necessity and the demand that exists for those means of sustentation.

(13) These efficient causes of the limitation of the products of the earth necessary to human beings, are too obvious to need proof or illustration; a man's planting of vegetables, or rearing of cattle, must necessarily be limited in extent, by the labour and time he can bestow upon both and again, he certainly will not continue to do either, to a degree beyond the demand for them when produced, that is, more than what he can use himself or exchange for other things desirable to him. This is evidently true as it respects individuals; and though the question becomes more complicated as it extends, it is equally so of the world at large. The balance of supply and demand may, indeed, be occasionally disturbed by accidental causes, always, I think, plain to be seen, and not so difficult of removal, as some suppose,

would follow the leadings of nature; but the vibrations in that balance are slight and trivial, when we consider the mighty masses which it is plainly a part of the regimen of Divine Providence to preserve in constant equipoise.

(14) It, therefore, appears to me that this balance of the powers of human beings, and their necessities, is as plainly the work of that Providence, as is the ample provision he has made for the latter, under all possible contingencies. Liberal as is his hand, he, nevertheless, respects his own gifts, and demands that we should reverence and not waste them; which, in this view of the question, we never can, without inflicting want somewhere, and this circumstance perhaps constitutes the moral offence of extravagant profusion. Varying, indeed, the nature and number of his bounties in different states and degrees of society, for purposes perfectly consistent with his wisdom and bene

volence, so as not only to sustain and solace, but to call forth the superior endowments of, his supreme creature, thus sharpening his intellect, exercising his foresight, and demanding his charity,-still he has not permitted the aggregate product of that moderate labour to which he has mercifully doomed mankind, ever greatly to exceed the wants of the universal family; otherwise the consequence would probably have been a state of degradation, of which, perhaps, the animal creation furnishes no example-a condition of vice and ultimate misery, of which imagination itself can form no adequate idea. As society advances and population multiplies, the result of combined labour, aided by enlarging knowledge, becomes greatly augmented, but their condition improves in a like degree; and as the necessities of life are distributed in larger shares with proportionably less effort, its conveniences are more generally attainable, till habit renders these necessaries, when superfluities take their place, and become in general demand; so that, in every stage of society, the wants and wishes of man keep pace with his enlarging powers of improvement. As the labour of a fewer number, in proportion to the whole, accomplishes equal effects, whether applied to agricultural or other pursuits, the objects of labour become more numerous and diversified; and avocations, distinct from the drudgeries of existence, are created and multiplied, absorbing those who would be otherwise superfluous and redundant in the social system. Thus is it that mankind is preserved from that sloth, and protected from that excess, which it requires but little insight into his nature to know would be fatal to the well-being, if not to the very continuation of the species. All the steps of this progress, without entering further upon a subject, which, as essential to another part of my argument, must be again touched

upon, are sufficiently plain; and every one of them gives a decided negative to both the ratios of the system I am examining, whether considered distinctly, or in connexion with each other.

(15) To these natural limitations of the means of human subsistence, may occasionally be added, the imperfection of human institutions: when in any case, either through being erroneously formed, or inadequately executed, they fail in accomplishing, to the utmost possible degree, that which is their "great end and purpose, to

prevent misery or to cure it'." Supposing these in general to be conducive to the interests of mankind, and being grateful for those under which I live, more especially; I, nevertheless, will not wholly absolve them in this particular, much less will I join with those who do so, the more effectually to fix upon nature the miseries inflicted on her offspring, in proof of their principle of population.

(16) Such, then, appear to be the limitations, practically speaking, to which nature conforms, in evolving the products intended for the use and sustentation of man; and they are of such a kind as to confirm, instead of contradicting, that abstract view which has already been imperfectly taken, of her astonishing prolificness, in regard to those products. But, happily for the human race, what we have allowed to be an abstract truth under most circumstances of society, changes into a practical one, the instant it is put to the test; and the potential becomes the positive and actual produce. In contemplating this fertility, man is lost in feelings of astonishment and gratitude; he drinks, indeed, of the stream of the Divine bounty, as of a brook by the way, but he traces it to a fountain of mercies which is inexhaustible and unfathomable.

1 Jonas Hanway, Letters to the Guardians of the Poor, Let. II., p. 7.

78

CHAPTER V.

OF THE THEORY OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY: THE GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS COMBINED.

(1) THE ratios which are supposed to express the natural increase of human beings, and that of their means of subsistence, having been considered severally, it remains that they be examined in connexion with each other, in which relationship they form the system now controverted; and it will appear, that if, as separate principles they have no claim to truth, when by another and a bolder assumption they are united, they have still less the semblance of it.

(2) I must again premise, that the author under examination does not present these ratios when connected, any more than when distinct from each other, as regulated by room or space; but, on the other hand, as principles which have operated in the adverse manner he represents from the very "origin of society," when the world was hardly occupied at all, and as still operating, when, according to his own admission, as well as matter of fact, it is but very partially possessed. Excepting these admissions were repeated, they would probably be lost sight of as utterly irreconcileable with the theory with which they are connected. We shall, therefore, proceed to examine them in that strange connexion in which they are said to exist, or at least as having a constant tendency so to exist, and connect themselves. In doing this, I shall again insert them in the form in which they are presented to us: the

first line representing the lowest ratio in which mankind would, if unchecked, continue to multiply; the second, the greatest in which the means of his subsistence could be made to advance, though the fertility of nature, and the combined efforts of human beings, co-operated to the utmost, in developing them. It must be remarked, that the term of both ratios is assumed to be the same, and is fixed at twenty-five years. These ratios stand thus:

1. 2. 4. 8. 16. 32. 64.

64. 128. 256, &c. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9, &c.

(3) Now the above numbers, in their relation to each other, either develope the laws of nature, or they do not. applicable to every period of Mr. Malthus maintains them to them accordingly.

operation of general If they do, they are human history. So be, and he applies

(4) First, then, let us refer the sort of demonstration they are supposed to afford, to the earliest periods of history, with which it is, of course, the most natural to commence, and it will not cost many words to show, what is indeed sufficiently manifest, without spending any upon the subject, that it has no necessary or even possible reference to that state. Supposing our first progenitors, or any of their immediate offspring, to be represented by the first figure in the geometric series, 1; and their means of subsistence by the corresponding figure 1, in the second or arithmetical one: so far there is a just and natural proportion between their numbers and their food. Let the first period of doubling take place, and we see their numbers represented by the figure 2, and the proportion of food still adjusted to those numbers and expressed as amounting to 2. The increase in these numbers has brought with