distress, either directly or indirectly, for want of food. In
every state in Europe, since we have first had accounts of it,
millions and millions of human existences have been repressed
from this simple cause; though perhaps in some of these states an
absolute famine has never been known.

Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of
nature. The power of population is so superior to the power in
the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death
must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of
mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are
the precursors in the great army of destruction; and often finish
the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of
extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague,
advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and ten
thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic
inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow
levels the population with the food of the world.

Must it not then be acknowledged by an attentive examiner of
the histories of mankind, that in every age and in every state in
which man has existed, or does now exist.

That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the
means of subsistence.

That population does invariably increase when the means of
subsistence increase. And that the superior power of
population it repressed, and the actual population kept equal to
the means of subsistence, by misery and vice?