Population and agriculture have so close a connexion with one another, that I find even the abuses to which they are severally liable, perfectly similar. I have observed how naturally it must happen, that when too many of a society propagate, a part must starve; when too many cultivate, a part must starve also. Here is the reason: The more of a people cultivate a country, the smaller portion of it must fall to every man’s share; and when these portions are reduced so low as to produce no more than what is necessary to feed the labourers, then agriculture is stocked to the utmost. From this I divide agriculture into two branches; the one useful, the other abusive. The first is a trade, that is, a method of producing not only subsistence for the labourers, but also a surplus to be provided for the free hands of the state, for their subsistence, and for an equivalent either in work itself, or for the produce of it. The second is no trade, because it implies no alienation, but is purely a method of subsisting. If, therefore, in any country where agriculture is exercised as a trade, and where there are many free hands, the farmers should be allowed to multiply up to the proportion of the whole produce; would not all the free hands be forced to starve? What would be the advantage of having so many farmers; for there is one evident loss? Every one would be entirely taken up in feeding himself, wants would disappear; life indeed would be simplified to the last degree, but the bond of society, mutual dependence, would be dissolved: therefore I call this species abusive, in proportion as these effects are produced. I cite several examples of this abusive agriculture in different countries, where I take occasion to observe, that the christian virtue, charity, in proportion to its extent, is as conducive to multiplication as either slavery, or industry: whatever gives food must give numbers. I do not say that charity is conducive to industry. [Sidenote: CHAP. XV.] I next apply these general principles to a particular representation given of the state of population in the British isles; from which I conclude, that population there is not obstructed, either by losses sustained from war and commerce, or from the exportation of their subsistence, but from the political situation of that country, which throws it at present into a moral incapacity of augmenting in numbers. [Sidenote: CHAP. XVI.]