produce the effects apparently intended by the Supreme Being,
without occasioning partial evil. Unless the principle of
population were to be altered according to the circumstances of
each separate country (which would not only be contrary to our
universal experience, with regard to the laws of nature, but
would contradict even our own reason, which sees the absolute
necessity of general laws for the formation of intellect), it is
evident that the same principle which, seconded by industry, will
people a fertile region in a few years must produce distress in
countries that have been long inhabited.

It seems, however, every way probable that even the
acknowledged difficulties occasioned by the law of population
tend rather to promote than impede the general purpose of
Providence. They excite universal exertion and contribute to that
infinite variety of situations, and consequently of impressions,
which seems upon the whole favourable to the growth of mind. It
is probable, that too great or too little excitement, extreme
poverty, or too great riches may be alike unfavourable in this
respect. The middle regions of society seem to be best suited to
intellectual improvement, but it is contrary to the analogy of
all nature to expect that the whole of society can be a middle
region. The temperate zones of the earth seem to be the most
favourable to the mental and corporal energies of man, but all
cannot be temperate zones. A world, warmed and enlightened but by
one sun, must from the laws of matter have some parts chilled by
perpetual frosts and others scorched by perpetual heats. Every
piece of matter lying on a surface must have an upper and an
under side, all the particles cannot be in the middle. The most
valuable parts of an oak, to a timber merchant, are not either