nature seem, even to our understandings, obvious and striking; if
we return to the principle of population and consider man as he
really is, inert, sluggish, and averse from labour, unless
compelled by necessity (and it is surely the height of folly to
talk of man, according to our crude fancies of what he might be),
we may pronounce with certainty that the world would not have
been peopled, but for the superiority of the power of population
to the means of subsistence. Strong and constantly operative as
this stimulus is on man to urge him to the cultivation of the
earth, if we still see that cultivation proceeds very slowly, we
may fairly conclude that a less stimulus would have been
insufficient. Even under the operation of this constant
excitement, savages will inhabit countries of the greatest
natural fertility for a long period before they betake themselves
to pasturage or agriculture. Had population and food increased in
the same ratio, it is probable that man might never have emerged
from the savage state. But supposing the earth once well peopled,
an Alexander, a Julius Caesar, a Tamberlane, or a bloody
revolution might irrecoverably thin the human race, and defeat
the great designs of the Creator. The ravages of a contagious
disorder would be felt for ages; and an earthquake might unpeople
a region for ever. The principle, according to which population
increases, prevents the vices of mankind, or the accidents of
nature, the partial evils arising from general laws, from
obstructing the high purpose of the creation. It keeps the
inhabitants of the earth always fully up to the level of the
means of subsistence; and is constantly acting upon man as a
powerful stumulus, urging him to the further cultivation of the
earth, and to enable it, consequently, to support a more extended
population. But it is impossible that this law can operate, and