An Essay on the Principle of Population | Page 3

hitherto seen, if it had ever been fairly and satisfactorily answered.
The cause of this neglect on the part of the advocates for the
perfectibility of mankind is not easily accounted for. I cannot doubt the
talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to doubt
their candour. To my understanding, and probably to that of most
others, the difficulty appears insurmountable. Yet these men of
acknowledged ability and penetration scarcely deign to notice it, and

hold on their course in such speculations with unabated ardour and
undiminished confidence. I have certainly no right to say that they
purposely shut their eyes to such arguments. I ought rather to doubt the
validity of them, when neglected by such men, however forcibly their
truth may strike my own mind. Yet in this respect it must be
acknowledged that we are all of us too prone to err. If I saw a glass of
wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, I
should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster philosophy
might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me and that the
offer was not really what I conceived it to be.
In entering upon the argument I must premise that I put out of the
question, at present, all mere conjectures, that is, all suppositions, the
probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just
philosophical grounds. A writer may tell me that he thinks man will
ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him. But
before he can expect to bring any reasonable person over to his opinion,
he ought to shew that the necks of mankind have been gradually
elongating, that the lips have grown harder and more prominent, that
the legs and feet are daily altering their shape, and that the hair is
beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of so
wonderful a conversion can be shewn, it is surely lost time and lost
eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state; to
describe his powers, both of running and flying, to paint him in a
condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he
would be employed only in collecting the necessaries of life, and where,
consequently, each man's share of labour would be light, and his
portion of leisure ample.
I think I may fairly make two postulata.
First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.
Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will
remain nearly in its present state.
These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind,
appear to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not

hitherto seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that
they will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act
of power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe,
and for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed
laws, all its various operations.
I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will
ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured
that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished. As,
however, he calls this part of his work a deviation into the land of
conjecture, I will not dwell longer upon it at present than to say that the
best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a
contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the
savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But
towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress
whatever has hitherto been made. It appears to exist in as much force at
present as it did two thousand or four thousand years ago. There are
individual exceptions now as there always have been. But, as these
exceptions do not appear to increase in number, it would surely be a
very unphilosophical mode of arguing to infer, merely from the
existence of an exception, that the exception would, in time, become
the rule, and the rule the exception.
Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce
subsistence for man.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power
in comparison of the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This