"Neither is it incumbent on those who acquiesce in this general principle, to assert that the natural checks on this tendency to excessive reproduction in the human race have been well named or fully expounded by Malthus. But the great distinction which he pointed out, of the _positive_ and the _preventive_ checks on population, is undoubtedly of extreme importance. And in regard to the positive checks, by which it is easy to see that the progress of the human race upon earth has been hitherto rendered so very different from what might have been expected from its powers of reproduction,--when we reflect on the effects of War, of Disease of all kinds, and especially of Pestilence, of Famine, of Vice, of Polygamy, of Tyranny, and misgovernment of all kinds,--while we can easily perceive that all these may be ultimately instruments of good in the hands of Him who can 'make even the wrath of man to praise Him,'--yet we must acknowledge that all, if not properly ranked together under the general name of Misery, are yet causes of human suffering,--so general, and so great, that the most meritorious of all exertions of the human mind are those, which are directed to the object of counteracting and limiting the action of these positive checks on population; and on this consideration it is wise for us to reflect deeply, because it is thus only that we can judge of the value of the great preventive check of Moral Restraint, by which alone the human race can be duly proportioned to the means of subsistence provided for it, without suffering the evils which are involved in the operation of the different positive checks above enumerated.