PREFACE.

THE substance of a large portion of the following work was written some years ago, and at no very distant period from the publication of the second edition of Mr. Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population. The subject had been so long and so deeply considered by that able and candid writer, and involved questions so vitally important to the best interests of mankind, that it would have been the height of presumption, and positively an immoral act, hastily and without mature reflection to publish what purported to be a general refutation of his hypothesis. I therefore thought it prudent to confine my public communications for a time to those particular parts of the system which more immediately obtruded themselves upon my notice in the duties and employments with which I was most conversant. Upon these I conceived myself entitled to bring the author's hypothesis to the test of experience, and, where any part of it appeared to fail, to endeavour to show in what respects the argument was faulty in its principle or in its application. This I attempted in the year 1807 by "A Short Inquiry into the Policy, Humanity, and past

Effects of the Poor Laws;" a publication which at the time attracted perhaps more notice than it deserved, but of which I may venture to say that I have not yet seen it fairly answered. Since that period the tremendous risks to which the vital interests of the country, moral and political, have been exposed, not only indisposed the public mind towards any statistical argument not immediately affecting the existence of the commonwealth, but also called upon every individual, by his pen, by his personal exertions, by every mode of influence which his talents or situation would enable him to exert, to take a part in questions and employments which at other times he might fairly, perhaps, have declined as objects of mere temporary interest.

In times such as we have lately passed through, to use the words of an old writer, "I am deceived if God allow any man for private." In such times the citizens of a state blessed with institutions worth preserving" are not so much their own as others are theirs; they must take to themselves firm foreheads, courageous hearts, hands busy, but not partial, to resist the violent sway of evils."

These considerations put together constitute the true reason why this work was not some time ago placed in the hands of the bookseller, although a considerable portion of it was written, and wanted little but arrangement to prepare it for the press.

The delay, however, has not been entirely fruitless; as I have been enabled by laying detached fragments occasionally before the public, as oppor

tunity offered, to collect the opinions of competent judges, to obviate some difficulties and objections to which my hypothesis appeared liable, and to present it now to the reader with less numerous faults than it might otherwise have contained. It will probably be admitted that, in an argument which I believe to be so entirely my own as that which I have ventured to hold in following out the principles of the ensuing treatise, these precautions are not illegitimate; but it is fair to warn the reader of one necessary consequence; that some passages will of course be found which have been previously submitted to the public eye. They are, however, not so numerous as to bear more than a very small proportion to the whole of the work ;they are my own composition, and were taken from those parts of the original manuscript in which I have now replaced them. Although a writer is fairly entitled to do what he will with his own, and leave the public to exercise their discretion as to the value of his whole performance;-although a builder may justly use the rafters ultimately intended for the roof of a house he is employed to construct, as a scaffold for the erection of the walls; yet it is certainly a point both of candour and discretion not to fit in the materials so used to the place assigned them in the original plan of the edifice, without notice of the purposes they have previously served. Having now performed this obvious duty, and encouraged by the hope that my materials will only turn out to be the better seasoned by

the use which has been made of them, I proceed to the few prefatory remarks which appear necessary to introduce the following treatise.

I have observed at the very outset that the principle of population, in its practical operations upon the condition of mankind, may be said to constitute 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 difficult 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 difficulty. 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 practical result in the improvement of society. The reader, therefore, must not expect to find in the following pages the neat conciseness of a logical deduction; but rather a dissertation, 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.

The political illustrations and allusions, and the moral deductions scattered throughout the work, have also been selected from many others which

might have been equally applicable, principally beeause they are presumed to be such as will affect in the most lively manner the hearts and the consciences of those to whom they are principally addressed; especially with a view to the improvement of their own country, and of others over which they can exercise influence.

Of the political uses to which I have endeavoured to convert the argument, it may fairly be said that they embrace the most interesting topics among those which may be called fundamental in the constitution of civil society, viz. the subsistence and comfort of the great body of the people, and the means by which those blessings are to be preserved as society advances from the earliest to the latest stages of its progress. It cannot be denied that these objects lie at the root of all public prosperity; for upon them mainly depend the contentment of the people, the security of governments, and consequently the offensive and defensive power of nations. The political part of the argument, therefore, does not so much refer to the temporary interests of particular states, as to the great and original principles upon which may be said to depend the existence and developement of the best systems of social polity; to the foundation, in short, of the temporal happiness of individuals and communities.

The moral uses to which the argument has been converted are, I trust, yet more interesting. To enlarge or fortify the dominion of morals over human happiness and prosperity, is at all times perhaps the