on, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every
twenty-five years or increases in a geometrical ratio.

Let us now take any spot of earth, this Island for instance, and see in
what ratio the subsistence it affords can be supposed to increase. We
will begin with it under its present state of cultivation.

If I allow that by the best possible policy, by breaking up more land
and by great encouragements to agriculture, the produce of this Island
may be doubled in the first twenty-five years, I think it will be
allowing as much as any person can well demand.

In the next twenty-five years, it is impossible to suppose that the
produce could be quadrupled. It would be contrary to all our knowledge
of the qualities of land. The very utmost that we can conceive, is,
that the increase in the second twenty-five years might equal the
present produce. Let us then take this for our rule, though certainly
far beyond the truth, and allow that, by great exertion, the whole
produce of the Island might be increased every twenty-five years, by a
quantity of subsistence equal to what it at present produces. The most
enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In
a few centuries it would make every acre of land in the Island like a
garden.

Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical.

It may be fairly said, therefore, that the means of subsistence
increase in an arithmetical ratio. Let us now bring the effects of
these two ratios together.

The population of the Island is computed to be about seven millions,
and we will suppose the present produce equal to the support of such a
number. In the first twenty-five years the population would be fourteen
millions, and the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence
would be equal to this increase. In the next twenty-five years the
population would be twenty-eight millions, and the means of subsistence
only equal to the support of twenty-one millions. In the next period,
the population would be fifty-six millions, and the means of
subsistence just sufficient for half that number. And at the conclusion
of the first century the population would be one hundred and twelve
millions and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of
thirty-five millions, which would leave a population of seventy-seven
millions totally unprovided for.

A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or
other in the country that is deserted. For few