Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/289

possible limit and was in process of being checked. In the modern view numbers may approximate to the desirable level, may not reach it, or they may exceed it."

Malthus created a great stir in his own time and is still almost universally referred to as the original authority and the discoverer of the "Law of Population." But even this is not so, and his main themes were dealt with in a very modern spirit long before he wrote.

As Carr-Saunders^[1] has so recently gone into this history in detail, readers should turn to his book, in which references will be found to Malthus' predecessors of early date, including Botero who wrote in 1596 and Sir M. Hale who in 1667 largely forestalled whatever is still true in Malthus' work.