At the expiration of the first period therefore, the food, though almost entirely vegetable, would be sufficient to support in health the doubled population of fourteen millions.
During the next period of doubling, where will the food be found to satisfy the importunate demands of the increasing numbers?
Where is the fresh land to turn up?
Where is the dressing necessary to improve that which is already in cultivation?
There is no person with the smallest knowledge of land but would say that it was impossible that the average produce of the country could be increased during the second twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what it at present yields.

Yet we will suppose this increase, however improbable, to take place.

The exuberant strength of the argument allows of almost any concession.

Even with this concession, however, there would be seven millions at the expiration of the second term unprovided for.

A quantity of food equal to the frugal support of twenty-one millions, would be to be divided among twenty-eight millions.
Alas! what becomes of the picture where men lived in the midst of plenty, where no man was obliged to provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, where the narrow principle of selfishness did not exist, where Mind was delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporal support and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is congenial to her.