ESSAY, 



BOOK III. 



OF THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OR EXPEDIENTS 

 WHICH HAVE BEEN PROPOSED OR HAVE PRE- 

 VAILEr IN SOCIETY, AS THEY AFFECT THE 

 EVILS ARISING FROM THE PRINCIPLE OF POPU- 

 LATION. 



CHAP. I. 



Of Systems of Equality. Wallace. Condorcet. 



To a person w^ho views the past and present 

 states of mankind in the light in which they have 

 appeared in the two preceding books, it cannot 

 but be a matter of astonishment, that all the 

 writers on the perfectibility of man and of so- 

 ciety, who have noticed the argument of the 

 principle of population, treat it always very lightly, 

 and invariably represent the difficulties arising 

 from it as at a great and almost immeasurable 

 distance. Even Mr. Wallace, who thought the 

 argument itself of so much weight as to de- 



VOL. II. B 



