PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. In the present edition of this work, a fourth part, on Social Science, has been added, in which I have endeavoured to present in a some{what more systematic form the views advocated in the earlier parts, and have also given a short outline of the chief laws of political economy. Most of the additional matter has already appeared in a small periodical, the Political Economist and Journal of Social Science, which was discontinued some time ago. In giving to the work the title of the Elements of Social Science, instead of its original one of Physical, Sexual, and Natural Religion, it need scarcely be said that I do not make the slightest pretension to have offered any comprehensive or adequate exposition of this great science. My chief reason for changing the title was, that the Malthusian Principle and the laws of nature involved in it, are in my opinion incomparably the most important elements of social science; so much so, that, while they enable us readily to comprehend the chief social phenomena, the theory of society without them is in reality a mere chaos. I was very desirous also, as far as lay in my power, to direct attention to that science, whose name has of late years been gradually becoming more familiar to the public, and whose character and method have been so admirably described by Mr. Mill in his Logic, and by M. Auguste Comte in his Positive Philosophy. Although differing entirely from the latter writer on many of the most vital points of moral and social doctrine, (and especially in regard to the principle of population, the truth and importance of the sciences of political economy, logic, psychology, and metaphysics, properly so ABRIDGMENT OF THE ESSAY ON "POPULATION" BY MI |