ermanent
predisposing cause, in all those sufferings which result from
poverty, and must be carefully kept in view in all wise
regulations for their relief.

"Neither is it incumbent on those who acquiesce in this general
principle, to assert that the natural checks on this tendency to
excessive reproduction in the human race have been well named or
fully expounded by Malthus. But the great distinction which he
pointed out, of the _positive_ and the _preventive_ checks on
population, is undoubtedly of extreme importance. And in regard to
the positive checks, by which it is easy to see that the progress
of the human race upon earth has been hitherto rendered so very
different from what might have been expected from its powers of
reproduction,--when we reflect on the effects of War, of Disease
of all kinds, and especially of Pestilence, of Famine, of Vice, of
Polygamy, of Tyranny, and misgovernment of all kinds,--while we
can easily perceive that all these may be ultimately instruments
of good in the hands of Him who can 'make even the wrath of man to
praise Him,'--yet we must acknowledge that all, if not properly
ranked together under the general name of Misery, are yet causes
of human suffering,--so general, and so great, that the most
meritorious of all exertions of the human mind are those, which
are directed to the object of counteracting and limiting the
action of these positive checks on population; and on this
consideration it is wise for us to reflect deeply, because it is
thus only that we can judge of the value of the great preventive
check of Moral Restraint, by which alone the human race can be
duly proportioned to the means of subsistence provided for it,
without suffering the evils which are involved in the operation of
the different positive checks above enumerated.

"I consider, therefore, the general principles of Malthus as not
only true, but so important, that the exposition and illustration
of them is a real and lasting benefit to mankind. The real error
of Malthus lay simply in his supposing, that moral restraint is
necessarily or generally weakened by a legal provision against
destitution; and this is no part of his general theory, but was,
as I maintain, a hypothetical assumption, by which he thought that
his theory was made applicable in practice. Hi