142
AN ESSAY ON THE
CHAP. VIII.
Mr Wallace.—Error of supposing that the difficulty arising from population is at a great distance.—Mr Condorcet's sketch of the progress of the human mind.—Period when the oscillation, mentioned by Mr. Condorcet, ought to be applied to the human race.
To a person who draws the preceding obvious inferences, from a view of the past and present state of mankind, it cannot but be a matter of astonishment, that all the writers on the perfectibility of man and of society, who have noticed the argument of an overcharged population, treat it always very slightly and invariably represent the difficulties arising from it, as at a great and almost immeasurable distance. Even Mr Wallace, who thought the argument itself of so much weight, as to destroy his whole system of equality, did not seem to be aware that anydifficulty
