24 Of the general Checks to Population, <$c. Bk. i. 



3. These checks, and the checks which repress 

 the superior power of population, and keep its 

 effects on a level with the means of subsistence, 

 are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and 

 misery. 



The first of these propositions scarcely needs 

 illustration. The second and third will be suffi- 

 ciently established by a review of the immediate 

 checks to population in the past and present state 

 of society. 



This review will be the subject of the following 

 chapters. 



2. Population always increases where the means of subsistence 

 increase. 



3. The checks which repress the superior power of population, 

 and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence, are 

 all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery. 



It should be observed, that, by an increase in the means of sub- 

 sistence, is here meant such an increase as will enable the mass 

 of the society to command more food. An increase might certainly 

 take place, which in the actual state of a particular society would 

 not be distributed to the lower classes, and consequently would give 

 no stimulus to population. 



