Note 253-7 — Chapter III

Aristotle had recognized the possibility of over-population. (Polit., II, 4, 3, 7, 4; VII, 4, 5; VII, 14.) Schmitthenner,[TN 106] Staatswisensschaften, I, distinguishes between relative and absolute over-population: the former is remediable by intellectual and especially by political development, while the latter borders on the extreme physical and possible limits of the means of subsistence. W. Thornton, Over-population and its Remedy, 1849, 9, considers a country in English circumstances over-populated when a man between twenty and seventy years of age is not in a condition to support, by means of his wages, 1¼ persons in need of assistance (children under 10, women over 60, and men over 70 years of age).