But though the rich by unfair combinations contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor, yet no possible form of society could prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great part of mankind, if in a state of inequality, and upon all, if all were equal.

The theory on which the truth of this position depends appears to me so extremely clear that I feel at a loss to conjecture what part of it can be denied.

That population cannot increase without the means of subsistence is a proposition so evident that it needs no illustration.

That population does invariably increase where there are the means of subsistence, the history of every people that have ever existed will abundantly prove.

And that the superior power of population cannot be checked without producing misery or vice, the ample portion of these too bitter ingredients in the cup of human life and the continuance of the physical causes that seem to have produced them bear too convincing a testimony.

But, in order more fully to ascertain the validity of these three propositions, let us examine the different states in which mankind have been known to exist.  Even a cursory review will, I think, be sufficient to convince us that these propositions are incontrovertible truths.

CHAPTER 3

The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed—­The shepherd state, or the tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire—­The superiority of the power of population to the means of subsistence—­the cause of the great tide of Northern Emigration.

In the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food; the means of subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the comparative population must necessarily be thin.  It is said that the passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North American Indians, than among any other race of men.  Yet, notwithstanding this apathy, the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be always greater than the means to support it.  This appears, from the comparatively rapid population that takes place, whenever any of the tribes happen to settle in some fertile spot, and to draw nourishment from more fruitful sources than that of hunting; and it has been frequently remarked that when an Indian family has taken up its abode near any European settlement, and adopted a more easy and civilized mode of life, that one woman has reared five, or six, or more children; though in the savage state it rarely happens that above one or two in a family grow up to maturity.  The same observation has been made with regard to the Hottentots near the Cape.  These facts prove the superior power of population to the means of subsistence in nations of hunters, and that this power always shews itself the moment it is left to act with freedom.