which we can at present scarcely form a conception.

Mr Condorcet's picture of what may be expected to happen when the
number of men shall surpass the means of their subsistence is justly
drawn. The oscillation which he describes will certainly take place and
will without doubt be a constantly subsisting cause of periodical
misery. The only point in which I differ from Mr Condorcet with regard
to this picture is the period when it may be applied to the human race.
Mr Condorcet thinks that it cannot possibly be applicable but at an era
extremely distant. If the proportion between the natural increase of
population and food which I have given be in any degree near the truth,
it will appear, on the contrary, that the period when the number of men
surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived, and that
this necessity oscillation, this constantly subsisting cause of
periodical misery, has existed ever since we have had any histories of
mankind, does exist at present, and will for ever continue to exist,
unless some decided change take place in the physical constitution of
our nature.

Mr Condorcet, however, goes on to say that should the period, which he
conceives to be so distant, ever arrive, the human race, and the
advocates for the perfectibility of man, need not be alarmed at it. He
then proceeds to remove the difficulty in a manner which I profess not
to understand. Having observed, that the ridiculous prejudices of
superstition would by that time have ceased to throw over morals a
corrupt and degrading austerity, he alludes, either to a promiscuous
concubinage, which would prevent breeding, or to something else as
unnatural. To remove the difficulty in this way will, surely, in the
opinion of most men, be to destroy that virtue and purity of manners,
which the advocates of equality, and of the perfectibility of man,
profess to be the end and object of their views.

CHAPTER 9

Mr Condorcet's conjecture concerning the organic perfectibility of man,
and the indefinite prolongation of human life--Fallacy of the argument,
which infers an unlimited progress from a partial improvement, the
limit of which cannot be ascertained, illustrated in the breeding of
animals, and the cultivation of plants.

The last question which Mr Condorcet proposes for examination is the
organic perfectibility of man. He observes that if the proofs which
have been already given and which, in their development will receive