Jean‐Baptiste Moheau on the Moral Causes of Diminished Fertility

Abstract

This article introduces and gives an excerpt of et considerations sur la population de la France a treatise by Jean-Baptiste Moheau on the moral causes of diminished fertility. When Moheau published Recherches in 1778 he was the personal secretary of the provincial governor of La Rochelle on Frances Atlantic coast. He lived in obscurity and made no further contributions to science but his treatise retains an important place in the history of demography. Moral failings Moheau argued lead to diminished fertility and damage the overall physical quality of the population. Moheau noted the high economic costs of children and implied that economic calculus alone would result in failure to reproduce. Populousness of the State presupposes motivations that transcend material interest which motivations rest on the foundation of moral virtues. Moheaus principle that there is no well-organized Empire without morality is tied to the proposition that without morality there can be no prospect of a numerous population.