444 APPENDIX. 



But those who have urged this objection have certainly 

 either not read the work, or have directed their attention 

 solely to a few detached passages, and have been unable to 

 seize the bent and spirit of the whole. I am fully of opi- 

 nion, that it is the duty of man to obey this command of his 

 Creator ; nor is there, in my recollection, a single passage 

 in the work, which, taken with the context, can, to any 

 reader of intelligence, warrant the contrary inference. 



Every express command given to man by his Creator is 

 given in subordination to those great and uniform laws of 

 nature, which he had previously established ; and we are 

 forbidden both by reason and religion to expect that these 

 laws will be changed in order to enable us to execute more 

 readily any particular precept. It is undoubtedly true that, 

 if man were enabled miraculously to live without food, the 

 earth would be very rapidly replenished : but as we have not 

 the slightest ground of hope that such a miracle will be 

 worked for this purpose, it becomes our positive duty as 

 reasonable creatures, and with a view of executing the com- 

 mands of our Creator, to inquire into the laws which he has 

 established for the multiplication of the species. And when 

 we find, not only from the speculative contemplation of 

 these laws, but from the far more powerful and imperious 

 suggestions of our senses, that man cannot live without food, 

 it is a folly exactly of the same kind to attempt to obey the 

 will of our Creator by increasing population without re- 

 ference to the means of its support, as to attempt to obtain 

 an abundant crop of corn by sowing it on the way-side and 

 in hedges, where it cannot receive its proper nourishment. 

 Which is it, I would ask, that best seconds the benevolent 

 intentions of the Creator in covering the earth with esculent 

 vegetables, he who with care and foresight duly ploughs and 

 prepares a piece of ground, and sows no more seed than he 

 expects will grow up to maturity, or he who scatters a pro- 

 fusion of seed indifferently over the land, without reference 

 to the soil on which it falls, or any previous preparation for 

 its reception ? 



It is an utter misconception of my argument to infer that 

 I am an enemy to population. I am only an enemy to vice 

 and misery, and consequently to that unfavourable propor- 

 tion between population and food, which produces these 

 evils. But this unfavourable proportion has no necessary 

 connection with the quantity of absolute population which 



