Of the general checks to population, in the accomplishment and conduct of intrigues, and in the concealment of their consequences, necessarily leads to many other vices. The positive checks to population are extremely various, and include every cause, whether arising from vice or misery, which in any degree contributes to shorten the natural duration of human life. Under this head therefore may be enumerated all unwholesome occupations, severe labor and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague, and famine. On examining these obstacles to the increase of population which I have classed under the heads of preventive and positive checks, it will appear that they are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery. Of the preventive checks, the restraint from marriage which is not followed by irregular gratifications may properly be termed moral restraint." 'It will be observed, that I here use the term moral in its most confined sense. By moral restraint I would be understood to mean a restraint from marriage, from pru and the mode of their operation. Promiscuous intercourse, unnatural passions, violations of the marriage bed, and improper arts to conceal the consequences of irregular connexions, are preventive checks that clearly come under the head of vice. Of the positive checks, those which appear to arise unavoidably from the laws of nature may be called exclusively misery; and those which we obviously bring upon ourselves, such as wars, excesses, and many others which it would be in our power to avoid, are of a mixed nature. They are brought upon us by vice, and their consequences are misery. dential motives, with a conduct strictly moral during the period of this restraint; and I have never intentionally deviated from this sense. When I wisned to consider the restraint from marriage unconnected with its consequences, I have either called it prudential restraint, or a part of the preventive check, of which indeed it forms the principal branch. In my review of the different stages of society, I have been accused of not allowing sufficient weight in the prevention of population to moral restraint; but when the confined sense of the term, which I have here explained, is adverted to, I am fearful that I shall not be found to have erred much in this respect. I should be very glad to believe myself mistaken. 'As the general consequence of vice is misery, and as this consequence is the precise reason why an action is Of the general checks to population, The sum of all these preventive and positive checks taken together forms the immediate check to population, and it is evident that in every coun try where the whole of the procreative power cannot be called into action, the preventive and the positive checks must vary inversely as each other, that is, in countries either naturally unhealthy, or subject to a great mortality from whatever cause it may arise, the preventive check will prevail very little. In those countries on the contrary which termed vicious, it may appear that the term misery alone would be here sufficient, and that it is superfluous to use both. But the rejection of the term vice, would introduce a considerable confusion into our language and ideas. We want it particularly to distinguish that class. of actions, the general tendency of which is to produce misery, but which, in their immediate or individual ef fects, may produce perhaps exactly the contrary. The gratification of all our passions in its immediate effect is happiness, not misery; and in individual instances, even the remote consequences (at least in this life) come under the same denomination. I have little doubt that there have been some irregular connexions with women, which have added to the happiness of both parties, and have injured no one. These individual actions therefore cannot come under the head of misery. But they are still evidently vicious, because an action is so denominated, the general tendency of which is to produce misery, whatever may be its individual effect; and no person can doubt the general tendency of an illicit intercourse between the sexes, to injure the happiness of society. and the mode of their operation. are naturally healthy, and where the preventive check is found to prevail with considerable force, the positive check will prevail very little, or the mortality be very small. In every country some of these checks are, with more or less force, in constant operation; yet notwithstanding their general prevalence, there are few states in which there is not a constant effort in the population to increase beyond the means of subsistence. This constant effort as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of society to distress, and to prevent any great permanent melioration of their condition. These effects, in the present state of society, seem to be produced in the following manner. We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population, which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported eleven millions, must now be divided among eleven millions and a half. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of laborers also being Of the general checks to population, above the proportion of work in the market, the price of labor must tend to fall; while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The laborer therefore must do more work, to earn the same as he did before. During this season of distress the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great, that population is nearly at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labor, the plenty of laborers, and the necessity of an increased industry among them, encourage cultivators to employ more labor upon their land, to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage; till ultimately the means of subsistence may become in the same proportion to the population, as at the period from which we set out. The situation of the laborer being then again tolerably comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened; and, after a short period, the same retrograde and progressive movements, with respect to happiness, are repeat ed. This sort of oscillation will not probably be obvious to common view; and it may be difficult even for the most attentive observer to calculate its periods. Yet that, in the generality of old states, |