_Misery_ will cover deaths from starvation and poverty, the limitation
of births from abortion due to hardship, from deaths due to improper
food, clothing, and housing; and emigration to avoid hardship.

_Vice_ will cover criminal abortions, limitation of births from
venereal disease, deaths from intemperance, etc., and artificial checks
to conception. Malthus included artificial checks of this kind under
vice (7 ed. of Essay, p. 9.n.), though they have some claim to be
considered under moral restraint. But the question will be referred to
in a later chapter.

_Moral restraint_ will cover those checks to conception, voluntarily
practised in order to escape the burden and responsibility of rearing
children--continence, delayed marriage, and intermittent restraint.

No other checks are directly operative.

Misgovernment and the unequal distribution of wealth and land affect
population indirectly only, and can only act through one or other or all
of the checks already mentioned.




CHAPTER III.

DECLINING BIRTH-RATE.