Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/367

 by the best directed exertions of man, could produce food for its support, appears to me as astonishing, as if he had resisted the conclusion of one of the plainest propositions of Euclid.

Dr. Price, speaking of the different stages of the civilized state, says, "The first, or simple stages of civilization, are those which favour most the increase and the happiness of mankind." He then instances the American colonies, as being at that time in the first, and happiest of the states, that he had described; and as affording a very striking proof of the effects of the different stages of civilization on population. But he does not seem to be aware, that the happiness of the Americans, depended much less upon their peculiar degree of civilization, than upon the peculiarity of their situation, as new colonies, upon their having a