Ch. i. JVallace. Condorcet. J 



" shall we ever arrive at it ? It is equally im- 

 " possible to pronounce for or against the future 

 " realization of an event, which cannot take place 

 " but at an aera when the human race will have 

 " attained improvements, of which we can at 

 " present scarcely form a conception." 



M. Condorcet's picture of what may be ex- 

 pected to happen, when the number of men shall 

 surpass their means of subsistence, is justly 

 drawn. The oscillation which he describes will 

 certainly take place, and will without doubt be a 

 constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery. 

 The only point in which I differ from M. Con- 

 dorcet in this description is with regard to the 

 period when it may be applied to the human 

 race. M. Condorcet thinks that it cannot possibly 

 be applicable but at an sera extremely distant. If 

 the proportion between the natural increase of 

 population and of food in a limited territory, which 

 was stated in the beginning of this essay, and which 

 has received considerable confirmation from the 

 poverty that has been found to prevail in every 

 stage of human society, be in any degree near the 

 truth; it will appear, on the contrary, that the 

 period when the number of men surpasses their 

 means of easy subsistence has long since arrived ; 

 and that this necessary oscillation, this constantly 

 subsisting cause of periodical misery, has existed 

 in most countries ever since we have had any 

 histories of mankind, and continues to exist at the 

 present moment. 



M. Condorcet, however, goes on to say, that 



