256 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



sum in any country; and we can certainly draw 

 no safe conclusion from the contemplation of two 

 or three of these checks taken by themselves, 

 because it so frequently happens that the excess 

 of one check is balanced by the defect of some 

 other. Causes, which affect the number of births 

 or deaths, may or may not affect the average po- 

 pulation, according to circumstances; but causes, 

 which affect the production and distribution of 

 the means of subsistence, must necessarily affect 

 population; and it is therefore upon these latter 

 causes alone (independently of actual enumera- 

 tions) that we can with certainty rely. 



All the checks to population, which have been 

 hitherto considered in the course of this review of 

 human society, are clearly resolvable into moral 

 restraint, vice, and misery. 



Of that branch of the preventive check which I 

 have denominated moral restraint, though it has 

 certainly had some share in repressing the natural 

 power of population, yet, taken in its strict sense, 

 it must be allowed to have operated feebly, com- 

 pared with the others. Of the other branch of 

 the preventive check, which comes under the 

 head of vice, though its effect appears to have 

 been very considerable in the later periods of 

 Roman history, and in some other countries; yet, 

 upon the whole, its operation seems to have been 

 inferior to the positive checks. A large portion 

 of the procreative power appears to have been 

 called into action, the redundancy from which 

 was checked by violent causes. Among these, 



