CHAPTER 8

Mr Wallace--Error of supposing that the difficulty arising from
population is at a great distance--Mr Condorcet's sketch of the
progress of the human mind--Period when the oscillation,
mentioned by Mr Condorcet, ought to be applied to the human race.


To a person who draws the preceding obvious inferences, from a
view of the past and present state of mankind, it cannot but be a
matter of astonishment that all the writers on the perfectibility
of man and of society who have noticed the argument of an
overcharged population, treat it always very slightly and
invariably represent the difficulties arising from it as at a
great and almost immeasurable distance. Even Mr Wallace, who
thought the argument itself of so much weight as to destroy his
whole system of equality, did not seem to be aware that any
difficulty would occur from this cause till the whole earth had
been cultivated like a garden and was incapable of any further
increase of produce. Were this really the case, and were a
beautiful system of equality in other respects practicable, I
cannot think that our ardour in the pursuit of such a scheme
ought to be damped by the contemplation of so remote a
difficulty. An event at such a distance might fairly be left to
providence, but the truth is that if the view of the argument
given in this Essay be just the difficulty, so far from being
remote, would be imminent and immediate. At every period during