This page has been validated.
18
AN ESSAY ON THE
CHAP. II.
The different ratios in which population and food increase.—The necessary effects of these different ratios of increase.—Oscillation produced by them in the condition of the lower classes of society.—Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much observed as might be expected.—Three propositions on which the general argument of the essay depends.—The different states in which mankind have been known to exist proposed to be examined with reference to these three propositions.
I said that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical ratio; and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.
Let us examine whether this position be just.
I think it will be allowed, that no state has hitherto existed (at least that we have any account of) where the
manners
