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Where There Are Few People, And A Great Quantity Of Fertile Land, The Power Of The Earth To Afford A Yearly Increase Of Food May Be Compared To A Great Reservoir Of Water, Supplied By A Moderate Stream. The Faster Population Increases, The More Help Will Be Got To Draw Off The Water, And Consequently An Increasing Quantity Will Be Taken Every Year. But The Sooner, Undoubtedly, Will The Reservoir Be Exhausted, And The Streams Only Remain.

-Thomas Malthus

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Where There Are Few

Thomas Malthus

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Where There Are Few People, And A Great Quantity Of Fertile Land, The Power Of The Earth To Afford A Yearly Increase Of Food May Be Compared To A Great Reservoir Of Water, Supplied By A Moderate Stream. The Faster Population Increases, The More Help Will Be Got To Draw Off The Water, And Consequently An Increasing Quantity Will Be Taken Every Year. But The Sooner, Undoubtedly, Will The Reservoir Be Exhausted, And The Streams Only Remain.

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The Employment Of The Poor In Roads And Public Works, And A Tendency Among Landlords And Persons Of Property To Build, To Improve And Beautify Their Grounds, And To Employ Workmen And Menial Servants, Are The Means Most Within Our Power And Most Directly Calculated To Remedy The Evils Arising From That Disturbance In The Balance Of Produce And Consumption.

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Hard As It May Appear In Individual Instances , Dependent Poverty Ought To Be Held Disgraceful.

It Is A Mere Futile Process To Exchange One Set Of Commodities For Another, If The Parties; After This New Distribution Of Goods Has Taken Place, Are Not Better Off Than They Were Before.

The Power Of Population Is Indefinitely Greater Than The Power In The Earth To Produce Subsistence For Man.

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The Perpetual Tendency Of The Race Of Man To Increase Beyond The Means Of Subsistence Is One Of The General Laws Of Animated Nature, Which We Can Have No Reason To Expect To Change.

The Most Baleful Mischiefs May Be Expected From The Unmanly Conduct Of Not Daring To Face Truth Because It Is Unpleasing.

The Prodigious Waste Of Human Life Occasioned By This Perpetual Struggle For Room And Food, Was More Than Supplied By The Mighty Power Of Population, Acting, In Some Degree, Unshackled, From The Constant Habit Of Emigration.

To Estimate The Value Of Newton's Discoveries, Or The Delight Communicated By Shakespeare And Milton, By The Price At Which Their Works Have Sold, Would Be But A Poor Measure Of The Degree In Which They Have Elevated And Enchanted Their Country; Nor Would It Be Less Grovelling And Incongruous To Estimate The Benefit Which The Country Has Derived From The Revolution Of 1688, By The Pay Of The Soldiers, And All Other Payments Concerned In Effecting It.

If It Be Taught That All Who Are Born Have A Right To Support On The Land, Whatever Be Their Number, And That There Is No Occasion To Exercise Any Prudence In The Affair Of Marriage So As To Check This Number, The Temptations, According To All The Known Principles Of Human Nature, Will Inevitably Be Yielded To, And More And More Will Gradually Become Dependent On Parish Assistance.

Population Regulates Itself By The Funds Which Are To Employ It, And Therefore Always Increases Or Diminishes With The Increase Or The Diminution Of Capital. Every Reduction Of Capital Is Therefore Necessarily Followed By A Less Effective Demand For Corn, By A Fall In Price, And By A Diminished Cultivation.

The Proposition Of Mr. Ricardo, Which States That A Rise In The Price Of Labour Lowers The Price Of A Large Class Of Commodities, Has Undoubtedly A Very Paradoxical Air; But It Is, Nevertheless, True, And The Appearance Of Paradox Would Vanish, If It Were Stated More Naturally And Correctly.

The Redundant Population, Necessarily Occasioned By The Prevalence Of Early Marriages, Must Be Repressed By Occasional Famines, And By The Custom Of Exposing Children, Which, In Times Of Distress, Is Probably More Frequent Than Is Ever Acknowledged To Europeans.

Where Are We To Look For The Consumption Required But Among The Unproductive Labourers Of Adam Smith?.

Had Population And Food Increased In The Same Ratio, It Is Probable That Man Might Never Have Emerged From The Savage State.

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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.

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To Prevent The Recurrence Of Misery Is, Alas! Beyond The Power Of Man.

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Nature Herself In Times Of Great Poverty Or Bad Climatic Conditions, As Well As Poor Harvest, Intervenes To Restrict The Increase Of Population Of Certain Countries Or Races; This, To Be Sure, By A Method As Wise As It Is Ruthless.

