48- Of Systems of Equality, continued. Bk. iii. 



and in a state of equality and community of pro- 

 perty could only be replaced by some artificial 

 regulation of a very different stamp, and a much 

 more unnatural character. Of this Mr. Owen is 

 fully sensible, and has in consequence taxed his 

 ingenuity to the utmost to invent some mode, by 

 which the difficulties arising from the progress of 

 population could be got rid of, in the state of so- 

 ciety to which he looks forward. His absolute 

 inability to suggest any mode of accomplishing 

 this object that is not unnatural, immoral, or cruel 

 in a high degree, together with the same want of 

 success in every other person, ancient* or mo- 

 dern, who has made a similar attempt, seem to 

 shew that the argument against systems of equality 

 founded on the principle of population does not 

 admit of a plausible answer, even in theory. The 

 fact of the tendency of population to increase be- 

 yond the means of subsistence may be seen in 

 almost every register of a country parish in the 

 kingdom. The unavoidable effect of this tendency 

 to depress the whole body of the people in want 

 and misery, unless the progress of the population 

 be somehow or other retarded, is equally obvious; 

 and the impossibility of checking the rate of in- 

 crease in a state of equality, without resorting to 

 regulations that are unnatural, immoral or cruel, 

 forms an argument at once conclusive against 

 every such system. 



* The reader has already seen in ch. xiii. bk. i. the detestable 

 means of checking population proposed by some ancient lawgivers 

 in order to support their systems of ecpiality. 



