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130 PLACE, Francis. Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822 The foundation work of the modern birth- control movement First edition of the foundation work of the modern birth- control movement, of great significance in economics, social history, and population theory. The only full-length book of the autodidact radical author Francis Place (1771–1854), the son of a violent London innkeeper who overcame many hardships to become a successful tailor, Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population was a response to the 1820 reply to Malthus made by Place’s former friend and mentor, William Godwin (see item 67). Place criticized Malthus for his ignorance of the conditions in which the poor lived and Godwin for giving up all hope for their improvement. Malthus had realized that one check to the population growth that so alarmed him might be birth control, but dismissed the practicalities of this as “vice”, arguing that artificial methods of contraception were unnatural and would lead to immorality. In the second edition of his Essay , the Great Quarto of 1803, Malthus had proposed “moral restraint” in its place. Place knew from first-hand experience that this was clergyman’s cant: Malthus was naïve in supposing that working men would be persuaded to practice sexual continence and delayed marriage. “Though many preceded Francis Place in discussing the technique of contraception, he seems to have been the first to venture, at first alone and unaided, upon an organized attempt to educate the masses. Place holds, therefore, the same position in social education on contraception that Malthus holds in the history of general population theory . . . it was Place who first gave birth control a body of social theory” (Himes, pp. 212–13).
Place was not without influence and connections among political economists: in 1808 he had met and befriended Jeremy Bentham and through him encountered James Mill, who in turn introduced him to the economist David Ricardo. But his frank advocacy for birth control lost him many friends and his book was not a success. Somewhat ironically, his frankness about the practical consequences of Malthus’s theory found an echo in the familiar euphemism for contraceptives throughout the 19th century as “Malthusian devices”. Octavo (213 × 133 mm). Recent green half cloth, red morocco label, marbled sides. Title page and final page with very minor paper fault at head and slight residue from former endpaper, some finger-soiling. A very good copy. ¶ Garrison-Morton 1696.1; Goldsmiths’ 23493. Norman Himes, Medical History of Contraception , The Williams & Wilkins Company, 1936. £4,000 [128716] 131 PROUDHON, Pierre-Joseph. Qu’est-ce que la propriété? Ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement. Paris: Librairie de Prévot, 1841 “Property is theft” Second edition of the French anarchist philosopher’s notorious thesis, scandalizing its readers with the famous assertion that “property is theft”, which remains widely cited among radical circles to this day; very scarce, and particularly so in the original wrappers. The first edition was published the preceding year. In the wake of the social turmoil caused by the economic decline in France in 1839–40 and the July Monarchy’s lapse into a “religion of property”, Proudhon argued that – unlike freedom and equality – the right to property was not a natural right. Yet he also opposed collective ownership, “as he was persuaded that only a society without government is able to
WEALTH AND WELFARE
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