Ch. i. Of jnoral Restraint. 267 



this could not be effected without a tendency in 

 population to increase faster than food ; and as, 

 with the present law of increase, the peopling of 

 the earth does not proceed very rapidly, we have 

 undoubtedly some reason to believe, that this law 

 is not too powerful for its apparent object. The 

 desire of the means of subsistence would be com- 

 paratively confined in its effects, and would fail 

 of producing that general activity so necessary 

 to the improvement of the human faculties, were 

 it not for the strong and universal effort of popu- 

 lation to increase with greater rapidity than its 

 supplies. If these two tendencies were exactly 

 balanced, I do not see what motive there would 

 be sufficiently strong to overcome the acknow- 

 ledged indolence of man, and make him proceed 

 in the cultivation of the soil. The population of 

 any large territory, however fertile, would be as 

 likely to stop at five hundred, or five thousand, 

 as at five millions, or fifty millions. Such a ba- 

 lance therefore would clearly defeat one great 

 purpose of creation ; and if the question be merely 

 a question of degree, a question of a little more 

 or a little less strength, we may fairly distrust 

 our competence to judge of the precise quantity 

 necessary to answer the object with the smallest 

 sum of incidental evil. In the present state of 

 things we appear to have under our guidance a 

 great power, capable of peopling a desert region 

 in a small number of years; and yet, under other 

 circumstances, capable of being confined by 

 human energy and virtue to any limits however 



