hold good in most of the concerns of life; and it is not therefore easy to drive it out of people’s heads. For this reason, it will always be difficult to persuade the generality of mankind that a less degree of improvement is a good thing, though a greater would be a bad thing, or that the subordinate parts of a system, that would in reality embody all the ills of life, can be very desirable in themselves. Mr. Malthus has however by no means left this conclusion to the mere mechanical operation of our feelings. He endeavours formally to establish it. The following passage seems the connecting link in the chain, which unites the two worlds of theory and practice together; it cements the argument, gives solidity and roundness to it, and renders it complete against all improvement, real or imaginary, present or future, against all absolute perfection or imperfect attempts at it, and gradual approaches to it. It fairly blocks up the road. ‘It cannot but be a matter of astonishment that all writers on the perfectibility of man, and of society, who have noticed the argument of an overcharged population, treat it always very slightly, and invariably represent the difficulties arising from it, as at a great, and almost immeasurable distance. Even Mr. Wallace, who thought the argument itself of so much weight as to destroy his whole system of equality, did not seem to be aware that any difficulty would occur from this cause, till the whole earth had been cultivated like a garden, and was incapable of any further increase of produce. Were this really the case, and were a beautiful system of equality in other respects practicable, I cannot think that our ardour in the pursuit of such a scheme ought to be damped by the contemplation of so remote a difficulty. An event at such a distance might fairly be left to providence; but the truth is, that if the view of the argument given in this Essay be just, the difficulty so far from being remote, would be imminent and immediate. _At every period during the progress 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 _might be increasing every year_, population _would be increasing much faster_; and the redundancy must _necessarily_ be repressed by the periodical or constant action of vice and misery.’[6]