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Extending this reasoning to the whole earth, it will be found that the population of the world would increase in a geometrical ratio as 1.2.4.8.16.32.64. 128.256., and subsistence only in an arithmetical ratio, as 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9. In two centuries the population would be to the possible means of subsistence as 256 to 9; in three centuries, as 4,096 to 13; and as of course there are ultimate limits to the produce of the earth, an end must come to any increase in the supply of food, while the principle of population still retains its full force.-Such is the account rendered by Mr. Malthus of the dispensation of Providence with respect to the natural power of increase in mankind and in their subsistence respectively; and I cannot but think that, if true, it affords a most singular and extraordinary exception to the admirable adaptation of means to ends which is so beautifully prominent in every other arrangement of the Creator.

But as it is evident that, in point of fact, mankind, unable to exist without food, do not increase in the abovementioned geometrical ratio, but precisely in that in which food is produced for their support; Mr. Malthus, in his second chapter, enumerates what he is pleased to call the checks to this exuberant power of production. They consist of "all those customs, and all those diseases, which seem to be generated by a scarcity of the means of subsistence; and all those causes, independent of this scarcity, whether of a moral or physical nature, which tend prematurely to weaken or destroy the human frame." These checks may be classed under two general heads, the preventive and the positive; the FORMER consisting of prudential abstinence from marriage, which when

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accompanied by irregular intercourse between the sexes, produces aggravated vice and misery; when accompanied by moral restraint produces comparative comfort. The LATTER, consisting of every cause, whether arising from vice or misery, which in any degree tends to shorten the duration or repress the productive power of human life; such as extreme poverty, wars, diseases, famine, pestilence, and the like. The obstacles to the increase of population, therefore, whether classed under the positive or preventive checks, are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, or misery. And as the former (explained to mean an abstinence from marriage, unaccompanied by irregular gratification) is the only mode of escaping the encounter of the two latter in some form or other, it is evident that, upon this theory, the whole onus of counteracting, consistently with human happiness and virtue, the immense disproportion of the relative powers of increase above enumerated, rests entirely upon this single conservative principle. It follows of course, also, that the more it can be made to operate, the greater portion of virtue and happiness will be found in society. And as it is upon the lower ranks that the vice and misery alleged to arise from a redundant population particularly press, it evidently becomes the duty of governments so to model their political arrangements, and of individuals so to regulate their charities, as to lend encouragement to such protracted abstinence from marriage, from the moment that the produce of the land after it's first period of doubling sinks into the regular arithmetical progress; or, in plainer terms, from the moment that a country emerges from

the purely agricultural state of society into one compounded of agriculture and commerce. Such is the

theory, and such are its consequences.

Granting the premises, it is indeed perfectly obvious that this conclusion is undeniable. Once persuade a man against all experience that the oak in his field hath a natural tendency to increase ad infinitum in the same ratio as during the first fifty years, and may in time overshadow his whole estate, unless checked by the axe, and his prudent course of conduct will not long remain doubtful. But considering the extreme difficulty of such a general system of abstinence at once from marriage and from sensuality, where, according to the theory, it is most requisite, i. e. among the lower orders of any country (which indeed is fully admitted by Mr. Malthus); it seems utterly impossible to reconcile his practical conclusions either with the nature of man, or the plain dictates of religion upon the subject of marriage. But it is not by starting doubts and difficulties that the system, however apparently inconsistent with the goodness and justice of the Creator, can be shaken. I shall therefore proceed to state the principles which appear to me to lead to opposite conclusions, merely premising a few observations on the mode in which Mr. Malthus has conducted his argument, with the objections to which it is liable.

What he professes to have done, (see preface, p. vii), in addition to the arguments found in the writings of others, is, to state the subject more philosophically, to illustrate more fully, by reference to history, the various modes by which the level is preserved between population and the means of subsistence, and to draw new practical inferences of a general

nature for the political conduct of states and the private conduct of individuals. Now with respect to the works of others; Plato, Aristotle, Montesquieu, Mr. Townshend, and other writers, who seem to have believed in the natural tendency of population towards a too rapid increase, either state the fact incidentally, to illustrate some partial phenomena in society, or draw their conclusions from a very confined view of it under an imperfect administration, where slavery, ignorance, or or tyranny, evidently checked the industry of the people, and forcibly diverted the progress of society from its natural course. Even the state of society in the boasted republics of ancient Greece cannot be exonerated from some part of this imputation; and those of Spain and France were too palpably open to it. Observations, therefore, with respect to the vice and misery arising from the difficulty of procuring subsistence, drawn from the view of those countries, seem only to prove that they had not yet adopted that system of polity for the government of the mass of their inhabitants, which is consistent with the views and ordinations of Providence. With respect to the philosophical statement of the subject it appears to be defective in one of its main branches —the statement of the natural tendency of population to increase. The historical references appear to have been made (as Mr. Malthus indeed in his preface seems partly to admit) with a mind predisposed to the theory with which it was impressed, and professedly in search of facts to corroborate it: and the practical inferences (as far as they rest upon the peculiar arguments arising out of the principle of population). seem not to be borne out by the premises >>

can in no case be justifiably acted upon; and are "very evidently inapplicable to the advanced stages of society in a free and extensive Christian country, being calculated rather to check it's progress in wealth and happiness than to promote it.

If any success attend my efforts to establish the principles laid down at the commencement of the following chapter, it is probable that each of the preceding propositions will also be made out in the course of the argument. In the mean time I venture to suggest, as a further preparation of the reader's mind for the fair discussion of them, that the origin of what are conceived to be the mistakes and false reasonings, with respect to the principle of population, appears to be the assumption of a tendency to increase in the human species, the quickest that can be proved possible in any particular state of society, as that which is natural and theoretically possible in all; and the characterising of every cause which tends to prevent such quickest possible rate, as checks to the natural and spontaneous tendency of population to increase; but as checks evidently insufficient to stem the progress of an overwhelming torrent. This seems as eligible a mode of reasoning, as if one were to assume the height of the Irish giant as the natural standard of the stature of man, and to call every reason which may be suggested as likely to prevent the generality of men from reaching it, checks upon their growth. The natural and spontaneous tendency of the principle of population in distinct states of society varies its rate with every difference in their political condition; it is no more the same in the manufacturing, as it is in the agricultural, or in this as in the pastoral states of society, than the natural