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It Has Appeared That From The Inevitable Laws Of Our Nature, Some Human Beings Must Suffer From Want. These Are The Unhappy Persons Who, In The Great Lottery Of Life, Have Drawn A Blank.

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The Most Effectual Encouragement To Population Is, The Activity Of Industry, And The Consequent Multiplication Of The National Products.

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The Friend Of The Present Order Of Things Condemns All Political Speculations In The Gross.

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The Germs Of Existence Contained In This Spot Of Earth, With Ample Food, And Ample Room To Expand In, Would Fill Millions Of Worlds In The Course Of A Few Thousand Years.

The Transfer Of Three Shillings And Sixpence A Day To Every Labourer Would Not Increase The Quantity Of Meat In The Country. There Is Not At Present Enough For All To Have A Decent Share. What Would Then Be The Consequence?

I Feel No Doubt Whatever That The Parish Laws Of England Have Contributed To Raise The Price Of Provisions And To Lower The Real Price Of Labour.

It Is An Acknowledged Truth In Philosophy That A Just Theory Will Always Be Confirmed By Experiment.

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The Power Of Population Is So Superior To The Power Of The Earth To Produce Subsistence For Man, That Premature Death Must In Some Shape Or Other Visit The Human Race.

The Rich, By Unfair Combinations, Contribute Frequently To Prolong A Season Of Distress Among The Poor.

In General It May Be Said That Demand Is Quite As Necessary To The Increase Of Capital As The Increase Of Capital Is To Demand.

Evil Exists In The World Not To Create Despair But Activity.

There Is Scarcely Any Inquiry More Curious, Or, From Its Importance, More Worthy Of Attention, Than That Which Traces The Causes Which Practically Check The Progress Of Wealth In Different Countries, And Stop It, Or Make It Proceed Very Slowly, While The Power Of Production Remains Comparatively Undiminished, Or At Least Would Furnish The Means Of A Great And Abundant Increase Of Produce And Population.

It Accords With The Most Liberal Spirit Of Philosophy To Suppose That Not A Stone Can Fall, Or A Plant Rise, Without The Immediate Agency Of Divine Power.

The First Business Of Philosophy Is To Account For Things As They Are; And Till Our Theories Will Do This, They Ought Not To Be The Ground Of Any Practical Conclusion.

The Ordeal Of Virtue Is To Resist All Temptation To Evil.

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The Labouring Poor, To Use A Vulgar Expression, Seem Always To Live From Hand To Mouth. Their Present Wants Employ Their Whole Whole Attention, And They Seldom Think Of The Future. Even When They Have An Opportunity Of Saving They Seldom Exercise It, But All That Is Beyond Their Present Neccessities Goes, Generally Speaking, To The Ale House.

The Love Of Independence Is A Sentiment That Surely None Would Wish To See Erased From The Breast Of Man, Though The Parish Law Of England, It Must Be Confessed, Is A System Of All Others The Most Calculated Gradually To Weaken This Sentiment, And In The End May Eradicate It Completely.

The Great And Unlooked For Discoveries That Have Taken Place Of Late Years Have All Concurred To Lead Many Men Into The Opinion That We Were Touching On A Period Big With The Most Important Changes.

The Greatest Talents Have Been Frequently Misapplied And Have Produced Evil Proportionate To The Extent Of Their Powers. Both Reason And Revelation Seem To Assure Us That Such Minds Will Be Condemned To Eternal Death, But While On Earth, These Vicious Instruments Performed Their Part In The Great Mass Of Impressions, By The Disgust And Abhorrence Which They Excited.

The Doctrine Of Population Has Been Conspicuously Absent, Not Because I Doubt In The Least Its Truth And Vast Importance, But Because It Forms No Part Of The Direct Problem Of Economics.

The Most Successful Supporters Of Tyranny Are Without Doubt Those General Declaimers Who Attribute The Distresses Of The Poor, And Almost All Evils To Which Society Is Subject, To Human Institutions And The Iniquity Of Governments.

If One Fourth Of The Capital Of A Country Were Suddenly Destroyed, Or Entirely Transferred To A Different Part Of The World, Without Any Other Cause Occurring Of A Diminished Demand For Commodities, This Scantiness Of Capital Would Certainly Occasion Great Inconvenience To Consumers, And Great Distress Among The Working Classes; But It Would Be Attended With Great Advantages To The Remaining Capitalists.

Thirty Or Forty Proprietors, With Incomes Answering To Between One Thousand And Five Thousand A Year, Would Create A Much More Effectual Demand For The Necessaries, Conveniences, And Luxuries Of Life, Than A Single Proprietor Possessing A Hundred Thousand A Year.

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