Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/79

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PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
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CHAP. IV.

State of civilized nations.—Probability that Europe is much more populous now than in the time of Julius Caesar.—Best criterion of population.—Probable error of Hume in one of the criterions that he proposes as assisting in an estimate of population.—Slow increase of population at present in most of the states of Europe.—The two principal checks to population. The first or preventive check examined with regard to England.

In examining the next state of mankind with relation to the question before us, the state of mixed pasture and tillage, in which, with some variation in the proportions, the most civilized nations must always remain; we shall be assisted in our review by what we daily see around us, by actual experience, by facts that come within the scope of every man's observation.

Notwithstanding the exaggerations of some old historians, there can remain

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