Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/364

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338
AN ESSAY ON THE

I cannot quit this curious subject of the difficulty arising from population, a subject, that appears to me, to deserve a minute investigation, and able discussion, much beyond my power to give it, without taking notice of an extraordinary passage in Dr. Price's two volumes of Observations. Having given some tables on the probabilities of life, in towns and in the country, he says,[1] "From this comparison, it appears, with how much truth great cities have been called the graves of mankind. It must also convince all who consider it, that according to the observation, at the end of the fourth essay, in the former volume, it is by no means strictly proper to consider our diseases as the original intention of nature. They are, without doubt, in general our own creation. Were there a country where the

  1. Vol. 2, p. 243
inhabitants