Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/89

Rh lower classes, by which they are disabled from giving the proper food and attention to their children, act as a positive check, to the natural increase of population.

England, as one of the most flourishing states of Europe, may be fairly taken for an example, and the observations made, will apply with but little variation to any other country where the population increases slowly.

The preventive check appears to operate in some degree through all the ranks of society in England. There are some men, even in the highest rank, who are prevented from marrying by the idea of the expenses that they must retrench, and the fancied pleasures that they must deprive themselves of, on the supposition of having a family. These Rh