The Principles of Population and Production, As They Are Affected by the Progress of Society: With a View to Moral and Political Consequences (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Principles of Population and Production, as They Are Affected by the Progress of Society: With a View to Moral and Political Consequences

I have observed at the very outset that the=prin ciple of population, in its practical operations upon the condition of mankind, may be said to consti tute a new department of science. It is also a very intricate one; conversant with so wide a circle of facts and arguments, and with so many of the most diflicult questions of moral and political. Economy, that to treat it in a popular manner, so as to convey a clear conception of the subject to a general reader, is a matter of no small diffi culty. Yet I have thought that only such a mode of treating it could lead to extensive usefulness. A dry philosophical discussion, inapplicable to the purposes of statesmen, and devoid of the interest excited by an immediate reference to the conduct and duties of individuals, may amuse the studious and the speculative, but can lead to no good prac tical result in the improvement of society. The reader, therefore, must not expect to find in the following pages the neat conciseness of a logical de duction; but rather adissertation, in which fulness has been sometimes studied at the risk of occasional repetition, that ideas new to the mind might not fail of their impression from any want of variety in the views under which they are presented.

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