"Very little reflection appears to be sufficient to show, that the best system of management of the poor (_ceteris paribus_) must be that which gives the least encouragement to redundancy of population. I have always regarded, therefore, the doctrine of Malthus--by which all such questions are held to be inseparably connected with the theory of population--to be the true basis of all speculative inquiry on this subject; and I cannot help saying again, that in consequence of some hasty expressions which he used, and of the great practical error, which, as I believe, and as he himself evidently suspected in the latter part of his life, he had committed in the application of his principle, justice has not yet been generally done to the truth and importance of that fundamental principle itself. In the present state of this country, and indeed of every civilised country, and with a view to the happiness of the human race upon earth, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of any inquiries which promise to indicate the conditions by which the relation of the population to the demand for labour, and the means of subsistence there existing, is determined, and may be regulated. "We cannot indeed expect, that so striking results can follow from this or any other principle in political science, as have already rewarded the labour of man in investigating the laws of the material world. The beautiful expressions of Cicero, in describing the power which man has acquired over Nature, are more applicable to the present age, than to any one that has preceded it. 'Nos campis, nos montibus fruimur; nostri sunt amnes, nostri lacus; nos fruges serimus, nos arbores; nos aquarum inductionibus terris fecunditatem damus; nos flumina arcemus, dirigimus, avertimus; nostris denique manibus in rerum natura quasi alteram naturam efficere conamur.' We can hardly anticipate, that science shall acquire a similar power of regulating the condition of human society or the progress of human affairs. In regard to the changes which these affairs undergo in the progress of time, we are all of us agents, rather than contrivers. 'L'homme avance dans l'execution d'un plan qu'il n'a point concu, qu'il ne connoit meme pas; il est l'ouvrier intelligent et libre d'une oeuvre qui n'est pas la sienne; il ne la reconnoit, ne la comprend que plus tard, lorsqu'elle se manifeste au dehors et dans les realites, et meme alors il ne la comprend que tres incompletement."--(GUIZOT.) Still we may observe, that in all applications of science, moral and political, as well as physical, to the good of mankind, the same principle holds true, 'Natura non vincitur nisi parendo;' and that even in those cases where man is the agent, he may likewise be the interpreter and the minister of Nature. It is only by acquiring a