“[p.139] Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction; and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, [p.140] epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete; gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow, levels the population with the food of the world.

Must it not then be acknowledged by an attentive examiner of the histories of mankind, that in every age and in every State in which man has existed, or does now exist,

That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence.

That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase. And,

[p.141] That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence by misery and vice.”

“[p.350] Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that, unless arrested by the preventive check, premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemicks, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrifick array, and sweep off their thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantick inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and, with one mighty blow, levels the population with the food of the world.

Must it not then be acknowledged, by an attentive examiner of the histories of mankind, that, in every age, and in every state, in which man has existed, or does now exist,

The increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence.

Population invariably increases when the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by powerful and obvious checks.

These checks, and the checks which keep the population down to the level of the means of subsistence, are, moral restraint, vice, and misery.

In comparing the state of society which has been considered in this second book with that which formed the subject of the first, I think it appears, that in modern Europe the positive checks to population prevail less, and the preventive checks more, than in past times, and in the more uncivilized parts of the world.

War, the predominant check to the population of savage nations, has certainly abated, even including the late unhappy revolutionary contests: and since the prevalence of a greater degree of personal cleanliness, of better modes of clearing and building towns, and of a more equable distribution of the products of the soil from improving knowledge in political economy, plagues, violent diseases, [p.351] and famines, have been certainly mitigated, and have become less frequent.

With regard to the preventive checks to population, though it must be acknowledged, that moral restraint does not at present prevail much among the male part of society; yet I am strongly disposed to believe that it prevails more than in those states which were first considered; and it can be scarcely doubted that in modern Europe, a much larger proportion of women pass a considerable part of their lives in the exercise of this virtue, than in past times and among uncivilized nations. But however this may be, taking the preventive check in its general acceptation, as implying an infrequency of the marriage union from the fear of a family, without reference to its producing vice, it may be considered, in this light, as the most powerful of the checks, which in modern Europe keep down the population to the level of the means of subsistence.”