An Essay on the Principle of Population, Or, a View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness With an Inquiry Into Our Prospects Respecting
CONTENTS. CHAP Page 1 . Of the only effectual Mode of improving the Condition of the Poor. ............... 109 IV . Objections to this Mode considered ...... 115 V . Of the Consequences of pursuing the opposite Mode .......................... 126 V1 . Effects of the Knowledge of the principal Cause of Poverty on Civil Liberty ...... 142 V11 . Continuation of the same Subject ........ 166 VIII . Plan of the gradual Abolition of the Poor-Laws proposed .................... 175 IX . Of the Modes of correcting the prevailing Opinions on Population .............. 198 S . Of the Direction of our Charity ........ 211 XI . Different Plans of improving the Condition of the Poor considered .............. 2Q8 XI1 . Continuation of the same Subject ........ 256 XIII . Of the Necessity of general Principles on this Subject ........................ 991 XIV . Of our rational Expectations respecting the future Improvement of Society ........ 308 Appendix ............................ 525 ESSAY. E S S A Y, C AP. XIII. 0J iacreasi rg kvealth as, it afects the Condition o f the Poor. THE pr ofessed object of Adam Smiths I iquiry is the Nature and Causes of the FPeoZlh ofNations. There is another, how ever, still Inore interesting, which he occa sionally mixes with it-the causes which affect the happiness and comfort of the lamer orders of society, which in every natiop form the most numerous class, These two subjects are, no doubt, nearly connected but the nature and extent of this copexion, and the mode in which in-VOL. XII. B creasing 2 Of increasing Wealth, us it Bk. iii. creasing wealth operates on the condition of the poor, have not been stated with suf ficient correctness and precision. Adam Smith, inhis chapter on the wages of labour, considers every increase in the stock or revenue of the society as an in crease in the funds for the maintenance of labour and having before laid down the I position that the demand for those who live by wages can only increase irr proportion to the increase of the funds for the pay nent of wages, the conclusiorl naturally, follo vs, that every increase of wealth tends to in crease the demand for Iabour and to im prove the condition of the lower classes of society . Upon a nearer examination, however, it will he found that the funds for the malnte nailce of labour do not necessarily increase with the increase of wealth, and very rarely increase in proportion to it and that the condition of the lower classes of society does not depend exclusively upon the in crease of the funds for the maintenance of Vol. i. book i. C. 8. labour, Ch. xiii. cts the Coadition ofthe Poor.