the commodities which it is to circulate, is not greater than that of endeavouring to increase the number of people without an increase of the food which is to maintain them; and it will be found that the level above which no human laws can raise the population of a country, is a limit more fixed and impassable than the limit to the accumulation of specie.” “Ignorance and despotism seem to have no tendency to destroy the passions which prompt to increase; but they effectually destroy the checks to it from reason and foresight. The improvident barbarian who thinks only of his present wants, or the miserable peasant, who, from his political situation, feels little security of reaping what he has sown, will seldom be deterred from gratifying his passion by the prospect of inconvenience, which cannot be expected to press upon him under three or four years. Industry cannot exist without foresight and security. Even poverty itself, which appears to be the great spur to industry, when it has passed certain limits almost ceases to operate. The indigence which is hopeless destroys all vigorous exertion, and confines the efforts to what is sufficient for bare existence. It is the hope of bettering our condition, and the fear of want rather than want itself, that is the best stimulus to industry; and its most constant and best directed efforts will almost invariably be found among a class of people above the class of the wretchedly poor.” This remark of Malthus is a reply to those who say that if food were cheaper and the poor better fed, they would only work as much as was needed to get a scanty supply of food. Experience in our colonies and in the United States shows that the fear of want is an incentive to make the early colonists of a fertile country fervid in their desire to obtain wealth.