ems. If it were right to
consider pauperism as a gulf of fixed dimensions, we might hope to fill
it by simply taking a sufficient quantity of wealth from the richer
classes. If, as Malthus urged, this process had a tendency to enlarge
the dimensions of the gulf itself, it was obvious that the whole problem
required a more elaborate treatment. By impressing people with this
truth, and by showing how, in a great variety of cases, the elasticity
of the population was a most important factor in determining the
condition of the people, Malthus did a great service, and introduced a
more systematic and scientific method of discussing the immensely
important questions involved.

I will very briefly try to indicate one further application of economic
principles. A critical point in the modern development of the study was
marked by Mill's abandonment of the so-called "wage fund theory". That
doctrine is now generally mentioned with contempt, as the most
conspicuous instance of an entirely exploded theory. It is often said
that it is either a falsity, or a barren truism. I am not about to
argue the point, observing only that some very eminent Economists
consider that it was rather inadequate than fallacious; and that to me
it has always seemed that the theory which has really been confuted is
not so much a theory which was ever actually held by Economists, as a
formula into which they blundered when they tried to give a
quasi-scientific definition of their meaning. It is common enough for
people to argue sensibly, when the explicit statements of their
argument may be altogether erroneous. At any rate, I think it has been
a misfortune that a good phrase has been discredited; and that Mill's
assailants, in exposing the errors of that particular theory of a "wage
fund," seemed to imply that the whole conception of a "wage fund" was a
mistake. For the result has been, that the popular mind seems to regard
the amount spent in wages as an arbitrary quantity; as something which,
as Malthus put it, might be fixed at pleasure by her Majesty's justices
of the peace. Because the law was inaccurately stated, it is assumed
that there is no law at all, and that the share of the labourers in the
total product of industry might be fixed without reference to the
effect of a change upon the general organisation. Now, if the wage fund
means the share which, under existing circumstances, actually goes to
the class dependent upon wages, it is of the h