The Restrictive Law of Population

Abstract

IN his Huxley Memorial Lecture under this title, delivered on May 4, Prof. Johan Hjort, of the University of Oslo, dealt with a subject which exercised a decisive influence upon the thought of Huxley: the question of over-population (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. Is. net). Prof. Hjort assumes that human society can be studied as a historical group of diverse individuals living in a restricted complex environment, and shows that biology has disclosed the many and various factors which influence the vital processes of the individuals comprising a population and determine the quantity and quality of the population as a whole. He defines an optimum population as the minimum number of individuals who can utilise to the full the vital possibilities made available by one or other of these factors. Incidentally, he surveys the fishing and whaling industries as examples, and illustrates his point that the conditions in both depend upon the power of regeneration shown by the stock. In the case of the whale, technical developments have produced a grave disharmony between the reproductive rate and the death rate, and the problem before the industry is that of defining the optimum catch. Restriction of the numbers killed is urgently demanded, but this requires both State intervention and international agreement.