Ch. xiii. preceding Vieiv of Society. 533 



or four thousand years ago. And it has appeared 

 that the poor and thinly-inhabited tracts of the 

 Scotch Highlands are more distressed by a redun- 

 dant population than the most populous parts of 

 Europe. 



If a country were never to be overrun by a peo- 

 ple more advanced in arts, but left to its own na- 

 tural progress in civilization ; from the time that 

 its produce might be considered as an unit, to the 

 time that it might be considered as a million, 

 during the lapse of many thousand years, there 

 might not be a single period when the mass of 

 the people could be said to be free from distress, 

 either directly or indirectly, for want of food. In 

 every state in Europe, since we have first had 

 accounts of it, millions and millions of human ex- 

 istences have been repressed from this simple 

 cause, though perhaps in some of these states an 

 absolute famine may never have been known. 



Must it not then be acknowledged by an atten- 

 tive examiner of the histories of mankind, that, in 

 every age and in every state in which man has 

 existed or does now exist, 



The increase of population is necessarily limited 

 by the means of subsistence : 



Population invariably increases when the means 

 of subsistence increase,* unless prevented by 

 powerful and obvious checks : 



* By an increase in the means of subsistence, as the expression 

 is used here, is always meant such an increase as the mass of the 

 population can command • otherwise it can be of no avail in en- 

 couraging an increase of people. 



