Page:Two Lectures on the Checks to Population.pdf/6

[ii] service of man, only by slow degrees depending on the gradual progress of civilization and knowledge. These propositions granted, the foundation is prepared, for the question which forms the subject of the published Lectures.

For, supposing it established, that the increase of food cannot be made to keep pace with the natural course of population, it becomes interesting to consider, by what means the conﬂict of these principles may be mitigated, in a manner the most conducive to happiness, and least productive of misery to mankind. The equilibrium between food and population must, in one way or other, be maintained. Our only alternative lies between the evils arising from an actual insufficiency of food on the one hand, or the preventive operation of human prudence on the other. And to the latter of these I have principally directed my inquiry.