Abstract
Whereas the history of demography as a social science has been amply explored, the construction of the concept of population has been neglected. Indeed, when specialists in the history of ideas quote, sometimes quite ritually, the few authors who have contributed to the development of demographic thought over the centuries, they systematically ignore a noteworthy paradox: strictly speaking, these great intellectual figures have not put forward demographic theories or doctrines as such, especially before Malthus, but they have certainly given some thought to population at both levels. Let us briefly define the three words population, doctrine and theory to be able to deal better with this paradox.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Skinner (1969: 11–12).
- 3.
- 4.
1969: 16–22.
- 5.
Let us reject an elementary explanation for the number 5,040. When Plato proposed this number, he did not refer to the actual population of Athens in the sense it is understood today, calculated on the basis of archaeological excavations and historical research. Plato chose the number for its mathematical qualities, 5,040 being divisible by all prime numbers below 12 except 11.
- 6.
Needless to say, “decisive” does not imply a fully deterministic process, but simply that taking into consideration the context greatly helps to understand the rise and development of ideas.
- 7.
See Charbit (2009).
- 8.
Later, when the industrial revolution reshaped European societies, contemporaries gave more and more importance to social scales, namely differences between a particular social class and the country’s total population. For example the proletariat of the Industrial Revolution was reproached for being too fertile whereas the average fertility rate in France or in England was considered “satisfactory”. Data available from the middle of the nineteenth century confirmed the differences in fertility between the different social classes, which in turn fully explains the opinions expressed at that time.
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Even during a relatively short period, there was a marked contrast between the physiocrats, who wrote in the mid-eighteenth century, and the French liberal economists who, around 1850, had access to the results of censuses and major social surveys.
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1969: 49.
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Problems of contextualisation and epistemology are as a matter of fact dealt with quite differently by scholars. Foucault defines the “history of ideas” in a simplistic and mocking manner and opposes them to his archaeology of knowledge (1969: 179–183). However, his suggestions are not useful. Skinner (1969, 2001) is clearer and more effective. Bénichou’s Morales du grand siècle and Hazard’s La crise de la pensée européenne (1994) remain models of this type.
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Let us make it clear that all that follows concerns only the Old Testament. The New Testament is based on a completely different logic. As for Catholicism, Prost’s position (1988: 148) is more nuanced than Demeny’s (see below). Though he does not propose any demographic theory, a comparison between the quotation from the Genesis and the one from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians advocating chastity in marriage leads him to conclude that the Catholic Church adopted a moral position which had demographic implications.
- 13.
For example Weeks (1992: 59).
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1967: 8.
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See 1988: 213. The quotation is taken from the Ecclesiastes (5: 11). During the 1930s, there was a lot of emphasis on the origin of the ideas on contraception. See, for example, Himes (1963: 69). It should be noted that in the past the Bible gave rise to interpretations of this kind and that is how Petty calculated the earth’s future population (Rohrbasser, 1999).
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Spinoza: Traité théologico-politique, Simon: Histoire critique du Vieux Tetament. Simon (1638–1712), an Oratorian priest, was deeply influenced by Spinoza and Descartes.
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Levirate: “If one of the brothers dies leaving no son, then it is the duty of his brother to go to the widow and their first son will perpetuate the name of the dead man, so that his family line will continue in Israel.” Deuteronomy, 5: 5–10. Repudiation: Deutoronomy, 24: 1–4. Virginity, adultery: Deutoronomy, 22: 13–28; Numbers, 5: 11–31. For example, “If there is no proof that the girl was a virgin, (…) the men of her city are to stone her to death (…) because she has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was living in her father’s house.” “If a man is caught having intercourse with another man’s wife, both of them are to be put to death.” Taboos related to a woman’s impurity (postpartum or during menstruation): Leviticus, 12: 1–8; 15: 19–33. If it is a boy, 7 days after the birth “until the time of menstruation” then 33 days of “purification of her blood before touching anything that is holy and entering the sacred Tent.” If it is a girl, it is 15 and 66 days. Or further, “Whoever touches the bed or any object touched by an impure woman is impure till the evening.”
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David’s punishment: Chronicles I, 21: 1–14. Plague and diseases: “If I had raised my hand to strike you and your people with the plague, you would have been completely destroyed.” Moses to the people of Israel: “If you obey Him completely by doing what He considers right and by keeping His commands, I will not punish you with any of the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians.” Exodus, 9: 15, 15: 26; Numbers, 12: 9–15, 14: 12; Ezekiel, 38: 22.
- 19.
Deuteronomy, 30: 15–20.
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Genesis, 38: 8–11.
- 21.
1963: 70–72.
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Manheim Karl, Idéologie et utopie, Paris, Marcel Rivière, 1956. (First edition 1952).
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Spengler Joseph J., Economie et population. Les doctrines françaises avant 1800. De Budé à Condorcet, Paris, INED/PUF, 1954. (Traduction de French Predecessors of Malthus, A study of Eighteenth Century Wage and Population Theory, Durham, Duke University Press, 1942.
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Charbit, Y. (2011). Interpreting Ideas on Population. In: The Classical Foundations of Population Thought. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9298-4_1
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