‘Mr. Godwin at the conclusion of the third chapter of his eighth book, speaking of population, says, “There is a principle in human society, by which population is perpetually kept down to the level of the means of subsistence. Thus, among the wandering tribes of America and Asia, we never find, through the lapse of ages, that population has so increased as to render necessary the cultivation of the earth.” This principle, which Mr. Godwin thus mentions as some mysterious and occult cause, and which he does not attempt to investigate, has appeared to be the grinding law of necessity—misery, and the fear of misery.’ There is a want of clearness here. The cause which Mr. Malthus thus explains so accurately has still something dark and mysterious about it. With respect to the savage tribes Mr. Malthus states in another place, that it is not owing to the backwardness of population that agriculture has never become necessary, but to the want of agriculture that population has never increased among them. The passage is worth quoting. ‘It is not, therefore,’ he says, ‘as Lord Kaimes imagines, that the American tribes have never increased sufficiently to render the pastoral or agricultural state necessary to them; but, from some cause or other,’ [Mr. Malthus also deals in occult causes] ‘they have not adopted in any great degree these more plentiful modes of procuring subsistence, and therefore, cannot have increased so as to have become populous. If hunger alone could have prompted the savage tribes of America to such a change in their habits, I do not conceive that there would have been a single nation of hunters and fishers remaining; but it is evident, that some fortunate train of circumstances, in addition to this stimulus, is necessary for this purpose; and it is undoubtedly probable, that these arts of obtaining food, will be first invented and improved in those spots that are best suited to them, and where the natural fertility of the situation,’ [Is not the soil of America sufficiently fertile?] ‘by allowing a greater number of people to subsist together, would give the fairest chance to the inventive powers of the human mind.’—Here then we see ‘the grinding law of necessity’ converted into a ‘fortunate train of circumstances,’ so that we have a fact arising from a _necessary cause_, and that necessary cause depending on an _accident_. The population is kept down to the level of the means of subsistence, but not to _what it is_, by the law of necessity; since there are ways and means of raising that level, and the population along with it. Notwithstanding all the misery, and all the fear of misery, which Mr. Malthus describes as thus operating to keep population down to its proper level, he is altogether unwilling to lighten their pressure, or to extend the benefits of that fortunate train of circumstances and of those more plentiful modes of obtaining food beyond their present necessary limits. Nothing can exceed his jealousy on this point.