spencer did occasionally speak of struggle, he does not seem to have derived this from Malthus. This seems a significant point in view of the analysis of Malthus’ work presented above. “J.D. Y, Peel, Herbert Spencer: the evolution of a sociologist (London, 1971). “1A. Ellegird, Darwin and the General Reader. The reception of Darwin's theory of evoluion in the British periodical press (Goteburg, 1958), 272-73; ef, idem, JHI, 19 (1958), 379-87.650 PETER J, BOWLER tific discussions of evolution before 1859, and a good many after that date, centered on the idea of divinely planned organic development, as presented in Robert Chambers’ anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844).® Only a handful of scientists actually arrived at the principle of natural selection independently of Darwin, and the only important one—A. R. Wallace—did not make the crucial step until approximately fifteen years after Darwin. I have recently argued that in fact Wallace’s initial concept of natural selection differed significantly from Darwin’s, the difference being particularly important in the present context? Wallace stressed competition between established varieties within a species, not competition between individuals, and this implies that he too escaped the influence of social individualism. Taken together, these points suggest that even if nineteenth-century society was based on struggle (a), the political economists as well as the scientists were remarkably slow in recognizing the fact. Darwin himself emerges as a leading figure, who took a signifi- cant step beyond the social philosophy of his day as represented in the Malthusian debate, and whose influence was probably responsible for a good deal of the gradually awakening interest in struggle at the end of the century. Perhaps the ultimate success of Darwin’s theory in dealing natural phenomena is one of the leading factors that encouraged us to see our own and earlier societies as based on struggle. If the in- tellectual life of a period reflects the social realities of the time, it does so only indirectly, and those who are immediately concerned with an analysis of their own society may not be the first to recognize the signifi- cance of a new concept, even when that concept owes a great deal to the current situation, University of Winnipeg “!M. J. S, Hodge has recently pointed out how Chambers’ intentions have often been misinterpreted by historians who treat his theory merely as an anticipation of Darwinism: “The universal gestation of nature: Chambers’ Vestiges and Explanations,” Journal of the History of Biology. § (1972), 127-52, “See my “Alfred Russel Wallace's concepts of variation,” Journal of the History of ‘Medicine, 31 (1976), 17-29,