These expressions of Mr. Malthus are entirely opposed to the idea that he held that the future of society was likely to be less bright than that of the past. Still there is a certain sadness in the following sentence, which is the real secret of the unpopularity of the great discoverer’s doctrine. In page 73, book ii., chap. xi., he says: “Population invariably increases when the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by powerful and obvious checks.... Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that unless arrested by the preventive check, premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this work of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic, inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and at one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.” In Mr. Malthus’s edition of 1806, the third book contains several essays on the different systems or expedients which have been proposed or have prevailed in society, as they affect the evils arising from the principle of population. In chapter i., p. 77, he treats of systems of equality proposed by Wallace, and the illustrious Condorcet. Mr. Wallace, whose name has been adverted to by many writers as one of those who partly saw the importance of the tendency of mankind to increase more rapidly than food, did not seem to be aware that any difficulty would arise from this cause till the whole earth had been cultivated as a garden, and was incapable of any further increase of produce. Mr. Malthus remarks upon this idea of Mr. Wallace, that “at every period during the period of cultivation, from the present moment to the time when the whole earth was become like a garden, the distress for want of food would be constantly pressing on all mankind if they were equal. Though the produce of the earth would be increasing every year, population would be tending to increase much faster, and the redundancy must necessarily be checked by the periodical action of moral restraint, vice, or misery.”