. 141, he
estimates the diminution at a million and a half. Other books
referring to the same controversy are Howlett's _Examination of Dr.
Price's Essay_ (1781); _Letter to Lord Carlisle_, by William Eden
(1744-1814), first Lord Auckland; William Wales's _Enquiry into
Present State of Population_, etc. (1781); and Geo. Chalmers's
_Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain_ (1782 and
several later editions).

[214] _Essay_ (first edition), p. 339.

[215] _Memoirs_, etc. (1819), ii. 10.

[216] So Sir James Stewart, whose light was extinguished by Adam
Smith, begins his _Enquiry into the Principles of Political Economy_
(1767) by discussing the question of population, and compares the
'generative faculty' to a spring loaded with a weight, and exerting
itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance (_Works_, 1805,
i. 22). He compares population to 'rabbits in a warren.' Joseph
Townsend, in his _Journey Through Spain_ (1792), to whom Malthus
refers, had discussed the supposed decay of the Spanish population,
and illustrates his principles by a geometric progression: see ii.
213-56, 386-91. Eden, in his book on the poor (i. 214), quotes a tract
attributed to Sir Matthew Hale for the statement that the poor
increase on 'geometrical progression.'

[217] _Malthus and his Work_, p. 85.

[218] Voltaire says in the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ (art.
'Population'): 'On ne propage point en Progression Geometrique. Tous
les calculs qu'on a faits sur cette pretendue multiplication sont des
chimeres absurdes.' They had been used to reconcile the story of the
deluge with the admitted population of the world soon afterwards.

[219] _Essay_ (1826), ii 453 _n._ I cite from this, the last edition
published in Malthus's lifetime, unless otherwise stated.

[220] _Essay_, ii. 251 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).

[221] _Ibid._ (1798), p. 141.

[222] _Essay_, ii. 449 (Appendix).

[223] _Essay_, ii. 473 (Appendix).

[224] _Ibid._ (Second Edition), p. 400. The passage is given in full
in _Malthus and his Work_, p. 307.

[225] _Essay_, i. 469 (bk. ii. ch. x.). Eden had made the same remark.

[226] _Ibid._ ii. 229 (bk. iii. ch. xiv.).

[227] Correspondence in Senior's _Three Essays on Population_ (1829).

[228] _Essay_, i. 234 (bk. i. ch. ii.).

[229] Mr. Bonar thinks (_Malthus and his Work_, p. 324) that Malthus
followed Paley's predecessor, Abraham Tucker, rather than Paley. The
difference is not for my purpose importan