[An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus]@TWC D-Link book
An Essay on the Principle of Population

CHAPTER 8
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The only point in which I differ from Mr Condorcet with regard to this picture is the period when it may be applied to the human race.
Mr Condorcet thinks that it cannot possibly be applicable but at an era extremely distant.

If the proportion between the natural increase of population and food which I have given be in any degree near the truth, it will appear, on the contrary, that the period when the number of men surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived, and that this necessity oscillation, this constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery, has existed ever since we have had any histories of mankind, does exist at present, and will for ever continue to exist, unless some decided change take place in the physical constitution of our nature.
Mr Condorcet, however, goes on to say that should the period, which he conceives to be so distant, ever arrive, the human race, and the advocates for the perfectibility of man, need not be alarmed at it.

He then proceeds to remove the difficulty in a manner which I profess not to understand.

Having observed, that the ridiculous prejudices of superstition would by that time have ceased to throw over morals a corrupt and degrading austerity, he alludes, either to a promiscuous concubinage, which would prevent breeding, or to something else as unnatural.

To remove the difficulty in this way will, surely, in the opinion of most men, be to destroy that virtue and purity of manners, which the advocates of equality, and of the perfectibility of man, profess to be the end and object of their views..


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