Hard as it may appear in individual instances , dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.

I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour.

The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products.

The perpetual struggle for room and food.

The natural inequality of the two powers of population and of production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their efforts equal, form the great difficulty that to me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.

Where there are few people, and a great quantity of fertile land, the power of the earth to afford a yearly increase of food may be compared to a great reservoir of water, supplied by a moderate stream. The faster population increases, the more help will be got to draw off the water, and consequently an increasing quantity will be taken every year. But the sooner, undoubtedly, will the reservoir be exhausted, and the streams only remain.

With regard to the duration of human life, there does not appear to have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing prolongation.