THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY 131 



population which I have classed under the heads of pre- 

 ventive and positive checks, it will appear that they are 

 all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery." 



That the reader may be convinced of the practical 

 elimination by Malthus of moral restraint from his 

 theory as an operative check, I quote part of his reply 

 to Mr. Godwin, who dissented from his conclusions. 



" Mr. Godwin says that if he looks into the past 

 history of the world, he does not see that increasing 

 population has been controlled and confined by vice 

 and misery alone. In this observation I cannot agree 

 with him. I believe Mr. Godwin would find it 

 difficult to name any check which in past ages has 

 contributed to keep down the population to the 

 level of the means of subsistence that does not fairly 

 come under some form of vice or misery ; except, 

 indeed, the check of moral restraint which I have 

 already insisted on ; and which, to say the truth, 

 whatever hopes we may entertain of its prevalence 

 in the future, has undoubtedly in past ages operated; 

 with inconsiderable force." 



Before demonstrating that the positive checks 

 enumerated by Malthus do not act, and have never 

 acted, as restraints upon the increase of population, 

 and that there is an operative law or principle by 

 which population is governed, and by which it is 

 diminished, maintained in statu quo, or increased, 

 altogether apart from the action of these so-called 

 checks, I shall animadvert in a few words upon the 

 moral aspects of this abominable doctrine. 



