absolutely stationary, and others even retrograde. The cause of
this slow progress in population cannot be traced to a decay of
the passion between the sexes. We have sufficient reason to think
that this natural propensity exists still in undiminished vigour.
Why then do not its effects appear in a rapid increase of the
human species? An intimate view of the state of society in any
one country in Europe, which may serve equally for all, will
enable us to answer this question, and to say that a foresight of
the difficulties attending the rearing of a family acts as a
preventive check, and the actual distresses of some of the lower
classes, by which they are disabled from giving the proper food
and attention to their children, act as a positive check to the
natural increase of population.

England, as one of the most flourishing states of Europe, may
be fairly taken for an example, and the observations made will
apply with but little variation to any other country where the
population increases slowly.

The preventive check appears to operate in some degree
through all the ranks of society in England. There are some men,
even in the highest rank, who are prevented from marrying by the
idea of the expenses that they must retrench, and the fancied
pleasures that they must deprive themselves of, on the
supposition of having a family. These considerations are
certainly trivial, but a preventive foresight of this kind has
objects of much greater weight for its contemplation as we go
lower.

A man of liberal education, but with an income only just