If we are not yet too well convinced of the reality of this melancholy picture, let us but look for a moment into the next period of twenty-five years; and we shall see twenty-eight millions of human beings without the means of support; and before the conclusion of the first century, the population would be one hundred and twelve millions, and the food only sufficient for thirty-five millions, leaving seventy-seven millions unprovided for.  In these ages want would be indeed triumphant, and rapine and murder must reign at large:  and yet all this time we are supposing the produce of the earth absolutely unlimited, and the yearly increase greater than the boldest speculator can imagine.

This is undoubtedly a very different view of the difficulty arising from population from that which Mr Godwin gives, when he says, ’Myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants.’

I am sufficiently aware that the redundant twenty-eight millions, or seventy-seven millions, that I have mentioned, could never have existed.  It is a perfectly just observation of Mr Godwin, that, ’There is a principle in human society, by which population is perpetually kept down to the level of the means of subsistence.’  The sole question is, what is this principle? is it some obscure and occult cause?  Is it some mysterious interference of heaven which, at a certain period, strikes the men with impotence, and the women with barrenness?  Or is it a cause, open to our researches, within our view, a cause, which has constantly been observed to operate, though with varied force, in every state in which man has been placed?  Is it not a degree of misery, the necessary and inevitable result of the laws of nature, which human institutions, so far from aggravating, have tended considerably to mitigate, though they never can remove?

It may be curious to observe, in the case that we have been supposing, how some of the laws which at present govern civilized society, would be successively dictated by the most imperious necessity.  As man, according to Mr Godwin, is the creature of the impressions to which he is subject, the goadings of want could not continue long, before some violations of public or private stock would necessarily take place.  As these violations increased in number and extent, the more active and comprehensive intellects of the society would soon perceive, that while population was fast increasing, the yearly produce of the country would shortly begin to diminish.  The urgency of the case would suggest the necessity of some mediate measures to be taken for the general safety.  Some kind of convention would then be called, and the dangerous situation of the country stated in the strongest terms.  It would be observed, that while they lived in the midst of plenty, it was of little consequence who laboured the least, or who possessed the least, as every man was perfectly willing and