nt him in a
condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he would
be employed only in collecting the necessaries of life, and where,
consequently, each man's share of labour would be light, and his
portion of leisure ample.

I think I may fairly make two postulata.

First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.

Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will
remain nearly in its present state.

These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear
to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto
seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they
will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of
power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and
for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed
laws, all its various operations.

I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will
ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured
that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished. As,
however, he calls this part of his work a deviation into the land of
conjecture, I will not dwell longer upon it at present than to say that
the best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a
contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the
savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But
towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress
whatever has hitherto been made. It appears to exist in as much force
at present as it did two thousand or four thousand years ago. There are
individual exceptions now as there always have been. But, as these
exceptions do not appear to increase in number, it would surely be a
very unphilosophical mode of arguing to infer, merely from the
existence of an exception, that the exception would, in time, become
the rule, and the rule the exception.

Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for man.

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in
comparison of the second.

By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
man, the effects of these two u