( 12 ) Bk. 



CHAP. II. 



Of the general Checks to Population, and the Mode of 

 their Operation. 



Ihe ultimate check to population appears then 

 to be a want of food, arising necessarily from the 

 different ratios according to which population and 

 food increase. But this ultimate check is never 

 the immediate check, except in cases of actual 

 famine. 



The immediate check may be stated to consist 

 in all those customs, and all those diseases, which 

 seem to be generated by a scarcity of the means 

 of subsistence ; and all those causes, independent 

 of this scarcity, whether of a moral or physical 

 nature, which tend prematurely to weaken and 

 destroy the human frame. 



These checks to population, which are con- 

 stantly operating with more or less force in every 

 society, and keep down the number to the level 

 of the means of subsistence, may be classed under 

 two general heads — the preventive, and the posi- 

 tive checks. 



The preventive check, as far as it is voluntary, 

 is peculiar to man, and arises from that distinctive 

 superiority in his reasoning faculties, which ena- 

 bles him to calculate distant consequences. The 

 checks to the indefinite increase of plants and 



