Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/142

116 Is it not probable, that in this case, the number of inhabitants had increased faster than the food and the accommodations necessary to preserve them in health. The mass of the people would, upon this supposition, be obliged to live harder, and a greater number would be crouded together in one house; and it is not surely improbable, that these were among the natural causes that produced the three sickly years. These causes may produce such an effect, though the country, absolutely considered, may not be extremely crowded and populous. In a country even thinly inhabited, if an increase of population take place, before more food is raised, and more houses are built, the inhabitants must be distressed in some degree for room and subsistence. Were the marriages in England, for the next eight or ten years, to be more prolifick than usual, or even were a greater number of Rh