ABSTRACT
Thomas Robert Malthus's second thoughts explores that the power of civilization is greater than the power of population; the pressure of the people on the food is therefore less in modern than it was in ancient times or the middle ages; there are now less disorder, more knowledge, and more temperance. Civilization, as it does a progressive change in the dominant ideas of society, will alter the character of the mixture and the proportion of the elements. The merely physical checks are falling into a subordinate position. There are two kinds of checks on population: a check is positive, when it cuts down an existing population; preventive, when it keeps a new population from growing up. Among animals the check is only misery, among savage men vice as well as misery, and, in civilized society, moral restraint as well as, till now, both vice and misery.
