Volume 2
An essay on the principle of population, or, A view of its past and present effects on human happiness : with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions / by T.R. Malthus.
- Thomas Robert Malthus
- Date:
- 1807
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay on the principle of population, or, A view of its past and present effects on human happiness : with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions / by T.R. Malthus. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
19/560 page 7
![But independently of this great objection to thefe eftablifhments, and fuppofing for a mo- ment, that they would give no check to produc- tion, the greateft difficulty remains yet behind. Were every man fure of a comfortable pro- vifion for a family, almoft every man would have one ; and wTere the rifmg generation free from the killing froft of mifery, population muft increafe with unufual rapidity. Of this M. Condorcet feems to be fully aware himfelf; and after having defcribed further improvements, he fays, But in this progrefs of induftry and happi- nefs, each generation will be called to more extended enjoyments, and in confequence, by the phyfical conftitution of the human frame, to an increafe ]n the number of indi- viduals. Muft not there arrive a period then when thefe laws equally neceflary mall coun- teracl each other; when the increafe of the number of men furpafling their means of fub- fiftence, the nece:Tary refult muft be, either (( a continual diminution of happinefs and po- *c pulation—a movement truly retrograde; or at leaft a kind of ofcillation between good and evil ? In iocieties arrived at this term, will not this ofcillation be a conftantly fubfifting caufe B 4 of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21299274_0002_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
