Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2074..

The 18 original, small notebook pages stored with Item 2073 contain, besides a note on population, early versions (1932-1937) of three poems — Plea to the Lord, Eusyntrope, Conscience — and two of “The Biologic Refutation of Malthus Epitomized,” the last amended in several places in pencil as follows here.

Original is in item 2073.

THE BIOLOGIC REFUTATION OF

MALTHUS EPITOMIZED

     In any type of organism the shorter its life, the greater the perils to its existence and the danger of its extinction, the more essentially prolific it becomes. A plant cut down in mid-season springs up again only to bear seeds. Those animal forms the conditions of whose existence include the greatest hazards bear the most numerous young. Those states and conditions of society in which men are most like to perish make them most prone to reproduce. It is nature’s lesson and nature’s law that /a/ population’s rate of increase diminishes when its subsistence and security and its length of days increase. Nature strives ever for the higher organic forms and relationships and, as she achieves quality and value and beauty, she casts aside that quantitative prudence by which alone she lifts her living forms to these.